Remembering the power of rock’n’roll with TV talking head
On the record
You’ll know the face, even if you don’t recognise the music or even the name. Well, if you watch those late night ‘I Remember The ’80s’-style shows, where a load of talking heads who, it appears, weren’t even born during the decade they claim to be expert on, pontificate about the pop culture highlights of the era in question.
John Robb does remember the 1980s. And the 90s, and the 70s. Pretty well, as it happens.
Robb was the first person to write about Nirvana, he coined the term Britpop, and he documented the Stone Roses’ rise out of Manchester before anyone else was interested.
He was at every pivotal gig, and has interviewed pretty much every key player in the business, including Jordan, the queen of punk, founding father of new American rock Steve Albini, infamous Oasis co-founder Noel Gallagher, and music greats like Lemmy and
Poly Styrene.
Few others have witnessed first-hand so many important moments of the last forty years of rock history.
He’s also is a many-faceted creature. Robb formed The Membranes, the highlyinfluential post-punk band, around the same time as he began writing fanzines, which led him to writing for Sounds magazine throughout the 1980s.
Later, he infused punk with the spirit of James Brown in criminally underrated act Gold Blade.
He has also written a series of best-sellers: Punk Rock – an Oral History and The Stone Roses and the Resurrection of British Pop as well as The Art of Darkness on the Goth subculture, and a book on eco-energy boss Dale Vince, Manifesto.
Now, his website Louder Than War is currently the fifth most-read music and culture site in the UK, with its offshoot YouTube channel, and Louder Than Words book and music festival which runs in Manchester every year.
All of which is just asking to be turned into a memoir, and so Do You Believe in the Power of Rock & Roll? charts Robb’s journey from the late 1970s, when he was first caught up in punk’s high-octane thrill, to the present day, via the early days of the rave scene, the birth of electronic and techno, and myriad bands that spun off on their own idiosyncratic paths.
His book tour sees Robb don his pundit hat, as he interviews a different guest on each date including members of contemporaries such as Wire.