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Edwyn Collins: The Possibilities Are Endless

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Edwyn Collins: The Possibilities Are Endless

“I’m struggling to come to terms with who I am,” admits Edwyn Collins early on during James Hall and Edward Lovelace's documentary. Accordingly, this is a film that is concerned almost exclusively with Collins’ life since he suffered a hemorrhagic stroke in 2005. It presents its subject via a number of enterprising methods; not all of them conventional. It’s a better piece for it. The film begins with static shots of a remote Scottish landscape – fields, sky, sea – which gradually coalesce into something less abstract. We learn this is the terrain around Helmsdale, the Scottish coastal village beloved by Collins and his wife, Grace Maxwell. Just as we attempt to connect these random images, so we must assume Collins himself struggled to make sense of the facts of his life after his stroke. Hall and Lovelace then move down to London, where we see Collins at home, surrounded by his possessions. He sits silently in his living room, considering a set of shelves on the wall opposite stacked with 7” singles. “It’s hard for me to communicate,” he explains. A final third witnesses Collins as he prepares to return to live performance, aided by the redoubtable Maxwell – who is on hand to strum her husband’s guitar while he forms chords on the instrument’s neck. By avoiding a more conventional structure, Hall and Lovelace successfully sidestep the pitfalls this kind of film might have stumbled into. It is neither sentimental nor programmatic. Dramatised sequences – early shots in Helmsdale where local residents re-enact moments from Collins’ early life, or later when his own son, William, appears as a young man who falls for a girl he meets in a chip shop – add an additional layer to the experience. The film’s slow, digressive pace compliments Collins’ halting speech patterns perfectly, while the impressionistic, avant-garde collage (and Collins’ own ambient soundtrack) of the first third truffle out a strange beauty in the singer’s insular, fragmented state of mind. Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

“I’m struggling to come to terms with who I am,” admits Edwyn Collins early on during James Hall and Edward Lovelace’s documentary.

Accordingly, this is a film that is concerned almost exclusively with Collins’ life since he suffered a hemorrhagic stroke in 2005. It presents its subject via a number of enterprising methods; not all of them conventional. It’s a better piece for it. The film begins with static shots of a remote Scottish landscape – fields, sky, sea – which gradually coalesce into something less abstract. We learn this is the terrain around Helmsdale, the Scottish coastal village beloved by Collins and his wife, Grace Maxwell. Just as we attempt to connect these random images, so we must assume Collins himself struggled to make sense of the facts of his life after his stroke. Hall and Lovelace then move down to London, where we see Collins at home, surrounded by his possessions. He sits silently in his living room, considering a set of shelves on the wall opposite stacked with 7” singles. “It’s hard for me to communicate,” he explains. A final third witnesses Collins as he prepares to return to live performance, aided by the redoubtable Maxwell – who is on hand to strum her husband’s guitar while he forms chords on the instrument’s neck.

By avoiding a more conventional structure, Hall and Lovelace successfully sidestep the pitfalls this kind of film might have stumbled into. It is neither sentimental nor programmatic. Dramatised sequences – early shots in Helmsdale where local residents re-enact moments from Collins’ early life, or later when his own son, William, appears as a young man who falls for a girl he meets in a chip shop – add an additional layer to the experience. The film’s slow, digressive pace compliments Collins’ halting speech patterns perfectly, while the impressionistic, avant-garde collage (and Collins’ own ambient soundtrack) of the first third truffle out a strange beauty in the singer’s insular, fragmented state of mind.

Uncut is also available as a digital edition! Download here on your iPad/iPhone and here on your Kindle Fire or Nook.

Mark E Smith on Kate Bush: “I never even liked her first time around”

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Mark E Smith on Kate Bush: “I never even liked her first time around”

The Fall's Mark E Smith has hit out against the praise lavished on Kate Bush's comeback. The notoriously outspoken frontman says he doesn’t understand why the singer – who is currently completing her 22-date run of shows at London's Hammersmith Apollo – is "suddenly cool again". "Who decided it was time to start liking her again?" Smith told Manchester Evening News. "I never even liked her the first time round. It’s like all these radio DJs have been raiding their mam's and dad's record collections and decided that Kate Bush is suddenly cool again. But I’m not having it." Smith also hit out at the current state of festivals. "The Fall aren’t really a festival band," he said. "We’re a city group, and we prefer to perform in cities. Festivals have become totally over-priced; they’re all about charging 900 quid a ticket so these rich parents can send Jemima and Tarquin for a nice weekend away. I watched a bit of Glastonbury on BBC for the first time in my life this year – I literally forced myself to watch five minutes of Metallica without vomiting." Last month (August 31), Kate Bush became the first female artist in UK history to have eight albums in the Top 40 at the same time. She received a huge surge in LP sales in the lead-up to her 'Before The Dawn' residency kicked off at London's Hammersmith Apollo. The shows were her first stint of live dates since 1979. You can read our review of Bush's live show here.

The Fall’s Mark E Smith has hit out against the praise lavished on Kate Bush‘s comeback.

The notoriously outspoken frontman says he doesn’t understand why the singer – who is currently completing her 22-date run of shows at London’s Hammersmith Apollo – is “suddenly cool again”.

“Who decided it was time to start liking her again?” Smith told Manchester Evening News. “I never even liked her the first time round. It’s like all these radio DJs have been raiding their mam’s and dad’s record collections and decided that Kate Bush is suddenly cool again. But I’m not having it.”

Smith also hit out at the current state of festivals. “The Fall aren’t really a festival band,” he said. “We’re a city group, and we prefer to perform in cities. Festivals have become totally over-priced; they’re all about charging 900 quid a ticket so these rich parents can send Jemima and Tarquin for a nice weekend away. I watched a bit of Glastonbury on BBC for the first time in my life this year – I literally forced myself to watch five minutes of Metallica without vomiting.”

Last month (August 31), Kate Bush became the first female artist in UK history to have eight albums in the Top 40 at the same time. She received a huge surge in LP sales in the lead-up to her ‘Before The Dawn’ residency kicked off at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. The shows were her first stint of live dates since 1979.

You can read our review of Bush’s live show here.

The Making Of… The Doors’ Riders On The Storm

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The Making Of… The Doors’ Riders On The Storm
With the remastered “fictional documentary” Feast Of Friends set to be released properly for the first time on November 11, here’s a piece from the Uncut archives (February 2007 issue, Take 117) – a look at how The Doors created the epic closer to their final studio album, LA Woman, which wo...

With the remastered “fictional documentary” Feast Of Friends set to be released properly for the first time on November 11, here’s a piece from the Uncut archives (February 2007 issue, Take 117) – a look at how The Doors created the epic closer to their final studio album, LA Woman, which would prove to be Jim Morrison’s haunted, spiritual swansong. Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore tell the story… Words: Mick Houghton

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By the time The Doors came to make their sixth and final studio album, LA Woman, they were close to collapse. Their tour at the end of 1970 had been disastrous. Jim Morrison was charged with indecent exposure in Miami in September, then apparently suffered a breakdown at the band’s last ever show in New Orleans. But LA Woman was the LP that pulled them back from the brink, breaking new ground with its mesmerising seven-minute epic, “Riders On The Storm”. The final track on the final Doors album, its irrepressibly maudlin lyric would serve as their singer’s sultry, rain-washed epitaph.

The LA Woman sessions began badly in November 1970. The band fell out with their long-term producer, Paul Rothchild, who quit two weeks in, unwilling to go another six rounds with an increasingly drunken, unpredictable singer. The Doors then elected to produce the album themselves, with help from regular engineer Bruce Botnick. The decision to record in their own two-storey workshop rather than a hired studio also re-energised the band, and they wrapped the entire LP in five days. They began mixing the following March but, even before completion, Morrison had re-located to Paris. LA Woman was released in June and it quelled any doubts that The Doors were a spent force.

In the weeks before Morrison died on July 3, 1971, he intimated to John Densmore that he would soon be ready to record again. As it was, released shortly after the singer’s death, “Riders On The Storm” would become his haunted, mesmerising swansong.

Today, Densmore is pragmatic about what might have been: “Either Jim would be a drunk playing blues in a club, or a vibrant, creative artist, clean and sober like Eric Clapton.”

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Ray Manzarek (keyboards): “Robby and Jim were playing, jamming something out of ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’. I proposed the bassline and piano part; the jazzy style was my idea. Jim already had the story about a killer hitchhiker on the road. Serial killers are all the rage now, but in America they go back to Billy The Kid. In essence, it was a very filmic song about a serial killer – way ahead of his time in 1970. Interestingly, Jim was pulled in two directions – he didn’t want to complete the song just about a killer hitchhiker. The last verse: ‘Your world on him depends/Our life will never end/You gotta love your man.’ It becomes a very spiritual song; you won’t still occupy this body, but the essential life will never end, and love is the answer to all things. It gives the song a different perspective.

“It was the last song recorded by The Doors and the whisper voice is the last singing that Jim ever did in the studio, in the background on the ride out. How prophetic is that? A whisper fading away into eternity, where he is now. Viewing it from the outside, you can put a neat little bow on it and see it as our last performance, but for us we were just playing our butts off. Fast, hard and rocking, but cool and dark, too. Every Doors song has its own spirituality, its own existential moment. Jim had a great mind and when we were starting out, he said that in that year we had a great visitation of energy and that year for us lasted from 1966 until 1971. I love the sound of The Doors – I can become an outsider now and think to myself, that is one tight motherfucking band.”

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Robby Krieger (guitars): “We were playing ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’ and Jim was fooling around and came up with ‘Ghost Riders On The Storm’. When we recorded it, Jerry Scheff, the bass player, just played what Ray was playing with his left hand and that’s why it’s so distinctive. It’s not something a bass player would come up with – it has more of a jazzy melody to it.

“As normal, we played the songs to Paul Rothchild and he just didn’t dig it. He was bored and said, ‘“Riders On The Storm” was like cocktail music.’ I didn’t know what to make of that. He’d just made an LP with Janis Joplin [Pearl], and possibly he thought The Doors were going downhill and there were better pastures for him. It was a shock and, at first, it was suggested that I produce the record, but then we decided that we would all produce it with Bruce.

“We adapted our rehearsal room, bringing in a portable board, a kind of forerunner of today’s ProTools set-up. We were comfortable there, plus there were two titty bars next door. It was the fastest time we recorded anything after the first album, all recorded live between the four of us, very few takes, Jim in the bathroom, with the door off. Not stoned, not drunk. Unless he was drunk, he was great to work with. Jim’s concentration level was low, but he was focused the whole time. After the first album, Paul Rothchild had said, ‘Boys, we better record as much as we can ’cause Jim ain’t gonna be around for too much longer.’ I always thought Jim would last forever. He was indestructible. He wasn’t saying Jim was going to die, but maybe go off and live in Africa or somewhere. You didn’t always know what Jim was going to do the next day so, as a group, we did everything for the moment.”

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John Densmore (drums): “Jim always had notebooks of writings and poems to draw from and would just pull lyrics out from these. Jim had made the film, HWY, that was a road movie and he played the hitch-hiker who killed the guy that gave him a ride. It was out there, experimental. He called his friend, the poet Michael McClure, and pretended that he had actually committed a murder just to get a reaction. I’m not aware it was based on a true story, but Jim was a voracious reader as well as having a wild imagination.

“Paul Rothchild taught us how to make records, but he could be quite dictatorial. He thought ‘Riders On The Storm’ sounded like cocktail jazz, but he didn’t really listen to the darker underbelly of the song – only the lighter lounge feel. His quitting depressed us at first, but we rallied round. Paul suffered desperately as a result of Jim’s descent into self-destruction. He had a difficult time pulling vocals out of Jim from The Soft Parade onwards. But when we were doing LA Woman, Jim got empowered by the responsibility of making the record ourselves. He had to pull the vocals out of himself – that was the difference. After we’d finished ‘Riders On The Storm’, I had this idea, which I suggested to Bruce Botnick, that Jim went back in and did another vocal that was just whispered, and it’s really subliminal. Unless you know it’s there, you don’t hear it.

“Jim would sometimes go too far, but this time he was able to keep his problems and his alcoholism out of the studio. When we were doing concerts, Jim found it very difficult dealing with the adulation and being worshipped. He was always very hard on himself and would go over the edge. On stage, he was very volatile. It took a long while for the Miami hysteria to die down before we could think about playing live shows again, but it was a mistake to play those final few shows at the end of that year. New Orleans was a sad end but a relief. After he left for Paris, we didn’t know what we were going to do or what he was going to do. He talked about returning, but his heart was always searching.”

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Bruce Botnick (engineer): “Paul Rothchild felt that he was responsible for The Doors being The Doors and that he had to keep it up to a certain level and to control it, because the guys couldn’t do this for themselves. Once we had taken it in, we were all thrilled Paul had taken a powder so we could create something without anybody telling us what to do. Afterwards, Paul said: ‘You did a great job, but I wouldn’t have done it that way – there were a lot of things I would have done differently.’

“It’s hard to remember the exact chronology – unfortunately a lot of the tape boxes and outtakes were destroyed – but ‘Riders On The Storm’, like everything else, took only two or three takes and, as an afterthought, we recorded Jim’s whispered vocal. We all thought of the idea for the sound effects and Jim was the one who first said it out loud: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to add rain and thunder?’ I used the Elektra sound effects recordings and, as we were mixing, I just pressed the button. Serendipity worked so that all the thunder came in at all the right places. It took you somewhere. It was like a mini movie in our heads.”

Dan Michaelson And The Coastguards – Distance

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Dan Michaelson And The Coastguards – Distance
Dan Michaelson is not a particularly prolific Tweeter, but between musing about IKEA hotdogs and the time he DJed in Topshop (playing John Tavener, Laurie Anderson and ESG back-to-back) he found time to re-Tweet a backhanded compliment from a thoughtful soul called @recordshopbloke. “I do like Dan...

Dan Michaelson is not a particularly prolific Tweeter, but between musing about IKEA hotdogs and the time he DJed in Topshop (playing John Tavener, Laurie Anderson and ESG back-to-back) he found time to re-Tweet a backhanded compliment from a thoughtful soul called @recordshopbloke. “I do like Dan Michaelson’s records,” said the bloke, “but sometimes it’s a bit like a mate on the phone going on endlessly about his tragic life.”

Well, @recordshopbloke better turn off his metaphorical phone, because Distance takes the intensity of 2013’s Blindspot, and doubles it. That’s a bit of a puzzle, because Michaelson doesn’t seem like a tragic character, even if his lyrics are philosophically blue. Now resident in East London, but originally from Northamptonshire, he is blessed with a voice that draws comparisons with Bill Callahan, Kurt Wagner and – just about – Lou Reed. He claims to have no skill as a singer, but as a compromise with his own modesty, employs a confessional mumble that sometimes extends to a low croon, adding a patina of tragedy to lyrics which are already heartbroken. Add Horse’s pedal steel guitar and it’s clear that Michaelson is never going to be found busking on the sunny side of the street.

But, really, gloom is not the overriding sensation. Listen closely to “Getting It All Wrong”, with its pulsing bass from Romeo Stodart of the Magic Numbers, and you can imagine Dionne Warwick taking the arrangement in another direction. This is soul music (as in “dark night of …”), but it comes in heavy disguise. The lyrical introversion is tough, but the delicate playing of the Coastguards adds drama and beauty. The overall effect is of emotional control in the face of great torment. To call it Americana would be misleading. True, the steel guitar makes it feel like ancient country music, but Michaelson also embraces minimalism, and isn’t above colouring an emotion with a sombre cello. It’s depressing in the way that Leonard Cohen is said by his detractors to be depressing (which is to say: not at all).

Distance can be viewed as the final piece in a trilogy that began with 2011’s Sudden Fiction, Michaelson’s third solo album, after a false start with the band Absentee in the mid-2000s. His first two solo records, Saltwater (2009) and Shakes (2010) showed him edging towards coherence. The spartan Sudden Fiction was informed by a stay in West Texas. The Coastguards returned for the exquisite Blindspot, in which Michaelson continued his forensic examination of a failed relationship.

Distance occupies the same emotional terrain. It was written in Montauk, New York, which seemingly influenced the seasonal feel of the lyrics. It starts with the gorgeous “Evergreen”, which looks back on the end of a love affair, with the singer edging reluctantly towards the realisation that “only fools think love is evergreen”. From there, Michaelson circles around the pain of separation; stripping the sheets from the bed, and wiping his footprints from the floor, in the country ballad, “Every Step” (“take the records we shared/so you can’t hear what isn’t there”).

Bones sounds like something from Lambchop’s AwCmon. It starts small, and ends majestically. But the album’s emotional power is located in the final three songs. The delicate “Evening Light” has Michaelson walking through the night “to find morning light” , while still clinging to the hope that he might see his lover again. “Your Beauty Still Rules” sees him examining the dust in the sunlight of an empty room. The emotional arc is completed by the closing “Somewhere”, which sounds like a song composed in the piano bar of an abandoned hotel at 3am.

“Rip the hinges off the wall and let the wind blow down the hall,” Michaelson sings in conclusion. “It doesn’t hurt to change at all.” After all that has gone before, that sounds more like an aspiration than a statement of fact.

Alastair McKay

Q&A

Dan Michaelson

Did you have a plan for this album?

I didn’t. I thought I wasn’t going to make any more records. I’d been doing quite a lot, and then I thought, maybe I’ll think about not making any, after the last one. Then one morning I started to get a bit grumpy and stopped talking to people, and people started asking if I was OK. I usually feel that’s the time to start making a record again.

It’s a full band album, but it’s restrained.

‘Yes – it’s not a psychedelic thing where I just fed them acid for two weeks and then put them in a recording studio and pressed ‘record’ . There’s no huge ego thing. We’re trying to craft a song.

Was it inspired by a particular heartbreak?

It’s more an accumulation of various emotions. Around the time of the last album but one, I was in a long term relationship which ended, and some of that’s still feeding in somewhere. I was reading Graham Greene’s autobiography and he was going on about how writing was him taking the chaos all around him and distilling it into something that he could understand. There’s another really good, or pretentious, literary quote – Raymond Carver said that in his stories there’s one grain of truth that you build a beautiful picture around. Between those two things is how I feel I am, as a songwriter.

INTERVIEW: ALASTAIR McKAY

Peter Fonda’s Easy Rider Harley-Davidson up for auction

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Peter Fonda’s Easy Rider Harley-Davidson up for auction

The custom-made Harley-Davidson motorcycle riden by Peter Fonda's character Captain America in the film Easy Rider is up for auction. According to Associated Press via Rolling Stone, the auction house Profiles in History estimates that the motorbike will bring between $1 million and $1.2 million at the sale, which will be held online and at their galleries in Calabasas, California. Rolling Stone reports that the bike is being sold by Michael Eisenberg, a Californian businessman who has co-owned an Los Angeles-based restaurant with Fonda and Dennis Hopper, who directed and starred in the film. The bike was previously owned by the actor Dan Haggerty, best known for his role as Grizzly Adams, who was responsible for maintaining the Harley-Davidson during the film's shoot. Four motorcycles were created for the movie, but this is the only one known to have survived. The bike is accompanied by three letters of authenticity. One is signed by the National Motorcycle Museum, where it was displayed for 12 years. Another is from Fonda and a third from Haggerty. The bike was designed with input from Fonda, who insisted on it being decorated with the American flag.

The custom-made Harley-Davidson motorcycle riden by Peter Fonda’s character Captain America in the film Easy Rider is up for auction.

According to Associated Press via Rolling Stone, the auction house Profiles in History estimates that the motorbike will bring between $1 million and $1.2 million at the sale, which will be held online and at their galleries in Calabasas, California.

Rolling Stone reports that the bike is being sold by Michael Eisenberg, a Californian businessman who has co-owned an Los Angeles-based restaurant with Fonda and Dennis Hopper, who directed and starred in the film.

The bike was previously owned by the actor Dan Haggerty, best known for his role as Grizzly Adams, who was responsible for maintaining the Harley-Davidson during the film’s shoot.

Four motorcycles were created for the movie, but this is the only one known to have survived.

The bike is accompanied by three letters of authenticity. One is signed by the National Motorcycle Museum, where it was displayed for 12 years. Another is from Fonda and a third from Haggerty.

The bike was designed with input from Fonda, who insisted on it being decorated with the American flag.

Ringo Starr on the future of rock music: “Bands will always come through”

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Ringo Starr on the future of rock music: “Bands will always come through”
Ringo Starr has said he believes that bands will always be popular in music and that he has "never believed" that rock music is dying out. Starr tells NME in this week's magazine, that he doesn't think the rock genre will disappear, and that bands will always "come through in the end". When asked...

Ringo Starr has said he believes that bands will always be popular in music and that he has “never believed” that rock music is dying out.

Starr tells NME in this week’s magazine, that he doesn’t think the rock genre will disappear, and that bands will always “come through in the end”.

When asked about Royal Blood reaching the Number One slot in the Official Albums Chart with their self-titled debut album last month, Starr said he has “never believed” that rock music is dying out. “The saving grace for me – I have to admit I’m not a big fan of the boybands dancing and that stuff – but the thing that saves me is there’s always bands out there. There’s always bands playing somewhere, and they come through in the end.”

When asked if bands will always come through, he said: “I think so. I think people wanna see people playing and singing. Earlier on I heard Kasabian doing a BBC thing [BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge]. They’re a great band. They played like the rest of us – pubs, clubs and now they’re the festival band. So I’ve always felt ‘the band’ will come through.”

Speaking about his own tour, Starr added: “I’m always touring. I love to play – that’s why I do this. A lot of the bands wanna do it to be famous. But I wanna do it to play. That was all my dream was about, and then we became famous.”

Read the full interview with Ringo Starr in this week’s NME, which is on newsstands and available digitally.

Metallica to release box set of all live performances from 2014

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Metallica to release box set of all live performances from 2014
Metallica are to release a box set of 27 live albums, all of which have been recorded this year. Rolling Stone reports that the albums will be released in batches of three every Monday until the end of the year and can be purchased through LiveMetallica.com. The box set of all 27 performances will ...

Metallica are to release a box set of 27 live albums, all of which have been recorded this year.

Rolling Stone reports that the albums will be released in batches of three every Monday until the end of the year and can be purchased through LiveMetallica.com. The box set of all 27 performances will be released in December.

The group will also be making four of the concerts available in special 180-gram vinyl editions, and are allowing fans to vote on which shows will be pressed via an online poll.

The release will mark the 10th anniversary of LiveMetallica.com, a site that offers high-quality recordings of the band’s gigs as downloads. Among the shows to be released will be their set from this year’s Glastonbury Festival.

Metallica was recently included in the latest edition of the Guinness Book Of World Records. The group become the only band to ever perform gigs on all seven of the Earth’s continents in one year, capping the achievement with a show in Antarctica last December.

The Rolling Stones announce new live album series

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The Rolling Stones announce new live album series
The Rolling Stones have announced the first two releases in their new From The Vault series. From The Vault features live concerts from band's archive and are available across a number of formats. The band will release From The Vault – Hampton Coliseum – Live In 1981 on November 3 with From Th...

The Rolling Stones have announced the first two releases in their new From The Vault series.

From The Vault features live concerts from band’s archive and are available across a number of formats.

The band will release From The Vault – Hampton Coliseum – Live In 1981 on November 3 with From The Vault – LA Forum – Live In 1975 following on November 17.

Previously, the audio has been previously available as a digital download via the Stones’ website but not on CD or LP; the video has never previously been released.

The footage from the concerts has been restored and the sound newly mixed by Bob Clearmountain.

From The Vault – Hampton Coliseum – Live In 1981 will be released simultaneously on SD Blu-ray, DVD/2CD, DVD/3LP, DVD, and digital formats. The full-length 2 1/2 hour concert took place on on December 18 – Keith Richards‘ birthday – on the closing night of the Tattoo You tour.

From The Vault – L.A. Forum – Live In 1975 will be released on DVD, DVD/2CD, DVD/3LP, and digital video. The show is taken from the Stones’ “Tour Of The Americas ‘75”, the band’s first with guitarist Ron Wood. They played five nights at the LA Forum July 9-13; this release features the show from July 12.

Scroll down to watch the Stones’ play “Shattered” from the Hampton Coliseum show below.

The tracklisting for Hampton Coliseum – Live In 1981 is:

Under My Thumb

When The Whip Comes Down

Let’s Spend The Night Together

Shattered

Neighbours

Black Limousine

Just My Imagination

Twenty Flight Rock

Going To A Go Go

Let Me Go

Time Is On My Side

Beast Of Burden

Waiting On A Friend

Let It Bleed

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Band Introductions

Happy Birthday Keith

Little T & A

Tumbling Dice

She’s So Cold

Hang Fire

Miss You

Honky Tonk Women

Brown Sugar

Start Me Up

Jumping Jack Flash

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

The tracklisting for L.A. Forum – Live In 1975 is:

Introduction*

Honky Tonk Women

All Down The Line

If You Can’t Rock Me / Get Off Of My Cloud

Star Star

Gimme Shelter

Ain’t Too Proud To Beg

You Gotta Move

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Happy

Tumbling Dice

It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll

Band Intros*

Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)*

Fingerprint File

Angie

Wild Horses*

That’s Life*

Outta Space*

Brown Sugar

Midnight Rambler

Rip This Joint

Street Fighting Man

Jumpin’ Jack Flash

Sympathy For The Devil

(*Not available on LP)

The 35th Uncut Playlist Of 2014

John Mulvey
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The 35th Uncut Playlist Of 2014

Weird serendipities aplenty this week: versions of "O, Death" on two albums I downloaded one after another, by Mike & Cara Gangloff and Bessie Jones; dovetailing into Sea Island overlap between Jones and Loscil. It makes for a nice blurring between time and genre with, say, the Gangloffs using esoteric strategies to achieve a similar kind of transcendence that Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers reach through more orthodox, albeit uncommonly raw, Gospel routes in these Lomax recordings from the early '60s. Loscil's thoughtful, atmospheric music fits in with a bunch of other things here, too: the Hassell/Eno; the immersive new Oren Ambarchi set (featuring Eyvind Kang, Jim O'Rourke and John Tilbury, among other empathetic freestylers); maybe even the couple of Harald Grosskopf reissues. Grosskopf, if he's a new name to you, is a Krautrock vet (stints with Ashra and Klaus Schulze, among others) whose first two solo albums from the early '80s are maybe the closest things I've found to his old bandmate Manuel Göttsching's "E2-E4". Grosskopf is playing a rare UK show with the excellent Pye Corner Audio at Café Oto, Dalston, on November 2, if you're interested. Other good things to flag up. Crying Lion are a Watersons-style vocal group spun out of Trembling Bells, and there are new videos from Holly Herndon and Hiss Golden Messenger to watch. My ongoing and perhaps sometimes wearying obsession with the latter, incidentally, has culminated in a feature in the next issue of Uncut, which is out next week in the UK. More about that very soon, as you'd imagine… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey 1 Harald Grosskopf - Synthesist (Bureau B) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWV3m5tKDCk 2 Various Artists - Cracking The Cosimo Code: '60s New Orleans R&B And Soul (Ace) I wrote about this here 3 Crying Lion - The Golden Boat (Honest Jon's) 4 Kassé Mady Diabaté - Kiriké (No Format!) 5 Helado Negro - Double Youth (Asthmatic Kitty) 6 Hiss Golden Messenger - Lateness Of Dancers (Merge)

Weird serendipities aplenty this week: versions of “O, Death” on two albums I downloaded one after another, by Mike & Cara Gangloff and Bessie Jones; dovetailing into Sea Island overlap between Jones and Loscil. It makes for a nice blurring between time and genre with, say, the Gangloffs using esoteric strategies to achieve a similar kind of transcendence that Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers reach through more orthodox, albeit uncommonly raw, Gospel routes in these Lomax recordings from the early ’60s.

Loscil’s thoughtful, atmospheric music fits in with a bunch of other things here, too: the Hassell/Eno; the immersive new Oren Ambarchi set (featuring Eyvind Kang, Jim O’Rourke and John Tilbury, among other empathetic freestylers); maybe even the couple of Harald Grosskopf reissues. Grosskopf, if he’s a new name to you, is a Krautrock vet (stints with Ashra and Klaus Schulze, among others) whose first two solo albums from the early ’80s are maybe the closest things I’ve found to his old bandmate Manuel Göttsching’s “E2-E4”. Grosskopf is playing a rare UK show with the excellent Pye Corner Audio at Café Oto, Dalston, on November 2, if you’re interested.

Other good things to flag up. Crying Lion are a Watersons-style vocal group spun out of Trembling Bells, and there are new videos from Holly Herndon and Hiss Golden Messenger to watch. My ongoing and perhaps sometimes wearying obsession with the latter, incidentally, has culminated in a feature in the next issue of Uncut, which is out next week in the UK. More about that very soon, as you’d imagine…

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

1 Harald Grosskopf – Synthesist (Bureau B)

2 Various Artists – Cracking The Cosimo Code: ’60s New Orleans R&B And Soul (Ace)

I wrote about this here

3 Crying Lion – The Golden Boat (Honest Jon’s)

4 Kassé Mady Diabaté – Kiriké (No Format!)

5 Helado Negro – Double Youth (Asthmatic Kitty)

6 Hiss Golden Messenger – Lateness Of Dancers (Merge)

Hiss Golden Messenger “Mahogany Dread” from Merge Records on Vimeo.

7 The Court & Spark – Lucia (Absolutely Kosher)

8 Leonard Cohen – Popular Problems (Columbia)

9 Harald Grosskopf – Oceanheart (Bureau B)

10 Robert Wyatt – Different Every Time (Domino)

11 Mike & Cara Gangloff – Black Ribbon Of Death, Silver Thread Of Life (MIE Music)

12 Oren Ambarchi – Quixotism (Editions Mego)

13 Love – Love Songs: An Anthology Of Arthur Lee’s Love 1966-1969 (Salvo)

14 Holly Herndon – Home (RVNG INTL)

15 Jon Hassell/Brian Eno – Fourth World Volume 1: Possible Musics (Glitterbeat)

16 TV On The Radio – Seeds (Harvest)

17 Daniel Lanois – Flesh And Machine (Anti-)

18 Bessie Jones With The Georgia Sea Island Singers And Others – Get In Union (Tompkins Square)

18 Loscil – Sea Island (Kranky)

19 Liam Hayes & Plush – Korp Sole Roller (Bandcamp)

Read my review here

20 Cool Ghouls – A Swirling Fire Burning Through The Rye (Empty Cellar)

21 Mirage – Blood For The Return (Olde English Spelling Bee/Weird World)

“I’m a closet optimist”: An audience with Leonard Cohen, September 16, 2014, London

Michael Bonner
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“I’m a closet optimist”: An audience with Leonard Cohen, September 16, 2014, London

All Leonard Cohen wants for his 80th birthday is a cigarette. He smoked, he estimates, for around 50 years, before he gave up a decade or so ago. “I think a lot about smoking,” he reflects. “I’m thinking about it right now.” The smokes aside, Cohen reckons there is unlikely to be a more formal celebration to mark his passage into his ninth decade. “One of the lovely and charitable realities of my family life is we hardly celebrate holidays or birthday or anniversaries,” he confides. “So everybody is let off the hook, if you forget somebody’s birthday or anniversary. There’s no penalties. I think it’ll just go by like any other day. I might have a smoke.” This evening, Cohen is wearing a charcoal grey suit, a light grey shirt and a red and grey striped tie – the same outfit he wears, in fact, on the sleeve of his new album, Popular Problems. He is discussing smoking – among many other topics – in the prestigious surroundings of the Canadian High Commission on London’s Grosvenor Square. It’s a bespoke event to launch Popular Problems: there is a playback, followed by a Q&A hosted by broadcaster Stuart Maconie during which Cohen fields questions from journalists assembled from 25 countries. The most extraordinary of which was posed by a Spanish journalist, who inquired as to Cohen's views on the imminent referendum on Scottish independence... Cohen has done this kind of thing before, of course, most recently at the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles a few days ago. Back in January 2012, he presented Old Ideas at London’s May Fair Hotel to an invited audience, with Jarvis Cocker acting as host. In fact, Cocker is also here tonight to witness Cohen in action. Needless to say, it’s a remarkable performance. Cohen’s wit is dry and as sharp as you’d hope. Asked, for instance, to comment on his legendary status, he admits, “Sometimes I feel like an institution. Kinda like a mental hospital.” Or when Maconie pushes him for details on his next album, a follow-up to Popular Problems, Cohen claims, “The next record is going to be called Unpopular Solutions.” It’s not all laughs and banter, though. It’s fascinating to watch Cohen as he graciously bats away certain questions – especially those that concern the methods of songwriting – with a one-line reply. “It’s a mysterious process, I don’t really know much about it,” he demures. Asked about the tone of Popular Problems, Cohen offers: “It has a mood of despair. I think it has a unifying feel that, those are things that we award, that we ascribe to a piece of work after it’s finished. While it’s going on, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get something together.” It’s a curious reply that almost addresses the songwriting processes, but then assumes a self-deprecatory tone; it becomes a familiar response pattern from Cohen as the 30-minute Q&A progresses. Occasionally, Cohen goes some way to illuminate his creative processes. Asked about the satisfaction of finishing an album, he replies, “I don’t know how other writers feel, but I have a sense of gratitude that you can bring anything to completion in this vale of tears. So it’s the doneness of the thing that I really cherish.” He quotes WH Auden – “A poem is never finished, it’s just abandoned” – before, once again, deflecting so as not to reveal too much information about his craft: “These are technical questions that I don’t think anybody really has the answer to.” Some of this, you suspect, is a necessary part of sustaining a carefully and elegantly cultivated mystique. He will not be drawn, for instance, on politics – either in personal terms (“I’ve tried over the years to define a political position that no one can decipher”) or with regards Popular Problems. “I think it reflects the world that we live in. it wasn’t anything deliberate, but one picks up these things from the atmosphere.” There are strong, but very general, observations about his nationality, for instance: “Canadians are very involved in their country. We grow up on the edge of America. We watch America the way that women watch men. Very carefully. So when there is this continual cultural and political challenge right on the edge of your lives, of course it makes you develop a sense of solidarity. So, yes, it is a very important element in my life.” He will speak, too, at length about finding relevance in songs he wrote four decades ago: “I don’t have any problem with that. Somehow the challenge of a concert, of a song, it is what one is doing which is to find meaning. We are all involved in the struggle at any moment, because we lead the same lives over and over again. It always is the problem of making it new, and making it significant. It’s the same struggle that we have in our daily lives, in our relationships with people that we know very well. You just have to find a way into the centre of the song.” There are moments, though, when he speaks candidly about his philosophies. Asked, for example, about the ‘Manual for Living With Defeat’ that he mentions on “Going Home” from Old Ideas, he begins “I wish I could really come up with something, because we are all living with defeat and with failure and disappointment and with bewilderment. We all are living with these dark forces that modify our lives. I think the manual for living with defeat is to first of all acknowledge the fact that everyone suffers, that everyone is engaged in a mighty struggle for self-respect and significance. I think the first step would be to recognize that your struggle is the same as everyone else’s struggle. Your suffering is the same as everyone else’s suffering. I think that’s the beginning of a responsible life. Otherwise, you’re in a continual battle, savage battle with each other, unless we recognize that each of us suffers in the same way there is no possible solution: political, social or spiritual. That would be the beginning – the recognition that we all suffer.” It’s moments like these, where Cohen allows us a glimpse into his thought processes, that are effectively more rewarding than the witty bon mots. There are, though, plenty of those on offer this evening. On touring, for instance, Cohen admits, “I like life on the road. It’s a lot easier than civilian life. You feel like you’re in a motorcycle gang.” And on the nature of performance itself, he explains, “If you can do anything, it’s kind of satisfying. It’s this and washing dishes that are the only things I know.” But perhaps the biggest laugh comes towards the end. When asked if Popular Problems contained any traces of optimism, Cohen’s reply is faultless and delivered with the kind of impeccable timing that would make a stand-up comedian envious: “I’m a closest optimist,” he deadpans. Popular Problems is released on September 22

All Leonard Cohen wants for his 80th birthday is a cigarette. He smoked, he estimates, for around 50 years, before he gave up a decade or so ago. “I think a lot about smoking,” he reflects. “I’m thinking about it right now.”

The smokes aside, Cohen reckons there is unlikely to be a more formal celebration to mark his passage into his ninth decade. “One of the lovely and charitable realities of my family life is we hardly celebrate holidays or birthday or anniversaries,” he confides. “So everybody is let off the hook, if you forget somebody’s birthday or anniversary. There’s no penalties. I think it’ll just go by like any other day. I might have a smoke.”

This evening, Cohen is wearing a charcoal grey suit, a light grey shirt and a red and grey striped tie – the same outfit he wears, in fact, on the sleeve of his new album, Popular Problems. He is discussing smoking – among many other topics – in the prestigious surroundings of the Canadian High Commission on London’s Grosvenor Square. It’s a bespoke event to launch Popular Problems: there is a playback, followed by a Q&A hosted by broadcaster Stuart Maconie during which Cohen fields questions from journalists assembled from 25 countries. The most extraordinary of which was posed by a Spanish journalist, who inquired as to Cohen’s views on the imminent referendum on Scottish independence…

Cohen has done this kind of thing before, of course, most recently at the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles a few days ago. Back in January 2012, he presented Old Ideas at London’s May Fair Hotel to an invited audience, with Jarvis Cocker acting as host. In fact, Cocker is also here tonight to witness Cohen in action. Needless to say, it’s a remarkable performance. Cohen’s wit is dry and as sharp as you’d hope. Asked, for instance, to comment on his legendary status, he admits, “Sometimes I feel like an institution. Kinda like a mental hospital.” Or when Maconie pushes him for details on his next album, a follow-up to Popular Problems, Cohen claims, “The next record is going to be called Unpopular Solutions.”

It’s not all laughs and banter, though. It’s fascinating to watch Cohen as he graciously bats away certain questions – especially those that concern the methods of songwriting – with a one-line reply. “It’s a mysterious process, I don’t really know much about it,” he demures. Asked about the tone of Popular Problems, Cohen offers: “It has a mood of despair. I think it has a unifying feel that, those are things that we award, that we ascribe to a piece of work after it’s finished. While it’s going on, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get something together.” It’s a curious reply that almost addresses the songwriting processes, but then assumes a self-deprecatory tone; it becomes a familiar response pattern from Cohen as the 30-minute Q&A progresses.

Occasionally, Cohen goes some way to illuminate his creative processes. Asked about the satisfaction of finishing an album, he replies, “I don’t know how other writers feel, but I have a sense of gratitude that you can bring anything to completion in this vale of tears. So it’s the doneness of the thing that I really cherish.” He quotes WH Auden – “A poem is never finished, it’s just abandoned” – before, once again, deflecting so as not to reveal too much information about his craft: “These are technical questions that I don’t think anybody really has the answer to.”

Some of this, you suspect, is a necessary part of sustaining a carefully and elegantly cultivated mystique. He will not be drawn, for instance, on politics – either in personal terms (“I’ve tried over the years to define a political position that no one can decipher”) or with regards Popular Problems. “I think it reflects the world that we live in. it wasn’t anything deliberate, but one picks up these things from the atmosphere.” There are strong, but very general, observations about his nationality, for instance: “Canadians are very involved in their country. We grow up on the edge of America. We watch America the way that women watch men. Very carefully. So when there is this continual cultural and political challenge right on the edge of your lives, of course it makes you develop a sense of solidarity. So, yes, it is a very important element in my life.” He will speak, too, at length about finding relevance in songs he wrote four decades ago: “I don’t have any problem with that. Somehow the challenge of a concert, of a song, it is what one is doing which is to find meaning. We are all involved in the struggle at any moment, because we lead the same lives over and over again. It always is the problem of making it new, and making it significant. It’s the same struggle that we have in our daily lives, in our relationships with people that we know very well. You just have to find a way into the centre of the song.”

There are moments, though, when he speaks candidly about his philosophies. Asked, for example, about the ‘Manual for Living With Defeat’ that he mentions on “Going Home” from Old Ideas, he begins “I wish I could really come up with something, because we are all living with defeat and with failure and disappointment and with bewilderment. We all are living with these dark forces that modify our lives. I think the manual for living with defeat is to first of all acknowledge the fact that everyone suffers, that everyone is engaged in a mighty struggle for self-respect and significance. I think the first step would be to recognize that your struggle is the same as everyone else’s struggle. Your suffering is the same as everyone else’s suffering. I think that’s the beginning of a responsible life. Otherwise, you’re in a continual battle, savage battle with each other, unless we recognize that each of us suffers in the same way there is no possible solution: political, social or spiritual. That would be the beginning – the recognition that we all suffer.”

It’s moments like these, where Cohen allows us a glimpse into his thought processes, that are effectively more rewarding than the witty bon mots. There are, though, plenty of those on offer this evening. On touring, for instance, Cohen admits, “I like life on the road. It’s a lot easier than civilian life. You feel like you’re in a motorcycle gang.” And on the nature of performance itself, he explains, “If you can do anything, it’s kind of satisfying. It’s this and washing dishes that are the only things I know.”

But perhaps the biggest laugh comes towards the end. When asked if Popular Problems contained any traces of optimism, Cohen’s reply is faultless and delivered with the kind of impeccable timing that would make a stand-up comedian envious: “I’m a closest optimist,” he deadpans.

Popular Problems is released on September 22

U2 album giveaway “as damaging as piracy”

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U2 album giveaway “as damaging as piracy”

The Entertainment Retailers Association have called U2's album giveaway "as damaging as piracy", saying that it devalues music. According to a statement from the ERA, U2 sold just 60 back catalogue CDs on the high street following their Songs Of Innocence album giveaway and 6,047 online over the past week. ERA Chairman Paul Quirk said: "This vindicates our view that giving away hundreds of millions of albums simply devalues music and runs the risk of alienating the 60% of the population who are not customers of iTunes. If one of the justifications of this stunt is that it would drive sales of U2's catalogue through the market as a whole, then so far at least it has been a dismal failure." Quirk went on to say, "Giving away music like this is as damaging to the value of music as piracy, and those who will suffer most are the artists of tomorrow. U2 have had their career, but if one of the biggest rock bands in the world are prepared to give away their new album for free, how can we really expect the public to spend £10 on an album by a newcomer?" The ERA statement notes that aggregate sales of U2's catalogue amounted to 697 albums across Great Britain and Northern Ireland the week before the band announced it would give away 500m copies of Songs Of Innocence. Last week they amounted to 6,744, an 868% increase, but worth at retail prices less than £50,000. Of those sales, 95.4% were digital downloads, since physical retailers were not briefed in advance to order in extra stock. The band and Apple 'gifted' 500 million iTunes users with their new album last week, however, after some users complained about the record being automatically downloaded onto their Apple products without their permission Apple released a tool to allow its customers to remove Songs Of Innocence from their devices with just one click. "Some customers asked for the ability to delete Songs Of Innocence from their library, so we set up itunes.com/soi-remove to let them easily do so. Any customer that needs additional help should contact AppleCare," Apple spokesman Adam Howorth told the BBC.

The Entertainment Retailers Association have called U2‘s album giveaway “as damaging as piracy”, saying that it devalues music.

According to a statement from the ERA, U2 sold just 60 back catalogue CDs on the high street following their Songs Of Innocence album giveaway and 6,047 online over the past week. ERA Chairman Paul Quirk said: “This vindicates our view that giving away hundreds of millions of albums simply devalues music and runs the risk of alienating the 60% of the population who are not customers of iTunes. If one of the justifications of this stunt is that it would drive sales of U2’s catalogue through the market as a whole, then so far at least it has been a dismal failure.”

Quirk went on to say, “Giving away music like this is as damaging to the value of music as piracy, and those who will suffer most are the artists of tomorrow. U2 have had their career, but if one of the biggest rock bands in the world are prepared to give away their new album for free, how can we really expect the public to spend £10 on an album by a newcomer?”

The ERA statement notes that aggregate sales of U2’s catalogue amounted to 697 albums across Great Britain and Northern Ireland the week before the band announced it would give away 500m copies of Songs Of Innocence. Last week they amounted to 6,744, an 868% increase, but worth at retail prices less than £50,000. Of those sales, 95.4% were digital downloads, since physical retailers were not briefed in advance to order in extra stock.

The band and Apple ‘gifted’ 500 million iTunes users with their new album last week, however, after some users complained about the record being automatically downloaded onto their Apple products without their permission Apple released a tool to allow its customers to remove Songs Of Innocence from their devices with just one click.

“Some customers asked for the ability to delete Songs Of Innocence from their library, so we set up itunes.com/soi-remove to let them easily do so. Any customer that needs additional help should contact AppleCare,” Apple spokesman Adam Howorth told the BBC.

Bruce Springsteen confirmed for benefit show

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Bruce Springsteen confirmed for benefit show
Bruce Springsteen is to perform at this year's Stand Up For Heroes benefit in New York, reports Rolling Stone. Springsteen has played at every benefit since it began in 2007. Last year, he performed a three-song acoustic set. The benefit, that raises funds for injured servicemembers and their fami...

Bruce Springsteen is to perform at this year’s Stand Up For Heroes benefit in New York, reports Rolling Stone.

Springsteen has played at every benefit since it began in 2007. Last year, he performed a three-song acoustic set.

The benefit, that raises funds for injured servicemembers and their families, will take place at New York’s Theater at Madison Square Garden on November 5, with tickets going on sale on September 17.

Other artists confirmed include Louis C.K., John Oliver, John Mulaney and Brian Williams, with surprise guests likely to appear on the night.

Mark Kozelek reportedly slates The War On Drugs

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Mark Kozelek reportedly slates The War On Drugs
Mark Kozelek reportedly insulted The War On Drugs during a US festival at the weekend, describing the band as "beer-commercial lead-guitar shit." Kozelek was performing at the Ottawa Folk Fest at the same time as The War On Drugs' set was taking place. "Who the fuck is that?" Kozelek reportedly sai...

Mark Kozelek reportedly insulted The War On Drugs during a US festival at the weekend, describing the band as “beer-commercial lead-guitar shit.”

Kozelek was performing at the Ottawa Folk Fest at the same time as The War On Drugs’ set was taking place. “Who the fuck is that?” Kozelek reportedly said. After being told it was The War On Drugs, Kozelek said: “I hate that beer-commercial lead-guitar shit. This next song is called ‘The War On Drugs Can Suck My Fucking Dick’,” Exclaim reports.

The War On Drugs have acknowledged the comments and admitted via Twitter that they feel Kozelek may have been playful with his insults.

Can anyone confirm that mark kozelek was talking shit on us during his set in Ottawa last night? Cuz we obviously booked the schedule….wtf

12:19 AM – 16 Sep 2014

Seems like it might have been at least partially in jest so whatever. Just upsetting to me as a fan that’s all. We’re just doin’ what we do

12:51 AM – 16 Sep 2014

Kozelek descibed an audience as “fucking hillbillies” at a different festival earlier this month and told people to “shut the fuck up” while playing live. T-shirts featuring the quote were subsequently sold via the official Sun Kil Moon website.

Sun Kil Moon play a one-off London date in December. Kozelek will perform at St John At Hackney Church in the capital on December 3.

On the return of Sinéad O’Connor

Michael Bonner
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0
On the return of Sinéad O’Connor

When Sinéad O’Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992, she brought into focus her gifts for music, controversy and self-publicity in one fairly explosive package. Since then, O’Connor’s career has followed a singular – often heartbreaking – trajectory encompassing ordination into the priesthood, misdiagnosed bipolar disorder, an 18-day marriage and, most recently, an online spat with Miley Cyrus concerning the perceived exploitation of the former teen pin-up. Nevertheless, in amidst such hullabaloos, O’Connor’s voice - a thing of silvery, haunting splendor – has remained a constant reminder of her exceptional talent. O’Connor’s recorded output has also followed an idiosyncratic path: there have been albums of traditional jazz standards, Irish songs and reggae covers. But on I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss – named after an awareness campaign to promote women’s empowerment in the workplace – O’Connor shoots for the pop vibes of her last studio album, 2012’s How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?. On this, her tenth studio album (produced by her former husband and long-term collaborator John Reynolds), O’Connor explores the perspectives of a number of different female characters. The opening track, “How About I Be Me?”, foregrounds O’Connor’s voice against a minimal backing – a persuasive reminder of her natural abilities, certainly, but also perhaps a subtle nod to “Nothing Compares 2 U”. Here, O’Connor’s narrator claims she will only find fulfillment in the arms of a man: “A woman like me needs love / A woman like me needs a man to be / Stronger than herself”. Soon after, one of the album’s more empowered characters emerges in the playful “Kisses Like Mine”. “See, I’m Special Forces / They call me in after divorces / To lift you up”, she teases, buoyed along by some cheerful guitar riffing. This early run of songs finds O’Connor tapping into the bruised intensity of her early days; but fortunately not at the expense of her sense of humour. The album’s dramas, complications and conflict continue with one of the album’s standout tracks, the gentle “Your Green Jacket”. In this vignette, we experience one character’s unrequited love – “Even though I know I’m not for you / Is it OK to say I really do adore you” – before O’Connor telescopes in on a moment of extraordinary intimacy. “Smelled your jacket / When you left it on its lonely post / Wrapped it ‘round me / Like it was the holiest of ghosts”. She ups her game further for the album’s centerpiece, “Harbour”: a gruelling account of abuse, where “A broken 14-year-old girl / Hasn’t been allowed to tell / What actually happened in hell”. However fictional the narrators of each individual song are, it seems likely that in this instance, O’Connor is writing from her own experiences. The intensity and drive of the guitars – when they hit – matches the passion and righteousness of O’Connor’s mesmerizing delivery. There are lighter moments, too. “James Brown” – featuring Seun Kuti on horns and Brian Eno on bass – is mischievous Afrobeat funk, complete with O’Connor essaying the occasional JB-style “Yow!” “Take Me To Church” and “Where Have You Been”, meanwhile, are upbeat if fairly unremarkable rockers. She exits the album with “Streetcars” her voice cast against an airy keyboard refrain. In this suitably valedictory note for an album that has addressed love in various guises, her narrator wryly concludes, “There’s no safety to be acquired / Riding streetcars named desire”.

When Sinéad O’Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992, she brought into focus her gifts for music, controversy and self-publicity in one fairly explosive package.

Since then, O’Connor’s career has followed a singular – often heartbreaking – trajectory encompassing ordination into the priesthood, misdiagnosed bipolar disorder, an 18-day marriage and, most recently, an online spat with Miley Cyrus concerning the perceived exploitation of the former teen pin-up. Nevertheless, in amidst such hullabaloos, O’Connor’s voice – a thing of silvery, haunting splendor – has remained a constant reminder of her exceptional talent.

O’Connor’s recorded output has also followed an idiosyncratic path: there have been albums of traditional jazz standards, Irish songs and reggae covers. But on I’m Not Bossy, I’m The Boss – named after an awareness campaign to promote women’s empowerment in the workplace – O’Connor shoots for the pop vibes of her last studio album, 2012’s How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?.

On this, her tenth studio album (produced by her former husband and long-term collaborator John Reynolds), O’Connor explores the perspectives of a number of different female characters. The opening track, “How About I Be Me?”, foregrounds O’Connor’s voice against a minimal backing – a persuasive reminder of her natural abilities, certainly, but also perhaps a subtle nod to “Nothing Compares 2 U”. Here, O’Connor’s narrator claims she will only find fulfillment in the arms of a man: “A woman like me needs love / A woman like me needs a man to be / Stronger than herself”. Soon after, one of the album’s more empowered characters emerges in the playful “Kisses Like Mine”. “See, I’m Special Forces / They call me in after divorces / To lift you up”, she teases, buoyed along by some cheerful guitar riffing. This early run of songs finds O’Connor tapping into the bruised intensity of her early days; but fortunately not at the expense of her sense of humour.

The album’s dramas, complications and conflict continue with one of the album’s standout tracks, the gentle “Your Green Jacket”. In this vignette, we experience one character’s unrequited love – “Even though I know I’m not for you / Is it OK to say I really do adore you” – before O’Connor telescopes in on a moment of extraordinary intimacy. “Smelled your jacket / When you left it on its lonely post / Wrapped it ‘round me / Like it was the holiest of ghosts”.

She ups her game further for the album’s centerpiece, “Harbour”: a gruelling account of abuse, where “A broken 14-year-old girl / Hasn’t been allowed to tell / What actually happened in hell”. However fictional the narrators of each individual song are, it seems likely that in this instance, O’Connor is writing from her own experiences. The intensity and drive of the guitars – when they hit – matches the passion and righteousness of O’Connor’s mesmerizing delivery.

There are lighter moments, too. “James Brown” – featuring Seun Kuti on horns and Brian Eno on bass – is mischievous Afrobeat funk, complete with O’Connor essaying the occasional JB-style “Yow!” “Take Me To Church” and “Where Have You Been”, meanwhile, are upbeat if fairly unremarkable rockers. She exits the album with “Streetcars” her voice cast against an airy keyboard refrain. In this suitably valedictory note for an album that has addressed love in various guises, her narrator wryly concludes, “There’s no safety to be acquired / Riding streetcars named desire”.

The Doors film Feast Of Friends to be released in November

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The Doors film Feast Of Friends to be released in November
The Doors’ documentary Feast Of Friends, which the band filmed themselves on their 1968 summer tour, will be released next month. The documentary, which was never completed, was screened at film festivals during Jim Morrison's lifetime, but has never been formally released due to legal issues. ...

The Doors’ documentary Feast Of Friends, which the band filmed themselves on their 1968 summer tour, will be released next month.

The documentary, which was never completed, was screened at film festivals during Jim Morrison‘s lifetime, but has never been formally released due to legal issues.

The film has been around as a bootleg for decades, and stems from a print which allegedly belonged to Morrison that he took to Paris with him when he moved there in 1971. According to rumour, he left the film in a paper bag at a friend’s house days before his death.

A remastered version of it will now be released on November 11.

“It’s a fictional documentary,” Jim Morrison says in the film’s trailer below. “I can’t say too much about it, because we’re not really making it. It’s just kind of making itself.”

The project was funded by the band, but the revenue stream was stopped after Morrison was arrested in Miami for allegedly exposing himself to an audience.

Directed by Paul Ferrara, who also made Morrison’s 1969 film HWY: An American Pastoral, the film features offstage commentary and live performances from the band.

The new DVD and Blu-ray will feature an additional documentary – The Doors Are Open – which was also made in 1968 and centres around the band’s final performance at London’s Roundhouse. It will include bonus footage of the band playing poker, Morrison talking about the film’s character ‘Minister At Large’, shots of the band recording ‘Wild Child’, an altercation between the group and photographer Richard Avedon, and interviews with guitarist Robby Krieger, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore and Doors manager Danny Sugarman.

We want your questions for Yusuf Cat Stevens!

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We want your questions for Yusuf Cat Stevens!

To coincide with the releases of his first new studio album in five years, Tell ‘Em I’m Gone, on October 27, Yusuf / Cat Stevens is set to answer your questions in our regular An Audience With... feature. So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask the legendary singer-songwriter? What does he remember about touring with Jimi Hendrix and the Walker Brothers in 1967? What is his favourite of the many cover versions of his songs? How did he come to work with Will Oldham and Rick Rubin on his new album? Send up your questions by noon, Tuesday, September 23 to uncutaudiencewith@timeinc.com. The best questions, and Cat's answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine. Please include your name and location with your question.

To coincide with the releases of his first new studio album in five years, Tell ‘Em I’m Gone, on October 27, Yusuf / Cat Stevens is set to answer your questions in our regular An Audience With… feature.

So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask the legendary singer-songwriter?

What does he remember about touring with Jimi Hendrix and the Walker Brothers in 1967?

What is his favourite of the many cover versions of his songs?

How did he come to work with Will Oldham and Rick Rubin on his new album?

Send up your questions by noon, Tuesday, September 23 to uncutaudiencewith@timeinc.com. The best questions, and Cat’s answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine. Please include your name and location with your question.

The Allman Brothers Band – The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings

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The Allman Brothers Band – The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings

Jam - deluxe-packed! The legendary Fillmore stand just got longer... Like many of their peers, the Allman Brothers Band never really hit it in the studio. Albums like 1970’s Idlewild South had some strong moments, but the group were hiding under the shade of their mercurial guitarist, Duane Allman, whose stellar playing on Derek & The Dominos’ Layla had conferred to him something close to instant legend status. The Allmans themselves were painfully aware that they only really took off in the live setting, with Duane claiming in interview that the group found the studio limiting: in 1970, he’d said that the group’s next album would be a live recording, the better to capture what many thought was their near-telepathic group interplay, and to grab the feedback loop between audience and performers and etch some of that magic onto vinyl. The result was 1971’s Live At Fillmore East, a record whose legend as one of rock’s greatest live albums sometimes overshadows the reality of its performances. It’s already seen a couple of re-treads, and some of the material recorded across their March ’71 stand at the venue saw release on other albums as well. But with The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings, you get the complete sets from March 12th and 13th, with an extra thrown in, from June 27th – the closing night at the Fillmore East. Is that enough jam for you? If The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings tells us anything, it’s that on record – and this proposition may come across as heretical to the dyed-in-the-wool follower – jam bands benefit from a judicious editing process. Case in point: the first two CDs, which comprise the two shows the Allman Brothers Band played on March 12, 1971, are marked by significant longueurs. For all the talk of the combustible nature of the Allman Brothers Band’s playing on their lengthy extemporisations, if anything, it’s actually the short, sharp blues numbers that are the most potent here. “Statesboro Blues” and “Trouble No More”, to name but two, are in-the-pocket crisp: great examples of tightly controlled group playing. When the group hits guitarist Dickey Betts’ “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed”, though, things start to go awry. Taken from their second album, Idlewild South, the song itself has always felt strangely disconnected, pivoting on a number of riffs and vamps that toil, unassumingly, in the corner of the room. Both of their March 12 performances mostly lack inspiration, with the second show featuring a saxophone solo from Rudolph “Juicy’ Carter so limp and restrained it’s hard to think that music had just been through several decades of wild, exploratory free jazz and Fire Music. It fits the fusion-y lassitude of the song, but it’s entirely uninspiring. From here, thankfully, things take a turn for the better, and it’s no surprise to discover that most of the material from the two March 13th shows has already seen release. An abbreviated “Elizabeth Reed” is stronger than the previous day’s efforts; more exciting, still, is the consummate “Whipping Post” from the second show, stretching across twenty-two minutes, with the guitars hammering that odd, abstract opening riff into the ground before taking off to other planes of where, only losing the thread for a minute or so, at the halfway mark, before the players re-group for a final, laidback tilt toward the sun. The first show’s highlight, in contrast, is a stinging “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’”, where slide guitar brutally pierces the weave of the group’s collective drill. If it’s taken the Allman Brothers Band a while to really start firing, by the time you reach the fifth disc’s “Mountain Jam” – and, let’s be honest, that’s a fair way into the set – all those claims about the group’s one-mind playing really start to make sense. It’s not without its weak moments, mind. It takes the group a while to really get moving, and a limber, fluid passage of dual drum action, shared by Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johannson, is undone by some clumsy bass plunking from Berry Oakley that’s so underwhelming, you’re simply thrilled when both guitarists ride back into the spotlight and corral “Mountain Jam” back to peak form. From here, things take off, the following ten minutes the best of the entire set, the guitars both sinuous, bristling with spectral detail, as if both guitarists are holding their instruments to the light, the better to catch every reflection and radiance from six strings. The following “Drunken Hearted Boy”, with Elvin Bishop, is a bit of a blunt comedown after such heights. Thankfully, the following disc’s set from June 27, 1971 – the closing show at the Fillmore East, with the group hand-picked for the auspicious occasion by Fillmore boss Bill Graham – is a good summary of what has come before, summing up both the peaks and troughs of the group’s set at the time: good, serviceable blues romps, the occasionally sloppy turn in the extended jams, balanced out by more exalted guitar tangle. At such moments – where Betts and Duane Allman wrestle with each other in space, carving up the air with silvery threads of single-note splurge – the Allman Brothers Band come closest, in some respects, to that other legendary jam band, The Grateful Dead. And it’s damn curious to measure both groups’ live form via recorded reflection. While the Dead may have reinvigorated the Great American Songbook, their performances of blues songs were often perfunctory, hampered by Garcia’s thin, reedy voice and an occasional bloodlessness in the playing. By contrast, this is where the Allman Brothers Band excels – tight, sure-footed and gutsy. And of course, the Grateful Dead reach far more intensive and exploratory improvisatory form than the Allman Brothers Band ever did. Regardless, one thing is resoundingly clear from The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings: if you’ve got the original At Fillmore East, whether in its original double-album form, or the 2011 deluxe edition, so you get the full “Mountain Jam” (which had also appeared, cleaved in two, on sides two and four of 1972’s Eat A Peach), that’s really about all you need. For all the mystique around the Allman Brothers Band’s entrail-sprawling jams, a good bit of (relative) concision really doesn’t go astray. Jon Dale Q&A Butch Trucks What was happening for the Allman Brothers Band, leading up to Live At The Fillmore East? The band came together and this magic happened. We started playing this music, that none of us had ever experienced before. For the first time in our lives, music became something other than a career. We were all out to be rock stars, that’s what everybody wanted to do, and once we played that music, then music became something else. It was more of a religion than it was a way to make money. The next big thing for us to do was to get out and play it for people. The first half year we were out on the road, people had a hard time understanding what we were doing. They’d never heard it before. But we started getting out and playing for people, and then we hit the Fillmore East. The first time we played there, we opened for Blood, Sweat & Tears. The crowd didn’t really react all that much, but Bill Graham did. He knew that there was something special going on. So he had us back to the Fillmore within a couple of weeks, and it wasn’t long before we became the house band, we were playing there all the time, and the people in New York really caught on to what we were doing. It became our home base. Can you tell me about the shows that ended up on the original Live At The Fillmore East? There’s a funny side story to that. We actually were not the headliners that weekend, it was Johnny Winter. We were supposed to be the special guest for Johnny Winter. The first show on the first night, after we finished our set, about half the audience got up and left. So Johnny Winter’s manager went back to Bill Graham and said, ‘Well, I don’t think Johnny can go on after the Allman Brothers Band anymore.’ So we got switched to the headline act. If that hadn’t happened, we would never have had the time to stretch out and play a half hour “Whipping Post”, and all the things that are on Fillmore East. What made that weekend special is that we had been out on the road, we’d been playing these songs, and you know how sometimes, everything comes together at the right time? When you have the right people in the right place doing the right thing? We were really comfortable with these songs that we were playing. Songs like “Whipping Post” and “Mountain Jam”, these were jams. We had really learned to talk to each other. By the time that weekend came along, we were really communicating. [Duane and Dickey], you call them two lead guitar players, but neither of them would play solos. What they would do, especially in “Mountain Jam”, Duane would start playing, and as soon as Dickey would hear something, that would trigger something in him, Dickey would jump right in and start playing along. Neither one of them were playing guitar solos. Duane would start the conversation, and Dickey would join in the conversation. We all would. And then we’d see where it would go. And every night it would go to a different place. What songs really showcase for you what the Allman Brothers Band was about? One that really shows off what we did, but it’s not the improvisation of the whole band, is “Hot ‘Lanta”. It’s really strong, and really intense, and it really shows off what we did when we really focused on a structured song, and poured everything we have into it. But I guess “Whipping Post”, and the solos on “Elizabeth Reed”, those are the things that really were what we were all about, as far as taking music in a new direction. You’ve got the blues tunes, “Stormy Monday” and “Statesboro Blues”, and that stuff we loved to play, but that was more like, paying the tribute to the people we learned from. But those jams on “Whipping Post” and “Elizabeth Reed” was what we were, and I will still say, to this day, is uniquely the Allman Brothers Band. I have yet to hear anyone else play that kind of stuff. I keep waiting for someone to come along and raise the bar and pick it up, and go somewhere, and I don’t know – I haven’t heard them yet! It’s interesting to think about the connections with jazz, too... I was talking with Lenny White from Return To Forever one night, and he was talking about the influence of the Allman Brothers. And I said, What!? And he said, ‘You have no idea how much influence the Allman Brothers had on the formation of Return To Forever, and Mahavishnu’, and all that stuff that they call fusion jazz. He said, ‘What you were doing was taking blues and rock’n’roll towards jazz, and what we saw, was that bridge where we could come as jazz players and head toward rock’n’roll and blues.’ And that’s what they did. INTERVIEW BY JON DALE

Jam – deluxe-packed! The legendary Fillmore stand just got longer…

Like many of their peers, the Allman Brothers Band never really hit it in the studio. Albums like 1970’s Idlewild South had some strong moments, but the group were hiding under the shade of their mercurial guitarist, Duane Allman, whose stellar playing on Derek & The Dominos’ Layla had conferred to him something close to instant legend status. The Allmans themselves were painfully aware that they only really took off in the live setting, with Duane claiming in interview that the group found the studio limiting: in 1970, he’d said that the group’s next album would be a live recording, the better to capture what many thought was their near-telepathic group interplay, and to grab the feedback loop between audience and performers and etch some of that magic onto vinyl.

The result was 1971’s Live At Fillmore East, a record whose legend as one of rock’s greatest live albums sometimes overshadows the reality of its performances. It’s already seen a couple of re-treads, and some of the material recorded across their March ’71 stand at the venue saw release on other albums as well. But with The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings, you get the complete sets from March 12th and 13th, with an extra thrown in, from June 27th – the closing night at the Fillmore East. Is that enough jam for you?

If The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings tells us anything, it’s that on record – and this proposition may come across as heretical to the dyed-in-the-wool follower – jam bands benefit from a judicious editing process. Case in point: the first two CDs, which comprise the two shows the Allman Brothers Band played on March 12, 1971, are marked by significant longueurs. For all the talk of the combustible nature of the Allman Brothers Band’s playing on their lengthy extemporisations, if anything, it’s actually the short, sharp blues numbers that are the most potent here. “Statesboro Blues” and “Trouble No More”, to name but two, are in-the-pocket crisp: great examples of tightly controlled group playing.

When the group hits guitarist Dickey Betts’ “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed”, though, things start to go awry. Taken from their second album, Idlewild South, the song itself has always felt strangely disconnected, pivoting on a number of riffs and vamps that toil, unassumingly, in the corner of the room. Both of their March 12 performances mostly lack inspiration, with the second show featuring a saxophone solo from Rudolph “Juicy’ Carter so limp and restrained it’s hard to think that music had just been through several decades of wild, exploratory free jazz and Fire Music. It fits the fusion-y lassitude of the song, but it’s entirely uninspiring.

From here, thankfully, things take a turn for the better, and it’s no surprise to discover that most of the material from the two March 13th shows has already seen release. An abbreviated “Elizabeth Reed” is stronger than the previous day’s efforts; more exciting, still, is the consummate “Whipping Post” from the second show, stretching across twenty-two minutes, with the guitars hammering that odd, abstract opening riff into the ground before taking off to other planes of where, only losing the thread for a minute or so, at the halfway mark, before the players re-group for a final, laidback tilt toward the sun. The first show’s highlight, in contrast, is a stinging “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’”, where slide guitar brutally pierces the weave of the group’s collective drill.

If it’s taken the Allman Brothers Band a while to really start firing, by the time you reach the fifth disc’s “Mountain Jam” – and, let’s be honest, that’s a fair way into the set – all those claims about the group’s one-mind playing really start to make sense. It’s not without its weak moments, mind. It takes the group a while to really get moving, and a limber, fluid passage of dual drum action, shared by Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johannson, is undone by some clumsy bass plunking from Berry Oakley that’s so underwhelming, you’re simply thrilled when both guitarists ride back into the spotlight and corral “Mountain Jam” back to peak form.

From here, things take off, the following ten minutes the best of the entire set, the guitars both sinuous, bristling with spectral detail, as if both guitarists are holding their instruments to the light, the better to catch every reflection and radiance from six strings. The following “Drunken Hearted Boy”, with Elvin Bishop, is a bit of a blunt comedown after such heights. Thankfully, the following disc’s set from June 27, 1971 – the closing show at the Fillmore East, with the group hand-picked for the auspicious occasion by Fillmore boss Bill Graham – is a good summary of what has come before, summing up both the peaks and troughs of the group’s set at the time: good, serviceable blues romps, the occasionally sloppy turn in the extended jams, balanced out by more exalted guitar tangle.

At such moments – where Betts and Duane Allman wrestle with each other in space, carving up the air with silvery threads of single-note splurge – the Allman Brothers Band come closest, in some respects, to that other legendary jam band, The Grateful Dead. And it’s damn curious to measure both groups’ live form via recorded reflection. While the Dead may have reinvigorated the Great American Songbook, their performances of blues songs were often perfunctory, hampered by Garcia’s thin, reedy voice and an occasional bloodlessness in the playing. By contrast, this is where the Allman Brothers Band excels – tight, sure-footed and gutsy. And of course, the Grateful Dead reach far more intensive and exploratory improvisatory form than the Allman Brothers Band ever did.

Regardless, one thing is resoundingly clear from The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings: if you’ve got the original At Fillmore East, whether in its original double-album form, or the 2011 deluxe edition, so you get the full “Mountain Jam” (which had also appeared, cleaved in two, on sides two and four of 1972’s Eat A Peach), that’s really about all you need. For all the mystique around the Allman Brothers Band’s entrail-sprawling jams, a good bit of (relative) concision really doesn’t go astray.

Jon Dale

Q&A

Butch Trucks

What was happening for the Allman Brothers Band, leading up to Live At The Fillmore East?

The band came together and this magic happened. We started playing this music, that none of us had ever experienced before. For the first time in our lives, music became something other than a career. We were all out to be rock stars, that’s what everybody wanted to do, and once we played that music, then music became something else. It was more of a religion than it was a way to make money. The next big thing for us to do was to get out and play it for people. The first half year we were out on the road, people had a hard time understanding what we were doing. They’d never heard it before. But we started getting out and playing for people, and then we hit the Fillmore East. The first time we played there, we opened for Blood, Sweat & Tears. The crowd didn’t really react all that much, but Bill Graham did. He knew that there was something special going on. So he had us back to the Fillmore within a couple of weeks, and it wasn’t long before we became the house band, we were playing there all the time, and the people in New York really caught on to what we were doing. It became our home base.

Can you tell me about the shows that ended up on the original Live At The Fillmore East?

There’s a funny side story to that. We actually were not the headliners that weekend, it was Johnny Winter. We were supposed to be the special guest for Johnny Winter. The first show on the first night, after we finished our set, about half the audience got up and left. So Johnny Winter’s manager went back to Bill Graham and said, ‘Well, I don’t think Johnny can go on after the Allman Brothers Band anymore.’ So we got switched to the headline act. If that hadn’t happened, we would never have had the time to stretch out and play a half hour “Whipping Post”, and all the things that are on Fillmore East. What made that weekend special is that we had been out on the road, we’d been playing these songs, and you know how sometimes, everything comes together at the right time? When you have the right people in the right place doing the right thing? We were really comfortable with these songs that we were playing. Songs like “Whipping Post” and “Mountain Jam”, these were jams. We had really learned to talk to each other. By the time that weekend came along, we were really communicating. [Duane and Dickey], you call them two lead guitar players, but neither of them would play solos. What they would do, especially in “Mountain Jam”, Duane would start playing, and as soon as Dickey would hear something, that would trigger something in him, Dickey would jump right in and start playing along. Neither one of them were playing guitar solos. Duane would start the conversation, and Dickey would join in the conversation. We all would. And then we’d see where it would go. And every night it would go to a different place.

What songs really showcase for you what the Allman Brothers Band was about?

One that really shows off what we did, but it’s not the improvisation of the whole band, is “Hot ‘Lanta”. It’s really strong, and really intense, and it really shows off what we did when we really focused on a structured song, and poured everything we have into it. But I guess “Whipping Post”, and the solos on “Elizabeth Reed”, those are the things that really were what we were all about, as far as taking music in a new direction. You’ve got the blues tunes, “Stormy Monday” and “Statesboro Blues”, and that stuff we loved to play, but that was more like, paying the tribute to the people we learned from. But those jams on “Whipping Post” and “Elizabeth Reed” was what we were, and I will still say, to this day, is uniquely the Allman Brothers Band. I have yet to hear anyone else play that kind of stuff. I keep waiting for someone to come along and raise the bar and pick it up, and go somewhere, and I don’t know – I haven’t heard them yet!

It’s interesting to think about the connections with jazz, too…

I was talking with Lenny White from Return To Forever one night, and he was talking about the influence of the Allman Brothers. And I said, What!? And he said, ‘You have no idea how much influence the Allman Brothers had on the formation of Return To Forever, and Mahavishnu’, and all that stuff that they call fusion jazz. He said, ‘What you were doing was taking blues and rock’n’roll towards jazz, and what we saw, was that bridge where we could come as jazz players and head toward rock’n’roll and blues.’ And that’s what they did.

INTERVIEW BY JON DALE

Leonard Cohen streams forthcoming album, Popular Problems

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Leonard Cohen streams forthcoming album, Popular Problems
Leonard Cohen is streaming his new studio album, Popular Problems, ahead of its official release on September 22. The LP, which comes out the day after his 80th birthday, is the singer's 13th studio album. It was co-written and produced by Patrick Leonard, who worked with Cohen on his last album, 2...

Leonard Cohen is streaming his new studio album, Popular Problems, ahead of its official release on September 22.

The LP, which comes out the day after his 80th birthday, is the singer’s 13th studio album. It was co-written and produced by Patrick Leonard, who worked with Cohen on his last album, 2012’s Old Ideas. Cohen is not planning any live dates around the release. Visit NPR to listen to the album early.

Popular Problems is Cohen’s second album since his return to the stage in 2008 after a 15-year absence.

Popular Problems tracklisting:

‘Slow’

‘Almost Like The Blues’

‘Samson In New Orleans’

‘A Street’

‘Did I Ever Love You’

‘My Oh My’

‘Nevermind’

‘Born In Chains’

‘You Got Me Singing’

David Bowie: “I’ve never heard a Kinks song that I didn’t like”

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David Bowie: “I’ve never heard a Kinks song that I didn’t like”

David Bowie has written the sleeve notes for a new Kinks compilation. The 48-track double album, The Essential Kinks, will be released on October 14 in North America and is a celebration of the band's 50th anniversary. In a statement on his website, Bowie has released an excerpt from the sleeve notes with an image of him with Ray Davies captioned, "I've never heard a Kinks song that I didn't like". "Of course, from their noisy and brash beginnings, The Kinks have come to stand for some of the most enduring and heart-clutching pop of all time. They are in the gut of every British songwriter who followed them and are indisputably a cornerstone of everything pop and rock. I love 'em. The world loves 'em." Bowie has previously released two Kinks covers: "Where Have All The Good Times Gone" in 1973 and "Waterloo Sunset" in 2003. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pGNBAyLJmQ

David Bowie has written the sleeve notes for a new Kinks compilation.

The 48-track double album, The Essential Kinks, will be released on October 14 in North America and is a celebration of the band’s 50th anniversary.

In a statement on his website, Bowie has released an excerpt from the sleeve notes with an image of him with Ray Davies captioned, “I’ve never heard a Kinks song that I didn’t like”.

“Of course, from their noisy and brash beginnings, The Kinks have come to stand for some of the most enduring and heart-clutching pop of all time. They are in the gut of every British songwriter who followed them and are indisputably a cornerstone of everything pop and rock. I love ’em. The world loves ’em.”

Bowie has previously released two Kinks covers: “Where Have All The Good Times Gone” in 1973 and “Waterloo Sunset” in 2003.

“Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye”: Cosimo Matassa 1926-2014

John Mulvey
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“Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye”: Cosimo Matassa 1926-2014

Among my post last week, I received a nice care package from Ace Records that included one quite weird Duke Ellington album ("My People"); Volume 3 of their "Where Country Meets Soul" series (I cannot recommend Ralph ''Soul'' Jackson's version of ''Jambalaya'' highly enough); and, maybe best of all, "Cracking The Cosimo Code", a collection of extraordinary music originating from Cosimo Matassa's New Orleans studio in the 1960s. A couple of days later, by unhappy coincidence, the news came through that Matassa, discreet architect of much of what we now know as the New Orleans sound (and perhaps even rock'n'roll itself) had died at the age of 88. I must admit, Matassa was one of those people I hadn't realised was still alive. In May, when I was in New Orleans to write about Hurray For The Riff Raff, I would wake up early and go wandering out of my hotel and into the French Quarter. One morning, I came across the unassuming corner store pictured above, the family deli where Matassa worked after he retired from the music business in the 1980s. I don't think this is the original site of the Matassa Market where the young Cosimo set up his first studio in the 1940s, hooking up with Fats Domino for a series of R&B records that would act as prototypes for the next great leap forward in musical evolution. In his sleevenotes for "Cracking The Cosimo Code", John Broven quotes Matassa telling how Domino "was a pain in the ass to record. Not because he was a nasty guy or anything, but right in the middle of a take he'd say, 'How do I sound?' Pretty bad, especially if it's the first good take of the thing you had." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIz1cPfTRW4 By the '60s, and the period covered by "Cracking The Cosimo Code", Matassa's operation had moved to a fractionally less homespun location on Governor Nicholls Street, which became the crucible of New Orleans music over the decade. Matassa engineered many of the sessions, while a list in the CD sleevenotes, titled "Musicians On These Recordings Include…", is testament to the wealth of talent focused in this tiny hub. The piano players listed, for example, runs "Allen Toussaint, Harold Battiste, Mac Rebennack, Willie Tee. Tee's own "Teasin' You" (written by another key player here, Earl King) is one of the key tracks on the fantastic compilation; sprightly rhythm, the subtlest of horn stabs and thin guitar lines; a vocal that's soulful but not histrionic, imbued with the easygoing pleasure that crackles through so many of Matassa's productions. Like so much music that emerged from Southern studios in the 1960s - Muscle Shoals and Stax being obvious examples - these are sessions that radiate a sense of efficiency and good times running in unusual harmony. You can only imagine that those vibes were facilitated in no small part by Matassa himself: Broven writes, of his first meeting with Matassa in 1973, that he was "struck by his friendly persona and gentle self-deprecating humour, allied to the sharpest of minds." As "Cracking The Cosimo Code" proves, that friendly persona midwifed a bunch of deathlessly magnificent R&B records: you'll find here "Trick Bag" by the aforementioned Earl King, Lee Dorsey's "Get Out Of My Life, Woman", Aaron Neville's "Tell It Like It Is", Robert Parker's "Barefootin'", "The Monkey Speaks His Mind" by another of Matassa's critical collaborators, Dave Bartholomew. Like the best compilations of this kind, though, it's some of the lesser-known cuts (to a dilettante like me, at least) that are revelatory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5tzzi2rCLQ Oliver Morgan's "Who Shot The Lala" is sinewy, call and response proto-funk from 1963 (probably produced by Eddie Bo, the sleevenotes speculate; the Matassa catalogue is speckled with such grey areas) that captures that quintessential New Orleans paradox of creating celebratory music out of tragedy; in this case the death of another musician, Lawrence "Prince La La" Nelson (Wikipedia, incidentally, records Nelson's death as due to a drug OD, rather than a shooting). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpxGTZz7A38 Danny White's 1962 version of "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye", meanwhile, is a heavily blues-infused southern soul burner, with White's eloquent yearning doubled by the stinging micro-guitar solos that sit between his entreaties. It's a great record, and a fitting showcase to the work of a musical technician who gave his charges the space and the confidence to express themselves so wholeheartedly. If you want to read a much more thorough and authoritative obituary of the remarkable Matassa, by the way, I should direct you to this great piece on www.nola.com. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

Among my post last week, I received a nice care package from Ace Records that included one quite weird Duke Ellington album (“My People”); Volume 3 of their “Where Country Meets Soul” series (I cannot recommend Ralph ”Soul” Jackson’s version of ”Jambalaya” highly enough); and, maybe best of all, “Cracking The Cosimo Code”, a collection of extraordinary music originating from Cosimo Matassa’s New Orleans studio in the 1960s.

A couple of days later, by unhappy coincidence, the news came through that Matassa, discreet architect of much of what we now know as the New Orleans sound (and perhaps even rock’n’roll itself) had died at the age of 88. I must admit, Matassa was one of those people I hadn’t realised was still alive. In May, when I was in New Orleans to write about Hurray For The Riff Raff, I would wake up early and go wandering out of my hotel and into the French Quarter. One morning, I came across the unassuming corner store pictured above, the family deli where Matassa worked after he retired from the music business in the 1980s.

I don’t think this is the original site of the Matassa Market where the young Cosimo set up his first studio in the 1940s, hooking up with Fats Domino for a series of R&B records that would act as prototypes for the next great leap forward in musical evolution. In his sleevenotes for “Cracking The Cosimo Code”, John Broven quotes Matassa telling how Domino “was a pain in the ass to record. Not because he was a nasty guy or anything, but right in the middle of a take he’d say, ‘How do I sound?’ Pretty bad, especially if it’s the first good take of the thing you had.”

By the ’60s, and the period covered by “Cracking The Cosimo Code”, Matassa’s operation had moved to a fractionally less homespun location on Governor Nicholls Street, which became the crucible of New Orleans music over the decade. Matassa engineered many of the sessions, while a list in the CD sleevenotes, titled “Musicians On These Recordings Include…”, is testament to the wealth of talent focused in this tiny hub. The piano players listed, for example, runs “Allen Toussaint, Harold Battiste, Mac Rebennack, Willie Tee.

Tee’s own “Teasin’ You” (written by another key player here, Earl King) is one of the key tracks on the fantastic compilation; sprightly rhythm, the subtlest of horn stabs and thin guitar lines; a vocal that’s soulful but not histrionic, imbued with the easygoing pleasure that crackles through so many of Matassa’s productions. Like so much music that emerged from Southern studios in the 1960s – Muscle Shoals and Stax being obvious examples – these are sessions that radiate a sense of efficiency and good times running in unusual harmony. You can only imagine that those vibes were facilitated in no small part by Matassa himself: Broven writes, of his first meeting with Matassa in 1973, that he was “struck by his friendly persona and gentle self-deprecating humour, allied to the sharpest of minds.”

As “Cracking The Cosimo Code” proves, that friendly persona midwifed a bunch of deathlessly magnificent R&B records: you’ll find here “Trick Bag” by the aforementioned Earl King, Lee Dorsey’s “Get Out Of My Life, Woman”, Aaron Neville’s “Tell It Like It Is”, Robert Parker’s “Barefootin'”, “The Monkey Speaks His Mind” by another of Matassa’s critical collaborators, Dave Bartholomew. Like the best compilations of this kind, though, it’s some of the lesser-known cuts (to a dilettante like me, at least) that are revelatory.

Oliver Morgan’s “Who Shot The Lala” is sinewy, call and response proto-funk from 1963 (probably produced by Eddie Bo, the sleevenotes speculate; the Matassa catalogue is speckled with such grey areas) that captures that quintessential New Orleans paradox of creating celebratory music out of tragedy; in this case the death of another musician, Lawrence “Prince La La” Nelson (Wikipedia, incidentally, records Nelson’s death as due to a drug OD, rather than a shooting).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpxGTZz7A38

Danny White’s 1962 version of “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye”, meanwhile, is a heavily blues-infused southern soul burner, with White’s eloquent yearning doubled by the stinging micro-guitar solos that sit between his entreaties. It’s a great record, and a fitting showcase to the work of a musical technician who gave his charges the space and the confidence to express themselves so wholeheartedly. If you want to read a much more thorough and authoritative obituary of the remarkable Matassa, by the way, I should direct you to this great piece on www.nola.com.

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