Features

Plenty to be getting on with here, but a couple of things before I run this week’s list. First up, after all the talk (plugs own blog once more), Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s “Oh Susannah” is out there. Video after the jump.

Like many music fans of a certain age, John Peel turned me on to a lot of music I may otherwise only have stumbled upon much later, if at all. I remember, for instance, in July 1969, listening to his Top Gear show one weekend and hearing something that lit me up like a burning house. It didn’t sound like much else he played that afternoon and as I recall he was afterwards not altogether enthusiastic about it, as if he as wondering why, beyond the fact that it was new and wouldn’t have yet been widely heard, he’d even bothered playing it.

Simi Stone was a member of the now apparently retired The Duke & The King, alongside Simone Felice. Tonight she’s opening for Simone at the Bush Hall, a solo turn that starts with Simi on fiddle, playing a lament that sounds like it may have been first heard a century ago, a keening in the Appalachians or somewhere similarly remote and steeped in mystery and drizzle.

In 1570, a few years before he became preoccupied with alchemical quests, heretical visions and attempts to divine the language of angels, Dr John Dee was commissioned to write a government report on the state of England.

It's a busy week for film. Marvel Comics' superhero team-up Avengers Assemble arrived in cinemas last night, while yesterday the inaugural three-day Sundance London Festival opened for business at the 02 Arena with a screening Under African Skies, a documentary about the making of Paul Simon's Graceland album.

One swift month ago, I wrote a blog about Ty Segall and White Fence’s excellent Hair album, repeating a story that Segall had another couple of albums in the pipeline. Well, one has already turned up; but before we get there, perhaps check this astounding live clip of Segall, Tim ‘White Fence’ Presley, Mikal Cronin et al going for it on “Scissor People”:

In the latest issue of Uncut (Take 181, June 2012), out now, we visit Tom Petty at his California home to discuss the history of the Heartbreakers, why he's "a ridiculous control freak" and why the group are heading to the UK for the first time in 15 years – so it seems like a good time to check out this great piece by Adam Sweeting on Petty's 'lost classic', 1985's Southern Accents, from Uncut's May 2004 issue. _______________________________