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…”

ON THE SURFACE, guitar trends in 1986 looked downright wild and perverse — a weird parade of shred-happy virtuosos, anthemic power pop heroes, dirtbag metalheads and eccentric alt-rock outsiders. But

In “a junkyard of surrealistic mayhem”: Adele Bertei ...

HE MIGHT HAVE joined the Haunted a full 17 years after the group formed, yet to metal guitarists, Ola Englund’s face is far more recognizable than those of his bandmates — even though bassist Jonas Bj

VAN HALEN WAS the world’s biggest rock band at the beginning of 1985. Their 1984 album had sold more than five million copies in the U.S., reaching Number 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (their hi

Send your brickbats, bouquets, reminiscences, textual critiques, billets-doux and all forms of printable correspondence to letters@uncut.co.uk