I interviewed Michael Mann for the current issue of UNCUT, ahead of the release of Public Enemies. Call it reader service, but I thought those of you who're interested in such things might like a chance to read the full transcript (it's about 3,200 words, of which we only ran 1,000 in the issue). Anyway, here it is. Hope you enjoy.
Perhaps as a response to the American psych-folk scene, over the past few years there’ve been a handful of British bands who’ve sought to channel the late-‘60s/early-‘70s folk-rock scene. Most of them, unfortunately, have been more or less worthy but misfiring. Trembling Bells, though, are a big exception.
The night before Pete Doherty plays a sold-out solo concert in the plush splendour of the Royal Albert Hall, we find his former Babyshambles bandmate, guitarist Patrick Walden, getting ready for a gig with his new band, Big Dave, in a small tacky room above a bar called Catch 22 in Shoreditch.
Earlier, I’d been telling someone that when I saw Pete Doherty at a small Soho club called Jazz After Dark, back in January 2006, it had occurred to me, no doubt somewhat fancifully, that this was to some perhaps small but nevertheless vital extent what it might have been like to see the fledgling Dylan in some bar in Greenwich Village, when the 60s were still young.
