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Forty Flippin’ Years!

If you’re reading this on the day I posted it, June 5th 2021, imagine please that it’s tomorrow..... Exactly 40 years ago today, June 6th 1981, I interviewed U2’s Bono for the second issue of my fanzine Stringent Measures. I was just out of my teens, as the band themselves were, and re-reading the interview/article the other week for the first time in years, though it reeks of youthful - naive, even - enthusiasm, and though I can’t imagine the likes of Rock’s Back Pages clamouring for its inclusion in their library, I didn’t find myself cringing as much as I might have feared. Readership at the time would have been limited as I think we printed only a couple of hundred copies of the fanzine and it hasn’t been reproduced anywhere in full in the intervening 40 years.  Until now.  (Fanzine cover, “corrected” by Bono and signed by rest of band a few months later at Warwick University) EXCLUSIVE  BONO VOX INTERVIEW  On the steps outside the stage door of Aylesbury Friars,  at about 7 o'
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Big Star's Alex Chilton & Chris Bell in guest starring roles.....

A couple of Big Star related singles, one featuring Mr Alex Chilton and one Mr Christopher Bell, the sleeves (including credits) and the YouTube clips of one track from each single. Then a little thing that's gonna please ya, a Big Star (Pete Frame-style) Family Tree from my collection. 
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Epic Soundtracks & Evan Dando - "Will You Love Me Tomorrow"

With a kind of vested interest in the release of, in April 2012, the 2CD set by Epic Soundtracks "Wild Smile" on Troubador Records - honoured to have compiled the second CD of rare and unreleased music and to have scribbled the sleeve notes - as my contribution to promoting its release, here's an imperfect (unreleased, perhaps understandably so.....) gem that doesn't feature on the set.
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The Jacobites - "When The Rain Comes"

From a Spanish radio session in 1995, a lovely leisurely acoustic version of the classic "When The Rain Comes".
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Meanwhile, some seven months later, a Nikki Sudden home movie.....

Okay, so there's a danger of this becoming almost exclusively an archive for the works of Nikki Sudden and his brother Epic Soundtracks - not necessarily a bad thing - and to be fair the first two posts of 2012 feature Nikki - but rest assured, we'll deliver a little variety in months to come. Anyway, I've been planning for some months now to start the process of copying some videos on to DVD and getting them on to YouTube - finally got round to coming up with this half hour extract from a video made back in 1991 by my brother, Nik, and ace photographer Steve Gridley. Brief details of the various locations used appear on the notes with the clip. Still to come, more of Nikki strumming away in his parents' garden, some live acoustic and band stuff and some cool clips of the '95 version of the Jacobites messing around in the studio. Kinda good to be up and running again - we'll see how long it lasts this time!
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Albion Sunrise by Nikki Sudden - Chapter 12: Johnny Thunders

Nikki Sudden at the 100 Club, Oxford Street, London - 17th May 1983 - Photo by Nik Coleman Following the recently posted introduction to Nikki Sudden's unpublished novel "Albion Sunrise" we've dipped into the tale itself and extracted Chapter 12, "Johnny Thunders". Enjoy. Albion Sunrise: Chapter 12 - Johnny Thunders "In the dark-lit surroundings of The Establishment tea-rooms, general bric-a-brac and curio shop, The Bagman has once more taken up the reins and is keenly talking on the same generally much misunderstood subject of pure rock’n’roll. But, we find that he’s veered from the purity, albeit it seldom seen, or indeed rarely, if ever, understood by the general populace, of Jerry Lee Lewis and Memphis rockabilly, to fields further from home. Unfortunately by doing so he loses Mr. Dickens. For Mr. Dickens’ heart, it must be said, mainly resides in rock and roll’s first few timeless years. “ If there’s anything to be said on the general feelin
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