Blur have released a 30-minute documentary exploring the creation of the band's new album, The Magic Whip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gypc_n5knq0
Click hear to read the making of The Magic Whip...
The documentary features interviews and studio footage shot by the band.
The Magic Whip entere...
Blur have released a 30-minute documentary exploring the creation of the band’s new album, The Magic Whip.
George R.R. Martin, the creator of Game Of Thrones, has cited the Grateful Dead as an influence on the series.
In an interview streaming on Billboard, Martin reveals he has been to Dead shows, and he also addresses references to the Dead songs "Dire Wolf," "Cassidy" and "Dark Star" within his work....
George R.R. Martin, the creator of Game Of Thrones, has cited the Grateful Dead as an influence on the series.
In an interview streaming on Billboard, Martin reveals he has been to Dead shows, and he also addresses references to the Dead songs “Dire Wolf,” “Cassidy” and “Dark Star” within his work. He allegedly calls his home Terrapin Station.
“I have Grateful Dead lyrics rattling around in my head all the time,” he said, when questioned about the references. “’Ripple‘ is one of my favourite songs of all time … [quotes song] ‘There is a road, no simple highway.’”
He added that his wife, Paris, “is perhaps more of a fan of the Grateful Dead than I am”, and went on to confirm that the band influenced his rock’n’roll novel The Armageddon Rag.
Billboard also reports that the Weirwood trees in Game Of Thrones are named after guitarist Bob Weir.
Joni Mitchell may be discharged from hospital, possibly within the next few days.
Associated Press reports that her lawyer Alan Watenmaker told Superior Court Judge David S. Cunningham III on May 4, 2015 that Mitchell may be released from the hospital soon; but still cannot confer with doctors abo...
Joni Mitchell may be discharged from hospital, possibly within the next few days.
Associated Pressreports that her lawyer Alan Watenmaker told Superior Court Judge David S. Cunningham III on May 4, 2015 that Mitchell may be released from the hospital soon; but still cannot confer with doctors about her medical care or long-term treatment.
Watenmaker cited Mitchell’s impending release as one of the reasons why Leslie Morris, Mitchell’s friend for over 40 years, should oversee Mitchell’s medical decisions once she leaves hospital.
AP reports that Morris will not have any control over Mitchell’s finances.
Morris had filed a petition seeking to be named as Mitchell’s conservator, which had led to rumours suggesting that Mitchell was in a coma, after having been hospitalized on March 31, 2015.
A statement refuting the rumours was published on Mitchell’s website on April 28.
The Who are reportedly confirmed as the final headliner for this year's Glastonbury festival.
According to a story in The Sun today [May 2, 2015], the band will close this year's festival and that they will be joined on the line-up by either Noel Gallagher or Paul Weller, who will perform in the sl...
The Who are reportedly confirmed as the final headliner for this year’s Glastonbury festival.
According to a story in The Sun today [May 2, 2015], the band will close this year’s festival and that they will be joined on the line-up by either Noel Gallagher or Paul Weller, who will perform in the slot directly before them.
A “festival insider” is reported to have told the newspaper that: “The Who booking has been kept quiet because the band are also playing a Hyde Park gig for the British Summer Time festival so the announcement will be made in a few weeks. The band are still one of the best live groups and are currently on their 50th-anniversary tour, so it’s bound to be an amazing show.”
“There’ll also be support from an artist like Paul Weller or Noel Gallagher. It will be a dream night for rock fans.”
Neither The Who nor Glastonbury have officially commented on the report. The original story correctly asserts that The Who are booked to play a gig in Paris on the Sunday night of the Glastonbury weekend [June 28] but that they will look to rearrange that show.
Acts confirmed for this year’s festival include Patti Smith, Alabama Shakes, Mavis Staples, Suede and Motörhead will play, as well as Pharrell Williams, the Mothership Returns – which will feature George Clinton, Parliament, Funkadelic and the Family Stone – Father John Misty, Sharon Van Etten, Courtney Barnett, Flying Lotus, Spiritualized, Super Furry Animals, Ryan Adams and more.
Brittany Howard's back yard stretches nine acres down through the forest to a creek, and is occasionally home to coyotes, armadillos, possums, foxes and owls, all of which she worries might one day attack her two pet cats. A family of deer pass through occasionally, by a pond that dries up for much ...
Brittany Howard’s back yard stretches nine acres down through the forest to a creek, and is occasionally home to coyotes, armadillos, possums, foxes and owls, all of which she worries might one day attack her two pet cats. A family of deer pass through occasionally, by a pond that dries up for much of the year.
When she was buying the house, in the wake of the first Alabama Shakes album selling over a million copies, Howard wanted somewhere secluded and quiet. She also bought a place in Nashville, 100 miles up Interstate 65, but could never envisage permanently moving away from her hometown of Athens, Alabama. “I’m pretty sure Nashville would kill me,” she says. “I’m the type of person who loves to be involved in everything going on. So I go up there, have my fun, and then when I can’t stand it anymore I come back here. There’s a duality to all of us. I think you gotta keep things in balance.”
The living room of Howard’s Athens house is calm and pastel-shaded. A few gold discs and French art deco prints are framed on the walls, and an acoustic guitar lies recently abandoned on an armchair. With characteristically informal diligence, she has been figuring out how to play Curtis Mayfield’s “Think”, from the Superfly soundtrack. When she enters from the porch, she stubs out her cigarette. Smoking inside is forbidden – “Otherwise my couch would smell weird.”
It is permitted, though, in the basement, a cold and expansive space that Howard has equipped as a rehearsal room and rudimentary recording studio. On one shelf, vinyl copies of Mayfield’s first solo album and James Brown’s Live At The Apollo are displayed next to an empty Jameson’s bottle. There is a drumkit, a $100 upright piano, a clutch of Xbox games, a vintage whammy pedal, a rack of guitars. Beneath a crude painting of a black panther, a large old hi-fi cabinet that once belonged to Howard’s grandfather has been playing “Future Primitive”, from Santana’s Caravanserai, at a selection of inaccurate and faintly disconcerting speeds.
Right now, Howard is reclining on a chair in front of her computer, a selection of cheap analog keyboards close at hand. On her chest, a cat extends itself languidly. She has cued up a series of demos that were recorded down here; spacey, Aquarian funk songs that, in their basic electronic form, recall Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information, or one of Sly Stone’s demos for his Stone Flower label – none of which, incidentally, Howard has ever heard. These are the songs that form the backbone of the excellent second Alabama Shakes album, Sound & Color, songs that retain a silvery otherworldliness even when they have been reconstituted with the guitar, bass and drums of her bandmates. Where a wallowing guitar solo sits on the finished version of “Gemini”, for instance, there is a sci-fi voluntary, played on an old synth. “Lasers!” Howard shouts, cracking up.
“Brittany’s probably the biggest influence on the experimental side of the band,” says Blake Mills, the producer who gave them room to manoeuvre on Sound & Color. “I got a strong Maggot Brain vibe from her demos, and also Curtis, because while she’s a rambunctious musician on whatever instrument it is she’s playing, the band don’t play like her. They end up executing it with a little more finesse than she puts into the demos. So what comes out has the spirit of that psychedelic, untethered force, from a group of musicians who really care about that and cherish that, but who might not necessarily come from that world.”
Howard’s mop of curls, so familiar from Shakes performances around Boys & Girls, have now been shaved and sculpted into a precarious quiff. She also has a fresh tattoo, two months old, to go with the one of Alabama on her right arm; Athens is marked on her map with a love heart. The new ink, mostly obscured by her glasses, traces two lines running straight and parallel away from her left eye. “I was just bored with my face,” she laughs. “I’d been looking at it for a really long time and I just wanted to switch it up.” She ponders for a moment the confluence of these adjustments to her image with the arrival of a new and surprising Alabama Shakes album; one that begins, appositely, “A new world hangs outside the window/Beautiful and strange.”
“Oh Jeez, so many changes,” she eventually sighs, theatrically. “People are gonna think I lost my damn mind…”
Ben E King has died aged 76.
The Telegraph reports he died of natural causes.
Born on September 28, 1938 in Henderson, North Carolina, King started his career in the late 1950s with The Drifters, singing on hits including "There Goes My Baby" and "Save The Last Dance For Me".
As a solo artist, hi...
Born on September 28, 1938 in Henderson, North Carolina, King started his career in the late 1950s with The Drifters, singing on hits including “There Goes My Baby” and “Save The Last Dance For Me”.
As a solo artist, his hits included “Stand By Me” and “Spanish Harlem”.
A Top 5 hit when it was first released in 1961, “Stand By Me” additionally enjoyed later success when it was used on the soundtrack for the 1986 River Phoenix film of the same name.
The song was extensively covered, including a version by John Lennon in 1975.
King continued to perform into his Seventies, most recently touring the UK in 2013.
A huge amount of amazing music by some of Uncut’s favourite artists remains unavailable – officially, at least. Here, then, are 50 remarkable bootleg recordings selected from our own private collections. We’ve favoured rare and unreleased studio recordings over that bootleg staple, the live sh...
A huge amount of amazing music by some of Uncut’s favourite artists remains unavailable – officially, at least. Here, then, are 50 remarkable bootleg recordings selected from our own private collections. We’ve favoured rare and unreleased studio recordings over that bootleg staple, the live show (though we couldn’t resist including a few). We wanted to present alternate histories of some of rock’s greatest bands, so over the next 18 pages you’ll discover entire LPs that never came out, abandoned hook-ups, unlikely covers, obscure radio sessions and lost nuggets. Oh, and what happens when you leave the tape running… Originally published in Uncut’s November 2011 issue (Take 174).
_____________________
50 THE TROGGS THE TROGGS TAPES Recorded 1970, London
In 1970, The Troggs entered the London studio of their label, Dick James Music, to work on a new song, “Tranquility” with producer Dennis Berger. But the band were critically under-rehearsed. With the tape running, the session deteriorated into an hilarious, 12-minute swearathon, the air blue with recriminations (“you fucking pranny!”), angry suggestions of how to improve the track (“put a little bit of fucking fairy dust over the bastard”) and Reg Presley’s priceless, interjections (“what about a fucking 12-string?”) – all delivered in the broadest ’ampshire vowels. We counted 93 uses of the word “fuck”; Presley claims he has a master tape with 137. By 1972, samizdat recordings had become a tour bus staple, and its influence extended to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s Derek And Clive tapes, This Is Spinal Tap, The Comic Strip’s Bad News and a Saturday Night Live parody, where a medieval music troupe featuring Bill Murray, John Belushi and Harry Shearer replaced “fucking” with “flogging”. Part of The Troggs Tapes was released as a bonus CD with the 1992 Archeology box; Reg’s 137 f-word motherlode remains unreleased.
Sound quality: Excellent
See also: Oasis’ Wibbling Rivalry (1994) and Orson Welles’ frozen peas commercial
_____________________ 49 PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS THE NASHVILLE SESSIONS Recorded June 1974, Nashville
Paul and Linda, Denny Laine and new Wings’ members Jimmy McCulloch and Geoff Britton arrived in Nashville on June 6, 1974, staying at the 133-acre ranch owned by Curly Putman, writer of “Green, Green Grass Of Home”. There ostensibly to rehearse, they soon entered the local Sound Shop Studios, but from these sessions only “Junior’s Farm” and “Sally G” were released, as Wings’ final Apple single that November. Some of Nashville’s top players play on this boot – including Chet Atkins, Lloyd Green and fiddlers Vassar Clements and Johnny Gimble, dubbed the Country Hams by McCartney. Their skills were wasted on the pleasantly trite “Hey Diddle” or “Walking In The Park With Eloise”, written years before by McCartney’s father James. This, and another cheesy instrumental, “Bridge On The River Suite”, eventually appeared on the 1989 edition of Wings At The Speed Of Sound. Denny Laine’s run-of-the-mill country rocker “Send Me The Heart” was later re-recorded for his 1981 album, Japanese Tears. Hastily leaving Nashville after a drunken McCulloch fell foul of local police, Wings were soon ensconced in Abbey Road filming the aborted TV doc, One Hand Clapping.
Sound quality: Excellent
See also: Cold Cuts Collection
Happy Mayday, everybody. Some interesting links below - new Loop, Adrian Younge & Laeticia Sadier, a track from Richard Thompson's Tweedy-produced album, Meg Baird and much more. A reminder, too, that the new issue of Uncut is out now. Please use wisely.
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Jo...
Happy Mayday, everybody. Some interesting links below – new Loop, Adrian Younge & Laeticia Sadier, a track from Richard Thompson’s Tweedy-produced album, Meg Baird and much more. A reminder, too, that the new issue of Uncut is out now. Please use wisely.
Ron Wood recalls his early days on the London beat scene in the new issue of Uncut, out now.
The Stones and Faces guitarist remembers his time with The Birds and seeing The Rolling Stones around on the London scene.
"You’d see the Stones around and my ambition was always to be one of them. I nev...
Ron Wood recalls his early days on the London beat scene in the new issue of Uncut, out now.
The Stones and Faces guitarist remembers his time with The Birds and seeing The Rolling Stones around on the London scene.
“You’d see the Stones around and my ambition was always to be one of them. I never thought The Birds would be the next Stones. They were just a stepping stone. The limitations were obvious and it was no surprise when it ground to a halt. It was a great learning curve… but I had higher ambitions.
“Sometimes I feel that my whole career with The Birds, Jeff Beck and The Faces was one long audition to join The Rolling Stones. I still think of myself as a fan as much as a bandmember. When I first heard their stirring music coming from the tent at the Richmond Jazz And Blues festival in 1963 something happened inside me and I knew that was the band I wanted to be in.
“The thought of being in the Stones is what gave me the drive to carry on. It was the atmosphere that lured me as much as the music, the raggedness, the glory, the image – it looked like a good job.”
Wood is releasing his diaries from the ’60s as How Can It Be? A Rock & Roll Diary, out in May in a limited run of 1,965 signed copies.
There is an instructive anecdote that video director Ross Harris tells in Heaven Adores You about the first time he worked with Elliott Smith. In 1995, Harris was commissioned by Smith’s manager to film a video for “Coming Up Roses”. After explaining that he didn’t want to make an “LA vide...
There is an instructive anecdote that video director Ross Harris tells in Heaven Adores You about the first time he worked with Elliott Smith. In 1995, Harris was commissioned by Smith’s manager to film a video for “Coming Up Roses”. After explaining that he didn’t want to make an “LA video”, Smith instead, he stayed with Harris and his family in the country north of Los Angeles for almost a fortnight. “We just shot a little bit every day,” explains Harris. “Certain days, we’d wake up and he’d be like, ‘I don’t really want to film today.’ And we’d just hang out.” The image of an artist who is creative on his own terms, supported by likeminded and sympathetic collaborators, is very much on-message with the rest of Nickolas Dylan Rossi’s strong if admittedly faintly precious documentary.
Rossi follows Smith from a suburban childhood in Texas, then on to the insular music scene in Portland, Oregon, his gradual success, move to New York and California and, finally, his death in October 2003 aged 34. Rossi makes strong use of the wealth of archival material he is granted access to: cassettes, photographs, handwritten lyrics, radio interviews, live recordings. He also has a cast list of Smith’s friends, collaborators and peers, including Smith’s sister Ashley Welch and former girlfriend Joanna Bolme. Admittedly, it’s a good haul. Although with no objective, critical voice it’s hard to see beyond the overriding view reinforced here of Smith as a troubled, saintly genius.
Heaven Adores You poster
There is, though, one revelation that suggests another side to Smith, as his friend and Jackpot! studio owner Larry Crane explains. “One day he [Smith] snuck Gus [Van Sant] in when I wasn’t there and played it [‘Miss Misery’] for him. Then they pretended he wrote it for the movie so it could get nominated.” It seems uncharacteristic behavior for a man who admits in one archive interview “I’m the wrong kind of person to be really big and famous.” But there are other disparities between what Smith says and does. When things get too hot in Portland, he moves to New York, apparently in pursuit of greater anonymity. Such behaviour seems at odds with his appearance at the Oscars, in front of a domestic audience of 57 million viewers, or on a high profile TV chat show like The Late Night With Conan O’Brien. We know the music is good. But essentially, this film could do with a little more rigorous investigation about who Smith was and what drove him.
A new online study claims that people stop listening to new music at 33.
The study was conducted using data from US Spotify listeners by Ajay Kalia of website Skynet and Ebert.
His results found that people, on average, stopped listening to new music at the age of 33. He writes, "While teens' musi...
A new online study claims that people stop listening to new music at 33.
The study was conducted using data from US Spotify listeners by Ajay Kalia of website Skynet and Ebert.
His results found that people, on average, stopped listening to new music at the age of 33. He writes, “While teens’ music taste is dominated by incredibly popular music, this proportion drops steadily through peoples’ 20s, before their tastes ‘mature’ in their early 30s,” continuing, “Until their early 30s, mainstream music represents a smaller and smaller proportion of their streaming. And for the average listener, by their mid-30s, their tastes have matured, and they are who they’re going to be.”
The study also shows that there’s a slight gender gap at play (“Women show a slow and steady decline in pop music listening from 13-49, while men drop precipitously starting from their teens until their early 30s, at which point they encounter the ‘lock-in’ effect”), also stating that becoming a parent “has an equivalent impact on your ‘music relevancy’ as aging about 4 years”.
Kalia attempts to explain the tendency to gravitate towards less mainstream, non-current music, writing, “Two factors drive this transition away from popular music. First, listeners discover less-familiar music genres that they didn’t hear on FM radio as early teens, from artists with a lower popularity rank. Second, listeners are returning to the music that was popular when they were coming of age – but which has since phased out of popularity.”
Members of the Grateful Dead are apparently planning an October tour with John Mayer.
Billboard reports that Mayer and "select members of the group" are already in rehearsals. The Billboard story specifically cites Bob Weir as one of the musicians.
The Grateful Dead are due to play five shows in t...
Members of the Grateful Dead are apparently planning an October tour with John Mayer.
Billboard reports that Mayer and “select members of the group” are already in rehearsals. The Billboard story specifically cites Bob Weir as one of the musicians.
The Grateful Dead are due to play five shows in total on their Fare Thee Well tour, scheduled for June 27 and 28 in Santa Clara, California and July 4, 5 and 6 in Chicago.Billboard estimates a potential haul of $50 million from ticket sales for the five shows.
The band have recently announced plans to broadcast the Fare Thee Well shows on pay-per-view and also via online streaming.
Bob Dylan has announced a run of UK tour dates, including three nights at London's Royal Albert Hall.
He will play:
October 21; Royal Albert Hall, London
October 22; Royal Albert Hall, London
October 23; Royal Albert Hall, London
October 27: 02 Apollo, Manchester
October 28; 02 Apollo, Manches...
Bob Dylan has announced a run of UK tour dates, including three nights at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Pete Townshend discusses his relationship with Roger Daltrey, retirement and the future of The Who in the new issue of Uncut, dated June 2015 and out now.
The guitarist and songwriter admits that he’s not “particularly excited” about heading out on tour with The Who - who are reportedly the f...
Pete Townshend discusses his relationship with Roger Daltrey, retirement and the future of The Who in the new issue of Uncut, dated June 2015 and out now.
“The shows? I don’t like them. I don’t find them fulfilling. But I’m brilliant at it. I find it incredibly easy. I drift through it.
“I get out the other end and the next day, somebody comes up to me and says, ‘You were fucking amazing yesterday!’
“It’s like being able to make a pair of shoes and knowing that you’ve got to a point that whenever you make a pair of shoes for somebody they’re going to last them for life. I don’t get particularly excited about it, but I do find it easy.”
White Denim are not a band you can accuse of sticking with a formula. Beginning life as a wily, Hendrixy garage trio, they have matured into freewheeling rock’n’soul groovers, via profitable diversions into windmilling prog, blue-eyed soul, jazzy post-rock and Afro-Cuban funk. There are still a ...
White Denim are not a band you can accuse of sticking with a formula. Beginning life as a wily, Hendrixy garage trio, they have matured into freewheeling rock’n’soul groovers, via profitable diversions into windmilling prog, blue-eyed soul, jazzy post-rock and Afro-Cuban funk. There are still a few genres, however, they have yet to explore – which is where Constant Bop comes in.
While his bandmates Austin Jenkins and Josh Block have recently been helping to nurture the more conventional talents of retro soulman Leon Bridges, White Denim frontman James Petralli has been quietly cultivating his alter-ego, Bop English. In the amusingly deadpan promo photo accompanying this release, he can be seen playing a banjo with a snake on his lap while sporting a 1990 England football tracky top. If that suggests a foolhardy fusion of bluegrass and Britpop, then the truth isn’t <so> far removed. At least, Petralli’s usual rootsy raw materials are refracted more strongly than ever through an arch, Anglophile filter: witness the impish Bolan boogie of “Dani’s Blues (It Was Beyond Our Control)” or the way that “Long Distance Runner” playfully subverts classic songwriting conventions in a manner reminiscent of 70s Macca at his best.
On the other hand, Petralli hasn’t diverged too drastically from his previous body of work: “Sentimental Wilderness” resembles one of D’s more serene moments (distinguished by subtle use of a vocoder); “Fake Dog” harnesses some the frenetic daftness of “I Start To Run”; and “Trying” sounds like a frisky cousin to Corsicana Lemonade’s “Pretty Green”. It’s no surprise to learn that the three other members of White Denim are among the dozens of contributors to Constant Bop, though they were never in the room at the same time, hence the priority of taut song structures over virtuosic flourishes and extended jams. Yet the album still rollicks and rolls like a White Denim record, with the addition of ribald brass and jaunty piano, giving the impression of having been recorded during a boozy studio all-nighter rather than on a sun-dappled Texan porch.
Certainly, Petralli hasn’t fallen prey to the usual indulgences afflicting solo side-projects. There are no half-finished experimental sketches here, nor clumsy forays into world music or electronica. He’s even managed to resist the opportunity for faux-humble soul-baring. In fact, Bop English – the moniker given to Petralli by a former roommate – turns out to be quite a slippery character: a skilled raconteur and dispenser of crooked homilies (“There ain’t nothing free that didn’t cost somebody something”) whose waggish manner isn’t always appreciated (“My intended hyperbole goes unnoticed at the counter”) and who suffers from paranoid visions of his own demise (“I like to imagine a killing spree where every victim is me”). By inhabiting this garrulous and charming yet over-analytical and secretly vulnerable character, Petralli actually reveals more about himself than a straightforward confessional singer-songwriter record might have done. These quirky and compelling vignettes are clearly the work of a man constantly trying to balance his pragmatic and creative sides, his duties as a new father with those of a good-time rock’n’roll ringleader.
Handily, Bop can also do love songs, or at least songs that remind us that love requires constant, careful tending. If the psych-country shuffle of “Falling At Your Feet” is a teensy bit sentimental, then “The Hardest Way” – a hint of Nick Drake and even Bernard Butler to this one – is gloriously honest about the daily battle to suppress our own pride and pettiness so that love can prevail. He may dress like a cross between Davy Crockett and David Seaman, but when it comes to affairs of the heart, it turns out that Bop English knows exactly what he’s talking about.
A fast-paced, multi-faceted, furiously entertaining record that gradually reveals hidden emotional depths? Chalk another one up to the man in White Denim.
Q&A
James Petralli
Why did your college roommate dub you Bop English?
It’s obvious, but I was studying English Lit and listening to a lot of Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane. Which technically is post-bop. But I was just happy to have a nickname.
Did you write these songs specifically for the album or have you been amassing them over a longer period?
It’s been an ongoing process for a long time. Some of the tunes were written for White Denim, but something wasn’t right about them for the band. I didn’t have a grand scheme or anything. It was actually 28 songs when I handed it into the label. They just said, ‘Hey man, you can’t put this out, nobody’s going to listen to that!’ It was going to be a double album where the first half was really trippy and haphazard and the second half was more straightforward and romantic. So the final album is just selected works from the double I was making. I’ll probably do a ‘complete edition’ in a very limited run at some point.
What did you learn from the acid trip described on “Struck Matches”?
It was actually salvia. I was handed a pipe and it turned out to not be pot, so it blindsided me… It was a really intense out-of-body experience where I saw these little snapshots of my life. But my biggest takeaway was to be much more cautious about what I’m smoking in future.
Is there going to be a live Bop English show?
Yeah, we’re coming over in May. I have a pretty cool band of freaky musicians. It’s not quite as groovy as White Denim has gotten over the last few years – it’s a little more aggressive and we do a lot of heady improv, which is fun.
INTERVIEW: SAM RICHARDS
Ryan Adams has covered Bryan Adams' song, "Summer Of '69".
Adams performed the song on April 28, 2015 during the first of two nights at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni_-e5Mb3hU
As Rolling Stone reports, Adams once had an audience member ejected from a show at the ...
Ryan Adams has covered Bryan Adams’ song, “Summer Of ’69”.
Adams performed the song on April 28, 2015 during the first of two nights at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.
As Rolling Stone reports, Adams once had an audience member ejected from a show at the same venue for repeatedly heckling him to play the Bryan Adams’ song.
Alabama Shakes have released a video for the title track of their current album, Sound & Color.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faG8RiaANek
Meanwhile, the band play the UK in May, with one date also confirmed for November.
Birmingham O2 Academy (May 13)
Brighton The Dome (15)
Manchester O2 Ap...
Alabama Shakes have released a video for the title track of their current album, Sound & Color.
Meanwhile, the band play the UK in May, with one date also confirmed for November.
Birmingham O2 Academy (May 13)
Brighton The Dome (15)
Manchester O2 Apollo (16)
London O2 Academy Brixton (November 18)
The tracklisting for Sound & Color is as follows:
‘Sound And Color’
‘Don’t Wanna Fight’
‘Dunes’
‘Future People’
‘Gimme All Your Love’
‘This Feeling’
‘Guess Who’
‘The Greatest’
‘Shoegaze’
‘Miss You’
‘Gemini’
‘Over My Head’
Morrissey has written an open letter to the American politican and climate change activist Al Gore.
In the letter, Morrissey urges Gore to serve a vegan menu at Live Earth, the forthcoming climate change event which is scheduled to place on June 18 at venues around the world.
The letter, which has...
Morrissey has written an open letter to the American politican and climate change activist Al Gore.
In the letter, Morrissey urges Gore to serve a vegan menu at Live Earth, the forthcoming climate change event which is scheduled to place on June 18 at venues around the world.
The letter, which has been published on Rolling Stone, was addressed to Gore and his co-organiser Kevin Wall on behalf of PETA.
Morrissey compares “serving meat and dairy products at an event to combat climate change is like selling pistols at a gun-control rally” and that it is Gore and Wall’s “moral duty” to promote a vegan diet at Live Earth.
“If you choose to serve animal flesh at Live Earth, you’ll be making a mockery of the very concept of the event, in which case it should be renamed “Dead Earth: We Contributed!’,” Morrissey adds.
The letter in full:
Dear Mr. Gore and Mr. Wall,
I am writing to ask you to do the one thing that will do the most good for the planet and the majority of its inhabitants: not serve meat or dairy products at Live Earth 2015. I don’t mean offering a vegan option-I mean not serving animal products at all. Otherwise, the event will make no sense-it’ll be “greenwashing.” Serving meat and dairy products at an event to combat climate change is like selling pistols at a gun-control rally. Your responsibility is to alert people to a crisis, not sell out to the vendors responsible for it.
Not only is it possible for venues to provide a 100 percent meat-free menu-as is done now at every concert venue in which I perform, including Madison Square Garden, where I have a show at the end of June-it’s also a moral duty.
We already know that raising animals for food is a leading cause of climate change and that moving toward a vegan diet is necessary to combat climate change’s worst effects. Animal agriculture severely affects the world’s freshwater supply and is a major contributor to global greenhouse-gas emissions, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and air and water pollution, among many other harmful effects.
Since you can’t miss the fact that meat consumption is killing the planet-your own sponsor organization, the United Nations, states this-and since venues can and will cater vegan food for events, if you choose to serve animal flesh at Live Earth, you’ll be making a mockery of the very concept of the event, in which case it should be renamed “Dead Earth: We Contributed!”
Don’t be a denier of the causes of climate change. You know the facts. Make the right choice.
As you might have already noticed, it's shaping up to be a strong year for music documentaries. We're already had films on the Dave Clark Five, Kurt Cobain and the Chilean Woodstock; on the horizon, there's Lambert & Stamp, the Elliott Smith film Heaven Adores You and also docs on Wilko Johns...
As you might have already noticed, it’s shaping up to be a strong year for music documentaries. We’re already had films on the Dave Clark Five, Kurt Cobain and the Chilean Woodstock; on the horizon, there’s Lambert & Stamp, the Elliott Smith film Heaven Adores You and also docs on Wilko Johnson, The Wrecking Crew and The Last Poets’ Hustler’s Convention. And, it should be noted, all these are due out before summer.
Add to that burgeoning pile What Happened, Miss Simone?, a handsome new trailer for which has just been released.
The film, directed by Liz Garbus [Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib; Bobby Fischer Against The World], weaves together Simone’s story from extensive audio tapes recorded over the course of three decades, as well as concert footage and archival interviews, diaries and letters.
The film launches on Netflix on June 26, with a full release soon after.
To mark Willie Nelson's birthday today [April 29], I thought I'd post my interview with him for our regular An Audience With... feature. This originally appeared in Uncut's Take 208 [November 2014].
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A few days before Uncut speaks to Willie Nelson, hi...
To mark Willie Nelson’s birthday today [April 29], I thought I’d post my interview with him for our regular An Audience With… feature. This originally appeared in Uncut’s Take 208 [November 2014].
A few days before Uncut speaks to Willie Nelson, his famous Luck Ranch outside Austin, Texas, is damaged by a tornado. “Some towns got a lot worse, so we aren’t complaining,” says Nelson pragmatically. “Luck is tough town. It can be rebuilt.” It seems there is little that can faze the 81-year-old musician, even the destruction of his beloved homestead. Nelson is currently on tour – he has two weeks on, followed by a week off – and our interview takes place on his tour bus as it makes his way into Boston for the evening show. Currently, Nelson is enjoying a writing roll – his recent album, Band Of Brothers, features nine new songs. “I don’t have a process,” he explains. “It’s more natural. I really don’t push it a lot. It helps if you have an incentive, and a reason to write or an album you’re working on.”
When asked how many songs he’s written in a career stretching back 60 years, he replies, “I’m not really sure. A couple of thousand, probably. The publishers would know, but I’ve never counted.” His creative streak, thankfully, shows no signs of abating: “Sister Bobbie and I have a new album called December Day coming in October,” he reveals. “It’s her and I and my band and there’s several original songs and more covers like ‘Alexander’s Rag Time Band’ and ‘What’ll I Do’.”
And with that, he’s ready to answer your questions on a wide range of subjects including his earliest attempts at songwriting, his formidable martial arts prowess and the best way for an octogenarian singer-songwriter to get stoned. Ever the gentleman, when our interview is concluded he signs off with, “Thanks for your time. See you down the road.”
Do you consider “Crazy” to be in the Top Five greatest songs you’ve written? Loudon Wainwright III
I guess. But I think a lot of its success was to do with Patsy Cline, one of the greatest singers ever, recorded the song and just sang the heck out of it. No one has ever really come close to tying her rendition of “Crazy”, so she had a lot to do with making “Crazy” the hit it was.
You’re a big fan of Django Reinhardt. Why is his music so special to you? Jim James
Well, he was the greatest guitar player ever. Period. I had been an admirer and fan of his since the first time I heard him. I used to play as much as I could some of Django’s songs, and never getting half way close to as good as he played them. Norah Jones has a band called the Little Willies, and one of the band was talking about me and Django. You know Django only had two fingers on his left hand that he played with, the rest of his hand had been hurt in a fire when he was around 16 or 17 years. Someone made a remark that said, “Willie sounds like Django with one finger.” I thought that was a great compliment.
