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This month in Uncut

Tom Pinnock
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This month in Uncut
The Rolling Stones, The 13th Floor Elevators, Ringo Starr and Ian Dury all feature in the new issue of Uncut, out now. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are on the cover, and inside Jagger looks back on the creation of perhaps the band’s greatest album, Sticky Fingers. The singer and other contribu...

The Rolling Stones, The 13th Floor Elevators, Ringo Starr and Ian Dury all feature in the new issue of Uncut, out now.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are on the cover, and inside Jagger looks back on the creation of perhaps the band’s greatest album, Sticky Fingers.

The singer and other contributors recall adventures in Muscle Shoals and Stargroves, backstage fights at the Marquee Club, photos in a derelict riding school in Regent’s Park and help from Andy Warhol and the Goddess Kali.

“[There was] a lot of good music,” says Jagger. “Very quickly made and lots of fun to do. And with really great musicians and good production team. And it was very successful. So yeah, I was very proud of this album.”

Uncut infiltrates the 13th Floor Elevators’ improbable comeback, and pieces together their traumatic legend, discovering the current state of Roky Erickson and Tommy Hall (no LSD since 2009).

“I never really had a bad acid trip,” says Roky. “You have to respect it…”

Ringo Starr answers your questions, happily discussing his experiences at Butlins, his friend Peter Sellers and eight years in The Beatles: “I said, ‘Fuck it, it’s too crazy, I’m leaving!’”

The Blockheads reveal how they wrote and recorded their classic No 1 single with frontman Ian Dury, “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick”, tracking it in one epic, chaotic live session.

“It was different,” reckons organist Mick Gallagher of the reasons behind the song’s success, “and people liked the smutty reference in the lyric, I think!”

Elsewhere, we join Sturgill Simpson, psych-country’s rising star, on tour in the United States. “The military was not for me,” he tells us.

James Taylor talks us through nine of his classic albums, from Sweet Baby James right up to his new set, Before This World, while Jah Wobble takes us through the records that have shaped his life.

We also meet up with Jim O’Rourke, Wilco producer, former Sonic Youth member and much-loved solo artist, to talk about life in Japan, bumping into Jimmy Page and his long-awaited Simple Songs record.

The legendary sleeve design collective Hipgnosis are remembered in a feature – “elite Surrealist door-to-door troubadours,” says Robert Plant, while Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason recalls them making “the record company’s life hell.”

Ben E King is remembered in our news section, which also includes interviews with Gill Landry, Peter Zinovieff and The Rezillos.

Our 40-page review section features new albums from Richard Thompson, Sun Kil Moon, Graham Parker, Jamie xx and Kacey Musgraves, archive releases from Michael Head And The Strands, Little Richard, Bobby Womack and Broadcast, and live reviews of Super Furry Animals’ wild return and Nick Cave solo.

The free CD, You Gotta Move, includes songs from The Fall, Richard Thompson, Michael Head And The Strands, Meg Baird, Leftfield and Trembling Bells.

CLICK TO BUY THIS ISSUE DIGITALLY NOW!

 

 

Watch opening night footage from the Rolling Stones tour + Uncut’s Sticky Fingers cover revealed!

Michael Bonner
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Watch opening night footage from the Rolling Stones tour + Uncut’s Sticky Fingers cover revealed!
The Rolling Stones opened their Zip Code tour of North America on Sunday, May 24 at San Diego's Petco Park. The 15-city Zip Code tour coincides with the Sticky Fingers deluxe reissue. The band were joined by Darryl Jones on bass, Chuck Leavell on keyboards, Lisa Fischer and Bernard Fowler on backi...

The Rolling Stones opened their Zip Code tour of North America on Sunday, May 24 at San Diego’s Petco Park.

The 15-city Zip Code tour coincides with the Sticky Fingers deluxe reissue.

The band were joined by Darryl Jones on bass, Chuck Leavell on keyboards, Lisa Fischer and Bernard Fowler on backing vocals, and – replacing Bobby Keys who died last year – Tim Ries and Karl Denson on saxophone.

The set featured four songs taken from Sticky Fingers – “Brown Sugar”, “Bitch” (featuring Gary Clark Jr), “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and “Moonlight Mile“. The band had previously played the album in its entirety during a club show in Los Angeles last week [May 20, 2015].

Scroll down to read the set list in full.

The next date of the Stones’ Zip Code tour is May 30 at Ohio Stadium, Columbus, Ohio. You can find more details about tickets by clicking here.

Meanwhile, the Rolling Stones are on the cover of the new Uncut – which is on sale today, May 26.

Inside the issue, Mick Jagger chats in detail about his memories of recording Sticky Fingers and we also speak to the album’s engineer Chris Kimsey about working with the Stones on this classic album, while photographer Peter Webb recalls the Sticky Fingers photo shoot and former Stones’ PR Keith Altham gives us an eyewitness account of the Stones’ 1971 UK tour.

U218-Stones-cover-LR

The Rolling Stones set list for Petco Park:

Jumpin’ Jack Flash
It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (But I Like It)
All Down The Line
Tumbling Dice
Doom And Gloom
Bitch (with Gary Clark Jnr)
Moonlight Mile
Can’t You Hear Me Knocking
Street Fighting Man
Honky Tonk Women
Slipping Away (with Keith on lead vocals)
Before They Make Me Run (with Keith on lead vocals)
Midnight Rambler
Miss You
Gimme Shelter
Start Me Up
Sympathy For The Devil
Brown Sugar

ENCORE
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

Inside the new issue of Uncut…

John Mulvey
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Inside the new issue of Uncut…
Is history speeding up, or am I just getting older? I doubt I'm the first man of a certain age to have a minor existential crisis triggered by an album reissues programme. It's been caused these past few weeks, though, by reviewing a couple of albums for the new issue of Uncut (officially out today ...

Is history speeding up, or am I just getting older? I doubt I’m the first man of a certain age to have a minor existential crisis triggered by an album reissues programme. It’s been caused these past few weeks, though, by reviewing a couple of albums for the new issue of Uncut (officially out today in the UK) that I wrote about first time round – and not, it seems, that long ago.

One is the debut by the Vancouver collective, Black Mountain, whose “Druganaut” was a key part of the first CD of new psychedelia I compiled for Uncut, “Comets, Ghosts And Sunburned Hands”. “Black Mountain”, amazingly, came out in 2005, hence the tenth anniversary deluxe reissue.

The second is our Archive Album Of The Month, Michael Head’s “Magical World Of The Strands”., a kind of opiate folk record that relocates the spirits of Arthur Lee and Tim Buckley to 1990s Liverpool. Head’s story is a spectacularly messy one, and various true believers have been trying to make him famous – with his first band, The Pale Fountains, then repeatedly with Shack – for three decades now, without much in the way of success. “The fate of Michael Head, elusive genius with few contemporary equals, remains uncertain,” I wrote in NME 18 years ago, when The Magical World first came out. “As this album once again so conclusively proves, he deserves the world.”

With the likes of Mick Head – and, indeed, Uncut’s cover stars this month, The Rolling Stones – it’s tempting, as storytellers, to repeat the myths and circumnavigate the actual music, not least because music is often substantially harder to write about. I tried this time, though, to contextualise Head as part of a deep and transporting musical tradition, rather than as a chemically-adjusted outrider of Britpop. And in a similar spirit Mick Jagger, not always the keenest to anatomise his own work, has given us a revealing interview about the making of one of his greatest albums, “Sticky Fingers”.

Elsewhere in the issue we have the terrific Jim O’Rourke interview that I wrote about last week; an exclusive inside story on the 13th Floor Elevators reunion; a piece about the radical visions of Hipgnosis, featuring insights from Robert Plant and Nick Mason; plus new interviews with Sturgill Simpson, James Taylor, The Blockheads, Jah Wobble and one Ringo Starr. In reviews, you’ll find Sun Kil Moon, Richard Thompson, Jamie xx, Leon Bridges, Kacey Musgraves, Rickie Lee Jones, Robin Gibb and Little Richard. Oh, and there’s an interview with a lost ’70s LA act called Smokey (the singer almost replaced Iggy in The Stooges) that I can’t recommend strongly enough.

Smokey’s singles were mostly so obscure, for various amusing reasons, that they’ve rarely been heard since they were made. “Sticky Fingers”, though, has been played a few times in the last 44 years by most of us, with one notable exception…

“I have never listened to it, probably since it was recorded, since the playback sessions…I never listen to them again,” says Mick Jagger. Forty-four years: what happened there? Back in the blink of an eye…

Read Jack White’s poem, ‘Music Is Sacred’

Michael Bonner
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Read Jack White’s poem, ‘Music Is Sacred’
Jack White has published a poem, 'Music Is Sacred', over on Third Man Records. The piece is written entirely in the lower-case; you can read it in full below. In related news, Third Man Records will participate in the Poetry ReIncarnation at London's Roundhouse on Saturday, May 30. The event cele...

Jack White has published a poem, ‘Music Is Sacred‘, over on Third Man Records.

The piece is written entirely in the lower-case; you can read it in full below.

In related news, Third Man Records will participate in the Poetry ReIncarnation at London’s Roundhouse on Saturday, May 30.

The event celebrates the 50th anniversary of the First International Poetry Incarnation, which featured performances from Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael Horovitz.

For the ReIncarnation, Third Man Books poet Janaka Stucky and editor/poet Chet Weise will be joining musician Duke Garwood and poets including Michael Horovitz, Pete Brown, John Cooper Clarke, John Hegley and Adam Horovitz.

Here’s ‘Music Is Sacred’:

“those of you who stand for the sanctity of music
so that its soul can breathe
and be heard
so that it blooms in graveyards
echoes in hotel hallways
awakens neighbors in the night
and fills peoples minds with fire
shout it out loud with whatever microphone you have
or these stones will shout for you.
jump in front of demons,
and stand over cowards and those who would intend
to rip out your lungs and dampen your desire
tell the living and the dead
what you know in your heart to be true
and what you know your ears
will forever hear
that the melody of the human race
is a song that never ends.
music is sacred.”

Thom Yorke premiers new music at art installation

Michael Bonner
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Thom Yorke premiers new music at art installation
Thom Yorke has recorded the soundtrack to a new exhibition by visual artist Stanley Donwood. Donwood, who has been designing Radiohead’s artwork since The Bends, launched the showcase on May 21 at Carriageworks in Sydney, Australia. The exhibit, which spans 25 years' worth of work, is titled The ...

Thom Yorke has recorded the soundtrack to a new exhibition by visual artist Stanley Donwood.

Donwood, who has been designing Radiohead’s artwork since The Bends, launched the showcase on May 21 at Carriageworks in Sydney, Australia. The exhibit, which spans 25 years’ worth of work, is titled The Panic Room and runs until June 6.

Yorke’s ambient soundtrack is titled “Subterranea“.

According to a report on ABC, there are no plans currently to release the soundtrack.

You can hear a preview of the soundtrack by clicking here

https://twitter.com/StanleyDonwood/status/601623388960894976/

https://twitter.com/StanleyDonwood/status/600195638630842368/

https://twitter.com/StanleyDonwood/status/599394182071865344/

 

Paul McCartney, live in London

Michael Bonner
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Paul McCartney, live in London
Britain’s Got Talent! Here’s Paul, a 72 year-old grandfather of eight from Liverpool, playing us one of his latest compositions…. The song in question is “Hope For The Future”, released as a single at the tail end of 2014. As McCartney compositions go, it might not be among his most memora...

Britain’s Got Talent! Here’s Paul, a 72 year-old grandfather of eight from Liverpool, playing us one of his latest compositions…. The song in question is “Hope For The Future”, released as a single at the tail end of 2014. As McCartney compositions go, it might not be among his most memorable (it’s strictly mid-tempo arena material) but it is interesting for what is says about McCartney’s current choice of collaborators. It is his first song written specifically for a computer game franchise; and it is only one of an intriguing number of career swerves McCartney has been making lately. There have been recent hook-ups with Kayne West and Rihanna; on the horizon, we are told there is a film soundtrack in the works with Lady Gaga. Admittedly, McCartney has never been shy of the occasional creative dalliance throughout his illustrious career – Stevie Wonder, Johnny Cash, Lulu, Michael Jackson among them. He is still, quite literally, here, there and everywhere; although perhaps these associations with younger artists are indicative of McCartney’s desire to convey a continued forward momentum. Last year, Richard Lester told me about his experiences directing McCartney for A Hard Day’s Night: “I think the problem with Paul is he is so enthusiastic towards cinema, art, the zeitgeist, what’s going on, that it got in the way. Sometimes he tried harder than he should have.” Lester was evidently talking about McCartney in the early 60s here; but arguably such an observation is still pertinent to the McCartney of 2015.

Tonight, the second of his two-date stint at London’s O2 Arena, foregrounds the various conflicting aspects of McCartney. On one hand, there is ‘thumbs aloft Macca’ – a man who is clearly incapable of walking from one part of the stage to another without mugging at the audience. On the other, there is Paul McCartney, the serious composer of impeccable provenance. Before the show starts, we’re treated to a selection of Beatles’ covers – The Persuasions’ “Octopus’ Garden”, Esther Phillips’ “And I Love Him” – while images of McCartney and his peers pictures through the years flow past on screen. There is Jagger along with Townshend and Hendrix. Here’s the McCartney family’s beloved Old English Sheepdog, Martha, and there’s the kids racing around on trikes. McCartney himself ages and regains his youth before our eyes. He appears sporting a moustache in the “Strawberry Fields Forever” film; then again, in the company of a mullet and Denny Laine; with Bob Geldof at Wembley Stadium for Live Aid; back to The Beatles… McCartney himself arrives on stage, pointing at the audience then back to himself, as if to say, “You guys! Are you here cheering for little old me..?” Then we’re in “Eight Days A Week”, “Save Us” and “Got To Get You Into My Life”: a solid, opening run that he deliberately unseats with “Temporary Secretary”. Taken from 1980’s McCartney II, it is a genuinely striking curveball, characterized by a fidgety krautrock keyboard pattern where the band shout the title over and over. In amidst the night’s otherwise cheery nostalgia, it feels bold and surprisingly radical.

Business resumes as normal with “Let Me Roll It” which segues into “Foxy Lady”, and the first of tonight’s back-in-the-day yarns. This involves Jimi Hendrix (cue audience applause), Sgt Pepper (more applause) and Eric Clapton (further applause). Indeed, for anyone playing ‘Beatles Bingo’, Sgt Pepper receives four mentions in total during the show – each one accompanied by bursts of applause, naturally – though he only plays two songs from it: “Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite” and “Lovely Rita”. The winner is ‘the White Album’, which has four songs nestling in the setlist: “Back In The USSR”, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, “Backbird” and “Helter Skelter”. The anedcotes/dedications to fallen friends continue – to Linda (“Maybe I’m Amazed”, John (“Here Today”) and George (“Something”). Before “Back In The USSR”, he tells a funny story about meeting a delegation of Russian high-ups who admitted they’d learned English from Beatles’ records: the incumbent Minister of Defence greeted McCartney with “Hello, Goodbye”.

The set winds its way onward – there are 41 songs played in a set running close to three hours – with McCartney accompanied by his dutifully well-drilled band. Occasionally, there are mishaps: “Paperback Writer” is unnecessarily recast as a stadium rocker, which ends with McCartney coaxing feedback from the speakers. …Why? The intimacy of “Eleanor Rigby” is compromised by the distraction of having the drummer and guitarist walking from the rear of the stage to the microphones to provide harmonies then stepping back again. Then again, the fireworks and flames for “Live And Let Die” provide a thrilling spectacle. There is a genuinely amusement moment when he introduces “New” or “the song from Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs II” as his grandchildren know it. In the scheme of things, The Beatles’ ballads carry the strongest weight: dropped in half way through the set, “And I Love Her” and “Blackbird” provide vulnerability and tenderness, even in a hall this size.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

Click here to buy Paul McCartney: The Ultimate Music Guide

Paul McCartney’s set list:

Eight Days A Week
Save Us
Got To Get You Into My Life
Listen To What The Man Said
Temporary Secretary
Let Me Roll It
Paperback Writer
My Valentine
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five
The Long And Winding Road
Maybe I’m Amazed
I’m Looking Through You
We Can Work It Out
Another Day
Hope For The Future
And I Love Her
Blackbird
Here Today
New
Queenie Eye
Lady Madonna
All Together Now
Lovely Rita
Eleanor Rigby
Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!
Ram On
Something
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Band On The Run
Back In The USSR
Let It Be
Live And Let Die
Hey Jude

Encore # 1
Another Girl
Hi, Hi, Hi
Can’t Buy Me Love

Encore # 2
Yesterday
Helter Skelter
Golden Slumbers
Carry That Weight
The End

Photo: Jim Dyson/WireImage/Getty Images

Roger Daltrey threatens to stop Who gig after smelling marijuana

Tom Pinnock
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Roger Daltrey threatens to stop Who gig after smelling marijuana
Roger Daltrey threatened to stop a Who gig this week after smelling marijuana. The Who were performing at New York's Nassau Coliseum on Wednesday (May 20), when the singer smelt the smoke – he is allergic to the drug. He informed the crowd that "the show will be over" if the smoker continued, add...

Roger Daltrey threatened to stop a Who gig this week after smelling marijuana.

The Who were performing at New York’s Nassau Coliseum on Wednesday (May 20), when the singer smelt the smoke – he is allergic to the drug.

He informed the crowd that “the show will be over” if the smoker continued, adding: “So it’s your choice, I can’t do anything about it. I’m doing my best.”

Fans reportedly began chanting “eat it”, while Pete Townshend suggested a different method of taking the drug. “Up your fucking arse. It’s the quickest way!”

“And by far the most pleasurable!” added Daltrey. The singer’s voice is reported to have temporarily deteriorated after he came into contact with the smoke. Watch the moment below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddOpMwQ7h00
The Who played:

I Can’t Explain
The Seeker
Who Are You
The Kids Are Alright
Squeeze Box
I Can See for Miles
My Generation
Behind Blue Eyes
Bargain
Join Together
You Better You Bet
I’m One
Love, Reign O’er Me
Eminence Front
A Quick One (While He’s Away)
Amazing Journey
Sparks
Pinball Wizard
See Me, Feel Me / Listening To You
Baba O’Riley
Won’t Get Fooled Again

Pete Townshend features on the cover of the current issue of Uncut

Rodriguez: “My career… it’s been a mess”

Tom Pinnock
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Rodriguez: “My career… it’s been a mess”
In this great piece from Uncut's July 2013 issue (Take 194), reclusive singer-songwriter Rodriguez discusses the incredibly successful Searching For Sugar Man documentary, his revived career and his first album in 40 years. But first: “I’m going to run for mayor!” Story: Michael Bonner ______...

In this great piece from Uncut’s July 2013 issue (Take 194), reclusive singer-songwriter Rodriguez discusses the incredibly successful Searching For Sugar Man documentary, his revived career and his first album in 40 years. But first: “I’m going to run for mayor!” Story: Michael Bonner

_________________________

It turned out to be an auspicious day for Sixto Rodriguez. That morning, he’d flown back to the United States from South Africa, where he’d played a pair of sold-out shows to more than 10,000 people. In the evening, meanwhile, the Academy Awards were taking place in Los Angeles, where among the nominations for Best Documentary was Searching For Sugar Man, the film  that had made the Mexican-American singer-songwriter an international star after four decades in obscurity.

Looking back on the events that took place earlier this year, on February 20, Rodriguez remains Zen-like. He explains that he had declined the offer from the film’s director, Malik Bandjellou, to attend the Oscars in Los Angeles, preferring instead to stay at home in his native Detroit. “There was too much to do that day,” Rodriguez says. He tells us that, no, he didn’t watch the ceremony at home: “I don’t have TV service, so I didn’t catch it.” It transpires that Rodriguez slept through the most important night of his career so far, unaware that a television audience of over 40 million Americans had tuned in to watch Bandjellou’s film win the Oscar. “My daughter Sandra called me and told me. It’s pretty stunning,” Rodriguez says, before adding in his customary self-deprecatory manner: “But it’s Malik’s film. So credit to him. I was glad he won. He painted me in a good light, I feel. I’ve seen it over 40 times.”

The success of Searching For Sugar Man has opened a number of doors for Rodriguez that have otherwise remained firmly shut for almost 40 years. Now “a solid 70” years old, Rodriguez can finally enjoy the benefits of his late arriving success. He now travels in “a couple of buses, we’ve got two of those, they sleep 12 people,” he explains. “I’m a singer, vocals against guitar. The thing is, I go to different countries and I have bands there. Altogether I’d say I maintain, like, 12 bands all over the world. Right now, I’m playing with an American band. I have a South African band, I have an Australian band, I have a Sweden band, a UK band.”

And what’s his greatest extravagance been?

“I enjoy room service,” he says after a pause. “Two o’clock in the morning. You know. It’s just the very nice little things. That late success has happened is OK. I’m grounded. I use my seniority to my advantage. That’s helped me out. Who’d have thought? So, yeah. I’m a lucky guy.”

Timbuktu

Michael Bonner
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Timbuktu
In March, 2012, the northern Malian city of Timbuktu was occupied, first by the secular Tuareg separatists, the MNLA, then by an alliance between al-Qaida and their affiliates, Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith). During a nine month period, buildings were looted, Sharia law was imposed, music and f...

In March, 2012, the northern Malian city of Timbuktu was occupied, first by the secular Tuareg separatists, the MNLA, then by an alliance between al-Qaida and their affiliates, Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith). During a nine month period, buildings were looted, Sharia law was imposed, music and football were both banned. In July, 2012, the New York Times reported that a couple who were accused of having children outside marriage were buried up to their necks in sand and stoned to death in front of several hundred witnesses.

This incident did not go unnoticed by Abderrahname Sissako, a Mauritanian-born filmmaker who grew up in Mali. Sissako’s latest film describes how the civilian population of Timbuktu, on the southern edge of the Sahara, cope with similar tribulations presented by their newly self-appointed rulers. “Roll up your pants, it’s the new law,” goes one edict. It would be entirely absurd, were punishment for disobeying it so terrible.

Through a series of unconnected vignettes, Sissako evokes many subtly delineated and touching forms of humanity in the face of such extremism. When football is banned, the local boys take to a pitch and kick an imaginary ball to one to each other. A female fishmonger reasonably attests that she cannot wear gloves and sell fish and dares the jihadis to cut off her hands. A woman who has been sentenced to 40 lashes for singing transforms her cries of distress under the lash into a remarkable aria. Although much of the film takes place within Timbuktu itself, the emotional core of Sissako’s film lies in the dunes outside the city’s walls. There, cattle herder Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed) lives in a tent with his wife Satima (Toulou Kiki) and their 12 year-old daughter Toya (Layla Walet Mohamed). An incident involving one of Kidane’s herd, however, brings him to the attention of the authorities. Sissako’s film offers a fearlessly poetic response to the jihadist occupation; its tone is never preachy and it is beautiful to watch. When the jihadi enter a mosque during prayers, wearing shoes and brandishing Kalashnikovs, the iman asks, “Where is God in all this?”

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

Ian Curtis’ home to become Joy Division museum

Tom Pinnock
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Ian Curtis’ home to become Joy Division museum
Ian Curtis' home has been bought by a fan hoping to turn it into a museum about the Joy Division frontman. Hadar Goldman purchased the two-bedroom house at 77 Barton Street, Macclesfield, for the asking price of £115,000, but has also had to pay £75,000 of compensation and legal fees. "I felt as...

Ian Curtis‘ home has been bought by a fan hoping to turn it into a museum about the Joy Division frontman.

Hadar Goldman purchased the two-bedroom house at 77 Barton Street, Macclesfield, for the asking price of £115,000, but has also had to pay £75,000 of compensation and legal fees.

“I felt as if I had to get involved,” said Goldman in a press release, “especially after hearing the plight of the fans who had failed to raise the necessary funds to buy the house owned and lived in by one of the musical heroes of my youth. Joy Division left a musical legacy which has influenced many of today’s bands.

“This is not just about history and the past,” he continued. “The Joy Division legacy deserves to be taken into the 21st century, to raise awareness into one of the most seminal bands in the history of contemporary music.”

Joy Division bassist Peter Hook has voiced support for the plan, which the press release claims will be “sympathetically conceived and developed”, while guitarist Bernard Sumner has stated he was “torn” by proposals to turn the house into a museum.

This week marks 35 years since Curtis’ death, on May 18, 1980.

Paul McCartney working with Lady Gaga on new soundtrack

Tom Pinnock
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Paul McCartney working with Lady Gaga on new soundtrack
Paul McCartney has been writing and recording with Lady Gaga for the soundtrack to a new animated film. High In The Clouds is based on McCartney's own 2005 children's book of the same name, co-written with Philip Ardagh, about a squirrel, Wirral, fleeing from human development. McCartney has writt...

Paul McCartney has been writing and recording with Lady Gaga for the soundtrack to a new animated film.

High In The Clouds is based on McCartney’s own 2005 children’s book of the same name, co-written with Philip Ardagh, about a squirrel, Wirral, fleeing from human development.

McCartney has written seven or eight songs for the animated film version of his book, and is even reported to be voicing one of the characters.

There is as yet no information on the song that McCartney and Lady Gaga have worked on together.

High In The Clouds is being directed by Cody Cameron, who has previously co-helmed Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2.

The 17th Uncut Playlist Of 2015

John Mulvey
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The 17th Uncut Playlist Of 2015
Not quite as long a playlist as some weeks, maybe because a) I've been quite stuck on that Deslondes album, as well as the pretty Go-Betweensy debut from Courtney Barnett affiliate Fraser A Gorman, and of course "The Monsanto Years"; and b) Kamasi Washington's often tremendous album is about three h...

Not quite as long a playlist as some weeks, maybe because a) I’ve been quite stuck on that Deslondes album, as well as the pretty Go-Betweensy debut from Courtney Barnett affiliate Fraser A Gorman, and of course “The Monsanto Years”; and b) Kamasi Washington’s often tremendous album is about three hours long, and eats up a lot of time.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen an appalling photo of the new issue of Uncut that I posted earlier this morning, plugging the Rolling Stones cover story – it’s Jagger on “Sticky Fingers” – in the wake of them playing the whole album in LA last night. Our lucky subscribers should be getting this over the weekend, and it arrives in UK shops next Tuesday. Also featuring 13th Floor Elevators, Jim O’Rourke, Hipgnosis, Sturgill Simpson, Ian Dury, SFA, Ringo and me, at length, on Mick Head And The Strands.

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

1 Rachel Grimes – The Clearing (Temporary Residence)

2 Samantha Crain – Under Branch & Thorn & Tree (Full Time Hobby)

3 Mac DeMarco – Another One (Captured Tracks)

4 Various Artists – Kollektion 4: By Richard Fearless (Bureau B)

5 Neil Young – The Monsanto Years (Reprise)

6 [REDACTED]

7 The Deslondes – The Deslondes (New West)

8 Courtney Love – Miss Narcissist (Ghost Ramp)

9 Fraser A Gorman – Slow Gum (House Anxiety/Marathon Artists)

10 Jim O’Rourke – Simple Songs (Drag City)

Read my review of Jim O’Rourke’s Simple Songs here

11 Drinks – Hermits On Holiday (Heavenly)

12 The Ex & Fendika – Lale Guma/Addis Hum (Ex)

13 Hiss Golden Messenger/Michael Chapman/Caught On Tape/Bishop-Orcutt-Corsano/Bardo Pond/William Tyler/Six Organs Of Admittance/Yo La Tengo/Kurt Vile/Steve Gunn – Parallelogram (Three Lobed Recordings)

14 Briana Marela – Surrender (Jagjaguwar)

15 Kamasi Washington – The Epic (Brainfeeder)

16 [REDACTED]

17 Peacers – Peacers (Drag City)

18 Sun Kil Moon – Universal Themes (Rough Trade)

19 Frazey Ford – Indian Ocean (Nettwerk)

20 The Black Dog – Neither/Neither (Dust Science Recordings)

21 Daniel Romano – If I’ve Only One Time Askin’ (New West)

The Rolling Stones play Sticky Fingers in full at surprise Hollywood show

Tom Pinnock
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The Rolling Stones play Sticky Fingers in full at surprise Hollywood show
The Rolling Stones performed Sticky Fingers in full last night (May 20, 2015) at a surprise show in Los Angeles. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts announced the show at the 1,300-capacity Fonda Theatre in Hollywood yesterday afternoon. Sticky Fingers was performed, albeit ...

The Rolling Stones performed Sticky Fingers in full last night (May 20, 2015) at a surprise show in Los Angeles.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts announced the show at the 1,300-capacity Fonda Theatre in Hollywood yesterday afternoon.

Sticky Fingers was performed, albeit in a different order, beginning with “Sway” and ending with “Brown Sugar”, with a number of songs getting their first live outing for years.

“I Got The Blues” and “Moonlight Mile” hadn’t been performed by the band since 1999, and “Sister Morphine” since 1998, with “You Gotta Move” last played onstage on June 8, 1976.

The band also paid tribute to BB King, with a performance of the late guitarist’s “Rock Me Baby”.

“So this is our first show of our tour,” Jagger told the crowd after “All Down The Line”, Yahoo reports. “Tonight we’re doing something we’ve never done before… We’re going to do the whole of Sticky Fingers.”

Before “Sister Morphine”, Jagger told the audience: “I should have warned you before, but there may be a lot of ’60s drug references on this record that may puzzle some people. It was a great, groovy scene.”

At the end of the show, the singer joked that the band would return to play 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request album in full next time.

The Rolling Stones are on the cover of the next issue of Uncut, out Tuesday (May 26, 2015), with Mick Jagger recalling the years around Sticky Fingers, as well as the recording of the band’s seminal 1971 album.

The Rolling Stones played:

Start Me Up
When The Whip Comes Down
All Down The Line
Sway
Dead Flowers
Wild Horses
Sister Morphine
You Gotta Move
Bitch
Can’t You Hear Me Knocking
I Got the Blues
Moonlight Mile
Brown Sugar
Rock Me Baby
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
I Can’t Turn You Loose

 

The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles Vol 2 & 3

Neil Spencer
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The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles Vol 2 & 3
When Stax Records re-emerged, phoenix like, from the flames of corporate arson in mid-1969, it was with the simultaneous release of 27 albums. The label had lost its entire back catalogue when Warner Brothers took over Atlantic Records, and lost its totemic star, Otis Redding, in a plane crash. Stax...

When Stax Records re-emerged, phoenix like, from the flames of corporate arson in mid-1969, it was with the simultaneous release of 27 albums. The label had lost its entire back catalogue when Warner Brothers took over Atlantic Records, and lost its totemic star, Otis Redding, in a plane crash. Stax looked finished; instead it soared anew.

Like the rest of the music industry, the album would prove the future for Stax, with the company kept buoyant by the sprawling, million selling ‘symphonic soul’ outings of Isaac Hayes. Still, even in the early 1970s, the golden age for albums by luminaries like Gaye, Wonder and Mayfield, the African-American market remained tuned principally to the 7” single, where love ballad and dance anthem held sway. Hit singles were no longer the sine qua non of rock music  – consider Zeppelin or Floyd – but in soul, the break-out hit remained crucial.

Hence the sheer profusion contained in the two chunky boxes here, some 430 tunes in all, many without any parent album. It’s a more diverse collection than the familiar finger-snapping Stax logo might suggest (in fact, many sides were issued on the subsidiaries of Volt, Enterprise, Respect and We Produce). There is crisp southern funk and deep soul aplenty from both Stax’s star names – Johnnie Taylor, Rufus Thomas, The Staple Singers, The Emotions, Eddie Floyd – and from few-hit wonders like Veda Brown, Jean Knight and Shirley Brown, but there is also blues, ‘northern’ stompers, novelty offerings, Christmas records (including The Emotions’ ”Black Christmas”) film themes (Melvin Van Peebles” “Sweetback Theme”), country covers, and the blue-eyed soul of Delaney and Bonnie.

Such diversity, more apparent on Volume Two, reflected the ambitions of Stax’s new driving force, Al Bell, elevated from head of promotions to Vice President by Stax founder Jim Stewart. Bell saw Stax as an emblem of black pride and empowerment, but he also harboured a vision of Stax as “a total record company” unrestricted by genre. The label’s lifeblood had always been the productions of its McLemore studio, cut with the house band of Booker T and the MGs and the horns of the Markeys, and drawing principally on local talent. No longer.  Bell signed acts from all points of the compass, leased ready-made productions and increasingly sent Stax’s acts to record at Alabama’s Muscle Shoals, a studio that had lent its Midas touch to Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett before hosting the likes of the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon.

Bell’s policy was not without success. The Staple Singers, one of the touchstones of the new Stax, sired masterpieces like “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself” at Muscle Shoals, and among the cross-over hits here are buy-ins like Frederick Knight’s wistful “I’ve Been Lonely So Long”, but the family atmosphere and identity of Stax were broken, to the point where guitarist Steve Cropper, a lynchpin as writer, arranger and player, left in disillusionment.

Still, great singles and contenders for the R&B Charts continued to roll out. Here you’ll find blues classics like Albert King’s “Crosscut Caw” and Little Milton’s “Rainy Day” (alongside John Lee Hooker’s less celebrated “Grinder Man”), intricate vocal harmony pieces like The Dramatics “In The Rain”, complete with elaborate aquatic effects, tough dancers like Veda Brown’s “Short Stopping” and tearful slowies like Mel and Tim’s gospel-soaked “Starting All Over Again” (modelled on Johnny Nash’s “I can See Clearly Now”).

Infidelity and double-dealing are a constant theme, the narrative of Shirley Brown’s “Woman To Woman”, the Soul Children’s “I’ll Be The Other Woman”, Johnnie Taylor’s “Who’s Making Love” (the first big hit of the post-Atlantic era), and William Bell’s overlooked “Gettin’ What You Want (Losin’ What You Have)”. Though soaked in the church traditions of the south, the influence of Ike Hayes’ rap-heavy bedroom crooning is often evident – not least on “Tribute to A Black Woman”, written by Ike and sung by sister (?) Bernice – while Hayes’ own work is arguably more digestible in the edited down single versions of “By The Time I Get To Phoenix”, “Walk On By” et al.

The call of the dancefloor is never far off. The irrepressible Rufus Thomas saw to that with “Funky Chicken” and “Funky Penguin”, while “Singing About Love” by the obscure Jeanne and The Darlings is the kind of belter favoured by Northern Soul aficionados (though the group came from Arkansas).  Other curios include Detroit’s Black Nasty, a rock-soul amalgam partial to squealing guitars, and an impromptu grouping of Cropper, Albert King and The Staples for John Lee Hooker’s “Tupelo”.

Such in-studio inventions became increasingly uncommon once Cropper split; there would be no more MGs gems like “Soul Limbo” and “Time Is Tight”. You can feel the energy draining from McLemore Avenue on Volume 3, which is notably lighter on hits despite the increased presence of Stax’s major acts – William Bell, Emotions, Dramatics, Staples et al. The company, plagued by dubious fiscal dealings, wound up in 1975 with a whimper; the end of an era not just for Stax but for soul music, which would soon be eclipsed by disco.

Watch exclusive Paul Weller rehearsal footage

Michael Bonner
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Watch exclusive Paul Weller rehearsal footage
To coincide with the release this week of Paul Weller's new album, Saturns Pattern, we're delighted to offer this exclusive footage of Weller rehearsing the track "White Sky". Paul Weller - White Sky Rehearsal Footage Saturns Pattern can be bought by clicking here. Written and recorded at Black ...

To coincide with the release this week of Paul Weller‘s new album, Saturns Pattern, we’re delighted to offer this exclusive footage of Weller rehearsing the track “White Sky”.

Paul Weller – White Sky Rehearsal Footage

Saturns Pattern can be bought by clicking here.

Written and recorded at Black Barn Studios in Surrey, Saturns Pattern was produced by Jan “Stan” Kybert and Weller.

Musicians on the album include Steve Cradock, Andy Crofts, Ben Gordelier and Steve Pilgrim, as well as The Strypes’ Josh McClorey, original Jam guitarist Steve Brookes and members of Syd Arthur.

The tracklisting for Saturns Pattern is:
White Sky
Saturns Pattern
Going My Way
Long Time
Pick It Up
I’m Where I Should Be
Phoenix
In The Car…
These City Streets

Ryan Adams to release Ten Songs From Live At Carnegie Hall album

Tom Pinnock
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Ryan Adams to release Ten Songs From Live At Carnegie Hall album
Ryan Adams is releasing a live album, Ten Songs From Live At Carnegie Hall, on June 8. The release is a more compact version of the limited-edition, 42-song Live At Carnegie Hall vinyl set, which Adams put out earlier this year. Ten Songs… will be released on PAX AM/Columbia on 140gm vinyl with ...

Ryan Adams is releasing a live album, Ten Songs From Live At Carnegie Hall, on June 8.

The release is a more compact version of the limited-edition, 42-song Live At Carnegie Hall vinyl set, which Adams put out earlier this year.

Ten Songs… will be released on PAX AM/Columbia on 140gm vinyl with download code, and as a single CD.

The album will also feature two new songs, “This Is Where We Meet In My Mind” and “How Much Light”, alongside fan favourites like “New York, New York” and “Sylvia Plath”.

The tracklisting for Ten Songs From Live At Carnegie Hall is:

Oh My Sweet Carolina
Nobody Girl
New York, New York
Sylvia Plath
This Is Where We Meet In My Mind
My Wrecking Ball
Gimme Something Good
How Much Light
Kim
Come Pick Me Up

Bob Dylan closes penultimate Late Show With David Letterman – watch

Uncut
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Bob Dylan closes penultimate Late Show With David Letterman – watch
Bob Dylan closed the penultimate Late Show With David Letterman last night (May 19), performing "The Night We Called It A Day" from his album of Frank Sinatra covers, Shadows In The Night. The performance was Dylan's first appearance on Letterman's show since 1993, when he played "Forever Young", o...

Bob Dylan closed the penultimate Late Show With David Letterman last night (May 19), performing “The Night We Called It A Day” from his album of Frank Sinatra covers, Shadows In The Night.

The performance was Dylan’s first appearance on Letterman’s show since 1993, when he played “Forever Young”, originally released on Planet Waves 20 years before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_djZiswcrQ

Before the performance, David Letterman revealed that he had brought his son up to rate Dylan as the greatest songwriter of all time.

Letterman is retiring from the show after 33 years, with his final show taking place tonight (May 20, 2015).

Read Uncut’s review of Dylan’s Shadows In The Night here.

Robin Guthrie interviewed: “I’m suffering from old git syndrome”

Michael Bonner
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Robin Guthrie interviewed: “I’m suffering from old git syndrome”
“I’m suffering from old git syndrome at the moment,” Robin Guthrie admits to Uncut. “I’ve been suffering from it since my twenties…” Guthrie is at home in a small village in the north west of France. He is, he explains, in the throes of repairing a piece of furniture in his daughter’...

“I’m suffering from old git syndrome at the moment,” Robin Guthrie admits to Uncut. “I’ve been suffering from it since my twenties…” Guthrie is at home in a small village in the north west of France. He is, he explains, in the throes of repairing a piece of furniture in his daughter’s bedroom when Uncut calls. “I meant to tell you that I’m sitting composing some sort of grand thing,” he laughs. “But alas…”

Guthrie has lived quietly in France for almost 14 years now. He continues to make music in his home studio; though of course the circumstances have changed greatly since his days with the Cocteau Twins. Guthrie was then only 20 when the Cocteau Twins released their debut album, Garlands, in 1982. “My complete life ambition was to make a record, like Garlands,” he admits. “And after that there’d never been a plan B.”

Fortunately for Guthrie, a plan B was not required. Although he claims he “wasn’t happy with Garlands at the time”, he never the less persevered. In tandem with his commitments in the Cocteau Twins, Guthrie found time for extra-curricular production work; including Felt’s Ignite The Seven Canons and the band’s single, “Primitive Painters”, AR Kane, Lush and The Gun Club. “A couple of bands I’ve produced, I’ve produced really old records for them,” he reflects. “The Gun Club album that I produced [Mother Juno] doesn’t sound like any other Gun Club record. But they loved it. That’s what Jeffrey [Lee Pierce] wanted; he wanted to move his roots to the next decade as it were. I learnt to take my foot off the gas pedal later, producing people. I probably grew up a bit, I felt less needy. I felt less needy of getting all the attention, that kind of thing. But it’s true, when a young man sets out, he does seek approval and praise for his stuff. A little bit later you do find the confidence and you do find that other people can go fuck themselves.”

Since the Cocteau Twins disbanded in 1997, Guthrie has continued to keep busy. Alongside his five studio albums, his website lists instrumental releases, film soundtracks, production, remixes, guest appearances and collaborations. These range from ambient pieces with Harold Budd (a regular collaborator since 1986’s The Moon And The Melodies) to project with Ultravox’ John Foxx and, more recently, an album with Ride’s Mark Gardener. Guthrie admits to being wary at the idea of “a bunch of old blokes getting together and being whimsical about the past. But I get sucked in to that. It’s exactly that going on in my life at the moment by making this record with Mark Gardener.”

The album, Universal Road, foregrounds Gardener’s strong ear for melodies with Guthrie’s tremulous guitar work. “I had a lot of apprehension that people that listened to it were of a certain age and would like it to be a shoegaze record,” Guthrie admits. “Well, I’m sure there are people who would like that. But the most unlikely two people to make a record like that is obviously me and Mark, 25 years later. But it’s worked out, I call it evolution. Music, and the media really likes to keep you pigeonholed in your one place that you made a little mark for a little moment that’s you damned for the rest of your life.”

Both Guthrie and Gardener are aware of the respective legacies that continue to overshadow their ongoing projects. Guthrie specifically identifies one “sort of autobiographical” song on Universal Road, “Yesterday’s News” which he claims addresses the vicissitudes of success as experienced by both men. “We’d go out and play little shows to 25 people, whoever bothered to turn up,” he explains. “Yesterday’s news, it was all our big stadiums and shit like that. It’s quite strange. The album comes out at the time where Mark’s decided to do the nostalgia thing. It’s a double-edged sword. He wants to be taken seriously and pursue new work, but at the same time you kind of owe it to your fans to go back. I know the Cocteaus never quite managed to get it together. It’s not for everyone, but when you go out, you’re going make a lot of people really happy. These people have been supporting you all your life, buying your records over and over again. Give them something back. That’s always been my way of looking at it. I’m totally in two minds about it. I grew up in the 1970s. During the Eighties you’d see all these Seventies tours going around with Slade and Showaddywaddy playing. I found that to be kind of tragic, and then fast forward, move yourself on a few years and it’s like, shit if I do that, it’s gonna be like that!”

Guthrie is adamant there are no current plans to reform the Cocteau Twins. “I was just talking about this with one of my kids the other night,” he muses. “We’d been to see Ennio Morricone. It was amazing. I thought, I saw Frank Sinatra, Morricone, I saw this, I saw that. All these grand names. They’ve been working all their life and they get to the point where they deserve to be playing in these great big places. But on the other hand, if you were around for a little blip, 15 or 20 years ago, on the front of NME once, played at ULU quite a lot, that doesn’t to me make you deserve to come back and have the reputation, the glory, of a lifetime’s worth of work. Going to see Ennio Morricone made me want to come back to my studio and burn all my instruments. Let’s just quit while the going’s good! No, it’s one of those things that middle-aged men do. You wonder where the value is.

“I’m still Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins): I haven’t got rid of those brackets yet,” he continues. “If somebody’s totally hung up on our records and thinks Treasure is ‘the greatest thing he’s ever done’, its like, well what’ve I been doing for the last 30 years? I should’ve just taken 30 years off. I would’ve been in the same place. But that’s just me. I’m just not in a band that’s getting back together any time soon.”

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

YOU CAN READ ABOUT THE MAKING OF FELT’S “PRIMITIVE PAINTERS” IN THE NEW ISSUE OF UNCUT, IN SHOPS NOW

UNIVERSAL ROAD IS AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE FROM http://www.robinguthrie.com/shop.php

Pete Townshend – 10 great video clips

Tom Pinnock
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Pete Townshend – 10 great video clips
Today (May 19, 2015) is Pete Townshend’s 70th birthday – so, to celebrate, here are 10 classic clips from across the years. These videos span five decades, from his early days as a 19-year-old Mod with The High Numbers, to The Who’s phenomenal 1970 Isle Of Wight show, and on to the formidable...

Today (May 19, 2015) is Pete Townshend’s 70th birthday – so, to celebrate, here are 10 classic clips from across the years.

These videos span five decades, from his early days as a 19-year-old Mod with The High Numbers, to The Who’s phenomenal 1970 Isle Of Wight show, and on to the formidable might of Townshend onstage in the noughties.

The current issue of Uncut, still available in shops this week, also features Townshend on the cover, and inside, he discusses retirement, the future of The Who, his relationship with Roger Daltrey and his thoughts on the big 7-0…

_______________________

The High Numbers
The Railway Hotel, 1964

The Who
5th National Jazz And Blues Festival, Richmond, London, 1965

 

The Who
“I Can See For Miles”
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, 1967

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYkGimCrcRg

 

The Who
“My Generation”
Woodstock, 1969

 

The Who
“Young Man Blues”
Isle Of Wight festival, 1970

 

The Who
“The Real Me”
Cow Palace, San Francisco, 1973

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7GycvuGjwk

 

Pete Townshend in his home studio

 

The Who
“Won’t Get Fooled Again”
Shepperton Studios, London, 1978

 

Pete Townshend
“Rough Boys”
Brooklyn Academy Of Music, NY, 1993

 

The Who
“Baba O’Riley”
Roskilde festival, Denmark, 2007

 

David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ to be reissued on yellow vinyl

Tom Pinnock
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David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ to be reissued on yellow vinyl
David Bowie's 1983 single "Let's Dance" is being reissued on yellow vinyl, in a limited run of just 550 copies. The single, released on July 16, 2015, will also feature a live recording of the song from Bowie's Vancouver, Canada, show on the Serious Moonlight tour. The seven-inch is coming out to ...

David Bowie‘s 1983 single “Let’s Dance” is being reissued on yellow vinyl, in a limited run of just 550 copies.

The single, released on July 16, 2015, will also feature a live recording of the song from Bowie’s Vancouver, Canada, show on the Serious Moonlight tour.

The seven-inch is coming out to coincide with the opening of the David Bowie Is exhibition in Melbourne, Australia, and will be available at the Australian Centre For The Moving Image (ACMI).

Meanwhile, Bowie will release “Fame” as a limited-edition picture disc on July 24, backed by an alternate mix of the fellow Young Americans album track, “Right“.

Recently, Bowie released a blue vinyl 7″ of the French-language version of “Heroes”, to mark the opening of David Bowie Is at the Philharmonie de Paris, and two 7″ singles on Record Store Day: a limited edition 7″ picture disc of “Changes” and a limited edition white/clear vinyl split 7″of “Kingdom Come” also featuring Tom Verlaine‘s version.

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