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.â€
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
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Monday, February 14, 2005. It’s the morn...
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 morning after and Jimmy Page is in Los Angeles celebrating Led Zeppelin’s first ever Grammy. The only thing that’s riling him is the failure of Robert Plant to turn up.
“It wouldn’t have taken much to pop over here and meet everybody, would it?†he grumbles to anyone who will listen.
Fast-forward one week and, back in London after receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award, Page has come to accept his former partner-in-crime’s absence. “I’m sure Robert had good reasons,†he observes diplomatically.
But Page still makes no attempt to conceal his own delight at the belated recognition by the American music industry, which for years seemed to begrudge Led Zep their success.
“I’m sure people must have thought we’d been nominated in the past,†he says. “But, you know, we never even got a single Grammy nomination until now. I never thought it would happen. So, of course, I really enjoyed it.â€
That they were overlooked for so long verges on the perverse. Led Zeppelin sold some 70 million albums in America. The band’s fourth release alone found a place in 18 million American homes, making it the fifth best-selling album in recording history. Among British groups, only The Beatles have outsold them.
Yet the American rock establishment never quite approved of Led Zeppelin. Too cocky. Too loud. Too damn successful, and not afraid to enjoy the trappings of that success to the hilt. “Give an Englishman 50,000 watts, a chartered Lear jet, a little cocaine and some groupies and he thinks he’s a god,†Rolling Stone once sneered at the height of Zep’s success.
Today, Page can afford to laugh off such brickbats. “After a while there was no point in caring about what anybody said,†he shrugs. “We knew what sort of quality we had and so did the fans.†And, in the end, Rolling Stone was more right than it realised. In a way, Led Zeppelin were gods, and their dominance of ’70s rock’n’roll – particularly in America – was every bit as mighty as The Beatles’ in the ’60s.
For the 25 years since the band broke up, Jimmy Page has been the main keeper of the flame and custodian of the Zeppelin legacy. Robert Plant couldn’t wait to get out from under the group’s shadow and make a new life. John Paul Jones has similarly distanced himself from his past. And John Bonham, of course, is sadly dead.
Which leaves Page. It was the guitarist who remastered the Zeppelin catalogue for a 10-disc box set at the beginning of the ’90s. And it was Page who painstakingly pieced together the posthumous live album How The West Was Won and the recent Led Zeppelin DVD, which swiftly became the best-selling music release in the short history of the format.
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.
The inside story of working with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds is told by Warren Ellis in the new issue of Uncut, dated April 2015 and out today (February 24).
Ellis, who has performed with Cave and his collective for over two decades, reveals just how the group operate in the studio, and just what...
The inside story of working with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds is told by Warren Ellis in the new issue of Uncut, dated April 2015 and out today (February 24).
Ellis, who has performed with Cave and his collective for over two decades, reveals just how the group operate in the studio, and just what makes their leader tick.
“The thing about Nick is, Nick works,†says Ellis. “He loves to work, he has this incredible drive and a belief in what he’s doing. He’s always challenging himself.
“He’s very encouraging. I remember buying a mandolin – in 2000 or so, before folk music was popular – and he said, ‘What an inspired choice.’ He doesn’t seem to stop. People talk about ‘the drug years’ and so on, but he just works non-stop.
“He won’t let things go: this thing of trying to get things through, not giving up on an idea. There’s things we’ve had for 10 years that we’re trying to get through and probably never will. It’s funny.â€
The whole feature can be found in the new issue of Uncut, out now.
In this rare, amazing interview from Uncut’s December 1997 issue (Take 7), Cohen, then a Zen monk, looks back on 30 years as the laureate of romantic gloom and erotic distress. Words: Nigel Williamson
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Leonard Cohen is running two hours behind schedule. After a hectic day of...
In this rare, amazing interview from Uncut’s December 1997 issue (Take 7), Cohen, then a Zen monk, looks back on 30 years as the laureate of romantic gloom and erotic distress. Words: Nigel Williamson _____________________
Leonard Cohen is running two hours behind schedule. After a hectic day of media interviews, lesser mortals would be feeling frayed at the edges. That Cohen is still fresh, courteous and insightful is a powerful advertisement for the spartan lifestyle he has been leading for the past three years in a Zen monastery 6,500 feet up a Californian mountain.
Cohen has come down from the mount for a rare engagement with the world to talk about his life, his loves, his faith and, above all, his music – an extraordinary back catalogue of profound and confessional songwriting which over 30 years has brought him both a reputation as the most doom-laden troubadour of them all, and a dedicated following, second only to the Dylanologists in their fastidious dissection of his every nuance.
For this day only, the mountain cabin in the old scout camp which now serves as his monastic home has been swapped for the swankiest beach hotel in west Los Angeles, and his customary Buddhist robes have been replaced by a black suit of expensive cut. Only the closely cropped hair, which he rubs constantly with his right palm, and the simple, flat rope shoes betray his Zen calling.
At 63, Cohen is more charismatic than ever. Conditioned by up to 18 hours’ meditation a day, at times he remains so impassively still that you want to check he is breathing. When he speaks, the voice is deep and resonant, sometimes reduced almost to a whisper, full of calm but animated at the same time. It is a serene performance that makes you want to ask what he’s on and whether it’s available on prescription. It is – but only in the natural pharmacy high up Mount Baldy, about two hours drive from downtown LA.
Cohen in 1992. Pic: Paul Harris/Getty Images
“The macho feeling is that we are the Marines of the spiritual world. It is a severe regime, but you get used to it,†he says.
Cohen’s day starts at 2.30am and, after an hour’s chanting (“It’s good for the bowels because you start vibrating insideâ€), the day proceeds through meditation and work periods (“Plumbing, carpentry, shoveling snow, whatever has to be done to keep the place going”). Cohen’s special task is to cook for Roshi, the 90-year-old Zen master of the order whom he first met 28 years ago at a friend’s wedding. “lt’s vegetarian, lots of lentils. But, recently, the doctor said he wasn’t getting enough protein, so I’m cooking a lot of fish.” Much of their food is begged mendicant-style from local Japanese farmers and storekeepers.
“We wear robes, everything is done very formally in single file – it’s very ritualised,†he says. “You pretty well know what you’re doing every moment of the day. It sounds boring but it’s nothing to when you’re actually living it. At the beginning, people have difficulty with the lack of sleep, but you find that you don’t need as much sleep as you imagined and you go into a different gear.â€
There are no newspapers, television or radio, but Cohen denies feeling deprived.
“In civilian life you close the door, switch on the television, crack open a beer and you’re really alone. There’s a saying in Zen that, like pebbles in a bag, the monks polish each other. You get very close when you’re sitting with a group of people day after day meditating. You’re not improvising in the way you have to in civilian life, so you relax into the regime. After a while, you’re just thinking about your meal, your work and sleeping – so that is refreshing, because you don’t have to speculate on matters that are really quite irrelevant and just produce anxiety. Over 2,000 years, most of the kinks have been ironed out, so it’s an effective tool for removing unnecessary distractions and providing a space to live quietly. That’s hard to find in the world.â€
It’s certainly a long way from New York’s Chelsea Hotel, where Cohen once famously described in song getting a blow job from Janis Joplin while her limo waited outside…
Last night, after dinner, I listened to the Arsenal match on the radio, watched the last episode of Silicon Valley on DVD and, because I am addicted, looked at Twitter from time to time. Like most other people in the UK, I guess, my timeline was full of people watching the BRIT Awards, splenetically...
Last night, after dinner, I listened to the Arsenal match on the radio, watched the last episode of Silicon Valley on DVD and, because I am addicted, looked at Twitter from time to time. Like most other people in the UK, I guess, my timeline was full of people watching the BRIT Awards, splenetically. What did we all do before social media, I wondered? Avoid TV shows we knew we’d hate?
That’s what I do, or at least have done for the past few years: there are too many things I like out there for me to expend so much time and energy on things I dislike. It’s bad for my health. And, while I appreciate the cultural and professional imperative that lies behind a bunch of music journalists feeling obliged to watch an awards show that’s central to their industry, it still all left me a bit confused and disappointed; much more disappointed, in a way, than I was by the fact that a load of successful musicians I’m not much interested in won some awards.
Plenty of what people were writing on Twitter was undoubtedly funny (though the glee which greeted Madonna’s accident wasn’t entirely edifying, on reflection). It occurred to me, though, that Twitter provides a very easy option for critical snark: how much easier to be droll about Ed Sheeran in 140 characters than to actually analyse what is so interesting about him to so many music fans? Or, indeed, how much more apparent fun it is to take the piss out of George Ezra’s music than to recommend music that you find genuinely exciting?
As Tim Jonze pointed out in his Guardian piece a couple of days ago, there’s a disconnect right now between journalists (or tastemakers) tipping a certain breed of new artists (cf James Bay), then complaining when the same, expertly bland new artists become successful. I’ve written plenty in the past about the invidious nature of the start-of-year tipping business, and it’s odd that, say, the Natalie Prass album has been so lavishly reviewed in the past couple of months without her really showing up in any of the start of 2015 business.
The sanctimonious point I’m building to, of course, is that I’ve been writing about Prass for years, and that I’m immensely lucky to be able to ignore all these mainstream pressures in my job, and concentrate on the great weight of records coming out every month that, contrary to doomsayers’ perspectives on the industry, are still compelling. Hence these weekly playlists, which hopefully give a positive insight into the musical riches to be found if you switch off the BRITS and dig deeper. Not as many good gags, I’ll admit, but I’ll take new Michael Head, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Cannibal Ox and Godspeed You Black Emperor over Paloma Faith jokes, anyday…
Broadcast are to have their back catlogue reissued on vinyl by Warp Records on March 9, 2015.
The reissues include their three studio albums, two compilations and a collaboration with The Focus Group.
Broadcast's soundtrack for Berberian Sound Studio is not included.
Trish Keenan
The ful...
Broadcast are to have their back catlogue reissued on vinyl by Warp Records on March 9, 2015.
The reissues include their three studio albums, two compilations and a collaboration with The Focus Group.
On the occasion of his 70th birthday in late January, I was re-reading my 2007 interview with Robert Wyatt. We were talking about national identity and about how, in spite of all his cosmopolitan influences and interests, Wyatt is always seen as an indelibly British artist. "No-one," he said, "has a...
On the occasion of his 70th birthday in late January, I was re-reading my 2007 interview with Robert Wyatt. We were talking about national identity and about how, in spite of all his cosmopolitan influences and interests, Wyatt is always seen as an indelibly British artist. “No-one,” he said, “has allowed and welcomed, as a xenophile, non-English cultures so wholeheartedly into their lives and into their brains and into their food more than I have. And yet I don’t feel the slightest bit compromised or diluted or melted as a human being. I’m as English as my Staffordshire great-grandparents.”
The second terrific album by Same Lee, “The Fade In Time”, is driven by a fundamentally similar mindset. Lee is, notionally, a folk singer, and the 12 old songs on “The Fade In Time” are all drawn from British tradition, in many cases learned from gypsies and travellers. For all his meticulous historical research, however, Lee is not much of a traditionalist. Instead of preserving the songs in aspic, he treats his material as part of a living tradition, and subjects it to radical, internationalist treatments.
So a mystical Scottish hunting song like “Jonny O’The Brine” is given a woody, organic momentum, tablas to the fore, that makes it sound like a kind of acoustic techno, then layered with horns inspired by Tajikistan wedding bands. Japanese kotos and Indian shruti boxes underpin Romany laments and tales of sacred hares. Jazz trumpets and chamber strings tangle, elegantly, with banjos and fiddles. And, on the outstanding “Bonny Bunch Of Roses”, a Napoleonic ballad is played out over a crackly Serbian 78. But whatever Lee throws at the songs, their Britishness is never diminished, but critically augmented and expanded.
The “Fade In Time” is a phrase lifted from “Over Yonders Hill”, but Lee characterises it as “the textural decays, the transience of time we pass through while listening, and that temporal trance we enter into when listening.” In that spirit, Lee slips field recordings of old singers into his mix (as he did on his 2012 debut, “Ground Of Its Own”), prefacing his subtly orientalised version of the Scottish “Lord Gregory” with a moving recitation by one Charlotte Higgins, recorded in 1956. Time, cultures, national identities collapse again and again, with uncommon empathy and grace.
Lee is a charismatic figure at the heart of all this, as theatrically attuned as he is scholarly: other details on his CV include burlesque dancing, anthropology, performing with the Yiddish Twist Orchestra and being taught wilderness skills by Ray Mears. Occasionally, his adventurousness – and his serene, inflected voice – can recall Damon Albarn. On “Moorlough Maggie” and “The Moon Shone On My Bed Last Night”, Jonah Brody’s koto and ukulele – a frequently twee instrument transformed into something ethereal – are reminiscent of the way a kora added exotic, harmonious new dimensions to Albarn’s “Dr Dee” project.
“Moorlough Maggie”, too, exemplifies the force of Lee’s own personality on these songs, laden as they are with so much inherent and applied cultural baggage. A love song that involves grand promises of flocks of sheep, herds of cows and, perhaps optimistically, about a hundred ships, “Moorlough Maggie” is taken with such measure and emotional investment that it becomes Lee’s own “Song To The Siren”. In the midst of it all, he provides a calm, steadying anchor; ambitious, eclectic but, ultimately, dedicated to the enduring passions that resonate through this treasure trove of great song.
“Memorials, Forensics!? This stuff is alive!…”: A Q&A with SAM LEE
JM: I was thinking about Robert Wyatt a while back, and about how, while he’s so often described as “quintessentially English”, he’s also such a committed internationalist, and anything but parochial. It occurs to me that this seems really relevant to The Fade In Time; is it something you recognise in your work?
Sam Lee: Yes, completely so. I look at my work and my representation of folk a little bit the way we imagine a walk in an English country garden. To anyone in it, it feels unquestionably like you’re in a garden in England, but in actuallity we are surrounded by imported plants from all over; the Himalayan mountainsides, South American temperate forests, Roman apothecaries etc. I want my music to feel local, a ‘home from home’. The sonic beddings which appeal to me most are ones that have an ability to induce, to transport, to alter the state of the listener and give the sense also of being part of a much deeper and geographically indefinite place. I don’t want to get stuck on how folk (or any song for that matter) should sound. To me, it’s a more ephemeral thing.
JM: Does having such a strong connection to Gypsy/travelling culture allow you to see British folk songs in a broader international context?
SL: I guess the nature of being close to a community seen as pariahs and ‘outsiders’ permits me to see the music with an objective freedom and not be so bound by too many assumptions or affectations. The Gypsy Travellers are imaginative geniuses, especially when it comes to appropriation and assimilation, which I admire and aspire to.
JM: Of the many tricks you pull off on The Fade In Time, I think my favourite might be the way you plant the old Serbian record into “Bonny Bunch Of Roses”. Can you tell us a little about this, and the thinking behind it?
SL: Am really glad you like that one. You have picked out exactly where I’m sonically trying to explore the idea or process of ‘The Fade in Time’; the textural decays, the transience of time we pass through while listening, and that temporal trance we enter in when listening… I wanted to touch upon the boldness of that Slavic choral music in this east meets west, as it kind of honours my own Eastern European Ashkenazi routes. Some of my predecessors were tailors to the Tzars’ army, so I wanted to explore the sonic landscapes of the east. This is folk song which I’ve loved for so long.
JM: How do the old singers and folk musicians that you know react to your experiments with tradition? I guess I’m thinking especially of Stanley Robertson; does The Fade In Time exist in part as a memorial to his cultural knowledge?
SL: Less memorial, more safari.. It’s certainly not dead, even if most carriers of the ‘keepers of the lore’, as Stanley called them, have passed on. They seem, for the most part, thrilled by the music – sometimes overwhelmed by the journey it has taken and get very emotional.. When I played back “Bonny Bunch Of Roses” to Freda Black (the 86-year-old Gypsy who taught me the song) she cried and said it gave her a feeling of her mother singing. That meant a lot…
I am actually making a film at the moment capturing the act of returning these album tracks to the families and then asking the singers to take me to where the song came from, be it a known location or tell me about their history of the song. It’ss really fascinating seeing their reactions to the material. Most of the time…
JM: What are your favourite memories of/stories about Stanley?
SL: Our first meeting will never leave me… It was in a mighty gale, climbing the cliffs at Whitby. He reached the top, with me, nervously, following behind, waiting to introduce myself. Stanley was clutching a giant whale bone arch. I stopped him to thank you for his songs in the concert I had just discovered and he turned around ‘wee a stern look in his ee’ and he growled out in full proud drama “ I ken a thoosand balladsâ€. It was awesome, like a moment out of Tolkien… You just sensed this ancient magic about him and a power… he had such incredible psychic abilities. He would tell me everything about my life, even things I would deem very private… He’d just announce them as they hit him, usually in really inappropriate moments, too. He would travel alongside me when I went abroad and tell me on the telephone things that were happening in my life he had no way of knowing (he called it the astral travelling). To me it seemed real and indisputable, nothing was private and nothing could be hidden. That is the Travellers for you. They are a very gifted people.
JM: Do you think the possibilities of history and tradition are underused in contemporary British music?
SL: ‘History’ and ‘tradition’ are such loaded words. The world of contemporary music is all about the forward thinking, the now, the new, the next. The closest thing we get to history in a lot of music I hear is all the stuff that references the ’70/’80s, electronica or sounds that were engineered within recent memory. That’s history for a lot of listeners and makers. And I think that is great! I love modern sounds and the ephemerality of it. However, I think there is much more scope to marry these styles with a musical connection to the more distant past, dare I say to explore a more ‘spiritual realm’ – without being millstoned by stereotypes. I’m interested in re-wilding and getting back to the roots of things.
JM: How long does it take for you to put together an album like this? It strikes me that, long before the music is even started, there’s an incredible amount of forensic fieldwork involved?
SL: Memorials, Forensics!? This stuff is alive! I guess this new album has taken a couple of years to put together, but that’s only in a very practical sense. It’s not been a direct journey from field to table (record) with many of these songs. Some I’ve sung for years and are longtime friends who have just found their way into the record. Others I’ve been told about, heard other singers along the way – or have developed songs with the band until they felt right to include. There are a few songs on the album which didn’t spend very long in transit till they reached the pot. Others, I feel I’ve known my whole life.
JM: Could you ever envisage yourself making a record without that level of deep research? A set of original songs, say?
SL: Yes. I’m sure that time will come, but right now I have the luxury of being able to forage for these songs, an experience I love. I love the people who I learn them from. I feel a profound honour in both spending time with these ancient remenants of an ancient world and helping to bring a bit of attention to their unbelievable treasures. I think the world can probably wait for my own latest heartbreak/confession etc a bit longer.
JM: What do you find so appealing about singing stereotypically “women’s” songs – songs from someone else’s perspective?
SL: Funnily enough, I don’t see these as women’s songs at all. They have been sung for generations by men and women alike; with no particular rules of appropriateness to gender or sexuality. That seems like a relatively recent way of looking at things. I like to sing songs that bare their heart, and those songs told from the women’s point of view are often ones that deal with universal themes most honestly abandonment, rejection, loss and compassion. These are things men and women experience equally. Folk music allows men and women to tackle big issues in a powerful way. It’s a bit like group therapy. I often get grown-men crying at my gigs. I think that’s pretty cool.
Led Zeppelin’s sixth album, was also, to varying extents, Led Zeppelin’s third, fourth and fifth albums – the fifteen-track running order, consuming 82 minutes and four side of vinyl, consisted of eight new songs, amalgamated with seven out-takes from III, IV and Houses Of The Holy. When Zeppe...
Led Zeppelin’s sixth album, was also, to varying extents, Led Zeppelin’s third, fourth and fifth albums – the fifteen-track running order, consuming 82 minutes and four side of vinyl, consisted of eight new songs, amalgamated with seven out-takes from III, IV and Houses Of The Holy. When Zeppelin began work on Physical Graffiti, in what proved to be abortive early sessions in late 1973, they were – with apologies possibly due to The Rolling Stones – arguably the biggest, certainly the most infamous, rock’n’roll band in the world.
All that remained was the creation of a definitive magnum opus – their own gatefolded masterpiece to file alongside Exile On Main St, the White Album and Quadrophenia. Physical Graffiti could – and in less adroit hands, assuredly would – have been preposterous, the moment at which Zeppelin’s imperial phase collapsed in a goutish wheeze of decadent hubris. Instead, it’s magnificent: the Rome that wouldn’t fall.
This reissue appears in a panoply of formats. There’s a straightforward double CD, a triple CD including a bunch of hitherto unreleased stuff, vinyl and digital equivalents of both those options, and a “super deluxe†box set including all of the above along with alternate cover art, a book of previously unseen photographs, and a print of the original cover, the first 30,000 of which will be individually numbered. It has also been remastered by Jimmy Page, indefatigable curator of Zeppelin’s legacy, who may be unique in being able perceive significant difference between this and the original, or in thinking there was much wrong with the way Physical Graffiti sounded the first time.
The enticement of this reissue is a batch of previously unheard early versions of seven of the fifteen tracks which comprise the epic sprawl of Physical Graffiti. These latest exhumations from Jimmy Page’s attic contain few forehead-slapping revelations. “Brandy & Cokeâ€, an early take on “Trampled Under Footâ€, comes much cleaner on the finished song’s debt to Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitionâ€. “Driving Through Kashmirâ€, part of the journey to one of Zeppelin’s loftiest peaks, suggests that there was a point at which an argument was made for turning up the trumpets slightly.
A shorter, softer instrumental version of “Sick Again†permits appreciation of how pretty Zeppelin were capable of being when dropping to the swaggering priapic metal colossi schtick for a couple of minutes, and also spares the listener Robert Plant’s exposition of the sexual politics of Hollywood’s groupie scene of the early 70s (“The fun of comin’/The pain in leavin’,†etc – arguably, you had to be there.) Of the new versions of “In My Time Of Dyingâ€, “Houses Of The Holyâ€, “Everybody Makes It Through The Night†and “Boogie With Stuâ€, it is difficult to sum up much reaction beyond the thought that they’re not as good as the familiar, finished versions – of some interest to completists and/or musicologists, perhaps, but not worth the price of re-purchase.
This is, of course, the nature of early takes – although, at the risk of prompting another deluge of expensive reissues, it might be more interesting to hear some really early takes. Where, for example, does one even begin assembling something as monumental as “Kashmir� What were the first notes plucked or prodded that eventually became “In The Light� From where did Zeppelin find the nerve to run “In My Time Of Dying†out to eleven – still utterly compelling – minutes?
It’s this ironclad – metalclad, if you will – confidence that makes Physical Graffiti such a gripping listen. So very many things could have gone wrong; none of them do. When Zeppelin are silly and puerile, they manage to sound guileless and charming – just as Plant is possibly not really singing about a car when he begs to be permitted to pump gas and dig under the hood on “Trampled Under Footâ€, it’s plausible that “Custard Pie†is not actually about dessert. When Zeppelin are pompous and preposterous, they’re also perfectly poised – in the years ahead, many would seek to conquer the heights of “Kashmirâ€, and most would pratfall spectacularly. And the rare excursions into modesty are all the more affecting amid the sturm and drang elsewhere – Page’s acoustic instrumental noodle “Bron-Yr-Aurâ€, named for the Welsh cottage where Zeppelin composed much of III, and originally recorded for that album, is a deceptively nonchalant expression of his mastery of his instrument.
In retrospect, Physical Graffiti stands as Peak Zeppelin. Its sheer size and scope, and the epoch-spanning, piecemeal nature of its assembly, give it the feeling of an accidental best-of. And while Zeppelin’s two subsequent proper studio albums, Presence and In Through The Out Door, had their moments, they also – substantially as a function of having to follow Physical Graffiti – felt somewhat like exercises in decline management. The album endures as a bequest to the bogglement of the ages.
Red House Painters are to have their first four albums re-issued as a box set.
The collection, limited to 1,500 copies, will be released on Record Store Day 2015; April 18 in the UK.
The albums, originally released between 1992 and 1995, are Down Colorful Hill, Red House Painters (Rollercoaster), ...
Red House Painters are to have their first four albums re-issued as a box set.
The collection, limited to 1,500 copies, will be released on Record Store Day 2015; April 18 in the UK.
The albums, originally released between 1992 and 1995, are Down Colorful Hill, Red House Painters (Rollercoaster), Red House Painters (Bridge) and Ocean Beach (which has been reformatted as a double 12†to also include the Shock Me EP).
The boxset comes with a unique design from Chris Bigg (v23), with each album pressed on bronze vinyl, and download codes also included.
Red House Painters box set
The tracklisting is:
Red House Painters –Â Down Colorful Hill –Â CAD 3408 A1. 24
A2. Medicine Bottle
A3. Japanese To English
B1. Down Colorful Hill
B2. Lord Kill The Pain
B3. Michael
Red House Painters –Â Red House Painters –Â CAD 3409 A1. Grace Cathedral Park
A2. Down Through
A3. Katy Song
A4. Mistress
B1. Things Mean A Lot
B2. Funhouse
B3. Take Me Out
B4. Rollercoaster
C1. New Jersey
C2. Dragonflies
C3. Mistress (Piano Version)
D1. Mother
D2. Strawberry Hill
D3. Brown Eyes
Red House Painters –Â Red House Painters –Â CAD 3410 A1. Evil
A2. Bubble
A3. I Am A Rock
A4. Helicopter
B1. New Jersey
B2. Uncle Joe
B3. Blindfold
B4. Star Spangled Banner
Red House Painters – Ocean Beach – CAD 3411
A1. Cabezon
A2. Summer Dress
A3. San Geronimo
A4. Shadows
B1. Over My Head
B2. Red Carpet
B3. Brockwell Park
B4. Moments
C1. Long Distance Runaround
C2. Drop
C3. Brockwell Park (Part Two)
D1. Shock Me
D2. Sundays And Holidays
D3. Three Legged Cat
D4. Shock Me (Acoustic)
Red House Painters –Â Red House Painters –Â CAD 3411 A1. Cabezon
A2. Summer Dress
A3. San Geronimo
A4. Shadows
B1. Over My Head
B2. Red Carpet
B3. Brockwell Park
B4. Moments
C1. Long Distance Runaround
C2. Drop
C3. Brockwell Park (Part Two)
D1. Shock Me
David Gilmour’s new solo album “sounds fantasticâ€, Phil Manzanera reveals in the new issue of Uncut, dated April 2015 and out now.
The guitarist also discusses the future of Roxy Music, and recalls working with Brian Eno, Nico, David Bowie and Bob Dylan, in the 'audience with' piece.
“Itâ€...
David Gilmour’s new solo album “sounds fantasticâ€, Phil Manzanera reveals in the new issue of Uncut, dated April 2015 and out now.
The guitarist also discusses the future of Roxy Music, and recalls working with Brian Eno, Nico, David Bowie and Bob Dylan, in the ‘audience with’ piece.
“It’s going very well,†Manzanera says of the Pink Floyd leader’s album, the follow-up to 2006’s On An Island. “I think it sounds fantastic, people will be very happy.â€
Manzanera co-produced On An Island with Gilmour and Chris Thomas, and also contributed guitar and vocals to the record.
Discussing Roxy Music and their supposed break-up in the feature, he says: “Last year, I said, ‘I think our job is done.’ “Everyone thought, ‘Roxy’s split – again.’ Not at all! If we fancied having another go, there’s no rules.
“That’s what’s great about Roxy. It’s not over ’til you’re 10 feet under…â€
The new issue of Uncut, with Joni Mitchell on the cover, is out now.
“Have I ever played any song twice exactly the same?â€
“No, Bob, no.â€
“See? I don’t do that.â€
In this week’s very special archive feature (from November 2008, Take 138), Uncut talks to the musicians, producers and crew who have worked with him from 1989 to 2006, where an unprecedente...
“Have I ever played any song twice exactly the same?â€
“No, Bob, no.â€
“See? I don’t do that.â€
In this week’s very special archive feature (from November 2008, Take 138), Uncut talks to the musicians, producers and crew who have worked with him from 1989 to 2006, where an unprecedented glimpse of the real Dylan emerges – a genius who works at night, makes producers smash guitars in frustration, obsesses over Al Jolson, and never, ever repeats himself.
Then, Allan Jones reviews the lost songs and radical revisions of 2008’s Tell Tale Signs, the astonishing 3CD collection of unreleased Dylan material taken from the past 20 years – a vital part of the Dylan canon…
_________________________
OH MERCY
(1989)
By the end of the ’80s, as he writes in Chronicles, Dylan wasn’t even sure whether he even wanted to make another record. In that frame of mind, he hooked up with producer Daniel Lanois in New Orleans for what became his most focused work in 10 years…
Malcolm Burn, engineer: “In the weeks before recording, I kept asking Dan [Lanois], ‘Have you heard from Bob? Have you heard any songs?’ Then, a week before we were due to start, we received a cassette from Bob. I thought, ‘Great, we’re going hear some songs.’ There was this little note: ‘This’ll give you a good idea.’ Dan and Mark Howard and I sat down to listen – and this Al Jolson music started. We were like, ‘What the fuck?’ So, we fast-forwarded. It was a whole tape of Al Jolson. We looked back at Bob’s note: ‘Listen to this. You can learn a lot.’ When Bob arrived, though, I’d sort of forgotten this. Then, one evening, something came up about favourite singers, who were influences, especially when it comes to phrasing. Bob said several times that phrasing was everything. And he said, ‘My two favourite singers are Frank Sinatra and Al Jolson.’ And I thought, wow, now I get it. I asked who his favourite songwriters were. ‘Gordon Lightfoot and Kris Kristofferson. Those are the guys.’â€
Mark Howard, engineer: “When we started, because Dylan and Lanois didn’t have a working relationship, there was about two weeks of finding the ground. It was slightly uncomfortable. Dylan was being a bit snotty, and Dan has this ability to be over-excited. That’s how Dan likes to work at times: he hypes people on their performances, and that makes them excited, too. Well, that didn’t work with Dylan. Bob was just strumming, sloppily playing, and Dan was politely putting up with it. Dan would try to get things out him. He’d say, ‘We did this mix this afternoon…’ Dylan would cut in, ‘I don’t even wanna hear it. I only wanna hear stuff done at night.’ He had this night rule.â€
Daniel Lanois, producer: “Bob had a rule, we only recorded at night. I think he’s right about that: the body is ready to accommodate a certain tempo at nighttime. I think it’s something to do with the pushing and pulling of the moon. At nighttime we’re ready to be more mysterious and dark. Oh Mercy’s about that.â€
Howard: “Those first weeks, everything we did, he wouldn’t accept it. But there came this one point when Dan finally had a freakout. He just wanted Dylan to smarten up. It became… Not a yelling match, but uncomfortable. Malcolm and me, we left and let them sort it out. From then on, Dylan was just really pleasant to work with.â€
Lanois: “I operate with Bob the same way I always operate. I’m totally committed and I try and look out for the best expression, the best performance. I’m completely honest and clear about what I think is the best. And if anything gets in the way of that, then they’re gonna have to deal with The Lanois.â€
Burn: “Bob would show up every night about nine, and we’d work into the early hours. He’d come in with a rolled-up bundle of paper, lyrics he was working on. He’d go over to where we had the coffee machine, start scribbling, fixing up lines, and then he’d say, ‘Okay, let’s go.’â€
Mason Ruffner, guitarist: “Bob was doodling a lot with the lyrics. He used a pencil. He didn’t use no ink-pen. Always making changes and additions and subtractions. An elephant could’ve walked in and he wouldn’t have seen it. His concentration is unbelievable.â€
Howard: “He would always be working on his lyrics. He’d have a piece of paper with thousands of words on it, all different ways, you couldn’t even read it. Words going upside-down, sideways, all over this page. I never saw him eat. He drank coffee and smoked cigarettes, and he’d sit chipping away at the words, pulling in words from other songs.â€
Burn: “For him, the song wasn’t ready to be a song until the lyrics were in place. It wasn’t necessarily about the melody or the chords. The only thing that made any difference to Bob was whether what he was saying was in place. Quite often, he’d rewrite even one line. Even by the time we were mixing, he’d suddenly say, ‘Y’know, I’ve just rewritten that line, can I re-sing it?’ One night, we were going to do “Most Of The Timeâ€, and he sat down with his guitar, and he said, ‘We could do it like this…’, and I recorded him on acoustic guitar and harmonica, the archetypal Bob Dylan thing. He actually referred to himself in the third person: ‘That would be a typical Bob Dylan way of doin’ it.’ Then he did it another way, like a blues, really slow. The treatment of the song was secondary. If the lyrics were in place, then it was sort of, ‘Well, what’s appropriate? What kind of song do we need to stick in here? If it needs to be up-tempo, I’ll do it up-tempo.’â€
Howard: “I’m not sure if he had an actual sound in his head to begin with. He’d recorded this whole record before. With Ron Wood. There’s a whole version of Oh Mercy with Ron Wood.â€
Ruffner: “It was different. We were recording in an old house, just sitting around the living room. Bob had his little stand with his lyrics, and we’d cut off into something. Seems we were cutting these songs all kinds of ways. Rock groove, slow, funk or folk groove, trying different grooves and tempos. Bob would put his head down and start playing, and we’d tag along. It was all a big experiment, try the song 20 different ways. We were doodling with half the songs that wound up on his next record, Under The Red Sky.â€
Burn: “One song that didn’t end up on Oh Mercy that Dan and I pushed for was ‘Series Of Dreams’. I remember standing in the courtyard, Bob saying, ‘Y’know what: I only put 10 songs on my records.’ I said, ‘But, Bob, that song is so great.’ He goes, ‘Nah, nah. I’m only puttin’ 10 songs on there.’â€
Howard: “We were doing the record in this Victorian mansion in the garden district of New Orleans. I had a bunch of Harleys in the courtyard, and Dylan asked, ‘Think ya could get me one of those?’ I got him this 1966 first year Shovelhead Harley Davidson. Dylan would go out for a ride every day. But one day, I heard him stall just around the corner. So I ran around the corner to see, and he’s sitting there, on the bike, staring straight ahead. And there are already three people gathered around the front of the motorcycle, saying, ‘Bob, can we have your autograph?’ And he just sat there like they weren’t even there. I ran up and said, ‘Hey, c’mon guys, leave the guy alone.’ And he just continued to sit there and stare straight ahead. So we got the bike fired up and – bang – he took off. He was living in California in those days and there was no helmet law in California, but there we were in New Orleans. He’d come back from rides and he’d say, ‘The police are really friendly around here, they’re all waving at me.’ I’m like, ‘They’re waving at you because you don’t have a helmet on, and they’re telling you to stop!’ I think the bike helped him. He’d go for a ride, think about what was going on, and I think he could see where Dan was trying to go.â€
Lanois: “The concept was fully emphasising the centre of the picture: the song, Bob’s voice, and Bob’s guitar or piano playing. Then we built the frame around the centre, with what we had available to us in the neighbourhood musically.â€
Burn: “Bob never really spoke to the other musicians. He’d speak to people he knew, but he wasn’t interested in making buddies. And he always wore this hoodie, y’know. The first few days, we had the Neville Brothers’ rhythm section there, and the drummer, Willie Green, came up to me after the second night. I was sitting at the mixing board, and Bob was like, four feet away. Willie says, ‘Man, I’ve been here two or three days. When the fuck’s Bob Dylan showing up?’ I said, ‘Willie, he’s sitting right next to you.’ ‘Oh. Is that Bob Dylan right there?’ And then, seriously, the bass player, Tony [Hall], he comes in, and he says, ‘Man, that Bob Dylan is some weird motherfucker.’ Bob just sort of looked up and raised his eyebrow. Then went back to working on his lyrics.â€
Ruffner: “For me, Bob was easy to work for. But I think he was a pain in the ass for some people. Sometimes he’d argue with Lanois, looked like just for the sake of arguing. After reading Chronicles, though, it seems that was a crucial time. It was shit or get off the pot. I think he was a little apprehensive, didn’t really know who Daniel was and if he could make him a record. But, after he realised they were going to make a good record there, I think Dylan softened up. By the end, he was a lot different. I remember he did a drawing of Daniel.â€
Howard: “I always like to have a drawing pad with me. One day, Bob saw it, and he said, ‘Hey, mind if I use your pad? Daniel, you mind if I draw a picture of you?’ So Bob scratches out this drawing of Dan, like this wild Indian, hair all over. It was pretty cool. But he didn’t want to sign it, and he didn’t sign it. So, this picture was left in my art book. About two weeks after we’d finished the record, I’m sitting in one day, and suddenly there’s somebody at the door. I go out, and it’s New Orleans, pouring with rain – and there’s Bob in his hoodie. I say, ‘Hey, Bob.’ He says, ‘I’ve decided to sign the drawing.’ And he came in, he signed the drawing, and he left.
“A lot of people get the impression he has a star complex, but he really doesn’t. He’s just saving his energy for what he’s doing…â€
Thom Yorke and Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja have released their joint soundtrack to UK Gold, an upcoming documentary on tax avoidance.
The 12-track score is available to stream via the UK Uncut website.
It also features contributions from Jonny Greenwood, Elbow's Guy Garvey and Euan Dickinson....
Thom Yorke and Massive Attack‘s Robert Del Naja have released their joint soundtrack to UK Gold, an upcoming documentary on tax avoidance.
The 12-track score is available to stream via the UK Uncut website.
It also features contributions from Jonny Greenwood, Elbow’s Guy Garvey and Euan Dickinson.
UK Gold, which explores the history of tax avoidance, is directed by Mark Donne and narrated by Dominic West.
You can watch a clip below, in which Channel 4 News host Jon Snow discusses the UK tax haven network.
Speaking to NME, Thom Yorke said, “For all the current government’s talk of standards in the Financial Industry it comes as no surprise perhaps that the reality beneath reveals their staggering hypocrisy.”
He continued: “Now is the time to reveal the revolving doors between government and the City that has bred lies and corruption for so long, siphoning money through our tax havens for the global super rich, while now preaching that we the people must pay our taxes and suffer austerity. Just who does our government work for?”
UK Gold will air on London Live tonight [February 25] at 8pm.
Suede debuted a new song, "What I'm Trying To Tell You", at last week's NME Awards 2015 with Austin, Texas.
The track was part of a six-song set which included classics such as "Animal Nitrate", "Filmstar" and "Trash".
Earlier in the evening, Suede collected the Godlike Genius Award at the NME Awa...
Suede debuted a new song, “What I’m Trying To Tell You“, at last week’s NME Awards 2015 with Austin, Texas.
The track was part of a six-song set which included classics such as “Animal Nitrate”, “Filmstar” and “Trash”.
Earlier in the evening, Suede collected the Godlike Genius Award at the NME Awards 2015 with Austin, Texas. The band were presented with the award by Bernard Sumner.
A special video, featuring the band’s former manager, comedian Ricky Gervais, was also shown. “I did help this band out a little bit in the early years,” Gervais said. “When I told them I couldn’t manage them anymore, there were no tears, they didn’t beg – and that’s when their career really took off.”
Awarding the gong to Suede, Bernard Sumner joked: “I’ve just had a text from Kanye West and he said you should have won Best Book and I’m really fucking annoyed.” He then added: “I thought I was presenting an award to Slade and then I heard it was Suede.”
Accepting his award, Brett Anderson said: “Thank you so much. What an honour it is to meet Mr Sumner. I spent much of my teenage years listening to Unknown Pleasures. 21 years ago we received best band award at the NME Awards so it’s genuinely touching to get this. It’s been a long strange heartbreaking journey but well worth it.”
Previous winners of the Godlike Genius Award include Blondie, The Clash, Paul Weller, The Cure, Manic Street Preachers, New Order & Joy Division, Dave Grohl, Noel Gallagher and Johnny Marr.
How do you choose the greatest Joni Mitchell song - or even, abandoning the wild goose chase of objectivity, your personal favourite Joni Mitchell song?
It's a daunting challenge, and one that not all of the illustrious contributors to this month's Uncut cover story would accept. When we asked Davi...
How do you choose the greatest Joni Mitchell song – or even, abandoning the wild goose chase of objectivity, your personal favourite Joni Mitchell song?
It’s a daunting challenge, and one that not all of the illustrious contributors to this month’s Uncut cover story would accept. When we asked David Crosby to pick a song, he gave us another one of his delightful pro-Joni and anti-Dylan rants, and scrupulously avoided specifics. “There’s so many songs of hers that are so brilliantly written,” he countered. “You can’t say which one is the best. There are 30 or 40 best ones.”
In the end, and with the help of Pink Floyd, Roger McGuinn, Matthew E White, Graham Nash, Linda Perhacs, Mike Heron and quite a few more, we settled on 30 songs. To rank them in any kind of order, though, struck us as an excruciating and ultimately pointless procedure; to be honest, we bottled it. In the new Uncut that’s out today, then, you’ll find 30 insightful pieces on 30 exceptional Joni songs, arranged in the order they were released, beginning with Radiohead’s Philip Selway on “Both Sides, Now” and ending with the 2002 orchestral version of “Amelia”, nominated by Robert Plant.
Elsewhere in this Uncut, there’s a pretty intense, exclusive interview with Sufjan Stevens, an insight into life alongside Nick Cave by the trusty and mercurial Warren Ellis, and further chats with Julian Cope, Phil Manzanera, The Yardbirds, The The, The Dave Clark Five (a weird and fascinating story, there) and, I’m particularly excited to say, Alejando Jodorowsky, whose story involving a swimming pool, a naked George Harrison and a hippopotamus is one of the highlights of the issue.
Reviews include reissues from The Specials (featuring a revealing Jerry Dammers Q&A), Bob Marley, John Coltrane, new ones by Mark Knopfler, Laura Marling, Bjork and three big personal favourites by Matthew E White, Ryley Walker and Sam Lee. Those last three also feature on the issue’s free CD, which we’ve been working hard on to make a bit more eclectic and representative of the range of new music that we cover in the magazine each month: also on there you’ll find Johnny Dowd next to an extract from Cat’s Eyes’ soundtrack to The Duke Of Burgundy and, in a fantastically unlikely segue, Marc Almond next to the tempestuous Lightning Bolt. Good stuff, I hope you’ll agree.
All this, a piece about Chile’s equivalent to Woodstock, an in-depth examination of country music’s brightest new stars, and a memorably deranged archive piece with Kim Fowley, in which he reveals that “The 16-track studio has become the heroin needle of the record industry.”
Let me know what you think about it all; as ever, I’m genuinely keen to hear from you. The email address for letters is uncut_feedback@timeinc.com, and you can find me on twitter at www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey. Oh, and one last thing: you may have noticed we’ve radically spruced up www.www.uncut.co.uk in the past week, with lots of new features and the sort of responsive design which means you can now usefully read our stories on phones and whatever other devices you might have to hand from moment to moment. Again, drop me a line with your thoughts about this; early days, but it seems to be working smoothly right now…
The End Of The Road festival have announced an additional 26 names to the line up for this year's event.
My Morning Jacket, Mark Lanegan Band and Saint Etienne are among the acts confirmed. They join Sufjan Stevens, The War On Drugs and Tame Impala - who were announced last month - at this year's f...
The End Of The Road festival have announced an additional 26 names to the line up for this year’s event.
My Morning Jacket, Mark Lanegan Band and Saint Etienne are among the acts confirmed. They join Sufjan Stevens, The War On Drugs and Tame Impala – who were announced last month – at this year’s festival, which takes place between September 4 – 6 at Larmer Tree Gardens.
Uncut will be hosting a stage at this year’s festival; check back here for updates.
You can find further details about tickets and the line-up at the festival’s website.
Pete Townshend has announced details of a major reissue campaign.
11 of his solo albums will be remastered ahead of a digital release on February 23. They will then be released on CD in stages throughout the rest of 2015 and into 2016.
The 11 digital album releases cover Who Came First, Rough Mix ...
Pete Townshend has announced details of a major reissue campaign.
11 of his solo albums will be remastered ahead of a digital release on February 23. They will then be released on CD in stages throughout the rest of 2015 and into 2016.
The 11 digital album releases cover Who Came First, Rough Mix – his collaboration with The Faces’ Ronnie Lane – as well as his albums Empty Glass, All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes and the live album Deep End Live, featuring David Gilmour.
The albums will all be released on UMC/Universal Music are:
Who Came First
Rough Mix
Empty Glass
All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes
White City
Iron Man: The Musical
Psychoderelict
Scoop
Another Scoop
Scoop 3
Deep End Live
News of the reissues arrives soon after The Whoconfirmed plans to release a 7″ singles and all studio albums on vinyl.
Meanwhile, later this year, Townshend will premier a new orchestral version of Quadrophenia at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
The Who are also due to play London’s Hyde Park on June 26, 2015.
Joni Mitchell has been writing songs recently, a close collaborator reveals in the new issue of Uncut, dated April 2015 and out now.
Jean Grand-Maître, artistic director of the Alberta Ballet, mentioned Mitchell’s recent activities as he picked his favourite of her songs in our cover feature.
â...
Joni Mitchell has been writing songs recently, a close collaborator reveals in the new issue of Uncut, dated April 2015 and out now.
Jean Grand-Maître, artistic director of the Alberta Ballet, mentioned Mitchell’s recent activities as he picked his favourite of her songs in our cover feature.
“I was at her birthday party in LA last year,†the choreographer, who worked with Joni on 2007’s The Fiddle And The Drum show, says, “and she’s got more energy than ever. Her mind never stops, it’s a locomotive of thinking and feeling.
“I think there’s always a chance of new music. She was writing a few months ago – but there was the event at the Hammer Museum in LA, so I think she put that on hold to finish the Love Has Many Faces boxset. The ideas are always there.â€
Mitchell’s last studio album was 2007’s Shine, released on Starbucks’ Hear Music label.
Robert Plant, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Graham Nash, REM, Laura Marling, Roger McGuinn, Elbow and more also pick their favourite songs by Joni Mitchell in our countdown of her greatest tracks, in the new Uncut, which is out now.
In this feature from the Uncut archive, Roger Daltrey reviews his side of The Who's story, providing track-by-track commentary on 20 of The Who’s most explosive singles. From Uncut's October 2001 issue (Take 68). Words: Simon Goddard
_______________________
A miserable October day in London,...
In this feature from the Uncut archive, Roger Daltrey reviews his side of The Who’s story, providing track-by-track commentary on 20 of The Who’s most explosive singles. From Uncut’s October 2001 issue (Take 68). Words: Simon Goddard
_______________________
A miserable October day in London, 2002. Roger Daltrey is staring out of the window at the colourless metropolitan sky, looking smart but sombre in a dark pin-stripe suit. Ominously, Uncut’s interview with The Who’s vocal powerhouse comes the afternoon following a memorial service for bassist John Entwistle, who died on June 27 this year; on the eve of a scheduled tour of America which they valiantly honoured (roping in Pino Paladino as an emergency replacement for ‘the Ox’).
Twenty-four years after the death of drummer Keith Moon in September 1978, Entwistle’s passing now means that Daltrey and guitarist/songwriting genius Pete Townshend are the last men standing in England’s other great surviving rock band.
Lest we forget, back in the ’60s The Who were the only British combo who proved themselves worthy of ranking alongside The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, turning the hierarchy of UK pop from a dynamic duo into a holy trinity. Beginning as a pop-art explosion of R’n’B feedback and mod frustration, by the end of the decade, along with Jimi Hendrix (who was already indebted to the unorthodox musicianship of early Townshend), on a purely sonic level The Who had permanently transformed the molecular structure of rock’n’roll. Be it patenting the modern ‘rock opera’ with 1969’s behemoth Tommy, setting the sound levels for the next decade of headbanging metal-heads with 1970’s Live At Leeds or the technological ambition inherent in the synthesized sheen of 1971’s Who’s Next, The Who broke barriers, moulds and eardrums at virtually every turn. The secret of their success?
“Two things,†considers Daltrey. “One, Pete wrote fucking great songs. And two, he had such incredible individual people to play them. I mean, talk about icing on the cake! Pete had a good cake, but he also had the same thickness of icing on top.â€
The new Who CD, The Ultimate Collection, is partly in memoriam for Entwistle and partly for those who need reminding of The Who’s matchless contribution to the rock acropolis. Though at the height of their powers The Who prided (and possibly over-indulged) themselves on their albums, it was always the 45rpm pop single that provided the greatest thrills, from the brusqueness of 1965’s “I Can’t Explain†through to 1981’s Moon-less curtain call “You Better, You Betâ€. Where their ’60s counterparts either split (The Beatles), struggled (The Kinks) or, in the case of The Stones, stopped caring about singles, the “’Orrible ’Oo†continued to churn out provocatively original A-sides well into the ’70s, regardless of whatever ambitious (and often abortive) rock opera Townshend may have had up his sleeve at the time.
As Townshend wrote himself in a 1971 review of their own Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy singles collection for Rolling Stone magazine, The Who’s earliest mandate was a religious belief in the 45 format and little else: “We, I repeat, believed only in singles.â€
Thirty years on, Roger Daltrey, too, has plenty to say about the purity of the singles aesthetic in the age of Pop Idol. “I made some rude remarks recently about Simon Cowell in an interview,†he guffaws, “but I’ve changed my opinion of him because you need to have a bland period so that all these young groups will get pissed off and start coming through. You can see it happening now with a lot of the new groups, The Coral and all that lot: they’re saying, ‘We’ve had enough of this shit, let’s get out and make some noise!’ So thank you very much, Simon Cowell, you did it, mate! Make no bones about it, shit like Pop Idol and American Idol will lead to the creation of the next punk. The seeds are already out there. It’s great!â€
Young men going out and making noise was exactly how one might describe The Who’s raison d’être when they first formed as The Detours in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, in 1962. Youth, in all its arrogance, was a vital ingredient in those early days, an attitude crystallised three years later on “My Generation†in which they unwittingly provided their future critics with a well-worn taunt in the infamous decree of “hope I die before I get oldâ€. For a man now fast approaching 60, Daltrey’s healthy pallor is a terrific advertisement for the merits of four decades of the rock’n’roll lifestyle; a shockingly well-preserved yin to the dilapidated yang of his peers (there’s only four months between them, but he looks a decade or two younger than, say, Keith Richards). All the same, even today, one broaches the “My Generation†conundrum with Daltrey at one’s peril.
“I find it incredibly tedious when people bring that against us now,†he glares. “For me, age has nothing to do with it. It’s a state of mind.â€
Of his own mortality, and the question mark that hangs over the future of The Who – wherever he and Townshend decide to step on from here – Daltrey is quite confident.
“It can’t be the same because John Entwistle was a genius at his style, there’ll never be another like him,†he says, unruffled. “But that’s not to say we can’t go on. As soon as you start playing that music, John is alive again, just the same as Keith’s always been alive whenever we play. That’s the great thing about music, it transcends this life. We never know when we’re gonna pop our clogs, we’re all in the drop-zone at our age, but life goes on and music will certainly go on. The Who’s music will go on long after I’m gone and Pete’s gone, and that’s everything I believe in. Right now, I’m very optimistic about our future.
“I mean we have been incredibly lucky,†Daltrey concludes. “I wake up every morning thinking, ‘Gawd – what a life!’ When you think about the great bands of all time, there’s only a handful like the Stones or The Who who’ve gone on for as long as we have. And you think – why us? It’s an extraordinary life we’ve had. Why we should come together and make that noise and create that extraordinary thing? God knows. Life is weird.â€
A case of “I Can’t Explainâ€?
“Ha!†laughs Daltrey, rolling forward in his seat, “Exactly! I can’t explain!â€
