Lots to get stuck into this week, though I think it’s worth drawing special attention to the superb William Tyler EP and, in the week the Pixies announce a newish album, a pointedly excellent Kim Deal track with Morgan Nagler.
The new issue of Uncut arrives in UK shops this Friday – though subscribers should hopefully find their copies plonking through the letter box a day or two early. We celebrate 40 years of the Ramones with an extensive cover story by Peter Watts, who’s interviewed surviving band members as well as many of their co-conspirators, friends and peers. To compliment Peter’s terrific piece, we’ve compiled a list of the 50 Greatest American Punk Albums (plus singles and compilations), from the pivotal years of 1975 to 1983.
We’re all still reeling from the shocking news of Lou Reed’s death on Sunday. Reading through the tributes that have poured in over the last few days, the one that’s resonated most with me came from John Cale, who in his wise and moving testimonial to his old sparring partner, wrote: “we have the best of our fury laid out on vinyl, for the world to catch a glimpse”. We’ll be running out own full tribute to Lou in a future issue of Uncut.
As guitarist Lee Ranaldo is in Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes in this month's new issue (April 2012, Take 179), we thought we'd share a Sonic Youth piece from our archive. In this feature, published in 2009, Marc Spitz finds the band (who've just finished what we now know could be their final album, The Eternal) ageing with more dignity than most, but still finding time to lash out at Oasis, Madonna and U2, and order a baby pig with a donut in its mouth… Picture by Pieter M Van Hattem.
Fired up by disco and punk, Jagger’s swagger returns, with a disc of unreleased songs...Wrongly or rightly, the allegations against the Stones came thick and fast in 1977. They’d lost their edge. They’d become gluttonised, lazy, too rich and bored to care. Some of them had the temerity to be in their mid-thirties (NME called them “The Strolling Bones”). The urgent sound of punk had made their jet-set rock seem passé.
