Simon Neil leads a back on top Biffy ...

He’s lived it live and dangerous as part of the classic line up of Thin Lizzy, lived it loud in Motörhead, ridden his own band Wild Horses, has an impressive list of credits as both session musician and producer… There’s much more to Robbo than you probably think.

Big Big Train cofounder Gregory Spawton on the records, artists and gigs that are of lasting significance to him.

In the wake of Peter Gabriel’s departure, GENESIS faced an existential question: carry on, or call it a day? Looking back 50 years, band members revisit the fraught months after their first frontman’s exit – and the creative surge that set the scene for one of rock’s most improbable second acts. “The band was meant to be dead and buried,” learns Peter Watts. “But we refused to lay down and die.”

In 2001, the suicide of Big Country ’s Stuart Adamson shocked music fans all over the world. How had the man once lauded by DJ John Peel as ‘Scotland’s answer to Jimi Hendrix’ ended up taking his own life? In an exclusive extract from a new book, we look at the inside story of their debut album The Crossing .

HEAVY METAL HAS evolved a great deal since four young musicians in Birmingham, England, saw a crowd gather across the street from their rehearsal room, lining up for an opportunity to get terrified by