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Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A to be sold

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Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A to be sold

Nashville's RCA Studio A is under threat, according to current tenant of the Music Row building, Ben Folds. In an open letter to the city of Nashville in The Tennessean, current tenant of the Music Row building Ben Folds says the building is to be sold to a Brentwood development company. In the letter, Folds - who took over the studio's lease 12 years ago - said he is unaware of the developer's future plans for the building. Folds letter began: "Last week, on the day that would have been [former RCA executive] Chet Atkins’ 90th birthday (June 20, 1924), my office received news that the historic RCA Building on Music Row is set to be sold. This building, with the historic Studio A as its centerpiece, was Atkins’ and Owen Bradley’s vision and baby, and had become home to the largest classic recording space in Nashville. Word is that the prospective buyer is a Brentwood TN-based commercial development company called Bravo Development owned and operated by Tim Reynolds. We don’t know what this will mean to the future of the building." Folds goes on to say, "Most of us know about Studio B. Studio A was its grander younger sibling, erected by Atkins when he became an RCA executive. The result was an orchestral room built to record strings for Elvis Presley and to entice international stars to record in one of these four Putnam-designed RCA spaces in the world. The other three RCA studios of the same dimensions – built in LA, Chicago and New York – have long since been shut down. I can’t tell you how many engineers, producers and musicians have walked into this space to share their stories of the great classic recorded music made here that put Nashville on the map. I’ve heard tales of audio engineers who would roller skate around the room waiting for Elvis to show up at some point in the weeks he booked, stories about how Eddy Arnold recording one of the first sessions in the room and one of the songs was 'Make The World Go Away', Dolly Parton (Jolene) and The Monkees recorded here, and so on."

Nashville’s RCA Studio A is under threat, according to current tenant of the Music Row building, Ben Folds.

In an open letter to the city of Nashville in The Tennessean, current tenant of the Music Row building Ben Folds says the building is to be sold to a Brentwood development company. In the letter, Folds – who took over the studio’s lease 12 years ago – said he is unaware of the developer’s future plans for the building.

Folds letter began: “Last week, on the day that would have been [former RCA executive] Chet Atkins’ 90th birthday (June 20, 1924), my office received news that the historic RCA Building on Music Row is set to be sold. This building, with the historic Studio A as its centerpiece, was Atkins’ and Owen Bradley’s vision and baby, and had become home to the largest classic recording space in Nashville. Word is that the prospective buyer is a Brentwood TN-based commercial development company called Bravo Development owned and operated by Tim Reynolds. We don’t know what this will mean to the future of the building.”

Folds goes on to say, “Most of us know about Studio B. Studio A was its grander younger sibling, erected by Atkins when he became an RCA executive. The result was an orchestral room built to record strings for Elvis Presley and to entice international stars to record in one of these four Putnam-designed RCA spaces in the world. The other three RCA studios of the same dimensions – built in LA, Chicago and New York – have long since been shut down. I can’t tell you how many engineers, producers and musicians have walked into this space to share their stories of the great classic recorded music made here that put Nashville on the map. I’ve heard tales of audio engineers who would roller skate around the room waiting for Elvis to show up at some point in the weeks he booked, stories about how Eddy Arnold recording one of the first sessions in the room and one of the songs was ‘Make The World Go Away’, Dolly Parton (Jolene) and The Monkees recorded here, and so on.”

Jack White to play BBC Radio 1 session next week

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Jack White to play BBC Radio 1 session next week
Jack White will play a special session for BBC Radio 1 next week. While will appear on Zane Lowe's show on Wednesday July 2, for a live performance from Maida Vale Studios, which will be broadcast from 7-9pm. The session will come after his appearance at Glastonbury this weekend and ahead of his so...

Jack White will play a special session for BBC Radio 1 next week.

While will appear on Zane Lowe’s show on Wednesday July 2, for a live performance from Maida Vale Studios, which will be broadcast from 7-9pm. The session will come after his appearance at Glastonbury this weekend and ahead of his sold out show at London’s Eventim Apollo on July 3.

White will return to the UK this autumn for a three date arena tour, playing Leeds First Direct Arena on November 17, Glasgow SSE Hydro on November 18 and London O2 Arena on November 19.

Jack White recently released his second solo album Lazaretto, which broke records for vinyl sales in America.

Jack White plays:

London Eventim Apollo (July 3)

Leeds First Direct Arena (November 17)

Glasgow SSE Hydro (18)

London O2 Arena (19)

Bruce Springsteen on Luis Suarez: “Biting has no place in sports”

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Bruce Springsteen on Luis Suarez: “Biting has no place in sports”
Bruce Springsteen has commented on claims that Uruguayan footballer on Luis Suarez bit Italian player Giorgio Chiellini during a World Cup match on June 24. "Biting has no place in sports," said Springsteen to a reporter from TMZ who quizzed him about the incident. "What are the rules about biting ...

Bruce Springsteen has commented on claims that Uruguayan footballer on Luis Suarez bit Italian player Giorgio Chiellini during a World Cup match on June 24.

“Biting has no place in sports,” said Springsteen to a reporter from TMZ who quizzed him about the incident. “What are the rules about biting in the World Cup?” he asked. “There probably should be one.”

When asked if he would be following in Bon Jovi‘s footsteps and owning or creating a sports team himself, he commented: “No. Rock and roll is hard enough.”

An online museum of Bruce Springsteen memorabilia will launch this month to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the singer’s record Born In The USA. BlindedByTheLight.com will feature over 300 objects, ranging from concert posters to handwritten lyrics – with more items to be added in the future.

Paul McCartney: “I feel great”

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Paul McCartney: “I feel great”
Paul McCartney has released a video statement, telling fans "I feel great" in the wake of his recent illness. "Everybody's been asking how I'm feeling - I feel great, thank you very much for asking... feeling great, rocking and rolling", said McCartney in the video, which you can watch below. McCa...

Paul McCartney has released a video statement, telling fans “I feel great” in the wake of his recent illness.

“Everybody’s been asking how I’m feeling – I feel great, thank you very much for asking… feeling great, rocking and rolling”, said McCartney in the video, which you can watch below.

McCartney was recently struck down by a virus which saw him hospitalised in Tokyo, Japan. He subsequently postponed a series of shows in Lubbock, Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Nashville and Louisville on his ‘Out There’ tour, which have now been rearranged for October.

Ringo Starr also recently offered a health update on Paul McCartney. Speaking to Access Hollywood, Starr confirmed that his Beatles bandmate was recovering at home having been discharged from hospital. “I spoke to him in the hospital,” said Starr. “He picked up and said ‘hi.’ He’s doing OK. He was in hospital but now he’s out and getting fit and ready to rock. He’s doing good. I text him and he texts me back.”

Bob Dylan lyrics fetch $2 million in New York auction

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Bob Dylan lyrics fetch $2 million in New York auction

A draft of Bob Dylan's song "Like A Rolling Stone" has broken the record for the most expensive lyric manuscript ever sold. The working draft of the song, written in Bob Dylan's own handwriting, was sold by Sotheby's for $2.045 million (£1.204 million) to a private, unidentified buyer who is reported to be a longtime California fan of the folk singer. The auction house said that it was "the only known surviving draft of the final lyrics for this transformative rock anthem." The draft was written on paper from the Roger Smith Hotel in Washington, D.C. and features doodles of a hat, a bird and an animal with antlers, writes the Hollywood Reporter. The previous holder of the title of the most expensive lyric sheet was John Lennon's handwritten "A Day In The Life" draft, which sold for $1.2 million (£706,980) in 2010. "Like A Rolling Stone" features on Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited.

A draft of Bob Dylan‘s song “Like A Rolling Stone” has broken the record for the most expensive lyric manuscript ever sold.

The working draft of the song, written in Bob Dylan’s own handwriting, was sold by Sotheby’s for $2.045 million (£1.204 million) to a private, unidentified buyer who is reported to be a longtime California fan of the folk singer. The auction house said that it was “the only known surviving draft of the final lyrics for this transformative rock anthem.” The draft was written on paper from the Roger Smith Hotel in Washington, D.C. and features doodles of a hat, a bird and an animal with antlers, writes the Hollywood Reporter.

The previous holder of the title of the most expensive lyric sheet was John Lennon’s handwritten “A Day In The Life” draft, which sold for $1.2 million (£706,980) in 2010.

“Like A Rolling Stone” features on Dylan’s 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited.

Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson: “Punk was rubbish”

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Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson: “Punk was rubbish”

Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson has said that "Punk was rubbish". The singer made the comments to The Guardian in an interview conducted by fellow Sonisphere line-up addition Frank Turner, saying that the closest the "art establishment" ever came to embracing metal was through punk. "The reason they embraced punk was because it was rubbish and the reason they embraced rubbish was because they could control it," said Dickinson. He continued: "They could say: "Oh yeah, we're punk so we can sneer at everybody. We can't play our fucking instruments, but that means we can make out that this whole thing is some enormous performance art." Half the kids that were in punk bands were laughing at the art establishment, going: "What a fucking bunch of tosspots. Thanks very much, give us the money and we'll fuck off and stick it up our nose and shag birds." But what they'd really love to be doing is being in a heavy metal band surrounded by porn stars." Dickinson also recently hit out at Glastonbury festival for being too "middle class". The singer said his band have no intention of playing the Worthy Farm bash, which for the first time in its history will see a heavy metal band headline this year when Metallica play on Saturday night (June 28). "In the days when Glasto was an alternative festival it was quite interesting," he said (via The Telegraph). "Now it's the most bourgeois thing on the planet. Anywhere Gwyneth Paltrow [the actress] goes and you can live in an air-conditioned yurt is not for me." Dickinson added that he was glad Iron Maiden were playing rock festival Sonisphere instead. "We’ll leave the middle classes to do Glastonbury and the rest of the great unwashed will decamp to Knebworth and drink lots of beer and have fun," he said.

Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson has said that “Punk was rubbish”.

The singer made the comments to The Guardian in an interview conducted by fellow Sonisphere line-up addition Frank Turner, saying that the closest the “art establishment” ever came to embracing metal was through punk. “The reason they embraced punk was because it was rubbish and the reason they embraced rubbish was because they could control it,” said Dickinson.

He continued: “They could say: “Oh yeah, we’re punk so we can sneer at everybody. We can’t play our fucking instruments, but that means we can make out that this whole thing is some enormous performance art.” Half the kids that were in punk bands were laughing at the art establishment, going: “What a fucking bunch of tosspots. Thanks very much, give us the money and we’ll fuck off and stick it up our nose and shag birds.” But what they’d really love to be doing is being in a heavy metal band surrounded by porn stars.”

Dickinson also recently hit out at Glastonbury festival for being too “middle class”. The singer said his band have no intention of playing the Worthy Farm bash, which for the first time in its history will see a heavy metal band headline this year when Metallica play on Saturday night (June 28).

“In the days when Glasto was an alternative festival it was quite interesting,” he said (via The Telegraph). “Now it’s the most bourgeois thing on the planet. Anywhere Gwyneth Paltrow [the actress] goes and you can live in an air-conditioned yurt is not for me.”

Dickinson added that he was glad Iron Maiden were playing rock festival Sonisphere instead. “We’ll leave the middle classes to do Glastonbury and the rest of the great unwashed will decamp to Knebworth and drink lots of beer and have fun,” he said.

Bob Dylan’s garage studio “was a real garage… there may even have been lawnmowers in there”

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Bob Dylan’s garage studio “was a real garage… there may even have been lawnmowers in there”
Bob Dylan’s resurgence in the late ’80s is examined in the new issue of Uncut, dated August 2014, and out now. Musicians, producers and engineers give eyewitness accounts of Dylan’s methods in and out of the studio in the concluding half of our fascinating feature by Allan Jones. “We sta...

Bob Dylan’s resurgence in the late ’80s is examined in the new issue of Uncut, dated August 2014, and out now.

Musicians, producers and engineers give eyewitness accounts of Dylan’s methods in and out of the studio in the concluding half of our fascinating feature by Allan Jones.

“We started setting up in the garage,” says Jeff Lynne’s engineer Bill Bottrell of one recording session. “There was all this gear Dylan had bought from Dave Stewart sitting there, not really working. Jeff and I had to quickly plug it all together and make it work as much as possible.

“It was hilarious. It was a real garage. You know, like Sheetrock, plasterboard walls, a metal garage door, the kind that rolls up. There may even have been lawnmowers in there.”

The new Uncut, dated August 2014, is out now.

Robert Plant And The Sensational Space Shifters, Le Bataclan, Paris, June 22, 2014

Michael Bonner
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Robert Plant And The Sensational Space Shifters, Le Bataclan, Paris, June 22, 2014

“Welcome to an evening of country and eastern,” smiles Robert Plant as he gestures expansively round this fabled Paris venue, taking in not just the lively capacity crowd gathered here tonight but also to his latest musical collaborators, The Sensational Space Shifters. Plant's sly “country and eastern” pun is admittedly an excellent fit for the infectious, far-out collision of styles he’s currently investigating with the Space Shifters. Essentially a regrouping of the Strange Sensation band who played with him on the Dreamland and Mighty ReArranger albums, they are drawn from a number of diverse musical backgrounds and geographical locations. They include a member of an east London jazz co-operative, a trip hop veteran, the guitarist from a Britpop band and a Gambian ritti virtuoso. You could be forgiven for thinking that bringing together musicians from such radically different disciplines might prove incompatible. Yet, under Plant’s auspices, The Sensational Space Shifters are a flourishing concern. Tonight, playing here in the faded splendor of Paris’ Bataclan, they compliment perfectly Plant’s roaming musical agenda. Arriving on stage to Link Wray’s “Rumble”, the band are all dressed in dark colours – black or navy – save Plant who wears a brown striped shirt with bold collars, blue jeans and cowboy boots. The stage is principally Plant’s to command – though he has tough competition from Justin Adams, his adjutant in the Space Shifters. Adams is a very mobile performer: he adopts a kind of simian-like crouch with his guitar aimed out at the crowd and bounces round the stage. Adams is particularly active on “Tin Pan Valley” – an early highlight – that finds Plant almost static at the centre of the stage as Adams and his fellow guitarist Liam “Skin” Tyson twirl round him, energetically trading chunky riffs. I remember seeing Plant and the Space Shifters at the Royal Albert Hall last October, and much the same thing happened then: Plant almost removed himself from the proceedings on occasion as the performances became increasingly dynamic. There is much to be said, too, about the ebullient presence of Juldeh Camara, a man who seems to be permanently beaming as he plays his ritti – a single-stringed fiddle – or his two-stringed kologo banjo on half a dozen songs in the set, adding an extra layer to the celebratory atmosphere. There are new songs, too. Sandwiched between “Black Dog” – charged with the deepest West African rhythms – and an intimate and surprisingly faithful version of “Going To California”, we get “Rainbow”, from Plant and the Space Shifters’ new album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar. Carried along on Adams’ keening guitar riff and droning keyboard melodies, in its live version it’s accompanied by the majority of the band beating out tight, Moroccan-influenced rhythms of hand drums. A short while later, Plant debuts “Little Maggie”, where Plant explores the congruence between Celtic folk and African music, with Tyson’s banjo playing echoed in Camara’s ritti, both downhome and mystical. Fortuitously, both songs sit comfortably alongside the more established material in the set. And what of that established material? Of course, Plant has frequently proven himself to be a sly reinventor of his back catalogue, as anyone who saw the Band Of Joy interpretations of “Misty Mountain Hop” or “Houses Of The Holy” will attest. While “Black Dog” is given yet another unexpected twist, this time dubwise (last time I saw them do it, they incorporated nimble African grooves), it’s interesting to see how true to the original recording tonight’s take on “Whole Lotta Love” is. The riff is thrillingly intact – causing much uproar from this up-for-it French audience – although Plant and his cohorts can’t entirely resist a sightseeing trip round the deep desert for a bar or two. Plant’s voice, incidentally, is amazing here: he really let’s rip, far more so than at the Albert Hall show. It’s admittedly just a fancy, but you can’t help thinking he’s changeling the spirit of the younger man who played up the road at l’Olympia 45 years ago. They encore with an incantatory “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” before Plant admits that for all his forward-looking questing, there is still the occasional moment where it is acceptable to lean back into the past, and we are treated to a long, searing version of “Rock & Roll”. When the lights come up and the band take their bows, it’s clear that Plant, once again, has been invigorated. Of course, even from the earliest days of his career, Plant has been intellectually and musically exploratory. The Sensational Space Shifters, and their sonic inventions, fit comfortably in among the many other gifted and sympathetic fellow adventurers who have accompanied Plant on his remarkable journeys through the years. As this latest endeavour keenly demonstrates, the questing spirit in Robert Plant is as strong as ever. Robert Plant and The Sensational Space Shifters played: Babe I’m Gonna Leave You Tin Pan Valley Spoonful Black Dog Rainbow Going To California The Enchanter Little Maggie What Is And What Should Never Be Funny In My Mind (I Believe I’m Fixin’ To Die) Whole Lotta Love Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down Rock & Roll

“Welcome to an evening of country and eastern,” smiles Robert Plant as he gestures expansively round this fabled Paris venue, taking in not just the lively capacity crowd gathered here tonight but also to his latest musical collaborators, The Sensational Space Shifters.

Plant’s sly “country and eastern” pun is admittedly an excellent fit for the infectious, far-out collision of styles he’s currently investigating with the Space Shifters. Essentially a regrouping of the Strange Sensation band who played with him on the Dreamland and Mighty ReArranger albums, they are drawn from a number of diverse musical backgrounds and geographical locations. They include a member of an east London jazz co-operative, a trip hop veteran, the guitarist from a Britpop band and a Gambian ritti virtuoso. You could be forgiven for thinking that bringing together musicians from such radically different disciplines might prove incompatible. Yet, under Plant’s auspices, The Sensational Space Shifters are a flourishing concern. Tonight, playing here in the faded splendor of Paris’ Bataclan, they compliment perfectly Plant’s roaming musical agenda.

Arriving on stage to Link Wray’s “Rumble”, the band are all dressed in dark colours – black or navy – save Plant who wears a brown striped shirt with bold collars, blue jeans and cowboy boots. The stage is principally Plant’s to command – though he has tough competition from Justin Adams, his adjutant in the Space Shifters. Adams is a very mobile performer: he adopts a kind of simian-like crouch with his guitar aimed out at the crowd and bounces round the stage. Adams is particularly active on “Tin Pan Valley” – an early highlight – that finds Plant almost static at the centre of the stage as Adams and his fellow guitarist Liam “Skin” Tyson twirl round him, energetically trading chunky riffs. I remember seeing Plant and the Space Shifters at the Royal Albert Hall last October, and much the same thing happened then: Plant almost removed himself from the proceedings on occasion as the performances became increasingly dynamic. There is much to be said, too, about the ebullient presence of Juldeh Camara, a man who seems to be permanently beaming as he plays his ritti – a single-stringed fiddle – or his two-stringed kologo banjo on half a dozen songs in the set, adding an extra layer to the celebratory atmosphere.

There are new songs, too. Sandwiched between “Black Dog” – charged with the deepest West African rhythms – and an intimate and surprisingly faithful version of “Going To California”, we get “Rainbow”, from Plant and the Space Shifters’ new album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar. Carried along on Adams’ keening guitar riff and droning keyboard melodies, in its live version it’s accompanied by the majority of the band beating out tight, Moroccan-influenced rhythms of hand drums. A short while later, Plant debuts “Little Maggie”, where Plant explores the congruence between Celtic folk and African music, with Tyson’s banjo playing echoed in Camara’s ritti, both downhome and mystical. Fortuitously, both songs sit comfortably alongside the more established material in the set.

And what of that established material? Of course, Plant has frequently proven himself to be a sly reinventor of his back catalogue, as anyone who saw the Band Of Joy interpretations of “Misty Mountain Hop” or “Houses Of The Holy” will attest. While “Black Dog” is given yet another unexpected twist, this time dubwise (last time I saw them do it, they incorporated nimble African grooves), it’s interesting to see how true to the original recording tonight’s take on “Whole Lotta Love” is. The riff is thrillingly intact – causing much uproar from this up-for-it French audience – although Plant and his cohorts can’t entirely resist a sightseeing trip round the deep desert for a bar or two. Plant’s voice, incidentally, is amazing here: he really let’s rip, far more so than at the Albert Hall show. It’s admittedly just a fancy, but you can’t help thinking he’s changeling the spirit of the younger man who played up the road at l’Olympia 45 years ago. They encore with an incantatory “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” before Plant admits that for all his forward-looking questing, there is still the occasional moment where it is acceptable to lean back into the past, and we are treated to a long, searing version of “Rock & Roll”.

When the lights come up and the band take their bows, it’s clear that Plant, once again, has been invigorated. Of course, even from the earliest days of his career, Plant has been intellectually and musically exploratory. The Sensational Space Shifters, and their sonic inventions, fit comfortably in among the many other gifted and sympathetic fellow adventurers who have accompanied Plant on his remarkable journeys through the years. As this latest endeavour keenly demonstrates, the questing spirit in Robert Plant is as strong as ever.

Robert Plant and The Sensational Space Shifters played:

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

Tin Pan Valley

Spoonful

Black Dog

Rainbow

Going To California

The Enchanter

Little Maggie

What Is And What Should Never Be

Funny In My Mind (I Believe I’m Fixin’ To Die)

Whole Lotta Love

Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down

Rock & Roll

Clapton, Mary Chain, MacGowan, Minutemen, Hurray For The Riff Raff… Inside this month’s Uncut

John Mulvey
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Clapton, Mary Chain, MacGowan, Minutemen, Hurray For The Riff Raff… Inside this month’s Uncut

When Graeme Thomson sent us his interview with Eric Clapton, it was not, to be honest, quite what we expected. We anticipated a poignant chat about Clapton’s old friend JJ Cale, to tie in with the forthcoming tribute album, “The Breeze”. As it transpired, though, the album was just a jumping-off point for one of the most unexpected and revealing Clapton pieces most of us can remember. Closing in on 70, Clapton ended up reflecting on his messy past, his stable present, and a future which could see him retiring a lot sooner than most of us would have expected. There was talk of diminishing powers, Cream reunions and a growing reluctance to tour. “JJ said, ‘When I turn 70 I’m unofficially retired,’” Clapton told Graeme. “I think what I’ll allow myself to do, within reason, is carry on recording in the studio, but the road has become unbearable.” Interesting news, not least for those of you who were at Clapton’s Glasgow show over the weekend. But from there, the interview shifts into ever more moving and strange territory. It’d be strategically artless to reveal much more at this point; suffice to say, the full story can be found in the new issue of Uncut, out today. It’s an auspicious issue in other ways, not least because it marks the last Uncut edited by our founder, Allan Jones. As he notes in his final Ed’s letter, though, “This isn’t a complete divorce from Uncut… I don’t plan to entirely disappear quite yet.” Allan finishes his revelatory survey of Dylan in the ‘80s in the new mag, and we also have an exclusive chat with the dynamically reactivared Jesus & Mary Chain, and a gripping look at the history of The Minutemen with Mike Watt. What else? There’s a midnight rendezvous with Shane MacGowan in a pub backyard, that begins with him colliding with a shed and ends, nearly 12 hours later, with a whole new perspective on a by-now slumbering Pogue. Soundgarden revisit the making of “Black Hole Sun”, Loudon Wainwright III answers your questions, First Aid Kit reveal their favourite records, and there are further interviews with The Pretty Things, Echo & The Bunnymen, Southside Johnny and a newcomer quite a few of you seem pretty excited about, Sturgill Simpson. For my part, I spent a few days in New Orleans, learning more about Alynda Lee Segarra, Hurray For The Riff Raff, the fertile community of hobos, folksingers, radical and street musicians which birthed them, and the cultural riches and social problems of their city. One of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever done, I think. Enough craven plugging, perhaps. But please do get in touch with your thoughts, responses, passions, rants, enthusiasms and so on (compliments, even…) at our new address: uncut_feedback@ipcmedia.com. Looking forward, as ever, to hearing from you. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

When Graeme Thomson sent us his interview with Eric Clapton, it was not, to be honest, quite what we expected. We anticipated a poignant chat about Clapton’s old friend JJ Cale, to tie in with the forthcoming tribute album, “The Breeze”. As it transpired, though, the album was just a jumping-off point for one of the most unexpected and revealing Clapton pieces most of us can remember.

Closing in on 70, Clapton ended up reflecting on his messy past, his stable present, and a future which could see him retiring a lot sooner than most of us would have expected. There was talk of diminishing powers, Cream reunions and a growing reluctance to tour. “JJ said, ‘When I turn 70 I’m unofficially retired,’” Clapton told Graeme. “I think what I’ll allow myself to do, within reason, is carry on recording in the studio, but the road has become unbearable.”

Interesting news, not least for those of you who were at Clapton’s Glasgow show over the weekend. But from there, the interview shifts into ever more moving and strange territory. It’d be strategically artless to reveal much more at this point; suffice to say, the full story can be found in the new issue of Uncut, out today.

It’s an auspicious issue in other ways, not least because it marks the last Uncut edited by our founder, Allan Jones. As he notes in his final Ed’s letter, though, “This isn’t a complete divorce from Uncut… I don’t plan to entirely disappear quite yet.” Allan finishes his revelatory survey of Dylan in the ‘80s in the new mag, and we also have an exclusive chat with the dynamically reactivared Jesus & Mary Chain, and a gripping look at the history of The Minutemen with Mike Watt.

What else? There’s a midnight rendezvous with Shane MacGowan in a pub backyard, that begins with him colliding with a shed and ends, nearly 12 hours later, with a whole new perspective on a by-now slumbering Pogue. Soundgarden revisit the making of “Black Hole Sun”, Loudon Wainwright III answers your questions, First Aid Kit reveal their favourite records, and there are further interviews with The Pretty Things, Echo & The Bunnymen, Southside Johnny and a newcomer quite a few of you seem pretty excited about, Sturgill Simpson. For my part, I spent a few days in New Orleans, learning more about Alynda Lee Segarra, Hurray For The Riff Raff, the fertile community of hobos, folksingers, radical and street musicians which birthed them, and the cultural riches and social problems of their city. One of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever done, I think.

Enough craven plugging, perhaps. But please do get in touch with your thoughts, responses, passions, rants, enthusiasms and so on (compliments, even…) at our new address: uncut_feedback@ipcmedia.com. Looking forward, as ever, to hearing from you.

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

Michael Eavis reveals why Prince isn’t headlining Glastonbury 2014…

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Michael Eavis reveals why Prince isn’t headlining Glastonbury 2014…
Michael Eavis has said that Prince became "really upset" with Glastonbury organisers over what he describes as "social media rumours". The US singer was linked to the headline slot on the Saturday of this year's festival which was eventually taken by Metallica. Speaking to The Guardian, Eavis confi...

Michael Eavis has said that Prince became “really upset” with Glastonbury organisers over what he describes as “social media rumours”.

The US singer was linked to the headline slot on the Saturday of this year’s festival which was eventually taken by Metallica. Speaking to The Guardian, Eavis confirms that he was in discussions with Prince but that the singer became upset during negotiations as he felt that the festival was using his name to advertise itself.

Speaking about Prince, Eavis said: “We wanted him to play, and it got to the point where his people were talking to us about him doing it, but before he confirmed he got really upset because he thought we had advertised that he was playing. We hadn’t, but with social media, rumours get everywhere, and one of those rumours was that Prince was coming. So he didn’t want to do it in the end.”

Eavis went on to say that online rumours are of no benefit to the festival in terms of ticket sales. “All the social media chit-chat now about who might be playing really doesn’t help us. People think we’ve advertised them early, but there’d be no point to us leaking details because the tickets sell out in an hour in October, before the headline acts are announced. People come for what the event means to them, not the headline acts.”

Meanwhile, tabloid reports out today (June 23) suggest that Prince could still make an appearance at Worthy Farm over the weekend. A source told The Sun: “Prince wants to show up somewhere as a surprise. He has spent so much time in the UK lately, he’d love to do an impromptu set.” Speaking to NME recently, however, Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis said, categorically, “Prince is not coming”.

Glastonbury-bound Prince fans may get to hear one of his songs via an unlikely source – Metallica. The same unnamed source states that the band may make a nod to news reports surrounding their headline set in the same way Jay Z did when he played Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’ in 2008. “There was the suggestion of them covering Prince, reminiscent of when Jay-Z came on to ‘Wonderwall’, but it got a firm ‘No’, mostly from singer James Hetfield,” said the source.

A spokesperson for Metallica declined to comment on the tabloid reports.

Various Artists – C86

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Various Artists – C86

The infamous mail-order tape gets a lavish three-disc treatment... It’s difficult to imagine how a simple cassette could become such a controversial document, but that’s what happened with the NME’s 1986 mail-order compilation. Where the paper’s previous annual round-ups - Mighty Reel, Dancin’ Master, C81 - featured a mix of the punk, reggae, hip hop and jazz that the paper had been championing, their 1986 compilation, C86, jettisoned all other genres to concentrate on a very particular type of music. Loved and reviled in equal measure, C86 featured 22 “shambling” bands signed to independent labels - rakishly thin chaps, almost exclusively white, in guitar quartets with not a single keyboard between them. They plied a chaste, asexual brand of beat-pop that borrowed heavily from Josef K, Orange Juice and The Smiths. But, where those bands betrayed vestiges of funk, soul and Africa, the shambling bands divested their music of its black origins: an incendiary statement in the rock-versus-hip hop wars that raged across the inkies at the time. For the first time, “indie” became codified – not as an attitude, but as a genre. White rock music abandoned any modernist impulse and retreated into the past, rejecting synths, drum machines and other garishly lit tropes of 80s pop. C86 even came with its own retro “cutesy” couture: 60s anoraks and duffelcoats, childlike plimsolls, bowl haircuts and cardigans. Some of the bands here were already well-established. Reluctant shambling scene godfathers The Pastels had been releasing records since 1982. The gallows humour of Birkenhead’s Half Man Half Biscuit always seemed at odds with the wide-eyed, uncynical naivety of the other bands on the tape, while The Wedding Present seemed a little butch among their fey compatriots. Other C86 bands seemed to have one great single in them: The Mighty Lemon Drops’ “Happy Head”, The Bodines’ morning-fresh “Therese”, and the Soup Dragons’ “Pleasantly Surprised”. Those three tracks represented C86’s enduring public persona -- a childlike perfect pop that no one actually listened to, all asexual whimsy and male vulnerability. But this was not a homogenous scene. Stump, Big Flame and Bogshed all created a discordant racket of fractured rhythms, wobbly guitars and Beefheart wails. Leeds futurists Age Of Chance rumbled and throbbed and seemed to promise great things. East London revolutionaries McCarthy (later to morph into Stereolab) were fanning the embers of a radical fire that had all but been extinguished by the mid-80s; as implicitly political was the proto-riot grrl thumps and hiccupping vocals of Birmingham’s We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It. Ex-NME scribe Neil Taylor, who compiled the first tape, here assembles this box-set (he’s now a literary editor who has also written an upcoming book on the shambling scene), and disc two features many of the bands he left off the original. They include The Jesus And Mary Chain (unwitting poster boys of this scene), The Primitives (with guitarist Paul Court rather than Tracey Tracey on lead vocals), Kurt Cobain’s faves the BMX Bandits (whose first LP was called C86), The June Brides (who declined to appear on the original) and Talulah Gosh (who emerged just after the tape was compiled). The third disc explores a broader range of British indie music around 1986 and includes a few bands who - like C86 alumni Primal Scream, Age Of Chance and the Soup Dragons - would later neck some pills and “go dance”, including Pop Will Eat Itself (probably the first of these indie bands to embrace hip hop) and the Happy Mondays (who, even in 1986, sounded like an under-rehearsed jazz-funk band trying to play folk music). But it also strays far beyond the C86 brief. There’s the Brechtian cabaret of The Band Of Holy Joy, the epic strings and haunted harmonicas of King Of The Slums, the folksy fiddles of The Nightingales, the hypnotic drums and FX-laden trumpet of The Blue Aeroplanes. The Love Act recall the Violent Femmes with a trumpet; Peel faves The Noseflutes sound like someone has emptied the contents of a recording studio into a skip. There’s also lots of absolute guff, including Richard Hawley’s early band Treebound Story. It covers a wider brief than Bob Stanley’s CD86, a two-disc compilation of contemporaneous music that was released on the 20th anniversary of the original. Weirdly, this reissue arrives at a more receptive time, with a generation of young bands from Portland to Tokyo taking their cue from C86. The appeal is partly a nostalgia for a scene that was already nostalgic, but there’s an urgency and intensity to these performances that still resonates, nearly 30 years on. John Lewis Q&A David Gedge, The Wedding Present Was there a distinct C86 “scene” at the time? It was an exciting time -- fanzines and labels were really taking off, and promoters around the country were always booking us. We’d find ourselves sharing the bill with the Shop Assistants, the Wallflowers, Yeah Yeah Noh and Bogshed, or something. But it seemed like C86 was a catalyst, something that grew wider attention to a small scene. Was there a definable sound? The music was actually quite varied. People now see C86 as all jangly indie pop, but Bogshed and Big Flame were nothing like that - they were much harder. I guess we rode that divide: there were elements that were very jangly and Velvet Underground-ish, but we had a much harder edge. Were you suspicious of being pigeonholed as “a C86 band”? In retrospect, we were probably slightly more established than most of the other bands, even if it didn’t seem like it at the time. We were just honored to be on an NME tape, having read the magazine for years, and perhaps a bit guileless about how it might affect us. But I can understand why, say, the June Brides didn’t want to be on the tape, and how some of the less established bands might be pigeonholed by it, especially when the scene seemed to have run its course. Was it as white and retro as it seemed? Yeah, that’s a fair criticism. The retro thing even by-passed punk: the guitar thing harked back to the Byrds and Velvet Underground. And we were certainly influenced by a lot of white guitar bands. But I guess that applies to all music. It’s like criticising a hip hop act for not being into Bogshed, or something... INTERVIEW: JOHN LEWIS

The infamous mail-order tape gets a lavish three-disc treatment…

It’s difficult to imagine how a simple cassette could become such a controversial document, but that’s what happened with the NME’s 1986 mail-order compilation. Where the paper’s previous annual round-ups – Mighty Reel, Dancin’ Master, C81 – featured a mix of the punk, reggae, hip hop and jazz that the paper had been championing, their 1986 compilation, C86, jettisoned all other genres to concentrate on a very particular type of music.

Loved and reviled in equal measure, C86 featured 22 “shambling” bands signed to independent labels – rakishly thin chaps, almost exclusively white, in guitar quartets with not a single keyboard between them. They plied a chaste, asexual brand of beat-pop that borrowed heavily from Josef K, Orange Juice and The Smiths. But, where those bands betrayed vestiges of funk, soul and Africa, the shambling bands divested their music of its black origins: an incendiary statement in the rock-versus-hip hop wars that raged across the inkies at the time. For the first time, “indie” became codified – not as an attitude, but as a genre. White rock music abandoned any modernist impulse and retreated into the past, rejecting synths, drum machines and other garishly lit tropes of 80s pop. C86 even came with its own retro “cutesy” couture: 60s anoraks and duffelcoats, childlike plimsolls, bowl haircuts and cardigans.

Some of the bands here were already well-established. Reluctant shambling scene godfathers The Pastels had been releasing records since 1982. The gallows humour of Birkenhead’s Half Man Half Biscuit always seemed at odds with the wide-eyed, uncynical naivety of the other bands on the tape, while The Wedding Present seemed a little butch among their fey compatriots. Other C86 bands seemed to have one great single in them: The Mighty Lemon Drops’ “Happy Head”, The Bodines’ morning-fresh “Therese”, and the Soup Dragons’ “Pleasantly Surprised”. Those three tracks represented C86’s enduring public persona — a childlike perfect pop that no one actually listened to, all asexual whimsy and male vulnerability. But this was not a homogenous scene. Stump, Big Flame and Bogshed all created a discordant racket of fractured rhythms, wobbly guitars and Beefheart wails. Leeds futurists Age Of Chance rumbled and throbbed and seemed to promise great things. East London revolutionaries McCarthy (later to morph into Stereolab) were fanning the embers of a radical fire that had all but been extinguished by the mid-80s; as implicitly political was the proto-riot grrl thumps and hiccupping vocals of Birmingham’s We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It.

Ex-NME scribe Neil Taylor, who compiled the first tape, here assembles this box-set (he’s now a literary editor who has also written an upcoming book on the shambling scene), and disc two features many of the bands he left off the original. They include The Jesus And Mary Chain (unwitting poster boys of this scene), The Primitives (with guitarist Paul Court rather than Tracey Tracey on lead vocals), Kurt Cobain’s faves the BMX Bandits (whose first LP was called C86), The June Brides (who declined to appear on the original) and Talulah Gosh (who emerged just after the tape was compiled).

The third disc explores a broader range of British indie music around 1986 and includes a few bands who – like C86 alumni Primal Scream, Age Of Chance and the Soup Dragons – would later neck some pills and “go dance”, including Pop Will Eat Itself (probably the first of these indie bands to embrace hip hop) and the Happy Mondays (who, even in 1986, sounded like an under-rehearsed jazz-funk band trying to play folk music). But it also strays far beyond the C86 brief. There’s the Brechtian cabaret of The Band Of Holy Joy, the epic strings and haunted harmonicas of King Of The Slums, the folksy fiddles of The Nightingales, the hypnotic drums and FX-laden trumpet of The Blue Aeroplanes. The Love Act recall the Violent Femmes with a trumpet; Peel faves The Noseflutes sound like someone has emptied the contents of a recording studio into a skip. There’s also lots of absolute guff, including Richard Hawley’s early band Treebound Story. It covers a wider brief than Bob Stanley’s CD86, a two-disc compilation of contemporaneous music that was released on the 20th anniversary of the original. Weirdly, this reissue arrives at a more receptive time, with a generation of young bands from Portland to Tokyo taking their cue from C86. The appeal is partly a nostalgia for a scene that was already nostalgic, but there’s an urgency and intensity to these performances that still resonates, nearly 30 years on.

John Lewis

Q&A

David Gedge, The Wedding Present

Was there a distinct C86 “scene” at the time?

It was an exciting time — fanzines and labels were really taking off, and promoters around the country were always booking us. We’d find ourselves sharing the bill with the Shop Assistants, the Wallflowers, Yeah Yeah Noh and Bogshed, or something. But it seemed like C86 was a catalyst, something that grew wider attention to a small scene.

Was there a definable sound?

The music was actually quite varied. People now see C86 as all jangly indie pop, but Bogshed and Big Flame were nothing like that – they were much harder. I guess we rode that divide: there were elements that were very jangly and Velvet Underground-ish, but we had a much harder edge.

Were you suspicious of being pigeonholed as “a C86 band”?

In retrospect, we were probably slightly more established than most of the other bands, even if it didn’t seem like it at the time. We were just honored to be on an NME tape, having read the magazine for years, and perhaps a bit guileless about how it might affect us. But I can understand why, say, the June Brides didn’t want to be on the tape, and how some of the less established bands might be pigeonholed by it, especially when the scene seemed to have run its course.

Was it as white and retro as it seemed?

Yeah, that’s a fair criticism. The retro thing even by-passed punk: the guitar thing harked back to the Byrds and Velvet Underground. And we were certainly influenced by a lot of white guitar bands. But I guess that applies to all music. It’s like criticising a hip hop act for not being into Bogshed, or something…

INTERVIEW: JOHN LEWIS

Morrissey “still ill in hospital” claims Cliff Richard

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Morrissey “still ill in hospital” claims Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard reportedly told his audience that Morrissey is ill and in hospital during a free headline show in New York on Saturday night (June 21). Sir Cliff played at The Gramercy Theatre after his Morrissey support show was cancelled. Ticket holders for the original show at Brooklyn's Barclays ...

Cliff Richard reportedly told his audience that Morrissey is ill and in hospital during a free headline show in New York on Saturday night (June 21).

Sir Cliff played at The Gramercy Theatre after his Morrissey support show was cancelled. Ticket holders for the original show at Brooklyn’s Barclays Centre were let in as a priority at what was the singer’s first US date since 1981.

As well as performing his hit singles “Summer Holiday” and “Devil Woman”, Rock NYC reports that part of the live show was dedicated to an interview with Richard, where he discussed, among other things, Elvis Presley and his thoughts on EDM Music. The review states that during the 40 minutes of questions and answers, “Cliff mentioned that Morrissey is still in hospital and wished him well, and would be happy to support him if he tours again. ”

Morrissey cancelled his entire US tour in order to give him time to recover from his bout of ill health.

This month in Uncut

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This month in Uncut
Eric Clapton, The Jesus And Mary Chain, Bob Dylan and Shane MacGowan all feature in the new issue of Uncut, dated August 2014 (Take 207) and out today (June 24). Clapton, on the cover, reflects on his past, looks back on his friendship with JJ Cale, and reveals his future plans – “the road ha...

Eric Clapton, The Jesus And Mary Chain, Bob Dylan and Shane MacGowan all feature in the new issue of Uncut, dated August 2014 (Take 207) and out today (June 24).

Clapton, on the cover, reflects on his past, looks back on his friendship with JJ Cale, and reveals his future plans – “the road has become unbearable,” the guitarist says.

Jim Reid and Alan McGee discuss The Jesus And Mary Chain’s resurgence, including their upcoming Psychocandy tour, their recent South American tour and the possibility of new material in 2016.

Meanwhile, Allan Jones concludes his fascinating, in-depth look at Bob Dylan’s turbulent 1980s, and Shane MacGowan takes Uncut out for a very long night to discuss The Pogues, his new songs and his plans for a new fitness regime.

John Mulvey travels to New Orleans to meet Hurray For The Riff Raff’s talented lynchpin Alynda Lee Segarra, while John Oswald explains how he put together the Grateful Dead’s epic “Dark Star” mash-up, Grayfolded.

Echo And The Bunnymen take us through the making of nine of their classic albums, while First Aid Kit reveal the albums that have soundtracked their lives so far.

Mike Watt tells the story of punk heroes the Minutemen, while Soundgarden recall writing and recording their alternative hit, “Black Hole Sun”.

Loudon Wainwright III answers your questions about his musical offspring, M*A*S*H and his favourites of the songs he’s written.

We review new albums by Tom Petty, Morrissey, John Hiatt, Reigning Sound and Jenny Lewis, and reissues and archive releases from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The The, Monty Python and Pink Floyd, among others.

We catch Prince, Ben Watt and The War On Drugs live, and review the latest films, DVDs and books.

Our free CD, After Midnight, features 15 tracks, including cuts from The Phantom Band, Bob Mould, John Hiatt, John Fullbright, Loudon Wainwright III and Willie Watson.

The new Uncut, dated August 2014, is out now.

Robert Plant reveals new album details + tour dates

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Robert Plant reveals new album details + tour dates
Robert Plant has confirmed details of his new album, lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar. The album — which has been recorded with The Sensational Space Shifters — will be released on September 9 on Nonesuch / Warner Bros. Records. The album features 11 new recordings, nine of which are original...

Robert Plant has confirmed details of his new album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar.

The album — which has been recorded with The Sensational Space Shifters — will be released on September 9 on Nonesuch / Warner Bros. Records.

The album features 11 new recordings, nine of which are original songs written by Plant with the band — Justin Adams: bendirs, djembe, guitars, tehardant, background vocals; John Baggott: keyboards, loops, moog bass, piano, tabal, background vocals; Juldeh Camara: kologo, ritti, Fulani vocals; Billy Fuller: bass, drum programming, omnichord, upright bass; Dave Smith: drum set; and Liam “Skin” Tyson: banjo, guitar, background vocals.

The album is available to pre-order from Plant’s website with an instant download of the track, “Rainbow“.

lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar is Plant’s first record since 2010’s Band Of Joy.

“It’s really a celebratory record, powerful, gritty, African, Trance meets Zep,” Plant says. “The whole impetus of my life as a singer has to be driven by a good brotherhood. I am very lucky to work with The Sensational Space Shifters. They come from exciting areas of contemporary music…I have been around awhile and I ask myself, do I have anything to say? Is there a song still inside me? In my heart? I see life and what’s happening to me. Along the trail there are expectations, disappointments, happiness, questions and strong relationships,” Plant explains, “… and now I’m able to express my feelings through melody, power and trance; together in a kaleidescope of sound, colour, and friendship.”

You can read our review of Plant’s recent Paris show here, where they played two tracks from the new album.

The track listing for lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar is:

1. Little Maggie

2. Rainbow

3. Pocketful of Golden

4. Embrace Another Fall

5. Turn It Up

6. A Stolen Kiss

7. Somebody There

8. Poor Howard

9. House of Love

10. Up on the Hollow Hill (Understanding Arthur)

11. Arbaden (Maggie’s Babby)

Robert Plant And The Sensational Space Shifters will play:

Newport Centre (November 9)

Bournemouth O2 Academy (10)

Hull City Hall (14)

Glasgow O2 Academy (15)

Leeds O2 Academy (17)

Newcastle O2 Academy (18)

Cambridge O2 Academy (20)

Wolverhampton City Hall (21)

Belfast Ulster Hall (21)

Dublin Olympia (24)

Blackpool Tower (26)

Llandudno Venue Cymru Arena (27)

Prince reportedly has two albums ready for release…

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Prince reportedly has two albums ready for release…

Prince reportedly has two albums ready for release. According to Star Tribune, the performer has one album with his group 3rdEyeGirl, the previously announced 'Plectrum Electrum', and another new album under his own name, made with engineer/producer Joshua Welton. New music played to the paper's reporter at the star's Paisley Park estate included a track titled 'The Gold Standard' and an untitled "complex electronic discourse". There's also a ballad titled 'This Could Be Us', reportedly inspired by an internet meme of Prince and Apollonia riding a motorbike in the 1984 film 'Purple Rain', and a remix of the 3rdEyeGirl track 'Funk ‘n’ Roll'. The reporter was also played a collaboration with British singer Rita Ora, in which Prince raps. Speaking to Star Tribune, Prince said: "I’ve finally got something that is a cohesive statement." Prince also told the paper that he was having trouble getting hold of top executives at his new label, Warner Music, and said he was frustrated at the pace that the music industry moves at, saying: “Every Number 1 song, every Top 10 song, every song in the Top 40 is at least six months old. We should be able to make music and put it out now." Prince reportedly explained that the matter is particularly pressing with the song featuring Ora, because as a celebrity with lots of endorsements, she makes money walking out of the house wearing a certain kind of makeup or sunglasses. No release date was specified for either album. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBPRVUG0kiQ

Prince reportedly has two albums ready for release.

According to Star Tribune, the performer has one album with his group 3rdEyeGirl, the previously announced ‘Plectrum Electrum’, and another new album under his own name, made with engineer/producer Joshua Welton.

New music played to the paper’s reporter at the star’s Paisley Park estate included a track titled ‘The Gold Standard’ and an untitled “complex electronic discourse”. There’s also a ballad titled ‘This Could Be Us’, reportedly inspired by an internet meme of Prince and Apollonia riding a motorbike in the 1984 film ‘Purple Rain’, and a remix of the 3rdEyeGirl track ‘Funk ‘n’ Roll’. The reporter was also played a collaboration with British singer Rita Ora, in which Prince raps.

Speaking to Star Tribune, Prince said: “I’ve finally got something that is a cohesive statement.”

Prince also told the paper that he was having trouble getting hold of top executives at his new label, Warner Music, and said he was frustrated at the pace that the music industry moves at, saying: “Every Number 1 song, every Top 10 song, every song in the Top 40 is at least six months old. We should be able to make music and put it out now.”

Prince reportedly explained that the matter is particularly pressing with the song featuring Ora, because as a celebrity with lots of endorsements, she makes money walking out of the house wearing a certain kind of makeup or sunglasses.

No release date was specified for either album.

August 2014

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August 2014
This is my last column as editor of Uncut. By the time you read this, in fact, I’ll be gone. John Mulvey, who for the last several years has been such a stalwart deputy, is the new editor of Uncut, the handover completed just after our last issue went to press. After 17 years at the helm of Uncut...

This is my last column as editor of Uncut. By the time you read this, in fact, I’ll be gone.

John Mulvey, who for the last several years has been such a stalwart deputy, is the new editor of Uncut, the handover completed just after our last issue went to press. After 17 years at the helm of Uncut, and 23 years before that at Melody Maker – the only vaguely proper jobs I’ve ever had – it seems like a good moment to stand down.

However much it might seem as recently as yesterday that I turned up for my first day of work at Melody Maker’s Fleet Street offices, it was in fact June 1974, fully 40 years ago. I had been to the office once before, when I had been interviewed by a balding man in a purple suit and bright yellow shirt whose aftershave hung in the air like some toxic emission, prolonged exposure to which might leave you in many ways blistered and enfeebled. This was MM’s legendary editor, Ray Coleman. MM had just run an ad I’d seen in Time Out that said they were looking for a new writer, someone under 21 and highly opinionated, both of which I then was. I’d been reading MM since I was 13, and although music was a passion it had never occurred to me I might end up writing about it for a living or anything else, although I had plenty of opinions about the music I loved and even more about the music I didn’t. Crucially, the ad for the MM vacancy also added that no previous journalistic experience was necessary. This was just as well, since I didn’t have any.

The letter of application I’d written included a lot of snotty criticism of what had seemed recently to me like MM’s growing complacency, a tendency to back the wrong bands and an attachment to ghastly progressive rock bands I’d come to abhor long before punk’s subsequent mewling. I ended my application with a preposterous flourish, an attempt to catch someone’s attention: “Melody Maker needs a bullet up the arse. I’m the gun. Pull the trigger.” Ray was kind enough to overlook my raw presumption and to my stunned amazement subsequently offered me a position as junior reporter/feature writer.

In truth, what Ray gave me wasn’t so much a job as a life, which very shortly I was living to the raucous full. It might have helped if Ray had alerted my new colleagues to my journalistic ineptitude. They were all trained professionals – veterans of coroner’s courts, garden fêtes and the pop columns of provincial papers. In the popular drift of office opinion, I’d be lucky to last six months. Ten years later, I was editor, most of my original colleagues long gone and a new generation of writers making their own, often rowdy reputations. Things went well enough until Britpop loomed boorishly into view, dragging its knuckles on the pavement. I fled to Nashville at Britpop’s height to spend a week with Kurt Wagner and his 15-piece country soul collective Lambchop, the idea coming to me over those few days for a new magazine that would in some part champion such music and celebrate also the music that originally inspired me.

Uncut was duly launched in May 1997. There have been many changes in look and content over the 206 issues of Uncut that have followed, but I hope we have not deviated from our original intention, which wasn’t much more complicated than writing well enough about the things we liked to make our readers want to listen to, watch and read, sharing our discoveries and rediscoveries alike. I’m sure this will continue to be the case under John’s astute editorship.

Thanks are briefly due to all the great people I’ve worked with over the years on Uncut and to all the readers who’ve enjoyed the magazine we’ve brought you. It’s been a pleasure to have been in touch personally with so many of you who have shared your memories and opinions. Our conversation is not yet over, though. I seem to have got out of the habit of taking holidays in about 1975 because there was always so much going on – I recall once cancelling a holiday at the last minute to spend a day with Alice Cooper on the set of The Muppets, my girlfriend going off on her own on a vacation I’m not even sure she came back from – so I’ll be taking a break, of sorts. But this isn’t a complete divorce from Uncut. Let’s call it, I don’t know, a conscious uncoupling, something like that. In other words, I don’t plan to entirely disappear quite yet.

In the meantime, all the best and thanks again for everything.

ISSUE ON SALE FROM TUESDAY JUNE 24

Uncut is now available as a digital edition, download it now

Eric Clapton: “A Cream reunion? I don’t want blood on my hands!”

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Eric Clapton: “A Cream reunion? I don’t want blood on my hands!”
Eric Clapton reflects on his past and reveals his future plans in the new issue of Uncut, dated August 2014 (Take 207), and out tomorrow (June 24). As well as explaining that “the road has become unbearable” for him, and paying tribute to his late friend, JJ Cale, the guitarist sheds light on...

Eric Clapton reflects on his past and reveals his future plans in the new issue of Uncut, dated August 2014 (Take 207), and out tomorrow (June 24).

As well as explaining that “the road has become unbearable” for him, and paying tribute to his late friend, JJ Cale, the guitarist sheds light on the current status of Cream.

“I haven’t spoken to Jack [Bruce] or Ginger [Baker] for quite a time,” says Clapton. “I don’t think there’s been any line of dialogue between any of us – or between me and them, that is to say – since the American affair [the trio’s Madison Square Garden shows in 2005].

“After that I was pretty convinced that we had gone as far as we could without someone getting killed. At this time in my life I don’t want blood on my hands! I don’t want to be part of some kind of tragic confrontation.”

The new Uncut, dated August 2014, is out tomorrow (June 24).

My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields reveals he’s working on a new EP

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My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields reveals he’s working on a new EP

My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields has revealed that the band plan to record a new EP this autumn. Speaking after a gig by The Proper Ornaments at the Lexington in London last night (June 19), Kevin Shields revealed he was "working on some new songs at the moment" that will form the basis of an EP. The release has been in the pipeline since last year's long-awaited 'm b v' album, but Shields is only now preparing to record the tracks. "We plan on going into the studio October/November time," he confirmed, raising prospects of an unusually prompt follow-up to My Bloody Valentine's third studio album. 'm b v' was released on 2 February 2013 via My Bloody Valentine's website. It was the band's first new material to see the light of day since second album 'Loveless', 21 years earlier. The album was left off the Mercury Music Prize shortlist because the group didn't have a major distribution deal. "Isn't Mercury a phone company or something, anyway? What's that got to do with music? We're banned by them, and do you know why? Because we're not on Amazon or iTunes," he said at the time. "That's one of the qualifying criteria. You have to have major distribution or be on iTunes or Amazon." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBPRVUG0kiQ

My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields has revealed that the band plan to record a new EP this autumn.

Speaking after a gig by The Proper Ornaments at the Lexington in London last night (June 19), Kevin Shields revealed he was “working on some new songs at the moment” that will form the basis of an EP.

The release has been in the pipeline since last year’s long-awaited ‘m b v’ album, but Shields is only now preparing to record the tracks. “We plan on going into the studio October/November time,” he confirmed, raising prospects of an unusually prompt follow-up to My Bloody Valentine’s third studio album.

‘m b v’ was released on 2 February 2013 via My Bloody Valentine’s website. It was the band’s first new material to see the light of day since second album ‘Loveless’, 21 years earlier.

The album was left off the Mercury Music Prize shortlist because the group didn’t have a major distribution deal. “Isn’t Mercury a phone company or something, anyway? What’s that got to do with music? We’re banned by them, and do you know why? Because we’re not on Amazon or iTunes,” he said at the time. “That’s one of the qualifying criteria. You have to have major distribution or be on iTunes or Amazon.”

Vashti Bunyan to release new album in October

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Vashti Bunyan to release new album in October

Vashti Bunyan is set to release a new album in October. 'Heartleap' will come out on October 6 via FatCat. It follows her 1970 debut 'Just Another Diamond Day' and 2005's comeback album 'Lookaftering'. The new album was produced by Bunyan herself and was primarily recorded in her own studio. The release of the album will be supported by a UK tour, which starts at Birmingham MAC on October 7, with two shows at London St Pancras Church (8-9), Farndale The Band Room (11) and Manchester St Philip's Church (12). The Newcastle-born Vashti Bunyan was discovered by The Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham. She released her first single, 'Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind', written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, in 1965. Discouraged by poor sales of her first album, she stopped releasing music, but the album gained a cult following. 'Just Another Diamond Day' was re-issued in 2000 and she has since worked with Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective. Vashti Bunyan plays: Birmingham MAC (October 7) London St. Pancras Church (8-9) Farndale (11) Manchester St. Philip’s Church (12) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBPRVUG0kiQ

Vashti Bunyan is set to release a new album in October.

‘Heartleap’ will come out on October 6 via FatCat. It follows her 1970 debut ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ and 2005’s comeback album ‘Lookaftering’. The new album was produced by Bunyan herself and was primarily recorded in her own studio.

The release of the album will be supported by a UK tour, which starts at Birmingham MAC on October 7, with two shows at London St Pancras Church (8-9), Farndale The Band Room (11) and Manchester St Philip’s Church (12).

The Newcastle-born Vashti Bunyan was discovered by The Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham. She released her first single, ‘Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind’, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, in 1965. Discouraged by poor sales of her first album, she stopped releasing music, but the album gained a cult following. ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ was re-issued in 2000 and she has since worked with Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective.

Vashti Bunyan plays:

Birmingham MAC (October 7)

London St. Pancras Church (8-9)

Farndale (11)

Manchester St. Philip’s Church (12)

The Beatles’ publisher claims NBC do not have rights to the band’s music for planned TV series

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The Beatles’ publisher claims NBC do not have rights to the band’s music for planned TV series

A TV drama series based around the career of The Beatles has not secured rights to any of the iconic band's music, it has been revealed. Earlier this month (May), it was reported that Michael Hirst, who has previously acted as executive producer on The Tudors, will produce a series on The Fab Four for NBC in America. However, in a new interview with Billboard, Marty Bandier, chairman/CEO of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, publisher of all but six of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's Beatles compositions, says he has not cleared any of the band's songs for use in the show and that there is also another series in development, possibly involving Sony TV. "About six months ago, we were working with Sony Pictures TV on a show centered around the journey of the Beatles, and at one point we were talking about working with Baz Luhrmann," says Bandier. "We hadn't taken the next step, which is to reach out to the Beatles. The proposal is still on the table." He adds: "NBC couldn't produce a show without the songs, and we can't produce a show without approaching the Beatles for their likeness rights.". Any prospective drama will join other recent attempts at transferring the story of The Fab Four onto the big screen such as Nowhere Boy, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a young John Lennon. Meanwhile, The Fifth Beatle, about the Beatles manager Brian Epstein, has been in development for years and has been granted access to the Lennon/ McCartney archives. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBPRVUG0kiQ

A TV drama series based around the career of The Beatles has not secured rights to any of the iconic band’s music, it has been revealed.

Earlier this month (May), it was reported that Michael Hirst, who has previously acted as executive producer on The Tudors, will produce a series on The Fab Four for NBC in America.

However, in a new interview with Billboard, Marty Bandier, chairman/CEO of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, publisher of all but six of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s Beatles compositions, says he has not cleared any of the band’s songs for use in the show and that there is also another series in development, possibly involving Sony TV.

“About six months ago, we were working with Sony Pictures TV on a show centered around the journey of the Beatles, and at one point we were talking about working with Baz Luhrmann,” says Bandier. “We hadn’t taken the next step, which is to reach out to the Beatles. The proposal is still on the table.”

He adds: “NBC couldn’t produce a show without the songs, and we can’t produce a show without approaching the Beatles for their likeness rights.”.

Any prospective drama will join other recent attempts at transferring the story of The Fab Four onto the big screen such as Nowhere Boy, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a young John Lennon. Meanwhile, The Fifth Beatle, about the Beatles manager Brian Epstein, has been in development for years and has been granted access to the Lennon/ McCartney archives.

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