Features

An Audience With… John Paul Jones

The Led Zeppelin legend has just returned with a new group, Minibus Pimps, in collaboration with Deathprod, aka Norwegian Helge Sten. Here, from Uncut’s April 2010 issue (Take 155), is a look back at the bassist and multi-instrumentalist’s other jobs… Fans and famous admirers ask Jones about his favourite instruments, bluegrass, working with REM, the Butthole Surfers and Josh Homme, and being “a bloody good choirmaster”. Interview: John Lewis ___________________

The Second Uncut Playlist Of 2014

Quickly today, as there’s an issue to be flung together, but a plug in passing for our latest Ultimate Music Guide, on sale today and dedicated to Lou Reed. More on that later.

“Have Fun With God”: Bill Callahan in dub…

Sometimes, with Bill Callahan, the focus on his records is so unwaveringly on his lyrics, it is tempting to treat them as recited poetry rather than actual music. On an old Smog record like “The Doctor Came At Dawn”, say, the music seems barely there; just a little shading to point up the melodic undertow of a baritone that often wanders closer to speech than song.

Danger Mouse – Album By Album

Twelve years after he was pulling pints in a pub in London Bridge, Brian Burton is perhaps busier than ever – he has a new Broken Bells album out on Monday (January 13), he’s been working with U2 and is rumoured to be producing the next Black Keys record. It’s been a whirlwind decade for the writer and producer better known as Danger Mouse: after making his name by daring to cross-breed The Beatles with Jay-Z, he’s gone on to work with everyone from Damon Albarn to David Lynch.

Black Dirt Oak, “Wawayanda Patent”

When you’re in the business of writing about/codifying/making up a musical scene, it always helps if you can locate its nexus. Reading the small print on record sleeves, a good few of the American musicians negotiating the space between roots music and avant-garde jamming these past few years - part of what used to be called free folk, for a while - all turn out to have recorded at Black Dirt Studios in upstate New York.

On Michael Head’s “Artorius Revisited”, and beyond…

Sometime last autumn, maybe, an EP called “Artorius Revisited” by Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band was quietly released in limited quantities. Last time he surfaced around 2006/2007, in a quixotic, thwarted and mostly transcendent musical career that now stretches back some three decades, Head and his longest-lasting configuration, Shack, were signed to Noel Gallagher’s Sour Mash label. It didn’t last.

You Really Got It! The new Uncut CD previewed

The new issue of Uncut has just gone on sale. The Kinks are on the cover and inside we have exclusive interviews with Ray and Dave Davies, who tell us what it will take for them to get back together to celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary in 2014, so we’ve titled this month’s free CD after one of their early hits.

The Best Albums Of 2014 (thus far…)

Happy new year, everyone. Since we’re into 2014 now, and (perhaps more pertinently) since all of our 2013 charts generated so much traffic to www.www.uncut.co.uk last month, I thought it’d be useful/cynical to post a Best Of 2014 (Thus Far) list.
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