Dylan Jones on The Independent

Dylan Jones: 'A Tribe Called Quest appeared unembarrassed about having a sense of humour - unusual for gangster rap'

23 July 2011 12:00 AM

As the foundation of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" glides across the stereo, we hear Q-Tip and Phife Dawg shuffle into the picture, gibbering away as though they were in The Goon Show. And suddenly – as if from nowhere – "Can I Kick It?" is in full view. A Tribe Called Quest's jazz-rap fusions can still play all night, moving from hotel lobby to shebeen to the iPad with ease, and you can dip in and out of their tunes without any great shock to the system. With laidback loops involving Cannonball Adderley, Roy Ayers, the Average White Band and the Rotary Connection, ATCQ invented a new kind of hip-hop, a decade after the first kind.

Dylan Jones: 'The lack of music on television and the small size of CDs makes it hard for bands to market their image'

16 July 2011 12:00 AM

Twin Atlantic's "Free" is the impassioned sound of young Glasgow – fast, furious and repeatedly championed by Kerrang! magazine. The band have been around since 2007, playing festivals, getting sticky on YouTube, touring the US, and making the sort of baby pop metal that goes down well at uni. But until "Free" (the title track of their first proper album, two years on from the critically acclaimed mini-album Vivarium) they had yet to come up with a hook that might hint at immortality. As they use so much that has gone before them (their line-up, the genre, the form itself), these days groups like this – and it has to be said that there are many groups like this – find it difficult to get the traction they need.

Dylan Jones: 'Anyone who’s ever got drunk on Pina Coladas never wants sugar in their drink again'

09 July 2011 12:00 AM

Many an idea begins in jest. Especially when you're abroad, in a bar, the sun is setting, and you've just finished work for the day. There were three of us, in the Los Angeles outpost of Trader Vic's, opposite CAA, one of the biggest talent pools in town.

Dylan Jones: 'Bob Dylan once kicked Phil Ochs out of his car saying, 'You’re not a folk singer, you're a journalist'

02 July 2011 12:00 AM

Barack Obama has never spoken of his fondness for the late Phil Ochs, and it is completely possible that he has never heard of him. One of America's foremost protest singers, he described himself as a "left social democrat", and during the Sixties became a staple at civil rights rallies, student sit-ins, and anti-Vietnam marches.

Dylan Jones: 'Woody Allen’s 41st film turns into a glacial meditation on our futile love affair with the past'

25 June 2011 12:00 AM

I was in New York last week for a meeting, and through no fault of my own – honest, I'm popular, no, really, even now – I had nothing particular to do on Monday night. And so I asked the concierge to find me a ticket for Jerusalem, this I thought being the obvious way to spend an evening alone in Manhattan at this precise moment. But I had totally forgotten that Broadway is 'dark' on Mondays, meaning I had to slope off and see a film instead.

Dylan Jones: 'At the Hay Festival, most of the audience know almost as much as the people on stage, sometimes more'

18 June 2011 12:00 AM

I once interviewed Ken Livingstone in front of 500 almost motionless (read: asleep) people at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, although I had the suspicion at the time that most of them had just come in to shelter from the rain. When you see a full auditorium at the Hay Festival, you assume that most people there know almost as much as the people on stage (and in some cases, a lot more), and are looking forward to furthering the debate in some way.

Dylan Jones:'Two Door Cinema Club look not unlike any other floppy-fringed boy band of the past 30 years'

11 June 2011 12:00 AM

If you see their jaunty pop promos – old-fashioned, so weirdly refreshing – or ever watch them live, County Down band Two Door Cinema Club (so named when guitarist Sam Halliday mispronounced the name of the local Bangor cinema, Tudor Cinema) sort of crouch down, curling over their instruments, as though they've possibly only just learnt to play them – carefully watching their fingers crawl up and down the fretboard, not entirely sure where they're going to end up. This is engaging, and makes them appear even younger than they are, the best boys in their class, beavering away under an imaginary glass ceiling, effervescent and jangly in equal measure. In preppy jumpers, plimsoles and sports jackets, with floppy fringes and smiles, they look not unlike Haircut 100, Orange Juice, or any other floppy-fringed boy band of the past 30 years.

Dylan Jones: 'In the Seventies, every band who wanted to leave an impression went to the Cambridge pub in the West End'

04 June 2011 12:00 AM

The Cambridge is still there, but it isn't the same. How could it be? The Cambridge pub sits on the north-west corner of Cambridge Circus in London's West End – in 1977, just 100 yards from the Marquee, 100 yards from the 100 Club, and only 50 yards from Central Saint Martins School of Art. From 1976 to 1980, the Cambridge was the most important pub in Soho, and every band who wanted to leave an impression usually ended up there, pumping money into the jukebox, drinking bottles of Pils, and throwing shapes in their leather jackets.

Dylan Jones: 'The Perth band Tame Impala’s music is aweird, if oddly topical, mix of the old and the new'

28 May 2011 12:00 AM

Occasionally – very occasionally, mind – a group's self-awareness is acute. The Pet Shop Boys always had a keen sense of themselves, probably because they didn't become famous until Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe were approaching their thirties.

Dylan Jones: 'The Canyon Country Store in LA is still the place to go for an espresso after partying all night in the Valley'

14 May 2011 12:00 AM

The Sixties are still very much alive and kicking in Los Angeles. If you know where to look, that is. Laurel Canyon is often written about as the place that gave the world Crosby, Stills and Nash – which is obviously why a lot of people hate it – the place that inspired Joni Mitchell's "Ladies of the Canyon", Danny Sugerman's Wonderland Avenue and the neighbourhood of benign bad behaviour. Everyone from Clara Bow and Christina Applegate to Frank Zappa and Marilyn Manson has lived there, and it retains a genuine local feel – an almost implausible ambition in LA. The area has also had its fair share of dark moments, not least the Wonderland murders in 1981, when four people were bludgeoned to death.

Dylan Jones: 'Bobby Darin was a sickly child, and his weak heart coloured pretty much everything that he did'

07 May 2011 12:00 AM

"Beyond the Sea" was the "Stairway to Heaven" of its day, beginning quietly, almost casually, and then building into something of a euphoric crescendo. Bobby Darin's swinging version was definitive – it's one of the greatest singles of its year (1959), a record that sounds as wistful today as it probably did when it was released.

Dylan Jones: 'It's the minutiae of George Best’s behaviour which is the most fascinating thing'

30 April 2011 12:00 AM

By rights, your friends should never write books, principally because when they do you're a) expected to read them, and b) say exceedingly nice things about them. Which means you often have to lie. Which in the long run is no big deal, but if you know a lot of writers, that's an awful lot of lying.

Dylan Jones: 'Most people’s favourite painting is fairly obvious, as they tend to be chosen when young'

23 April 2011 12:00 AM

Everyone, I would have thought, has a favourite painting. Yes, I realise it might be a little naff to admit this – in the same way that it's a little naff to admit to having a favourite book ("Oh, I just love One Day, have you read it?"), favourite record (usually Coldplay), favourite film (The Shawshank Redemption) or (the worst, this) favourite dish (I'm not going there) – but admitting a preference for a particular painting is a difficult thing to fake with any conviction. And because it's a preference that has to be considered – I don't know anyone who innately has a favourite work of art – it's usually a fairly big window into the soul.

Dylan Jones: 'A Wild Holy Band is an unapologetic road song'

16 April 2011 12:00 AM

In case anyone was in any doubt, magazine cover-mounted gifts have always been subject to the law of diminishing returns. I have rather a lot of previous in this area, and in my time have stuck CDs, videos, DVDs, books, memory sticks, posters, leather wallets, even sunglasses on the covers of various magazines I've worked for, and I've never known how effective they've been. Not only do many readers take free gifts for granted – is there any monthly music magazine that doesn't offer a free cover-mounted CD as a matter of course? – but as so many magazines offer them these days, they have long since ceased to be special. (Giving me a free memory stick? Can't I have a man-bag instead?)

Dylan Jones: 'I'd think twice about coming to Polpetto if you’re having an affair'

09 April 2011 12:00 AM

Russell Norman and Richard Beatty's restaurant empire is growing at an impressive rate. Last month they opened Spuntino ("Little snack" in Italian) in Soho's Rupert Street, yet another take on the Venetian bacaro, but this time with a New York flourish.