MOJO 280 / March 2017
MOJO 281 is devoted to one of rock’s greatest songwriters. The Kinks’ Ray Davies was the ’60s’ master storyteller and ’70s’ arch-conceptualist, and helped inspire punk as an uncompromising outsider icon. Then, in 2004, he was shot in New Orleans and could have easily died. This month, he tells all to MOJO magazine, while his songs make up our free CD: The Kinks’ classic 1967 album, Something Else, covered song-for-song, by Ty Segall, Gaz Coombes, Nada Surf, Mick Harvey and more. Also in the issue: Neil Young, Thin Lizzy, Madness, The KLF, Blondie, Magnetic Fields, Anohni, Ian Hunter, Elbow and The Stray Cats. It’s a Kornukopia!
CONTENTS MOJO 280
COVER STORY / RAY DAVIES An extraordinary download from the fervid mind of the Kinks Kommander as he prepares to kneel for the Queen and deliver a rich, cinematic new album. On the agenda: how the idea of America fuelled his group; and how the reality nearly destroyed them… and him.
FREE CD: SOMETHING ELSE – A TRIBUTE TO THE KINKS The Kinks’ classic 1967 album covered exclusively for MOJO from top to tail. Starring Gaz Coombes, Ty Segall, Nada Surf, Mick Harvey and more.
NEIL YOUNG An urgent bulletin from the desk of rock’s eternal dissident, in the wake of his latest album, Peace Trail. But can the ornery one be softening towards CSNY?
MADNESS Nutty boy turned Renaissance man, singer-icon Suggs surveys his past, present and future in the MOJO Interview. “I grew up really fast,” he tells Ian Harrison.
THIN LIZZY 1977 looked set to be the celtic rock’n’roll warriors’ jubilee year. Forty years on, Scott Gorham reviews the marvels and missteps, and counts the cost.
ANOHNI Anger is an energy as, battling “ecocide”, Trump and Apple, the artist formerly known as Antony throws off her burka to confront the architects of global “brokenness”.
LIFT TO EXPERIENCE The lost gospel of Josh T Pearson’s doomed cosmic rock revivalists finally has an epilogue. “We failed. We fell apart. That’s heart-breaking,” hears Stevie Chick.
REVIEWED Elbow / Rag ’N’ Bone Man / Sleaford Mods / Tinariwen / The Necks / Ryan Adams / Tony Bennett / The Feelies / Rick Wakeman / Sleater-Kinney / Jesca Hoop / Ian Hunter / James Brown / Terry Dolan / Roy Acuff / Vangelis / Magnetic Fields
PLUS Bill Evans unpacked / Stray Cats declawed / Blondie in the studio / Vadou Game on the rise / Genesis P Orridge subverts society / Adrian Sherwood drops some plates / Alison Goldfrapp swoons to Purple Rain / George Michael, Rick Parfitt, Greg Lake bid farewell / and The KLF: what the f***’s going on, this time?