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Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett announce collaborative album + tour

Michael Bonner
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Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett announce collaborative album + tour
Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett have announced details of a North American tour for later this year. The duo will be backed by band The Sea Lice, a revolving cast of musicians featuring Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag), Rob Laakso (The Violators, The Swirlies, Mice Parade), Stella Mozgawa (Wa...

Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett have announced details of a North American tour for later this year.

The duo will be backed by band The Sea Lice, a revolving cast of musicians featuring Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag), Rob Laakso (The Violators, The Swirlies, Mice Parade), Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint) and Katie Harkin (Sky Larkin, touring member of Sleater-Kinney and Wild Beasts).

The announcement comes as Vile and Barnett reveal that they have completed a collaboration album for release later this year.

The album is the result of 8 days in the studio spread over almost 15 months when Vile and Barnett’s respective touring schedules allowed for them to be in the same place at the same time. The album will be released later this year jointly by Marathon Artists, Matador Records and Milk! Records.

The pair will play:

October 11 San Diego, CA – House of Blues
October 14 Los Angeles, CA – The Cathedral Sanctuary at Immanuel Presbyterian Church
October 15 Los Angeles, CA – Orpheum Theatre
October 18 Oakland, CA – Fox Theatre
October 20 Portland, OR – Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
October 21 Seattle, WA – Moore Theatre
October 22 Seattle, WA – The Showbox
October 25 St. Paul, MN – Palace Theatre
October 26 Chicago, IL – Rockefeller Chapel
October 27 Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
October 28 Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
October 30 Royal Oak, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre
October 31 Toronto, Ontario – Massey Hall
November 01 New York, NY – Beacon Theatre
November 03 Upper Darby, PA – Tower Theatre
November 04 Boston, MA – Orpheum Theatre
November 09 Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
November 10 Dallas, TX – McFarlin Memorial Auditorium
November 11 Austin, TX – ACL Live at the Moody Theater

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

Fleet Foxes’ Crack-Up reviewed

John Mulvey
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Fleet Foxes’ Crack-Up reviewed
On the evening of February 9, Robin Pecknold ambled into one of those strange controversies that blow up on social media and, for a few hours, consume the music world’s chattering class. Talking to the Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth on Instagram, Pecknold became embroiled in a droll, quasi-ac...

On the evening of February 9, Robin Pecknold ambled into one of those strange controversies that blow up on social media and, for a few hours, consume the music world’s chattering class. Talking to the Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth on Instagram, Pecknold became embroiled in a droll, quasi-academic discussion about the precarious state of (his quotes) “indie rock”. “I feel,” he wrote, “like 2009, Bitte Orca/Merriweather/Veckatimest, was the last time there was a fertile strain of ‘indie rock’ that also felt progressive w/o devolving into Yes-ish largesse.”

Opprobrium, inevitably, was swift. Pecknold’s comments were taken as a lament for a time when records by Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear – and, by extension, Fleet Foxes – had greater cultural traction. In the mainstream nowadays, it tends to be R&B, hip hop and pop that are feted for an experimental as well as a commercial imperative. Pecknold’s argument was more nuanced than soundbites allowed, but it was disseminated as if he were yearning after some halcyon era, when groups of largely diffident American boys – often bearing guitars, often his friends – became stars, after a fashion.

Plenty of “progressive indie rock” is still being made in 2017, but not many debut albums of the stuff are selling 600,000 copies in the UK alone. That was what “Fleet Foxes” achieved in 2008, even while Pecknold, his bandmates and peers defied expectations of how a popular band should present themselves. They were human and unassuming, bookish and allusive, unencumbered by rock braggadocio and averse to showy press quotes. Perhaps, at times, they were also a little twee.

How, then, do we take the return of the Fleet Foxes six years after “Helplessness Blues”, at a time when their enduring aesthetic could be seen as relatively quaint, at least in mainstream terms? Unlike Pecknold, 2017’s most prominent “indie-rock” standard-bearer has correctly calculated that he will game most publicity with an agenda of snark, controversy and the most archly debauched posturing. That Father John Misty – “Elton John singing Comment Is Free pieces,” as one Twitter observer described “Pure Comedy” – once occupied the Fleet Foxes drum stool is just one more irony for his wearyingly vast collection of them.

While Misty assiduously courted the headlines, Pecknold made a tactical retreat. He pursued a degree at Columbia University in New York and, he told Reddit in May 2016, “got some academic pretensions out of my system that I won’t be inflicting upon the listening public through song.” This, it turns out, is something of a fib. “Crack-Up”, the third Fleet Foxes album, is both elaborate and earnest, picking up roughly where “Helplessness Blues”’ “The Shrine/An Argument” left off. Songs are burdened with multiple movements and knotted titles. Classical allusions and logophilia are rampant, so much so that Pecknold seems to be in a competition with his old touring mate, Joanna Newsom, to deploy the most obscure reference: she says “Sapokanikan”; he says “Mearcstapa” (It’s the name of a monster in Beowulf, translated as “border-walker”). Track One alone has three titles (“I Am All That I Need/Arroyo Seco/Thumbprint Scar”) and, over six and a half minutes, features chromatic bells and bird song, a significantly creaking door, a clanging instrument used in Moroccan gnawa rituals called a qraqeb, a faintly eastern-sounding string section, and a sample of a high school choir singing the Fleet Foxes’ formative hit, “White Winter Hymnal”.

In the midst of all this, the old stereotype of Fleet Foxes as bucolic fabulists, peddling a hygienised vision of log-cabin folk-rock, feels almost comically inaccurate. And yet, even as Pecknold and his right-hand man, Skyler Skjelset, pile more and more esoteric detail onto each song, the fundamental charms of their band shine through. The heart of “I Am All That I Need/Arroyo Seco/Thumbprint Scar” is still Pecknold and a buccaneering acoustic guitar, leading his bandmates in sacred harp harmonies that retain all the ravishing prettiness of the original “White Winter Hymnal”. Crack-Up might be a record about flux and contrast, as musical and lyrical ideas clash and mutate, and repeated images of city and ocean roll into one another. But Pecknold’s sweet and tentative air remains constant even when he is trying to articulate how he has changed. “I know you’ll be/Bolder than me/I was high, I was unaware,” he sings over the rustic systems ripple of “Kept Woman”.

Pecknold, in fact, is at times chronically self-aware. He recently described the shifting terrain of “Third Of May/Ōdaigahara” as beginning like “Fleet Foxes: Phase One” – “happy, upbeat, sunny” – and passing through “glimmers of doubt”, a “super fraught and tense” passage with “glimmers of hope”, and a “final defeat” before “it just floats away into a beautiful nothing”. Ōdaigahara, for the record, being a mountain in Japan, and Japan being where Fleet Foxes concluded their last tour, in 2012. Embedding a meta-narrative about the history of your band into one song, even when that song is nearly nine minutes long, seems a bit of a stretch. But “Crack-Up”’s filigree constructs are a lot more robust than they first appear, and no amount of ornamentation – the harpsichords! the autoharps! – or conceptualising can imbalance the essential loveliness of these 11 songs.

For a record that expressly strives to present a mature band, Pecknold and his bandmates’ industry can be easily mistaken as sophomoric, driven by a neurotic need to be respected as eclectic and ambitious. But satisfyingly, the multiple gambles and expansions almost all pay off. A jazzy little guitar solo among the swells and buffets of “Mearcstapa”? A random clip of an old Mulatu Astatke record at the end of “On Another Ocean (January/June)”? A free squall of horns in the climactic title track? Every one of them makes sense in the enveloping 56-minute patchwork.

“Crack-Up” hardly aspires to be a withering commentary on art and the world and how the two intersect in 2017. It is, though, distinctive, involving, challenging, accessible, “progressive” and most other things that continue to be desirable in an indie-rock record, whatever the year. A recipe for total entertainment forever, you could say, if you were being fashionably edgy.

Hear PJ Harvey’s new song, “The Camp”

Michael Bonner
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Hear PJ Harvey’s new song, “The Camp”
PJ Harvey has released a new song, “The Camp”. A collaboration with Egyptian artist Ramy Essam, the song the lives of displaced children in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon. All profits will be donated to Beyond Association, a Lebanese NGO that works in the Bekaa valley and elsewhere in the country....

PJ Harvey has released a new song, “The Camp”.

A collaboration with Egyptian artist Ramy Essam, the song the lives of displaced children in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon. All profits will be donated to Beyond Association, a Lebanese NGO that works in the Bekaa valley and elsewhere in the country.

The song was produced by John Parish and an accompanying video features stills by photojournalist Giles Duley.

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

John Martyn – Head And Heart: 
The Acoustic John Martyn

Jim Wirth
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John Martyn – Head And Heart: 
The Acoustic John Martyn
Having come through the same secondary school – Shawlands Academy – as Moors Murderer Ian Brady, John Martyn was wont to present himself as a Glasgow tough in his darker days, a mask that suited him well as alcohol and drug use exacerbated his meanest tendencies. The bumbling “curly-haired ch...

Having come through the same secondary school – Shawlands Academy – as Moors Murderer Ian Brady, John Martyn was wont to present himself as a Glasgow tough in his darker days, a mask that suited him well as alcohol and drug use exacerbated his meanest tendencies.

The bumbling “curly-haired child” that contemporary Michael Chapman recalled meeting in Les Cousins in the late 1960s morphed into a carousing monster as his musical reputation grew. This unplugged two-CD remix of Martyn’s career shows that he wrote some of the most luminously beautiful love songs of his age (“Couldn’t Love You More”, here stripped of its One World varnish, for a start), but it is a truth that sits uneasily alongside his reputation as one of jazz-folk’s most notorious ratbags. His first wife, muse and sometime musical collaborator Beverley Martyn claims his violent fits of temper led her to seek police protection when she finally left him in 1979. “I was terrified of him,” she told one interviewer. “And he knew it.”

Raised in relatively genteel circumstances by his father and grandmother after his parents split while he was a child, the artist formerly known as Iain McGeachy spent time with his mother in southern England – explaining his penchant for between-song accent-switching, gentle Glasgow to convincing Cockney. A keen school rugby player, his academic aspirations were knocked off course by exposure to Joan Baez and guitar maestro Davy Graham. He chased his muse down to London in his late teens and – skilful and charismatic – had a contract with Island within weeks.

Previously unreleased demos from 1968’s The Tumbler – Bert Jansch-y tangle “A Day At The Sea” and “Seven Black Roses”, with its ever-rising, John Fahey-flavoured key changes – spotlight his precocious virtuosity, but Martyn remained an apprentice songwriter for some time. “London Conversation”, the title track from his 1967 debut, is an Incredible String Band facsimile, with the amiable “Fairytale Lullaby” something of a have-a-go Donovan. “I will take you where the elves and pixies do sing,” he trills guilelessly. “And I will take you round the magic fairy ring.”

Perhaps troubled by his lack of a musical USP, Martyn readily teamed up with his wife Beverley for two well-liked 1970 albums, though the easy Woodstock groove underpinning the different takes of Stormbringer! tracks “Traffic-Light Lady” and “John The Baptist” here mask more troublesome behaviour. Beverley Martyn recalls getting a black eye for ‘flirting’ with Bob Dylan during their stay in upstate New York. She took a back seat after speedy follow-up The Road To Ruin (the album that immediately preceded the Martyns’ friend Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter in the Island catalogue). She remembered: “We had children and I was the one who had to be together, whereas he was wild, he lived on the edge.”

Unfettered, Martyn found his increasingly alpha-male groove on 1971’s Bless The Weather and 1973’s Solid Air, his effects-pedal experiments creating the Echoplex fog that hung over some of his most celebrated works. His extended musical bromance with double-bass maestro Danny Thompson also coincided with the gradual erosion of Martyn’s consonants. However, while the groans and growls in his new musical language sought to blur his lyrics, decluttered versions of some of his peak-period works here cast a colder light on the drives that sustained Martyn.

Frequently playing away from home – in both senses – Martyn’s songs sought salvation in some mythical family life. “Making the bread, going mad in the head/I know when I’m going too far,” he sings, road-weary on the gaunt “Fine Lines”. “I want to get back, want to take up the slack/Get where the good times are.” However, the joyful “Over The Hill” – a wide-eyed rhapsody celebrating coming home to his young family in Hastings – is a notable warning sign, drug use intruding gauchely into the domestic bliss: “Can’t get enough of sweet cocaine/Get enough of Mary Jane,” he burbles cheerily.

The fiend and the family man do battle in a rare trad arr, “Spencer The Rover” – this lovely version culled from a Peel Session – which ends with the inveterate roamer in the arms of his loved ones “contented he’ll remain and not ramble away”. However, Martyn’s real instincts were for unsettling rather than settling, guttural drunk’s lament “Make No Mistake” – this version culled from a 1973 Bob Harris show – a self-portrait of a man increasingly defined by selfish habits (“If I can’t get everything I want, I’ll just get what I can”).

In life as in art, Martyn never knew quite where to stop, the fact that he lived as long as 60 years – dying in January 2009 – regarded as a minor miracle by his contemporaries. Beverley Martyn called him “Luciferian”, but if Head And Heart cannot redeem Martyn, these acoustic readings at least bring his creative virtues into clearer focus. Good but bad. Bad but good.

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

Bill Murray covers Van Morrison; announces ‘classical’ album

Michael Bonner
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Bill Murray covers Van Morrison; announces ‘classical’ album
Regular readers to this blog will hopefully be up to speed with the extra-curricular activities of Bill Murray - many of them involving singing. Many will recall his karaoke rendition of Roxy Music's "More Than This" during Lost In Translation. More recently, we've reported on that time Murray cove...

Regular readers to this blog will hopefully be up to speed with the extra-curricular activities of Bill Murray – many of them involving singing.

Many will recall his karaoke rendition of Roxy Music’s “More Than This” during Lost In Translation. More recently, we’ve reported on that time Murray covered a Bob Dylan song and a recent animated video featuring Murray and Paul Shaffer – an old comrade from the Saturday Night Live days.

In retrospect, these seem like dry-runs as Murray now prepares to launch a full-scale music career. But, this being Bill Murray, it is not a conventional project. For his debut album New Worlds, Murray will sing and perform literary readings over chamber music from a trio led by cellist Jan Vogler.

According to the New York Times, Murray singing songs from Gershwin and Stephen Foster and reading selections from Whitman, Hemingway and Twain while the ensemble play Schubert, Bach, and Piazzolla.

Murray and the trio performed music from the album at a music festival in Dresden on Sunday, Consequence Of Sound reports. He also delivered a cover of Van Morrison’s “When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God?“. Watch fan-shot footage below.

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Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

Introducing Paul McCartney: The Ultimate Music Guide

John Mulvey
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Introducing Paul McCartney: The Ultimate Music Guide
On June 18 this year, Paul McCartney will hit the auspicious age of 75. For more than two-thirds of his life, he has been one of the most famous people on the planet, and one of the most feted musicians in history. Through that time, too, he has devised and sustained many ingenious coping strategies...

On June 18 this year, Paul McCartney will hit the auspicious age of 75. For more than two-thirds of his life, he has been one of the most famous people on the planet, and one of the most feted musicians in history. Through that time, too, he has devised and sustained many ingenious coping strategies to handle the stresses that such a level of success and recognition must inevitably bring. Few superstars have perfected an air of normality as convincingly as Macca. But what is he really like?

Uncut’s latest deluxe Ultimate Music Guide to Paul McCartney goes some way, hopefully, to figuring out that riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma (The issue goes on sale in the UK this Thursday, but you’ll be able to buy a copy from our online store).

The story begins on April 18, 1970, when an unusual dispatch from McCartney appeared in the NME. Instead of participating in a normal interview, McCartney had sent the UK media a printed statement, in which he (or, at least, a shadowy enabler at Apple) asked the questions as well as supplying the answers. A delicate situation, he believed, needed to be micromanaged with extreme care.

Nevertheless, McCartney did not spare himself the difficult subjects. There was a solo album to discuss, of course, one all about “Home. Family. Love.” But also, there was the outstanding business of where the arrival of “McCartney” left The Beatles. “Are you planning a new album or single with The Beatles?” McCartney challenged himself. “No,” he responded.

“Is your break up with The Beatles, temporary or permanent, due to personal differences or musical ones?” McCartney persisted. “Personal differences,” he came back. “Business differences. Musical differences, but most of all, because I have a better time with my family.”

“What are your plans now? A holiday? A musical? A movie? Retirement?”

“My only plan is to grow up.”

And there it was: the end of something that changed the world, and the start of the rest of Paul McCartney’s life. As McCartney reaches 75, he has now spent nearly five times as many years out of The Beatles as he did in them. It is those frequently remarkable years that we’re focusing on in this latest deluxe edition of the Uncut Ultimate Music Guide. With a selection of articles rescued from the NME, Melody Maker and Uncut archives, and with extensive new reviews of every album, we trace the highs, lows and neglected margins of McCartney’s post-Beatles career.

There are frank reflections on life past and present, bantering encounters with Wings, a constant and fascinating narrative about how McCartney tries to reconcile being “Mr Normal” with being, well, Sir Paul McCartney. There’s also an epic interview from a 2004 issue of Uncut, in which McCartney, a shrewd media operator ever since the earliest days of The Beatles, talks with unprecedented candour about every phase of his career.

“I’ve put out an awful lot of records. Some of them I shouldn’t have put out, sure,” he admits in the piece. “I’d gladly accept that. There’s many different reasons for putting a record out. Sometimes I might just put one out because I’m bored and I’ve got nothing better to do. That happens.”

Few artists have had anything remotely close to the cultural impact of Paul McCartney. Nevertheless, his discography is surprisingly full of odd excursions and experiments, of great songs hidden away and half-forgotten. This Uncut Ultimate Music Guide is also, we hope, a key to the treasures of Macca’s long, engrossing second act. Let us roll it!

Hear Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize lecture

Michael Bonner
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Hear Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize lecture
Although Bob Dylan formally accepted his Nobel Prize for Literature while in Sweden in April, he was still required to deliver a speech in order to qualify for the 8 million kroner ($900,000) prize money. He has now delivered his Nobel lecture, in the form of a 27-minute recording - which you can l...

Although Bob Dylan formally accepted his Nobel Prize for Literature while in Sweden in April, he was still required to deliver a speech in order to qualify for the 8 million kroner ($900,000) prize money.

He has now delivered his Nobel lecture, in the form of a 27-minute recording – which you can listen to below – which was recorded in Los Angeles on Sunday and published by the Nobel Foundation on Monday [June 5, 2017].

“The speech is extraordinary and, as one might expect, eloquent. Now that the lecture has been delivered, the Dylan adventure is coming to a close,” said Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy.

“When I received the Nobel Prize for Literature, I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature,” Dylan began his lecture. “I wanted to reflect on it and see where the connection was. I’m going to try to articulate that to you ― and most likely it will go in a round-about way.”

Meanwhile, fans can also buy Life‘s Bob Dylan special, a full-collector’s edition celebrating the songwriter’s music and work, from Sainsbury’s, Tesco, WHS, Easons (Ireland) and some independents.

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

The Rolling Stones – Olé Olé Olé! A Trip Across Latin America

Graeme Thomson
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The Rolling Stones – Olé Olé Olé! A Trip Across Latin America
Following a limited theatrical release and a Christmas airing on Channel 4, this companion piece to last year’s Havana Moon finds a home on DVD and Blu-Ray. A relatively straight recording of the Stones’ historic Cuban concert of March 25 2016, Havana Moon placed the viewer onstage and in the au...

Following a limited theatrical release and a Christmas airing on Channel 4, this companion piece to last year’s Havana Moon finds a home on DVD and Blu-Ray. A relatively straight recording of the Stones’ historic Cuban concert of March 25 2016, Havana Moon placed the viewer onstage and in the audience. Paul Dugdale’s documentary, on the other hand, offers a glimpse behind the scenes as the band’s small army of fixers battle to pull together the Cuban show while Jagger, Richards 
& co sweep regally through nine Latin American cities.

Olé Olé Olé! follows the Stones from the final day of rehearsals in Los Angeles – “there’s always a bit of rust to rub off,” reckons Jagger – through Santiago, Buenos Aires, Lima and Mexico City, all roads leading to the uncharted waters of Castro’s republic. “Stepping through the known into the unknown,” says Richards with a Muttley chuckle. Opening with the samba beat of “Sympathy For The Devil” drifting over the favelas, presumably to establish the Stones’ bona fides in the region, it’s framed as a classic quest: will or won’t our plucky heroes overcome the numerous logistical and cultural obstacles to pull together the Cuban show?

Their man in Havana, frazzled producer Adam Wilkes – “He opened China for us,” says one colleague with awe – becomes a key character as the matter goes “right to the top of the food chain: Raul Castro”. There is clandestine backroom drama, as urgent phonecalls and vows of secrecy are made over important looking bowls of oranges. Everything appears to be going to plan until an announcement that Barack Obama is visiting Havana 12 hours after the concert ends throws it all into disarray. The Stones reschedule, only for the Pope to criticise their decision to play on Good Friday. “Bit cheeky,” says Richards. “He’s not my manager.” They get there in the end, of course, and pull it off with some style.

The rest of the film concentrates on the group’s amiable stroll through Latin America in the lead up to Havana. There is performance footage from several shows, but the majority of the action takes place offstage. The quartet appear open and relaxed, reminiscing about their early days, discussing private passions and offering the odd – no doubt carefully stage-managed – unguarded moment. Jagger makes a 2am visit to a family of drummers on the outskirts of Montevideo, clapping along like a loon. A grinning Richards waves a “magic stick” around to stop the rain and – with Jagger egging him on – recalls writing “Honky Tonk Women” at a ranch outside São Paulo, a sweet preamble to the pair performing it backstage with just an acoustic guitar. Ron Wood meets a local graffiti artist and talks about touring being “the glue, the wobbly stuff that keeps us together”; Charlie Watts, as ever, tries to be anywhere the camera isn’t. There are thoughtful musings on travelling, fans and fame. “It’s not really you they are looking at, it’s an act-out version,” says Jagger. “You try to live a more or less normal life like anybody else.” Cut to the private jet and Sun King hotel suite.

The aim of the film is to humanise these grand old men, while at the same time re-establishing their rebel status. With several countries on the tour itinerary having ignominious recent histories of military dictatorships, civil rights abuses and restrictions on personal liberty, Latin American devotees still hold a touching regard for rock’n’roll as a badge of protest. “As soon as you ban something,” says Richards. “They take it to their hearts.” The film explores the subcultures which have formed around the Stones in places like Chile and Argentina, where fans retain much of the fanaticism and raucous street spirit which once followed the Stones everywhere. A gig in Buenos Aires certainly looks a good deal more lively than a wet Tuesday night in Twickenham.

In each city, fans are interviewed and local bands filmed playing Stones songs in their indigenous styles; the Mariachi “Happy” is particular fun. These carefully framed snapshots of local colour will be a tad contrived for some tastes, but Olé Olé Olé! is, overall, a warm, atmospheric and occasionally revealing mutual gracias: from fan to band and back again.

Extras: 7/10. Seven full bonus live tracks from the tour.

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

Santana and the Isley Brothers team-up for Power Of Peace album

Michael Bonner
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0
Santana and the Isley Brothers team-up for Power Of Peace album
Santana and the Isley Brothers have teamed up for a new album, Power Of Peace. Released on August 4 by Legacy Recordings, the album will be available in CD, 12" vinyl and digitally. The album features covers by artists including Stevie Wonder ("Higher Ground"), Billie Holiday ("God Bless the Child...

Santana and the Isley Brothers have teamed up for a new album, Power Of Peace.

Released on August 4 by Legacy Recordings, the album will be available in CD, 12″ vinyl and digitally.

The album features covers by artists including Stevie Wonder (“Higher Ground”), Billie Holiday (“God Bless the Child”), Curtis Mayfield (“Gypsy Woman”), Marvin Gaye (“Mercy Mercy Me – The Ecology”) and more – alongside one new song, “I Remember”, written and sung by Cindy Blackman Santana.

The track listing for Power Of Peace is:
Are You Ready
Total Destruction To Your Mind
Higher Ground
God Bless The Child
I Remember
Body Talk
Gypsy Woman
I Just Want To Make Love To You
Love, Peace, Happiness
What The World Needs Now is Love Sweet love
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
Let The Rain Fall On Me
Let There Be Peace On Earth

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention’s Absolutely Free set for 50th anniversary edition

Michael Bonner
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Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention’s Absolutely Free set for 50th anniversary edition
Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention’s 1967 album Absolutely Free is being given the 50th anniversary treatment. The album - the band's second - arrives as an expanded vinyl-only edition on September 29 via Zappa Records/UMe. The set includes the album cut directly from the original analog mas...

Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention’s 1967 album Absolutely Free is being given the 50th anniversary treatment.

The album – the band’s second – arrives as an expanded vinyl-only edition on September 29 via Zappa Records/UMe.

The set includes the album cut directly from the original analog master tapes and a second disc with 20 minutes of rare and unreleased bonus material including vintage remixes and radio ads.

A fourth side features a lazer etching of Zappa’s face.

The package features Zappa’s original layout and a reproduction of the “libretto” – an 18-page booklet with a foreword by Zappa and lyrics to all the compositions that was offered only by mail order when originally released.

The tracklisting for Absolutely Free is:

LP1 – Side 1
Plastic People
The Duke Of Prunes
Amnesia Vivace
The Duke Regains His Chops
Call Any Vegetable
Invocation And Ritual Dance Of The Young Pumpkin
Soft-Sell Conclusion

LP1 – Side 2
America Drinks
Status Back Baby
Uncle Bernie’s Farm
Son Of Suzy Creamcheese
Brown Shoes Don’t Make It
America Drinks & Goes Home

LP2 – Side 1
Absolutely Free Radio Ad #1
Why Don’tcha Do Me Right
Big Leg Emma
Absolutely Free Radio Ad #2
“Glutton For Punishment…”
America Drinks – 1969 Re-Mix
Brown Shoes Don’t Make It – 1969 Re-Mix
America Drinks & Goes Home #2 – 1969 Re-Mix

LP2 – Side 2
Laser etching

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

Hear Arcade Fire’s new song, “Everything Now”

Michael Bonner
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0
Hear Arcade Fire’s new song, “Everything Now”
Arcade Fire have shared the title track of their new album, Everything Now. You can hear the track below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC30BYR3CUk Everything Now is releases on July 28 and has been produced by Arcade Fire, Thomas Bangalter and Steve Mackey, with co-production by Markus Dravs. ...

Arcade Fire have shared the title track of their new album, Everything Now.

You can hear the track below.

Everything Now is releases on July 28 and has been produced by Arcade Fire, Thomas Bangalter and Steve Mackey, with co-production by Markus Dravs.

The album was recorded at Boombox Studios in New Orleans, Sonovox Studios in Montreal, and Gang Recording Studio in Paris.

While the tracklisting is currently under wraps, we do know the various formats the album will be released on.

There’s CD, cassette, and heavyweight black vinyl — which will feature 20 different artwork variants, each bearing the album title in one of 20 different languages. There will also be a limited exclusive ‘Night’ packaging of both CD and coloured vinyl LP formats.

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

Paul Weller – A Kind Revolution

John Lewis
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Paul Weller – A Kind Revolution
Great artists will often fall into two camps. On the one hand are the precocious types – the likes of Orson Welles, Mozart or Rimbaud – who create their best material in the white-hot intensity of their youth before burning out. On the other hand are the plodders and perfectionists – the Céza...

Great artists will often fall into two camps. On the one hand are the precocious types – the likes of Orson Welles, Mozart or Rimbaud – who create their best material in the white-hot intensity of their youth before burning out. On the other hand are the plodders and perfectionists – the Cézannes, the Hitchcocks, the Mark Twains – who work at their craft, getting better with age, always tinkering and experimenting with new ideas.

Weller is one of those rare types who is both a Welles and a Hitchcock, a Rimbaud and a Twain. He released his angry, precocious debut LP – The Jam’s In The City – 40 years ago this month, and had penned half a dozen deathless national anthems before his 21st birthday. Yet here he is in his late fifties, still poking around the fringes of music, still getting enthused by new ideas. In the last few months alone he’s got his old friend Robert Wyatt out of retirement for a short UK tour, collaborated on the new album by UK soul collective Stone Foundation, and completed the experimental soundtrack to a gritty boxing movie called Jawbone, starring Ray Winstone and Ian McShane. He even appeared, rather bizarrely, in the final episode of the BBC’s Sherlock – as a prostrate client in a Viking costume.

A Kind Revolution shows that Weller’s Indian summer of creativity – one that started with 2008’s 22 Dreams – shows no sign of ending as he inches towards his 60th birthday next year. “Can’t seem to let it go!” he howls on one of the standout tracks here, the sci-fi glam rocker “Nova”. “There’s too much to do.” For someone who admits he was struggling with writer’s block only a dozen or so years ago, it’s a nice problem to have.

He’s assisted, as ever, by younger musicians who are always used inventively. One key collaborator is Andy Crofts, who provides guitars, bass guitar, Moog, Hammond, Philicorda organ and backing vocals on much of the album. Weller has long been a fan of his Northamptonshire Acid Jazz outfit The Moons, and some of their psych funk and surf rock voicings have found their way into Weller’s sonic vocabulary here. There’s also Josh McClorey, guitarist and co-lead singer from Irish rock band The Strypes, who Weller describes as one of “the great rock ’n’ roll guitarists of his generation”. But, interestingly, McClorey is steered well clear of meat-and-potatoes heavy rock on his three guest tracks – “Nova”, the gumbo-fried funk of “Woo Sé Mama”, and filtered disco of “One Tear”.

It’s not quite as radical as other recent moments in the Weller canon – there are no nods to AMM or Alice Coltrane and no collaborations with, say, Kevin Shields or the Amorphous Androgynous. Instead, the innovation comes in how Weller and his producer Jan Stan Kybert reassemble their arcane influences and put them through a distinctly Weller-esque prism. “She Moves With The Fayre”, for instance, is an angular piece of funk – with a drumbeat pitched somewhere between New Orleans gumbo and jerky Nigerian Afrobeat – that suddenly lurches 
into a piece of dreamy symphonic soul in the middle-eight, like the Rotary Connection fronted by Robert Wyatt. “Nova”, another stand-out, seems to deconstruct David Bowie’s entire career and reassemble it in a pleasingly random order. It starts with Eno-esque drones, proceeds with Berlin-era angularities 
and Scary Monsters-era synth riffs, 
and then has a baritone sax playing 
glam-rock stomps, all tied together with 
a space-age lyric.

“One Tear” sees Weller revisiting house music, with a guest vocal from Boy George, who was always one of the few ’80s pop stars that Weller seemed to have nothing but praise for. In Style Council days he might have got Boy George to sing the entire song, but here he just provides a suitably haunted, tearful introduction. “These tears will flood the earth/The earth will start to turn/A turn that starts it all/More tears will have to fall.”

This dystopian vibe doesn’t last long. “New York” is a soul epic in which Weller recalls the start of his relationship (“that crystal kiss”) with his backing singer Hannah Andrews, who would later become his wife. The same Hannah provides high-pitched gospel-style backing vocals on “The Cranes Are Back”, a kind of slo-mo R&B anthem, which continues the positive feel. “There are no chains on my back,” he hollers. “There’s only the joy that freedom brings.”

Even when he’s not going for formal innovation, this is a master craftsman, someone who knows how to cobble together a verse, chorus, bridge and middle eight as well as any McCartney 
or Bacharach. “Hopper” is a lovely, shuffling, heart-tugging tribute to the American painter, who “dreams in muted symphonies”. Closing track “The Impossible Idea” is an acoustic jazz-waltz that recalls one of Weller’s wonderfully bucolic old B-sides – like “English Rose”, “Spin Drifting” or “Down In The Seine” – but this time there’s a wistfulness that comes with 
age, one that chimes with the central idea of “a kind revolution”. The “impossible idea” is that one held by the angry young Weller, that one person can change the world. “All you can do is change yourself,” he concludes.

Q&A
Paul Weller
How did the Boy George collaboration happen?
I’ve always wanted to do a song with him, since the ’80s, man. I love that maturity and soulfulness in his voice, and it perfectly suited “One Tear”. We were meant to be doing something on Saturns Pattern together, but it didn’t happen. I hope we’re going to do some writing together, too.

And Robert Wyatt is there, of course…
Yeah, we got the complicated middle-eight of “She Moves With The Fayre” and I knew it would work with his voice. I love his trumpet playing, too – it reminds me of Donald Byrd on that solo. It was terrific to do those Corbyn dates with him, too, last year. First time he’s played live in God knows how long. I’d love him to guest on a few one-off dates. He sounds great with a band behind him.

How has your songwriting routine changed over the years?
Sometimes I still write in a traditional way. Something like “The Impossible Idea” or “Hopper” I just wrote on an acoustic guitar, like I’ve always done. But, on a track like “One Tear”, it started with my producer Jan Stan Kybert coming in with a loose backing track idea. We’ll work on that, rearrange it, and I’ll add different vocal ideas, bit by bit, as we go along. So some songs are written much more experimentally.

Did you start working on this album as soon as you finished Saturns Pattern two years ago?
Yeah. My missus, Hannah, she was saying, “Aren’t you going to take a bit of a break now?” The thing is, it’s not really down to me. If the songs are coming, I have to follow them. They might dry up next year! I’ve even written most of the next album, which I want to get out in September 2018. Working title: ‘True Meanings’. At the moment the arrangements are acoustic, with some string arrangements. But I want to do some co-writes, too.
INTERVIEW JOHN LEWIS

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

Hear Radiohead’s previously unreleased OK Computer track, “I Promise”

Michael Bonner
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0
Hear Radiohead’s previously unreleased OK Computer track, “I Promise”
Radiohead have shared one of the previously unreleased tracks from their OK Computer sessions. You can hear the track, "I Promise", below. https://open.spotify.com/track/1aPrwxqdKoGZDi679Ldxla The song features on OKNOTOK, a box set which will feature a remastered OK Computer, eight B-sides and t...

Radiohead have shared one of the previously unreleased tracks from their OK Computer sessions.

You can hear the track, “I Promise“, below.

The song features on OKNOTOK, a box set which will feature a remastered OK Computer, eight B-sides and two never before released tracks alongside “I Promise”: “Lift” and “Man Of War”.

Digital formats, double CD, and triple 180g LP versions of the 23 track album will be released widely on June 23.

A boxed edition will ship in July, featuring a black box emblazoned with a dark image of a burned copy of OK Computer containing three heavyweight 180 gram black 12″ vinyl records and a hardcover book containing more than thirty artworks (many of which have never been seen before) and lyrics.

It will also include a notebook containing 104 pages from Thom Yorke’s library of scrawled notes of the time, a sketchbook containing 48 pages of Stanley Donwood and Tchock’s ‘preparatory work’ and a C90 cassette mix tape compiled by the band, taken from OK Computer session archives and demo tapes.

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

The Grateful Dead’s Long Strange Trip reviewed

John Mulvey
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The Grateful Dead’s Long Strange Trip reviewed
The definitive is not a concept which sits easily with the Grateful Dead. How do you tell the all-encompassing story of a band who embraced chaos as a guiding principle; whose legacy rests in myriad bootlegs rather than canonical albums; whose songs reinvented themselves, every night, for 30 years? ...

The definitive is not a concept which sits easily with the Grateful Dead. How do you tell the all-encompassing story of a band who embraced chaos as a guiding principle; whose legacy rests in myriad bootlegs rather than canonical albums; whose songs reinvented themselves, every night, for 30 years? “I don’t see the sense in doing the same thing over and over again,” Jerry Garcia tells an interviewer at some point deep into the new Amazon Prime series, Long Strange Trip. “For me, being alive means always changing.” It’s a heroic stance, but also an exasperating one, as articulated by Sam Cutler, a cosmic English geezer who tour-managed the band between 1970 and 1974. “It took me 18 months,” he says, “to get the Dead to agree to do a photograph.”

There are, then, some pretty obvious challenges facing any director who attempts to organise the band’s tangled history: like a peak live version of “Dark Star”, the path through is never obvious, and it’s hard to remember where you’ve been when it finally ends. Long Strange Trip, though, does an implausibly good job of making sense of this most elusive of great bands, while at the same time staying faithful to their caprices, their fundamental love of digression. As the title suggests, it’s usefully long, running to four hours in the version that has circulated round film festivals these past few months, or six chunky episodes in the cut coming to Amazon Prime. Even then, Amir Bar-Lev’s epic is far from comprehensive: two keyboardists – Tom Constanten and Vince Welnick – don’t even get a mention. Garcia’s personal life and substance issues, meanwhile, are mostly observed from the perspective of Barbara Meier, his girlfriend at the beginning and end of his adult life. The woman who was by his side for most of the years in between, Mountain Girl, is conspicuous by her absence.

Garcia’s complexities inevitably take precedence, as a charismatic bandleader who was assiduous in absolving any responsibility. He believed that a life in music should be an unpredictable adventure – artistically, spiritually and physically – and remained nobly, at times selfishly, wedded to that ideal. Cutler is not the only interviewee who remembers Garcia’s perpetual question being, “Is it going to be fun?” For himself, undoubtedly. One wonders, though, how much fun was had by the crew employed to make a film about the band’s 1970 European tour but who, after being repeatedly dosed, instead chose to film themselves going off the rails?

Long-lost footage is a critical part of Long Strange Trip, and it’s touching to watch Bob Weir seeing, for the first time, Garcia goofing into the lens at the Bickershaw festival, or sat with the band and crew having the nuances of pounds, shillings and pence explained to them by the indefatigable Cutler. Some clips will be well-known to Deadheads: the version of “Bird Song”, during which a naked man cavorts behind a blissed-out Garcia, will be traumatically familiar to anyone who’s seen the Sunshine Daydream concert movie. Others are much fresher, and weirder, and don’t always work as great advertisements for the pleasures of Nitrous Oxide.

It is the new interviews, though, and the reconvening of a sprawling and eccentric family, that provides the greatest charm and insight. The core four all conform to stereotypes: Weir interviewed in yoga pose; Phil Lesh the professorial voice of authority; Bill Kreutzmann as calm and wry as Mickey Hart is antic and wired. The supporting cast, if anything, are even better value, as Cutler – apparently living in the back of a van, and stopped by the police while the cameras are running – is juxtaposed with Joe Smith, a dapper music biz grandee who signed the band to Warners. “I realised I wasn’t dealing with Dean Martin anymore,” he says, masterfully playing the straight man. “The wildest act we had was Trini Lopez.”

The discomfortingly macho stage crew are represented by Steve Parish, still belligerent, and the obsessive Deadheads by two erudite non-music writers, Steve Silberman and Nick Paumgarten, and one US senator, Al Franken, who engages his interviewer in a protracted discussion about the best live version of “Althea” (Nassau 1980). The Dead’s two main lyricists make characterfully odd cameos. John Perry Barlow goes on a pilgrimage to the grave of the first of the gang to die, Pigpen, and grouches, “Why the hell would people put guitar picks down on the grave of a piano player?” The “notoriously reclusive” and obtuse Robert Hunter is tracked down with the aid of Weir, and is found reciting the lyrics of “Dark Star” before asking, pointedly, “What is unclear about that? It says what it means!”

Bar-Lev smartly avoids psychedelic cliché, restricting the visual shorthand of trips to a section where Garcia describes not an acid experience, but his diabetic coma of 1986. The surviving bandmembers (along with Martin Scorsese, whose No Direction Home is a good point of comparison) may be executive producers, but there is never the feeling that content has been censored or sanitised, especially when Garcia’s decline and death is addressed, movingly, in the final episode.

It’s hard to imagine Garcia himself appreciating such a documentary, even one so loose and heartfelt. Doubtless he’d have been unnerved at being the centre of attention, would’ve disdained the idea of a permanent monument for a band who thrived on the idea of transience. But for the rest of us, fans especially but hopefully neophytes too, Long Strange Trip is like the very best Grateful Dead jams: tender, inspirational, and so much fun that it could easily have lasted twice as long.

The War On Drugs announce new album A Deeper Understanding; share track, “Holding On”

Michael Bonner
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The War On Drugs announce new album A Deeper Understanding; share track, “Holding On”
The War On Drugs have announced details of their new album, A Deeper Understanding. You can listen to the first single from the album, "Holding On", below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBWiMAu3uII&feature=youtu.be A Deeper Understanding is the band’s first album since 2014’s Lost In The Dr...

The War On Drugs have announced details of their new album, A Deeper Understanding.

You can listen to the first single from the album, “Holding On“, below.

A Deeper Understanding is the band’s first album since 2014’s Lost In The Dream, and their first album with Atlantic. It’s released on August 25.

Earlier this year, the band released “Thinking Of A Place” for Record Store Day.

A Deeper Understanding tracklisting:

Up All Night
Pain
Holding On
Strangest Thing
Knocked Down
Nothing To Find
Thinking Of A Place
In Chains
Clean Living
You Don’t Have To Go

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

The 21st Uncut Playlist Of 2017

John Mulvey
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The 21st Uncut Playlist Of 2017
I was thinking the other day what a good year 2017 was shaping up to be for archive releases, based mostly on my hammering of the Alice Coltrane ashram tapes and the Grateful Dead’s Cornell ’77 set. That idea got a big boost yesterday, though, with the arrival of a remastered, expanded edition o...

I was thinking the other day what a good year 2017 was shaping up to be for archive releases, based mostly on my hammering of the Alice Coltrane ashram tapes and the Grateful Dead’s Cornell ’77 set. That idea got a big boost yesterday, though, with the arrival of a remastered, expanded edition of Lal & Mike Waterson’s Bright Phoebus; a British folk-rock album, lost in copyright hell forever, that has very personal resonances for me.

A pleasure, then, to include the cleaned-up “Bright Phoebus” itself in this week’s playlist, along with a bunch of other and newer treats. Noteworthy: David Nance’s terrific no-wave freakout, “Negative Boogie”; the Elkhorn album (one for, crudely, your American Primitive collection); exceptional new tracks from the Floating Points and CRB albums; the Bedouine song, which is growing on me; and some new footage of the mighty Wet Tuna mid-jam the other night.

Swift caveat I haven’t added in a while: since this is a list of all the music I’ve played these past few days, inclusion doesn’t automatically mean approval (ie without making a fuss or focusing on the negative, there are one or two things here I don’t like at all). Let me know, anyhow, what you’re listening to: someone hassled me on Twitter this morning that it was time to put together a 2017 halftime report, and I’ll try and do that next week when this issue’s out the door.

Follow me on Twitter @JohnRMulvey

1 David Nance – Negative Boogie (Ba Da Bing)

2 Golden Retriever – Rotations (Thrill Jockey)

3 Elkhorn – The Black River (Debacle

4 A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service (Epic)

5 The Grateful Dead – Boston 7/5/77 (www.archive.org)

6 Michael Mayer – DJ Kicks (!K7)

7 Floating Points – Reflections – Mojave Desert (Pluto)

8 Pep Llopis – Poiemusia La Nau Dels Argonautes (Freedom To Spend/RVNG INTL)

9 John Murry – A Short History Of Decay (TV)

10 Farmers Manual – Fmoto (Bandcamp)

11 Bedouine – Bedouine (Spacebomb)

12 Chris Robinson Brotherhood – Barefoot In The Head (Silver Arrow)

13 Compton & Batteau – In California (Earth)

14 Fleet Foxes – Crack-Up (Nonesuch)

15 The War On Drugs – Thinking Of A Place (Atlantic)

16 Cornelius – Mellow Waves (Rostrom)

17 Lal & Mike Waterson – Bright Phoebus (Domino)

18 The Allman Brothers Band – Eat A Peach (Capricorn)

19 Wet Tuna – Live In Albany 28/5/17 (Youtube)

20 Landing – Taeppe EP (Bandcamp)

21 Binker And Moses – Journey To The Mountain Of Forever (Gearbox)

Hear David Bowie play “Rebel Rebel” from Los Angeles 1974

Michael Bonner
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Hear David Bowie play “Rebel Rebel” from Los Angeles 1974
David Bowie's Cracked Actor - Live In Los Angeles album is released on June 16. This set captures Bowie's Philly Dogs Tour show at the Universal Amphitheatre on September 5, 1974, some of which was immortalized in the BBC documentary Cracked Actor. We're delighted to be able to host the version of...

David Bowie‘s Cracked Actor – Live In Los Angeles album is released on June 16.

This set captures Bowie’s Philly Dogs Tour show at the Universal Amphitheatre on September 5, 1974, some of which was immortalized in the BBC documentary Cracked Actor.

We’re delighted to be able to host the version of “Rebel Rebel” from the album – you can hear it below.

The album was mixed by Tony Visconti at Human Studios, NYC in October/November 2016. The eagle-eyed among you might spot that Cracked Actor – Live In Los Angeles was previously available as a limited vinyl edition for Record Store Day. This edition comes as both limited edition 2CD digipak and digital download.

The CD comes with a twelve page booklet featuring notes from the original LA Amphitheatre show programme and a October 1974 piece about the LA Philly Dogs shows from Rolling Stone. Neither of these was featured in the vinyl package.

The tracklisting for Cracked Actor – Live In Los Angeles is:

Introduction
1984
Rebel Rebel
Moonage Daydream
Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing
Changes
Suffragette City
Aladdin Sane
All The Young Dudes
Cracked Actor
Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me
Knock On Wood
It’s Gonna Be Me
Space Oddity
Diamond Dogs
Big Brother
Time
The Jean Genie
Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide
John, I’m Only Dancing (Again)

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

Welcome To 1988: The New History Of Rock Is Here!

John Mulvey
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Welcome To 1988: The New History Of Rock Is Here!
  This week brings another edition of our History Of Rock sister mag; to recap, our forensic project to republish the NME and Melody Maker’s best journalism, starting in 1965 and moving, at the rate of one year in each monthly issue, towards the present day. We’ve arrived at 1988, a year ...

 

This week brings another edition of our History Of Rock sister mag; to recap, our forensic project to republish the NME and Melody Maker’s best journalism, starting in 1965 and moving, at the rate of one year in each monthly issue, towards the present day.

We’ve arrived at 1988, a year which brings REM to the cover, and includes interviews with Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Robert Plant, Townes Van Zandt, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sinead O’Connor, Morrissey, U2, Pixies and The Wedding Present, among many others. If you’ve missed any issues, you can find every edition of The History Of Rock on sale at our online shop: it makes, honestly, for a handsome collection. Here, as usual, is the History Of Rock’s John Robinson with his welcome to 1988…

“Among other happenings, this is a year when a new dance genre – acid house – helps create what is reported as a ‘new summer of love’. Still, the harmony, experimentation, and revolutionary spirit that accompanied that original summer of ‘67 is this year not only created by electronic artists – and is certainly not confined to the warmer months.

“Take our cover stars REM. In the space of a few years, they have grown from a lively and mysterious post-punk outfit into a concerned and influential rock band, backing presidential candidates and making a thoughtful pop record, Green. U2 continue to convince the fans in the stadia, hobnob with the greats, and exercise their power to effect change.

“Harmony exists between artists of different eras. New appearances by (and new interviews with) acts like Townes Van Zandt and Patti Smith illustrate how an enduring artist will always be able to find a place in music’s continuum. Robert Plant can even find the odd nice word to say about The Mission, produced by his former colleague John Paul Jones.

“Elsewhere, the parallels continue. Great new acts are mobilising grassroots support. A confluence is occurring between sonic and chemical experimentation. British tabloid newspapers, meanwhile, are conspiring to turn a music genre into a point of moral outrage.

“This is the world of The History Of Rock, a monthly magazine which follows each turn of the rock revolution. Whether in sweaty club or huge arena, passionate and stylish contemporary reporters were there to chronicle events. This publication reaps the benefits of their understanding for the reader decades later, one year at a time.  Missed one? You can find out how to rectify that here.

“In the pages of the 24th edition, dedicated to 1988, you will find verbatim articles from frontline staffers, filed from the thick of the action, wherever it may be.

“Taking a trip to Boots the chemist for an interviewee to sort out his methadone allowance. Buying more drinks for Peter Buck, even though he’s carrying a knife. Being uncomfortably stood upon as The Mission make their journey to the summit of American fame.

“’Sorry I stood on your bollocks earlier,’ Wayne Hussey tells the MM’s man.

“Still unchanged by fame, he indicates a nearby bowl of ice water. ‘You can dangle them in there if you want…’”

The Fall announce details of 32nd studio album, New Facts Emerge

Michael Bonner
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The Fall announce details of 32nd studio album, New Facts Emerge
The Fall have announced details of their 32nd studio album. New Facts Emerge will be released on Cherry Red Records on July 28. The album was produced by Kieron Melling/Mark E. Smith and engineered by Ding. The line-up on New Facts Emerge is: Mark E. Smith (lead vocals); Peter Greenway (guitar, sy...

The Fall have announced details of their 32nd studio album.

New Facts Emerge will be released on Cherry Red Records on July 28. The album was produced by Kieron Melling/Mark E. Smith and engineered by Ding.

The line-up on New Facts Emerge is: Mark E. Smith (lead vocals); Peter Greenway (guitar, synth, backing vocals); Dave Spurr (bass, Mellotron, backing vocals); Kieron Melling (drums).

Tracklist:
Segue
Fol De Rol
Brillo De Facto
Victoria Train Station Massacre
New Facts Emerge
Couples Vs Jobless Mid 30s
Second House Now
O! ZZTRRK Man
Gibbus Gibson
Groundsboy
Nine Out Of Ten

The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

Dr John, Jason Isbell, Brian Wilson, Ringo Starr, Cher and more pay tribute to Gregg Allman

Michael Bonner
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Dr John, Jason Isbell, Brian Wilson, Ringo Starr, Cher and more pay tribute to Gregg Allman
Gregg Allman has died aged 69. BBC reports that Allman died at home in Savannah, Georgia on Saturday [May 27, 2017]. A post on Allman's Facebook page said, "Gregg struggled with many health issues over the past several years. During that time, Gregg considered being on the road playing music with ...

Gregg Allman has died aged 69.

BBC reports that Allman died at home in Savannah, Georgia on Saturday [May 27, 2017].

A post on Allman’s Facebook page said, “Gregg struggled with many health issues over the past several years. During that time, Gregg considered being on the road playing music with his brothers and solo band for his beloved fans, essential medicine for his soul. Playing music lifted him up and kept him going during the toughest of times.”

Many tributes have been paid to Allman since news broke of his death. Including his former wife Cher, Jason Isbell, Brian Wilson, Dr John, Ringo Starr, Bootsy Collins and Ryley Walker.

“It’s too soon to properly process this,” Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickey Betts said in a statement. “I’m so glad I was able to have a couple good talks with him before he passed. In fact I was about to call him to check and see how he was when I got the call. It’s a very sad day.”

Michael Lehman, Allman’s manager and close friend, also wrote: “I have lost a dear friend and the world has lost a brilliant pioneer in music. He was a kind and gentle soul with the best laugh I ever heard. His love for his family and bandmates was passionate as was the love he had for his extraordinary fans. Gregg was an incredible partner and an even better friend. We will all miss him.”

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The July 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our exclusive interview with Roger Waters on the cover. Elsewhere in the issue, there are new interviews with Evan Dando, Jason Isbell, Steve Van Zandt and Kevin Morby and we look at shoegazing and the Scottish folk revival. We review The Beatles, Fleet Foxes, U2, Van Morrison and Dan Auerbach. Our free CD features 15 tracks of the month’s best music, including Can, Richard Dawson, Saint Etienne, Ride, The Unthanks, Songhoy Blues and more.

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