Press clippings

From the mid 70s to the early 90s there was an flabbergastingly large amount of newsprint devoted to music in the UK. There were three 'serious' music papers (New Musical Express, Sounds and Melody Maker), several music mags aimed at early teens (Smash Hits, No 1) and others pitched somewhere in the middle (Record Mirror). And all these came out every week!

Then there were the monthlies (Flexipop, ZigZag, Jamming!), and occasional short-lived new mags (Noise, Debut, The Hit), as well as extensive music sections in style mags like The Face.

Strawberry Switchblade's media onslaught saw them covered in all of these mags and more besides.

If you have any Strawberry Switchblade clippings not included here, please contact us.

• Sounds live review (6 March 1982)
  Review of Strawberry Switchblade's third ever gig.
• Sounds live review (3 July 1982)
  Review of the gig on 15 June 1982 at which First Prize (see downloads page) was recorded. The band was still a four-piece
• New Musical Express feature (7 August 1982)
  The first proper piece in a music paper, predating the BBC sessions and the recording contract
• Juniper Beri Beri feature and live review (November 1982)
  A feature and live review from one of the many fanzines done by the Glasgow Postcard/Pastels scene that spawned the band
• The Face feature (November 1982)
  A brief yet strangely prescient piece from the 'Intro' section of the wanky style mag.
• Sounds live review (13 November 1982)
  A Glasgow gig reviewed by early Strawberry Switchblade champion Andrea Miller, just as the band were doing the BBC sessions
• Noise! feature (late 1982 or early 1983)
  Sizeable article and interview about the band's image, clothes and style. Another feature in another magazine but it's still Andrea Miller writing it, bless her
• Record Mirror feature (15 January 1983)
  Short piece which neverless picks up on the key elements of the early career; musical simplicity, magical witchiness, wit and polka dots
• New Musical Express live review (28 May 1983)
  Live review of a gig with The Pastels in Glasgow from - surprise surprise - Andrea Miller
• Sounds feature (6 August 1983)
  Just as Trees And Flowers is released, talking about the band's history thus far and their first gigs
• Smash Hits feature (August 1983)
  Short introductory piece as Trees And Flowers is released
• Record Mirror feature (27 August 1983)
  Brief introductory piece about how the band started
• No 1 feature (3 September 1983)
  Brief interview as Trees And Flowers takes off and moving to London looms large
• New Musical Express questionnaire (3 September 1983)
  Personal questionnaire; favourite books, favourite films, etc.
• Melody Maker feature (8 October 1983)
  Interview from a time when Trees And Flowers had just been and gone, and the band had just signed to a major record label. Interestingly, it says a new single, 'Let Her Go' recorded with live musicians is due for imminent release
• New Musical Express live review (15 October 1983)
  Live review from the intermediate stage; after the band were signed when they hired some additional musicians for gigs and the Robin Millar recordings (available on the downloads page)
• Sounds live review (22 October 1983)
  Review of showcase gig at the ICA, London
• Melody Maker live review (26 November 1983)
  Live review of gig with Specimen in Nottingham from the time when they had three backing musicians
• Sounds live review (11 August 1984)
  Live review of big open air London gig on a bill with The Damned, Spear of Destiny, Brilliant, New Model Army and others. The Strawberry Switchblade review is short and not too good, but this expansive piece of writing really captures the spirit of the event and times.
• Jamming! feature (October 1984)
  I loved Jamming! - written by people so young and passionately music-obsessed that they hadn't yet learned to write all that well. So deeply into the music are they that, uniquely, this interview doesn't mention polka dots or clothes
• Zigzag feature (October 1984)
  Quite possibly the worst piece of music journalism I've ever seen, this short article by Mike Eyles mixes pretentious verboseness with infantile questions and cliquey references, the result reading like bad philosophy badly translated
• Sounds review (27 October 1984)
  Review of Since Yesterday
• Just Seventeen feature (15 November 1984)
  Rather like the magazine 19, the fortnightly Just Seventeen was aimed at girls several years younger than the title alleged. This is a short interview as Since Yesterday was released, skimming their story so far
• New Musical Express feature (1 December 1984)
  As Since Yesterday climbs the charts, Adrian Thrills interviews the band, focussing on the fact that, despite their strong views, Strawberry Switchblade don't write political songs
• Smash Hits feature (6-19 December 1984)
  Probably the first time Strawberry Switchblade were the cover story of a magazine, the frothy but not stupid adolescent music mag Smash Hits does a basic interview
• Melody Maker live review (8 December 1984)
  Live review of London gig
• New Musical Express live review (8 December 1984)
  Ostensibly a review of the same gig as the Melody Maker piece above, it doesn't really talk about the concert but is instead a very astute and perceptive description of the band
• Melody Maker feature (26 January 1985)
  Good interview about the band's punk roots
• Record Mirror feature (26 January 1985)
  Lightweight interview covering the band's history thus far
• Look-In feature (23 February 1985)
  Look-In was a TV oriented mag for pre-teens; the issue that included this short feature also had an A-Team cartoon strip and a competition to win a Fraggle Rock lunchbox. Despite this, it's a fairly decent, if brief & shallow, story of the band
• Smash Hits questionaire (28 February-13 March 1985)
  Fabulous sparkling personal questionaire with Rose
• Let Her Go review (March 1985)
  Review of Let Her Go from unknown UK music weekly
• International Musician and Recording World Magazine feature (March 1985)
  Interview in a musicians magazine, asking technical stuff about what equipment the band use, and also covering their history and the recording of the album
• No 1 feature (23 March 1985)
  Front-cover feature interview, mainly covering the band's moving to London and Jill's agoraphobia
• Smash Hits album review (28 March-10 April 1985)
  A brief but largely positive review of the album
• Smash Hits singles reviews (28 March-10 April 1985)
  Rose and Jill review the new releases
• Sounds feature (30 March 1985)
  With Let Her Go just out the band talk about that and the imminent album release
• Beeb feature (April 1985)
  A short and basically pointless questionnaire from an infantile BBC-produced mag for preteens that tries to make everything seem breathlessly youthful and enthusiastic by putting a comma every eight words or so and using exclamation marks instead of full stops.
• Zigzag feature (April 1985)
  As the corporate pop machine sinks its teeth into the band, this intelligent interview asks how it feels
• No 1 questionaire (6 April 1985)
  'Yeahs & Yeuks'; the band's most loved and hated records by other artists.
• Record Mirror album review (6 April 1985)
  Bad review from the UK music weekly. The same page had the same reviewer giving a full-marks review for Go West's album. I think that speaks for itself.
• Musik Express Sounds album review (May 1985)
  Short and positive review of the Strawberry Switchblade album from this German music monthly. Strawberry Switchblade 'twitter with their harmonic beat like butterflies over a meadow', apparently
• Over 21 feature (June 1985)
  A good basic story-so-far from Over 21 (another of those magazines like Just Seventeen and 19, aimed at young women several years younger than the cover alleges). Although dated June, it seems to be a couple of months earlier as it mentions the new single being Let Her Go.
• No 1 feature (1 June 1985)
  Short interview with Jill about the making of the Who Knows What Love Is? video
• No 1 summer special feature (mid-1985)
  Daft summer-oriented questions from the early-teens music mag
• No 1 Magazine feature (14 September 1985)
  No 1 was a rival of Smash Hits; this is a lightweight interview about cowboys and the wild west at the time of the Jolene single
• No 1 Book 1986 'Question Time' (late 1985)
  Although No 1 was a fairly frivolous mag aimed at pubescent kids, this quick questionaire from their end of 1985 yearbook asks Rose and Jill about a load of political issues including censorship, nuclear weapons, unemployment, corporal punishment and the age of sexual consent. Great strident responses from them both, Rose's anarchistic and libertarian, Jill's benevolent and socialist
• Rose interview, unknown UK music magazine (unknown date)
  Short interview with Rose about dealing with sexism
• Personal questionnaire, unknown UK music magazine (unknown date)
  One of those shallow 'favourite colour, favourite cheese' type of things
• Record Mirror live review (18 June 1988)
  Review of London gig of Rose's 'Creation Records all-stars' band playing as Strawberry Switchblade
• New Musical Express live review (24 September 1988)
  Review of another of the gigs Rose did using the Strawberry Switchblade name with a band of Creation Records all-stars
• Q Magazine feature (March 1992)
  Short 'Where Are They Now?' interview with Rose and Jill
• The Sun, Scotland interview with Rose (28 April 2006)
  Superficial sensationalist tabloid tosh interview with Rose after Strawberry Switchlbade were named one of the best one-hit wonders of all time.

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