Latest articles by Kris Needs
Mahavishnu Orchestra explore new musical worlds on The Inner Mounting Flame
Mahavishnu Orchestra's The Inner Mounting Flame was the first jazz-rock album that found favour among significant numbers of rock aficionados
The Move's Looking On signposts better things further down the road
What happened to Jeff Lynne in between the Idle Race and the Electric Light Orchestra
“My success is in perfection…something I never will reach”: Kate Bush’s battle for control
After making an unlikely connection, three interviews with a punk magazine editor – which she said felt like psychiatrist talks – illustrate her rapid development from Never For Ever to Hounds Of Love
How Motörhead made their game-changing Overkill album and the anarchic tour that followed
An exclusive extract from Kris Needs' biography Make My Day: The Rock'n'Roll Story Of Eddie Clarke
The real Syd Barrett, by the people who knew him
The magic and mystery surrounding the architect of Pink Floyd endures – and a larger canvas emerges of a confident, multi-talented originator...
Motörhead CD singles turned into delicious vinyl souvenirs on We Take No Prisoners: Singles 95-06
That old wax magic works for a final lineup ‘best-of’ spread over eight 45rpm discs
The Can albums you should definitely listen to
Can's classic releases sound only like themselves, yet the band's influence lives on. These are their best albums
Steve Cropper is a sublimely understated presence with The Midnight Hour on Friendlytown
Stax legend Steve Cropper fires up the protest soul
Ten Years After showcase the solos on full Woodstock 1969 set
Of its time and on vinyl, the six-song set that made Ten Years After US festival titans
Seven songs that prove The Only Ones were much more than a one song band
Famed for Another Girl, Another Planet but increasingly influential, there's much more to The Only Ones than "the greatest rock single ever recorded"
David Bowie's Ziggy era mined for gold on Rock ’N’ Roll Star
This mothership of David Bowie box sets covers Ziggy Stardust's conception, birth and lift-off
How Ian Hunter and Mott The Hoople got their riot started
Before they became 70s chart stars and (later) a beloved heritage act, Mott The Hoople were a wilder, more dangerous proposition – as their incendiary debut album proved
Little Feat's timeless sound on Sam's Place is oddly reassuring in these turbulent times
Feats don't fail the blues as swamp rock veterans Little Feat tackle Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters on their first album in more than a decade
Cyril Davies inspired a generation of musicians – but has been all but airbrushed out of history
What do The Kinks, Stones and The Who all have in common? For one thing, a harmonica-playing bluesman nicknamed 'Squirrel'
Ian Hunter shows no sign of erosion on Defiance Part 2: Fiction
A weightier second helping of Defiance from Ian Hunter in a star-studded, covid-era purple patch
Tension, ego, heroin: How The Clash's epic unreleased double album Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg all but finished them off
Combat Rock would gave The Clash their biggest singles, but it was only part of a bigger, more ambitious mothership
"One night we sat down and did the entire thing on a cassette set-up – it was magnificent!": How a set of unfinished, acid-fried songs about a mythical superhero could have been Jimi Hendrix’s last album
Black Gold was an unfinished, autobiographical suite that may have provided the foundation for Jimi Hendrix's fifth studio album
"What a revelation! In-your-face, bare-boned, all Ramones, all the time, balls-to-the-wall": How Dee Dee Ramone's private teenage escape inspired a punk classic
After moving to New York to escape an abusive father, pre-Dee Dee Ramone Doug Colvin wrote a song about the coastal escape he frequented
"We had a real human skull. Its name was Govinda, and it used to sit on top of a mic stand at gigs, like a mascot" the story of Radio Birdman, the original Oz punks
From Sydney via Detroit, Radio Birdman were Australia's anarchic answer to the Stooges and Blue Öyster Cult
"He was the best guitarist I’d ever seen" - the night Jimi Hendrix met his destiny
Jimi At 80 New York, July 5, 1966. Jimi Hendrix is playing Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village, and through the door comes the man who will turn him into a star
Countdown To Ecstasy: all hail Steely Dan's idiosyncratic visions of jazz-charged contemporary rock
Steely Dan's initially overlooked sleeper Countdown To Ecstasy is back on wax
Aylesbury Friars: the story of a venue
The Buckinghamshire venue was instrumental in furthering the careers of David Bowie, Genesis, VdGG, King Crimson, Marillion and more
