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Stand-Up For Your Rights

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Live in concert, recorded at the Terrace Theatre in Long Beach, California in 1979, captures Richard Pryor at the peak of his powers and his fame as probably America's most toweringly influential black figurehead of that decade pace Ali, easily eclipsing Jesse Jackson. In fact, in one of the DVD extras here, Pryor plays the first black US President in a sketch from his celebrated but compromised and censored late-'70s NBC TV show. It could have happened. Pryor wasn't just hilarious; he had socio-political heft. People may have been laughing, but they took him seriously. This doesn't happen very often. Sacrilegious as it may sound, Eddie Murphy's Delirious (1983) probably topped Live In Concert in terms of sheer velocity and viciousness, while Chris Rock circa Roll With The New (1997) offered a yet more brute intensification of Pryor's breathless, blasphemous rat-a-tat. But you couldn't imagine Rock or Murphy running for office. Pryor, though, his righteous indignation tempered by a realist's acceptance of the status quo, one imagines could have gone all the way from the flophouse?his mother was a prostitute, his father a pimp, and he was brought up by his madam grandmother in a brothel?to the White House. If only he hadn't been derailed by too many bad movies and too much good crack cocaine... Still, Pryor, now 63 and suffering from MS, has at least left us with Live In Concert, the Live At The Apollo of black American stand-up. Remembering him for his films is as wrongheaded as basing Elvis' posthumous reputation on Harum Scarum. This is groundbreaking stuff; the missing link between Bill Cosby and NWA. It's ghetto humour with one foot in the variety era. Pryor, who began his career doing far less volatile material before his transition in the late '60s to the hyperkinetic all-swearing truth-sayer we see here, filtered Cosby's benign, observational world view through the profane iconoclasm and profound insightfulness of Lenny Bruce. For all his taboo licentiousness, he still drew as many liberal whites as he did hipster blacks?you can see them all filing in at the start of this show, just waiting to be lampooned by Pryor with all the gentle relentlessness of Jackie Mason at his Gentile-baiting best. So this is the performance on which rests Pryor's rep as the funniest motherfucker on the planet. It actually feels earlier than '79?more Nixon/Watergate-era, more '73. There's an over-reliance on "don't-animals-do-the-strangest-things" routines, all zany monkeys and dippy dogs, when really you just want Pryor in full lacerating autobiographical mode. This was the year, after all, when he got arrested for "killing" his car so that his wife couldn't take it with her when she left him, and the year of his first heart attack. The full horror of both experiences is conveyed here, Pryor sparing the audience no sordid detail or indignity. That nigger's still crazy. Hell, yeah. It's just a surprise that, considering the torment he suffered in his life, the childhood rape and the addictions to narcotics, how tame much of this seems today. He doesn't rage quite as hard as you might expect. Remember:this is a man who set himself on fire in pursuit of his cravings. But then, in a way Pryor suffers from being a pioneer, from being first. To avoid anticlimax, then, Uncut's advice would be to experience the last four decades' stand-ups in the order in which they happened (Cosby-Pryor-Murphy-Rock) and then see Live In Concert for what it is:the crucial second?and biggest?building block in the foundation of black American comedy.

Live in concert, recorded at the Terrace Theatre in Long Beach, California in 1979, captures Richard Pryor at the peak of his powers and his fame as probably America’s most toweringly influential black figurehead of that decade pace Ali, easily eclipsing Jesse Jackson. In fact, in one of the DVD extras here, Pryor plays the first black US President in a sketch from his celebrated but compromised and censored late-’70s NBC TV show. It could have happened.

Pryor wasn’t just hilarious; he had socio-political heft. People may have been laughing, but they took him seriously. This doesn’t happen very often. Sacrilegious as it may sound, Eddie Murphy’s Delirious (1983) probably topped Live In Concert in terms of sheer velocity and viciousness, while Chris Rock circa Roll With The New (1997) offered a yet more brute intensification of Pryor’s breathless, blasphemous rat-a-tat. But you couldn’t imagine Rock or Murphy running for office. Pryor, though, his righteous indignation tempered by a realist’s acceptance of the status quo, one imagines could have gone all the way from the flophouse?his mother was a prostitute, his father a pimp, and he was brought up by his madam grandmother in a brothel?to the White House. If only he hadn’t been derailed by too many bad movies and too much good crack cocaine…

Still, Pryor, now 63 and suffering from MS, has at least left us with Live In Concert, the Live At The Apollo of black American stand-up. Remembering him for his films is as wrongheaded as basing Elvis’ posthumous reputation on Harum Scarum. This is groundbreaking stuff; the missing link between Bill Cosby and NWA. It’s ghetto humour with one foot in the variety era. Pryor, who began his career doing far less volatile material before his transition in the late ’60s to the hyperkinetic all-swearing truth-sayer we see here, filtered Cosby’s benign, observational world view through the profane iconoclasm and profound insightfulness of Lenny Bruce. For all his taboo licentiousness, he still drew as many liberal whites as he did hipster blacks?you can see them all filing in at the start of this show, just waiting to be lampooned by Pryor with all the gentle relentlessness of Jackie Mason at his Gentile-baiting best.

So this is the performance on which rests Pryor’s rep as the funniest motherfucker on the planet. It actually feels earlier than ’79?more Nixon/Watergate-era, more ’73. There’s an over-reliance on “don’t-animals-do-the-strangest-things” routines, all zany monkeys and dippy dogs, when really you just want Pryor in full lacerating autobiographical mode. This was the year, after all, when he got arrested for “killing” his car so that his wife couldn’t take it with her when she left him, and the year of his first heart attack. The full horror of both experiences is conveyed here, Pryor sparing the audience no sordid detail or indignity. That nigger’s still crazy. Hell, yeah.

It’s just a surprise that, considering the torment he suffered in his life, the childhood rape and the addictions to narcotics, how tame much of this seems today. He doesn’t rage quite as hard as you might expect. Remember:this is a man who set himself on fire in pursuit of his cravings. But then, in a way Pryor suffers from being a pioneer, from being first. To avoid anticlimax, then, Uncut’s advice would be to experience the last four decades’ stand-ups in the order in which they happened (Cosby-Pryor-Murphy-Rock) and then see Live In Concert for what it is:the crucial second?and biggest?building block in the foundation of black American comedy.

Primal Dream

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The Pixies' blasted mix of surf-pop-punk, coupled with Frank Black's twisted lyrical preoccupations (UFOs, classical mythology, Old Testament horror stories), created something dark and twisted, like the baby in Eraserhead; a primal and terrible thing. And now they've reconvened following their expl...

The Pixies’ blasted mix of surf-pop-punk, coupled with Frank Black’s twisted lyrical preoccupations (UFOs, classical mythology, Old Testament horror stories), created something dark and twisted, like the baby in Eraserhead; a primal and terrible thing. And now they’ve reconvened following their explosive Coachella festival appearance, bigger than ever, eclipsing even the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death. Which is as it should be, as the Pixies were the band that Nirvana most aspired to sound like.

So, who were the Pixies?

In the mid-’80s, college friends Charles Thomson, aka Black Francis, aka Frank Black, and Filipino-born guitarist Joey Santiago (native tongue: Tagalog) formed Pixies In Panoply. Via an ad reading “bassist wanted for H

Jimmy Martin – King Of Bluegrass

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Now 77, Jimmy Martin has been a bluegrass legend since he became lead singer and guitarist in Bill Monroe's band in 1949 and helped pioneer that "High Lonesome Sound" (see This Month In Americana, p98). His story is told through archive and contemporary footage, and Martin proves to be a highly engaging raconteur, although you might wish for a little more music and fewer talking heads.

Now 77, Jimmy Martin has been a bluegrass legend since he became lead singer and guitarist in Bill Monroe’s band in 1949 and helped pioneer that “High Lonesome Sound” (see This Month In Americana, p98). His story is told through archive and contemporary footage, and Martin proves to be a highly engaging raconteur, although you might wish for a little more music and fewer talking heads.

DJ Shadow – In Tune And On Time

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No matter how much his music is over-used on crap TV travel shows, there's no denying that DJ Shadow is hip hop's premier auteur. His trademark (pyro)technics signature is all over this live performance from Brixton Academy, June 2002. Performance in this context means a silhouetted, hooded man mixing up a subtle sonic brew in front of some spiffy visuals for 50 minutes, but the crowd lap it up.

No matter how much his music is over-used on crap TV travel shows, there’s no denying that DJ Shadow is hip hop’s premier auteur. His trademark (pyro)technics signature is all over this live performance from Brixton Academy, June 2002. Performance in this context means a silhouetted, hooded man mixing up a subtle sonic brew in front of some spiffy visuals for 50 minutes, but the crowd lap it up.

Elvis Presley – The Last 24 Hours

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A potentially tasteless cash-in (given that the makers can't even get the date of his death right on the back jacket), surprisingly this turns out to be an immensely watchable documentary detailing Elvis' tragic demise. The usual suspects from the "Memphis Mafia" line up to share tearjerking anecdotes about junk food and drugs ("he jurst ferkin' lurved 'em!"). Morbidly fascinating.

A potentially tasteless cash-in (given that the makers can’t even get the date of his death right on the back jacket), surprisingly this turns out to be an immensely watchable documentary detailing Elvis’ tragic demise. The usual suspects from the “Memphis Mafia” line up to share tearjerking anecdotes about junk food and drugs (“he jurst ferkin’ lurved ’em!”). Morbidly fascinating.

The Rapture – The Rapture Are Alive And Well In New York City

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An object lesson in filming a gig, this, as Patrick Daughters (director of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' stunning "Maps" promo) captures The Rapture's nervous energies in long, unfussy, elegant shots. Recorded last Christmas, the quartet still resemble?happily?enthusiastic grad students who've stumbled on the ideal disco/punk hybrid. But Daughters exploits this, making them?especially soulful-eyed frontman Luke Jenner?look at once gawky and iconic.

An object lesson in filming a gig, this, as Patrick Daughters (director of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ stunning “Maps” promo) captures The Rapture’s nervous energies in long, unfussy, elegant shots. Recorded last Christmas, the quartet still resemble?happily?enthusiastic grad students who’ve stumbled on the ideal disco/punk hybrid. But Daughters exploits this, making them?especially soulful-eyed frontman Luke Jenner?look at once gawky and iconic.

Rory Gallagher – At Rockpalast

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Two full German performances from 1976 and 1977, with the master craftsman showing how it's done on acoustic, slide and electric guitars. Caught in his prime, we see him play early favourites?"Pistol Slapper Blues" "Banker's Blues" and "Messin' With The Kid"?alongside later fare usually found on his compilations. And the rock'n'roll jam with a woozy Frankie Miller is deliciously informal.

Two full German performances from 1976 and 1977, with the master craftsman showing how it’s done on acoustic, slide and electric guitars. Caught in his prime, we see him play early favourites?”Pistol Slapper Blues” “Banker’s Blues” and “Messin’ With The Kid”?alongside later fare usually found on his compilations. And the rock’n’roll jam with a woozy Frankie Miller is deliciously informal.

Cat Stevens – Majikat

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Filmed on his final 1976 tour, before he became Yusuf Islam and rejected music, Majikat finds the artist formerly known as Cat enhancing the simplicity of songs such as "Moonshadow" and "Father & Son" with a show featuring live magicians and a stage set of Floyd-style grandeur. Less precious than on record, he proves to be a surprisingly engaging performer.

Filmed on his final 1976 tour, before he became Yusuf Islam and rejected music, Majikat finds the artist formerly known as Cat enhancing the simplicity of songs such as “Moonshadow” and “Father & Son” with a show featuring live magicians and a stage set of Floyd-style grandeur. Less precious than on record, he proves to be a surprisingly engaging performer.

Josh Rouse – The Smooth Sounds Of Josh Rouse

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It's New Year's Eve 2003, and Josh Rouse is wowing a hometown Nashville crowd with an Isley-tastic version of "Under Cold Blue Stars" that virtually melts into Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour". An excellent concert DVD in its own right, this gets five stars for the added Many Moods Of... documentary in which we see the BBC's Janice Long being visibly moved to tears. Watch and weep with her.

It’s New Year’s Eve 2003, and Josh Rouse is wowing a hometown Nashville crowd with an Isley-tastic version of “Under Cold Blue Stars” that virtually melts into Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour”. An excellent concert DVD in its own right, this gets five stars for the added Many Moods Of… documentary in which we see the BBC’s Janice Long being visibly moved to tears. Watch and weep with her.

Supergrass – Supergrass Is 10

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An exuberant two-disc anniversary set includes all the videos?the sugar-buzz of "Alright", "Late In The Day"'s pogoing in the rain, the inspired foam-puppetry of "Pumping On Your Stereo" et al. There's also home movies, unseen material, TV appearances and fresh interviews with the lads, who emerge as that rarest of musical beasts: mates first, a band second.

An exuberant two-disc anniversary set includes all the videos?the sugar-buzz of “Alright”, “Late In The Day”‘s pogoing in the rain, the inspired foam-puppetry of “Pumping On Your Stereo” et al. There’s also home movies, unseen material, TV appearances and fresh interviews with the lads, who emerge as that rarest of musical beasts: mates first, a band second.

Thin Lizzy – At Rockpalast

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It's not an exhilarating concert. Even "The Boys Are Back In Town", "Jailbreak", "Waiting For An Alibi" and "Don't Believe A Word" lack lustre, as do Phil Lynott's eyes and the dynamics of the band. The audience is polite, excepting the odd permed headbanger. Uninspiring.

It’s not an exhilarating concert. Even “The Boys Are Back In Town”, “Jailbreak”, “Waiting For An Alibi” and “Don’t Believe A Word” lack lustre, as do Phil Lynott’s eyes and the dynamics of the band. The audience is polite, excepting the odd permed headbanger. Uninspiring.

Calexico – The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

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As a prelude to tonight's particularly goosefleshy rendition of "Not Even Stevie Nicks...", Calexico frontman Joey Burns gets to tell his Glen Campbell story. "Scottsdale, Arizona, is a very strange place," he begins. "We have friends who've been to his house there. As you enter the driveway, electric bells start playing 'Rhinestone Cowboy', then barking dogs drown out the chorus." Burns stops fingering the chords of the buckskin balladeer's biggest hit and pauses, senses a certain bafflement in the audience. "They don't care about the West over here," he says then, to no one in particular. "All they care about is Posh'n'Becks." Tucson?that specific cultural vat of the US West that Calexico mainstays Burns and drummer/percussionist John Convertino inhabit?seems in a similar way equally at odds with the hedonistic hum of LA. New Mexico seems like another world?a land of myth and religion. Of tension and renewal. As a result, their music?a hybrid of mariachi, jazzy minimalism and scorched twang?seems more like imprints of places and emotional DNA than straightforward narrative. For all their Hispanic border-straddling though, the key to their soul lies in their distinctly Californian choice of covers. An incredible mid-show blast through Love's "Alone Again Or" captures the creeping dread inherent in Bryan MacLean's sinister flipside of the great SoCal dream, while "Quattro" drifts in on Gene Clark's noirish "Silver Raven". A great walking guitar part ushers in the drunk blues of The Minutemen's "Jesus And Tequila". All three point to troubled shadows shifting beneath the sun. However paradisical the climate, Calexico?like their forebearers?belong at the dark end of the street. This is nocturnal music first and last, albeit lit with the midday glare of a desert sun. With Burns and Convertino come sometime Lambchop pedal-steeler Paul Niehaus, Volker Zander on upright bass, Martin Wenk (trumpet/accordion/vibes) and Jacob Valenzuela (trumpet), sounding as fluidly rich as they are intricate. "Pepita" (from the Adidas ad) and "El Picador" are delicate and tightly woven, rippling with Hispanic flourish and counter-flourish. The irresistible "Black Heart" and "Not Even Stevie Nicks..."?the best things they've ever written-underscores the transition from moody soundtrackers of yore to robust songsmiths. At full tilt, they're spectacular. Outsiders morphing frontier music into brave new drama. Tijuana brassnecks with balls to match.

As a prelude to tonight’s particularly goosefleshy rendition of “Not Even Stevie Nicks…”, Calexico frontman Joey Burns gets to tell his Glen Campbell story. “Scottsdale, Arizona, is a very strange place,” he begins. “We have friends who’ve been to his house there. As you enter the driveway, electric bells start playing ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’, then barking dogs drown out the chorus.” Burns stops fingering the chords of the buckskin balladeer’s biggest hit and pauses, senses a certain bafflement in the audience. “They don’t care about the West over here,” he says then, to no one in particular. “All they care about is Posh’n’Becks.”

Tucson?that specific cultural vat of the US West that Calexico mainstays Burns and drummer/percussionist John Convertino inhabit?seems in a similar way equally at odds with the hedonistic hum of LA. New Mexico seems like another world?a land of myth and religion. Of tension and renewal. As a result, their music?a hybrid of mariachi, jazzy minimalism and scorched twang?seems more like imprints of places and emotional DNA than straightforward narrative.

For all their Hispanic border-straddling though, the key to their soul lies in their distinctly Californian choice of covers. An incredible mid-show blast through Love’s “Alone Again Or” captures the creeping dread inherent in Bryan MacLean’s sinister flipside of the great SoCal dream, while “Quattro” drifts in on Gene Clark’s noirish “Silver Raven”. A great walking guitar part ushers in the drunk blues of The Minutemen’s “Jesus And Tequila”. All three point to troubled shadows shifting beneath the sun. However paradisical the climate, Calexico?like their forebearers?belong at the dark end of the street. This is nocturnal music first and last, albeit lit with the midday glare of a desert sun.

With Burns and Convertino come sometime Lambchop pedal-steeler Paul Niehaus, Volker Zander on upright bass, Martin Wenk (trumpet/accordion/vibes) and Jacob Valenzuela (trumpet), sounding as fluidly rich as they are intricate. “Pepita” (from the Adidas ad) and “El Picador” are delicate and tightly woven, rippling with Hispanic flourish and counter-flourish. The irresistible “Black Heart” and “Not Even Stevie Nicks…”?the best things they’ve ever written-underscores the transition from moody soundtrackers of yore to robust songsmiths. At full tilt, they’re spectacular. Outsiders morphing frontier music into brave new drama. Tijuana brassnecks with balls to match.

Flaming Groovy

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Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival INDIO, CALIFORNIA, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, MAY 1 AND 2 California's burning. Down the road in Palm Springs, it's 112 degrees. Bush fires are threatening to torch Santa Barbara and right here in Indio, three hours desertwards from LA, Frank Black is screaming into the glare: "Now there's a hole in the sky/And the ground's not cold/And if the ground's not cold/Everything is gonna burn/We'll all take turns..." The reformed PIXIES are the red hot triumph of the fifth Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival and you couldn't ask for a more apposite theme song for the blistering weekend than "Monkey Gone To Heaven", delivered at a speed that wouldn't shame The Ramones in the midst of a celebratory set of should-have-been hits. "Here Comes Your Man", "Debaser", "Caribou"... songs that were shunned by American radio over a decade ago now sound more fucked and alive and relevant than ever. Thom Yorke, whose RADIOHEAD have the unenviable job of following Frank and co in the Saturday headline slot, pretty much admits defeat, dedicating "Creep" to the band and telling the crowd, in an uncharacteristic address, that "the Pixies changed my life. "This is the final stop on the 'Head's year-long, worldwide tour and Thom's throat's so wrecked he's already cancelled some shows this week. Which might explain the band's rather desultory showing. Still, they cram in "You And Whose Army" as an encore and send a large proportion of the 50,000-strong crowd away happy, legging it across the lush polo field to the Sahara Tent where KRAFTWERK close down the first day with the same flawless set they've been touting around the globe on their latest re-emergence. Sunday belongs to THE CURE, who start uncertainly with the harsh, new "Lost" but build to something approaching their ancient majesty with a set that includes their poppier nuggets "Boys Don't Cry", "Just Like Heaven" and "Pictures Of You." The American press is calling Smith's hoary bunch "the mother of all emo bands" and, with the forthcoming Ross Robinson-produced album titled defiantly and definitively The Cure, they seem to have rediscovered a focus they've been lacking for years. Prior to all the lipstick and mascara, Wayne Coyne cheekily tries to steal The Cure's thunder by appearing on stage with THE FLAMING LIPS inside a huge plastic bubble. It might have seemed a good idea at the time, but staggering out over the crowd inside the wobbling orb takes up most of the set, which is reduced to Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, an anti-Bush harangue and a communal happy birthday to Beck's unborn child. BECK is Saturday's surprise guest. Appearing in the tiny Gobi Tent, he strums through a downhome set that includes Big Star's "Kangaroo", The Korgis' "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime" and The Kinks' "Nothin' In This World Can Stop Me Worryin' About That Girl". Elsewhere, Josh Homme's DESERT SESSIONS ensemble unleashes some goth splendour and guest appearances from The Distillers' Brody Dalle and sometime Queen Of The Stone Age Mark Lanegan, while Jane's Addiction's PERRY FARRELL makes it five appearances in Indio in five years with an afternoon DJ set. Coachella 2004 is the first total sell-out in the Festival's history. It is now America's hottest alternative rock ticket. Quite literally.

Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival

INDIO, CALIFORNIA, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, MAY 1 AND 2

California’s burning. Down the road in Palm Springs, it’s 112 degrees. Bush fires are threatening to torch Santa Barbara and right here in Indio, three hours desertwards from LA, Frank Black is screaming into the glare: “Now there’s a hole in the sky/And the ground’s not cold/And if the ground’s not cold/Everything is gonna burn/We’ll all take turns…”

The reformed PIXIES are the red hot triumph of the fifth Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival and you couldn’t ask for a more apposite theme song for the blistering weekend than “Monkey Gone To Heaven”, delivered at a speed that wouldn’t shame The Ramones in the midst of a celebratory set of should-have-been hits. “Here Comes Your Man”, “Debaser”, “Caribou”… songs that were shunned by American radio over a decade ago now sound more fucked and alive and relevant than ever.

Thom Yorke, whose RADIOHEAD have the unenviable job of following Frank and co in the Saturday headline slot, pretty much admits defeat, dedicating “Creep” to the band and telling the crowd, in an uncharacteristic address, that “the Pixies changed my life. “This is the final stop on the ‘Head’s year-long, worldwide tour and Thom’s throat’s so wrecked he’s already cancelled some shows this week. Which might explain the band’s rather desultory showing. Still, they cram in “You And Whose Army” as an encore and send a large proportion of the 50,000-strong crowd away happy, legging it across the lush polo field to the Sahara Tent where KRAFTWERK close down the first day with the same flawless set they’ve been touting around the globe on their latest re-emergence.

Sunday belongs to THE CURE, who start uncertainly with the harsh, new “Lost” but build to something approaching their ancient majesty with a set that includes their poppier nuggets “Boys Don’t Cry”, “Just Like Heaven” and “Pictures Of You.” The American press is calling Smith’s hoary bunch “the mother of all emo bands” and, with the forthcoming Ross Robinson-produced album titled defiantly and definitively The Cure, they seem to have rediscovered a focus they’ve been lacking for years.

Prior to all the lipstick and mascara, Wayne Coyne cheekily tries to steal The Cure’s thunder by appearing on stage with THE FLAMING LIPS inside a huge plastic bubble. It might have seemed a good idea at the time, but staggering out over the crowd inside the wobbling orb takes up most of the set, which is reduced to Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, an anti-Bush harangue and a communal happy birthday to Beck’s unborn child.

BECK is Saturday’s surprise guest. Appearing in the tiny Gobi Tent, he strums through a downhome set that includes Big Star’s “Kangaroo”, The Korgis’ “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime” and The Kinks’ “Nothin’ In This World Can Stop Me Worryin’ About That Girl”. Elsewhere, Josh Homme’s DESERT SESSIONS ensemble unleashes some goth splendour and guest appearances from The Distillers’ Brody Dalle and sometime Queen Of The Stone Age Mark Lanegan, while Jane’s Addiction’s PERRY FARRELL makes it five appearances in Indio in five years with an afternoon DJ set.

Coachella 2004 is the first total sell-out in the Festival’s history. It is now America’s hottest alternative rock ticket. Quite literally.

The Wizard Of Odd

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Todd Rundgren THE COUNT BASIE THEATRE, NEW JERSEY Friday April 23, 2004 JOE'S PUB, NEW YORK Saturday April 24, 2004 WESTHAMPTON BEACH PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE, NEW YORK Sunday April 25, 2004 Until captain beefheart decides to perform at Butlins, or Squarepusher entertains the troops in the Gulf, there will be few mismatches as spectacular as the one between artist and audience on Todd Rundgren's current tour of the States to promote his acclaimed new album, Liars. Typically, Rundgren, the most recklessly uncompromising musician ever to have pop hits, makes no concessions towards the crowd of New Jersey wiseguys and their wives on Friday night or the manicured yentas in the Hamptons on Sunday. They have come in their hundreds?in fact, he's playing to around 1500 people a night, not bad for someone whose last Top 30 chart entry was in 1978?to see the winsome balladeer whose "Hello It's Me" provided their soundtrack to High School romance. His reputation as the missing link between Hendrix and Aphex, the acid-fried computer/guitar geek with the luminous highlights responsible for impenetrable, hour-long conceptualised electro-thons might precede him in the UK, but in the States he's known as a Billy Joel-style piano man, only with weird hair. Which is why the US audience gets such a shock. For a start, the backing band?The Liars?are standing inside their own individual space-rock music pods. And they're dressed outlandishly as peddlers of religious truth. Drummer Prairie Prince is a stylised Pope. On bass is ex-Utopia pretty boy Kasim Sulton as the Baptist cowboy. Guitarist Jesse Gress is a Chinese medicine man. And on keyboards is John Ferenzik the Bedouin monk. When Rundgren bounds on stage like Marilyn Manson's eccentric uncle and whips off his hooded cloak to reveal his streaky skunk mane and black sarong, and The Liars launch into two blasts of industrial metal invective called "Fascist Christ" and "I Hate My Frickin ISP", you could say the crowd are a tad surprised. He could, of course, have done a Brian Wilson and flaunted one of the best back catalogues in the business, followed by A Wizard, A True Star (aka The Smile That Saw An Official Release) in its entirety. That he doesn't is either admirable or self-destructively contrary. You get some sense of how frustrating it must have been to see Todd blow his chance at superstardom when he performed "Hello It's Me" on Midnight Special in December '73 made up like a preying mantis. Neither credibility nor eleventh-hour bids to rescue his career commercially, however, are particularly high on Todd's list of priorities. The ambition, as ever, is to perplex. This he achieves with a show of two halves, the first of which is pure sonic assault with Rundgren as deranged shaman, the second of which sees him return as a Vegas showman surrounded by The Liars, now in pimp suits of various garish hues, like some lounge act from Venus. This latter half opens with a supperclub rendition of "Born To Synthesize", with Todd as Vic Damone crooning "the red polygon's only desire/Is to get to the blue triangle" and other such metaphysical vagaries. It also includes what Rundgren dismisses backstage as "pandering", ie, Songs That People Want To Hear, notably "Just One Victory", three decades from the moment of maximum impact?the version he sang in Central Park, 1973, to 20,000 acolytes there for his 25th birthday?yet still devastatingly poignant. In between these twin attacks on the US heartland is Saturday night's amazing performance in a New York club of Up Against It, a musical that Rundgren penned in the late '80s based on the screenplay of a projected third Beatles movie by Joe Orton, with most of the original cast plus a cameo from Joe Jackson. Think Gilbert & Sullivan, with a side order of Sondheim. A bespectacled Rundgren, America's liberal arts conscience personified, narrates with the mordant wit that gets him invited regularly onto The Late Show With David Letterman. It's for charity, and the seats are 100 bucks apiece, so he prefaces the complex vocal callisthenics with a bit more solo pandering: "Song Of The Viking", "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference", "Too Far Gone" and "I Saw The Light". "That's it," he says after Tony Blackburn's former Record Of The Week. "I'm all out of cheese." You've got to applaud such a multi-talented individual so determined to defy expectations after all these years.

Todd Rundgren

THE COUNT BASIE THEATRE, NEW JERSEY

Friday April 23, 2004

JOE’S PUB, NEW YORK

Saturday April 24, 2004

WESTHAMPTON BEACH PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE, NEW YORK

Sunday April 25, 2004

Until captain beefheart decides to perform at Butlins, or Squarepusher entertains the troops in the Gulf, there will be few mismatches as spectacular as the one between artist and audience on Todd Rundgren’s current tour of the States to promote his acclaimed new album, Liars. Typically, Rundgren, the most recklessly uncompromising musician ever to have pop hits, makes no concessions towards the crowd of New Jersey wiseguys and their wives on Friday night or the manicured yentas in the Hamptons on Sunday. They have come in their hundreds?in fact, he’s playing to around 1500 people a night, not bad for someone whose last Top 30 chart entry was in 1978?to see the winsome balladeer whose “Hello It’s Me” provided their soundtrack to High School romance. His reputation as the missing link between Hendrix and Aphex, the acid-fried computer/guitar geek with the luminous highlights responsible for impenetrable, hour-long conceptualised electro-thons might precede him in the UK, but in the States he’s known as a Billy Joel-style piano man, only with weird hair.

Which is why the US audience gets such a shock. For a start, the backing band?The Liars?are standing inside their own individual space-rock music pods. And they’re dressed outlandishly as peddlers of religious truth. Drummer Prairie Prince is a stylised Pope. On bass is ex-Utopia pretty boy Kasim Sulton as the Baptist cowboy. Guitarist Jesse Gress is a Chinese medicine man. And on keyboards is John Ferenzik the Bedouin monk. When Rundgren bounds on stage like Marilyn Manson’s eccentric uncle and whips off his hooded cloak to reveal his streaky skunk mane and black sarong, and The Liars launch into two blasts of industrial metal invective called “Fascist Christ” and “I Hate My Frickin ISP”, you could say the crowd are a tad surprised. He could, of course, have done a Brian Wilson and flaunted one of the best back catalogues in the business, followed by A Wizard, A True Star (aka The Smile That Saw An Official Release) in its entirety. That he doesn’t is either admirable or self-destructively contrary. You get some sense of how frustrating it must have been to see Todd blow his chance at superstardom when he performed “Hello It’s Me” on Midnight Special in December ’73 made up like a preying mantis.

Neither credibility nor eleventh-hour bids to rescue his career commercially, however, are particularly high on Todd’s list of priorities. The ambition, as ever, is to perplex. This he achieves with a show of two halves, the first of which is pure sonic assault with Rundgren as deranged shaman, the second of which sees him return as a Vegas showman surrounded by The Liars, now in pimp suits of various garish hues, like some lounge act from Venus. This latter half opens with a supperclub rendition of “Born To Synthesize”, with Todd as Vic Damone crooning “the red polygon’s only desire/Is to get to the blue triangle” and other such metaphysical vagaries. It also includes what Rundgren dismisses backstage as “pandering”, ie, Songs That People Want To Hear, notably “Just One Victory”, three decades from the moment of maximum impact?the version he sang in Central Park, 1973, to 20,000 acolytes there for his 25th birthday?yet still devastatingly poignant.

In between these twin attacks on the US heartland is Saturday night’s amazing performance in a New York club of Up Against It, a musical that Rundgren penned in the late ’80s based on the screenplay of a projected third Beatles movie by Joe Orton, with most of the original cast plus a cameo from Joe Jackson. Think Gilbert & Sullivan, with a side order of Sondheim. A bespectacled Rundgren, America’s liberal arts conscience personified, narrates with the mordant wit that gets him invited regularly onto The Late Show With David Letterman. It’s for charity, and the seats are 100 bucks apiece, so he prefaces the complex vocal callisthenics with a bit more solo pandering: “Song Of The Viking”, “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference”, “Too Far Gone” and “I Saw The Light”. “That’s it,” he says after Tony Blackburn’s former Record Of The Week. “I’m all out of cheese.” You’ve got to applaud such a multi-talented individual so determined to defy expectations after all these years.

Carla Bozulich – I’m Gonna Stop Killing

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A companion piece to last year's sensual reimagining of Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger, Bozulich's latest offers two tasters from there ("Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain"; "Can I Sleep In Your Arms?", with Nelson duetting) alongside the outr...

A companion piece to last year’s sensual reimagining of Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger, Bozulich’s latest offers two tasters from there (“Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain”; “Can I Sleep In Your Arms?”, with Nelson duetting) alongside the outr

Jon Langford – All The Fame Of Lofty Deeds

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A concept album of sorts, the second solo release from the Mekons founder and Chicago-expat charts the rise and demise of honky-tonker Lofty Deeds as a metaphor for US history. Like all things Langford, though, it's not heavy-handed or portentous, the music rollicking like a midnight special braced against the hard wind of his uniquely British delivery. Amid the hillbilly clatter?and covers of Procol Harum ("Homburg") and Bob Wills ("Trouble In Mind")?the Welshman takes swipes at the US ("The Country Is Young") while revamping past glories with both the skiffle-guitar and bar-room piano of "Over The Cliff" and a wonderful Hank Williams lament, "Nashville Radio".

A concept album of sorts, the second solo release from the Mekons founder and Chicago-expat charts the rise and demise of honky-tonker Lofty Deeds as a metaphor for US history. Like all things Langford, though, it’s not heavy-handed or portentous, the music rollicking like a midnight special braced against the hard wind of his uniquely British delivery. Amid the hillbilly clatter?and covers of Procol Harum (“Homburg”) and Bob Wills (“Trouble In Mind”)?the Welshman takes swipes at the US (“The Country Is Young”) while revamping past glories with both the skiffle-guitar and bar-room piano of “Over The Cliff” and a wonderful Hank Williams lament, “Nashville Radio”.

Pale Horse And Rider – Moody Pike

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Brooklynite Jon DeRosa's outfit are deceptive. At face value, PHAR offer little more than a sad shuffle, the odd cracked waltz and scattered flurries of noise. But give it time and these trampled-heart melodies burrow under the skin. Last year's Uncut-endorsed These Are The New Good Times was DeRosa's stoned-slacker take on slo-mo country mores, but here he broadens the palette with the addition of Low collaborator Marc Gartman as co-songwriter and ex-Mercury Rev pedal-steeler Gerald Menke. The tone is sepia, but softly spiralling guitars, cold shivers of banjo and the bedsit-meets-prairie duality of the two leads texture the whole like a relief painting.

Brooklynite Jon DeRosa’s outfit are deceptive. At face value, PHAR offer little more than a sad shuffle, the odd cracked waltz and scattered flurries of noise. But give it time and these trampled-heart melodies burrow under the skin. Last year’s Uncut-endorsed These Are The New Good Times was DeRosa’s stoned-slacker take on slo-mo country mores, but here he broadens the palette with the addition of Low collaborator Marc Gartman as co-songwriter and ex-Mercury Rev pedal-steeler Gerald Menke. The tone is sepia, but softly spiralling guitars, cold shivers of banjo and the bedsit-meets-prairie duality of the two leads texture the whole like a relief painting.

Broadcast News

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Following the critical success of last summer's "Young Liars" EP, New York's TV On The Radio continue to come at you from all sides with their debut album. There are various precedents bundled together here?Suicide, Zappa, The Beach Boys, Sun Ra. However, a cover of the Pixies' "Mr Grieves" on "Young Liars" suggested a lineage to which you could attach Yeah Yeah Yeahs producer David Sitek and vocalist Tunde Adebimpe's outfit. Like the Pixies, they manage to combine a sense of raging intensity while being off-centre, rather than merely straight-ahead rock. Whereas the Pixies sometimes felt empty at heart, however, that organ is positively bursting in TV On The Radio. "I know your heart can't breathe what your eyes won't see," cries Adebimpe on "Dreams". It's like Brian Wilson's upper register lamentations ratcheted up yet one more notch. Now augmented by guitarist Kyp Malone, who also adds falsetto vocals, TV On The Radio still feel more like a shock-rock proposition, a crashing alternative to the often retro, posturing New York noo rawk scene, still subsisting on punk's trust fund. Opener "The Wrong Way", with its motorik electro-pulse, skittering guitars and parping horns, is a far more effective transcription of frantic, funky Manhattan than the CBGBs set ever dreamt of. The soul fibres of "Don't Love You" unravel like the relationship depicted in the lyric, and "Bomb Yourself" pumps both blood and adrenalin. The present line-up of two black to one white man ought not raise eyebrows this late on, and the band would doubtless see this as a natural coming together rather than a multi-cultural experiment. Still, with rock and pop more, not less racially polarised than 20 years ago, it is striking. "Ambulance" perhaps slyly references the (non-)issue of the band's ethnicity. But what grabs you by the lapels is their sonic colourisation, their rush of tangents, their melding of cool experimentalism with red-hot purpose. And what's most frightening is that, mighty as Desperate Youth... is, their real stone killer is probably yet to come.

Following the critical success of last summer’s “Young Liars” EP, New York’s TV On The Radio continue to come at you from all sides with their debut album. There are various precedents bundled together here?Suicide, Zappa, The Beach Boys, Sun Ra. However, a cover of the Pixies’ “Mr Grieves” on “Young Liars” suggested a lineage to which you could attach Yeah Yeah Yeahs producer David Sitek and vocalist Tunde Adebimpe’s outfit. Like the Pixies, they manage to combine a sense of raging intensity while being off-centre, rather than merely straight-ahead rock. Whereas the Pixies sometimes felt empty at heart, however, that organ is positively bursting in TV On The Radio. “I know your heart can’t breathe what your eyes won’t see,” cries Adebimpe on “Dreams”. It’s like Brian Wilson’s upper register lamentations ratcheted up yet one more notch.

Now augmented by guitarist Kyp Malone, who also adds falsetto vocals, TV On The Radio still feel more like a shock-rock proposition, a crashing alternative to the often retro, posturing New York noo rawk scene, still subsisting on punk’s trust fund. Opener “The Wrong Way”, with its motorik electro-pulse, skittering guitars and parping horns, is a far more effective transcription of frantic, funky Manhattan than the CBGBs set ever dreamt of. The soul fibres of “Don’t Love You” unravel like the relationship depicted in the lyric, and “Bomb Yourself” pumps both blood and adrenalin. The present line-up of two black to one white man ought not raise eyebrows this late on, and the band would doubtless see this as a natural coming together rather than a multi-cultural experiment. Still, with rock and pop more, not less racially polarised than 20 years ago, it is striking. “Ambulance” perhaps slyly references the (non-)issue of the band’s ethnicity.

But what grabs you by the lapels is their sonic colourisation, their rush of tangents, their melding of cool experimentalism with red-hot purpose. And what’s most frightening is that, mighty as Desperate Youth… is, their real stone killer is probably yet to come.

Grand National – Kicking The National Habit

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Grand National began life when Lawrence "La" Rudd (vocals) and Rupert Lyddon (instruments), now in their late twenties, played in a band that performed cover versions of Queen and Police songs on the west London pub circuit. The influence of "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" is less discernible on their much-delayed debut than the bleach blond boys?"Playing In the Distance", the first track Rudd and Lyddon wrote together, has the choppy urgency of "Roxanne", while throughout Rudd approximates Sting's aerated yodel. Elsewhere, touches of ska ("Boner") and ethereal dream-rock ("Litter Bin") betray a penchant for late-'70s guitar experimentation, alchemised here by a brilliant pop sheen.

Grand National began life when Lawrence “La” Rudd (vocals) and Rupert Lyddon (instruments), now in their late twenties, played in a band that performed cover versions of Queen and Police songs on the west London pub circuit. The influence of “Fat Bottomed Girls” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” is less discernible on their much-delayed debut than the bleach blond boys?”Playing In the Distance”, the first track Rudd and Lyddon wrote together, has the choppy urgency of “Roxanne”, while throughout Rudd approximates Sting’s aerated yodel. Elsewhere, touches of ska (“Boner”) and ethereal dream-rock (“Litter Bin”) betray a penchant for late-’70s guitar experimentation, alchemised here by a brilliant pop sheen.

A Girl Called Eddy

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Eddy is Erin Moran, from Greenwich Village via New Jersey, who flew to Sheffield to record this with Richard Hawley producing (and his Lowedges band backing) because "the rain suited the mood of the songs". Not just another wordy nerd or feisty fronter, Moran exhibits gorgeously gauged soul and shrewdness on a record that?and we don't say this lightly?sounds like a new Karen Carpenter album. While the deft dolour of Cowboy Junkies or the archest alt.country filters through "Tears All Over Town" or "Somebody Hurt You", her low voice and lyrical longing elevate "Girls Can Really Tear You Up Inside" and "People Used To Dream About The Future" into Hal David-writes-for-Orbison classics. Better yet, "Golden" is a "Goodbye To Love" for this millennium.

Eddy is Erin Moran, from Greenwich Village via New Jersey, who flew to Sheffield to record this with Richard Hawley producing (and his Lowedges band backing) because “the rain suited the mood of the songs”. Not just another wordy nerd or feisty fronter, Moran exhibits gorgeously gauged soul and shrewdness on a record that?and we don’t say this lightly?sounds like a new Karen Carpenter album. While the deft dolour of Cowboy Junkies or the archest alt.country filters through “Tears All Over Town” or “Somebody Hurt You”, her low voice and lyrical longing elevate “Girls Can Really Tear You Up Inside” and “People Used To Dream About The Future” into Hal David-writes-for-Orbison classics. Better yet, “Golden” is a “Goodbye To Love” for this millennium.

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