Home Blog Page 265

Jeff Lynne’s ELO announce arena tour

0
Jeff Lynne’s ELO have announced an area tour for Autumn 2018. The shows begin in Nottingham on September 30 and end in Liverpool on October 23. Looking ahead, Lynne said; “Our audiences are amazing. It’s like they’re in the group. We can’t wait to play for them again.” The tour dates ...

Jeff Lynne’s ELO have announced an area tour for Autumn 2018.

The shows begin in Nottingham on September 30 and end in Liverpool on October 23.

Looking ahead, Lynne said; “Our audiences are amazing. It’s like they’re in the group. We can’t wait to play for them again.”

The tour dates are:

Sunday, September 30: Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena
Wednesday, October 3: Glasgow, SSE Hydro Arena
Friday, October 5: Manchester Arena
Tuesday, October 9: Newcastle, Metro Radio Arena
Wednesday, October 10: Birmingham, Arena Birmingham
Monday, October 15: Leeds, First Direct Arena
Wednesday, October 17: London, O2 Arena
Tuesday, October 23: Liverpool, Echo Arena

Meanwhile, ELO’s Wembley Stadium show from earlier this summer is is released on CD/DVD as Wembley Or Bust out November 17.

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Read Neil Young’s latest update on his archives

0
Neil Young has given an unexpected update about his archives. In a Facebook post on Saturday, November 11 - the day before his 72nd birthday - Young revealed the online archive will go live on December 1. December 1 is also the release date for his latest album, The Visitor. Young wrote, "Decembe...

Neil Young has given an unexpected update about his archives.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, November 11 – the day before his 72nd birthday – Young revealed the online archive will go live on December 1.

December 1 is also the release date for his latest album, The Visitor.

Young wrote, “December 1st will be a big day for me. The Visitor will be coming to your town. I will be going to my town. You will be able to hear me and see me. My archive will open on that same day, a place you can visit and experience every song I have ever released in the highest quality your machine will allow. It’s the way it’s supposed to be. In the beginning, everything is free.”

https://www.facebook.com/NeilYoung/photos/a.10155641820845317.1073741825.21931600316/10159516257540317/?type=3&theater

Back in August, Young explained that the archive will contain “Every single, recorded track or album I have produced”.

Using a timeline, visitors will be able to “view all albums currently released and see albums still unreleased and in production just by using the controls to zoom through the years. Unreleased album art is simply penciled in so you can where unreleased albums will appear on the timeline, once they are completed.”

Young recently released one of these ‘unreleased albums’ – Hitchhiker. You can read the story of his other great, lost albums in the September 2017 issue of Uncut, which is available to buy by clicking here.

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Chuck Mosley, former lead singer with Faith No More, dies aged 57

0
Chuck Mosley, former lead singer of Faith No More, has died aged 57. In a statement from Mosley’s family and released via his publicist, Mosley’s death was said to have been due to addiction-related causes after the singer experienced “a long period of sobriety”. Mosley was the lead singer...

Chuck Mosley, former lead singer of Faith No More, has died aged 57.

In a statement from Mosley’s family and released via his publicist, Mosley’s death was said to have been due to addiction-related causes after the singer experienced “a long period of sobriety”.

Mosley was the lead singer of the band from 1984–1988 and appeared on the group’s first two albums, We Care A Lot (1985) and Introduce Yourself (1987). He was fired from the group in 1988 and replaced by Mike Patton.

Following his time with Faith No More, Mosley went on to play with Bad Brains from 1990 to 1992 and later fronted funk-metal band, Cement. He released his solo debut album, Will Rap Over Hard Rock For Food, in 2009.

Mosley recently joined Primitive Race, alongside members of Skinny Puppy and the Melvins, and embarked on his Reintroduce Yourself tour this year.

Mosley reunited live with Faith No More on several occasions, most recently in August 2016.

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Booker T & The MG’s on ‘Green Onions’: “We’d never rehearsed it…”

0
Originally published in Uncut's Take 146 issue. Words: Nick Hasted “I used to tell all of 'em at Stax, what we want to do is always keep it just as simple as possible,” begins Lewie Stenberg, Booker T & The MG’s first bassist. “Don’t make it complicated, no kind of way. Record it so a...

Originally published in Uncut’s Take 146 issue. Words: Nick Hasted

“I used to tell all of ’em at Stax, what we want to do is always keep it just as simple as possible,” begins Lewie Stenberg, Booker T & The MG’s first bassist. “Don’t make it complicated, no kind of way. Record it so a four-year-old child can walk down the street and hum the whole thing. Listen to the early years of Stax, and you’ll find how raw it was.”

In 1962, Steinberg, then 27, and drummer Al Jackson, 27 – both seasoned Memphis musicians – joined keyboard player Booker T Jones, 16, and guitarist Steve Cropper, 21, at the Stax studio. They were there, ostensibly, to record a radio jingle for a health tonic. Instead, they got sidetracked finessing one of Jones’ keyboard riffs and in a little over 15 minutes, they’d written “Green Onions”. It was, you could argue, one of the most serendipitous sessions in the history of soul music. But, it seems, this kind of on-the-hoof jamming was hardly unusual at Stax.

“We’d never rehearsed it, never played it before,” Jones recalls. “This was a phenomenon that happened over and over there. Give people a line, give them your idea, and all of a sudden it lights up.”

“Green Onions” went Top 3 in America almost instantly, while Booker T & The MG’s became the house band at Stax, playing on an formidable run of great Southern Soul records by Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers and Wilson Pickett.

Steinberg was replaced by Donald “Duck” Dunn in 1964. The MG’s first split in 1971, and drummer Al Jackson was murdered in his home by a burglar in 1975. Since then, Jones, Cropper and Dunn have been the go-to musicians for anyone looking to add a little funk to their sound, from the Blues Brothers to Bob Dylan. In 2002, Neil Young invited the MG’s to be his backing band on the Are You Passionate? album. This year, Young returned the favour, joining Drive-By Truckers to play on Booker’s Potato Hole album. And as for the legacy of “Green Onions” itself?

“It always surprises me when I hear it,” says Jones. “It has a pluck to it, a spark. It was a fortunate thing to have been involved in something like that.”

___________________________

STEVE CROPPER: The “Green Onions” session was an accident, a fluke. It was odd that we were recording on a Sunday afternoon. And Stax didn’t do a whole lot of demos. But [Stax co-founder] Jim Stewart wanted to do a demo on Billy Lee Riley, one of the area’s famous blue-eyed soul brothers, who radio-advertised a blood elixir in a Cajun voice. Billy either forgot the date, or was hung-over from Saturday night. And we were checking our instruments and started playing stuff that we would do as a filler in a night-club. Not any particular melody to it, just 12-bar blues, in the Key of F. What we didn’t know was that Jim Stewart heard what we were doing and started rolling the tape. We got through and were laughing and talking, and Jim got on the mic and said: “Hey, come in here and listen to this.” That was “Behave Yourself”. Jim thought it was a single.

LEWIE STEINBERG: He said: “I’ll tell ya what I wantcha to do. Go out there and get me a B-side!”

CROPPER: I said, “Booker, you played me a riff on the organ a couple of weeks ago that was pretty catchy. You still remember that?” He said, “I think so.” So he started playing.

BOOKER T JONES: It was always a piano song. I used to play the riff on the piano at high school and on my mama’s piano at home. The only reason it got recorded on Hammond organ was that in the clubs I was playing that blues, “Behave Yourself”, and the organ was miked up and ready to go. The riff is so simple, and the song is basically the riff played over and over again.

CROPPER: We all just fell in with it. Lewie picked up on Booker’s left hand, and started duplicating it on bass. It wasn’t the first song where I’d doubled the bass-line on guitar. I’d been known for that for a long time. I’m not playing a solo or anything, just letting Booker play. In the middle we wanted to stretch it out, and I started doing these accent-licks. And Jim suggested, “Steve, why don’t you put that on the intro? And then when it comes time for the middle, why don’t you do a straight solo?”

STEINBERG: All three of us, bass, guitar and organ, were all playing the bass-line. When one soloed, the other two would take up the bottom of it. That happened through the whole song. And in the whole “Green Onions” song, we never made our drummer Al Jackson turn around in it. It just kept flowing right on through. Wasn’t no blahblahblahblah from him, then go into the next 12 bars. No, no. It just pulled right on through. Well, we worked on “Green Onions”, maybe once or twice. Then we cut it one time. All your records at that time had to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2 minutes and 45 seconds. It came out perfect.

The Florida Project reviewed

0
Somewhere near to Disney’s The Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, just off Seven Dwarfs Lane, there lies a less auspicious palace of enchantment. This is The Magic Castle – a rundown social housing block painted a lurid shade of purple. It is where, during the holidays, six year-old Moonee (Broo...

Somewhere near to Disney’s The Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, just off Seven Dwarfs Lane, there lies a less auspicious palace of enchantment. This is The Magic Castle – a rundown social housing block painted a lurid shade of purple. It is where, during the holidays, six year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) and her friends run wild. “It’s only the second week of summer and there’s already been a dead fish in the swimming pool,” grumbles the block’s exasperated manager, Bobby (Willem Dafoe). But to Moonee, the Magic Castle and its environs – a sea of car parks, fast food outlets, scrubland and dumpsters – are a playground of the imagination. There are raucous adventures to be had, even if it involves turning off the power to the motel or accidentally setting fire to a row of derelict condos. “They’re good kids, most of the time,” sighs Bobby.

Bobby is one of the few adults who feature substantially in Sean Baker’s latest film, The Florida Project. The other is Halley (Bria Vinaite) – Moonee’s mother, a woman with a short temper and many tattoos who sees Moonee’s curiosity and energy as something to be cherished. After all, the reality of life at The Magic Castle is hard: Halley and her daughter take free handouts from a nearby diner or bread from a charity food van. To further make ends meet, Halley sells on cheap perfume to tourists at a nearby golf club. While the lengths Halley will go to in order to pay the rent are initially enterprising, her predicament only worsens as the film progresses.

Baker’s previous film, Tangerine, was shot entirely on iPhones. The Florida Project has the same fire and energy, though evidently he’s stepped up to a whole new level here. This is a compassionate film about the conditions of working class America, where the next knock on the door might well be from a child welfare agency.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Gregg Allman – Southern Blood

0
Even before Gregg Allman began work on his eighth solo album, he’d come to grips with the fact that it would be his last. “The gravitas of this particular situation was not lost on me,” producer Don Was acknowledges. Armed with that knowledge, Allman approached the project with particular care...

Even before Gregg Allman began work on his eighth solo album, he’d come to grips with the fact that it would be his last. “The gravitas of this particular situation was not lost on me,” producer Don Was acknowledges. Armed with that knowledge, Allman approached the project with particular care. He decided to work at FAME in Muscle Shoals, where his brother Duane had established himself as a force to be reckoned with during sessions for Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and others in 1968, and where the nascent Allman Brothers Band had honed its sound in early rehearsals a year later. He wanted the songs he’d be tackling to reflect his state of mind in the most specific way possible. And he wanted to be joined in the studio by his eight-piece road band, not only because he was eager to showcase them in the recording environment but also because he knew that no other players could possibly be as empathetic and supportive. The members of the Gregg Allman Band were his last set of brothers.

The resulting work, recorded live off the floor, including Gregg’s vocals, over two weeks, is devastating in its gritty veracity. As you might expect, Southern Blood is a timeless regional soul album, with the rhythm section grooving and the three-man horn section blowing hot and humid, while bandleader Scot Sharrard and Allman trade guitar riffs like crosscut saws, the McCrary Sisters’ churchy harmonies further thickening the air here and there. Allman, who sings with startling immediacy throughout, puts everything he’s got left in the tank into the album’s two burners, Willie Dixon’s “I Love The Life I Live” and Sharrard’s “Love Like Kerosene”. But the album was another dimension as well. Half the songs are from California-based writers – Tim Buckley’s “Once I Was”, Lowell George’s “Willin’” Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter’s “Black Muddy River”, Malibu Bob Dylan’s “Going Going Gone” and Jackson Browne’s “Song For Adam”. What’s more, the arrangements on four of the five ballads feature the yearning pedal steel of SoCal neoclassicist Greg Leisz and the close harmonies of Buddy Miller, imbuing Southern Roots with an undercurrent of sepia-toned Pacific Coast languor – casting Allman’s deeply Southern stoicism toward America’s Western horizon.

Interestingly, a similar geo-cultural balance led to a very different vibe on Allman’s previous album, Low Country Blues, recorded in 2010 shortly before his liver transplant and released the following year. In that case, an ensemble of mostly LA-based musicians assembled by producer T Bone Burnett accompanied the singer/organist on a batch of vintage Southern blues tunes recorded in iconic LA studio The Village. “It sounds like it should be on a scratchy old 78, with the stylus buried down into the record, hitting potholes in the grooves”, Gregg said of that determinedly old-school LP soon after its completion. The centerpiece of Low Country Blues is “Just Another Rider” (a co-write with latter-day Allman Brothers guitarist Warren Haynes), a cross-country extension of his signature song, “Midnight Rider”, which defined his lifelong romance with the road.

Gregg tackles the same subject even more directly on Southern Blood with “My Only True Friend” (written with Sharrard), which opens the album with the instantly familiar sound of a pair of harmonized guitars soaring regally over the rest of the band as the players lay down a stately midtempo groove. “You and I both know/The river will surely flow/To an end”, Gregg begins, his weathered voice somber and magisterial. Two lines later, he hits the chorus, and the heart of his missive, conveyed to a lover and to all those who love his music and what he represents: “I hope you’re haunted by the music of my soul, when I’m gone… But you and I both know/The road is my only true friend”. In a single verse and chorus, Gregg sums up his life and legacy as completely as he did in his 2012 memoir, My Cross To Bear.

Southern Blood was initially scheduled to come out in January, but its release was delayed in order for Gregg to put “finishing touches” on it, according to a post on Allman’s website. That he was too ill to tie up those loose ends has led to one of the album’s most heart-wrenching moments. As Was points out in his illuminating, heartfelt liner notes, the closing “Song For Adam” had long spoken to Gregg because it applied so poetically to his fallen brother. “When he gets to the line, ‘Still it seems that he stopped singing in the middle of his song’, you can hear him choke up and falter”, Was recalls. “We decided to stop for the day, and Gregg never got the chance to actually sing those next two lines. Leaving them open seemed like a poignant and poetic way for him to make his exit”. In their absence, the lines left unsung, “Well, I’m not the one to say I know/But I’m hoping he was wrong”, suggest Gregg is envisioning being reunited with Duane and his brothers in spirit on the other side.

Like the old nag who’s “rode hard and put up wet” in the cowpoke metaphor, Gregg Allman ends his long ride spent but satisfied in the knowledge he’s lived life to the hilt, every damn step of the way.

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

R.E.M. reveal the secrets of their unlikely rock masterpiece in the latest Uncut

0
1992, and REM are on the cusp of superstardom. How will they adapt to a world of new opportunities? By retreating to Athens, disdaining live shows and interviews, and making a hushed, mournful new album – Automatic For The People. Twenty-five years and 18 million copies later, Uncut tracks down th...

1992, and REM are on the cusp of superstardom. How will they adapt to a world of new opportunities? By retreating to Athens, disdaining live shows and interviews, and making a hushed, mournful new album – Automatic For The People. Twenty-five years and 18 million copies later, Uncut tracks down the major players to uncover the secrets of an unlikely rock masterpiece.

For Peter Buck, success was a hard quality to quantify. “We were living in the same houses, driving the same cars,” he says, thinking back to 1991, the year Out Of Time broke REM. “So 
it didn’t occur to us that things had changed substantially – and they hadn’t, in a lot of ways.”

Exhausted after 1989’s intense Green World Tour, the group decided not to perform live in support of Out Of Time, and so were insulated from the waves they were making. “We were walking away from the performing-in-big-basketball-arenas side of our nature,” the guitarist adds. “Instead I’d get home and play on the front porch.”

With touring off the agenda, the four-piece now had a rare luxury, time; to spend in Athens, Georgia, finessing songs for their follow-up, hanging out with friends and family, and visiting restaurants like soul food joint Weaver D’s. Although some of Out Of Time hinted at a more baroque, sombre sound, the next LP they’d create, Automatic For The People, would be the darkest, deepest and most beautiful music REM would ever make.

Strangely, these explorations on mortality and ageing stemmed from a supremely happy, confident group; and even stranger, they struck a chord with people around the world, selling millions. “Oh yeah, we were enjoying not being on the road,” says bassist and keyboardist Mike Mills today, “making great music. That’s the great thing abut being in your hometown, you’ve got your friends there who remind you that you’re still the same schmo you always were.”

Read more in the new Uncut – on sale now and available to buy online

A 25th anniversary edition of Automatic For The People is released on November 10 by Craft Recordings

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Beastie Boys announce vinyl reissues

0
Beastie Boys have announced vinyl reissues of three of their albums. 1996's The In Sound From Way Out!, 2004's To The 5 Boroughs and 2011's Hot Sauce Committee Part Two will be released on December 8. You can pre-order them by clicking here. https://twitter.com/beastieboys/status/9286942321345167...

Hear Wilco’s previously unreleased song, ‘‘Dynamite My Soul’’

0
Wilco have shared a previously unreleased track from their Being There sessions, "Dynamite My Soul". The track will appear on the band's forthcoming deluxe reissue of their 1996 album. The band are preparing to release expanded reissues of Being There and their 1995 debut, AM on December 1 on Rhi...

Wilco have shared a previously unreleased track from their Being There sessions, “Dynamite My Soul“.

The track will appear on the band’s forthcoming deluxe reissue of their 1996 album.

The band are preparing to release expanded reissues of Being There and their 1995 debut, AM on December 1 on Rhino, featuring demos, outtakes, and alternate takes.

Read more at https://www.uncut.co.uk/news/hear-wilcos-previously-unreleased-song-myrna-lee-102261#Wkmed4j2rcWdvmxo.99

BEING THERE: DELUXE EDITION
CD Track Listing:
Disc One: Original Album
1. “Misunderstood”
2. “Far, Far Away”
3. “Monday”
4. “Outtasite (Outta Mind)”
5. “Forget The Flowers”
6. “Red-Eyed And Blue”
7. “I Got You (At The End Of The Century)”
8. “What’s The World Got In Store”
9. “Hotel Arizona”
10. “Say You Miss Me”

Disc Two: Original Album
1. “Sunken Treasure”
2. “Someday Soon”
3. “Outta Mind (Outta Sight)”
4. “Someone Else’s Song”
5. “Kingpin”
6. “(Was I) In Your Dreams”
7. “Why Would You Wanna Live”
8. “The Lonely 1”
9. “Dreamer In My Dreams”

Disc Three: Outtakes/Alternates/Demos
1. “Late Blooming Son”
2. “I Got You” – Dobro Mix Warzone
3. “Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind” – Alternate
4. “Far Far Away (Dark Side Of The Room)”
5. “Dynamite My Soul”
6. “Losing Interest”
7. “Why Would You Wanna Live” – Alternate
8. “Sun’s A Star”
9. “Capitol City”
10. “Better When I’m Gone”
11. “Dreamer In My Dreams” – Alternate Rough Take
12. “Say You Miss Me” – Alternate
13. “I Got You” – Alternate
14. “Monday” – Party Horn Version
15. “I Can’t Keep From Talking”

Disc Four: Live At The Troubadour 11/12/96 (Part One)
1. “Sunken Treasure”
2. “Red-Eyed And Blue”
3. “I Got You (At The End Of The Century)”
4. “Someone Else’s Song”
5. “Someday Soon”
6. “Forget The Flowers”
7. “New Madrid”
8. “I Must Be High”
9. “Passenger Side” – Punk Version
10. “Passenger Side”
11. “Hotel Arizona”
12. “Monday”
13. “Say You Miss Me”

Disc Five: Live At The Troubadour 11/12/96 (Part Two)
1. “Outtasite (Outta Mind)”
2. “The Long Cut”
3. “Kingpin”
4. “Misunderstood”
5. “Far, Far Away”
6. “Give Back The Key To My Heart”
7. “Gun”
Live On KCRW 11/13/96
8. “Sunken Treasure”
9. “Red-Eyed And Blue”
10. “Far, Far Away”
11. “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

The 42nd Uncut Playlist Of 2017

0
What’s new? Strong new American Primitive action from Alexander, and a sort of Pennine variant on the theme from Jim Ghedi. A first track from the excellent Joan As Police Woman album. New singles from Imarhan, Ty Segall (yet another; they seem to be weekly at the moment) and, best of all, The Dri...

What’s new? Strong new American Primitive action from Alexander, and a sort of Pennine variant on the theme from Jim Ghedi. A first track from the excellent Joan As Police Woman album. New singles from Imarhan, Ty Segall (yet another; they seem to be weekly at the moment) and, best of all, The Drive-By Truckers. HC McEntire, and a remix of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith by Four Tet. And two albums by Beast that I think I’ve mentioned before, but haven’t provided links for; it’s a new project from Koen Holtkamp, from Mountains and those Chris Forsyth duo sets. Thor & Friends is in a similar kind of space (as is that Orpheo McCord album I’ve linked to a week or so back) and I’ll hopefully have something to play you from that asap. Whose streets? Our streets!

Follow me on Twitter @JohnRMulvey

1 Jon Hassell – Vernal Equinox (Lovely)

2 Fela Kuti – Vinyl Box Set #4 Curated By Erykah Badu (Knitting Factory)

3 Neil Young & Promise Of The Real – Already Great (Reprise)

4 Neil Young – Time Fades Away (Reprise)

5 Xylouris White – Mother (Bella Union)

6 Bahamas – Earthtones (Brushfire)

7 Thor & Friends – The Subversive Nature Of Kindness (Living Music Duplication)

8 Boubacar Traoré – Dounia Tabolo (Lusafrica)

9 Alexander – Alexander (No Label)

Alexander (preview) by alexander

10 Joan As Police Woman – Damned Devotion (Play It Again Sam)

11 Wet Tuna – Livin’ The Die (Feeding Tube/Child Of Microtones)

12 Saz’Iso – At Least Wave Your Handkerchief At Me: The Joys And Sorrows of
Southern Albanian Song (Glitterbeat)

13 Pucho & The Latin Soul Brothers – Jungle Fire! (Jazz Dispensary)

14 Marisa Anderson – Traditional And Public Domain Songs (Mississippi)

Traditional and Public Domain Songs by Marisa Anderson

15 Bitchin Bajas – Bajas Fresh (Drag City)

Bajas Fresh by Bitchin Bajas

16 Imarhan – Azzaman (City Slang)

17 Ty Segall – My Lady’s On Fire (Drag City)

My Lady’s On Fire by Ty Segall

18 Drive-By Truckers – The Perilous Night (ATO)

19 Chuck Johnson – Balsams (VDSQ)

Balsams by Chuck Johnson

20 Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – I Will Make Room For You (Four Tet Remix) (Western Vinyl)

21 Jim Ghedi – A Hymn For Ancient Land (Basin Rock)

22 Gospel Of Mars – Hamish (Amish)

23 Hologram Teen – Between The Funk And The Fear (Polytechnic Youth)

24 Beast – Volume One (Pre-Echo Press)

Volume One by Beast

25 Beast – Volume Two (Pre-Echo Press)

Volume Two by Beast

26 HC McEntire – Lionheart (Merge)

27 Pharaoh Sanders – Tauhid/Jewels Of Thought/Deaf Dumb Blind (Summun Kukmun Umyun) (Anthology)

28 Bibio – Phantom Brickworks (Warp)

Joan Baez announces new album Whistle Down The Wind and UK tour dates

0
Joan Baez has announced a new album Whistle Down The Wind. Produced by Joe Henry, the album is due in early March next year. This will be her first new record since 2008’s Day After Tomorrow. Baez will also tour in support of the album, including two shows at London's Royal Albert Hall. This mar...

Joan Baez has announced a new album Whistle Down The Wind.

Produced by Joe Henry, the album is due in early March next year. This will be her first new record since 2008’s Day After Tomorrow.

Baez will also tour in support of the album, including two shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall. This marks what she describes as her “last year of formal extended touring”.

Baez UK dates are:

March 13 — York, Barbican
March 14 — Birmingham, Symphony Hall
March 16 — Glasgow, Royal Concert Hall
March 17 — Edinburgh, Usher Hall
March 19 — Belfast, Waterfront Hall
March 21 — Dublin, Bord Gais Energy Theatre
March 22 — Dublin, Bord Gais Energy Theatre
May 23 — Bristol, Colston Hall
May 24 — Manchester, Bridgewater Hall
May 26 — Gateshead, The Sage
May 28 — London, Royal Albert Hall
May 29 — London, Royal Albert Hall

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

How much would you pay for one of Bob Dylan’s guitars?

0
Bob Dylan’s 1963 Martin D-28 acoustic guitar is going up for auction. Heritage Auctions will host the auction on November 11 in Dallas, Texas. Dylan played the guitar for more than a decade and through his entire set at George Harrison's historic 1971 Concert For Bangladesh. Only the second know...

Bob Dylan’s 1963 Martin D-28 acoustic guitar is going up for auction.

Heritage Auctions will host the auction on November 11 in Dallas, Texas.

Dylan played the guitar for more than a decade and through his entire set at George Harrison’s historic 1971 Concert For Bangladesh. Only the second known Dylan guitar to go to auction, the acoustic is expected sell for $300,000.

The guitar was owned by Larry Cragg, who served as Dylan’s guitar tech. Dylan sold Cragg the guitar in 1977 for $500.00.

“It was one of his favorite instruments,” said Cragg. “It’s been a pleasure owning this incredible piece of music history, but the time is right for it to find a new owner who will appreciate it as much as Bob and I did.”

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Paul Buckmaster, arranger for David Bowie, the Rolling Stones and Elton John, dies aged 71

0
Paul Buckmaster has died aged 71. As an arranger, Buckmaster worked with David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Elton John and many more. The news of his death was confirmed by management company, McDaniel Entertainment. https://twitter.com/McDanielEnt/status/928303370607005696 Buckmaster's first cred...

Paul Buckmaster has died aged 71.

As an arranger, Buckmaster worked with David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Elton John and many more.

The news of his death was confirmed by management company, McDaniel Entertainment.

Buckmaster’s first credits with Bowie were “Space Oddity” and “Wild-eyed Boy From Freecloud“; they later reunited for Bowie’s incomplete soundtrack to The Man Who Fell To Earth.

Buckmaster’s credits also included “Moonlight Mile” and “Sway” for the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album, Miles Davis‘ On The Corner and Leonard Cohen‘s Songs Of Love And Hate.

He had a productive relationship with Elton John, working on albums including Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across The Water.

The span of Buckmaster’s work ran from Carly Simon‘s “You’re So Vain” to the Grateful Dead‘s “Terrapin Station”, Guns N’ Roses‘ Chinese Democracy and more recently, Taylor Swift.

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Hear Mavis Staples’ new song, “Build A Bridge”

0
Mavis Staples has shared a new song, "Build A Bridge". The song is taken from her forthcoming album, If All I Was Was Black, which is released on November 17 via Anti. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3bYAxsYjZE The new album marks Staples' third collaboration with Jeff Tweedy, following 2010's Y...

Mavis Staples has shared a new song, “Build A Bridge“.

The song is taken from her forthcoming album, If All I Was Was Black, which is released on November 17 via Anti.

The new album marks Staples’ third collaboration with Jeff Tweedy, following 2010’s You Are Not Alone and 2013’s One True Vine.

The tracklisting for If All I Was Was Black is:

Little Bit
If All I Was Was Black
Who Told You That
Ain’t No Doubt About It (feat. Jeff Tweedy)
Peaceful Dream
No Time For Crying
Build A Bridge
We Go High
Try Harder
All Over Again

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Hear Drive-By Truckers new song, “The Perilous Night”

0
Drive-By Truckers have released a new song, "The Perilous Night". It's the group's first new music since last year's American Band. The new song continues that album's politically explicit agenda. "'The Perilous Night' is the true follow to what we've been doing," Patterson Hood told Rolling Stone...

Drive-By Truckers have released a new song, “The Perilous Night“.

It’s the group’s first new music since last year’s American Band. The new song continues that album’s politically explicit agenda.

“‘The Perilous Night’ is the true follow to what we’ve been doing,” Patterson Hood told Rolling Stone. “When we recorded American Band, there hadn’t even been the first primary yet and we were writing about this dark time I honestly thought was going to get better. I don’t think I could’ve mustered up the kind of cynicism to predict the type of bullshit we’ve seen this year.”

“The Perilous Night” will be released December 15 as a 7″ alongside a live recording of “What It Means“, with portions of the proceeds going to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

The Beatles Sgt Pepper jukebox goes on sale

0
The Beatles' Sgt Pepper album has been immortalised in jukebox form. Officially licensed by Apple Corps Ltd, the jukebox has been produced by Sound Leisure and retails for £8,995 - including VAT, UK delivery and installation. According to the company's website, the "unique rotating vinyl mechanis...

The Beatles‘ Sgt Pepper album has been immortalised in jukebox form.

Officially licensed by Apple Corps Ltd, the jukebox has been produced by Sound Leisure and retails for £8,995 –
including VAT, UK delivery and installation.

According to the company’s website, the “unique rotating vinyl mechanism holds 70 45rpm records (not included) with 140 selection options the jukebox can play both A & B sides. The machine features a revolving title rack to select favourite records at the touch of a button.

“The Sgt. Pepper’s Vinyl Jukebox incorporates a Bluetooth™ receiver with the ability to stream digital music from a compatible device. It also features auxiliary outputs, input and additional speaker connections. A splendid quality sound is guaranteed for all from needle to ear via the Sound Leisure D4 amplifier and five way in built speaker system.”

You can find more information by clicking here.

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Uncut’s great lost music venues – we need your help!

0
Readers! We’re conducting a survey of lost music venues in the UK and we need your help. Tell us all about that beloved local hot spot, now long since gone. Who did you see play there? Why do you think we should include it in our survey? Please share your memories with us by emailing uncut_feed...

Readers!

We’re conducting a survey of lost music venues in the UK and we need your help.

Tell us all about that beloved local hot spot, now long since gone. Who did you see play there? Why do you think we should include it in our survey?

Please share your memories with us by emailing uncut_feedback@timeinc.com.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Ask Michael McDonald

0
With a new album Wide Open on sale now and a run of UK dates coming up in March, Michael McDonald is a busy man at present. Fortunately, he will make time to answer your questions as part of our regular An Audience With... feature. So is there anything you've always wanted to ask the esteemed singe...

With a new album Wide Open on sale now and a run of UK dates coming up in March, Michael McDonald is a busy man at present. Fortunately, he will make time to answer your questions as part of our regular An Audience With… feature.

So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask the esteemed singer-songwriter?

Can he share a favourite memory of Walter Becker?
What was it like working with Thundercat?
Has he ever owned a yacht?

Send up your questions by noon, Monday, November 20 to uncutaudiencewith@timeinc.com.

The best questions, and Michael’s answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine.

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead: Deluxe Edition

0
Time is deceptive when you’re young. It’s counted incorrectly by mischievous clocks, so that a 10-minute wait for a henna-haired girl outside a cinema turns into months, and a summer job in a windowless stockroom lasts a decade. The hiatus preceding the 1986 release of The Smiths’ third studio...

Time is deceptive when you’re young. It’s counted incorrectly by mischievous clocks, so that a 10-minute wait for a henna-haired girl outside a cinema turns into months, and a summer job in a windowless stockroom lasts a decade. The hiatus preceding the 1986 release of The Smiths’ third studio album, The Queen Is Dead, was hardly Godot-esque, but it was not without anxiety. The ever-prolific group seemed to vanish from the map at the halfway point 
of 1985 – later to resurface on a nine-day tour 
of Scotland – giving their gigography, in hindsight, the look of a geographical conjuring trick. June 29: Irvine, California. September 22: Irvine again, this time in Ayrshire.

From reading Johnny Rogan’s The Severed Alliance and Simon Goddard’s Songs That Saved Your Life, we know that The Queen Is Dead was born in a period of intense creativity and self-challenge, but that outside pressures were never far away. Mistrustful of Rough Trade, and with no manager to advise or insulate them, Morrissey and Johnny Marr, even as songs like “Frankly, Mr Shankly” and “I Know It’s Over” were being recorded, had to attend to The Smiths’ day-to-day business affairs, whether that meant holding preliminary talks about a move to EMI or – as Marr exasperatedly recalled in Set The Boy Free 
– fielding angry phone calls from Salford Van Hire when an invoice wasn’t paid.

Small wonder that, in amongst its loin-girding noise and withering attacks on the royals, the album’s title track can be interpreted as a long, desperate plea for peace and quiet. It’s not easy being Morrissey on The Queen Is Dead: just about every building he enters seeks to deplete him in some way. The vivid journey that follows, from the graveyard to the church pulpit to the “darkened underpass” where the heart seems to accelerate and suddenly freeze, is anything but serene. In its own way, it’s an odyssey as tragicomic and as emotional as Johnny Fletcher’s footslog around London in Naked. But the angst (and at times desolation) in Morrissey’s language was offset, as 
always, by the warmth 
of his voice and the heavenly guitars of Marr. The Queen Is Dead – despite threats of a Rough Trade injunction to scupper its release – had 
an urgent desire to live, not die. The force of it was undeniable. At the end of ’86, it was voted Album Of The Year. Today, it’s often to be found in the Top 5, if not higher, when magazines compile their Greatest Albums Of All Time.

Promised as long ago as 2006, a deluxe reissue of The Queen Is Dead has become almost as much of a palaver as the original release was in the first place. It emerges finally in a 3CD/1DVD format, remastered and repackaged, four months after its 31st anniversary. Included are 13 demos and B-sides, together with a 13-song concert (with Craig Gannon on second guitar) from the ensuing American tour. As the number 13 seems to be a recurring pattern in the reissue, the DVD contains The Queen Is Dead: A Film By Derek Jarman – a 13-minute collection of impressionistic videos in which The Smiths don’t appear once. Perhaps the most impartial thing you could say about Jarman’s film, apart from the fact that it’s familiar to every Smiths fan in the world by now, is that it serves as an eternal reminder that Morrissey’s way of dealing with mid-’80s MTV culture was not to deal with it. But when those 13 minutes are up, there’s no further video, TV footage or live performance on the DVD. Unlucky for some.

A tidal wave of sound and fury, the title track began with the actress Cicely Courtneidge bellowing an old music hall song, “Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty”, in Bryan Forbes’ 1962 film The L-Shaped Room. It’s often forgotten that The Queen Is Dead, while hailed in certain quarters as the quintessential indie album, starts not with jangling guitars but with two samples – an imprint of Courtneidge’s voice and a loop of Mike Joyce hammering out a fierce tattoo on his tom-toms. The lead-off track on the second disc – which attempts a recreation of The Queen Is Dead in demo form – is a thunderous, seven-minute pre-edit of the title track with Courtneidge removed (or not yet inserted) and is a remarkable onslaught indeed.

The demo-as-alternative-album concept falters after a while, omitting “Vicar In A Tutu” and tinkering with the sequence to end on an early take of “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”. Rather randomly, there’s a demo of “Never Had No One Ever” featuring the bizarre addition of a BBC trumpet player, but there’s no room for the trumpet version of “Frankly, Mr Shankly” that was recorded the same day. Not as generous with its outtakes as a leaked CD-R suggested Rhino’s 20th-anniversary edition in 2006 would have been (it was mysteriously cancelled), the inevitable round-up of B-sides does at least – and this is a big plus – reunite “Rubber Ring” and “Asleep” in an unbroken segue, exactly as they appeared on the 12-inch single of “The Boy With The Thorn In His Side”. As Marr has noted, that segue – a delicate composite of a howling wind, a piano chord and 
a woman’s voice delivering a message from the dead – is quite spectacular.

Remastered in Los Angeles by Dan Hersch and Bill Inglot, a post-production duo who work with Morrissey on his solo albums, The Queen Is Dead now moves to Mansfield, a town in Massachusetts, for the 64 minutes of live Smiths that comprise Disc Three. The August 1986 concert, one of many on the US tour to be recorded by sound engineer Grant Showbiz, has been available to hear in the past (on the bootlegs So This Is America and Live In The USA) but the sound quality here easily overrides those. The Smiths open with a powerful, statement-of-intent version of “How Soon Is Now?”, a difficult song to duplicate live, and sound at once energised by its gremlin-free success. They give an airing to a new song, “Is It Really So Strange?”, which they wouldn’t release for another eight months (as the B-side of “Sheila Take A Bow”). The Mansfield gig is a worthwhile addition to the official catalogue, though collectors will notice that six of the 19 songs 
played that night are not included.

Los Angeles? Massachusetts? If we think for a moment about the place The Queen Is Dead occupies in 20th-century British culture, to say nothing of its importance to the north of England in the second term of Thatcherism – all that Salford iconography; all those “dole age” problems – a slight sense of dismay might be felt as the beloved album begins to slip over the horizon. In her new guise, this Queen is very much a transatlantic project, a reissue with a dual-nationality passport. She left the streets of Manchester a long, long time ago. Such is progress; she sprouts and gleams like a regenerated part of Salford.

Morrissey never did break into the Palace. It seems unlikely he’ll be back for a knighthood. The Queen remains stubbornly alive, expecting another great-grandchild, and Blighty gets ready to hang out the bunting again. The songs on The Queen Is Dead now, shockingly, speak to us from a time that’s closer to Cicely Courtneidge in The L-Shaped Room than it is to us.

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.

Watch a new mini-documentary on Aretha Franklin’s album, A Brand New Me

0
Aretha Franklin's latest album A Brand New Me is the subject of a new mini-documentary, which you can watch below. A Brand New Me pairs vocals from Franklin's songs with new arrangements performed by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The album will be available from Rhino on November 10 on CD, LP, ...

Aretha Franklin‘s latest album A Brand New Me is the subject of a new mini-documentary, which you can watch below.

A Brand New Me pairs vocals from Franklin’s songs with new arrangements performed by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The album will be available from Rhino on November 10 on CD, LP, digital download as well as streaming services.

The album was produced by Nick Patrick and Don Reedman, who also worked on If I Can Dream: Elvis Presley With The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

The tracklisting for A Brand New Me is:
“Think”
“Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)”
“I Say A Little Prayer”
“Until You Come Back To Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)”
“A Brand New Me”
“A Natural Woman (You Make Me Feel Like)”
“Angel”
“Border Song (Holy Moses)”
“Let It Be”
“People Get Ready”
“Oh Me Oh My (I’m A Fool For You Baby)”
“You’re All I Need To Get By”
“Son Of A Preacher Man”
“Respect”

The December 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – with Robert Plant on the cover. Plant and his band have also compiled our free CD, which includes tracks by Bert Jansch, Daniel Lanois, Patty Griffin, Thee Oh Sees and more. Elsewhere in the issue, we remember Tom Petty and there are new interviews with REM, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bootsy Collins, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Ronnie Spector. We review Morrissey, Sharon Jones, Mavis Staples, Hüsker Dü, Tim Buckley and Talk Talk and much more.