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The return of The Aphex Twin, and Caustic Window

John Mulvey
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The return of The Aphex Twin, and Caustic Window

Last year, Warp Records embarked on a campaign for Boards Of Canada's "Tomorrow's Harvest" comeback that was notable for its obtuseness. Unmarked 12-inches were hidden in record stores, strings of numbers and inexplicable broadcasts were strewn enigmatically across the internet. At one point, I recall some talk of red moons and feverish online triangulations pointing to a bookshop near Edinburgh as the centre of the universe. It was all fun, and the album at the end of it all was great, but perhaps it wandered a little off course as it went on. This year, to herald what very much looks, at time of writing, to be the first new Aphex Twin album in 14 years, they've done something similarly clandestine, but moved to a conclusion of sorts a lot quicker. If you missed the odd news over the weekend, a blimp bearing the Aphex logo flew over London at the weekend, with the image repeated as stencilled graffiti in New York. Yesterday, on his 43rd birthday, Richard James tweeted a link to a site on the dark web inaccessible to at least some of us. Thankfully, a fair proportion of Aphex fans are a lot more computer-literate than I am: the site reveals a title - "Syro" - and what's almost certainly a tracklisting (lots of shouts for "Syro u473t8+e (Piezoluminescence Mix)" at his next DJ set, I'm sure). An image of Richard James' face - distorted, as usual - was also embedded in the code. This is all big news, of course, for anyone with even a passing interest in the electronic music of the past 25 years. James, though, is one of those artists who transcends the parameters of his genre - or at least he did, the last time we heard any official new music from him. A couple or so months ago, when this whole wave of activity was bizarrely ushered in by a lost Aphex album from the early '90s - credited to Caustic Window - turning up first on eBay, then on Youtube, I wrote something which addressed this for Uncut. I even, with perhaps weary contractual inevitability, managed to shoehorn in a Neil Young reference Today seems a good day to post the piece on this blog, anyhow. In a few hours or so, maybe we'll have a clearer picture of what's going on. In the meantime, it's exciting to ask the tantalising question once again: what, exactly, is Richard James up to? And why now? Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk7Q7nYJpS8&list=PL05YPqhPmTtJUC0AWZAOJrhWJrjlCH11q Back in the days when The Aphex Twin was a sort of pop star, or at least a regular in the pages of NME, he would say roughly the same thing in each interview he conducted. “I don’t actually like sharing my music with anyone,” he claimed, typically, in 2001. “I’d rather not release it. All these tracks are like your babies, and you have to share them. Suddenly everyone else can listen to them and it’s really horrible.” “No-one but you will ever hear all your tracks, will they?” wondered Piers Martin, the journalist. “Probably not. I don’t reckon. Not unless they nick them.” In 2001, Richard D James released "Drukqs", his last album to date as The Aphex Twin, and told Martin that anyone hacking his computer would only be able to find there a fraction of his unreleased tracks– “A few hundred,” he estimated. Up until this summer, that trifling few hundred included the 15 pieces on "Caustic Window", a fabled set that James decided not to release in 1994. The Aphex archive of notionally lost albums might provide a techno analogue to the unreleased haul of Neil Young. But, for all of Young’s contrariness, it’s hard to imagine the likes of "Homegrown" or "Chrome Dreams" emerging the same way as Caustic Window. Earlier this year, a white label of the double album appeared on eBay, and was bought by a consortium of Aphex fans for around £40,000. With the co-operation of James and his label, Rephlex, each fan received a digital copy of "Caustic Window", and the entire set was posted on Youtube. The physical records have now been auctioned again, for £27,198: their new owner is Markus 'Notch' Persson, creator of the online gaming phenomenon, Minecraft. James’ motivations here remain obtuse. It’s tempting, as a consequence, to see the whole operation as one more prank, another riddle to engage and infuriate the obsessives poring over 12-inches that might just conceivably be his work (was he The Tuss in 2007, for instance?). Perhaps James’ long-time refusal to let go of excellent albums like "Caustic Window" frustrates him as well, with only stubborn pride preventing a release by conventional means? The traditional narrative around James paints him as a mad genius operating in a vacuum, an artist whose radical aesthetic places him outside of the musical continuum. "Caustic Window", though, tells a slightly different story - of a young musician embedded in the electronica scene of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, putting his own spin on the sound. The embryonically charming “Squidge In The Fridge”, for example, features the sort of cheesy piano line that anchored numerous Italo House records at the time, while “Mumbly”, with its Dastardly & Muttley samples and cranking breaks, isn’t so far from The Prodigy’s formative work. Nevertheless, a more recognisable Aphex Twin emerges on dystopian rave anthems like “Stomper 101mod Detunekik” and “Revpok”. For all the creepiness of his music and visuals, James’ agenda has never really involved anything more sinister than a little light perversity. At a time when he was held up as the exemplar of a genre called Intelligent Dance Music, it was his sense of mischief – not occultism – that debunked chin-stroking theory. So "Caustic Window", like the "Surfing On Sine Waves" album he released as Polygon Window in 1993, is hyperactive and hedonistic, even as James threads the most serene of melodies through the melée. That capacity for prettiness peaks on “101 Rainbows (Ambient Mix)”, a series of stately arpeggios pitched somewhere between Kraftwerk’s “Europe Endless” and Cluster’s “Sowiesoso”. It is followed, though, by “Phlaps” and the particularly flavoursome “Cunt”, two precursors of the kinetic, malfunctioning aggro-acid James would eventually codify as drill’n’bass. Significantly, they are the only two tracks he released at the time, on compilation albums. “Cunt” is the last tune on "Caustic Window", but it’s followed by a pair of “Phone Pranks”, in which James rings two techno contemporaries simultaneously on two phones. A confused chat between Scanner and Mixmaster Morris is interrupted by James ordering them not to hang up: “If you do do, you’ll die.” A second, between Cylob and Mike “Muziq” Paradinas, sees James busted. “Oh it’s Richard, is it? Very funny,” deadpans Paradinas, with the weariness of a friend perhaps overfamiliar with such larks. For here is a man not averse to playing moderately cruel tricks on his friends. Who told the NME in 1997 that releasing music was “too boring,” and that he found his fans “pretty fucking amusing”. Who has two more unreleased albums - "Analogue Bubblebath 5" (1995) and "Melodies From Mars" (1999) – being auctioned on eBay at time of writing. Whose whole career could be construed, like Caustic Window, as an accidental revolution: a private joke that got magnificently out of hand.

Last year, Warp Records embarked on a campaign for Boards Of Canada’s “Tomorrow’s Harvest” comeback that was notable for its obtuseness. Unmarked 12-inches were hidden in record stores, strings of numbers and inexplicable broadcasts were strewn enigmatically across the internet. At one point, I recall some talk of red moons and feverish online triangulations pointing to a bookshop near Edinburgh as the centre of the universe. It was all fun, and the album at the end of it all was great, but perhaps it wandered a little off course as it went on.

This year, to herald what very much looks, at time of writing, to be the first new Aphex Twin album in 14 years, they’ve done something similarly clandestine, but moved to a conclusion of sorts a lot quicker. If you missed the odd news over the weekend, a blimp bearing the Aphex logo flew over London at the weekend, with the image repeated as stencilled graffiti in New York. Yesterday, on his 43rd birthday, Richard James tweeted a link to a site on the dark web inaccessible to at least some of us.

Thankfully, a fair proportion of Aphex fans are a lot more computer-literate than I am: the site reveals a title – “Syro” – and what’s almost certainly a tracklisting (lots of shouts for “Syro u473t8+e (Piezoluminescence Mix)” at his next DJ set, I’m sure). An image of Richard James’ face – distorted, as usual – was also embedded in the code.

This is all big news, of course, for anyone with even a passing interest in the electronic music of the past 25 years. James, though, is one of those artists who transcends the parameters of his genre – or at least he did, the last time we heard any official new music from him. A couple or so months ago, when this whole wave of activity was bizarrely ushered in by a lost Aphex album from the early ’90s – credited to Caustic Window – turning up first on eBay, then on Youtube, I wrote something which addressed this for Uncut. I even, with perhaps weary contractual inevitability, managed to shoehorn in a Neil Young reference

Today seems a good day to post the piece on this blog, anyhow. In a few hours or so, maybe we’ll have a clearer picture of what’s going on. In the meantime, it’s exciting to ask the tantalising question once again: what, exactly, is Richard James up to? And why now?

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk7Q7nYJpS8&list=PL05YPqhPmTtJUC0AWZAOJrhWJrjlCH11q

Back in the days when The Aphex Twin was a sort of pop star, or at least a regular in the pages of NME, he would say roughly the same thing in each interview he conducted. “I don’t actually like sharing my music with anyone,” he claimed, typically, in 2001. “I’d rather not release it. All these tracks are like your babies, and you have to share them. Suddenly everyone else can listen to them and it’s really horrible.”

“No-one but you will ever hear all your tracks, will they?” wondered Piers Martin, the journalist.

“Probably not. I don’t reckon. Not unless they nick them.”

In 2001, Richard D James released “Drukqs”, his last album to date as The Aphex Twin, and told Martin that anyone hacking his computer would only be able to find there a fraction of his unreleased tracks– “A few hundred,” he estimated.

Up until this summer, that trifling few hundred included the 15 pieces on “Caustic Window”, a fabled set that James decided not to release in 1994. The Aphex archive of notionally lost albums might provide a techno analogue to the unreleased haul of Neil Young. But, for all of Young’s contrariness, it’s hard to imagine the likes of “Homegrown” or “Chrome Dreams” emerging the same way as Caustic Window.

Earlier this year, a white label of the double album appeared on eBay, and was bought by a consortium of Aphex fans for around £40,000. With the co-operation of James and his label, Rephlex, each fan received a digital copy of “Caustic Window”, and the entire set was posted on Youtube. The physical records have now been auctioned again, for £27,198: their new owner is Markus ‘Notch’ Persson, creator of the online gaming phenomenon, Minecraft.

James’ motivations here remain obtuse. It’s tempting, as a consequence, to see the whole operation as one more prank, another riddle to engage and infuriate the obsessives poring over 12-inches that might just conceivably be his work (was he The Tuss in 2007, for instance?). Perhaps James’ long-time refusal to let go of excellent albums like “Caustic Window” frustrates him as well, with only stubborn pride preventing a release by conventional means?

The traditional narrative around James paints him as a mad genius operating in a vacuum, an artist whose radical aesthetic places him outside of the musical continuum. “Caustic Window”, though, tells a slightly different story – of a young musician embedded in the electronica scene of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, putting his own spin on the sound. The embryonically charming “Squidge In The Fridge”, for example, features the sort of cheesy piano line that anchored numerous Italo House records at the time, while “Mumbly”, with its Dastardly & Muttley samples and cranking breaks, isn’t so far from The Prodigy’s formative work.

Nevertheless, a more recognisable Aphex Twin emerges on dystopian rave anthems like “Stomper 101mod Detunekik” and “Revpok”. For all the creepiness of his music and visuals, James’ agenda has never really involved anything more sinister than a little light perversity. At a time when he was held up as the exemplar of a genre called Intelligent Dance Music, it was his sense of mischief – not occultism – that debunked chin-stroking theory. So “Caustic Window”, like the “Surfing On Sine Waves” album he released as Polygon Window in 1993, is hyperactive and hedonistic, even as James threads the most serene of melodies through the melée.

That capacity for prettiness peaks on “101 Rainbows (Ambient Mix)”, a series of stately arpeggios pitched somewhere between Kraftwerk’s “Europe Endless” and Cluster’s “Sowiesoso”. It is followed, though, by “Phlaps” and the particularly flavoursome “Cunt”, two precursors of the kinetic, malfunctioning aggro-acid James would eventually codify as drill’n’bass. Significantly, they are the only two tracks he released at the time, on compilation albums.

“Cunt” is the last tune on “Caustic Window”, but it’s followed by a pair of “Phone Pranks”, in which James rings two techno contemporaries simultaneously on two phones. A confused chat between Scanner and Mixmaster Morris is interrupted by James ordering them not to hang up: “If you do do, you’ll die.” A second, between Cylob and Mike “Muziq” Paradinas, sees James busted. “Oh it’s Richard, is it? Very funny,” deadpans Paradinas, with the weariness of a friend perhaps overfamiliar with such larks.

For here is a man not averse to playing moderately cruel tricks on his friends. Who told the NME in 1997 that releasing music was “too boring,” and that he found his fans “pretty fucking amusing”. Who has two more unreleased albums – “Analogue Bubblebath 5” (1995) and “Melodies From Mars” (1999) – being auctioned on eBay at time of writing. Whose whole career could be construed, like Caustic Window, as an accidental revolution: a private joke that got magnificently out of hand.

Kate Bush asks fans not to take photographs at her forthcoming live shows

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Kate Bush asks fans not to take photographs at her forthcoming live shows
Kate Bush has asked fans not to take photos at her forthcoming run of live shows. The singer will play her first series of gigs since 1979 later this month when she begins a 22-date run at London's Eventim Apollo, which will take place between August and October. "We're all very excited about the...

Kate Bush has asked fans not to take photos at her forthcoming run of live shows.

The singer will play her first series of gigs since 1979 later this month when she begins a 22-date run at London’s Eventim Apollo, which will take place between August and October.

“We’re all very excited about the upcoming shows and are working very hard in preparation. It’s going very well indeed, ” she wrote in a note on her website.

She then added that she had a request for fans who are coming to the gigs: “We have purposefully chosen an intimate theatre setting rather than a large venue or stadium. It would mean a great deal to me if you would please refrain from taking photos or filming during the shows. I very much want to have contact with you as an audience, not with iphones, ipads or cameras. I know it’s a lot to ask but it would allow us to all share in the experience together.”

More than 80,000 tickets went onsale on March 28 this year and sold out in just 15 minutes. The run of shows will be called Before The Dawn<.strong> and will begin on August 26.

Bob Seger to release first album in eight years

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Bob Seger to release first album in eight years
Bob Seger is to release a new album later this year. According to a report on Rolling Stone, Seger will release Ride Out on October 14. It is his first studio album since Face The Promise in 2006. “I feel really good about this record,” Seger said in a statement quoted on Rolling Stone. “Th...

Bob Seger is to release a new album later this year.

According to a report on Rolling Stone, Seger will release Ride Out on October 14.

It is his first studio album since Face The Promise in 2006.

“I feel really good about this record,” Seger said in a statement quoted on Rolling Stone. “This album touches on how I think a lot of us feel about finding our place in a more complicated world – from how we appreciate things as simple and pure as love, to navigating through the corruption and violence that permeates the news. It sums up a lot of feelings I have about a variety of subjects.”

The story also says the album will include a cover of Wilco and Billy Bragg’s “California Stars” from Mermaid Avenue, based on lyrics by Woody Guthrie.

You can watch Seger cover “California Stars” below from the Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio on February 27, 2013.

Rare Beatles photographs discovered at London children’s home

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Rare Beatles photographs discovered at London children’s home

Rare pictures of The Beatles meeting youngsters from a children's home while filming A Hard Day's Night in 1964 have been discovered by a children's charity. Staff at The Children's Society discovered the photographs in an archive which contained a copy of the charity's supporters’ magazine from 1964. It featured an article on children from the Society's now-defunct Roehampton home, Hambro House, meeting the band while they were filming at London's Scala Theatre. "We were thrilled to discover these photos in The Children’s Society archive, showing The Beatles taking time out from filming A Hard Day’s Night to spend time with children from one of our children’s homes in London," a spokesperson for the charity said. "We no longer run children’s homes but our work supporting disadvantaged children is as important now as it was when those photos were taken 50 years ago." You can read about the making of A Hard Day's Night in the current issue of Uncut; in shops now. Meanwhile, last week, Paul McCartney revealed another previously unseen photograph from The Beatles' final gig. The image is one of a number of pictures which were shown on a big screen as McCartney performed live at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on August 14 at a gig dubbed Farewell To Candlestick: The Final Concert. The venue is the same one The Beatles performed at on August 29, 1966 in what would prove to be their last ticketed public performance together.

Rare pictures of The Beatles meeting youngsters from a children’s home while filming A Hard Day’s Night in 1964 have been discovered by a children’s charity.

Staff at The Children’s Society discovered the photographs in an archive which contained a copy of the charity’s supporters’ magazine from 1964. It featured an article on children from the Society’s now-defunct Roehampton home, Hambro House, meeting the band while they were filming at London’s Scala Theatre.

“We were thrilled to discover these photos in The Children’s Society archive, showing The Beatles taking time out from filming A Hard

Day’s Night to spend time with children from one of our children’s homes in London,” a spokesperson for the charity said. “We no longer run children’s homes but our work supporting disadvantaged children is as important now as it was when those photos were taken 50 years ago.”

You can read about the making of A Hard Day’s Night in the current issue of Uncut; in shops now.

Meanwhile, last week, Paul McCartney revealed another previously unseen photograph from The Beatles’ final gig.

The image is one of a number of pictures which were shown on a big screen as McCartney performed live at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on August 14 at a gig dubbed Farewell To Candlestick: The Final Concert. The venue is the same one The Beatles performed at on August 29, 1966 in what would prove to be their last ticketed public performance together.

Exclusive! Hear the Grateful Dead and Branford Marsalis team-up for “Bird Song” at Nassau Coliseum, 1990

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Exclusive! Hear the Grateful Dead and Branford Marsalis team-up for “Bird Song” at Nassau Coliseum, 1990

In 1990, the Grateful Dead began their 25th anniversary celebrations with a three-week tour through North America’s east coast. The tour has already been partly documented in the 2012 box set, Spring 1990. Now the band are releasing a 23-disc boxed set that covers eight complete shows, all previously unreleased, from this historic tour, titled Spring 1990 (The Other One). Among the dates they played a show at Nassau Coliseum on March 29, 1990 where they were joined by Branford Marsalis. The show will be included in the Spring 1990 (The Other One) box set and as a stand-alone 3CD release, Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990. You can listen to a recording of "Bird Song" by the Dead and Marsalis from the Nassau show by scrolling down the page. “When I agreed to sit in with the Dead in 1990, I didn't know what to expect, aurally or visually,” says Marsalis. “What I experienced was what I remembered music to be in my younger years, something that I'd felt was lost long ago. Process over product. No set lists, light shows and costumes required, but music first. It's an experience I will always remember with great fondness.” Both the Spring 1990 (The Other One) box set and Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990 will be available through Rhino Records from September 8. You can pre-order Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990 here. Pic credit: Kraig Fox

In 1990, the Grateful Dead began their 25th anniversary celebrations with a three-week tour through North America’s east coast.

The tour has already been partly documented in the 2012 box set, Spring 1990.

Now the band are releasing a 23-disc boxed set that covers eight complete shows, all previously unreleased, from this historic tour, titled Spring 1990 (The Other One).

Among the dates they played a show at Nassau Coliseum on March 29, 1990 where they were joined by Branford Marsalis. The show will be included in the Spring 1990 (The Other One) box set and as a stand-alone 3CD release, Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990.

You can listen to a recording of “Bird Song” by the Dead and Marsalis from the Nassau show by scrolling down the page.

“When I agreed to sit in with the Dead in 1990, I didn’t know what to expect, aurally or visually,” says Marsalis. “What I experienced was what I remembered music to be in my younger years, something that I’d felt was lost long ago. Process over product. No set lists, light shows and costumes required, but music first. It’s an experience I will always remember with great fondness.”

Both the Spring 1990 (The Other One) box set and Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990 will be available through Rhino Records from September 8.

You can pre-order Wake Up To Find Out: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY 3/29/1990 here.

Pic credit: Kraig Fox

Johnny Cash’s childhood home opens to the public

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Johnny Cash’s childhood home opens to the public
Johnny Cash's childhood home has been opened to the public, as part of a bid to boost the town he grew up in. Cash moved into the house in Dyess, Arkansas, in 1935 when he was three. The town was an experiment in president Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programme, which aimed to help the US economy...

Johnny Cash‘s childhood home has been opened to the public, as part of a bid to boost the town he grew up in.

Cash moved into the house in Dyess, Arkansas, in 1935 when he was three. The town was an experiment in president Franklin Roosevelt‘s New Deal programme, which aimed to help the US economy bounce back from the Great Depression. The Cashes were among 500 families specially selected by the initiative to be given a small home, some farm land, money and a mule to try and rebuild their lives.

Cash’s siblings Tommy and Joanne have overseen the refurbishment of the five-room wooden house, in which visitors can see the family’s piano and other items from the period.

“We’ve got everything just as it was,” Joanne Cash, now 76, told the New York Times. “It took a lot of hard work. It’s been very emotional for me.”

“We used to gather around that piano at night and sing gospel for an hour. That was our entertainment.”

The refurbishment project is part of a bid to bring tourism to Dyess. Local mayor Larry Sims says that he hopes it will attract 20,000 visitors a year.

Cash’s daughter Rosanne told the Associated Press that the scheme, which is led by Arkansas State University (ASU), will boost the local economy in Dyess, which has struggled in recent years.

“We have lost many other such places of historic significance because of a lack of funds, [no interest] or ignorance,” she said. “I am so happy ASU stepped in when they did. There were only around 35 cottages left and my dad’s, though dilapidated, was one of those.”

Big Boys – Lullabies That Help The Brain Grow / No Matter How Long The Line Is At The Cafeteria, There’s Always A Seat

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Big Boys – Lullabies That Help The Brain Grow / No Matter How Long The Line Is At The Cafeteria, There’s Always A Seat

Texas' idealistic, punk/funk avatars finally get their due: "Now go start your own band!" A whirlwind of artistic fearlessness, rugged individualism, and community spirit guiding the Austin punk scene 1979-1985, the big-hearted Big Boys were outrageous and eclectic, risk-takers espousing an anything-goes creative fervor that forged its own path. They resisted pigeonholes from the get-go, a kaleidoscope of thick, hard rhythms and ideas coming at you from all directions, fast. On stage, led by singer and force-of-nature Randy “Biscuit” Turner (1949-2005), they were a riot. Whether appearing in a tutu or leaning into a radical, think-for-yourself lyric Turner was the living embodiment of the freedom the band espoused. Together with guitarist Tim Kerr, bassist Chris Gates, and drummer Rey Washam, the group delighted, and confounded. “The scene at that time was made up of colorful characters and bigger than life personalities," remembers Kerr, now a respected artist and producer, " Biscuit was just another crazy bright light in a bunch of crazy lights, maybe a bit more Dada-bright than the others.” Apoplectically, they melded influences from Kool And The Gang to Throbbing Gristle ("We listened to it all," says Kerr), from swinging, stutter-step funk, with horns, to pissed-off, 30-second gut-punches. They were touring legends, but alas, tragically under-recorded in a cosmic-cowboy town. For his part, says Kerr, “I found freedom in the idea that, at least in Austin, this 'new thing' had no rules, no uniform. It was wide open to try anything.” These two albums, produced by Spot (Husker Du, Misfits), reflect it all, flying shrapnel of defiance that acts from Scratch Acid to Red Hot Chili Peppers readily embraced. Cafeteria is boiling with funk overtures ("What's the Word"), ragged pop (the Replacements on a bender "Which Way To Go"), and time-signature weirdness ("Killing Time"). Lullabies hews closer to their fire, its anthem "We're Not in It to Lose" throwing down the gauntlet—to avoid groupthink, creeping repression. "The cultural tension becomes fun," Kerr observes, "when you're not alone in the fight for self-expression. I think we all felt strongly about getting others involved. Or at least showing that there were other choices available. I still do." Luke Torn Credit: Courtesy of Pat Blashill

Texas’ idealistic, punk/funk avatars finally get their due: “Now go start your own band!”

A whirlwind of artistic fearlessness, rugged individualism, and community spirit guiding the Austin punk scene 1979-1985, the big-hearted Big Boys were outrageous and eclectic, risk-takers espousing an anything-goes creative fervor that forged its own path. They resisted pigeonholes from the get-go, a kaleidoscope of thick, hard rhythms and ideas coming at you from all directions, fast.

On stage, led by singer and force-of-nature Randy “Biscuit” Turner (1949-2005), they were a riot. Whether appearing in a tutu or leaning into a radical, think-for-yourself lyric Turner was the living embodiment of the freedom the band espoused. Together with guitarist Tim Kerr, bassist Chris Gates, and drummer Rey Washam, the group delighted, and confounded. “The scene at that time was made up of colorful characters and bigger than life personalities,” remembers Kerr, now a respected artist and producer, ” Biscuit was just another crazy bright light in a bunch of crazy lights, maybe a bit more Dada-bright than the others.”

Apoplectically, they melded influences from Kool And The Gang to Throbbing Gristle (“We listened to it all,” says Kerr), from swinging, stutter-step funk, with horns, to pissed-off, 30-second gut-punches. They were touring legends, but alas, tragically under-recorded in a cosmic-cowboy town. For his part, says Kerr, “I found freedom in the idea that, at least in Austin, this ‘new thing’ had no rules, no uniform. It was wide open to try anything.”

These two albums, produced by Spot (Husker Du, Misfits), reflect it all, flying shrapnel of defiance that acts from Scratch Acid to Red Hot Chili Peppers readily embraced. Cafeteria is boiling with funk overtures (“What’s the Word”), ragged pop (the Replacements on a bender “Which Way To Go”), and time-signature weirdness (“Killing Time”). Lullabies hews closer to their fire, its anthem “We’re Not in It to Lose” throwing down the gauntlet—to avoid groupthink, creeping repression.

“The cultural tension becomes fun,” Kerr observes, “when you’re not alone in the fight for self-expression. I think we all felt strongly about getting others involved. Or at least showing that there were other choices available. I still do.”

Luke Torn

Credit: Courtesy of Pat Blashill

Watch Neil Young’s trailer for his new Director’s Cut of Human Highway

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Watch Neil Young’s trailer for his new Director’s Cut of Human Highway

Human Highway (Director's Cut) Trailer from Shakey Pictures on Vimeo.

Neil Young has released a trailer for the new Director’s Cut of his 1982 film, Human Highway.

Scroll down to watch the trailer.

The Director’s Cut is being screened at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

On the website for the Toronto festival, the film is described as “a post-apocalyptic musical comedy, in which the rock legend writes, directs and stars alongside an eclectic and eccentric cast including Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper and Devo.”

You can find out more information about the screening here.

The full line-up and schedule for this year’s festival will be announced on August 19.

The festival box office opens on August 31. The festival runs from September 4 – 14.

Human Highway (Director’s Cut) Trailer from Shakey Pictures on Vimeo.

Stevie Nicks invites fans to design new shawl

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Stevie Nicks invites fans to design new shawl
Stevie Nicks has launched a competition that invites fans to design a shawl for the singer. According to Rolling Stone, the competition winner will receive $2,000 (£1198) to produce a trademark shawl for Nicks. The winner will also receive a professional photograph of the singer modelling the piec...

Stevie Nicks has launched a competition that invites fans to design a shawl for the singer.

According to Rolling Stone, the competition winner will receive $2,000 (£1198) to produce a trademark shawl for Nicks. The winner will also receive a professional photograph of the singer modelling the piece and will be featured on her website and social media outlets.

“In 1968, a very handsome boy brought me a poncho from South America,” Nicks said in a statement. “I knew it was magic and that someday I would copy it in chiffon or leather or beaded material. I realised that wearing a poncho or a long shawl gave me something to work with up on the stage. Big movements, big twirls, you need to be seen from far away. So I made that a big part of my stage clothes. It became totally intertwined in my fashion style.”

The competition ends on September 29 with the winner announced on October 14. It will coincide with the release of Nick’s new double album 24 Karat Gold: Songs From The Vault, which is set for an October 7 release. The album primarily consists of songs written between 1969 and 1987 but recorded recently in Nashville and Los Angeles.

“Each song is a lifetime,” said Nicks, speaking about her upcoming record. “Each song has a soul. Each song has a purpose. Each song is a love story… They represent my life behind the scenes, the secrets, the broken hearts, the broken-hearted and the survivors.”

Aphex Twin blimp sighted above London

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Aphex Twin blimp sighted above London

A blimp decorated in the Aphex Twin logo was spotted hovering above the Oval Space in Hackney on Saturday (August 16). The airship also featured the digits "2014". Now, in a further development, the same logo has been spotted by fans outside Radio City Hall in New York. In June, fans of Aphex Twin (real name Richard James) purchased digital copies of his rare album Caustic Window via a Kickstarter campaign. A physical copy of the record – which only reached the pressing phase in 1994 before being scrapped – was auctioned on eBay and sold for £27,198. Money raised from the sale was reportedly split evenly between those who paid into Kickstarter, James himself and an unnamed charity. In 2010, James announced that he had completed six albums, as well as "loads of tracks which don't belong anywhere". "Two are very non-commercial, abstract, modular-synthesis, field recordings – those I finished four years ago. Another one is 'Melodies From Mars', which I redid about three years ago," said James. He added: "There's one of stuff I won't go into; a comp of old tracks. Which is never really finished and always changing; and then one I'm working on now. There are also loads of tracks which don't belong anywhere." Despite this, a new record has not been forthcoming, with his most recent studio album, Drukqs, released in 2001.

A blimp decorated in the Aphex Twin logo was spotted hovering above the Oval Space in Hackney on Saturday (August 16).

The airship also featured the digits “2014”. Now, in a further development, the same logo has been spotted by fans outside Radio City Hall in New York.

In June, fans of Aphex Twin (real name Richard James) purchased digital copies of his rare album Caustic Window via a Kickstarter campaign. A physical copy of the record – which only reached the pressing phase in 1994 before being scrapped – was auctioned on eBay and sold for £27,198. Money raised from the sale was reportedly split evenly between those who paid into Kickstarter, James himself and an unnamed charity.

In 2010, James announced that he had completed six albums, as well as “loads of tracks which don’t belong anywhere”.

“Two are very non-commercial, abstract, modular-synthesis, field recordings – those I finished four years ago. Another one is ‘Melodies From Mars’, which I redid about three years ago,” said James.

He added: “There’s one of stuff I won’t go into; a comp of old tracks. Which is never really finished and always changing; and then one I’m working on now. There are also loads of tracks which don’t belong anywhere.”

Despite this, a new record has not been forthcoming, with his most recent studio album, Drukqs, released in 2001.

Morrissey maintains that he has been dropped by his record label

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Morrissey maintains that he has been dropped by his record label
Morrissey has claimed that he has proof that he has been dropped by his label, Capitol-Harvest Records. The label recently denied claims made by Morrissey himself that their relationship had ended following the release of new album World Peace Is None Of Your Business earlier this year. However, in...

Morrissey has claimed that he has proof that he has been dropped by his label, Capitol-Harvest Records.

The label recently denied claims made by Morrissey himself that their relationship had ended following the release of new album World Peace Is None Of Your Business earlier this year. However, in a new post issued to quasi-official fansite True To You, the singer maintains that is no longer signed to the label and also denies suggestions he owes the label a second album.

Morrissey’s statement on True To You reads: “Both Morrissey and Morrissey’s lawyer are in possession of email correspondence from Steve Barnett (head of Capitol-Harvest Records), and also from Steve Barnett’s personal assistant, both of whom confirm that Capitol-Harvest have ended their relationship with Morrissey. No recording Agreement with Capitol-Harvest was ever signed by Morrissey, and Morrissey retains full ownership of ‘World Peace is None Of Your Business’.”

“Contrary to the assured Billboard report, Capitol-Harvest have very clearly stated that they would have no interest in licensing a second album by Morrissey. Russells (London), who represent Morrissey, are presently concluding Morrissey’s relationship with Harvest Records. Once again, Morrissey is in search of a new label.”

The news comes after Morrissey appeared to criticise his label, with the singer hinting at “public deception” in the music industry in a separate update posted on True To You.

Paul McCartney reveals unseen photograph from The Beatles final gig

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Paul McCartney reveals unseen photograph from The Beatles final gig
Paul McCartney has revealed a previously unseen photograph from The Beatles' last ever gig. The image, seen above, is one of a number shown on the big screen as McCartney performed live at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park last night (August 14) at a gig dubbed "Farewell To Candlestick: The Final...

Paul McCartney has revealed a previously unseen photograph from The Beatles’ last ever gig.

The image, seen above, is one of a number shown on the big screen as McCartney performed live at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park last night (August 14) at a gig dubbed “Farewell To Candlestick: The Final Concert”. The venue is the same one The Beatles performed at on August 29, 1966 in what would prove to be their last ticketed public performance together.

A collection of never before seen Jim Marshall photographs were displayed as McCartney played Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally”; the last song to be performed in its entirety at The Beatles’ 1966 concert.

The Haight: Love, Rock and Revolution, a book of Marshall’s best work, will be released on October 14.

Farewell To Candlestick: The Final Concert is the latest sold out stop on Paul McCartney’s current ‘Out There’ tour. In July McCartney resumed the tour, after taking almost two months off following a virus.

The Thurston Moore Band, Café Oto, London, August 14, 2014

Michael Bonner
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The Thurston Moore Band, Café Oto, London, August 14, 2014

“Thank you, Boston,” deadpans Thurston Moore as the audience at tonight’s gig show their appreciation for “Speak To The Wild”. Of course, we’re in east London – Dalston to be precise, at Café Oto, which has become a regular hang out for Moore since he moved up the road to Stoke Newington. Indeed, most recently, he enjoyed a two-night residency in this venue earlier in the month. Tonight's gig, though, is pretty special. It transpires that Moore’s former Sonic Youth band mate Steve Shelley flew into town on Tuesday night. Moore brought him down to Café Oto, and finding there was nothing booked for this evening, they decided to put on an impromptu gig. It is, essentially, a pop-up gig in a part of town renowned for its pop-up shops, bars and restaurants. The purpose of this evening’s show is to give the first live airing to songs from The Best Day, the debut album from The Thurston Moore Band. Aside from Moore and, on drums, Shelley, this marvellous new venture also includes Debbie Googe from My Bloody Valentine on bass and Nøught’s James Sedwards on guitar. Pretty much as you'd imagine, they don't disappoint. Though, at first, you may be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Minutes before they’re due to go on stage, Moore can be found chatting amiably on the street outside the venue; inside, Googe ambles on stage and fiddles with her bass, Sedwards saunters on. There is some further fiddling of instruments, then Moore appears at a lectern and starts strumming; Sedwards joins in. All of a sudden, Shelley walks on, sits down behind his kit and the band hit the motorik groove of “Forevermore” at full tilt. It’s a bracing, powerful opener. If anything, tonight’s set (six songs; though there are two identical performances divided by an interval) gives us a great opportunity to see these exceptional performers up close. Googe and Shelley, particularly, are a formidable rhythm section. Shelley has a smile on his face throughout the gig, like he keeps on remembering the punchline to a joke. His playing is fluid and consistently powerful. By comparison, Googe is an inscrutable presence. She faces away from the audience, mostly locked into a groove with Shelley. Her bass playing is extraordinary: the sound is thick and low, she doesn’t dwell on the notes, and on occasion what she’s doing more closely resembles riffing. You might think that Sedwards – arguably the least known member of the band – is here in a support capacity to back-up for Moore, but as his intuitive, digressive soloing on “Ono Soul” demonstrates, he is clearly capable of carrying his own weight among such storied company. For his part, Moore is very much in charge of proceedings. His band mates regularly watch him, looking for cues, as he free jams through the free jamming of “Speak To The Wild” and the punkish “Germs Burn”. What is perhaps strangest of all is hearing Moore make reference to Hackney Empire or local anarchist groups from the 1970s. Indeed, one song on The Best Day, “Grace Lake”, takes its title from the literary pseudonym used by poet and Stokey radical, Anna Mendelssohn. Moore dedicates “Detonation” to the “Stoke Newington Eight”, members of urban guerilla group The Angry Brigade. The song was originally released on the Blank Tapes label by another N16 resident, David Blanco. “This is about Stoke Newington, but through a Yankee lens,” smiles Moore as he explains the song’s origins. Spotting Moore strolling down Church Street is, admittedly, still a strange experience. The set ends with “Ono Soul”, and an obliterating noise fest not a million miles away from the ‘holocaust section’ of the Valentine’s “You Made Me Realise”. There is a 30-minute interval before the band return – Moore and Shelley have changed shirts for the second set – and do the whole thing again. The Thurston Moore Band are, by my reckoning, his third endeavour since Sonic Youth, after Chelsea Light Moving and Twilight. But of course Moore has been involved in many projects, often running several concurrently. Quite how long this one will endure remains to be seen, of course; but it’s easily among the best of Moore’s recent work. The album – which is due out in October – is excellent, and these live versions are muscular and digressive. Great songs, and a sense that Moore has found fresh inspiration in N16 with his latest, formidable accomplices. The Thurston Moore Band played: Forevermore Speak To The Wild Germs Burn Detonation Grace Lake Ono Soul You can find tour dates for The Thurston Moore Band here. The Best Day is released by Matador on October 21

“Thank you, Boston,” deadpans Thurston Moore as the audience at tonight’s gig show their appreciation for “Speak To The Wild”. Of course, we’re in east London – Dalston to be precise, at Café Oto, which has become a regular hang out for Moore since he moved up the road to Stoke Newington.

Indeed, most recently, he enjoyed a two-night residency in this venue earlier in the month. Tonight’s gig, though, is pretty special. It transpires that Moore’s former Sonic Youth band mate Steve Shelley flew into town on Tuesday night. Moore brought him down to Café Oto, and finding there was nothing booked for this evening, they decided to put on an impromptu gig. It is, essentially, a pop-up gig in a part of town renowned for its pop-up shops, bars and restaurants.

The purpose of this evening’s show is to give the first live airing to songs from The Best Day, the debut album from The Thurston Moore Band. Aside from Moore and, on drums, Shelley, this marvellous new venture also includes Debbie Googe from My Bloody Valentine on bass and Nøught’s James Sedwards on guitar. Pretty much as you’d imagine, they don’t disappoint. Though, at first, you may be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Minutes before they’re due to go on stage, Moore can be found chatting amiably on the street outside the venue; inside, Googe ambles on stage and fiddles with her bass, Sedwards saunters on. There is some further fiddling of instruments, then Moore appears at a lectern and starts strumming; Sedwards joins in. All of a sudden, Shelley walks on, sits down behind his kit and the band hit the motorik groove of “Forevermore” at full tilt. It’s a bracing, powerful opener.

If anything, tonight’s set (six songs; though there are two identical performances divided by an interval) gives us a great opportunity to see these exceptional performers up close. Googe and Shelley, particularly, are a formidable rhythm section. Shelley has a smile on his face throughout the gig, like he keeps on remembering the punchline to a joke. His playing is fluid and consistently powerful. By comparison, Googe is an inscrutable presence. She faces away from the audience, mostly locked into a groove with Shelley. Her bass playing is extraordinary: the sound is thick and low, she doesn’t dwell on the notes, and on occasion what she’s doing more closely resembles riffing. You might think that Sedwards – arguably the least known member of the band – is here in a support capacity to back-up for Moore, but as his intuitive, digressive soloing on “Ono Soul” demonstrates, he is clearly capable of carrying his own weight among such storied company.

For his part, Moore is very much in charge of proceedings. His band mates regularly watch him, looking for cues, as he free jams through the free jamming of “Speak To The Wild” and the punkish “Germs Burn”. What is perhaps strangest of all is hearing Moore make reference to Hackney Empire or local anarchist groups from the 1970s. Indeed, one song on The Best Day, “Grace Lake”, takes its title from the literary pseudonym used by poet and Stokey radical, Anna Mendelssohn. Moore dedicates “Detonation” to the “Stoke Newington Eight”, members of urban guerilla group The Angry Brigade. The song was originally released on the Blank Tapes label by another N16 resident, David Blanco. “This is about Stoke Newington, but through a Yankee lens,” smiles Moore as he explains the song’s origins. Spotting Moore strolling down Church Street is, admittedly, still a strange experience.

The set ends with “Ono Soul”, and an obliterating noise fest not a million miles away from the ‘holocaust section’ of the Valentine’s “You Made Me Realise”. There is a 30-minute interval before the band return – Moore and Shelley have changed shirts for the second set – and do the whole thing again. The Thurston Moore Band are, by my reckoning, his third endeavour since Sonic Youth, after Chelsea Light Moving and Twilight. But of course Moore has been involved in many projects, often running several concurrently. Quite how long this one will endure remains to be seen, of course; but it’s easily among the best of Moore’s recent work. The album – which is due out in October – is excellent, and these live versions are muscular and digressive. Great songs, and a sense that Moore has found fresh inspiration in N16 with his latest, formidable accomplices.

The Thurston Moore Band played:

Forevermore

Speak To The Wild

Germs Burn

Detonation

Grace Lake

Ono Soul

You can find tour dates for The Thurston Moore Band here. The Best Day is released by Matador on October 21

Rick Parfitt to miss Status Quo gig for the first time

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Rick Parfitt to miss Status Quo gig for the first time
Rick Parfitt will miss his first ever Status Quo gig due to illness. The band recently cancelled six concerts on their European tour because 65-year-old Parfitt was rushed to hospital. Parfitt had a quadruple heart bypass in 1997 after doctors said he was in danger of dying as a result of his lifes...

Rick Parfitt will miss his first ever Status Quo gig due to illness.

The band recently cancelled six concerts on their European tour because 65-year-old Parfitt was rushed to hospital. Parfitt had a quadruple heart bypass in 1997 after doctors said he was in danger of dying as a result of his lifestyle. After surgery, Parfitt said he was not planning on becoming a “born-again Christian” and would still have the “odd pint”.

Parfitt will not be playing at the band’s gig tomorrow night (August 15) at Clumber Park in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, reports BBC News. Freddie Edwards, who is the son of bass player John ‘Rhino’ Edwards, will fill in for him. It is thought that he will recover in time for the band’s following concert, at Norfolk’s Holkham Hall on August 23.

Speaking about tomorrow’s show, Francis Rossi said it would be “strange” performing without Parfitt, while the band’s manager Simon Porter called the gig “Quo history in the making” and “a memorable one-off.”

The band hold the record for the most singles, having recorded 64 since 1968. Parfitt and long-time band partner Francis Rossi were invested as OBEs by the Queen in 2010.

Belle & Sebastian announce back catalogue vinyl reissues

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Belle & Sebastian announce back catalogue vinyl reissues
Belle & Sebastian have announced plans to reissue the majority of their back catalogue on vinyl. The reissues will be given an umbrella title, It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career, a reference to their single The Boy With The Arab Strap. The list of albums to be reissued on vinyl are: Tiger...

Belle & Sebastian have announced plans to reissue the majority of their back catalogue on vinyl.

The reissues will be given an umbrella title, It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career, a reference to their single The Boy With The Arab Strap.

The list of albums to be reissued on vinyl are:

Tigermilk

If You’re Feeling Sinister

The Boy With The Arab Strap

Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant

Dear Catastrophe Waitress (with alternate art)

Push Barman To Open Old Wounds

The Life Pursuit

The BBC Sessions

Write About Love

The Third Eye Centre

All of the albums will be reissued on October 6. Meanwhile, it was recently announced that Belle & Sebastian will headline All Tomorrrow’s Parties Iceland in 2015.

Gruff Rhys shortlisted for book award for American Interior

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Gruff Rhys shortlisted for book award for American Interior
Gruff Rhys has been shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize for his book American Interior. Rhys has been nominated alongside five other writers for a £5,000 award for his writings, part of a multimedia project which included an album and a film. The prize, now in its second year, will be judged ...

Gruff Rhys has been shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize for his book American Interior.

Rhys has been nominated alongside five other writers for a £5,000 award for his writings, part of a multimedia project which included an album and a film.

The prize, now in its second year, will be judged by comedian, actor and musician Julian Barratt, poet John Burnside, artist Sarah Lucas and novelist Benjamin Myers, who won the award last year for his book, Pig Iron.

A collaboration between New Writers North, Faber & Faber and the Gordon Burn Trust, the organisers say the Prize is awarded to writers who follow the “fearless footsteps” of Burn, a polymath who wrote on subjects ranging from “serial killers… to contemporary art”.

The winner will be announced on October 10.

Rhys, meanwhile, will embark on a UK tour this September with a run of shows at churches, town halls and ‘iconic’ UK venues, kicking off the at Shetland Mareel on September 4.

He will play:

Shetland Mareel (September 4)

Glasgow ABC (5)

Gateshead Old Town Hall (6)

Manchster Royal Northern College Of Music (10)

Bristol Woodlands Church (11)

Wakefield Long Division (13)

Hebden Bridge The Trades Club (14)

Birmingham Glee Club (15)

Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms (17)

Brighton St George’s Church (18)

Ashford St Mary’s Church (19)

London Queen Elizabeth Hall (20)

Laugharne The Dylan Weekend (21)

Ray Davies – Album By Album

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Ray Davies – Album By Album
As The Kinks prepare to release a deluxe edition of Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround Part One, packaged with soundtrack Percy, we take a trip back to Uncut’s November 2007 issue (Take 126), where Ray Davies talks Uncut through some of the best albums he’s made in his long career. “My...

As The Kinks prepare to release a deluxe edition of Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround Part One, packaged with soundtrack Percy, we take a trip back to Uncut’s November 2007 issue (Take 126), where Ray Davies talks Uncut through some of the best albums he’s made in his long career. “My songwriting has been my ally through life,” Davies muses, “because I ain’t got much else.” Words: Nick Hasted

________________

THE KINKS – FACE TO FACE

(Pye, 1966)

Baroque, introspective pop classics, mostly written after Ray’s breakdown that summer.

Ray Davies: “I was 22, and writing about adult concerns – mortgages in ‘Most Exclusive Residence For Sale’, taxes in ‘Sunny Afternoon’. It was my first experience of being a grown-up. I went through a lot of emotional problems that year, because of the constant pressure from managers and the label, and myself, to keep the hits coming. I became washed out and drained, and a bumbling fool. I needed a good sleep, and that’s basically what my ‘breakdown’ was. I wrote ‘Sunny Afternoon’ after that. And ‘Fancy’, a little ballad about being misunderstood, in a world where ‘no one can penetrate me, or understand me’. And ‘Too Much On My Mind’ – but I could have written that 10 years before, or yesterday. With album tracks in those days there was a sense of freedom. And maybe we were a little bit freer than we should’ve been. Face To Face is a collection of songs, not an album. ‘Sunny Afternoon’ had been a hit, so the heat was off. The label didn’t get that one. I said, ‘Please. I was right with all the others – just put this out in five weeks, the sun’s coming out.’ Pop should be an immediate response to the world.”

________________

THE KINKS – SOMETHING ELSE BY THE KINKS

(Pye, 1967)

Ray’s reaction to the Summer of Love? Songs about cigarettes, tea – and Waterloo sunsets…

“’Something Else’. No pretension, but I like that. The Summer of Love didn’t bother me too much. I remember my first entry to Sgt Pepper was in Belfast, in Van Morrison’s flat. I didn’t listen to all of it. I knew I’d put out the best song of the year, so it didn’t matter to me.

“You can just hear the words in ‘Waterloo Sunset’, they trickle out. If you listen to the lyrics, I’m a voyeur in the distance, watching the young couple. So I could have written it now. ‘Waterloo Sunset’ was about the view I had from my hospital bed when I was badly injured as a child. It was also about being taken to the Festival Of Britain with my mum and dad. I remember them taking me by the hand, and saying it symbolised the future. That, and then walking by the Thames with my first wife, and all the dreams that we had. Her in her brown suede coat that she wore, that got stolen. Sometimes when you’re writing, you think, ‘I can relate it to any of these things.’ But listen to the words without the music, and it’s a different thing entirely.”

________________

THE KINKS – THE KINKS ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY

(Pye, 1968)

Brilliantly observed concept album about nostalgia and Englishness. Now revered, it failed to chart anywhere on its original release.

“I think every band goes through a phase where they sit back and think about what their future’s going to be, a crossroads record. Wilco did it with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. …Village Green was ours. Maybe it’s an artistic death wish, to put something out like that. But you had underground music starting, with the West Coast explosion in America, and our management were sending us to play working-men’s clubs up north.

“I was angry. And I repressed the competitive instincts that had made me write hit singles. It wasn’t, ‘I think I’m burned out, I can’t be successful.’ It was, ‘I’m deliberately not going to be successful this time. I’m not going to make “You Really Got Me, Part III”.’ …Village Green is probably one of the first indie records. It was also a culmination of all these years of being banned from America [after Ray’s punch-up with a union official in 1965]. I felt we’d had a raw deal, the band were being punished unjustly. And I just wanted to do something English. I wanted to write something that, if we were never heard of again, this is who we are. It was a final stand for things about to be swept away, ideals that can never be kept.

“There are elements of reality. ‘Do You Remember Walter’ was inspired by a close friend of mine who met me once I’d had success, and we didn’t really know each other any more. The real Village Green is a combination of north London places: the little green near my childhood home in Fortis Green, Cherry Tree Woods, Highgate Woods. That little green is where we played football, and where we stayed ’til it was dark. There was mystery there; it was where we heard stories. But the Village Green could be anywhere. It’s all in my head, probably. The record’s about lost childhood, but also being a kid. Everybody’s got their own Village Green, somewhere you go to, when the world gets too much. The peace movement took the album up, when it eventually came out in America. They thought it was anti-Vietnam. Americans interpreted it as being about something that Americans should cherish. In a misconceived way, they took it as theirs.

“We knew it wouldn’t be successful, but in a sense, it did everything I wanted it to do. When people think about The Kinks, they still think about that album. And most of them have never heard it.”

________________

THE KINKS – ARTHUR (OR THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE)

(Pye, 1969)

Predating The Who’s Tommy, the first “rock opera”, originally intended as a TV show.

“To this day, I’ve never heard Tommy through. It’s not like getting to the South Pole, it doesn’t really matter who was first. Arthur was supposed to be a TV musical, that was never made. I was doing a script at the same time, with Julian Mitchell. The Arthur I was writing about was my relative. I lived with him and his wife, my older sister, as a boy. All I would hear at dinner was how Britain had been betrayed, after the war. They were lured to Australia by cheap housing. It was a profound loss for me. Arthur heard the record before he died. He said, ‘There were some good things about England. You picked up on too many negatives.’

“’Shangri-La’ was a bitter song, too, about the suburban dream. Its sentiment sometimes bothers me. I really do respect suburban people, with their homes, and their organised lives, making arrangements to have holidays together. Tidy lives. I long for that, now. But I’m still living out of bags.

“But by that time I was also developing a script, and ‘Shangri-La’ fitted the theme, as did songs about the trenches and class. Meanwhile, The Kinks were saying, ‘Come on, we just want to make a rock record.’ I wanted a bigger picture. Arthur’s ideas are aggressive. It’s an angry record, played in a very gentle way.”

________________

THE KINKS – MUSWELL HILLBILLIES

(RCA, 1971)

A personal hymn to a changing British landscape.

“We’d just signed a big record deal with RCA, and it was not the ideal record to bring out. It was inspired by the demolition of the Caledonian Road’s north end, where my parents were moved from to Muswell Hill. It’s part of cataloguing where I’m from, and what’s become of it. ‘Muswell Hillbillies’ meant it was a step across the water to America. The conceit was that there are hillbillies even in London. And perhaps I’m one.

“The opening song, ‘20th Century Man’, began as a madcap idea for a movie. This guy was like a suicide bomber, staying on at the end of a building that was going to be knocked down. Like ‘Here Come the People In Grey’, it’s against the bureaucrats who run the world. It was a very personal record. But it was also in the Archway Tavern [Ray’s Irish local, whose bar The Kinks prop up on the sleeve] where I first saw anti-British activities in the ’70s. Burning the flag, and other stuff. I used to take Barrie Keeffe there, who went on to write The Long Good Friday. So Muswell Hillbillies did, in a strange way, open the door into what was going to happen in the ’70s. Bloody Sunday was the next year. It was a record with some sense of place or time.”

________________

THE KINKS – PRESERVATION ACT 1

(RCA, 1973)

First and finest of a string of ambitious ’70s concept albums – another lost Kinks classic.

“I felt I had so much to say then. But I was shattered. ‘Sweet Lady Genevieve’ is about breaking up with my first wife, sung by a not wholly good person. But the album was a complete fantasy. Preservation is connected to the Village Green, in that it’s what happened to these people when they got older. It was about the corruption of adults. Mr Flash is the guy who’s got a grudge, the wheeler-dealer, a Lavender Hill Mob villain. There were a lot of new fans in America who felt that resonated with Richard Nixon’s government. Preservation… captured a student following. The problem was, I had a band, and it was not an appropriate project to reactivate a conventional career. I took The Kinks in a direction I know they weren’t comfortable going.

“RCA didn’t understand I wanted to make videos and films as part of it, in 1972. They said, ‘We want you to make music, we’re not in the entertainment business.’ It’s a period when I shouldn’t have been allowed to make records. I should have been locked up! But I’m glad we did, as it helped the band shed its old image. That’s why I think America worked finally, in the ’80s.”

________________

THE KINKS – STATE OF CONFUSION

(Arista, 1983)

The pinnacle of The Kinks’ second career as US stadium stars, trailed by MTV hit “Come Dancing”.

“I wanted to regain some of the warmth I thought we’d lost, doing those stadium tours. ‘Come Dancing’ was an attempt to get back to roots, about my sisters’ memories of dancing in the ’50s. [Arista’s] Clive Davis didn’t want to put it out, because he thought it was too vaudevillian. It was the video that convinced him. It went on MTV when it first started, and they couldn’t stop rotating it. It was one of our biggest singles, and it was about an East End spiv, sung in a London voice. If anybody had lost any faith in us being real people, that record would restore it. Even a pompous love ballad like ‘Don’t Forget To Dance’ had great lines. It had all the right ingredients, but it didn’t work, in a brilliant way.

“Mick Avory’s drum-roll into ‘Come Dancing’ is totally late, and that’s what the world is missing without The Kinks: their realism, and their mistakes. If you look at the cover, everybody’s going in different directions. The feuds between Mick and Dave had reached a final peak, and it was horrible to be on tour. We’d gone through massive hard work to get in stadiums. And success made us split up.”

________________

RAY DAVIES – WORKING MAN’S CAFÉ

(V2, 2007)

Swift sequel to Ray’s first proper solo album, Other People’s Lives, written after his 2004 shooting by New Orleans muggers.

“If this album was a book, it would begin with Blair getting in. I’ve never wanted to leave England, but I was going to. Because we’d just gone through Thatcher. But I thought he was worse. I made a half-hearted attempt to run off to New Orleans with this broad, fucked it up royally, and got shot. I was in terrible shape when I made this album. But I wanted to show that I could do it.

“If I hadn’t made this record quickly, I’d never have made another one. It helped get me through the trauma of New Orleans. ‘Morphine Song’ was written in the emergency room. That kept my head together. A lot of the songs are inspired by feeling alienated in America, and looking for somewhere to have a cup of tea. I miss the camaraderie and shared sensibility of being in The Kinks. Trying to get American musicians in my mind-space is hard.

“I went to New Orleans to try and have a new life there. The New Orleans thing started for me in the ’50s at the Highgate jazz club. And in a way, that’s what it always will be. I didn’t have to go all that way to find myself.”

Yes’ Jon Anderson: “Punk didn’t affect us. I was a punk, The Who and The Kinks were punks, so there was always punk music”

Uncut
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Yes’ Jon Anderson: “Punk didn’t affect us. I was a punk, The Who and The Kinks were punks, so there was always punk music”
Yes take us through the making of their classic albums in the new issue of Uncut, dated September 2014, and out now. Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe and Alan White discuss the out-there recordings of nine albums, including their self-titled debut, Close To The Edge, Tales From Topographic ...

Yes take us through the making of their classic albums in the new issue of Uncut, dated September 2014, and out now.

Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe and Alan White discuss the out-there recordings of nine albums, including their self-titled debut, Close To The Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans and 90125, as well as the group’s new album, Heaven & Earth.

“Did punk affect us?” says Jon Anderson, recalling the background to 1978’s Tormato. “Not really. I was a punk, James Cagney was a punk, The Who and The Kinks were punks, so there was always punk music.

“But when you get bands getting up onstage who can’t even play, and they just do crazy things to the audience, that’s what I call not real.”

The new Uncut is out now.

Hurray For The Riff Raff interviewed

John Mulvey
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Hurray For The Riff Raff interviewed
This is the full text of my interview with Hurray For The Riff Raff in New Orleans. I've added a lot of music to listen to as you read; not just by Alynda and the Riff Raff, but by some of the other New Orleans musicians who are critical to the story. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulv...

This is the full text of my interview with Hurray For The Riff Raff in New Orleans. I’ve added a lot of music to listen to as you read; not just by Alynda and the Riff Raff, but by some of the other New Orleans musicians who are critical to the story.

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

One warm lunchtime in early May, New Orleans does not seem a particularly dangerous place. The French Quarter is full, as usual, with tourists brandishing frozen daiquiris, ambling past the voodoo stores and buskers. At the edge of the district, a guide shepherds her tour party out of this bohemian theme park and across Rampart Street. “Now,” she says, “you can tell your friends back home that you actually left the French Quarter.” Ten minutes later they return, unbloodied.

Beyond the tourist zone, all appears peaceful. In the Lower Ninth District, still recovering nearly a decade after Hurricane Katrina, nothing moves on the levee overlooking the Mississippi. A few minutes’ drive away in the St Roch neighbourhood, Music Street is just as quiet. We cruise past the old house of Alynda Lee Segarra, fulcrum of Hurray For The Riff Raff and one of the most distinctive voices to have emerged from New Orleans – and, perhaps, from the United States – in the last few years. While Segarra was living there, in 2010, the area endured one of the city’s periodic explosions of violence: a series of murders, rapes and home invasions concentrated on the streets between Franklin and St Roch Avenues. Among the victims was Jon Flee, 27, a hobo and artist whom Segarra had known since she was 15. He had been shot in the head by, police believed, a 16-year-old on a spree that included two more murders that same night.

“When the sun goes down, it’s different here,” says Segarra. “I’m from New York, and when I first came to New Orleans I thought I was tough, but it was nothing like what I’d ever experienced. In New York, I got mugged twice but never really felt that afraid. I always felt there was some kind of order glueing everything together. But in New Orleans, especially after the storm, people have to go through such hardship and injustice, and it just gets rid of that order. It makes the anger so strong, the confusion so strong.”

The fifth Hurray For The Riff Raff album, Small Town Heroes, contains a song called “St Roch Blues”, a spare, haunted doo-wop written and sung by Segarra with her sometime bandmate and former boyfriend, Sam Doores; a eulogy for Flee and the many other casualties of this mystical, unsettling city. Segarra’s songs often capture the romance of New Orleans, and her own unusual story – how the punk daughter of New York’s Deputy Mayor ran away at 17, hopped trains across country and reinvented herself singing folk ballads of a modern, complex American South – has the alluring quality of a myth.

New Orleans’ charm is easy to understand. It is a city steeped in history and culture, where young musicians can live out an escapist fantasy, hustling from the buskers’ domain on Royal Street to the clubs of Frenchmen Street, from one impromptu and surprisingly lucrative performance to the next. But at the same time, the messier fundamentals of New Orleans make it a hard place to hide from reality. 155 people were murdered there in 2013.

“St Roch Blues” comes loaded with a sorrowful warning to those dreamers who might follow Segarra’s path. “Baby please don’t go down to New Orleans,” she harmonises with Doores, “Cause you don’t know the things I seen.” One day, Segarra saw a 15-year-old boy get shot just across the road from her house, in the middle of a block party. “His grandmother told us there were some kids who were upset he wouldn’t join their gang,” she says.

“That was a really big wake-up call. ‘St Roch Blues’ is about my outsider’s perspective and about feeling naïve, more than anything. We’re singing, ‘Don’t come to New Orleans,’ but really what we’re trying to say is, ‘Don’t come ignoring that there needs to be help here. Don’t come ignoring the fact that the storm happened, that there are people who are struggling.’ That’s what I would like to get out, especially to young buskers who come here: ‘Be aware of the pain that people went through, and respect that pain.’”

Continue

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – CSNY 1974

Uncut
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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – CSNY 1974

CSNY's "Doom Tour" exhumed, and reconstructed into an ideal show from their stadium excursion... To call this live compilation from CSNY’s 1974 tour “long-awaited” is, on one level, an act of revisionism. Certainly, it has been a long time coming, but it’s also true that in the intervening 40 years, the competing egos of CSNY have done their best to suggest that if the tour itself wasn’t best forgotten, there was nothing to be gained by revisiting it. Indeed, Stephen Stills started suppressing interest before the tour had even taken place, famously telling Cameron Crowe in Creem: “We did one for the art and the music, one for the chicks. This one’s for the cash.” Less well remembered is how Stills immediately qualified that jokey remark, saying that “the music is real good, like it’s never been before. And that’s probably because everybody’s matured as musicians.” Neil Young, in his book, Waging Heavy Peace, was rather less ebullient, saying: “Most of these stadium shows were just no good. The technology was not there for the sound. It was all about the egos of everyone. The group was more into showboating than music. It was a huge disappointment.” So was it just one for the money? Well, it’s true that 1974 found CSNY in a state of flux. After their anointment as the American Beatles, post-Woodstock in 1969, their solo careers had waned somewhat. Even Young had shed some of the commercial lustre of Harvest, and was in a state of emotional turmoil. He had recorded but not released Tonight’s The Night, inspired by the death of Danny Whitten. And the similarly dark On The Beach, its bitter tone coloured by Young’s troubled relationship with Carrie Snodgress, was about to be issued. These records are now seen as creative high-points, but they weren’t considered commercial at the time. Whether CSNY actually split up in between times is a moot point. Various permutations had managed to rub along onstage and record, but the full quartet only appeared together three times in four years. In spring 1973, they had made an unsuccessful attempt at recording an album in Hawaii, where David Crosby’s schooner was moored, moving on to Young’s Broken Arrow ranch, but the results were unsatisfactory. Still, something must have clicked, because rumours about a tour persisted. It took the recruitment of veteran promoter Bill Graham to get the wheels moving. Graham had just taken Bob Dylan on a tour of indoor arenas, and his ambitions for CSNY were grander still. A two-month tour of American sports stadia was arranged, plus a valedictory date at Wembley Stadium in London: 31 shows in 24 cities. Corners were not cut. A line portrait of the group by Joni Mitchell was affixed to the tour crockery and luggage tags, and screen-printed onto the tour pillowcases. The group hopped between cities in Lear jets. Limousines were on standby at all times, but rarely used. Young preferred to travel with family and friends in a mobile home which he called “Mobil-Obil”. It was later replaced by “Sam Sleaze”, an old gospel tourbus. But the sense of dislocation within the group wasn’t just caused by the size of the venues, or the travel arrangements. There was a good deal of superstar excess at play too. Cocaine had replaced marijuana as the drug of choice, doing nothing to create a communal ethic. CSNY’s musical ambitions were grandiose. The plan was to avoid reprising old material. Back catalogue, when played, would be rearranged. Crosby talked of a setlist consisting of 44 songs. They managed 40 on the opening night, then trimmed back to 30, with each set including acoustic and electric passages, and individual showcases. None of which prepares you for the extraordinary clarity of the sound on this album, which has been assembled by Nash from the 10 shows which were professionally recorded to represent an ideal night on the tour. That isn’t to say it all sounds harmonious. Playing such large venues with inadequate equipment clearly strained the voices, so there are some rough larynxes on display on Stills’ “Love The One You’re With” and the croaky cover of The Beatles’ “Blackbird”. (Stills’ throatiness is put to good use on the bluesy “Word Game”, though.) Superstar egos aside, a different kind of tension is evident. The world had moved on since Woodstock. The politics of 1974 were stalked by paranoia, fear and loathing. These were the last days of the Nixon administration. Crosby’s banter includes a joke about the 18-minute gap on the Watergate tapes. There’s even a musical tribute to the disgraced president, “Goodbye Dick”, composed in haste by Young after Nixon’s resignation on August 9 (and performed on August 14). It’s no “Ohio”, being a jokey banjo lament lasting no more than a minute, but it does capture the malignant spirit of the times. It’s also evident that Young is performing on a different level to his bandmates. Creatively, he’s on fire, while CSN are doused, or prone to indulgence. So, while “Almost Cut My Hair” assumes a somewhat pensive air, protest songs “Fieldworker” and “Immigration Man” are too literal to be effective. Including “Goodbye Dick”, there are five unreleased Young songs. “Hawaiian Sunrise” is a frivolous South Seas lilt. “Love Art Blues” is a self-mocking country strum (“My songs are all so long/And my words are all so sad”). “Traces” is a typical exploration of alienation. And the eight-minute “Pushed It Over The End” is a sprawling exercise in uncertain time signatures and whacked-out emotions. But there’s also an incendiary “Revolution Blues” with Young howling like a dog about the lepers of Laurel Canyon; a gospel-tinged “Helpless”, and a truly fantastic rendition of “On The Beach”, all malign electricity and coiled neuroses. “Old Man” is elevated by its harmonies, while “Long May You Run” manages to sound like a farewell toast to the hippy ideals which CSNY once appeared to represent, its fragile mood elevated by Stills’ fractured harmonies. The album ends, as it must, with “Ohio”. Maybe, with Nixon gone, there’s a note of triumph buried beneath its thrashing riff, but the pervasive mood is one of melancholy fury – which qualifies it all the better to be the band’s swansong. The 3CD box has a bonus DVD with decent live footage from Landover, Maryland and Wembley. There is a limited wooden boxset with 6 LPs, Blu-ray audio disc, and book. And a single CD version, with 16 tracks. Alastair McKay

CSNY’s “Doom Tour” exhumed, and reconstructed into an ideal show from their stadium excursion…

To call this live compilation from CSNY’s 1974 tour “long-awaited” is, on one level, an act of revisionism. Certainly, it has been a long time coming, but it’s also true that in the intervening 40 years, the competing egos of CSNY have done their best to suggest that if the tour itself wasn’t best forgotten, there was nothing to be gained by revisiting it. Indeed, Stephen Stills started suppressing interest before the tour had even taken place, famously telling Cameron Crowe in Creem: “We did one for the art and the music, one for the chicks. This one’s for the cash.”

Less well remembered is how Stills immediately qualified that jokey remark, saying that “the music is real good, like it’s never been before. And that’s probably because everybody’s matured as musicians.” Neil Young, in his book, Waging Heavy Peace, was rather less ebullient, saying: “Most of these stadium shows were just no good. The technology was not there for the sound. It was all about the egos of everyone. The group was more into showboating than music. It was a huge disappointment.”

So was it just one for the money? Well, it’s true that 1974 found CSNY in a state of flux. After their anointment as the American Beatles, post-Woodstock in 1969, their solo careers had waned somewhat. Even Young had shed some of the commercial lustre of Harvest, and was in a state of emotional turmoil. He had recorded but not released Tonight’s The Night, inspired by the death of Danny Whitten. And the similarly dark On The Beach, its bitter tone coloured by Young’s troubled relationship with Carrie Snodgress, was about to be issued. These records are now seen as creative high-points, but they weren’t considered commercial at the time.

Whether CSNY actually split up in between times is a moot point. Various permutations had managed to rub along onstage and record, but the full quartet only appeared together three times in four years. In spring 1973, they had made an unsuccessful attempt at recording an album in Hawaii, where David Crosby’s schooner was moored, moving on to Young’s Broken Arrow ranch, but the results were unsatisfactory. Still, something must have clicked, because rumours about a tour persisted. It took the recruitment of veteran promoter Bill Graham to get the wheels moving. Graham had just taken Bob Dylan on a tour of indoor arenas, and his ambitions for CSNY were grander still. A two-month tour of American sports stadia was arranged, plus a valedictory date at Wembley Stadium in London: 31 shows in 24 cities. Corners were not cut. A line portrait of the group by Joni Mitchell was affixed to the tour crockery and luggage tags, and screen-printed onto the tour pillowcases. The group hopped between cities in Lear jets. Limousines were on standby at all times, but rarely used.

Young preferred to travel with family and friends in a mobile home which he called “Mobil-Obil”. It was later replaced by “Sam Sleaze”, an old gospel tourbus. But the sense of dislocation within the group wasn’t just caused by the size of the venues, or the travel arrangements. There was a good deal of superstar excess at play too. Cocaine had replaced marijuana as the drug of choice, doing nothing to create a communal ethic.

CSNY’s musical ambitions were grandiose. The plan was to avoid reprising old material. Back catalogue, when played, would be rearranged. Crosby talked of a setlist consisting of 44 songs. They managed 40 on the opening night, then trimmed back to 30, with each set including acoustic and electric passages, and individual showcases. None of which prepares you for the extraordinary clarity of the sound on this album, which has been assembled by Nash from the 10 shows which were professionally recorded to represent an ideal night on the tour.

That isn’t to say it all sounds harmonious. Playing such large venues with inadequate equipment clearly strained the voices, so there are some rough larynxes on display on Stills’ “Love The One You’re With” and the croaky cover of The Beatles’ “Blackbird”. (Stills’ throatiness is put to good use on the bluesy “Word Game”, though.)

Superstar egos aside, a different kind of tension is evident. The world had moved on since Woodstock. The politics of 1974 were stalked by paranoia, fear and loathing. These were the last days of the Nixon administration. Crosby’s banter includes a joke about the 18-minute gap on the Watergate tapes. There’s even a musical tribute to the disgraced president, “Goodbye Dick”, composed in haste by Young after Nixon’s resignation on August 9 (and performed on August 14). It’s no “Ohio”, being a jokey banjo lament lasting no more than a minute, but it does capture the malignant spirit of the times.

It’s also evident that Young is performing on a different level to his bandmates. Creatively, he’s on fire, while CSN are doused, or prone to indulgence. So, while “Almost Cut My Hair” assumes a somewhat pensive air, protest songs “Fieldworker” and “Immigration Man” are too literal to be effective. Including “Goodbye Dick”, there are five unreleased Young songs. “Hawaiian Sunrise” is a frivolous South Seas lilt. “Love Art Blues” is a self-mocking country strum (“My songs are all so long/And my words are all so sad”). “Traces” is a typical exploration of alienation. And the eight-minute “Pushed It Over The End” is a sprawling exercise in uncertain time signatures and whacked-out emotions.

But there’s also an incendiary “Revolution Blues” with Young howling like a dog about the lepers of Laurel Canyon; a gospel-tinged “Helpless”, and a truly fantastic rendition of “On The Beach”, all malign electricity and coiled neuroses. “Old Man” is elevated by its harmonies, while “Long May You Run” manages to sound like a farewell toast to the hippy ideals which CSNY once appeared to represent, its fragile mood elevated by Stills’ fractured harmonies.

The album ends, as it must, with “Ohio”. Maybe, with Nixon gone, there’s a note of triumph buried beneath its thrashing riff, but the pervasive mood is one of melancholy fury – which qualifies it all the better to be the band’s swansong.

The 3CD box has a bonus DVD with decent live footage from Landover, Maryland and Wembley. There is a limited wooden boxset with 6 LPs, Blu-ray audio disc, and book. And a single CD version, with 16 tracks.

Alastair McKay

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