John Doran

6 days ago | thequietus.com | John Doran

“We’re standing on the edge, on the edge of time. And it is dark, so dark on the edge of time, and we’re tired of making love.”So intones Hawkwind’s premier nasal-voiced woodwind player and resident birdman Nik Turner on ‘Standing At The Edge’, one of two spoken-word tracks from the band’s most conflicted album, Warrior On The Edge Of Time. The 1975 LP is frustrating and beguiling in equal measure. And his words were pertinent, since this year saw the band reach the edge in more ways than one.

6 days ago | thequietus.com | John Doran

I’d heard the stories before I saw the show in Hollywood, of course. How could I not? I was only twenty years old in spring 1991, but ever since I’d picked up Musician magazine three years prior for its Pink Floyd cover story, I was thoroughly bemused by its lead album review being about some band called Butthole Surfers, how could I not have heard the stories? Accounts regarding two wild drummers and projected films showing penis removal surgeries and the like had circulated.

1 week ago | thequietus.com | John Doran

“Every sentence comes directly at you.” This phrase used by Steve Aylett to describe the prose of his fictional author Jeff Lint also sums up his own writing to a T. Jam-packed with ideas that fly like cerebral machine gun fire, a relentless assault of dazzling literary fireworks – confrontational, often violent, and really freaking hilarious – one could easily spend all day musing on just one line of Aylett.

1 week ago | buff.ly | John Doran

“Every sentence comes directly at you.” This phrase used by Steve Aylett to describe the prose of his fictional author Jeff Lint also sums up his own writing to a T. Jam-packed with ideas that fly like cerebral machine gun fire, a relentless assault of dazzling literary fireworks – confrontational, often violent, and really freaking hilarious – one could easily spend all day musing on just one line of Aylett.

1 week ago | thequietus.com | John Doran

In March 1978, The Raincoats boarded an eastbound night train from London. They were headed behind the Iron Curtain, where they’d be the first punk band to play in Warsaw. Students and activists who’d soon take on significant roles in the country’s burgeoning Solidarity movement had organised underground gigs, and The Raincoats got invited to play. At Friedrichstrasse station in East Berlin, guards appeared, pointing machine guns, tightly gripping the leashes of their Alsatian dogs.