69 Cadogan Square – that was the place. Back in the days when he was married to Jane Birkin; when the nearby Kings Road became the beating heart of a decade; when composing eight film scoresin a year was no great shakes, because ‘I was young and had the energy’; [...]
When I got my first job in journalism —as a BBC graduate News Trainee fresh out of university – my father bought me the video of Citizen Kane (1941) and my brother gave me Broadcast News (1987). Both turned out to be important to my career, in different ways, and [...]
The great champion of world music Charlie Gillet observed in an interview given shortly before he died that many kids, like me, who had grown up with punk and new wave had later found a home with African music. Gillet went on to say that punk music fans enjoy the [...]
Taki Mita was a Japanese kid at my school. We were good friends and spent a lot of time hanging around the school art room, listening to Bob Marley and Naughty By Nature, drawing (me) and settingfire to spray adhesive (him). He taught me the Japanese alphabet, how to write [...]
Britpop had curdled; all but blinded by the light of public scrutiny; trip-hop scuttled back beneath the rock from whence it came. In fact, just beyond the halfwaypoint of the 1990s, I don’t remember very much going on at all. In a week that also saw the release of debut [...]
I wake up early and invariably raring to go after dreaming up some rad new tunes. After sexy time (essential for a healthy marriage), my wife, Connie, prepares me toast and fruit for breakfast. I sit at this awesome little throne that Elton andDavid got me a while back. It’s [...]
Liam Gallagher of the ploddingly predictable Oasis once complained in an interview that Britain had never produced a truly great guitarist. We can only hope that the award of an OBE to thelegendary Richard Thompson will help highlight the fallacy of that statement. The beret-sporting Thompson may be an obscure [...]