Religious dissidents and juvenile delinquents, Greenwich Village and Potsdamer Platz, doomed soldiers and vacuous celebrities... David Cavanagh files the epic, definitive review of The Next Day. From Uncut's April 2013 (Take 191) issue._______________
I got an email from someone the other day about a new band helmed by Richard Fearless, the sometime leader of Death In Vegas. Of Black Acid, they said, “Half of it sounds like a Japanese sixth form band doing Mary Chain covers. Half of it sounds like Bobby Gillespie telling you about records he likes while trying to play them. The first song is ten minutes of backwards noise.”
Rock purists derided Costello when he first flirted with classical forms 11 years ago, but his Brodsky Quartet collaboration The Juliet Letters still sounds like a bold career swerve. It could even be considered a punk statement in its bare-faced arrogance (stop sniggering at the back). Countless eclectic excursions later, Costello returned to Shakespeare in 2000 when an Italian dance troupe commissioned him to score a ballet based on A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Paul Newman, all Texan swagger and mesmerising Marlboro sneers, completely redefines the concept of 'iconic' as the eponymous heavy-drinking, skirt-chasing, joy-riding cattleman and self-declared "cold-blooded bastard" in Martin Ritt's 1962 classic. Able support comes from sultry Patricia Neal, suitably green Brandon DeWilde (Shane) and James Wong Howe's perfect black-and-white cinematography.
