"No, I wouldn't like to be President but I would like to be Secretary of State for the United States."
Miles Copeland (Jan)

"I had lots of dopey notions that I could pull birds with it (a guitar). I had this sort of fantasy that I'd sing and play, you know, serenade the birds I fancied at school."
Paul Weller (Jan)

"Chas Hodges from Chas and Dave. He's God's gift to bass playing."
Phil Lynott (Jan)

"When you're asking top money for what appears to be a first class product, you can't afford mistakes like this, you naughty boy."
Max Kay finds the body of the upright Z Bass a little rough (Jan)

"The Venom is flipping loud."
Alan Kensley discovers obscenity (Jan)

"Billy Cobham can easily be achieved by pressing only the third button."
Bob Henrit reviews the Synsonics (Jan)

"So what exactly is a MicroComposer, and do I need one."
Jack Barron gets existentialist (Jan)

"Sitting by the pool sipping Pina Colada, transfixed by the tropical splendours that stare calmly back at me, I understand completely why Eddy Grant packed his bags and moved to the paradise island of Barbados."
Tony 'Bastard' Horkins (Feb)

"Ladeez and gentlemen... International Musician and Recording World magazeen are very proud to introdoose to you... all the way from Camden Town... Andy Ross and his musical teeth!"
Home recording took yet another turn as Andy Ross (now playing with Immaculate Fools) showed us how he recorded his rhythm tracks on his teeth. (May)

"Introducing the Fostex X-15..."
(May)

"An easy solution to the problem might be to pay a visit to the party concerned and introduce them to your own 'Smack-in-the-teeth Easy Settlement Plan'."
Paul Fishman re-writes the consumer-protection laws (June)

"Er, I 'd just like to say... bollocks."
Captain Sensible (Feb)

"We all do it don't we? In front of the mirror with our tennis rackets."
Def Leppard (March)

"I must admit that my trademark is a certain sort of Huntley and Palmers, biscuit tin drum sound."
Steve Lillywhite (June)

"There is a transience in music but there is also a transience in life. You can't talk about art as separate from life because it is an expression of that, and because the nature of life is in itself transient."
Annie Lennox comes on very Simone de Beauvoir at 10.00am in a Crouch End cafe (July)

"Well now I've disowned being a musician is there anything else you want to ask us?"
Mick Harvey (Birthday Party) (March)

"If you can afford a good delay great, but on basics use the loo."
Words of wisdom from home recordee, Wally Hacon (March)

"We got Rowland our new keyboard player to do one number. He's got this enormous nose so we said, 'Play it with your nose.' He actually played the whole number with his nose on the keyboard."
Captain Sensible (April)

"I wanted some thunder so I called up the studio and said, 'Can I have some thunder please.'"
Gary Kemp (Feb)

"When it comes to crash cymbals there's a lot of different things you'll need; one that goes splish, one that goes splosh, one that goes bish, one that goes bosh, and a few that go tish."
Stewart Copeland (July)

"I have to replace anybody who doesn't cut it."
Peter Collins (Jan)

"I think people have this vision of me sitting at home smoking my pipe listening to tapes of puppies being tortured."
David Byrne (Aug)

"I hated the Pistols and all they stood for."
George Martin (Aug)

"You may have noticed that after leaving a quid with your newsagent for this month's issue you were then arrested by a tall man in a large pointed hat. Well, he's a policeman and you've just underpayed..."
The Editor explains why the price has gone up (Sept)

"To hear you play is one step nearer to heaven."
Carl Hoffman, teaboy, philosopher, politician and much missed wit talking to Gaynor Sadler, harpist with the Sleeping Lions (March)

"My tip for singers is... gallons and gallons of whisky."
Ozzy Osbourne (Dec)

"Foreplay is more important than airplay."
ZZTop (Oct)

"One of the more unpleasant aspects of being a sit-down musician such as a drummer or a keyboard player, is having to put up with an uncomfortable seat. All too often this leads to various physical discomforts in latter life."
A tactful news story extolling the virtues of Martin Drew's pile-prevention cushion (April)

"A little while ago we were invited to a Lennon-McCartney tribute concert... when they took a lot of our songs and did them with the LSO. In the interval we met the Queen and there was this old fella... and he said 'What do you think about the new arrangements?' And the Queen was amazing because she said, 'Oh, no no no, the arrangements are the same. These are basically the same arrangements off the records'."
Paul McCartney (Sept)

"The sound revolution starts here... and over there."
Adrian Deevoy discovers holophony (May)

"I still use the Burns Splitsound just as much. I took some LSD one night about five years ago and decided that I was going to chisel my entire story from birth to death and I did this spiral thing, taking all the varnish off and reducing it to wood."
Jackie Leven (May)

"Proficient musicians are shit."
Succinct stuff from Mark E Smith (May)

"I've never had much faith in myself as a performer."
David Bowie (May)

"...And on the eighth day God created Birmingham... and fell about laughing."
Billy Punter (Dec)

"Suffice to say if a synthesizer appeared on one of our records, I wouldn't."
Morrissey (Oct)

"Such is the power of Pop music that by the time you read this you probably won't remember who Howard Jones is or what he has done."
Chris Maillard (Dec)

"I think if we took any dope we took it ourselves. We weren't being force-fed pills or nothing."
Eric Faulkener (ex-Bay City Roller) (Dec)

"The OB8 is great, groovy and happening."
Paul Fishman (March)