“we’d play exactly what we wanted, how we wanted. that drove everyone around us nuts.”

WE WERE THE first band of our generation that started to grow up,” Billy Corgan says, reflecting on the making of the Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 grand opus, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. “The b

John Lennon called them “sons of The Beatles”. Axl Rose said there was nothing like them. But how did a trio of Brummies create the progressive orchestral pop rock band who eventually became a global phenomenon following 1975’s breakthrough album Face The Music ?

Brixton Academy is one of London’s great live music venues. This 5,000-capacity space is both intimate and grand – its sloping floor ensuring all standing spectators can see the action on the vast sta

Rather gear collection of punky outsider artists’ BBC work recorded between 1978 and 1980.

At the start of the 1990s, Nick Heyward was at his lowest ebb. His third solo album, I Love You Avenue, had failed to chart in 1988. Warner unsurprisingly let him go. So had Heyward’s manager and his

The newly reconfigured band throw open the doors on an expansive sixth album. By Victoria Segal. Illustration by Quinton Winter.