Subscribe
Home Blog Page 166

Ride on the creation of all their albums: “It’s a hell of a thing to be inside”

Tom Pinnock
-
0
Ride on the creation of all their albums: “It’s a hell of a thing to be inside”
Taken from Uncut's September 2019 issue It’s been five years since Ride reformed, and according to guitarist and vocalist Mark Gardener, the creative energies sparked by this momentous event are as strong as ever. “When you still have the creative magic, you can just come back and create good...

Taken from Uncut’s September 2019 issue

It’s been five years since Ride reformed, and according to guitarist and vocalist Mark Gardener, the creative energies sparked by this momentous event are as strong as ever. “When you still have the creative magic, you can just come back and create good music, and I think that’s what’s happened,” he explains. “We could just enjoy the Ride thing again, which is a hell of a thing to be inside.”

The quartet have met up to discuss the brand-new This Is Not A Safe Place LP – their very fine follow-up to 2017’s reunion album, Weather Diaries. They’re also taking Uncut through all the records they’ve produced during their career, including 1990’s shoegaze classic Nowhere, which gave their engineer a nervous breakdown and angered a Del Amitri-loving next-door neighbour, and the controversial West Coast detour, Carnival Of Light. Along the way, the band discuss their lost “ambient reggae” tunes, hanging out with Public Enemy and their disastrous cover of “Windmills Of Your Mind”, which traumatised producer George Drakoulias.

“We were just too shit to play it,” remembers bassist Steve Queralt. “George was tearing his bushy hair out! And then for some reason afterwards he didn’t want to do the album with us…”

______________

SMILE
SIRE, 1990
This American compilation neatly collects their first two EPs, “Ride” and “Play”

ANDY BELL [vocals/guitars]: The first EP was done in Union Street in Oxford, which was a small basement studio that we saved up for. I think we were there for a couple of hours one afternoon. It turned into a hostel in the evening – we came back from getting something to eat and there was a girl with a backpack in the studio.

STEVE QUERALT: At that time, we had no interest from anyone other than Cally Calloman at Warners. He was a great guy, but there was no point putting us out on a major label – the audience would have thought they were being conned. But during this time we had a support tour with The Soup Dragons, and Alan McGee came along to all three shows – at the final show he said he wanted to put our record out on Creation. It was a no-brainer, it was everything we could have possibly dreamed of. Cally was gracious enough to say, “Go with Alan.”

MARK GARDENER: With Creation we had more support, so we were able to get out of Oxford to record “Play”. It was done at Blackwing Studios in London, but we recorded in a similar way to the first one, all live and then a few overdubs. At that point we had no idea that this was something we could make a living from. It just felt great. We were experiencing lots of firsts in life, 
and it was great having an outlet for our confusion.

BELL: The engineer at Blackwing, Ken, was brilliant – when you fast-forward a DAT it skips through like 
a tremolo thing, and he was like, “This is what we’re gonna do, fast forward through it and that’ll be the track.” “Right… Ken, take a break!”

______________

NOWHERE
CREATION, 1990
The debut album, a psych-shoegaze classic and Ride’s noisiest effort

BELL: Before Nowhere, me and Mark both got these rack effects units, Roland GP16s. They became a really big part of the Ride sound. You could programme in really complicated multi-effects for one song and then just turn it on with one switch. Towards the end of recording we knew the deadline was coming, so in the last three days we worked days and nights. The engineer, Marc Waterman, had a nervous breakdown. He’s great, but we did push him quite hard. I remember we all stayed in the same flat…

QUERALT: It was in a mews in Paddington. We got back late one night and put a load of music on. Later, we were then woken up at six in the morning by some City guy we’d obviously kept awake. The music he’d chosen to annoy us – and he did really well – was Del Amitri!

GARDENER: The hours just got crazy. It all added to that dark, alienated feeling that 
I think permeated through Nowhere. We just tried to make the best of it, being guided by instincts. But it was good times, for sure.

LOZ COLBERT [drums]: It was 
a live sound in the studio, but maybe a bit too live. We needed someone to contain it.

BELL: After Marc left, Alan Moulder came in to mix Nowhere. He said he couldn’t work out which was the bass drum and which was the snare when he pulled the tapes up! So he did a good job of rescuing it. It ended up with its own sound, but it wasn’t intentional exactly.

______________

GOING BLANK AGAIN
CREATION, 1992
The kaleidoscopic second album. A free-flowing triumph, incorporating many different styles. Towering lead-off single “Leave Them All Behind” gave them their highest Top 10 hit

BELL: This was written and recorded in a residential studio in Chipping Norton. We had six weeks there, with catering and a big keg so we could drink draft beer at will from a big free barrel. There was this big bowl of eggs that really concerned me, because it was like, “How do you know when these eggs are going off?” No, it didn’t affect my performance too much!

GARDENER: This was one of the most enjoyable recording processes we’ve had. We weren’t locked away in a dark London studio, and we were only 25 minutes from Oxford too, so I could go and buy pot! We felt confident about where the band was going. I remember going up to bed with the “Time Machine” instrumental on a cassette just going round and round, and putting words down to it there and then. It was a fresh, reactive way of working.

COLBERT: There was a lovely routine and rhythm to it that just went on day after day after day. Everyone had space. It was a great studio, and it was nice working with Alan [Moulder, producer]. We had big charts up on the wall, “Things To Do”. I loved all that!

GARDENER: With “Leave Them All Behind”, we were mucking around with chopping up this Hammond recording, and it worked really well with the way the song evolved through jamming. Lyrically, I was inspired by our first American tour.

QUERALT: It felt like we’d almost established ourselves so that there were no rules to follow – we didn’t have to do a ’gazy album, we didn’t have to have the guitars up full.

BELL: We absolutely weren’t going to do that. We had all these tracks that were conceptual, like “Motorway Madness”, which was like “Drive Blind”’s noisy bit part two. We did some Abbey Road-style medley things and some of it got used at the beginning of “OX4”. There was “King Bullshit”, this ambient reggae thing with an AR Kane vibe that ended up as a part of “Time Machine”. They were all tracks that had their own qualities but we ended up squashing loads of them together. It was all based on the Beatles model: it felt like we had to progress, and make our albums all develop from the last one. That’s why we ended up painting ourselves into a corner.

______________

READING FESTIVAL 1992
IGNITION, 2001
A stellar live set from the group at the peak of their powers. Originally released as part of the OX4 boxset

GARDENER: I never felt like we were a cool band, but at Reading in 1992 we pulled off a major show on the main stage. It felt like a big moment for the band.

COLBERT: Public Enemy were big heroes of mine, and it was such an honour to be on that bill with them. 
I offered Chuck D our CD backstage, and he was like, “Thanks, I’ll probably sample some of that shit.” 
I was thinking, ‘Yeah, great, Public Enemy sampling us!’ After a few years, I realised that it probably just went in the bin.

BELL: We weren’t cool by this stage at all. We were cool in 1990, I think, and possibly 1991, but grunge was already coming then. We were followers of that scene, that pre-grunge American psychedelic rock. Some of that mid-’80s American psychedelic rock, like Screaming Trees, even REM. Sonic Youth and the Valentines would be the two mighty pillars of the temple of 
rip-offs that we made! Whenever you try and copy something it always comes out different. We’re rubbish at copying.

COLBERT: It’s our biggest strength.

______________

CARNIVAL OF LIGHT
CREATION, 1994
This step away from shoegaze was brave, but fatally harmed the band’s momentum

 

GARDENER: 
I felt like we were a great live band, but we didn’t really capture that 
on record. So I thought someone like George Drakoulias might be able to help with that.

BELL: So we went very West Coast American and ditched a lot of the things that were good about the band, because we felt like we couldn’t repeat ourselves. That was a mistake, because there’s a whole universe within the initial sound we had, we could have taken that a lot of different ways.

QUERALT: George Drakoulias said, “I’ve got a great cover for you guys, ‘Windmills Of Your Mind’, and we were like, “OK…”

BELL: He found it quite frustrating by day four of us trying to learn it… It was supposed to be an example of teaching us how to write a song – he said ours were too linear. So we ended up recording with John Leckie in Cornwall and Oxford instead. He’s a very interesting character, quite strange in a really cool way.

QUERALT: We recorded at Sawmills in Cornwall, quite cut off from the rest of the world. We’d come down in the morning and John would put some music on, stuff we’d never heard, Alice Coltrane, say.

BELL: This would have been the imperial period if we’d made an amazing record! The recording felt imperial, sitting on thrones on a lake getting photographed, having multiple recording sessions at The Manor and Abbey Road and everywhere else we went.

GARDENER: I was expecting the press to knock us down after building us up. Some people are still really annoyed that we don’t play much from that record now, though.

______________

TARANTULA
CREATION, 1996
The swansong, with the group pursuing a louder, punchier sound influenced by ’60s rock and prevailing Britpop sounds

GARDENER: Things weren’t going well. I felt completely marginalised to the point where I didn’t even know what my role was. The band just fragmented. I didn’t feel like we were playing to our strengths, and I didn’t get that record – I couldn’t even tell you the tracklisting!

BELL: Oasis came on the scene when we were about to release Carnival…, and it made it seem out of date immediately. We were courting a cleaner sound, and they came out sounding like the Pistols and the Mary Chain, but with great tunes. Carnival… misfired, and we didn’t get to do a world tour with it. So Tarantula was conceived as, 
“Right, come on, we’ve been too indulgent, let’s get some of that energy that’s been going around, let’s play in a room together, let’s 
do songs that are more compact.” But the songwriting wasn’t there, especially on my side, and that let it down. We tried our best.

COLBERT: Tarantula was us squashed into a room in London, really intense, and we didn’t know if people liked us any more. I shaved my head, which was symbolic – all the floppy stuff had gone.

QUERALT: Drum and bass and trip-hop had arrived too, and I think the relationships in the band had got a bit intense. Technically, Tarantula sounds like a good album and I think we played well on it, but maybe the songs weren’t quite strong enough.

______________

COMING UP FOR AIR
RIDE, 2002
A one-day reunion for Channel 4 results in this nimble and epic jam

BELL: I remember getting a phone call from our ex-manager, saying, “This thing has come up, it’s to do with Ride. There’s this programme on Channel 4 called Pioneers…” And I was like, “Oh!” And his next line was, “…it’s about Sonic Youth. They want you to do the music for it.” But we said yes. I think they filmed us rehearsing and recorded it, but we also recorded 
it with a four-track, and that’s Coming Up For Air, 40 minutes of jamming. So we thought it would be cool to put it out.

COLBERT: The clue’s in the title really. Everyone was busy doing their own thing and it was just a nice break and then back to what 
we were doing.

BELL: It was a nice day out and I think it shows there wasn’t any bad blood. Once the band broke up, within a few months everyone had taken a deep breath and got over it. We liked the idea of Holger Czukay going through hours of jamming and editing it together to get something like “Mother Sky” out 
of it, which is just amazing.

GARDENER: I was lost in the medieval world of France then, living in the middle of a walnut orchard, letting nature do its healing, so it was nice to dip in and play with the guys again. After a while you realise that these people are going to be massive parts of your life, and that you’re always going to be known as part of Ride.

COLBERT: Typical Ride to do it without any songs, just turn up and jam. That’s kind of what kicked it all off for us originally, so it’s wonderful that everyone had the bravery to turn up with no plan whatsoever.

______________

WEATHER DIARIES
WICHITA, 2017
A fantastic return, 21 years after Tarantula, with Ride working with mercurial producer Erol Alkan

QUERALT: We’d had a year of playing together live, we were comfortable with each other, and so we thought, ‘We have to make more music.’ Everyone was demoing at home.

COLBERT: This was very much worked on and refined, in a brilliant way, which felt great. That’s the one thing we never felt that we’d had a chance to achieve, a really, really good studio album, even Going Blank Again. But with this one we really had the time, it was great.

QUERALT: Erol was amazing. I only knew him as a DJ, but he was totally hands-on. He’s a complete music head, too. It’s not just about electronic music, there’s no genre he doesn’t know anything about.

COLBERT: As soon as he was in the room, the momentum just went right up. We had a few days without him, but when he was there we were so much more productive. He was such an integral part of the record.

GARDENER: You have to live underground not to be affected by politics now and what goes on, it’s just crazy, so it did reflect on what was happening at the time – lyrics like “Lannoy Point” reflect my depression about the Brexit referendum, and “White Sands” was definitely about the experience of coming back together and making music with your buddies.

BELL: We’ve learnt what our strengths are, and the value of playing to your strengths. Once you know that, you can be adventurous and work to the limits of it.

______________

THIS IS NOT A SAFE PLACE
WICHITA, 2019
Ride pick up where they left off, crafting this more compact, focused effort, again with Erol Alkan behind the desk

 

COLBERT: With Weather Diaries, we really did try a lot of things, so we got a lot out of our system. For this album, which I think is 
one of the best things we’ve done, we really did cut to the chase for what we’re good at, what we’re comfortable with, so maybe 
we had more to draw from. It didn’t feel limiting, just more honest 
and direct.

GARDENER: When you get more comfortable again as a unit, things can naturally get a bit more experimental. When “Future Love” came along we all picked up on that, and I really like “Kill Switch”. “Shadows Behind The Sun” is a very honest one for me.

BELL: This has got a lot more limited palette of sounds, it’s not so much of a kaleidoscopic array of instruments. It’s guitar, bass and drums on every song, and I tended to use the same guitar in the same open tuning. So that limited it.

COLBERT: We finally changed our approach, just to freshen it up, and started with the drums. We’d never really thought about drum sound 
in the studio, it was always a bit of an afterthought.

BELL: We rehearsed for the album in a studio, and then we were playing music through the night on the studio system, and we realised we were playing a lot of stuff like Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, Nirvana’s In Utero, with that Steve Albini drum sound. We thought that would be great for our drum sound.

GARDENER: It amazes me and surprises me that Ride has carried on in the way it has. We’re not in it for the money. I’ve done building work, and I’d much rather do this! I don’t feel like I’ve done my best thing yet and that’s what drives me to do more. I hope this album carries on what we did with Weather Diaries. The people decide in the end. I’m already starting to think about new things if we ever make another album.

Afel Bocoum – Lindé

Nigel Williamson
-
0
Afel Bocoum – Lindé
When Ali Farka Touré died in 2006, Afel Bocoum seemed perfectly placed to take over the great man’s mantle. Touré’s compelling desert blues had earned him a roster of western admirers ranging from Ry Cooder to Jimmy Page to John Lee Hooker, and a trio of Grammy awards – and Bocoum was his mo...

When Ali Farka Touré died in 2006, Afel Bocoum seemed perfectly placed to take over the great man’s mantle. Touré’s compelling desert blues had earned him a roster of western admirers ranging from Ry Cooder to Jimmy Page to John Lee Hooker, and a trio of Grammy awards – and Bocoum was his most talented protégé.

Hailing from the same town of Niafunké in the Timbuktu region of northern Mali on the River Niger, Bocoum had fallen under Touré’s spell as a boy in the ’60s. He went on to play in Touré’s band for more than 20 years, touring the world with him and playing on his albums in between his day jobs as a civil servant in the agriculture department and a cultural animateur for the Ministry Of Youth.

He made a fine debut solo album for World Circuit in 1999 with Alkibar and perhaps only a lack of ambition subsequently held him back. His first solo album was recorded at the same sessions as Touré’s Grammy-nominated Niafunké album and the motivation for it seemed to come more from his mentor, who played on the record, than from Bocoum himself. “Everybody else seemed to be releasing albums, so it was like, ‘Why not?’” he shrugged self-deprecatingly.

Certainly there was never anything as vulgar as a career plan. Over the next decade there followed two low-key albums on the obscure Belgian label Contre-Jour, but Bocoum seemed happier as a collaborator than as a band leader. After playing on Damon Albarn’s 2002 album Mali Music, he became a regular on board the Blur singer’s cross-cultural Africa Express.

Now in his mid-sixties, in a sense Lindé is the true follow-up to the solo debut he made more than 20 years ago and proves that under the right guidance, Bocoum can be a fine frontman. Here he has two powerful figures to direct his focus in executive producers Albarn, who describes Bocoum’s voice as “one of the treasures of Mali”, and Nick Gold, who produced most of Toure’s greatest recordings as well as Bocoum’s debut. The latter’s long-standing immersion in traditional African music and the restless adventurism of the former is a winning combination that has coaxed something rather special out of Bocoum.

Lindé is steeped in the heritage of the Songhai, the ethnic group whose empire dominated the western Sahel 500 years ago and to which both Bocoum and Touré’s families belong. The core of the sound is built around tribal African instruments – the earthy plunk of the banjo-like ngoni, the drone of the two-string njurkele, the rippling kora and insistent calabash percussion from the late Hama Sankaré. 

The songs pack a message that is both specific to Bocoum’s homeland but also universal. In the face of Mali’s crushing struggles with jihad, poverty and tribal war, Bocoum urges hope, solidarity and unity. “If you’re hiding down holes, my brothers/Come out so that we can talk,” he pleads in a direct message to the jihadists on “Sambu Kamba”, while the heartfelt call-and-response lyrics of “Dakamana” translate as “It’s time for us to work together, hand in hand and make 2020 a year for peace in Mali.” The death of Sankaréin March this year underlines the urgency of Bocoum’s message. The calabash player was killed along with eight others when the vehicle in which he was riding was hit by an improvised explosive device close to Bocoum’s hometown.

The traditional instruments are embellished with some exquisitely modern touches. On “Bombolo Liilo” the kora of Sidiki Diabaté (brother of Toumani) and the trombone of the Skatalites’ Vin Gordon dance an irresistible pas de deux to an African reggae beat. “Avion” is a pan-African excursion on which Congolese soukous meets Malian tradition with an added dash of Afrobeat. Elsewhere there are psych guitars courtesy of Mark Mulholland and Garba Touré from Songhoy Blues, and the violin of Joan As Police Woman snakes sinuously around the haunting desert-blues sound of Yoro Cissé’s njurkele on “Fari Njungu” and “Yer Gando”.

The album closes in a clattering symphony of syncopated rhythm on “Djougal”, as the distinctive powerhouse drumming of Tony Allen joins the kinetic beat of Sankare’s chattering calabash. Tragically it would turn out to be their final percussive hurrah. Both died within four weeks of each other, prior to Lindé’s release.

Touched by sadness but tinged with hope, this is a masterful album on which the sound of tradition is rendered vital and visceral in a very present tense.

Thurston Moore – By The Fire

Sharon O'Connell
-
0
Thurston Moore – By The Fire
The mission statement that accompanies this album might seem like an uncharacteristic hippie flex, but anyone who’s paid even slight attention to Thurston Moore’s output down the decades will recognise it. Here, then, is a newly urgent formulation of a long-standing belief in music’s ecstatic ...

The mission statement that accompanies this album might seem like an uncharacteristic hippie flex, but anyone who’s paid even slight attention to Thurston Moore’s output down the decades will recognise it. Here, then, is a newly urgent formulation of a long-standing belief in music’s ecstatic power (Sonic Youth, certainly, can be defined as much by their reach for transcendence as by their transgression). “This recording offers songs as flames of rainbow energy,” Moore writes, “where the power of love becomes our call. These are love songs in a time where creativity is our dignity, our demonstration against the forces of oppression.”

So it’s fighting talk from a lover, as these days demand, something reflected in the album’s ambiguous title: “by the fire” is shorthand for domestic contentment but a parenthetical “destroyed” gives it blazing apocalyptic overtones, too. The music emphasises this duality, moving between over-easy, oceanic guitar flows and furious, bass-weighted onslaughts, often in the same song, with retro trash pop and 12-string soloing their foils.

The love in question here is mostly “higher”, in the Albert Ayler and Alice Coltrane sense, rather than intimate, although the latter is obliquely folded into “Cantaloupe” and, more obviously, “They Believe In Love (When They Look At You)”, which seems to concern the adoration of a parent by their children and its contagious nature. “Cantaloupe” is one of just two songs with lyrics by Moore; the rest were written by London poet Radieux Radio, who also worked on 2014’s The Best Day and Rock n Roll Consciousness, from 2017. There’s an obvious shared interest in metaphysics, arcane philosophies, religion and higher consciousness/dream states, with references made to Rimbaud, Baudelaire and Dante. Across the record, the language is elegant and vividly allusive, unembarrassed by its “vibrations” and “essences of chi”. As to the band, it’s The Thurston Moore Group, first convened for The Best Day, with new member Jon Leidecker (of Negativland) on electronics and Steve Shelley depping for regular drummer Jem Doulton on one track.

Unsurprisingly, there are echoes of Moore’s past on By The Fire. Like anyone with almost 40 years of adventuring behind them, his music is now more about the deep, nuanced dig into established territory than striking out to plant a flag someplace new, plus exploring different contexts for his signature sound through continued collaboration. Moore’s workrate has hardly slumped and there’s enrichment from non-musical projects, too, like the radical publishing house co-founded with his partner Eva Prinz, Ecstatic Peace Library, of which the label Daydream Library Series is an offshoot.

These are “songs in the heat of the moment”, not in the sense of being hastily bashed out, but in that they were born of intensified existential concerns. Even if improv played some part in their genesis, they are nothing like jams. The epics – “Breath”, “Siren” and “Venus”, at 11, 12 and 14 minutes, respectively – are considered builds, with surge/retreat clusters combined in thrilling torrents whose pools of calm necessarily have their own tension. “Breath” especially is quite the rapids ride, moving from sweet lyricism through furious, Swans-style pummelling by what sounds like a dozen guitars then back, Deb Googe’s bass ruthlessly pumping until the song sounds fit to explode, which it does, into metallic shards before fading to oblivion.

At the other end of the scale sit irresistibly louche and loping opener “Hashish”, which throws back to Rather Ripped-era Sonic Youth and “They Believe In Love…”, whose math-rock disposition gives way to Can-style insistence. “Dreamers Work” is a solo, chiming electric piece with dreamy chord progressions and a hushed vocal, while alternative tunings lend an edge of American primitivism to “Calligraphy”, the other solo track. “Cantaloupe” is the “straight” number in the pack, with its agreeably heavy, ’70s-rock chug (rewind to “100%”) and matching DayGlo lyrics: “We’re pulsing blue blue to orange/Dripping fire music down yr back/Floating up thru yr skin/White gardenias in yr eyes.”

As a call to the Roman goddess of love, desire, beauty, sex, fertility… the whole nine yards, instrumental closer “Venus” is necessarily sublime and intense, since for Moore it heralds the possibilities of “a future truth of hope and light”. But it also verges on the terrifying, a mass shifting between majesty and dread, hi-hats hissing, like the offspring of Ben Frost, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Mayhem – not exactly a light, promise-filled step on which to exit. But she represents principle energy, so it’s maybe fitting that Venus calls the final shot. And if any invocation is to make itself heard today, it must roar.

Lucinda Williams and Drive-By Truckers added to Black Deer line-up

Sam Richards
-
0
Lucinda Williams and Drive-By Truckers added to Black Deer line-up
Lucinda Williams, Drive-By Truckers, Samantha Crain and Colter Wall have been added to the bill for 2021's Black Deer Festival, taking place at Eridge Park, Kent on June 18-20. They join all the acts who previously reconfirmed following the postponement of the 2020 event, including Wilco, The Wat...

Lucinda Williams, Drive-By Truckers, Samantha Crain and Colter Wall have been added to the bill for 2021’s Black Deer Festival, taking place at Eridge Park, Kent on June 18-20.

They join all the acts who previously reconfirmed following the postponement of the 2020 event, including Wilco, The Waterboys and Saving Grace featuring Robert Plant and Suzi Dian.

Check out the new festival poster below, and visit the official Black Deer site for more info and tickets.

Reggae singer-songwriter Johnny Nash has died, aged 80

Sam Richards
-
0
Reggae singer-songwriter Johnny Nash has died, aged 80
Soul and reggae singer-songwriter Johnny Nash has died of natural causes, aged 80. Born in Houston, Texas, Nash was one of the first non-Jamaicans to make reggae music in Kingston, and scored a huge international hit with 1972's "I Can See Clearly Now". Nash was a big supporter of Bob Marley i...

Soul and reggae singer-songwriter Johnny Nash has died of natural causes, aged 80.

Born in Houston, Texas, Nash was one of the first non-Jamaicans to make reggae music in Kingston, and scored a huge international hit with 1972’s “I Can See Clearly Now”.

Nash was a big supporter of Bob Marley in his early career, covering several of his songs and bringing Marley to London in 1972 where the pair played a concert together at a Peckham school.

Nash also had a No. 1 hit in the UK in 1975 with “Tears On My Pillow”.

Hear AC/DC’s comeback single, “Shot In The Dark”

Sam Richards
-
0
Hear AC/DC’s comeback single, “Shot In The Dark”
AC/DC have announced that their 17th album, Power Up, will be released on November 13. It features the return of vocalist Brian Johnson, who has overcome the hearing problems that forced him to stop touring with the band in 2016. There is also a return for drummer Paul Rudd and bassist Cliff Will...

AC/DC have announced that their 17th album, Power Up, will be released on November 13.

It features the return of vocalist Brian Johnson, who has overcome the hearing problems that forced him to stop touring with the band in 2016. There is also a return for drummer Paul Rudd and bassist Cliff Williams, rejoining Angus and Stevie Young on guitars.

Listen to Power Up’s first single “Shot In The Dark” below:

Power Up will be available in multiple formats, including limited edition coloured vinyl, cassette and deluxe CD box with flashing AC/DC logo and built-in speaker. Pre-order here.

Rock world pays tribute to Eddie Van Halen

Sam Richards
-
0
Rock world pays tribute to Eddie Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen, totemic rock guitarist and leader of the band Van Halen, has died aged 65. His son Wolfgang, who has also played bass for Van Halen since 2006, revealed the news yesterday on Twitter: “I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has l...

Eddie Van Halen, totemic rock guitarist and leader of the band Van Halen, has died aged 65.

His son Wolfgang, who has also played bass for Van Halen since 2006, revealed the news yesterday on Twitter: “I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning.

“He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a gift.”

Some of rock’s biggest names lined up to pay tribute. “I’m just devastated to hear the news of the passing of my dear friend Eddie Van Halen,” wrote Tony Iommi. “Eddie was one of a very special kind of person, a really great friend.”

“Just when I thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse, I hear Eddie Van Halen has passed,” added Iommi’s Black Sabbath bandmate Geezer Butler. “So shocking – one of the nicest, down to Earth men I have ever met and toured with. A true gent and true genius.”

Muse hailed Van Halen as “one of the greatest guitarists of all time” while Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready called him “Mozart for guitar”.

Meanwhile on BBC Breakfast news this morning, an emotional Gene Simmons urged young people to stop texting and tweeting for a moment and listen to “the wonder of Eddie Van Halen”:

The War On Drugs announce live album, Live Drugs

Sam Richards
-
0
The War On Drugs announce live album, Live Drugs
The War On Drugs will release the album Live Drugs via bandleader Adam Granduciel’s own Super High Quality Records on November 20. Rather than a document of a single concert or tour, the album features a selection of key tracks culled from years of live recordings, "sequenced to reflect how a ...

The War On Drugs will release the album Live Drugs via bandleader Adam Granduciel’s own Super High Quality Records on November 20.

Rather than a document of a single concert or tour, the album features a selection of key tracks culled from years of live recordings, “sequenced to reflect how a typical 70-minute show would flow”.

Listen to “Pain (Live)” below:

Check out the full tracklisting for Live Drugs below:

1. An Ocean Between The Waves (Live)
2. Pain (Live)
3. Strangest Thing (Live)
4. Red Eyes (Live)
5. Thinking Of A Place (Live)
6. Buenos Aires Beach (Live)
7. Accidentally Like A Martyr (Live)
8. Eyes To The Wind (Live)
9. Under The Pressure (Live)
10. In Reverse (Live)

Introducing the Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide to John Lennon

John Robinson
-
0
Introducing the Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide to John Lennon
This deluxe, remastered edition of the Ultimate Music Guide arrives with you on October 8, to celebrate what would have been John Lennon’s 80th birthday the following day. Lennon’s tragedy, and ours, is that he never got to celebrate it, his life senselessly cut off in its prime. Neil Spencer...

This deluxe, remastered edition of the Ultimate Music Guide arrives with you on October 8, to celebrate what would have been John Lennon’s 80th birthday the following day. Lennon’s tragedy, and ours, is that he never got to celebrate it, his life senselessly cut off in its prime.

Neil Spencer, NME’s editor in 1980, recently told me how the paper responded to the news. Lennon was murdered on the Monday, with news reaching him in London early on Tuesday morning. It was NME’s press day, but there was still enough time to act. (“It gave us the opportunity to be journalists,” he said.) After a tearful drive up the M1 to the printers in Kettering, Spencer and supporting staff collated their coverage. A report from Joe Stevens in New York. A piece on Lennon’s musical journey by Roy Carr. A precis of Lennon’s last interview. On a typewriter at the printers, meanwhile, staffer Charles Shaar Murray (“saving the day as he often did”) wrote a personal reaction. The headline on the cover was “War Is Over, If You Want It”.

Peace and love were Lennon’s key messages and as the days passed, Neil used them as the cornerstone of the obituary printed the following week in the paper’s Christmas issue. A meditation on Lennon’s life but also unselfconsciously on how life might be lived, it reflected on how Lennon’s lesson was to find an honourable course and try to stick to it.

Lennon certainly wasn’t perfect, but his honesty and his conviction, Spencer wrote, would live on after him. “Like most of us he was often selfish and unpleasant, but he was never miserly with himself or his soul, at least not in the latter part of his life. He gave. He shared. And now he’s gone, we too seem diminished. The part of us that responded to the man’s essential goodness, his dignity, his openness, and his optimism will be that much more difficult to locate without him around.”

Were Lennon around today we would surely benefit from his caustic verdict on the world we live in. As you’ll rediscover in this new deluxe edition, even in his absence, his music and his outlook remains as bracing as it ever was.

Order your copy now by clicking here.

John Lennon – The Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide

Uncut
-
0
John Lennon – The Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide
“You may say I’m a dreamer…” Every album reviewed. Unmissable archive interviews rediscovered. A revolutionary solo journey, in full. Presenting the definitive 148-page tribute to the former Beatle, on what would have been his 80th birthday. Order a copy here....

“You may say I’m a dreamer…” Every album reviewed. Unmissable archive interviews rediscovered. A revolutionary solo journey, in full. Presenting the definitive 148-page tribute to the former Beatle, on what would have been his 80th birthday.

Order a copy here.

Peter Hook to recreate Joy Division’s 1979 Futurama set

Sam Richards
-
0
Peter Hook to recreate Joy Division’s 1979 Futurama set
A new edition of Futurama – the 'science fiction music festival' that ran from 1979-89 across various locations in the north-west – will take place in Liverpool on April 3-4, 2021. Futurama will be headlined by Peter Hook & The Light, recreating the same set played by Joy Division at the 197...

A new edition of Futurama – the ‘science fiction music festival’ that ran from 1979-89 across various locations in the north-west – will take place in Liverpool on April 3-4, 2021.

Futurama will be headlined by Peter Hook & The Light, recreating the same set played by Joy Division at the 1979 Futurama festival in Leeds.

Also appearing will be Theatre Of Hate, The Chameleons, Warmduscher, The Lovely Eggs, Membranes and more.

See the full line-up below and book tickets here.

Watch a trailer for Bruce Springsteen’s Letter To You film

Sam Richards
-
0
Watch a trailer for Bruce Springsteen’s Letter To You film
To coincide with the release of Bruce Springsteen's new album Letter To You, the documentary film of the same name will launch via Apple TV on October 23. Written by Springsteen and directed by his frequent collaborator Thom Zimny (Western Stars, Springsteen on Broadway), Bruce Springsteen’s Le...

To coincide with the release of Bruce Springsteen’s new album Letter To You, the documentary film of the same name will launch via Apple TV on October 23.

Written by Springsteen and directed by his frequent collaborator Thom Zimny (Western Stars, Springsteen on Broadway), Bruce Springsteen’s Letter To You captures the recording of the album live with the full E Street Band and includes final-take performances of ten originals from the new record.

The feature-length ‘verité documentary’ also includes never-before-seen archival material and a deeper look into Letter To You from Springsteen himself. Watch the trailer below:

Send us your questions for Margo Price

Sam Richards
-
0
Send us your questions for Margo Price
In a tweet this weekend, Margo Price admitted to shedding a few tears at the kitchen table because she missed playing live so much. With her recent third album That's How Rumors Get Started pivoting towards anthemic, Tom Petty-ish classic rock, you can understand why she's been desperate to hit the ...

In a tweet this weekend, Margo Price admitted to shedding a few tears at the kitchen table because she missed playing live so much. With her recent third album That’s How Rumors Get Started pivoting towards anthemic, Tom Petty-ish classic rock, you can understand why she’s been desperate to hit the stage.

Yet Price has been doing more than anyone to keep music alive this year, hosting numerous at-home livestreams – often with her musician husband Jeremy Ivey – and recently venturing out for a full-band show, sadly minus the audience, at Brooklyn Bowl Nashville (with very special guest Lucinda Williams).

She even appeared on The Daily Show to turn Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s bawdy mega-hit “WAP” into an outlaw country strum, as well as rerecording a ‘synthphonic’ version of That’s How Rumors Get Started’s stirring closer “I’d Die For You” – a song that she describes as a timely number about “finding hope among our everyday struggles with violence, healthcare and racism. It’s a more political ‘I Will Always Love You.’”

Now Price has kindly consented to take questions from you, the Uncut readers, for our regular Audience With interview. So what do you want to ask the artist who has basically owned 2020? Send your questions to audiencewith@www.uncut.co.uk by Monday (October 12), and Margo will answer the best ones in a future issue of Uncut.

The Wedding Present announce album of Bond theme covers

Sam Richards
-
0
The Wedding Present announce album of Bond theme covers
The Wedding Present have announced an album of 20 Bond themes covered by current and former members of the band. Not From Where I’m Standing will be released on December 4 via Leeds label Come Play With Me, with 100% of the profits donated to mental health charity CALM (Campaign Against Living...

The Wedding Present have announced an album of 20 Bond themes covered by current and former members of the band.

Not From Where I’m Standing will be released on December 4 via Leeds label Come Play With Me, with 100% of the profits donated to mental health charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably).

“Where do ideas like this come from? Well, I can tell you that this one was born during a soundcheck in New Zealand, in 2013, when the band were playing around with the main melody of the classic Bond theme ‘You Only Live Twice’,’” said David Gedge.

“And then came another idea. Each of the artists on this proposed compilation would be required to have a physical connection to Cinerama or The Wedding Present. I liked the unifying feel of that. I suppose it appealed to the collector in me. None of the artists I approached asked for payment for their track and so the obvious thing to do was to make this a benefit album. The ‘CALM’ organisation was suggested to me as a charity that’s doing great work and, after we’d heard more, we were keen to support it.”

Check out the tracklisting for Not From Where I’m Standing below and pre-order here.

Side A
1. James Bond Theme – The Sleazoids
2. You Only Live Twice – The Wedding Present
3. Goldfinger – Simone White
4. Goldeneye – Follow The Moths
5. The Man With The Golden Gun – Jetstream Pony Side

Side B
1. Live And Let Die – The Donalds
2. The World Is Not Enough – Maria Scaroni
3. Diamonds Are Forever – Cinerama
4. Tomorrow Never Dies – Danielle Wadey & Charles Layton
5. All Time High – Minitel Side

Side C
1. Nobody Does It Better – Samuel Beer-Pearce
2. For Your Eyes Only – Klee
3. Thunderball – The Legendary Len Liggins
4. Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – Sleeper featuring David Lewis Gedge
5. From Russia With Love – Graeme Ramsay Side

Side D
1. View To A Kill – Terry de Castro
2. Die Another Day – The Ukrainians
3. Skyfall – Such Small Hands
4. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – Shaun Charman
5. We Have All The Time In The World – David Lewis Gedge

Pearl Jam reconfirm for BST Hyde Park 2021

Sam Richards
-
0
Pearl Jam reconfirm for BST Hyde Park 2021
Following the cancellation of the 2020 event, Pearl Jam have reconfirmed for American Express Presents BST Hyde Park 2021. The band will now headline two consecutive dates in London, July 9 and 10, at which they'll be supported by Pixies and Idles respectively. Tickets go on general sale on Sa...

Following the cancellation of the 2020 event, Pearl Jam have reconfirmed for American Express Presents BST Hyde Park 2021.

The band will now headline two consecutive dates in London, July 9 and 10, at which they’ll be supported by Pixies and Idles respectively.

Tickets go on general sale on Saturday (October 10) at 10am from here, starting at £70 plus booking fee. Two-day tickets are also available.

Anyone who bought tickets to Pearl Jam’s 2020 BST Hyde Park show is guaranteed tickets if they rebook – they’ll have to the opportunity to repurchase their tickets 48 hours before general sale, from 10am on Thursday (October 8).

Watch a trailer for the event below:

Matt Berninger: “I’d love to be able to rebrand myself, but I can’t”

Sam Richards
-
0
Matt Berninger: “I’d love to be able to rebrand myself, but I can’t”
The current issue of Uncut – in shops now or available to buy online by clicking here – features a candid interview with The National frontman Matt Berninger, who has finally got round to releasing a solo album, Serpentine Prison, with help from Booker T Jones. In this extract, Rob Hughes attemp...

The current issue of Uncut – in shops now or available to buy online by clicking here – features a candid interview with The National frontman Matt Berninger, who has finally got round to releasing a solo album, Serpentine Prison, with help from Booker T Jones. In this extract, Rob Hughes attempts to discover if the “sad-sack, grungecore guy” has finally lightened up…

For years, Berninger had been stockpiling old songs he wanted to cover. The list was up near 450. He met up with Jones at Earthstar studio, in Venice Beach, and started work. Some covers were successful – The Velvet Underground’s “European Son”, Morphine’s “In Spite Of Me”, the Bettye Swann-affiliated “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye”. Others, like The Cure’s “In Between Days” or the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage”, less so. The project changed complexion when Berninger offered up demos of two of his own creations: the balletic “Distant Axis” and the spare, imagistic “Serpentine Prison” – named after a sewer pipe that feeds into the ocean near LAX.

“After he heard those original sketches, Booker very quickly asked, ‘What else is there?’” Berninger recalls. “I’d been writing a lot of songs with different people – friends from my first band, friends from my favourite band, The Walkmen, friends from The National – and Booker helped me cherry-pick. It was a really fast-moving thing and it became pretty clear that doing all originals was going to be more interesting for both of us.”

Various co-writers and musicians were summoned to Los Angeles to add meat to Berninger’s skeletal songs, the sessions racing by in a fortnight. Scott Devendorf flew in from New York. He believes that recording solo has been a tonic for Berninger. “The fact that it’s a very collaborative record was very exciting for him,” he says. “I also think it’s about trying to expand his own vocabulary, musically, to do something different as a songwriter, away from The National. It’s been refreshing for Matt to do that.”

In many ways, Serpentine Prison feels like a natural successor to I Am Easy To Find, which saw The National expand into fresh territory with help from outside forces. Based around the short film of the same name, directed by Mike Mills, the album charted a woman’s journey through life. Berninger shared vocals with a host of female guests – Sharon Van Etten, Gail Ann Dorsey and Kate Stables among them – while Mills stayed on to co-produce. Carin Besser co-wrote the lyrics.

“The National had never made a record like that before,” says Berninger. “I Am Easy To Find was 100 per cent a concept album and the film was such a big part of that.” Serpentine Prison was forged from the same collaborative spirit. Crucially too, just as Mills had helped bring new texture and colour to The National’s palette, so Jones does with Serpentine Prison.

“He was very open to a large number of people and their input, and he let me have a lot of control,” says Jones of the recording process. “But this is Matt’s album, it’s his baby. It all came through him. He’s highly prolific and creative. And I think it’s actually a struggle for him to control that. He’s always got ideas. So it’s a matter of bouncing them off other people.”

The songs on Serpentine Prison suggest that Berninger is trying to stop himself from falling apart. His characters are routinely stranded or helpless or misunderstood – sometimes all three simultaneously – craving love and companionship, or at least some kind of purpose. These hang-ups are familiar tropes of Berninger’s, though here they’re refracted through people and places he’s known.

“I’ve been trying to shake that label off of myself – the sad-sack, grungecore guy, whatever it is,” he laughs. “I’d love to be able to rebrand myself, but I can’t. I laugh because I always try to, but it never works out that way. Everybody’s like, ‘There he is again!’”

You can read much more from Matt Berninger in the November 2020 issue of Uncut, out now with PJ Harvey on the cover.

Jason Isbell, St Vincent and Carlos Santana for virtual guitar show

Uncut
-
0
Jason Isbell, St Vincent and Carlos Santana for virtual guitar show
Jason Isbell, St Vincent and Carlos Santana are among the names set to appear at Guitar.com Live, the virtual guitar show taking place over the next three days (October 2-4). Guitar.com Live will include artist performances, masterclasses, industry discussions, product launches and more, and is f...

Jason Isbell, St Vincent and Carlos Santana are among the names set to appear at Guitar.com Live, the virtual guitar show taking place over the next three days (October 2-4).

Guitar.com Live will include artist performances, masterclasses, industry discussions, product launches and more, and is free for attendees.

Launching partners for the event include Taylor Guitars, PRS Guitars, Ernie Ball, Music Man and MONO, while other star names due to appear include Joe Bonamassa, John McLaughlin, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Idles.

The action begins at 6pm today (October 2) over at Guitar.com Live.

[Editor’s note: Guitar.com is owned by BandLab Technologies, which also owns Uncut]

Ronnie’s

Richard Williams
-
0
Ronnie’s
The first voice you hear in Oliver Murray’s exemplary documentary about Ronnie Scott’s jazz club is that of a man called Simon Cooke, welcoming the patrons at the start of an evening in Soho. As gigs go, Cooke’s is one of the toughest. He is not a tenor saxophonist who has played alongside som...

The first voice you hear in Oliver Murray’s exemplary documentary about Ronnie Scott’s jazz club is that of a man called Simon Cooke, welcoming the patrons at the start of an evening in Soho. As gigs go, Cooke’s is one of the toughest. He is not a tenor saxophonist who has played alongside some of the great figures of the music’s history. He is not a superb stand-up comic, steeped in the deadpan wit of the old Jewish East End. He did not struggle for decades to found the club and keep it going in an often hostile climate. But it is his job to keep it going now.

The film is not about Cooke, the club’s current manager, or its owners, the theatre impresario Sally Greene and the entrepreneur Michael Watt, who bought it in 2005, when it was on the brink, not for the first time, of closing its doors. It is about the extraordinary man whose name says “jazz club” as clearly as Chipperfield’s says “circus”, Smirnoff says “vodka” or Lloyd’s says “bank”.

As a youth in the 1940s, Scott followed his father’s example and became a dance-band saxophonist. He and his young contemporaries soon fell in love with the revolutionary sounds of bebop, and worked in the bands on ocean liners in order to get to New York and hear Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie at first hand. After 10 years of playing in bands together, he and a fellow saxophonist, Pete King, decide to provide young musicians with a place to play and opened their first club in a Chinatown basement. After fighting a battle with the Musicians’ Union, which had been keeping Americans off British stages, they were able to present the likes of Sonny Rollins, Roland Kirk and Dexter Gordon. In 1965 they moved to bigger premises in Frith Street, where the attractions over the past 55 years have included Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Oscar Peterson, Buddy Rich, Thelonious Monk, Chet Baker and Sarah Vaughan, all of whom appear in clips.

Scott was the frontman while the long-suffering King took care of the business. Their close relationship survived all kinds of vicissitudes, including Ronnie’s tendency to gamble away the takings. Archive interviews with the pair are interleaved with other voices, including two of Ronnie’s partners and his daughter. Together with the testimony of Quincy Jones, Mel Brooks and others, they help Murray to develop a subtle portrait of a complicated man who, unknown to the club’s patrons and most of his friends and fellow musicians, suffered from acute depression for much of his life.

Thanks to judicious use of historical footage and a sensitive score by Alex Heffes, Murray has made a film worthy of its subject. It also does much to explain why, having weathered storms both before and after Scott’s death in 1996, the club was prospering as never before when the great lockdown of 2020 came, and will no doubt do so again.

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – All The Good Times

Tyler Wilcox
-
0
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – All The Good Times
Even before the coronavirus pandemic began in earnest in the US, Nashville was reeling. In early March, a series of vicious tornadoes whipped across Tennessee with winds of up to 175mph. In a frighteningly short time, ancient trees were uprooted, sturdy buildings and homes were reduced to rubble and...

Even before the coronavirus pandemic began in earnest in the US, Nashville was reeling. In early March, a series of vicious tornadoes whipped across Tennessee with winds of up to 175mph. In a frighteningly short time, ancient trees were uprooted, sturdy buildings and homes were reduced to rubble and 25 lives were lost.

In Music City, USA’s Five Points neighbourhood, the historic Woodland Studio, built in 1967 and the site of countless classic sessions, had its roof peeled off like a can of sardines, exposing the interior to a torrential downpour. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who have owned the studio for close to 20 years, spent the night and morning desperately trying to salvage whatever they could – recording gear, master tapes, rare guitars, lyric notebooks. Remarkably, though the damage to the building itself was extensive, Welch and Rawlings were able to save most of these items. In the midst of a tragedy, at least the duo could breathe a small sigh of relief.

Not so fast. A different kind of natural disaster – the Covid-19 pandemic – was waiting in the wings. Still managing the after-effects of the storm, Nashville soon went into lockdown. Welch and Rawlings, who have spent the better part of the last quarter-century on the road, canceled their 2020 tour dates and hunkered down at home. What next?

Music, of course. Seeking solace, sanity and a much-needed distraction from the daily influx of bad news, Gillian and Dave began playing covers. They tried out some age-old folk songs. They worked up a few favourites of a slightly more recent vintage. And they dug up some songs that exist in a nether region between those two poles. It all sounded too good not to share. Soon, Rawlings broke out a trusty reel-to-reel tape machine and hit the “record” button, capturing 10 tracks for posterity. The results of these intimate home sessions can now be heard by the rest of us on the casually masterful All The Good Times, released digitally in July, and now available on CD and vinyl. The 10-song collection is the equivalent of being welcomed into Welch and Rawlings’ living room and the pair treating you to a private recital. In other words, it doesn’t get much better than this. Make yourself right at home.

The studio albums released under Welch’s name since 1996 have been primarily devoted to original compositions (though her knack for an age-old melody or turn of phrase has fooled some). However, anyone who has seen Welch and Rawlings onstage knows that they are expert interpreters of others’ material. Often, they’ll stay snugly in their comfort zone, tackling a classic country or bluegrass number with glee. But they’re not afraid to explore slightly more adventurous territory; live, the duo has been known to break out a goth-folk rendition of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” from time to time — and you haven’t lived until you’ve heard their soaring re-imagining of Radiohead’s “Black Star”. No matter what songs Welch and Rawlings set their sights on, they almost always find the sweet spot between reverence to their sources and a unique, ineffable magic.

All The Good Times is indeed magical. The album kicks off with a deliciously slow rendering of folk-blues godmother Elizabeth Cotten’s “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie”, Welch and Rawlings’ vocals intertwining around the well-worn melody and sassy lyrics. Things then move into a darker realm, with Rawlings taking the lead vocal for the next tune, Bob Dylan’s “Señor”. Drawn from 1978’s Street-Legal, it’s a fever dream set to ominous minor chords, featuring some of Dylan’s most hallucinatory visions. Hearing it in Welch and Rawlings’ hands amid the disorienting chaos of 2020, it rings disturbingly true. “This place don’t make sense to me no more,” they sing, their voices rising together in a haunting crescendo. “Can you tell me what we’re waiting for, señor?” In these uncertain times, it’s as good a question as any.

A little less heavy, but no less effective, is Welch and Rawlings’ take on another Dylan tune – the Desire-era deep-cut “Abandoned Love”. Dylan only performed it live once and recorded it half-heartedly in 1975, but here it sounds like a true classic, Rawlings’ reedy voice wrapping itself around Bob’s riddling tale of loving and leaving. The best part is getting to eavesdrop on the sparkling chemistry Gillian and Dave share, hearing one egging the other on, their smiles practically audible through your speakers. Even when they miss a lyric (or when they abruptly run out of tape at the end), it still feels right. This is Welch and Rawlings at their most intimate and relaxed, finding moments of unfettered joy in imperfections, laughter amid heartbreak.

The record flows naturally, the duo traveling freely through time and memory. They go way back for the trad-folk chestnut “Fly Around Pretty Little Miss”, a breezy and beautiful piece that provides an ideal showcase for Welch and Rawlings’ clear-as-country-water vocal blend. With Rawlings again taking the lead, the classic murder ballad “Poor Ellen Smith” is an impossibly lonesome lament with roots that stretch back to the 19th century. Norman Blake’s “Ginseng Sullivan” isn’t a folk song in the truest sense, but it may as well be, with rambling guitars and a homesick chorus. And despite its less-than-cheery title, “All The Good Times Are Past And Gone” will bring a smile, thanks to its combination of world-weariness and graceful acceptance.

All The Good Times’ centrepiece is the almost unbearably poignant version of “Hello In There” by John Prine, a fitting tribute to a master songwriter. Prine, a longtime hero of Welch’s, passed away this spring as a result of complications related to Covid-19. Welch and Rawlings’ mournful take on his quietly devastating meditation on the ravages of time is enough to melt the hardest of hearts. “You know that old trees just grow stronger, and old rivers grow wilder every day,” Prine’s aching chorus goes, Welch and Rawlings’ voices softly yearning together. “Old people just grow lonesome, waiting for someone to say, ‘Hello in there, hello.’” Careful: this one stings.

All The Good Times offers a little bit of sunshine amid the tears, however. The duo’s ride through “Jackson”, the classic Johnny Cash/June Carter divorce anthem crackles with joy and mischief. Even as an acoustic act, they’ve always been able to whip up the locomotive energy of a full-fledged rock’n’roll band, locking in on the rollicking rhythms and letting them ride. And the closer, Arlie Huff’s down-home “Y’all Come” positively beams with positivity and neighbourly warmth, leaving listeners with a necessary dose of optimism for the inevitably tough days, weeks, months and years ahead. “Y’all come to see us when you can,” Gil and Dave sing merrily – here’s hoping we’ll be able to do just that in the not-too-distant future.

Neil Young confirms Return To Greendale

Sam Richards
-
0
Neil Young confirms Return To Greendale
Neil Young's Return To Greendale – the live album and concert film of his theatrical 2003 tour with Crazy Horse in support of the Greendale album – will be released by Reprise on November 6. Recorded in Toronto, Return To Greendale comes in various formats. The limited-edition deluxe box set ...

Neil Young’s Return To Greendale – the live album and concert film of his theatrical 2003 tour with Crazy Horse in support of the Greendale album – will be released by Reprise on November 6.

Recorded in Toronto, Return To Greendale comes in various formats. The limited-edition deluxe box set includes a Blu-ray of the full concert, two LPs, two CDs, and a DVD of Inside Greendale, a documentary capturing the making of the album. The audio album will also be available separately on double vinyl, as a two-CD set and digitally at Neil Young Archives, as well as all major digital service providers.

You can listen to “Falling From Above” from Return To Greendale over at Neil Young Archives (you need to be registered first).

Pre-order Return To Greendale here.

1...165166167...1,270Page 166 of 1,270

SHOP UNCUT