Wilco have announce details of this year's line up for their Solid Sound Festival.
The festival runs from June 26 to 28 and will take place in North Adams, Massachusetts.
The line-up features Wilco, Tweedy, Richard Thompson, Real Estate, Parquet Courts, Jessica Pratt, Ryley Walker, Cibo Matto an...
Wilco have announce details of this year’s line up for their Solid Sound Festival.
The festival runs from June 26 to 28 and will take place in North Adams, Massachusetts.
The line-up features Wilco, Tweedy, Richard Thompson, Real Estate, Parquet Courts, Jessica Pratt, Ryley Walker, Cibo Matto and more.
You can find ticket details and more at the festival’s website.
Meanwhile, Richard Thompson has revealed that Jeff Tweedy has produced his new album. The as-yet-untitled record contains original material.
My Morning Jacket have released a track from their new album.
You can hear "Big Decisions" below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE3DgcECSn8#action=share
The song is from The Waterfall, their first studio album since 2011's Circuital.
The Waterfall is released on May 4 on ATO/Capitol Records a...
My Morning Jacket have released a track from their new album.
You can hear “Big Decisions” below.
The song is from The Waterfall, their first studio album since 2011’s Circuital.
The Waterfall is released on May 4 on ATO/Capitol Records and has been produced by Tucker Martine. It is the first of two albums intended for release before the end of 2016.
Jim James
Speaking to Uncut for our 2015 Album Preview, Jim James said, “It’s the longest it’s ever taken us to make a record. We were out in Stinson Beach [California] for about a month recording and then in Louisville and then in Portland. We’ve been mixing in Portland for about a month. We recorded 24 songs, ten are going to be on this record. We divided them up into what we feel are two really cool records.
“Because this album took a year to make, I see a lot of the seasons in this record. There is a song called ‘Spring’, which doesn’t take a lot to work out. I see waterfalls and I see leaves blowing and I see plants dying. I see those kinds of images throughout this record.”
The band are scheduled to play at the End Of The Road festival on September 5 and London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire on September 7.
The tracklisting for The Waterfall is:
1. ‘Believe (Nobody Knows)’ 2. ‘Compound Fracture’ 3. ‘Like A River’ 4. ‘In Its Infancy (The Waterfall)’ 5. ‘Get The Point’ 6. ‘Spring (Among The Living)’ 7. ‘Thin Line’ 8. ‘Big Decisions’ 9. ‘Tropics (Erase Traces)’ 10. ‘Only Memories Remain’
The White Stripes are to release their album, Get Behind Me Satan, on vinyl for Record Store Day.
The release, which has never previously been commercially available on vinyl, come as a double album pressed on 180-gram vinyl, with one disc coloured red, the other coloured white.
It will also f...
The White Stripes are to release their album, Get Behind Me Satan, on vinyl for Record Store Day.
The release, which has never previously been commercially available on vinyl, come as a double album pressed on 180-gram vinyl, with one disc coloured red, the other coloured white.
It will also feature a new lenticular gatefold jacket and new artwork.
Rolling Stone reports that it will receive a wider release later in the year, on black vinyl.
Get Behind Me Satan was originally released in 2005.
The White Stripes
In related news, The White Stripes recently announced details of a new live album. Under Amazonian Lights, which was recorded in Manaus, Brazil on June 1, 2005, and will come out as part of the Third Man Records subscriber-only service, The Vault. The release will additionally include a DVD featuring footage recorded at Teatro Amazonas Opera House.
Bob Dylan has unveiled a new video.
The promo is for "The Night We Called It A Day", which features on Dylan's current album, Shadows In The Night.
In January, Uncut reported news on an open casting call for the video, which has been directed by Nash Edgerton, who previously worked with Dylan on t...
Bob Dylan has unveiled a new video.
The promo is for “The Night We Called It A Day“, which features on Dylan’s current album, Shadows In The Night.
In January, Uncut reported news on an open casting call for the video, which has been directed by Nash Edgerton, who previously worked with Dylan on the videos for “Must Be Santa Claus”, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” and “Duquesne Whistle”.
I spent yesterday at home, working on a feature for the next issue of Uncut and worrying, as I suspect a few of you may have been, about secondary school places. Back in the office this morning, there was quite a glut of new music to play: the comeback album by one of my favourite hip hop acts, Cann...
I spent yesterday at home, working on a feature for the next issue of Uncut and worrying, as I suspect a few of you may have been, about secondary school places. Back in the office this morning, there was quite a glut of new music to play: the comeback album by one of my favourite hip hop acts, Cannibal Ox; the monstrous new Godspeed You! Black Emperor record, “Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress”; and something else that, once again, I’m forbidden to mention by name thanks to the brutal necessities of the Major Label Embargo.
There was also a long email from Dean McPhee, a Telecaster soloist from West Yorkshire who is something of an outlier among the current crop of guitar soli. I’d asked him a few questions about his serene new album, “Fatima’s Hand”, about how he thinks he relates to the bedraggled hordes of John Fahey acolytes that I write about most weeks. “While there are also some really great players who are carrying on the American Primitive/Takoma style of playing,” Dean wrote, “I tend to be more drawn to outsiders who are working in a more singular, unusual space, and I feel that’s an approach that I fit in with better.”
http://soundcloud.com/deanmcphee/glass-hills
Michael Chapman is an obvious kindred spirit, and McPhee has played live with that questing Yorkshireman. In general, though, McPhee’s hermetic, electric folk meditations are closer in sound to those of Vini Reilly or, on the modestly ornate “Smoke And Mirrors”, Sir Richard Bishop. As on his 2011 debut, “Son Of The Black Peace”, a sort of desolate twang predominates. Horizons expand once, magnificently, for “Effigy Of Clay”, where delay moves McPhee toward the dappled vistas of Fripp & Eno’s “Evening Star”.
Bishop, meanwhile, has his own new album out right now, which is also worth investigating. Myths and quasi-mystical arcana have always clustered around Bishop and his old band, The Sun City Girls. The story appended to “Tangier Sessions” is less pranksterish and more plausible than most, involving a late 19th century guitar bought in a Geneva lutier’s shop, used for a week of inspirational sessions in a rooftop Tangiers apartment. The resulting album has fewer overt Middle Eastern influences than much of Bishop’s work (notably 2009’s “Freak Of Araby”), focusing instead on courtly improvisations that feel closer to the work of John Renbourn or, perhaps, Peter Walker’s flamenco studies. Mostly, though, “Tangiers Sessions” reasserts Bishop’s status as a wide-ranging guitar master, gently amused by any such assumptions of grandeur.
The “Imaginational Anthem” series of compilations on Tompkins Square has long documented the state of American Primitive guitar music; when Volume One was released in 2004, its collection of tracks by Fahey, his contemporaries and 21st Century followers seemed a noble but finite concept. Eleven years down the line, however, the series continues to locate wave after wave of new guitar soli: even for dedicated fans of this questing instrumental music, most of the names on the new instalment, Volume Seven, will be unfamiliar. Volume Seven mostly avoids straight-up Fahey acolytes (Christoph Bruhn and Dylan Golden Aycock being strong exceptions), showcasing players who favour delicate atmospheres over blues and folk extrapolations. A generally lovely listen, albeit one which maybe lacks the breakout stars – Jack Rose, Chris Forsyth, William Tyler – of previous volumes.
Finally, as with most months, Steve Gunn (another Imaginational alumnus) has a new record to savour. “Seasonal Hire” is a hook-up with Virginia’s reliably ornery Black Twig Pickers, that finds a common ground we might usefully term Psychedelic Appalachian. Gunn has collaborated with sundry Twigs before: “Dive For The Pearl” figured in sparser form on his 2014 duo album with frontman Mike Gangloff, while banjoist Nathan Bowles currently moonlights in Gunn’s road band. Old friendships contribute to the general good vibes, and an atmosphere that’s at once rambunctious and exploratory: “Trailways Ramble”, last attempted on Gunn’s 2013 solo set, Time Off, is a brackish highlight. Next up, in theory, is a duo album with his old Violators bandmate, Kurt Vile. I’ll let you know when that one shows up; first news may well check up on my Twitter feed: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey.
Until recently, Josh Tillman was best known for drumming in Fleet Foxes between 2008 and 2012. Before and during that time Tillman made several slow, sad solo albums which seemed specifically designed to make tiny ripples rather than big waves, but his departure from the band after Helplessness Blue...
Until recently, Josh Tillman was best known for drumming in Fleet Foxes between 2008 and 2012. Before and during that time Tillman made several slow, sad solo albums which seemed specifically designed to make tiny ripples rather than big waves, but his departure from the band after Helplessness Blues, seemed to trigger a creative rebirth.
Rechristening himself Father John Misty, in 2012 Tillman released Fear Fun. Escaping the shadow of Fleet Foxes and the weight of his own moroseness, here was a funnier, truer writer exploring a more adventurous palette of sounds. If that record marked a significant step forward, the follow-up is even more impressive. An epic creation which takes its cues from the likes of Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Dory Previn and John Grant, it belongs to that honourable tradition of American songwriting which sets beautifully orchestrated pop and AOR against brutally honest and sometimes comically profane sentiments, sung with dramatic, edge-of-the-cliff conviction.
As Tillman explained in last month’s Uncut feature, it’s searingly personal stuff. Ostensibly, the album follows what Paul Simon called the arc of a love affair, covering the period when he met, romanced and committed to his wife Emma, but it’s really about one man’s struggle to accept love and hope into his life. In a record peppered with colourful lines, the key lyric is a matter-of-fact one, buried amid the thick, soulful stomp of “When You’re Smiling And Astride Me”: “I can hardly believe I found you / And I’m terrified by that.”
This is love red in tooth and claw. There is romance here, but there’s also raw sexual need, jealousy, druggy paranoia, hissy fits, over-sharing and megalomania. “Chateau Lobby #4 (In C For Two Virgins)” manages to be both bawdy – “I want to take you in the kitchen / Lift up your wedding dress…” – and touchingly innocent, depicting the couple’s first sexual tryst as though it was the very first time for them both. An instantly memorable SoCal pop confection, with its mariachi flourishes and wonderful swelling bridge it’s like Love in love. That first euphoric flush gives way to the jealously of the long distance lover on the plush, artfully conceived country-soul of “Nothing Good Ever Happens At The Goddamn Thirsty Crow”, where Tillman stares into the abyss from an Ibis hotel in Germany. “Holy Shit”, written the day before his wedding, compiles all the reasons stacked up against taking the plunge. The very act of falling in love clearly defies all logic, and yet Tillman is defiant: “I fail to see what all of that has to do with you and me.”
Co-produced again with Jonathan Wilson, the album bristles with richness and bespoke detail. “Bored In The USA” is a spare piano ballad lifted to sublime heights by restrained strings, disquieting sampled laughter and one of several stunning vocal performances. The sparkling “Strange Encounter” has Spectoresque drums and a buzzing guitar solo, while the Byrdsy “The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apt.” (I Love You, Honeybear is the kind of self-portrait in which autobiography frequently elides into self-mythology) is another sweet and sour pick-and-mix of unspeakably tender music and hilariously caustic lyrics. Only “True Affection” seems misjudged, a synthetic pop song which fits the narrative but which roams too far from the defining mood of the album.
Otherwise, there is a neatly circularity to it all. On the opening title track Tillman is content to settle for solidarity in mutual distress, as though finding another damaged person with whom to share his sadness is about the best he can hope for. The prize that emerges as the record unfolds, however, is not merely solace but transformation. By the closing track, the bewitching “I Went To The Store One Day”, Tillman seems dazed to discover that his world could be so completely turned upside down. “Seen you around, what’s your name?” he sings, remembering the very first encounter with Emma outside the local store. From such banal beginnings a new life – and a truly compelling new album – have bloomed.
Josh Tillman
Q&A Josh Tillman You’ve talked about “chasing the sound” for this record. Can you elucidate?
This album is a monument to second guessing. I was afraid that it was going to be sentimental, because of the subject matter, and I was terrified of trivialising the experiences that inform the album. I couldn’t get the soufflé to rise, and I couldn’t until Emma said to me, “You just can’t be afraid to let these songs be beautiful.” Once I got that I wasn’t making the album I made last time, and that I didn’t know myself artistically as well as I thought I did, things really started to come together.
Was it a struggle to allow yourself to reveal so much?
If you’re going to write songs about this topic, they really have to be written in the moment. There are a lot of ugly sentiments on the album – there are some emotions that I’m not particularly proud of, or are not a good prescription for human living, but everything had to stay in there or else it was going to be garbage. From a distance it’s a love album, but the closer you get it’s really about me and my problems with intimacy.
Is it a concept album?
I think to all intents and purposes it’s a conceptual album. Every time you insert yourself into your art, you become a character.
INTERVIEW: GRAEME THOMSON
Rare demos featuring Elliott Smith are set for vinyl release on Record Store Day.
In the early 1990s, Smith was a member of a Portland band, Heatmiser. Following their split in 1991, the band's Neil Gust formed a new group, called No. 2.
According to a report on Pitchfork, No. 2's 1999 debut album...
Rare demos featuring Elliott Smith are set for vinyl release on Record Store Day.
In the early 1990s, Smith was a member of a Portland band, Heatmiser. Following their split in 1991, the band’s Neil Gust formed a new group, called No. 2.
According to a report on Pitchfork, No. 2’s 1999 debut album, No Memory, is due to make its belated vinyl debut on Record Store Day.
Smith contributed backing vocals to two of the album’s tracks, “Critical Mass” and “So Long”.
The new pressing, which is limited to 1,500 copies, features eight previously unheard bonus tracks as mp3s, four of which are demos featuring Smith.
Diffuser.fm quotes record label Jackpot as saying No Memory is the “missing link between the end of Heatmiser and the beginning of Elliott Smith’s major label debut.
A campaign to buy Ian Curtis' house to convert it to a museum appears to have failed.
The two-bedroom property in Macclesfield went up for sale last month.
The house is listed on property website Rightmove as a "double-fronted character cottage... with two reception rooms, two double bedrooms, a g...
A campaign to buy Ian Curtis’ house to convert it to a museum appears to have failed.
The two-bedroom property in Macclesfield went up for sale last month.
The house is listed on property website Rightmove as a “double-fronted character cottage… with two reception rooms, two double bedrooms, a good size kitchen and a shared courtyard garden.”
Shortly after the house went onto the market, Zak Davies started a campaign to save the house, with the intention of turning it into a museum dedicated to Curtis.
At the time, he wrote on his website, “Rather than [the house] be taken by developers or sold for development, we feel a place with such cultural significance with such an important man attached deserves to be made into a museum and somewhere that Joy Division fans from around the world can come to pay respects and learn about Ian Curtis.”
According to a report in The Guardian, it seems that Davies campaign has not yet raised the selling price of £115,000. He has admitted that it is “unlikely” that the required money could be reached, adding that all the donations so far received would instead be passed on to the mental health charity Mind.
Johnny Marr has apparently revealed that The Smiths were planning a disco album.
He made the claim in an interview with The Guardian. When he was asked, 'Tell us a secret', he replied, "The Smiths were planning a disco album".
Marr's statement has not been corroborated by any of his former band ma...
Johnny Marr has apparently revealed that The Smiths were planning a disco album.
He made the claim in an interview with The Guardian. When he was asked, ‘Tell us a secret’, he replied, “The Smiths were planning a disco album”.
Marr’s statement has not been corroborated by any of his former band mates.
Elsewhere in the interview, Marr said he was happiest “Waking up in a dark hotel room in Bayswater one winter’s evening in 1984, to find I’d recorded ‘How Soon Is Now‘ through the previous night.”
Motörhead have posted clips on Instagram of the band working on their new album.
The band are recording the follow-up to 2012's Aftershock in Los Angeles with regular producer, Cameron Webb.
In related news, the band's long-serving engineer Dave Hilsden has died. News of Hilsden's death was confi...
Motörhead have posted clips on Instagram of the band working on their new album.
The band are recording the follow-up to 2012’s Aftershock in Los Angeles with regular producer, Cameron Webb.
In related news, the band’s long-serving engineer Dave Hilsden has died. News of Hilsden’s death was confirmed by the band’s guitarist Phil Cambell, who wrote on Twitter:
Our long time engineer Dave Hilsden aka Hobbsy has sadly passed away. He gave 30 years of his life to Motorhead. He was a good guy. RIP
Alabama Shakes appeared on Saturday Night Live on February 28, 2015.
You can watch them play "Gimme All Your Love" above and "Don't Wanna Fight" below.
Both songs are taken from the band's new new album, Sound And Color, which is released on April 20.
Alabama Shakes
Sound And Color is the follow...
Alabama Shakes appeared on Saturday Night Live on February 28, 2015.
You can watch them play “Gimme All Your Love” above and “Don’t Wanna Fight” below.
Both songs are taken from the band’s new new album, Sound And Color, which is released on April 20.
Alabama Shakes
Sound And Color is the follow-up to the band’s debut, Boys & Girls, which was released in 2012.
The full tracklisting for Sound And Color is:
‘Sound and Color’
‘Don’t Wanna Fight’
‘Dunes’
‘Future People’
‘Gimme All Your Love’
‘This Feeling’
‘Guess Who’
‘The Greatest’
‘Shoegaze’
‘Miss You’
‘Gemini’
‘Over My Head’
The Strokes and Beck are due to play London's Hyde Park.
The Guardian reports that they are due to play Barclaycard Presents British Summer Time on June 18.
The show will be The Strokes first UK date for five years.
Also on the bill are Future Islands, Temples, Public Service Broadcasting, The Wy...
The Strokes and Beck are due to play London’s Hyde Park.
The Guardian reports that they are due to play Barclaycard Presents British Summer Time on June 18.
The show will be The Strokes first UK date for five years.
Also on the bill are Future Islands, Temples, Public Service Broadcasting, The Wytches, Hinds, Gengahr, Yak anmd Kieran Leonard.
Tickets for the event go on sale on Friday, March 6 at 9am GMT.
The Strokes are the latest headliners to have been announced for this year’s British Summer Time season. Other acts who are also scheduled to perform at Hyde Park are The Who and Blur.
Sonic Youth are reissuing their second studio album, Bad Moon Rising.
Originally released in 1985, the album will now be made available on April 14 via the band's own record label.
Pitchfork reports that the reissue will be available as a double vinyl and CD set, and will also feature bonus tracks...
Sonic Youth are reissuing their second studio album, Bad Moon Rising.
Originally released in 1985, the album will now be made available on April 14 via the band’s own record label.
Pitchfork reports that the reissue will be available as a double vinyl and CD set, and will also feature bonus tracks – “Satan Is Boring, “Echo Canyon” as well as both tracks from the “Flower” and “Halloween” single.
Scroll down to watch the official video for Bad Moon Rising track, “Death Valley ’69“, featuring Lydia Lunch.
These are the latest reissues by the band. Last year, saw a re-release of their Daydream Nation album as well as The Whitey Album, which they recorded under the alias, Ciccone Youth.
It is expected that the band will additionally re-issue their Confusion Is Sex, EVOL and Sister albums.
Recently, Kim Gordon published her memoir, Girl In A Band.
Paul McCartney's childhood home has been sold at auction.
The house sold for £150,000, above the £100,000 guide price, reports BBC News.
The auction was held at the Cavern Club. According to The Liverpool Echo, the property sold in six minutes.
McCartney lived at the property - 72 Western Avenu...
Paul McCartney‘s childhood home has been sold at auction.
The house sold for £150,000, above the £100,000 guide price, reportsBBC News.
The auction was held at the Cavern Club. According to The Liverpool Echo, the property sold in six minutes.
McCartney lived at the property – 72 Western Avenue, Speke – from 1947 until the mid-1950s.
Beatles guide Paul Beesley said: “This is an important house because it’s where Paul spent his formative schoolboy years.
In 2013, John Lennon‘s childhood home in Wavertree, Liverpool sold for £480,000.
Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood has revealed that the group has "changed [their] method again" during sessions for their new album.
The band have been recording the follow-up to 2011's The King Of Limbs for a couple of months, with sessions reportedly "going well".
"We've certainly changed our...
Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood has revealed that the group has “changed [their] method again” during sessions for their new album.
The band have been recording the follow-up to 2011’s The King Of Limbs for a couple of months, with sessions reportedly “going well”.
“We’ve certainly changed our method again,” Greenwood told Indian newspaper The Sunday Guardian. “It’s too involved [to explain how]. We’re kind of limiting ourselves; working in limits. So we’ll see what happens. It’s like we’re trying to use very old and very new technology together to see what happens.
“We’ve done a couple of months of recording, and it has gone really well. We haven’t listened to anything back yet, so at the moment we’re all very happy. Now, I guess we’re going to go and listen to what we’ve done and see if we were right to be so happy. But we left it at a good place when we last stopped.”
Greenwood is currently recording an album at the Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur, India, with Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur and a set of Rajasthani folk musicians.
“We’ve been living here for nearly three weeks and recording an album here, in the fort. The Maharaja allowed us use of the fort, and we’ve basically been living here with 12 Indian musicians and we’ve made a record. It’s been great.”
Super Furry Animals have announced they will play five UK gigs in May – their first live shows since December 2009.The group revealed the tour and reissue via a video posted this morning today (February 27) – you can watch it below.
Mwng, their fourth studio album, and so far their only LP to b...
Super Furry Animals have announced they will play five UK gigs in May – their first live shows since December 2009.The group revealed the tour and reissue via a video posted this morning today (February 27) – you can watch it below.
Mwng, their fourth studio album, and so far their only LP to be completely in the Welsh language, is also being reissued on double CD and triple-vinyl to mark the album’s 15th anniversary. The package features five tracks previously released on the US version of ‘Mwng’ under the name ‘Mwng Bach’ (Little Mwng), as well as a John Peel session and a live show recorded at ATP. The album will be released on Domino on May 1.
Super Furry Animals’ last studio album was 2009’s Dark Days/Light Years. In the intervening years, the members have worked on their own projects, with Gruff Rhys releasing albums solo, such as last year’s American Interior, and, with Boom Bip, as Neon Neon.
Speaking exclusively to NME about the reunion shows, Rhys explains: “It will be good just to play and hang out again. We’ll probably be doing a different set every night and songs off all our nine studio albums. We’ll be doing quite a lot of ‘Mwng’ because it’s fun to play, but probably not the whole thing.”
Super Furry Animals play:
Cardiff University (May 1, 2)
Glasgow O2 Academy (May 5)
Manchester Albert Hall (6)
London O2 Academy Brixton (8)
Björk reveals more about her new album, Vulnicura, in the new issue of Uncut, dated April 2015 and out now.
Discussing the intensely personal nature of the album’s themes of heartbreak and separation, she explains that she hopes it will help others in similar situations.
“First I was worried ...
Björk reveals more about her new album, Vulnicura, in the new issue of Uncut, dated April 2015 and out now.
Discussing the intensely personal nature of the album’s themes of heartbreak and separation, she explains that she hopes it will help others in similar situations.
“First I was worried it would be too self-indulgent,” she says, “but then I felt it might make it even more universal.
“And hopefully the songs could be a help, a crutch to others and prove how biological this process is: the wound and the healing of the wound, psychologically and physically. It has a stubborn clock attached to it.”
Vulnicura, Björk’s ninth album, was produced by Arca, The Haxan Cloak and the artist herself. Originally scheduled for March 2015, it was rush-released on January 20, 2015, in reaction to an online leak.
The new issue of Uncut, dated April 2015, is out now.
Here’s an enlightening, in-depth interview with Jimmy Page, from Uncut’s May 2005 (Take 96) issue, taking in everything from the Grammy Awards to what it’s like being the keeper of the Led Zeppelin flame. Words: Nigel Williamson
_____________________
Monday, February 14, 2005. It’s the morn...
So Robert wasn’t the first choice. But he became the best singer of them all in that style you once called “the primeval wail”, didn’t he?
Yes. Absolutely. And he was a damn fine lyricist as well. I was writing lyrics in the early days and encouraging him to write more because I knew he was going to be a much better lyricist than I ever was. Then it got to the point where he was writing all the lyrics, and I was very content with that because it allowed me to concentrate totally on the music.
I talked to him the other day and he’s very dissatisfied with his singing on the first couple of albums. Why do you think he’s so self-critical?
I know he’s not happy with the ad-libs on Led Zeppelin I, but I think he should be really pleased with his vocal approach. He was performing in a very inspired way, like everyone else in the band. What he did was really fitting in terms of where we were going. It was an essential element. And millions would agree with me and not with him on how great his singing was on those first couple of records.
Was it a conscious decision to move in a more acoustic direction on Led Zeppelin III?
There were a lot of bands at the time who had a hit and a format and they stuck to that. What we were doing was different. When we went in the studio, it was a summing up of where we were at that point in time. So there was no way the third album was going to be like the first. Then there was no way the fourth album was going to be like the third. If there was a Zeppelin philosophy, it was always: “Ever onwards. Let’s see what we can do next.”
A lot of people would say Physical Graffiti in 1975 was a kind of high-water mark for Zeppelin.
I’d probably agree with that.
Were the later records more difficult to make, with so many other things going on around the band?
Up to Graffiti, we hadn’t experienced any of the tragedies that happened. First of all there was Robert’s accident. The album that was done around that period was Presence. That was recorded in just over three weeks from beginning to end, and the urgency of it is there if you listen. But it’s not an easy album for a lot of people to access. And because a lot of people found that a difficult album to listen to, I think the writing took another shift on the next album, which was In Through The Out Door and was recorded in Stockholm, again over a quite short period of time. It wasn’t rushed. It was just that we worked so very fast. And again, it was a summing up of where we were at that moment in time. When Robert lost his son, that was another tragedy and it affected him deeply.
Then after the various traumas within the band and the punk onslaught on the so-called dinosaur bands, Knebworth was an amazing comeback, wasn’t it?
Look at the DVD and you can see we were really thrilled to be playing again. We were about to embark on the American tour and the game plan was definitely for another album, which I think would have been different again.
I was going to ask you that. Just when you seemed to have survived all of the traumas and come out the other side, John Bonham died. Where do you think Led Zeppelin might have gone if that hadn’t happened?
For my part, I’d already discussed the next album with him. We said we were going to resort to some really intense riffing. I don’t want necessarily to call it heavy, but you know what I mean by that. That’s the way I figured the next album should be, because the music had started to lighten up on In Through The Out Door and I wanted to get back to that sort of urgent intensity we managed to evoke. That was the discussion I had with Bonzo, anyway. But who knows? The potential was definitely still there.
Do you think it was inevitable that you and Robert would get back together again in the ’90s?
No, not necessarily. In fact, it wasn’t inevitable at all. But Unledded was great fun to do. We took it around the world again. The seductive playing of the Egyptians – thousands of people had never heard anything like that before, so it was great to represent that sort of musical tapestry. We even had Nigel Eaton playing hurdy-gurdy onstage with us. The album was like one dress rehearsal and then – “Let’s do it.” That was great, but on tour it got even better, like you always do on the road when things start to fall into place and mutate.
Did you feel that if you were going to do old Zeppelin material you had to represent the songs in a new way to make it meaningful, and not come over as some kind of nostalgia act?
But we never did the songs in the same way. Never. In Zeppelin we may have had the framework, but it would change all the time. That’s the way we played and I’d always played like that in all the bands I’d ever been with from day one. There was always the capability to improvise. You go onstage and you have a benchmark. But then you say, “Right, let’s see what’s going to happen tonight.” That not only keeps you on your toes, but it gives a sharp edge to the music as well.
What’s next? Is there going to be a new record?
Yes, there is. My main intention this year is to get up to speed. The way to look at it is that I took a year out. I had some things to sort out and that’s done and now it’s time to get back on a serious roll this year. And hopefully there will be some music. What I need to be doing is trying to make a new musical statement. I had some great fun playing with The Black Crowes. But we were doing a lot of Zeppelin material on that tour. Then I was busy doing the DVD and the How The West Was Won live album. That was great fun as well. But now’s the time to do something that makes people say, “I didn’t think you’d do that, but I can see why you’ve done it.” We’ll see what we come up with. I’m not retired yet, if that’s what you’re thinking.
One suggestion I read last year was that you might make a collaborative album with different singers and songwriters, as Carlos Santana has done recently.
That’s not what I’ve got in mind at the moment, although other people did make some overtures of that kind. There are so many avenues I could take at this point. Or maybe they’re footpaths. It’s just a question of which one to commit to, because when you get involved in a project it’s a time-consuming thing. Let’s put it this way: I’ve got a line drawing. I just haven’t filled the colour in yet.
The tree which was photographed for the back cover of U2's album The Joshua Tree has been vandalised.
The tree, which grows in California's Mojave Desert, was photographed by Anton Corbijn for the album cover.
Consequence Of Sound report that one of the tree's limbs has recently been chopped off...
The tree which was photographed for the back cover of U2‘s album The Joshua Tree has been vandalised.
The tree, which grows in California’s Mojave Desert, was photographed by Anton Corbijn for the album cover.
Consequence Of Sound report that one of the tree’s limbs has recently been chopped off.
The Joshua Tree back cover
There is also a photograph online showing the damage done to the tree.
Meanwhile, a user on a U2 message board wrote, “I’ve been visiting U2’s Joshua Tree in the California desert for nearly 20 years now; the Mojave is my home. This past Sunday, I made my proverbial yearly hike out to the Tree with my dog to reminisce only to find that some hack and I do mean hack, decided it was a bright idea to take a hacksaw to one of the Tree’s limbs – evidently to remove an inch thick cross section as a souvenir.”
Adding: “Are you kidding me? I won’t even elaborate as to how pathetic this is. Let’s just say It was a good thing I didn’t happen upon this ignorant low-life degenerate in his course of action. Yes, I wrote “his” …there’s no way a woman would have done this. It’s hard to imagine that someone would be so motivated, to travel that far into the desert, to commit this selfish deed.”
“In the late 1990s the tree fell over due to a meandering stream that, by bad luck, developed just under the roots and caused it to weaken and fall. My cynical belief is that some jack-ass climbed the tree and while saying “take my picture dude” the additional weight keeled the tree over.”
“In short, leave the damn Tree alone, so that future fans can enjoy it. Left alone, the Tree will be there for many, many decades to come.”
The first trailer for the upcoming Brian Wilson biopic has been released.
Called Love And Mercy, the film stars Paul Dano as the young Brian Wilson during the 1960s with John Cusack playing him during the Eighties.
The film also stars Paul Giamatti as Dr Eugene Landy, Wilson's psychotherapist, and...
The first trailer for the upcoming Brian Wilson biopic has been released.
Called Love And Mercy, the film stars Paul Dano as the young Brian Wilson during the 1960s with John Cusack playing him during the Eighties.
The film also stars Paul Giamatti as Dr Eugene Landy, Wilson’s psychotherapist, and Elizabeth Banks as Melinda, Wilson’s second wife.
Brian Wilson
Love And Mercy is directed by Bill Pohlad, who has previously produced 12 Years A Slave and The Tree Of Life.
The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in July 2014, and is scheduled for a US release on June 5. As yet, there is no confirmed UK or European release date.
Brian Wilson has already endorsed Dano, saying “I am thrilled that Paul Dano has signed on to play me during one of my most creative explosions and most fulfilling musical times in my career.”
According to an official synopsis, “the film will take an unconventional look at seminal moments in Wilson’s life, his artistic genius, his profounds struggles, and the love that kept him a live.”
Meanwhile, Wilson is due to release his new album, No Pier Pressure on April 6. He recently shared a track from the album, “The Right Time” which features Al Jardine and David Marks.
Speaking exclusively to NME about the reunion shows, Rhys explains: “It will be good just to play and hang out again. We’ll probably be doing a different set every night and songs off all our nine studio albums. We’ll be doing quite a lot of ‘Mwng’ because it’s fun to play, but probably not the whole thing.”
