Mojo Magazine Issue 359 (October 2023) The Smiths

Mojo Magazine Issue 359 (October 2023) The Smiths

Note: This is the export edition of Mojo Magazine -- it does not include the cover-mount CD. You will probably have to buy from a UK seller to get the CD (or stream it on Spotify).

COMMEMORATING 40 YEARS since they burst onto the music scene and in tribute to their abundantly talented, recently departed bassist Andy Rourke, MOJO returns to 1983 to relive the freshness and wonder of The Smiths and their reinvention of guitars. Also in the issue: Bob Marley – live, intimate and unseen; the incomparable Sinéad O’Connor; Gram Parsons’ Americana visions; Tony Visconti – a life in knob-twiddling. Plus: Hawkwind; Pulp; The Bee Gees; Bridget St John; Blake Mills; Pretenders; Yoko Ono; Neil Young; Herb Alpert; OMD; Paul Rodgers; The Coral; Betty Davis and more!

COVER STORY: THE SMITHS Forty years on, MOJO revisits the sounds and the stories of a watershed band’s explosive arrival. “My brother said, ‘What kind of music is it?’ Funk? Punk… folk… rock?’” recalls drummer Mike Joyce. “I said, ‘I can’t describe it.’”

TONY VISCONTI Tales from the control room with Bowie, Bolan and, er The Tickle, from rock’s longest-active producer: “I still want to get better and better at what I do.”

BOB MARLEY Stirring portraits – some previously unpublished – of Marley and reggae’s aristocracy by Kate Simon: a taster from her expanded classic tome, Rebel Music.

BRIDGET ST JOHN The English folk-rock icon and inspiration to a new generation of folk-adjacent stars steps into the light: “I always felt a bit separate from the scene.”

GRAM PARSONS Country-rock’s Cosmic creator left Earth 50 years ago, two aching solo LPs in his wake. Friends and bandmates mourn the man and the music he never got to make.

HAWKWIND A treasure trove of Space Ritual-era recordings prompts a MOJO acid flashback. Cue fire wheels, Lemmy’s headlice, and the “Pythagorean concept of sound.”

BLAKE MILLS Guitar Man by appointment to Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan (and, er, Kid Rock) has his own album to do. “I don’t think I’m taking it all for granted,” he hopes.

REVIEWED The Coral / Pretenders / John Martyn / Nina Simone / Betty Davis / Royal Blood / Courtney Barnett / Teenage Fanclub / Corinne Bailey Rae / Alice Cooper / The Handsome Family / Mitski / Devendra Banhart / Hiss Golden Messenger / Slowdive / Jonathan Wilson / Margo Cilker / Shakti / Jaimie Branch / Blind Boys Of Alabama / Teddy Thompson / Sparklehorse / Fun Boy Three / Stevie Nicks / The Breeders / Neil Young – Chrome Dreams!

PLUS Sinéad O’Connor, tragic rebel / Tate Modern honours Yoko / Neil Young takes his train set on tour / OMD – their synth-prodding sunset? / Paul Rodgers, back on track / Herb Alpert tootles again / Jimi Hendrix rocks the establishment (and Jeremy Thorpe) / Prison and Willie J Healey are rising / Pulp from the very beginning / the actual best of The Bee Gees / Adieu, Jane Birkin; addio, Tony Bennett / Bush Tetras

Check out the Mojo Magazine website.