YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!
THE BEATLES arrived in the USA in February 1964 – the tip of the spear in a transatlantic musical revolution. By 1966 they had retreated from the madness into the recording studio – but not before the Stones, Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, Herman’s Hermits, The Zombies and more had blown American minds during the British Invasion. With a new boxset collecting the Fabs’ ’64 US LPs, eyewitnesses and contemporaries relive the mania. “In music, there is The Beatles and then there is everybody else,” learns Peter Watts

KEEPING THE FAITH
Sixteen years on from their last album, THE CURE return with a powerful and emotional new record that stands squarely alongside the band’s best work. But as ROBERT SMITH explains, Songs Of A Lost World is only half the story. To be discussed: love, loss and ageing, the Moon landings, abandoned projects, War And Peace, nearly splitting up, The Cure’s 50th anniversary and ambitious plans for another two new Cure albums. If they get that far, that is. “Our songs have always had a fear of mortality,” he says. “But as you get older, it becomes more real.”

AtoZ
This month…

The Last Rays Of Sun
In June 1970, the completion of Jimi Hendrix’s own Electric Lady Studios in downtown New York unleashed a surge of unbridled creativity. Just three months later, he was gone. As a new film and boxset explore Hendrix’s final sessions, friends, bandmates and studio staff consider how Electric Lady inspired everyone who entered its softly lit sanctuary. “They were free to create,” engineer Eddie Kramer tells Peter Watts. “I never saw Jimi so happy.”

HALF A WORLD AWAY
Despite rupturing his vocal cords in 2021, rumours of STURGILL SIMPSON’s retirement are greatly exaggerated. Instead, overcoming one of his “darkest periods”, the restless country music outsider has moved to Europe and adopted the alter ego Johnny Blue Skies for a new album of freewheeling love songs influenced by Serge Gainsbourg, Gerry Rafferty and Homer’s Odyssey. “I’m just trying to find happiness and purpose, like anybody else,” he tells Nick Hasted

Rock’n’roll Doctor
A graduate of both Hollywood High School and Frank Zappa’s Mothers Of Invention, LOWELL GEORGE’s gifts were boundless: singer, songwriter, producer, arranger, frontman, slide guitarist supreme… Now, 45 years since his untimely death, his former LITTLE FEAT bandmates and assorted collaborators hymn their fallen comrade with tales involving swimming pools in Topanga, suitcases full of cash, heavy drugs and a sublime mastery of groove. “Lowell was right up there with the very best,” learns Rob Hughes. “I didn’t think anything could happen to him. To me, Lowell was invincible.”

NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD
Dead & Company start a 24-date residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas. Celebrating, we revisit 20 classic Grateful Dead shows, spanning their countercultural era to post-Jerry. Bob Weir reflects, “We found adventure in music.”

EVOLUTION IN THE HEAD
I-Ching diaries and conceptual countries, FBI surveillance and the Lost Weekend – 1973 marked a period of intense personal chaos for JOHN LENNON. Amid all this turbulence, however, he found creative sustenance with Mind Games – an album steeped in cosmic benevolence, emotional heft, introspection and, most importantly, love. As a new expanded edition shines a light on Lennon’s working methods, Peter Watts discovers an artist at a crossroads, looking inside himself for ways to move forward. “It’s my dad getting back on track, after a very experimental and volatile period,” says Sean Ono Lennon. “At times it went a bit out of control…”