| As journalist, writer and broadcaster,
Neil’s
career goes back to his time on NME during the paper’s halcyon
years in the Seventies and Eighties.
Celebrated
for his pioneering writing on Bob Marley, reggae and punk – he
wrote the first ever live review of The Sex Pistols. Spencer
was NME editor between 1978 and 1985, when the paper was at the
height of its influence.
Subsequently he was a founding editor of the
men's magazine Arena, and of the jazz/art mag Straight
No Chaser. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including The
Independent, Mojo, Uncut and Elle,
and books to which he has contributed include Fatherhood (Gollancz
ed Peter Howarth), Chic Thrills, A Fashion Reader (Pandora
ed Juliet Ash) and David Bailey’s Rock and Roll Heroes.
He has worked for The Observer for many
years, writing about music and popular culture, and now contributes
a weekly sun sign column to The Observer Magazine. To
read your stars this week click here.
He is the author of True As the Stars Above,
Adventures in Modern Astrology (Gollancz 2000). To read
more about the
book click here. To read an extract from the
chapter on Ronald Reagan, click here.
Since the 1990s, Spencer has worked with film
maker Jeremy Wooding, first on a trilogy of prize-winning short
films, Paris, Brixton, Sari & Trainers and Soul
Patrol. He also co-wrote Wooding’s feature debut, Bollywood
Queen (2003), ‘Britain’s first masala musical’,
which was nominated for the World Cinema section at The Sundance
Festival 2003. To read more about all
these films click here.
Neil lives in North London with his wife and
three children. |