Page 261 – UNCUT

Hawkwind extend orchestral tour, In Search Of Utopia – Infinity And Beyond

News

Michael Bonner
-

30th January 2018
0

Hawkwind have extended their upcoming tour, In Search Of Utopia - Infinity And Beyond. The band have added a second date at London Palladium and will now play Leeds, Salford, Gateshead, Bath and Birmingham. The score for the show is produced by Mike Batt. Hwkwind will play: Thu 18th Oct – Lee...
Hawkwind have extended their upcoming tour, In Search Of Utopia – Infinity And Beyond.

The band have added a second date at London Palladium and will now play Leeds, Salford, Gateshead, Bath and Birmingham.

The score for the show is produced by Mike Batt.

Hwkwind will play:

Thu 18th Oct – Leeds, Town Hall
Fri 19th Oct – Salford, Lowry
Sat 20th Oct – Gateshead, Sage
Sun 4th Nov – London, Palladium (sold out)
Mon 5th Nov – London, Palladium
Sat 24th Nov – Bath, Forum
Sun 25th Nov – Birmingham Symphony Hall

Tickets for these new live shows are available via pre-sale on Thursday, February 1 at 9am, and on general sale to the public from Friday, February 2.

Like us on Facebook to keep up to date with news from Uncut

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Fela Kuti – Vinyl Box Set #4

Album

Reviews

Louis Pattison
-

30th January 2018
0

“With Fela, it just seems to have spilled out of him,” writes Erykah Badu in the sleevenotes to this set. “We instantly get the feeling that we are connected to those tones and vibrations.” The evidence bears that out. In his lifetime, the Nigerian bandleader fronted something like 50 releas...
“With Fela, it just seems to have spilled out of him,” writes Erykah Badu in the sleevenotes to this set. “We instantly get the feeling that we are connected to those tones and vibrations.” The evidence bears that out. In his lifetime, the Nigerian bandleader fronted something like 50 releases, and pretty much none of them are bad: grab one at random and you can be fairly sure of getting two sides of scorching Afrobeat.

Still, Fela’s tireless profligacy means there are a number of routes through his catalogue, so as well as its extensive CD reissue campaign, New York’s Knitting Factory Records is preparing a number of curated vinyl boxes by some of Fela’s biggest fans. On the heels of Questlove, Ginger Baker and Brian Eno comes this box of vinyl albums selected by Erykah Badu. It’s a heavyweight set – seven remastered albums committed to seven pieces of vinyl, plus a poster from Fela artist Lemi Ghariokwu and a 20-page booklet featuring lyrics, previously unpublished photos and sleevenotes from Badu (funny, fannish) and Afrobeat scholar Chris May (dry, informative).

Badu’s picks capture Fela at his most political and personal. The title track of 1976’s Yellow Fever is a punchy funk with chiding horns and a lyric tacking poor black self-esteem and the fashion for skin bleaching; on the flip is  “Na Poi”, a rolling groove that explains the process of lovemaking in graphic detail. (“So there is a redeemer,” writes Badu in the sleevenotes. “Where my skin is unacceptably too dark, my ass is just fat enough.”) 1980’s Coffin For Head Of State, meanwhile, might be Fela’s most charged and defiant piece: an excoriation of the ruling government that finds Fela referring to the death of his mother at the hands of General Obasanjo’s soliders, and his placing of a symbolic coffin outside the Dodan army barracks.

Elsewhere, 1977’s No Agreement and JJD and 1979’s VIP – a live album captured at the Berlin Jazz Festival – find Fela’s band Afrika 70 on immaculate form, even as they stand at the verge of disintegration (VIP would mark drummer Tony Allen’s final recording with Fela, and by the time of the recording’s official release a new ensemble, Egypt 80, had come into being). That’s the band we hear on 1985’s gently seething Army Arrangement, restored with original horn section (the original issue featured overdubbed horns by producer Bill Laswell, added while Fela languished in jail); and Fela’s final album, 1992’s Underground System – a tribute to slain revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara that restates Fela’s eternal themes of black identity and outspoken resistance against the powers that be.

It’s easy to reduce Fela to a caricature, a set of revolutionary slogans – but in this music Badu sees a path to self-betterment, a chance to grow. “Perhaps we as people are in denial of personal growth,” she wonders, “because we fear the responsibility of governing ourselves.”

Like us on Facebook to keep up to date with news from Uncut

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

A Certain Ratio announce reissues and tour dates

News

Michael Bonner
-

30th January 2018
0

A Certain Ratio have announced details of the next phase of reissues on Mute, acr:mcr and I’d Like To See You Again will be released on 23 March with Good Together and Up In Downsville following on April 27. The forthcoming releases will be followed by Sextet, Mind Made Up, Change The Station and...
A Certain Ratio have announced details of the next phase of reissues on Mute, acr:mcr and I’d Like To See You Again will be released on 23 March with Good Together and Up In Downsville following on April 27.

The forthcoming releases will be followed by Sextet, Mind Made Up, Change The Station and a new compilation with recently recorded tracks plus various box sets that will include rare and previously unreleased material.

The band will also tour this spring:

16 March – Newcastle, Hoochie Coochie
17 March – Glasgow, Stereo
24 March – Bristol, Fiddlers Club w/ Sink Ya Teeth
25 March – Brighton, The Haunt w/ Sink Ya Teeth
21 April – London, Garage w/ Sink Ya Teeth
18 May – Hebden Bridge, Trades Club w/ Andrew Weatherall
25 May – Leeds, Belgrave Music Hall
26 May – Tameside, Atmosphere Festival

A Certain Ratio are supporters of Artists Against Hunger and will donate £1 for each ticket sold in 2018. For further details, please go to: http://againsthunger.uk/acr

Like us on Facebook to keep up to date with news from Uncut

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

First Aid Kit – Ruins

Album

Reviews

Graeme Thomson
-

29th January 2018
0

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In musical terms, the old maxim mostly holds firm on the fourth First Aid Kit album. The follow-up to 2014’s major-label breakthrough Stay Gold, Ruins tweaks rather than overhauls Klara and Johanna Söderberg’s brand of pop-savvy Americana – yet the tradema...
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In musical terms, the old maxim mostly holds firm on the fourth First Aid Kit album. The follow-up to 2014’s major-label breakthrough Stay Gold, Ruins tweaks rather than overhauls Klara and Johanna Söderberg’s brand of pop-savvy Americana – yet the trademark harmonic couplings and rolling romantic surges can’t disguise a troubled undertow.

Tucker Martine, the Portland producer who has helmed records by My Morning Jacket, The Decemberists and Sufjan Stevens, takes over the reins from Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis, and proves an empathetic foil. Front and centre, as ever, are those glorious sibling harmonies and the sisters’ keen ear for soaring, melancholic melodies, but Martine brings a meatier rhythmic kick to these 10 songs. The brass and drums, in particular, add extra punch, complemented by more pronounced electric guitar and some old-school ’80s keyboard textures. Cameos from Peter Buck, Wilco’s Glenn Kotche and Midlake’s McKenzie Smith contribute to the more varied palette, while Martine slips in some deft production touches: a psych-rock waltz interlude on “Distant Star” is a welcome structural kink; unruly flickers of feedback underscore the gravity of the sombre “Nothing Has To Be True”.

This all counts as a gentle evolution, but there’s something broken here, all the same, a state implied by the album’s stark title. The theme of busted love roars through Ruins like floodwater: “I fell so hard, so blindly,” sings Klara on the opener “Rebel Heart”, establishing the album’s theme. Ruins explores the emotional fall-out of a failed relationship in forensic, almost self-flagellating detail.

Even the jaunty “Postcard” can’t shake the sickness. First Aid Kit have never hidden their country heart, but “Postcard” wears it like a shiny sheriff’s badge.  It’s an amiable tears’n’beers bumble,  with echoes of Caitlin Rose, scored with  honky-tonk piano and pedal steel. Even in this laidback setting, however, the wounds remain raw: “I went and broke my own goddamn heart,” sings Söderberg. There’s more outlaw spirit on “To Live A Life”, a sweet, sad-hearted fingerpicker where the singer is “drinking cheap wine just to pass the time” while pondering a “lost cause” and the hard bargain of the itinerant musician’s life: restless, on the run, alone.

Their powerful vocal DNA and enduring love of simple, open-hearted melodies mean First Aid Kit flirt on occasion with sameness. At other times, they struggle to combat an ingrained politeness. “My Wild Sweet Love”, with its low, insistent beat and artfully understated strings, recalls the much-missed Stornoway at their most windswept. Somehow, however, the song fails to live up to its title. “Ruins”, with its mournful horns, serpentine melody and fluttering flutes, is similarly pretty without ever imposing its identity. “It’s A Shame” begins with a squeal of “Like A Rolling Stone” organ, but the somewhat stiff-legged rhythm hampers a rousing chorus.

Ruins is at its most engaging when the emotion in the words is allowed to hold sway. “Hem Of Her Dress” finds a more raucous form of expression. An accelerated waltz driven by ragged saloon-bar vocals and rattling acoustic guitars, it ends in a big, boozy singalong, horns and strings colliding in the background, like a distant cousin of Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were The Days”. The comfort, however, is short-lived, the lesson being that “some things never heal with time”. With its cool upstrokes and dreamy backing vocals, “Fireworks” is a wintery soul ballad, coming on like a refugee from Phil Spector’s Christmas album. When Klara’s voice cracks at the top of the chorus, however, the most apt comparison is Björk in full flood. “Why do I do this to myself, every time?” she cries. “I know the way it ends… I am the only one at the finish line.”

Ruins culminates with “Nothing Has To Be True”, a beautiful, broken five minutes which recalls the Ryan Adams of Heartbreaker. A stately country-soul ballad with a crushing climax, musically and emotionally it provides the album with a deeply satisfying conclusion,  even if redemption remains out of reach. “Why do you love those who turn you into a fool?” ponders Söderberg, lost to consolation. “I feel so far away from the person I once was.”

A more reflective work than Stay Gold, Ruins lacks its immediacy but offers instead greater maturity in its themes, and a determination to reach further in terms of its musical choices. They can go further, but for now Ruins keeps First Aid Kit moving forward, empowered rather than overcome by the wrath of love.

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Arctic Monkeys, Björk and Nick Cave to headline Primavera

News

Sam Richards
-

29th January 2018
0

Arctic Monkeys, Björk, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The National, The War On Drugs, Lorde, The Breeders and Belle & Sebastian are the big names at this year's Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, taking place from May 30 to June 2. Slowdive, Four Tet, Nils Frahm, Lift To Experience, Thunde...
Arctic Monkeys, Björk, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The National, The War On Drugs, Lorde, The Breeders and Belle & Sebastian are the big names at this year’s Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, taking place from May 30 to June 2.

Slowdive, Four Tet, Nils Frahm, Lift To Experience, Thundercat, Arca, Ariel Pink, Vince Staples, Ty Segall, Oumou Sangaré, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Art Ensemble Of Chicago are among the many other enticing names on the bill.

Meanwhile Spiritualized and Jane Birkin will both perform with orchestral backing.

See the full line-up here or via the video below:

Tickets are available here.

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Leonard Cohen wins posthumous Grammy for “You Want It Darker”

News

Sam Richards
-

29th January 2018
0

Leonard Cohen has won his first ever Grammy, 14 months after his death in November 2016. His song "You Want It Darker" was declared Best Rock Performance, beating off competition from Foo Fighters and Chris Cornell. Cohen was given a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 but had never won a Grammy for...
Leonard Cohen has won his first ever Grammy, 14 months after his death in November 2016. His song “You Want It Darker” was declared Best Rock Performance, beating off competition from Foo Fighters and Chris Cornell.

Cohen was given a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 but had never won a Grammy for his own songs until now.

Other winners at the 2018 Grammys held last night in New York include:

The War On Drugs (Best Rock Album)
Kendrick Lamar (Best Rap Album)
The National (Best Alternative Album)
LCD Soundsystem (Best Dance Recording for “Tonite”)
Kraftwerk (Best Dance/Electronic Album for 3-D: The Catalogue)
Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit (Best Americana Album)
The Rolling Stones (Best Traditional Blues Album)
Aimee Mann (Best Folk Album)
Foo Fighters (Best Rock Song)
Alabama Shakes (Best American Roots Performance for “Killer Diller Blues”)

You can peruse a full list of winners and nominees at the official Grammys site.

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Joan Baez on her new album: “Seeing beyond this one is hard”

News

Sam Richards
-

26th January 2018
0

Joan Baez has hinted that her forthcoming album, Whistle Down The Wind, may be her last. Talking exclusively in the current issue of Uncut, the 77-year-old says that, "At the moment, seeing beyond this one is hard to do. Mostly because it's gets harder and harder to sing... I can still manage it i...
Joan Baez has hinted that her forthcoming album, Whistle Down The Wind, may be her last.

Talking exclusively in the current issue of Uncut, the 77-year-old says that, “At the moment, seeing beyond this one is hard to do. Mostly because it’s gets harder and harder to sing… I can still manage it in a lower range but it’s not easy.”

However, her friend and collaborator Steve Earle is sceptical: “I don’t believe her. Not for one second. She’s going to outlive all of us.”

In the same article, Baez takes about how she survived the 60s, touching on her relationship with Bob Dylan and why she never would have married him. “I was afraid of him… for a while. When things got crazy. In the beginning, we had a lot of fun.”

Baez also tells a story about the time she turned down John Lennon: “About four o’clock in the morning, John tumbled in, and it was like he felt compelled to make some sort of overture to me… I said to him, ‘John, you are probably as beat as I am. I’m not up for it, either’. He looked so relieved.”

Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with My Bloody Valentine, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including the Valentines, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai, to accompany our rundown of Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums – from Lou Reed to Ty Segall.

The new Uncut is in shops now – or you can order online now!

The 4th Uncut new music playlist of 2018

Features

Playlists

Michael Bonner
-

26th January 2018
0

Afternoon! Lots of good stuff here, I think. Please find new tracks from Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Wooden Shjips and Julian Casablancas; blues from Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite; a longish diversion into electronica courtesy of Hirotaka Shirotsubaki + Sleepland, Eric Chenaux and Fever Ray. What...
Afternoon! Lots of good stuff here, I think. Please find new tracks from Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Wooden Shjips and Julian Casablancas; blues from Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite; a longish diversion into electronica courtesy of Hirotaka Shirotsubaki + Sleepland, Eric Chenaux and Fever Ray. What else? Kali Uchis mighty hook-up with Bootsy Collins and Tyler The Creator, more Jack White and some fine post-rock from Oneida.

It also behoves me to remind you of the excellent magazines we’ve produced recently. There’s our current issue featuring My Bloody Valentine, Joan Baez and more while earlier this week we debuted our Ultimate Genre Guide to Glam. And our latest Ultimate Music Guide pays tribute to Tom Petty.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

1.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
“American Guilt”
(Jagjaguwar)

2.
Kali Uchis
“After The Storm” feat. Bootsy Collins and Tyler The Creator
(Virgin)

3.
Wooden Shjips
“Staring At The Sun”
(Thrill Jockey)

4.
Amaya Laucirica
“All Of Our Time”
(Opposite Number)

5.
Mélissa Laveaux
“Nan Fon Bwa”
(Nø Førmat!)

6.
JD McPherson
“Lucky Penny”
(New West Records)

7.
Virginia Wing and Xam Duo
“Person To Person”
(Fire)

8.
Fever Ray
“Part V: Wanna Slip”
(Rabid Records)

9.
Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite
“No Mercy In This Land”
(Anti-)

10.
Hirotaka Shirotsubaki + Sleepland
“at a preserve”
(Bandcamp)

<a href="http://taalem.bandcamp.com/album/tude-3-alm-117">étude 3 [alm 117] by hirotaka shirotsubaki + sleepland</a>

11.
The Voidz
“Leave It In My Dreams”
(RCA)

12.
The Beat Escape
“Sign Of Age”
(Bella Union)

13.
Eric Chenaux
“Wild Moon”
(Constellation)

14.
Oneida
“All In Due Time”
(Joyful Noise Recordings)

15.
Jack White
“Corporation”
(Third Man)

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Suede’s self-titled debut to be reissued as a deluxe 4xCD set

News

Sam Richards
-

26th January 2018
0

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of its release on March 30, Suede will reissue their momentous debut album as a deluxe 4xCD + DVD 'Silver Edition' bookset. The original album now comes accompanied by B-sides, demos, radio sessions and live tracks, plus a DVD featuring TV appearances and a track-b...
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of its release on March 30, Suede will reissue their momentous debut album as a deluxe 4xCD + DVD ‘Silver Edition’ bookset.

The original album now comes accompanied by B-sides, demos, radio sessions and live tracks, plus a DVD featuring TV appearances and a track-by-track dissection of the album with Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler. The package also features handwritten lyric drafts and unseen photos.

The full tracklisting is as follows:

CD 1: SUEDE

1. So Young
2. Animal Nitrate
3. She’s Not Dead
4. Moving
5. Pantomime Horse
6. The Drowners
7. Sleeping Pills
8. Breakdown
9. Metal Mickey
10. Animal Lover
11. The Next Life

CD 2: THE B-SIDES

1. My Insatiable One
2. To The Birds
3. He’s Dead
4. Where The Pigs Don’t Fly
5. Painted People
6. The Big Time
7. High Rising
8. Dolly
9. My Insatiable One [piano version]
10. Brass In Pocket

CD 3: DEMOS, MONITOR MIXES, BBC RADIO 1 SESSION

ROCKING HORSE DEMOS, October 1991
1. The Drowners
2. He’s Dead
3. Moving
4. To The Birds

ISLAND DEMOS, January 1992
5. Metal Mickey
6. Pantomime Horse
7. High Wire (My Insatiable One)*
8. The Drowners*
9. To The Birds*

EAST WEST DEMO, March 1992
10. Sleeping Pills

SINGLE MONITOR MIXES, March 1992
11. The Drowners*
12. To The Birds*
13. My Insatiable One*

BBC RADIO 1, MARK GOODIER SHOW, April 1992
14. Metal Mickey*
15. The Drowners*
16. Sleeping Pills*
17. Moving*

BONUS TRACKS
18. Diesel [instrumental] [studio outtake]
19. Stars On 45 [rehearsal room recording]
20. Sleeping Pills [strings]

CD 4: LIVE AT THE LEADMILL, February 1993 (first time on CD)

1. Metal Mickey
2. Moving
3. My Insatiable One
4. Animal Nitrate
5. Pantomime Horse
6. The Drowners
7. Painted People
8. So Young
9. Animal Lover
10. Sleeping Pills
11. To The Birds

DVD

BBC TV APPEARANCES
THE LATE SHOW [7.5.92]
1. The Drowners*

TOP OF THE POPS [24.9.92 & 27.5.93]
2. Metal Mickey*
3. So Young*

LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND [4.6.93]
4. So Young*
5. The Next Life / Brett in conversation with Jools*
6. My Insatiable One*

BONUS DVD FEATURE

Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler discuss Suede, track-by-track, with Pete Paphides*

*previously unreleased

You can pre-order the Suede ‘Silver Edition’ bookset here.

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Neil Young plans next archive releases

News

Sam Richards
-

26th January 2018
0

Neil Young has used the first issue of his latest online newsletter, the Neil Young Archives Times-Contrarian, to tease the upcoming release of two live albums. Roxy: Tonight's The Night Live was taped during a short run of shows at LA's Roxy venue in 1973, just after Young and his band at the time...
Neil Young has used the first issue of his latest online newsletter, the Neil Young Archives Times-Contrarian, to tease the upcoming release of two live albums.

Roxy: Tonight’s The Night Live was taped during a short run of shows at LA’s Roxy venue in 1973, just after Young and his band at the time (Billy Talbot, Nils Lofgren, Ralph Molina and Ben Keith AKA The Santa Monica Flyers) had recorded Tonight’s The Night.

“We really knew the Tonight’s The Night songs after playing them for a month,” writes Young, “so we just played them again, the album, top to bottom, without the added songs, two sets a night, for a few days. We had a great time.”

Alchemy is a Crazy Horse live album and video of the band’s 2012/3 world tour.

“For me, Alchemy harkens back to the best of Live Rust and Weld, beginning to look like a circle… but not totally joined,” writes Young. “Time shows us what we can do and when we can do it. Crazy Horse moves with the wind.”

He adds that Alchemy‘s release is “imminent” while Roxy: Tonight’s The Night Live “should be ready in time for a March release”, with a track streaming on the Neil Young Archives site soon.

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Mark E Smith 1957-2018

Blogs

Features

John Robinson
-

25th January 2018
0

It is some point in the autumn of 1997, and my interview with Mark E Smith seems to be veering off track. This meeting has been arranged so the NME can discuss with Mark The Fall’s new single but also – covertly – to cue him up, if anyone didn’t already know him as such, as a person of Godli...
It is some point in the autumn of 1997, and my interview with Mark E Smith seems to be veering off track. This meeting has been arranged so the NME can discuss with Mark The Fall’s new single but also – covertly – to cue him up, if anyone didn’t already know him as such, as a person of Godlike Genius – a title which he will shortly be awarded at an NME awards ceremony.

After some introductory chat about the new record, I clearly feel emboldened enough to try and steer Mark to speak about some of his classic work, and his reputation. He drills his bands hard, records prolifically, and tours relentlessly. I therefore put it to him that he is the hardest working man in showbusiness, which is not as it turns out, the smartest move.

“Don’t think you’re talking to Paul Weller or somebody,” he says suddenly. “You’re not talking to…” He looks for the correct pejorative. “…Paul Heaton.” He also makes a couple of remarks about what I look like and what I’m wearing, which at the time possibly obscures for me the point he’s trying to make.

Namely, that it would be a grave mistake to consider him a caricature, someone who – as he sees it, like Weller and Heaton – is imprisoned by how they are perceived.

At that time, it would possibly have been easier to try and report on the received opinion of Mark Smith. The one who would without fail ask you if you were “courting” at present. That, though, would have been to miss the point completely. His leadership of The Fall created genuinely visionary music, the work of someone going completely their own way. Mark E Smith and The Fall were always moving on – the past had less interest for him even than it did for David Bowie.

Their work yielded intermittent moments of genius afterwards, but for ten years between 1980 and 1990 The Fall reliably delivered everything from psychedelic sound art to shiny social reportage, recognizable as the work of one group solely because of the unifying power of Smith’s vernacular prose.

That day I asked him for an exegesis of “My New House”, a Fall number from their mighty 1985 album This Nation’s Saving Grace. Mark touched his nose conspiratorially – that was something he would be keeping to himself.

That vaguely enigmatic fog somehow felt key to what Smith and The Fall did. His best work didn’t deal in fantasies, but effortlessly processed the world to leave it with the magic of an espionage story – codes and aliases, locked doors, missing pieces.

He encouraged the same curiosity in his listeners that he had for the world around him. You uncovered meanings and references, and entered a multi-layered world of altered perceptions. Drugs at one time were involved, but so equally were ghosts, music concrete, soul and German rock.

Talking with fellow NME people about The Fall at the time, it proved tough to pinpoint the definitive Fall album, but there was some consensus on how you could encapsulate the genius of Smith and the Fall in one verse. If you needed to make a point, you could direct someone to innocent, disorientating delight of this, from 1983’s “Wings”: “Purchased a pair of flabby wings/Took to doing some hovering/This is a list of incorrect things…”

I don’t think that the mission to extract thoughts and reminiscences on the genius of The Fall went especially well that afternoon, the interview not so much ending as blurring into a more informal chat as other Fall members came and went.

What emerged instead was a picture of someone who, whether out of wit, perversity, erudition, politeness or boredom simply effortlessly evaded every format. Mark didn’t talk about the past, but mentioned that he wrote short stories in the vein of Edgar Allen Poe. When the photographer apologized for turning up late due to problems at Waterloo, he slyly asked, “What? In Belgium?”. When after this chat we met in a pub weeks later, he remembered my name.

I spoke with Mark on a few other occasions, and little about this capacity to surprise had changed. The last time we met was for an Uncut interview where he was set to answer reader/celebrity questions. We met in the bar of a swanky hotel in the centre of Manchester. After answering a question from Peter Hook, he went briefly missing.

When he turned up, he signed a record for my friend, and we went to a nearby pub for an hour before my train left. Unlike any other person I’ve ever interviewed, he asked me questions about myself, as if he were not Mark E Smith at all, and was happier to shift the focus.

As we finished our drinks, a couple of 30something locals approached our table and introduced themselves. They thanked him for all the music.

Mark stood up and changed the subject. “All right then, lads,” he said, shaking hands with them. “Where are you off to, then?”

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Mark E Smith’s final Uncut interview: “The Fall is like a Nazi organisation…”

Features

Interviews

Tom Pinnock
-

25th January 2018
0

A quiet drink with MARK E SMITH in his favourite Manchester pub. There are lengthy ruminations on the current Fall lineup’s excellence, and even lengthier ones on the incompetence of their predecessors. Also: the Vorticists, the BBC, Jane Austen, and the problems with Welsh people… “Come on, M...
I wanted to ask about Brix & The Extricated. It must be annoying for you that they’re playing old Fall stuff.
I’m still on the case with it. But they’ve been doing their new material lately. It annoyed me about a year ago, but not anymore. I’m glad you asked, ’cos people keep saying, ‘Give it up,’ but there was a genuine conspiracy there which nobody would believe. I knew it.

What kind of conspiracy?
They were delusional. It can only be proved by the fucking… it’s what I was saying, there are people who retire for 20 years and think they can just come back into it. The best bit was when Paul Hanley was on The Chase.

With Bradley Walsh?
[smiles] Bradley Walsh… He said, “What do you do, Paul?” He goes, “I used to drum for The Fall, but I’ve been an IT operator for 25 years. I’m doing an English Lit degree with another ex-member of The Fall.” And Bradley Walsh goes, “They’re still going, aren’t they?” [pauses] He went out the first fucking round. Who does an English degree with another ex-member of The Fall?! For a fella who was in the group for two years, it is very weird. Now they’re doing all whats-her-face’s material. I don’t gloat, ’cos it was serious at one point.

Does it make you think about playing more from older Fall albums?
Haha! [A man comes over, shakes Smith’s hand and offers him a drink. MES firmly but politely turns it down, then turns to Uncut wide-eyed] He’s another one. He’s the roadie for the Extricated.

That’s a bit weird.
He used to have really long hair. He was a roadie for The Fall about fucking 1999. I knew we should have moved on [to another pub]. Word’s got out, that’s how sad they are. Go on.

I guess it’s a compliment that the Extricated are playing old Fall…
[sharply] No, it’s not a fucking compliment. I would have gladly fucking exterminated them. My side of the story is so fucking truthful. The thing about me is I can remember everything. Everything in them books… when Brix was going on about the flat in Prestwich [in her 2016 book The Rise, The Fall, And The Rise], how it had no shower – people in Manchester do read that and think it’s hilarious, they don’t side with her. Who in Manchester, in any fucking flat of a 23-year-old person in the ’80s, had a shower? I mean, that fucking Steve Hanley’s book [2014’s The Big Midweek], it’s like the fucking memoirs of a psychopath. I can’t read it, it’s so funny. His new girlfriend who’s the co-writer, she’s met him at a Foxes gig, in the dressing room…

Foxes? [The pair met at a Fleet Foxes show]
The Fall is like a Nazi organisation, I’ve got my working-class people, they tell me everything. So I know it all. I knew by reading his book that her favourite book is Jane Austen, Mansfield Park… He’s fucking describing how we did a tour in France, and we’re at the fucking Port Of Calais – [Hanley says] we’ve booked the ferry, and we ran out of petrol a mile from the port. He said that I got out and got a fucking bus to the Port Of Calais – that’s impossible! And then they pushed the van, all five of ’em, from nowhere to the Port Of Calais. It’s straight out of Jane Austen! And I was waiting for them “red-faced” on the dock. “There we met Smith, shouting…” I mean, who would write that? So they said, “Can we have something to eat?” “‘You might as well, seeing as the next ferry isn’t for hours,’ Smith said, red-faced. So we went to the canteen.”

__________________________

Despite the dissenting voices of former Fall members, Mark E Smith’s versions of events certainly seem plausible when he’s explained them in person. After all, the most prominent ex-members of the band can sometimes seem strangely preoccupied with a man they often portray as beastly. But perhaps Uncut’s willingness to believe Smith is just down to his still-powerful charisma; as The Fall’s cult leader, he remains seemingly all-seeing, all-knowing and all-remembering. So come on, Mark, are you really that horrible?

“We’re talking about six strapping 20-year-old lads with muscles there,” he laughs, suggesting they wouldn’t need to ask his permission to eat. “Where do these things come from?! And [Hanley writes] about how I made his child bring speed to Ireland. Nobody’s got that far in the book, nobody! We played Ireland, and his 11-year-old wanted to go to Dublin, so I said he could only come – [laughs] it’s like Mansfield Park! – he could only come if he loaded his pockets with speed and got on the plane on his own from Manchester. I mean, Penguin wouldn’t pass that nonsense!”

One more apocryphal tale to file alongside the others, perhaps: of verbal and physical violence, of Smith sacking a soundman for eating a salad (“the final straw,” he once explained), pouring a pint of beer over the head of a tourbus driver mid-journey, and generally controlling his band as firmly as some tyrannical despot. Whether it’s true or not, does all this stuff not add to the myth?

“Not particularly, no,” says Smith. “I know what you’re saying. You can’t rewrite history, my group have been with me longer and are fucking 18 times better than any of that crap were. They weren’t very good. It’s all right saying ‘Gross Chapel’ [was good], but it was hard work pulling them through that. What they also don’t know is the amount of hours I spent cleaning up their music with John Leckie and people like that. They actually think they played like that on the records. The amount of times John Leckie would get another musician in… I would never hurt them like that at the time, to say.”

As he’s been discussing The Fall’s many ex-members, Smith has been gradually shuffling along the long bench in the pub’s back room. He ends up practically at the next table. “In their own heads,” he says, “Mark’s just the drunken singer who didn’t know what he was doing – he just walked in, in some drunken shit, and they had to keep it up…

“They do seriously believe it! It is,” he concludes, with something uncharacteristically akin to understatement, “interesting.”

Mark E. Smith dies aged 60

News

Michael Bonner
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24th January 2018
0

Mark E. Smith has died aged 60. The Fall's manager confirmed the news in a statement. "It is with deep regret that we announce the passing of Mark E. Smith. He passed this morning (24th January) at home. A more detailed statement will follow in the next few days. In the meantime, Pam & Mark’s fa...
Mark E. Smith has died aged 60.

The Fall‘s manager confirmed the news in a statement.

“It is with deep regret that we announce the passing of Mark E. Smith. He passed this morning (24th January) at home. A more detailed statement will follow in the next few days. In the meantime, Pam & Mark’s family request privacy at this sad time.

“Pam Vander
The Fall – manager”

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Hear Wooden Shjips’ new single, Staring At The Sun

News

Sam Richards
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24th January 2018
0

Psych-rock quartet Wooden Shjips have released a new single, entitled "Staring At The Sun". The shimmering eight-minute track was informed by the wildfires that ravaged America's Pacific Northwest last summer. Hear it below: https://open.spotify.com/track/3XtFDis6KnAOopdjnUmI1k Wooden Shjips' fi...
Psych-rock quartet Wooden Shjips have released a new single, entitled “Staring At The Sun”.

The shimmering eight-minute track was informed by the wildfires that ravaged America’s Pacific Northwest last summer. Hear it below:

Wooden Shjips‘ fifth album, aptly titled V, will be released by Thrill Jockey on May 25. The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Eclipse
2. In The Fall
3. Red Line
4. Already Gone
5. Staring At The Sun
6. Golden Flower
7. Ride On

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Led Zeppelin to reissue How The West Was Won

News

Sam Richards
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24th January 2018
0

Led Zeppelin's triple live album How The West Was Won - recorded in 1972 and originally released in 2003 - is getting the deluxe reissue treatment. The album will be reissued on multiple formats, including its first appearances on vinyl and Blu-Ray, on March 23. Comprising songs from the band's ...
Led Zeppelin‘s triple live album How The West Was Won – recorded in 1972 and originally released in 2003 – is getting the deluxe reissue treatment.

The album will be reissued on multiple formats, including its first appearances on vinyl and Blu-Ray, on March 23.

Comprising songs from the band’s concerts at Los Angeles Forum and Long Beach Arena in June 1972, How The West Was Won has been completely remastered under the supervision of Jimmy Page.

It will be available on 3xCD, 4xLP, Blu-Ray and digital formats. Additionally, there’s a Super Deluxe edition which includes the album on CD, LP and DVD (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and PCM Stereo) formats, plus a high-def download, a book filled with rare and previously unpublished photos of the band, and a high-quality print of the original album cover, the first 30,000 of which will be individually numbered.

Details of additional Led Zeppelin 50th anniversary releases and events will be announced later this year.

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

Bob Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country” has died

News

Sam Richards
-

24th January 2018
0

Bob Dylan's high school girlfriend Echo Casey, née Helstrom, has died in California aged 75, according to the Star Tribune. She was believed to be the inspiration for his song "Girl From The North Country", from his breakthrough 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Dylan dated Casey from 1957 to...
Bob Dylan‘s high school girlfriend Echo Casey, née Helstrom, has died in California aged 75, according to the Star Tribune. She was believed to be the inspiration for his song “Girl From The North Country”, from his breakthrough 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

Dylan dated Casey from 1957 to 1958 when they both attended Hibbing High School in Minnesota. Her independent spirit and love of music left a strong impression on Dylan, who later compared her to Brigitte Bardot in his memoir Chronicles: Volume One.

There remains speculation about the identity of the “Girl From The North Country”, with some believing the song to be about Dylan’s later girlfriends Bonnie Beecher or Suze Rotolo (who appears with him on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan). However, the lyrics about freezing rivers and winds that “hit heavy on the borderline” would seem to point to northern Minnesota.

Casey lived in Minneapolis for a while before eventually moving to Los Angeles in the 1970s, where she worked as a secretary on movie sets.

“Girl From The North Country” became the title for Conor McPherson‘s Bob Dylan musical, currently showing at London’s Noel Coward Theatre. Tickets are available here.

The March 2018 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with My Bloody Valentine and Rock’s 50 Most Extreme Albums on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Joan Baez, Stick In The Wheel, Gary Numan, Jethro Tull and many more and we also look back on the rise of progressive country in 70s’ Austin, Texas. Our free 15 track-CD features 15 classic tracks from the edge of sound, including My Bloody Valentine, Cabaret Voltaire, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Flying Saucer Attack and Mogwai.

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