Features

It's a busy month for fans of Big Star and their mercurial leader, Alex Chilton. There is a new biography, Holly George-Warren's A Man Called Destruction: The Life And Music Of Alex Chilton, From Box Tops To Big Star To Backdoor Man, the news that the first two Big Star albums - for so many years, only available as a two-fer - are getting remastered and reissued and separate albums. And today this documentary, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, finally opens in UK cinemas two years on from its debut at South By South West in March 2012.

How does the most innovative guitarist of his generation spend his spare time? By writing masterful film scores and trying to reinvent how music sounds, it seems. Jonny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood soundtrack is performed at London’s Roundhouse on August 6 and 7, and here, in this piece from Uncut’s April 2011 issue (Take 167), Rob Young penetrates Greenwood’s studio lair and discovers, among other things, what Radiohead have been up to of late...

The blood has barely dried on the first series of HBO's True Detective talk has already turned to Season Two. At the time of writing, it's hard to think of an A-list actor or actress who, at some point over the last few months, hasn't had their name bandied around in connection with future series of the show.

We interviewed Eric Idle about the recent Monty Python's Total Rubbish: The Complete Collection for the August 2014 issue of Uncut. We only had room in the issue for a small chunk of the interview; so here it is in full... __________ Did making records allow Monty Python to express or try things out that you didn't do in your tv shows? Or was it a sensible marketing opportunity that you made the best of?

For a time, both Nicolas Cage and filmmaker David Gordon Green have separately been drifting away from what they do best. Joe, however, reminds us what both men are capable when the gears are shifting in the right sequence.

There's a song on this new Purling Hiss album, playing again now, that sounds more or less like "Debaser" played by Dinosaur Jr. Along with the intensely spirited debut by Mary Timony's Ex-Hex and a comp of the pre-Beachwood Sparks, Sebadoh-indebted Further, it feels a little like College Rock revisited week. Deep late '80s/early '90s vibes, good times etc.

After an otherwise mediocre start to the year, the second half of 2014 looks set to be more promising for aficionados of music films. For a start, fans of Big Star who’ve been waiting for Nothing Can Hurt Me to arrive on UK screens will finally have their patience rewarded when Drew DeNicola and Olivia Mori’s film about Alex Chilton and co finally gets a UK release next month.

A bit of a manic week, for various reasons, not least the fact that we've finished two magazines: the next issue of Uncut, which should be coming your way on July 29; and an Ultimate Music Guide dedicated to the genius of…