NME OCT 5 Introducing a product of NYC coffee society… Suzanne Vega.
I’d never been to a coffee shop in New York’s Greenwich Village before, but the Paradise was just as I’d imagined such a place to be from movies like Annie Hall. Loft people idle away the afternoon’s magic hour, and yuppie voices rise career-wise over the strains of piped Mozart and Vivaldi. Mmmmm, nice.
Yet here was I invading this haven from Manhattan’s street hassle with a little hatchetry on my mind. Parked at a spindly window table between myself and the towering Derek Ridgers sits the sylph-like Suzanne Vega, siren of the Nouvelle Vague of acoustic introspection.
Suzanne’s a Cancer, a lunar child who swims with the tides and captures the secret rhythms that swell and eddy beneath life’s surface. Sister moon stuff, tra la la, and while there’s a bit of that in me, there’s only enough to make me doubt momentarily my macho judgement that, yes, Suzanne Vega sings beautifully wistful music, but the words! My dear! Viewed in bollock-naked print, Suzanne’s world of interiorisation usually summons up but eight clanking letters –
“Precious,” she sighs, “is a word I hear a lot...” “I knew I wanted to be a folk singer from the time I was 16, partly because it was the music I had been brought up on. My father – he’s a novelist, Ed Vega – had played guitar, mostly blues: Leadbelly, “House Of The Rising Sun”. They were both very young when they married – my mother had me when she was 18 and she’d had all four of us by the time she was 24. My parents being so young, we had all kinds of music in the house from the ’60s – Dylan, Laura Nyro, a lot of stuff. I liked Leonard Cohen and Simon & Garfunkel – these things meant a lot to me.
Denne historien er fra March 2017-utgaven av The History of Rock.
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Denne historien er fra March 2017-utgaven av The History of Rock.
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Music With a Capital 'M'
The prolific HÜSKER DÜ have escaped the strictures of hardcore, to make truly remarkable music. “There’s nothing incredibly new about it,” says BOB MOULD. “We’re just doing what we do the best we can.”
All Pop is Political
“To me, pop and the whole notion of pleasure, sex, entertainment and leisure is political,” says SCRITTI POLITTI’s GREEN GARTSIDE. “So Dead Or Alive with their swirling clothes have as much political resonance as Billy Bragg.” Charming as he is, Gartside’s work doesn’t please everyone.
I Think I Hold My Ground
NME OCT 5 Introducing a product of NYC coffee society… Suzanne Vega.
It's Better To Burn Hard Than To Rot
With his reputation on a high, a tangential interview reveals a lot about the unique worldview and oddball technique of TOM WAITS. On the release of Rain Dogs, Tom talks white socks, neuroscience and his new guitarist, Keith Richards. “We met in a woman’s lingerie shop…”
Business is Booming
In a university dorm room, a rap dynasty is emerging. NME travels to New York to interview wordsmiths RuN DMC, along the way meeting producers Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons – the brains behind Def Jam. “The street wants something specific,” says Simmons.
I Don't Think Keith Was Pleased
MICK JAGGER makes a solo album. In Paris, the singer talks dodging paparazzi, the outrageous young Rolling Stones, and the miners’ strike. He even touches on his solo prospects. “You can’t expect to get No 1s all the time,” he says, “and if you do you’re a cunt.”
I'm Prepared to Go Down With the Ship
On behalf of THE SMITHS, Morrissey meets the fanzine press. He faces questions about love, Band Aid, the Moors Murderers and the band’s own unique position in the world. “There are people I admire,” he says, “but ultimately we are alone.”
Ambition. Greed. Money
Most of these are missing from THE POGUES as they stagger across Europe on tour. “Even if I drink myself to death doing this,” says SHANE MACGOWAN, “I’d still prefer that to the boring, horrible jobs I had to do before this band.”
Pandemonium
MM July 13 Bruce Springsteen seduces the masses.