What Made Rizla Famous Made A Loser Out Of Me
Comment by Penny Reel, International Times, May 1974
AFTER YEARS OF shadowy unwillingness as one of the mainstays of the dope scene, Rizla and their finest quality gummed papers have finally put one and ...

Rick Wakeman: Beers of the World
Report and Interview by Chris Salewicz, NME, December 1974
"ON OUR rider for the tour of America – for the seven of us – we had twelve six-packs of Budweiser, two bottles of tequila, two ...

Lynyrd Skynyrd: The 100 Proof Blues
Report by Jim Esposito, Creem, October 1975
2009 note: In the Summer of '75 The Editors of Creem decided to do a Special Report on Rock 'n Roll and booze. They called their ...

Paul Kossoff R.I.P.
Obituary by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, March 1976
WHAT CAN you do but grieve. Just grieve. Too close to the edge, always. Pain, so much pain, so much of the time it seemed. No-one ...

Keith Richard: One Man's Week OFF THE HOOK
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, January 1977
MONDAY, JANUARY 10th. In Colorado, Claudine Longet, ex-wife of singer Andy Williams, stood trial for allegedly murdering her lover. On America's west coast, kidnap victim/revolutionary renegade ...

Eric Clapton: Give Me Strength
Interview by Steve Turner, Sounds, February 1977
Meg and George Patterson's cure for heroin addiction ...

The Ramones: So The New Wave Have Scruples Too
Report and Interview by Nick Kent, NME, June 1977
JOHNNY RAMONE is quite definitely pissed off. ...

Herman Brood: Brood Back On The Nest
Report and Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, June 1979
German rock star Nina Hagen's upset because her Dutch rock 'n' rolling boyfriend, Herman Brood, has disappeared. Will our intrepid CHRIS BOHN track him down? Will ...

The Ballad of Marianne Faithfull
Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, December 1979
MARIANNE FAITHFULL was the Face of the '60s Fragile, damaged little bird with the voice of an angel, broken on a spike and filled with downers; ...

Going Cold Turkey with the Sid Presley Experience
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, NME, January 1985
Why reheat ‘Cold Turkey’? BARNEY HOSKYNS TALKS TO THE SID PRESLEY EXPERIENCE about their protest against council block ...

Drugs: Out Of Our Heads
Overview by Mat Snow, NME, September 1986
AFTER TWO false starts due to bad weather, the wide-eyed and jittery paratroopers swallowed their third load of benzedrines in three nights and flew off for ...

Nick Cave: The Needle And The Damage Done
Report and Interview by Jack Barron, NME, August 1988
NICK CAVE – the voice of desperation; singer, writer, actor, junkie! JACK BARRON, branded by the Bad Seed a "filthy little prick", gets to grips with ...

Happy Mondays
Profile and Interview by Martin Aston, Auckland Star, 1989
IF PUNK was the answer to the broad lack of genuine invention in the musical mid-70s, then the Acid House phenomenon answered those who believed the ...

AUDIO: Free's Andy Fraser (1991)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, March 1991
The British Blues-rock bass wunderkind talks about joining John Mayall at 15, then of his years with the fabulous Free, including the writing of the iconic ...

Aerosmith: Sex'n'Drugs'n'Rock'n'Roll!
Memoir by Peter Makowski, Kerrang!, April 1994
Up until the early '80s, Aerosmith indulged in every rock 'n'roll excess! "It's a miracle they survived!" says Dr. Pete Makowski, who met Steven Tyler at ...

Drugs In Rock Culture: Don’t Try This At Home
Essay by Ian Penman, The Guardian, August 1996
TAKING DRUGS CHANGES things. It changes your blood stream and brain waves and bank balance; your heart rate and slang of choice and the circumference - ...

Straight to Stupid: Black Grape
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1997
DANNY SABER'S been a busy boy. Produced the Rolling Stones, remixed David Bowie, and then seven weeks recording the new Black Grape album, climbing the ...

Shane MacGowan: One More For The Road
Profile and Interview by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, November 1997
THERE ARE THOSE who believe that Shane MacGowan is among the most gifted and singular singer-songwriters to have emerged in British music in the past 15 ...

The Mile High Club: Spiritualized in the Sky
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Mojo, February 1998
SPIRITUALIZED: a concoction of the cosmological and the pharmaceutical enjoying high times in Britain. Now Jason Pierce is spending two months turning on America. Barney Hoskyns ...

Life After Mood-Altering: Monster Magnet
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, February 1999
SIT A SPELL in the stark and featureless foyer of the current temple of the Monster Magnet dreams, a half-built Sunset Strip hotel of rare plasticity, ...

Jason Pierce: The Urban Spaceman Falls To Earth
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 2001
COSMIC OR WHAT? Jason Pierce has conducted Q to a yellowed Hoxton hostelry called the Macbeth. By the door it sports a tiled mural illustrating the ...

Tales of Toys and Toxic Twins: Aerosmith
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2002
SPOOL BACK four years to the Virginia Beach Resort Hotel on America’s sun-kissed East Coast and I’m sharing a sumptuous afternoon repast with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler ...

Rehab'n'Roll
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 2002
"I WAS TRYING to prove I could do it and come out alive." That was Eric Clapton's account of his immersion in heroin from 1970-74. "It ...

The Rolling Stones: The Crowning of King Mick
Retrospective by Chris Salewicz, Sunday Times, October 2002
It is hard to believe that Mick Jagger was once just another Rolling Stone. How did he become an idol? Chris Salewicz, his biographer, tells a ...

High Priestess: Grace Slick and ‘White Rabbit’
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Paytress, The Guardian, November 2002
White Rabbit has just come out top in a poll to find the finest drug song ever. Mark Paytress discovers that its writer/singer Grace Slick retains ...

Bob Dylan: Just Bend Your Mind A Little…
Retrospective by Andy Gill, Mojo, December 2002
BOB DYLAN WAS NOT THE FIRST SONGWRITER to write about – or under the influence of – drugs, though you could be forgiven for assuming otherwise ...

Stairway To Hell
Essay by Nick Kent, The Guardian, April 2004
THEY ASKED ME to write this piece about "self-destruction and its place in rock" and that immediately set me to thinking: what do they mean exactly ...

Kate Moss' Prince Alarming: Pete Doherty
Profile and Interview by Edward Helmore, Vanity Fair, July 2005
IT'S 9 PM AT the Boogaloo in north London and Gerry O'Boyle, the proprietor of this dingy pub, says Kate and Pete are on their way. ...

For The Unrepentant Patriarch Of LSD, Long, Strange Trip Winds Back To Bay Area
Profile and Interview by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, July 2007
THE SMALL, barefoot man in black T-shirt and blue jeans barely rates a second glance from the other Starbucks patrons in downtown San Rafael, although he ...

Ban this Sixx filth!
Report by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, October 2007
Thought Mötley Crüe's biog The Dirt was the ultimate rock read? Pah! Ian Gittins helped bassist Nikki Sixx write his gruesome journals. Those of a nervous ...

Nikki Sixx
Interview by Robin Eggar, Live Magazine, December 2007
NIKKI SIXX is the bassplayer and chief songwriter in Mötley Crüe, the LA hard rockers who became a byword for rock and roll excess, while somehow ...

When Acid Reigned
Retrospective by Harry Shapiro, Mojo, Summer 2007
Hippies tripped, tabloids raged and police cheered as Engelbert Humperdinck's Jan '67 hit, 'Release Me' became the real theme tune for the Summer of Love. ...

Why Amy Winehouse is On The Rocks
Essay by Nick Kent, The Times, January 2008
As troubled singer Amy Winehouse is filmed smoking crack cocaine, our writer, a veteran of the 1970s music and drug culture, explains why we view such ...

And Now Let's Go Over to the Leather Report: Velvet Revolver
Profile and Interview by Dan Gennoe, Mail On Sunday, March 2008
IF THERE'S A definition of a rock star, Scott Weiland is it. The ever-present Aviator sunglasses; the hip-jutting swagger; the slow croak of an LA drawl ...

Villa Nellcote: Tommy Weber Arrives at the Rolling Stones' French Stronghold
Book Excerpt by Robert Greenfield, 'A Day in the Life' (Da Capo), July 2009
In this excerpt from his brilliant new A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the '60s, Robert Greenfield – ...