Category: Off the Beaten Tracks

FOR simple songs straight from the heart, Iris DeMent’s debut album Infamous Angel is hard to beat. Her delivery is unspoilt, unadorned, often childlike in its charm and the quality of her … Continue readingFlavour of DeMent

A FEW months before a foul-mouthed 1976 TV interview propelled them on to the Fleet Street front pages, the Sex Pistols were performing (I hesitate to use the word ‘playing’) … Continue readingThe Sex Pistols before they were infamous

IN the first part of the Jackson Browne story, we left our hero having completed his brilliant second album, For Everyman, living in the Los Angeles house where he grew up and contemplating … Continue readingA Jackson Browne study: Part Two

A FRIEND of mine likes to describe the Blind Beggar in Whitechapel as the biggest pub in the world – ‘It must be because there are at least 30,000 Cockneys … Continue readingJudas! When Dylan went electric

HARDLY a week goes by without my mentioning Brian Eno, so a look at his solo career must be long overdue. In getting on for half a century, Brian has … Continue readingEno’s, You Know

TAKE a smattering of surf rock and add a pinch of punk. Stir in a generous slab of Beefheart with a sprig of Buddy Holly and a dash of Iggy … Continue readingMighty Pixies

CAPTAIN Beefheart once sang: ‘I may be hungry but I sure ain’t weird.’ The rest of the world might beg to differ. The cap’n, also known as Don Van Vliet, … Continue readingWell-done Beefheart

THERE are some ‘stars’ out there, and the preposterous behatted gnome from U2 comes to mind, who would like to think they can alter the course of history. David Bowie … Continue readingBowie and the song that changed the world

RETURNING to Ry Cooder’s early career is a real joy for me; like a conversation with an old and treasured friend. In my first column about him last April I looked at … Continue readingCooder’s Story Part Two

WHEN Lou Reed sacked John Cale from the Velvet Underground, his excuse was that the Welshman’s ideas were too ‘out there’, including recording with the amplifiers under water. Yet while … Continue readingJohn Cale: Paris 1919 and All That