Lost classics: goo goo dolls

Thirty years after its release, Billy Corgan looks back at the making of The Smashing Pumpkins ’ era-defining big, bold, bombastic masterpiece Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness .

I’M NOT SURE if it’s the three-inch heels on her Doc Martens, but Emily Green dwarfs me as she strides across the stage. It’s about an hour before her band, Geese, soundchecks for their sold-out show

From Black Sabbath awakening to jam band to Hanoi Rocks to decades-straddling solo artist, via Finland, London, NYC and beyond, he’s been up, down and up again, through thrills, spills, triumph and tragedy. You could say he’s really lived the rock’n’roll life, but that would be an understatement.

In 1966, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO brought together the worlds of avant-garde art, European cool and downtown rock’n’roll in one explosive package. Sixty years on, the survivors share tales of drugs, breakdowns, burnouts, blocked toilets and hospital beds – and, of course, the creation of some of the most important music ever made. “We only did things our way,” learns Tom Pinnock . “We were arrogant, perhaps, in thinking we knew best. We were also right. We did know best…”

Martin Barre MCNIDDER & GRACE

Rival Sons’ frontman on his solo album, songwriting, the call of the wild, storytellers, falling in love, destroying his past…