Mojo's June Issue: 70s Punk

The June issue of Mojo focuses on punk, circa 1976. Articles are devoted to Siouxsie & the Banshees, Joe Strummer, and New York Dolls. Perhaps just to be rebellious, Mojo's Kieron Tyler selects "the year's hot picks", arriving at a list of songs numbered 1 through 10 without a #5. The headline for these songs of 1976 is "The Sound of Fury?" Mojo notes that "White Riot was a year away." And yet... one wonders whether #5 would have been the missing link between, say, Abba (#4) and White Riot. Still, any list with The Runaways and The Ramones isn't that tame...

The List:

1. Elton John & Kiki Dee - Don't Go Breaking My Heart
2. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
3. Slik - Forever And Ever (from Forever And Ever, etc.)
4. Abba - Dancing Queen
(no #5 is given)
6. David Dundas - Jeans On
7. The Isley Brothers - Harvest For The World
8. The Runaways - Cherry Bomb (from The Runaways)
9. The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
10. The Saints - I'm Stranded

Five New York Dolls tracks are singled out as influencing UK punk:

1. Personality Crisis (posted yesterday)
2. Jet Boy (from New York Dolls Mojo: "The belting guitar motif of the Dolls' greatest track bears an uncanny similarity to the intro to the Damned's New Rose, while the whole speed-fueled assault provided a rebel blueprint for UK punk in general.")
3. Puss 'N' Boots
4. It's Too Late
5. Looking For A Kiss

And in a story titled "The Secret History", the "guilty listening pleasures" of "1976's music revolutionaries" are at long last revealed. I know I'm going to sleep better tonight.

A few of their secret music loves revealed:

Undertones guitarist Damian O'Neill confesses a love for Free. "I got into them in the mid-'70s after hearing 'All Right Now' on the radio," he says. "They had broken up by then but I was really impressed by how young they were and how melodic they sounded for a rock band. I subsequently went out and bought The Free Story best of and I would try to make myself sound like Paul Kossoff on guitar."

Free - All Right Now (from The Free Story)

Sid Vicious was once found by Heartbreakers manager Leee Black Childers, sitting in a room and crying, listening to Jim Reeves' 12 Christmas Songs. He told Childers, "Sometimes I can't resist corny records like that."

Jim Reeves - Blue Christmas (this version is from Christmas Songbook, hopefully not too different from the version on 12 Christmas Songs)

As mentioned yesterday, Generation X's Tony James' guilty music pleasure is Deep Purple. He describes the time when he first saw them play as "one of those moments, you want to watch and be a fan, or be on stage too... and I knew where I wanted to be. I started saving for guitars that very day. A rock life was born."

Deep Purple - Pictures of Home (from the remastered version of Machine Head)

The Damned's Captain Sensible loves Egg. "That's where I got my love of 20-minute long pieces that expanded riffs and took you on a little mind trip."

More punk artists' "guilty pleasures" can be found, unsurprisingly, in the magazine...

There's also an article about Jackie DeShannon in this issue. She's a singer-songwriter whose career began in the mid-50s. DeShannon says she was the only female singer-songwriter in Los Angeles producing and doing demos back then, and "I always had to have a producer because I couldn't possibly know what I wanted."

The Searchers heard her song "Needles And Pins" and their cover became a hit. Her single "When You Walk Into The Room" also became a hit for The Searchers. She co-wrote Marianne Faithfull's "Come Stay With Me" with Jimmy Page. Her other songs include "Bette Davis Eyes", and "Break Away".

DeShannon is playing Dingwalls, Camden Lock on May 25 and "the launch of the Mojo Honours list" May 23 at HMV on London's Oxford Street. Check Mojo.com for more information.

Jackie DeShannon - Needles And Pins (available on The Very Best of Jackie DeShannon)

A quick glance look at this month's reviews:

4 stars: Scott Walker - The Drift ("Scott Walker continues to defy the pop rulebook and is making music that few others could even imagine."), Elvis Costello & Allen Tousssaint - The River In Reverse ("This is a great record for and about New Orleans and one of the best the two men have ever made.")

3 stars: Grandaddy - Just Like The Fambly Cat, Snow Patrol - Eyes Open ("an album big on lighter-waving anthems and arms-around-your-best-mate camaraderie."), Erasure - Union Street, The Beautiful South - Superbi

2 stars: The Futurehead's News And Tribunes ("a pretty disappointing work of rock ordinaire"), Phoenix's It's Never Been Like That ("has the feel of the work of a hollow band, a glossy papier-mache replica of real passion, real emotion"), The New Cars - It's Alive, Pet Shop Boys - Fundamental ("vaguely arch, upper-middlebrow synth pop")