Features

Scene of some devastation this morning, as we’re surrounded by crates, packing for a move to new offices on the floor below. In haste, then: this has been the soundtrack for throwing out a load of old shit these past few days. Special attention, please, to the tremendous new Pye Corner Audio business…

In the same way that Marshall amps revolutionised rock music, allowing heavy rock and metal to flourish, loop pedals have changed the state of play for solo performers. No longer having to rely on real-time performing, the first two acts on tonight at the final night of Club Uncut at The Great Escape have been able to take folk to stranger, new climes.

After last night's Hold Steady-headlined first night, Uncut's stage at The Great Escape continues tonight (May 10) with an opening set from Serafina Steer.

The storms battering the South Coast have blown themselves out by the time Club Uncut reconvenes for another year at The Great Escape festival. It’s after midnight and very nearly pitch-black in the Dome Studio just before our first night’s headliners, The Hold Steady, dramatically hit the lights, then the stage. “As the song says,” Craig Finn promises, “we’re gonna have a real good time together.”

So much good here this time out, after missing a playlist last week for various reasons. Where to start?

As Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney prepare to release their new album, Turn Blue, on Monday, we delve back into the Uncut archive and take a look at this album by album from the Ohio duo (originally printed in January 2013, Take 188). “We’ve always left things relatively unadorned,” Auerbach tells Uncut, “so this is warts’n’all music. We’re pretty blessed that things have worked out the way they have. Ever since we’ve started it’s never stopped building.” Interview: Rob Hughes ______________________ The Big Come Up

A month or so back, I sent Lee Bains III a few questions for a Q&A to run alongside my review of the Glory Fires’ “Dereconstructed” in Uncut. Bains’ answers turned out to be more thoughtful, interesting and extensive than pretty much any email interview I’ve previously conducted, so I’m pleased to run them in their entirety here…

About ten years ago, I had a series of conversations with some people preparing a new edition of Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Music. Their aim, it seemed, was to take the 84 tracks originally compiled from Smith’s collection of 78s, and subject them to a vigorous digital clean-up. How much better would these songs sound, was their reasoning, if all the grit and static was removed, leaving the performances unsullied and sharp?

I was reminiscing with an old friend over the weekend about The Specials, his favourite band. Our chat brought us to the great 1979 2-Tone Tour that featured The Specials, supported by Madness and The Selecter, a snapshot of which now duly follows.

Damon Albarn is a man of many guises, and it seems he also has an outfit to match them all. In his role as Blur frontman, he consistently favoured Fred Perry tops and oxblood Doc Martens. As a member of Gorillaz, he even went as far as to adopt an entirely different persona – the spiky-haired animated singer 2D (real name: Stuart Tusspot). For The Good, The Bad And The Queen, he favoured a Two Tone-style dark suit and a low top hat, and for his reimagining of the life of Elizabethan mystic John Dee, he went as far as to grow a beard. Tonight, he arrives on stage wearing a simple suit and tie and a pair of desert boots.