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World exclusive! Watch the Grateful Dead play “Shakedown Street” from their Fare Thee Well tour

Michael Bonner
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World exclusive! Watch the Grateful Dead play “Shakedown Street” from their Fare Thee Well tour
Welcome to the third in our series of Grateful Dead premieres, which coincide with the release of the band's final concerts at Soldier's Field in Chicago on July 3, 4 and 5. We're delighted to bring you a world exclusive of "Shakedown Street", from the band's July 5 show. Previously, we've brought...

Welcome to the third in our series of Grateful Dead premieres, which coincide with the release of the band’s final concerts at Soldier’s Field in Chicago on July 3, 4 and 5.

We’re delighted to bring you a world exclusive of “Shakedown Street”, from the band’s July 5 show.

Previously, we’ve brought you “Truckin’“, from the July 5 show – which you can watch by clicking here.

And also “China Cat Sunflower” and “I Know You Rider”, also from the band’s July 5 show – which you can watch by clicking here.

The Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead sets will be available on November 20 through Rhino on a number of formats.

A 3-CD/2 Blu-ray, 3/CD-DVD, 2 Blu-Ray or 2-DVD sets will be released in shops and digitally which includes full audio from the band’s final show on July 5.

A 2 CD/digital Best Of edition will feature highlights from all three shows. You can order it by clicking here.

Meanwhile, a 12-CD/Blu-ray set and a 12-CD-DVD set will be available exclusively on Dead.net the official Grateful Dead website, and will be limited to 20,000 individually numbered copies per sets.

FARE THEE WELL – Dead.net Exclusive Complete Versions
12-CD/7-Blu-ray Complete Version – Full audio and high-definition video from all three shows on CD and Blu-ray plus exclusive bonus Blu-ray of behind-the-scenes footage and three CDs of intermission music by Circles Around The Sun. Individually numbered, limited edition of 20,000.

12-CD/7-DVD Complete Version – Full audio and video from all three shows on CD and DVD plus exclusive bonus DVD of behind-the-scenes footage and three CDs of intermission music by Circles Around The Sun. Individually numbered, limited edition of 20,000.

FARE THEE WELL – Retail Versions
3-CD/2-Blu-ray Version – Full audio and high-definition video from final show (July 5) on CD and Blu-ray.
3-CD/2-DVD Version – Full audio and video from final show (July 5) on CD and DVD.
2-Blu-ray Version – Full high-definition video from final show (July 5) on Blu-ray.
2-DVD Version – Full video from final show (July 5) on DVD.
2-CD “Best Of” Version – Audio highlights from all three shows.
Digital Download – Audio and video from the final show (July 5) will be available as well as audio from the “Best Of” version.

Tracklisting for Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead Dead.Net edition:

July 3rd, 2015
Disc One
1. “Box of Rain”
2. “Jack Straw”
3. “Bertha”
4. “Passenger”
5. “The Wheel”
6. “Crazy Fingers”
7. “The Music Never Stopped”

Disc Two
1. “Mason’s Children”
2. “Scarlet Begonias”
3. “Fire On The Mountain”
4. “Drums”
5. “Space”

Disc Three
1. “New Potato Caboose”
2. “Playing In The Band”
3. “Jam”
4. “Let It Grow”
5. “Help On The Way”
6. “Slipknot!”
7. “Franklin’s Tower”
8. “Ripple”

Disc Four
Intermission Music by Circles Around The Sun
1. “Space Wheel”
2. “Mountains Of The Moon”
3. “Praying For The Band”
4. “Tripple”
5. “Deal Breaker”
6. “Deadometer”
7. “Borrow From A Friend”
8. “Grimes Surf Story”

July 4th, 2015
Disc Five
1. “Shakedown Street”
2. “Liberty”
3. “Standing On The Moon”
4. “Me And My Uncle”
5. “Tennessee Jed”
6. “Cumberland Blues”
7. “Little Red Rooster”
8. “Friend Of The Devil”
9. “Deal”

Disc Six
1. “Bird Song”
2. “The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)”
3. “Lost Sailor”
4. “Saint Of Circumstance”
5. “West Of L.A. Fadeaway”

Disc Seven
1. “Foolish Heart”
2. “Drums”
3. “Space”
4. “Stella Blue”
5. “One More Saturday Night”
6. “U.S. Blues”

Disc Eight
Intermission Music by Circle Around The Sun
1. “Hallucinate A Solution”
2. “Ginger Says”
3. “Saturday’s Children”
4. “Eartha”
5. “Split Pea Shell”

July 5th, 2015
Disc Nine
1. “China Cat Sunflower”
2. “I Know You Rider”
3. “Estimated Prophet”
4. “Built To Last”
5. “Samson and Delilah”
6. “Mountains On The Moon”
7. “Throwing Stones”

Disc Ten
1. “Truckin'”
2. “Cassidy”
3. “Althea”
4. “Terrapin Station”
5. “Drums”

Disc Eleven
1. “Space”
2. “Unbroken Chain”
3. “Days Between”
4. “Not Fade Away”
5. “Touch Of Grey”
6. “Attics Of My Life”

Disc Twelve
Intermission Music by Circles Around The Sun
1. “Gilbert’s Groove”
2. “Farewell Franklins”
3. “Hat And Cane”
4. “Never Too Late”
5. “Scarlotta’s Magnolias”

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

Reviewed! The Necks, Floating Points, Bitchin Bajas/Natural Information Society, Ryley Walker/Bill Mackay, Chris Forsyth/Koen Holtkamp and Kelley Stoltz!

John Mulvey
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Reviewed! The Necks, Floating Points, Bitchin Bajas/Natural Information Society, Ryley Walker/Bill Mackay, Chris Forsyth/Koen Holtkamp and Kelley Stoltz!
It's one of those rare weeks when I don’t have a new magazine to flog you (though of course we have an enriching range of Uncuts, Ultimate Music Guides and History Of Rocks if you're short of something to read). As a respite, though, it gives me the opportunity to round up reviews of a few albums ...

It’s one of those rare weeks when I don’t have a new magazine to flog you (though of course we have an enriching range of Uncuts, Ultimate Music Guides and History Of Rocks if you’re short of something to read). As a respite, though, it gives me the opportunity to round up reviews of a few albums I’ve liked a lot over the past couple of months.

I’ve had to miss an aggravating number of live shows these past few weeks, not least among them the Necks’ residency at Café Oto over the weekend. “Vertigo”, their relatively fraught 18th album, has at least provided some succour. If you haven’t encountered The Necks thus far into their 25-year career (here’s one of the last things I wrote about them), the Australian trio have become one of the most critically revered bands on the planet, renowned for their epic live improvisations and a back catalogue that exists in a rarefied interzone between jazz and ambient music (pianist Chirs Abrahams, incidentally, might be familiar to a few of you who’ve studied the small print on Triffids sleeves at some point in the past).

Their 2013 abum “Open”, at once serene and compelling, provided a useful entry point for newcomers to the Necks’ music. But “Vertigo” is a hairier experience, in which the band’s trademark grid of recurring phrases and silences is augmented by ominous drones and some explosive percussive disruptions. As ever, the single 44-minute track is immersive; those coming to The Necks for a transcendent mindfulness session, however, may find it distinctly unnerving in places.

They may, in fact, be better directed to the latest album by another band who recently played Café Oto, Chicago’s Bitchin Bajas. Cooper Crain and Bitchin Bajas’ discreetly intensive campaign to establish themselves as this era’s finest ambient/kosmische outfit has already produced one strong 2015 album in “Transporteur“. “Autoimaginary”, though, is a hook-up with another bunch of Chicagoans, Josh Abrams’ Natural Information Society. Abrams’ improv background is to the fore, as he and his bandmates provide organic rustle and scrape to the Bajas’ lunar synthscapes. The twitchiness never detracts, though, from the meditative calm of tracks like the Necks-like 19-minute opener “On No Fade”, while the fluttering epiphanies of “Anenometer” posit an alternative path Kraftwerk might have taken after “Ralf & Florian”; away from the “Autobahn”, towards an idiosyncratic take on spiritual jazz.

A couple more auspicious collaborations now. On September 9, Ryley Walker, a loquacious and irreverent Twitter habitue, announced. “Next Rec written n jammed live! All shows from here on will be to promote our not yet finished LP.” “Primrose Green”, released to much acclaim in March, was already old news; here Walker asserted himself as restless troubadour, always heading somewhere new. “Land Of Plenty” is, perhaps, a minor but beguiling stop on that journey, being a set of instrumental guitar duets with Bill Mackay, recorded during a Chicago club residency last January. In general more courtly and serene than the ecstasies of “Primrose Green”, there are still rapturous moments: “Gold Season”, for example, could just about plausibly be passed off as a John Renbourn/Robbie Basho face-off. Walker’s next serendipitous project, you may have seen, is a UK jaunt in the company of Danny Thompson; very much living the dream, I guess.

Chris Forsyth’s current day job, fronting the Solar Motel Band, involves a brand of guitar heroism aligned to classic archetypes like Jerry Garcia and Tom Verlaine. But “The Island”, a second collaboration with discreet synth maestro Koen Holtkamp (half of Thrill Jockey’s Mountains), shows he’s still attuned to more leftfield impulses. The Island opens with “Sun Blind”, all feedback skronk and keyboard flurries, that daringly suggests Casper Brötzmann gatecrashing a Tangerine Dream session. After that, Forsyth’s more lyrical playing takes charge, with the lovely “Alternator” akin to early solo work like “Paranoid Cat”. Not quite a match for the pair’s first, more intense set, “Early Astral” (2011), but a useful diversion before the Solar Motel Band’s potentially amazing return in 2016.

Unlike fellow travellers Four Tet and Caribou, Sam ‘Floating Points’ Shepherd’s profile has mostly been restricted to dance music circles, having spent a decade carving a reputation as a DJ. Floating Points’ debut album “Elaenia”, however, pitches him compellingly to a broader audience: as a club visionary whose music has now expanded to encompass rich jazz, ambient and classical influences. Much here, like the outstanding “‘Silhouettes (I, II & III)”, sits elegantly in a progressive tradition that draws on Teo Macero’s collage work on “In A Silent Way”, David Axelrod’s string arrangements, and Four Tet’s own “Thirtysixtwentyfive”. Worth noting, too, that another act have artfully juggled a very similar collection of influences: the closing “Peroration 6” is bracingly similar to latterday Radiohead.

Finally, something a little poppier. At this point, the back catalogue of Kelley Stoltz is so comically undervalued, it feels like something of a conceptual joke; designed for him to be rediscovered as a Great Lost Genius in 30 years’ time. His latest album, “In Triangle Time”, beautifully augments the myth, mostly forsaking Stoltz’ artisanal vintage freakbeat for equally catchy, new wave crypto-hits. He’s been in this territory before, covering the Bunnymen’s “Crocodiles” (2001), but never with such verve. Bowie, The Fall and the Teardrops get sly nods, in a set that seems primed for the Futurama Festival circa 1982. Fans of Stoltz’ more psychedelic work should also note the “Odds & Sods” offcuts EP, and a further album, “The Scuzzy Inputs Of Willie Weird”, released simultaneously.

A great moment a few weeks ago when we found ourselves crawling down the M11 at sunset, blasting out the bespoke rhapsodies of “In Triangle Time” and then noticing who was sat in the lane next to us: Jacco Gardner and his band.

 

 

 

 

Michael Rother announces UK gig

Michael Bonner
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Michael Rother announces UK gig
Michael Rother has announced a UK date. He will play Under The Bridge in London on February 5, 2016. Rother ́s current live line-up includes Hans Lampe on drums and Franz Bargmann on guitar. Franz Bargmann is an ex-member of the Berlin-based band Camera. Hans Lampe contributed drumming on the alb...

Michael Rother has announced a UK date.

He will play Under The Bridge in London on February 5, 2016.

Rother ́s current live line-up includes Hans Lampe on drums and Franz Bargmann on guitar. Franz Bargmann is an ex-member of the Berlin-based band Camera. Hans Lampe contributed drumming on the album NEU! ́75 and was a member of La Düsseldorf.

The show will feature music from Rother’s solo career as well as cuts from his recordings with NEU! and Harmonia.

You can find more details about the show – including how to buy tickets – by clicking here.

Meanwhile, Harmonia’s back catalogue was recently issued as a five vinyl box set, including previously unreleased material recorded 40 years ago at Harmonia HQ: Forst, Lower Saxony, Germany.

The set covers Harmonia’s lifspan, from 1973 to 1976.

The box set consists of:

Musik Von Harmonia (1974; digitally remastered)
Deluxe (1975; digitally remastered)
Tracks And Traces (1976; digitally remastered on double vinyl including the “lost” Brian Eno recordings, which were found and originally released in 1997
Live (1974; digitally remastered)

And in addition to the four Harmonia albums there will be a fifth vinyl: Documents 1975, featuring previously unreleased recordings from Hamburg gigs and 2 studio tracks from Forst.

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

P.F. Sloan, songwriter, dies aged 70

Michael Bonner
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P.F. Sloan, songwriter, dies aged 70
P.F. Sloan - the songwriter behind "Eve Of Destruction" and "Secret Agent Man" - has died aged 70. Sloan signed his first record deal when he was 13 and went on to write songs for artists including the Turtles, Jan & Dean, the Searchers and Herman's Hermits. His biggest hit, though, was Barry ...

P.F. Sloan – the songwriter behind “Eve Of Destruction” and “Secret Agent Man” – has died aged 70.

Sloan signed his first record deal when he was 13 and went on to write songs for artists including the Turtles, Jan & Dean, the Searchers and Herman’s Hermits.

His biggest hit, though, was Barry McGuire’s “Eve Of Destruction“.

A statement issued by his American publicist confirmed the news of Sloan’s death.

“It is with deepest sadness that we are announcing that P.F. Sloan (Phil) passed away on the evening of November 15, 2015, at his home in Los Angeles. Phil had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer several weeks before and was fighting it valiantly. The world has lost one of its great talents.

“Phil was a key element on the music that became the sound of the Sunset Strip. Phil was a true prodigy, signing his first record deal with Aladdin Records when he was thirteen. He recently published his memoirs, What’s Exactly The Matter With Me? with S.E. Feinberg, and his latest album, My Beethoven has recently been released on Foothill Records.

“P.F. Sloan’s ‘Eve Of Destruction‘ was an anthem for a generation. It is as relevant now as it ever has been.”

The statement also quoted from a 1965 interview with Bob Dylan, who said, “If you want to find out anything that’s happening now, you have to listen to the music. I don’t mean the words, although ‘Eve Of Destruction’ will tell you something about it.”

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

Tom Petty is getting his own radio station

Michael Bonner
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Tom Petty is getting his own radio station
Tom Petty is getting his own radio station. Tom Petty Radio will launch on November 20 on SiriusXM's Channel 31. According to a report on Rolling Stone, Petty will open proceedings with a two-hour show in which he'll play songs from his own career and rare live cuts from his own archive, for which...

Tom Petty is getting his own radio station.

Tom Petty Radio will launch on November 20 on SiriusXM‘s Channel 31.

According to a report on Rolling Stone, Petty will open proceedings with a two-hour show in which he’ll play songs from his own career and rare live cuts from his own archive, for which he will provide accompanying commentary.

The show will also feature the radio debut of Petty and the Heartbreakers’ concert from Boston’s Fenway Park on August 30, 2014.

“We are so honored and grateful to SiriusXM for giving our fans access to all of our music, from our biggest hits to very obscure tracks only available through this channel,” Petty said in a statement. “I intend to be very hands on and supply brand new exclusive tracks as well as rarities from our vaults. Our biggest hope is for a channel that is always entertaining in the way only radio can be.”

Heartbreakers Steve Ferrone and Benmont Tench will play guest DJ slots as well as friends of the band including Roger McGuinn, Jackson Browne and Lucinda Williams.

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

Lemmy, Ozzy Osbourne and others pay tribute to Motörhead’s Phil Taylor

Michael Bonner
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Lemmy, Ozzy Osbourne and others pay tribute to Motörhead’s Phil Taylor
Lemmy has paid tribute to Phil Taylor, who died last Thursday, November 13. Taylor was Motörhead's drummer twice - from 1976 to 1984 and again from 1987 to 1992. Writing on Facebook, Lemmy said, "I'm feeling very sad at the moment, in fact devastated because one of my best friends died yesterday....

Lemmy has paid tribute to Phil Taylor, who died last Thursday, November 13.

Taylor was Motörhead’s drummer twice – from 1976 to 1984 and again from 1987 to 1992.

Writing on Facebook, Lemmy said, “I’m feeling very sad at the moment, in fact devastated because one of my best friends died yesterday. I miss him already. His name was Phil Taylor, or Philthy Animal, and he was our drummer twice in our career. Now he’s died and it really pisses me off that they take somebody like him and leave George Bush alive. So muse on that. We’re still going, we’re still going strong, it’s just first Würzel and now Philthy, it’s a shame man. I think this rock n roll business might be bad for the human life. Oh well.”

Ozzy Osbourne also wrote on Facebook, “Just heard about Phil ‘Philthy Animal’ Taylor’s passing. It’s a terrible terrible loss. He was a great friend – great drummer – a great guy and he will be dearly missed. Today is a very sad day for me. Rest in peace – and he still owes me 500 bucks from that time in Vegas.”

Metallica posted on their Facebook page, “You inspired us beyond words.”

Tributes were also posted by Slash, Metallica and other members of the heavy metal community:

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

The City – Now That Everything’s Been Said

Andrew Mueller
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The City – Now That Everything’s Been Said
The phrase “lost album” is often a nicety denoting a record nobody cared about at the time, often with good reason, but which is being re-released yet again in the faint hope that it might somehow coincide with fashion. Now That Everything’s Been Said, however, is one of the genuine great lost...

The phrase “lost album” is often a nicety denoting a record nobody cared about at the time, often with good reason, but which is being re-released yet again in the faint hope that it might somehow coincide with fashion. Now That Everything’s Been Said, however, is one of the genuine great lost albums. It fulfils every criteria of the classification: by a significant artist, a significant work by that significant artist, and for many years genuinely unavailable. First released in 1968, deleted in 1969 in a record company reshuffle, Now That Everything’s Been Said went missing for three decades before its first American reissue in 1999. This re-release represents its first availability on vinyl since Nixon was president.

It is an extraordinary dereliction. The City were formed by Carole King following her relocation to Los Angeles and divorce from Gerry Goffin. Still in her mid-twenties, she was half of one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of that (or any) time. She and Goffin had composed, among many others, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” for Aretha Franklin, “The Loco-Motion” for Little Eva, “Pleasant Valley Sunday” for The Monkees and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” for The Shirelles. Two years after The City folded, King would release Tapestry, a resounding umpty-platinum colossus. Even if it were terrible, Now That Everything’s Been Said would be at least interesting. It is very far from terrible.

Unsurprisingly, Now That Everything’s Been Said is a congruent way-station between the deceptively melancholy pop classics King and Goffin had composed for other artists, and the poised personal statements of Tapestry. It’s also a deserving addition to the pantheon of Laurel Canyon folk rock, replete with echoes and/or precursors of the Eagles, The Mamas & The Papas and The Byrds (who covered The City’s “I Wasn’t Born To Follow” on the soundtrack to Easy Rider). The songs are predictably brilliant, especially the elegant ballads “Paradise Alley” and “Lady”, and the ecstatic Motown-hit-that-never-was “Victim Of Circumstance”. And The City were not merely Carole King plus two – guitarist Danny Kortchmar and bassist Charles Larkey both had form with New York proto-punk yahoos The Fugs. Kortchmar would subsequently write and/or produce with Jackson Browne, Don Henley and Neil Young; Larkey would become the second Mr King.

The City never made another album, and never played a show, in deference to their singer’s chronic stage fright. Now That Everything’s Been Said remains a startling first step along a path never taken.

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

David Gilmour concert with David Bowie arrives on iPlayer

Michael Bonner
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David Gilmour concert with David Bowie arrives on iPlayer
David Gilmour's 2006 concert, Live At The Royal Albert Hall – Remember That Night, is now live on BBC iPlayer. You can watch it by clicking here. The BBC reports James Stirling, Editor of BBC Music, saying: “We’re really excited to bring this iconic performance to BBC iPlayer for fans to enj...

David Gilmour‘s 2006 concert, Live At The Royal Albert Hall – Remember That Night, is now live on BBC iPlayer.

You can watch it by clicking here.

The BBC reports James Stirling, Editor of BBC Music, saying: “We’re really excited to bring this iconic performance to BBC iPlayer for fans to enjoy. It is an amazing show where two legendary British musicians came together to create some musical magic.”

The show took place during Gilmour’s On An Island tour and includes material from that album as well as Pink Floyd’s back catalogue.

The show features appearances from Graham Nash and David Crosby, Robert Wyatt and also David Bowie.

Meanwhile, David Bowie’s new video for “Blackstar” debutes on Sky Atlantic this coming Thursday, November 19.

The track is also featured in the opening titles of Renck’s new Sky/Canal+ drama series, The Last Panthers, the second episode of which will be shown after the “Blackstar” short film.

The Blackstar album – also known as ★ – is released by RCA on Bowie’s birthday, January 8, 2016.

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

David Bowie’s “Blackstar” to premiere on Sky Atlantic on Thursday

Tom Pinnock
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David Bowie’s “Blackstar” to premiere on Sky Atlantic on Thursday
David Bowie is to premiere his new single, "Blackstar", next Thursday (November 19) – watch the new trailer below. The video, directed by Johan Renck, will be shown on Sky Atlantic at 8.45pm on November 19th, and will also mark the first time the full ten-minute song has been broadcast. The trac...

David Bowie is to premiere his new single, “Blackstar”, next Thursday (November 19) – watch the new trailer below.

The video, directed by Johan Renck, will be shown on Sky Atlantic at 8.45pm on November 19th, and will also mark the first time the full ten-minute song has been broadcast.

The track is also featured in the opening titles of Renck’s new Sky/Canal+ drama series, The Last Panthers, the second episode of which will be shown after the “Blackstar” short film.

The Blackstar album – also known as ★ – is released by RCA on Bowie’s birthday, January 8, 2016.

Watch the new trailer below…

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

Jeff Buckley “was creating something bigger than the song”

Tom Pinnock
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Jeff Buckley “was creating something bigger than the song”
In 1993, Jeff Buckley released his first EP: four songs, played live and alone, that introduced an extraordinary new talent to the musical world. Soon, he would create a debut album, Grace, that suggested he could do anything. Buckley, however, wasn’t so sure: “Jeff,” says his best friend, “...

In 1993, Jeff Buckley released his first EP: four songs, played live and alone, that introduced an extraordinary new talent to the musical world. Soon, he would create a debut album, Grace, that suggested he could do anything. Buckley, however, wasn’t so sure: “Jeff,” says his best friend, “was incredibly insecure about everything.” From tribute shows for his father, through the clubs, record labels and studios of New York and London, to the salons of his heroes, Jimmy Page and the Cocteau Twins, Uncut charts the tempestuous first moves of a lost legend. Eternal life guaranteed… Story: David Cavanagh. Originally published in Uncut’s June 2013 issue (Take 193).

____________________________

Jeff Buckley’s Grace tour lasted 21 months, visited Europe four times, racked up almost 150 North American dates and finally ended on March 1, 1996 in Sydney. The venue was a picturesque spot for the last goodbye: a club in a seaside hotel overlooking Coogee Beach. Among those there was Belinda Barrett, a 26-year-old producer for a Sydney film company, who’d become a Buckley fan the year before.

“Jeff’s two tours of Australia were a life-defining time for me and many others,” Barrett says today. “Jeff was someone you wanted to become a devotee of, and I did. He had incredibly loyal followers who really connected with his essence and spirit.” She remembers looking around at gigs and seeing people gaping in astonishment at the stage. Two years on the road had honed Buckley’s setlist into a hypnotic, invocatory, near-holy performance. “There were moments of coalescence in Australia,” recalls his drummer Matt Johnson, “when new worlds in music felt like they were being glimpsed. Moments I’ll remember until my dying breath.”

____________________________

Buckley was in good humour at the Coogee Bay Hotel’s aftershow party. Belinda Barrett asked him for his autograph. “Steely balance,” he wrote, adding: “Patti Smith”. But behind the smiles, the long tour had taken its toll. Johnson, suffering from exhaustion and depression, was leaving the group; he’d complained bitterly about the ravages of the “rock machine”. Under contract to Columbia, a Sony label, Buckley had committed to one of the most gruelling itineraries of the MTV-dominated ’90s. The promotional conveyor belt stretched from Paris to Perth, and Buckley had had to learn when to acquiesce and when to resist. It may be one explanation why “steely balance” – a phrase more befitting a wine list – popped into his head as he was approached for an autograph.

“We always said to him, ‘If it gets overwhelming, let’s take a breath,’” says Paul Rappaport, Sony’s former vice-president of artist development. “But you have to understand, people at the company were constantly fighting over him. ‘He’s got to go to France next.’ ‘No, he’s got to go to Australia!’”  The conveyor belt paused; a Sydney hiatus in a New York story that had begun five years earlier.

It was a tale straight out of Dick Whittington. Buckley’s first visit to New York, in 1990, had ended with the 23-year-old Southern Californian fleeing Manhattan in despair after being accused of shoplifting. But in the spring of ’91, the bells coaxed him back. A phone call from Brooklyn invited him to sing at a tribute concert for his father, a man he’d hardly known. This time his arrival in the city would have an impact. Soon everyone from Marianne Faithfull to Allen Ginsberg would hear about him.

Held in a Brooklyn Episcopal church, “Greetings From Tim Buckley” was Jeff’s equivalent of a debutante’s coming-out party. He sang four of his father’s songs in the familiar Buckley vocal tone and range, dumbfounding anyone who’d presumed Tim’s multi-octave voice to be unique. The key moment came in “I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain” when the lighting designer projected Jeff’s head onto a stained glass wall at the rear of the church. It was, says the show’s producer Hal Willner, something akin to a visitation from Jesus. After that, there seemed little to keep Jeff in Los Angeles.

“He became a sponge of New York culture,” says Willner, who took him under his wing. “He jumped into the arty circle initially. I took him to see the Mingus Big Band at the Vanguard, and another night he went to see Sun Ra.” Buckley based himself in the Lower East Side, where he found “a village of freaks like himself” (in the words of actor-musician Michael Tighe, who would later join his band) and lived a monastic existence, burning incense and contemplating a small Bodhisattva on his windowsill. “People who were attracted to New York were not of the norm,” Willner adds. “They came here because of what they could do, which they couldn’t do anywhere else.”

Courtney Barnett: “I’ve got nearly an album of country-folk songs written”

Tom Pinnock
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Courtney Barnett: “I’ve got nearly an album of country-folk songs written”
Courtney Barnett has revealed that she has an album's worth of country and folk-influenced songs written – but isn't sure what she'll do with them. Speaking in the current issue of Uncut, Barnett explains that she often writes songs that don't fit with the rest of her material, but stockpiles the...

Courtney Barnett has revealed that she has an album’s worth of country and folk-influenced songs written – but isn’t sure what she’ll do with them.

Speaking in the current issue of Uncut, Barnett explains that she often writes songs that don’t fit with the rest of her material, but stockpiles them for the future.

“I’ve got nearly an album’s worth of country/folk/picky songs that just haven’t fit anywhere else,” she reveals, “which are kind of coming back out. So those are fun, messing around with that shit.

“I forget songs so easily sometimes. I’m a big planner, but I’m bad at following through. I’m sure slowly I’ll do an album, or something, with them. Sometimes it’s hard, songs just don’t feel like they fit together with others. But I’m sure they’ll come out in the end. I don’t know what the next album will sound like, anyway.”

Courtney Barnett heads to the UK later in the month, beginning her tour at London’s Forum on November 25.

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

Ultimate Music Guide: Queen

Charlotte Treadaway
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Ultimate Music Guide: Queen
Bismillah – yes! Uncut proudly presents our latest – and, perhaps, most decadent – Ultimate Music Guide, dedicated to the majesty of Queen. Here you’ll find a wealth of fine writing on one of British rock’s most revered and misunderstood bands. We’ve reappraised every single one of their...

Bismillah – yes! Uncut proudly presents our latest – and, perhaps, most decadent – Ultimate Music Guide, dedicated to the majesty of Queen. Here you’ll find a wealth of fine writing on one of British rock’s most revered and misunderstood bands. We’ve reappraised every single one of their albums, from inspired hard rock beginnings, to the globe-straddling glory days and beyond. We’ve also dug deep into the archives of NME and Melody Maker to rediscover fascinating interviews with Freddie Mercury and his bandmates, many of them unseen for decades. At last, it’s time for Queen to receive the serious, in-depth critical treatment that they have always demanded – but have so rarely been afforded.

That’s Queen: The Ultimate Music Guide: once you get it, it will not let you go!

Order Online

Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide: Bruce Springsteen

Charlotte Treadaway
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Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide: Bruce Springsteen
In September 1978 Bruce Springsteen welcomed NME into his dressing room at the New York Palladium. "I don't wanna let the people that have supported me down," he told the journalist, "and it ain't good enough just getting by. I wanna take it all the way, every night." Thirty-seven action-packed year...

In September 1978 Bruce Springsteen welcomed NME into his dressing room at the New York Palladium. “I don’t wanna let the people that have supported me down,” he told the journalist, “and it ain’t good enough just getting by. I wanna take it all the way, every night.”
Thirty-seven action-packed years down the line, Bruce Springsteen’s mission remains miraculously unchanged. To celebrate, here is a very special and, we hope, comprehensive magazine dedicated to a true rock titan: a radically updated and upgraded edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to Bruce Springsteen. In these pages, you’ll find revelatory Springsteen interviews from every stage of his career. In 1974, laying waste to the dancehalls of Texas, his distrust of stardom is so great he hopes someone will shoot him if he ever plays Madison Square Garden. In 2002, he is at home in New Jersey, reiterating the core message that has sustained him for so long: “I think you have to make a point of behaving like a human being.” In between, there are adventures in France, raids on Gracelands, paranoid episodes involving socks, and much more.
There are also deep, forensic reviews of every Springsteen album, from Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ to High Hopes, shining new light on a musical catalogue that still, with each new chapter, has the capacity to startle and inspire.

Order Online

The 36th Uncut Playlist Of 2015

John Mulvey
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The 36th Uncut Playlist Of 2015
Apologies for the lack of playlists this past month; I've been recovering from a broken shoulder, so typing has been a bit tricky. On the mend now, so here is a roundup of everything newish I can remember playing over that time, with lots of strong entries: Neal Casal's Circles Around The Sun jams u...

Apologies for the lack of playlists this past month; I’ve been recovering from a broken shoulder, so typing has been a bit tricky. On the mend now, so here is a roundup of everything newish I can remember playing over that time, with lots of strong entries: Neal Casal’s Circles Around The Sun jams used at the summer’s Dead reunion shows; the terrific Eleanor Friedberger album; new ones from Cian Nugent and Robert Stillman.

There are a couple of other things I’m not at liberty to reveal just yet, but see how these work for you – and maybe let me know what I might have missed. Thanks for your patience…

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

1. Pete Astor – Spilt Milk (Fortuna Pop!)

2. Dieter Bowie – Sound & Vision (Protest)

3. Laura Cannell – Swooping Talons Remixes (Front And Follow)

4. Circles Around The Sun – Interludes For The Dead (Rhino)

5. Cross Record – Wabi Sabi (Ba Da Bing)

6. Eleanor Friedberger – New View (Frenchkiss)

7. Goldmund – Sometimes (Western Vinyl)

8. The Grateful Dead – The Best Of Fare Thee Well (Rhino)

9. Guadalupe Plata – Guadalupe Plata (Everlasting)

10. Roscoe Holcomb – San Diego Folk Festival 1972 (Tompkins Square)

11. Benji Hughes – Songs in the Key of Animals (Merge)

12. Sven Kacinek – Songs From Okinawa (Pingipung)

13. Le1f – Riot Boi (Terrible)

14. Lil Bub – Science And Magic (Joyful Noise)

15. David Lynch & Marek Zebrowski – Polish Night Music (Sacred Bones)

16. Mount Moriah – How To Dance (Merge)

17. Nonkeen – The Gamble (R&S)

18. Cian Nugent – Night Fiction (Woodsist)

19. Jim O’Rourke – Live In Japan 2015/08/04 (Youtube)

20. Savages – Adore Life (Matador)

21. Ty Segall – Ty Rex (Goner)

22. Spacin’ – Total Freedom (Testoster Tunes)

23. Robert Stillman – Rainbow (Orindal)

24. Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood And The Rajasthan Express – Junun (Nonesuch)

25. Sun City Girls – Dark Star (Youtube)

26. Willie Thrasher – Spirit Child (Future Days Recordings)

27. Tortoise – The Catastrophist (Thrill Jockey)

28. Various Artists – Love & Affection: More Motown Girls (Ace)

29. Various Artists – Jon Savage’s 1966: The Year The Decade Exploded (Ace)

30. Marry Waterson And David A. Jaycock – Two Wolves (One Little Indian)

31. Neil Young – Yesteryear Of The Horse 1976 (Youtube)

32. Neil Young – Bluenote Café (Reprise)

The Rolling Stones will start recording new album in December, says Ronnie Wood

Tom Pinnock
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The Rolling Stones will start recording new album in December, says Ronnie Wood
The Rolling Stones are likely to begin recording a new album next month, according to Ronnie Wood. Speaking to ABC Radio, the guitarist explained that the group will enter the studio before the end of the year in order to "lay some groundwork" for the follow-up to 2005's A Bigger Bang. "We’ll ma...

The Rolling Stones are likely to begin recording a new album next month, according to Ronnie Wood.

Speaking to ABC Radio, the guitarist explained that the group will enter the studio before the end of the year in order to “lay some groundwork” for the follow-up to 2005’s A Bigger Bang.

“We’ll maybe go in the studio in December and cut a few tracks and see what happens,” Wood explained. “We’ll take it from there, see how it all goes. One thing at a time.”

Keith Richards had recently stated that the Stones would most likely begin recording in spring 2016, while Mick Jagger has claimed he has a stock of unrecorded songs.

In the meantime, check out Uncut’s piece on The Rolling Stones’ 40 best songs.

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

 

The Dead Weather – Dodge And Burn

Piers Martin
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The Dead Weather – Dodge And Burn
You know where you stand with The Dead Weather, and it’s usually on a lonely highway in the dead of night with some bad-ass outlaw on your tail. Ever since this part-time US alt-rock supergroup released their first two albums, Horehound and Sea Of Cowards, back to back in the space of 11 months in...

You know where you stand with The Dead Weather, and it’s usually on a lonely highway in the dead of night with some bad-ass outlaw on your tail. Ever since this part-time US alt-rock supergroup released their first two albums, Horehound and Sea Of Cowards, back to back in the space of 11 months in 2009-10, reinforced with a couple of world tours, there has been no mistaking their pedigree or malevolent intent. 

Like cartoon villains cooking up demented garage-rock fantasies in their drummer’s Nashville studio, the group’s heavy freakshow blues suggests that Jack White, The Kills’ singer Alison Mosshart, Dean Fertita of Queens Of The Stone Age and sometime Raconteur Jack Lawrence revel in the absurdity of their privileged position and always make the most of their brief time together. In The Dead Weather, free of any baggage, these exceptional performers each get to play in their dream band, and if they happen to make fools of themselves, well, so what. It’s just for fun – there are no ties, nothing serious riding on it. And as vanity projects go, this one has legs: those two albums reached the US Top Ten. 

This same cavalier attitude fuels their first album for five years, Dodge And Burn. A leaner, meaner beast than its predecessors, the bulk of it was recorded in a flurry of activity this summer when a window in the quartet’s schedules became available. In two earlier sessions from 2013 and last year, four songs had been recorded and slipped out on a couple of seven-inches via Third Man Records’ Vault subscription service: “Open Up”, “Rough Detective”, “Buzzkill(er)” and “Too Bad”, each of which find Mosshart caterwauling and sneering like Janis Joplin over Fertita’s gonzo see-saw riffing, as if the pair are auditioning for Royal Trux. 

Though he’d protest, White remains the dominant figure in The Dead Weather – he also produced the album and oversaw its manufacture – and is the only member whose career outside the band has reached astonishing new heights in the period since Sea Of Cowards, thanks to his swashbuckling solo sets, Blunderbuss and Lazaretto. Having laboured over the latter for a year and a half, he and the band whipped through Dodge And Burn in ten days. Mosshart says she wrote the lyrics to five songs in just over a day. Normally this would be cause for concern, but Dodge And Burn succeeds because the songs capture the pure manic energy of those quick-fire sessions, of the band being completely at ease with each other, bristling with ideas and knowing they can play whatever they want in the moment. Like White’s blunderbuss and lazaretto, the title refers to something no longer in currency: in photographic terminology, dodging and burning is the technique of manipulating the exposure of prints to create a certain effect, a trick done with the click of a mouse these days. Again, as he does with his music, White blends the past with the present. And just as The Dead Weather manage to give new, fairly corny meaning to an archaic phrase – Dodge And Burn could be an ’80s cop show – so they administer a thorough scrubbing to knackered old garage-rock until it gleams like the chrome fender on a Dodge.

In an interview last year with US news veteran Dan Rather, White explained that, for him, the blues is the truth, and that as a musician he is in pursuit of the truth. By using characters and stories in song, he said, “we’re trying to get to something truthful that makes sense”. On Dodge And Burn, he and Mosshart plough through fields of clichés in a bid to get to the essence of what they do. Her search for something meaningful on the Led Zep bluster of “I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)” is framed by the skewering riffs of Fertita, who’s in the form of his life on this record, laying down some of the filthiest, heaviest guitar parts that appear to tear into tracks when you least expect. Mosshart, too, who’s constantly in motion, feels at liberty to explore her primal side as she channels the elemental expressionism of Cormac McCarthy on “Lose The Right” and “Let Me Through”; “I got a bloodhound tooth hanging like a dagger in a bar back west”, she growls in a way that implies only she knows what she means. On the mongrel Motown funk of the excellent “Mile Markers” she half-raps, “I churned my milk and honey, I lost track of all my money/My family rescued some other stray dog…”. 

The album’s lightest moment, “Three Dollar Hat”, is a murder ballad skank a la Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand” that finds White rapping like Eminem about “that bad man Jackie Lee, shooting everybody down with a .33” while a Moog oscillates wildly. This and “Lose The Right”, an organ-driven ska groove, are Lazaretto-styled examples of The Dead Weather looking to push beyond the goth-garage template they minted on those first two albums and which can sound tired. Most unexpected, after so much ruptured blues, is the closing “Impossible Winter”, a sentimental piano ballad bundled off Broadway and soberly delivered by Mosshart who sings, seeming quite out of character, “I am a wheel goin’ round/In a mirror house/A maze with no way out/What you have fears about”.

After five years, Dodge And Burn needed to offer more than the standard none-more-black Dead Weather sturm und drang, and it does – a lot more. White’s enlightened approach after Lazaretto gives this a certain joie de vivre, a dry, mordant wit. Be assured, this is still a very heavy rock record, but it slithers with a degree of grace that had been missing in the past. As welcome as it is to have The Dead Weather back, it’s also a shame that White has announced he’s taking a long break from playing live, because this is one record that demands to be taken onstage and propelled into oblivion.

Q+A 
Alison Mosshart
How did this album come about?
Well, making this Dead Weather record was a very fast experience. We wrote four songs for this two years ago and put those out as singles, and then we thought we could do that every time we get together and at the end of that journey we’ll have a record. But it didn’t happen. Then all of a sudden a couple of months ago we had four or five days when we were all in the same town [Nashville] together and went in and wrote eight more songs, mixed it and recorded it, everything, it all happened so fast. Then we were faced with the dilemma of what to do with it. Can’t tour ’cos we’re all so busy. Shall we sit on it, which seems incredibly boring, or put it out, which is more exciting. 

Can you describe the chemistry in the studio? Something must make you all keep coming back together…
Well, it’s really fun to work with these guys, it’s a joy. The speed at which we work is fascinating to us all. Everybody walks in, puts on their instruments or gets in front of their instruments, I get in front of a mic with a notebook and pen, and if we’re all in the right mindset – and we generally are when we’re together – we’ll write and record a song in 45 minutes to an hour. Which is so exciting, and it spurs you on the next one and the next one and if you left us there we’d be there forever. It’s freeing, really freeing. It’s always surprising to me when I walk away and go to bed and wake up in the morning and go, what just happened? That was awesome! But it does require you to be at a certain point in your life. Do you have that freedom in your mind to be able to sit there and create that? It takes a special moment and that’s totally what happened with the first record and similarly with the second, and with this one too. And that’s the gist of the band – when we can do it, we can, and it’s a total joy.

Who brings what to the table in the studio?
It’s hard to say because it’s different with every song. Jack is an incredibly decisive person in the studio but also open to everybody’s ideas. So everybody’s suddenly in a different mindset where everything counts – you’re not so shy about singing some crazy-ass lyrics or playing some guitar part that you wished you could have played when you were 16. In the studio, we’re all facing each other in the same room – and it’s not a big room – and recording at the same time. I kid you not, I wrote the lyrics to five songs in a day and a half. If I was in the wrong mood I could never do that. But the music inspires me so much that immediately there’s a sound, there’s a feeling, there’s  a character growing in my head, there’s a story, there’s a mood. If you allow it in, it sort of tells me what to do, tells me what to say. 

Sounds like the fantasy band everyone wants to be in when they’re 15.
Totally, it is. I think that’s how we feel like when we’re playing together – this is like our first band, we’re 14 or 15 and we’re fucking awesome. Every band at that age thinks they’re awesome, but it’s such a joy to play with these guys because they are awesome, it’s incredible to be in a room listening to them play. Every time Dean writes a riff I can’t believe it’s possible, or every time a song comes out of nowhere I’m always surprised. 

Dodge and burn is the name of a technique used to manipulate the exposure of photographs in a dark room…
Yes, it’s an old photography term. We were sitting in studio and someone said it and I think I might have been the only person who knew what it meant ’cos I used to take photography classes – and now it’s a Photoshop tool. It’s a cool phrase ’cos it can mean a million different things. We’re always looking for titles that are open to interpretation. That phrase has almost gone and now it can take on new meaning.  

What can you say about the last song “Impossible Winner”, an uncharacteristically tender Dead Weather ballad? 
I wrote that song a while ago. I have an arsenal of these that I write all day long and don’t really have homes. I was in the studio first one morning and Dean walked in and caught me playing it on an acoustic guitar and asked what it was. He then sat down at the piano and played it with me, learning it in four seconds. Then LJ [Little Jack] walks in and says, ‘Hey, what’s that?’, and starts playing, and 20 minutes later Jack walks in and sits behind the drums and all of a sudden I’m like, okay we’re doing this song, it’s awesome, and they loved it. 

Is Jack White constantly working? 
He’s one of the busiest people I’ve ever met. He’s always working, always doing 15 projects at once, and he copes with it beautifully. That’s his best state and that’s how he’s built. 

What does this record mean to you? 
This is my favourite Dead Weather record. I think we pushed things further than we have before. It’s just a heavy badass record. It is heavy – that’s the only word I can think of. Every time I hear it I’m surprised, like I’m having an out-of-body experience!
INTERVIEW: PIERS MARTIN

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

David Bowie, diamonds and Balkan Noir: The Last Panthers reviewed

Michael Bonner
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David Bowie, diamonds and Balkan Noir: The Last Panthers reviewed
In a Harry Enfield sketch from 2012, two couples discuss their respective viewing habits. One couple – led by a suitably condescending Enfield – only watch shows as box sets: Borgen, Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones. “We’ve got a friend who still says ‘series’ instead of ‘season’,” gr...

In a Harry Enfield sketch from 2012, two couples discuss their respective viewing habits. One couple – led by a suitably condescending Enfield – only watch shows as box sets: Borgen, Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones. “We’ve got a friend who still says ‘series’ instead of ‘season’,” grimaces Enfield. “He is such a wanker compared to us.”

While the sketch is only three years old, it’s instructive to see how habits have changed since. At the time, broadsheets were full of op ed pieces either defending or expressing concern about the box set culture. The Guardian asked, Are there more box sets available than a single person could watch in a lifetime? Now the conversation no longer seems to be about the box set, or even what season, but the platform: Netflix, iPlayer, YouTube, Amazon Prime.

Despite the methods of distribution, reassuringly, the narrative drama series still holds sway. Sky’s latest, The Last Panthers, arrives with a Europe-wide simulcast and a new song from David Bowie. However, despite such whoompff!!, the show cleaves closely to the familiar tropes of crime drama.

The first episode opens with a heist, in which a gang of Eastern European jewellery thieves lift €15m worth of unset diamonds from a bank in Marseilles. “It was a good hit,” observes one character ruefully. “They were fast, well-prepared and extremely efficient.” The death of a six-year old girl during the getaway brings with it plenty of heat: for the police investigating the crime and also for the crooks, who suddenly find their haul significantly devalued. The action moves from France to Belgrade, Serbia and deeper into Eastern Europe.

At this point, you could perhaps be watching any of the slew of Euro crime dramas that dominate BBC Four’s Saturday night schedule. The Last Panthers is essentially Balkan Noir. The director is Johan Renck, a former music video director behind promos for Madonna, New Order and Suede whose credits include episodes of Breaking Bad and Vikings. For The Last Panthers, Renck favours a colour palette not too far from David Fincher’s: dark tones, mostly green and blue. The score, by Warp artist Clark, has a sullen, electronic undertow.

The script is from Jack Thorne, a former protégé of Paul Abbott, whose previous work on shows like Shameless, Skins and the This Is England series suggested he’d press further into challenging, socially-engaged drama. But The Last Panthers is a remarkably ambitious career swerve. The show not only covers a lot of ground, geographically-speaking, but also a lot of story strands.

There is Samantha Morton as Naomi, the insurance investigator instructed with retrieving the stolen gems. “I don’t do the Balkan work,” she tells her boss, Tom (John Hurt). In flashback, we see Naomi in her previous career as a UN soldier in the Balkans: a significant incident seems to have ended especially badly. Then there is French-Algerian police officer, Khalil (Tahar Rahim), who is concerned principally with bringing them men to justice for the murder of the young girl. And finally – perhaps most interesting of the principal cast – is Milan (Goran Bogdan), a former member of the Panthers, a notorious gang of jewel thieves, who is estranged from his former colleagues and family. There is much middle-distance brooding from Milan, as he reconciles himself to revisit his dysfunctional family, before a high level of killing begins.

While he first episode sets up a number of interesting, overlapping plot threads; but perhaps what appeals most is Eastern Europe itself, a relatively unexplored location for television drama. In a press statement, Renck outlined a meeting he had with David Bowie, where “We discussed the various aspects of the show; naturally, the plot line, but also the underlying currents of guilt and personality flaws. We talked about the dark heart of Europe. We talked about the Biblical aspects of human nature.” It is the “dark heart of Europe” that seems particularly pertinent here. The heist provides an opportunity for Thorne and Renck to tackle hefty themes of race, poverty and national identity as they occur in a volatile environment.

In one sequence, Milan and his accomplices traipse through a rubbish-strewn gypsy camp in the company of a low-level mobster. “You know, I’ve been playing a game with my brother,” says the mobster genially. “As children we used to hit each other in the balls for money. Then we developed it to 20 Euros for drinking a little whiskey. Then 50 Euros for tearing a nail off his pinky.

“Games, you understand?”

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

Andy White, “Love Me Do” drummer, dies aged 85

Michael Bonner
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Andy White, “Love Me Do” drummer, dies aged 85
Andy White, who played drums on The Beatles' debut single "Love Me Do", has died aged 85. Rolling Stone reports that he suffered a stroke last Thursday and died on Monday [November 9, 2015]. According to the BBC News, "Love Me Do" was initially recorded during the group's EMI audition in June 1962...

Andy White, who played drums on The Beatles’ debut single “Love Me Do“, has died aged 85.

Rolling Stone reports that he suffered a stroke last Thursday and died on Monday [November 9, 2015].

According to the BBC News, “Love Me Do” was initially recorded during the group’s EMI audition in June 1962 with Pete Best on drums.

Three months later, Ringo Starr performed on the song during a September 4, 1962 session at Abbey Road, but producer George Martin was unhappy with the results.

Another version was recorded on September 11, with White on drums and Starr relegated to playing tambourine.

White was reportedly paid £5 for three hours of work and received no royalties.

The version with White on drums was released in America as a single.

White, who was born in Glasgow in 1930, also played on “P.S. I Love You” and is also believed to have played on the album version of “Please Please Me”.

An in-demand session musician, White also played on records by Lulu and Tom Jones and toured with Marlene Dietrich, Burt Bacharach and Rod Stewart.

He lived in America for many years, where he taught Scottish-style pipes and drums in New Jersey.

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

Slade – When Slade Rocked The World 1971 – 1975

David Cavanagh
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Slade – When Slade Rocked The World 1971 – 1975
It’s funny how some bands only make sense in certain eras. If they’re like Slade, they seize the window of opportunity and don’t question it. The four Black Country boys – as daft as brushes and as hard as nails – were a struggling outfit with a serious image problem when the 1970s dawned....

It’s funny how some bands only make sense in certain eras. If they’re like Slade, they seize the window of opportunity and don’t question it. The four Black Country boys – as daft as brushes and as hard as nails – were a struggling outfit with a serious image problem when the 1970s dawned. By the end of the decade they were forgotten, ruefully acknowledging the winds of change on their 1977 album Whatever Happened To Slade. But in between, as Britain looked towards zanily dressed pop stars to take its mind off the Common Market and the OPEC oil crisis, Slade found themselves spectacularly in vogue. They rocketed up the charts with one infectious hit after another, effectively becoming the nation’s favourite band. With their mirrored top hats and stack heels, they were a perfect primary-colour mix. Salt-of-the-earth and larger-than-life.

Slade’s songs were spelt like ruminations in a Molesworth jotter (“Look Wot You Dun”, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now”), and combined the shrill sparkle of glam-rock with the lung-busting euphoria of Lennon’s “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey”. As lead guitarist Dave Hill noted, Slade could switch from pop to rock’n’roll at a moment’s notice. “It was great having a thick, dirty song up at Number 1,” he said of their 1972 chart-topper “Take Me Bak ’Ome” – and sure enough, when we compare its riff to contemporaneous glam like T.Rex’s “Telegram Sam” or the Sweet’s “Wig-Wam Bam”, Slade’s guitars do indeed sound thicker and dirtier. “Take Me Bak ’Ome” oozes grime. To think it knocked Don McLean’s fastidious “Vincent” off the top spot.

Slade’s legacy as four merry clowns getting exuberant in a fancy dress shop is a pejorative one, and does their music a real disservice. As we hear time and again on When Slade Rocked The World 1971-1975 – a vinyl-and-CD, collector-aimed boxset focusing on four albums and eight non-album singles – they weren’t just churning out chart fodder to fill the nostalgic dancefloors of future school discos. They were better musicians than that for a start; a tight, syncopated four-piece, they could swing viciously and attack with force. Slayed? (1973) is a relentless LP in places, stomping and shrieking at a level of near-hysteria even before it gets to the famously berserk “Mama Weer All Crazee Now”. And connoisseurs of gripping live albums rarely fail to mention Slade Alive! (1972), an intimate fan-club performance that saw Slade put aside the instruments that had coloured their recent singles – piano on “Look Wot You Dun” and gypsy violin on “Coz I Luv You” – and simply plug in, turn the amps up and pin their delirious audience to the walls of a small Piccadilly studio. Containing some well-chosen covers and not a single overdub, Slade Alive! has been compared to the MC5’s Kick Out The Jams without the politics. If it has anything as pretentious as a philosophy, it’s as simple as this: here’s a song to get you on your feet, and here’s another one to get you leaping about. “We’re only interested in entertaining and giving our audiences a good time,” Hill remarks to George Tremlett in The Slade Story, a 1975 paperback included as part of this boxset’s packaging. Tremlett, a seasoned pop journalist who interviewed Slade several times, provides a cheerful account of their rise to fame. These lads are keeping their feet on the ground, don’t worry. At the time of publication, Hill had just bought a Jensen sports car and was thinking of opening a chain of boutiques.

Slade’s music was undergoing a lot of change by then, softening their abrasive edges. A wistful ballad, “Everyday”, came as a shock in 1974 – though its follow-up, “The Bangin’ Man”, which appears here on one of four double-A-sided 45s, was a return to raucous rock. But with hindsight it’s clear that the Holder-Lea songwriting partnership, once invincible, was starting to falter. Old New Borrowed And Blue (1974) may have earned an instant gold disc, but it’s a patchy affair that seems to lose confidence in itself as it goes along. How do we diversify? How do we mature? Music hall? More ballads? As for the leapers and rockers, only on “Do We Still Do It” – a year earlier, the title would have been presented as a statement rather than a question – do Holder and Lea come up with something powerfully new. Were they listening to Slade records in Akron, Ohio? Three years later, the descending riff on Devo’s “Jocko Homo” would prove uncannily similar.

The final album in the box is Slade In Flame, a gritty soundtrack to a 1975 feature film in which each Slade member took an acting role. No stack-heeled star bought any boutiques in this bleak study of the British music industry; the atmosphere was closer to Get Carter than glam-rock. The standout song, “How Does It Feel”, is an epic illustration of what a brave step Slade were taking. Haunted and scared, Holder’s voice was like nothing he’d given his fans before. Slade had found their maturity, but at a cost. Within two years, their singles would be charting at 32 and 48. When Slade Rocked The World elects not to go there, unable to stomach such a mortifying decline.

You can pre-order When Slade Rocked The World from Amazon.co.uk by clicking here

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

Lush detail new career-spanning boxset

Michael Bonner
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Lush detail new career-spanning boxset
Lush have announced details of a new 5CD box set. Chorus will be released on December 4. Compiled by the band, the set will be housed in a hardbound book, designed by long-time associate and former v23 collaborator Chris Bigg. Including 105 tracks, Chorus contains the band's three studio albums a...

Lush have announced details of a new 5CD box set.

Chorus will be released on December 4.

Compiled by the band, the set will be housed in a hardbound book, designed by long-time associate and former v23 collaborator Chris Bigg.

Including 105 tracks, Chorus contains the band’s three studio albums and both singles compilations plus a wealth of previously unreleased demos, radio sessions, remixes and rarities.

The full tracklisting can be found below.

Chorus can be pre-ordered by clicking here.

Additionally, Ciao! Best Of Lush is also being pressed on vinyl for the very first time, for release on November 27th as part of Record Store Day’s Black Friday event.

The tracklisting for Chorus is:

Disc One: Gala
1. Sweetness And Light
2. Sunbathing
3. Breeze
4. De-Luxe
5. Leaves Me Cold
6. Downer
7. Thoughtforms
8. Baby Talk
9. Thoughtforms
10. Scarlet
11. Bitter
12. Second Sight
13. Etheriel
14. Hey Hey Helen
15. Scarlet
16. Leaves Me Cold – Peel Session*
17. Breeze – Peel Session*
18. Hey Hey Helen – Peel Session*
19. Blackout – Evening Session*
20. Kiss Chase – Evening Session*
21. The Childcatcher – Evening Session*
22. Single Girl – Mark Radcliffe Session*
23. Runaway – Mark Radcliffe Session*
24. Heavenly Nobodies – Evening Session*
25. Ladykillers – Evening Session*

Disc Two: Spooky
1. Stray
2. Nothing Natural
3. Tiny Smiles
4. Covert
5. Ocean
6. For Love
7. Superblast!
8. Untogether
9. Fantasy
10. Take
11. Laura
12. Monochrome
13. God’s Gift
14. Fallin’ In Love
15. Starlust
16. Outdoor Miner
17. Astronaut
18. Sweetness And Light (The Orange Squash Mix)
19. Undertow (Spooky Mix)

Disc Three: Split
1. Light From A Dead Star
2. Kiss Chase
3. Blackout
4. Hypocrite
5. Lovelife
6. Desire Lines
7. The Invisible Man
8. Undertow
9. Never-Never
10. Lit Up
11. Starlust
12. When I Die
13. Cat’s Chorus
14. Love At First Sight
15. Girl’s World
16. White Wood
17. 500 (Acoustic Version)*
18. Olympia (Acoustic Version)
19. Kiss Chase (Acoustic Version)

Disc Four: Lovelife
1. Ladykillers
2. Heavenly Nobodies
3. 500
4. I’ve Been Here Before
5. Papasan
6. Single Girl
7. Ciao!
8. Tralala
9. Last Night
10. Runaway
11. The Childcatcher
12. Olympia
13. Sweetness And Light (Demo)*
14. Covert (Demo)*
15. Problem Child (Demo)*
16. Desire Lines (Demo)
17. Hypocrite (Demo)*
18. Lit Up (Demo)
19. Light From A Dead Star (Demo)*

Disc Five: Topolino
1. 500 (Shake Baby Shake)
2. I Have The Moon
3. Ex
4. I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend
5. Matador
6. Outside World
7. I’d Like To Walk Around In Your Mind
8. Carmen
9. Shut Up
10. Cul De Sac
11. Demystification
12. Tinkerbell
13. Piledriver
14. Plums And Oranges
15. Half And Half
16. Dear Me (Miki’s 8-Track Home Demo)
17. Sweetie
18. Heavenly
19. Pudding
20. Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep
21. All This Useless Beauty
22. Mannequin
23. Rupert
* Denotes previously unreleased

The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, the December 2015 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Courtney Barnett, Noddy Holder, The Beatles, Neko Case, Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.

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