Latest articles by Mark Blake
"Honestly, I don't care if I lose my voice. It's just life, isn't it?": Justin Hawkins on The Darkness, life as a YouTube icon, and predicting the pandemic
Fronting The Darkness gave Justin Hawkins fame, a collection of fabulous catsuits, and some serious addiction issues. After some dark days his band are now flying high again
"He's out cold. I think he's gone and eaten something he shouldn't have eaten": What happened the night a Who fan was pulled from the crowd to fill in for Keith Moon
In November 1973, 19-year-old Who fan Scott Halpin travelled to see the band play at San Francisco's Cow Palace. He ended up on stage
“The sounds of plucked elastic bands and scraping broomsticks are the last hurrah for the old Pink Floyd”: Household Objects, the lost album that nearly followed Dark Side
For over three decades, a two-minute clip of tuned wine glasses was the only sign of a project begun in 1980 and finally abandoned four years later
"We were four separate guys at the beginning of the afternoon, and by the end of the evening we were a band": Paul Rodgers on life with Free, Bad Company, The Firm and Queen
Paul Rodgers looks back at his life, times and solo career, ponders the tragedy of Paul Kossoff, and reveals that he owes his life to martial arts
"You can't dance or clap along to it. When we play it live, you can always see the audience getting caught out": Turn It On Again by Genesis even confused Peter Gabriel
Deceptively straightforward but with a rhythmic banana skin, Turn It On Again began Genesis's transformation from major cult band to stadium-filling hit-makers
Queen were poor. Their singer sounded like a "bleating sheep". Their music was greeted with indifference. But they believed in themselves, and their debut album would make the years of pain worthwhile
One minute Queen were taking the bus and watching their Top Of The Pops performance in a shop window: the next they had the world at their feet
"I got shot down many times: ‘Oh, it’s pop. Oh, it’s bubblegum… the logo is ugly and we don’t hear a single!’” How John Wetton and Asia dialled up their debut album
The fleeting moment when a prog supergroup hijacked the US pop charts, becoming 1982's band of the summer
“Sir, are you married?”: the unlikely connection between Queen’s Brian May and punk band X-Ray Spex
Queen guitarist Brian May crossed paths with a punk icon years before either was famous
The Rutles: the strange and surreal story of the original Spinal Tap
Formed from the ashes of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, The Rutles were a razorsharp pastiche of The Beatles with links to Monty Python and the Fab Four themselves
Healing Hands: Steve Hackett in The Prog Interview
The former Genesis guitarist discusses new album The Night Siren, his time in Genesis and his 'Nurofen hands'!
Thin Lizzy's Live And Dangerous: the real story of the greatest live album ever
Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham look back at the troublesome birth of a classic live album, Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous
From the sublime to the ridiculous: What happens when drummers go solo
A short celebration of Herman Rarebell, Roger Taylor and eight other sticksmen who bravely stepped out from behind the kit
The story of Jon Anderson's debut solo album Olias Of Sunhillow
In the summer of 1976, Jon Anderson released his first solo album, Olias Of Sunhillow – forty years later, he talks us through its complex creation
The 50 greatest Pink Floyd songs ever
From underground clubs to sold-out stadiums, Pink Floyd's path through rock has been revolutionary and stunningly successful. Here are their 50 best songs
Pink Floyd's tribute to Syd Barrett and the moment that moved the band to tears
With Pink Floyd out of ideas for the follow-up to the all-conquering The Dark Side Of The Moon, they delivered what would become one of their defining songs
Kettles and chaos: the crazy story of Pink Floyd's lost album, Household Objects
It was meant to be the follow-up to Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon... but Pink Floyd's lost album Household Objects never saw the light of day
Pink Floyd: The Story Behind Atom Heart Mother
It had a cow’s arse on the cover and a track sampling their roadie cooking bacon, but the wild genius of Pink Floyd’s psychedelic art rock made Atom Heart Mother their first No. 1
The making of Pink Floyd's The Division Bell
In 1994 Pink Floyd released The Division Bell, their final album with Rick Wright. This is its story...
From Sgt Pepper to Syd Barrett: the psychedelic birth of prog rock
In the late 1960s, the psychedelic revolution changed everything – and, thanks to The Beatles, Floyd and more, helped usher in the progressive rock era…
Kettles and bacon: the tortured creation of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother
Looking back at the making of one Pink Floyd's most overlooked but important releases, Atom Heart Mother
How Pink Floyd became the ‘go to’ rock band for space scientists
Pink Floyd may have hated the term ‘space rock’, but in 1988 their music was the chosen soundtrack for the crew of the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-7
The story of Richard Wright's last ever show
Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright made a surprise appearance with David Gilmour at a London Cinema in 2007. A year later, he was gone
How Pink Floyd reinvented themselves and journeyed towards The Dark Side
After Syd Barrett left, Pink Floyd were on a constant search for a sound – their sound. Eventually, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Rick Wright and Nick Mason would find it
