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Jonny Greenwood: “What do I do? I just generally worry about things”

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Jonny Greenwood: “What do I do? I just generally worry about things”
How does the most innovative guitarist of his generation spend his spare time? By writing masterful film scores and trying to reinvent how music sounds, it seems. Jonny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood soundtrack is performed at London’s Roundhouse on August 6 and 7, and here, in this piece from ...

How does the most innovative guitarist of his generation spend his spare time? By writing masterful film scores and trying to reinvent how music sounds, it seems. Jonny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood soundtrack is performed at London’s Roundhouse on August 6 and 7, and here, in this piece from Uncut’s April 2011 issue (Take 167), Rob Young penetrates Greenwood’s studio lair and discovers, among other things, what Radiohead have been up to of late…

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The car pulls into the courtyard of a small complex of offices in the middle of a housing estate on the fringes of Didcot, an Oxfordshire railway town. There are two doors into this unit, and we take the right-hand one at first, which leads, like the proverbial rabbit hole, into a warren of cramped rooms. Here’s a drum kit, now a stack of guitar amps, and finally, as the air becomes muggier, even slightly fetid, we reach the control room, a windowless space piled high with effects racks, keyboards, a crumpled black leather sofa and mixing desk.

This is where Jonny Greenwood has been lurking, putting the finishing touches this damp January morning to his soundtrack for Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin, made for BBC Films and starring Tilda Swinton and John C Reilly. Despite being enthused by the outcome – mainly music played by Jean Kelly on a seven-string Irish harp – Greenwood seems eager to get out of this lightless place, and after manager Bryce Edge hands him a plastic bag of victuals from the local Waitrose, suggests we retire to the awards-lined lounge of his management’s offices up the left-hand staircase. Looking at the shiny discs, trophies and statuettes Radiohead have picked up for OK Computer, Kid A and others over the years, one can’t help but wonder: how is work progressing on the follow-up to 2007’s In Rainbows?

“It seems to be slow, but there’s lots of work going on,” Greenwood explains. “We’ve been with each other an awful lot. It’s more about working out which is the right path to go down for each of the songs and ideas. I don’t think people appreciate what a mess most bands’ records are until they’re finalised, the songs are in order and you’ve left the right ones off and put the right ones on, and suddenly it has something. We’re quite incompetent, I think, and always have been.”

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Right now, Greenwood is representing his parallel side, his composerly career which has run alongside (and fed into) Radiohead for several years. This month his music – introspective orchestral stuff – graces the soundtrack of Tran Anh Hung’s Norwegian Wood, a stately, melancholy, period-detail-soaked adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s coming-of-age novel. At just over two hours, the film’s hazy, atmospheric evocation of late-’60s Tokyo is strangely static, and for much of the first hour the only music that’s heard is a sprinkling of early Can tracks.

“I told him about Can,” claims Greenwood, “because originally he had lots of Doors, and I had the Oliver Stone heebie-jeebies about ‘this is the ’60s’, Jimi Hendrix and so on. I thought, Can, they had a Japanese singer, it sort of fits…”

Greenwood’s music for films began in 2003 with Bodysong, a wordless documentary about human motion and activity with antecedents in films like Koyaanisqatsi.

“Jonny always wanted to go against the grain, mess with expectations,” recalls Bodysong’s director, Simon Pummell. “At one point he was looking into the possibilities of soundscapes of extinct languages. The way the percussion in the ‘Violence’ section slowly shifts into a more synchronised, obsessional beat – and moves from excitement to something oppressive, as the images escalate from brawling to genocidal brutality – is an example of the music really telling the story together with the images.”

He moved from art-house to mainstream theatres with Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood in 2007, with a harsh catgut accompaniment – “music about the characters and the landscape”, he says – that scaled the movie’s epic peaks and troughs with atonal introspection and wide-horizon scrape. Partly derived from a standalone commission he’d written for the BBC Concert Orchestra called ‘Popcorn Superhet Receiver’, it was a musical language of understatement.

“It’s recurring textures,” explains Robert Ziegler, who conducted the orchestra on both soundtrack recordings. “Certain clusters that he used, especially in There Will Be Blood, just nailed the quality of the film. And some of the new music he wrote, propulsive, rhythmic things, worked out wonderfully. He got that menace; on one of the most brilliant cues, “Open Spaces”, he played the ondes Martenot [an eerie-sounding early electronic instrument], and the whole conception of it was perfect. Those huge Texas landscapes, and it was just this little cue, but it lifted the whole film.”

I ask Greenwood whether he needs something visual as a starting point.

“Yeah,” he replies, “I enjoy having something to write the music for that’s concrete but at the same time the luxury of it not being that concrete, more an excuse to write music. My most exciting days ever are the morning of recording a quartet or an orchestra or a harp player, and knowing they’re coming, and setting up the stands and mics, and putting music out for them. And then after four hours it’s all over and you’ve got something.

“I’ve had a real soft ride. Traditionally film composers are way below the make-up people in the pecking order. It’s not seen as important, unless you find enthusiastic directors. And I’ve been lucky three times in a row.”

Is that excitement greater than coming out on stage in front of thousands at a Radiohead gig?

“Yeah, I think it is,” he says. “Because you’ve got weeks of preparation, and it’s just on paper and wondering what is going to happen. These great musicians are coming in, and you can hand them something that’s fairly lifeless and they can make it very musical. That’s been a big discovery for me, you realise how much they put into it… they can make things sound musical even if it’s just a C major chord. It can sound far more exciting than you thought it was going to. It’s a big secret, but you don’t realise how much input comes from these people. ‘I can do this four or five different ways – which way would you like it?’ Or ‘You can get this kind of effect from the strings’, and so on.”

Robert Ziegler is in no doubt of Greenwood’s talents as a composer, citing Polish modernist Penderecki as an antecedent. “Obviously he’s got the same attraction to masses of sound and big clusters of orchestral sound. As a film composer you have to be careful not to ‘frighten the horses’ and the producers… ”

There Will Be Blood led directly to Greenwood’s next commission, as Tran Anh Hung used some of it as guide music on early cuts of Norwegian Wood. “When I saw There Will Be Blood,” says Hung, “I was completely seduced by Jonny’s music. It was a ‘new sound’ with a profoundness that I have not heard elsewhere in films. The emotions coming from his music were so… right, so mysterious and yet so obvious. No doubt for me that Jonny’s music would give a dark, deep beauty that Norwegian Wood needed.” Eventually Greenwood adapted another piece, ‘Doghouse’, for the finished film. ‘Doghouse’ is a triple concerto for violin, viola and cello, inspired by thoughts of Wally Stott’s scores for Scott Walker songs like “It’s Raining Today” and “Rosemary” languishing in the BBC library.

On a structural level, “as a toddler I was once shown that the note D on a piano is between the two black notes, and that’s D because it is in a kennel, and that piece is written with this symmetrical pattern that started on that note,” Greenwood explains.

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The hands-on business of composing music might seem diametrically opposed to rock’s spontaneity. But since 2000’s Kid A, Radiohead have been moving away from the sound of five men in a room playing live to a more laboriously constructed, digitally processed approach. The forces of group and orchestra were combined on the group’s most recent offering, “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)”, a tribute to the last surviving WWI veteran (who died in 2009, aged 111).

How does Greenwood, who trained on the viola at school, see these two methods complementing each other?

“There have always been bits of orchestration in Radiohead,” he acknowledges. “It’s always been good to have the knowledge of music theory and I’ve used it all the time. A big part of what we’ve always done is slightly scientifically tried to copy something which we can’t. It’s always been like that, whether it was bits of OK Computer that in our heads we wanted to be like Bitches Brew, and the fact that none of us could play the trumpet, or jazz, didn’t bother us. Which sounds like arrogance, but it’s more that you aim and miss, and don’t let it bother you. And a lot of this film stuff is trying to do something I don’t really know how to do, so I’m scrabbling around and getting a little lost and unsure, but it’s been a nice way of working.”

In person, Greenwood is reserved and modest. But all the same, he becomes enthusiastic when discussing the more exciting aspects of his job. Here is a man, it seems, who even uses his downtime constructively in the pursuit of making music.

“Touring’s been good for working on classical stuff,” he explains. “I’ve had hours and hours in hotel rooms. The silence…”

So is there such a thing as a typical day for him at present, and what does he do when he’s not working?

“I play the piano a lot at the moment,” he says after a pause. “I don’t know, I’m a bit low on hobbies. I used to do lots of photography… I don’t know. What do I do? What do you do? I just generally worry about things, I think? And daydream ideas for programming.” That puts him back in his stride. “The programming is really fun at the moment, very satisfying. I spend half my time writing music software, computer-based sound generators for Radiohead. Trying to bypass other people’s ideas of what music software should do and how it should sound, going back a step. It’s like building wonky drum machines, not using presets, basically. It’s like ‘Mouse Trap’, you construct things.” Has he got a mathematical mind, then? “I like a lot of popular science writing – John Gribbin and stuff. Lots of nerdy science and linguistics books. Yeah, I’m a bit trainspottery, let’s not deny it.”

“As a guitar player he’s extraordinary: a virtuoso, frenetic, and full of personality,” testifies Bernard Butler, who views Greenwood as one of a quartet of players with distinctive styles who emerged at roughly the same moment, including himself, John Squire and Graham Coxon. “We’re all very emotional and slightly deranged guitar players, and have an overwrought and melodic sensibility. I can’t think of any guitar players with those qualities at the moment. It’s a most un-Radiohead thing to do, but he probably did meet a devil at a crossroads somewhere, along the A1 probably.”

How, I ask Greenwood, would he like to be remembered, as a composer or as a respected guitarist? “God, not as a ‘guitar stylist’!” he bursts out. “Helping to write some very good songs, playing on them and recording them with this amazing band is like nothing else. As to what people think years from now… You see our record winning top album of the last whatever years, but then you see shocking albums winning the same thing 20, 30 years ago and you think, it’s nice but… All that really matters is what we do next, really.”

Such a comment naturally leads to more gentle probing about forthcoming plans for the Radiohead crew. “We’ve been recording and working,” he allows. “We’re in the frame of mind of wanting to finish things and then decide what to do next. The old-fashioned way of thinking, when we had a record label, was, ‘You need to book the tour today, even though you’re only half way through the record.’ And we can’t do that any more. We just want to finish something and be satisfied.”

Leaving EMI to go it alone has meant, not surprisingly, “you lose the structure, but then you are a bit freer. None of us are very nostalgic for those days of waiting for somebody’s approval of your recording. But I’ve always said at EMI we had a good relationship compared with some people.”

But in the age of digital distribution, and the increasingly invisible presence of music on the high street, and given that In Rainbows was launched with its radical pay-what-you-like policy – plus an extraordinary, free, televised late-night gig at east London’s Rough Trade store – chances are, however the next record ends up, there’ll be something of a fanfare.

“I don’t like how music dribbles out,” he announces as we wrap things up. “I like events, that’s the only thing, really.”

If you liked True Detective, why not try Galveston?

Michael Bonner
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If you liked True Detective, why not try Galveston?

The blood has barely dried on the first series of HBO's True Detective talk has already turned to Season Two. At the time of writing, it's hard to think of an A-list actor or actress who, at some point over the last few months, hasn't had their name bandied around in connection with future series of the show. Brad Pitt? Christian Bale? Colin Farrell? Jessica Chastain? And on it goes. Apart from encouraging endless chat on the Internet, these kind of wish-fulfillment conversations inevitably threaten to rekindle the tired “TV is now better than the movies” argument. But perhaps more importantly, it illustrates the impact the show had in a remarkably short period of time: just eight weeks. While we wait for some kind of solid casting confirmation, some of you might like to explore Galveston: the debut novel from True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto. True Detective had layered, novelistic depth, but Galveston’s early chapters suggest it might be the opposite. Violent and abrupt, they read like self-conscious pulp parodies. It takes until the trio reach Galveston for the pace to settle and Pizzolatto’s narrative to aim for something substantial. The lost souls we meet at the Emerald Shores are well-drawn: scarred and helpless, you feel something for them even though you know that, as with all noir, their futures have nothing good in store for them. As with True Detective, Galveston also takes place in two different time periods: 1987 and 2008, where Roy waits for a final reckoning but finds instead a flake of hope. In Jim Thompson’s novel The Getaway, the ultimate destination of Doc and Carol McCoy is El Rey, a legendary Mexican hideaway that exists outside the law. Every character we meet in Nic Pizzolatto’s debut novel is likely also looking for a similar refuge where past misdemeanours might be overlooked. These are thrown together at Emerald Shores, a motel in Galveston, Texas, where mob enforcer Roy Cady washes up in 1987, on the run from his employer who has tried to have him killed. Roy – recently been diagnosed with lung cancer – arrives with Rocky Arceneaux, a teenage prostitute whose life he saved in a shoot out, and her three year-old sister, Tiffany. Galveston is a dismal place. “You’re here because it’s somewhere,” narrates Roy. “Dogs pant in the streets. Beer won’t stay cold. The last new song you liked come out a long, long time ago, and the radio never plays it anymore.” Nevertheless, it is here that Roy believes he might be able to resurrect what good remains within him by providing security for Rocky and Tiffany. Meanwhile, what next from Pizzolatto remains to be seen. For True Detective Season Two, he has spoken in interview about exploring the secret occult history of the Unites States transportation system: perhaps, finally, the oblique references in Season One to Robert W Chambers’ supernatural creations The King In Yellow and Carcosa will finally be explored. Galveston is published by Sphere; True Detective Season One is available on DVD and Blu-ray from HBO Home Entertainment

The blood has barely dried on the first series of HBO’s True Detective talk has already turned to Season Two. At the time of writing, it’s hard to think of an A-list actor or actress who, at some point over the last few months, hasn’t had their name bandied around in connection with future series of the show.

Brad Pitt? Christian Bale? Colin Farrell? Jessica Chastain? And on it goes. Apart from encouraging endless chat on the Internet, these kind of wish-fulfillment conversations inevitably threaten to rekindle the tired “TV is now better than the movies” argument. But perhaps more importantly, it illustrates the impact the show had in a remarkably short period of time: just eight weeks.

While we wait for some kind of solid casting confirmation, some of you might like to explore Galveston: the debut novel from True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto. True Detective had layered, novelistic depth, but Galveston’s early chapters suggest it might be the opposite. Violent and abrupt, they read like self-conscious pulp parodies. It takes until the trio reach Galveston for the pace to settle and Pizzolatto’s narrative to aim for something substantial. The lost souls we meet at the Emerald Shores are well-drawn: scarred and helpless, you feel something for them even though you know that, as with all noir, their futures have nothing good in store for them. As with True Detective, Galveston also takes place in two different time periods: 1987 and 2008, where Roy waits for a final reckoning but finds instead a flake of hope.

In Jim Thompson’s novel The Getaway, the ultimate destination of Doc and Carol McCoy is El Rey, a legendary Mexican hideaway that exists outside the law. Every character we meet in Nic Pizzolatto’s debut novel is likely also looking for a similar refuge where past misdemeanours might be overlooked. These are thrown together at Emerald Shores, a motel in Galveston, Texas, where mob enforcer Roy Cady washes up in 1987, on the run from his employer who has tried to have him killed. Roy – recently been diagnosed with lung cancer – arrives with Rocky Arceneaux, a teenage prostitute whose life he saved in a shoot out, and her three year-old sister, Tiffany. Galveston is a dismal place. “You’re here because it’s somewhere,” narrates Roy. “Dogs pant in the streets. Beer won’t stay cold. The last new song you liked come out a long, long time ago, and the radio never plays it anymore.” Nevertheless, it is here that Roy believes he might be able to resurrect what good remains within him by providing security for Rocky and Tiffany.

Meanwhile, what next from Pizzolatto remains to be seen. For True Detective Season Two, he has spoken in interview about exploring the secret occult history of the Unites States transportation system: perhaps, finally, the oblique references in Season One to Robert W Chambers’ supernatural creations The King In Yellow and Carcosa will finally be explored.

Galveston is published by Sphere; True Detective Season One is available on DVD and Blu-ray from HBO Home Entertainment

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – Hypnotic Eye

Uncut
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Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – Hypnotic Eye

Petty and band return with their hardest-rocking album in 25 years. Oh yeah, all right! It’s a shame that album covers are rarely equipped with the catchy taglines that are routine for movie posters. Maybe music consumers ought to get their own equivalents to “in space no one can hear you scream” or “an offer you can’t refuse.” If that were rectified, the Hollywood marketing team would have an easy task with Hypnotic Eye, the 13th studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “The snarl is back!” the print would read in bold red type, perhaps with a few more exclamation marks to drive the point home. Of course, Petty’s staunchest loyalists would cringe at such a crass display of hype, as would the man himself, who put his latest collection together with the usual degree of care over three years at his home studio in Malibu and the Heartbreakers’ rehearsal space in Hollywood. Yet the diehards would still be plenty pleased to see those words and even happier to hear the songs that justify their presence. After all, that snarl was a key part of Petty’s delivery in “Baby’s a Rock ‘n’ Roller,” “I Need to Know,” “Refugee” and many more of the songs that form the core of his catalog. Conveying all that it is to feel jilted and jaded, sour and snide, adolescent and very badly aggrieved, it was arguably his best weapon on over his extraordinary early run of albums with the Heartbreakers. That was before he began to mess around with the original template, a radio-ready combination of garage-rock muscle, Byrds-ian jangle and the sound of a scrappy Florida kid with a serious chip on his shoulder and so much to prove. As strong as much of Petty’s music has been in the decades since, it’s been hard not to miss that snarl, especially on the albums that could’ve used it. The mellower Petty of recent years did just fine without it on Highway Companion (2006), a consistently fine if unsurprising re-teaming with Jeff Lynne, and his more engaging 2008 reunion disc with his pre-Heartbreakers outfit Mudcrutch. That album’s mid-album epic-length rambler, “Crystal River,” also boasted a spirit of adventure that even the diehards hadn’t expected to encounter again. Instead, the snarl’s absence was more keenly felt on Petty’s last two albums with the Heartbreakers. Full of Petty’s pique over the state of the music industry, The Last DJ (2002) had the muscle but not the tunes. A letdown to anyone who thought Mudcrutch’s revival might rejuvenate the better-known band that succeeded it, Mojo (2010) was a bluesier, jam-heavy affair that too often turned torpid. But lo and behold, the snarl’s right there for all to hear in “American Dream Plan B,” a suitably punchy opener for Petty and the Heartbreakers’ hardest-rocking set in a quarter-century or more. With its snarky statements of defiance – “I’m half-lit, I can’t dance for shit/ but I see what I want, I go after it” – the song is clearly born for that snarl and Petty delivers it with relish. When set against the intertwined guitars of Petty and Mike Campbell on “All You Can Carry” and “Forgotten Man,” it’s even better. Whereas its return might’ve smacked of yet another rocker’s effort to recapture his long-gone youth (Petty turns 64 this year), it suits the surliest songs here, seeing as their sentiments have less to do with the small-town desperation of Damn The Torpedoes than it does with the frustration and fatigue felt by a greyer, grizzlier self who’s pissed to get caught in the same old dramas. As he sings in “All You Can Carry,” “You and I have burned every bridge/ And now we gotta save our souls again.” In “Power Drunk” -- a menacing blues-rock rumbler that gets an unexpected lift from an expertly placed middle eight -- what gets him riled is the fat-headed hubris of any man who “starts believing there’s nothing out of his range.” Petty’s delivery is more tremulous but just as dramatic in the fuzz-laden “Faultlines” and “Red River,” in which the plaintive passages of Roger McGuinn-worthy sweetness give way to more thunderous demonstrations of the undiminished prowess of Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench. As revitalized as Petty often sounds, the Heartbreakers may be even livelier. Whether it’s Tench’s barrelhouse vamping on “Burnt Out Town” or drummer Steve Ferrone’s Sandy Nelson-worthy pummeling on “Forgotten Man,” the band play with a sense of vim and vigour that was largely AWOL on Mojo. Nor do they let the tension slacken on Hypnotic Eye’s less obviously aggressive songs, like “Shadow People,” the album’s slow-burn closer and longest track at over six minutes. Perhaps the Heartbreakers sound so powerful because Petty seems to be writing with them in mind, which hasn’t always been the case on the albums that bear their imprimatur. Nowhere is this clearer than on “You Got Me High,” a song whose terrible title might’ve been more forgivable had it appeared on the sleeve for Hard Promises. Nevertheless, with its masterful synthesis of chunky riffage and a softer psych-pop lilt that betrays Petty’s enduring love of the Zombies - the Heartbreakers’ cover of “I Want You Back Again” was in the set for last year’s rarities-centric tour - it’s the most convincing example of the album’s modus operandi. If Hypnotic Eye was just about the snarl, it’d lose steam fast. Instead, it’s only one element of a story that’s bigger and richer, which is how a storied American band returned to the core principles of yesteryear without having to pretend to forget all they’ve learned in the meantime. Jason Anderson

Petty and band return with their hardest-rocking album in 25 years. Oh yeah, all right!

It’s a shame that album covers are rarely equipped with the catchy taglines that are routine for movie posters. Maybe music consumers ought to get their own equivalents to “in space no one can hear you scream” or “an offer you can’t refuse.” If that were rectified, the Hollywood marketing team would have an easy task with Hypnotic Eye, the 13th studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “The snarl is back!” the print would read in bold red type, perhaps with a few more exclamation marks to drive the point home.

Of course, Petty’s staunchest loyalists would cringe at such a crass display of hype, as would the man himself, who put his latest collection together with the usual degree of care over three years at his home studio in Malibu and the Heartbreakers’ rehearsal space in Hollywood. Yet the diehards would still be plenty pleased to see those words and even happier to hear the songs that justify their presence. After all, that snarl was a key part of Petty’s delivery in “Baby’s a Rock ‘n’ Roller,” “I Need to Know,” “Refugee” and many more of the songs that form the core of his catalog. Conveying all that it is to feel jilted and jaded, sour and snide, adolescent and very badly aggrieved, it was arguably his best weapon on over his extraordinary early run of albums with the Heartbreakers. That was before he began to mess around with the original template, a radio-ready combination of garage-rock muscle, Byrds-ian jangle and the sound of a scrappy Florida kid with a serious chip on his shoulder and so much to prove.

As strong as much of Petty’s music has been in the decades since, it’s been hard not to miss that snarl, especially on the albums that could’ve used it. The mellower Petty of recent years did just fine without it on Highway Companion (2006), a consistently fine if unsurprising re-teaming with Jeff Lynne, and his more engaging 2008 reunion disc with his pre-Heartbreakers outfit Mudcrutch. That album’s mid-album epic-length rambler, “Crystal River,” also boasted a spirit of adventure that even the diehards hadn’t expected to encounter again.

Instead, the snarl’s absence was more keenly felt on Petty’s last two albums with the Heartbreakers. Full of Petty’s pique over the state of the music industry, The Last DJ (2002) had the muscle but not the tunes. A letdown to anyone who thought Mudcrutch’s revival might rejuvenate the better-known band that succeeded it, Mojo (2010) was a bluesier, jam-heavy affair that too often turned torpid.

But lo and behold, the snarl’s right there for all to hear in “American Dream Plan B,” a suitably punchy opener for Petty and the Heartbreakers’ hardest-rocking set in a quarter-century or more. With its snarky statements of defiance – “I’m half-lit, I can’t dance for shit/ but I see what I want, I go after it” – the song is clearly born for that snarl and Petty delivers it with relish. When set against the intertwined guitars of Petty and Mike Campbell on “All You Can Carry” and “Forgotten Man,” it’s even better. Whereas its return might’ve smacked of yet another rocker’s effort to recapture his long-gone youth (Petty turns 64 this year), it suits the surliest songs here, seeing as their sentiments have less to do with the small-town desperation of Damn The Torpedoes than it does with the frustration and fatigue felt by a greyer, grizzlier self who’s pissed to get caught in the same old dramas. As he sings in “All You Can Carry,” “You and I have burned every bridge/ And now we gotta save our souls again.” In “Power Drunk” — a menacing blues-rock rumbler that gets an unexpected lift from an expertly placed middle eight — what gets him riled is the fat-headed hubris of any man who “starts believing there’s nothing out of his range.”

Petty’s delivery is more tremulous but just as dramatic in the fuzz-laden “Faultlines” and “Red River,” in which the plaintive passages of Roger McGuinn-worthy sweetness give way to more thunderous demonstrations of the undiminished prowess of Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench. As revitalized as Petty often sounds, the Heartbreakers may be even livelier. Whether it’s Tench’s barrelhouse vamping on “Burnt Out Town” or drummer Steve Ferrone’s Sandy Nelson-worthy pummeling on “Forgotten Man,” the band play with a sense of vim and vigour that was largely AWOL on Mojo. Nor do they let the tension slacken on Hypnotic Eye’s less obviously aggressive songs, like “Shadow People,” the album’s slow-burn closer and longest track at over six minutes.

Perhaps the Heartbreakers sound so powerful because Petty seems to be writing with them in mind, which hasn’t always been the case on the albums that bear their imprimatur. Nowhere is this clearer than on “You Got Me High,” a song whose terrible title might’ve been more forgivable had it appeared on the sleeve for Hard Promises. Nevertheless, with its masterful synthesis of chunky riffage and a softer psych-pop lilt that betrays Petty’s enduring love of the Zombies – the Heartbreakers’ cover of “I Want You Back Again” was in the set for last year’s rarities-centric tour – it’s the most convincing example of the album’s modus operandi. If Hypnotic Eye was just about the snarl, it’d lose steam fast. Instead, it’s only one element of a story that’s bigger and richer, which is how a storied American band returned to the core principles of yesteryear without having to pretend to forget all they’ve learned in the meantime.

Jason Anderson

Eric Idle: “Monty Python came from the same generation as The Beatles and The Stones…”

Uncut
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Eric Idle: “Monty Python came from the same generation as The Beatles and The Stones…”
We interviewed Eric Idle about the recent Monty Python's Total Rubbish: The Complete Collection for the August 2014 issue of Uncut. We only had room in the issue for a small chunk of the interview; so here it is in full... __________ Did making records allow Monty Python to express or try things o...

We interviewed Eric Idle about the recent Monty Python’s Total Rubbish: The Complete Collection for the August 2014 issue of Uncut. We only had room in the issue for a small chunk of the interview; so here it is in full…

__________

Did making records allow Monty Python to express or try things out that you didn’t do in your tv shows? Or was it a sensible marketing opportunity that you made the best of?

No we always used songs in our shows. Often absurd moments like The Archaeologists breaking into song, or Telephone operators singing for no good reason, often more particularly satirical like Bing Tiddle Tiddle Bong, still a superb nailing of Eurovision. Then of course there is the lovely moment when Michael’s bad barber reveals he never really wanted to cut hair, he always wanted to be…. a lumberjack! And suddenly we’re off into the world of bad Canadian musicals. This unexpected change of pace and media is classic Python. I personally was writing and performing silly songs at Cambridge (inspired by Bill Oddie) and in Do Not Adjust Your Set.

Your work often satirised the medium it was presented in. An album title like Contractual Obligation, say, implies a similar criticism of the processes of the record business. Did you have a rough ride on the business side? Or did you draw inspiration from others who did?

We found out we “owed” Clive Davis and Arista an album. Python never took very kindly to being told what they must do. So we threw a lot more songs in as an ironic gesture. This led to our best-selling album Monty Python Sings which I put together. You can listen to a funny song many more times than a sketch. Python always examines, draws attention to or mocks the medium in which it is working, whether it be TV, movies (Camelot! It’s only a model) books or musicals (Spamalot). In this sense it is post-modern.

Python is sometimes called the “Beatles of comedy”. That being the case, which of your albums is your Sgt Pepper? Or were you more of a singles band?

Metaphors are only useful if they throw light on what they are comparing. We come from the same generation as The Beatles and The Stones and The Who, the great generation that were born at the tail end of a devastating World War that touched and cost millions of lives. The UK put every last reserve of energy into that. We grew up in an austere world, a world where authority was everywhere. Our generation threw off the shackles of this and became artists and painters and musicians and writers and poets and in our case comedians. But we were the ones that stayed in school and college. Python is actually not undergraduate humour but post graduate humour.

Some of your innovations (the “three sided record” for example) seem to derive more from a recent past of psychedelic pranks than that of radio comedy or comedy records. What were your inspirations for that kind of thing?

We loved to think of ways to challenge our audience. To start a TV show with a Pirate film that goes on for ten minutes so they think they are watching the wrong channel, this was a brilliant joke on the audience. To put the second side of a record on, and then to play it again and to hear completely different material, this is classic Python playing with the audience. It came from Terry Jones who had an old 78 record which was a commentary on a horse race, and the outcome was different depending on where the needle dropped.

You were the driving force of the musical content, as far as I understand it. Was it a question of “I’ve got this song…” Or “we’ve got this bit. How about a song?”

People say this, but actually Mike and Terry wrote The Lumberjack Song and Every Sperm is Sacred and Spam three of the finest examples of Python songs. Even John wrote silly songs like Oliver Cromwell and Knights of The Round Table. So yes I get a lot of credit for this and I certainly wrote way more songs than everyone else but comedians are often musical, as musicians are often comical. The band and the comic, the classic music hall duo. We had this great singing group called The Fred Tomlinson Singers who would come in and happily climb into Welsh drag for The Money Song and record Sit On My Face for us. And The Meaning of Life is a musical with eight numbers.

I recently saw you on Billy Connolly’s death-themed show. Can you tell me a bit about what it’s been like to observe how “Always Look…” has become embraced as a classic song, not just a classic comedy song? As a writer, were you always shooting for that anyway?

Writing is an instinctive process. You don’t set out to write a classic anything. For me the interesting thing is how Bright Side has been in the top ten of funeral songs for 30 years. It is really a parody of a certain type of optimistic war song “bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover, look for a silver lining, bright clouds are coming” type of war song which was attempting to bring optimism into the bleak world of our fathers. Python parodies this by having people actually being crucified singing a cheery uppy song about how things will be ok! I love that it has become adopted as almost an alternative anthem. As with so much of Python, who could possibly have foreseen that. I am very happy that Virgin is re-releasing this classic album of very silly songs.

INTERVIEW: JOHN ROBINSON

Jarvis Cocker to judge Pulp karaoke contest

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Jarvis Cocker to judge Pulp karaoke contest
Jarvis Cocker is set to judge a Pulp karaoke competition in New York next week. Cocker will be in New York to preside over the contest, which is being held at the Industry City venue in Brooklyn. Would be entrants can tweet their plea to perform for Cocker to the event organisers with those who do...

Jarvis Cocker is set to judge a Pulp karaoke competition in New York next week.

Cocker will be in New York to preside over the contest, which is being held at the Industry City venue in Brooklyn. Would be entrants can tweet their plea to perform for Cocker to the event organisers with those who don’t want to sing “Common People” told they stand a better chance of being selected.

The competition will take place after a screening of the film Pulp: A Film About Life, Death, And Supermarkets as well as a Q+A with Cocker and the film’s director, Florian Habicht.

Willing contestants can select from the following Pulp songs to perform for Cocker:

‘All Time High’

‘Babies’

‘Common People’

‘Disco 2000’

‘Do You Remember The First Time’

‘Help The Aged’

‘Mile End’

‘Monday Morning’

‘Sorted For E’s and Wizz’

‘This is Hardcore’

All entrants must have registered their interest by midday on Monday (August 4). Click here for more information on the event.

Eric Clapton in battle for No 1 album

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Eric Clapton in battle for No 1 album
Eric Clapton is competing with Ed Sheeran in the race for this week's Number One on the Official UK Albums Chart. Sheeran is currently ahead of The Breeze by Eric Clapton & Friends at today's midweek stage and is on course to spend his sixth straight week at the top with his second album X. Th...

Eric Clapton is competing with Ed Sheeran in the race for this week’s Number One on the Official UK Albums Chart.

Sheeran is currently ahead of The Breeze by Eric Clapton & Friends at today’s midweek stage and is on course to spend his sixth straight week at the top with his second album X. The final chart placings will be revealed on BBC Radio 1 on Sunday (August 3).

The Breeze was organised by Clapton and is a tribute to late songwriter JJ Cale, who passed away in 2013. The album features collaborations with musicians including Mark Knopfler, Tom Petty, Willie Nelson, and John Mayer.

Since 2000, Clapton’s UK album chart placings have been, Old Sock (11), Clapton (7), The Road To Escondido (50), Back Home (19), Me And Mr. Johnson (10), Reptile (7) and Riding With The King (15).

Morrissey responds to lawsuit filed by former security guard

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Morrissey responds to lawsuit filed by former security guard
Morrissey has denied reports that he ordered a security guard to attack a man who runs a fansite dedicated to the singer. A report on TMZ sees Bradley Steyn allege that he was asked in his position as security guard to "hurt" the man in charge of fansite, Morrissey-Solo. Steyn also says that Morri...

Morrissey has denied reports that he ordered a security guard to attack a man who runs a fansite dedicated to the singer.

A report on TMZ sees Bradley Steyn allege that he was asked in his position as security guard to “hurt” the man in charge of fansite, Morrissey-Solo. Steyn also says that Morrissey’s tour manager asked if the fan “could be gotten rid of.” The security guard says he declined the request and was fired the following day.

The singer has subsequently responded to Steyn’s claims via another fansite, True To You . Posting a lengthy riposte on the website, the former Smiths frontman admits to having a troubled relationship with Morrissey-Solo editor David Tseng but claims that his personal involvement with Stey “has been zero.”

“I feel I must say to those who have not yet worked it out, that the story is a vexatious lie,” he adds. The very idea that I would ask a complete stranger (Bradley Steyn) to physically attack David Tseng surely cannot register with any sane person as being likely. As mildly irritating as David Tseng may be, he is not someone who troubles me enough to even bother with. The shabby truth of this drama is that Bradley Steyn has been trying to extract money from what he terms ‘the Morrissey tour’, and he has failed.”

The singer ends by stating that Steyn’s statement is now in the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department, and is subject to both criminal and civil action.

Robert Plant: “I said to Jimmy Page, ‘If you’ve got anything acoustic, let me know.’ But he walked away…”

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Robert Plant: “I said to Jimmy Page, ‘If you’ve got anything acoustic, let me know.’ But he walked away…”
Robert Plant is on the cover of the new issue of Uncut, dated September 2014 and out now. In the expansive feature, we track Plant from the Welsh Marches to the nightclubs of Paris to hear about bee colonies, mountain lions, altercations with Moroccan traffic cops, Led Zeppelin, Bron-Yr-Aur and P...

Robert Plant is on the cover of the new issue of Uncut, dated September 2014 and out now.

In the expansive feature, we track Plant from the Welsh Marches to the nightclubs of Paris to hear about bee colonies, mountain lions, altercations with Moroccan traffic cops, Led Zeppelin, Bron-Yr-Aur and Plant’s extraordinary new solo album.

He also speaks about the current state of his relationship with Jimmy Page.

Earlier this year, Page dropped hints about wanting to play with Led Zeppelin again and said that he is ‘fed up’ with his former bandmate for delaying his plans.

In our interview, Plant expresses his confusion at Page’s actions and says: “I feel for the guy. He knows he’s got the headlines if he wants them. But I don’t know what he’s trying to do. So I feel slightly disappointed and baffled.”

“A couple of years ago, I said [to Jimmy Page], ‘If you’ve got anything acoustic, let me know. I’ll give it a whirl. It was hands across the water. But he walked away. Just walked away.

“But we couldn’t do anything proper. The weight of expectation is too great.”

The new Uncut is out now.

Photo: Ed Miles

Damon Albarn: “New Blur album may just be one of those records that never comes out”

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Damon Albarn: “New Blur album may just be one of those records that never comes out”
Damon Albarn has said that Blur may never finish the album they began working on in 2013. Albarn recorded new music with his Blur bandmates in Hong Kong in May last year. However, in an interview published in this week's NME which is on newsstands tomorrow (July 30) and available digitally, Albarn...

Damon Albarn has said that Blur may never finish the album they began working on in 2013.

Albarn recorded new music with his Blur bandmates in Hong Kong in May last year.

However, in an interview published in this week’s NME which is on newsstands tomorrow (July 30) and available digitally, Albarn says that because he likes to work in shorter, more concentrated periods of time he fears that he may never return to the tracks the band made while in Asia.

“There are about 15 songs we recorded in Hong Kong,” he says. “The annoying thing is, if I’d been able to write the lyrics there and then about being there, we’d have finished the record. But sometimes, if you can’t do it all at once, it dissipates really and I don’t know what I’d sing about now with that record. There’s some great tunes on there, but it may just be one of those records that never comes out.”

Although keen to push ahead with the album, Albarn states that his preferred method of working may mean that the album does not see the light of day.

“I’d do some more work on it. I like making records in short periods of time if I can. It was a different process with [solo album] Everyday Robots because that was really thought out, but sometimes it’s great to get some amazing energy and do something in 10 days. There was too much commuting between where we were staying and where we were recording and it was a bit too hot. I think that’s why we didn’t get it finished.”

Elsewhere in the interview Albarn talks about plans for his musical, a new Gorillaz album and the possibility of a second solo record.

Big Star’s first two albums to be remastered and reissued

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Big Star’s first two albums to be remastered and reissued
Big Star's first two albums are to be remastered and reissued, according to a report on Rolling Stone. #1 Record and Radio City, which have been bundled together as a two-for-one album for years, will be available as separate albums again on September 2 with liner notes by R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills...

Big Star‘s first two albums are to be remastered and reissued, according to a report on Rolling Stone.

#1 Record and Radio City, which have been bundled together as a two-for-one album for years, will be available as separate albums again on September 2 with liner notes by R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills.

Stax Records, which distributed the LPs via audio engineer John Fry’s Ardent Records label, has remastered both albums from their original analog tapes and will also be offering the records digitally in Mastered for iTunes and high-resolution audio formats.

“Songwriting has always been, for me, the most vital gauge of a band’s quality, and these guys were clearly masters,” says Mills in a press release. “Big Star gave you something satisfying to listen to, no matter how many times you heard them.”

Meanwhile, a documentary, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, is set for release in the UK on August 1.

Watch Beck’s new video for “Heart Is A Drum”

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Watch Beck’s new video for “Heart Is A Drum”
Beck has unveiled a video for his track "Heart Is A Drum". The track features on the singer's 2013 album Morning Phase . For the video, Beck worked with British music video director Sophie Muller, who is best known for her collaborations with Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Blur, Garbage and a host of other...

Beck has unveiled a video for his track “Heart Is A Drum“.

The track features on the singer’s 2013 album Morning Phase . For the video, Beck worked with British music video director Sophie Muller, who is best known for her collaborations with Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Blur, Garbage and a host of others.

The promo features the death of a young woman, who gets taken away by the Grim Reaper. A modern-day Beck is shown walking alongside a younger version of himself and with Death too.

Last weekend (July 26), Beck was joined onstage by Jack White at a gig at the Providence Performing Arts Center. You can watch footage here.

On Monday (July 28), Beck released a recorded version of his Song Reader project, which features Jack White along with Jarvis Cocker and others including Laura Marling and Norah Jones.

The Song Reader tracklist:

Moses Sumney – ‘Title Of This Song’

Fun. – ‘Please Leave A Light On When You Go’

Tweedy – ‘The Wolf Is On The Hill’

Norah Jones – ‘Just Noise’

Lord Huron – ‘Last Night You Were A Dream’

Bob Forrest – ‘Saint Dude’

Jack White – ‘I’m Down’

Beck – ‘Heaven’s Ladder’

Juanes – ‘Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard’

Laura Marling – ‘Sorry’

Jarvis Cocker – ‘Eyes That Say “I Love You”‘

David Johansen – ‘Rough On Rats’

Jason Isbell – ‘Now That Your Dollar Bills Have Sprouted Wings’

Marc Ribot – ‘The Last Polka’

Eleanor Friedberger – ‘Old Shanghai’

Sparks – ‘Why Did You Make Me Care?’

Swamp Dogg – ‘America, Here’s My Boy’

Jack Black – ‘We All Wear Cloaks’

Loudon Wainwright III – ‘Do We? We Do’

Gabriel Kahane with Ymusic – ‘Mutilation Rag’

Mitch Winehouse to release new Amy Winehouse charity album

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Mitch Winehouse to release new Amy Winehouse charity album

Mitch Winehouse is to release a new album raising funds for the Amy Winehouse Foundation. Winehouse states that his daughter Amy was involved in picking tracks for 'But Beautiful' prior to her death in 2011. The album, his second solo venture, will be released on September 29 through Amy's label, Lioness Records, with money going to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which was set up to help young people with drink and alcohol addictions. "This is still the album that Amy helped me make," Winehouse told BBC News. "There were so many more songs that we could have done and here they are. It's just great to be able to get out and sing, it's something I love to do." "I feel that when I'm onstage, Amy's onstage. She wouldn't let a little thing like not being here stop her from jumping onstage." Earlier this year Mitch Winehouse rubbished reports that a hologram version of his daughter will be going out on tour. It was reported in March that businessman Alki David is masterminding a project to bring the singer back to the stage using 3D computer imagery, the same kind of technology that brought rapper Tupac to California's Coachella festival in 2012.

Mitch Winehouse is to release a new album raising funds for the Amy Winehouse Foundation.

Winehouse states that his daughter Amy was involved in picking tracks for ‘But Beautiful’ prior to her death in 2011. The album, his second solo venture, will be released on September 29 through Amy’s label, Lioness Records, with money going to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which was set up to help young people with drink and alcohol addictions.

“This is still the album that Amy helped me make,” Winehouse told BBC News. “There were so many more songs that we could have done and here they are. It’s just great to be able to get out and sing, it’s something I love to do.”

“I feel that when I’m onstage, Amy’s onstage. She wouldn’t let a little thing like not being here stop her from jumping onstage.”

Earlier this year Mitch Winehouse rubbished reports that a hologram version of his daughter will be going out on tour. It was reported in March that businessman Alki David is masterminding a project to bring the singer back to the stage using 3D computer imagery, the same kind of technology that brought rapper Tupac to California’s Coachella festival in 2012.

Led Zeppelin announce second wave of reissues

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Led Zeppelin announce second wave of reissues
Led Zeppelin have announced details of Deluxe Editions of Led Zeppelin IV and Houses Of The Holy. The editions have been produced And newly remastered by Jimmy Page and will each be accompanied by previously unreleased companion audio. They will be released on October 27 in multiple CD, Vinyl, A...

Led Zeppelin have announced details of Deluxe Editions of Led Zeppelin IV and Houses Of The Holy.

The editions have been produced And newly remastered by Jimmy Page and will each be accompanied by previously unreleased companion audio.

They will be released on October 27 in multiple CD, Vinyl, And Digital formats, including Limited Edition Super Deluxe boxed set.

You can read our review of the first three Zeppelin remasters here.

Meanwhile, Robert Plant is on the cover of this month’s Uncut.

The formats are:

Single CD – Remastered album packaged in a gatefold card wallet.

Deluxe Edition (2CD) – Remastered album, plus a second disc of unreleased companion audio.

Single LP – Remastered album on 180-gram vinyl, packaged in a sleeve that replicates the LP’s first pressing in exacting detail.

Deluxe Edition Vinyl (2LP) – Remastered album and unreleased companion audio on 180-gram vinyl.

Digital Download – Remastered album and companion audio will both be available.

Super Deluxe Boxed Set – This collection includes:

o Remastered album on CD in vinyl replica sleeve.

o Companion audio on CD in card wallet featuring new alternate cover art.

o Remastered album on 180-gram vinyl in a sleeve replicating first pressing.

o Companion audio on 180-gram vinyl in a sleeve with new alternate cover art.

o High-def audio download card of all content at 96kHz/24 bit.

o Hard bound, 80 page book filled with rare and previously unseen photos and memorabilia.

o High-quality print of the original album cover, the first 30,000 of which will be individually numbered.

The tracklisting is:

Led Zeppelin IV

“Black Dog”

“Rock And Roll”

“The Battle of Evermore

“Stairway To Heaven”

“Misty Mountain Hop”

“Four Sticks”

“Going To California”

“When The Levee Breaks”

Companion Audio Disc

“Black Dog” – Basic Track With Guitar Overdubs

“Rock And Roll” – Alternate Mix

“The Battle Of Evermore” – Mandolin/Guitar Mix From Headley Grange

“Stairway To Heaven” – Sunset Sound Mix

“Misty Mountain Hop” – Alternate Mix

“Four Sticks” – Alternate Mix

“Going To California” – Mandolin/Guitar Mix

“When The Levee Breaks” – Alternate UK Mix

Houses Of The Holy

“The Song Remains The Same”

“The Rain Song”

“Over The Hills And Far Away”

“The Crunge”

“Dancing Days”

“D’yer Mak’er”

“No Quarter”

“The Ocean”

Companion Audio Disc

“The Song Remains The Same” – Guitar Overdub Reference Mix

“The Rain Song” – Mix Minus Piano“Over The Hills And Far Away” – Guitar Mix Backing Track

“The Crunge” – Rough Mix – Keys Up

“Dancing Days” – Rough Mix With Vocal

“No Quarter” – Rough Mix With JPJ Keyboard Overdubs – No Vocal

“The Ocean” – Working Mix

Robert Plant, Tom Petty, The Beatles, King Crimson, Bobby Womack: inside the new Uncut!

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Robert Plant, Tom Petty, The Beatles, King Crimson, Bobby Womack: inside the new Uncut!

Welcome to the new issue of Uncut! John’s on holiday this week – he was last seen disappearing into darkest Gloucestershire – so it falls to me to show you around this month's edition instead. Our exclusive cover story finds us catching up with Robert Plant as he prepares to release his excellent new solo album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar. I was fortunate enough to spend the day with Plant in Ludlow, not too far from where he lives, for this in-depth and often wonderfully digressive interview which took in musical transcendence, dog breeding and the pursuit of a decent pint of bitter in Spanish nightclubs, via stop-offs in Nashville, Tipton and Marrakech. We also spoke, perhaps inevitably, about his current relationship with former band-mate Jimmy Page – coincidentally, when Plant and I met, the first batch of Zep remasters were about to roll out. The piece is wrapped up by a trip to Paris to see Plant and his current musical cohorts, the Sensational Space Shifters, play live at the Bataclan. You can read the full story in the new issue of Uncut; in shops today. Elsewhere in the issue, Richard Lester, Pattie Boyd, Lionel Blair, Phil Collins, producer Denis O’Dell and more recount the making of The Beatles’ film debut, A Hard Day’s Night, Tom Petty shows us round his Malibu home studio as he reflects on the Heartbreakers’ storied career and their new album Hypnotic Eye and Richard and Linda Thompson look back at their first masterpiece, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. We also pay tribute to the late, great Bobby Womack, while J Mascis answers your questions, Yes talk us through their greatest albums and Josef K recall the making of “It’s Kinda Funny”. Robert Fripp speaks exclusively about the latest incarnation of King Crimson, Jenny Lewis picks the records that changed her life and we welcome Lonnie Holley and Merchandise to our pages. Meanwhile, in our reviews pages, there’s new albums by Spoon, office favourite Ty Segall, Robyn Hitchcock, Cold Specks and Sinéad O’Connor, as well as reissues from The Allman Brothers Band, Elvis Presley and a rare gem from the Aphex Twin archives. In film and DVD, there’s brilliant new Nick Cave doc and a welcome return to Twin Peaks, plus Morrissey in concert. In books, there's a new Alex Chilton biography while in our live section, we catch up with Jack White, Stevie Wonder and The Eagles. Anyway, that’s enough from me, I think. Of course, we’d love to hear from you – so do please drop us a line with your thoughts, pontifications, passions, opinions, enthusiasms and so on at our new address: uncut_feedback@ipcmedia.com.

Welcome to the new issue of Uncut! John’s on holiday this week – he was last seen disappearing into darkest Gloucestershire – so it falls to me to show you around this month’s edition instead.

Our exclusive cover story finds us catching up with Robert Plant as he prepares to release his excellent new solo album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar. I was fortunate enough to spend the day with Plant in Ludlow, not too far from where he lives, for this in-depth and often wonderfully digressive interview which took in musical transcendence, dog breeding and the pursuit of a decent pint of bitter in Spanish nightclubs, via stop-offs in Nashville, Tipton and Marrakech. We also spoke, perhaps inevitably, about his current relationship with former band-mate Jimmy Page – coincidentally, when Plant and I met, the first batch of Zep remasters were about to roll out. The piece is wrapped up by a trip to Paris to see Plant and his current musical cohorts, the Sensational Space Shifters, play live at the Bataclan. You can read the full story in the new issue of Uncut; in shops today.

Elsewhere in the issue, Richard Lester, Pattie Boyd, Lionel Blair, Phil Collins, producer Denis O’Dell and more recount the making of The Beatles’ film debut, A Hard Day’s Night, Tom Petty shows us round his Malibu home studio as he reflects on the Heartbreakers’ storied career and their new album Hypnotic Eye and Richard and Linda Thompson look back at their first masterpiece, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. We also pay tribute to the late, great Bobby Womack, while J Mascis answers your questions, Yes talk us through their greatest albums and Josef K recall the making of “It’s Kinda Funny”. Robert Fripp speaks exclusively about the latest incarnation of King Crimson, Jenny Lewis picks the records that changed her life and we welcome Lonnie Holley and Merchandise to our pages.

Meanwhile, in our reviews pages, there’s new albums by Spoon, office favourite Ty Segall, Robyn Hitchcock, Cold Specks and Sinéad O’Connor, as well as reissues from The Allman Brothers Band, Elvis Presley and a rare gem from the Aphex Twin archives. In film and DVD, there’s brilliant new Nick Cave doc and a welcome return to Twin Peaks, plus Morrissey in concert. In books, there’s a new Alex Chilton biography while in our live section, we catch up with Jack White, Stevie Wonder and The Eagles.

Anyway, that’s enough from me, I think. Of course, we’d love to hear from you – so do please drop us a line with your thoughts, pontifications, passions, opinions, enthusiasms and so on at our new address: uncut_feedback@ipcmedia.com.

Kim Gordon, Yoko Ono, Cat Power sign up as ‘teachers’ at online girls’ school

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Kim Gordon, Yoko Ono, Cat Power sign up as ‘teachers’ at online girls’ school
Yoko Ono, Kim Gordon and Cat Power have all signed up as virtual 'teachers' at an online girls’ school which is currently seeking funding via Kickstarter. The School Of Doodle calls itself a "peer-to-peer, self-directed learning lab dedicated to activating girls’ imaginations through entertainm...

Yoko Ono, Kim Gordon and Cat Power have all signed up as virtual ‘teachers’ at an online girls’ school which is currently seeking funding via Kickstarter.

The School Of Doodle calls itself a “peer-to-peer, self-directed learning lab dedicated to activating girls’ imaginations through entertainment, education and community.” The project has also received support from Courtney Love, Pussy Riot and Sia, and other ‘teachers’ involved include JD Samson, formerlly of Le Tigre, as well as author Salman Rushdie, fashion designers Rodarte and artist John Baldessari.

The school is described as: “An extracurricular activity that complements formal education and gives girls access to today’s most extraordinary creative minds. School Of Doodle is a place where girls decide how and when to learn.”

At the time of writing, the project has received pledges of $47,306, out of a goal of $75,000. For more information, visit the school’s Kickstarter page. Sia, Pussy Riot, Courtney Love, Kim Gordon and Yoko Ono have all contributed ‘doodles’ to the project, which will be part of Kickstarter pledgders’ reward packages.

Billy Bragg’s campaign to lift prison ban on steel-strung guitars a success

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Billy Bragg’s campaign to lift prison ban on steel-strung guitars a success

A campaign led by Billy Bragg has successfully seen prisoners in British jails allowed to use steel stringed guitars. Musicians including Radiohead's Ed O'Brien and Philip Selway, Elbow's Guy Garvey, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour and Johnny Marr also supported the campaign to overturn the ban on steel-strung guitars in British prisons. The campaign was also led by Cardiff West MP Kevin Brennan, who has commented: "This is a victory for common sense and I'm pleased after months of campaigning the UK Government has listened. The power of music to help prisoners to rehabilitate is well documented. I started the campaign after prisoners wrote to me explaining how they had saved from their small prison wages to buy guitars and how therapeutic learning to play the guitar had been for them before the ban." Bill Bragg, who founded the Jail Guitar Doors rehabilitation initiative added: "As an incentive to engage in rehabilitation individual access to steel strung guitars can really help the atmosphere on a prison wing. I've had a number of projects involving guitars on hold which now will be able to go ahead, and will allow those using music in prisons to get on with this important work." In a letter published in The Guardian earlier this year 12 musicians, whose number also included Richard Hawley, argued that "music has an important role to play in engaging prisoners in the process of rehabilitation" and that this was being undermined if inmates were not allowed to practice.

A campaign led by Billy Bragg has successfully seen prisoners in British jails allowed to use steel stringed guitars.

Musicians including Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Philip Selway, Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Johnny Marr also supported the campaign to overturn the ban on steel-strung guitars in British prisons. The campaign was also led by Cardiff West MP Kevin Brennan, who has commented:

“This is a victory for common sense and I’m pleased after months of campaigning the UK Government has listened. The power of music to help prisoners to rehabilitate is well documented. I started the campaign after prisoners wrote to me explaining how they had saved from their small prison wages to buy guitars and how therapeutic learning to play the guitar had been for them before the ban.”

Bill Bragg, who founded the Jail Guitar Doors rehabilitation initiative added: “As an incentive to engage in rehabilitation individual access to steel strung guitars can really help the atmosphere on a prison wing. I’ve had a number of projects involving guitars on hold which now will be able to go ahead, and will allow those using music in prisons to get on with this important work.”

In a letter published in The Guardian earlier this year 12 musicians, whose number also included Richard Hawley, argued that “music has an important role to play in engaging prisoners in the process of rehabilitation” and that this was being undermined if inmates were not allowed to practice.

Glen Matlock reveals he hasn’t spoken to John Lydon in five years

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Glen Matlock reveals he hasn’t spoken to John Lydon in five years
Glen Matlock has said that he has not spoken to John Lydon in five years and that the band are unlikely to reform any time soon. The Sex Pistols last performed together in 2008 and another reunion looks unlikely after remarks by Matlock, who criticised Lydon as being "cheesy" while also calling gu...

Glen Matlock has said that he has not spoken to John Lydon in five years and that the band are unlikely to reform any time soon.

The Sex Pistols last performed together in 2008 and another reunion looks unlikely after remarks by Matlock, who criticised Lydon as being “cheesy” while also calling guitarist Steve Jones “a miserable sod.”

“I haven’t seen John [Lydon] for five years and I’m quite happy about that,” Matlock told The Mirror. “I’ve had no cause to speak to him. There is nothing I know of in the offing and I’m really not that fussed about it. I have no idea if we will reform but who knows the secret of black magic box. I wouldn’t write new Sex Pistols material, we’re fine with the old stuff.”

Matlock also made reference to Lydon’s appearance in the Country Life butter TV adverts a few years ago. “I think that was a bit cheesy. I think he was trying to move on from being Johnny Rotten. It’s always measured against the Sex Pistols, whether he has moved on from that I don’t know. That is his way of trying.”

John Lydon will release his autobiography, Anger Is An Energy, in October.

Paul McCartney announces latest archive releases

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Paul McCartney announces latest archive releases

Wings albums Venus And Mars and At The Speed Of Sound have been confirmed as the next releases in the Paul McCartney Archive collection. They will be released on September 22 (UK), and September 23 (US), 2014. Both albums will be available in a variety of physical and digital formats. Starting with a 2-disc (2 CD) Standard Edition, the first CD will feature the original remastered album and the second CD will include bonus audio made up of material including demos and unreleased tracks. The 3-disc (2CD, 1DVD) Deluxe Edition will be housed in ahardback book featuring unpublished photographs, new interviews with Paul, material from Paul’s archives and expanded track-by-track information. The deluxe version bonus DVD will be comprised of filmed material from around the time of each release, some of which has never been seen before. The albums will also be available on special gatefold vinyl editions (vinyl editions include a download card). Digitally Venus And Mars and At The Speed Of Sound will be made available as both standard and deluxe versions – including Mastered for iTunes and Hi-Res formats. TRACKLISTING: Venus & Mars CD 1 – Remastered Album 01. Venus and Mars 02. Rock Show 03. Love In Song 04. You Gave Me The Answer 05. Magneto and Titanium Man 06. Letting Go 07. Venus and Mars – Reprise 08. Spirits Of Ancient Egypt 09. Medicine Jar 10. Call Me Back Again 11. Listen To What The Man Said 12. Treat Her Gently – Lonely Old People 13. Crossroads CD 2 – Bonus Audio 01. Junior’s Farm 02. Sally G 03. Walking In The Park With Eloise 04. Bridge On The River Suite 05. My Carnival 06. Going To New Orleans (My Carnival) 07. Hey Diddle [Ernie Winfrey Mix] 08. Let’s Love 09. Soily [from One Hand Clapping] 10. Baby Face [from One Hand Clapping] 11. Lunch Box/Odd Sox 12. 4th Of July 13. Rock Show [Old Version] 14. Letting Go [Single Edit] DVD – Bonus Film 01. Recording My Carnival 02. Bon Voyageur 03. Wings At Elstree 04. Venus and Mars TV Ad At the Speed of Sound CD 1 – Remastered Album 01. Let 'Em In 02. The Note You Never Wrote 03. She’s My Baby 04. Beware My Love 05. Wino Junko 06. Silly Love Songs 07. Cook Of The House 08. Time To Hide 09. Must Do Something About It 10. San Ferry Anne 11. Warm And Beautiful CD 2 – Bonus Audio 01. Silly Love Songs [Demo] 02. She’s My Baby [Demo] 03. Message To Joe 04. Beware My Love [John Bonham Version] 05. Must Do Something About It [Paul’s Version] 06. Let ‘Em In [Demo] 07. Warm And Beautiful [Instrumental Demo] DVD – Bonus Film 01. Silly Love Songs Music Video 02. Wings Over Wembley 03. Wings In Venice

Wings albums Venus And Mars and At The Speed Of Sound have been confirmed as the next releases in the Paul McCartney Archive collection.

They will be released on September 22 (UK), and September 23 (US), 2014.

Both albums will be available in a variety of physical and digital formats. Starting with a 2-disc (2 CD) Standard Edition, the first CD will feature the original remastered album and the second CD will include bonus audio made up of material including demos and unreleased tracks. The 3-disc (2CD, 1DVD) Deluxe Edition will be housed in ahardback book featuring unpublished photographs, new interviews with Paul, material from Paul’s archives and expanded track-by-track information.

The deluxe version bonus DVD will be comprised of filmed material from around the time of each release, some of which has never been seen before. The albums will also be available on special gatefold vinyl editions (vinyl editions include a download card). Digitally Venus And Mars and At The Speed Of Sound will be made available as both standard and deluxe versions – including Mastered for iTunes and Hi-Res formats.

TRACKLISTING:

Venus & Mars

CD 1 – Remastered Album

01. Venus and Mars

02. Rock Show

03. Love In Song

04. You Gave Me The Answer

05. Magneto and Titanium Man

06. Letting Go

07. Venus and Mars – Reprise

08. Spirits Of Ancient Egypt

09. Medicine Jar

10. Call Me Back Again

11. Listen To What The Man Said

12. Treat Her Gently – Lonely Old People

13. Crossroads

CD 2 – Bonus Audio

01. Junior’s Farm

02. Sally G

03. Walking In The Park With Eloise

04. Bridge On The River Suite

05. My Carnival

06. Going To New Orleans (My Carnival)

07. Hey Diddle [Ernie Winfrey Mix]

08. Let’s Love

09. Soily [from One Hand Clapping]

10. Baby Face [from One Hand Clapping]

11. Lunch Box/Odd Sox

12. 4th Of July

13. Rock Show [Old Version]

14. Letting Go [Single Edit]

DVD – Bonus Film

01. Recording My Carnival

02. Bon Voyageur

03. Wings At Elstree

04. Venus and Mars TV Ad

At the Speed of Sound

CD 1 – Remastered Album

01. Let ‘Em In

02. The Note You Never Wrote

03. She’s My Baby

04. Beware My Love

05. Wino Junko

06. Silly Love Songs

07. Cook Of The House

08. Time To Hide

09. Must Do Something About It

10. San Ferry Anne

11. Warm And Beautiful

CD 2 – Bonus Audio

01. Silly Love Songs [Demo]

02. She’s My Baby [Demo]

03. Message To Joe

04. Beware My Love [John Bonham Version]

05. Must Do Something About It [Paul’s Version]

06. Let ‘Em In [Demo]

07. Warm And Beautiful [Instrumental Demo]

DVD – Bonus Film

01. Silly Love Songs Music Video

02. Wings Over Wembley

03. Wings In Venice

Blur to release Live At The Budokan album

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Blur to release Live At The Budokan album
Blur will release a recording of their 1995 gig at The Budokan in Tokyo this August. The album, titled Live At The Budokan, will come out on August 11. The album artwork can be seen above while a live version of 'Yuko And Hiro' can be heard via the video at the bottom of the page. Blur's gig at Th...

Blur will release a recording of their 1995 gig at The Budokan in Tokyo this August.

The album, titled Live At The Budokan, will come out on August 11. The album artwork can be seen above while a live version of ‘Yuko And Hiro’ can be heard via the video at the bottom of the page.

Blur’s gig at The Budokan was part of The Great Escape Tour and saw the band play to 20,000 people on November 8, 1995. Though it came out in Japan, the album was never officially released in the UK. The recordings have been remastered by Frank Arkwright at London’s Abbey Road Studios.

The Live At The Budokan tracklisting is:

‘The Great Escape’

‘Jubilee’

‘Popscene’

‘End Of A Century’

‘Tracy Jacks’

‘Mr Robinson’s Quango’

‘To The End’

‘Fade Away’

‘It Could Be You’

‘Stereotypes’

‘She’s So High’

‘Girls & Boys’

‘Advert’

‘Intermission’

‘Bank Holiday’

‘For Tomorrow’

‘Country House’

‘This Is A Low’

‘Supa Shoppa’

‘Yuko And Hiro’

‘He Thought Of Cars’

‘Coping’

‘Globe Alone’

‘Parklife’

‘The Universal’

Willie Nelson – Band Of Brothers

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Willie Nelson – Band Of Brothers

"It's good to be writing again..." A rare letter home by the Red Headed Stranger... The backstory for this, Nelson’s 37 billionth album, is that for the first time in eons he wrote the bulk of the songs. In truth, the nine (of 14) new Nelson compositions on Band Of Brothers are co-writes with Kenny Chesney producer Buddy Cannon. But no matter, this one dispenses with his usual distractions, Nelson singing with a simple grandeur, the most intimate, open-hearted effort by the Texas legend in years. Or, at least since Spirit and Teatro, his unjustly ignored one-two punch from the late ’90s. Like the best songs on those efforts, Brothers shines brightest when Nelson spins out pithy philosophising, or hits a certain inimitable, rambling, jazzy sweet spot with his longtime band. Opener “Bring It On” does both. “They say there’s no gain without pain,” Nelson speak-sings out the gate, against freewheeling honky-tonk backing. “Well, I must be gaining a lot,” he quips. “The Wall”, meanwhile, is its emotional flipside – sung with a matter-of-fact gospel lilt, Tommy White’s steel guitar draping the melody in regret, it’s a hypnotic, reflective masterpiece. All is not grim and grimmer, though. Nelson sounds as if he’s in his breezy ’60s/’70s prime on road song deluxe “I’ve Got A Lot Of Traveling To Do” (sequel to “On The Road Again”, perhaps), the musicians at their nimble, earthy best, while “Crazy Like Me” sets sail on a chugging, deeply satisfying roadhouse rockabilly frame. Lighter fare, novelty goofs like “Wives And Girlfriends” and “Used To Her”, are riotous fun, harking back to madcap Nashville days. The dead serious “Hard To Be An Outlaw”, a surly new Billy Joe Shaver composition, again though, inhabits the dark, desolate obverse – the country establishment’s fearfully reactionary lockout of the true renegade: “It’s hard to be an outlaw/If you ain’t wanted anymore,” Nelson wails, as one who’s lived it all. Luke Torn

“It’s good to be writing again…” A rare letter home by the Red Headed Stranger…

The backstory for this, Nelson’s 37 billionth album, is that for the first time in eons he wrote the bulk of the songs. In truth, the nine (of 14) new Nelson compositions on Band Of Brothers are co-writes with Kenny Chesney producer Buddy Cannon. But no matter, this one dispenses with his usual distractions, Nelson singing with a simple grandeur, the most intimate, open-hearted effort by the Texas legend in years. Or, at least since Spirit and Teatro, his unjustly ignored one-two punch from the late ’90s.

Like the best songs on those efforts, Brothers shines brightest when Nelson spins out pithy philosophising, or hits a certain inimitable, rambling, jazzy sweet spot with his longtime band. Opener “Bring It On” does both. “They say there’s no gain without pain,” Nelson speak-sings out the gate, against freewheeling honky-tonk backing. “Well, I must be gaining a lot,” he quips. “The Wall”, meanwhile, is its emotional flipside – sung with a matter-of-fact gospel lilt, Tommy White’s steel guitar draping the melody in regret, it’s a hypnotic, reflective masterpiece.

All is not grim and grimmer, though. Nelson sounds as if he’s in his breezy ’60s/’70s prime on road song deluxe “I’ve Got A Lot Of Traveling To Do” (sequel to “On The Road Again”, perhaps), the musicians at their nimble, earthy best, while “Crazy Like Me” sets sail on a chugging, deeply satisfying roadhouse rockabilly frame. Lighter fare, novelty goofs like “Wives And Girlfriends” and “Used To Her”, are riotous fun, harking back to madcap Nashville days. The dead serious “Hard To Be An Outlaw”, a surly new Billy Joe Shaver composition, again though, inhabits the dark, desolate obverse – the country establishment’s fearfully reactionary lockout of the true renegade: “It’s hard to be an outlaw/If you ain’t wanted anymore,” Nelson wails, as one who’s lived it all.

Luke Torn

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