The assumed rivalry between Blondie’s vocalist, Debbie Harry, and the poet and singer Patti Smith is one of the most persistent subplots in histories of the 1970s New York punk movement. Apparently, downtown wasn’t big enough for the both of them. But despite their shared pedigree, Harry has become an icon and Muppet Show guest,…
In the early 1960s, Iceland didn’t have the music of Bjork, or even the quizmaster skills of Magnus Magnusson, to put it on the cultural map; it didn’t even have television. But, somehow, Iceland did have its own home-grown garage-rock group, every bit as vibrant and vital as the more famous counterparts then flowering in…
In the coffee bar of the 1976 Comics Convention at the NEC in Birmingham, a bearded American introduced himself to my mother: “I’m Chris Claremont.” Then he turned to me: “I write X-Men. Do you read that?” I was eight years old, but I suddenly realised, with some regret, that penning stories of spandex-clad mutants…
West along the coast is the ancient market town of Rye; to the east, Derek Jarman’s driftwood garden fossilises in the shadows of Dungeness power station; between the two, a short walk from the crazy-golf course, lie the utilitarian chalets of the Pontin’s holiday camp in Camber Sands, East Sussex. Last weekend its family-fun facade…
You can recognise a Rowland S Howard guitar lick in seconds. A quavering, tremulous thing, half anaemic Duane Eddy, half spaghetti-western soundtrack, permanently hovering on the brink of collapse. But for the past decade, Howard has been missing in action, while his one time bandmate Nick Cave is recognised as one of the world’s finest…