MOJO 286 / September 2017
IN SUMMER 1977, the Sex Pistols were on the run – hounded by knife-wielding gangs and harried by the establishment – but by the end of the year they’d struck a blow for artistic freedom that would ring down the decades. This month MOJO revisits punk’s apogee and delivers a 15-track FREE CD of punk rock scorchers, featuring The Damned, Vibrators, Adverts, Television Personalities and more. Also in the issue: the rise & fall of The Allman Brothers; the last days of Marc Bolan; the wit and wisdom of Randy Newman; Alice Cooper’s personality crisis; the legend of Bright Phoebus. Plus: inside the Morrissey biopic; Steve Winwood goes EDN (WTF?); Can are born; Anita Pallenberg passes on; new albums by Queens Of The Stone Age, Arcade Fire, The War On Drugs, The Fall, Steven Wilson and many many more.
CONTENTS MOJO 286
COVER STORY: SEX PISTOLS John Lydon and other leading combatants relive a year in the eye of the storm, and assess the impact and legacy of Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols.
FREE CD: JUST CAN’T BE HAPPY TODAY 15 tracks of in-your-face punk mayhem. Starring The Damned, Vibrators, Adverts, Television Personalities, Patrik Fitzgerald and more.
ALLMAN BROTHERS (US COVER - see left) Gregg Allman’s passing has prompted a surge of love for his groundbreaking group of Southern groovers. Alan Light remember their regal rise and torrid travails.
MARC BOLAN T. Rex’s Bopping Elf began 1977 with a new lease of life, a back-to-basics album and a bevy of punk rock pals. Which made what followed all the more tragic…
RANDY NEWMAN The last genius of American songwriting has a new album out, but the usual insecurities and idiosyncrasies apply: “I’d do nothing, if I knew it wasn't bad for me.”
ALICE COOPER God and Satan lock in combat as rock’s showman supreme ponders where his creation ends and Vincent Furnier begins: “If I go to a bar tonight, should I bring a snake?”
BRIGHT PHOEBUS Lal and Mike Waterson’s uncanny folk-rock masterpiece was overlooked for decades. Martin Carthy, Richard Thompson and more draw it back into the light…
REVIEWED: Queens Of The Stone Age / Arcade Fire / Fairport Convention / Elvis / New Order / The War On Drugs / Al Green / Yoko Ono / Grizzly Bear / Chronixx / The Fall / Steven Wilson / Iron & Wine / Everything Everything
PLUS: Inside the Morrissey movie / Tuff Gong’s vinyl renaissance / Shaun Ryder’s weird wisdom / Beach Fossils emerge / Steve Winwood returns / the birth of Can and the making of Monster Movie / Pop by (phone) numbers / The craziest ever Buried Treasure? / All back to Engelbert Humperdinck’s / Farewell, Anita Pallenberg / And! Nick Heyward’s bad Haircut day