Bob Dylan, David Bowie, the White Stripes, the Jesus And Mary Chain, The Who, Bruce Springsteen and more are confirmed for this year’s Record Store Day.
This year, Record Store Day takes place on April 18.
You can find a full list of UK releases here.
In the meantime, here are some of the vinyl...
Bob Dylan, David Bowie, the White Stripes, the Jesus And Mary Chain, The Who, Bruce Springsteen and more are confirmed for this year’s Record Store Day.
This year, Record Store Day takes place on April 18.
Bob Dylan. “The Night We Called It A Day”/“Stay With Me”. 7”
Grateful Dead. Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, 3/29/90. LP
The Jesus And Mary Chain. Psychocandy. Live. Barrowlands. LP
Robert Plant. More Roar. 10”
Roxy Music. “Ladytron” / “The Numberer”. 10”
Small Faces. “Afterlow Of Your Love” / “Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire” 7”
Bruce Springsteen. Born In The USA / Nebraska / The River / Darkness On The Edge Of Town / The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle / Greetings From Ashbury Park, NJ / Born To Run. All separate LP
Of all the iconic post-punk bands who have reformed in the last decade, the one least likely to do it well - to do it at all - were The Pop Group.
Formed in Bristol by boys so cool that they had embraced and rejected the Sex Pistols by the end of 1976 for being too rockist, they lasted just three y...
Of all the iconic post-punk bands who have reformed in the last decade, the one least likely to do it well – to do it at all – were The Pop Group.
Formed in Bristol by boys so cool that they had embraced and rejected the Sex Pistols by the end of 1976 for being too rockist, they lasted just three years, two albums (plus a compilation of early demos), a few dozen legendary shows and three singles that defined that puzzling but eternally underrated sub-genre called punk-funk even more perfectly than the Gang Of Four or James Chance. While Mark Stewart (vocals), Gareth Sager (guitar), Dan Catsis (bass) and Bruce Smith (drums) have all spent the last 35 years or so making worthwhile music, nothing came close to the legend of The Pop Group, whose sloganeering, conspiracy-theory socialism, manic free-jazz unpredictability and ironic band name gained a hipster frisson for simply being too perfect to last.
So the reunion for live shows in 2010 couldn’t help but provoke cynicism, none of which was helped by the news that super-producer Paul Epworth (Adele, Coldplay, Florence And The Machine, etc) was manning the helm on a comeback album. Nevertheless, from the opening testifying crackle and post-hip hop strut of the opener and title track, its clear that Mark Stewart’s life-long mission statement for The Pop Group – “uplifting, abrasive funk with something more weird and interesting than ‘I wanna shag you all night long’ going on over it” – is present and correct. “Your mind has been wiped clean,” Stewart’s distorted voice wails as “Citizen Zombie” drizzles to a standstill, the perennial Stewart theme of irrational denial of the system’s violence and injustice firmly re-established.
So, having been reassured that Citizen Zombie is less money-spinning nostalgia and more rabble-rousing surprise, it fits that the following “Mad Truth” is an altogether more forgiving beast, a joyous early ‘80s disco throwback where, as Sager does his best choppy Nile Rodgers impression, Stewart concedes, “Its hard to make a stand.” From there, any vague possibility that Citizen Zombie will be as dissonant as original albums Y and For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder is banished by “Nowhere Girl”, a dubwise love ballad scorched by Sager’s as-close-to-rock-as-its-polite-to-get guitar.
But the most striking thing about Citizen Zombie is how young and naïve and happy it all sounds. The blissfully dancey “S.O.P.H.I.A.” is a case in point. Stewart still talks fondly of the Bristol scene that spawned The Pop Group, a tribe who spent 1975-77 enthusing about books, politics and the clothes and attitude of the Sex Pistols before going out to dance to soul and funk at the city’s multi-racial blues nights and discos. “S.O.P.H.I.A.” channels that teenage joy, the delight in being white bohemians who play disco ever so slightly wrong. And as always, Stewart is unashamedly, deliberately hilarious, crooning “You took me to the edge of the night” like a drunk at a bus stop before hitting the Situationist hook with relish: “Assume nothing!/Deny everything!”
The Pop Group have been given credit over the years for being original, subversive, prescient, clever, courageous… but rarely does anyone point out how funny they were. Epworth’s production – a perfect blend of 1979 surrealist angularity and 2015 machine-tooled gleam – emphasises and revels in this mischievous, celebratory side.
In other words, Citizen Zombie is The Pop Group album they were too at odds – with the world, with each other – to make 35 years ago. They were always inspired noise-mongers and sloganeers rather than great songwriters, and the likes of “Shadow Child”, “Box 9” and the obligatory anti-consumerist rant “Nations” probably won’t be making it into anyone’s Desert Island Discs. But Citizen Zombie has a coherence and warmth that only really surfaced, briefly and tantalisingly, first-time around, on the triptych of classic singles, “She Is Beyond Good And Evil”, “We Are All Prostitutes” and “Where There’s A Will”. In 2015, strangely, this makes The Pop Group finally sound like a pop group.
Q&A
Mark Stewart
Why did it take four years from the Pop Group live reunion in 2010 to releasing a new album?
“Me and Gareth had been writing the whole time while we got a five-year-plan together. Suddenly, out of the blue, I tweeted Paul Epworth because he’d been talking about us in an interview saying that we were a big influence. I asked him if he fancied doing anything with us and he came back in seconds and said it would be amazing. And the next week we were in the best studio in the world working on it. This was in September so it’s happening really, really fast… from four years to all engines go.” What did Paul Epworth add to The Pop Group?
“He’s what they call in psychiatry an enabler. Paul had only just opened this studio and wanted us in to baptize it, and he was so excited about plugging all the machines in backwards… he was like a little tiny kid. We were allowed to play with the big boys’ toys… and cut their heads off.” Your lyrics still demand revolution. You haven’t mellowed with age…
“Not at all. For me, it’s always about context. The fact that we’re using our own channels and distribution set-up means that at last we can do exactly what we wanna do. No censorship from outside capital. We’re more radical, to use an old word, than we ever were.”
With a new My Morning Jacket album The Waterfall due May 4 on ATO/Capitol Records, the band's Jim James 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 hirsuite frontman?
How did he end up on the Lo...
With a new My Morning Jacket album The Waterfall due May 4 on ATO/Capitol Records, the band’s Jim James 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 hirsuite frontman?
How did he end up on the Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes album?
Why did he become involved with the Woody Guthrie tribute project, New Multitudes?
What are his memories of playing with Bob Dylan and Wilco on the AmericanaramA tour?
Send up your questions by noon, Friday, March 20 to uncutaudiencewith@timeinc.com.
The best questions, and Jim’s answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine.
Please include your name and location with your question.
A previously unheard Kurt Cobain acoustic song is to appear on the soundtrack for the forthcoming documentary, Montage Of Heck.
Writing on Twitter, the film's director Brett Morgen said: "Listening to a mind blowing 12 minute acoustic Cobain unheard track that will be heard on the montage of heck s...
A previously unheard Kurt Cobain acoustic song is to appear on the soundtrack for the forthcoming documentary, Montage Of Heck.
Writing on Twitter, the film’s director Brett Morgen said: “Listening to a mind blowing 12 minute acoustic Cobain unheard track that will be heard on the montage of heck soundtrack.”
Morgen, whose previous credits include the Rolling Stones’ documentary Crossfire Hurricane, debuted Montage Of Heck at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The film will be released in the UK on April 10.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Morgen revealed that the score for the documentary consists of “unreleased Cobain music.
“They don’t have titles. Before people saw the movie, there were these weird press releases focusing on the unreleased music. And it’s like: It’s a movie. We’re not going to stop it and play a song for four minutes,” Morgen said. “But nobody in Kurt’s life — not his management, wife, bandmates — had ever heard his Beatles thing [a snippet of ‘And I Love Her’]. I found it on a random tape. It’s a Paul [McCartney] song. How’s that for shattering the myth?”
As usual with these things, editing Uncut's new Ultimate Music Guide: Kate Bush dug up a lot of strange, revealing old business from the NME and Melody Maker archives, not least an autumn 1980 piece which found an over-excited MM journalist in a Munich TV studio, watching Kate Bush put a double bass...
As usual with these things, editing Uncut’s new Ultimate Music Guide: Kate Bush dug up a lot of strange, revealing old business from the NME and Melody Maker archives, not least an autumn 1980 piece which found an over-excited MM journalist in a Munich TV studio, watching Kate Bush put a double bass through its paces while she performed “Babooshka”.
Once the show – and the problematically ripe descriptions – were over, though, the interview with Bush is fascinating, as you can see if you pick up the Ultimate Music Guide (it’s on sale in UK stores on Thursday, but is already available here). Bush talks about wanting to tour again, about the books and films that have influenced her, about the permeable lines between confession and fiction.
“I rarely write purely personal songs from experience,” she says. “I worry about being too indulgent and giving too much away.” A little later, she is discussing the specifics of “Army Dreamers”, sung from the perspective of a mother mourning a son killed in action. “I seem to link on to mothers rather well,” she admits. “I find it fascinating about mothers, that there’s something in there, a kind of maternal passion which is there all the time, even when they’re talking about cheese sandwiches. Sometimes it can be very possessive, sometimes it’s very real.”
Even at her most elliptical, there is a clarity and consistency to Kate Bush which, looking back, seems a lot more obvious now than it might have done at the time. Latterly, for instance, the maternal fortitude implied in 1980 has become an explicit part of the most recent phase of her career, culminating in Before The Dawn – a theatrical spectacular inspired by her son Bertie McIntosh, and a showcase of his talents as a “very talented actor and beautiful singer,” as his mother wrote in her programme notes.
In the aftermath of Before The Dawn, it feels like the perfect time for us to consider, in depth, the whole story of Kate Bush. To that end, our latest Uncut Ultimate Music Guide features forensic new essays on every one of her albums, presented alongside a host of those long-unseen interviews. They show an artist who slowly gains the confidence to assert herself and – very slowly – gains the respect of the press. But also one whose idiosyncratic vision, and whose determination to bring that vision to fruition, has been there right from the start.
“There are always so many voices telling me what to do that you can’t listen to them,” she told another Melody Maker journalist in 1985, a genius on her own remarkable trajectory. “All I ever do is listen to the little voices inside me. I don’t want to disappoint the little voices that have been so good to me…”
The Pretties were one of the more dynamic proponents of the British R’n’B boom, perennially tipped for stardom, and admired by their peers: the young David Bowie, for one, was apparently so besotted with the band that he filed singer Phil May’s phone number under “God” in his address book....
The Pretties were one of the more dynamic proponents of the British R’n’B boom, perennially tipped for stardom, and admired by their peers: the young David Bowie, for one, was apparently so besotted with the band that he filed singer Phil May’s phone number under “God” in his address book. But their course was pitted with missteps and misfortune, mostly self-imposed by their anarchic reputation. May was famously reputed to possess the longest hair in the country, which helped make the band prime tabloid targets; and drummer Viv Prince was so drunkenly uncontrollable that he seemed to court antagonism everywhere he went – Fontana’s head of A&R head refused to have anything to do with the band after Prince puked over his drums in the studio.
Other decisions proved ill-judged. Their singles weren’t included on their albums. Their first original song, “We’ll Be Together”, was about prostitution. Another was called, somewhat bluntly, “LSD”. And due to one of their most potent singles, “Don’t Bring Me Down”, including the line “And then I laid her on the ground”, it was effectively denied the chance of widespread airplay, especially in America. Then, when they should have been capitalising on early inroads into the American market, they were instead shipped off to tour that hotbed of rock’n’roll fever, New Zealand – where they triggered such a riotous response that they were promptly shipped right back, banned from ever entering the country again. At every turn, it seemed The Pretty Things were determined to sabotage their own career.
Given which, it’s astonishing that they managed to come up with several of the most thrilling pieces of primal UK R’n’B, before going on to invent the rock opera, following one of the more creatively intriguing examples of ’60s pop’s transition from mod to psychedelia.
Their position in pop history is undeniable. Guitarist Dick Taylor founded The Rolling Stones with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, before hooking up with fellow art student Phil May to form the Pretties. They would subsequently share a house – in Belgravia, no less – with Brian Jones; their raucous lifestyle there was celebrated in the song “13 Chester Street”, a “Not Fade Away” soundalike whose rhythm track featured Viv Prince’s leather belt being whipped against a chair. Prince’s avalanche drums were a crucial element of early successes like their visceral debut single “Rosalyn”, the musical embodiment of a primal urge with the waspish appeal of the early Stones. It’s one of the era’s emblematic recordings, as is its follow-up “Don’t Bring Me Down”, a blast of feral momentum periodically arrested by a sexually frustrated stop/start structure.
Their eponymous debut album was mostly R’n’B covers by the likes of Bo Diddley and Jimmy Reed, lusty plaints given a pulsing pep-pill throb by the band’s whipcord-thin sound and May’s louche, laconic vocal sneer. The follow-up Get The Picture? featured more of their own material alongside covers of Ike Turner and Solomon Burke songs, but was mostly notable for the broadening of their approach, with fuzz-guitar effects, reverbed harmony vocals and odd chord-changes featured on some tracks. But when Fontana, frustrated at the failure of singles like “Midnight To Six Man” and “Come See Me” (both of which sound stunning half a century on), saddled them with string and brass arrangers and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich’s producer, the Pretties lost interest in the subsequent Emotions album, never playing any of its tracks live. By that time, anyway, they were a completely different band, in terms of outlook and lineup. Viv Prince had long since tried the others’ patience and been ditched in favour of Skip Alan, while further changes saw the recruitment of keyboardist Jon Povey and May’s childhood friend, multi-instrumentalist Wally Waller, both from The Fentones, who brought with them a love of West Coast harmonies that fed into the band’s broadening sound as the Pretties made the move from mod to an eclectic psychedelia.
The first declaration of this new intent came with the landmark single “Defecting Grey”, a multi-sectioned psychedelic extravaganza of rasping guitar, electric sitar, backward guitar and looming bass. Helmed by the inventive Beatles/Pink Floyd engineer/producer Norman Smith, “Defecting Grey” is the Pretties’ “Lazy Sunday”, their “Tomorrow Never Knows”, and an indication of the untapped reserves of musical ambition and imagination that would bear fruit on SF Sorrow, the world’s first rock opera. Somehow, SF Sorrow failed to hoist the band into the first rank of psych-rockers, remaining instead a cult classic, but it stands up better nearly half a century on than most of their contemporaries’ efforts. Based on a Phil May story following the titular Sorrow from cradle to grave, it’s a densely textured work woven from threads of layered guitars, keyboards, horns and gorgeous harmonies, with Mellotron and sitar “borrowed” from The Beatles’ studio down the hall, and Smith ladling on all manner of bespoke effects. But compared with the single-minded R’n’B approach that the band were famed for, it was perhaps too confusingly diverse, with tracks like the martial, rhythmic “Private Sorrow”, the ebullient “SF Sorrow Is Born” and the soaring prog-scape “The Journey”flying off at disparate tangents.
The follow-up, Parachute, a pastoral-psych album themed around the contrast between urban and rural lifestyles – a voguish concern at the time, with hippies intent on getting back to the land – proved similarly outré, despite again featuring intelligent material, ambitiously treated. It’s at this point that the band’s career started to drift seriously off course, with the slick cover to Freeway Madness signalling the desperate urge to please American punters that would take up the Pretties’ next decade. There were occasional highlights – the blend of jaunty, offbeat piano interspersed with darker intimations gave Silk Torpedo’s “Dream/Joey” something akin to the ambivalence of The Doors – but the hook-up with Led Zep’s SwanSong label inevitably led to a coke-fuelled hedonism that gradually eroded the group’s integrity. Following several further personnel changes, even Phil May was moved to quit, displeased at how money was becoming the driving force behind creative decisions.
Without him, the band collapsed – though there’s a certain poetic justice in their eventual reformation resulting from the other Pretties joining him on a solo project. And there’s something heroically noble at their continued existence, intermittently performing and releasing LPs like 2007’s Balboa Island, whose “The Beat Goes On” offers an autobiographical overview of the life and times of those “dirty Pretty Things… back in the day we stole the blues”. The fame has gone, they concede, but regardless, “the beat goes on inside me and you”. And always will, no doubt.
Albert Maysles, the documentarian, has died aged 88.
He passed away on Thursday, March 5 from natural causes.
Along with his brother David, Albert Maysles was one of the great documentary filmmakers of the Sixties and Seventies.
The Maysles brothers' filmed both The Beatles and the Rolling Stones...
Albert Maysles, the documentarian, has died aged 88.
He passed away on Thursday, March 5 from natural causes.
Along with his brother David, Albert Maysles was one of the great documentary filmmakers of the Sixties and Seventies.
The Maysles brothers’ filmed both The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, among many other subjects.
In 1964, the Maysles followed The Beatles on their first American tour for a documentary titled What’s Happening! The Beatles In The U.S.A.
Gimme Shelter, meanwhile, they followed the Stones on the band’s infamous 1969 tour of the States, which culminated with the free concert at Altamont Speedway.
Outside of music, Albert and David Maysles shot documentaries on Orson Welles, Marlon Brando and, in 1975, Grey Gardens, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale who were aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
A restored version of Grey Gardens has recently been released in American cinemas.
Following David’s death in 1987, Albert continued to make documentaries, including 2001’s Oscar-nominated LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy Of Cotton, about an impoverished African-American family living in the souther, of the United States.
The Flaming Lips teamed up with Julianna Barwick to cover The Beatles' "She's Leaving Home'' and David Bowie's "Warszawa" at a benefit show in New York City on March 5 – watch videos of their versions below.
The group were performing at the annual Tibet House Benefit Concert, at the city's Carnegi...
The Flaming Lips teamed up with Julianna Barwick to cover The Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home” and David Bowie’s “Warszawa” at a benefit show in New York City on March 5 – watch videos of their versions below.
The group were performing at the annual Tibet House Benefit Concert, at the city’s Carnegie Hall, according to The Future Heart via Pitchfork. The evening also saw an appearance from Patti Smith, who performed her own “People Have The Power”, joined by Debbie Harry, Dev Hynes, Philip Glass and Miley Cyrus.
Julianna Barwick has form with the Lips – she performed on Wayne Coyne and co’s studio version of “She’s Leaving Home” on their Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover album, With A Little Help From My Fwends, released last year.
The Tibet House Benefit Concert is a yearly fundraiser in support of the institution, which works to preserve and celebrate Tibetan culture.
In this very special piece from the Uncut archives (January 2002 issue, Take 56), an all-star cast, including Johnny Marr, Ryan Adams, Frank Black, Chris Hillman, Michael Gira and more, pick the Stones' 40 greatest tracks.
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Joe Strummer remembers it, too: that time in the S...
1 GIMME SHELTER Let It Bleed album track, 1969
IAN McCULLOCH: It’s fantastic, it’s mega, absolute genius. From that intro to that chorus, the vocal on it – they’re genuinely brilliant. Also the backing singing is fantastic. It’s spooky. You can play it to death, you can dance to it and you can play it in the dark, just get totally tranced out by it.
IAN ASTBURY: This period of time was definitely a sense of crisis and again the Stones documented it perfectly. On this track you could feel their energy and their sensuality. With The Beatles it appealed in the head, whereas the Stones appealed to anyone taking drugs or having sex. And this is a track you can definitely lose yourself in. This has such an incredible, sensual sound. I remember it used to get played at an old goth club in London in the early ’80s.
MIKE SCOTT: Rock’n’roll dives headlong into the end-of-the-’60s abyss and still feels great.
RICHARD HAWLEY: This track makes me move every time. Cocaine paranoia is pretty much summed up with this one. “Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away” – maybe not that paranoid, although it does make me want to fuck, fight and drink! Maybe I’ll just have a lie down instead.
BOB HARRIS: The whole thing that was happening in the late Sixties, the idea of idealism hitting a wall with Altamont, the demonstrations in 1968, “Gimme Shelter” really locks that period of time together.
FRANK BLACK: This song would have to be Number One in the pantheon of amazing rock recordings. The rock spirit is so strong, the mood is tough and cinematic and the first piano chord that kicks in is so dramatic it leaves me speechless. It’s completely untouchable.
JIM SCLAVUNOS: The Stones never really embraced hippie idealism – they were always too dark. But this song publicly marked their disillusionment with youth culture. I was also coming into my puberty and groping around for the kind of answers young men seek, so it seemed to sing out to me in all its sweeping, evocative glory and epic paranoia.
GUY GARVEY: I adjusted the recording level on a tape of this tune to make it kick in harder when the drums came in. I love it, and think it inspired scores of bands, including ourselves and Primal Scream.
TERRY MILES: The greatest drug song ever written by a band that isn’t The Velvet Underground. Gospel.
NICK HASTED: What music ever evoked such concrete devastation? It’s hard to separate from the Mayles brothers’ sweeping helicopter shots of the hippie tribe entering the Altamont slaughterhouse, from Stanley Booth’s description of a stoned, naked girl being brutalised by Hell’s Angels as the Stones play it, stunned and scared. Listen, and the mood’s the same: ghost train harmonies, a guitar figure of mournful dread, then a harmonica honking like a beast at your back, and a black girl shouting blues in the night – “Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away.” “Love, sisters, it’s just a kiss away,” Jagger softly amends, but the kiss didn’t come, the shelter wasn’t found.
JEFFREY LEWIS: It’s the best rock recording ever, on the best rock album ever. It gives me chills just to think about it, and sometimes if I mentally recite it I get tears in my eyes. Musically and lyrically it sums up the pure distilled heart of human terror and hope. “Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away/Love . . . it’s just a kiss away.” Fuck, now I’m crying. Seriously.
DAVID STUBBS: The song that provided the title to perhaps the greatest of rockumentaries. Always unconvincing hippies, the Stones caught the grim, sour moment here in 1969 when everything came down, a moment in which they themselves were so often central – Altamont, the death of golden child Brian Jones, Vietnam, Manson. With Richards once again churning up a dirty storm, and Jagger’s closing falsetto wail fluttering away into an uncertain beyond like one of the butterflies he let loose at Hyde Park, this was The Rolling Stones’ finest and darkest hour.
MICHAEL J SHEEHY: This song has a great outlaw feel to it, and the mixture of harmonica and slide guitar is just magic. People talk about Charlie Watts’ unique drumming style, but I’ve always admired his dress sense and his wit in interviews.
ROB HUGHES: Forever twinned with Altamont, a great dirty blast of noise. Keith’s spidery intro collapsing into a ground-in-the-earth tremble around Jagger’s bluesy howl and banshee gospel of Mary Clayton. Archetypal grit-under-the-fingernails Stones sound – oppressive, earthy, alive.
STEVE WYNN: When Dream Syndicate were recording our Medicine Show album in San Francisco in 1984, I would go out each night and drive around the city blasting Let It Bleed from my cassette deck and building up a healthy steam of attitude and anger before tracking down one of the many liquor stores in the Tenderloin, buying a half-pint of Jim Beam and taking it all back into the studio to cap off an evening of musical mayhem. This song was so dark, so diseased, so foreboding, and it raised the bar so that it was hard for anything else to sound anything but wimpy by comparison. It’s one of those songs that’s both daunting and inspiring at the same time. And if this song didn’t invent Altamont, it was certainly the perfect soundtrack.
DUKE ERIKSON: Nothing rocks more than this, and Jagger had never sounded so urgent and desperate before. It’s classic Stones with Mary Clayton wailing until her voice breaks and Mick and Keith going back and forth between the guitars. It’s very hard to make great art that reflects the time it’s in so well and still stands up decades later, but “Gimme Shelter” manages it. This was how we felt then, and I guess it’s how we feel now.
SIMON GODDARD: “Gimme Shelter” is dark in a perturbed, almost spiritual way as opposed to the affected Satanic vaudeville of “Sympathy For The Devil”. A staggering rock’n’roll song, yet one almost entirely devoid of optimism. Like musical voodoo, the melodic manifestation of a Biblical curse or Romany hex, Mary Clayton’s sobbing witch-at-the-stake vocals beautifully underscore the apocalypse at hand. Jagger’s lyrics are a prayer for the dying, those of a man resigned to eternal damnation for whatever sins he has or hasn’t committed, sinking into a quagmire of impending misery a mere piss away. This even sounds like the end of the Sixties – the Summer Of Love now over, “Gimme Shelter” marks the charcoal grey hurricane ushering in the bitter winter of discontent that followed. Self-flagellation from a band with the blood of Altamont on their hands. But first and foremost just a phenomenal riff.
MARC ALMOND: There’s just something about the chord changes in it, and the connotations, the whole Altamont thing and this whole darkness that goes around the song. What does he sing at the end? “It’s just a shot away, just a kiss away.” There’s just a great feeling about it.
ADAM SWEETING: Further evidence of the Stones’ gift for creating terrifying atmosphere through ostensibly simple means – the sneaky, insidious guitar introduction, ominous rumbles of piano, and a bit of that percussion gadget that sounds like a turkey having its neck wrung. As the track progresses, the pressure builds inexorably until the ensemble sounds like a freight train clattering towards Armageddon, as Jagger and Mary Clayton wax apocalyptic with images of war, rape and murder. Much credit owing here, presumably, to producer Jimmy Miller and engineers including Glyn Johns and regular Doors collaborator Bruce Botnick. Spine-chilling, even now.
ARTHUR BAKER: This is such an epic song that everything they’ve released since pales in comparison. From 1969 to 1972 no one could touch them, and everything after that just seems like a bad parody of the Stones we grew to love.
MIKE JOYCE: I was always influenced by punk but through Johnny Marr, the influence of the Stones sort of bled onto me. Rather than being just a time-keeper, Charlie Watts always went with what Keith was playing, which always stuck in my mind. In The Smiths, I always tried to play off Johnny in the same way. “Gimme Shelter”, though, has to be the Number One Stones record, just for the intro alone. It’s just beautiful. And from a guy that doesn’t even play six strings on his guitar.
JIM REID: I was thinking about the first time I heard “Gimme Shelter”. It was round about the punk days, William and me were really into punk rock and the raw energy of that, but then he played me “Gimme Shelter” and it was just . . . just fantastic.
CHRIS HILLMAN: This means a lot to me in a couple of ways. I love the song, the darkness of it. At the other end of it, I played at Altamont with The Flying Burritos, and “Gimme Shelter” tied into the whole of that… It was a very oppressive day, you knew something was happening. There was very much something in the air that day. From the minute we left the hotel to drive out to the site, things happened. It felt very bad. We had a car accident, and then we barely got in – I had to argue with the Hell’s Angels to get onto the stage with my bass, they were so out of their minds. And it really wasn’t the Stones’ fault for that situation. It was really that The Grateful Dead had gotten the Hell’s Angels to do security and it was a nightmare. It was a day that was oppressive and dark – the sky was dark, the mood was dark – and the ending was the worst scenario you could imagine. I mean, I love “Gimme Shelter” as a piece of music, but it also reminds me of a real interesting time in my life. I thought that day was the end of the Sixties – it had come from the wonderful innocence of The Beatles and Gerry And The Pacemakers to this… The Burritos’ country-style music actually calmed the crowd down that day. I remember talking to David Crosby, because Crosby, Stills And Nash had just played, and he was saying, “Boy, there’s something real strange going on here.” But once we got on to play, we actually got a brief moment of sanity. People actually stopped. Maybe it was the change of rhythm, but suddenly there was a more positive thing going on. We got a very good reception that day. And as soon as we were done, I gave the bass to the
equipment fella and got out of there. It wasn’t until later, when I was back in my room, that I saw that the guy [Meredith Hunter] had been stabbed. And it wasn’t a surprise.
JOHNNY MARR: Without a shadow of a doubt my Desert Island Disc. I first heard it on a weird, unofficial album – I think it was actually called “Gimme Shelter” – and
I remember hearing it at a friend’s house during school holidays. For me, it’s got everything I like about music, from the intro, which is white voodoo, to the riff, which has become an archetypal rock’n’roll riff, to Jagger’s vocal, which is real blues. It’s one of those examples of Jagger nailing a style which he made his own. It’s got a darkness to it and a true sophistication. For me, when the Stones get into that primal space, they are actually truly sophisticated. And Mary Clayton’s backing vocal is the most classic R&B wail of all time. It’s also the best guitar solo that’s ever been put on record. I think there’s about six notes in total in it, but it’s played with pure feeling, totally appropriate. This record to me sounds like a one-man agenda from a person who’s really onto something that no one else is.
ED HAMELL: Everybody in the United States will remember where they were on September 11 when they heard about the World Trade Center bombings. I was down in my basement, working in my studio. I didn’t come upstairs until 11am – two hours after the fact. I had no idea. I turned on the TV and stood, unable to sit, stunned. For a split second I thought it was a stunt – like Orson Welles’ War Of The Worlds – but it was real, and I knew it. Now, weeks later, it’s still tough to get a grasp on. It is so surreal. And watching it on TV, then and over and over again, I’ve played “Gimme Shelter” as a soundtrack in my head. My wife criticises me for bringing all things “down to rock’n’roll”. It’s true, it’s a bad thing, particularly in conversations with people that don’t share your passion. They interpret your rock interjections as minimising something they feel is important. I don’t agree, but I understand. Rock’n’roll is not ‘down’ to me. I should backtrack here. I followed the construction of The Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame with great anticipation. It was on again, off again for years. When it was finally built, I waited impatiently to get there. I think I was recording an album so I was off the road and it was logistically impossible for me to get there. Finally I was on a tour of the mid-west. Touring in those days was me and all my gear, by myself, in a car. Driving for hours, hundreds of miles. (I once did 7,700 miles in 11 days and played 13 gigs in that time, with radio and in-stores. I called it the ‘Motel? I’m Driving It! Tour’). I drove 500-plus miles to arrive at The Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame at 4pm, an hour before they closed. I blasted through it. After years of waiting, I hadn’t expected my reaction. I was devastated. Disappointed, shocked, even angry. This wasn’t a testament to the visionaries, artists and soldiers of rock’n’roll! This was nothing more than a Hard Rock Cafe housed in a gorgeous piece of architecture. Saddened, I went to what I felt would be the most boring part, the Hall Of Fame itself. I was moved. Here was the tribute, particularly to those that might not have been financially compensated in their lifetime. Like Gene Vincent. Like Leadbelly. Howlin’ Wolf. They’ve since stopped it, but along with the signatures of the artists, they had still video pictures. When I got to The Rolling Stones, I watched the screen change. The Stones in ’63 with their matching leather vests, Ian Stewart and Brian Jones. In ’65, in Swinging London. In ’72 with Mick Taylor. In the Eighties with Ronnie. They let all the peripheral guys sign the wall too, like Bobby Keys. I started to tear up a little. (Admittedly I was fucking exhausted). I grew up with these fucking guys. They’re like really close friends I’ve never spoken to. I’ve only known 10 years of my life when these guys weren’t around, and I barely remember those years. When Keith dies (and he’ll outlive us all, but I need the example), I’ve got close friends who I’ll immediately call to mourn with. So what’s the point? Here’s the fucking point. I was alone on September 11 when I witnessed the horror. And when I played “Gimme Shelter” in my head I wasn’t bringing it ‘down’ to rock’n’roll. I think I just needed a friend.
Thanks to: Nick Johnstone, Rob Hughes, Simon Goddard, Neil Davenport, Sarah-Jane, Nigel Williamson, Gavin Martin, Chris Roberts, Michael Bonner, Stephen Dalton, Nick Hasted, Sean Egan and Damien Love
A lot of good new things to carry us through this fraught editorial period of finishing an issue, though this morning I found myself stuck on the new Godspeed You! Black Emperor album and played it three or four times in a row.
That’s one of this week's highlights, along with new arrivals from Ro...
A lot of good new things to carry us through this fraught editorial period of finishing an issue, though this morning I found myself stuck on the new Godspeed You! Black Emperor album and played it three or four times in a row.
That’s one of this week’s highlights, along with new arrivals from Rob St John, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and friends (including Bundy K Brown, post-rock fans), Daniel Bachman and, maybe best of all, Thee Oh Sees. Another key arrival has been our next Ultimate Music Guide, dedicated to Kate Bush, and out next Thursday (March 12) in the UK.
More about that when I get a moment next week, but in the meantime, let me know what you think of this lot…
The Replacements have announced details of a new box set.
The Replacements: The Studio Albums 1981 - 1990 will also include their Stink EP form 1982.
The set is released on April 14 on Rhino.
Replacements press release
Meanwhile, The Replacements will play their first full American tour for 24 ...
The Replacements have announced details of a new box set.
The Replacements: The Studio Albums 1981 – 1990 will also include their Stink EP form 1982.
The set is released on April 14 on Rhino.
Replacements press release
Meanwhile, The Replacements will play their first full American tour for 24 years. The band are also due to play two shows at London’s Roundhouse on June 2 and 3.
The track listing for The Replacements box set is:
Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash (1981) Stink (1982) Hootenanny (1983) Let It Be (1984) Tim (1985) Pleased to Meet Me (1987) Don’t Tell a Soul (1989) All Shook Down (1990)
Much has been made of the strong work done in recent years by British filmmakers like Peter Strickland, Ben Wheatley and Jonathan Glazer.
Between them, they favour a certain heightened, sensory type of filmmaking – rich in metaphor and explicitly tied to the experimental cinema of the Sixties a...
Much has been made of the strong work done in recent years by British filmmakers like Peter Strickland, Ben Wheatley and Jonathan Glazer.
Between them, they favour a certain heightened, sensory type of filmmaking – rich in metaphor and explicitly tied to the experimental cinema of the Sixties and Seventies.
Gerard Johnson, meanwhile, is pursuing a different agenda. His two films – Tony and Hyena – are both gruelling thrillers, set in London’s less salubrious districts. Both are scored by the director’s brother, The The’s Matt Johnson, and both feature the same lead actor, their cousin, Peter Ferdinando.
In Tony, Ferdinando played a serial killer stalking Bethnal Green; in Hyena, he plays Michael Logan, a policeman who employs violence indiscriminately and abuses his authority to take a cut from local gangs. Ferdinando plays Logan with commendable restraint, and even allows us to glimpse what remains of his moral code: he will not tolerate violence against women, particularly.
Hyena takes place in starkly lit nightclubs, grotty pubs and council flats, with Turkish gangs competing with their Albanian rivals for drug routes and prostitution rings.
In many respects, it operates like a sobering counterpoint to the early Noughties Brit crime flicks; but also the largely repugnant tranche of straight-to-video gangster films that propagate an especially brutal, geezerish type of violence.
Accordingly, there is little daylight in Hyena: the action largely occurs at night, and when scenes do take place during Logan’s office hours they have the clammy, hungover feel.
Matt Johnson’s score offers occasional bursts of dissonance and reverb-heavy loops. Gerard Johnson, meanwhile, brings a documentarian’s eye to the proceedings: even when a key character is disembowelled with a kebab knife, the filmmaker remains dispassionate.
Kurt Cobain's childhood home is up for sale.
The property, in Aberdeen, Washington, is on the market for $400,000 - £262,519 - according to a report in Billboard.
The 1,522 square foot bungalow is currently listed on the website for Aberdeen Reality, Inc.
"The childhood home of Kurt Cobain is be...
Kurt Cobain‘s childhood home is up for sale.
The property, in Aberdeen, Washington, is on the market for $400,000 – £262,519 – according to a report in Billboard.
The 1,522 square foot bungalow is currently listed on the website for Aberdeen Reality, Inc.
“The childhood home of Kurt Cobain is being offered for sale,” writes the agency. “There are a number of exciting possibilities for this unique property, including moving the building and incorporating it into a larger institution or private collection. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to own a piece of rock history.”
Reuters notes that Cobain lived in the home when he was a few months old until he was 9, when his parents separated, and then again from age 16 until about 20.
Paul McCartney has announced details of an upcoming UK tour.
The shows, which are part on his Out There tour, will take place in London, Liverpool and Birmingham. Additionally, McCartney will play shows in France, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
The show at London's O2 Arena on May 23 is link...
Paul McCartney has announced details of an upcoming UK tour.
The shows, which are part on his Out There tour, will take place in London, Liverpool and Birmingham. Additionally, McCartney will play shows in France, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
The show at London’s O2 Arena on May 23 is linked with the 50th anniversary of “Yesterday”, which was released as a single in August, 1965.
Speaking about the anniversary, McCartney said: “‘Yesterday‘ feels like it has taken on a life of its own over the years. The song still is and always has been an important part of our live show. It’s always very emotional for me to hear crowds singing it so loudly at my concerts and I’m looking forward to singing it along with the audience at the O2 in May.”
Paul McCartney will play:
Saturday May 23rd – The O2, London, Great Britain Wednesday May 27th – Barclaycard Arena, Birmingham, Great Britain Thursday May 28th – Echo Arena, Liverpool, Great Britain
Friday 5th June – Nouveau Stade Velodrome, Marseille, France Sunday 7th June – ZiggoDome, Amsterdam, Holland Thursday 11th June – Stade De France, Paris, France Saturday 4th July – Roskilde Festival, Denmark Tuesday 7th July – Telenor Arena, Oslo, Norway Thursday 9th July – Tele2 Arena, Stockholm, Sweden
Sufjan Stevens reveals the “dark moments” that have inspired his new album, speaking in the latest issue of Uncut, dated April 2015 and out now.
Uncut travels to New York to meet the restlessly creative singer, musician and songwriter in the feature, hearing about the background to his new reco...
Sufjan Stevens reveals the “dark moments” that have inspired his new album, speaking in the latest issue of Uncut, dated April 2015 and out now.
Uncut travels to New York to meet the restlessly creative singer, musician and songwriter in the feature, hearing about the background to his new record, Carrie & Lowell.
“When you’re met with a very tragic event, you have to take stock of what’s real internally and emotionally and allow yourself to express those feelings,” he says.
“Up until the death of my mother, I’d evaded that deepness of feeling in general. But grief is an extremely refining process. I felt I needed to be honest with my feelings for the first time.”
“I found myself kind of feeling like my mother’s ghost was inhabiting me,” he says. “I had a lot of pretty dark moments. Oh god, it’s over, though, I’m so glad it’s over.”
The new issue of Uncut, featuring Joni Mitchell on the cover, is out now.
We caught the Fall frontman in sparkling form, holding forth on the ’70s (“a fucking nightmare”), today’s TV (“fucking pathetic”) and Peter Hook (“a fucking idiot”). You ready? Let’s go… From Uncut's April 2007 issue (Take 119). Interview: John Robinson
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Are there any past members of The Fall that you miss? Have you made a virtue out of necessity by changing bands all the time? Sylvia Vesco, Venice
No. None. The group that did Fall Heads Roll turned out to be total fucking idiots. This is what the fans want to hear, of course – that band abandoned me and the wife in the desert in America, because they’re soft bastards. I’ve got a marvellous group now, they’re half American, half English. They work harder, American musicians – as opposed to Mancunians who just stand around crying for their mams, like Noel Gallagher.
What makes you laugh? Pat Clarke, Colchester
I like to make me own jokes up. But I do watch TV, too much – you’ve got to know your enemy. It’s fucking pathetic. I don’t know how they get away with it, especially the BBC. Me mam gets £70 a week as a pensioner and she has to pay £120 a year to watch people doing their fucking houses up. You can see that anywhere. If you want to see fucking builders, you can just look out of the window.
What writers are you into at the moment? Ben Hamley, Devon
You see, this is one of my problems with this. I’m not going to give all my secrets away. When people ask me for a Top 10 of my best singles, I always tell them a load of crap like Abba and that. No, really, I do. Why should I? Like, when was the last time you shagged your wife? It’s your job to write about the LP, not to ask me personal questions. Have you got any change there, John? I think I need about £1.70.
Animal Collective have confirmed plans to start work on a new album.
In an interview on Lauren Laverne's BBC Radio 6 show, the band's Noah Lennox revealed the band intend to begin work on their first new album since 2012's Centipede Hz.
Lennon - aka Panda Bear - recently released his latest solo a...
Animal Collective have confirmed plans to start work on a new album.
In an interview on Lauren Laverne’s BBC Radio 6 show, the band’s Noah Lennox revealed the band intend to begin work on their first new album since 2012’s Centipede Hz.
“I’ve spent the past five weeks or so furiously trying to crank out stuff, and I’m sure Dave [Portner] is doing the same,” Lennox said. “I’m sure all of the guys are working on stuff. No concrete plans to go into the studio as of yet, no dates or anything, but I think it’s safe to say that some time this year we’ll record.”
Mark E Smith has spoken out about the way the class system operates in music.
Speaking to the NME, Smith blames Tony Blair for the deficit of working-class people in music.
"To be honest I said about 12 years ago all this was happening," he said. "Blair started it. The posh dads don't say to their...
Mark E Smith has spoken out about the way the class system operates in music.
Speaking to the NME, Smith blames Tony Blair for the deficit of working-class people in music.
“To be honest I said about 12 years ago all this was happening,” he said. “Blair started it. The posh dads don’t say to their kids any more, ‘Don’t be in a group.’ They see U2 and they’re saying, ‘Be in a group, make money.'”
“There was always privilege in music. But nowadays you don’t have a chance in hell.”
During the NME interview, Smith also spoke about The Fall’s forthcoming album, their 31st, Sublingual Tablet. “This one took quite long, about four or five months, but it’s all relative. Tour managers think I’m quick because they’ve worked with New Order and it took them about five years. I know when an album’s good now, and this one is great,” he says.
Laura Marling has revealed that she struggled to write new music after moving to Los Angeles.
Speaking to the NME, she explained she suffered writer's block for six months, even wondered "whether being a musician was worthwhile."
"There was noting I really wanted to do musically, so I couldn't hon...
Laura Marling has revealed that she struggled to write new music after moving to Los Angeles.
Speaking to the NME, she explained she suffered writer’s block for six months, even wondered “whether being a musician was worthwhile.”
“There was noting I really wanted to do musically, so I couldn’t honestly call myself a musician at the time,” she says. “I was sort of self-flagellating not telling people that I was a musician. I got a sick pleasure out of doing that.”
Marling – who’s latest album, Short Movie, is released on March 23 – continues that she too a break from writing, which allowed her time to focus her attentions elsewhere including environmental and social justice issues. “I think I got a bit worthy about whether being a musician was worthwhile to the planet in any way. Not like in an eco way, but I was just like, ‘Who do I think I am that I can just get up every day and play the guitar? That’s bullshit, I should be doing something more important.'”
She continues: “But actually, that thought of mine was the most self-important thought I’ve ever had, and only after being away from music for six months did I come back and think, ‘Actually, it’s pretty fucking great what I do, and I’m pretty fucking lucky to be doing it.'”
Laura Marling will support the record with the following UK tour dates:
London Queen Elizabeth Hall (April 20-21)
Cambridge Corn Exchange (22)
Manchester Albert Hall (24)
Glasgow O2 Academy (25)
Birmingham Institute (27)
London Queen Elizabeth Hall (29-30)
Southampton O2 Guildhall (May 4)
Bristol Colston Hall (5)
Dublin Olympia (7)
Belfast Waterfront Hall (8)
David Gilmour has announced details of his first solo tour in nine years.
The tour, which covers the UK and Europe, will coincide with the release of a new solo album.
Gilmour's tour begins on September 12 in Croatia and concludes with a three-night stand at London's Royal Albert Hall on September...
David Gilmour has announced details of his first solo tour in nine years.
The tour, which covers the UK and Europe, will coincide with the release of a new solo album.
Gilmour’s tour begins on September 12 in Croatia and concludes with a three-night stand at London’s Royal Albert Hall on September 23, 24 and 25.
Gilmour last toured in support of his 2006 solo album, On An Island.
As yet, details of Gilmour’s new album have yet to be formally announced. However, Phil Manzanera, who is involved with the project, recently told Uncut that the record “sounds fantastic”.
Last year, Gilmour returned to the top of the album charts with the release of Pink Floyd’s final album The Endless River.
