Mark es de los grandes si es la mita de bueno como los librosde Bolan , Bowie o SID Viciuos, es un must .
saludos y gracias por el dato
Mark Paytress I'd rather listen to La Nina De La Puebla than Babyshambles. Rather read about Fred Frith than Franz Ferdinand . But music, and writing about it, remains central to all that I do. It's the most powerful drug of all, an addiction that came early and – excepting a period during the '80s when it all but lost its ability to hypnotise – has never really left.
My cosmopolitan parentage – a mix of German, Irish and gypsy - was enhanced by a revolving door of English language students, continental gods and goddesses with whom I'd sit and gawp at Ready, Steady, Go!, Top Of The Pops and, earlier still, Thank Your Lucky Stars. My first television heroine was TYLS co-host Janice "Oi give it foive!" Nicholls. I still have a letter from her to prove it.
By 1966, I followed the pop charts with all the passion previously reserved for reciting the names and dates of the kings and queens of England. The illicit thrill of rearranging the Top 30 in accordance with my own tastes soon followed. Better still, the bar manager at the local ice-rink (a family friend), welcomed me every Saturday morning with a huge set of keys that magically unlocked the space-age jukebox, allowing me access to as many 'free' plays as I wanted. I'm still unable to hear 'Monday, Monday', 'Daydream' and 'Matthew And Son' without remembering this kindly, Oliver Hardy-like character giving me the chance to play DJ for a while.
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich's 'Hideaway' sounded like the most exotic thing on earth, Brian Jones was pop's most unworldly star, and Diana ('Emma Peel') Rigg the woman who had everything.
Then came 'Good Vibrations', The Move's 'I Can Hear The Grass Grow', and The Beatles' 'Strawberry Fields Forever'. Even to a seven/eight-year-old, those records sounded revolutionary, three-minute invitations to a world I wanted more of.
Mick, the fur coat-clad hippie next door, had a profound influence - though that didn't manifest itself until early teen days. Some time during 1968, he played me Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Pink Floyd on his garishly painted custom-made "stereo!", made a snide joke about Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, and packed me off with a copy of 'See Emily Play'. The B-side, Scarecrow, sounded like a fairytale come to life.
LPs began to creep into the household. A family friend, Peter McConnell, a huge record collector in the days when such a pursuit was in its infancy, passed on his well-thumbed copies of all five (?) music weeklies. Also coming my way were his cast-offs - Beach Boys hits compilations and, more thrillingly, a copy of the Stones' Satanic Majesties. Loved the 3-D cover – and Bill Wyman's snoring midway through side one.
By 1968 and '69, I was buying my own records – 'Albatross', 'Fire!', The Gun's 'The Race Is On', Humble Pie's 'Natural Born Bugie', 'Sabre Dance' by Love Sculpture and, more misguidedly, a Hits Of '68 compilation that turned out to be a bunch of fakes. The Herd became the new young gods to aspire too – all those pink shirts and leather jackets and tight orange strides. And what perfect pop psychedelia too...
Brian Jones's death had a strange effect – I kept all the cuttings – and I welcomed in the new decade with tears, despite knowing a little of the Manson murders but nothing at all of Altamont. Have been obsessed with the idea that something died in rock around this time ever since.
Right on cue, football pushed pop into the background during 1970 and the early months of '71. But with the advent of Glam Rock, and the onset of teenagerdom, it came stomping back during 1972. I soon learned to sniff at the capricious nature of the Top 30, and grew up fast enough to catch Roxy Music with Eno at Bournemouth's Winter Gardens in spring 1973, and the Stones at Wembley later that summer. The latter prompted my first piece of R&R writing, for an English language project that earned me a ticket to a show of my choice – Hawkwind, alas without Stacia in tow.
Remembering my hippie mentor, I began to recast myself in his image - ripped up jeans, authentic psychedelic threads, 3/4 length fur coat, and Jorma Kaukonen hair. Skinheads, suedeheads, soul boys came and went, but I was still living it like Scott McKenzie had never gone away. The secondhand shops provided a ready supply of West Coast albums - Dead, Airplane, Zappa, Beefheart, Janis, Quicksilver, Electric Prunes – while Hendrix was pronounced God and Syd Barrett was always on the verge of a comeback. I got to see Airplane offshoot Hot Tuna perform for three hours at The Roundhouse, met Captain Beefheart backstage at Southampton University (a meeting briefly immortalised on my old cassette recorder, now in general circulation) and took guitar lessons from the same guy who taught Robert Fripp.
Then along came punk, though not immediately. After years spent fighting for the right to have long hair, that didn't come off until way into '77. But the dramatic force of this, probably the most crucial musical watershed I ever experienced, created havoc in many ways. Old friendships lay in tatters, as did the A-Z simplicity of the record collection, now newly divided into pre- and post-punk parts.
Found myself on stage playing some of the finest avant-punk no one's ever heard with the fearsome Animal Haircuts. Genuine Can-meets-the Pistols-meets-The Pop Group racketeers who got themselves unceremoniously booted out of various south coast establishments. This Heat (who we once supported) liked us, though.
After a spot of student activism, I found myself back on the dole, before blagging my way onto the staff of Record Collector magazine. It was 1986, and because there wasn't a decent band in the world (I hadn't yet heard Big Black, Sonic Youth or the Butthole Surfers), I seized the opportunity to revel in rock's glory days, get paid to write incompetently about The Fall and the Airplane, hear loads of bootlegs (Smile, The Great Lost Kinks Album, etc) and come over all coy in front of my teenage poster girl, the majestic Melanie.
Subsequently moved on to the mighty MOJO, where rock history came alive in glorious, fabulously designed technicolor. A mildly fraught stint as news editor was followed by bossing several issues of MOJO Collections. These days, I'm more happily installed as a regular reviewer/feature writer, and occasionally drop by to help out on some of the fabulous MOJO and Q special issues (Bowie, Stones, 50 Years Of Rock'n'Roll, etc.)
A combination of office-phobia and a determinedly isolationist tendency has meant that the past 15 years has been most fruitfully spent writing books. Oral histories of the Banshees and the Stones, a peek at Bowie's impact as a cultural stylist (BowieStyle) and extensive biographies of Marc Bolan (The Rise And Fall Of A 20th Century Superstar) and Sid Vicious (Vicious: The Art Of Dying Young), are among the more satisfying ones. Latest title is I Was There (Cassell-Illustrated), an illustrated anthology of 'gigs that changed the world'. Given total free rein, I would of course have included Acid Mothers Temple, undoubtedly the most intoxicating in-concert experience I've ever had. Can't recommend their shows enough.
Enjoy the rest of this amazing website.
List of articles in the library by artist
Syd BarrettRetrospective by Mark Paytress, Record Collector, 1993
Marc Bolan : "Catch A Bright Star And Place It On Your Forehead": The Rise of Marc Bolan
Book Excerpt by Mark Paytress, Omnibus Books, 2002
Marc Bolan : John's Children
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Paytress, Mojo, September 2002
David Bowie : Ziggy Stardust: The Album That Killed The Sixties
Retrospective by Mark Paytress, Record Collector, June 1998
Jeff Buckley : Keeper of the Flame
Report and Interview by Mark Paytress, The Guardian, October 2002
Butthole Surfers : The Butthole Surfers
Guide by Mark Paytress, Record Collector, February 1989
The CreaturesInterview by Mark Paytress, Record Collector, August 1999
Jefferson Airplane : High Priestess: Grace Slick and ‘White Rabbit’
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Paytress, The Guardian, November 2002
Jefferson Airplane: Ignition
Review by Mark Paytress, Mojo, November 2001
John's Children
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Paytress, Mojo, September 2002
Melanie
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Paytress, Record Collector, August 1989
Pink Floyd : Syd Barrett
Retrospective by Mark Paytress, Record Collector, 1993
Elvis Presley: Live In Las Vegas
Review by Mark Paytress, Mojo, August 2001
The Sex Pistols : Sid Vicious: Threw a Glass Darkly
Book Excerpt by Mark Paytress, 'Vicious: The Art of Dying Young', Sanctuary Books, 2004
Siouxsie & The Banshees : The Creatures
Interview by Mark Paytress, Record Collector, August 1999
T. Rex : "Catch A Bright Star And Place It On Your Forehead": The Rise of Marc BolanBook Excerpt by Mark Paytress, Mark Paytress, Omnibus Books, 2002
Sid Vicious: Threw a Glass Darkly
Book Excerpt by Mark Paytress, 'Vicious: The Art of Dying Young', Sanctuary Books
