Review: 'The Light Pours Out of Me: The Authorised Biography of John McGeoch'

Siouxsie Sioux, Howard Devoto, and John Lydon were three of the most high-profile front-people of the post-punk era. They had something else in common. During their most creative periods, John McGeoch was invaluably assisting them on guitar. Side musicians in bands at the popularity level of the Banshees, Magazine, and PiL usually are not the subjects of their own biographies, but McGeoch was more than a side musician. His artful yet subtle colorings were essential to classics such as "Shot by Both Sides", "Happy House", and "Spellbound", and his influence on guitarists without a taste for Clapton's rote blues or Van Halen's showboating is immeasurable. Johnny Marr of The Smiths, John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien of Radiohead, and Mark Arm of Mudhoney are among the musicians who praise McGeoch as one of the greatest in The Light Pours Out of Me: The Authorised Biography of John McGeoch. 

Johnny Marr Loves The Who

Mojo Magazine recently posted its Top 50 Who songs--a jumble of choices daring ("Dogs" is on there), dopey (so is their cover of "Heat Wave, which at #30, ranks above such masterpieces as "Amazing Journey","Rael", "Naked Eye", "Happy Jack", and "A Quick One While He's Away"!), and dull (the top ten reads like the track listing of a budget Greatest Hits compilation). However, one really worthwhile thing came of this feature: Johnny Marr wrote the introduction to the print article and Mojo's online site features an interview with the former Smith in which the greatest guitarist to debut in the eighties totally swoons over the greatest guitarist to debut in the sixties. It's quite charming and you can read it here.

Review: 'Keith Richards on Keith Richards: Interviews and Encounters'

The cover shot says everything you need to know about the Keith Richards attitude. The bird he’s flipping says, “Fuck off.” The smile says, “Don’t take it so seriously, baby.” This is the Keith we encounter time and again in Keith Richards on Keith Richards: Interviews and Encounters, largely because Sean Egan chose so many pieces from the eighties onward when Keith was in full I-know-I’m-a-living-legend mode. The editor, who also put together the excellent recent anthology The Mammoth Book of The Rolling Stones, had his reasons for skewing so post-golden years. In the sixties, Keith was actually third in line behind Mick Jagger and Brian Jones in the Stones hierarchy, so there were fewer interviews with him. Because Rock journalism had not matured yet, the interviews of that period tended to be lightweight anyway.

Review: 'Songs That Saved Your Life: The Art of The Smiths 1982-1987'

The Smiths didn’t make a lot of records during their flashing five-year career, but the ones they made were sublime enough to intoxicate an enduring cult. And like so many groups with relatively few proper LPs—The Velvet Underground, The Clash, and Jimi Hendrix, for example—The Smiths have a rich enough reservoir of singles, B-sides, and outtakes to warrant Simon Goddard’s track-by-track analysis The Smiths: Songs That Saved Your Life. As first published in 2002, the book did not fully please its author, baring a few errors and a title altered by the publisher. A tick over a decade later, Goddard has nudged his tome closer to his original vision and Titan Books is giving it a fresh republication.