Pete Townshend has revealed how he urged Ray and Dave Davies to reform The Kinks and tour America.
“Last year would have been The Kinks 50th anniversary," Townshend explains in the latest issue of Uncut, out now. "There’s no question that The Kinks, if Dave had been in better shape physically, ...
Pete Townshend has revealed how he urged Ray and Dave Davies to reform The Kinks and tour America.
“Last year would have been The Kinks 50th anniversary,” Townshend explains in the latest issue of Uncut, out now. “There’s no question that The Kinks, if Dave had been in better shape physically, and they’d managed to get together before Pete Quaife died, they would have been the only band that could have done a tour with all the original members. They could have gone to America.
“I’ve said this to Dave and to Ray whenever I had the chance, usually in emails: ‘You have no fucking idea!’ I don’t think they’ve really played in America. ‘You could go and do pub gigs – that’s all the Stones do – to fucking stadiums full of people. The love, the respect and the passion that you would get and the joy that you would get would just be monumental. Apart from that, you’d come back multi-millionaires.’â€
Read the full interview with Townshend – in which talks about the future of The Who, retirement, his current relationship with Roger Daltrey – in the May 2015 issue of Uncut (#217).
Leonard Cohen has released five songs from his new live album, Can’t Forget: A Souvenir Of The Grand Tour.
He has posted the tracks on his official Vevo page.
Three of them are from his back catalogue - "Field Commander Cohen", "Light As The Breeze" and "Night Comes On" - while "Stages" is ta...
Leonard Cohen has released five songs from his new live album, Can’t Forget: A Souvenir Of The Grand Tour.
He has posted the tracks on his official Vevo page.
Three of them are from his back catalogue – “Field Commander Cohen“, “Light As The Breeze” and “Night Comes On” – while “Stages” is taken from his spoken word introduction to “Tower Of Song”.
Jeff Beck releases his new live album, Jeff Beck Live +, through Rhino on May 18, 2015.
As a bonus, the album also contains two brand new studio tracks, "Tribal" and "My Tiled White Floor".
We're delighted to be able to share with you "Tribal": Beck's first new music since 2010 and a thrilling tas...
Jeff Beck releases his new live album, Jeff Beck Live +, through Rhino on May 18, 2015.
As a bonus, the album also contains two brand new studio tracks, “Tribal” and “My Tiled White Floor“.
We’re delighted to be able to share with you “Tribal“: Beck’s first new music since 2010 and a thrilling taster for his new studio album, which is reportedly due later this year.
Jeff Beck Live + features 14 live tracks recorded on tour during 2014. Beck is backed by vocalist Jimmy Hall, bassist Rhonda Smith, drummer Jonathan Joseph and guitarist Nicolas Meier.
“Loaded†“Morning Dew†“You Know You Know†“Why Give It Away†“A Change Is Gonna Come†“A Day In The Life†“Superstition†“Hammerhead†“Little Wing†“Big Block†“Where Were You†“Danny Boy†“Rollin’ And Tumblin’†“Going Down†“Tribal†“My Tiled White Floorâ€
With a new album Django And Jimmie on sale June 2, Merle Haggard is set to answer your questions in Uncut as part of our regular An Audience With… feature.
So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask the legendary outlaw?
To what does he attribute his long friendship with Willie Nelson?
...
With a new album Django And Jimmie on sale June 2, Merle Haggard is set to answer your questions in Uncut as part of our regular An Audience With… feature.
So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask the legendary outlaw?
To what does he attribute his long friendship with Willie Nelson?
Does he have a favourite cover version of one of his songs?
What advice would he give to a young musician who’s just be starting out?
Send up your questions by noon, Friday, May 15 to uncutaudiencewith@timeinc.com.
The best questions, and Merle’s answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine.
Please include your name and location with your question.
Early 1973. The Melody Maker's Michael Watts is on a plane from Durango to Mexico City, with at least some of the cast and crew of Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid. Across the aisle from Watts is the amiable and forthcoming star of the movie, Kris Kristofferson, generous enough to be sharing his bott...
Early 1973. The Melody Maker’s Michael Watts is on a plane from Durango to Mexico City, with at least some of the cast and crew of Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid. Across the aisle from Watts is the amiable and forthcoming star of the movie, Kris Kristofferson, generous enough to be sharing his bottle of Jameson’s with the writer.
Just behind Kristofferson, with a straw hat pulled right down over his face, sits another member of the cast; one who shares a trailer with Kristofferson on set, but can let days go by without even speaking to his supposed friend. A newcomer to acting, whose pathological guardedness leads the film’s publicist to describe him to Watts as, “just rude”. A man renamed, for the purposes of Sam Peckinpah’s movie, as Alias.
“This guy can do anything,” says Kristofferson, marvelling. “In the script he has to throw a knife. It’s real difficult. After 10 minutes or so he could do it perfect. He does things you never thought was in him. He can play Spanish-style, bossa nova, flamenco…one night he was playing flamenco and his old lady, Sara, had never known him do it at all before.â€
Watts, possibly emboldened by the liquor, confides in Kristofferson that he is scared to speak to this glowering enigma. “Shit, man,†Kristofferson roars. “You’re scared. I’m scared, and I’m making a picture with him!â€
Fear. Mystery. Confusion. Awe. The magnetic strangeness of Bob Dylan has now dominated our world for over half a century, casting a long shadow over most everyone who has followed in his wake. The prospect of compiling an Ultimate Music Guide dedicated to the great man was itself rather daunting, which may explain why it’s taken us so long to put together this very special issue (It’s in UK shops on Thursday, but you can order a Dylan Ultimate Music Guide from our online store right now).
Anyhow, we pursue rock’s most capricious and elusive genius through the back pages of NME and Melody Maker, revisiting precious time spent with Dylan over the years: from a relative innocent in a Mayfair hotel room, complaining about how, already, “people pick me apart”; to a verbose prophet of Armageddon revealing, with deadly intent, “Satan’s working everywhere!”
To complement these archive reports, we’ve also written in-depth new pieces on all 36 of Dylan’s storied albums, from 1962’s “Bob Dylan” to this year’s “Shadows In The Night”; 36 valiant, insightful attempts to unpick a lifetime of unparalleled creativity, in which the rich history, sounds and stories of America have been transformed, again and again, into something radical and new. In which Dylan has revolutionised our culture, several times, more or less single-handedly.
“‘Tombstone Blues’ proved Dylan had not exactly abandoned protest music, more broadened the scope of his protest to accurately reflect the disconcerting hyper-reality of modern western culture,” writes Andy Gill, in his exemplary essay on “Highway 61 Revisited”. “It was a transformation which would change the way that both artists and audiences alike regarded their relationship with the world. No mean feat for rock’n’roll.”
A living refutation of the “stupid drummer†joke, Dave Grohl has moved from the back of the stage with Nirvana to the front of his own band, the insistent, enormously successful Foo Fighters. For the band’s most recent album, Sonic Highways Grohl moved somewhere less prominent again: behind th...
A living refutation of the “stupid drummer†joke, Dave Grohl has moved from the back of the stage with Nirvana to the front of his own band, the insistent, enormously successful Foo Fighters. For the band’s most recent album, Sonic Highways Grohl moved somewhere less prominent again: behind the camera, becoming the producer/director/narrator of this ‘making of’ documentary with a difference.
Sonic Highways follows the Foo Fighters as they record tracks for their upcoming album in eight different American cities of musical note. Hang on, though. With quality research, first-hand knowledge gathered while schlepping around the country on tour, and an ear for both a scene and a good story, this becomes both a personal geography and an extremely engaging history lesson.
A case in point would be Chicago. It’s the home to Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio, which serves as a gateway into Albini’s enthusiasms, morality and history – not least with Nirvana. As you will already know, the city was also the laboratory of the electric blues, and duly Grohl (a scrupulous off-camera interviewer) gets brilliant, brilliant stuff from Buddy Guy, who tells an anecdote about Muddy Waters that will leave you beaming helplessly. The long-haired contextual authority is played by Rolling Stone’s David Fricke, while celeb pals provide additional colour.
Studios are more interesting than you’d think, it turns out. In New York, Fricke recalls walking past Electric Lady, the bespoke facility of Jimi Hendrix, complete with – as Gene Simmons explains – underground river. Jimmy Iovine, the face of the modern record business, recalls being the second engineer on Record Plant recordings, and how he came to be called “Jimmy Shoesâ€. Bowie is present anecdotally, via James Murphy.
Steve Rosenthal runs New York’s Magic Shop, a sonically-perfect cupboard in Hell’s Kitchen, which has hosted recordings by Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Ramones and other local acts. When the boyband wave broke in ’98, the studio, with its Neve console, didn’t try to compete, but went deeper into what it loved – launching a sound restoration business which has since performed Lazarine work on historic recordings by the likes of Woody Guthrie. Might Nora Guthrie on hand to speak movingly on this topic, by any chance? Oh, of course, there she is.
There are, in among these joys, it must be added, the sequences during which Foo Fighters go through the process of recording their new compositions, and then play them in a full-tilt Reading Festival manner rather at odds with the sensitive work that we’ve been watching. Nor can Grohl can’t quite subdue his urge to clown cleverly in situations that excite him. In such moments he seems a little too pleased with himself, but then if you were him, watching this, you’d have every reason.
EXTRAS: extended interviews with Barack Obama, Dan Auerbach, Chuck D, Billy Gibbons, Gibby Haynes, Joan Jett, Ian Mackaye, Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood and Joe Walsh.
Mackenzie Scott’s 2012 debut, the self-titled Torres, was one of those records that impressed, despite it being clear that what laid within may not quite be the finished product. It was recorded in five days while Scott was a 22-year-old student, in a Tennessee studio owned by Tony Joe White – a...
Mackenzie Scott’s 2012 debut, the self-titled Torres, was one of those records that impressed, despite it being clear that what laid within may not quite be the finished product. It was recorded in five days while Scott was a 22-year-old student, in a Tennessee studio owned by Tony Joe White – a veteran Louisiana musician who last year jammed with Foo Fighters on Letterman, but may be best remembered for writing Tina Turner’s “Steamy Windowsâ€. Torres had the feel of a record made quickly and on the cheap, all emotional purge, bare electric guitar and raw emotion. The final track, “Waterfallâ€, found her contemplating a suicide plunge. “The rocks beneath they bare their teeth/They all conspire to set me free…†Morbid, perhaps; but what was interesting is that it felt more like a beginning than an ending.
Torres’ second album follows a process of maturing and uprooting. There was graduation from university, in English and songwriting; tours with Sharon Van Etten and Strands Of Oak; then a move from Nashville to Brooklyn. But Sprinter was made even further from home. Specifically, Bridport, Dorset, where she holed up in the studio of Rob Ellis, producer and sometime drummer for PJ Harvey. Sprinter also features bass from original PJ Harvey bassist Ian Olliver – which constitutes his and Ellis’ first studio work together since 1992’s Dry – not to mention guitar and synth from Portishead’s Adrian Utley, in whose Bristol studio the record was completed. If Torres felt naked and pared back, this record is ambitious and multi-faceted, sometimes a thing of quiet, folksy restraint, but as likely to dive into a watery sonic netherworld, or strap on some grungy dynamics to get its kicks.
Not to dwell on PJ Harvey, but Sprinter shares some things with the oeuvre of Polly Jean. At first glance, it has the ring of a raw confessional, but on closer inspection, is plainly the result of some fastidious authorship, crammed with vivid vignettes surely rooted in life experience, but ringing like the best fiction. Standout is “New Skinâ€, a ragged, theatric guitar lament that vacillates between exhaustion, guilt and steely resolve, and rallies with a repeated entreaty: “But if you’ve never known the darkness/Then you’re the one who fears the most.†Too many good lines here, though, from the bleary-eyed southern states hedonism of “Cowboy Guilt†(“You had us in stitches/With your George W impressions/You sang of reparations/With the Native Americansâ€) to “Ferris Wheelâ€, in which a wallow in unrequited affection becomes a lonely visit to the fairground: “My friends just laugh and roll their eyes/When I tell them I don’t mind the way it feels/To ride an empty Ferris wheel.â€
The weight of a religious upbringing hangs heavy, leaving a sense of issues unresolved. On “The Harshest Light†she quotes the Yahweh of the Old Testament, while the title track contemplates a pastor who preaches to his students of Zacchaeus, the hated tax collector redeemed by Jesus; but the man of God receives no such redemption, sent down “for pornographyâ€. Such tantalising narrative glimpses nudge up against blasts of raw feeling. “Strange Hellos†is an explosive Nirvana lope that shoves its chorus in your face like a scarred wrist: “I was all for being real/But if I don’t believe then no-one will…†“Son You Are No Islandâ€, meanwhile, channels romantic revenge into audacious sonics. To a creeped-out drone, Scott multitracks her voice into eerie chorus, and at the denouement – “Son, you’re not a man yet/You fucked with a woman who would know†– the voices suddenly scatter, like a flock of admonishing harpies.
An album that frequently feels to be about growing pains, Sprinter may, like its predecessor, not quite be Mackenzie Scott’s defining moment. All the same, it shows enough promise that we should take that as a profound positive. Like Torres, it ends on a note of watery despair, albeit one so beautifully rendered it feels almost triumphant. Across its eight minutes, “The Exchange†contemplates the uncomfortable feeling of watching our heroes age, why lost souls choose the touring life, her mother’s adoption, and a family tree severed at the bough. “I pray to Jesus Christ/Incessantly/I shine my shoes for the/Fat Lady†she sings, and at the end she’s imagining herself underwater, calling out to her parents, sinking deeper and deeper into the murk. A certain morbidity may become a hallmark of Torres’ writing; but then, it’s in the darkness that she finds herself.
Q&A
Torres
You lived in Nashville, which is commonly thought of as a big music city – but recently moved to New York. Why the change of scene?
I love Nashville, and it is a big music city. It just isn’t a big city. At least, it isn’t the big city. I’ve wanted to live in New York City since I was 14 years old. It was always my plan to move here once I’d earned my degree in Tennessee.
Many of your songs have an almost fictive but there’s a strong sense of autobiography that runs through Sprinter, too.
I’m dependent on my life experience. It provides a foundation for the writing. If I didn’t have experience to speak of then I wouldn’t be a credible source. I try to try out different interpretive lenses in viewing my experiences, though, because otherwise I think the writing would get stale. I really love this Sylvia Plath quote from an interview she did with Peter Orr in 1962: “I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have, but I must say I cannot sympathise with these cries from the heart that are informed by nothing except a needle or a knife, or whatever it is. I believe that one should be able to control and manipulate experiences […] with an informed and an intelligent mind.â€
Dorset is a long way from home. Why did you decide to come to the UK to record Sprinter? Was it recommended to you, or was it an idea you’d always had in your head?
Rob Ellis lives in Bridport. We’ve known each other for a couple of years and I was willing to do almost anything to work with him on this record. So I traveled to him!
There seems to be more emphasis on musical atmosphere-building than on your debut – and of course you have figures like Adrian Utley, Robert Ellis and Ian Olliver on board. How did you envisage it sounding? Did you succeed?
I got exactly what I wanted out of those handsome Brits! Seriously. I kept telling Rob (when we were talking pre-production) that I wanted the record to have a distinct (albeit nebulous when I tried to articulate my vision to him) atmosphere, and he kept assuring me that the friends he’d asked to play on the record were right for the job. All of the musicians who played on the record took direction really well; I actually had chills listening to Olly and Adrian play their bass and guitar parts, respectively. Also, Rob’s drum work is phenomenal. He’s one of those rare drummers that you just watch and become mesmerized. He uses his entire body when he plays.
INTERVIEW: LOUIS PATTISON
Sharon Van Etten has released a new track, "Just Like Blood".
The song is taken from her forthcoming EP, I Don't Want To Let You Down, which is released in early June through Jagjaguwar.
The EP is Van Etten's first new music since her third album Are We There was released in May, 2014.
https://so...
Sharon Van Etten has released a new track, “Just Like Blood”.
The song is taken from her forthcoming EP, I Don’t Want To Let You Down, which is released in early June through Jagjaguwar.
The EP is Van Etten’s first new music since her third album Are We There was released in May, 2014.
The question of how a fêted film director follows up his most successful project is not necessarily an easy one to answer.
Hosting a transatlantic cruise dedicated to your films is one option, of course. Or perhaps, in order to take a break entirely from the rigours of film, it is important to fin...
The question of how a fêted film director follows up his most successful project is not necessarily an easy one to answer.
Hosting a transatlantic cruise dedicated to your films is one option, of course. Or perhaps, in order to take a break entirely from the rigours of film, it is important to find a fresh outlet for your creative processes.
If, for instance, you are Wes Anderson, then, you might choose to accept a commission to design a Wes Anderson-themed bar. In Milan. Where there is also the opportunity to throw in a few additional details, like a pinball machine based around Life Aquatic… With Steve Zissou.
This, anyway, is Bar Luce; which Wired reports is due to open on May 9 for Fondazione Prada, the fashion house’s art complex with whom Anderson has previously collaborated on his 2013 short film, Castello Cavalcanti.
The bar reportedly draws from influences including Italian neorealist cinema, while its retro-aesthetic features arched ceilings and green formica furniture.
“I think it would be an even better place to write a movie,†Anderson says. “I tried to make it a bar I would want to spend my own non-fictional afternoons in.â€
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' latest film soundtrack is currently streaming on Youtube.
Their score for Loin Des Hommes is the duo's latest soundtrack collaboration, which previously included The Proposition (2005), The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007), The Road (200...
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis‘ latest film soundtrack is currently streaming on Youtube.
Their score for Loin Des Hommes is the duo’s latest soundtrack collaboration, which previously included The Proposition (2005), The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007), The Road (2009) and Lawless (2012).
A compilation of their previous soundtrack work, White Lunar, was released in 2009.
Uncut presents 100 startling bursts of glory that revealed rock’s major players and revolutionised the world of music… Originally published in Uncut's August 2006 issue (Take 111).
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Presley’s first record back in March 1956 and the recent debut of the Arctic Monkeys, the faste...
Uncut presents 100 startling bursts of glory that revealed rock’s major players and revolutionised the world of music… Originally published in Uncut’s August 2006 issue (Take 111).
_______________
Presley’s first record back in March 1956 and the recent debut of the Arctic Monkeys, the fastest-selling of all time, bookend 50 years of rock music quite aptly. Despite concerns that rock is ebbing as a cultural force, despite the onset of new formats and downloads, there remains a fascination with the shock of the new in rock, a feeling that it can still deliver historical turning points.
The debuts here fall into various categories. Some represent relatively modest beginnings, with little hint of what their creators will later produce and become. So, Bob Dylan’s self-titled debut album is a world apart from the brilliant carousel of Blonde On Blonde, while The Beatles’ first album is as culturally distant from Sgt Pepper as Gerry & The Pacemakers are from Pink Floyd. Conversely, there are others who have found it difficult to live up to the definitive achievement of their opener. Television’s Marquee Moon, say, or ABC’s The Lexicon Of Love, are such complete successes as to allow no further room for growth. Guns N’ Roses and The Stone Roses, meanwhile, both more or less collapsed under the strain of their early adulation. However, many of the debuts here – such as those by PJ Harvey, Spiritualized, Roxy Music and The Byrds – act as formidable indicators of what their creators would subsequently build and improve upon for the next few years.
Much is made of the ‘difficult’ second album. How much more difficult is the first: becoming what you are… hence this celebration of the debut. Because there’s nothing quite like the first time.
____________________
100 ARCADE FIRE Funeral (2005)
A concept album about suburban surrealism and political cynicism, Funeral was a word-of-mouth success. The Montreal eight-piece comprised a dynamic pocket orchestra, building from dreamlike balladry to immense anthems, with live performances of such intensity their contemporaries were scared witless.
Best track: “Neighbourhood #2 (Laïka)â€
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99 SUEDE Suede (1993)
Provocative, pan-sexual and blessed with a glam-rock crunch courtesy of guitarist Bernard Butler, Brett Anderson’s neon-lit world of beautiful losers hit a nerve untouched since The Smiths.
Best track: “Pantomime Horseâ€
____________________
98 FOO FIGHTERS Foo Fighters (1995)
After years of toil in the Nirvana misery mines, Dave Grohl finally exorcised his demons on this goofy, overdriven homage to the vein-bulging power pop of Cheap Trick. It was an instant success, with radio-friendly hits like “This Is A Callâ€. Stardom beckoned.
Best track: “This Is A Callâ€
Over nearly twenty years of existence on the fringes of Americana, Calexico have not paid for guitar-shaped swimming pools for their constituent members. But they have become one of those bands that elicit especial admiration from other artists: odd, wayward, sui generis. Edge Of The Sun, Calexicoâ€...
Over nearly twenty years of existence on the fringes of Americana, Calexico have not paid for guitar-shaped swimming pools for their constituent members. But they have become one of those bands that elicit especial admiration from other artists: odd, wayward, sui generis. Edge Of The Sun, Calexico’s ninth album, is where Calexico call in those chits, enlisting a formidable supporting cast of admiring collaborators, including – but not limited to – Carla Morrison, Greg Leisz and Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam.
At no point, however, does Edge Of The Sun feel, as such enterprises can, like an exercise in mutual ego-stroking, or an ill-disciplined rave-up. Every guest appreciates that Calexico’s sound is sufficiently expansive to permit kindred souls all the space they might need. So “Edge Of The Sun†accommodates Band Of Horses’ Ben Bridwell on the breezy, Jayhawksish opening track “Falling From The Sky†as generously as it does Greek traditionalists Takim on the sephulcral “World Undoneâ€, or Neko Case on the brooding anti-pop of “Tapping On The Lineâ€, redolent of one of the better album tracks from R.E.M.’s wilderness years.
And the guest cast do not occlude what remains a recognisable strain of Calexico’s Ameri-Mexicana. The south-of-the-border component is arguable even more prominent than usual: some of “Edge Of The Sun†was written in the Mexico City neighbourhood for which the instrumental interlude “Coyoacan†is named. “Cumbia de Dondeâ€, graced by call-and-response backing vocals from Spanish singer Amparo Sanchez, is a sweet, trumpet-drenched shuffle. “Miles From The Sea†and “Beneath The City Of Dreamsâ€, both featuring Guatemalen singer Gaby Moreno, also echo Calexico’s ongoing journey along the United States’ southern frontier (John Convertino, indeed, has recently relocated to El Paso.)
It ends with “Follow The Riverâ€, an almost incongruously straightforward ballad, which channels the autumnal melancholy of Crowded House to the extent that Joey Burns ends up sounding something like Neil Finn (DeVotchKa’s Nick Urata provides backing vocals). It’s an elegant close to a(nother) illustration of the breadth and generosity of this remarkable group’s vision.
At first glance, it’s hard to work out quite what Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp had in common. One, the Oxford-educated son of an esteemed classical composer; the other the son of a tugboat captain from London’s East End. As one bemused interviewee reasons in Lambert & Stamp, “If you’d mad...
At first glance, it’s hard to work out quite what Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp had in common. One, the Oxford-educated son of an esteemed classical composer; the other the son of a tugboat captain from London’s East End. As one bemused interviewee reasons in Lambert & Stamp, “If you’d made this up as a sitcom idea… it wouldn’t work. It’s too far fetched.â€
But Lambert and Stamp’s interests converged in film: they met in the early Sixties while both employed at Shepperton studios as assistant directors and both harboured dreams of directing. Their entry point, they reasoned, would be to document the emerging London music scene by following an upcoming band: The High Numbers. What they lacked in experience and knowledge of rock’n’roll, they compensated for in what Stamp calls ideas-driven “balls in the air†tactics. Pete Townshend, meanwhile, recalls the sharpness of Lambert’s thinking: “‘We need to have an address in Eton Place, because then we won’t ever have to pay our bills’.â€
Lambert died in 1981 and appears here in archive footage; Stamp, meanwhile, was filmed at length before his death in 2012 by director James D Cooper. Stamp is terrific value, his thoughts windmilling at a ferocious rate. For once even Townshend is relegated to supporting player; though of course, he still finds time to lecture Roger Daltrey on a particular aspect of their band’s history. Other interviews with Terence Stamp, Heather Daltrey, Richard Barnes add shading to this intimate portrait of the unlikely partnership behind one of rock’s greatest bands.
The final sequences, of Stamp visiting Lambert’s grave and reunited on screen with his former charges for a black tie award’s ceremony in America, are especially touching. “There are a lot of things we could have done and should have done and didn’t do,†reflects Stamp finally. “But we did enough.â€
The first clip has been released from the forthcoming Amy Winehouse documentary.
Amy, which opens in UK cinemas on July 3, has been directed by Senna filmmaker, Asif Kapadia.
It will contain extensive unseen archive footage alongside previously unheard tracks.
Amy had been produced by James...
The first clip has been released from the forthcoming Amy Winehouse documentary.
Amy, which opens in UK cinemas on July 3, has been directed by Senna filmmaker, Asif Kapadia.
It will contain extensive unseen archive footage alongside previously unheard tracks.
Amy had been produced by James Gay-Rees (Senna, Exit Through The Gift Shop) and will be released in the UK by Altitude Film Distribution.
My Morning Jacket’s Jim James answers your questions in the new issue of Uncut, dated June 2015 and out now.
As well as discussing snorkeling with the Grateful Dead and performing with Bob Dylan, the singer, guitarist and songwriter tackles the subject of touring and the damage it’s caused him....
My Morning Jacket’s Jim James answers your questions in the new issue of Uncut, dated June 2015 and out now.
As well as discussing snorkeling with the Grateful Dead and performing with Bob Dylan, the singer, guitarist and songwriter tackles the subject of touring and the damage it’s caused him.
“The physical beating your body takes when you’re on tour can be pretty extreme,†James says. “That, and isolation from people at home that you love. But we’re lucky we all get along really well and we’re super supportive, and the show itself is super fun.
“But the brutality of that constant travel, it’s really wrecked my health in a lot of ways. There’s some injury I’ve sustained from every portion of touring!â€
My Morning Jacket’s seventh album The Waterfall has just been released.
Eric Clapton continues his 70th birthday celebrations this year with a seven-night residency at London's Royal Albert Hall.
The shows follow two sell-out concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden, for which Clapton drew on all aspects of his incredible history from his time in Cream to the prese...
Eric Clapton continues his 70th birthday celebrations this year with a seven-night residency at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
The shows follow two sell-out concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden, for which Clapton drew on all aspects of his incredible history from his time in Cream to the present day.
Clapton’s Albert Hall shows run from May 14 to 23 and coincide with the release of a new compilation, Forever Man which is in shops on May 11.
Forever Man is available on 2CD, 3CD and vinyl and spans three decades of Clapton’s Reprise Records years; it features classic studio tracks and a blues-themed disc. Forever Man can be pre-ordered by clicking here.
We have ONE pair of tickets to give away for Clapton’s Royal Albert Hall show on Thursday, May 21, as well as two copies of the 3CD set of Forever Man as runners up prizes.
To be in with a chance of winning, just tell us the correct answer to this question:
What is the opening track on Clapton’s debut solo album, Eric Clapton?
Send your entries to UncutComp@timeinc.com by noon, Monday, May 18, 2015. Please include your full name, address and a contact telephone number.
A winner will be chosen by the Uncut team from the correct entries. The editor’s decision is final.
In this month's Uncut, I reviewed the gorgeous new album by The Weather Station. I also conducted an email Q&A with Tamara Lindeman, who basically is The Weather Station. Her answers turned out to be as thoughtful and precise as her lyrics, and I'm happy to run the complete conversation here…
...
In this month’s Uncut, I reviewed the gorgeous new album by The Weather Station. I also conducted an email Q&A with Tamara Lindeman, who basically is The Weather Station. Her answers turned out to be as thoughtful and precise as her lyrics, and I’m happy to run the complete conversation here…
Can you tell us a bit about The Weather Station story so far? I guess, for a lot of Uncut readers, this will be the first time they’ve come across you.
Sure. I started recording music when I was 19. It was a sort of obsession – I wanted to make music – heavy things were happening that I wanted to express somehow. My roommate at the time was a rapper, and she lent me software she used to make beats – I rented an interface and mic and started recording my voice, household sounds, banjo (which I was learning at the time) and a bit of guitar (which I tuned like a banjo). I didn’t really know how to play or write songs – I’d always sang and played piano, but I didn’t know musicians or people to play with – but I cut and pasted my way into making music. I put my recordings up on the web rather anonymously under the name ‘The Weather Station’.
Over time, I learned my instruments and formed a band, and joined other bands as well. Over the course of four years I turned some of the recordings into a full length record – The Line – which I released in 2009.
In 2010, I met Daniel Romano, who encouraged me to drop the atmospheric backdrop and just focus on the song – he was the first person who told me that my songwriting was good – good enough to stand on its own. We made All Of It Was Mine together. From that point on I have put the focus on lyrics, and essentially been a solo singer songwriter – just I came to it backwards, I guess.
How did you end up recording the album in a 19th Century French mansion?
I was on tour singing backups with a band called Bahamas – led by my friend Afie Jurvanen. He had to record a song for a film soundtrack and booked time at La Frette Studio, in France, where we were on tour at the time. I came along to sing. The owner loved what we were doing, and invited us to come back in February, when the studio was often empty. I thought Afie would want the time, but he suggested we make a record for me.
La Frette is an interesting place – it really is a mansion – with a walled garden and big iron gates – a beautiful, majestic place. The owner, Olivier, bought it in the late 80’s, along with an unbelievable collection of analogue gear that studios were trying to get rid of at the time. The place – the gear – it was acquired when it was considered worthless – now it’s all priceless.
Being able to be there didn’t really seem like real life, just this wonderful gift that I could hardly believe was mine.
Do you think being an actor makes you more or less confessional in your musical work?
Hmm. More so, I suppose? If it has influenced at all. I mean, I so rarely do it – I don’t think being an actor has anything to do with me, let alone my music. It’s a job that rewards obedience – you’re paid to disappear into someone else’s vision, to say other people’s lines – if you’re good – you disappear completely.
But maybe it has influenced on some level, my interest in being scrupulously truthful.  Because of my experiences in the film industry I guess I have very little interest in performance or artifice – I’m not interested in fantasy or wish fulfillment based storytelling. I love artists who do that, but I don’t want to myself. And maybe that is a reaction, a bit, to working as an actor – it makes me want to never act. I wanted to make music in some ways because it allowed me to be fully present in a way that’s difficult even in life, let alone in the film industry. It was the place I went to be honest.
Do you feel the Joni Mitchell comparisons (I am guilty of these myself) are just? I do worry a little that it is in part predicated on frozen lakes and road trips…
Ha! I do actually. It bothers me when every single female musician is compared to her – especially when the comparison is not apt – but in this case I think it’s pretty reasonable, and of course, I’m quite flattered.
I actually didn’t listen to Joni Mitchell for most of my life – in part because every time I sang somebody told me I reminded them of her. And the first few times I listened, I actually disliked her. But over the last couple years I’ve taken the time to dig deep and I’m glad I did. Now I’m a blushing fan just like everybody else. Court And Spark!
Anyhow, are these road trips real? And if so, can you tell us a little more about them?
Of course! “Way It Is Way It Could Be” is framed by a tour I did of Atlantic Canada in January – driving through Quebec towards New Brunswick along the south shore of the St Lawrence – where it looks like an ocean – in -40 weather. “Floodplain” is framed by the same tour route only in spring flood season – there are some epic rivers in New Brunswick, and they all flooded at the same time, that year. The city in “Loyalty” is Indianapolis, a place I’d never been to or even thought of till I pulled up there on tour – the strangeness of that city – the skyscrapers, the monuments, the emptiness of the streets, crept into the song I was writing at the time and became a metaphor. “Personal Eclipse” pulls on my experience of driving to and from California when I turned 20. I did that drive a couple times actually. But of course, the drive is just a canvas to talk about other things…
Are you shy in real life – and if so, in what way? In “Shy Women”, you seem to be talking about the weight of knowledge, and a certain discretion, rather than anything resembling timidity?
Interesting – shy really isn’t the right word in some ways, though I chose it.
I’ve been shy for most of my life, but it never really was timidity – I was reticent to speak because I actually had so much to say. I think that’s generally true for most ‘shy’ people. I’m less shy now, generally, though I’m constantly surprised by how deep some things are ingrained – that thing of not wanting to rock the boat, not wanting to take up any space in a room, finding it difficult to express an opinion unless I am absolutely certain it is the right one. Saying things on the internet is still difficult.
In the song it is of course heavier and different than shyness – but in that way the flippancy of the word makes it more poignant. Â ‘Shyness’ is in many ways about smoothing social interactions, putting people at ease, which is kind of what women are conditioned to do too – but it’s also something that can cover up and perpetuate some very heavy and unjust things.
Discretion, actually, seems a guiding principle for the whole album. Do you generally prefer music that tends towards subtlety and understatement? Can you maybe give a few examples?
Totally. Totally. Bill Callahan is someone I always come back to. But really, I’m surrounded in by songwriters who are also very understated, the songwriters in my community –  Ryan Driver, Steven Lambke, Michael Feuerstack, Sandro Perri…
To me though, it’s less about understatement and more about just reflecting reality – the way I experience things.  Pop music is often based on these declarative statements – ‘I will always love you’ – and those songs are cathartic and helpful, I think. But in life, such moments of clarity are fleeting – it’s complexity that endures. I guess it’s natural to me to want to reflect that.
But it’s also about longevity. If I wrote big choruses, I don’t know that I could sing them every night, because they wouldn’t always be true. That’s why my big chorus in the love song is ‘I don’t expect your love to be like mine’, which is the same thing to me as ‘I will always love you’, but more exacting – more precise, I guess.
My first record was really heavy, and I can’t even sing those songs anymore – it would be impossible to sing them honestly at this point in my life. But All Of It Was Mine has held up for me – I can still find things in there to interact with, when I’m singing the songs every night.
I find it interesting that there have been a few great records lately by female musicians who do the same thing – Courtney Barnett for example, writes with a specificity that comes across as understatement but to me is actually just precision.
While Fairport Convention toiled, Fotheringay idled. While the band Sandy Denny left in the wake of 1969’s folk-rock landmark Liege And Lief gigged relentlessly, the group she put together with her boisterous Australian boyfriend Trevor Lucas swanned around in a vintage limousine. They retreated t...
While Fairport Convention toiled, Fotheringay idled. While the band Sandy Denny left in the wake of 1969’s folk-rock landmark Liege And Lief gigged relentlessly, the group she put together with her boisterous Australian boyfriend Trevor Lucas swanned around in a vintage limousine. They retreated to a Sussex farmhouse to ‘get it together’ but rehearsed only once and spent most of their time messing about and getting drunk. They spent stupid money on a gigantic PA system nicknamed ‘Stonehenge’ – and by all reports that didn’t work either.
Within a year, Denny, Lucas, his Eclection bandmate Gerry Conway, and co-conspirators Pat Donaldson and Jerry Donahue had frittered away a reported £30,000 advance and had only one half-cooked LP to show for it. “We’ve had a terrible deadline to meet,†Denny says with dog-ate-my-homework air introducing a BBC session on this surprisingly hefty document of Fotheringay’s brief career. “All that material we’ve been working on must go on the album ‘cause we don’t have anything else to put on it.â€
The cupboards have been stripped bare for this four disc boxed set – 3CDs of studio recordings, demos, radio sessions and a live set, plus a DVD featuring un-broadcast TV footage – which features some of the best work of Denny’s maddeningly unfulfilled career. Indeed, the rendition of the Napoleonic bloodbath ballad “Banks Of The Nileâ€, which closed their self-titled album, released in June 1970, might well eclipse more celebrated Fairport classics like “A Sailor’s Life“, “Percy’s Song“, “Farewell Farewell“ or “The Deserter“.
Cursed with a voice of supernatural power, Denny knew when she walked out on Fairport at their peak that she did not want to spend the rest of her career belting out souped-up traditional songs. Her mentor and producer Joe Boyd was equally sure Denny could do better than retreating into a band whose easygoing style – a little bit country and little bit rock’n’roll – harked back to the early Fairport. However, while Denny (as she appears on German TV show Beat Club), a glowering thundercloud in a kaftan hunched over her piano, sounds like a solo star in waiting, she certainly doesn’t look like one. Her eagerness to cede the spotlight to Lucas, meanwhile, suggests she didn’t feel like one either.
Denny’s voice hugs every alpha-male curve of Lucas’s on Fotheringay’s live and studio versions of Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Way I Feelâ€, and by all accounts the monstrously insecure singer was utterly smitten with him. However, while Lucas’s spade-is-a-spade baritone has its charms – “Peace In The End†is cheery enough and Denny’s embellishments give his version of Bob Dylan’s “Too Much of Nothing†some heft – his contributions only paper over the cracks between the clutch of songs Denny brought to the new band. But when Denny was inspired, so were Fotheringay.
Fotheringay box set art
As with “The Banks Of The Nileâ€, the band provide a beautifully measured counterpoint on “Nothing More†– Denny’s attempt to reach out to her former bandmate Richard Thompson, quietly grief-stricken in the wake of the crash that killed his girlfriend Jeannie Franklin and Fairport drummer Martin Lamble. “My friend I know you’ve suffered, although you are still young,“ she sings. “Why was it you would not take help from anyone?â€
The gentle swells that Fotheringay build under “The Sea†show a sympathetic subtlety, as the former nurse depicts the apocalypse coming to her home city: “Sea flows under your doors in London town, and all your defences are all broken down.†A distaff relative to Nick Drake’s “One Of These Things Firstâ€, its meaning is – like many of Denny’s songs – smoothed away by wave upon wave of obfuscating rewrites.
Fotheringay are at their unobtrusive best again on the “The Pond And The Streamâ€, Denny somewhat unfairly calling herself out for being an uptight urbanite compared to free-range folkie Anne Briggs. “Annie wanders on the land, she loves the freedom of the air,†Denny sighs. “She finds a friend in every place she goes. There’s always a face she knows. I wish that I was there.â€
However, country living proved notably less inspiring when Fotheringay moved to Chaffinches Farm in Sussex, on a vague mission to log-cabin together their second LP. Fairport sparkled on their bucolic retreats – Liege And Lief came together at Farley Chamberlayne, near Winchester; Full House, their first post-Denny record, was born of communal living at the Angel, a former pub in Hertfordshire. Fotheringay’s rural idyll, by contrast, largely involved playing cards and going swimming.
An exasperated Boyd downed tools after the band returned to the studio that December. Functioning prototypes of “Late November†and “John The Gun†– both of which would appear on her first solo album – capture Denny in “Battle O Evermore†Valkyrie voice,  but a surfeit of Lucas leads, and will-this-do covers of “Wild Mountain Thyme†and “Silver Threads And Golden Needles†showed exactly how little Fotheringay had done on their holidays. Boyd told Denny she was wasting her time. He had a point.
Fotheringay were dissolved, but Denny’s solo career proved no more fulfilling. 1971’s North Star Grassman And The Ravens has a sullen charm, but no amount of string sections could cover up a shortage of top-class material as Lucas looked to steer her toward mainstream diva-dom on her final three LPs, Sandy, Like An Old Fashioned Waltz and Rendezvous. Drunk, drugged and disappointed, Denny unraveled, and motherhood only accelerated her decline. She died from a brain haemorrhage, aged 31, in April 1978, days after Lucas had spirited their baby daughter Georgia away to Australia – an extreme intervention which may have staved off further tragedy. Lucas died of a heart attack, aged 45, in 1989.
In light of that unhappy ending, many pinpointed the Fotheringay-era as the period when the rot set in. What Nothing More suggests, though, is that 1970 might have been Denny’s best year as a writer. The easy atmosphere and the security of having Lucas close by may not have eased her anxiety – Boyd wrote that Renee Zellweger’s Bridget Jones was an accidentally perfect Denny – but it gave her the space to create some startling songs. What came after seemed too much like hard work.
Q&A
Gerry Conway, drums Can you remember how Fotheringay first came about?
It was beginning to be the end of Eclection; we’d had several line-up changes and Trevor and I weren’t happy with the way it was going. Then there was a conversation one day in the kitchen of Sandy and Trevor’s flat in Chipstead Street in which the plan to form another band was hatched – the three of us were in it together. We just had to look for a bass player and a guitar player.
Was it Sandy’s band, Trevor’s band or everyone’s?Â
Sandy really wanted to have a vehicle for her own songs, so we did more or less concentrate on her material along with some traditional stuff and contributions from Trevor. Nobody cracked the whip. It was a friendly band.  No one had any ambition of storming the charts are getting rich. Money didn’t come into it – there wasn’t any.
What was the dynamic between Trevor and Sandy?Â
I think they were just in love, and from love comes great things – but we were all mates together. Trevor was very much a party type person. There wasn’t going to be anything deep and meaningful going on – it was all going to be fun and we all got swept along on that sort of vibe.
They have been characterised as the Sid and Nancy of folk rock; was theirs a noticeably volatile relationship?Â
It did eventually become that way. Sandy did have quite a temper, bless her, so they would quarrel, but that never really included us – we just accepted that Sandy was that way. I remember backstage at a gig, Sandy was unhappy about something and I could hear her going on behind me, then suddenly she grabbed the bench I was sitting on, not spotting me, and threw it across the room with me on it. It was more funny than anything else.
Banks of the Nile is one of the performances of Sandy’s career: can you remember much about recording it?Â
I remember it like yesterday. We did a few takes of it and we weren’t happy, so we did what most people did in those days: stopped the session and went to the pub. And when we were a bit more refreshed we decided to come back and just jam it. It’s something that we just did blind. Did we realise it was a special moment? No. We were never happy. It always could have been better.
Is it true that Fotheringay had a Bentley?Â
What we had was a couple of very dodgy Austin Princesses, which we didn’t own. Our friend Jock had a car business and occasionally he would take us to gigs in one of his Austin Princesses, so we were arriving in style but usually breaking down halfway home. The nearest Fotheringay came to a Bentley was when Jock asked me to take one to Chipstead Street for Roy Harper to pick up – I had it for about an hour.
Is the talk about ‘Stonehenge’ – Fotheringay’s massive PA system – overstated?Â
It was true and it was silent. It was Trevor’s brainchild – he went to WEM, who were making PAs, and laid out a plan to build a big system. Sure enough, they built it and it was enormous. The only problem was that when set it up, you could put your head in it and you still wouldn’t hear anything. It was a bit of a white elephant.
Fotheringay’s country retreat to Chaffinches Farm seemed to involve more swimming than songwriting. True?Â
That’s fairly accurate. We did do one rehearsal, but the rest of the time Pat Donaldson and I were gardening. Then our roadie at the time – his brother had a motorbike shop – got a couple of BSAs for us and we had time trials up the side of the house or would ride them over the sand dunes in East Wittering. I’m not sure what we were preparing to do – we were just there.
Sandy split Fotheringay go solo. Can you remember how that came about?Â
Sandy came in in floods of tears to say that she had been persuaded to do the solo career and had to leave the band. After that we had a short meeting with the rest of us to decide whether we were going to carry on and get somebody else, but without Sandy it wasn’t a goer. The band only really survived for a year. This is a four disc set – I am amazed that there is that much material available.
Joe Boyd seems to have been fairly dismissive of Fotheringay.Â
He wanted either Fairport with Sandy or Sandy as a solo act, but what people failed to understand about Sandy was that her driving force in life was the sort of solidarity that came from being in a friendly band. She wanted to be successful – we all did – but I don’t think it was top of her list. First of all was that life should be nice, and that she should have nice people around her.
The Who have been officially announced as the final headliner for this year's Glastonbury festival.
Meanwhile, Paul Weller will play in the penultimate Sunday night slot on the Pyramid Stage.
The Who released a statement this morning [May 6, 2015] confirming reports that had appeared over the week...
The Who have been officially announced as the final headliner for this year’s Glastonbury festival.
Meanwhile, Paul Weller will play in the penultimate Sunday night slot on the Pyramid Stage.
The Who released a statement this morning [May 6, 2015] confirming reports that had appeared over the weekend [May 2, 2015] in a British tabloid that they were playing the festival.
Roger Daltrey said, “It’s great to be ending this part of a 50 year career at the most prestigious and respected music festival in the world. We’ll do our best to close this year’s event with a bang, unless of course the fireworks get get!”
The band will play their Hyde Park gig at the British Summer Time festival on Friday, May 26.
They will then close Glastonbury on Sunday, May 28. The band are currently scheduled to play a show in Paris that night, although the date will presumably be rescheduled.
The Who last played Glastonbury in 2007.
Other acts confirmed for this year’s Glastonbury 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.
