It's our birthday! Top 5 TDOA Interviews
Today marks the one year anniversary of the start of this website. In that past year, we’ve been fortunate to meet a lot of our heroes and an amazing number of great, new bands. In the spirit of the zillions of top ten lists that we and others are posting, we thought it might be fun to recap our favorite interviews of the past year. These are not necessarily the most popular bands or the most read interviews. Instead, we’re focusing on the interviews that we’ve enjoyed the most. We hope you enjoyed these as much as we did.
Peter Hook: I met Peter at a hotel in downtown Dallas prior to a DJ gig here. There are few musicians in the world that I would claim to be in “awe” of, but Peter was one of them. Given that, plus his reputation for being a difficult interview, I couldn’t have enjoyed the time we spent together more. Forthcoming, humble and friendly, he covered everything from the songwriting process for Joy Division to his thoughts on Bad Lieutenant.
Alan McGee: While setting up some of our interviews is a simple process, this interview took three months to arrange. In other words, we badgered him (as he referenced, jokingly during the interview) until he finally relented. As you would expect, the mastermind behind Creation Records and Oasis had a plethora of stories and opinions. Politically, he’s about as far to the right as one can be without a visit from the Secret Service. Musically, his opinions on bands like My Bloody Valentine gave us insight that we found fascinating.
Howard Devoto: The opportunity to interview the lead singer of Magazine was something we took great pride in. While some subjects will give you a pass if they disagree with any of your premises, Howard went after us whenever he thought we’d strayed to far off the path. Coupled with our interview with keyboardist Dave Formula, we got some great insight to what it was like in post-punk England in the early 80′s.
Alberta Cross: It was thrilling to talk to an artist shortly after they’d released an album that we think will be considered one of the great albums of the decade. Lead singer Petter talked about their struggles with their producer, our shared love of Storm In Heaven-era Verve and the struggles music critics seem to have in defining their music.
Simon Reynolds: With the revival of the shoe-gaze/Jesus & Mary Chain movement we thought that interviewing the man who defined music criticism in the 80′s and 90′s would provide us with some insight on the future of the movement. Simon also let us explore a concept that fascinates us; why most peoples’ musical taste seems to narrow as they grow older. Fascinating and deeply analytical, Mr. Reynolds showed how he has grown while the rest of us struggle to keep us.
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