Iggy Pop will release limited-edition coloured-vinyl editions of his solo albums, The Idiot (on orange translucent vinyl) and Lust For Life (on clear vinyl) as well as TV Eye Live (on purple translucent vinyl).
The three new coloured-vinyl releases - which have been remastered for the first time fr...
Iggy Pop will release limited-edition coloured-vinyl editions of his solo albums, The Idiot (on orange translucent vinyl) and Lust For Life (on clear vinyl) as well as TV Eye Live (on purple translucent vinyl).
The three new coloured-vinyl releases – which have been remastered for the first time from the original analog tapes – will be released on June 2.
All three titles feature their complete original cover art and will also be available from in standard black vinyl editions.
Tracklist: Lust For Life
Lust For Life
Sixteen
Some Weird Sin
The Passenger
Tonight
Success
Turn Blue
Neighborhood Threat
Fall In Love With Me
The Idiot
Sister Midnight
Nightclubbing
Funtime
Baby
China Girl
Dum Dum Boys
Tiny Girls
Mass Production
TV Eye Live
T.V. Eye
Funtime
Sixteen
I Got A Right
Lust For Life
Dirt
Nightclubbing
I Wanna Be Your Dog
On May 8, 1977, the Grateful Dead performed at Cornell University’s Barton Hall.
The bootleg recording of this show was considered so significant that it was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2011.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the show, Rhino will release...
On May 8, 1977, the Grateful Dead performed at Cornell University’s Barton Hall.
The bootleg recording of this show was considered so significant that it was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2011.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the show, Rhino will release the Barton Hall concert separately in multiple formats on May 5. Cornell 5/8/77 will be available as a three-CD set, a limited edition five-LP set (limited to 7,700 copies), as well as digital download and streaming.
Below, you can hear the band’s performance of “Not Fade Away“.
According to David Lemieux, the band’s archivist, “This version of ‘Not Fade Away’, sandwiched between a monumental St. Stephen, contains the unparalleled Cornell energy injected into what is otherwise a straightforward song, bringing the show to its umpteenth point of frenzy, later to be outdone only by one of the greatest Morning Dews ever played.”
The track is now available as an instant download with orders of the album.
You can head the Dead’s previously unreleased recording of “Dancing In The Street” by clicking here.
I’ve spent the past few days trying, on and off, to write a review of the new Fleet Foxes album for the next issue of Uncut. “Crack-Up” is a very strong and interesting comeback, and the story behind it is told in the current issue of our mag which, if you haven’t grabbed a copy, is on sale ...
I’ve spent the past few days trying, on and off, to write a review of the new Fleet Foxes album for the next issue of Uncut. “Crack-Up” is a very strong and interesting comeback, and the story behind it is told in the current issue of our mag which, if you haven’t grabbed a copy, is on sale now in the UK.
Robin Pecknold and his bandmates let Stephen Deusner gatecrash their first rehearsal in five years for the story, where he saw them striving to reconcile their old harmonies with a dense new audioworld of found sounds, samples and esoteric new gear. It’s a tale of mature studies, F Scott Fitzgerald, surfing, zen retreats and “mental nightmares” in the studio: “In some ways I was trying to become a different age or a different person making this record, like I was trying to be the person I always wanted to be,” says Pecknold. “There are certain things I don’t feel like I nailed on those old albums, so I wanted to make sure I could try those things, whether it’s a multi-part song or a certain kind of fingerpicking.”
“There are times on the record when you can hear [Pecknold] losing it,” adds his right-hand man, Skyler Skjelset. “He started pounding [the marimba] with mallets and yelling into the mic. I was watching him lose his shit, crying with laughter in the control room.”
There are also some useful footnotes to the Fleet Foxes’ new adventures – Stravinsky! Gnawa! Beowulf! Vanuatu! – and, critically, Robin’s compiled the free CD that comes with the issue*. No Stravinsky, sadly, but it’s a fantastic and eclectic mix that we’re all really proud of. Here’s the tracklist:
1 Todd Rundgren – International Feel
2 Bulgarian Women’s Choir – Polegnala E Todora
3 Townes Van Zandt – For The Sake Of The Song
4 Amen Dunes – Love
5 Arthur Russell – Close My Eyes
6 Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté – Kala Djula
7 Van Dyke Parks – The All Golden
8 Fleet Foxes – Third Of May/Ōdaigahara
9 Neu! – Sonderangebot
10 The Shaggs – Who Are Parents?
11 Sibylle Baier – I Lost Something In The Hills
12 Chris Cohen – As If Apart
13 Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tönu Kaljuste – Moro Lasso
14 Cate Le Bon – Are You With Me Now?
15 Mirrorring – Drowning The Call
Quick recap of what else is in the issue: a mind-expanding celebration of 1967’s Summer Of Love, 50 years on – Monterey Pop! UFO and beyond! Our Summer Of Love Top 50! An unravelling of the mysteries of Twin Peaks’ music, and a night in Stockholm with Bob Dylan and his frank, unblinkered fans. Plus interviews with Fairport Convention (also celebrating their 50th anniversary), Royal Trux, the great Hailu Mergia, Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson and James Brown’s horniest horn man, Fred Wesley, plus a heavyweight reviews section that includes Feist, Paul Weller, Ray Davies, Perfume Genius, Joan Shelley, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, John Martyn, Johnny Cash and me on Alice Coltrane.
*Please note: the CD will not be available with copies on sale in the Birmingham, UK, area. Robin’s selection of tracks is, however, posted as a playlist on Spotify.
We’ve recently hit critical mass when it comes to unearthing library music from the archives – program music, in other words, tailor-made for broadcast, and yet, despite its programmatic nature, able to hold a peculiar sway on its listenership. Originally the province of the crate-digger and the...
We’ve recently hit critical mass when it comes to unearthing library music from the archives – program music, in other words, tailor-made for broadcast, and yet, despite its programmatic nature, able to hold a peculiar sway on its listenership. Originally the province of the crate-digger and the seasoned record collector, the past decade has seen a run of compilations released highlighting various labels and artists from the field – see Luke Vibert’s Nuggets series, for example – and modern reissue imprints finding hidden gems: Thee Roundtable, Schema, Cinedelic, Sonor, Trunk.
At its best, the resurgence of interest in library music serves both to highlight under-appreciated talents, while also shining a light on artists previously known for other, more visible practices, such as Ennio Morricone, whose legend as the soundtrack maestro drew attention away from his involvement in a number of library albums. René Costy is another figure worthy of reappraisal, though he’s already known for one composition, 1972’s “Scrabble”, originally released on a Chappell Mood Music set, and subsequently sampled by Howie B, Common and J Dilla. Like many of this ilk, Costy’s rise to visibility came through the magpie aesthetic popularised by late 20th century sampling culture.
There was more to Costy than this, of course: a jazz musician, stellar violin player, fan of gypsy music, member of a classical music quartet, he seemed to have ears for all genres, and some of Expectancy: Collected Library Music highlights this aesthetic voraciousness – see the sweeping strings of the lovely “From Time To Time”, quickly followed by the winding, dusty-road guitars of “Country Dance”.
As with these two pieces, the set’s best tracks often come when Costy works within the weave of the collective. “Secret Mixture” is a beautiful miniature that revolves around an ascending chord change / pattern on piano, punctuated by body-morphing wah guitar, and sweet sweeps of melancholy violin. “Ever Faithfull” spins a subtle groove on an organ, etching plastic melodies over the top with analog electronics. As so often happens when we listen back to the best library music, “Ever Faithfull” feels like nostalgia for non-existent experiences, a memory trick played via the melancholy of melody.
But “Ever Faithfull” also speaks to the quietly questing aspects of library music: often, through virtue of their seeming anonymity, via the transparency of the industrial process, artists like Costy could sneak surprising experiments into their music: in this case, Costy’s explorations of the Moog and other synthesizers, highlighted on Expectancy..’s second disc, paint him as a sensitive early adopter of the technology – see the sci-fi pirouettes of “Schizophreny” for a perfect example of wild, yet blissfully melodic experiment, and “Phantasmes” for a drifting tone-float that’s equal parts Kosmiche and Spacemen 3.
Fleet Foxes let Uncut gatecrash their first rehearsal in five years in the new issue, as they reveal the truth about the making of their comeback album, Crack-Up.
Telling a tale of university, F Scott Fitzgerald, surfing, zen retreats and "mental nightmares" in the studio, Robin Pecknold and his ba...
Fleet Foxeslet Uncut gatecrash their first rehearsal in five years in the new issue, as they reveal the truth about the making of their comeback album, Crack-Up.
Telling a tale of university, F Scott Fitzgerald, surfing, zen retreats and “mental nightmares” in the studio, Robin Pecknold and his bandmates explain how they created their long-awaited third album.
“In some ways I was trying to become a different age or a different person making this record, like I was trying to be the person I always wanted to be,” says Pecknold. “There are certain things I don’t feel like I nailed on those old albums, so I wanted to make sure I could try those things, whether it’s a multi-part song or a certain kind of fingerpicking.”
“There are times on the record when you can hear [Pecknold] losing it,” says Skyler Skjelset. “He started pounding [the marimba] with mallets and yelling into the mic. I was watching him lose his shit, crying with laughter in the control room.”
“I did go through a lot of my life with a short fuse, where I could erupt into a serious rage...” At home on his Malibu estate, TOM PETTY is reflecting on his temper, his tempestuous career with the Heartbreakers, and his urgent and essential new album, Hypnotic Eye. Petty might be calmer these ...
“I did go through a lot of my life with a short fuse, where I could erupt into a serious rage…” At home on his Malibu estate, TOM PETTY is reflecting on his temper, his tempestuous career with the Heartbreakers, and his urgent and essential new album, Hypnotic Eye. Petty might be calmer these days, but there are clearly still battles to be fought. “I can’t save the world,” he says, “I can only bitch about it!” Words: Jason Anderson. Originally published in Uncut’s September 2014 issue (Take 208).
_______________________
The troubles of the world seem a long way away from the home studio at Tom Petty’s Malibu estate. The singer’s favourite spot on the property, it lies at the furthest end of his spread, which consists of a long, connected set of red-roofed ranch houses. Modest by the neighbourhood’s standards, the most eye-catching features near the main house are a small fountain and an oval-shaped pool that’s hardly what you’d call Olympic-size.
As for the studio itself, this was a garage when Petty bought the place in 1998. Now the space is rather cosier, with its sliding doors, warm terracotta colours, dark patterned rugs and natural-wood details, which fit with the mix of Spanish and American Southwest styles in the rest of the estate. There are still plenty of indications that this is a musician’s idea of a man-cave, such as the enviable array of guitars on stands that line the walls of the recording space, the deep-cushioned grey sectional sofa and vintage red Coca-Cola machine in the lounge. Personal mementoes – like a painting whose thick brushstrokes mark it as the handiwork of Petty’s friend Bob Dylan – decorate the walls.
Surveying his domain in his not-so-lordly outfit of classic Levi’s denim jacket and faded blue jeans, Petty shows off the “world’s only indoor/outdoor control room”, so named for the patio that lies a few feet from the mixing board. He shrugs off the threat of noise complaints when the door’s open and the speakers are loud: “I don’t have any neighbours, so I don’t worry about that.”
It all feels like a safe haven for a self-described homebody, as well as a just reward for career sales of over 80 million and a body of work as treasured as anything else in the history of American rock. That’s why it’s jarring to hear Petty talk of how it nearly went up in smoke.
“That’s how close the fires came,” Petty says as he points to a ridge just beyond the red patio stones and a thicket of trees. This was in 2007, when wildfires devastated much of the area. “The smoke was so thick, if you went outside you couldn’t breathe.” He recalls grabbing what he could after being ordered to leave in a hurry, only to realise upon driving away that “there isn’t really any possession that means shit.”
It wouldn’t have been the first time Petty learned that lesson. One morning in 1987, his house in Encino was set on fire by an arsonist – the singer and his family barely escaped before the place and almost all of its contents were reduced to ashes. As he says, “This would’ve been the second time where everything I owned was gone. And it never really made a difference as long as everyone was OK.”
The Malibu fire was weighing on Petty’s mind when he wrote “All You Can Carry”. Like many of the songs on Hypnotic Eye – Petty’s 13th studio album with the Heartbreakers – it bridles with a stridency and ferocity that were once hallmarks of Petty’s music but have been rather lacking over the last two decades. Indeed, it’s the anger you can hear in Petty’s earliest, surliest songs, be it Mudcrutch’s original version of “Don’t Do Me Like That” or the Heartbreakers’ “Breakdown”. And while it might’ve seemed like a part of his past, right now it feels very much in the present. Petty may be plenty amiable as he plays host in his studio’s lounge but, as he admits, “I’m not Mr Laidback.”
In 2006, the filmmaker Bernard MacMahon travelled to Cumbria to interview three musicians performing at the Mayport Bitter And Blues Festival. At the time, Honeyboy Edwards, Homesick James and Robert Lockwood Jnr were all in their nineties. Although he admits now that he had no specific project in m...
In 2006, the filmmaker Bernard MacMahon travelled to Cumbria to interview three musicians performing at the Mayport Bitter And Blues Festival. At the time, Honeyboy Edwards, Homesick James and Robert Lockwood Jnr were all in their nineties. Although he admits now that he had no specific project in mind, MacMahon instinctively knew he had to document the memories of “the three oldest surviving blues men”. It has taken ten years, but finally the interviews have been put to good use – in American Epic, MacMahon’s ambitious documentary series that airs in the UK on BBC4 on May 21, May 28 and June 4.
Across three films, the series explores how and why the music of the American hinterland came to be recorded. A fourth film finds contemporary artists – including Jack White, Alabama Shakes, Beck, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard – recording on reassembled Western Electric recording machinery.
MacMahon has assembled some storied collaborators for American Epic, among them White, Robert Redford and T Bone Burnett. “It’s the story of the American recording industry from 1926 to 1936,” Burnett explains to Uncut. “In 1926 the record industry fell off 80 per cent in one year because of the proliferation of radio in the big cities. The middle-class people and the wealthy people who were able to buy radios no longer wanted to buy records, because they could get music for free – why buy a record? So the recording companies, having equipment and nothing to do, decided to go down south, where people didn’t have electricity, and therefore didn’t have radios. So they started recording people down south – they started recording the poorest people in the country and broadcasting their voices all around the world.”
MacMahon and his team conducted interviews with surviving family members, peers or other eyewitnesses to document the lives of artists including Charley Patton, The Memphis Jug Band and Joe Falcon. Among those, Dale Jett Carter and Fern Salyer – the grandson and niece, respectively, of AP and Sara Carter – are filmed at the Carter Family homestead in rural Maces Spring, southwest Virginia.
Meanwhile, MacMahon’s investigations into Elder Burch – a pastor who brought his church choir to Atlanta in 1927 and in one session recorded nine sermons and a hymn, “My Heart Keeps Singing” – took him to Cheraw, South Carolina. There, he filmed Ted Bradley, a community elder, and the only person alive who could remember Burch. Bradley’s testimony – “He was a tall, good looking man, he would stand there rocking his spats, his shoes always shiny, he was well dressed” – is all the more remarkable considering he had not seen Burch for 70 years. Meanwhile, the stories of Irving Williamson, Dick Justice and Frank Hutchinson forgrounds the music made by the coal miners of Logan County, West Virginia. These stories are enhanced by researched archive footage and photography as well as the contextualizing observations of musicians including White, Taj Mahal and Charlie Musselwhite.
Early in the project, MacMahon sought the counsel of Jeff Rosen, Bob Dylan’s manager, who put him in touch with T Bone Burnett. “I flew to LA and met T Bone at Village Recording Studios,” says MacMahon. “He was sitting at a console with Elton John, who said, ‘Do you mind if I listen in? T Bone’s been telling me about it.’ T Bone came on board, then two weeks later he called and said, ‘I’ve been meeting with this Hollywood guy. I mentioned this idea and he’s really interested.’ That was Robert Redford. He listened to me talk for about half an hour and said, ‘This is America’s greatest untold story. I’m in.” Jack White, meanwhile, came aboard via a less formal route. “A friend gave me his email. I sent him three lines. ‘I have film footage of Sleepy John Estes from 1914 and I have a picture of Son House from the early ‘30s. I’m working on this documentary.’ He wrote back in five minutes.”
Another key collaborator was sound restorer Nick Bergh, who had constructed a Western Electric recording machine. MacMahon tracked down the Scully family, who invented the recording lathe. “The lathes were so durable, there were only about 900 made to cut records around the world,” says MacMahon. “They kept a 1924 lathe in the basement. It was gleaming. ‘At that point, I thought maybe we should go further with this. Why not construct a series of sessions, just like the ones in the documentary films, and see what happens?’”
Presided over by White and Burnett, the American Epic sessions – which comprise the fourth film – took place at a privately owned studio in Melrose, Hollywood. “We had one artist in the morning, and one in the afternoon,” says MacMahon. “They would have an hour to arrange the song with the musicians then they’d gave to record it all in one go. Willie [Nelson] and Merle [Haggard] came in at the end. I found it very moving. They would have grown up listening to the people who recorded on this machine. They were in the own world doing this. Not even Jack could to talk them. It was like they were communing with something, getting something out of this beyond what the other artists were.”
Back in Cumbria, Honeyboy Edwards, Homesick James and Robert Lockwood Jnr consider how the blues has changed since the days of Charley Patton. Artists today, it seems, don’t quite stack up to the originals. “They never ploughed a mule,” says Homesick James. “And that’s what makes the voice. They ain’t never hollered behind a mule.”
BBC ARENA PRESENTS AMERICAN EPIC SCREENS ON BBC FOUR ON MAY 21, MAY 28 AND JUNE 4.
Bob Marley & The Wailers will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Exodus with four special editions.
Three of which will feature Exodus 40 - The Movement Continues, featuring Ziggy Marley’s newly curated “restatement” of the original album.
June 2 sees the release of three of the four new Exod...
Bob Marley & The Wailers will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Exodus with four special editions.
Three of which will feature Exodus 40 – The Movement Continues, featuring Ziggy Marley’s newly curated “restatement” of the original album.
June 2 sees the release of three of the four new Exodus sets. A two-CD set includes the original album along with Ziggy Marley’s “restatement” version. A three-CD set, which will also be available digitally, features the original Exodus, The Movement Continues and Exodus Live. There will also be a limited edition gold vinyl version comprising the original 1977 album.
Meanwhile, on June 30, the Super Deluxe four-LP, two 7-inch singles edition will be released. It will include the original LP, Ziggy’s Movement version, and an Exodus Live set, which was recorded at London’s Rainbow Theatre the week of the album’s release. The fourth LP is entitled Punky Reggae Party. It packages a previously unreleased extended mix of “Keep on Moving” along with a pair of vinyl 7-inches: “Waiting in Vain” backed with “Roots” and “Smile Jamaica (Part One)” backed with “Smile Jamaica (Part Two).”
You can find more information about the editions and pre-order them by clicking here.
In a career that spanned most of the twentieth century, Ella Fitzgerald sold more than 40 million records, helped to define the American Songbook, became the first African-American woman to win a Grammy, and sang with almost all of her peers. And yet, twenty years after her death, she remains a stra...
In a career that spanned most of the twentieth century, Ella Fitzgerald sold more than 40 million records, helped to define the American Songbook, became the first African-American woman to win a Grammy, and sang with almost all of her peers. And yet, twenty years after her death, she remains a strangely under-appreciated jazz singer, perhaps because she lacks the Rat Pack mythology of Frank Sinatra and the romanticized miseries of Billie Holiday.
Or, perhaps it’s simply because she sounds so happy. Her vocal tone is bright and clear, her phrasing so fluid and breezy that the songs become playgrounds, but that ebullience of voice should not suggest a lack of depth or a dearth of soul. Fitzgerald can sound melancholy, even lonely, but there’s always a hardy optimism lurking in even her slowest, bleakest tune—as though she knows the next tune will be a happy one.
100 Songs For A Centennial, a 4xCD retrospective chronicles the first two major chapters in her career, starting with Fitzgerald’s tenure at Decca and then with her even more impressive run at Verve. While not a comprehensive overview of her life and career, this box set provides apt context for a series of releases commemorating her 100th birthday.
Born in Virginia but raised in New York—where one of her first jobs was lookout for a brothel—Fitzgerald willed her career into existence, first by winning a talent show at the Apollo and then signing with Chick Webb’s orchestra, all while still a teenager. Her early hits were largely novelty tunes, including her immensely popular “A Tisket, A Tasket” in 1938. Like Sinatra, however, she gracefully weathered the change from singles to albums in the 1950s, understanding that the new format allowed her to make bigger and more complex statements.
At Verve she undertook one of the most significant endeavors in the history of recorded music: a series of albums exploring the catalogs of such songwriters as Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington and George & Ira Gershwin. 100 Songs ends with Fitzgerald in her early forties, around the time she was enjoying her last smash hit, “Mack the Knife,” but even as the pop landscape made less room for her brand of pop music, the blithe excitement of her vocals never waned.
In the twentieth century and even in the twenty-first, there’s something incredibly compelling and even poignant about cheeriness of her interpretations. In the face of oppression within the jazz scene and without—she was dismissed for being too black, for being a woman, for not being traditionally beautiful and desirable—Fitzgerald met the world with what might be considered a radical happiness, which is the animating force on 100 Songs for a Centennial.
Roger Waters has released a new track, "Smell The Roses", which is taken from his first rock album in 25 years, Is This The Life We Really Want?
You can hear the song below.
The album will be available for pre order today, April 21, and released globally on Friday 2 June on Columbia Records.
Addi...
Roger Waters has released a new track, “Smell The Roses“, which is taken from his first rock album in 25 years, Is This The Life We Really Want?
You can hear the song below.
The album will be available for pre order today, April 21, and released globally on Friday 2 June on Columbia Records.
Additionally, Waters will launch his North American Us + Them Tour in Kansas City, MO on Friday 26 May. The Us + Them Tour runs until 28 October, concluding in Vancouver, BC. See full list of dates below.
Produced and mixed by Nigel Godrich, Is This The Life We Really Want? includes 12 new songs. The physical album release includes a double 180-gram vinyl LP in a gatefold jacket and a 4-panel soft pack CD. All album formats, physical and digital, are available for pre-order from 21 April.
The musicians on Is This The Life We Really Want? are: Roger Waters (vocals, acoustic, bass), Nigel Godrich (arrangement, sound collages, keyboards, guitar), Gus Seyffert (bass, guitar, keyboards), Jonathan Wilson (guitar, keyboards), Joey Waronker (drums), Roger Manning (keyboards), Lee Pardini (keyboards), and Lucius (vocals) with Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig.
Is This The Life We Really Want? tracklist When We Were Young
Déjà Vu
The Last Refugee
Picture That
Broken Bones
Is This The Life We Really Want?
Bird In A Gale
The Most Beautiful Girl
Smell The Roses
Wait For Her
Oceans Apart
Part of Me Died
The lyrics for “Wait for Her” were written by Roger Waters and inspired by an English translation by an unknown author of “Lesson from the Kama Sutra (Wait for Her)” by Mahmoud Darwish.
Meanwhile, The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains runs from May 13 – October 1, 2017 at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition includes more than 350 objects and artefacts on display, many of them never before seen, including hand-written lyrics, musical instruments, letters, original artwork and stage props.
Roger Waters Us + Them North American Tour 2017
May 26 Kansas City, MO Sprint Center
May 28 Louisville, KY KFC Yum! Center
May 30 St. Louis, MO Scottrade Center
June 01 Tulsa, OK BOK Center
June 03 Denver, CO Pepsi Center
June 04 Denver, CO Pepsi Center
June 07 San Jose, CA SAP Center at San Jose
June 10 Oakland, CA Oracle Arena
June 12 Sacramento, CA Golden 1 Center
June 14 Phoenix, AZ Gila River Arena
June 16 Las Vegas, NV T-Mobile Arena
June 20 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
June 21 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
June 24 Seattle, WA Tacoma Dome
June 27 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
July 01 San Antonio, TX AT&T Center
July 03 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
July 06 Houston, TX Toyota Center
July 08 New Orleans, LA Smoothie King Center
July 11 Tampa, FL Amalie Arena
July 13 Miami, FL American Airlines Arena
July 16 Atlanta, GA Infinite Energy Arena
July 18 Greensboro, NC Greensboro Coliseum
July 20 Columbus, OH Nationwide Arena
July 22 Chicago, IL United Center
July 23 Chicago, IL United Center
July 26 St. Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center
July 29 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
August 02 Detroit, MI The Palace of Auburn Hills
August 04 Washington, DC Verizon Center
August 08 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
August 09 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
August 13 Nashville, TN Bridgestone Arena
September 07 Newark, NJ Prudential Center
September 11 Brooklyn, NY Barclays Center
September 12 Brooklyn, NY Barclays Center
September 15 Uniondale, NY The New Coliseum
September 16 Uniondale, NY The New Coliseum
September 19 Pittsburgh, PA PPG Paints Arena
September 21 Cleveland, OH Quicken Loans Arena
September 23 Albany, NY Times Union Center
September 24 Hartford, CT XL Center
September 27 Boston, MA TD Garden
September 28 Boston, MA TD Garden
October 02 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre
October 03 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre
October 06 Quebec City, QC Videotron Centre
October 07 Quebec City, QC Videotron Centre
October 10 Ottawa, ONT Canadian Tire Centre
October 16 Montreal, QC Bell Centre
October 17 Montreal, QC Bell Centre
October 22 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
October 24 Edmonton, AB Rogers Place
October 28 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
Nice to get back from a week or so’s holiday and find a heap of new music worth listening to. Quick highlights: Kendrick of course (the U2 track is, against the odds, tremendous); the new Floating Points jam; an amazing Kamasi Washington tune and film; the Como Mamas with a band; and James Elkingt...
Nice to get back from a week or so’s holiday and find a heap of new music worth listening to. Quick highlights: Kendrick of course (the U2 track is, against the odds, tremendous); the new Floating Points jam; an amazing Kamasi Washington tune and film; the Como Mamas with a band; and James Elkington and Jeff Tweedy direct from the Wilco loft. Wish I had something to play you from the new (last?) Träd, Gräs Och Stenar album, but it’s very much of a piece with that gorgeous box set from last year. Also amazed and delighted to get Van’s Bang recordings and much more, finally, in a legitimate form, and the Mulatu Astatke reissue is beautiful.
To say Willie Nelson is old-fashioned is an understatement. As country music and the country it represents has shifted and evolved, Willie’s love songs and laid-back workingman’s laments have fallen in and out of fashion. But even now, at age 83, Nelson is operating precisely how he did back in ...
To say Willie Nelson is old-fashioned is an understatement. As country music and the country it represents has shifted and evolved, Willie’s love songs and laid-back workingman’s laments have fallen in and out of fashion. But even now, at age 83, Nelson is operating precisely how he did back in the ’60s. He’s constantly on the road and releasing multiple albums a year, alternately trying out different styles and returning to his roots. In the time since his last collection of original songs, 2014’s diverse Band Of Brothers, he has recorded full-length tributes to both George Gershwin and Ray Price, sung on songs by Kacey Musgraves and Cyndi Lauper, and released an entire album of new collaborations with the late Merle Haggard. All the while, he’s toured his ass off – through sickness and health – and shown no signs of slowing down.
“They say my pace would kill a normal man,” Willie sings on his latest album, God’s Problem Child, “but I’ve never been accused of being normal anyway.” The song is called “Still Not Dead” and it makes no bones about its subject matter: “The internet said I had passed away,” he sings, “Well if I died I wasn’t dead to stay/And I woke up still not dead again today.” “Still Not Dead” has all the makings of a classic Willie Nelson song: funny in a sad way, sad in a funny way, and, despite its specificity to the octogenarian celebrity lifestyle, it could be sung by anyone who feels like the world is against them. Planted firmly at the center of God’s Problem Child, “Still Not Dead” is one of Willie’s modern masterpieces and the centrepiece of an album that can stand comfortably alongside any of his iconic work.
It helps that, even as he’s aged and wandered, Nelson’s voice has mostly retained its power. On God’s Problem Child, he sounds a bit like a weathered harmonica: he might have lost some of his higher notes, but he can soar through all the ones that count. The arrangements, which skew more toward classic country and slower tempos than Band Of Brothers, also help highlight Willie’s strengths. By this point, he knows precisely what he wants to say and how he wants to say it. Buddy Cannon, who has worked on almost all of Nelson’s records over the last decade, is a fine collaborator here, and together, they find new ways for Willie to channel his old self. Many of the album’s highlights arrive in its statelier, starker second half. “It Gets Easier” is as steady and true as any of his best relationship songs, while “Lady Luck” is an optimistic outlook at a downtrodden world.
As is to be expected from an artist losing more of his closest peers and collaborators with each passing year, Willie Nelson is haunted by death throughout God’s Problem Child. Sometimes the presence is literal, as on the title track, which features one of the final vocal takes by songwriter Leon Russell. But the song is no death march: it’s a defiant, swampy ode to living outside the lines of society, something both singers speak to with authority. In “He Won’t Ever Be Gone”, Nelson pays tribute to Merle Haggard, whose intrinsic toughness has always played as a foil to Willie’s more laconic wisdom. Over a bittersweet chord progression, Willie names the songs Merle wrote, recalls the “high times” they had together, and prays for the best afterlife a songwriter can dream of: that their songs will outlive them.
Despite the urgency of “He Won’t Ever Be Gone”, its line of thinking – that our work is what defines us – is nothing new for Willie Nelson. While remaining endlessly prolific, he has always looked at the album as a totemic work, collecting songs in ways that add up to something bigger than the individual pieces. Let’s not forget that this is the songwriter who crafted one of country music’s first concept records (1971’s Yesterday’s Wine) and one of its first crossover standards collections (1978’s Stardust). God’s Problem Child continues that tradition—approaching life and love from angles that can only result from a career spent studying both with a restless sense of wonder. It’s the kind of perspective that most songwriters can only dream of attaining: for Willie Nelson, it’s just another day at the office.
The Mark Lanegan Band have released a video for "Beehive".
The song is taken from their latest album, Gargoyle, which is due April 28 on Heavenly Recordings.
Meanwhile, the band have a run of tour dates lined up in June, including a slot at Glastonbury:
Monday 19th June – BIRMINGHAM – Library...
The Mark Lanegan Band have released a video for “Beehive“.
The song is taken from their latest album, Gargoyle, which is due April 28 on Heavenly Recordings.
Meanwhile, the band have a run of tour dates lined up in June, including a slot at Glastonbury:
Monday 19th June – BIRMINGHAM – Library
Tuesday 20th June – GLASGOW – Garage
Wednesday 21st June – MANCHESTER – Ritz
Thursday 22nd June – LONDON – KOKO
Friday 23rd June – PILTON – Glastonbury
Bruce Springsteen and Houserockers frontman Joe Grushecky have teamed up for a new anti-Trump protest song, titled "That’s What Makes Us Great".
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Grushecky already had the song before Springsteen and he began talking about a collaboration. “I sent it to ...
Bruce Springsteen and Houserockers frontman Joe Grushecky have teamed up for a new anti-Trump protest song, titled “That’s What Makes Us Great“.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Grushecky already had the song before Springsteen and he began talking about a collaboration. “I sent it to him and he liked it. I said, ‘What do you think about singing on it?’ He gave it the Bruce treatment,” Grushecky explained.
Grushecky continued to say that Trump lost his vote “the moment he started making fun of special needs people. How could a person like that be president of the United States?” You can listen to “That’s What Makes Us Great” over on Grushecky’s website.
When Ray and Dave Davies performed together on stage for the first time in 20 years, playing “You Really Got Me” at Islington Assembly Hall in December 2015, it ignited hope that the brothers would put aside their differences and finally announce a reunion.
Of course, like any good soap opera, t...
When Ray and Dave Davies performed together on stage for the first time in 20 years, playing “You Really Got Me” at Islington Assembly Hall in December 2015, it ignited hope that the brothers would put aside their differences and finally announce a reunion.
Of course, like any good soap opera, the exploits of the Davies siblings continue to tantalise us. And while we wait for the next development in their unpredictable relationship, why not revisit the many, remarkable achievements made by their band, The Kinks?
This deluxe, updated edition of our 148-page Ultimate Music Guide: The Kinks tells the band’s complete story, via wealth of interviews from the NME, Melody Maker and Uncut archives. We’ve exhaustively reviewed each of the band’s albums, as well as solo, live and compilation releases. “I don’t want to see the legacy of The Kinks sourced by two miserable old men doing it for the money,” Ray told Uncut in 2014. Here, we hope, we have done their vital, extraordinary body of work justice…
Supper’s ready: here’s the main course… Uncut’s latest Ultimate Music Guide is an ambitious survey of the entire, brilliant career of Genesis – from prog shapeshifters to stadium gods. We’ve delved deep into the archives of NME and Melody Maker, finding interviews with the band that have...
Supper’s ready: here’s the main course… Uncut’s latest Ultimate Music Guide is an ambitious survey of the entire, brilliant career of Genesis – from prog shapeshifters to stadium gods. We’ve delved deep into the archives of NME and Melody Maker, finding interviews with the band that have languished unseen since the 1970s and ‘80s. “If our present success continues, we’ll be in the situation where we can realize most of our ambitions in music,” Peter Gabriel tells Melody Maker in 1973. “I hope what we do will be completely new.”
Alongside all these revelations, we’ve written in-depth new reviews of every single Genesis album, from their 1969 debut right up until 1997’s Calling All Stations. We’ve also investigated the significant solo careers: not just of Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, but of Steve Hackett, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks, too. It’s a tricky tale, but an endlessly rewarding one – Genesis: The Ultimate Music Guide.
Glen Campbell has announced details of his final studio album, Adiós.
Adiós was recorded at Station West in Nashville following Campbell’s “Goodbye Tour”; according to a statement the album consists of "songs that Campbell always loved but never got a chance to record".
Among these are tra...
Glen Campbell has announced details of his final studio album, Adiós.
Adiós was recorded at Station West in Nashville following Campbell’s “Goodbye Tour”; according to a statement the album consists of “songs that Campbell always loved but never got a chance to record”.
Among these are tracks by Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Fred Neil as well as longtime collaborator Jimmy Webb.
Adiós will be released June 9 on UMe on CD, vinyl and digitally.
The tracklisting for Adiós is:
Everybody’s Talkin’
Just Like Always
Funny (How Time Slips Away) (feat. Willie Nelson)
Arkansas Farmboy
Am I All Alone (Or Is It Only Me) (intro by Roger Miller)
Am I All Alone (Or Is It Only Me) (feat. Vince Gill)
It Won’t Bring Her Back
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
She Thinks I Still Care
Postcard From Paris
A Thing Called Love
Adiós
A new collection of Bert Jansch’s final recordings, made between 2000 and 2006, is due for release in April.
Living In The Shadows Part 2: On The Edge Of A Dream follows Living In The Shadows, which was released in January this year.
This new anthology includes three Jansch albums, Crimson Moon,...
A new collection of Bert Jansch’s final recordings, made between 2000 and 2006, is due for release in April.
Living In The Shadows Part 2: On The Edge Of A Dream follows Living In The Shadows, which was released in January this year.
This new anthology includes three Jansch albums, Crimson Moon, Edge Of A Dream and Black Swan as well as a fourth disc, The Setting Of The Sun, which includes demos and unreleased material.
Below you can hear a previously unreleased collaboration with Johnny Marr, “It Don’t Bother Me”.
As someone born at the end of 1967, I could, at a push, be described as a child of the Summer Of Love. But in or new and very special issue of Uncut to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that profound cultural uprising, we speak to many architects of peace and love who really were there - and who can...
As someone born at the end of 1967, I could, at a push, be described as a child of the Summer Of Love. But in or new and very special issue of Uncut to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that profound cultural uprising, we speak to many architects of peace and love who really were there – and who can, contrary to cliché, remember everything that happened. Eric Burdon, for instance, recalls the splendour of the Monterey Pop festival from that June. “It was so beautiful,” Burdon tells us. “People with facepaint, wearing flowers, and flags with peace. The colours alone were revolutionary. The smell of sage and marijuana was all around. It was the vibe of acceptance, grooving with one another. Old, young, straight, gay.”
Psychedelic revolutions were a little slower to manifest themselves in the market towns and mining villages of North Nottinghamshire. But still, intimations of change seeped into millions of homes: The Beatles, on June 25, singing “All You Need Is Love” to a massive worldwide TV audience, surrounded by every conceivable signifier of hippiedom. “It was amazing,” remembers one participant. “Smoking a joint in front of 400 million people.” By the end of September, Radio One had launched, and The Move’s “Flowers In The Rain” – along with many other songs in our Summer Of Love Top 50 – were subtly turning on a generation.
Beyond our 1967 happening, it’s a busy month in Uncut’s world. We memorialise the founding father of rock’n’roll, Chuck Berry, and get a sneak preview of his last album. We have an exclusive interview with one of 2017’s most auspicious comeback bands, the Fleet Foxes, and Robin Pecknold has compiled an amazing 15-song CD of some of the key influences on their new album, which comes free with the issue.*
There’s an unravelling of the mysteries of Twin Peaks’ music, and a night in Stockholm with Bob Dylan and his frank, unblinkered fans. Plus interviews with Fairport Convention (also celebrating their 50th anniversary), Royal Trux, the great Hailu Mergia, Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson and James Brown’s horniest horn man, Fred Wesley, plus a heavyweight reviews section that includes Feist, Paul Weller, Ray Davies, Perfume Genius, Joan Shelley, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, John Martyn, Johnny Cash and me on Alice Coltrane.
Come on people now; smile on your brother!
*Please note: the CD will not be available with copies on sale in the Birmingham, UK, area. Robin’s selection of tracks is, however, posted as a playlist on Spotify.
The new issue of Uncut, dated June 2017, is now available in shops and also to buy digitally
Dates have been announced for a UK tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of DA Penebaker's Bob Dylan documentary Dont Look Back.
Penebaker's film follows Dylan's 1965 UK tour. This run of screenings dates follows in the footsteps of that momentous tour, taking place in cities where Dylan performed ...
Dates have been announced for a UK tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of DA Penebaker‘s Bob Dylan documentary Dont Look Back.
Penebaker’s film follows Dylan’s 1965 UK tour. This run of screenings dates follows in the footsteps of that momentous tour, taking place in cities where Dylan performed in 1965.
Sunday April 30, 2017: Showroom Cinema, Sheffield
(Dylan performed at Sheffield City Hall)
Tickets: http://www.showroomworkstation.org.uk/dont-look-back
Monday May 1, 2017: FACT Cinema, Liverpool
(Dylan performed at Liverpool Odeon Theatre)
Tickets: http://www.fact.co.uk/whats-on/current/dont-look-back.aspx?when=choosedate&date=2017501/05/2017%2000:00:00
Tuesday May 2, 2017: Phoenix Cinema, Leicester
(Dylan performed at De Montfort Hall)
Tickets: http://www.phoenix.org.uk/film/dont-look-back/
Friday May 5, 2017: MAC Cinema, Birmingham
(Dylan performed at Birmingham Town Hall)
Tickets: https://macbirmingham.co.uk/whats-on/cinema/2017/may/05
Saturday May 6, 2017: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle
(Dylan performed at Newcastle City Hall)
Tickets: https://www.tynesidecinema.co.uk/whats-on/films/view/don-t-look-back
Sunday May 7, 2017: HOME Cinema, Manchester
(Dylan performed at Free Trade Hall)
Tickets: https://homemcr.org/cinema/
Wednesday May 10, 2017: Regent Street Cinema, London
(Dylan performed at Royal Albert Hall)
Tickets: https://www.regentstreetcinema.com/programme/dont-look-back/
