Features

Fans of BBC’s Sherlock will know that the legendary detective has what he calls a Memory Palace, in which he is given to roam around, looking usually for clues to mysteries galore. My own equivalent is a sort of Memory Shed, where I am inclined to potter, most recently after reading Peter Watts’ excellent cover story on The Ramones in the current Uncut.

If you were looking for a unifying thread running through HBO’s excellent new series, True Detective, then it might well be to do with faith: those who have it, those who don’t and those who may well be exploiting it for their own ends.

Deluxe reissues of all of Orange Juice’s seminal albums are out on February 3 – to celebrate that, this week’s archive delves back to November 2007 (Take 126), when the band’s frontman (and, of course, successful solo artist) takes us through the records he L.O.V.E. loves… Interview: Stephen Troussé

I was struck by a couple of tweets this morning from Peter Watts (@peter_watts and the author of this month’s Ramones cover story in Uncut). The first ran, “I read the word 'liminal' in the Standard the other day. I think that's psychogeography's 'hippie wigs in Woolworths' moment.”

Strong haul of rad gumbo here, as we’ve taken to saying. Never thought I’d want to hear another Hold Steady album after the last one, but “Teeth Dreams” pretty much reaffirmed the faith. And if you’re that way inclined, I can recommend the new Men album, too; their best, I think.

From Uncut's February 2013 issue (Take 189), the incredible Pete Seeger on Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and the enduring power of protest songs. Interview: Neil Spencer

There’s a story about Brendan Gleeson meeting unsuccessfully with a Hollywood agent to discuss furthering his acting career overseas. This was in the mid-Nineties, and until then Gleeson had largely worked in television, mostly in his native Ireland, with only a handful of minor film roles to his credit. Admittedly, Gleeson had come late to acting: he’d been a secondary school teacher in Dublin before taking up acting full time in 1991 and was now in his early forties.

It’s recently been announced that a rare live recording of Syd Barrett guesting on guitar with The Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band in Cambridge in July 1972 is to be released – so now seems like a perfect time to revisit the extensive tribute we published in Uncut just after Barrett’s death in July 2006 (Take 112, September 2006). As well as a fantastic piece written by David Cavanagh, we hear from Syd’s friends, collaborators and admirers, including David Bowie, David Gilmour, Mick Rock, Peter Jenner, Damon Albarn, Julian Cope and Kevin Ayers. Shine on…

“I want to be mothered,” Mark Kozelek sang in 1993 on “Mother”, one of the more startling tracks on the second Red House Painters album. “I want you to give attention to my belly button/Mother, I want to have bobby pins stuck in my ears.”

Anyone who’s read any of Robert Gordon’s previous books, like Can’t Be Satisfied, for instance, his great biography of Muddy Waters, will no doubt be looking forward to Respect Yourself: Stax Records And The Soul Explosion, Gordon’s history of the legendary Memphis label, which is published this month by Bloomsbury.