MOJO 257 / April 2015
On sale Tuesday February 24, the latest MOJO magazine is a Led Zeppelin extravaganza, featuring an exclusive interview with Jimmy Page lifting the lid on the group’s momentous 1975 album, Physical Graffiti. Fittingly, our free CD is one of our greatest ever: Physical Graffiti Redrawn recreates Led Zeppelin’s epic masterwork, with versions by today’s MOJO favourites, including Laura Marling, White Denim, Blackberry Smoke, Songhoy Blues, Syd Arthur and Michael Kiwanuka. Elsewhere in the issue, production legend Glyn Johns reveals the studio secrets of The Rolling Stones; Jackson Browne tells the incredible true-life stories behind his songs; Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon looks back on her journey through noise-rock, marriage and motherhood; PLUS Royal Blood, The Pop Group, Sufjan Stevens, The Doors, Swamp Dogg, The Fall, Tim Burgess, The Gun Club, a fond farewell to the outrageous Kim Fowley – and more!
CONTENTS / MOJO 257
FREE CD! PHYSICAL GRAFFITI REDRAWN RELIVE THE DARK, MAJESTIC power of Led Zeppelin’s triumphant 1975 album, Physical Graffiti, recreated by an elite guard of MOJO’s favourite contemporary artists, including White Denim, Blackberry Smoke, Songhoy Blues, Laura Marling, Syd Arthur, Duke Garwood, Michael Kiwanuka and more…
THE ROLLING STONES STORIED PRODUCER/ENGINEER Glyn Johns recounts the intoxicating highs and enervating lows of his 13 years’ pressing the Stones’ ‘record’ button, from an ill-starred trip to Morocco with Brian Jones, to financial argy-bargy with Mick Jagger and a final explosive bust-up with Keith Richards in Rotterdam during the Black And Blue sessions.
KIM GORDON SONIC YOUTH’s iconic distaff dimension opens up to David Fricke about her childhood, the group’s formative years in early ’80s New York, their exhilarating art-rock ascendancy, motherhood, and painful disintegration of her marriage to musical foil Thurston Moore.
JACKSON BROWNE NO ONE CAPTURED America’s drifting post-Vietnam mood better than the romantically attuned West Coast singer-songwriter. Paul Elliott delves into Browne’s extraordinarily personal song book, which took shape with a romance with Nico in Warhol’s avant-garde New York, blossomed in early ’70s Los Angeles, survived the tragedy of his wife’s death in 1976 and the ensuing cocaine years to reach maturity.
THE POP GROUP THE SUPERNATURAL BRISTOLIAN golems of post-punk dissent are back with a new album; MOJO’s Mark Paytress is dispatched to survey their life-long impulse for insurgency.
ROYAL BLOOD THE BRIGHTON-BASED bass-drums indie-rock pair speak to Andrew Perry about the graft, luck, amps and FX that comprise their all-conquering chart battle-plan.
TIM BURGESS THE CHARLATANS’ singer confides his rock’n’roll secrets into our shell-likes – including the impact on the band of drummer Jon Brookes’ death, his enthusiasm for TM and moving on from vodka breakfasts.
KIM FOWLEY Farewell Lord of Garbage, King of Cool, Force of Nature! Bill Holdship explains the strange genius of the US writer-producer rock Zelig who brought us P.J. Proby, The Trip, The Byrds’ America’s Great National Pastime, The Runaways and much, much more.
REVIEWED NEW ALBUMS… Sufjan Stevens / Björk / Madonna / Laura Marling / Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds / Matthew E. White / Courtney Barnett / The Amorphous Androgynous / Blancmange / Modest Mouse / Lightning Bolt / Ghost Poet / Seasick Steve / and many more / REISSUES… UB40 / Popol Vuh / Frank Sinatra / The Kinks / Yabby You / Broadcast / Thelonious Monk / Michael Chapman / Led Zeppelin / Os Brazões / and many more / LIVES… Songhoy Blues in Glasgow / J Mascis in Cardiff
PLUS! All back to Rhiannon Giddens’ place to listen to Steven Sondheim / Swamp Dogg rues the days of "smelling his own ass" / The Sonics are back in the studio / on-the-rise Washington pop-punkers Chastity Belt tighten up / electronic prognosticator Jon Hopkins unveils the tunes that blew his mind / The Fall transport us back to their surreal I Am Curious, Orange stage experience / Kid Congo Powers says hello and goodbye to The Gun Club