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The Velvet Underground

Stephen Troussé
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The Velvet Underground
With an oeuvre devoted to the poison, perversity and paranoia of the 20th century and a passion for telling tales of ambition, fame and oblivion, you couldn’t imagine a director better suited to a Velvet Underground documentary than Todd Haynes.  But though you might have hoped for some occult, o...

With an oeuvre devoted to the poison, perversity and paranoia of the 20th century and a passion for telling tales of ambition, fame and oblivion, you couldn’t imagine a director better suited to a Velvet Underground documentary than Todd Haynes.  But though you might have hoped for some occult, oneiric version of the story told via fabulist casting, phantasmagoric CGI and a little puppetry, The Velvet Underground: A Documentary Film by Todd Haynes is a story as straight as its title.

Understanding the challenge of making a movie about a band three of whose members are dead, and who left almost no live footage, Haynes has cast the net far and wide across the archives of the world for B-roll. Indeed the film is dedicated to the memory of Jonas Mekas, founder of New York’s Film-Maker’s Cooperative, who died during production and at whose early-’60s screenings Warhol began to cast his Factory superstars. The result is a loving homage to the Lower East Side and a split-screen secret history of 1960s American underground cinema from Stan Brakhage, Marie Menken and Maya Deren, to Jack Smith and Kenneth Anger.

And – overwhelmingly of course – Andy Warhol. The film opens in a squall of Cale viola, a frenzied, channel-hopping montage of 1963, and then a young Lou gazing dreamily into Andy’s impassive lens, as though seeing clearly through the storm, steadfastly focused on… what? Riches and fame (high school bandmates and his sister recall a steely determination to become “a famous rock star”)? Literary immortality as predicted by college mentor Delmore Schwartz? Or simply his own chemical and sexual oblivion (he seemed compelled to shock his school and college friends with squalid adventures in search of degradation)?

The first scene features a spiffy Cale appearing on I’ve Got A Secret, the early-’60s CBS panel show, as a token avant-garde wacko, fresh from an 18-hour performance of Satie. But if Haynes’ earlier investigations into rock history were propelled by genuine mystery and loss – who killed Karen Carpenter? What happened to David Bowie in the ’80s? Who on earth is Bob Dylan? – The Velvet Underground can feel a little like a diligent, almost academic tribute to the cross-cultural crosstown traffic of mid-’60s NYC, rather than an urgent enquiry into an enduring musical miracle.

Certainly Uncut-reading VU-heads will be abundantly familiar with the story of Lou as Pickwick’s jobbing songwriter meeting the conservatoire rebel Cale and together discovering the negative zone where Bo Diddley backs La Monte Young and garage-band primitivism meets transcendent drone. Mary Woronov and Amy Taubin are on hand to recall the early days of the Factory (there’s some marvellous footage of a wacked-out superstar tarot reading) and Warhol’s ambition to make the Velvets, now incorporating the lunar glamour of Nico, the house band at “the biggest discotheque in the world”. And you’ll know of the dismal sales, disastrous tours and bitter feuds that followed four of the greatest albums ever made.

There’s little fresh light cast on the band dynamics. Lou is described as behaving like a nihilistic three-year-old throughout (who Nico and Andy were nevertheless besotted with), and though Mo Tucker admits the band lost something without Cale, she has little perspective on the way she and Sterling Morrison meekly acquiesced to his sacking. Lou, Nico and Sterling are of course unavailable for comment, while Doug Yule seems to have chosen not to contribute.

The film really comes alive with the input of Jonathan Richman – the St Paul of the Velvets church, still beatifically mystified at their majesty all these years later. In truth, a simple two hours of Richman talking about just a few of the “60 to 70” Velvets shows he saw would be a beautifully compelling film in itself. He’s spied, Where’s Wally-style, in striped T-shirt in a 1968 Boston Tea Party audience he winningly describes as composed of “Harvard professors, fashion models from New York, honest-to-God juvenile delinquents, bike gangs, Grateful Dead fans and nerds like myself…”

In the absence of much other musical or critical perspective, it’s fitting that it’s Richman who comes closest to capturing the magic of the band in full flight (“It was like being in the presence of Michelangelo!”). Very slowly he describes how, at the end of the swirling, roiling storm of Sister Ray, the band would abruptly cut off, the speakers would hum and “the audience would be dead silent for f-i-v-e seconds… And then they would applaud. The Velvet Underground had hypnotised them one more time.”

Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide to The Rolling Stones

John Robinson
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Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide to The Rolling Stones
BUY THE ROLLING STONES ULTIMATE MUSIC GUIDE HERE The message, as the Rolling Stones play their first tour dates without Charlie Watts, is that the drummer isn’t only on everyone’s minds – he’s organically still part of the music. In their most recent interviews, the band have reflected...

BUY THE ROLLING STONES ULTIMATE MUSIC GUIDE HERE

The message, as the Rolling Stones play their first tour dates without Charlie Watts, is that the drummer isn’t only on everyone’s minds – he’s organically still part of the music.

In their most recent interviews, the band have reflected warmly – as you’d expect – on the drummer whose playing helped coalesce the Rolling Stones’ many musical idiosyncrasies into assets. How they enjoyed making Charlie laugh (Keith Richards). How he was “the rock” around which the rest of the music was built (Mick Jagger).

What was most telling, though, were the remarks made by Jagger about the contributions which will be made on forthcoming dates by Steve Jordan, who was Charlie’s chosen locum when he realised he wouldn’t be fit enough to play. Just as important as any guitar part, Jagger said, are the features of Watts’s playing which Jordan will need to replicate, as these are simply part of the song’s DNA – and what a fan of the music will be expecting to hear.

This updated, deluxe edition Ultimate Music Guide is a 148-page celebration of that music. In it you’ll find in-depth, updated reviews of every album in their mighty catalogue. And also some tacit questions: will 2017’s covers collection Blue & Lonesome be their last? Or might we speculate that the tracks the band were readying as the pandemic struck will be assembled into a coherent release?

You’ll also be delighted to find every new development in the Stones’ story as it developed. Reporters from NME and Melody Maker were up close and personal with the band as they played, recorded and scandalised the mainstream, and then as they became celebrity entertainers. In later years, Uncut has been there to survey the scene backstage and at the hotel to report on an august and professional band with an original take on the blues – and everything else. Charlie Watts as much as anyone.

Uncut’s Michael Bonner met him in 2016. For someone who had just made a new blues album, Charlie didn’t much rate modern blues albums (“too many guitar solos”), and was generous with his credit. On some level, he said, it was all down to the Stones’ first manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, for moving the Stones into the big league by insisting they write their own songs. “With the Beatles in front of you,” Charlie said. “you couldn’t just play the blues.”

Self-deprecatingly describing herself as “lazy”, Charlie nonetheless admitted to enjoying keeping busy with supervising the band’s graphic design. “After while you look back,” he said in a way which would be equally appropriate to describe his work with the Rolling Stones, and “when you’ve got a nice wodge of stuff, it’s nice to think ‘We did that’.”

Enjoy the magazine.

Get yours here!

Buffalo Nichols – Buffalo Nichols

Stephen Deusner
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Buffalo Nichols – Buffalo Nichols
Carl “Buffalo” Nichols opens his self-titled debut with a crisp acoustic blues riff, bending the notes upwards while he depicts himself as a deeply and irredeemably lonely man. “If you see me in your town, looking tired with my head hanging down,” he sings on Lost & Lonesome, “you may...

Carl “Buffalo” Nichols opens his self-titled debut with a crisp acoustic blues riff, bending the notes upwards while he depicts himself as a deeply and irredeemably lonely man.
“If you see me in your town, looking tired with my head hanging down,” he sings on Lost & Lonesome, “you may wonder what went wrong and why I’m alone”.

It’s a bracing introduction to an artist who uses blues to examine the world around him and who understands the historical weight of the music without being burdened by it. Nichols spends the rest of the album trying to explain himself – why he’s weary, what went wrong, how he found himself alone. He tells a sad story but one enlivened by his skills as a guitarist, his expressiveness as a singer and his insights as a lyricist.

Arriving amid a wave of artists who incorporate old blues into new sounds – including Amythyst Kiah and Tré Burt, among many others – Nichols sings and plays with the understanding that this musical form is an apt vehicle to capture this current moment in America, not despite its long history but because of it. Blues is a means of contextualising police violence, gentrification, Black Lives Matter and income inequality within a larger framework. “When my grandpa was young, he had to hold his tongue,” Nichols sings on the harrowing Another Man, “’cause they’d hang you from a bridge downtown/Now they call it stand your ground”. For him, 2021 is no different than 1921. Blues remains powerful and relevant because the conditions that inspired so much of the music still persist.

It took Nichols years to come to that conclusion. Born in Milwaukee, he taught himself to play guitar and specifically to play guitar like the artists in his mother’s record collection, such as Robert Cray and BB King. But few cities have a robust blues scene these days, let alone a blues scene open to young kids trying to learn the rules and pick up some techniques. Instead, he played in punk bands around town and, while the form didn’t leave much room for the kind of self-expression that he craved, it taught him important lessons about intensity, concision, and targeted outrage. He saw blues as a roomy museum in the United States, the province of boxsets and high-brow documentaries, something that spoke to the past rather than to the present.

Travelling throughout Europe and visiting clubs and coffeeshops, however, Nichols saw how this American music might be more closely integrated into everyday life. Upon returning to the States, he began writing songs about the state of his world, then made rough demos and field recordings at his apartment or nearby at National Recording: spare, often desolate acoustic performances usually featuring just his husk of a voice and his nimble guitar playing. Those demos became the foundation for his self-titled debut, a stunning collection of songs that treats blues less as a musical style and more as a way of seeing the world in all its glory and horror. Buffalo Nichols is not a blues revival record. It’s just a blues record.

“It’s hard to write a song while folks get murdered every day,” he exclaims on Another Man, a song he shelved after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 [see Q&A]. As difficult as this creative enterprise may be, Nichols emerges as a sharp, succinct, inventive and insightful songwriter, one who can convey complex ideas with just a few words. In fact, every song has at least one line that will stop you in your tracks, some songs two or three. One of his finest moments comes at the beginning of Living Hell, when he sings, “Only two kinds of people come here after 3:00/That’s police and crooks and they’re the same to me”. It’s a tidy rhyme but it’s that simplicity that makes it all the more powerful
and persuasive.

The world Nichols evokes is treacherous, with each song testifying to great pain and paranoia. Without sounding preachy, he lets you know that this is the state of being black in America, where death is one traffic stop away, where small mistakes have impossibly dire consequences. On Living Hell he admits that he goes to church just to hear fire-and-brimstone sermons, because the Hell of the Bible may be the only place where wrongdoings are punished, where evil men get their comeuppance. When he sings “I’m clinging to the memory of a bright and peaceful day but I really don’t remember
that things ever were that way,” it’s one of the saddest moments on the entire album.

Not every song on Buffalo Nichols is explicitly political but every song bears the weight of these constant tragedies. His protest songs mingle with love songs until you can’t distinguish one from the other: the horrors of the world drive lovers together but also rip them apart. “You’re gonna suffer anyway but it’s better with a friend,” he decides on Lost & Lonesome. How To Love is even more heartsore, as Nichols counts the lessons and scars he took from a relationship, knowing his lover took just as many of both. “The way they hurt you showed you how to love,” he sings over a jumpy guitar theme, “the way you hurt me showed me how to love”. It’s a pain that gets passed around from person to person, like a disease. However, these aren’t songs of recrimination and blame. They’re disarmingly generous, startlingly tender, especially These Things. Nichols apologises for not being a better, stronger man, for not being able to create a safehaven for himself and his lover, finally admitting that “I can’t be saved from all these things” – by which he means the things that these other songs are about.

These songs skirt pessimism by virtue of Nichols’ committed and unflinching performances as both a singer and a guitarist. His voice is always sensitive to the complexities of his lyrics, never steamrolling through a song or overplaying the emotions. As an instrumentalist, he’s energetic and nimble, pushing even the slower songs along at a brisk pace. On the first few tracks his guitar is a useful foil that can convey a certain sardonic anger, that can push back against the world when he sounds too weary to do it himself. As the album progresses, however, Nichols builds up the arrangements, adding a feverish cymbal roll to Sick Bed Blues, then a sympathetic fiddle to These Things. A full band rambles through Back On Top, which sounds like a particularly lively night at a North Mississippi juke joint.

On closer Sorry It Was You he’s joined by a tight rhythm section and an organ that sneaks around the shadows of the arrangement, before everything finally falls away so that he can add a short acoustic flourish like an exclamation point to the album. Partly because Nichols plays almost all the instruments, he doesn’t sound any less lonely with all that activity around him. But it does imply a trajectory, a journey, perhaps even an epiphany about the power of the blues to defy and to console. The world doesn’t get better, nor does he learn to view it in a different light, but Nichols knows he has a listener at the other end of the song. It’s better with a friend.

The dB’s – I Thought You Wanted To Know

Jim Wirth
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The dB’s – I Thought You Wanted To Know
In the halcyon days of New York punk club CBGBs, there was a pinball machine located in the furthest corner away from the stage. In his memoir Spy In The House Of Loud: New York Songs And Stories, dB’s co-leader Chris Stamey remembers being drawn to that part of the room on the (frequent) occasion...

In the halcyon days of New York punk club CBGBs, there was a pinball machine located in the furthest corner away from the stage. In his memoir Spy In The House Of Loud: New York Songs And Stories, dB’s co-leader Chris Stamey remembers being drawn to that part of the room on the (frequent) occasions when the band on stage wasn’t quite as thrilling as legend would have you believe.

He wrote: “When a skilled player like Dee Dee Ramone nudged it just the right way, making all the lights go off at once, I would see that old pinball machine as a metaphor for what great rock records should do: trigger some kind of instant deep-brain response, bypassing the critical facilities, beyond analysis. Just neurons flashing all over the place…
We wanted to shove the machinery. To make the lights flash off and on.”

In their initial burst of creativity, The dB’s managed to do that spectacularly well, two indie singles and a pair of UK-released 1981 LPs – Stands For deciBels and Repercussion – representing a dizzying synthesis of Television, fellow Southerners Big Star and their British Invasion heroes The Move. However, beyond the most fanatical outposts of the worldwide record shop archipelago, the guitar-and-vocals duo of Stamey and Peter Holsapple, bassist Gene Holder and drummer Will Rigby never gained much purchase, their lasting influence confined to fingerprints faintly discernible on the next generation of jangly US underground bands – REM, The Replacements, et al.

This new collection of low-budget recordings and rediscovered live material (parts of which were previously available on 1993’s Ride The Wild Tom-Tom set) captures The dB’s’ sketchy formative years, with their first low-budget A-sides – 1978’s (I Thought) You Wanted To Know, recorded with wayward Television guitarist Richard Lloyd, and the 1980 version of Holsapple’s breakneck Black And White steered by future REM co-producer Don Dixon – receiving their first official reissue. It captures a fleeting moment when The dB’s should have become power-pop contenders, and highlights the cubist twists and baroque underpinning that would condemn them to become one of the archetypal cult bands.

While they made their name in New York, all four dB’s came from Winston-Salem, South Carolina, where they had been playing in bands since the turn of the 1970s. Still teenagers, Stamey and Holsapple played alongside future Let’s Active kingpin Mitch Easter on a $1,000-valued home-released LP as Rittenhouse Square in 1972. An impatient jumble of The Kinks, Yes and Mountain, it’s not a record Holsapple plans to reissue. “It’s considered a collector’s item by people who have obviously never heard it,” he tells Uncut with a sigh. “Save yourself several hundred dollars and listen to it on YouTube.” Informed by Television, The Flamin’ Groovies and the (very local) success of Alex Chilton’s Big Star, Stamey and Rigby then came together to form Sneakers, who put out a quirky 1976 EP on Stamey’s own Carnivorous label (later renamed Car, and perhaps most famous for releasing Chris Bell’s I Am The Cosmos – the only solo record the ill-starred Big Star man put out in his lifetime).

All those years of gigging on the margins ensured that, by the time they started to rematerialise in New York in 1977, The dB’s had a command of musical dynamics that few of their DIY contemporaries could match. Their live version of The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows on this new collection is a case in point, the foursome taking perverse delight in delivering a perfectly hand-whittled take of a song that owed its existence to tape manipulation and studio trickery.

Such old-school skills helped Stamey link up with Lloyd, who went uncredited on the glorious (I Thought) You Wanted To Know – recorded with Stamey, Holder and Rigby – because he was still under contract with Elektra. However, The dB’s were not quite a functioning outfit until Holsapple arrived – fresh from an unhappy spell in Memphis. Taking courage from the taut sound of Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ This Year’s Model, the four-piece dB’s came on like a Ramones-paced ? And The Mysterians with occasional Van Der Graaf Generator time signatures.

(I Thought) You Wanted To Know shows that they cannibalised the odd song from members’ past lives (The Sneakers’ Let’s Live For The Day, and Death Garage”– the B-side of a solo Holsapple single, Big Black Truck, released on Car in 1978), but generally started afresh. Adopted by Alan Betrock, founder of New York Rocker, they recorded on four-track after hours in the magazine’s offices, but despite an abundance of killer choruses, never had much faith that the straight record industry would give them their due.

Stamey’s sardonic My Sire Wristwatch – never recorded in a studio but salvaged from a live tape – mocks a ‘new wave’ promotional item supposedly given away at a time when Seymour Stein’s label were trying to scrub the word “punk” from the musical lexicon, pointedly quoting their “new wave” slogan: “You better get behind it before it gets past you.”

However, their disdain for the dumbed-down music business conformity was married to a profound faith in what pop music could do. The dB’s were unashamed of their pre-revolutionary influences, performing loving covers of The Chambers Brothers’ Time Has Come Today and a Byrds-y take on Bob Dylan’s My Back Pages here, but they arguably had better songs of their own. The rough early versions of Holsapple’s Bad Reputation and the Sister Lovers-style Nothing Is Wrong are glorious, while Stamey’s mastery of lopsided writing is underscored by the fact that he had enough A-material to abandon Everytime Anytime and Tell Me Two Times before The dB’s got to record a proper album.

With Betrock as nominal producer, The dB’s started recording Stands For deciBels in 1980, but were unable to find the funds to finish it off, management company-turned-UK label Albion ultimately picking the band up and making a quixotic attempt to break them in Britain. The label resorted to spectacular gimmicks to try and draw attention to Stands For deciBels (cassette copies came in a ludicrous tin can) and Repercussion (each copy came with a cassette sellotaped to the front), but good reviews never translated into sales.

Stamey quit, leaving Holsapple to lead the band through two further albums (Like This and The Sound Of Music) before he became better known as the unofficial fifth member of REM on Green and Out Of Time. The dB’s continue to kind of exist; the original lineup made Falling Off The Sky in 2012, while Goin’ To The Club from this record comes with a new Stamey vocal, and he says he would have prodded his bandmates into re-recording a few more of the tracks here were it not for the pandemic.

However, if that would have been interesting, the joy of the eavesdropped recordings on (I Thought) You Wanted To Know comes in the unvarnished edges. Listen carefully and you can hear the shape of the back rooms and half-empty venues where The dB’s spun gold. Both Holsapple and Stamey have mixed feelings about their singing on these recordings, but if the high harmonies on this version of Dynamite and the glorious What’s The Matter With Me? are not perfect, they encapsulate The dB’s’ delight in creating this spectacular music for the pure joy of it; all those flippers flapping, bumpers bumping, everything flashing at once.

Two David Bowie pop-up shops are opening in London and New York

Sam Moore
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Two David Bowie pop-up shops are opening in London and New York
A pair of David Bowie pop-up shops are opening in London and New York later this month to celebrate the late artist's upcoming 75th birthday. ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover of Uncut’s December 2021 issue READ MORE: Inside Uncut’s new free posterzine, Bowie Bulletin No. 2 A ye...

A pair of David Bowie pop-up shops are opening in London and New York later this month to celebrate the late artist’s upcoming 75th birthday.

A year-long celebration of Bowie‘s 75th – which will fall on January 8, 2022 – is being planned by his estate under the name ‘Bowie 75’.

Two special ‘Bowie 75’ locations are now set to open at 14 Heddon Street in London – the location where the cover of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was shot – and 150 Wooster Street in New York City, close to where Bowie lived in the city.

Set to open to the public on October 25 until late January, the pop-ups will “offer visitors a unique and immersive career-spanning deep dive into the sound and vision of David Bowie“.

The shops will feature immersive audio and HD video screening rooms (in partnership with 360 Reality Audio), which will allow fans to be able to hear and see Bowie content for the first time in immersive audio.

David Bowie
David Bowie – Heddon St, London January 1972 by Brian Ward. Credit: The David Bowie Archive

The Bowie content in question includes hours of video footage, such as previously unseen behind-the-scenes material and rare footage from Bowie‘s Heathen and Reality eras.

Exclusive fine art photography, including gallery installations documenting Bowie‘s different eras, will also be available to view.

New Bowie merch will be on sale at the pop-up shops, as well as a limited run of LPs and CDs from both the Warner/Parlophone Records and Sony catalogues.

You can find out more information about the ‘Bowie 75’ pop-ups here.

Elsewhere, David Bowie‘s notorious ‘lost’ 2001 album Toy is finally set to be released.

Watch the first trailer for Peter Jackson’s new Beatles docuseries

Beth Webb
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Watch the first trailer for Peter Jackson’s new Beatles docuseries
A first look at The Beatles: Get Back, Peter Jackson's three-part series for Disney+, has been released. ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover of Uncut’s December 2021 issue READ MORE: Peter Jackson explains why Beatles fans will be surprised by new docuseries, Get Back Get Back will ...

A first look at The Beatles: Get Back, Peter Jackson’s three-part series for Disney+, has been released.

Get Back will made up entirely of never-before-seen and restored footage, and will transport fans back to to the band’s pivotal January 1969 recording sessions. It will document the creative process and relationship between The Beatles as they attempted to record 14 new songs in preparation for their first live concert in over two years.

The three-part series is made up of over 60 ours of original footage and more than 150 hours of unheard audio, most of which has been locked in a vault for over half a century.

Watch the trailer in full below.

The docuseries features The Beatles’ last live performance as a group for the first time in its entirety. The rooftop concert took place on London’s Savile Row. It also includes songs and classic compositions featured on the band’s final two albums, Abbey Road and Let It Be.

The episodes will premiere on Disney+ on November 25, 26 and 27.

Earlier this week, Ringo Starr has opened up about a bizarre reunion offer made to the band in 1973, which they turned down.

In a New Yorker profile on Paul McCartney it was revealed that McCartney had flown to Los Angeles to visit John Lennon that year, after his breakup with Yoko Ono.

Starr is featured in the profile talking about the band turning down “a fortune” to reunite for a concert, which proposed an opening act of a man wrestling a shark.

“We called each other and said no,” Starr said. “We were taking our own roads now.”

Johnny Marr announces details of his new double album Fever Dreams Pts 1-4

Sam Moore
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Johnny Marr announces details of his new double album Fever Dreams Pts 1-4
Johnny Marr has announced details of his new double album, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. The record will follow on from his third solo album Call The Comet, which arrived in June 2018. Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 will be released on February 25, 2022 via BMG and includes Marr's recent single "Spirit, Power ...

Johnny Marr has announced details of his new double album, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4.

The record will follow on from his third solo album Call The Comet, which arrived in June 2018.

Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 will be released on February 25, 2022 via BMG and includes Marr‘s recent single “Spirit, Power and Soul”. The first quarter of the album will be released as the Fever Dreams Pt 1 EP on Friday (October 15).

“There’s a set of influences and a very broad sound that I’ve been developing – really since getting out of The Smiths until now, and I hear it in this record,” Marr said in a statement about his new album.

“There are so many strands of music in it. We didn’t do that consciously, but I think I’ve got a vocabulary of sound. And I feel very satisfied that I’ve been able to harness it.”

Johnny Marr
Johnny Marr – ‘Fever Dreams Pts 1-4’ artwork

You can see the tracklist for Marr‘s Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 below.

1. “Spirit Power & Soul”
2. “Receiver”
3. “All These Days”
4. “Ariel”
5. “Lightning People”
6. “Hideaway Girl”
7. “Sensory Street”
8. “Tenement Time”
9. “The Speed of Love”
10. “Night and Day”
11. “Counter-Clock World”
12. “Rubicon”
13. “God’s Gift”
14. “Ghoster”
15. “The Whirl”
16. “Human”

Marr has also announced details of a new livestream, Live At The Crazy Face Factory, which will premiere online on November 10 and be available on-demand until November 14.

Curated by Marr, the livestream will offer his fans “the chance to step inside [Marr‘s] custom-built Crazy Face Factory studio where Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 was created”.

Marr will also “discuss his creative process and life in songwriting, alongside a set of full-band live performances from across his career”.

Fans who pre order Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 from here will be able to access exclusive pre-sale livestream tickets at a special price, before the general sale begins on October 20 from here.

Marr will tour with Blondie as a special guest on the latter’s Against The Odds tour in the UK next April.

The guitarist recently previewed his new music during a run of intimate gigs across the UK.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse announce new album Barn coming in December

Will Lavin
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Neil Young & Crazy Horse announce new album Barn coming in December
Neil Young & Crazy Horse have announced the release of a new album called Barn. ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover of Uncut’s December 2021 issue READ MORE: Neil Young – Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide Set to arrive on December 10, the follow-up to 2019’s Colorado comes after ...

Neil Young & Crazy Horse have announced the release of a new album called Barn.

Set to arrive on December 10, the follow-up to 2019’s Colorado comes after Young teased its arrival back in June, saying that “the Horse is back in the barn, shaking off the rust”.

“We are so happy to be back in the barn, a barn built to replicate the 1850s barn that had collapsed in exactly the same place, high in the mountains of Colorado,” Young said. He added that the personnel who have worked on the record include: Larry Cragg, Jeff Pinn, Bob Rice and Paul Davies.

In addition to the album news, Young & Crazy Horse unveiled a new track, “Song Of The Seasons”, available to stream for subscribers of his Neil Young Archives site.

The official Neil Young Archives Twitter account shared the news on Twitter, writing: “Hey now there’s a special treat for all you NYA members up on the Archives now … enjoy.”

Barn will be released on December 10 via Reprise. You can see the album’s tracklisting below.

1. “Song Of The Seasons”
2. “Heading West”
3. “Change Ain’t Never Gonna”
4. “Canerican”
5. “Shape Of You”
6. “They Might Be Lost”
7. “Human Race”
8. “Tumblin’ Thru The Years”
9. “Welcome Back”
10. “Don’t Forget Love”

Earlier this month, Young released Carnegie Hall 1970, the first release in his new official bootleg series.

The last couple of years have seen Young share a number of unreleased projects from his extensive vault, including 1975’s Homegrown and a number of live recordings like 1990’s Way Down In The Rust Bucket.

Meanwhile, Young has criticised hosting live shows during the pandemic, and called on big promoters to cancel their planned concerts.

In a recent blog post on his official website, Young labelled COVID-era gigs as “super-spreader events” and said “the big promoters are responsible” for any rise in cases that come from live shows.

“The big promoters, if they had the awareness, could stop these shows,” Young wrote in the blog post. “Live Nation, AEG, and the other big promoters could shut this down if they could just forget about making money for a while…

“They control much of the entertainment business. They hold the power to stop shows where thousands congregate and spread. It’s money that keeps it going. Money that motivates the spreading. The big promoters are responsible for super spreaders.”

Inside Uncut’s new free posterzine, Bowie Bulletin No. 2

Uncut
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Inside Uncut’s new free posterzine, Bowie Bulletin No. 2
The December 2021 issue of Uncut – in shops now and available to order online by clicking here – comes with not one but two free gifts: a 15-track CD of the month's best new music and a giant fold-out David Bowie posterzine, celebrating the upcoming release of his 'lost' album Toy. When Bowie...

The December 2021 issue of Uncut – in shops now and available to order online by clicking here – comes with not one but two free gifts: a 15-track CD of the month’s best new music and a giant fold-out David Bowie posterzine, celebrating the upcoming release of his ‘lost’ album Toy.

When Bowie recorded Toy and its B-sides, he brought into the spotlight a brace of neglected songs from the early part of his career. In our posterzine – entitled Bowie Bulletin No. 2 – the musicians who played on those ’60s and ’70s originals share their memories of the sessions and of vintage Bowie himself – travelling fast, on the cusp of breakthrough.

“I saw the potential in David as soon as we started working together in 1967,” Tony Visconti tells us. “I could see it, I could hear it. He was so driven and enthusiastic. I first met him in my publisher’s office, with a view to recording with him, not long after he’d been dropped by Deram. But I knew all about his early writing and knew he was going to be a star in some shape or form. More importantly, he knew he was a star back then.

“Even though he was still struggling to sell records, David was very persistent. He believed in what he was doing. That’s why he ended up re-recording those early songs for Toy. It was as if he decided, ‘I wrote these great songs and they were ignored. If you didn’t know about them before, you’re gonna know it now!’ He knew what he’d written and never forgot them.”

You can read much more from Tony Visconti, plus a host of other early Bowie collaborators, in Bowie Bulletin No. 2, free with the December 2021 issue of Uncut – on sale now!

Introducing our latest online exclusive: Curated By Sleaford Mods

John Robinson
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Introducing our latest online exclusive: Curated By Sleaford Mods
There were a couple of moments during one of my interviews with Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods where the difference between his past life and his present came sharply into focus. BUY NOW: Curated By Sleaford Mods We were talking, at one point, about a time some years ago when things wer...

There were a couple of moments during one of my interviews with Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods where the difference between his past life and his present came sharply into focus.

We were talking, at one point, about a time some years ago when things were not going well with his music career, when his residential situation was unstable and a promising development seemed to be a couple of under-populated gigs in London – only for his flow to be interrupted by a smiling figure at the end of the table.

“Recognised you from over there – can I have a selfie?”

“No problem.”

It’s taken about 15 years for Sleaford Mods to develop from sofa-surfing solo project founded on uncleared samples and limited-run CDRs, to being a principled duo on the point of launching an arena tour, and a happy candidate for town centre selfies. And it’s fair to say, Jason seems to be loving it. As he describes it, he had a eureka moment when “the formula” for Sleaford Mods – looping a piece of music and then shouting over it – came to him, and since then he’s been driven by a conviction to make it work.

It’s an inspiring story you can read in full in this new “Curated By…” Special Edition, in which we dive deep, with the band’s help, into the world of Sleaford Mods. As they do to their band, Jason and Andrew Fearn have fully-immersed themselves in this project, too: they’ve been interviewed on every aspect of their career, to build the fullest possible picture of their life in music. We’ve asked them about the formula, of course. And also their influences. Their beats. Their relationship. The pivotal events. All those CDRs. The key places. Even their clothes.

It’s all here. We’ve spoken to collaborators and former associates, hearing about formative experiences, key moments and enduring inspirations. We’ve jumped on a Zoom call with movie directors and tracked down local DJs. Gone with them to the venue where they met. We’ve even joined Sleaford Mods in the studio as work on new songs begins.

At this stage, one called “Pit To Pit”, conflating world vibrations during lockdown with Jason’s experiences in the vintage terracewear underworld, sounds especially promising. With that in mind, we spent some illuminating time talking to Jason about his favourite clothing. His attitude to his look seemed to mirror that he has to his band.

“Hardwearing,” he says of one piece. “Absolutely not concerned what you think about it.”

Enjoy the magazine.

Buy a copy of the magazine here. Missed one in the series? Bundles are available at the same location…

Curated By Sleaford Mods

Uncut
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Curated By Sleaford Mods
Presenting our latest online exclusive: Curated By Sleaford Mods. The full Sleaford Mods story, in their own words. Includes a massive new interview, the lowdown on every Sleaford Mods album, and making the videos. Also: the band on their influences, their relationship, their gigs, clothes, and thei...

Presenting our latest online exclusive: Curated By Sleaford Mods. The full Sleaford Mods story, in their own words. Includes a massive new interview, the lowdown on every Sleaford Mods album, and making the videos. Also: the band on their influences, their relationship, their gigs, clothes, and their new songs. More Mods!

Buy a copy here!

Michael Chapman on his remarkable career: “I used to write on anything that would move”

Tom Pinnock
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Michael Chapman on his remarkable career: “I used to write on anything that would move”
Michael Chapman quit music just the once. Returning from America in 1971, where he’d supported Cannonball Adderley, been threatened by Black Panthers and very much failed to be paid, he vowed to leave it all behind. His new life lasted about three days. ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover...

Michael Chapman quit music just the once. Returning from America in 1971, where he’d supported Cannonball Adderley, been threatened by Black Panthers and very much failed to be paid, he vowed to leave it all behind. His new life lasted about three days.

“A promoter friend of mine in Holland called,” the songwriter recalled in 2016. “I told him I’d retired and he said, ‘Oh, you don’t want to tour with The Everly Brothers, then…’
I said, ‘When does it start?’ ‘Tomorrow.’ Since then, no, I’ve not wanted to give it up. It’s not plain sailing, you know, it’s not a regular job. But there’s a saying around here, ‘If you can’t shit, get off the pot.’”

For the next 50 years, Chapman resolutely stayed on that pot, releasing records and touring at a rate that would exhaust most musicians. When he passed away last month at the age of 80, at the rustic house set between the north Pennines and Hadrian’s Wall where he’d lived since failing to quit the business a half-century before, he was revered – a no-nonsense legend, always authentic, the fully qualified survivor that the title of his second album had promised. He had gigs booked for 2022 and was busy practising.

“Very few of us make any money,” Chapman told Uncut. “That’s what we do it for, the free T-shirts and stories. But you’re always welcome at a dinner party.”

The occasion for our trip north was the release of 50, Chapman’s penultimate solo album and his first proper ‘American’ album, on North Carolina’s Paradise Of Bachelors label. In that wild landscape, Uncut found an artist excited about music, the album and the interview, keen to share his stories, his guitars and his impressive wine collection. The trucker cap stayed on everywhere except the house, where Chapman fixed visitors with a stare through his aviator glasses, warmly teasing them in his gruff, Yorkshire tones, while genuinely interested in learning their thoughts on life and music. He wasn’t always laughing, but he was, it seems, always joking.

The house was a marvel, a step back in time, heated only by an Aga and a wood fire – the kind of place where, in Chapman’s case anyway, you keep your cowboy boots on in the lounge. The walls were adorned with artful pictures of Chapman and his wife Andru, LP sleeves, posters and, of course, a huge record collection, which the guitarist would plumb throughout the evening. A Grant Green record was replaced by an electric Django Reinhardt rarity, in turn followed by a CD-R of Daniel Land live at London’s Lexington. And so on, long into the night.

Listen to Michael Kiwanuka’s stirring new song “Beautiful Life”

Sam Moore
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Listen to Michael Kiwanuka’s stirring new song “Beautiful Life”
Michael Kiwanuka has shared his latest song "Beautiful Life" - you can hear the track below. ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover of Uncut’s December 2021 issue The new single was recorded by the Mercury Prize-winning artist while he was writing and demoing new tracks for his upcoming f...

Michael Kiwanuka has shared his latest song “Beautiful Life” – you can hear the track below.

The new single was recorded by the Mercury Prize-winning artist while he was writing and demoing new tracks for his upcoming fourth record, the follow-up to 2019’s KIWANUKA.

“Beautiful Life” will serve as the title music for Orlando von Einsiedel‘s new documentary Convergence: Courage In A Crisis, which arrived on Netflix yesterday (October 12).

Recorded in London alongside producer St Francis Hotel, Kiwanuka said of “Beautiful Life”: “In this song I wanted to focus on the feeling that there’s a real strength in the human spirit when you try to look for beauty even in difficult situations.

“Of course, in some situations that becomes more and more difficult. But I just wanted to ponder on that and wonder what life would be like if I lived it like that.

“Ultimately whatever people feel from hearing the song is ok with me. But what I was trying to emit through the music was a feeling of defiance. A feeling of strength through adversity.”

Kiwanuka will headline Green Man Festival next summer and is set to provide support to Liam Gallagher during one of his sold-out shows at Knebworth.

Before that, Kiwanuka will head out on tour in May 2022 – you can check out the dates below and find tickets here.

May 2022
6 – O2 Academy, Glasgow
8 – O2 Academy, Leeds
9 – De Montford Hall, Leicester
11 – Corn Exchange, Cambridge
13 – Empress Ballroom, Blackpool
14 – Bonus Arena, Hull
17 – O2 Apollo, Manchester
18 – O2 City Hall, Newcastle
20 – Brighton Centre
21 – Pavilions, Plymouth
23 – O2 Academy, Brixton
25 – Alexandra Palace, London

Watch Billy Corgan perform pre-Smashing Pumpkins songs and rarities

Tom Skinner
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Watch Billy Corgan perform pre-Smashing Pumpkins songs and rarities
Billy Corgan dusted off some of his pre-Smashing Pumpkins tracks during a run of intimate acoustic shows this month – check out the videos below. ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover of Uncut’s December 2021 issue READ MORE: Smashing Pumpkins perform “Quiet” for the first time in ...

Billy Corgan dusted off some of his pre-Smashing Pumpkins tracks during a run of intimate acoustic shows this month – check out the videos below.

As Stereogum reports, the frontman has performed at Madame ZuZu’s tea shop in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois over the previous two weekends (on October 2/3 and October 9/10).

Footage from Corgan‘s stripped-back gig on Saturday (October 9) has since emerged on YouTube. The first half of the set consisted of songs by the musician’s early goth-rock band Marked, including opener “Now That I Feel This Way”, “First Curse” and “The Dream”.

Appearing under the banner of William Patrick Corgan Early Years 1985-1990, the singer then treated those in attendance to a string of early Pumpkins material, playing “Pain”, “The Vigil”, “There It Goes”, “With You” and more.

You can see a selection of fan-shot videos from the show below, with the full set available to watch here.

William Patrick Corgan played:

“Now That I Feel This Way”
“Pictures Of Phillip”
“First Curse”
“Mao Say Tongue #1”
“Ring Of The Shadow”
“The Dream”
“Mao Say Tongue #2”
“Pain”
“The Vigil”
“There It Goes”
“Jennifer Ever”
“With You”
“La Dolly Vita”

Band Of Horses announce new album Things Are Great, their first in five years

Will Richards
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Band Of Horses announce new album Things Are Great, their first in five years
Band Of Horses have announced details of their first new album in five years, Things Are Great. ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover of Uncut’s December 2021 issue READ MORE: Band Of Horses – Why Are You OK review The new record, which will be released on January 21, 2022, is being...

Band Of Horses have announced details of their first new album in five years, Things Are Great.

The new record, which will be released on January 21, 2022, is being previewed by its first single “Crutch”, which you can hear below.

Speaking about the new track, frontman Ben Bridwell said: “I think like a lot of my songs, ‘Crutch’ starts with something from my real life. Obviously ‘Crutch’ means some of the things that I was dependent on. My relationship for one. I think I wanted to say, ‘I’ve got a crush on you,’ and I thought it was funny how relationships also feel like crutches.

“I feel like everybody has had a time when nothing goes right and you still have to carry on. I think that feeling hits you in this song even if you don’t know what the specifics are.”

Listen to “Crutch” and see the tracklist for Things Are Great below:

1. “Warning Signs”
2. “Crutch”
3. “Tragedy of the Commons”
4. “In The Hard Times”
5. “In Need of Repair”
6. “Aftermath”
7. “Lights”
8. “Ice Night We’re Having”
9. “You Are Nice To Me”
10. “Coalinga”

Band Of Horses‘ last full-length album, Why Are You OK, came out in the summer of 2016. The following year, two members of the band, guitarist Tyler Ramsey and bassist Bill Reynolds, both quit within a couple of hours of one another.

Writing on Instagram, Ramsey announced that he would be leaving Band Of Horses to release and tour a solo record, and that he would miss “the beautifully dysfunctional family we became.” He added, fondly: “We certainly had some good times.”

Reynolds said he was moving in a slightly different direction, explaining to his Facebook followers that he wished to focus on record production and photography.

The Boo Radleys announce Keep On With Falling, their first new album in 24 years

Sam Moore
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The Boo Radleys announce Keep On With Falling, their first new album in 24 years
The Boo Radleys have announced details of Keep On With Falling, their first new album in nearly 24 years. ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover of Uncut’s December 2021 issue Tim Brown (bass/guitar/keyboards), Simon “Sice” Rowbottom (guitar/vocals) and Rob Cieka (drums) announced the...

The Boo Radleys have announced details of Keep On With Falling, their first new album in nearly 24 years.

Tim Brown (bass/guitar/keyboards), Simon “Sice” Rowbottom (guitar/vocals) and Rob Cieka (drums) announced their reunion in the summer, and last month released the EP A Full Syringe And Memories Of You.

The Boo Radleys are now set to release their first album of all-new music in nearly 24 years with Keep On With Falling, which is set to arrive on March 11, 2022 via their own Boostr label.

“The freedom of sharing files, comments, praise and concerns made it possible to quickly make music where the beauty of the songs shine through,” Brown said in a statement about the record.

The Boo Radleys
The Boo Radleys – ‘Keep On With Falling’ vinyl.

“As with all Boo Radleys music, there were no limitations on structure, instruments and sounds, but this time we all had freedom to express our thoughts about the music we were making.”

You can see the tracklist for The Boo Radleys‘ Keep On With Falling below:

1. “I’ve Had Enough I’m Out” (album version)
2. “Keep On With Falling”
3. “All Along”
4. “I Say A Lot Of Things”
5. “Tonight”
6. “A Full Syringe And Memories Of You” (album version)
7. “Call Your Name”
8. “Here She Comes Again”
9. “You And Me”
10. “I Can’t Be What You Want Me To Be”
11. “Alone Together”

The band have also shared new single “I’ve Had Enough I’m Out”, with Rowbottom explaining that the track “is a statement on the disavowal of religion, using Catholicism as its exemplar”.

“It is harmonious and melodic, as The Boo Radleys always are, and harks back to our deep, alternative 80’s influences,” he added.

The Boo Radleys will head out on tour later this month, marking their first live gigs since their 1997 Reading Festival appearance.

Exclusive! Hear a new song by outsider folk legend Michael Hurley

Sam Richards
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Exclusive! Hear a new song by outsider folk legend Michael Hurley
Outsider folk artist Michael Hurley – a big influence on Will Oldham, Cat Power and Devendra Banhart, among many others – will release his first album in 12 years on December 10. ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover of Uncut's December 2021 issue The Time Of The Foxgloves is coming ou...

Outsider folk artist Michael Hurley – a big influence on Will Oldham, Cat Power and Devendra Banhart, among many others – will release his first album in 12 years on December 10.

The Time Of The Foxgloves is coming out on No Quarter, with cover art by Hurley himself. Listen to the lead track “Boulevard” below:

The Time Of The Foxgloves was recorded at Hurley’s own Bellemeade Phonics studio in Brownsmead Hill, Oregon, and the nearby Rope Room in Astoria; guests include Gill Landry and Josephine Foster.

Pre-order the album here.

Uncut – December 2021

Uncut
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Uncut – December 2021
CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR David Bowie, Pink Floyd, REM, The Waterboys, Led Zeppelin, Modern Nature, Michael Chapman, Gil Scott-Heron, Dion, Dean Wareham and The Beatles all feature in the new Uncut, dated December 2021 and in UK shops from October 14 or available to buy on...

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

David Bowie, Pink Floyd, REM, The Waterboys, Led Zeppelin, Modern Nature, Michael Chapman, Gil Scott-Heron, Dion, Dean Wareham and The Beatles all feature in the new Uncut, dated December 2021 and in UK shops from October 14 or available to buy online now. As always, the issue comes with a free CD, this time comprising 15 tracks of the month’s best new music.

DAVID BOWIE: On the cusp of a new century, what does David Bowie do? Having plotted a dramatic course forward across four decades, he decides instead to revisit a number of songs from the earliest days of his career. But the album he records, called Toy, is consigned to Bowie’s vaults, where it has been the subject of much intense speculation ever since. To celebrate its imminent release – 21 years late! – we bring you the definitive account of David Bowie’s legendary lost album as told by Bowie’s closest collaborators and confidants. “It’s a ghost album,” Tony Visconti tells Peter Watts. “I’m so glad people are now getting to hear it, because I think some of David’s finest work is on Toy.”

OUR FREE CD! CONVERSATION PIECES: 15 fantastic new tracks, including songs by Courtney Barnett, Modern Nature, Endless Boogie, Bedouine, Richard Dawson & Circle, Tobacco City, Damon Albarn, New Age Doom & Lee “Scratch” Perry and more.

This issue of Uncut is available to buy by clicking here – with FREE delivery to the UK and reduced delivery charges for the rest of the world.

Inside the issue, you’ll find:

PINK FLOYD: From Roger Waters’ kitchen table in the South of France to the cavernous soundstages of Pinewood Studios, stadia and beyond… With a new book featuring previously unseen artwork due out this month, Gerald Scarfe rebuilds Pink Floyd’s The Wall. “They thought I was ‘fucking mad’,” he tells Nigel Williamson.

THE WATERBOYS: Riding high on the creative momentum of Fisherman’s Blues, in 1989 The Waterboys reconvened at their new spiritual home on the west coast of Ireland to make the follow-up, with a seven-piece live band that had been hitting rare heights of roots rock rapture on tour. Mike Scott’s plan to broaden the sound didn’t quite go to plan, but as a new box-set reveals, Room To Roam was far from the misfire it was initially dismissed as. Graeme Thomson gets the whole story from the artists formerly known as “The Magnificent Seven”.

GIL SCOTT-HERON: Poet, jazz musician, rap pioneer, radical activist… Gil Scott-Heron broke a lot of ground during the early ’70s. As his landmark album Pieces Of A Man turns 50, collaborators and eyewitnesses tell Sam Richards about Scott-Heron’s creative peak, the power of his songs and the importance of what he was saying: “He was serving the entire community, the entire world, by bringing these things to light…”

MODERN NATURE: Zookeeper, garage-rock avatar, avant-garde explorer… Jack Cooper had already travelled long distances before he left the city for the right kind of quiet. But while this move has given Cooper fresh perspective, what does it mean for his band, Modern Nature? Tom Pinnock joins Cooper in a field in England: “I’m after openness and expansiveness now.”

MICHAEL CHAPMAN: With Michael Chapman’s passing, we have lost a true original: an indefatigable singer-songwriter who bridged the gap between the visionary guitarists of the ’60s and their 21st century counterparts. In this interview from 2016 – much of it previously unpublished – Chapman talks Tom Pinnock through the many highlights of his remarkable and enduring career: “All there is, is freedom.”

DION: The irrepressible rock’n’roller shares his stories of a life well lived, from riding rhinos in Bronx Zoo to watching Dylan go electric – and even getting on the good side of Lou Reed. “I’m tellin’ ya!”

REM: The making of “Electrolite”.

LARAAJI: Album by album with the American multi-instrumentalist.

DEAN WAREHAM: First solo album from the man who gave us Galaxie 500 and Luna.

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

In our expansive reviews section, we take a look at new records from Damon Albarn, Bedouine, Margo Cilker, Endless Boogie, Curtis Harding, Richard Dawson & Circle, and more, and archival releases from The Beatles, Radiohead, John Coltrane, Echo & the Bunnymen, Leo Nocentelli and others. We catch Genesis and New Order live; among the films, DVDs and TV programmes reviewed are Dune, Last Night In Soho, The French Dispatch and Look Away; while in books there’s Bobby Gillespie, Paul Morley and Shane MacGowan.

Our front section, meanwhile, features Led Zeppelin, The Wedding Present, Charles Lloyd, Dead Moon and Billy Nomates, while, at the end of the magazine, Nubya Garcia reveals the records that have soundtracked her life.

You can pick up a copy of Uncut in the usual places, where open. But otherwise, readers all over the world can order a copy from here.

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

Jeff Tweedy releases two new tracks, “C’mon America” and “UR-60 Unsent”

Caleb Triscari
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Jeff Tweedy releases two new tracks, “C’mon America” and “UR-60 Unsent”
Jeff Tweedy has released two new tracks for the Sub Pop Singles Club series, "C’mon America" and "UR-60 Unsent". ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover of Uncut’s December 2021 issue READ MORE: Jeff Tweedy – Love Is The King review "C’mon America", the A-side on the seven-inch ...

Jeff Tweedy has released two new tracks for the Sub Pop Singles Club series, “C’mon America” and “UR-60 Unsent”.

“C’mon America”, the A-side on the seven-inch vinyl release, is a slacker-influenced number plucked “from an unreleased group of songs with mostly sci-fi lyrics”. Meanwhile, “UR-60 Unsent” was described by Sub Pop as “a pitiful tale of an unsent lovesick mixtape, taken from a separate batch of unreleased songs with mostly pitiful lyrics”.

Listen to the two tracks below:

The sixth volume of Sub Pop’s Singles Club will also include contributions from TV Priest, Hand Habits and Porridge Radio, among other acts. The vinyl collection is released December 7.

Tweedy released his latest solo album Love is the King in 2020, a year after Wilco released their 11th LP, Ode to Joy. The band are currently celebrating the release of Ode to Joy with a US tour, following on from their It’s Time co-headline tour with Sleater-Kinney back in August.

Since the release of Love is the King, Tweedy has performed a number of covers including Japanese Breakfast‘s “Kokomo, IN”, Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten‘s “Like I Used To” and the Ted Lasso theme. He also contributed to the debut album of the Parks and Recreation fictional band Mouse Rat.

Queen unveil limited seven-inch vinyl releases for London’s Carnaby Street pop-up store

Daniel Peters
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Queen unveil limited seven-inch vinyl releases for London’s Carnaby Street pop-up store
A new Queen pop-up store, Queen The Greatest, has unveiled a line of limited seven-inch vinyl soon for sale at London’s Carnaby Street. ORDER NOW: David Bowie is on the cover of Uncut’s December 2021 issue READ MORE: Introducing Queen: The Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide The vinyl seri...

A new Queen pop-up store, Queen The Greatest, has unveiled a line of limited seven-inch vinyl soon for sale at London’s Carnaby Street.

The vinyl series will comprise four unique editions, each release dedicated to the work of a Queen band member.

The tracks were personally curated by Brian May and Roger Taylor, with each A-side representing a hit song and the B-side a deep cut written by a respective band member. Each vinyl copy is individually numbered and comes with a member’s printed signature.

Its first – for drummer Taylor – was released last Friday and has since sold out. It features “Radio Ga Ga” on its A-side and “I’m In Love With My Car” on the B-side on blue vinyl.

As revealed in a press release, the remaining seven-inch releases will be issued weekly, with one for Freddie Mercury releasing this Friday (October 15). Mercury’s release features “Somebody To Love” and “You Take My Breath Away” on yellow vinyl.

John Deacon’s release, due October 22, will feature “Spread Your Wings” and “One Year of Love” on green vinyl. The series will conclude with a release for May on October 29, featuring “We Will Rock You” and “Sail Away Sister”.

All four editions have been printed at 1,000 copies – 500 available at the pop-up store, and 500 online at its official website.

Queen The Greatest opened at Carnaby Street last month (September 28) and also features a range of exclusive merchandise for sale.

Last week, it was revealed that May had begun working on a new Queen song but then “suddenly lost interest”, according to Taylor.

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