U2’s shock-released new album, Songs Of Innocence, is largely themed around the band’s childhoods and adolescence in Dublin, according to Bono. Well, here’s what came next… This is the full story, as told by those who were there, of U2’s rise from indie hopefuls to becoming the Biggest Rock Band On The Planet. Written by Stephen Dalton, and originally published in Uncut’s December 1999 issue (Take 31).
As you may have seen, this week’s NME features the 2013 edition of their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. For this one, they also accepted votes from a bunch of the mag’s alumni, including me, so I thought it’d be an easy, albeit self-indulgent, blog to reproduce my Top 50 albums here.
No, unfortunately “Bright Phoebus” isn’t being reissued. But what prompted me to dig it out this week was the news of Bright Phoebus Revisited, a concert tour this autumn that promises the album recreated live by every Waterson they could find, along with various guests including Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley. The dates are London Barbican (11), Warwick Arts Centre (12), Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (14), Brighton Dome (15) and Bristol Colston Hall (16). Could be interesting: amazing record.
Seeing as how Matthew E White and his band are on tour in the UK this week (I’m seeing him play in London tomorrow), it seemed a good time to post the feature about my visit to Richmond a couple of months ago. I’ve put a few links to stuff in here, too, so you can get a taste of the really interesting music coming out of the scene that revolves around White. Long read, this one…
Three weeks and a few hours ago, I found myself on a small plane from Richmond, Virginia, to Washington DC. Most of the other passengers were members of the Harvard baseball team, who had spent the past three hours being harassed by schoolgirls making innumerable Harlem Shake videos. I, though, was sat next to a woman from Colorado, who was studying the use of horses in Gestalt therapy.
The Rolling Stones have debuted brand new track 'Doom And Gloom' – click the video below to listen.
The song premiered on BBC Radio 2 at 8.15am. Breakfast Show host Chris Evans played it twice, back to back.
A hard-rocking, bluesy number, 'Doom And Gloom' recalls the likes of 'Gimme Shelter' and 'Honky Tonk Women'. "All I hear is doom and gloom, all is darkness in my room," say the lyrics.
'Doom And Gloom' is the result of the band's first studio session in seven years.
Calexico’s new album, Algiers, is reviewed in the current issue of Uncut (October 2012, Take 185) – so we thought we’d take a trip back to April 2003 (Take 71), when Uncut’s John Mulvey flew out to Tucson, Arizona to discover more about the duo’s redrawing of the alt.country map.
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