Joni Mitchell played her first headline concert in over 20 years on Saturday (June 10).
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Following her surprise set last July at the Newport Folk Festival, she made her official return to the stage as part of Brandi Carlile's E...
Joni Mitchell played her first headline concert in over 20 years on Saturday (June 10).
Following her surprise set last July at the Newport Folk Festival, she made her official return to the stage as part of Brandi Carlile’s Echoes Through The Canyon festival at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington state.
According to The Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone, Mitchell played for three hours, performing 24 songs, accompanied by Carlile – who acted as MC – and a group of collaborators and guests including Annie Lennox, Blake Mills, Lucius, Sarah McLachlan, Marcus Mumford and Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith.
You can watch footage from the concert below.
Joni Mitchell’s set list for the Gorge Amphitheatre:
‘Big Yellow Taxi’
‘Night Ride Home’
‘Raised On Robbery’
‘Come In From The Cold’
‘Amelia’
‘Carey’
‘Sex Kills’
‘Summertime’ (George Gershwin cover)
‘Ladies Of The Canyon’
‘Help Me’
‘Where There’s A Will There’s A Way’
‘Love Potion No. 9’ (The Clovers cover)
‘A Case Of You’
‘A Strange Boy’
‘Cactus Tree’
‘California’
‘Blue’
‘Why Do Fools Fall In Love’ (Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers cover)
‘Shine’
‘Both Sides Now’
‘The Circle Game’
‘Just Like This Train’
‘If’
‘Young At Heart’ (Frank Sinatra cover)
A vivid evocation of a time before air-con, Tinder and low-traffic neighbourhoods, The Lovin’ Spoonful’s sixth single was a huge hit in summer 1966 – and remains a go-to song every time the thermometer nudges into the eighties. It was conceived in the heart of Greenwich Village, where the band...
A vivid evocation of a time before air-con, Tinder and low-traffic neighbourhoods, The Lovin’ Spoonful’s sixth single was a huge hit in summer 1966 – and remains a go-to song every time the thermometer nudges into the eighties. It was conceived in the heart of Greenwich Village, where the band’s frontman John Sebastian and his songwriting brother Mark were born into a musical family (father John was a harmonica virtuoso and mother Jane worked at Carnegie Hall).
While John Jr was swept up in the Village folk revival of the early ’60s, running with the likes of Tim Hardin and Cass Elliot before forming The Lovin’ Spoonful in late 1964, his underage brother was forced to watch the action longingly from a 15th-floor window. However, after bashing out two albums in six months, it was to Mark that John turned when pulling together songs for the band’s third LP proper, Hums Of The Lovin’ Spoonful. Mark’s somewhat jejune ballad became the chorus of a colossal Frankenstein’s monster of a tune, with verses by John, a middle-eight by bassist Steve Boone, spiky guitar from the mercurial Zal Yanovsky, an unforgettable electric piano riff, a cacophony of car horns and a thunderous drum sound achieved by mic’ing up a stairwell.
“We were scattershot and we were trying anything that made sense,” recalls John. “We wanted to do a tune by Bascom Lamar Lunsford, the Minstrel Of The Appalachians, just as much as we wanted to do a Ronnie Bennett and Phil Spector tune, and all of those elements did end up in ‘Summer In The City’.”
Yet while the single’s release put The Lovin’ Spoonful on top of the world, the seeds of the band’s demise had already been sown when Boone and Yanovsky were busted for marijuana possession in San Francisco a few months earlier. Yanovsky, a Canadian citizen, was threatened with deportation; under pressure to keep the band together, they named their dealer. When this incident was later seized upon (and distorted) by Rolling Stone, the hippies turned against The Lovin’ Spoonful and the game was up.
“It was gruesome,” admits John, but the long afterlife of “Summer In The City” has more than compensated. “Those ice cream commercials, they just keep coming!”
SAM RICHARDS
Written by: John Sebastian, Mark Sebastian, Steve Boone
Personnel includes: John Sebastian (vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards); Zal Yanovsky (electric guitar, backing vocals), Steve Boone (bass, keyboards), Joe Butler (drums, backing vocals), Artie Schroeck (electric piano)
Produced by: Erik Jacobsen, Roy Halee (engineer)
Recorded at: Columbia Studios, New York City
Released: July 4, 1966
MARK SEBASTIAN, co-writer: My parents had an apartment on Washington Square West. We were 15 stories up and my window looked directly out onto the Empire State Building, almost nose-to-nose. But when the summer came, it was horrific! You’d pray that a breeze might blow from one window to another. I’ve had a lifelong sensitivity to heat ever since.
JOHN SEBASTIAN, vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards, co-writer: The really stinking hot weather, it’d get ya! [There was no air-con, so] you went to the movies.
MARK: On Sundays there was folk music in the square. There were girls that came down from the outer boroughs with big bouffants and I’d think, ‘Wow, if I could talk to her…’ When the Spoonful happened, it was very exciting. If we walked round the Village with Zally, teenage kids would come up and ask for autographs. I went with them to the Ed Sullivan Theater when they did “Do You Belive In Magic” and we had girls chasing us on the street like in A Hard Day’s Night.
JOHN: “Summer In The City” didn’t start with me. My brother Mark had the idea for the song and a couple of elements: [sings] “It’s gonna get hot/The shadows of the buildings will be the only shady spot/But at night it’s a different world…” And I went, “Whoa, hold on! What are those chords?”
MARK: I began writing my own private little songs at 13, 14. John would come over from his loft on 11th Street to have a home-cooked dinner and he’d listen to what I’d just done. After the Daydream album [released in February 1966], he came over one time and said, “What was that song you had about summer in the city?” He needed grist for the mill because he’d had to write two albums in quick succession. I had a lot of the song, but not the verses. He did a fantastic thing of livening it up by creating those vital, energetic verses.
JOHN: “But at night it’s a different world” was a marvellous release, so we needed to create tension in the beginning. For some reason, I made an association with [Mussorgsky’s] “Night On Bald Mountain”, which scared the hell out of me when I saw it in Fantasia when I was about five. I thought I could create something that’s tense like that and then it would open up into my brother’s chorus. But we still needed what The Beatles used to call a middle-eight. There had been a figure that Steve Boone had been playing in the studio for weeks as we had been developing that album.
STEVE BOONE, Bass, keyboards, co-writer: I think the band was gettin’ sick of hearing me play it! When John said, “I think that would work as a terrific middle section”, I wasn’t gonna argue with him even if that meant I had to give it up as a song in its own right. But I’m so glad I didn’t make a fuss because it fits perfectly in the song. I own a portion of the publishing, so those 12 notes really helped me out quite a bit over the years.
ERIK JACOBSEN, producer: I immediately thought it was a great song and was excited to record it.
JOHN: The way that “Summer In The City” evolved was the beginning of designing [songs] in the studio, which rarely happened in those days.
ERIK: We did what we wanted from the get-go, because we didn’t have the record company or anybody else telling us what to do. I put up the money for “Do You Believe In Magic” because we were turned down by every major label. So we made up the arrangements, the guys and I, and we recorded them. We were not malleable artists. It was like, ‘This is what we’re doing and if you don’t like it, fuck you!’
JOHN: Erik Jacobsen is one of the most under-appreciated producers walking the planet. He was this wonderful mediator for all of these suggestions that would come through on almost every tune. Because we really didn’t want to give up and go, “OK, let’s call Hal Blaine!”
MARK: Just before that era, the studios were very sterile and the engineers were like scientists in white coats. But Erik was totally cool. Longhairs took it over.
JOHN: One of our genius arranger pals, Artie Schroeck, was at the session. I’m not a pianist, and he knew it. He sat quietly through the first 20 takes before he finally said, “Sebastian, go back to the guitar – let me play the damn electric piano!” And he did it so great.
STEVE: I came into the studio and sitting behind the Wurlitzer was a guy I didn’t know. But once I heard that part – dun, dun, du-dun, dun – I went into hyperdrive, because it was too frickin’ good to believe! He nailed it, and it really inspired me on my bass part.
MARK: Some of the words I had in the original were twisted around and used in a different form, but “Wheezing like a bus stop” was John’s. The 5th Avenue buses would pull up and make all these different sounds, I don’t know if it was the hydraulics or what.
JOHN: We began to hanker for a couple of city sounds. We came in for a separate session where we were greeted by a wonderful soundman from radio with trunks of sound-effects records. We said, “We want to create a traffic jam,” and he says, “Well, I’ve got one on 48th Street” – and of course that’s where the band got all of our instruments from, at Manny’s Music. So we said, “Yeah, that’s the one.” Then the trick was how to get this steamhammer. He kept playing different ones until we got this really loud, flatulent steamhammer noise, so that was the one that went on the record.
ERIK: In those days, it was only three- or four-track. To get those things on right, you had to roll your tape and he would try to start the acetate of sound effects on his turntable and get it to sync in.
JOHN: Zal Yanovsky began his traditional complaint about how the drums weren’t big enough. He said, “I want the drums to sound like garbage cans being thrown down a steel staircase.” Our engineer Roy Halee put a microphone up on the eighth floor of the metal stairwell and sent the snare drum out of the big theatre speakers down on the ground. Obviously that gave us enormous amounts of echo. In two years, everybody had cavernous echo on their snare drum! In fact, Roy Halee used the same staircase for “Bridge Over Troubled Water”.
ERIK: Kudos to Roy Halee, he’s the greatest engineer I ever worked with.
MARK: Originally the song had a big, apocalyptic crash at the end. I’m glad they took it out, ’cos it was kinda ridiculous.
ERIK: They were gonna kick the Fender Reverb to create a loud bang. I said, “John, you’re gonna fuck up this record!” So I made a copy of the last verse and chorus and spliced that in there instead, to make an instrumental fade. That saved the record, really.
MARK: I went in for the overdubs and mixing. John really gifted me with certain rights. He let me decide on the background vocal harmony – Joe Butler [drummer and backing vocalist] changed what he was singing per my suggestion, which really chuffed me. Just to sit there and hear my song, much changed, become this thing… It was crazy how it sounded. It was gigantic.
JOHN: Did I know straight away it would be a hit? Yep. No false modesty there!
MARK: That summer I was in Italy because my mom was doing press for the Spoleto Festival Of Two Worlds. I rented a radio and was listening to Radio Free Europe and Radio Caroline every day and finally “Summer In The City” came on and it sounded so good.
STEVE: “Summer In The City” really changed our image because, prior to that, people were like, “Are you guys ever gonna make a real rock song? What’s with all this lightweight stuff about daydreams?” But when “Summer In The City” got on the radio, those attitudes changed overnight. It was the deal-maker for us, it completed our circle. It cemented our place as a genuine rock band.
MARK: I had no sense it would be a hit – their only No 1! I like to rub that in, as a younger brother. It was over so quickly after that.
STEVE: I thought releasing “Rain On The Roof” as the follow-up to “Summer In The City” might have been a mistake. I still love “Rain On The Roof”, it’s one of the prettiest songs John ever wrote, but it couldn’t compete as a hard-rocking song, so I felt we were gonna have to climb that hill all over again.
JOHN: We managed to soldier on for another year or so, but the bust eventually caught up with Zal and Steve. It was a terrible thing because the police had the power to end the band, by sending Zal back to Canada and giving Steve a nice stiff sentence. Or, you could show us where the pot came from… And by the way, we’re talking about an ounce of marijuana which you can buy for under $300 in California at any time now. All of those press guys were so anxious to side [against] us because we’d just gotten a guy busted, but nobody was interested in finding out how we were pressured into that. Zal Yanovsky was not only a genius guitar player, but he’d become a culture hero – the funny-looking guy with holes in his jeans five years before anyone else. And then the next day, he’s a fink. I mean, he feared for his life. That’s why I’ve never tried to do The Lovin’ Spoonful songbook movie – it was great fun but it does not have a happy ending.
STEVE: The air began slowly seeping out of our balloon. I think Zally really felt bad, it put him into a tailspin. John did come to me some time after that and said, “You gotta help me more with songwriting, I can’t carry the whole load.” But I couldn’t get motivated for songwriting, I was totally bummed out with what had happened in San Francisco.
MARK: I worked around The Beach Boys and they’ve had a lot of heartbreak and dysfunction but somehow, as a franchise, they managed to keep going. But my brother has a great artistic vision, which is: if it’s not happening, don’t do it.
STEVE: “Summer In The City” doesn’t have a shelf life. It seems to fit every era, sound-wise. It’s like “White Christmas” – it’ll still be played every year after we’re gone.
JOHN: It feels delicious [to hear the song played every summer]. It means a certain 77-year-old guy doesn’t have to be quite as urgent to take gigs where people hold up iPhones instead of listen…
MARK: I’m so grateful for it. I’m stunned that young people know the song. Quincy Jones did a fantastic version with a long instrumental at the beginning, and many rap artists [have sampled it]. I won an R&B & Hip-Hop Billboard Award in 2001 from a sample. Me winning a rap award is pretty hilarious!
STEVE: If nothing else is left as an example of what me and the other three guys created, then I’m good with that.
Neil Young has announced details of his first tour since 2019.
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He broke the news during a Zoom to subscribers of Neil Young Archives on Wednesday [June 7], with a formal announcement following on Friday [June 9].
During the...
Neil Young has announced details of his first tour since 2019.
He broke the news during a Zoom to subscribers of Neil Young Archives on Wednesday [June 7], with a formal announcement following on Friday [June 9].
During the Zoom, Young reveals that the upcoming solo acoustic shows will feature songs that he’s never performed live before.
“I don’t want to come back and do the same songs again,” Rolling Stones reported Young as saying. “I’ll feel like I was on some sort of carnival ride. I’d rather be doing these others songs I haven’t done…. I won’t have to compare how I’m doing ‘Heart of Gold’ to [how I played it in] 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020.”
Young specifically mentioned the Pearl Jam collaboration “Song X”, Sleeps With Angels’ “Prime Of Life” and Trans outtake “If You Got Love”.
The tour dates are:
Saturday, July 1 – Los Angeles, CA – John Anson Ford
Sunday, July 2 – Los Angeles, CA – John Anson Ford
Tuesday, July 4 – Los Angeles, CA – John Anson Ford
Wednesday, July 5 – Los Angeles, CA – John Anson Ford
Friday, July 7 – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Bowl
Saturday July 8 – Paso Robles, CA – Vina Robles Amphitheatre
Tuesday, July 11 – San Diego, CA – The Shell
Thursday July 13 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre
Saturday, July 15 – Berkeley, CA – The Greek
Monday, July 17 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater
Tuesday July 18 – Ridgefield, WA – RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater
Thursday July 20 – Auburn, WA – White River Amphitheatre
Sunday July 23 – Napa, CA – Oxbow RiverStage
It feels like today might be a day for staying calm and keeping cool. In which case we’ve got just the thing for you: a particularly serene new music playlist, kicking off with the strange, hushed beauty of PJ Harvey’s new single – read an in-depth review of the album in the latest issue of Un...
It feels like today might be a day for staying calm and keeping cool. In which case we’ve got just the thing for you: a particularly serene new music playlist, kicking off with the strange, hushed beauty of PJ Harvey’s new single – read an in-depth review of the album in the latest issue of Uncut – and taking in gorgeous solo guitar excursions from James Blackshaw (great to have him back) and Rosali (under her Edsel Axle guise).
Plus Allison Russell is “The Returner”, Bon Iver guests with arranger extraordinaire Rob Moose, and it’s great to hear new stuff from venerable alt.rock vets Bush Tetras and Blonde Redhead. Although no vets are quite as venerable as the incomparable Marshall Allen, who celebrates his 99th birthday by joining Sun Ra Arkestra bandmate Knoel Scott on a joyous celestial jazz salute. Enjoy!
PJ HARVEY
“I Inside The Old I Dying”
(Partisan)
ALLISON RUSSELL
“The Returner”
(Fantasy)
LUCINDA WILLIAMS
“Where The Song Will Find Me”
(Highway 20/Thirty Tigers)
ISRAEL NASH
“Ozarker”
(Loose Music)
BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND
“Harbour (Song For Elizabeth)”
(Transgressive)
JAMES BLACKSHAW
“Why Keep Still?”
(Bandcamp)
EDSEL AXLE
“Variable Happiness”
(Worried Songs)
DARKSIDE
“Heart Jam”
(Matador)
MOKOOMBA
“Makisi”
(Outhere)
DYLAN MOON
“Absolute”
(RVNG Intl)
FLAER
“Follow”
(Odda)
MAROULITA DE KOL
“The Tree”
(Phantom Limb)
KNOEL SCOTT FEAT. MARSHALL ALLEN
“Makanda”
(Night Dreamer)
ROB MOOSE
“Marvel Room (feat Bon Iver)”
(Sony Masterworks)
BUSH TETRAS
“They Live in My Head”
(Wharf Cat)
BLONDE REDHEAD
“Snowman”
(Section1)
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
“Carnavoyeur”
(Matador)
DAS KOOLIES
“Nuthin Sandwich”
(Strangetown Records)
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All copies of the August issue of Uncut magazine come with a free, 15-track CD – Now Playing - that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month. All of these artists appear in the pages of Uncut's August 2023 issue - either in features or o...
All copies of the August issue of Uncut magazine come with a free, 15-track CD – Now Playing – that showcases the wealth of great new music on offer this month. All of these artists appear in the pages of Uncut’s August 2023 issue – either in features or our burgeoning reviews section. There’s plenty here for everyone, so dive in!
Here, then, is your guide to Now Playing…
1 Eiko Ishibashi
Drive My Car
Uncut heads to Bologna to meet Ishibashi and Jim O’Rourke in our new issue, so we begin this month’s CD with a piece from the former’s superb Drive My Car soundtrack. Here, lounge and bossa nova meet melancholic strings within airy production.
2 Cory Hanson
Wings
Let’s gloss over the title of the Wand mainman’s latest album, Western Cum, and enjoy hard-rocking tracks such as this. As with his usual band, there’s a definite early Radiohead feel and Hanson’s guitar work is as sublime here as that comparison suggests.
3 This Is The Kit
Stuck In A Room
Careful Of Your Keepers is the new album from Kate Stables’ collective. Produced by Gruff Rhys, tracks like “Stuck In A Room” showcase their polyrhythmic gallop and Stables’ ever-engrossing lyrics.
4 The Clientele
Dying In May
Once a chamber-pop group, this London band have spent the last decade and change branching out. This track from new album I Am Not There Anymore is still a surprise, though – a circling, string-drenched workout with a dancehall beat. Reviewed at length in the kissue.
5 Anna St Louis
Into The Deep
A friend and cohort of Kevin Morby, St Louis’ new album In The Air, her second, is her best yet. Recorded with Woods’ Jarvis Taveniere in the producer’s seat, it pairs the songwriter’s honeyed hymns to crisp, timeless Americana.
6 Brown Spirits
Ode To Dorothy
This Melbourne crew have been around a while in various bands, but it’s all come together on their latest LP Solitary Transmissions. Driven by a funky krautrock groove, the instrumental “Ode To Dorothy” journeys into jazzier, spacier worlds.
7 Dexys
I’m Going To Get Free
The Feminine Divine is the first album of new material from Kevin Rowland and co in over a decade, a celebration of everything female. A horn-led northern soul stomp, it’s exactly what one might hope their return would be. Check out our exclusive interview with Rowland in the issue.
8 Deer Tick
If She Could Only See Me Now
John McCauley’s lot are on top form with the new Emotional Contracts album, their debut for ATO, produced by Dave Fridmann. He gives McCauley’s boisterous blues-rock a warm grittiness, and the results are undeniable.
9 Tony Allen & Adrian Younge
No End
A posthumous set on the Jazz Is Dead label, JID018 is a superlative showcase of the late drummer’s mastery and invention. Younge is a fitting foil for Allen, adding dirty funk lines and grainy vibrant production to instrumentals such as this cut.
10 ANOHNI and the Johnsons
It Must Change
Anohni Hegarty leaves behind the electronics of 2016’s Hopelessness in favour of lush, tender soul on her new LP, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross. There are echoes of I Am A Bird Now, but a new gospel-infused confidence too.
11 Julie Byrne
Moonless
Byrne’s new album, the long-awaited The Greater Wings, is reviewed at length on page 35, and here’s an example of its broken, yearning charms. Dealing with grief and memory, Byrne explores strings, piano and synths to weave a powerful spell.
12 Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway
Next Rodeo
As Tuttle sings here, this isn’t her first rodeo, yet new album City Of Gold is an effective slice of her bluegrass-infused songwriting, bolstered by fine performances by her Golden Highway group. It’s our Americana Album Of The Month in this month’s issue.
13 Sam Burton
I Don’t Blame You
Have a look at our lengthy review of Burton’s Dear Departed LP in this issue while you check out this future transmission from a parallel past. Like, say, Weyes Blood, Burton harnesses musical history but speaks to today.
14 Naomi Yang
Boxing And The City
Best known for her work in Damon & Naomi and Galaxie 500, Yang has now directed a documentary about an East Boston boxing gym, Never Be A Punching Bag For Nobody, and – naturally – provided the soundtrack. Here’s a tranquil electronic highlight, melodic and atmospheric in equal measure.
15 Jim O’Rourke
A Man’s Mind Will Play Tricks On Him (Edit)
We finish close to where we started this month, with a piece from the Japan-based musician’s new Hands That Bind soundtrack. Driven by a jazzy pulse, it drifts off into a dreamlike state – head to page 74 in the new issue to read our six-page feature.
Steve Priest of The Sweet once suggested that glam rock began with Marc Bolan wearing a pink feather boa. From this moment of camp inspiration a gloriously absurd movement was born, and Top Of The Pops was transformed into a crowd-scene of hod-carriers in Bacofoil trousers.
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Steve Priest of The Sweet once suggested that glam rock began with Marc Bolan wearing a pink feather boa. From this moment of camp inspiration a gloriously absurd movement was born, and Top Of The Pops was transformed into a crowd-scene of hod-carriers in Bacofoil trousers.
For Bolan, the association was a mixed blessing. If glam rock was – to quote David Bowie quoting John Lennon – “rock’n’roll with lipstick on”, Bolan’s position at the centre of the mania came via a convoluted route. He had been a mod, abandoning the look by 1965, and adding a sprinkling of psychedelia in John’s Children. Tyrannosaurus Rex were mystical hippie minstrels, before abbreviating their name and condensing their appeal. A string of huge hits for T.Rex began with “Ride A White Swan” in 1970, and the whirlwind of commercial inevitability which publicist BP Fallon called T.Rextasy continued through 1971, reaching a peak of sorts when T.Rex played two shows in one day at the Empire Pool, Wembley, in March 1972. The film of their two shows, Born To Boogie, was directed by Ringo Starr and was hailed as a passing of the torch, from The Beatles to T.Rex. On its release, Bolan dubbed himself “Cecil B deBolan” and talked airily about filming a sequel.
And yet. And yet. Being at the eye of a phenomenon is not a long-term plan, and Bolan’s private life was beginning to show the strain. In the sleevenotes of this 5LP/4CD box, biographer Mark Paytress notes that in 1972, Bolan talked of becoming a recluse, developed a dread of plane crashes and entertained the probability that he would die young. In October 1972, he had suffered a breakdown which was characterised as a “partial heart attack”. Cognac and cocaine binges delivered “crushing downsides”.
In the midst of these insecurities, Bolan wrote a musical memo to himself on a scrap of paper: “space age funk”. It’s an idea that would find its place and time. Bolan’s contemporary and rival, David Bowie, would get there soon enough. Decades later Prince would crush Bolan’s elfin androgyny into dynamic new shapes. For Bolan, the concept would remain half-realised, an evolution too far. It would also have been a mistake, a category error which ignored Bolan’s more obvious gifts. Happily, in failing to deliver on his promise to himself, Bolan produced some of his most enduring music.
We should start with the singles. In 1973, popular acts made hit 45s, and credible artists made albums. There are two albums on this box, Tanx and Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow. One of these is very good, and was released with a fold-out poster of Bolan sitting astride a phallic toy tank. The other sounds like an attempt to follow David Bowie down a theatrical side-street.
The singles, though, require no explanation. They are signed, sealed and delivered with such boastful aplomb that they mock any attempt to unpick their appeal. They are pop songs about pop, sugar-coated and boastful. “Solid Gold Easy Action” is glitter beat without Gary, spliced into a chorus which appends “easy action” as the solution to The Rolling Stones’ complaint about their dissatisfaction. (The song also contains the seed of Adam Ant’s entire career.) Likewise, “20th Century Boy” is two or three explosions combined. There’s a thunderous riff, a yelp, an exaltation. “Babe, I wanna be your man”, Bolan sings, quoting pop music as surely as he inhabits it. And then there’s “The Groover”, with its fabulously arrogant opening chant – T!R!E!X! – before the song swells into a warped gospel hallelujah. The influence of producer Tony Visconti, who also guided Bowie’s sound, is obvious, but the inclusion of Bolan’s demos shows how resilient the songs are. “Jitterbug Love (Demo)” is a cosmic treat. “Electric Slim & The Factory Hen (aka You Got The Look) (Demo)” has wiry charm. The solo rendition of “The Groover” reveals the bluesy architecture of the tune.
And space-age funk? Well, there’s a bit of Sly Stone in “20th Century Boy”. It’s a small mercy that the world ignored Bolan’s suggestion that the song marked the birth of a new genre, Erection Rock. His more soulful leanings are explored in the recordings he made with singer Sister Pat Hall, which have Bolan’s gospel kinks pushed to the forefront. They’re not without merit – “Ghetto Baby” contains the kernel of George Michael’s entire career. But they’re not T.Rex. Bolan’s interest in gospel and soul was influenced by his relationship with Gloria Jones, but there’s a mismatch between Bolan’s pop sensibility and the excitations of gospel. “Sky Church Music (alt version)” is a demonstration of what happens when a singer finds himself in the awkward position of being both lost and found.
So, what happened to Marc Bolan in 1973? The final track arrives as a solemn postscript: a recording of “Teenage Dream” as performed on Top Of The Pops on February 7, 1974. Sonically, it could be better. The tune phases in and out like a rented TV with a coat-hanger aerial. Musically, the dream is fitful, weary and jaded, with Marc Bolan sounding suddenly adrift from the easy brilliance of his younger self.
Sir Paul McCartney is typically modest about the photographs in 1964: Eyes Of The Storm, which catalogue a vital three months in the life of The Beatles as they travel from Liverpool to London to Paris and over the ocean to New York, Washington and Miami. “Somewhere in the back of my mind,” he w...
Sir Paul McCartney is typically modest about the photographs in 1964: Eyes Of The Storm, which catalogue a vital three months in the life of The Beatles as they travel from Liverpool to London to Paris and over the ocean to New York, Washington and Miami. “Somewhere in the back of my mind,” he writes, “I always knew I had taken some pictures.”
Happily, the photos he took on his Pentax SLR were squirrelled away in an archive, and have now been buffed for an exhibition at London’s National Portrait Gallery. Although some are little more than snapshots – there are many shots of swimming pools in Miami – even these offer a glimpse of The Beatles at the moment when their lives, and pop culture, were exploding. All of the images capture fame from the other side of the barricade, and there is a clear progression from the grainy uncertainty of Liverpool, through the New Wave confidence of Paris, onwards and upwards over the Atlantic. America was delighted to welcome The Beatles. The band were equally thrilled to arrive, says Sir Paul, in “the land where, at least in our minds, music’s future was being born”.
The year 1964 was the culmination of a dream, but that made it no less strange when it happened. “We were strangely at the centre of this global sensation,” McCartney writes, deadpan. The chaos of Beatlemania – the unscripted pandemonium – is the storm McCartney alludes to in the title, but he is democratic in his attribution. The eyes are his, of course, and he has an unrivalled viewpoint, but many of the photographs are of cameras and faces pointing directly at him. One of them is the Slovak photojournalist Dezo Hoffman, who became a friend and offered tips, encouraging Paul to avoid using a flash. The great Harry Benson is pictured too, looking dapper and faintly suspicious. The Beatles obligingly delivered daily pictures for him, including a famous pillow fight in their Paris hotel.
There is a sense of innocence to the images. The grain of nostalgia is strong. What does McCartney see? There are plentiful candids of The Beatles, of course. John Lennon is pictured (unusually) in his black horn-rims; McCartney tries a selfie in the mirror, smoking a cigarette; Ringo is pensive; George wears two glittering top hats. Jane Asher peers through her fringe, and McCartney also shares the view from the back of the Ashers’ house in Wimpole Street, a geometric arrangement of staircases and chimney stacks. The earlier shots catch a whiff of the Britain that is about to be left behind, where The Beatles shared bills with Cilla Black and The Vernons Girls. A smiling Brian Epstein slips out of focus as he takes a picture of Paul. America is Wonderland. “It was all worth capturing,” McCartney writes, “as you didn’t know how long it would last.”
Allison Russell returns with a new album, The Returner. She's shared the title track, which you can hear below.
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen is on the cover of the latest UNCUT
The follow up to her debut, Outside Child, The Returner will be released on September 8 2023, via Fantasy Records,...
Allison Russell returns with a new album, The Returner. She’s shared the title track, which you can hear below.
The follow up to her debut, Outside Child, The Returner will be released on September 8 2023, via Fantasy Records, and is available to pre-order here.
The Returner was written and co-produced by Russell along with dim star (her partner JT Nero and Drew Lindsay) and was recorded during December 2022 at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles, CA. It features Russell’s “Rainbow Coalition” band of all female musicians along with special guest appearances from Wendy & Lisa and Brandi Carlile.
Says Russell, “My goal with The Returner – sonically, poetically, and spiritually – is a radical reclamation of the present tense, a real time union of body, mind, and soul. This album is a much deeper articulation of rhythm, groove, and syncopation. Groove as it heralds the self back into the body, groove as it celebrates sensual and sexual agency and flowering, groove as an urgent call to action and political activism.
In just a word, it’s funkier. But as is the history of anything funky, it’s never just a party. It is a multiverse of energies that merges the celebration and the battle cry. For while an embrace of the present tense is a celebration, it is equally an unquestioning leap into battle – cultural, political, environmental.”
The tracklisting for The Returner is:
Springtime
The Returner
All Without Within
Demons
Eve Was Black
Stay Right Here
Shadowlands
Rag Child
Snake Life
Requiem
The day splits have been announced for this year's End Of The Road Festival, which runs from August 31 - September 3 at Wiltshire’s Larmer Tree Gardens.
ORDER NOW: Bruce Springsteen is on the cover of the latest UNCUT
Wilco will kick things off on Thursday, while Unknown Mortal Orchestra ...
The day splits have been announced for this year’s End Of The Road Festival, which runs from August 31 – September 3 at Wiltshire’s Larmer Tree Gardens.
Wilco will kick things off on Thursday, while Unknown Mortal Orchestra headline on Friday. They top a strong supporting cast including Cass McCombs, the Mary Wallopers and Panda Bear & Sonic Boom as well as Garden headliner Angel Olsen.
Saturday is topped by Future Islands…, Arooj Aftab graces the Garden Stage while Dungen and 75 Dollar Bill can be found rocking the Boat.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard will bring the Woods Stage to a close on Sunday, with strong support from Fatoumata Diawara. In the Garden, please welcome Ezra Furman,Caitlin Rose and Joan Shelley, plus End of Road’s debut for Allah-Las.
We’re proud to once again be partnering with End Of The Road for what promises to be a brilliant festival and can now reveal the day splits for the Uncut day in the Big Top – which is headlined by The Murder Capital. Bar Italia, Divide And Dissolve and the Enys Men score performed by The Cornish Sound Unit look to be among the highlights.
We’ll also be bringing you our usual on-site Q&As from the Talking Heads stage. More on those soon…
Meanwhile, you can read our round-up of all our coverage from last year’s Festival by clicking here.
Mantra Of The Cosmos is a new supergroup consisting of Shaun Ryder (Happy Mondays, Black Grape), Zak Starkey (The Who, Oasis), Andy Bell (Oasis, Ride) and Bez (Happy Mondays, Black Grape).
The band played their debut gig last night (June 5) at The Box in London – attended by various other nort...
Mantra Of The Cosmos is a new supergroup consisting of Shaun Ryder (Happy Mondays, Black Grape), Zak Starkey (The Who, Oasis), Andy Bell (Oasis, Ride) and Bez (Happy Mondays, Black Grape).
The band played their debut gig last night (June 5) at The Box in London – attended by various other north-west musical luminaries, including Ian Broudie and Steve Diggle – and you can watch a video for their first single “Gorilla Guerilla” below:
Zak Starkey describes the single as “a fantastic psychedelic groove from a band of misfits, outsiders and innovators.” Adds Ryder: “It’s a fucking blast mate! It’s great when we’re not all irate.”
Next stop for Mantra Of The Cosmos is the Glastonbury festival, where they headline The Glade on Sunday evening.
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Bruce Springsteen, Black Sabbath, PJ Harvey, Dexys, Fleet Foxes, Siouxsie Sioux, The War On Drugs, Jim O'Rourke and more all feature in the new Uncut, dated August 2023 and in UK shops from June 8 or available to buy online now. The issue comes with two coll...
Bruce Springsteen, Black Sabbath, PJ Harvey, Dexys, Fleet Foxes, Siouxsie Sioux, The War On Drugs, Jim O’Rourke and more all feature in the new Uncut, dated August 2023 and in UK shops from June 8 or available to buy online now. The issue comes with two collectable, high-quality Springsteen art prints and a free, 15-track CD of the month’s best new music including tracks from Julie Byrne, Deer Tick, This Is The Kit, Cory Hanson, Tony Allen, ANOHNI and more.
INSIDE THIS MONTH’S UNCUT
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: After a six-year hiatus, Springsteen and the E Street Band are finally back on tour. Unbowed by Covid, ticket pricing controversies and, it seems, even the passing of time, they are playing shows that are among the most intense of their storied career. Uncut joins them in the American Midwest to marvel at the remarkable durability of the E Street Band and their indefatigable frontman. “Every show is unique,” we learn. “It’s prove it all night and prove it every night.” Plus! Back to 1973: a pivotal year for the Boss…
BLACK SABBATH: In his new memoir, Into The Void, Geezer Butler examines how a grammar-school boy and former trainee accountant became the bassist and lyricist for an all-time great heavy rock band like Black Sabbath. Uncut joins him to hear tales of mohairs and football violence, police interrogations and the Rick Rubin method. “I really believed in Satan,” he reveals. “Suddenly bad things started happening…”
FLEET FOXES: The summer solstice beckons, and with a lyric book imminent, what better time for ROBIN PECKNOLD to recall the stories behind some of FLEET FOXES best-loved songs? “Things felt like very high stakes for a very long time…”
DEXYS: After a seven-year absence, Kevin Rowland is back with a new DEXYS album, The Feminine Divine. Over vegetarian sausages, chips and beans in his local café, the original Celtic Soul Brother goes deep on the trauma and triumph behind this latest, striking chapter in his ongoing spiritual saga. “It’s so easy to be restricted by people’s perceptions of you…”
FRED NEIL: An expert fingerpicker and Brill Building dropout who mentored Bob Dylan and David Crosby and wrote a global hit – before giving it all up to save the dolphins. We explores the enigmatic life and times of a Greenwich Village legend. “He didn’t know how to cope with the shit of the world.”
JIM ROURKE & EIKO ISHIBASHI: The two sonic upstarts on how yakitori bars in Shinjuku, UK crime dramas and Genesis have helped steer their unique takes on experimental music in bold new directions. Stand by for octopus salad and meloncello.
AN AUDIENCE WITH… ADAM GRANDUCIEL: The War On Drugs kingpin talks new material, hair waivers, ruptured discs and shooting the breeze with Mick and Bruce.
THE MAKING OF “THE WORLD IS A GHETTO” BY WAR: “Our choice of weapon was our instruments, shooting out rhythm, melody and harmony,” says Leroy “Lonnie” Jordan, the band’s singer and keyboardist. “We were called War, but we were all about keeping the peace.”
ALBUM BY ALBUM WITH ANOHNI: From her debut on Antony & The Johnsons to her latest, My Back Was A Bridge For You to cross: works of beauty and emotion. “I’d been writing songs since I was 10…”
MY LIFE IN MUSIC WITH RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: The singer and composer reveals the records underpinning his folkocracy: “I wanted to tap into that purity of sound…”
REVIEWED PJ Harvey, Joni Mitchell, Grian Chatten, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Clientele, Lyr, Julie Byrne, This Is The Kit, Sam Burton, Codeine, Charlie Watts, Gal Costa, Mike Cooper, Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Syd Barrett and more
PLUS Tina Turner, Giodon Lightfoot and Andy Rourke RIP, Siouxsie Sioux’s 20 greatest songs, Blur return, Steely Dan> – the comic book, Gruff Rhys revisits his pre-SFA band Ffa Coffi Pawb and introducing the Tropicalia-folk of Nico Paulo
I promise you it’s not entirely deliberate, but this month feels like something of a live special. We have two artists returning to the live arena after extended hiatuses – Bruce Springsteen after six years and Siouxsie Sioux after a decade – and another, The War On Drugs, taking another trium...
I promise you it’s not entirely deliberate, but this month feels like something of a live special. We have two artists returning to the live arena after extended hiatuses – Bruce Springsteen after six years and Siouxsie Sioux after a decade – and another, The War On Drugs, taking another triumphant lap round the UK’s arenas, while Blur have also kicked off a return to active service after an extended layoff.
These are all genuinely exciting for a number of reasons, but they also represent a shared, indefatigable quality – that even after Covid and ticketing issues, or in Siouxsie’s case a kind of semi-retirement, our heroes can still surprise us with their resilience and ability to share communal moments. Stephen Deusner’s excellent report from the American heartlands, as he steps aboard the Springsteen Express, captures the E Street Band in full flight – a powerful sermon from what Marilyn Kales, from St Paul, Minnesota, describes as “the church of rock’n’roll. Nobody works like he does. Nobody.”
Elsewhere, Stephen Troussé digs deep into Siouxsie’s catalogue as she prepares to play in the UK for the first time since 2013’s performance at Meltdown. I have vivid memories of that show – Siouxsie in a white catsuit, in a whirl of scything arms, stomping round the stage as she played the Banshees’ glorious Kaleidoscope album in full.
Anyway, there’s a lot more in this issue, of course, including new interviews with Geezer Butler (MOHAIRS!), Dexys (THAI YOGA!), Fleet Foxes (OVER-THINKING!), Jim O’Rourke and Eiko Ishibashi (OCTOPUS SALAD!). There’s also terrific pieces on Fred Neil and War, the latest missives from PJ Harvey, Joni Mitchell and Julie Byrne, plus Anohni, Codeine, Syd Barrett and, of course, a free, 15-track CD showcasing the best of the month’s new music.
As we went to press, we heard the sad news of Tina Turner’s passing. Fortunately, we managed to turn round a tribute, which you can read on page 4. It capped a particularly busy month for us here at Uncut – and huge thanks for going above and beyond to John, Marc, Mick, Michael, Mike, Tom, Sam and Phil.
Brian Eno is heading out on his first ever solo live concert series, Ships, including a berth at London's Royal Festival Hall.
Ships is a newly commissioned work from La Biennale di Venezia, with the first performance premiering on October 21 in Teatro la Fenice as the centre piece of the 2023 Ve...
Brian Eno is heading out on his first ever solo live concert series, Ships, including a berth at London’s Royal Festival Hall.
Ships is a newly commissioned work from La Biennale di Venezia, with the first performance premiering on October 21 in Teatro la Fenice as the centre piece of the 2023 Venice Biennale Musica.
Ships features an orchestral adaptation of his 2016 album, The Ship as well as new and classic Eno compositions.
Eno will be performing together with Baltic Sea Philharmonic, orchestrated and conducted by Kristjan Järvi. The performance also features a cameo appearance from the actor Peter Serafinowicz as well as support from long-time collaborators, guitarist Leo Abrahams and programmer / keyboardist, Peter Chilvers.
“The album ’THE SHIP’ is an unusual piece in that it uses voice but doesn’t particularly rely on the song form,” says Eno. “It’s an atmosphere with occasional characters drifting through it, characters lost in the vague space made by the music. There’s a sense of wartime in the background, and a sense of inevitability. There is also a sense of scale which suits an orchestra, and a sense of many people working together.
“I wanted an orchestra which played music the way I would like to play music: from the heart rather than just from the score. I wanted the players to be young and fresh and enthusiastic. When I first saw the Baltic Sea Philharmonic I found all that…and then noticed they were named after a sea. That sealed it!”
“Brian is a great artist who has been an immense personal inspiration for a good part of my life,” says Kristjan Järvi. Now to be presented with an opportunity where we work on the presentation of a piece that reflects and shapes the world that we live in, is very meaningful and truly an honour.
“The freedom of expression is the key element in this presentation. Every person in this performance is just as important as the next. Everyone matters equally as much as the other and is not replaceable or expendable. To have an orchestra that is really a band rather than an orchestra which executes a performance but “is the performance” itself is what Brian and I see as the uniqueness of this collaboration.”
This premiere performance at the Biennale Musica marks Brian Eno’s first live tour in a five decade solo career and also his first appearance with orchestra. Eno has only ever played a handful of solo shows, the most recent in 2021 at the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Acropolis in Athens with his brother, Roger Eno.
In 1963, Nick Broomfield spotted Brian Jones on a Cheltenham-bound train, and was invited into his first-class compartment to chat. “I was 14 and at boarding school,” the director recalls, “and he represented an anti-authoritarian way of being. It turned out he was a trainspotter, and was on t...
In 1963, Nick Broomfield spotted Brian Jones on a Cheltenham-bound train, and was invited into his first-class compartment to chat. “I was 14 and at boarding school,” the director recalls, “and he represented an anti-authoritarian way of being. It turned out he was a trainspotter, and was on that line quite a lot. He was extremely friendly, and happy for me to come in and sit down. It’s one of those events you remember.”
Broomfield’s new BBC documentary, The Stones And Brian Jones, contrasts that first, sweet encounter with Bill Wyman’s recollection of “a fucker… I don’t want to say evil, but he was really cruel.” “Stories don’t always have to be about saints,” Broomfield argues. “But Brian was talented, and I wanted to find out what had gone wrong.”
Wyman is the sole Stone to contribute to the doc, eagerly pulling out stems from his archive’s multi-tracks to isolate Jones’ crucial slide guitar on “Little Red Rooster”, and his recorder spiralling through “Ruby Tuesday”. “Bill felt that Brian was badly let down in terms of the Stones’ legacy,” Broomfield says, “and that his contribution needs to be recognised.” Jones’ lack of songwriting was his Achilles’ heel. But newly uncovered tapes find him tentatively seeking his own creativity, playing guitar with Hendrix, and writing a stumbling, baroque song with Ready Steady Go! presenter Michael Aldred. They suggest possibilities that Jones lacked the confidence and discipline to pursue.
A stash of letters discovered in 2019, meanwhile, show the painful generation gap between Jones and his parents, who threw him out aged 16. “There was a very hurt little boy there,” Broomfield says. He also interviews Jones’ surviving ex-girlfriends, five of whom were abandoned with a child, but offer surprisingly affectionate portraits. “All the women I spoke to said that when he was with you, he gave you everything, and they felt amazing with him. He represented a high point in their lives. They still seem to love him deeply.”
The film’s most touching revelations lie in the home movies of Brian as a boy. Amid footage of Stones gig riots, film of his teenage haunt Filby’s Jazz Club is just as thrilling in its way. “That was a liberation movement in uptight Cheltenham, and must have been absolutely wonderful for Brian. People were playing Howlin’ Wolf records, and the club was an adventure into the unknown, looking for a different kind of future, giving Brian and his friends an enormous lust for life.”
The film is in some ways a companion piece to Broomfield’s Marianne & Leonard: Words Of Love, which showed the collateral human damage to Leonard Cohen’s liberated lifestyle in Hydra in the early ’60s. As Keith Richards says of Jones: “Not everyone makes it.”
“It’s hard to imagine the uncharted territory they were going through,” Broomfield reflects. “Just look at the concerts’ wonderful anarchy. I went to some, and there was the sense of freedom and a bright future ahead of you. It was that wondrous naïveté and optimism in which I met Brian on the train. Then just six years later it had changed.”
Broomfield focuses on footage of the young, innocent-looking fans at the Stones’ Hyde Park gig after Jones’ death on July 3, 1969. He was there himself. “We were in real shock that it had all ended so quickly. It just wasn’t supposed to be like that. Brian’s death made you pause and think, ‘What happened? How did somebody who was an embodiment of all our dreams come to this?’ Some part of the experiment was over.”
Paul Simon is an artist filled with glorious paradoxes. He’s the secular Jew who has made some of the greatest pieces of Christian pop music; the non-believer whose lyrics are obsessed with faith; the all-American boy who has immersed himself in the music of Jamaica, South Africa, Brazil and Olde ...
Paul Simon is an artist filled with glorious paradoxes. He’s the secular Jew who has made some of the greatest pieces of Christian pop music; the non-believer whose lyrics are obsessed with faith; the all-American boy who has immersed himself in the music of Jamaica, South Africa, Brazil and Olde England; the folk singer who makes soul music with the world’s top jazz musicians; the choir-boy tenor who was rapping, conversationally, long before hip-hop. He’s perhaps the most complex and interesting figure on that shortlist of America’s greatest living songwriters – alongside Bob, Stevie, Carole, Brian, Bruce, Smokey, Dolly and the rest. You wouldn’t see Dylan deciding to write a piece of Schoenberg-inspired 12-tone serialism as an academic exercise – using every note in a chromatic scale – and ending up with a limpid, soulful waltz like “Still Crazy After All These Years”. It’s unlikely that Dolly Parton would have jammed with township musicians from Soweto and been inspired to sing about Elvis Presley’s home in Memphis; a sixtysomething Brian Wilson wouldn’t have written a salsa musical about a Puerto Rican murderer, a seventy-something Springsteen is unlikely to make an album on Harry Partch’s microtonal instruments.
Simon’s latest album continues that exploratory spirit. Seven Psalms is a cycle of seven songs presented as a single 33-minute track. The idea apparently came to him in a dream and, after a year of frequently waking in the dead of the night to scribble down lyrical ideas, it was completed exactly a year later, on the 25th anniversary of his father’s death.
Simon is now 81, and Seven Psalms can certainly be seen as the summation of a career that has lasted more than 66 years. It draws together several recurring themes in his lyrics: religious imagery, secular hymns, reflections on death, lyrics that read like quizzical short stories. The album starts with “The Lord”, a baroque-inflected two-chord piece that is repeated, with increasing urgency, several times throughout the album. It is a hymn that starts by attributing all beauty in the world to a cosmic creator. “The Lord is a virgin forest, the Lord is a forest ranger”, he sings. “A meal for the poorest, a welcome door to the stranger”. Then suddenly, the mood shifts, the florid guitar becomes more strident and, instead of crediting this force of nature with miracle and wonder, Simon shifts from New Testament to Old and blames God for the world’s evils – from disease to war to global warming. “The Covid virus is the Lord/The Lord is the ocean rising/The Lord is a terrible swift sword”.
The song references various moments in Simon’s career. The medieval-sounding guitar riff is reminiscent of the “Anji” flourish that Davy Graham taught him 60 years ago; the liturgical air recalls both the first Simon & Garfunkel album and the more recent sardonic spiritual quest of So Beautiful Or So What. When Simon sings, “The Lord is a face in the atmosphere/The path I slip and I slide on”, it’s clearly a nod to “Slip Slidin’ Away” and that song’s cheerful meditation on the inevitability of death.
The mood lightens a little on the airy “Love Is Like A Braid”, a major-key song where the lyrics of heaven and judgment are intoned arrhythmically, like an epic poem. By the time we reach the jokey, ragtime-inflected “My Professional Opinion”, we can hear Simon almost beating himself up for the fruitless soul-searching of the previous songs. “I’m gonna carry my grievances down to the shore, wash them away in the tumbling tide”, he coos. As another nod to the past, we can hear him playing the same percussive bass harmonica sound that we all remember from “The Boxer”.
“Your Forgiveness” is the most ambitious song here; an episodic, flamenco-tinged piece, with baroque flutes that resemble the Andean pipes on “El Condor Pasa” and a harmonium drone from 1972’s “Papa Hobo”. As he ponders sin and forgiveness, the arrangement gets more complex – there is a baroque string quintet, featuring the theorbo, chalumeau and viol de gamba, as well as a subtly deployed arsenal of rhythmic instruments – temple bowls, gongs, frame drums, South Indian ektars and bass harmonicas.
“Trail Of Volcanoes” is the most rhythmic track on the album, a single-chord drone based around some subtle West African percussion and a simple descending guitar riff, with lyrics that seem to be about immigration and asylum (“those old roads are a trail of volcanoes/Exploding with refugees”). It’s also the first appearance of Simon’s wife Edie Brickell, whose sparkling lead lines and playful harmonies are a welcome shard of light among the melancholy. She returns on the final track, “Wait”, where Simon’s narrator seems to be chaotically preparing for death (“Wait, I’m not ready/I’m packing my gear”). Yet there’s a sense of resigned joy, as Simon moves into the pulsating 6/8 time signature he loves so much. “I need you here by my side/My beautiful mystery guide”, he sighs, before Brickell joins him on the final verse. “Heaven is beautiful”, she sings. “It’s almost like home”. It would be a magnificent way to end a magnificent career, but Simon probably has yet more ideas in him.
“Is it recording yet?” a male voice asks at The Dream Syndicate’s first rehearsal. “Yeah,” Kendra Smith dryly replies. “Every gem.” Doubling the length of The Days Of Wine And Roses’ 2001 and 2015 reissues, this collection reconstructs the whole fervid world of the band’s first, sh...
“Is it recording yet?” a male voice asks at The Dream Syndicate’s first rehearsal. “Yeah,” Kendra Smith dryly replies. “Every gem.” Doubling the length of The Days Of Wine And Roses’ 2001 and 2015 reissues, this collection reconstructs the whole fervid world of the band’s first, short-lived incarnation, from that rehearsal on December 27, 1981, through early gigs, to the night their debut album was laid down, and onwards to a tape of a forgotten Tucson show where this great, firefly lineup achieve a wild, casual apotheosis.
“The album itself is a small part of this boxset,” Steve Wynn notes, “which is more like a time-capsule of what it was like to be in the band and around us in LA at that time, to see that lineup developing through the year we were together. Defiant’s a good word for us then, when it was us against a world that wasn’t even bothering to pay attention.”
The Dream Syndicate’s reference points, so rebellious at synth-point’s peak, seem less important now, when the Velvets, Stooges and Crazy Horse are classic rock’s lingua franca. The Days Of Wine And Roses has sounded like a landmark, not a throwback, for a while. Wynn’s terse songcraft is at the core of a molten sound, carried forward by Smith’s logical, melodic bass and Dennis Duck’s solid beat, but liable to be flayed and sliced by Karl Precoda’s lead guitar, speaking a private language of decorative and deconstructive feedback only his bandmates comprehend. He’s the band’s Brian Jones, splashing on crucial colours, and their Thurston Moore, exploring action painting explosions, and drawing Wynn’s steadier guitar to him in a thrilling embrace. This quartet had mostly just turned 20 years old, and their precocious achievement is the story told here.
As the album’s opener, “Tell Me When It’s Over”, starts its inevitable, looping drive, the guitars’ languid jangle and needling, post-punk edge add to the playful suggestion that we’ve been here before. Wynn’s voice and lyrics are bracingly disaffected, stuck like Dylan in Memphis. It’s a clean-lined statement of intent, its classic chassis freshly painted for ’82. “That’s What You Always Say” is more sinister, a guitar creeping over Smith’s relentless riff ’til the band swagger in and Precoda’s bucking solo dissolves into persistent, primordial feedback sparks. “Halloween” excavates The Velvet Underground in the context of a subsequent world, with its near-motorik groove, both psychedelic and post-punk. Lou Reed and the Ian McCulloch of “Villiers Terrace” similarly shimmer in Wynn’s voice.
That voice is also already his own, with its jittery, embattled cool. Still an English Lit major when the album was recorded, Wynn’s paranoid lyrics peak with “Until Lately”, which seems to view Reaganite suburbia through the queasy prism of HP Lovecraft or Philip K Dick, as a harmonica darkly howls. Wynn, though, sympathised with his driven, conformist characters. “I had connected strongly to writers like Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill,” he reveals, “and the virtue of some perceived sense of hard work and determination. At the time it gave me a much-needed sense of order, and fuelled the lyrics to ‘Tell Me When It’s Over’ and ‘Until Lately’.”
This set also includes the sole, woozy single by Wynn’s proto-Syndicate project 15 Minutes, that first rehearsal and the “Down There” EP, taped three weeks later and almost equalling the album for shuddering, precise noise. Outtakes are mostly familiar, as is the KPFK radio broadcast’s early iteration of “John Coltrane Stereo Blues”, “Open Hour”, with Precoda’s thin, high-wire solo threading through its slow-burn drone and fuzzed thunder. This definitive expression of the band’s jazz-like thinking also appears in a still earlier, until-now forgotten live version as “It’s Gonna Be Alright”, gleaning a rough, abstract groove before the tape cuts out. “I can hear the band’s progression on this collection,” Wynn considers, “getting more confident, and less afraid to rock. But we didn’t want to be a rock band then. We saw ourselves as closer to Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra.”
The discoveries which make this release essential are two unreleased live discs drawn from Duck’s cassette archive. A Halloween gig at a vintage clothes store on a bill with HG Lewis gore movies finds the band in informal, goofy mood, battling sound problems, but adding unhinged aggression to “Until Lately”, where Wynn’s hoarsely shredded voice acts like feedbacking guitar. The song “Halloween” is a sturdy, mutable set-piece, played with delicate guitar tracery at one gig, as Smith states the melody with characteristic wryness and optimism, then as a diseased jangle at Reseda, California’s Country Club.
This whole period finds final expression on a night at the Backstage, Tucson, in 1982. Precoda has been hassled for his long hair, here far from LA, inspiring a martial cover of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom City Blues”. The excitement is enhanced by the tape’s fade and surge, as the band rip through “Definitely Clean”, and this Syndicate swagger with joy, relishing their good fortune. As they plunge and whip through “Some Kinda Itch”, you can hear each musician’s individual, absorbed intensity create their collective impact. Smith would soon leave, then Precoda. This is their sound’s monument.
“Ryuichi was always looking for different ways of understanding music,” explains Todd Eckert, director of Kagami, an ambitious ‘mixed reality’ collaboration with the late, great Ryuichi Sakamoto. “It’s not about technology, even though that’s fundamental to what we’re doing. The whol...
“Ryuichi was always looking for different ways of understanding music,” explains Todd Eckert, director of Kagami, an ambitious ‘mixed reality’ collaboration with the late, great Ryuichi Sakamoto. “It’s not about technology, even though that’s fundamental to what we’re doing. The whole point of this is the ongoing connection between an artist and their audience.”
Due to premiere in June at the Manchester International Festival and The Shed in New York, Kagami promises a new kind of concert experience. Audience members will view the virtual Sakamoto performing on piano via optically treated glasses, each song in surround sound and accompanied by its own set of visuals. The footage of Sakamoto, who developed the idea over four years with Eckert’s Tin Drum company, was captured by 48 different cameras, allowing people to wander around the stage and watch from different perspectives.
“He was always wonderful to be around,” says Eckert, whose friendship with Sakamoto dates back to the late ’90s. “He would tell the most surprising, human, candid stories. He told me that when he was a child, his teacher asked him, ‘What do you want to be when you’re an adult?’ He said, ‘I want to be nothing.’ It wasn’t nihilism, but more like, ‘I want to exist between the planes.’ And you could see in his eyes, during Kagami, he was feeling that again. He looked at me and said, ‘Weird kid, huh?’”
Eckert reveals that Kagami’s setlist will include a few surprises, among them the first ever ‘live’ outing for “The Seed And The Sower” from Sakamoto’s ravishing soundtrack to 1983’s Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, and a previously unheard tribute to Bernardo Bertolucci, for whom he scored 1987’s epic The Last Emperor.
“Ryuichi and I were in Tokyo and he pulled out this piece of sheet music from his bag. He said, ‘Bertolucci was like a spiritual father to me. When he died, I just walked into my studio and I played how I felt about him. The only people that have ever heard this song are his family at the funeral.’ So that’s what we conclude with.”
In its own distinct way, Kagami guarantees Sakamoto’s immortality. It was an idea not lost on the man himself. “This virtual me will not age, and will continue to play the piano for years, decades, centuries,” he reflected, in notes on the show written before his death from cancer in March. In the words of Sakamoto’s favourite saying, widely shared after his passing, “Art is long, life is short”.
Impulse! have unearthed another previously unheard John Coltrane live recording, this time from his short-lived 1961 quintet with Eric Dolphy.
Evenings At The Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy will be released on July 14. Hear a track from it, “Impressions”, below:
https://www.y...
Impulse! have unearthed another previously unheard John Coltrane live recording, this time from his short-lived 1961 quintet with Eric Dolphy.
Evenings At The Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy will be released on July 14. Hear a track from it, “Impressions”, below:
Recently discovered in the sound archives of The New York Public Library For The Performing Arts, the recordings were made by engineer Rich Alderson as part of a test of The Village Gate’s new soundsystem in August 1961. They capture Coltrane’s month-long residency at the club with his quintet of McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, Elvin Jones and Eric Dolphy. All 80 minutes of music on the album are previously unreleased.
You can pre-order Evenings At The Village Gate (including a limited orange vinyl variant) here.
It is hard to tell where Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band end their main set in Murrayfield. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” has stormed to a conclusion and the band appear to have left the stage. Then, you notice Springsteen strap on an acoustic guitar and harmonica holder and walk back to the...
It is hard to tell where Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band end their main set in Murrayfield. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” has stormed to a conclusion and the band appear to have left the stage. Then, you notice Springsteen strap on an acoustic guitar and harmonica holder and walk back to the microphone.
For the previous three hours, Springsteen has delivered a mammoth high-energy set, somewhere between stadium rock show and soul revue. Taking a lead from last year’s album of covers, Only The Strong Survive, Springsteen has continued to play to his own formative soul and R&B influences for this, their first tour in six years. With a few prudent adjustments, the E Street Band lean into their formidable brass section. As a consequence, this isn’t just a band back on the road after an enforced hiatus, but a band reimagining their music in dynamic new ways.
The show started with a run of songs – “No Surrender”, “Ghosts”, “Prove It All Night”, “Death To My Hometown” and “Letter To You” – delivered at speed and without pause. As magnificent as the spectacle is of Springsteen and his compatriots at full pelt, you might wonder where it is heading. Since the mid-Oughts, Springsteen tours have had their own unique characteristics, defined as much by circumstance as anything else: 2009’s Working On A Dream Tour was the first without Danny Federici; 2012’s Wrecking Ball tour was the first without Clarence Clemons, 2016’s The River tour wasn’t tied to a new album. Taken together, a loose narrative emerged, of a band coming to terms with grief and finding even deeper communion between one another and their audience as they played longer, deeper and heavier shows each year. So what kind of tour will this be, exactly..?
The answer comes about 40 minutes in. The opening salvo has given way to a second tranche of songs, loosely structured around themes of reckoning – including an incendiary “Candy’s Room”. On previous tours, Springsteen assembled setlists on the hoof, but he worked to a formalised structure for Springsteen On Broadway, which was scripted and the running order largely unchanged. He’s following a focussed, static setlist here, too: building blocks of songs around themes and pulling together threads from across his career. This third section, though, finds him going somewhere else entirely.
A 15-minute soul rave-up of “Kitty’s Back”, from The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, moves on to a less frantic, but by no means less potent, place. If “Nightshift” was originally written as tribute to Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye, for Springsteen, lines like “We all remember you / Your songs are comin’ through” are implicitly addressed to the spirits of Federici and Clemons. “Last Man Standing”, meanwhile, is dedicated to George Theiss, from Springsteen’s first band, The Castiles, of which Springsteen is now the sole surviving member. But sung to 70,000 people in Murrayfield, these songs become eulogies to the audience’s loved ones. We’ve all lost friends, Springsteen seems to acknowledge; a point he makes clearer a little later at the end of “Backstreets” where he repeats, “All the rest of you, I’m going to carry right here until the end.” Thinking about the title of his most recent album, Only The Strong Survive might be about resilience and a brave face, but in the context of this tour it could well also be about strength through unity; we are all in this together. This, it seems, is Springsteen’s tour message in 2023.
Springsteen’s great skill as a performer is his ability to cut through the spectacle to deliver moments of considerable intimacy, where the showman appears to make way for someone more vulnerable and earnest. He revisits this from a different angle on “Wrecking Ball” – where “hard times come and hard times go” – and again later, at the very end of the set.
But such meditations on life aside, the show hinges on the big set-pieces and crowd-pleasing moments. There are walks down to the front row; some terrific messing about between Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt; Springsteen ripping his shirt open to expose his chest; a lovely piece of intimacy with Jake Clemons, who gently leaned over Springsteen’s shoulder to watch him play a solo. And there were plenty of solos – with three guitarists, you’d imagine so – including one from Nils Lofgren during “Because The Night” that wouldn’t sound out of place in Crazy Horse. The final encore – “Born In The U.S.A.”, “Born To Run”, “Bobby Jean”, “Glory Days”, Dancing In The Dark”, “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” – is as good as it gets. But then he straps on an acoustic guitar and steps up for final song: “I’ll See You In My Dreams” from Letter To You. A tribute to his departed comrades, designed to succour and uplift, the song’s inclusion at the set close is clear: this is Springsteen’s extended family, everyone is welcome.
Murrayfield setlist:
No Surrender
Ghosts
Prove It All Night
Death to My Hometown
Letter to You
The Promised Land
Out in the Street
Candy’s Room
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Kitty’s Back
Nightshift
Mary’s Place
The E Street Shuffle
Johnny 99
Last Man Standing
Backstreets
Because the Night
She’s the One
Wrecking Ball
The Rising
Badlands
Thunder Road
Born in the U.S.A.
Born to Run
Bobby Jean
Glory Days
Dancing in the Dark
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Firing the starting gun on festival season, this annual all-dayer is an essential muster point for the art-punks, urban folkies and indie dads of South London. Local bands, breweries and venues are well represented: one of the stages is hosted by beloved Brixton dive The Windmill, and Black Country,...
Firing the starting gun on festival season, this annual all-dayer is an essential muster point for the art-punks, urban folkies and indie dads of South London. Local bands, breweries and venues are well represented: one of the stages is hosted by beloved Brixton dive The Windmill, and Black Country, New Road are among several acts appearing today who were hothoused within its reassuringly manky walls.
Anticipation for their set is high judging by the group of fans careening across the site early in the afternoon chanting the “BC,NR friends forever” refrain that kicks off the band’s new Live At Bush Hall release. But while that recording found the band coping admirably with the departure of ex-frontman Isaac Wood, today they don’t sound quite so assured. The idea of sharing the lead vocals around is in keeping with their all-for-one outlook, though inevitably it means they lack a focal point. The band’s well-crafted new songs boast more conventional appeal, at the expense of some of their former edge. BC,NR remain an intriguing enigma.
As such, they don’t manage to capitalise on the plentiful good vibes spread by the band immediately preceding them. Sunset Rollercoaster are five eager young chaps from Taipei who play immaculate, jazzy drivetime pop with nods to Haruomi Hosono and the first Phoenix album. It might be kitsch if it weren’t so sincere; Kuo-Hung Tseng’s voice contains a strong hint of melancholy, embodying the heartache in every dream home. Top marks, too, for their pitch-perfect version of Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Waltz No 2” AKA the theme from Eyes Wide Shut.
Alex G draws one of the biggest crowds of the day to the main stage for his next-gen slacker rock. With nine albums under his belt, he’s certainly amassed a decent arsenal of tunes, although he’s not the most effusive of performers. But even if his unassuming delivery is kind of the point, it’s a thrill when he invites headliner Caroline Polachek up to perform “Mission”. There are some nice Mascis-lite solos too, but overall his set could with some more of the chaos that comes easily to Stockholm punks Viagra Boys.
Saxophone blaring, theirs is a pleasingly old-school racket reminiscent of X-Ray Spex and Rocket From The Crypt. Shirtless singer Sebastian Murphy has a tattooed paunch to rival any Newcastle United ultra, a feature that you (unfortunately) can’t ignore when he starts doing exercise moves around the stage. It’s not big or clever, but it certainly rouses the rabble.
However, they can’t hope to match the intensity of the Osees. Twin drummers flailing, John Dwyer’s merry men go from nought to sixty in the blink of an eye and never let up. Dwyer himself is a puckish master of ceremonies, dressed for the beach, guitar strapped just beneath his chin, occasionally prodding a toy keyboard. When they’re done mangling the corpse of heavy psychedelic rock, they manage to locate an even higher gear and start on hardcore punk.
If there’s one caveat, it’s that Osees carry no passengers. You’re either 100 per cent in or 100 per cent out; there’s nothing really to draw in the casuals, unless you count synthy new single “Intercepted Message” – and any crowd trying to sing along to its robust anti-royalist refrain is likely to be instantly kettled by the Met police.
Wide Awake evidently struggled to pull in a high-wattage headliner in the vein of Primal Scream last year. As it turns out, the festival’s biggest star played right at the start of the afternoon. You might not imagine the rarified aural balm of Arooj Aftab’s Vulture Prince as natural festival fodder, but this is a singer who can elevate your soul at a thousand paces before immediately pulling you back to earth with a withering New York put-down. She may be amusingly disparaging about the “techno shit” bleeding across from another stage but she’s also developed a way to combat it. Instead of the acoustic bass and harp format she toured with last year, she’s now playing with a guitarist who can do biting as well as gentle, and together with right-hand man Shazad Ismaily on electronics, they summon a stunning new maelstrom of noise in the middle of “Saans Lo”.
During a glorious closing “Mohabbat”, Aftab throws roses out to the front row, even as she jokes that her “poor upper body strength” means that she might struggle to get them over the barrier. It’s the consummate work of an all-round-entertainer, Liza Minelli sings the music of the spheres. Catch her this summer if you get the chance.
