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Lloyd Cole announces 1988 – 1996 box set

Michael Bonner
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Lloyd Cole announces 1988 – 1996 box set
Lloyd Cole has announced details of a new box set, Lloyd Cole In New York - Collected Recordings 1988-1996. The set arrives on March 17 through Polydor/UMC and features all four solo albums Cole released on the Polydor and Fontana labels between 1988 and 1996 (Lloyd Cole, Don’t Get Weird On Me Ba...

Lloyd Cole has announced details of a new box set, Lloyd Cole In New York – Collected Recordings 1988-1996.

The set arrives on March 17 through Polydor/UMC and features all four solo albums Cole released on the Polydor and Fontana labels between 1988 and 1996 (Lloyd Cole, Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe, Bad Vibes and Love Story) plus Smile If You Want To, the ‘unreleased’ fifth album, and Demos ‘89-‘94, 20 recordings from home and studio made public for this release.

The box also includes a hardback book featuring new interviews with Cole and musicians, producers and collaborators and a rare selection of photos from the period plus a poster and postcards.

You can pre-order the set by clicking here.

Cole has also announced tour dates for March/April:

MARCH
20 WORTHING St Paul’s
21 EXETER Phoenix
23 LEAMINGTON SPA The Assembly
26 LOWESTOFT The Aquarium
27 SHEFFIELD City Hall Ballroom
29 WAKEFIELD Unity Works
30 SOUTHPORT The Atkinson
31 SALE Waterside

APRIL
1 POCKLINGTON Arts Centre
3 PRESTON Guild Hall
4 BURY The Met
6 INVERNESS Eden Court
7 ABERDEEN The Lemon Tree
8 DUNDEE The Gardyne Theatre
9 GREENOCK The Albany
11 GLASGOW Oran Mor
12 GLASGOW Oran Mor

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Bruce Springsteen’s archive is headed to Monmouth University

Michael Bonner
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Bruce Springsteen’s archive is headed to Monmouth University
Bruce Springsteen's personal archive - a collection of writings, photographs and artefacts cumulated from throughout his life - is to be stored at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. The New York Times reports that the university will establish the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Ce...

Bruce Springsteen‘s personal archive – a collection of writings, photographs and artefacts cumulated from throughout his life – is to be stored at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey.

The New York Times reports that the university will establish the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music, which would promote the legacy of Springsteen and other artists including Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson.

“The establishment of the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music celebrates and reinforces the Jersey Shore’s legacy in the history of American music, while providing a truly transformative experience for our students,” Paul R. Brown, the university’s president, said in a statement.

Monmouth is already the home of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection — around 35,000 items compiled in part by fans.

Last year, Bob Dylan’s archives were acquired by the George Kaiser Family Foundation for a group of institutions in Oklahoma, including the University of Tulsa, for an estimated $15m – $20m (£10m – £14m).

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Ask John Mayall

Michael Bonner
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Ask John Mayall
With a new studio album, Talk About That, and a European tour due coming up, John Mayall will be answering your questions as part of our regular An Audience With… feature. So is there anything you’d like us to ask the legendary guitarist? Eric Clapton lived with John for a while. What was he l...

With a new studio album, Talk About That, and a European tour due coming up, John Mayall will be answering your questions as part of our regular An Audience With… feature.

So is there anything you’d like us to ask the legendary guitarist?

Eric Clapton lived with John for a while. What was he like as a housemate?
What does he remember of his stint in the army?
What makes a good guitar player?

Send up your questions by noon, Friday, January 20 to uncutaudiencewith@timeinc.com.

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

Talk About That is released on January 27 through Forty Below Records; you can find John’s upcoming tour dates by clicking here

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

La La Land

Michael Bonner
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La La Land
There’s a scene in Damien Chazelle’s razzle-dazzle musical La La Land where Mia, an aspiring actress, reads her one-woman play to her boyfriend Sebastian a jazz pianist. “It feels really nostalgic to me,” she says. “Are people going to like it?” Flippantly, he replies, “Fuck ‘em.” ...

There’s a scene in Damien Chazelle’s razzle-dazzle musical La La Land where Mia, an aspiring actress, reads her one-woman play to her boyfriend Sebastian a jazz pianist. “It feels really nostalgic to me,” she says. “Are people going to like it?” Flippantly, he replies, “Fuck ‘em.”

As with much of Chazelle’s handsome genre renovation, this is a knowing exchange. La La Land is a blissful love-letter to a golden age of Hollywood movies, full of big emotions and unselfconsciously joyous romantic ideals. Characters burst into song during big old dance numbers that wouldn’t look out of place in an RKO musical. There are mobile phones and drum machines – but although no one quite swings off a lamppost in the rain, to all intents and purposes, this is 1952. In La La Land, old fleapits are preferable venues for dates – where better to watch a classic movie, after all? – while Sebastian has to choose between pursuing his dream of opening a modest jazz venue (good) versus making a ton of cash with an old pal’s immensely popular fusion band (bad). There is a scene set inside the Griffith Observatory high atop the hills of Los Angeles where Sebastian and Mia kiss, dance and fly.

As his leads, Chazelle casts Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. It is easy to see why this is their third collaboration together: they zing like a Hawks double act. Gosling strikes a good balance between rueful and wise-cracking; Stone brims with wit and intelligence. An early scene, where Mia bumps into Sebastian at a pool party where – humiliatingly – he is making ends meet playing keytar in a tacky Eighties’ covers band, is heroically funny.

Chazelle follows the short, sharp shock of Whiplash with something a little fizzier, but by no means is La La Land throwaway. For all its bounce, Chazelle takes a shrewd and focused view of nostalgia: Sebastian and Mia chat Bringing Up Baby, Casablana, Notorious and Rebel Without A Cause. At one point, Sebastian asks, “Why do you say ‘romantic’ like it’s a dirty word?”

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Buzzcocks announce 40th anniversary reissue of Spiral Scratch EP

Michael Bonner
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Buzzcocks announce 40th anniversary reissue of Spiral Scratch EP
Buzzcocks are reissuing their debut EP, Spiral Scratch, to coincide with its 40th anniversary. They will also reissue Plus Time’s Up, a bootleg of the band’s first-ever studio recording session. They will also both be collected in Buzzcocks (mk.1) Box, which will also include reprinted photogra...

Buzzcocks are reissuing their debut EP, Spiral Scratch, to coincide with its 40th anniversary.

They will also reissue Plus Time’s Up, a bootleg of the band’s first-ever studio recording session. They will also both be collected in Buzzcocks (mk.1) Box, which will also include reprinted photographs, concert flyers, pins, and a reimagined print of Manchester punk fanzine, Shy Talk.

Spiral Scratch will be reissued on January 27 via Domino on 7″ and as a digital download. Time’s Up and the Buzzcocks (mk.1) Box both available from Domino on March 10.

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Introducing… Leonard Cohen: The Ultimate Music Guide

John Mulvey
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Introducing… Leonard Cohen: The Ultimate Music Guide
When the news broke of his death, on November 10 last year, we had just begun working on an Ultimate Music Guide to Leonard Cohen (on sale this Thursday, but available now from our online shop), emboldened by the brilliance of “You Want It Darker”. Cohen’s passing should not have been a surpr...

When the news broke of his death, on November 10 last year, we had just begun working on an Ultimate Music Guide to Leonard Cohen (on sale this Thursday, but available now from our online shop), emboldened by the brilliance of “You Want It Darker”.

Cohen’s passing should not have been a surprise, in the great scheme of things. Here, after all, was a man of 82 who had recently suggested to the New Yorker’s editor that he was operating in the proximity of death. There was work to complete, Cohen told David Remnick, but, he said, “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs… Maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know. But I don’t dare attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I’ve got some work to do. Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”

Cohen’s epical endurance, his talent for standing at a remove from the march of time, nevertheless meant that the announcement of his actual death still came as a kind of shock. For nearly 50 years, this uncommonly gracious man had confounded expectations of what a singer-songwriter might look and sound like, of what he might sing about. There is a clichéd expectation that certain feted musicians will choose a path of self-destruction, and Cohen undoubtedly had moments when he found himself on that trajectory. Writing about Songs Of Love And Hate in a new piece for this Ultimate Music Guide, David Cavanagh portrays, “A brilliant madman on the precipice of disaster… Maybe, if you told him he had 45 more years of life and work ahead of him, it would be no surprise if he buckled and shook until his laughter turned into a scream.”

There would be further traumatic episodes, among them a legendary – if not notably successful – spell in the company of Phil Spector. Mostly, though, the story of Leonard Cohen is one of a great artist ruefully trying to make some sense of the mysteries of life and love; trying to persevere on a quest towards transcendence, with caveats.

It’s this quest that our latest Ultimate Music Guide seeks to understand and illuminate. Within its pages, you’ll find many interviews from the archives of NME, Melody Maker and Uncut, notable for their unusual levels of perception and wit, plus in-depth new reviews of every Leonard Cohen album, book and volume of poetry. What emerges is a complete portrait of a man who started and finished his career as too old for this sort of thing, by most measures, but whose maturity and poetic insight enabled him to loom, benignly, over nearly every single one of his peers. He is, indefinitely, your man.

Kaia Kater – Nine Pin

Michael Bonner
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Kaia Kater – Nine Pin
In cultural terms, Appalachia is often used to signify music from a specific area of the American South, namely the slanted trail through the Virginias, Kentucky and North Carolina. Less well acknowledged is the fact that the Appalachian Mountains extend north into the eastern lip of Canada, an area...

In cultural terms, Appalachia is often used to signify music from a specific area of the American South, namely the slanted trail through the Virginias, Kentucky and North Carolina. Less well acknowledged is the fact that the Appalachian Mountains extend north into the eastern lip of Canada, an area that includes Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Quebec. This geological belt has doubled as a musical one down the years, an exchange route that’s allowed folk ballads and traditional songs to pass back and forth across territorial lines.

The most striking new addition to this rich heritage is 23-year-old Kaia Kater. Born in Quebec to a Canadian mother and Caribbean father, Kater grew up listening to a broad range of styles – American rap, hip-hop, folk, soul – before devoting herself to the study of Appalachian music at college in West Virginia. Roots music runs particularly deep in the family, her fascination with old-time songs partly fostered by her mother’s directorship of Folk Music Canada, a job which has seen her captain the Ottawa and Winnipeg folk festivals.

Kater’s love of idiomatic rural music was neatly displayed on last year’s Sorrow Bound, a debut that blended new and traditional elements into an artfully understated whole. Its promise has now been fulfilled, in emphatic fashion, by Nine Pin, an extraordinary piece of work that posits Kater as a major new voice in folk-roots music. It’s a record that’s near-perfectly weighted between her rich, sorrowful tenor, clawhammer banjo-playing and a judicious use of brass and harmonies. And one made all the more remarkable considering that it was recorded in a single day during a winter break from college.

On one level, Kater belongs to the same lineage as people like Elizabeth Cotten, Alice Gerrard and Jean Ritchie, artists who expanded the province of women in the male-dominated environs of blues, folk and country. But she’s a modernist in the style of Gillian Welch or Rhiannon Giddens too, using traditional forms as infinitely malleable source material from which to shape something vivid and original. Her low gospel tones and fearless approach also align her to Nina Simone, a key influence both creatively and thematically.

This is most evident on the majestic “Rising Down”, a strident commentary on Black Lives Matter and the ongoing struggle for racial equality. “I am meat for the taking, in this town/But in my home, in my home/There are kings and queens and blessings”, Kater sings over a bony banjo line. The discreet swell of a trumpet, courtesy of Caleb Hamilton (a salient presence throughout), serves to underline the message of solidarity: “Your gun, your gun/Is a symbol of my lynching/But I won’t run, I won’t run/I will stand with my people, as one”. In its own quiet way, the song is a powerful corollary to Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam”.

Kater is a diarist of the lost and forsaken. “Paradise Fell”, her voice and banjo softly shaded with brass, backing harmonies and the electric guitar of co-producer Chris Bartos, addresses what it means to be a lonely soul in a new city, conceived as a belated companion to John Hartford’s mid-’70s gem, “In Tall Buildings”. The same theme informs “Harlem’s Little Blackbird”, a song made all the more hypnotic by being entirely centred around Kater’s voice and the foot percussion of Katharine Manor. It is also, surely, a tribute of sorts to 1920s Broadway sensation Florence Mills, the black starlet and passionate campaigner for equality, whose signature tune was “I’m A Little Blackbird Looking For A Bluebird”.

The caressive timbre of Kater’s vocals are offset by the sparsity of these arrangements. It’s a persuasively disquieting trade-off that feeds into the subject matter of the songs. She isn’t averse to a romantic ballad, for instance, but they often detail the kind of love that strays into dark and dangerous obsession. The beguiling “Saint Elizabeth”, a gothic tale about a sinful rogue infatuated with an angelic woman, never suggests a happy ending. “Can’t you hear me calling from beneath?” she sings, stalked by the muffled harmony of Joey Landreth. “With blackened frozen feet/White roses all around/And covered on the ground”. Like most everything on Nine Pin, it’s a strangely seductive proposal.

Q&A
KAIA KATER
Why does Appalachian music appeal to you so much?
I’ve been fascinated by narrative stories for a long time, especially ones that deal with violence or apocalyptic notions. The dichotomy of describing ugly or terrifying events with poetic language is amazing to me. There’s a stark, gothic element to a lot of Appalachian ballads that’s truly incredible. I studied Appalachian music and dance in West Virginia for four years, and was consistently fascinated by old baptist songs, or songs about labour and death, or murder ballads. There’s a depth to the music that seems to be so easily and quickly overlooked.

“Rising Down” is a key song here…
It was specifically written to reflect what I felt as a person of colour in America. I wanted to make a statement about Black Lives Matter and the horrors and injustices that black people face every day. Racism is not only a state of mind, but a base system through which America operates. It’s the prison-industry complex, forced ghettoisation, the repealing of the Voting Rights Act, the segregated school systems, the unchecked police brutality.

What were the advantages of recording the album in a single day?
My producer Chris Bartos came up with the idea to get a really tight band together, get a bunch of rehearsals in and do live takes. It was challenging, but I think it forced us to make some very good decisions about the sound we wanted and the aesthetic of the record. We were in and out of that studio in eight hours.
INTERVIEW: ROB HUGHES

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Jimmy Page on Plant, Zeppelin, The Yardbirds and his session work

Michael Bonner
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Jimmy Page on Plant, Zeppelin, The Yardbirds and his session work
Happy birthday, Jimmy Page! To mark Page's 73rd birthday today, it seemed a propitious moment to post the interview I conducted with Page in December, 2014 for our regular An Audience With... feature. Hope you enjoy it. Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner __________ By Jimmy Page’s standards, ...

Happy birthday, Jimmy Page! To mark Page’s 73rd birthday today, it seemed a propitious moment to post the interview I conducted with Page in December, 2014 for our regular An Audience With… feature.

Hope you enjoy it.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

__________

By Jimmy Page’s standards, 2014 has been a surprisingly busy year. He has overseen the launch of a lengthy Led Zeppelin reissue campaign, published his autobiography and even teamed up with designer Paul Smith for a range of limited edition Zeppelin scarves. Next year, he promises, there will even be the prospect of new music. “Time sometimes passes quite quickly,” he tells Uncut. Page will be 71 in January, but he looks in remarkably good shape. With his bronze tan, white ponytail and wide smile he resembles an old school Hollywood star recently returned from the south of France. Dressed in black, and taking occasional sips from a glass of sparkling mineral water, he is animated as he answers your questions on subjects ranging from deep Zeppelin album cuts to the prospect of a Yardbirds reunion, his formative musical inspirations and his extraordinary session work from the 1960s. Page even responds to Robert Plant’s claim – in these very pages – that he suggested reuniting with his former bandmate for an acoustic project… “It’s just spin,” says Page. “I don’t think it’s productive in any shape or form to what he’s doing or what I’m doing. Now on with your questions…

Reliving all of the wonderful moments from this cannon of music, which moment took you by surprise the most?
Michael Des Barres
A lot of it you think, ‘Well this might possibly happen, that might possibly happen.’ But I’d say as far the manifestation of it went, it was getting the first gold disc for Led Zeppelin, for Led Zeppelin 1. You were fully aware of gold discs and things like that, with artists that you were personally endeared to along the way, American artists. Suddenly everything that we’d done, all the work etcetera etcetera, we had broken America I know, but the fact is that gold disc I was so symbolic to everything for me, that was a major thing. It would have been a surprise if I had thought about it a year earlier maybe, because I wasn’t still in The Yardbirds, do you see what I mean?

Would you please show me how to play ‘Black Dog’? It’s been bothering me for a long time.
Brian May
Well, I’ll have to then if Brian’s asked! What are the chords for “Black Dog”? It’s in A, and then it sort of goes to an E chord but then while it’s snaking around it, it has some sort of little triplets that take you back into the A. So, yes, it’s tricky. You just have to sort of know how to count it.

Is there one guitar you’ve had that you feel is more magical than the rest?
J Mascis
I think most people would think it’s a 59 Les Paul because I bought that from Jed Walsh who insisted that I buy it off him in 1969, and I go into the second album with that. So “Whole Lotta Love” is done on it, and I also played it at the 02. Same guitar. I’m pretty loyal to my guitars you know, but then they’re pretty loyal to me to. But there are a number of guitars. There’s also an acoustic guitar that all of the first four albums were written on. So I mean that’s quite an important one. But as far as the one that people got to see then it’s the 59 Les Paul. How many guitars do I have? I don’t know. I don’t know! But I think the answer to it is, more than I can play at any one point in time. Even though I do have double necks so I can try and play more than at one time!

Read the setlist from the Celebrating David Bowie tribute concert

Michael Bonner
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Read the setlist from the Celebrating David Bowie tribute concert
To celebrate what would have been David Bowie's 70th birthday, a special tribute concert took place at Brixton Academy last night [January 8]. The show involved members of Bowie's former touring band, including Mike Garson, Gail Ann Dorsey, Gerry Leonard and Earl Slick, as well as other performers ...

To celebrate what would have been David Bowie‘s 70th birthday, a special tribute concert took place at Brixton Academy last night [January 8].

The show involved members of Bowie’s former touring band, including Mike Garson, Gail Ann Dorsey, Gerry Leonard and Earl Slick, as well as other performers including Adrian Below, La Roux, Gary Oldman and Simon Le Bon.

Other shows are due to take place in New York, Los Angeles, Sydney and Tokyo.

The setlist for Brixton Academy was:

‘Dead Man Walking’ – Gary Oldman
‘Rebel Rebel’ – Bernard Fowler
‘Sorrow’ – Gary Oldman and Joe Sumner
‘Five Years’ – Gaby Moreno
‘Golden Years’ – La Roux
‘Lady Grinning Soul’ – Holly Palmer
‘The Man Who Sold The World’ – Jeremy Little and Gary Oldman
‘Diamond Dogs’ – Bernard Fowler
‘Life On Mars’ – Tom Chaplin
‘Wild Is The Wind’ – Gaby Moreno
‘Young Americans’ – Gail Ann Dorsey & The London Community Gospel Choir
‘Ashes To Ashes’ – Angelo Moore
‘Win’ – Bernard Fowler & The London Community Gospel Choir
‘All The Young Dudes’ – Joe Elliot & The London Community Gospel Choir
‘Fame’ – Adrian Belew
‘Fashion’ – Alex Painter
‘Sound And Vision’ – Adrian Belew
‘Changes’ – Tony Hadley
‘Rock And Roll Suicide’ – Bernard Fowler
‘Where Are We Now’ – Holly Palmer
‘Stay’ – Bernard Fowler
‘Aladdin Sane’ – Gail Ann Dorsey
‘Space Oddity’ – Gain Ann Dorsey
‘Starman’ – Mr Hudson
‘D.J.’/’Boys Keep Swining’ – Adrian Belew
‘Ziggy Stardust’ – Angelo Moore
‘Moonage Daydream’ – Angelo Moore
‘Suffragette City’ – Joe Elliot
‘Heroes’ – Bernard Fowler
ENCORE:
‘Loving The Alien’ – Catherine Russell
Jean Genie – ‘Bernard Fowler
‘Let’s Dance’ – Simon Le Bon & The London Community Gospel Choir
‘Under Pressure’ – Joe Sumner, Catherine Russell & The London Community Gospel Choir

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Watch David Bowie’s “No Plan” video

Michael Bonner
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Watch David Bowie’s “No Plan” video
A new EP and video has been released to mark what would have been David Bowie's 70th birthday today. The No Plan EP brings together the four songs that feature in the Lazarus musical: "No Plan", "Killing A Little Time", "When I Met You" and the title song. In the video for "No Plan" - which has be...

A new EP and video has been released to mark what would have been David Bowie‘s 70th birthday today.

The No Plan EP brings together the four songs that feature in the Lazarus musical: “No Plan“, “Killing A Little Time“, “When I Met You” and the title song.

In the video for “No Plan” – which has been directed by Tom Hingston – the song’s lyrics are broadcast via rows of televisions sets in Newton Electrical – a nod to Bowie’s character in The Man Who Fell To Earth and Lazarus – while onlookers gather outside the shop.

The EP is available in digital form only through Columbia and Sony.

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

David Bowie remembers Berlin: “I can’t express the feeling of freedom I felt there”

Rob Hughes
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David Bowie remembers Berlin: “I can’t express the feeling of freedom I felt there”
"My complete being is within those three albums." Rob Hughes and Stephen Dalton uncover the complete story of Bowie's life-saving escape to Berlin. How he turned Iggy Pop into a health freak, embraced Brian Eno's "oblique strategies", documented Tony Visconti's indiscretions, and made a fearless and...

“My complete being is within those three albums.” Rob Hughes and Stephen Dalton uncover the complete story of Bowie’s life-saving escape to Berlin. How he turned Iggy Pop into a health freak, embraced Brian Eno’s “oblique strategies”, documented Tony Visconti’s indiscretions, and made a fearless and remarkable trilogy… Originally published in Uncut’s April 2001 issue. Words: Stephen Dalton and Rob Hughes

______________________________

Berlin, 1976. Strung out and fiercely paranoid, David Bowie is convinced he has been royally screwed by a coke supplier over a deal. Cruising the city’s main drag, the Kurfürstendamm, in the rusty old open-topped Mercedes bought for him by faithful sidekicks Iggy “Jimmy” Pop and Corinne “Coco” Schwab, he spots the dealer in his car. Seething and possessed, Bowie rams his prey’s car mercilessly. Then he rams it again. And again. Then again and again and again.

“He looked around every second and I could see he was mortally terrified for his life,” Bowie would recall to a theatre audience assembled for his Bowie At The Beeb concert in 2000. “I rammed him for a good five to ten minutes. Nobody stopped me. Nobody did anything.”

Bowie finally comes to his senses and quits the crash scene before it gets ugly, but that same night he reaches “some kind of spiritual impasse”. He finds himself in a hotel garage, his foot jammed on the gas, racing around in circles at lunatic speed. The frazzled star decides, “this is so Kirk Douglas in that film where he lets go of the steering wheel.” So then, of course, he lets go of the wheel. But just as he does, the Mercedes runs out of petrol and splutters to a standstill. “Oh God,” Bowie sobs. “This is the story of my life!”

But he’s wrong. Because instead of running on empty, Bowie will now write a harrowing confessional called “Always Crashing In The Same Car”. And instead of dying at his peak, he will pick up the shattered pieces of his mind and distil them into the three most cathartic, challenging, influential, and plain magical albums of his career. And instead of becoming just another ’70s rock casualty, Bowie will fuse punk with electronica, black magic with white noise, amphetamine psychosis with spiritual healing. And, as a by-product of this process, he will accidentally invent the future of rock.

But just now, slumped over his steering wheel in a Berlin car park, Bowie is at the lowest point of a very bleak period. “As it happens,” he will later confess with gallows humour. “Things picked up after that.”

Did they ever.

Lee Hazlewood – Cowboy In Sweden

Jason Anderson
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Lee Hazlewood – Cowboy In Sweden
In several scenes in Cowboy In Sweden – a TV special that undoubtedly confounded many Scandinavians when it first aired in 1970 – Lee Hazlewood drops the horse-riding, mystic-cowpoke-Casanova schtick that he uses for most of his screentime in favour of a different guise. Instead, he’s the wry ...

In several scenes in Cowboy In Sweden – a TV special that undoubtedly confounded many Scandinavians when it first aired in 1970 – Lee Hazlewood drops the horse-riding, mystic-cowpoke-Casanova schtick that he uses for most of his screentime in favour of a different guise. Instead, he’s the wry American newcomer who marvels at the traits and traditions that best define Sweden. And though he’s clearly most enthused about the beautiful women he’s forever ogling, he’s just as keen on the midsommar celebrations and “the genius Ingmar Bergman”.

While standing on a Stockholm street, Hazlewood praises another hallmark of Swedishness. “Y’know,” drawls the denim-clad Oklahoman to the viewers at home, “if you make a good movie, chances are at the end of the year you’ll win an Oscar. And if you discover something that’s kind of important, well, chances are again they’ll give you an Alfred… an Alfred Nobel, sometimes known as the Nobel Prize. Now, I’ve been doing a little research….” He pauses to blows dust off the book he’s holding. “…And I found out one thing: there’s no category for song. And that’s really too bad cuz I think this next song ought to get me an Alfred.”

Suffice to say, the song in question – “No Train To Stockholm”, an exquisitely winsome country-pop ballad specially crafted to further Hazlewood’s popularity in his newly adopted home – did not win a Nobel Prize. And if Hazlewood was still around today when the committee members finally gave one to a songwriter nearly 50 years after he made his bid, he’d have been none too happy to see his Alfred go to another American. (Nor would there have been any doubts about Lee showing up at the ceremony to accept his prize money.)

At least the old salt could take pleasure in knowing Cowboy In Sweden has so many admirers far from Uppsala. Light In The Attic’s Lee Hazlewood Archival Series first made the TV special and its soundtrack available as part of 2013’s Grammy-nominated There’s A Dream I’ve Been Saving: Lee Hazlewood Industries, its massive history of the largely hit-less record company that Hazlewood launched at the height of his success in 1966 but was hitting the ditch by the time he emigrated to Sweden. The move was precipitated for many reasons, including Hazlewood’s anxieties about the escalating war in Vietnam and his teenage son nearing draft age. Yet the land of the midnight sun clearly represented a fresh start to Hazlewood in professional and personal terms, the collapse of LHI and his European travels coinciding with his breakup with longtime muse and business partner Suzi Jane Hokom. Such was the extent of their estrangement, Hokom’s one scene in Cowboy In Sweden – performing “For A Day Like Today”, LHI’s final 45 – was filmed in the fjord-less location of San Bernardino, California.

Presented here in a single CD/LP edition with alternate versions of two tracks, Cowboy In Sweden was primarily intended for the Swedish market, a strategy flagged by the inclusion of songs like “Vem Kan Segla (I Can Sail Without The Wind)”, a half-English, a half-Swedish duet with Nina Lizell, his comely blonde co-star. Adding to the air of hastily-assembled-cash-in was the presence of several songs that had already appeared on recent Hazlewood albums, including “Forget Marie”, a forlorn and gorgeous number that he’d recorded in Paris for 1968’s Love & Other Crimes.

Suspicions may be raised by the disc’s provenance and the many ridiculous moments in the special, which also included guest performers such as the George Baker Selection, whose frontman gamely mouths the lyrics to the Dutch band’s hit “Little Green Bag” in a restaurant while apparently waiting for lunch (you can savour it all on the DVD in the deluxe edition). Yet Cowboy In Sweden is frequently astonishing as a testament to Hazlewood’s continued prowess as a performer, writer and producer, despite the atmosphere of disarray during LHI’s death throes.

An idiosyncratic take on a prison blues (refashioned as a weirdly funky jam in an alternate version), “Pray Them Bars Away” vividly demonstrates the wonders Hazlewood could achieve by combining his bullfrog baritone with his baroque, psych-folk spin on the orchestral-country sound that had been pioneered by Owen Bradley in the 1950s. A romantic melodrama repackaged as pocket symphony, “The Night Before” sees Hazlewood take on the guise of regret-filled lover, surrounded by “empty wine bottles” that “stand accusing on the floor”. “What’s More I Don’t Need Her” was recorded during sessions with Shel Talmy and a team of English sessioneers that included Nicky Hopkins. A bewitching piece of silver-plated spite augmented with harpsichord, horns and a backing chorus of cooing females, it anticipates Hazlewood’s Hokom-inspired lamentations on Requiem For An Almost Lady, the 1971 fan favourite that was also released only in Sweden.

Even the most cravenly Scandinavian songs are richer than they have any right to be. One of the three songs with Lizell, “Hey Cowboy” has much goofy charm thanks to Hazlewood’s laconic hipster-on-a-horse routine, which works much better without the cringe-worthy visuals. Sung from the perspective of an American draftee who has little chance of escaping the fate that Hazlewood feared for his son, “No Train For Stockholm” boasts a poignancy that may be surprising given Cowboy In Sweden’s kitschier trappings. Whether the song merited an Alfred is another matter, but like the rest of the music here, it should’ve earned him a lifetime’s supply of gravlax.

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Alison Krauss announces new album, Windy City

Michael Bonner
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Alison Krauss announces new album, Windy City
Alison Krauss has announced details of her new album, Windy City. Released on March 3 through Decca/Capitol, it is her first solo record in 17 years. The album contains 10 covers of songs previously recorded by the likes of Ray Charles, Willie Nelson and Glen Campbell and has been produced by Budd...

Alison Krauss has announced details of her new album, Windy City.

Released on March 3 through Decca/Capitol, it is her first solo record in 17 years.

The album contains 10 covers of songs previously recorded by the likes of Ray Charles, Willie Nelson and Glen Campbell and has been produced by Buddy Cannon.

Windy City tracklisting:

“Losing You”
Written by Pierre Havet, Jean Renard and Carl Sigman. Originally recorded by Brenda Lee for her 1963 album Let Me Sing.

“It’s Goodbye And So Long To You”
Written by Raymond Couture and Harold J. Breau in 1952. Originally recorded by The Osborne Brothers with Mac Wiseman, it appears on their 1979 collection The Essential Bluegrass Album.

“Windy City”
Written by Pete Goble and Bobby Osborne. Originally recorded by The Osborne Brothers for their 1972 album Bobby And Sonny.

“I Never Cared For You”
Written and originally recorded by Willie Nelson in 1964 as a single for Monument Records.

“River In The Rain”
Written by Roger Miller for the 1985 Broadway musical, Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

“Dream Of Me”
Written by Buddy Cannon, Jimmy Darrell & Raleigh Squires. Was a top 10 single on Vern Gosdin’s 1981 album, Today My World Slipped Away.

“Gentle On My Mind”
Written and recorded by John Hartford for his 1967 album, Earthwords & Music. It was popularized by Glen Campbell as the title track of his 1967 Capitol Records album.

“All Alone Am I”
Originally written by Manos Hadjidakis for the film The Island Of The Brave, the song was later given English lyrics by Arthur Altman and popularized by Brenda Lee as the title track of her 1962 album.

“Poison Love”
Written by Elmer Laird. Originally recorded by Bill Monroe as the b-side to his “On The Old Kentucky Shore” single released in 1951.

“You Don’t Know Me”
Written by Cindy Walker & Eddy Arnold. Originally recorded by Arnold in 1955 as a single, it was later popularized by Ray Charles on his 1962 album, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music.

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

The First Uncut Playlist Of 2017

John Mulvey
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The First Uncut Playlist Of 2017
First playlist of the new year here, then, with a bunch of new arrivals to make 2017 a bit more manageable. Still can’t recommend enough the amazing Hurray For The Riff Raff album, but quick notes about some of the most notable additions this week: Julia Holter’s kind of live album, with lovely ...

First playlist of the new year here, then, with a bunch of new arrivals to make 2017 a bit more manageable. Still can’t recommend enough the amazing Hurray For The Riff Raff album, but quick notes about some of the most notable additions this week: Julia Holter’s kind of live album, with lovely and spare rearrangements of some of her best songs; an album at last from Sheer Mag, albeit a singles comp; Matthew Barlow’s “Sound Meditations”, a new New Age gem that I was alerted to via some end of 2016 round-ups (check it out on Bandcamp; it’s a very limited edition cassette otherwise); and, best of all, a fantastic Elliott Smith song that’s surfaced for the 20th anniversary upgrade of Either/Or. By coincidence, I’ve been playing that album at home a lot these past few weeks. Looking forward to writing about it again.

Follow me on Twitter @JohnRMulvey

1 Various Artists – The Hired Hands: A Tribute To Bruce Langhorne (Scissor Tail/Bandcamp)

2 William Basinski – A Shadow In Time (Temporary Residence)

3 Blanck Mass – World Eater (Sacred Bones)

4 Hurray For The Riff Raff – The Navigator (ATO)

5 Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita – Transparent Water (World Village/Harmonia Mundi)

6 Son Volt – Note Of Blue (Thirty Tigers)

7 Julia Holter – In The Same Room (Domino)

8 Matthew Barlow – Sound Meditations (Bandcamp)

9 Various Artists – Outro Tempo: Electronic and Contemporary Music From Brazil, 1978-1992 (Light In The Attic)

10 Jesus & Mary Chain – Amputation (ADA/Warner)

11 Various Artists – Stick In The Wheel Present From Here: English Folk Field Recordings (From Here)

12 Elliott Smith – I Figured You Out (Kill Rock Stars)

13 Brian Eno – Reflection (Warp)

14 Sheer Mag – Compilation LP (Static Shock)

15 Laura Marling – Semper Femina (More Alarming/Kobalt)

16 Les Amazones d’Afrique – République Amazone (Real World)

17 Grails – Chalice Hymnal (Temporary Residence)

18 Michael Chapman – 50 (Paradise Of Bachelors)

19 The Shins – Heartworms (Aural Apothecary/Columbia)

20 Sleaford Mods – English Tapas (Rough Trade)

21 High Plains – Cinderland (Kranky)

 

David Bowie: The Last Five Years previewed

Michael Bonner
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David Bowie: The Last Five Years previewed
The film David Bowie: The Last Five Years screens at 9pm on BBC2 tomorrow night [January 7] - the day before what would have been the singer’s 70th birthday. This is the follow-up from the BBC's previous Bowie documentary, David Bowie: Five Years, which was broadcast in 2013 and focused on the ye...

The film David Bowie: The Last Five Years screens at 9pm on BBC2 tomorrow night [January 7] – the day before what would have been the singer’s 70th birthday.

This is the follow-up from the BBC’s previous Bowie documentary, David Bowie: Five Years, which was broadcast in 2013 and focused on the years between 1971 and 1983. Here, filmmaker Francis Whatley – who directed both films – tells us what we can expect from his latest documentary and also about his own long relationship with David Bowie.

You can read more about the documentary in the new issue of Uncut, which is now in shops and available to buy digitally

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

When did you first meet Bowie?
The BBC ran these short films, before Newsnight, about two minutes long. I was given a set of ones about modern British sculpture which I thought was a hard call. I didn’t know quite what to do. I was young and green, so I said to my boss ‘Who should I ask..’ they wanted them all celebrity driven. He said, “Write to your heroes.” So I wrote to David Bowie. It was before the days of emails, so I must have sent him a fax or a letter. He phoned me immediately and said, ‘I’d love to do this, Francis.’ I offered him a choice of artwork and he picked something called Sacred, which was a stone slab in a wood in Wiltshire by a man called Richard Devereux which had the word ‘Sacred’ written on it. I went down there and got up very, very early in the morning and filmed this piece of stone from every angle possible and he put some music on it and wrote this piece on it, and it was rather poetic and rather beautiful. That was how the relationship started.

When was this?
Mid-1990s, I guess. Around that time he phoned me quite often. It was at the height of his modern painters art loving period. Because I’d worked in the art world before I joined television, and because I was interested in modern British art, we talked about that sort of thing. Then we did an Omnibus film together on Stanley Spencer. We were going to do this big art project for the BBC and it fell through, unfortunately. But we remained in touch, right up to the very end. I got an email from him November last year. The BBC had announced these massive redundancies and he wrote me a note saying, if the BBC had any sense they’d keep me for life. It was a very nice note from someone who was very, very ill. So that was how I knew him and we remained in touch, just swapping books and plays we’d seen or whatever.

A very informal relationship, outside of his normal area of business?
Yes. He knew I was a fan but we didn’t talk about music. I think that’s what kept the relationship going the way it did, because he knew I didn’t want anything from him. I think those people were probably quite rare in his life. He knew I was making the first film. But he didn’t contribute. But he was very happy with the result and wrote to me as soon as it came out. He had wanted a copy in advance, or his management wanted a copy in advance. But I said no that’s not possible because of the way the BBC works, we’re not allowed to do that. So I made sure he had a copy delivered to his flat, so that he had one at the same time in New York that the British would have been watching it on TV. He was very pleased and wrote to me immediately to say how proud he was of me and of the film. Which was very nice and very touching because I didn’t make it for anyone really. I made it for the audience, obviously, but it wasn’t there to serve the record company or anyone else. I tried hard to avoid hagiography; but it is hard to avoid the brilliance of that man.

The Doors announce 50th anniversary edition of their debut album

Michael Bonner
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The Doors announce 50th anniversary edition of their debut album
The Doors are to release a 50th anniversary deluxe edition of their debut album on March 31. Packaged in a 12 x 12 hardcover book, the album includes a remastered version of the album’s original stereo mix, available on CD for the first time in a decade and remastered for the first time in nearl...

The Doors are to release a 50th anniversary deluxe edition of their debut album on March 31.

Packaged in a 12 x 12 hardcover book, the album includes a remastered version of the album’s original stereo mix, available on CD for the first time in a decade and remastered for the first time in nearly 30 years.

The album’s original mono mix was also remastered for this set and is making its CD debut here.

An LP-version of the mono mix is also included. The third disc features live performance from The Matrix in San Francisco recorded just weeks after The Doors was released.

The Matrix recordings heard on this deluxe edition were sourced from the recently discovered, original tapes.

THE DOORS (50TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION) track listing:

Disc One (Original Stereo Mix)
Disc Two (Original Mono Mix)
“Break On Through (To The Other Side)”
“Soul Kitchen”
“The Crystal Ship”
“Twentieth Century Fox”
“Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”
“Light My Fire”
“Back Door Man”
“I Looked At You”
“End Of The Night”
“Take It As It Comes”
“The End”

Disc Three: Live At The Matrix, March 7, 1967
“Break On Through (To The Other Side)”
“Soul Kitchen”
“The Crystal Ship”
“Twentieth Century Fox”
“Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”
“Light My Fire”
“Back Door Man”
“The End”

LP (Original Mono Mix)
Side One
“Break On Through (To The Other Side)”
“Soul Kitchen”
“The Crystal Ship”
“Twentieth Century Fox”
“Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”
“Light My Fire”

Side Two
“Back Door Man”
“I Looked At You”
“End Of The Night”
“Take It As It Comes”
“The End”

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Erykah Badu – Baduizm/Mama’s Gun

Neil Spencer
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Erykah Badu – Baduizm/Mama’s Gun
Midway through the 1990s, black America rediscovered its soul. It had never been entirely misplaced of course, but after years of gangsta rap wars and formulaic R&B singers, it felt that way. Where was the legacy of ‘conscious’ soul pioneers like Marvin, Curtis and Aretha? Not in Mary J Blig...

Midway through the 1990s, black America rediscovered its soul. It had never been entirely misplaced of course, but after years of gangsta rap wars and formulaic R&B singers, it felt that way. Where was the legacy of ‘conscious’ soul pioneers like Marvin, Curtis and Aretha? Not in Mary J Blige’s tiresome melismas.

Enter ‘neo-soul’, a term minted by Motown mogul Kedar Massenburg to promote D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar album in 1995. The record lived up to the hype, authenticity seeping from its meld of mellow vocals, hip-hop attitude and fat grooves.

Yet the real game-changer for neo-soul was Erykah Badu’s Baduizm, again overseen by Massenberg. Led by a mesmeric single, “On And On”, Baduizm made an instant star of its creator, a previously obscure 26-year-old from Dallas. From the start, Badu was different. She was as much jazz singer as soul crooner, singing against the beat, and emulating her idol Nina Simone on socially conscious tunes like “The Other Side Of The Game”, a portrait of an abusive relationship. With her gowns, elaborate headwraps and catwalk beauty, Badu was a revelation, her persona hovering enticingly somewhere between Billie Holiday and Nefertiti.

Badu was both soul queen and shamanic shape-shifter, her ability to swap personas useful on her videos. That for “On And On” featured her as old-time hayseed and nightclub sophisticate. Still her signature tune two decades later, “On And On” also presented Badu as a soothsayer singing in riddles, one moment crooning about “belief in God”, the next assuring us she was “Born underwater with three dollars and six dimes”. What could she mean? “Yeah, you may laugh, ’cos you did not do your math,” comes the taunt.

Badu’s birthday – February 26, 1971 – holds the key. As a Piscean, she was indeed born underwater, while her six dollars and six dimes add up to the zodiac’s 360-degree circle of the zodiac. “I really dig astrology,” Erykah confirmed later.

Returning to Baduizm on vinyl is to be reminded what an extraordinary, self-directed affair it is. Its stripped-down grooves rely on little more than a rhythm section plus Badu’s keyboards, and when Badu sings, she has a backing chorus of multi-tracked mini-Erykahs to keep her company.

Its 14 tracks, now presented over four sides of vinyl for the first time, include some longeurs – “4 Leaf Clover” and “No Love” are routine love calls – but its best songs are strikingly original, while its sprinkle of interludes punch above their two-minute weight. “Afro Freestyle Skit”, for example, sets a doodle on hairstyle to a New Orleans horn.

“Next Lifetime” is sung by a woman in a committed relationship confronted with an attractive alternative. She can’t two-time her partner, so it’s “See ya next lifetime”. The trickiest number here is “Certainly”, its deceptively simple lyrics apparently describing a woman uninterested in the love affair being pressed upon her: “I was not looking for no love affair, papa”. Then Erykah spilt the beans that the song is about African-American history, the unwanted love affair the slave trade with date-rape (“you slipped me a mickey”) as the brutality of slavery.

Badu brought dignity and intelligence back into soul, R&B, and hip-hop – the boundaries were increasingly blurred – and her ‘conscious’ stance, which extended to her promoting vegetarian whole foods, found many echoes. Lauryn Hill’s 1998 killer, The Miseducation Of, was a case in point.

By the time of Mama’s Gun, released in 2000, D’Angelo, Badu and hip-hopper Common were calling themselves ‘Soulquarians’. The quest for authenticity lead all three to record albums at New York’s Electric Ladyland studios, Hendrix’s old place still being furnished with analogue equipment.

A spirit of collaboration runs through D’Angelo’s Voodoo, Common’s Like Water For Chocolate, and Mama’s Gun, whose tracks are more often the work of Badu alone but come littered with guests; hip-hopper Jay Dee on “Don’t Cha Know”, Stephen Marley evoking his father on the duet of “I’m In Love With You”.

Mama’s Gun doesn’t wander too far from the grooves of Baduizm, though its stalking bass and abrupt horn flurries sometimes recall Fresh-era Sly Stone. While its songs were praised for being more intelligible, the mystery of Baduizm was missing. And it lacked a demon single, the nearest thing being “Bag Lady”, which begins as a cameo of a hapless street dweller before blooming into a sly critique of sisters – “Gucci bag lady, Nickel bag lady” – who can’t let go of emotional baggage.

“Cleva” and “Booty” turn R&B’s penchant for sexual conquest on its head, the former advising “This is how I look with no make-up and no bra”. By contrast, “Orange Moon” and “I’m In Love With You” play it sweet. It’s a romantic album, made after the birth of Badu’s first child. Its mixed critical reception and ‘disappointing’ sales’ – one and a half million in the US alone – left Badu nonplussed. So what? It was a piece of her art, her life. There would be others. As there have been, a trail of albums and children and, recently, a course in midwifery. What a woman.

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Patti Smith, Iggy Pop to appear in Terrence Malick’s music drama

Michael Bonner
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Patti Smith, Iggy Pop to appear in Terrence Malick’s music drama
Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Florence and the Machine and more are set to appear in Terrence Malick's new film, a music drama called Song By Song. According to IndieWire, the film will open in the US in March. Here’s the premise: “In this modern love story set against the Aus...

Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Florence and the Machine and more are set to appear in Terrence Malick‘s new film, a music drama called Song By Song.

According to IndieWire, the film will open in the US in March.

Here’s the premise: “In this modern love story set against the Austin, Texas music scene, two entangled couples — struggling songwriters Faye (Rooney Mara) and BV (Ryan Gosling), and music mogul Cook (Michael Fassbender) and the waitress whom he ensnares (Natalie Portman) — chase success through a rock ‘n’ roll landscape of seduction and betrayal.”

Malick has been working on the project for more than five years. Pitchfork reports that the director filmed during multiple festivals and shows in Austin as early as 2011.

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

Introducing The History Of Rock 1983

John Mulvey
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Introducing The History Of Rock 1983
Happy new year, everyone: we trust our Albums Of 2016 and Reissues Of 2016 might have come in useful over the seasonal period. Our latest edition of Uncut sneaked out just before Christmas, and is still around, featuring as it does a magisterial Leonard Cohen tribute, a survey of 50 great modern pro...

Happy new year, everyone: we trust our Albums Of 2016 and Reissues Of 2016 might have come in useful over the seasonal period. Our latest edition of Uncut sneaked out just before Christmas, and is still around, featuring as it does a magisterial Leonard Cohen tribute, a survey of 50 great modern protest songs (plus accompanying free CD), lots of Bowie anniversary activity, a lost Leon Russell interview, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall and an invaluable guide to 2017’s key releases.

To accompany that, we have the latest volume of The History Of Rock dropping into UK shops this Thursday (though you should be able to order it from our online shop). The year this issue deals with is 1983, hence the pensive appearance of “Let’s Dance”-era Bowie on the cover. The Cure, Paul Weller, The Birthday Party, Ozzy Osbourne, The Smiths, New Order, John Lydon, Fela Kuti, U2, Robert Wyatt, The Pogues, Sun Ra, Black Flag and Madonna also figure in the usual packed, eclectic mix. Here, as usual, is John Robinson to do the formal introductions…

“Welcome to 1983. David Bowie has decided to stop experimenting. After a dozen years of unpredictable musical strategy, his every move giving rise to – as he has himself put it – ‘whole schools of pretension’, he has returned, effectively, to earth. Perhaps even gone back in time a little.

“That’s the impression this month’s cover star gives when he convenes a press conference to announce his forthcoming live dates. Fatherhood, listening to jazz, new experiences in Australia… It’s all left him with an urge to have his music connect with people in a less intellectual fashion, to speak more from the heart. His new music now nods to soul and R&B.

“It’s a noble plan, and one in which Bowie, even if he is ahead of the curve, is not alone. This year, the likes of Paul Weller, U2, Black Flag, Fela Kuti, REM and The Smiths – strange bedfellows otherwise – are all united by a sense of mission, even manifesto in their music. Or as Henry Rollins from Black Flag puts it: ‘Putting your ass on the line for a bunch of people you don’t even know.’

“Their talk is of revelation, personal truth and winning converts, and both Bowie and the enduring Curtis Mayfield, a star for the past 25 years, imply how it all might be achieved with a certain grace. Not that life skating on the surface is all bad. In their different ways, New Order, Duran Duran, Eurythmics and Frankie Goes To Hollywood all show how it might be done while having fun.

“This is the world of The History Of Rock, a monthly magazine which follows each turn of the rock revolution. Whether in sleazy dive or huge arena, passionate and increasingly 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 from our online shop. In the pages of this 18th edition, dedicated to 1983, you will find verbatim articles from frontline staffers, filed from the thick of the action, wherever that may be.

“Perhaps Nick Cave’s sick bed on a sofa in the TV room. It might mean talking gangs with Afrika Bambaata or drink with Shane MacGowan. Even sharing a stately, old- world joke with David Bowie.

“’You’re part Swiss?’ he enquires of an NME writer. ‘Which part?’”

The Band – The Last Waltz 40th Anniversary Edition

Stephen Deusner
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The Band – The Last Waltz 40th Anniversary Edition
By the mid-1970s, The Band were falling apart. The quality of their albums had declined precipitously since they left the East Coast for the beaches of California, and the more they toured, the more they consumed – and were consumed by – drugs, alcohol, recklessness and ego. Robbie Robertson, gu...

By the mid-1970s, The Band were falling apart. The quality of their albums had declined precipitously since they left the East Coast for the beaches of California, and the more they toured, the more they consumed – and were consumed by – drugs, alcohol, recklessness and ego. Robbie Robertson, guitarist and chief lyricist, was burned out. “I had started to contemplate the idea that we might need to get off the road before something really bad happened,” he writes in his new memoir, Testimony. “Somewhere along the way we had lost our unity and our passion to reach higher. Self-destructive had become the power that ruled us.”

Robertson hatched the idea for a final concert, a celebration of The Band’s music that would showcase them as both an independent unit and a support group for a range of their heroes and contemporaries. Not everyone was on board with the decision (in his own memoir, This Wheel’s On Fire, drummer Levon Helm in particular objects to it), but for Robertson it was a means of closing one chapter of their careers together and hopefully opening another. The members of The Band had, after all, been playing together for 16 years. Starting in 1960, the teenagers cut their teeth backing rockabilly wild man Ronnie Hawkins on the rowdy roadhouse circuit. Later in the decade they helped Bob Dylan go electric, but turning folk into rock and enduring the cries of “Judas!” proved a punishing gig that got under drummer Levon Helm’s thick skin. He temporarily retreated to a more relaxing job on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Gradually they grew into their own self-contained unit, adopting the modest moniker The Band. Initially there was no frontman, no assigned roles. Everybody except keyboardist Garth Hudson sang, everybody except Robertson switched off instruments. Their first two albums, including the recordings they made with Dylan in Woodstock, formed the bedrock of what we now call Americana: The Band not only mined old veins of traditional American music but set their songs in some wildly imagined past, at a distance from the political and social realities of the 1960s and ’70s.

For a group devoted to democracy and anonymity – to the suppression of self in pursuit of new American music – the idea of celebrating their legacy just seven years after their public debut as The Band might seem like an insurmountable contradiction, and The Last Waltz could have been a folly, both logistically and conceptually. A modest farewell concert quickly ballooned into an elaborate send-off that included an actual Thanksgiving dinner for thousands of fans, an impressive roster of guest vocalists, a concert film directed by Martin Scorsese and a triple live album that cemented The Band’s legacy.

It’s one of rock’s true miracles that The Last Waltz didn’t end in disaster. Somehow both the album and the film have become landmarks, to the extent that the death of The Band might actually overshadow its life. Every lesson these five musicians learned during those 16 years together comes through on The Last Waltz, which is receiving a deluxe edition on its 40th anniversary: four CDs of live, studio, and rehearsal cuts along with new liners and, in some editions, a hardbound copy of Scorsese’s shooting script. While the tracklist is based largely on the 2002 boxset, the music has been remastered to underscore the dynamic between The Band members. In fact, Scorsese’s film is shot to emphasize the easy communication between the players, who nod, signal, and count off to one another like seasoned pros – which, even in their early thirties, they already were.

Helm and bassist Rick Danko comprise a rhythm section that’s somehow tight and loose at the same time, with Robertson adding flourishes of bluesy guitar, Richard Manuel playing piano, and Hudson tying everything together with almost supernatural ingenuity. Songs like “The Weight” (recorded later in a studio with the Staples) and “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down” benefit from this democratic approach, which means the singers don’t act as frontmen and there’s almost no soloing. When Robertson does trade licks with Eric Clapton, these results are stiff, a bit awkward, out of place.

The Band was originally a backing band, tailoring their performances to complement whoever happened to be fronting them at any moment. Hawkins, the man who more or less assembled the group, shows up and they let him nearly steal the show with a crazed version of signature hit “Who Do You Love”. With his graying hair barely contained under a weathered cowboy hat, he projects an outsize personality that seems bigger than the stage, bigger than the whole Winterland in fact. And towards the end of the show, Dylan joins them for a few numbers, including a version of “Forever Young” whose sentimentality brings the proceedings to a standstill – and not in a good way. Everybody sounds wilier and wilder on “Let Me Follow You Down” and “Hazel”, each instrument contributing to a weirder, more reckless sound.

There’s something exciting about the ease and fluidity with which The Band toggle between headliners and backing group. They inject some funk and life into the start-stop riff of Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy” and maneuver deftly through the tricky chord changes of Joni Mitchell’s “Coyote”. Best of all might be Neil Young, whose “Helpless” not only assays the beauty of the Canadian landscape but ends with a stirring singalong chorus. They closed the night with an impromptu rendition of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released”, calling all their friends onstage for that hymn-like refrain, then they performed only one encore, their cover of the Holland-Dozier-Holland hit “Don’t Do It”, chosen more for its ironic commentary than as a big moment. It’s an almost charmingly unceremonious end to a highly ceremonious evening, yet even now it’s hard to discern whether The Last Waltz as an album is as good as it purports to be, if its reputation might not derive more from the momentousness of the occasion than from the music it contains.

Q&A
ROBBIE ROBERTSON
What was going on with The Band in 1976? What precipitated the idea for The Last Waltz?
We wanted to come to some kind of a crossroads, some place where we could bring some things to a conclusion and find some freshness, some inspiration, some excitement. What can be exciting and what can be next for us? Then there’s the combination of just being a little burnt out and tired on being on this routine. You make a record, you go out and you do a tour; you make a record, you go out and you do a tour. It’s a bit of a merry-go-round.
During that period in the ’70s, a lot of our friends had died, so you think, Jesus, we have to find some way to pull over to the side of the road before we get run over. A couple of guys in The Band were having some health issues and addiction issues. So I came up with the idea to just get off the road. There’s a lot going on out there and it wasn’t healthy. It seemed like every place that we played there were packs of people that would show up and they were a bit demonic, to be honest about it. They were coming around with drugs and all kinds of stuff. It was a temptation. And we weren’t like, be gone, you devils! It was more like, come on in! I thought, you know what, let’s bring this episode in our lives to a conclusion in a real musical and graceful way. Let’s pay thanks. Let’s honor what an incredible journey we’ve had.

How did it start out?
In Testimony, I go into specific detail on what was going on behind the curtain. It was a long ordeal, but it was a magical ordeal as well. It started from a very simple place, a very basic place, and you plant those seeds and then you see how they grow. I thought we could get a few nice flowers out of this, and it turned out to be a beanstalk. We were just going to invite Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan and do a concert. Those two guys had meant the world to us in our musical journey. But then somebody would say, we can’t do this and not invite Eric Clapton. He’s been so supportive. Then somebody else would say, we’re not going to do this and not invite Van Morrison. It went on and on, and each stage of it grew in a very natural way. Nobody was thinking about how to make it big. We were just trying to do something beautiful. I thought, if we’re going to do this thing, we better document it just for the archives. Everything just kept growing, but it never felt like it was losing its way or its meaning. It all seemed to be getting closer to its meaning. I felt like I had to follow this path to its conclusion.

Can you tell me a little bit about devising the setlist for the show?
You just choose what feels the most natural at the time. There were a lot more songs than were in the movie. We shot what we could, but you couldn’t shoot everything or those cameras would just overheat and stop working. So we had to figure out a system. There had to be some sacrifices made with the songs we chose to play. All of it just came out of being in the moment – what we felt like we could really dig our hooks into at the time.

What was it like to revisit this era in The Band’s history for Testimony?
I found at a really young age that I had a certain kind of memory. If I use it, I can go back in time and go to a particular scene and I can remember what people were wearing. I can remember what people were saying. It’s almost like I just have to aim my sights at it. If I do have it stored in the attic of my memory, I can go there. Writing this book has been the most joyous use of that gift of memory. Some of it was very painful, but I felt like if I could relive it and write it in an honest way, I could unload some of that heaviness I’ve been carrying around with me all my life. I felt like it would be good for me to just set these stories free. I’m going to get a little more pep in my step. Writing this book was psychologically uplifting. It wasn’t all peaches and cream, but I had to be honest about it.

One part of Testimony that stood out to me was near the end. It’s after the final show, but you’ve still got some sessions to rehearse. You’re at the studio, but nobody else shows up.
That was the writing on the wall. You have to read the signs, and that said something to me. I didn’t know at that time that it was final, but it was a sign. It was a sign of what was to come. Eventually everybody had these cool projects, which is good. We thought we might come back after everybody feels good about it and did these things they wanted to do, but nobody came back.
INTERVIEW: STEPHEN DEUSNER

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews

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