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Lindsey Buckingham speaks out on Fleetwood Mac firing

Sam Richards
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Lindsey Buckingham speaks out on Fleetwood Mac firing
Lindsey Buckingham has opened up publicly for the first time about his recent ousting from Fleetwood Mac. Speaking between songs at a campaign fundraiser for democratic politician Mike Levin in Los Feliz, California, Buckingham expressed sadness at his enforced departure amid fears that it has tain...

Lindsey Buckingham has opened up publicly for the first time about his recent ousting from Fleetwood Mac.

Speaking between songs at a campaign fundraiser for democratic politician Mike Levin in Los Feliz, California, Buckingham expressed sadness at his enforced departure amid fears that it has tainted Fleetwood Mac’s legacy.

“Probably some of you know that for the last three months I have sadly taken leave of my band of 43 years, Fleetwood Mac,” Buckingham said. “This was not something that was really my doing or my choice. I think what you would say is that there were factions within the band that had lost their perspective.”

When someone in the crowd shouted “Fuck Stevie Nicks!”, Buckingham continued: “Well, it doesn’t really matter. The point is that they’d lost their perspective. What that did was to harm – and this is the only thing I’m really sad about, the rest of it becomes an opportunity – but it harmed the 43-year legacy that we had worked so hard to build. That legacy was really about rising above difficulties in order to fulfill one’s higher truth and one’s higher destiny.”

Watch the whole video below, c/o Brian Larsen.

Uncut’s Fleetwood Mac – Ultimate Music Guide (Remastered Edition) is available to buy online now by clicking here.

Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide: Fleetwood Mac

The July 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Public Image Ltd on the cover in the UK and Johnny Cash overseas. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Ray Davies, Father John Misty, Pink Floyd, Mazzy Star, Sleaford Mods, Neko Case and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Father John Misty, Neko Case, Natalie Prass, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Jon Hassell.

Alex Turner: “Making an Arctic Monkeys album is not an easy alchemy”

John Robinson
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Alex Turner: “Making an Arctic Monkeys album is not an easy alchemy”
Like us on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest news from Uncut Originally published in Uncut's June 2014 issue (Take 205) Five excellent albums. An inflammatory speech on the future of rock’n’roll. America for the taking. And now, this month in London, their biggest ever gigs… Has th...

With his band, Alex Turner told me last year, it’s about ups and downs. “It’s peaks and troughs with an A and an M,” he said, stating the typographical facts. Up and down implies a bumpy ride, but for a band who became a phenomenal success so young, Arctic Monkeys have embraced what has followed, rolled with the punches and avoided the pitfalls. There’s been some good management, all agree, and a good record label. The band are also, as labelmate Bill Ryder-Jones says, “sensible lads”, but as he also remarks, “You want there to be more to it than them just being lads from Sheffield…”

Really, though, the grounding and understanding (for which you are encouraged to read “constant pisstaking”) that goes along with that long friendship is not to be over-estimated. “We’ve got more in common than just the band,” says Matt Helders. “After a gig, the band and the gig are probably the last thing we’ll be talking about. One of us will have been thinking of something stupid from when we were younger. Like, ‘Remember when Chris fell off his bike?’ It’s more than just our jobs.”

“It must have simplified things as we were mates before,” says Nick O’Malley. “You hear about frontmen who are divas and they’re not even that successful – so it it’s refreshing that we’re quite successful and Al’s not a nightmare.”

“They’re all aware of the absurdity of it all,” says Bill Ryder-Jones. “It’s all about drinking Boddingtons and watching Wednesday play with them. That’s a joke – but I’ve never seen any of them eat houmous, ever.”

“They weren’t formed from, like, a ‘bass player wanted’ ad,” says John Cooper Clarke. “They don’t seem to be part of any prevailing youth tribe, any more than The Beatles and The Kinks were, really. I think Arctic Monkeys fall into that. It’s hard-wired into them. They couldn’t follow a trend if they wanted to. You can only piss with the tackle you’ve got.”

This kind of grounding has seen them through 10 years, and looks likely to see Arctic Monkeys into the future. The band have no longterm plans (“It’s foggy out there,” says Turner. “Maybe I’ll go off and make furniture…”), but the examples of David Bowie, Nick Cave and The Stooges are inspirational in how a long career might be interestingly conducted. At Glastonbury last year, the band watched The Rolling Stones. “You hear all these stories, but they looked like they were having an amazing time,” remembers Jamie Cook. “Having a proper buzz. You’ve got to admire that.”

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Rather than up and down, the band’s career since Humbug has been about a movement from side to side. Alex made with James Ford a low-key solo record for the soundtrack to Richard Ayoade’s film Submarine, and the band embraced that simpler, classic British indie-rock sound for their next album, 2011’s Suck It And See, as Nick O’Malley remembers it, also as a response to a resurgence of interest in The Stone Roses and the Pixies.

With their latest album, AM, the band has done something different again. Whether their movements are quite as perverse as they sometimes appear is a different matter.

“It seems erratic to me,” says Turner, “but I think to most people those shifts don’t register quite as dramatically.”

“There are different vibes to the albums,” says James Ford. “I can see why people would think they were different. But for me, Alex’s writing and voice are so definitive, they can almost do anything at this point and it’ll sound like them.”

In his own modest way, Turner supports James Ford’s view. “With this new one, we were asking, have we gone too far? Does it sound too much like Dr Dre or something? Then you play it to someone and they wouldn’t even pick up on that. But they can tell it’s us…” He looks for the right words. “…as soon as I start waffling on.”

AM bears out precisely what he and Ford are saying. This is a band of such strong identity, they can throw a huge amount at their music and still have it sound like the Arctic Monkeys. Nick O’Malley bluntly recalls the band wanting to avoid “the same old indie bullshit”. If a record that occasionally sounds like Justin Timberlake fronting Black Sabbath and at others like John Lennon can be said to avoid that, then they’ve certainly managed it.

Revelation came to the band in the desert. Working again at Rancho De La Luna, but this time with Sheffield engineer/drummer Ross Orton, the band worked on songs that set the tone for the whole of the album: the heavy-riffing opening tracks “Do I Wanna Know?” and “R U Mine?” (first demoed at Orton’s Sheffield studio). Turner recalls “Do I Wanna Know?” was a particular breakthrough.

“Listening to that, that night in the desert, that was a victorious moment. We were all dancing round. That’s what it’s all about for me.”

“It sounded nothing like anything any of us had been involved with before,” recalls Ross Orton. “We went, ‘Fucking hell, this is right good.’”

________________________

Their victorious trip to the desert behind them, the band returned to LA. Having gone looking for a rehearsal room near their homes, they ended up finding the “B” studio of Sage & Sound, a facility off Sunset Strip that had seen better days; those days being the 1970s. There was, recalls Elvis Costello’s drummer Pete Thomas, who played on the sessions for two weeks, “plenty of wood and hessian”. “It was like something out of Boogie Nights,” remembers James Ford. “There were fake Grecian pillars.”

The decor notwithstanding, the space proved to be pivotal to the band’s new work. Having brought in an engineer from New York to fix technical issues, it became evident that the studio would work just as well for recording the album as for writing and demoing it. Writing to loops, then over-dubbing, they arrived at an eloquent, simple statement of their lives as American residents: a concise heavy rock, providing the sound beds for falsetto R&B-style vocals. It was a risky endeavour.

“It could have been terrible,” says Matt Helders. “It could have sounded like Limp Bizkit.”

“It’s not an easy alchemy,” Alex Turner concedes. “It always seems like on every record we’ve ever made there’s a moment when it all feels like a complete mess, disconnected. James Ford usually talks me down. I know every band since the dawn of time thinks this, but it felt pretty out there when we were doing it.”

“The hooks were very R&B,” says Nick O’Malley, “which is a lot more easily absorbed in America than going on about Sheffield bike clubs or whatever. Alex is the same feller, he’s just not having his weekends in Sheffield any more.”

“You make the kind of music to reflect where you are at the time,” says Ross Orton. “If they’d stayed here in Sheffield, maybe it would have been 10 ‘R U Mine?’s. Which wouldn’t have been a bad thing but it would have been different – a heavier, rockier kind of thing. It wouldn’t have been as slick.”

When Matt Helders injured his hand in the early stages of writing the LP, Attractions drummer Pete Thomas sat in for a few weeks while the band continued working on demos.

“It’s a proper group with a proper style,” says Pete. “It reminded me a bit of us as well, our first few albums – lots of bits. It’s very civilised. They sit around, and it’s like, ‘What do you reckon, then?’ ‘Will I double that on the guitar?’ ‘Let’s have a fucking crack at it, then…’ They got me in to bash away. They work on it, then record it and go and listen. There’s no jiggery-pokery. They go in, get the tea on, work on it and suddenly it’s great. Alex goes off inside his head writing: he’s like Elvis. He’s just pulling it out of the air.”

AM is a spectacular record of where Arctic Monkeys are at now, born out of a contradictory environment: conceived in Sheffield, grown in the desert, born in LA. It’s a swaggering hard-rock record about emotional uncertainty; a series of bold and eloquent statements about personal grey areas. The search for contentedness, Alex Turner decides, isn’t unlike the search for good music. It goes on. “It’s never resolved, is it?” he says. “You’re looking for this thing, but you don’t really know where you’re going to find it. But I have a reverence for that process, that trek. It’s not some bullshit like ‘I want to put beautiful things in the world’. But there is some of that, you know, the way ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ does that to you. I remember hearing The Beach Boys in a car, hearing those harmonies. It gets you down there somewhere.

“That’s what my dad told me about music; it’s about feelings,” Turner says. “There’s a set of rules you can follow. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to feel it in your soul.”

The July 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Public Image Ltd on the cover in the UK and Johnny Cash overseas. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Ray Davies, Father John Misty, Pink Floyd, Mazzy Star, Sleaford Mods, Neko Case and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Father John Misty, Neko Case, Natalie Prass, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Jon Hassell.

Hear Orbital’s new single, “Tiny Foldable Cities”

Sam Richards
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Hear Orbital’s new single, “Tiny Foldable Cities”
Dance music trailblazers Orbital will release a new album called Monsters Exist on September 14. After not speaking for five years, the Hartnoll brothers reunited for a series of live shows last year before returning to the studio to record their first album since 2012. Hear the first single from M...

Dance music trailblazers Orbital will release a new album called Monsters Exist on September 14.

After not speaking for five years, the Hartnoll brothers reunited for a series of live shows last year before returning to the studio to record their first album since 2012. Hear the first single from Monsters Exist, “Tiny Foldable Cities”, below:

“When you haven’t made an album in five years it just comes tumbling out,” says the band’s Paul Hartnoll. “Because of the global situation I was torn between writing a really aggressive Crass-type album that says ‘Fuck The Man!’ or going back to rave sensibilities. You know, let’s really rebel by stepping away and actually living that alternative lifestyle. You don’t need to spell out who the monsters are. We’re not pointing our fingers at Donald Trump or Kim Jong-un. It’s clear who the monsters are. I’ve never liked preaching to people. It’s much better to provoke a bit of thought.”

“It’s a reflection on modern day monsters,” adds Phil Hartnoll. “That can mean anything from bankers and The Man or your own demons and fears. The monsters inside you.”

Peruse the full tracklisting and artwork for Monsters Exist below:

Standard CD / Deluxe Edition Disc 1
1. Monsters Exist
2. Hoo Hoo Ha Ha
3. The Raid
4. P.H.U.K.
5. Tiny Foldable Cities
6. Buried Deep Within
7. Vision OnE
8. The End Is Nigh
9. There Will Come A Time (Featuring Prof. Brian Cox)

Deluxe Edition Disc 2
1. Kaiju
2. A Long Way From Home
3. Analogue Test Oct 16
4. Fun With The System
5. Dressing Up In Other People’s Clothes
6. To Dream Again
7. There Will Come A Time – Instrumental
8. Tiny Foldable Cities – Kareful Remix

Orbital play a number of gigs and festival shows throughout 2018, details below:

MAY
25 , Belfast, BBC Music Biggest Weekend, Titanic Slipways

JUNE
11 Moscow, Bosco Fresh Festival
29 Brighton Racecourse
30 Hull, Zebedee’s Yard

JULY
13 Beat-Herder Festival
14 Barcelona, Cruilla Festival
28 Margate, Dreamland
29 Camp Bestival, Big Top

AUGUST
3 Dekmantel, Amsterdam Holland
5 Dublin, Beat Yard Festival
11 Gateshead, Sage

SEPTEMBER
01 Bristol, Downs Festival
08 Birmingham, Shiiine On Genting Arena – 1 day festival

NOVEMBER
18 Minehead, Shiiine On Butlins Weekender

DECEMBER
15 London, Hammersmith Apollo
18 Sheffield, Academy
19 Cambridge, Corn Exchange
20 Manchester, Apollo

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

Ultimate Music Guide: Black Sabbath

Marc Jones
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Ultimate Music Guide: Black Sabbath
When Black Sabbath closed the final performance from their The End Tour, in Birmingham on February 4 last year, you could be forgiven for wondering whether that was really the last we'd hear of Ozzy Osbourne and his musical cohorts. After all, here was a band who had come back from the brink several...

When Black Sabbath closed the final performance from their The End Tour, in Birmingham on February 4 last year, you could be forgiven for wondering whether that was really the last we’d hear of Ozzy Osbourne and his musical cohorts. After all, here was a band who had come back from the brink several times in the past – Ozzy himself had embarked on a solo farewell jaunt in 1992.

But if the peal of a familiar church bell has definitely tolled the end of Black Sabbath – and those monolithic riffs are no more – then at least it is possible to celebrate the masters of metal in all their infinite glory in our latest Ultimate Music Guide – which goes on sale this Thursday, May 10.

As you can imagine, it features classic interviews from the archives of Melody Maker and NME complemented by extensive new reviews of every Sabbath album, every Ozzy solo album, miscellanies and more. You can buy a copy from our online store by clicking here.

Here’s John Robinson, who edited this issue, to tell you all about it.

“’We’re all four together, like brothers’

“Not everyone’s first thought, of course, but the origin story of Black Sabbath is essentially a romantic one. Whereas the beginnings of heavy contemporaries like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple speak of professionalism, of scouting the scene for strong players and likely collaborators, those of Black Sabbath feel endearingly haphazard.

As you will discover as you read through the extraordinary archive interviews and affectionate new critical writing which makes up this new Ultimate Music Guide, the story of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne is a rags to riches yarn. Namely how four pot smokers from an unpromising part of Birmingham turned their obsessions – heavy music; not working; smoking pot – into one of the most influential, charismatic and commercially successful bands of the late 20th century.

“’Usually in bands you get two blokes who stick together and two others, but it’s not like that with us,’ Ozzy Osbourne told NME’s Nick Logan in 1971. ‘We’re all four together, like brothers. And that’s right because you have four people creating the sound.’

“That sound was collaborative, loose and darkly groovy. But as with brothers, there were serious fights along the way as it got made. And yet, as Ozzy’s path diverged from Sabbath’s, the singer trading on his dangerous reputation to become a huge star in the US, guitarist Tony Iommi fought to keep something like his original band intact – a tangled story, with many singers, which sailed close to rock parody. When the original band – or three-quarters of them – reformed in 2013, it brought to this doomy and aggressive band a blessed kind of symmetry.

“What made it all worth it was the extraordinary music made along the way – which we celebrate with in-depth new reviews here. From the dark and frightening intimations of their debut album to the underground vibrations of the follow-up, Paranoid, Sabbath’s sound was a heavy, powerful swing with riffs for every occasion. When Tony Iommi downtuned his guitar for third album Master Of Reality, he set in motion a sound which spawned an entire musical genre.

“This magazine follows the band on every step of their journey, from the debut to 13, and the ongoing career of Ozzy Osbourne, who provides an exclusive introduction to the mag. We hope you enjoy it.

“In fact, as Ozzy himself has said: ‘We love you all! Go crazy!’”

Order a copy

Ultimate Music Guide: Yes

Marc Jones
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Ultimate Music Guide: Yes
If the guiding principle of minimalism is 'less is more', then I guess in prog terms more is more. Allow me to unveil our special edition focussing on one of the world’s most successful rock bands: Yes. Here's John Robinson, who's edited this UMG, to tell you more about it: “As the band prepar...

If the guiding principle of minimalism is ‘less is more’, then I guess in prog terms more is more. Allow me to unveil our special edition focussing on one of the world’s most successful rock bands: Yes.

Here’s John Robinson, who’s edited this UMG, to tell you more about it:

“As the band prepare to celebrate their 50th anniversary with a March UK tour (and another version of the band playing in the summer), this special 124 page prestige magazine will tell the full story of Yes. Featuring in-depth reviews of all of their albums, alongside a trove of archival features, this is the definitive chronicle of this multi-million selling, Hall Of Fame-honoured band.

“It will also feature a new bespoke introduction from Yes guitarist Steve Howe. Here’s a word from Steve:

“’We’ve been lucky to have had so many big buzzes. When we were coming up initially… when The Yes Album was fantastically well received in the UK… when Fragile was racing up the American charts… when Close To The Edge came out…selling out Madison Square Garden more often than Led Zeppelin.

“’We’ve had a lot of difficulties, a lot of sadness, a lot of arguments and a lot of lost money, but we’ve been blessed with a lot of great things in the heritage we’ve helped create. But none of them are any more important than the fact that the band carried on, that there was a determination, a love of the music and a commitment to that standard we created.

“’The group wasn’t just five blokes that go up in their Wellington boots and play. This was a group that had to have high standards, it had to be ground-breaking, it had to be different, it had to have great lights, staging, sound. We saw this as a project that wasn’t just about music.’”

Order a copy

Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide: Fleetwood Mac

Marc Jones
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Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide: Fleetwood Mac
The last time Fleetwood Mac toured the UK, in 2015, the message they chose to share with us was togetherness. For a band whose history has been characterized by departures, infidelity and addiction, the return of Christine McVie to the band’s line up after a 16 year-absence felt like a rare harmon...

The last time Fleetwood Mac toured the UK, in 2015, the message they chose to share with us was togetherness. For a band whose history has been characterized by departures, infidelity and addiction, the return of Christine McVie to the band’s line up after a 16 year-absence felt like a rare harmonizing moment: a lull in the turbulence. As Lindsey Buckingham rather grandly described it on stage during the band’s residency at London’s O2 Arena that summer, “With the return of the beautiful Christine, there is no doubt that we begin a brand new, prolific and profound and beautiful chapter in the story of this band, Fleetwood Mac.”

Uncut’s Fleetwood Mac – Ultimate Music Guide (Remastered Edition) is in shops from Thursday, April 12 and available to buy online now by clicking here

In fact, McVie’s return to active service was the latest remarkable twist in Fleetwood Mac’s story. The intervening three years have seen the band release expanded editions of albums from their beloved Buckingham/Nicks configuration – Rumours, Fleetwood Mac, Mirage, Tango In The Night – as well a surprising and robust collaborative album from Buckingham McVie. As ever, the 21st century Fleetwood Mac continue to benefit from their most successful and notorious period.

But in many respects, Fleetwood Mac are actually a more interesting proposition away from the Rumours material. The 2013 reissue of the band’s 1969 album, Then Play On was a useful reminder of the magical guitar interplay between Peter Green and Danny Kirwan. While the deluxe treatment of the Buckingham/Nicks era has been splendid, there are some fans – myself among them – who would cherish similarly well-curated archival trawls through the band’s majestic run of ‘transitional’ albums: Kiln House, Future Games, Bare Trees…

Meantime, Mac fans can hopefully be content with a special edition of our own – Fleetwood Mac: The Ultimate Music Guide. This 124-page deluxe edition – on sale from Thursday – features a wealth of archival interviews from Melody Maker and NME, a recent catch up with Buckingham and McVie alongside in-depth reviews of every album.

At the very least, we hope you agree, it’s something to read while we wait for the “brand new, prolific and profound and beautiful chapter” in the story of Fleetwood Mac to unfold.

Order a copy

 

 

Sharon Van Etten to play Late Night Prom

Sam Richards
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Sharon Van Etten will play London's Royal Albert Hall on August 8 as part of the BBC Proms season. She'll appear alongside Hercules & Love Affair and Serpentwithfeet in Prom 35, a special 'Late Night Prom' celebrating the music of New York. Helmed by conductor Jules Buckley and the Heritage Or...

Sharon Van Etten will play London’s Royal Albert Hall on August 8 as part of the BBC Proms season.

She’ll appear alongside Hercules & Love Affair and Serpentwithfeet in Prom 35, a special ‘Late Night Prom’ celebrating the music of New York.

Helmed by conductor Jules Buckley and the Heritage Orchestra, Prom 35: New York: Sound Of A City will feature “new music from some of the city’s rising stars, plus classic tracks by established acts that have changed the city’s soundscape. Expect anything from pagan-gospel and disco-punk to feminist rap or DIY indie.”

Tickets for the Prom go on sale tomorrow morning (May 12), available from the Royal Albert Hall site.

Sharon Van Etten is currently at work on her new album, the follow up to 2015’s I Don’t Want To Let You Down EP.

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

Britpop – The Ultimate Genre Guide

Marc Jones
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Britpop – The Ultimate Genre Guide
Welcome, then, to the latest edition to the Uncut family. Following on from our survey of Glam – which is still available to buy here – the second instalment of our Ultimate Genre Guide will focus on Britpop. As you’d expect, it mines the capacious archives of Melody Maker and NME – who didn...

Welcome, then, to the latest edition to the Uncut family. Following on from our survey of Glam – which is still available to buy here – the second instalment of our Ultimate Genre Guide will focus on Britpop. As you’d expect, it mines the capacious archives of Melody Maker and NME – who didn’t stint in their coverage of the subject – for classic interviews alongside brand new essays by Uncut’s crack team of writers. There’s David Cavanagh on the roots of Britpop, Stephen Troussé on Suede, Tom Pinnock on Blur, John Robinson on Oasis and – sorry – me on Elastica and plenty more.

Over to John Robinson, who edited it…

“Britpop isn’t short on triumphant scenes. Oasis at Knebworth. Blur at the top of the charts. Pulp, taking over from the indisposed Stone Roses and making Glastonbury their own in 1995. The best British music of the time explored some unsavoury places, had some unintentionally comic moments, even some darker interludes. But it seemed there were a lot of occasions which felt like a kind of victory.

“Not everyone felt quite the same (‘Britpop,’ Thom Yorke told Melody Maker in 1997, ‘was a party to which we weren’t invited.’) but it would be crazy to think that guitar bands in the period failed to benefit from the mainstream breakthrough made by previously alternative guitar music. It was certainly the site of Radiohead’s major impact.

“In this new Ultimate Genre Guide you can read deep new appraisals of this excellent music. There’s new thought here on our cover stars Blur and Oasis, of course, but also Elastica, The Verve, Suede, Pulp, the Manics, Radiohead, Supergrass and the Auteurs. Some 25 years on from the genre’s arguable creation moment in Suede’s “The Drowners”, you can also enjoy the thrill of the moment with our selection of rarely-seen archive features.

“For some it was about guitar groups in skinny ties, or Chris Evans on the television. For Jarvis Cocker, it ultimately became about the untucked shirt – and you can read about all of those elements here. At its best, though, Britpop was about a vital transformation, a rediscovery of an eloquent type of narrative song – a kind of music that originated in the everyday, but contained the power to transcend it completely.

“In the 1960s that might mean Ray Davies casting a brief glance to Terry and Julie on Waterloo Bridge. Today, it’s the inspired transatlantic social reportage of Alex Turner, and rediscovering this art of song was key to Britpop. It was probably the one point of common ground that Blur had with Oasis, and it chimed with a public ready to celebrate something.

“It was a golden age for classic songs stirring a huge number of people. Oasis played to a quarter of a million people at Knebworth – but over 22 million people bought (What’s The Story) Morning Glory. Paul Weller found himself not only cited as an influence, but enjoying huge demand for his new work. The Verve evolved from psychedelic adventurers to visionary balladeers. The Manic Street Preachers turned their sloganeering into some of the most anthemic songs of the decade. Pulp, once an impossible orchid, flowered magnificently in the spotlight.

“A quarter of a century on, it feels like something worth celebrating again. This time, it’s a party to which everyone is invited.”

Order a copy

Police confirm the death of Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison

Sam Richards
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Police confirm the death of Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison
Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison has died aged 36. Police confirmed today (May 11) that a body found yesterday evening at Port Edgar Marina near Edinburgh is that of the singer and guitarist. Hutchison was reported missing on Wednesday morning. "We are utterly devastated with the tragic...

Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison has died aged 36.

Police confirmed today (May 11) that a body found yesterday evening at Port Edgar Marina near Edinburgh is that of the singer and guitarist. Hutchison was reported missing on Wednesday morning.

“We are utterly devastated with the tragic loss of our beloved Scott,” said his family in a statement. “Despite his disappearance, and the recent concerns over his mental health, we had all remained positive and hopeful that he would walk back through the door, having taken some time away to compose himself.

“Scott, like many artists, wore his heart on his sleeve and that was evident in the lyrics of his music and the content of many of his social media posts.
He was passionate, articulate and charismatic, as well as being one of the funniest and kindest people we knew. Friends and family would all agree that he had a brilliant sense of humour and was a great person to be around.”

They added: “Depression is a horrendous illness that does not give you any alert or indication as to when it will take hold of you. Scott battled bravely with his own issues for many years and we are immensely proud of him for being so open with his struggles. His willingness to discuss these matters in the public domain undoubtedly raised awareness of mental health issues and gave others confidence and belief to discuss their own issues.”

Following the news of Hutchison’s death, fellow musicians – including Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch and Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite – paid tribute to the singer on social media.

For help and advice on mental health issues, go here. In the UK, The Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or through their website here.

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

Watch Arctic Monkeys play “Four Out Of Five” on US TV

Sam Richards
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Watch Arctic Monkeys play “Four Out Of Five” on US TV
Arctic Monkeys' sixth album, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, is out today (May 11). Last night, they played its most immediate track "Four Out Of Five" – there are no singles – on US TV programme The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Watch that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHM...

Arctic Monkeys’ sixth album, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, is out today (May 11).

Last night, they played its most immediate track “Four Out Of Five” – there are no singles – on US TV programme The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Watch that here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHMBJ2do1XU

Listen to Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino below. You can read Uncut’s comprehensive take on the album in the current issue, on sale now.

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

The Beach Boys and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra share “Fun, Fun, Fun”

Michael Bonner
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The Beach Boys and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra share “Fun, Fun, Fun”
The Beach Boys and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have shared "Fun, Fun, Fun" from their new collaborative album. You can watch it below. The Beach Boys With The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is to be released on June 8 by Universal/UMC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQUevuu0FYE&feature=youtu.b...

The Beach Boys and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have shared “Fun, Fun, Fun” from their new collaborative album. You can watch it below.

The Beach Boys With The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is to be released on June 8 by Universal/UMC.

The album pairs The Beach Boys’ original vocal performances with new symphonic arrangements, newly recorded by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios. The album is produced by Don Reedman and Nick Patrick, who produced A Love So Beautiful: Roy Orbison with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and The Wonder Of You: Elvis Presley with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Brian Wilson said: “I always knew the vocal arrangements I did back in the 1960s would lend themselves perfectly for a symphony and there is no better one in the world than the Royal Philharmonic. I am both proud and humbled by what they have created using our songs and I hope everyone falls in love with it like I have.”

You can pre-order a copy by by clicking here.

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

Watch a new Stephen Malkmus mini-doc

Sam Richards
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Watch a new Stephen Malkmus mini-doc
Ahead of the release of Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks' new album Sparkle Hard on May 18, Domino have released a mini-documentary on the making of the record. Watch it below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCNJytiXyLE&feature=youtu.be "I have long been a Malkmus fan, and for years have thoug...

Ahead of the release of Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks’ new album Sparkle Hard on May 18, Domino have released a mini-documentary on the making of the record. Watch it below:

“I have long been a Malkmus fan, and for years have thought very hard about what I would make with him given the opportunity,” says director Brook Linder. “He’s such a unique character… I wanted to capture the mundane details of his life – and it turns out they’re as enigmatic as he is.”

“Since watching this doc I’ve improved my tennis game immensely,” adds Malkmus. “I’ve shortened my follow through on the forehand and made progress on a buttery topspin backhand.”

You can read a full review of Sparkle Hard – along with an extensive Stephen Malkmus Q&A – in the current issue of Uncut, on sale now. For a sneak preview, go here.

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

Hear White Denim’s new single, “Magazin”

Sam Richards
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Hear White Denim’s new single, “Magazin”
White Denim have revealed that their new album Performance will be released on August 24. Hear the first single "Magazin" below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo7j2OIhay0 Performance introduces two new members to the White Denim fold, with former NRBQ drummer Conrad Choucroun and keyboardist Mic...

White Denim have revealed that their new album Performance will be released on August 24. Hear the first single “Magazin” below:

Performance introduces two new members to the White Denim fold, with former NRBQ drummer Conrad Choucroun and keyboardist Michael Hunter joining frontman James Petralli and bassist Steve Terebecki.

The album was recorded mainly in Radio Milk, White Denim’s new studio built in an old general store and horse stable in downtown Austin. It was self-produced by the band, alongside Jim Vollentine.

White Denim have also announced a European tour, dates as follows:

28 Aug – London @ Rough Trade East
29 Aug – London @ Moth Club (Matinee)
29 Aug – London @ Moth Club
31 Aug – Vlieland, NL @ Into the Great Wide Open Festival
02 Sep – Salisbury, UK @ End of the Road Festival
07 Nov – Paris, FR @ Le Point Ephemere
08 Nov – Maastricht, NL @ Muziekgieterij
09 Nov – Hamburg, DE @ Rolling Stone Weekender
10 Nov – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
11 Nov – Nijmegen, NL @ Doornroosje
13 Nov – Berlin, DE @ Beghain Kantine
14 Nov – Munich, DE@ Milla
15 Nov – Cologne, DE @ Artheater
16 Nov – Baden-Württemberg, DE @ Rolling Stone Park
17 Nov – Antwerp, BE @ Trix Club

Tickets for the two Moth Club shows go on sale at 9am on Friday (May 11) from here.

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

Introducing Black Sabbath: The Ultimate Music Guide

Michael Bonner
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Introducing Black Sabbath: The Ultimate Music Guide
When Black Sabbath closed the final performance from their The End Tour, in Birmingham on February 4 last year, you could be forgiven for wondering whether that was really the last we'd hear of Ozzy Osbourne and his musical cohorts. After all, here was a band who had come back from the brink several...

When Black Sabbath closed the final performance from their The End Tour, in Birmingham on February 4 last year, you could be forgiven for wondering whether that was really the last we’d hear of Ozzy Osbourne and his musical cohorts. After all, here was a band who had come back from the brink several times in the past – Ozzy himself had embarked on a solo farewell jaunt in 1992.

But if the peal of a familiar church bell has definitely tolled the end of Black Sabbath – and those monolithic riffs are no more – then at least it is possible to celebrate the masters of metal in all their infinite glory in our latest Ultimate Music Guide – which goes on sale this Thursday, May 10.

As you can imagine, it features classic interviews from the archives of Melody Maker and NME complemented by extensive new reviews of every Sabbath album, every Ozzy solo album, miscellanies and more. You can buy a copy from our online store by clicking here.

Here’s John Robinson, who edited this one, to tell you all about it.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

“’We’re all four together, like brothers’

“Not everyone’s first thought, of course, but the origin story of Black Sabbath is essentially a romantic one. Whereas the beginnings of heavy contemporaries like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple speak of professionalism, of scouting the scene for strong players and likely collaborators, those of Black Sabbath feel endearingly haphazard.

As you will discover as you read through the extraordinary archive interviews and affectionate new critical writing which makes up this new Ultimate Music Guide, the story of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne is a rags to riches yarn. Namely how four pot smokers from an unpromising part of Birmingham turned their obsessions – heavy music; not working; smoking pot – into one of the most influential, charismatic and commercially successful bands of the late 20th century.

“’Usually in bands you get two blokes who stick together and two others, but it’s not like that with us,’ Ozzy Osbourne told NME’s Nick Logan in 1971. ‘We’re all four together, like brothers. And that’s right because you have four people creating the sound.’

“That sound was collaborative, loose and darkly groovy. But as with brothers, there were serious fights along the way as it got made. And yet, as Ozzy’s path diverged from Sabbath’s, the singer trading on his dangerous reputation to become a huge star in the US, guitarist Tony Iommi fought to keep something like his original band intact – a tangled story, with many singers, which sailed close to rock parody. When the original band – or three-quarters of them – reformed in 2013, it brought to this doomy and aggressive band a blessed kind of symmetry.

“What made it all worth it was the extraordinary music made along the way – which we celebrate with in-depth new reviews here. From the dark and frightening intimations of their debut album to the underground vibrations of the follow-up, Paranoid, Sabbath’s sound was a heavy, powerful swing with riffs for every occasion. When Tony Iommi downtuned his guitar for third album Master Of Reality, he set in motion a sound which spawned an entire musical genre.

“This magazine follows the band on every step of their journey, from the debut to 13, and the ongoing career of Ozzy Osbourne, who provides an exclusive introduction to the mag. We hope you enjoy it.

“In fact, as Ozzy himself has said: ‘We love you all! Go crazy!’”

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

The Who – Live At The Fillmore East 1968: 50th Anniversary

Michael Bonner
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The Who – Live At The Fillmore East 1968: 50th Anniversary
“If you’ve only just turned up, this is our last song – but don’t worry, this one goes on for quite a long time,” grins Pete Townshend, before launching into a 33-minute version of “My Generation” that completely re-imagines the three-minute classic, before ending in a holocaust of cer...

“If you’ve only just turned up, this is our last song – but don’t worry, this one goes on for quite a long time,” grins Pete Townshend, before launching into a 33-minute version of “My Generation” that completely re-imagines the three-minute classic, before ending in a holocaust of ceremonial destruction.

It’s April 1968 at the Fillmore East, and The Who are playing in a fraught atmosphere. Martin Luther King was assassinated two days previously, and a cloud hangs over the USA. It’s the sort of tension The Who thrive on, and their epic finale of “My Generation” is a cathartic, performative howl that passes through multiple phases of angst and calm before the inevitable instrumental obliteration. It’s undoubtedly the highlight of The Who’s April 6 Fillmore East show, which was professionally recorded for a proposed live album but never released. The gig instead passed to bootleggers, who have been pushing different versions for years but even the best of them have never included this eye-opening “My Generation”. This official release has been ably remixed by Bob Pridden, a roadie at the Fillmore back in ’68.

The Who arrived in New York in classically belligerent mood. They were at the end of a long US tour and had already been forced to move hotels after Keith Moon started blowing up bits of the Waldorf Astoria. On the morning of the rehearsal, the exhausted group were photographed by Life slumped by a statue in Morningside Park, sleeping under a Union flag. The Who had played this venue the previous year when it was called the Village Theater, but this was the first time they’d performed there since Billy Graham turned it into the Fillmore East in March 1968. Midway through the show, Townshend and Daltrey recall that in its previous incarnation it was “a pisshole”.

The original plan was to play four short shows over two nights, but due to security concerns following MLK’s death, the band instead agreed to play two longer shows. That’s what allowed them to draw out the extended “My Generation”, and to deliver a couple of mid-set mini-epics in the form of “A Quick One” and a wild 11-minute take on “Relax”, one of The Who’s more psychedelic songs. What stands out is the band’s versatility. There are hard rock raves – notably three Eddie Cochran numbers (“My Way”, “Summertime Blues”, “C’mon Everybody”) – and funky groovers like the terrific cover of Allen Toussaint’s “Fortune Teller” and a waltzy “Shakin’ All Over”. And then there are originals like “Boris The Spider”, “I’m A Boy”, “Tattoo” and the rare anti-smoking song “Little Billy”, but everything is delivered with the muscular sincerity that made The Who such a compelling and memorable live act.

Extras: 6/10. Available either as double CD or triple vinyl, with new liner notes and rare photos.

The July 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Public Image Ltd on the cover in the UK and Johnny Cash overseas. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Ray Davies, Father John Misty, Pink Floyd, Mazzy Star, Sleaford Mods, Neko Case and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Father John Misty, Neko Case, Natalie Prass, Melody’s Echo Chamber, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Jon Hassell.

Eric Burdon’s upcoming hometown show “likely to be my last”

Sam Richards
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Eric Burdon’s upcoming hometown show “likely to be my last”
In the current issue of Uncut - on sale now - Eric Burdon acknowledges that his concert at Newcastle City Hall on June 23 may be his last in his hometown. "Let's face it, I am not getting any younger here!" says the former Animals frontman, who turns 77 this month. "Although 'retirement' is not a ...

In the current issue of Uncut – on sale now – Eric Burdon acknowledges that his concert at Newcastle City Hall on June 23 may be his last in his hometown.

“Let’s face it, I am not getting any younger here!” says the former Animals frontman, who turns 77 this month. “Although ‘retirement’ is not a word in my vocabulary, being on the road is extremely tiring. So I’ll have to find other formats to express my musical needs and connect with my audience… As long as I have a voice, I will always use it to speak my mind and sing from my heart.”

As part of a wide-ranging interview, Burdon also reveals why he thinks the original incarnation of The Animals imploded just two years after scoring a transatlantic No. 1 with “House Of The Rising Sun”.

“We recognised [Chas Chandler’s] managerial skills right away,” says Burdon of the Animals bassist who went on to manage Jimi Hendrix and Slade. “It was me who told him he’d be better suited as our manager instead of bass player. We were getting attention and we knew we’d make it, but we thought we could do with a stronger bass player and a better manager. Nobody was willing to tell him, so I took it upon myself. From then on, he hated my guts. I wish he’d have listened. Maybe The Animals would have had a better future in the music world.”

Asked if he ever thinks about his legacy, Burdon says: “A legacy is for others to make up about you after you’ve gone. I’ve lived a full life with many ups and downs. The only thing I can say about myself, is that I am one lucky individual to have come through the life that I’ve lived.”

Read more in the June 2018 issue of Uncut, on sale now.

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

The 17th Uncut new music playlist of 2018

Michael Bonner
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The 17th Uncut new music playlist of 2018
Plenty of Bank Holiday listening here, I hope. First among many highlights is the first glimpse of new music from Cowboy Junkies: I can safely say there is more greatness to come from their new album, All That Reckoning. Elsewhere, the Rosali track is fast becoming a personal favourite, Snail Mail g...

Plenty of Bank Holiday listening here, I hope. First among many highlights is the first glimpse of new music from Cowboy Junkies: I can safely say there is more greatness to come from their new album, All That Reckoning. Elsewhere, the Rosali track is fast becoming a personal favourite, Snail Mail get better with each new track – and there’s a lot of excitement here about The Wave Pictures album.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

1.
COWBOY JUNKIES
“All That Reckoning (Part 1)”
(Proper Records)

2.
ROSALI
“Like To Me”
(Spinster)

2.
DAWN LANDES
“What Will I Do”
(Yep Roc)

4.
SONS OF BILL
“Believer/Pretender”
(Loose)

5.
SNAIL MAIL
“Heat Wave”
(Matador)

6.
NATALIE PRASS
“Lost”
(ATO Records)

7.
ELIADES OCHOA
“Así es la Naturaleza”
(Montuno Procucciones)

8.
JIM JAMES
“Just A Fool”
(ATO Records)

9.
DINOSAUR JR
“Goin’ Down”
(Third Man Records)

10.
THE WAVE PICTURES
“Jim”
(Moshi Moshi Music)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En-JaUBp_NA

11.
HIGH SUNN
“Summer Solstice”
(PNKSLM Recordings)

12.
JENNY HVAL
“Spells”
(Sacred Bones Records)

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to guest on Buddy Guy’s new album

Sam Richards
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Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to guest on Buddy Guy’s new album
81-year-old blues veteran Buddy Guy will release a brand new album, The Blues Is Alive And Well, on June 15. The follow-up to 2015's Born To Play Guitar, it features guest appearances by Mick Jagger on “You Did The Crime” and Keith Richards and Jeff Beck on “Cognac”. The full tracklisting ...

81-year-old blues veteran Buddy Guy will release a brand new album, The Blues Is Alive And Well, on June 15.

The follow-up to 2015’s Born To Play Guitar, it features guest appearances by Mick Jagger on “You Did The Crime” and Keith Richards and Jeff Beck on “Cognac”.

The full tracklisting for The Blues Is Alive And Well is as follows:

01 A Few Good Years
02 Guilty As Charged
03 Cognac (featuring Jeff Beck & Keith Richards)
04 The Blues Is Alive And Well
05 Bad Day
06 Blue No More (featuring James Bay)
07 Whiskey For Sale
08 You Did The Crime (featuring Mick Jagger)
09 Old Fashioned
10 When My Day Comes
11 Nine Below Zero
12 Ooh Daddy
13 Somebody Up There
14 End Of The Line

Buddy Guy continues to tour extensively, see his full 2018 schedule here.

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

MC5 on ‘Kick Out The Jams’: “We weren’t on a meth power trip… just a power trip”

Jaan Uhelszki
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MC5 on ‘Kick Out The Jams’: “We weren’t on a meth power trip… just a power trip”
Like us on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest news from Uncut “Right now… right now it’s time to…” The Detroit revolutionaries tell the full story of their immortal "Kick Out The Jams", and how their use of the M-word got them into a lot of trouble... Originally published in Unc...

Michael Davis (bass): It’s hard to separate recording the song “Kick Out The Jams” with the album, since we did it all at once. We recorded it over two days and I don’t remember much difference between the two days. We had our heads in the clouds. I think we probably thought that we did great, and didn’t really have to change much. Personally, having gotten over the first night jitters, you come back the next night and remember where the rough spots were before and you attack it a little stronger, you feel you’re more confident. We probably came back the second night and played a better show, but I don’t know. Sometimes you think the first stroke you lay down is always the best, then you always try to fix things that you weren’t satisfied with.

The night we recorded “Kick Out The Jams” was actually the end of the band for me. Before that night, the MC5 was totally experimental. Every time we went up onstage, it was like we were making the sound up for the time. It’s a gig, so you never heard it back after we played it, if you follow me. We never really knew how we sounded, so we had greater freedom to experiment more. After October 31, 1968, the MC5 would forever be molded that way because now we knew what we were supposed to sound like. We were like Play-Doh before that, and then we were an actual form after it, and we were expected to be like that from then on. Although we never got any more experimental, we got better musically. We were better musicians, better writers, we were able to make recordings that sounded more professional and more advanced. It’s kind of a bittersweet victory, in a way.

_____________________

Dennis Thompson (drums): The song that gets us in trouble, because of that one word. Here’s a live band – with a live record – that’s being introduced with “fuck” in the liner notes, and “motherfucker” in the single, and yet it’s rising up in the charts on AM radio. The word is considered an obscenity. When we did it in public, the police had an excuse to harass us and throw us in jail. Some gigs we didn’t even go to because we heard the cops were waiting for us. The political right was horrified of us, the political left was never happy that we weren’t revolutionary enough. And the corporations were deathly afraid of us, because we were the real thing.

Did I play any differently that night we recorded “Kick Out The Jams?” Yeah, I played harder than I ever played in my life. I don’t know, it was so intense, like we’d been waiting for that moment to get recorded. We’d played so many places in the couple years prior, and worked at the Grande without much recognition at all. So inside my heart, it was like: “Ow, you know, finally this is it. Making a record, this is what we’ve been doing this for. This is what I dropped out of college for!” I think I broke 10 sticks each performance, at least. I had calluses on all of my fingers, and the forefingers of both hands and the index finger had blood blisters underneath them. They’d break open every time I played. And it was just raw.

I remember both nights were kickass. It was magical, because we knew we had something. I was taking a lot of LSD at the time, and smoking massive quantities of sacrament, as John [Sinclair, MC5 manager] would say. I played high onstage all the time. But it wasn’t the kind of a high like doing heroin or doing coke where you played too fast or it affected the physicality of the show. It was more mental.

But those two nights we just calmed down. We didn’t take the normal quantities that we would take. ‘Let’s just low-key it tonight’, so instead of smoking 15 joints we probably smoked 10. The energy was harnessed.

_____________________

John Sinclair (manager): We did it over two days, October 30 and 31. We didn’t think it was at all strange that we were going to record “Kick Out The Jams” live. We thought it was the way we should do it. Over the years, Wayne has made comments that he didn’t like the way it turned out, but you couldn’t have a more accurate representation of how the band sounded. It was bold to do a live album as a first album, but that was our aesthetic. We were a band that put on a show when nobody put on a show, except for The Who. We cut two nights at the Grande. It was a free concert, so our fans were there. We wanted everybody to enjoy this with us. We felt they brought us there. If it wasn’t for that fucking Lester Bangs, it might have been interpreted in an entirely different way. But what he wrote in the Rolling Stone, claiming it sounded like The Seeds, it kind of poisoned the well. In later years, he’d come up to me in a drunken frenzy and say, “That’s my favourite record of all time.” I’d say, “Well then, thanks for ruining their career. That’s a strange way to show your love, fucking ponk.”

I liked “Kick Out the Jams” then, I like it now. I still get excited when I hear “Now it’s time to…” I like that moment. I always like that moment.

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

Hear Ray Davies’ new song, “Our Country”

Sam Richards
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Hear Ray Davies’ new song, “Our Country”
Ray Davies will release a new album on June 29, entitled Our Country: Americana Act II. A sequel to last year's Americana, it features many of the same musicians, including The Jayhawks as Davies' main backing band. The tracklist is a combination of new songs and reinterpretations of Americana-them...

Ray Davies will release a new album on June 29, entitled Our Country: Americana Act II.

A sequel to last year’s Americana, it features many of the same musicians, including The Jayhawks as Davies’ main backing band. The tracklist is a combination of new songs and reinterpretations of Americana-themed numbers from Davies’ back catalogue.

“Our Country follows my journey across America,” explains Davies, “through endless tours not just to reclaim The Kinks’ career, but to rediscover the country that offered me my earliest inspirations.”

Listen to opener “Our Country” below:

The full tracklisting for Our Country: Americana Act II is as follows:

1. Our Country
2. The Invaders (spoken word)
3. Back In The Day
4. Oklahoma U.S.A.
5. Bringing Up Baby
6. The Getaway
7. The Take
8. We Will Get There
9. The Real World
10. A Street Called Hope
11. The Empty Room
12. Calling Home
13. Louisiana Sky
14. March Of The Zombies
15. The Big Weird
16. Tony And Bob
17. The Big Guy
18. Epilogue
19. Muswell Kills

Watch a video about the making of the album below:

Davies is currently working on a theatre/film piece based on Americana and Our Country.

The June 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with the Rolling Stones on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll find exclusive new interviews with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Françoise Hardy, Eric Burdon, James Taylor, Public Enemy, Eleanor Friedberger and many more. Our free CD showcases 15 tracks of this month’s best new music, including Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Ryley Walker, Beach House, Wand, Simone Felice, Dylan Carson and The Sea And Cake.

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