UK, European and North American dates in 2015...
Ride are to reform and play their first shows in 20 years.
The Oxford band, who were active from 1988 to 1996, will play a UK tour that will kick off at Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom on Friday 22 May 2015 and will also include Manchester’s Albert Hall and The Roundhouse in London, before heading to Europe to play Amsterdam, Paris and Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival on 29 May.
The band will then head across the Atlantic to play Toronto and New York - and then back to the UK to headline Field Day on Sunday 7 June.
Consisting of Laurence Colbert (drums), Andy Bell (guitar/vocals), Steve Queralt (bass) and Mark Gardener (guitar/vocals), Ride were signed to Creation Records. Their debut album, Nowhere (1990), reached No 11 in the UK charts. After the band split, Bell went on to join Oasis and Beady Eye, Colbert played with the Jesus And Mary Chain, Gardener released a number of records as a solo artist, while Queralt retired from the music industry.
Tickets are on sale Friday 21 November from www.RideMusic.net (UK shows onsale from 9.00am).
** You can read our piece on the making of the Ride EP here **
Ride's tour dates are:
Friday, May 22: Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow, UK
Saturday, May 23: Albert Hall, Manchester, UK
Sunday, May 24: Roundhouse, London, UK
Tuesday, May 26: Paradiso, Amsterdam, Holland
Wednesday, May 27: Olympia, Paris, France
Friday, May 29: Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona, Spain
Tuesday, June 2: DanForth Music Hall, Toronto, Canada
Thursday, June 4: Terminal 5, New York, US
Sunday, June 7: Field Day (headlining), London, UK
UK, European and North American dates in 2015…
Ride are to reform and play their first shows in 20 years.
The Oxford band, who were active from 1988 to 1996, will play a UK tour that will kick off at Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom on Friday 22 May 2015 and will also include Manchester’s Albert Hall and The Roundhouse in London, before heading to Europe to play Amsterdam, Paris and Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival on 29 May.
The band will then head across the Atlantic to play Toronto and New York – and then back to the UK to headline Field Day on Sunday 7 June.
Consisting of Laurence Colbert (drums), Andy Bell (guitar/vocals), Steve Queralt (bass) and Mark Gardener (guitar/vocals), Ride were signed to Creation Records. Their debut album, Nowhere (1990), reached No 11 in the UK charts. After the band split, Bell went on to join Oasis and Beady Eye, Colbert played with the Jesus And Mary Chain, Gardener released a number of records as a solo artist, while Queralt retired from the music industry.
Tickets are on sale Friday 21 November from www.RideMusic.net (UK shows onsale from 9.00am).
** You can read our piece on the making of the Ride EP here **
Ride’s tour dates are:
Friday, May 22: Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow, UK
Saturday, May 23: Albert Hall, Manchester, UK
Sunday, May 24: Roundhouse, London, UK
Tuesday, May 26: Paradiso, Amsterdam, Holland
Wednesday, May 27: Olympia, Paris, France
Friday, May 29: Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona, Spain
Tuesday, June 2: DanForth Music Hall, Toronto, Canada
Thursday, June 4: Terminal 5, New York, US
Sunday, June 7: Field Day (headlining), London, UK
Following this morning's momentous news of Ride's return to active service, I thought I'd dig out this piece I wrote for Uncut in 2011.
It's a Making Of... piece on the band's first EP from 1990; still, I think, a pretty terrific record. It's a particularly rich time for former Creation bands of ...
Following this morning’s momentous news of Ride’s return to active service, I thought I’d dig out this piece I wrote for Uncut in 2011.
It’s a Making Of… piece on the band’s first EP from 1990; still, I think, a pretty terrific record. It’s a particularly rich time for former Creation bands of a certain vintage: last year brought the first Slowdive shows in nearly 20 years, while Swervedriver and The Telescopes are also back in action. The return of Ride, though, feels long overdue: I always thought there never quite fulfilled their potential while Andy Bell’s career in Oasis and Beady Eye increasingly seemed to overshadow Ride’s achievements. It’s tempting to read a little bit of that into the David Crosby quote that accompanies the press statement announcing their reunion: “Your first band is like your first love; you never forget it, and you never feel quite the same way about any other band.”
___________________
Ride’s emergence from the drowsy Oxford suburbs coincided with a critical time for British independent music, not least for Alan McGee’s Creation label. The previous year, their marquee band The House Of Love had signed to a major label, Fontana. 1989 itself, meanwhile, had almost been a write-off for Creation. The big news that year had been Madchester – the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays – and Creation had no stake in it.
The four-track Ride EP offered welcome hope for aspiring guitar bands – and also conveniently reminded people that Creation had no small part to play in their success. The EP set out the band’s stall: highlights included the noise pop of “Chelsea Girl”, with its scything guitar riff and climactic barrage of feedback, and the hypnotic grind of “Drive Blind”. The EP sold out of its initial pressing of 4,000 copies in three days (it eventually sold over 60,000) and Ride found themselves courted by major American labels. Their debut long player, 1990’s Nowhere, was at that point Creation’s most successful album. Its follow-up, 1992’s Going Blank Again, nudged them closer to mainstream success – but two subsequent albums saw the band gradually decline.
Life after Ride has proved mixed for the former band members. Singer-guitarist Mark Gardener recently recorded the soundtrack to Creation documentary, Upside Down. After heading up Hurricane No 1, singer-guitarist Andy Bell went on to join Oasis and is currently a member of Beady Eye. Drummer Loz Colbert now plays with the Jesus And Mary Chain. Bassist Steve Queralt, meanwhile, has retired completely from music.
“The arrogance of releasing the EP was great,” remembers Bell today. “The confidence of it was great. It was a real statement. The four equal members, the four equal tracks, no song credits, everything being very much part of an identity.”
Andy Bell (vocals, guitar): I went to the same school as Mark and Steve. Steve was a year or so above me. When I met Mark, I was about 13, 14.
Mark Gardener (vocals, guitar): Andy was always a bit of a geeky, Morrissey-type guy. I was a geek, but I thought I was cool.
Steve Queralt (bass): The first demo Andy and I did was “Chelsea Girl”. That was before any vocals. It was just a riff. That sounded really jangly, like Felt.
Gardener: In Autumn, 1988, Andy and I got into Banbury Tech College. After about a month, we became aware of this cool guy called Laurence Colbert, Loz, who was on the same art foundation course as us.
Bell: Loz had his own drumkit. It was set up in his garage in his mum’s house. So the very first time we could, we got over to his parents house, set up the amps and the guitars, and that was Ride.
Loz Colbert (drums): We played the end of year college show. That was our first gig. It was a bit like the Big Bang. As we were playing, everything was changing. By the end of that gig, we were a band.
Queralt: The history of Oxford music was that there wasn’t one. Someone kept telling us there was a band called Mr Big that had made records and they were from Oxford. And a member of Supertramp was from Oxford. So the extent of our ambition was to be one of the best bands in Oxford. All we wanted to do was get a demo, sell it at gigs and play the biggest show in Oxford. If we headlined the Jericho Tavern and filled it out, job done.
Dave Newton (manager): My knowledge of Ride was all via Steve at this point. He and I were friends from working at Our Price together, and we used to travel to gigs together in Reading and London.
Queralt: Dave was very involved in the local music scene. He had a local newspaper that he put together that reviewed local bands.
Gardener: We thought, he can at least get us a support, or a show at the Jericho Tavern. He’d met a couple of people in the record industry, including Cally and Ben [Wardle] at East West.
Newton: The band went into Union Street Studios in April, 1989 to do a proper demo. They paid for this session themselves. This demo was sent out to some venues and promoters to try and get gigs, and I sent it to East West. Then they went back to Union Street in July, and this session was paid for by East West.
Cally Calloman (A&R): I knew the perception of Ride at this stage was important. I was watching the House Of Love burn down in a major-label cock up of major proportions. So we didn’t want to take the band to Warners [who owned East West]. We hatched a scheme to take it to Pete Flanagan, who ran a label [separate to East West and Warners] called One Big Guitar, and we did one or two singles through One Big Guitar for bands who were signed to East West.
Gardener: Union Street was pretty bizarre. It was under someone’s house, you’d never know it was there, it was under a typical east Oxford two-up-two-down terrace house. It had a very low ceiling. It was pretty cool, but it was absolutely tiny.
Bell: I remember how small it must have been, because later on I bought a terraced house on the same road and they were tiny. The guy who owned it had mattresses everywhere where the guy was having foreign students over to rent, a sort of B&B stroke studio.
Gardener: He used to stick people down in the studio in their sleeping bags. I went in a couple of mornings and there’s people sleeping in there. You’re walking in with your guitar – “We’re here to record, do you mind getting up and out?” I remember we did a country-type, chilled version of “Chelsea Girl” with slide guitars that he pushed me to do, as we’d blasted his head off with noise all weekend! I reluctantly remember singing in the garden, stoned and thinking what the hell am I doing out here! It was rubbish.
Queralt: We wanted to make a hell of a racket and be loud and noisy, but to have a great tune. I remember telling the guy to turn the bass up, then telling him to turn the guitars up to make it noisy. He had his head in hands for most of the session, saying, “What you’re asking me to do is just turn the volume up. You just want everything louder.” I said, “No, it needs to be bassier and it needs to be noisier.” He just didn’t get it. He kept drawing us diagrams, saying, “Look, if you increase the treble then the bass disappears by default,” which was lost on us.
Bell: He didn’t want to turn the guitars up, and we had a stand off. In the end, we took the tapes off and Cally and Ben mixed them somewhere else.
Queralt: I was suspicious of Warners. We were an indie band. If record companies were going to get involved, we wanted to be on an indie label. In the late ‘80s, major labels really struggled with how to market indie bands. If any of your audience knew you were on a major label that was a problem. There was a real snobbery about that.
Gardener: We got some proper supports around that time – this was the end of October/beginning of November, 1989 – supporting the Soup Dragons. Which is when Alan McGee started stalking us.
Bell: Alan came to three gigs in a row, which is always excessive. He was very enthusiastic, very hyper. We talked about Neil Young. And then at the end of the third gig, he was like, ‘C’mon then, will you sign with me?’ And I think we just said, ‘Yes.’
Newton: Essentially what he said was, ‘I just want to put that EP out on my label, I’ll be happy to put you in the studio and record the next EP, and then we’ll talk later.’ The deal with Creation was essentially a handshake, no paperwork.
Queralt: I think we’d already promised our first record to Warners [released on the indie One Big Guitar, but distributed ‘unofficially’ by East West], so how do we get out of that? All of a sudden, we were in a bit of a muddle about things. But to be fair to Cally and East West, they were almost as excited as us.
Gardener: Alan had a conversation with Cally, where Cally said “I’m going to sign this band called Ride.” And then McGee steamed in there.
Calloman: I distinctly remember McGee saying, “Do you mind if I sign them?” I thought it was generous of him to phone up and say: I want to go out with your girlfriend, she doesn’t like you anymore.
Bell: We wanted 4AD, that was our ideal label. We wanted the Vaughn Oliver sleeve. But Alan turned up first.
Gardener: It was the first Creation record to chart. Commercially, we were doing things in a nightmare way. We wouldn’t make it obvious what the lead track was when everybody else was doing singles. But McGee was behind it. It charted against all expectations, really.
Newton: The EP came out January 15, 1990, and then on January 31 we played Royal Holloway College in London. Seymour Stein [president of Sire, a Warners-owned American label] came to see us. Alan had already been talking to him about signing both My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream for the States at that point, and Seymour wanted to sign us. He offered us a worldwide record deal except the UK [Ride henceforth owned and licensed their music to Creation for release in the UK]. It was the biggest deal they’d ever done for a new band. The advances were $350,000 per album, going up to $400,000 on the fourth album.
Gardener: He came in to the dressing room after the show with his personal assistant, Risa, who’d been driving him at high speeds around the M25. I think they were running late. Seymour looked pretty freaked out and sweaty and opened with “Jeez, that M25 is like a race track.” One of our road crew was wearing a Velvet Underground t-shirt. Seymour clocked this and said, “Oh, I was with Lou a couple of nights ago in NYC. He’s doing great, and we’re putting out his latest solo album!” I thought, well if he’s come from hanging out with Lou Reed in New York to backstage at our gig in Holloway College he must be pretty keen.
Bell: I’d read my Beatles’ biographies. I knew what happened. I’d formed the band, two months later it was happening. So it was all according to the book so far. That continued for a couple of years. It didn’t really stop being like that until the second album. It was onwards and upwards.
One bright Sunday morning, MC Taylor is driving through his patch of North Carolina, past New Hope Creek and the Eno River, over the Chatham County Line and the James Taylor Bridge in Chapel Hill, near the Haw River and the valley that he has meditated upon in song these past few years. Through appa...
HOW TO BUY: HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER
COUNTRY HAI EAST COTTON
HEAVEN & EARTH MAGIC RECORDING COMPANY 2009
Recorded in 2007 and 2008, the first Hiss album finds Taylor and Hirsch drawing more strongly on Californian traditions; a slick, stoned, Laurel Canyon vibe predominates. Also recommended: Root Work (Heaven & Earth Magic, 2010), looser live jams of the same canon.
BAD DEBT
BLACKMAPS 2010
Transplanted to North Carolina, Taylor, with only his acoustic guitar and a sleeping baby for company, accidentally stumbles on a breakthrough album. Originally released on the UK label Blackmaps, an extended and superior version of Bad Debt was released by Paradise Of Bachelors in early 2014.
POOR MOON
PARADISE OF BACHELORS/TOMPKINS SQUARE 2011
The trademark Hiss sound begins to evolve, as Taylor gathers a crew of unassumingly gifted players to flesh out the Bad Debt songs. Contains the definitive version of a key song of ambivalent faith, “Jesus Shot Me In The Head”.
GOLDEN GUNN
THREE LOBED RECORDINGS 2013
An engaging detour, as Taylor and Hirsch hook up with the master guitarist, Steve Gunn for a set of cosmic porch grooves. Often comes across as a wry and loving homage to JJ Cale, right down to the appropriated logo.
HAW
PARADISE OF BACHELORS 2013
“A garland for the Southern Piedmont,” reads the epigraph and, with a bunch of local musicians (including Phil and Brad Cook) now enlisted, Haw is seeped in North Carolina culture. Downhome, then, but not cosy: these are Taylor’s most troubled set of songs to date.
LATENESS OF DANCERS
MERGE 2014
A new label, and a stealthily expanding vision, as Taylor channels his encyclopaedic knowledge of roots music into a triumphant set of very personal songs (another classic one, “Brother Do You Know The Road”, preceded Lateness as a stand-alone single). “A couple of kids/Mahogany dread/But happy days are still ahead…”
Paul Thomas Anderson film will be released in UK cinemas in January 2015...
Songs by Neil Young, Can, Minnie Ripperton and a Supergrass cover of Radiohead song "Spooks" appear on Jonny Greenwood's forthcoming Inherent Vice soundtrack.
The Radiohead guitarist has worked with director Paul Thomas Anderson on the adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's novel with the film set to open in UK cinemas on January 30. The soundtrack will be released in the UK in January and features Neil Young's "Journey Through The Past", "Vitamin C" by Can, Minnie Ripperton's "Les Fleur" and nine original compositions from Greenwood himself.
As previously reported, Supergrass have recorded a new version of Radiohead song 'Spooks' for the film. The song has been played live for over eight years by Radiohead but never recorded. Greenwood has stated that two-thirds of the group Supergrass recorded the song. He did not say which two members of the band were involved.
'Inherent Vice: The Soundtrack' tracklist:
Jonny Greenwood – 'Shasta'
Can – 'Vitamin C'
Jonny Greenwood – 'Meeting Crocker Fenway'
The Marketts – 'Here Comes the Ho-Dads'
Jonny Greenwood – 'Spooks'
Jonny Greenwood – 'Shasta Fay'
Minnie Riperton – 'Les Fleur'
Jonny Greenwood – 'The Chryskylodon Institute'
Kyu Sakamoto – 'Sukiyaki'
Jonny Greenwood – 'Adrian Prussia'
Neil Young – 'Journey Through the Past'
Les Baxter – 'Simba'
Jonny Greenwood – 'Under the Paving-Stones, the Beach!'
Jonny Greenwood – 'The Golden Fang'
Jonny Greenwood – 'Amethyst'
Jonny Greenwood – 'Shasta Fay Hepworth'
Chuck Jackson – 'Any Day Now'
Inherent Vice is the seventh feature from Oscar-nominated director Anderson. His previous films include There Will Be Blood and The Master.
The Pynchon adaptation stars Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), Benicio Del Toro, Martin Short and Jena Malone.
You can read our first look preview of the film's trailer here
Paul Thomas Anderson film will be released in UK cinemas in January 2015…
Songs by Neil Young, Can, Minnie Ripperton and a Supergrass cover of Radiohead song “Spooks” appear on Jonny Greenwood‘s forthcoming Inherent Vice soundtrack.
The Radiohead guitarist has worked with director Paul Thomas Anderson on the adaptation of Thomas Pynchon‘s novel with the film set to open in UK cinemas on January 30. The soundtrack will be released in the UK in January and features Neil Young’s “Journey Through The Past”, “Vitamin C” by Can, Minnie Ripperton’s “Les Fleur” and nine original compositions from Greenwood himself.
As previously reported, Supergrass have recorded a new version of Radiohead song ‘Spooks’ for the film. The song has been played live for over eight years by Radiohead but never recorded. Greenwood has stated that two-thirds of the group Supergrass recorded the song. He did not say which two members of the band were involved.
‘Inherent Vice: The Soundtrack’ tracklist:
Jonny Greenwood – ‘Shasta’
Can – ‘Vitamin C’
Jonny Greenwood – ‘Meeting Crocker Fenway’
The Marketts – ‘Here Comes the Ho-Dads’
Jonny Greenwood – ‘Spooks’
Jonny Greenwood – ‘Shasta Fay’
Minnie Riperton – ‘Les Fleur’
Jonny Greenwood – ‘The Chryskylodon Institute’
Kyu Sakamoto – ‘Sukiyaki’
Jonny Greenwood – ‘Adrian Prussia’
Neil Young – ‘Journey Through the Past’
Les Baxter – ‘Simba’
Jonny Greenwood – ‘Under the Paving-Stones, the Beach!’
Jonny Greenwood – ‘The Golden Fang’
Jonny Greenwood – ‘Amethyst’
Jonny Greenwood – ‘Shasta Fay Hepworth’
Chuck Jackson – ‘Any Day Now’
Inherent Vice is the seventh feature from Oscar-nominated director Anderson. His previous films include There Will Be Blood and The Master.
The Pynchon adaptation stars Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), Benicio Del Toro, Martin Short and Jena Malone.
You can read our first look preview of the film’s trailer here
On April 18, 1970, an unusual dispatch from Paul McCartney appeared in the NME. Instead of participating in a normal interview, McCartney had sent the UK media a printed statement, in which he (or, at least, a shadowy enabler at Apple) asked the questions as well as supplying the answers. A delicate situation, he believed, needed to be micromanaged with extreme care.
Nevertheless, McCartney did not spare himself the difficult subjects. There was a solo album to discuss, of course, one all about "Home. Family. Love." But also, there was the outstanding business of where the arrival of that album left The Beatles. "Are you planning a new album or single with The Beatles?" McCartney challenged himself. "No," he responded.
"Is your break up with The Beatles, temporary or permanent, due to personal differences or musical ones?" McCartney persisted.
"Personal differences," he came back. "Business differences. Musical differences, but most of all, because I have a better time with my family."
"What are your plans now? A holiday? A musical? A movie? Retirement?"
"My only plan is to grow up."
And there it was: the end of something that changed the world, and the start of the rest of Paul McCartney's life. It is those 44, frequently remarkable, years that we're focusing on in this latest edition of the Uncut Ultimate Music Guide, which you can order online right now (it arrives in UK shops on Friday, November 21). As is usual with our Ultimate Music Guides, we've located a bunch of key articles in the NME, Melody Maker and Uncut archives and, with extensive new reviews of every album, used them to trace the highs, lows and neglected margins of McCartney's post-Beatles career.
There are frank reflections on life past and present, bantering encounters with Wings, a constant and fascinating narrative about how McCartney tries to reconcile being "Mr Normal" with being, well, Sir Paul McCartney. There's also an epic interview from a 2004 issue of Uncut, in which McCartney, a shrewd media operator ever since the earliest days of The Beatles, talks with unprecedented candour about every phase of his career.
"I’ve put out an awful lot of records. Some of them I shouldn’t have put out, sure," he admits in the piece. "I’d gladly accept that. There’s many different reasons for putting a record out. Sometimes I might just put one out because I’m bored and I’ve got nothing better to do. That happens."
Few artists, in the post-war era, have had anything remotely close to the cultural impact of Paul McCartney. Nevertheless, his discography is surprisingly full of odd excursions and experiments, of great songs hidden away and half-forgotten. This Uncut Ultimate Guide is, we hope, a key to the treasures of Macca's long, engrossing second act - like "Secret Friend", for example, a "McCartney II"-era B-side which, as Jon Dale plausibly argues, is lost kin of Manuel Gottsching's "E2 - E4"…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9ieDAE3yIU
Inspired, I ended up searching online, in vain, for an instrumental mix of "Wonderful Christmastime", to illustrate a point I was trying to make to everyone else at Uncut about the song being a neglected avant-garde masterpiece. Your similar theories about "We All Stand Together" would, of course, be appreciated…
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey
On April 18, 1970, an unusual dispatch from Paul McCartney appeared in the NME. Instead of participating in a normal interview, McCartney had sent the UK media a printed statement, in which he (or, at least, a shadowy enabler at Apple) asked the questions as well as supplying the answers. A delicate situation, he believed, needed to be micromanaged with extreme care.
Nevertheless, McCartney did not spare himself the difficult subjects. There was a solo album to discuss, of course, one all about “Home. Family. Love.” But also, there was the outstanding business of where the arrival of that album left The Beatles. “Are you planning a new album or single with The Beatles?” McCartney challenged himself. “No,” he responded.
“Is your break up with The Beatles, temporary or permanent, due to personal differences or musical ones?” McCartney persisted.
“Personal differences,” he came back. “Business differences. Musical differences, but most of all, because I have a better time with my family.”
“What are your plans now? A holiday? A musical? A movie? Retirement?”
“My only plan is to grow up.”
And there it was: the end of something that changed the world, and the start of the rest of Paul McCartney’s life. It is those 44, frequently remarkable, years that we’re focusing on in this latest edition of the Uncut Ultimate Music Guide, which you can order online right now (it arrives in UK shops on Friday, November 21). As is usual with our Ultimate Music Guides, we’ve located a bunch of key articles in the NME, Melody Maker and Uncut archives and, with extensive new reviews of every album, used them to trace the highs, lows and neglected margins of McCartney’s post-Beatles career.
There are frank reflections on life past and present, bantering encounters with Wings, a constant and fascinating narrative about how McCartney tries to reconcile being “Mr Normal” with being, well, Sir Paul McCartney. There’s also an epic interview from a 2004 issue of Uncut, in which McCartney, a shrewd media operator ever since the earliest days of The Beatles, talks with unprecedented candour about every phase of his career.
“I’ve put out an awful lot of records. Some of them I shouldn’t have put out, sure,” he admits in the piece. “I’d gladly accept that. There’s many different reasons for putting a record out. Sometimes I might just put one out because I’m bored and I’ve got nothing better to do. That happens.”
Few artists, in the post-war era, have had anything remotely close to the cultural impact of Paul McCartney. Nevertheless, his discography is surprisingly full of odd excursions and experiments, of great songs hidden away and half-forgotten. This Uncut Ultimate Guide is, we hope, a key to the treasures of Macca’s long, engrossing second act – like “Secret Friend”, for example, a “McCartney II”-era B-side which, as Jon Dale plausibly argues, is lost kin of Manuel Gottsching’s “E2 – E4″…
Inspired, I ended up searching online, in vain, for an instrumental mix of “Wonderful Christmastime”, to illustrate a point I was trying to make to everyone else at Uncut about the song being a neglected avant-garde masterpiece. Your similar theories about “We All Stand Together” would, of course, be appreciated…
"I just wanted to up the ante. And like an idiot I didn’t check myself," says singer...
John Lydon has revealed that he once spent £10,000 downloading apps for his iPad.
The frontman opened up about his financial affairs, including what it was like to begin earning large amounts of money in the 1970s and his time fronting the Country Life butter adverts, in a new interview with The Telegraph.
Admitting that he has an "easy come, easy go" attitude towards cash, Lydon revealed a recent extravagance that caused him some financial trouble. "I wasted – you’re the first to know this – 10,000 fucking pounds in the last two years on apps on my iPad. I got into Game Of Thrones, Game of War, Real Racing, and I just wanted to up the ante. And like an idiot I didn't check myself. I’ve been checked now. But there's a kid in me, see? A bit of my childhood was taken from me and I’m determined to bring it back."
Lydon's third autobiographical book, Anger Is An Energy: My Life Uncensored, is out now. Earlier this year, Lydon was called "a bumhole" by Russell Brand after he criticised the comedian's political ideals and described him as "arsehole number one".
“I just wanted to up the ante. And like an idiot I didn’t check myself,” says singer…
John Lydon has revealed that he once spent £10,000 downloading apps for his iPad.
The frontman opened up about his financial affairs, including what it was like to begin earning large amounts of money in the 1970s and his time fronting the Country Life butter adverts, in a new interview with The Telegraph.
Admitting that he has an “easy come, easy go” attitude towards cash, Lydon revealed a recent extravagance that caused him some financial trouble. “I wasted – you’re the first to know this – 10,000 fucking pounds in the last two years on apps on my iPad. I got into Game Of Thrones, Game of War, Real Racing, and I just wanted to up the ante. And like an idiot I didn’t check myself. I’ve been checked now. But there’s a kid in me, see? A bit of my childhood was taken from me and I’m determined to bring it back.”
Lydon’s third autobiographical book, Anger Is An Energy: My Life Uncensored, is out now. Earlier this year, Lydon was called “a bumhole” by Russell Brand after he criticised the comedian’s political ideals and described him as “arsehole number one”.
The singer also claims she 'had a fist fight' with Prince...
Sinead O'Connor has criticised U2's recent commercial partnership with Apple, which saw their latest album released for free via iTunes.
Songs Of Innocence was officially released on October 13, but was available for free via iTunes from September. The release was criticised heavily, with some deeming U2 as forcing their music on consumers as it appeared in users' music libraries automatically.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, the Irish singer said that the band had tried to "force [the album] on people who didn’t want it in the first place".
"What they did with iTunes, was a badly judged move," she added. "There was something almost terrorist about it. I’m really not a U2 fan but it wasn’t at all kosher invading people’s lives like that. It was bad management."
"Funny thing is the kid who devised the app that removed the U2 album from people’s computers. He made a fortune apparently."
Elsewhere in the interview, O'Connor revealed that the last time she met Prince, whose track "Nothing Compares 2 U" she famously covered, they "had a fist fight".
The singer also claims she ‘had a fist fight’ with Prince…
Sinead O’Connor has criticised U2’s recent commercial partnership with Apple, which saw their latest album released for free via iTunes.
Songs Of Innocence was officially released on October 13, but was available for free via iTunes from September. The release was criticised heavily, with some deeming U2 as forcing their music on consumers as it appeared in users’ music libraries automatically.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, the Irish singer said that the band had tried to “force [the album] on people who didn’t want it in the first place”.
“What they did with iTunes, was a badly judged move,” she added. “There was something almost terrorist about it. I’m really not a U2 fan but it wasn’t at all kosher invading people’s lives like that. It was bad management.”
“Funny thing is the kid who devised the app that removed the U2 album from people’s computers. He made a fortune apparently.”
Elsewhere in the interview, O’Connor revealed that the last time she met Prince, whose track “Nothing Compares 2 U” she famously covered, they “had a fist fight”.
Twang! Seven-disc box set brings Ryland’s other career into sharp focus...
1980 was an auspicious year for Ry Cooder. As he exited the '70s, Cooder had brought his considerable skills to bear on the blues, early jazz, R’n’B, Tex-Mex, country and calypso. But the new decade offered the opportunity to extend his range yet further: into film soundtracks, and the new set of creative disciplines they presented.
In fact, Cooder had already dabbled in films. In 1970, under the auspices of Jack Nitzsche, he had played bottleneck guitar on the Performance score. Meanwhile, in 1978, Jack Nicholson used some Cooder slide on Goin’ South; later that year, Cooder reunited with Nitzsche and another former collaborator, Captain Beefheart, on “Hard Working Man” for Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar. But in 1980, Cooder was approached by director Walter Hill to score his Western, The Long Riders. They subsequently worked together on another seven films across a 16-year period – five of which are included in this box set.
The score for The Long Riders found Cooder digging deep into traditional folk idioms. Assembling players he’d worked with previously on his solo albums – Jim Keltner, David Lindley and Jim Dickinson – alongside traditional players including Tom Sauber, Curt Boutese and Milt Holland, Cooder fashioned a historically authentic score. There are dulcimers, fiddles, banjos and Civil War-era songs. Indeed, much of Cooder’s work with Hill is predicated on this kind of approach, working to fit into the time and setting of the film.
After The Long Riders, Cooder’s ran two careers in parallel for much of the '80s. His work as a solo artist and the increasing volume of commissions he undertook for Hollywood meant that by the end of the decade he’d released 13 albums in total, ten of which were film scores. By the middle of the '80s, Cooder had begun to work with other directors apart from Hill. His score, Music For Alamo Bay (1985), accompanied Louis Malle’s drama about a returning Vietnam veteran. The “Theme From Alamo Bay” is one of Cooder’s most beautiful compositions, an elegant and haunting blend of traditional Japanese instruments, Cooder’s trademark slide and a wistful piano refrain from Van Dyke Parks. Elsewhere, Cooder augments the usual suspects (Keltner, Lindley, Dickinson) with John Hiatt, Chris Ethridge, Cesar Rosas and David Hildago for a polyrhythmic stew encompassing everything from barroom blues (“Gooks On Main Street”) to dusty ballads (“Too Close”) and more abstract tone pieces like “Klan Meeting”.
Tone pieces become an integral part of his masterpiece, Paris, Texas (1985). There are no songs to speak of (apart from Harry Dean Stanton’s melancholic “Cancion Mixteca”), just the stark twang and rattlesnake rustle of Cooder’s bottleneck slide. The “Paris, Texas” theme alone – based on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Is The Night”, which Cooder covered on his debut album – is incredibly evocative; a single string slide guitar turned to the desert, full of space and atmosphere. Initially, the album appears fragmentary – some of these pieces are under two minutes, many are avant-garde tones – but on closer inspection it’s possible to divine a more cohert strategy at work here. Throughout, Cooder revisits his Blind Willie Johnson motif, and viewed holistically, Paris, Texas is an experimental variation on a theme, looping round “Dark Is The Night”.
After such a milestone, the more conventional Blue City (1986) feels like a step back. The sound is very mid-'80s: slap bass and sythns mingle with steel drums on “Elevation 13 ft”. We much console ourselves with one highlight: the tender acoustic wash of “Billy And Annie”. Crossroads (1986) similarly suffers from '80s production values, and is perhaps Cooder’s least successful soundtrack. For Hill’s contemporary riff on the Robert Johnson story, Cooder’s score mixed fresh compositions with blues covers. As a solo artist, Cooder tended to privilege more obscure blues artists – but here, working with Sony Terry and Frank Frost, he comes closest to 12-bar blues, transforming JB Lenoir’s “Down In Mississippi” or folksong “Cotton Needs Pickin’” into rowdy roadhouse stompers. By contrast, Hill’s Johnny Handsome (1989), is a more ambitious affair, recorded with just Keltner and saxophonist Steve Douglas, with horn arrangements by Van Dyke Parks. Essentially, these are textured mood pieces like the keening “Fountain Walk” or the ambient wash of “I Like Your Eyes”.
By the time Cooder came to make Trespass (1993) for Hill, he had committed himself entirely to soundtrack work. He hadn’t released a solo album since Get Rhythm in 1987, and wouldn’t again until Chavez Ravine in 2005. Arguably, soundtracks gave Cooder greater freedom to experiment away from the more conventional requirements of a solo studio record. Trespass, recorded in cahoots with Keltner and trumpeter Jon Hassell, is among Cooder’s most potent, the closest he comes to experimental jazz. Hassell’s trumpet slithers round Cooder and Keltner’s electronically treated guitars and drums. The vibe is moody, dissonant. Cooder continued to record scores into the '90s and beyond, but with less frequency; his last soundtrack to date is My Blueberry Nights, for Wong Kar-Wai.
This set is a good primer for Cooder’s soundtrack work, although two of his best – the Bayou twang of Southern Comfort and the rich 19th century idioms of Geronimo: An American Legend – are sadly absent. Here’s hoping a Volume 2 will follow soon.
Michael Bonner
You can read our extensive interview with Ry Cooder here
Twang! Seven-disc box set brings Ryland’s other career into sharp focus…
1980 was an auspicious year for Ry Cooder. As he exited the ’70s, Cooder had brought his considerable skills to bear on the blues, early jazz, R’n’B, Tex-Mex, country and calypso. But the new decade offered the opportunity to extend his range yet further: into film soundtracks, and the new set of creative disciplines they presented.
In fact, Cooder had already dabbled in films. In 1970, under the auspices of Jack Nitzsche, he had played bottleneck guitar on the Performance score. Meanwhile, in 1978, Jack Nicholson used some Cooder slide on Goin’ South; later that year, Cooder reunited with Nitzsche and another former collaborator, Captain Beefheart, on “Hard Working Man” for Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar. But in 1980, Cooder was approached by director Walter Hill to score his Western, The Long Riders. They subsequently worked together on another seven films across a 16-year period – five of which are included in this box set.
The score for The Long Riders found Cooder digging deep into traditional folk idioms. Assembling players he’d worked with previously on his solo albums – Jim Keltner, David Lindley and Jim Dickinson – alongside traditional players including Tom Sauber, Curt Boutese and Milt Holland, Cooder fashioned a historically authentic score. There are dulcimers, fiddles, banjos and Civil War-era songs. Indeed, much of Cooder’s work with Hill is predicated on this kind of approach, working to fit into the time and setting of the film.
After The Long Riders, Cooder’s ran two careers in parallel for much of the ’80s. His work as a solo artist and the increasing volume of commissions he undertook for Hollywood meant that by the end of the decade he’d released 13 albums in total, ten of which were film scores. By the middle of the ’80s, Cooder had begun to work with other directors apart from Hill. His score, Music For Alamo Bay (1985), accompanied Louis Malle’s drama about a returning Vietnam veteran. The “Theme From Alamo Bay” is one of Cooder’s most beautiful compositions, an elegant and haunting blend of traditional Japanese instruments, Cooder’s trademark slide and a wistful piano refrain from Van Dyke Parks. Elsewhere, Cooder augments the usual suspects (Keltner, Lindley, Dickinson) with John Hiatt, Chris Ethridge, Cesar Rosas and David Hildago for a polyrhythmic stew encompassing everything from barroom blues (“Gooks On Main Street”) to dusty ballads (“Too Close”) and more abstract tone pieces like “Klan Meeting”.
Tone pieces become an integral part of his masterpiece, Paris, Texas (1985). There are no songs to speak of (apart from Harry Dean Stanton’s melancholic “Cancion Mixteca”), just the stark twang and rattlesnake rustle of Cooder’s bottleneck slide. The “Paris, Texas” theme alone – based on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Is The Night”, which Cooder covered on his debut album – is incredibly evocative; a single string slide guitar turned to the desert, full of space and atmosphere. Initially, the album appears fragmentary – some of these pieces are under two minutes, many are avant-garde tones – but on closer inspection it’s possible to divine a more cohert strategy at work here. Throughout, Cooder revisits his Blind Willie Johnson motif, and viewed holistically, Paris, Texas is an experimental variation on a theme, looping round “Dark Is The Night”.
After such a milestone, the more conventional Blue City (1986) feels like a step back. The sound is very mid-’80s: slap bass and sythns mingle with steel drums on “Elevation 13 ft”. We much console ourselves with one highlight: the tender acoustic wash of “Billy And Annie”. Crossroads (1986) similarly suffers from ’80s production values, and is perhaps Cooder’s least successful soundtrack. For Hill’s contemporary riff on the Robert Johnson story, Cooder’s score mixed fresh compositions with blues covers. As a solo artist, Cooder tended to privilege more obscure blues artists – but here, working with Sony Terry and Frank Frost, he comes closest to 12-bar blues, transforming JB Lenoir’s “Down In Mississippi” or folksong “Cotton Needs Pickin’” into rowdy roadhouse stompers. By contrast, Hill’s Johnny Handsome (1989), is a more ambitious affair, recorded with just Keltner and saxophonist Steve Douglas, with horn arrangements by Van Dyke Parks. Essentially, these are textured mood pieces like the keening “Fountain Walk” or the ambient wash of “I Like Your Eyes”.
By the time Cooder came to make Trespass (1993) for Hill, he had committed himself entirely to soundtrack work. He hadn’t released a solo album since Get Rhythm in 1987, and wouldn’t again until Chavez Ravine in 2005. Arguably, soundtracks gave Cooder greater freedom to experiment away from the more conventional requirements of a solo studio record. Trespass, recorded in cahoots with Keltner and trumpeter Jon Hassell, is among Cooder’s most potent, the closest he comes to experimental jazz. Hassell’s trumpet slithers round Cooder and Keltner’s electronically treated guitars and drums. The vibe is moody, dissonant. Cooder continued to record scores into the ’90s and beyond, but with less frequency; his last soundtrack to date is My Blueberry Nights, for Wong Kar-Wai.
This set is a good primer for Cooder’s soundtrack work, although two of his best – the Bayou twang of Southern Comfort and the rich 19th century idioms of Geronimo: An American Legend – are sadly absent. Here’s hoping a Volume 2 will follow soon.
Michael Bonner
You can read our extensive interview with Ry Cooder here
Paul Weller, Kaiser Chiefs and Johnny Marr will support on June 26 date...
The Who will perform at London's Hyde Park in June next year.
The band will play as part of next year's British Summer Time festival with the hedline set due to be the final performance of The Who's Who Hits 50 UK tour. Tickets are on general sale at 9am on Thursday (November 20).
Support on the day will come from Paul Weller, Kaiser Chiefs and Johnny Marr with more names set to be added to the bill in the coming months. June 26 will mark the fourth time that The Who have performed at Hyde Park in their five-decade career, three times as headliners and once during Live 8 in 2005.
Speaking about the gig, guitarist Pete Townshend said: "It’s a good gig. You draw from all over the country but a London crowd is always a good crowd. It's a Royal Park so thank you your majesty, you can’t play it without her permission"
The Who are the second headliner announced for Barclaycard presents British Summer Time Hyde Park 2015, with Taylor Swift set to play the festival one day later on June 27.
Later this year The Who will embark on their 50th anniversary tour. The nine-date tour will encompass songs dating back to the band's early years and has been described as "the beginning of the end" for the band. Starting at the end of this month, it features hits and songs which Townshend described as "hits, picks, mixes and misses".
The Who will play:
Glasgow SSE Hydro (November 30)
Leeds First Direct Arena (December 2)
Nottingham Capital FM Arena (5)
Birmingham NIA (7)
Newcastle Metro Arena (9)
Liverpool Echo Arena (11)
Manchester Phones 4u Arena (13)
Cardiff Motorpoint (15)
London O2 (17)
Paul Weller, Kaiser Chiefs and Johnny Marr will support on June 26 date…
The Who will perform at London’s Hyde Park in June next year.
The band will play as part of next year’s British Summer Time festival with the hedline set due to be the final performance of The Who’s Who Hits 50 UK tour. Tickets are on general sale at 9am on Thursday (November 20).
Support on the day will come from Paul Weller, Kaiser Chiefs and Johnny Marr with more names set to be added to the bill in the coming months. June 26 will mark the fourth time that The Who have performed at Hyde Park in their five-decade career, three times as headliners and once during Live 8 in 2005.
Speaking about the gig, guitarist Pete Townshend said: “It’s a good gig. You draw from all over the country but a London crowd is always a good crowd. It’s a Royal Park so thank you your majesty, you can’t play it without her permission”
The Who are the second headliner announced for Barclaycard presents British Summer Time Hyde Park 2015, with Taylor Swift set to play the festival one day later on June 27.
Later this year The Who will embark on their 50th anniversary tour. The nine-date tour will encompass songs dating back to the band’s early years and has been described as “the beginning of the end” for the band. Starting at the end of this month, it features hits and songs which Townshend described as “hits, picks, mixes and misses”.
Thunder thunder, lightning ahead! Now dark and even longer - a revolutionary album turns 20...
At the turn of the 1990s, Karl Hyde took a job in The City. His synth-rock group Underworld had been through two albums and three lineup changes in three years, and had got nowhere but dropped by the Sire label. It had been seven years since Hyde’s only brush with success, an electropop group called Freur whose “Doot-Doot” had got to Number 17- in New Zealand.
His partner in both Freur and Underworld, Rick Smith, was still beavering away in the home studio in Romford, Essex that the pair bought with advances, experimenting with techno, refusing to give in. But Hyde couldn’t pay the mortgage from playing guitar, and earning regular money felt good. Maybe some things just weren’t meant to be.
Then, stuff happened. Hyde was asked to work on an album project in Los Angeles. He would have to leave his job. Stupidly, wisely, he did. The project moved to Paisley Park, Minneapolis, and suddenly Hyde was hanging out with Prince. Then he got a phone call asking him to join Debbie Harry’s band as guitarist for a world tour that took in shows with Iggy Pop and at Wembley Stadium. Hyde was fulfilling childhood dreams but, while he did so, he continued to write lyrics every day, taking a notebook on journeys around Minnesota and New York and capturing everything that he saw, heard and felt, until he had notebooks full of lyrical collages; snatches of conversation, surreal takes on passers-by, inspired by his favourite recent album, New York by Lou Reed.
Hyde returned to Essex feeling vindicated and found that his old partner Smith had been working with a local 19-year-old DJ called Darren Emerson. Emerson had helped him strip the tired rock and pop clichés out of Underworld’s sound and make techno fit for discerning dancefloors. Hyde had a choice: give up music for cash and security, or take all this new impetus and have one last stab at making a great album. So Hyde waved goodbye to a promising career in financial services and the trio set about making a record that reset the boundaries of what dance music could do, and who it could reach. Good choice.
Time has been very kind to Dubnobasswithmyheadman, perhaps the only third album that everyone – including its makers – counts as a debut. Its nine tracks of slick, bass-heavy undulations are expertly arranged to rise and fall like high-speed train journeys, as futuristic as the best of Kraftwerk or The Human League. But they also find space for Hyde’s whispered, mumbled and hollered observations of chaos, both urban and personal, and of his unfettered horniness.
The opener, “Dark & Long”, sets the tone, not just for the arm-wrestle between bliss and discomfort of the rest of the album, but for Underworld - a dark, long career of dark, long songs. They could be about night-time loneliness, about filthy sex, or they could just be the last live banger as blackness envelopes the festival site.
But if the sleek, multi-dimensional techno tunes “Dark & Long”, “Mmm… Skyscraper I Love You”, “Cowgirl” and “Dirty Epic” were destined to become Underworld’s live anthems, it is the three slower, more contemplative tracks that reached out to non-dance fans and provided the in-vogue ‘chill-out’ moments. They reinforced the sense of dubnobasswithmyheadman as a perfectly conceived album, with dynamic highs and lows and a variety of complementary moods.
“Tongue” replaces BPM with dreamy guitar and birdsong, “River Of Bass” is slick white reggae, and eco-anthem “ME” (aka “Mother Earth”) is the album’s risky closer, tinkling Balearic pianos, shuffling baggy beats, and harmonies pulled straight off a late ‘80s Pet Shop Boys B-side. It works purely because it stands in such opposition to the pounding beats and urban danger that has gone before; the friendly pop calm after a storm of sinister late-night scenes.
The four discs of extras that comprise the full 5CD deluxe package will thrill completists, but perhaps blur the picture by prizing quantity over quality. Nevertheless, it’s fascinating to hear Underworld move from the dodgy funk-rock of 1992’s “The Hump” to the astonishing “Rez” in just a few short months. “Rez” is Underworld’s Eureka moment; an almost “Baba O’Reilly”-like synth oscillation, gradually, expanding into a sleek, undulating epic.
Previously unreleased work-in-progress versions of “Dark & Long” and “Mmm… Skyscraper…” are fascinating, too. Here, the trio – and Hyde in particular – are still feeling their way tentatively towards the definitive Underworld sound, struggling to connect words and melody lines with beats. “Can You Feel Me?” and “Birdstar” were pre-Dubno… rejects and it's easy to hear why, still rooted as they are in mid-Atlantic dance-rock, like INXS without the Stonesiness.
The seven tracks culled from a home studio rehearsal for 1993 Underworld live shows are more evidence of a confused band suddenly becoming a cutting-edge powerhouse, casually inventing stadium techno in a small room in Romford in front of a few friends and family.
But it’s the nine tracks that comprise the original Dubnobasswithmyheadman that you’ll return to again and again. On the still-stunning “Dirty Epic”, Hyde implores the listener to “Ride the sainted rhythms/On the midnight train to Romford” amidst multi-layered electronic noise so rich, deep and visceral that you want to believe that Romford is as evocative a destination as Georgia. Thankfully, for Underworld and us, Karl Hyde believed enough to choose it over L.A., Minneapolis or the filthy lucre of London’s square mile. Twenty years later, the results of that crazy belief still sound like dance music’s dirtiest epic.
Extras: Four discs and 32 tracks of contemporary singles and remixes, unreleased demos (including the tracks featured in an alternative version of Dubno… that Underworld posted online in 2008) and a live in-studio rehearsal from 1993. Comprehensive and sometimes interesting, but even the most committed Underworld nerd might struggle to love six long, long versions of “Mmm… Skyscraper I Love You”.
7/10
Garry Mulholland
Q&A
Karl Hyde
For many, Dubnobasswithmyheadman was the first post-acid house dance album that actually sounded like an album, as opposed to a collection of singles and filler. It therefore re-invented dance as a festival or stadium-friendly genre that rock and indie fans could understand. Do you agree?
“I do. Just after its release we played a Megadog all-nighter at Brixton Academy and I remember looking out into the audience and it was like oil and water. There were pockets of indie kids and larger areas of dance kids and they were all looking at each other as if to say: “What are you doing here? This is our band!” It was like standing on a bridge and watching two banks of a river coming together.”
Where did the title come from?
“It’s something that Rick had written on a DAT or cassette box that I misread. A Russell Hoban-ism.”
You and Rick Smith had been at it for 14 years before Dubno… finally brought you success, acclaim and critical respect. Had there been times when you’d both wanted to give up?
“Oh yeah. Around 1990-91 I got a job in The City because I couldn’t get any work in the music business. It was fantastic going to work and getting paid and writing lyrics in my lunch hour and the people I worked with were more interesting than most I’d met in the music industry. I wavered. But something said… just give it one more go.”
Is it true that you were working as a session musician at Paisley Park while Rick Smith and Darren Emerson were connecting back in Essex?
“Yeah. I spent about two months working on an artist’s album while Prince was putting together the New Power Generation. I met Prince a couple of times in the kitchen. Seemed like a nice guy. Miles Davis was in town, along with Sheila E, The J.B.’s and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. I saw one of Miles’ last shows, playing at Prince’s club Glam Slam. There are definitely recordings out there of Miles and Prince jamming. Then I played guitar on tour with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein. I got to play at Wembley Stadium and tour with Iggy Pop. I come from a football family and as I was rubbish at football it was the only way my Dad was ever gonna see me play at Wembley. It was really important for me because I hadn’t 100% committed to dance culture and I needed to get something out of my system, do things that I’d dreamed of as a kid. Then I could put a line through that and say, ‘Right – now what are we doing?’”
What did Darren Emerson bring to Underworld?
“His youthful attitude. Encouragement when I felt discouraged in myself. For example, I wanted to sell my guitars. I was fed up with people blasting away over a dance beat. But it was Darren, who was a Beatles fan as well as a 19-year-old DJ on the house scene, who said, ‘No, you’re wrong. It sounds Balearic.’ It was useful to have a barometer of what worked on the scene to check things with. And I loved his devil-may-care enthusiasm. I’d spent ten years trying to look right in front of a camera and mimic people who were successful. Darren just didn’t give a fuck.”
It now feels like an album about sleazy sex in London, Essex and New York. Is it?
“Ha! Those words were scraped off the streets. It was my job to be a gatherer of real experiences we could use. On previous records I’d been fairly vacuous, so this time around I had to bring something real to the party. So while Rick was working his butt off in the studio I was out in the street having some fairly dangerous experiences because I felt that was important… to go as far as it needed to match a high calibre of music. It had to be autobiographical. And it couldn’t be nice.”
Are your logic-defying lyrics stream-of-consciousness?
“They are logical if I pointed out to you where every lyric comes from. They are mapped journeys. They start at a point in a city and I go to another point and I document the things I see, hear, smell, interjected with things they evoke in me. “Dark And Long” was written in Minnesota on the prairies, with thunderheads coming in. “Mmm Skyscaper I Love You” was walking the midnight streets in Greenwich Village when I was working with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein. I was very much inspired by Lou Reed’s New York album. I imagined him sitting in cafes and bars and eavesdropping conversations and singing conversational American and I thought, ‘I’m gonna sing conversational English.’”
So how do you feel about Dubnobasswithmyheadman now?
“It’s my favourite of the Underworld series. It’s such a magic sound.”
INTERVIEW: GARRY MULHOLLAND
Thunder thunder, lightning ahead! Now dark and even longer – a revolutionary album turns 20…
At the turn of the 1990s, Karl Hyde took a job in The City. His synth-rock group Underworld had been through two albums and three lineup changes in three years, and had got nowhere but dropped by the Sire label. It had been seven years since Hyde’s only brush with success, an electropop group called Freur whose “Doot-Doot” had got to Number 17- in New Zealand.
His partner in both Freur and Underworld, Rick Smith, was still beavering away in the home studio in Romford, Essex that the pair bought with advances, experimenting with techno, refusing to give in. But Hyde couldn’t pay the mortgage from playing guitar, and earning regular money felt good. Maybe some things just weren’t meant to be.
Then, stuff happened. Hyde was asked to work on an album project in Los Angeles. He would have to leave his job. Stupidly, wisely, he did. The project moved to Paisley Park, Minneapolis, and suddenly Hyde was hanging out with Prince. Then he got a phone call asking him to join Debbie Harry’s band as guitarist for a world tour that took in shows with Iggy Pop and at Wembley Stadium. Hyde was fulfilling childhood dreams but, while he did so, he continued to write lyrics every day, taking a notebook on journeys around Minnesota and New York and capturing everything that he saw, heard and felt, until he had notebooks full of lyrical collages; snatches of conversation, surreal takes on passers-by, inspired by his favourite recent album, New York by Lou Reed.
Hyde returned to Essex feeling vindicated and found that his old partner Smith had been working with a local 19-year-old DJ called Darren Emerson. Emerson had helped him strip the tired rock and pop clichés out of Underworld’s sound and make techno fit for discerning dancefloors. Hyde had a choice: give up music for cash and security, or take all this new impetus and have one last stab at making a great album. So Hyde waved goodbye to a promising career in financial services and the trio set about making a record that reset the boundaries of what dance music could do, and who it could reach. Good choice.
Time has been very kind to Dubnobasswithmyheadman, perhaps the only third album that everyone – including its makers – counts as a debut. Its nine tracks of slick, bass-heavy undulations are expertly arranged to rise and fall like high-speed train journeys, as futuristic as the best of Kraftwerk or The Human League. But they also find space for Hyde’s whispered, mumbled and hollered observations of chaos, both urban and personal, and of his unfettered horniness.
The opener, “Dark & Long”, sets the tone, not just for the arm-wrestle between bliss and discomfort of the rest of the album, but for Underworld – a dark, long career of dark, long songs. They could be about night-time loneliness, about filthy sex, or they could just be the last live banger as blackness envelopes the festival site.
But if the sleek, multi-dimensional techno tunes “Dark & Long”, “Mmm… Skyscraper I Love You”, “Cowgirl” and “Dirty Epic” were destined to become Underworld’s live anthems, it is the three slower, more contemplative tracks that reached out to non-dance fans and provided the in-vogue ‘chill-out’ moments. They reinforced the sense of dubnobasswithmyheadman as a perfectly conceived album, with dynamic highs and lows and a variety of complementary moods.
“Tongue” replaces BPM with dreamy guitar and birdsong, “River Of Bass” is slick white reggae, and eco-anthem “ME” (aka “Mother Earth”) is the album’s risky closer, tinkling Balearic pianos, shuffling baggy beats, and harmonies pulled straight off a late ‘80s Pet Shop Boys B-side. It works purely because it stands in such opposition to the pounding beats and urban danger that has gone before; the friendly pop calm after a storm of sinister late-night scenes.
The four discs of extras that comprise the full 5CD deluxe package will thrill completists, but perhaps blur the picture by prizing quantity over quality. Nevertheless, it’s fascinating to hear Underworld move from the dodgy funk-rock of 1992’s “The Hump” to the astonishing “Rez” in just a few short months. “Rez” is Underworld’s Eureka moment; an almost “Baba O’Reilly”-like synth oscillation, gradually, expanding into a sleek, undulating epic.
Previously unreleased work-in-progress versions of “Dark & Long” and “Mmm… Skyscraper…” are fascinating, too. Here, the trio – and Hyde in particular – are still feeling their way tentatively towards the definitive Underworld sound, struggling to connect words and melody lines with beats. “Can You Feel Me?” and “Birdstar” were pre-Dubno… rejects and it’s easy to hear why, still rooted as they are in mid-Atlantic dance-rock, like INXS without the Stonesiness.
The seven tracks culled from a home studio rehearsal for 1993 Underworld live shows are more evidence of a confused band suddenly becoming a cutting-edge powerhouse, casually inventing stadium techno in a small room in Romford in front of a few friends and family.
But it’s the nine tracks that comprise the original Dubnobasswithmyheadman that you’ll return to again and again. On the still-stunning “Dirty Epic”, Hyde implores the listener to “Ride the sainted rhythms/On the midnight train to Romford” amidst multi-layered electronic noise so rich, deep and visceral that you want to believe that Romford is as evocative a destination as Georgia. Thankfully, for Underworld and us, Karl Hyde believed enough to choose it over L.A., Minneapolis or the filthy lucre of London’s square mile. Twenty years later, the results of that crazy belief still sound like dance music’s dirtiest epic.
Extras: Four discs and 32 tracks of contemporary singles and remixes, unreleased demos (including the tracks featured in an alternative version of Dubno… that Underworld posted online in 2008) and a live in-studio rehearsal from 1993. Comprehensive and sometimes interesting, but even the most committed Underworld nerd might struggle to love six long, long versions of “Mmm… Skyscraper I Love You”.
7/10
Garry Mulholland
Q&A
Karl Hyde
For many, Dubnobasswithmyheadman was the first post-acid house dance album that actually sounded like an album, as opposed to a collection of singles and filler. It therefore re-invented dance as a festival or stadium-friendly genre that rock and indie fans could understand. Do you agree?
“I do. Just after its release we played a Megadog all-nighter at Brixton Academy and I remember looking out into the audience and it was like oil and water. There were pockets of indie kids and larger areas of dance kids and they were all looking at each other as if to say: “What are you doing here? This is our band!” It was like standing on a bridge and watching two banks of a river coming together.”
Where did the title come from?
“It’s something that Rick had written on a DAT or cassette box that I misread. A Russell Hoban-ism.”
You and Rick Smith had been at it for 14 years before Dubno… finally brought you success, acclaim and critical respect. Had there been times when you’d both wanted to give up?
“Oh yeah. Around 1990-91 I got a job in The City because I couldn’t get any work in the music business. It was fantastic going to work and getting paid and writing lyrics in my lunch hour and the people I worked with were more interesting than most I’d met in the music industry. I wavered. But something said… just give it one more go.”
Is it true that you were working as a session musician at Paisley Park while Rick Smith and Darren Emerson were connecting back in Essex?
“Yeah. I spent about two months working on an artist’s album while Prince was putting together the New Power Generation. I met Prince a couple of times in the kitchen. Seemed like a nice guy. Miles Davis was in town, along with Sheila E, The J.B.’s and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. I saw one of Miles’ last shows, playing at Prince’s club Glam Slam. There are definitely recordings out there of Miles and Prince jamming. Then I played guitar on tour with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein. I got to play at Wembley Stadium and tour with Iggy Pop. I come from a football family and as I was rubbish at football it was the only way my Dad was ever gonna see me play at Wembley. It was really important for me because I hadn’t 100% committed to dance culture and I needed to get something out of my system, do things that I’d dreamed of as a kid. Then I could put a line through that and say, ‘Right – now what are we doing?’”
What did Darren Emerson bring to Underworld?
“His youthful attitude. Encouragement when I felt discouraged in myself. For example, I wanted to sell my guitars. I was fed up with people blasting away over a dance beat. But it was Darren, who was a Beatles fan as well as a 19-year-old DJ on the house scene, who said, ‘No, you’re wrong. It sounds Balearic.’ It was useful to have a barometer of what worked on the scene to check things with. And I loved his devil-may-care enthusiasm. I’d spent ten years trying to look right in front of a camera and mimic people who were successful. Darren just didn’t give a fuck.”
It now feels like an album about sleazy sex in London, Essex and New York. Is it?
“Ha! Those words were scraped off the streets. It was my job to be a gatherer of real experiences we could use. On previous records I’d been fairly vacuous, so this time around I had to bring something real to the party. So while Rick was working his butt off in the studio I was out in the street having some fairly dangerous experiences because I felt that was important… to go as far as it needed to match a high calibre of music. It had to be autobiographical. And it couldn’t be nice.”
Are your logic-defying lyrics stream-of-consciousness?
“They are logical if I pointed out to you where every lyric comes from. They are mapped journeys. They start at a point in a city and I go to another point and I document the things I see, hear, smell, interjected with things they evoke in me. “Dark And Long” was written in Minnesota on the prairies, with thunderheads coming in. “Mmm Skyscaper I Love You” was walking the midnight streets in Greenwich Village when I was working with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein. I was very much inspired by Lou Reed’s New York album. I imagined him sitting in cafes and bars and eavesdropping conversations and singing conversational American and I thought, ‘I’m gonna sing conversational English.’”
So how do you feel about Dubnobasswithmyheadman now?
“It’s my favourite of the Underworld series. It’s such a magic sound.”
Plus De La Soul and more...
Damon Albarn welcomed a host of guests onstage at his two shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall over the weekend [November 15, 16].
They included his Blur bandmate Graham Coxon, Gorillaz collaborators De La Soul and Kano, Heavy Seas collaborator Brian Eno and Malian musicians Afel Bocoum and Madou Diabate.
Albarn and Coxon played three Blur songs - "End Of The Century", b-side "The Man Who Left Himself" - its live debut - and "Tender".
He also played two tracks from 2002’s Mali Music album with Afel Bocoum and Madou Diabate: "Bamako City" and "Sunset Coming On".
During the second encore, De La Soul were introduced to perform Gorillaz track "Feel Good Inc"; London rapper Kano then joined the group for another Gorillaz song, "Clint Eastwood".
The 130 minute set concluded with "Heavy Seas", which saw the show’s ensemble cast (minus Coxon) return to the stage with Brian Eno, who sang the verses.
Damon Albarn played:
Spitting Out the Demons
Lonely Press Play
Everyday Robots
Tomorrow Comes Today
Slow Country
Kids With Guns
Three Changes
Bamako City
Sunset Coming On
Hostiles
Photographs (You Are Taking Now)
Kingdom of Doom
You And Me
Hollow Ponds
El Mañana
Don't Get Lost In Heaven
Out of Time
All Your Life
Encore:
End Of A Century (with Graham Coxon)
The Man Who Left Himself (with Graham Coxon)
Tender (with Graham Coxon)
Encore 2:
Mr. Tembo
Clint Eastwood (with Kano)
Feel Good Inc. (with De La Soul)
Heavy Seas Of Love (with Brian Eno)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTzS2JFZO_0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da5k1CLGza0
Plus De La Soul and more…
Damon Albarn welcomed a host of guests onstage at his two shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall over the weekend [November 15, 16].
They included his Blur bandmate Graham Coxon, Gorillaz collaborators De La Soul and Kano, Heavy Seas collaborator Brian Eno and Malian musicians Afel Bocoum and Madou Diabate.
Albarn and Coxon played three Blur songs – “End Of The Century”, b-side “The Man Who Left Himself” – its live debut – and “Tender”.
He also played two tracks from 2002’s Mali Music album with Afel Bocoum and Madou Diabate: “Bamako City” and “Sunset Coming On”.
During the second encore, De La Soul were introduced to perform Gorillaz track “Feel Good Inc”; London rapper Kano then joined the group for another Gorillaz song, “Clint Eastwood”.
The 130 minute set concluded with “Heavy Seas“, which saw the show’s ensemble cast (minus Coxon) return to the stage with Brian Eno, who sang the verses.
Singer-songwriter angered by company's decision to align with genetically modified food company...
Neil Young is boycotting Starbucks in response to the coffeehouse chain's decision to ally with agrochemical company Monsanto in a lawsuit against the state of Vermont.
As pointed out by the Genetic Literacy Project, and reported by Stereogum, a law was passed in Vermont earlier this year that requires food producers to label all food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by July 2016, apart from dairy products, meat, alcohol and food served in restaurants. Monsanto are among the companies fighting the new regulation.
In a statement posted via his official website, Young urged fans to stay away from Starbucks until it cuts ties with the firm. "Monsanto might not care what we think – but as a public-facing company, Starbucks does," he wrote. "If we can generate enough attention, we can push Starbucks to withdraw its support for the lawsuit, and then pressure other companies to do the same."
Young added, "Vermont is a small, entirely rural state with just 600,000 people. It's a classic David and Goliath fight between Vermont and Monsanto. Considering that Starbucks has been progressive on LGBT and labour issues in the past, it's disappointing that it is working with the biggest villain of them all, Monsanto."
You can watch a world exclusive video of Young performing a new song "Like You Used To Do" live in the studio here
Singer-songwriter angered by company’s decision to align with genetically modified food company…
Neil Young is boycotting Starbucks in response to the coffeehouse chain’s decision to ally with agrochemical company Monsanto in a lawsuit against the state of Vermont.
As pointed out by the Genetic Literacy Project, and reported by Stereogum, a law was passed in Vermont earlier this year that requires food producers to label all food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by July 2016, apart from dairy products, meat, alcohol and food served in restaurants. Monsanto are among the companies fighting the new regulation.
In a statement posted via his official website, Young urged fans to stay away from Starbucks until it cuts ties with the firm. “Monsanto might not care what we think – but as a public-facing company, Starbucks does,” he wrote. “If we can generate enough attention, we can push Starbucks to withdraw its support for the lawsuit, and then pressure other companies to do the same.”
Young added, “Vermont is a small, entirely rural state with just 600,000 people. It’s a classic David and Goliath fight between Vermont and Monsanto. Considering that Starbucks has been progressive on LGBT and labour issues in the past, it’s disappointing that it is working with the biggest villain of them all, Monsanto.”
You can watch a world exclusive video of Young performing a new song “Like You Used To Do” live in the studio here
Song taken off Bowie's upcoming compilation album Nothing Has Changed...
David Bowie has premiered the music video for "Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)", one of two new songs included in his upcoming career-spanning compilation album, Nothing Has Changed.
Filmed in New York and London and directed by Tim Hingston and Jimmy King, the video features images of Bowie and lyrics from the song projected onto the walls of abandoned subway tunnels.
The song, which is due to be released on 10-inch vinyl and digital download on November 17, was recorded during the summer in New York with producer Tony Visconti and the Maria Schneider Orchestra. Earlier this month, Bowie revealed its B-side track, "Tis A Pity She Was A Whore".
Nothing Has Changed, also out on November 17, is the first definitive collection of Bowie's music from 1964 to 2014.
The tracklist for the 3CD edition of Nothing Has Changed is:
CD 1:
'Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)'
'Where Are We Now?'
'Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy for the DFA Edit)'
'The Stars (Are Out Tonight)'
'New Killer Star (Radio Edit)'
'Everyone Says ‘Hi’ (Edit)'
'Slow Burn (Radio Edit)'
'Let Me Sleep Beside You'
'Your Turn To Drive'
'Shadow Man'
'Seven (Marius De Vries Mix)'
'Survive (Marius De Vries Mix)'
'Thursday’s Child (Radio Edit)'
'I'm Afraid Of Americans (V1) (Clean Edit)'
'Little Wonder (Edit)'
'Hallo Spaceboy (PSB Remix)’ (with Pet Shop Boys)
'The Heart’s Filthy Lesson (Radio Edit)'
'Strangers When We Meet (Single Version)'
CD 2:
'Buddha Of Suburbia'
'Jump They Say (Radio Edit)'
'Time Will Crawl (MM Remix)'
'Absolute Beginners (Single Version)’
'Dancing In The Street' (with Mick Jagger)
'Loving The Alien (Single Remix)'
'This Is Not America' (with Pat Metheny Group)
'Blue Jean'
'Modern Love (Single Version)'
'China Girl (Single Version)'
'Let's Dance (Single Version)'
'Fashion (Single Version)'
'Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (Single Version)'
'Ashes To Ashes (Single Version)'
'Under Pressure’ (with Queen)
'Boys Keep Swinging'
'“Heroes” (Single Version)’
'Sound And Vision'
'Golden Years (Single Version)'
'Wild Is The Wind (2010 Harry Maslin Mix)'
CD 3:
'Fame'
'Young Americans (2007 Tony Visconti Mix Single Edit)'
'Diamond Dogs'
'Rebel Rebel'
'Sorrow'
'Drive-In Saturday'
'All The Young Dudes'
'The Jean Genie (Original Single Mix)'
'Moonage Daydream'
'Ziggy Stardust'
'Starman (Original Single Mix)'
'Life On Mars? (2003 Ken Scott Mix)'
'Oh! You Pretty Things'
'Changes'
'The Man Who Sold The World'
'Space Oddity'
'In The Heat Of The Morning'
'Silly Boy Blue'
'Can’t Help Thinking About Me'
'You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving'
'Liza Jane' David Bowie - Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) on MUZU.TV
Song taken off Bowie’s upcoming compilation album Nothing Has Changed…
David Bowie has premiered the music video for “Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)“, one of two new songs included in his upcoming career-spanning compilation album, Nothing Has Changed.
Filmed in New York and London and directed by Tim Hingston and Jimmy King, the video features images of Bowie and lyrics from the song projected onto the walls of abandoned subway tunnels.
The song, which is due to be released on 10-inch vinyl and digital download on November 17, was recorded during the summer in New York with producer Tony Visconti and the Maria Schneider Orchestra. Earlier this month, Bowie revealed its B-side track, “Tis A Pity She Was A Whore“.
Nothing Has Changed, also out on November 17, is the first definitive collection of Bowie’s music from 1964 to 2014.
The tracklist for the 3CD edition of Nothing Has Changed is:
CD 1:
‘Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)’
‘Where Are We Now?’
‘Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy for the DFA Edit)’
‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’
‘New Killer Star (Radio Edit)’
‘Everyone Says ‘Hi’ (Edit)’
‘Slow Burn (Radio Edit)’
‘Let Me Sleep Beside You’
‘Your Turn To Drive’
‘Shadow Man’
‘Seven (Marius De Vries Mix)’
‘Survive (Marius De Vries Mix)’
‘Thursday’s Child (Radio Edit)’
‘I’m Afraid Of Americans (V1) (Clean Edit)’
‘Little Wonder (Edit)’
‘Hallo Spaceboy (PSB Remix)’ (with Pet Shop Boys)
‘The Heart’s Filthy Lesson (Radio Edit)’
‘Strangers When We Meet (Single Version)’
CD 2:
‘Buddha Of Suburbia’
‘Jump They Say (Radio Edit)’
‘Time Will Crawl (MM Remix)’
‘Absolute Beginners (Single Version)’
‘Dancing In The Street’ (with Mick Jagger)
‘Loving The Alien (Single Remix)’
‘This Is Not America’ (with Pat Metheny Group)
‘Blue Jean’
‘Modern Love (Single Version)’
‘China Girl (Single Version)’
‘Let’s Dance (Single Version)’
‘Fashion (Single Version)’
‘Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (Single Version)’
‘Ashes To Ashes (Single Version)’
‘Under Pressure’ (with Queen)
‘Boys Keep Swinging’
‘“Heroes” (Single Version)’
‘Sound And Vision’
‘Golden Years (Single Version)’
‘Wild Is The Wind (2010 Harry Maslin Mix)’
CD 3:
‘Fame’
‘Young Americans (2007 Tony Visconti Mix Single Edit)’
One of Keith Moon's earliest drum kits is due to be auctioned....
Keith Moon's 1964 Ludwig Super Classic is part of a memorabilia sale to be held at Bonhams Knightsbridge on December 10.
Moon first used the kit in 1964 while in the High Numbers. The last known date of use was May 23, 1965, for The Who's recorded appearance on ABC TV's show, Thank Your Lucky Stars.
The kit carries an estimated price of £15,000 - 20,000.
Other items in the auction include a black cotton biker jacket with multi zip detail, worn by Joe Strummer between 1977 and 1979, which is estimated at £4,000 - 6,000.
A number of items including clothing, records, tapes, and test pressings belonging to Ginger Baker will also be auctioned, among them the prop aircraft model used on the cover of the 1969 album Blind Faith, which is estimated at £6,000 - 8,000. The wooden aircraft finished in high gloss silver lacquer was designed and made specifically for the Blind Faith album shoot, and has been kept by the Baker family since.
One of Keith Moon’s earliest drum kits is due to be auctioned….
Keith Moon‘s 1964 Ludwig Super Classic is part of a memorabilia sale to be held at Bonhams Knightsbridge on December 10.
Moon first used the kit in 1964 while in the High Numbers. The last known date of use was May 23, 1965, for The Who’s recorded appearance on ABC TV’s show, Thank Your Lucky Stars.
The kit carries an estimated price of £15,000 – 20,000.
Other items in the auction include a black cotton biker jacket with multi zip detail, worn by Joe Strummer between 1977 and 1979, which is estimated at £4,000 – 6,000.
A number of items including clothing, records, tapes, and test pressings belonging to Ginger Baker will also be auctioned, among them the prop aircraft model used on the cover of the 1969 album Blind Faith, which is estimated at £6,000 – 8,000. The wooden aircraft finished in high gloss silver lacquer was designed and made specifically for the Blind Faith album shoot, and has been kept by the Baker family since.
They will play a run of shows in February to celebrate the album's 30th anniversary...
The Jesus And Mary Chain have announced further dates in which they will play Psychocandy in full, following gigs later this month.
The band will play 10 shows across the UK in February of next year, starting at Liverpool Guild of Students on February 16, visiting Leeds, Nottingham, Newcastle, Brighton and more, before finishing up on February 27 at Cardiff Uni. Tickets for the new tour go on sale at 9am on November 14.
The band will first play a run of Psychocandy dates this month, in anticipation of the album's 30th anniversary, with shows in London, Manchester and Glasgow.
You can read our exclusive interviews with William and Jim Reid in the current issue of Uncut
The Jesus And Mary Chain will play:
London Troxy (November 19)
Manchester Academy (20)
Glasgow Barrowlands (21)
Glasgow Barrowlands (23)
London Troxy (24)
Liverpool Guild of Students (February 16, 2015)
Leeds O2 Academy (17)
Newcastle O2 Academy (18)
Edinburgh Corn Exchange (19)
Norwich UEA (21)
Nottingham Rock City (22)
Brighton Dome (23)
Birmingham The Institute (25)
Bristol O2 Academy (26)
Cardiff Uni The Great Hall (27)
They will play a run of shows in February to celebrate the album’s 30th anniversary…
The Jesus And Mary Chain have announced further dates in which they will play Psychocandy in full, following gigs later this month.
The band will play 10 shows across the UK in February of next year, starting at Liverpool Guild of Students on February 16, visiting Leeds, Nottingham, Newcastle, Brighton and more, before finishing up on February 27 at Cardiff Uni. Tickets for the new tour go on sale at 9am on November 14.
The band will first play a run of Psychocandy dates this month, in anticipation of the album’s 30th anniversary, with shows in London, Manchester and Glasgow.
You can read our exclusive interviews with William and Jim Reid in the current issue of Uncut
As a new boxset chronicles Genesis’ whole career, Uncut travels to New York to try and make sense of the group’s shifting identity in the new issue, dated December 2014 and out now.
Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks and more provide the inside story on the band’s tangled history, while Collins rules out any future career-spanning reunion.
“There’s this incessant desire for it to happen,” Collins acknowledges. “But I often think, ‘Have people thought it through?’ It’s not as if you’re going to get Peter [Gabriel] as singer, me as drummer.
“I can’t play any more, so it’s never going to happen. But even if it could, you’re not going to get Peter singing ‘I Can’t Dance’ or ‘Invisible Touch’ or ‘Mama’.”
The new issue of Uncut is out now.
As a new boxset chronicles Genesis’ whole career, Uncut travels to New York to try and make sense of the group’s shifting identity in the new issue, dated December 2014 and out now.
Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks and more provide the inside story on the band’s tangled history, while Collins rules out any future career-spanning reunion.
“There’s this incessant desire for it to happen,” Collins acknowledges. “But I often think, ‘Have people thought it through?’ It’s not as if you’re going to get Peter [Gabriel] as singer, me as drummer.
“I can’t play any more, so it’s never going to happen. But even if it could, you’re not going to get Peter singing ‘I Can’t Dance’ or ‘Invisible Touch’ or ‘Mama’.”
Britain’s most elegant man releases his new album, Avonmore, on November 17 – in this piece from the Uncut archives (January 2013, Take 188), Bryan Ferry discusses impending Roxy Music boxsets, his missing Antony Price suits and his never-ending energy: “I think I’ll go on ’til I drop!” ...
Britain’s most elegant man releases his new album, Avonmore, on November 17 – in this piece from the Uncut archives (January 2013, Take 188), Bryan Ferry discusses impending Roxy Music boxsets, his missing Antony Price suits and his never-ending energy: “I think I’ll go on ’til I drop!” Interview: Michael Bonner
________________
Bryan Ferry’s studio is located in a small west London mews. Inside the foyer, a stack of framed photos of Kate Moss from the cover of Ferry’s 2010 LP Olympia lean against a wall. A row of Warhol Marilyn prints hang above stairs that head down to the studio. To the left, a door opens onto a spacious office-cum-lounge, split into alcoves by bulging bookcases. We meet Ferry sitting on an elegantly upholstered sofa, wearing a dark blue corduroy jacket, an Oxford blue shirt, dark trousers, polished tan shoes and a thick scarf looped round his neck. At 67, he has a patrician air, like a senior arts critic on a broadsheet, perhaps. He’s about to release his 14th solo LP, The Jazz Age, which reinterprets songs from his back catalogue in the style of the ’20s. And now he fields your questions, with topics ranging from the aborted Roxy reunion album to memories of growing up in the North East. “I had nothing,” he says. “My parents had zip!”
________________
You started out as an art student, very serious about painting. Is there any similarity in your approach to writing songs?
Johnny Marr
Yeah, I’ve always liked to try to create pictures with songs. I see them in textures and moods. Sometimes there’s a story, too. It’s very, very similar. If you’re dealing with something intangible like sounds rather than something you can touch, it can drive you mad, trying to structure all these sounds, but when it works it can be fascinating. But the great difference between being a painter and musician is that you make music with a whole bunch of people. I find it more interesting to share it with other people than be on my own.
There’s talk of a boxset of the first Roxy album coming out. What can we expect from that and will you be following it up with other boxsets of the rest of the Roxy Music catalogue?
Chris Harper, Croydon
We’re doing boxsets of the first two albums. They’ll have deluxe vinyl, and lots of bits and pieces that relate to the records. But that hasn’t been designed yet. We’ve just finished the boxset of the Roxy catalogue and various bits and pieces were on the final disc, like B-sides. People really enjoyed that. I think it was quite a limited edition. They should reissue it. It’s a good doorstop. Or headrest. Or Chinese block. There’ll be loads of extras in the Roxy boxsets.
You struggled with writer’s block, but managed to get two albums of material with Dave Stewart. Would you consider other longterm collaborators, or do you prefer to write alone?
Bryan O’Connor
Traditionally, I’ve always written alone. Until in Roxy, Andy [Mackay] and Phil [Manzanera] started bringing ideas to the table, and I’d say, “Oh yeah, I can work with that.” So that’s how I started collaborating. But I would write the tune and the words and the title and they would generally provide the basic chord sequence. Then I’d try and do what I could do to turn it into something that was unique. We did some good collaborations, especially with Andy. “Song For Europe”, “Love Is The Drug” stand out. Dave Stewart would come up with a riff and I’d take it away and work for three years on it and turn it into something. Dave is great. He probably writes a song a day. I wish I could find a lyric writer. If I had, I’d have written twice as many albums. I don’t really know anyone who writes lyrics that I like, apart from Bob Dylan.
Would you like to finish the LP we started in 2006?
Andy Mackay
Not sure. Was there quite a lot of work done on it? Not really. I didn’t get excited about it at the time. I tried to, but then I ran out of enthusiasm for it. The big tour we did in 2001 was one of the best tours I’ve played on. We hadn’t played for 18 years, and you felt this wonderful excitement every night. We did a lot of shows, but taking it into the studio is a different thing. A lot of the onus is on me. Over the years, I got so used to making what we call solo albums – but they’re not really solo albums, they’re where I choose who plays on what, and I wanted to do that again. So the songs I had kicking around then I ended up using – certainly “Reason Or Rhyme” – on Olympia. My heart wasn’t in it, and it was pointless doing it. If one of the guys in Roxy came to me with a fabulous tune, then I might change my mind.
Whatever happened to your Antony Price suits?
Martyn, Kingston upon Hull
Most of them I still have. A couple of things disappeared. One turned up at auction a couple of years ago. It was the one from the first Roxy album cover. Antony was a huge part of getting Roxy together and making it what it was. I still see him socially, but we don’t work together much. He came down when we did the Olympia cover shoot. I just wanted him around. He’s so funny, he said, “Oh you don’t need me here,” while there’s 20 assistants running round. It was this huge production, and we were used to doing things just him and me, and one other person. We didn’t know who to take in the pictures, we were all taking turns behind the camera, doing those album covers.
A few years ago, you recorded a version of the old Durham folk tale, “The Lambton Worm”, for a tiny North East-based label. You still did the accent very well. Do you still have an inner Geordie?
Alan, Newcastle
Of course, yeah. My uncle Brian still helps me at home. He’s in his ’80s now. I’m sure I sound much more Northern when I’m with him, or with Paul Thompson. “Aye, Paul, how’s it doin’, like?”, “Aye, canny, man.” It’s more about grunting when I do the accent. I’m very proud of coming from the North, but I don’t think people up there think of me as a Northerner, which is a shame. But I go back… my parents are buried there, and I’ll be playing there next year so I shall go and visit my mam and dad. People think that you reject your working-class roots, but it’s not that. Although I might not appear so, I always wanted to be a free spirit and create my own life. I have quite a controlling instinct, which is why sometimes being in a band isn’t the best place for me. I tried when I was at school and university to become the best person I could be. But that meant getting away from the North and being in London or wherever.
You seem to have a never-ending amount of energy and drive. Will you ever stop touring/recording or go on ’til you drop?
Paul Thompson
I think go on ’til I drop. I’m planning to go out next year on tour. Will I be touring the jazz album? We’re trying to devise a tour where we’ll include some of that, otherwise it’ll be instrumental and I’ll be sitting in the wings with a cigar like Diaghilev. We just did a photo session the other day with the jazz band. They don’t need electricity, so they just started playing their instruments. It sounded incredible and people were dancing around. But, yes, there’s the idea of the rock star embracing old age. It never seems unusual to me, because jazz players and blues singers always had long careers. Same with artists like Picasso, who went on doing really interesting work until they were very old.
What do you remember about the music scene in Newcastle when you were young?
Paul Parker, Dulwich
I used to go to The New Orleans Jazz Club. They had a great be-bop band who played there with a great trumpeter called John Walters. He later became John Peel’s producer at the BBC and he was also a graduate from Newcastle University’s Fine Art Department where I’d been – he was an abstract painter. They had a sax player called Nigel Stanger, who later played on one of my things. Great characters. I sat there as a schoolboy, nursing a small glass of beer all night hoping they wouldn’t chuck me out. Eric Burdon would get up and sing blues songs and it was fantastic. There was a great venue that I played at myself with my college band called the Club A Go Go. I spent half my life in the Club A Go Go when I was a student. You heard all the best records there, all the Motown things, Stax, it was a really cool place. Beautiful girls, cool guys, great bands. Captain Beefheart played there one night. Wilson Pickett. The young Spencer Davis Group with Steve Winwood. They were amazing. Great scene.
Did you ever have any part-time jobs when you were growing up?
Martin Sperl, London
I’d have to work during the school holidays in a local steel factory, or a building site, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to afford any records. Even when I was at school I had a paper round in the morning and in the evening. I worked all the bloody time. My dad only had 15 pounds a week wages. He’d keep a pound for himself to buy tobacco and pigeon corn. He spent all the time in his garden growing prize vegetables, with these racing pigeons flying around. My mother looked after everything else. I got two shillings pocket money, so the rest I had to get from selling papers. I’d sell them in pubs on a Saturday evening. “Football Echo?”, “Here, lad!” You’d get a 10-pence tip. All these drunken people buying football papers. It was a great job, delivering papers. Melody Maker. Jazz Monthly. I’d just be walking down the street reading about Charlie Parker and dreaming.
What are your memories of Roxy’s early, provincial tours?
Bryn Jones, Cardiff
It was exciting, travelling around in a van. We were on that first provincial tour and we heard “Virginia Plain” on the radio for the first time. It was the first this, the first that. It was a laugh, playing places like Scarborough, sleeping in the van. Eno was a laugh, we got on very well. And Andy Mackay was very amusing, very dry. So we spent a lot of time laughing. Paul was a character… they were all characters. I was proud of that band.
Is it true that the chorus of “Remake/Remodel – “CPL593H” – was taken from a car number plate?
Billy Porter
Yes, it was a very cool Mini that I saw at the Reading Festival. I went with a friend and I was very attracted to this girl backstage who was wearing a fluffy jacket. Anyway, I then saw her when we were driving home in the terrible slow queue to get out of the site, and she was in the car in front. And I memorised the number of the car. So it was a kind of cry in the wild… I never met her.
Why didn’t Paul Thompson play on Flesh + Blood?
Peter Ingvarsson, via email
He didn’t like the direction the group was going in. He played on Manifesto, didn’t he? Yes. He played on half of the album and the other half was played by Andy Newmark. I’d been living in America for quite a while and I drifted away from Paul. I think he fell off a motorbike, broke his arm, and he was out of action. And then he didn’t like… I’ve never talked to him much about it. But he drifted away. There were certain songs at the time that I wanted to have this other kind of feel. Paul was a fantastic rock drummer, he hits the snare harder than anyone, but there were things I wanted which weren’t his forte, so Andy Newmark came into the band and did Flesh + Blood and Avalon.
Can you tell us about the Banshees and The Gas Board?
Mark Pinks, Somerset
The Banshees was the first band I joined. I bumped into this guy I’d known in the cycling club and he said, “We’re looking for a singer, can you sing?” So I went to his dad’s hairdressing shop where they practised. The band were playing furiously, and I joined in. I was very, very shy, but I managed to grit my teeth and do it. I had a great summer working with the Banshees before I got to college. That was my baptism by fire. I put together a couple of bands at college, the best of them being The Gas Board. That’s where I started working with Graham Simpson who became part of Roxy.
A couple of press releases appeared in my inbox over the last few days, both announcing the surprising return of two increasingly elusive filmmakers.
But more pertinently, these aren't heralding the forthcoming release of new films; but new music instead. John Carpenter has announced his debut solo album Lost Themes, while the soundtracks from two Alejandro Jodorowsky films are also forthcoming.
As a filmmaker, Carpenter seems to have become an increasingly marginalised force since his Eighties' heyday; his last film, 2010's The Ward, barely got a UK release. But increasingly, his soundtrack work has been cited as a significant inspiration for the synth and noise underground; you can hear the influence of his haunting atmospherics and subtle drone textures in the weird, gloomy, vaguely industrial soundscapes of artists like Raime or Demdike Stare; Cliff Martinez' Drive soundtrack, too, owned much to Carpenter's work in its bubbling analogue synth lines.
You can hear the first track from Lost Themes – “Vortex” – below, while the album’s tracklisting includes titles like “Abyss”, “Dominion”, “Obsidian” and “Wraith”, which suggests that Carpenter's moody sonic palette hasn't diminished; nor his sense of humour.
The release of the soundtracks for The Holy Mountain and The Dance Of Reality signal a different kind of creative rebirth for Jodorowsky. The Chilean filmmaker made his reputation with 1970's El Topo, a wild mix of spaghetti western and eastern spiritualism. John Lennon was a fan, and subsequently introduced the director to Allen Klein, who invested $1 million in Jodorowsky's ambitious follow-up, The Holy Mountain. Essentially the story of a thief who embarks on a quest for immortality, it memorably featured the conquest of Mexico as re-enacted with chameleons dressed as Aztecs and toads playing conquistadors. The Holy Mountain score was recorded with Don Cherry and Ron Frangipane.
The Dance Of Reality, however, comes from Jodorowsky’s first film in 23 years; as yet unreleased in the UK, though it debuted at Cannes in May 2013. Its release coincided with a new documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune, which documented the director’s failed attempt to film Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel. Again, this is currently unavailable in the UK, but presumably easy enough to track down online. The soundtrack for The Dance Of Reality was recorded by Jodorowsky with his son, Adan, a musician in his own right. Personally, I hope the film makes it over here soon; but for now, the soundtrack promises to be an enticing glimpse of new work from a genuinely out-there filmmaker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sw_ExaVsoM
A couple of press releases appeared in my inbox over the last few days, both announcing the surprising return of two increasingly elusive filmmakers.
But more pertinently, these aren’t heralding the forthcoming release of new films; but new music instead. John Carpenter has announced his debut solo album Lost Themes, while the soundtracks from two Alejandro Jodorowsky films are also forthcoming.
As a filmmaker, Carpenter seems to have become an increasingly marginalised force since his Eighties’ heyday; his last film, 2010’s The Ward, barely got a UK release. But increasingly, his soundtrack work has been cited as a significant inspiration for the synth and noise underground; you can hear the influence of his haunting atmospherics and subtle drone textures in the weird, gloomy, vaguely industrial soundscapes of artists like Raime or Demdike Stare; Cliff Martinez’ Drive soundtrack, too, owned much to Carpenter’s work in its bubbling analogue synth lines.
You can hear the first track from Lost Themes – “Vortex” – below, while the album’s tracklisting includes titles like “Abyss”, “Dominion”, “Obsidian” and “Wraith”, which suggests that Carpenter’s moody sonic palette hasn’t diminished; nor his sense of humour.
The release of the soundtracks for The Holy Mountain and The Dance Of Reality signal a different kind of creative rebirth for Jodorowsky. The Chilean filmmaker made his reputation with 1970’s El Topo, a wild mix of spaghetti western and eastern spiritualism. John Lennon was a fan, and subsequently introduced the director to Allen Klein, who invested $1 million in Jodorowsky’s ambitious follow-up, The Holy Mountain. Essentially the story of a thief who embarks on a quest for immortality, it memorably featured the conquest of Mexico as re-enacted with chameleons dressed as Aztecs and toads playing conquistadors. The Holy Mountain score was recorded with Don Cherry and Ron Frangipane.
The Dance Of Reality, however, comes from Jodorowsky’s first film in 23 years; as yet unreleased in the UK, though it debuted at Cannes in May 2013. Its release coincided with a new documentary, Jodorowsky’s Dune, which documented the director’s failed attempt to film Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel. Again, this is currently unavailable in the UK, but presumably easy enough to track down online. The soundtrack for The Dance Of Reality was recorded by Jodorowsky with his son, Adan, a musician in his own right. Personally, I hope the film makes it over here soon; but for now, the soundtrack promises to be an enticing glimpse of new work from a genuinely out-there filmmaker.
I guess, since Uncut's end-of-year issue goes to the printers today, we should formally declare open season on Best Of 2014 speculation, if you're that way inclined. Our writers' charts fished up 401 new albums from the year worth voting for, and coalesced into a pretty eclectic Top 75, I think.
I should probably keep my counsel about all this for now, but I will attempt to put together my own, probably absurdly long, list at some point in December. In the meantime, there's a whole bunch of 2015 music to be getting on with; I don't have anything I can play you as yet, but the new Richard Bishop album is quite something, for a start.
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey
1 M. Geddes Gengras - Collected Works Vol. 2: New Process Music (Umor Rex)
2 Robert Stillman - Leap Of Death (Archaic Future)
3 Howlin Rain - Mansion Songs (Easy Sound Recording Co)
4 Pond - Man It Feels Like Space Again (Caroline)
5 Bob Dylan & The Band - The Bootleg Series Vol 11: The Basement Tapes Complete (Columbia)
6 Lubomyr Melnyk - Evertina (Erased Tapes)
7 [REDACTED}
8 8:58 - Eight Fifty Eight (Pledge)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpQkFM5puL4
9 The Go-Betweens - G Is For Go-Betweens (Domino)
10 The Knife - Shaken-Up Versions (Brille)
11 Jack Name - Weird Moons (Castleface)
12 Exhaustion - Biker (Aarght)
13 Alasdair Roberts - Alasdair Roberts (Drag City)
14 Zun Zun Egui - Shackles' Gift (Bella Union)
15 Afrikan Sciences - Circuitous (Pan)
16 Blake Mills - Heigh Ho (Verve)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58tphQWdSZY
17 The Unthanks - Mount The Air (RabbleRouser)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYiMUUNu0QM
18 Duke Garwood - Heavy Love (Rank Panache)
19 Supersilent - Supersilent 12 (Rune Grammofon)
20 Feral Ohms - Super Ape (Agitated)
21 Various Artists - Black Fire! New Spirits! Radical And Revolutionary Jazz In The USA 1957-82 (Soul Jazz)
22 Sir Richard Bishop - Tangier Sessions (Drag City)
23 Jake Xerxes Fussell - Jake Xerxes Fussell (Paradise Of Bachelors)
24 Sun Kil Moon - Admiral Fell Promises (Caldo Verde)
I guess, since Uncut’s end-of-year issue goes to the printers today, we should formally declare open season on Best Of 2014 speculation, if you’re that way inclined. Our writers’ charts fished up 401 new albums from the year worth voting for, and coalesced into a pretty eclectic Top 75, I think.
I should probably keep my counsel about all this for now, but I will attempt to put together my own, probably absurdly long, list at some point in December. In the meantime, there’s a whole bunch of 2015 music to be getting on with; I don’t have anything I can play you as yet, but the new Richard Bishop album is quite something, for a start.
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey
1 M. Geddes Gengras – Collected Works Vol. 2: New Process Music (Umor Rex)
2 Robert Stillman – Leap Of Death (Archaic Future)
Hear My Music will be double album of Hendrix's instrumental records...
Jimi Hendrix's rare instrumental studio recordings are being released on vinyl as part of American Record Store Day's Black Friday event.
The new "official bootleg" titled Hear My Music will be out on November 28 and will contain two LPs' worth of Hendrix's "creative explorations".
According to Rolling Stone, Hendrix recorded the music in the first half of 1969, both as solo demos and as free-form group jams with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Among the 11 tracks are two versions of "Valleys Of Neptune" - one featuring a Hendrix solo on electric guitar and the other a piano version.
Unedited versions of tracks 'Drone Blue' and 'Jimi', both of which appeared on the now out-of-print 1980 album Nine To The Universe, also appear.
The double album, which is being released by Dagger Records (Experience Hendrix LLC's bootleg label), was produced by Hendrix's sister Janie Hendrix, engineer Eddie Kramer and Hendrix expert John McDermott, and it will be pressed on 200-gram audiophile vinyl.
Hendrix's previous posthumous releases The Cry Of Love and Rainbow Bridge were also reissued this year as newly remastered CD, LP and digital releases.
Hear My Music will be double album of Hendrix’s instrumental records…
Jimi Hendrix‘s rare instrumental studio recordings are being released on vinyl as part of American Record Store Day’s Black Friday event.
The new “official bootleg” titled Hear My Music will be out on November 28 and will contain two LPs’ worth of Hendrix’s “creative explorations”.
According to Rolling Stone, Hendrix recorded the music in the first half of 1969, both as solo demos and as free-form group jams with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Among the 11 tracks are two versions of “Valleys Of Neptune” – one featuring a Hendrix solo on electric guitar and the other a piano version.
Unedited versions of tracks ‘Drone Blue’ and ‘Jimi’, both of which appeared on the now out-of-print 1980 album Nine To The Universe, also appear.
The double album, which is being released by Dagger Records (Experience Hendrix LLC’s bootleg label), was produced by Hendrix’s sister Janie Hendrix, engineer Eddie Kramer and Hendrix expert John McDermott, and it will be pressed on 200-gram audiophile vinyl.
Hendrix’s previous posthumous releases The Cry Of Love and Rainbow Bridge were also reissued this year as newly remastered CD, LP and digital releases.
