The Rolling Stones have announced details of their first major international exbition.
EXHIBITIONISM will run from April 6 2016 - September 2016 at London's Saatchi Gallery, where it will occupy nine themed galleries spread across two entire floors.
EXHIBITIONISM includes over 500 artefacts and wi...
The Rolling Stones have announced details of their first major international exbition.
EXHIBITIONISM will run from April 6 2016 – September 2016 at London’s Saatchi Gallery, where it will occupy nine themed galleries spread across two entire floors.
EXHIBITIONISM includes over 500 artefacts and will include original stage designs, dressing room and backstage paraphernalia; rare guitars and instruments, costumes, rare audio tracks and unseen video clips; personal diaries and correspondence; original poster and album cover artwork, and unique cinematic presentations.
It will include work by Andy Warhol, Shepard Fairey, Alexander McQueen, Ossie Clark, Tom Stoppard and Martin Scorsese.
Tickets go on sale July, 10 2015; you can find more information about the exhibition’s website, www.stonesexhibitionism.com.
After EXHIBITIONISM finishes its runs, it will visit eleven other cities around the world during a four year period.
Mick Jagger commented, “We’ve been thinking about this for quite a long time but we wanted it to be just right and on a large scale. The process has been like planning our touring concert productions and I think that right now it’s an interesting time to do it.”
Keith Richards said, “While this is about The Rolling Stones, it’s not necessarily only just about the members of the band. It’s also about all the paraphernalia and technology associated with a group like us, and it’s this, as well as the instruments that have passed through our hands over the years, that should make the exhibition really interesting.”
“The scene was great down the King’s Road in the 1960’s,” notes Ron Wood. “That was where you went to hang out to watch the fashions go by. So it is appropriate that our Exhibitionism will be housed at the wonderful Saatchi Gallery.”
Charlie Watts added – “It’s hard to believe that it’s more than fifty years since we began and it is wonderful to look back to the start of our careers and bring everything up to date at this exhibition.”
American readers! Uncut’s July 2015 issue [Take 218] featuring the Rolling Stones on the cover is now available in US stores and is also available digitally
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
A little glamorously jetlagged today, after making it back from the Grateful Dead's reunion show in California at the weekend. It was pretty strange following reaction to Kanye West's Glastonbury show on Twitter in my hotel room, then heading out to see a strikingly on-song Dead in front of 70,000 p...
A little glamorously jetlagged today, after making it back from the Grateful Dead’s reunion show in California at the weekend. It was pretty strange following reaction to Kanye West’s Glastonbury show on Twitter in my hotel room, then heading out to see a strikingly on-song Dead in front of 70,000 people in Santa Clara. I also met many excellent people, including one who’d lost his shoes and was looking to trade LSD for use of a phone charger.
I’ll be writing plenty about all this in the next Uncut, which will have one or two other nice things to entice Dead fans and the Dead-curious. In the meantime, try this for size: a blazing version of the garage nugget “Cream Puff War” from Saturday’s show…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_Md4Lp6wpk
This week, though, I thought it might be useful to round up a few records I’ve liked recently, beginning with Meg Baird’s lovely “Don’t Weigh Down The Light”. Over various solo sets, collaborations with sister Laura, and three tremendous albums fronting Philadelphia’s Espers, Meg Baird has been a torchbearer for the kind of candlelit psych-folk that was briefly hip in the early ‘00s. Fashions change, but Baird’s music remains gorgeous, harbouring a kind of still magic without ever resorting to self-consciously wyrd affectations. Now relocated to San Francisco (where she’s also joined a blazing Comets On Fire offshoot called Heron Oblivion), the likes of “Back To You” are as close as Baird has come to the brackish atmospherics of Espers since their 2009 swansong. A strong companion piece, also, to another 2015 invocation of old California, Jessica Pratt’s “On Your Own Love Again”.
Baird wouldn’t have been out of place on “Remembering Mountains: Unheard Songs By Karen Dalton”, an engaging Tompkins Square comp that features Sharon Van Etten, Lucinda Williams, Diane Cluck and more tackle the legendary singer’s lost lyrics. Dalton’s uncanny music casts a long shadow over a clutch of latterday singer-songwriters, but it is this compilation’s fundamental strength and weakness that most of the 11 artists gifted here with unused Dalton lyrics do not imitate the late singer’s fragile style. Instead, Dalton’s words are discretely recast in the interpreters’ own musical images: most radically and successfully by Julia Holter on the hushed electronic nocturne, “My Love, My Love”. Marissa Nadler and the fine Josephine Foster come close, but the spirit of Dalton remains curiously evasive, so that “Remembering Mountains” feels more like a neat compendium of diverse female talents rather than a tribute to a transcendent one.
Cath & Phil Tyler’s “Dumb Supper” (2008) stands as one of the best, if relatively unheralded, British folk records of the last decade, and one whose unvarnished aesthetic straddled the worlds of traditional and experimental folk in much the same way as contemporary records by Alasdair Roberts. A compact and haunting six-tracker by the Newcastle-based couple, “The Song-Crowned King” operates in similar territory, with the opening take on the Child Ballad “Bonnie George Campbell” a notable stand-out. There’s also, though, an increased keenness to point up the raw affinities between British and Appalachian folk, especially on two instrumentals, “Puncheon Camps” and a droning fiddle jig, “Boys The Buzzards Are Flying”, that recall the Tylers’ Transatlantic fellow travellers, The Black Twig Pickers.
Once the dust has settled after Record Store Day, and the limited-edition Red House Painters box sets have been flipped multiple times on eBay, there may still be some excellent, less heralded albums still lurking out there in the racks. In 2014, one such gem was a flaming live album by Chris Forsyth’s “Solar Motel Band”, and this year there’s a decent chance you might still be able to track down “Deseret Canyon”, an understated instrumental set by another modern guitar master. William Tyler’s solo career is reasonably well-established now, thanks to expansive post-Fahey meditations like 2013’s “Impossible Truth”.
In 2008, however, he was a more anonymous figure in the background of Lambchop and Silver Jews sessions, with a solo album, on an obscure German label (Apparent Extent), released under the name of The Paper Hats. “Deseret Canyon” is that album, belatedly reissued under Tyler’s own name, and a critical part of a stealthily impressive solo catalogue. As with “Impossible Truth”, moments recall David Pajo’s dreamy rewiring of “Turn, Turn, Turn” (cf: “Parliament Of Birds”), but there’s a satisfying range here: stately Takoma School fingerpicking; scrabbling, fuzzed-out electric jams; even a phased ambience that further emphasises the widescreen possibilities of Tyler’s strikingly evocative music.
Those more ambient passages illustrate the potential space to exploit between kosmische and roots music, something Chicago’s Bitchin Bajas have managed on recent collaborations with Bonnie “Prince” Billy. In a surprisingly crowded field, the Bajas have gradually revealed themselves, in the past year or two, to be the best latterday exponents of a certain meditative and transporting strain of kosmische music. Last year’s self-titled fifth album, rich with Terry Riley allusions, probably remains their masterpiece, but “Transporteur”, a vinyl/cassette edition from Cooper Crain and his collaborators, is very nearly as good.
Lunar drones, deep space oscillations and reed jams proliferate, as usual, but the key touchstones on “Transporteur” are more likely Cluster and Harmonia, as exemplified by “Marimba”, which pulls off the rare Moebius and Roedelius trick of being at once jauntily playful and, in a psychedelically-adjusted way, rather serene. And if you missed this one, there’s yet another Bajas album, a collaboration with Natural Information Society called “Autoimaginary”, out pretty soon.
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
The first vinyl record shop has opened in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar.
Dund Gol Records opened in the Children’s Book Palace of Mongolia in March, 2015, according to a report on The Vinyl Factory website.
One of the world's most isolated record shops, Dund Gol Records is the brainchild of...
The first vinyl record shop has opened in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar.
Dund Gol Records opened in the Children’s Book Palace of Mongolia in March, 2015, according to a report on The Vinyl Factory website.
One of the world’s most isolated record shops, Dund Gol Records is the brainchild of B. Batbold. It has a stock of over 1,000 vinyl records from Batbold’s own collection.
In an interview with The UB Post, Batbold said, “Western artists are releasing vinyl records instead of CDs. I don’t want to keep all my vinyl records. I want to spread vinyl records to people who collect vinyl records. That’s why I opened the store.”
When asked what his most expensive items were, he replied: “The average prize is 50,000 MNT [£16]. Unique records are a bit more expensive. Old and used records are cheap.
“The most expensive record is by the Mongolian modern music band Soyol-Erdene and a record by Bayanmongol, which was recorded by a Russian company named ‘Melody’ in 1970. Vinyl record collectors around the world are interested in these two records because they are very rare.”
Dund Gol Records stocks a selection of western pop and classical music as well as local bands. You can find more information on their Facebook page.
Another store in Ulaanbaatar – HiFi CD Shop – specialises in Mongolian music CDs.
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
To modern-day listeners, Little Richard’s seminal singles may sound quaint and lo-fi, distant echoes from another century. But in mid-’50s America, a society deeply divided by race and ideology, “Tutti-Frutti”, “Long Tall Sally”, “Lucille” and the rest of Richard Penniman’s breakou...
To modern-day listeners, Little Richard’s seminal singles may sound quaint and lo-fi, distant echoes from another century. But in mid-’50s America, a society deeply divided by race and ideology, “Tutti-Frutti”, “Long Tall Sally”, “Lucille” and the rest of Richard Penniman’s breakout singles hit with the force of a neutron bomb. For me, growing up in Atlanta, the point of impact is precise and indelible. During a visit to a friend’s house in the summer of 1956, I happened upon a portable record player with a single bearing a bright yellow label sitting tantalizingly on the platter, impulsively dropped the tonearm onto “Rip It Up” and was propelled into puberty in the space of 2:25. Countless members of my generation had similarly vivid transformative experiences dancing ecstatically to Little Richard records, as the Unholy Trinity of the Georgia Peach, Elvis and Chuck Berry combined to trigger a change so radical and absolute it had no precedent.
But Richard Penniman was an unlikely agent of change on such a grand scale. One of 11 kids in a Macon, Ga., family, he was effeminate and gimpy, having been born with one arm and leg shorter than the others, making him the target of constant psychological and physical abuse, his bootlegger dad being one of the abusers. Richard’s sanctuary was the Seventh Day Adventist services he attended with his family, singing in a voice so loud and attention-getting that during a Sister Rosetta Tharp concert he was brought on stage by the headliner, who then paid him for the impromptu performance. And in that moment, the story goes, Richard realized that showbiz was his calling, and his escape route. He worked the Southern vaudeville and frat-house circuits, frequently in drag, borrowing his look – slicked-up pompadour and generously applied Pancake 31 – from Atlanta singer Billy Price and his hammering piano style from New Orleans virtuoso Esquerita. But throughout his apprenticeship, which saw him cut eight sides for RCA Victor, Richard showed nary a hint of flash or originality. Indeed, his music was so undistinguished it’s difficult to understand why Specialty owner Art Rupe took a flier on the then-23-year-old, even if he’d been recommended by Lloyd Price, the label’s biggest star.
Rupe assigned his assistant, Robert “Bumps” Blackwell to oversee a recording date for Richard, which was set for September 14, 1955, in New Orleans at Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Studios, with a killer studio band that included drummer Earl Palmer and saxman Lee Allen. Neither these legends nor Blackwell could summon anything inspired out of Richard, whose vocal performances that day were interchangeable with those of countless R’n’B journeymen. Frustrated, Blackwell took Richard to the nearby Dew Drop Inn for a restorative beverage, and was stunned when Richard sat down at the piano and underwent an instant transformation into a wild man, shrieking his way through a bawdy fast-paced tuner whose chorus contained the lines “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-good-God-damn!” and “Tutti-frutti, good bootie,” punctuated with androgynously lusty falsetto WHOOs.
Stunned and desperate to keep his gig, Blackwell asked songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie, who’d witnessed the impromptu performance, to clean up the lyrics pronto. They raced back to J&M, rapidly worked up an arrangement and banged out three takes of “Tutti-Frutti” during the last 30 minutes of the session. Blackwell brought the recording back to LA, mastered the first take and soon thereafter watched “Tutti-Frutti” explode, hitting #2 on the R’n’B chart, going Top 20 pop, remarkably enough, and inspiring an even bigger-selling cover version by milquetoast crooner Pat Boone.
For the next 18 months, Richard and Bumps were on fire, fashioning a string of hits that would form the very blueprint for rock’n’roll, including “Slippin’ And Slidin’”, “Long Tall Sally”, “Rip It Up”, “Ready Teddy”, “The Girl Can’t Help It”, “Lucille”, “Jenny, Jenny”, “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Keep A-Knockin’”. That extraordinary run came to a lurching halt during a late-’57 performance at Sydney Stadium, when, in a historically bizarre intersection of high-flying midcentury icons, Richard looked up, saw a red fireball shooting across the heavens and took it as a sign from the Lord to change his sinful ways – not realizing that what he’d seen was the orbiting Sputnik 1.
Thus, Little Richard rejected the devil’s music and became a man of God, remaining so until 1962, when he embarked on a comeback tour of Britain organized by Don Arden. On a side trip to Hamburg, he headlined the Star Club, and Paul McCartney of opening act the Beatles was so blown away that he pressed Richard to teach him how to summon up that trademark WHOO. But chapter two of Little Richard’s secular career yielded little of commercial or artistic consequence. A series of mid-’60s recordings for Vee-Jay, cut mostly with his so-so road band the Upsetters, comprises the final disc of Directly From My Heart, making the set “definitive” according to the ad copy, through it would have been just as satisfying if limited to the 43 Specialty sides that make up the first two discs.
Though much of Little Richard’s story is well-documented, certain of the more delectable details vary from one account to the next, including this one, in keeping with John Ford’s essential directive, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
The Arcs - the band formed by Black Keys frontman, Dan Auerbach - have shared a new song, "Outta My Mind".
Their debut album - called Yours, Dreamily, - is released on September 4 through Nonesuch Records.
The band have already premiered one song from the album, "Stay In My Corner".
The Arcs are ...
The Arcs – the band formed by Black Keys frontman, Dan Auerbach – have shared a new song, “Outta My Mind“.
Their debut album – called Yours, Dreamily, – is released on September 4 through Nonesuch Records.
The band have already premiered one song from the album, “Stay In My Corner“.
The Arcs are Dan Auerbach, Leon Michels, Richard Swift, Homer Steinweiss, and Nick Movshon.
Yours, Dreamily, is available for pre-order now on iTunes and at thearcs.com and nonesuch.com.
Each pre-order provides a download of both album tracks “Outta My Mind” and “Stay In My Corner“.
On July 10, the band will release a 7-inch single featuring “Outta My Mind” and an additional non-album track “My Mind“.
The tracklisting for Yours, Dreamily, is:
Once We Begin (Intro)
Outta My Mind
Put A Flower In Your Pocket
Pistol Made Of Bones
Everything You Do (You Do for You)
Stay In My Corner
Cold Companion
The Arc
Nature’s Child
Velvet Ditch
Chains Of Love
Come & Go
Rosie (Ooh La La)
Searching The Blue
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
Following on from our exclusive live version of “Viola Lee Blues”, at the band’s October 10, 1967 show at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, we're delighted to offer you more exclusive Grateful Dead goodies.
This time, get ready for a live version of “Shakedown Street” recorded in 1981...
Following on from our exclusive live version of “Viola Lee Blues”, at the band’s October 10, 1967 show at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, we’re delighted to offer you more exclusive Grateful Dead goodies.
This time, get ready for a live version of “Shakedown Street” recorded in 1981 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
This exclusive live track is taken from 30 Trips Around The Sun: The Definitive Live Story 1965-1995, a four disc set containing previously unreleased live performances from the Dead’s archive, which is released on September 18 by Rhino.
You can pre-order 30 Trips Around The Sun The Definitive Live Story (1965-1995) by clicking here.
On the same day, the Dead release 30 Trips Around The Sun – a career-spanning 80 disc box set featuring 30 unreleased live shows, one for each year the band was together from 1966 to 1995.
The tracklisting for 30 Trips Around The Sun: The Definitive Live Story 1965-1995 is:
Disc One
“Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)” – 1965
“Cream Puff War” – 1966
“Viola Lee Blues” – 1967
“Dark Star” – 1968
“Doin’ That Rag” – 1969
“Dancing In The Street” – 1970
“The Rub” – 1971
“Tomorrow Is Forever” – 1972
“Here Comes Sunshine” – 1973
Brian May has led the tributes to Chris Squire, bassist with Yes, who has died aged 67.
The news of his death was made public yesterday [June 28, 2015], only a month after revealing he had been diagnosed with leukemia.
Squire’s bandmate Geoffrey Downes first announced Squire’s death on Twitter...
BrianMay has led the tributes to Chris Squire, bassist with Yes, who has died aged 67.
The news of his death was made public yesterday [June 28, 2015], only a month after revealing he had been diagnosed with leukemia.
Squire’s bandmate Geoffrey Downes first announced Squire’s death on Twitter.
Utterly devastated beyond words to have to report the sad news of the passing of my dear friend, bandmate and inspiration Chris Squire. #yes
The band confirmed the news on their Facebook page, writing: “It’s with the heaviest of hearts and unbearable sadness that we must inform you of the passing of our dear friend and Yes co-founder, Chris Squire. Chris peacefully passed away last night in Phoenix Arizona. We will have more information for you soon.”
Squire formed Yes with singer Jon Anderson in 1968 and was the only member of the group to feature on all 21 of their studio albums.
Squire also released a solo album, A Fish Out Of Water, in November 1975 on Atlantic Records.
Meanwhile, Brian May led the tributes to Squire, calling him “truly unique bass player”.
Writing on Facebook, Bill Bruford called Squire “an individualist in an age when it was possible to establish individuality, Chris fearlessly staked out a whole protectorate of bass playing in which he was lord and master. I suspect he knew not only that he gave millions of people pleasure with his music, but also that he was fortunate to be able to do so.”
Other tributes were paid by Geezer Butler, Gene Simmons and Tom Morello.
Shocked to hear of the passing of Chris Squire, one of the great bass players. RIP
In 1976, Nina Simone performed at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Dressed in a knee-length brown dress, she strode onstage, took a low, long bow and then stood for 30 seconds, long enough for the audience applause to die down and then, slightly self-consciously, rise again. Watching the footage of this...
In 1976, Nina Simone performed at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Dressed in a knee-length brown dress, she strode onstage, took a low, long bow and then stood for 30 seconds, long enough for the audience applause to die down and then, slightly self-consciously, rise again. Watching the footage of this at the start of Liz Garbus’ documentary, you’d be forgiven for finding Simone’s response to such adulation rather strange. Her facial expression appears blank and distant, while her body language is imperious; it’s hard to tell whether or not she is happy to be on this stage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moOQXZxriKY
As Garbus’ film unspools, it becomes evident that this reaction was typical not only of Simone’s complicated relationship with her success but also indicative of her own emotional state. As many of those friends, family and former colleagues attest, being Nina Simone was a difficult business to maintain. “She paid a huge price,” admits her daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly. “People seem to think that when she went out on stage that was when she became Nina Simone. My mother was Nina Simone 24/7. And that’s where it became a problem.”
Accordingly, Garbus’ film weaves together Simone’s public successes with her personal struggles. From a dramatic point of view, she is fortunate that much of Simone’s tumultuous career took place on camera. Here the singer is being introduced by Hugh Heffner’s to viewers on his Playboy’s Penthouse show in 1959; playing at the Newport Jazz Festival a year later; asserting “Freedom is to me no fear,” during a filmed interview in New York in 1968. Indeed, much of What Happened, Miss Simone? is essentially narrated by the artist herself, the voice over assembled from hours of audio tapes.
The beats of her life are remarkable. She dreamed of becoming the first black concert pianist; she changed her name from Eunice Waymon to avoid offending her religious mother; she married an ex-NYPD officer who helped turn her into a star; radicalized, she performed “Mississippi Goddamn” during the Selma-Montgomery march in the presence of Martin Luther King. Cripped by depression and bipolar disorder, she played gigs in Paris cafés, barely able to support herself financially. It’s evidently rich material, although Garbus’ rather programmatic approach doesn’t quite allow for the digressions the film merits on occasion. Hopefully a wider release will follow from its Netflix transmission.
The Dalai Lama joined Patti Smith on stage at the Glastonbury festival this weekend.
During her Pyramid Stage set yesterday [June 28, 2015], Smith brought out the Dalai Lama so that festivalgoers could wish His Holiness a happy 80th birthday.
"We are grateful to him for all his love of humanity an...
The Dalai Lama joined Patti Smith on stage at the Glastonbury festival this weekend.
During her Pyramid Stage set yesterday [June 28, 2015], Smith brought out the Dalai Lama so that festivalgoers could wish His Holiness a happy 80th birthday.
“We are grateful to him for all his love of humanity and making people aware of the importance of saving the planet,” Smith said, before reading a poem she had written for him.
Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis then bought the Dalai Lama onto the stage to huge cheers from the crowd. “I think it would be nice if Glastonbury wished the Dalai Lama a happy birthday,” said Smith, before leading the audience in a rendition of “Happy Birthday”.
The Dalai Lama then blew out a single candle on a birthday cake, before cutting it. “Thank you, thank you,” he said. “Dear brothers and sisters, I really appreciate so many people’s expression of warm feeling.” He then went on to joke about the age of Smith and her band. “These singers and musicians have white hair, but they look very youthful! That gives me encouragement, I should be more like you – more active!”
Rolling Stone reports that the Dalai Lama also participated in a panel where he called on the United States and Russia to scrap their nuclear weapons and demanded that nations begin to view the environment as a global issue.
In another appearance at the festival, the Dalai Lama delivered an impromptu speech to hundreds of festivalgoers gathered at the Stone Circle.
“In this very moment, in some parts of the world, like Syria, Iraq, Nigeria and some other places – they’re killing, human to human being. Unthinkable. And the worst thing [is that] conflict, killing each other, in the name of their faith.”
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
There have been a couple of updates regards Joni Mitchell's health over the weekend.
In an interview with The Huffington Post published on Friday [June 26, 2015], David Crosby revealed that Mitchell "is home, she is in care, she is in recovery. How that's going to go, we don't know yet. She took a ...
There have been a couple of updates regards Joni Mitchell‘s health over the weekend.
In an interview with The Huffington Post published on Friday [June 26, 2015], David Crosby revealed that Mitchell “is home, she is in care, she is in recovery. How that’s going to go, we don’t know yet. She took a terrible hit. She had an aneurysm, and nobody found her for a while. And she’s going to have to struggle back from it the way you struggle back from a traumatic brain injury.”
Yesterday [June 28, 2015], Leslie Morris, Mitchell’s conservator, released a statement through official website JoniMitchell.com: “Joni did in fact suffer an aneurysm. However, details that have emerged in the past few days are mostly speculative. The truth is that Joni is speaking, and she’s speaking well. She is not walking yet, but she will be in the near future as she is undergoing daily therapies. She is resting comfortably in her own home and she’s getting better each day. A full recovery is expected.”
Mitchell, 71, was found unconscious in her Los Angeles home on March 31. She was admitted to an area hospital after which conflicting reports emerged concerning her responsiveness.
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
The Grateful Dead begin their Fare Thee Well dates tomorrow June 27 in Santa Clara, California; and we have not only an inside look at how the rehearsals are going but also the chance for UK readers to see the Dead's final show broadcast in UK cinemas.
The Fare Thee Well shows will celebrate the ba...
The Grateful Dead begin their Fare Thee Well dates tomorrow June 27 in Santa Clara, California; and we have not only an inside look at how the rehearsals are going but also the chance for UK readers to see the Dead’s final show broadcast in UK cinemas.
The Fare Thee Well shows will celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary; but critically, these are the last shows to feature the four living original members of the band – bassist Phil Lesh, guitarist Bob Weir and percussionists Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann.
They will be joined by Phish’s Trey Anastasio along with pianist Bruce Hornsby and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti.
The full list of dates is June 27 and 28 in Santa Clara; followed by Chicago’s Soldier Field on July 3, 4 and 5.
The Dead‘s final Fare Thee Well show will be shown in 250 cinemas across the UK on July 6 thanks to CinemaLive.
In conjunction with CinemaLive, we’re delighted to be able to offer 5 pairs tickets.
To be in with a chance of winning a pair, just tell us:
What is the title of the first track on the Dead’s self-titled debut album?
Send your answers to uncutcomp@timeinc.com along with your name, address and preferred choice of cinema (the full list is on the CinemaLive site) by noon, June 30, 2015.
And now, here’s a sneak peek inside the Dead’s rehearsals courtest of Jeff Chimenti…
UNCUT: How are the rehearsals going?
CHIMENTI: Rehearsals are going just fine!… Long busy days but well worth the effort!… My behind is a little sore from all the sitting though!… Haha!
Are there many differences between this time and when you’ve played with these guys in the past?
Musically it feels just as good as in past but, for me personally, it is a blast to be able to share the keyboard role with Bruce!…He is awesome both musically and as a person!…
Has there been an extra emotional awareness that this really is the last time?
I think emotions will be more in play as shows are coming to a close!… As stated, rehearsals are very busy as lot’s to cover, so it’s more of a focus situation on that!…
How’s Trey Anastasio fitting in?
Trey has been kicking a**!!…He has worked hard and is evidenced in his performance, besides the “position” in the band that he has to deal with so to speak… I’m sure you know what i mean!…
What are your general feelings, as the shows approach?
I personally feel good and am just ready for the shows to get going and feel all are on the same page!… It’s been quite some time of anticipation to reach this point and glad it’s finally arrived!… Here we go!…
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
Sleaford Mods' Jason Williamson discusses politics and the duo's new album, Key Markets, in the latest issue of Uncut, dated August 2015 and on sale now.
Williamson talks about his lyrics' increasing "randomness", and also reveals what sparked his criticism of model David Gandy on the song "Giddy O...
Sleaford Mods‘ Jason Williamson discusses politics and the duo’s new album, Key Markets, in the latest issue of Uncut, dated August 2015 and on sale now.
Williamson talks about his lyrics’ increasing “randomness”, and also reveals what sparked his criticism of model David Gandy on the song “Giddy On The Ciggies”.
Discussing how he voted in last month’s General Election, the vocalist and lyricist says: “[I voted] Green, which I regret. I’m one of these twats who voted Green and wanted a Labour government. I should’ve voted Labour. I hated their manifesto – so fucking vague, it could have been a recipe for a Bakewell tart. But they’d have brought some compassion.
“I’ve seen the people bearing the brunt of Tory policy – disabled people, single mothers who’ve lost benefits trying to survive on 17 hours work a week. I mean, fuck off.”
As a taster for Spritualized's Glastonbury appeareance this weekend, I thought I'd post an Album By Album interview I conducted with Jason Pierce, which originally appeared in Uncut's August 2009 issue [Take 147]. Subjects under discussion: Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, drugs, log burners, the benefits...
As a taster for Spritualized‘s Glastonbury appeareance this weekend, I thought I’d post an Album By Album interview I conducted with Jason Pierce, which originally appeared in Uncut’s August 2009 issue [Take 147]. Subjects under discussion: Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, drugs, log burners, the benefits of fancy album packaging and much more…
“I like to do one thing a day,” says Jason Pierce. “You know, go to the bank or something. And today I’m doing two things.” Later, he’ll be heading off to record a duet with Mark Lanegan. But for now, ahead of Spiritualized’s slot at this year’s Latitude Festival, Pierce is here to talk through his back catalogue, from the galactic drones of Spacemen 3 to Spiritualized’s symphonic highs. “This is like a drowning experience,” he says. “The whole of your life flashing before your eyes…”
SPACEMEN 3
The Perfect Prescription (1987) Art school friends Jason Pierce and Pete Kember form Spacemen 3 in their native Rugby, Warwickshire in 1982. They follow up drone-heavy debut Sound Of Confusion (1986) with this one, softer and more textured…
I’d left home as soon as I could, so I’d got a house at the bottom end of the town which I shared with Natty [Booker], our first drummer. I think Rosco [Sterling Roswell, bass] was living there. It was an open door house, anybody could come and go. Pete lived with his folks in a big house in a village outside of town. We came to a guy called Paul Atkins who ran a kind of semi-professional studio off an industrial estate at the bottom of town – he had a sampler, which I think was quite rare at the time. He had an 8-track recorder, but he wanted a 16-track recorder. So we said we’d buy him a 16-track for unlimited studio time, which worked out amazing for us, but not for him – we were young, we had unlimited time! We moved my house and our whole scene down to the studio and spent hours getting deeper and deeper into making this record. Were Pete and I competitive as songwriters? No, not at all. He’d always claim he wrote a lot of the songs before he met me, but when I met him he had a guitar with two strings on it and he couldn’t play it. I taught him rudimentary barre chords. We had an agreement early on that there was never any “this is my song, this is your song”, which made what happened later [Pierce and Kember argued over writing credits, which contributed to the band’s breakup] all the more shocking. I guess everything that we were doing was against everything I’d been brought up to believe you should do. The whole drugs scene, what we were doing with our lives… it was what we wanted to do, but it was morally and legally wrong.
SPACEMEN 3
Playing With Fire (1989) A pinnacle of late-’80s space-rock, drifting between dreamy psychedelia, minimalist gospel and heavy-duty feedback. But Pierce and Kember’s relationship deteriorated badly during the recording…
We started recording in Cornwall. It was quite a funky little house in the middle of nowhere. Kind of hippie, log burners… I’d never been anywhere like that. I’m from the town. Also, to be honest, I’d never really travelled, we never had money when we were kids. In Cornwall, we were sleeping on mattresses on the floor. But it only works if everyone gets on, and it was getting to the point with Pete where we couldn’t be in the same room together.
He got crueller, and it was very hard to deal with, especially as we were in such a close scene. I’d started going out with Kate [Radley, future Spiritualized keyboardist], and Pete was so childish – “You can’t do that.” It became miserable, but making this music was never about misery – there’s a beautiful sorrow, a beautiful longing about the music. Even in the more heavy-duty drones there was a kind of epiphany.
How did I respond to Pete? I shut down and got on with it as best I could. As happened later in the line-ups of Spiritualized when things got bad, I think if you give people time, they realise their mistakes. The thing that upset me the most was when Pete wanted to change the songwriting credits. I remember having a meeting to sort out the credits for Playing With Fire, which I thought was the end – it wasn’t the beginning of the end, it was the end.
“How Does It Feel?” was originally called “Repeater”, which is the sound a Vox Starstreamer makes: you hit the guitar and that’s what comes out of it, it plays itself. Pete put down this long repeater thing and then I constructed a melody over the top, and his claim was that it was his song, because he’d put down the original track. I joked that if you owned the tape, you owned the first part, so you could make this claim that I own the silence that the Starstreamer is going on to. I mean, you can’t make songs with people who are putting flags in them – saying, that’s my bit, that was my melody. We wrote songs together – no, we wrote songs and then we shared the credit. It doesn’t matter whose song it was, or who did the greater or the lesser part of it, it was just that was what you did. Done.
Rare film footage shot by Andy Warhol featuring the Velvet Underground has recently appeared on Youtube.
Dangerous Minds reports that the film, called Moe Gets Tied Up - or, alternatively, Moe In Bondage - dates from 1966.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho43S6_4a1I
The 32 minute film appears to ...
Rare film footage shot by Andy Warhol featuring the Velvet Underground has recently appeared on Youtube.
Dangerous Minds reports that the film, called Moe Gets Tied Up – or, alternatively, Moe In Bondage – dates from 1966.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho43S6_4a1I
The 32 minute film appears to be excised from a longer, 66 minute piece. According to a Velvet Underground filmography, the full film lasts 66 minutes and “is a two-reel set for double screen projection. In this film, Moe Tucker sit tied up with ropes, while Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison and John Cale play with food and monkey around. 35-minutes unofficial video copies are circulating.”
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
Though he passed away aged just 26, Gram Parsons didn't mess around while he was here – a member of The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and The International Submarine Band, he also found time to make two sublime solo albums and partly invent country-rock as we know it. Here, Uncut present 20 o...
Though he passed away aged just 26, Gram Parsons didn’t mess around while he was here – a member of The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and The International Submarine Band, he also found time to make two sublime solo albums and partly invent country-rock as we know it. Here, Uncut present 20 of his best songs… Originally published in our February 2013 issue (Take 189). Words: Graeme Thomson
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1 HICKORY WIND The Byrds’ Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, 1969/Grievous Angel, 1974
Written with former ISB bandmate Bob Buchanan and debuted by The Byrds at the Grand Ole Opry on March 15, 1968, the beauty of Parsons’ signature song lies in its simple sincerity. The poignancy in the words, voice, aching steel guitar and fiddle – by sessioneers Lloyd Green and John Hartford – evoke almost unbearable nostalgia for a time of remembered innocence. “A lonely song”, said Chris Hillman. “He was a lonely kid.”
________________________
2 BRASS BUTTONS Grievous Angel, 1974
Constructed with the precision of a Tin Pan Alley standard and sung almost to himself, “Brass Buttons” was written in the mid-’60s but not recorded until 1973. James Burton weaves empathetic guitar lines over a painfully intimate portrait of Parsons’ mother Avis, an alcoholic who died from cirrhosis in 1965. Is there a more devastating line in his songbook than: “And the sun comes up without her/It just doesn’t know she’s gone”?
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3 $1000 WEDDING Grievous Angel, 1974
The sorry tale of a groom left waiting at the altar, the nine-minute original version – rejected by the Burritos in 1969 – made it explicit that the bride had “passed away”. The released version is more ambiguous. The opening piano figure is deceptively lush, the mood stately, the structure unconventional. And while Parsons’ voice ripples with emotion his writing possesses the cool clarity of a classic American short story.
Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker discusses his new album, Currents, in the latest issue of Uncut, dated August 2015 and out now.
The singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist also talks about the influences on their third record, the group’s live shows and his new synth-heavy sound.
“The backbo...
Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker discusses his new album, Currents, in the latest issue of Uncut, dated August 2015 and out now.
The singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist also talks about the influences on their third record, the group’s live shows and his new synth-heavy sound.
“The backbone of Tame Impala has always been groove,” explains Parker. “I never wanted to do a song that you couldn’t dance to – or groove to at least, whatever the difference is between those things.
“I heard a few people say it was going to be more dance- or club-oriented, and ‘Let It Happen’ is a song where I was flexing that fantasy. But I wouldn’t say that the rest [of Currents] is like a dance album, not in the slightest.
“At the same time, I hate to say the album is this or that – I prefer people to judge it themselves.”
For a band whose career has been so assiduously documented, Fleetwood Mac have always had a knotty relationship with their past. Great swathes of it are essentially ignored, while the domestic dramas of four decades ago are still the pivot for Fleetwood Mac’s live shows in 2015. Last time they pla...
For a band whose career has been so assiduously documented, Fleetwood Mac have always had a knotty relationship with their past. Great swathes of it are essentially ignored, while the domestic dramas of four decades ago are still the pivot for Fleetwood Mac’s live shows in 2015. Last time they played in London, for instance, the narrative privileged Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks as the tragic star-crossed former lovers reunited; this time round, it’s the return of Christine McVie after a 16 year absence that provides the show with its motor. Not that you’d necessarily forget such a momentous occasion, of course: the band have a weird, almost neurotic need to constantly refer back to the narrative in hand. Tonight, for instance, we are routinely told how delighted they are that McVie is back in the fold, while it falls to McVie herself to spell out the specifics of her return to the band: “It was two years ago I stood on this very stage and played ‘Don’t Stop’…” Meanwhile, Buckingham is eager to present McVie’s return as part of “a karmic, circular moment” in the band’s evolution. “We are a group of individuals that have seen their fair share of ups and downs,” he explains to anyone who’s not been paying attention since Rumours came out. “But we’re still here! And that’s what makes us what we are. With the return of the beautiful Christine, there is no doubt that we begin a brand new, prolific and profound and beautiful chapter in the story of this band, Fleetwood Mac.”
Despite Buckingham’s warm predictions for the future, tonight’s set is typically focussed on the band’s mid-Seventies era: half specifically from Rumours. Writing in his autobiography, Play On, Fleetwood admits to a “preservationist instinct” when it comes to his band’s history. “On my farm in Maui, Hawaii,” he begins, “I have a weather-sealed barn full of memorabilia: photographs, journals, clothes, cars, endless video tapes, concert recordings, all bits of Fleetwood Mac and my life. As much as I’ve always been driven creatively to move forward toward something bigger, brighter and unknown, I’m also a deeply-rooted nostalgic.” Although Fleetwood’s archivist sensibilities may be firmly entrenched, as a live proposition, the band has a prescribed cut-off point: you might not know, for instance, that Fleetwood Mac released 10 albums before Rumours. It’s a lovely thing that Christine McVie is back in the band; but for all the harmonic brilliance of “Everywhere” and “Little Lies”, it’d be wonderful to hear “Show Me A Smile” or “Come A Little Bit Closer”. It’d be even better to get Danny Kirwan on to play “Woman Of A 1000 Days“. Alas, the demarcation line between the early line-ups and the Buckingham/Nicks era is so rigorously enforced that we’re not treated to anything released prior to “the first album in this configuration” – as McVie rather formally describes the Fleetwood Mac record.
Admittedly, it is hard to argue with the sheer brilliance of the Buckingham/Nicks/McVie line-up. But with McVie back in the band, the set-list highlights the disjunct between the band’s three writers. This is most evident on the run of songs from “Rhiannon” to “Everywhere” and “I Know I’m Not Wrong”: Nicks’ is witchy and soft-focus, McVie’s is bright and nimble while Buckingham’s is left-field and surprisingly angry. Admittedly, McVie brings a balance to the show – both in terms of opening out the set list but also the way she softens the on-stage dynamic. Outwardly, at least, she appears less eccentric than Buckingham and more grounded than Stevie Nicks. She is also thankfully brisk when introducing her songs; unlike her bandmates. Nicks, particularly, takes an age to get to “Gypsy”, by way of a lengthy story from 1968 involving Hendrix, Joplin and a San Francisco clothing store. Buckingham, meanwhile, over shares considerably with his intro to “Big Love”. He begins with an unexpected defence of Tango In The Night – “A very difficult album to make, but as a producer I am proud of the result” – before taking the scenic route round to the song’s meaning. “It was a song about someone who was not in touch,” he says, finally getting there. “It was a contemplation of alienation but is now a meditation on the power and importance of change.”
Aside from this talk of change and new chapters, there is nonetheless something telling about the name of this tour: On With The Show. It conjures up images of the band as redoubtable showbiz troopers – which in a sense, is precisely what Fleetwood Mac are these days. For all Buckingham’s talk of “ups and downs” in the band’s history, there is a reassuring sense of professionals at work tonight. He may show-off slightly, but it’s useful to be reminded what a fine player he is, especially on “Big Love”, “Landslide” and “Songbird”. Only the overwhelming oddness of “Tusk” momentarily stops the show’s warm, comfortable vibes. But even Buckingham’s quirks are permissible. Among the most conspicuous of these is the giant image of Buckingham’s head that is beamed onto screen at the rear of the stage during “I Know I’m Not Wrong” – and then, bizarrely, can be seen floating upside down on screens in front of the stage. But for all Buckingham’s idiosyncracies and Nicks’ Twilight theatrics, the heavy lifting is done by the men with their names above the door. Mick Fleetwood might enjoy a little of the thesping done by his band mates – the gong and wind chimes ensemble he brings to bear on “World Turning”, for instance – but as with John McVie there is solid workmanship underpinning the Buckingham/Nicks flamboyance. Indeed, the most unfussy players on stage tonight appear to be the former Mr and Mrs McVie. She is very much Laura Ashley mum, cheerful and polite, effortlessly delivering many of tonight’s best songs; while John McVie remains inscrutable behind his cap and waistcoat. A rarity among Fleetwood Mac, the bassist is the only member of the band to keep his views entirely to himself.
Bit of an inelegant rush this week, but please head over to Bandcamp and check out this new Four Tet album, which I think is maybe his best - certainly his most psychedelic - in a while. And hey, yet another strong Bitchin Bajas incoming; nothing to play you from that yet, but I'll link asap.
Follo...
Bit of an inelegant rush this week, but please head over to Bandcamp and check out this new Four Tet album, which I think is maybe his best – certainly his most psychedelic – in a while. And hey, yet another strong Bitchin Bajas incoming; nothing to play you from that yet, but I’ll link asap.
Television, Alex Chilton, Richard Hell, the Feelies, the dBs and more are to appear on a 4xLP/2xCD set collecting the output of early punk label Ork Records.
Ork Records: New York, New York is released on October 30, 2015 by the Numero Group.
Ork was formed by Television manager Terry Ork and Cha...
Television, Alex Chilton, Richard Hell, the Feelies, the dBs and more are to appear on a 4xLP/2xCD set collecting the output of early punk label Ork Records.
Ork was formed by Television manager Terry Ork and Charles Ball in 1975, ostensibly to release Television’s debut single, “Little Johnny Jewel“. Rolling Stone reports that the two-CD or four-LP set Ork Records: New York, New York comes soon after the vinyl-only Ork: Box, which was released as a limited edition on Record Store Day.
All formats of Ork Records: New York, New York are accompanied by a deluxe 190-page book while a limited edition of both the CD and vinyl sets comes with a 45 featuring two previously unreleased tracks by the Feelies. “The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness” is an unreleased studio track from 1978, backed with cover of Burt Bacharach’s “My Little Red Book” recorded live at CBGBs in December, 1976.
The tracklisting for Ork Records: New York, New York is:
Television – “Little Johnny Jewel”
Feelies – “Fa Ce La”
Richard Hell – “(I Belong to the) Blank Generation”
The Revelons – “The Way (You Tough My Hand)”
Erasers – “I Won’t Give Up”
Alex Chilton – “All of the Time”
Chris Stamey and the dBs – “(I Thought) You Wanted to Know”
Prix – “Zero”
Marbles – “Red Lights”
Alex Chilton – “Take Me Home & Make Me Like It”
Prix – “Girl”
The Idols – “Girl That I Love”
Mick Farren and the New Wave – “Lost Johnny”
Cheetah Chrome – “Still Wanna Die”
The Idols – “You”
The Student Teachers – “Christmas Weather”
Erasers – “It Was So Funny (The Song That They Sung)”
Richard Hell – “(I Could Live With You) (In) Another World”
Chris Stamey – “The Summer Sun”
Alex Chilton – “Free Again”
Richard Lloyd – “(I Thought) You Wanted to Know”
The Student Teachers – “Channel 13”
Chris Stamey – “Where the Fun Is”
Prix – “Everytime I Close My Eyes”
Feelies – “Forces at Work”
Marbles – “Fire and Smoke”
The Revelons – “97 Tears”
Cheetah Chrome – “Take Me Home”
Richard Hell – “You Gotta Lose”
Chris Stamey and the dBs – “If and When”
Mick Farren and the New Wave – “Play With Fire”
Richard Lloyd – “Get Off My Cloud”
Alex Chilton – “The Singer Not the Song”
Richard Lloyd – “Connection”
Alex Chilton – “Summertime Blues”
Mick Farren and the New Wave – “To Know Him Is to Love Him”
Link Cromwell – “Crazy Like a Fox”
Link Cromwell – “Shock Me”
Kenneth Higney – “I Wanna Be the King”
Lester Bangs – “Let It Blurt”
Alex Chilton – “Bangkok”
Peter Holsapple – “Big Black Truck”
Prix – “She Might Look My Way”
Alex Chilton – “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine”
Prix – “Love You All Day Long”
Alex Chilton – “Shakin’ The World”
Prix – “Love You Tonight”
Lester Bangs – “Live”
Kenneth Higney – “Funky Kinky”
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – goes on sale in the UK on July 9. Click here for more details.
Meanwhile, the August 2015 issue of Uncut is in shops now – featuring David Byrne, Sly & The Family Stone, BB King and the death of the blues, The Monkees, Neil Young, Merle Haggard and more
The Monkees talk us through their albums in the new issue of Uncut – dated August 2015, it's on sale in UK shops and available to download now.
In the piece, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork explain how they were essentially a garage band, recall making the film Head with Jack Nicholson and discuss th...
The Monkees talk us through their albums in the new issue of Uncut – dated August 2015, it’s on sale in UK shops and available to download now.
In the piece, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork explain how they were essentially a garage band, recall making the film Head with Jack Nicholson and discuss the reasons they split after just a few productive years.
Talking aboutthe group’s unheard recordings, Dolenz explains that there are still unreleased songs in the archives.
“When the [TV] show was on the air,” he explains, “they wanted at least a couple of new songs every week, so the producers and us were told, ‘Just get in there, and make stuff!’
“So we ended up with a library [of songs], and there’s really good stuff to this day still sitting in the vaults.”
“Going our separate ways was a grave disappointment to me,” says Peter Tork. “I was hoping we had something as a band, but I didn’t know how to make it happen.”
The Monkees’ Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork perform at London’s Eventim Apollo on September 4th.
