Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2017 i UNCUT

Some required Uncut-related reading for those long winter nights: a new Ultimate Music Guide to PJ Harvey; and The History Of Rock: 1981, with young Bruce Springsteen on the cover. Both in shops now, though you can also buy them from our online store – follow the links at uncut.co.uk. Bowie fans with an iPhone may be delighted to know he’s been immortalised in a clutch of emojis rolled out with iOS 10.2. It’s the Aladdin Sane look with lightning bolt, by the way – hopefully Jareth The Goblin King emojis will be part of the next update… Steve Shelley subbed for Klaus Dinger in Michael Rother’s band a few years back, and now he – along with Thurston Moore – have been recruited by Irmin Schmidt for his Can…

“I’ll give every cloud a silver lining…” ALBUM OF THE MONTH 8/10 IN the immediate aftermath of Kate Bush’s return to live performance in August 2014, following an absence of 35 years, it was almost impossible to take an objective reading. Bushmania had taken hold in the lead-up to her run of 22 dates at London’s Eventim Apollo. Every newspaper and magazine seemed awash with profiles, puff and feverish speculation; the BBC aired a new documentary; two photographic exhibitions opened in London; her songs were all over the radio, and most of her albums were heading back into the charts. Expectations were not so much high as stratospheric. Oddness abounded. On the night I attended, a man along the row shook everybody’s hand before the show began. Strangers hugged. Couples…

“I’VE been longing to make this music for years and years. Serena-Maneesh was my main focus for a long time and having a small child meant other projects were put on hold.” So says Hilma Nikolaisen of the timing of her solo debut, made with a cast of collaborators. The vocalist, bass player and (latterly) songwriter served with Norwegian shoegazers S-M between 2005-2010 in a live capacity, singing on just one track of their debut LP, as the band was very much her brother Emil’s work. “Before I joined I was just a sister – or a fan, actually” she jokes. “And I am still a fan.” In 2013, three years after S-M folded, Nikolaisen was ready to do some exploring on her own as prep for Puzzler…

14 ICED BEARS 14 Iced Bears/Wonder (reissues, 1988, 1991) OPTIC NERVE 8/10 Brighton ’80s indie poppers’ excellent two albums reissued Formed in Brighton in 1985 and playing a jaggedly melodic, JAMC-inspired take on pop, Robert Sekula’s 14 Iced Bears brought out two albums and a handful of EPs and singles before splitting in 1992. That scattered back catalogue has been plucked over several times recently – there was a career-spanning comp, a singles round-up and an album of outtakes and live tracks, as well as appearances on three of Cherry Red’s recent scene-studying boxsets. These coloured vinyl reissues of the two studio albums add to the confusion, with each containing a second record of miscellanea – outtakes, Peel Sessions (the brilliant “Miles Away”), singles (including the riotously catchy “Come Get…

“A lot of credit has to go to my family for encouraging me when I was a little kid to listen to all different styles of music, through the blues and the early pop charts, the crooners and traditional jazz, which my brother Ted followed – Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong. My other brother, Art, took me through Little Walter. He backed him up when he came to England. He backed up a lot of musicians when they came to London, like Howlin’ Wolf. Since I’ve grown up, I’ve hung out with people like Hubert Sumlin and Muddy. We still have Buddy Guy; he was a kid among all those grownups. He took us boys under his wing, us white boys who emulated his music, and felt what his brothers…

20 YOUTH DIR: PAOLO SORRENTINO Witty, wintry meditations on ageing from Sorrentino, who cast Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel as old friends seeking respite in an Alpine sanitarium – accompanied by Paul Dano and Mark Kozelek and a levitating Buddhist monk. After the velocity of his last film, The Great Beauty (The Great Gatsby reimagined as a disco fantasia), Sorrentino slowed to a more reflective place for Youth, ably abetted by Caine – terrifically dry and inscrutable. 19 SUBURRA DIR: STEFANO SOLLIMA From the team behind Romanzo Criminale and Gomorrah, Suburra was yet more gripping Italian crime drama, involving government corruption, drug addicts and a pope. Sollima satisfyingly teases out his various story strands, from Vatican to backstreet, in the manner of a quality HBO drama. Props, particularly, to Greta…

“I WAS trying to move away from the complicated Genesis stuff, go in a simpler direction. I didn’t have any lyrics prepared, but I started singing, and what came out is what you hear on ‘In The Air...’ [Peter Gabriel’s] ‘Intruder’ and [Genesis’] ‘Mama’ launched a kind of drum sound. We used to go in there for different tracks with Genesis and try to go for that kind of sound, but it never sounded the same. Whereas I think the drum sound for ‘In The Air’ defines the period, it is not of that period particularly. We all know it’s of that period, but it sounds completely new as well. It’s just weird. Everything goes in alignment and you just get it. I didn’t think about the drum fill, I…

EAT THAT QUESTION Directed by Thorsten Schütte Starring Frank Zappa Opens Dec 2 Cert 15 7/10 CHI-RAQ Directed by Spike Lee Starring Teyonah Parris Opens Dec 2 Cert 15 8/10 THE UNKNOWN GIRL Directed by Jean-Pierre, Luc Dardenne Starring Adèle Haenel Opens Dec 2 Cert TBC 7/10 SNOWDEN Directed by Oliver Stone Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt Opens Dec 9 Cert 12A 6/10 BLEED FOR THIS Directed by Ben Younger Starring Miles Teller Opens Dec 2 Cert 15 6/10…

CAN Flow Motion 1976 This record is special to me… I loved Can as a kid. I got turned on to them by a camp counsellor. I had no money, so I stole this CD from a local shop – dumb, I know – and I got caught and chased for like a quarter of a mile. I got away, breathlessly got home and tore it open, only to be totally disappointed as it sounded nothing like the earlier work. Now, though, I love this LP – it just took 25 years to sink in. I love later Can, but nothing will compare to the first time I heard Malcolm Mooney’s effortless and free singing. GRAND FUNK RAILROAD Live Album 1970 Are Grand Funk Railroad a group I grew up…

“People were coming to our shows just to get into a fight with me”JAMES CHANCE “WE didn’t think of it as being some kind of conscious movement,” says James Chance, recalling the No Wave scene that erupted in downtown New York during the late 1970s. “It was just a bunch of people who had similar aesthetic ideas. People who wanted to use rock’n’roll instrumentation and take it a lot further, into noise and atonality. The big difference with me was that I always wanted it to have a danceable bottom.” Backed by the Contortions, Chance made his fearsome reputation by blowing free jazz over agit-funk grooves with all the chaotic abandon of punk. It was a sound first documented by Brian Eno on 1978 comp No New York, featuring the…

MICHAEL CHAPMAN 50 PARADISE OF BACHELORS The redoubtable folk legend makes his first American LP, in the auspicious company of Steve Gunn’s crew. TY SEGALL Ty Segall DRAG CITY Best in a while from the hardworking garage maven, as his Lennon sneer reaches new levels of verisimilitude. MARK EITZEL Hey Mr Ferryman DÉCOR The AMC sage falls under the production influence of Bernard Butler for his first solo album in five years. TINARIWEN Elwan ANTI- The godfathers of desert blues continue their graceful evolution. Kurt Vile and Mark Lanegan guest, discreetly. ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL FEVER Julie’s Place SUB POP A notable new discovery, from Melbourne, of likely interest to fans of The Feelies, The Go-Betweens, and sundry febrile ramalams. VARIOUS ARTISTS New Orleans Funk Volume 4: Voodoo Fire In New…

Hounds Of Love EMI, 1985 Rhythmic pop-zeitgeist meets weighty concept album, Side One is frontloaded with hits while the flip features The Ninth Wave , a connected suite about a woman adrift at sea, lost in the depths of her imagination. The mixture of futuristic samples, pop nous, pagan symbolism and druidic rhythm makes for an enduring classic. All but two tracks appear on Before The Dawn . The Red Shoes EMI, 1993 Recorded during an emotional low ebb, much of Bush’s seventh studio album feels slightly flat, lacking the magic spark, but there’s still lots to enjoy, including the mighty “Lily” – which kicks off Before The Dawn – the heartbreaking “Moments Of Pleasure” – rehearsed for the stage show but ultimately dropped…

OREN AMBARCHI Hubris EDITIONS MEGO 8/10 Australian experimentalist heads for inner space Like Terry Riley’s A Rainbow In Curved Air, the 22-minute opening piece on Hubris rides a single, minimalist rhythmic pattern, which – once your ear has attuned to its nuances – is gradually revealed to be rich with endless variations. After a short intermission of lushly layered synth guitar from Jim O’Rourke, the Riley paradigm returns for a further 17-minute exploration on “Hubris 3”, this time constructed around a Giorgio Moroder-derived motif that morphs, via some spatial percussive tricks, into a compelling exercise in preternatural skronk. Utterly addictive and reality-shifting, and probably best avoided while driving or operating heavy machinery. NIGEL WILLIAMSON AMERICAN WRESTLERS Goodbye Terrible Youth FAT POSSUM 8/10 Indie loner grapples with success Gary McClure’s years…

New releases are already stacking up for the early part of 2017. Roots veterans The Sadies unveil Northern Passages , their 10th studio effort, on Yep Roc in February. The album finds the ace Canadian quartet, led by singer/guitarists Dallas and Travis Good, joined by a remarkable group of guests, among them Neil Young, Neko Case, Jon Spencer, Robyn Hitchcock, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Kurt Vile, The Mekons’ Jon Langford and R’n’B great, Andre Williams. Meanwhile, the same label hosts Stitch Of The World , the first in five years from US singer-songwriter Tift Merritt . Having spent much of the interim playing with Andrew Bird’s Hands Of Glory and Hiss Golden Messenger (she also appears on the recent Heart Like A Levee…

“I just need some place where I can lay my head” REISSUE OF THE MONTH 8/10 BY the mid-1970s, The Band were falling apart. The quality of their albums had declined precipitously since they left the East Coast for the beaches of California, and the more they toured, the more they consumed – and were consumed by – drugs, alcohol, recklessness and ego. Robbie Robertson, guitarist and chief lyricist, was burned out. “I had started to contemplate the idea that we might need to get off the road before something really bad happened,” he writes in his new memoir, Testimony. “Somewhere along the way we had lost our unity and our passion to reach higher. Self-destruction had become the power that ruled us.” Robertson hatched the idea for a final…

FOLQUE Folque PHILIPS, 1974 The sound of Steeleye Span whistling through a frozen pine forest, the debut from Oslo’s top prog-folkers is sprightly yet sombre. Trond Villa’s command of the local Hardanger fiddle and Maddy Prioress Lisa Helljesen’s vocals help find a “Matty Groves” groove on “Skjøn Jomfru” (Loveliest Virgin), with “Harpa” exploring more lovelorn Valkyrie territory. 8/10 KEBNEKAISE Kebnekaise II SILENCE, 1973 The second LP from these instrumental freakers is the folky sweet spot on their journey from stoner jammers to Afro-influenced jazz-rock noodlers. Born of a desire to electrify Swedish folk song, highlights include the propulsive, violin-laced “Horgalåten” – the missing link, perhaps, between Fairport Convention and Amon Düül II. 8/10 FUREKÅBEN Furekåben RØDE ROSER, 1971 Denmark’s answer to the ISB, these nudie hippies made two profoundly freaky…

MICHEL POLNAREFF Michel Polnareff 1966 Before he became a national star in trademark shades, Michel Polnareff played beat-rock infused with the romance and melancholy of chanson. Mostly co-written with Franck Gérald and Keith Reid, these 10 tracks here, showed off the singer’s tremulous voice and, on “La Poupée Qui Fait Non”, gritty guitar from Jimmy Page. 8/10 BRIGITTE FONTAINE Brigitte Fontaine Est… Folle! 1968 Produced by Jean-Claude Vannier, this beguiling disc followed a more trad 1966 LP, now dismissed by Fontaine. Vannier’s arrangements conjure up a surreal Parisian café on “Le Beau Cancer” or a jungle out of a Rousseau painting on “Blanche Neige”, and are as versatile as Fontaine’s voice. 8/10 FRANÇOISE HARDY La Question 1971 As the ’70s dawned, Hardy teamed up with Brazilian singer/guitarist Valeniza Zagni da…

“MOST of the songs were done in the mid-’50s – some a bit earlier and some a bit later. They’re a few years before we started. So they’re the songs that you were listening to when you were 16 or something. “I tried to pick slightly unusual numbers. As we’d done a Little Walter one, ‘Blue And Lonesome’, I thought we’d do some more. They seem to come off, the Little Walter tracks. ‘I Gotta Go’ is really fast. I remember playing it to Charlie in rehearsal a year or so ago. You can’t hear very clearly what’s on the record, so I asked him, ‘What exactly is the drummer playing on this?’ It’s got such amazing groove and acceleration. “I did a blues night in London with Pops Staples,…

“It’s because of Alexis that I became the go-to rhythm and blues player. After Alexis, the popularity of R’n’B sprang up and I played with about three or four different bands. In those days, if the trumpet player had a booking, it would be his band. You’d be in the same band, but with different name on it. It was a small world. “If it wasn’t for Ian Stewart, I don’t think I’d be in the Stones. I found out years and years later it was Stu that kept pushing to get me in the band. I was playing with Ronnie’s brother Art or someone, so at the time I was not aware of all this. “We’ve always loved the blues. It’s like saying, ‘What is it about Duke Ellington…

“I didn’t want to be the person who had to wiggle his bum and do whatever singers do” “YOU can train memories, you know,” says Phil Collins. “When I was first on tour on my own, I’d have to remember all the Genesis lyrics, my lyrics and the arrangements. I knew everybody’s parts. I had to. Now I’ve found I can remember everything.” All things considered, it is just as well Collins has such good recall. How else might he keep track of the many, diverse strands of his career: through his work on exploratory albums by Brian Eno, John Cale and Robert Fripp, and the subsequent worldwide success of his solo output. “To me, it’s a natural progression,” he admits. But his career has always been prone to improbable…

BLUE VELVET OPENS DEC 2 To whet your appetite for the return of Twin Peaks . Kyle MacLachlan finds horror in smalltown America in David Lynch’s early classic. MOANA OPENS DEC 2 Disney’s Polynesian princess teams up with a demigod for adventures in the South Pacific. Flight Of The Conchords’ Jemaine Clement plays a crab monster. SULLY OPENS DEC 2 Clint Eastwood’s latest – a true story with Tom Hanks as the titular pilot forced to land a plane in the Hudson. THE ARDENNES OPENS DEC 2 Two brothers – one fresh out of jail – try to make a fresh start. There is a girl. Things get complicated. Stuff happens in the woods. THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS 3D OPENS DEC 5 Tim…

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be in interesting places at the right time”DAVE MASON HALF a century after Traffic’s debut, Dave Mason is set to return to Britain with a show that pays tribute to the band he founded with Steve Winwood, and for whom he wrote such classic songs as “Feelin’ Alright”, “You Can All Join In” and “Hole In My Shoe”. The show, titled Traffic Jam, arrives for a nine-date tour in late February/ March, and will be the first time Mason has performed in the country of his birth since 1972. His return has inevitably sparked speculation that Winwood – the only other surviving member of the original quartet – might be persuaded to put aside years of prickliness between them and make a guest appearance. When…

“I have quite a few tattoos, but nothing that would set off an alarm in a Midwestern Christian housewife. Would I have others? If I’ve had enough beers then the future’s wide open” RYLEY Walker is driving on the Massachusetts turnpike headed towards New Haven, Connecticut, where he has a gig to play in the evening. “Oh, it’s beautiful here,” he says. “It’s a nice fall day with the leaves changing, the skies are partly cloudy.” Walker is in the throes of a late autumn/winter tour that will see him visit Europe before breaking for Christmas. Looking back over the last 12 months, it has been a strong year for the singer-songwriter, with the release of his third record, Golden Sings That Have Been Sung. The album consolidated Walker’s reputation…

Why does Appalachian music appeal to you so much? I’ve been fascinated by narrative stories for a long time, especially ones that deal with violence or apocalyptic notions. The dichotomy of describing ugly or terrifying events with poetic language is amazing to me. There’s a stark, gothic element to a lot of Appalachian ballads that’s truly incredible. I studied Appalachian music and dance in West Virginia for four years, and was fascinated by old baptist songs, or songs about labour and death, or murder ballads. There’s a depth to the music that seems to be so easily and quickly overlooked. “Rising Down” is a key song here… It was specifically written to reflect what I felt as a person of colour in America. I wanted to make a statement about…

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS Danko/ Manuel THE DIRTY SOUTH, 2004 When Jason Isbell wrote this devastating song for the Truckers’ 2004 album The Dirty South , there were three living Band members and only two gone. Isbell not only toasts his heroes but wonders if he’ll ever be able to survive the pressures that killed Danko and Manuel. “ Fifteen years ago we owned that road ,” he declares. “ Now it’s rolling over us instead .” STEVE FORBERT Wild As The Wind JUST LIKE THERE’S NOTHIN’ TO IT , 2004 Steve Forbert’s eulogy for Rick Danko presents his old friend and mentor as a study in contradictions: a man who was down to earth but wild as the wind, a musician who could do…

At the start, were The Human League an experimental band or a pop group? We were at least half an experimental band. We were a bit split because, really, we were a prog band. We loved Genesis and Van Der Graaf Generator, but we always liked pop music, too. When Martyn Ware told me at school that he liked Slade, it was like slapping me in the face! You didn’t admit you liked chart bands if you liked prog. But we did like pop. You rarely repeated yourselves musically. Was that deliberate? Right from the start, we used The Beatles as a model, and The Beatles never came out with a single where you went: “Oh yeah, they’ve done ÔHey Jude’ again.” We wanted every single not to look like…

CABARET VOLTAIRE Red Mecca ROUGH TRADE, 1981 The first, three-piece lineup of Cabaret Voltaire worked creeping dread and malevolence through jerry-built electronics and effects-drenched guitar. Red Mecca is the claustrophobic peak of their early music: everything feels alternately locked down, or stuffed full to burst. Few albums capture the hostilities of early ‘80s Britain so potently. 9/10 RICHARD H KIRK The Number Of Magic WARP, 1995 With Cabaret Voltaire winding down operations, Kirk was ready to go: with multiple projects and record labels, there were few limits to what he could do. Liberated by electronica’s lateral thinking, cryptic albums of virulent ambience like The Number Of Magic perfectly reflected their times. 8/10 SWEET EXORCIST RetroActivity WARP, 2011 A compilation of his work…

MARTIN CARTHY WITH DAVE SWARBRICK Second Album FONTANA, 1966 An early classic for folk singer/guitarist Carthy, not long out of The Three City Four and finding his feet grappling with traditional music as a solo player. Swarbrick’s accompaniment on songs like “Newlyn Town” are powerfully sympathetic: he either shadows the melody or chugs away on huffing drones. 9/10 FAIRPORT CONVENTION Liege & Lief ISLAND, 1969 It’s long been considered the classic folk-rock album of its era, to the point where the legend of Liege & Lief , and the story of loss and grief that marks its genesis, risk overshadowing the feverish creativity of the album’s arrangements, which Swarbrick took no small part in. Really, folk-rock starts here. 10/10 PETER BELLAMY The Transports: A Ballad Opera By…

THE first month of 2017 features promising returns: Michael Chapman will release 50 , produced by Steve Gunn and featuring Nathan Bowles and Bridget St John, and The Flaming Lips return with Oczy Mlody . The latest from Mark Eitzel, Hey Mr Ferryman , is also due out. In the dusty world of archives, the overlooked fruits of Bert Jansch’s ’90s are anthologised in Living In The Shadows , The Doors are caught live in the newly found tapes that make up London Fog 1966 , and there are whispers of a deluxe reissue of Prince’s Purple Rain . Until next year……

“WHEN WWII started, they cut the vinyl rate. The only records that were made were for propaganda or the big stars – Sinatra, Bing Crosby. The lacquer and all the vinyl was otherwise being used to fill the bombs. Black cats had no chance to record from 1941 until 1945. Those guys had been playing throughout those years all over the place and nothing had gone onto the record. So when vinyl became available again, there was all of this pent-up knowledge and playing. I think that’s probably got a lot to do with what you ended up with: rock’n’roll. “Rock music is another thing. I always want to make a distinction there. The rock’s easy. The rock is a very European thing. It’s similar to marching bands. But the…

I ASK JAGGER WHETHER he’s surprised it’s been 10 years since the Stones last released an album. “I know it’s a long time. I don’t really know why. I guess we’re touring a lot and nobody was that keen – I’m including myself in all this – in going in the studio. We just didn’t do it.” “Doom And Gloom” – one of two new tracks the Stones recorded for their 2012 GRRR! comp – was terrific. Are there any more like that in the back pocket? “That was a nice session,” agrees Jagger. “It was really quick, just a week. But we didn’t follow it up. When I did ‘Doom And Gloom’, I did demos for lots of others. I just carried on doing that, but we’ve never gone…

A generation of acts came of age during 12 months that demanded robust artistry WE ARE living through the age of the iconoclast. For the past few years, Uncut’s Albums Of The Year list has been dominated by solo artists rather than bands: The War On Drugs may have helmed 2014’s chart, but Adam Granduciel and co still exemplified that year’s tension between trailblazers and traditionalists, with the likes of Aphex Twin and St Vincent proving that the two traits weren’t mutually exclusive. Last year was all about diffuse stylists, with few of our top billed acts sharing common DNA. Julia Holter pipped Kendrick Lamar to the No 1 spot, while Natalie Prass and Sleaford Mods made incongruous bedfellows at the bottom end of the Top 10. In 2016, the…

10 SUBSTANCE: INSIDE NEW ORDER Peter Hook SIMON & SCHUSTER Peter Hook’s Substance revisited his banishment from New Order in anguished detail against a backdrop of orgiastic tours, awash with drink, drugs and a debauched retinue of dealers, hookers and mad roadies. Across 700 pages, all the coke-snorting, groupie-shagging and backstage bickering was a bit much. But the best of Substance was a droll manual of how not to run a band. 9 DON’T YOU LEAVE ME HERE: MY LIFE Wilko Johnson LITTLE, BROWN A book no-one expected to be reading, including its author. In 2012, Wilko was diagnosed with terminal cancer. When Uncut interviewed him a year later, he was getting ready to die. Experimental surgery saved the life he looked back on here. If many of the stories…

GENESIS Foxtrot (1973) Phil Collins aces it on connoisseurs’ Genesis choice. Never more so than on the 23-minute “Supper’s Ready”, especially “Apocalypse In 9/8”. Take that, impossible time signature! BRIAN ENO Another Green World (1975) PC plays on three songs: “Sky Saw”, “Over Fire Island” and “Zawinul/ Lava”. Further collabs with BE include Taking Tiger Mountain , Before And After Science and Music For Films . Well ambient. JOHN CALE Helen Of Troy (1975) PC met JC during the Another Green World sessions for Eno. Eno and PC provide auxiliary assistance to Cale’s gothic masterpiece. ROBERT FRIPP Exposure (1979) Another connection made during Brian Eno’s sessions. The sublime “North Star” – featuring PC alongside Eno, Fripp…

“OUR band is called Gillian Welch,” says Gillian Welch, addressing any identity confusion around the long and fruitful collaboration with her partner David Rawlings (who lends his own name to their increasingly potent parallel project, Dave Rawlings Machine). Initially, the pair seemed unlikely champions of old-time mountain music: Welch is the adopted daughter of an LA showbusiness family, and met Rawlings, an erudite Rhode Islander, at Boston’s Berklee School Of Music. Their beautifully framed absorption of US rural music, however, feels as faithful as any Tennessean sharecropper’s. The couple are celebrating 20 years of record-making with outtakes album Boots , while also preparing their back catalogue for vinyl release. It hasn’t always been an easy ride – our conversation is peppered with phrases like “another false start” and “going out…

MAN OF THE WORLD: THE PETER GREEN STORY HENRY HADAWAY ORGANIZATION 7/10 Solid portrait of one of rock’s most profoundly gifted lost boys. By Graeme Thomson REVERED by BB King, drafted in as Eric Clapton’s replacement in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers – “This guy’s much better,” said Mayall – Peter Green was more than just a gifted guitar stylist. During Steve Graham’s two-hour documentary, made in 2007 and now being released on DVD and Blu-ray, Noel Gallagher bigs up the songwriting skills of the fellow who wrote “Man Of The World”, “Oh Well”, “Albatross” and “Black Magic Woman”, while Mick Fleetwood makes the case for his under-rated voice. Yet for all his talents, or perhaps because of them, Green’s has been a somewhat tortured existence. This is a solid, no-frills telling…

PETE BURNS Dead Or Alive singer and reality star (1959-2016) PETE Burns was an indomitable presence on Liverpool’s post-punk scene, long before he became a mainstream pop sensation with Dead Or Alive. As shop assistant at Probe Records on Matthew Street, the androgynous and outspoken Burns was notorious for his attitude, summarily berating customers for their lack of musical taste and often throwing their records back at them in pure disgust. His performing career began down the street at Eric’s in November 1977, forming a trio with Pete Wylie and Julian Cope – Mystery Girls – that lasted for one gig. Just over a year later, Burns returned with goth-disco outfit Nightmares In Wax, issuing 1980’s EP “Birth Of A Nation”. The band swiftly morphed into Dead Or Alive (Burns…