Simon Cosyns

DAVID BOWIE’S “death was no different from his life – a work of art”. Of all the myriad tributes to Britain’s dazzling “Starman” posted in January, 2016, this was perhaps the most perceptive. It re…

ON an ordinary day not so long ago, Willy Vlautin is strolling to his office in Portland, Oregon. The songwriter catches the familiar sight of “an old lady with her shopping and a mother pushing a …

GO to Dungeon Lane today and it’s strange to think it occupies a special place in Paul McCartney’s heart. Yet it will go down in pop history alongside other street names associated with him, joinin…

BROKEN Social Scene is more than just a band, it is a community. The Canadian collective is at the beating heart of Toronto’s freewheeling indie music scene. If you attempt to count the combined to…

“I WAS a bit of a Duracell bunny,” confesses Iron Maiden’s irrepressible Bruce Dickinson. “To some extent, I still am — much to the dismay of people around me! They’re like, ‘D…

IN northern Arkansas on the banks of South Fork Spring River in the region known as the Ozarks, you’ll find a tiny settlement called Saddle. Today, it comprises a modest Baptist church, an old timb…

THE Beatles are getting back to where they once belonged. They have bought back their old Apple Corps HQ at 3 Savile Row, Mayfair — a seven-storey Georgian townhouse complete with London’s most fam…

IN the weeks before we lost The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson on June 11 last year, he had two special visitors. They were the group’s surviving founder members, his first cousin Mike Love, and hi…

JASON ISBELL is a song writer’s song writer. You can tell by the company he keeps. He’ll never forget the moment some years ago when he heard a certain person singing one of his choruses back to hi…

WHO can blame Paul McCartney for glancing in the rear-view mirror on his latest record? At 83, the likely lad from Liverpool, who became a Beatle and Britain’s best-loved songwriter…