John Mayall has announced details of his 2014 tour to celebrate his 80th birthday.
Mayall will play a number of European dates, as well as one confirmed UK date at Ronnie Scott's on April 19, 2014.
You can find more details about the Ronnie Scott's show here.
And click here for Mayall's full tour...
John Mayall has announced details of his 2014 tour to celebrate his 80th birthday.
Mayall will play a number of European dates, as well as one confirmed UK date at Ronnie Scott’s on April 19, 2014.
You can find more details about the Ronnie Scott’s show here.
Graham Nash and David Crosby are to guest on David Gilmour's new album.
Nash revealed the news in an interview on the Needle Time programme on Vintage TV.
Speaking about their appearance on Gilmour's album, Nash said, “What the hell would it cost you to have David Crosby and Graham Nash getting ...
Graham Nash and David Crosby are to guest on David Gilmour’s new album.
Nash revealed the news in an interview on the Needle Time programme on Vintage TV.
Speaking about their appearance on Gilmour’s album, Nash said, “What the hell would it cost you to have David Crosby and Graham Nash getting on a bloody train to Brighton to sing with you? We’re musicians. We love good songs. We’ll sing them until we are dead.”
David Gilmour‘s most recent album was 2006’s On An Island.
Meanwhile, Gilmour’s former Pink Floyd colleague, Roger Waters, recently confirmed he is also working on his first rock album in 21 years. You can read the story here.
Arcade Fire have announced plans for a huge UK show set to take place at London's Earls Court on June 6, 2014.
The band revealed the date via a 15-second long video on YouTube. Scroll down to watch the video. Tickets for the show go on sale November 28. Meanwhile, Win Butler has hinted that the ban...
Arcade Fire have announced plans for a huge UK show set to take place at London’s Earls Court on June 6, 2014.
The band revealed the date via a 15-second long video on YouTube. Scroll down to watch the video. Tickets for the show go on sale November 28. Meanwhile, Win Butler has hinted that the band will also play UK festivals next summer.
In an interview with Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 2, Butler told fans that they should “get [their] wellies ready” in preparation for the UK festival season next summer, although he refused to give any more concrete details of which events he and his bandmates would be playing.
Asked by Whiley if they would be playing UK festivals in 2014, Butler said: “Yeah, I hope so. It’s a special experience.” Whiley then said she was looking forward to seeing the group next summer, leading Butler to teasingly respond: “Get your wellies ready!”
His comments have sparked speculation that Arcade Fire will play Glastonbury next year. The band recently announced a huge US arena tour to take place in 2014, but fans have spotted there is a gap in their schedule between June 22 and July 30 which could potentially be filled by a spot at Worthy Farm.
A new Wes Anderson tribute album is set for release next year.
I Saved Latin! is a two-CD collection of songs taken from director Anderson's films, including tracks by bands such as The Rolling Stones, John Lennon, David Bowie and The Velvet Underground. Artists contributing covers include Black Francis and Kristin Hersh.
All of the songs included on the album are taken from the soundtracks to Anderson’s films: The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr Fox and Bottle Rocket.
Last week, Anderson released a new short film, Castello Cavalcanti. You can watch it here.
Anderson's next full length feature is The Grand Budapest Hotel.
The full tracklist for I Saved Latin! is:
Black Francis – 'Seven and Seven Is' (Love) [Bottle Rocket]
Elk City – 'Play With Fire' (The Rolling Stones) [The Darjeeling Limited]
Escondido – 'Strangers' (The Kinks) [The Darjeeling Limited]
Freelance Whales – 'Let Her Dance' (The Bobby Fuller Four) [Fantastic Mr Fox]
Generationals – 'Making Time' (Creation) [Rushmore]
Grand Hallway – 'I Am Waiting' (The Rolling Stones) [Rushmore]
Joy Zipper – 'Ooh La La' (The Faces) [Rushmore]
Juliana Hatfield – 'Needle In The Hay' (Elliott Smith) [The Royal Tenenbaums]
Kristin Hersh – 'Fly' (Nick Drake) [The Royal Tenenbaums]
Matt Pond – 'These Days' (Nico) [The Royal Tenenbaums]
Mike Watt & the Secondmen – 'Street Fighting Man (The Rolling Stones)' [Fantastic Mr Fox]
PHOX – 'The Way I Feel Inside' (The Zombies) [The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou]
Santah – 'Five Years' (David Bowie) [The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou]
Sara Lov – 'Alone Again Or' (Love) [Bottle Rocket]
Solvents – 'Nothing In This World Can Stop Me Worryin’ Bout That Girl' (The Kinks) [Rushmore]
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – 'Margaret Yang’s Theme' (Mark Mothersbaugh) [Rushmore]
Tea Cozies – 'Here Comes My Baby' (Cat Stevens) [Rushmore]
Tele Novella – 'Stephanie Says' (The Velvet Underground) [The Royal Tenenbaums]
Telekinesis – 'This Time Tomorrow' (The Kinks) [The Darjeeling Limited]
The Ghost in You – 'Oh Yoko!' (John Lennon) [Rushmore]
Tomten – '30 Century Man' (Scott Walker) [The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou]
Trespassers William – 'Fairest of the Seasons' (Nico) [The Royal Tenenbaums]
William Fitzsimmons – 'The Wind' (Cat Stevens) [Rushmore]
A new Wes Anderson tribute album is set for release next year.
I Saved Latin! is a two-CD collection of songs taken from director Anderson’s films, including tracks by bands such as The Rolling Stones, John Lennon, David Bowie and The Velvet Underground. Artists contributing covers include Black Francis and Kristin Hersh.
All of the songs included on the album are taken from the soundtracks to Anderson’s films: The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr Fox and Bottle Rocket.
Last week, Anderson released a new short film, Castello Cavalcanti. You can watch it here.
SPONSORED BY LG
LG have recently debuted their latest nano projector, care of a video campaign that sees the device used to engage an unassuming audience by using the city as a backdrop. The LED powered device boasts an estimated lifespan of 30,000 hours and connectivity options including HDMI, USB...
SPONSORED BY LG
LG have recently debuted their latest nano projector, care of a video campaign that sees the device used to engage an unassuming audience by using the city as a backdrop. The LED powered device boasts an estimated lifespan of 30,000 hours and connectivity options including HDMI, USB 2.0 and WiDi.
According to Hyoung-Sei Park, head of the IT Business Division at LG Electronics, the device’s key offering is its transportability: “Compact and extremely portable, the MiniBeam gives users the freedom to enjoy large-format videos and photos anywhere they go.” Designed with spontaneously sharing content in mind, the modern-vintage styled Minibeam allows users to quickly project multiple forms of content from movies and photographs to presentations and spreadsheets.
See what the Minibeam can do in the following video:
PJ Harvey has been named as one of the five guest editors who will take over Radio 4's Today programme during the festive period.
The other guest editors will be: Sir Tim Berners Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium; Eliza Manningham Buller, former Director General of MI5; broadcaster Mic...
PJ Harvey has been named as one of the five guest editors who will take over Radio 4’s Today programme during the festive period.
The other guest editors will be: Sir Tim Berners Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium; Eliza Manningham Buller, former Director General of MI5; broadcaster Michael Palin; and Antony Jenkins, Group Chief Executive of Barclays.
The five guest editors’ programmes will air on Today between Thursday 26 and Tuesday 31 December. The guest editors take responsibility for around half of the programme’s output.
According to a BBC Radio 4 press release, Harvey’s programme “will showcase some of her many influences, political, poetical and musical.”
Morrissey has written a 2,000 treatise, which has appeared on his quasi-official fan site, True To You.
The post included his criticisms of cruelty to animals and the royal family. Titled The World Won't Listen, the post [dated November 18], is critical of "the depressive psychosis of modern Britai...
Morrissey has written a 2,000 treatise, which has appeared on his quasi-official fan site, True To You.
The post included his criticisms of cruelty to animals and the royal family. Titled The World Won’t Listen, the post [dated November 18], is critical of “the depressive psychosis of modern Britain, which has become a most violent and melancholic country, with no space for measured debate.”
“The days of Prime Ministers have gone, and it’s time for a form of change that is far more meaningful than simply switching blue to red,” he continued. “The print media will only support people who do not matter and who are incapable of instigating thought – David ‘rent-a-smile’ Beckham; his wife – famous for having nothing to do; the dum dum dummies of the Katie Price set; the overweight Jamie ‘Orrible, who tells us all how to eat correctly.”
The singer went on to conclude: “At what point did the did-United kingdom became a cabbagehead nation? Where is the rich intellect of debate? Where is our Maya Angelou, our James Baldwin, our Allen Ginsberg, our Anthony Burgess, our political and social reformers? At what point did the shatterbrained scatterbrains take over – with all leading British politicians suddenly looking like extras from Brideshead Revisited?
“Although it is clear to assess the Addams Family of SW1X as the utterly useless and embarrassing ambassadors of a sinking England, how can we effect change without being tear-gassed? In the absence of democracy, there is no way.”
Pixies have revealed the video for "What Goes Boom", the latest track from their EP-1 release to be given a music video.
The video, which you can see below, features guitarist Joey Santiago and is set in the desert. It follows videos the band have made for the tracks "Indie Cindy" and "Andro Queen"...
Pixies have revealed the video for “What Goes Boom“, the latest track from their EP-1 release to be given a music video.
The video, which you can see below, features guitarist Joey Santiago and is set in the desert. It follows videos the band have made for the tracks “Indie Cindy” and “Andro Queen”, which also feature on EP-1, released earlier this year.
Speaking to NPR about the video, the directors Jonathan Furmanski and Matthew Galkin stated: “Our original vision for the ‘What Goes Boom’ video was to create an homage to a central, dramatic scene in Star Wars. But, after that idea proved a bit too costly to produce, we decided the next best thing was to blow up Joey Santiago in the desert – the compromises we make for our art.”
Meanwhile, Black Francis has opened up about the “awkward moment” when bassist Kim Deal quit the band. The band parted ways with Deal earlier this year and then replaced her with Kim Shattuck, who has previously played with The Muffs and The Pandoras. In a new interview Francis revealed that Deal had informed the other members of the group while they had been recording new material in Wales.
The band are set to play UK and Irish shows this November, with scheduled dates at Manchester Apollo on November 21, Glasgow’s Barrowland on November 22 and London’s Hammersmith Apollo on November 24 and 25.
Moving swiftly through another craven plug for our Neil Young Ultimate Music Guide, a mostly decent list this week, with a few strong new entries from Rosanne Cash, Africa Express, Matt Baldwin, and Thee Oh Sees, plus a welcome expanded reissue from Hiss Golden Messenger.
Before I go, I should also play the marketing zealot again and flag up our end of year issue, which goes on sale November 28. Not giving the entire game away just yet, but it comes with a free supplement featuring all our charts of 2013; plus the interview with Kevin Shields, based on the questions you submitted, actually happened, and is in there, too. Be assured, we were as surprised as you are…
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey
1 The Necks – Open (ReR/Northern Spy)
2 Various Artists – Pop Ambient 2014 (Kompakt)
3 Rosanne Cash – The River & The Thread (Decca)
4 Lou Reed – Hudson River Wind Meditations (Sounds True)
5 Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Wig Out At Jagbags (Domino)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYC5JASqWnI
6 Africa Express Presents – Maison Des Jeunes (Transgressive)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOValSt7YOY
7 Rag Lore – Sabah el Mitragyna Reveries (Dying For Bad Music)
8 Hiss Golden Messenger – Bad Debt (Paradise Of Bachelors)
9 Neil Young – Live At The Cellar Door 1970 (Reprise)
Read my review of Live At The Cellar Door here
10 Tinariwen – Emmaar (Anti-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PduOJidnB_M
11 Matt Baldwin – Imaginary Psychology (Spiritual Pajamas)
12 Fuzz – Live In San Francisco (Castle Face)
13 Thee Oh Sees – Singles Volume 3 (Castle Face)
14 Pontiak – Innocence (Thrill Jockey)
15 Howard Ivans – Red Face Boy (Version: Featuring Natalie Prass) (Spacebomb)
16 James Vincent McMorrow – Post Tropical (Believe)
17 Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – Give The People What They Want (Daptone)
18 Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra – Austerity Blues (Constellation)
19 Penguin Café – The Red Book (Editions Penguin Café)
Moving swiftly through another craven plug for our Neil Young Ultimate Music Guide, a mostly decent list this week, with a few strong new entries from Rosanne Cash, Africa Express, Matt Baldwin, and Thee Oh Sees, plus a welcome expanded reissue from Hiss Golden Messenger.
Before I go, I should also play the marketing zealot again and flag up our end of year issue, which goes on sale November 28. Not giving the entire game away just yet, but it comes with a free supplement featuring all our charts of 2013; plus the interview with Kevin Shields, based on the questions you submitted, actually happened, and is in there, too. Be assured, we were as surprised as you are…
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey
1 The Necks – Open (ReR/Northern Spy)
2 Various Artists – Pop Ambient 2014 (Kompakt)
3 Rosanne Cash – The River & The Thread (Decca)
4 Lou Reed – Hudson River Wind Meditations (Sounds True)
5 Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Wig Out At Jagbags (Domino)
6 Africa Express Presents – Maison Des Jeunes (Transgressive)
7 Rag Lore – Sabah el Mitragyna Reveries (Dying For Bad Music)
8 Hiss Golden Messenger – Bad Debt (Paradise Of Bachelors)
9 Neil Young – Live At The Cellar Door 1970 (Reprise)
The Rolling Stones have announced their first live date of 2014.
According to a report in the Herald Sun, the Stones will play the Adelaide Oval on March 22, 2014.
The show will come at the tail-end of the city's festival season, which includes the Fringe and Adelaide festivals, as well as the Cli...
The Rolling Stones have announced their first live date of 2014.
According to a report in the Herald Sun, the Stones will play the Adelaide Oval on March 22, 2014.
The show will come at the tail-end of the city’s festival season, which includes the Fringe and Adelaide festivals, as well as the Clipsal 500 V8 supercar race.
It will be the Rolling Stones first show in the city since 1995.
Bob Dylan has released a video for "Like A Rolling Stone".
The video for the 1965 track went live on Dylan's website at 4pm GMT today [Tuesday, November 19].
Created by Israeli artist and director Vania Heymann - who has also made commercials for Pepsi and American Express - the video allows viewe...
Bob Dylan has released a video for “Like A Rolling Stone“.
The video for the 1965 track went live on Dylan’s website at 4pm GMT today [Tuesday, November 19].
Created by Israeli artist and director Vania Heymann – who has also made commercials for Pepsi and American Express – the video allows viewers to use their keyboards or cursors to flip through 16 channels that mimic TV formats such as games shows, shopping networks and reality series. People on each channel, no matter what TV trope they represent, are seen lip-syncing the lyrics.
You are, I guess, never finished with Neil Young. A few weeks ago, as we were wrapping up an Uncut Ultimate Music Guide special dedicated to him, the news came through that Young was moving on again. Just as we thought we’d put together a comprehensive survey of all his recorded work, another Archives Performance Series release crept onto the schedules.
Not to be a ungrateful grouch about this, but “Volume 02.5: Live At The Cellar Door” didn’t immediately look the most tantalising episode of Young’s ongoing retrospective project. Was it another of his digressive ruses to prolong the wait for Volume 2 of the Archives series proper (the one including, the more optimistic among us believe, all those unreleased albums from the mid-‘70s)? Why another solo set from the “After The Goldrush”/“Harvest” period – one recorded in Washington DC, in fact, only a month or two before the “Live At Massey Hall” set – instead of, say, the “Toast” Crazy Horse album that fell on and off the schedules a few years back?
Young’s thinking behind digging out “Live At The Cellar Door” is as oblique as ever (we’ll get round to some speculation later). But it transpires that the 13-track set, pasted together from six shows on the cusp of November and December 1970, is a valuable addition to the Young motherlode. Solo versions of “Down By The River”, “Don’t Let It Bring You Down”, “Bad Fog Of Loneliness” and so on are as good as you might expect, but the real gold here comes in the fact that six of the 13 tracks are solo piano pieces: “After The Gold Rush”, “Expecting To Fly”, “Birds”, “See The Sky About To Rain”, “Cinnamon Girl” and “Flying On The Ground Is Wrong”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82gvrh6GXuE
“I’ve been playing piano seriously for about a year,” he says before “Flying On The Ground Is Wrong”, “and I had it put in my contract that I would only play on a nine foot Steinway grand piano, just for a little eccentricity.” As he’s talking, Young is messing about with the piano strings, an apparently aimless fidgeting that, as he starts talking about getting high, reveals itself to be a kind of theatrically disorienting scene-setting.
Abruptly, the discordance stops and a beautiful version of “Flying On The Ground Is Wrong” emerges, with all its elegiac power intact. One of the great pleasures of “Live At The Cellar Door” is the way it illustrates how malleable Young’s songs can be. “Cinnamon Girl”, for instance, is hardly diminished by that lunging riff being replaced by a quasi-baroque flurry of notes. Listen out, especially, for a powerful moment when Young sings “Loves to dance/Loves to…” and allows himself to be overwhelmed as his playing suddenly shifts from tenderness to a new bluesy intensity. “That’s the first time I ever did that one on the piano,” he notes at the death, and I’m not sure he’s done it again many times since.
Best of all is the version of “Expecting To Fly”. The take on “Sugar Mountain - Live at Canterbury House 1968” shows how Young’s ornate studio confection could be potently reconfigured in a solo context. This piano study, though, is even better; crashing, plangent notes juxtaposed, with disingenuous artlessness, up against the fragility of his voice. Here, too, there’s an intimation of what is to come next, in 1971, as “Expecting To Fly”’s evolves to contain hints of “A Man Needs A Maid”. As is the case so often, it shows Young working over his past to find a lead to pursue into the future.
So, is that how we should understand the arrival of “Live At The Cellar Door” at this point in Young’s career? Will the Carnegie Hall shows in January, presumably solo, put the spotlight on the piano over the guitar? Can Young’s latest strategy to stretch himself be a solo piano album, as Crazy Horse are parked once more and his other band options appear limited following the death of Ben Keith? Or is this yet another bizarre, compelling false lead in a career that’s been full of such capricious swerves and dummies from its very beginning?
This, latter, picture is one that comes through strikingly in the aforementioned Neil Young Ultimate Music Guide, which goes on sale towards the end of this week. At 68, Young remains more restless, unpredictable and hyper-productive than any other artist of a comparable age and reputation. Since 2000, The Rolling Stones have released one new album, while Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney have managed five each. Bruce Springsteen has produced six; Tom Waits, four; Leonard Cohen and David Bowie three apiece. In that time, Young has come up with an autobiography, seven personally-curated archive releases, five films, an environmentally-friendly car and a new audio format, plus the small matter of ten new albums. It is an eccentric, if not always magnanimously received, body of work that tells the tale of an artist driven to spontaneous creation, whim, rough-hewn experiments and rapid emotional responses that pay little heed to the expectations of his paymasters and, sometimes, his fans.
These are themes that run through the 148 pages of our latest Ultimate Music Guide: through interviews from the NME, Melody Maker and Uncut archives which reveal that, among many things, Young has been consistent in his contrary single-mindedness. The new reviews of every one of his albums provide a similarly weird and gripping narrative, finding significant echoes and hidden treasures on even his most misunderstood and neglected ‘80s records.
“You can’t worry about what people think. I never do. I never did, really,” Young told Uncut in 2012. Our Ultimate Music Guide is proof: one of rock’s greatest runs, anatomised and celebrated in all its weird, ragged glory…
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey
This edition of the Ultimate Music Guide is in shops now, but you can also order it online here.
The digital edition available to download on digital newsstands including Apple, Zinio and Google Play from Friday, November 29.
You are, I guess, never finished with Neil Young. A few weeks ago, as we were wrapping up an Uncut Ultimate Music Guide special dedicated to him, the news came through that Young was moving on again. Just as we thought we’d put together a comprehensive survey of all his recorded work, another Archives Performance Series release crept onto the schedules.
Not to be a ungrateful grouch about this, but “Volume 02.5: Live At The Cellar Door” didn’t immediately look the most tantalising episode of Young’s ongoing retrospective project. Was it another of his digressive ruses to prolong the wait for Volume 2 of the Archives series proper (the one including, the more optimistic among us believe, all those unreleased albums from the mid-‘70s)? Why another solo set from the “After The Goldrush”/“Harvest” period – one recorded in Washington DC, in fact, only a month or two before the “Live At Massey Hall” set – instead of, say, the “Toast” Crazy Horse album that fell on and off the schedules a few years back?
Young’s thinking behind digging out “Live At The Cellar Door” is as oblique as ever (we’ll get round to some speculation later). But it transpires that the 13-track set, pasted together from six shows on the cusp of November and December 1970, is a valuable addition to the Young motherlode. Solo versions of “Down By The River”, “Don’t Let It Bring You Down”, “Bad Fog Of Loneliness” and so on are as good as you might expect, but the real gold here comes in the fact that six of the 13 tracks are solo piano pieces: “After The Gold Rush”, “Expecting To Fly”, “Birds”, “See The Sky About To Rain”, “Cinnamon Girl” and “Flying On The Ground Is Wrong”.
“I’ve been playing piano seriously for about a year,” he says before “Flying On The Ground Is Wrong”, “and I had it put in my contract that I would only play on a nine foot Steinway grand piano, just for a little eccentricity.” As he’s talking, Young is messing about with the piano strings, an apparently aimless fidgeting that, as he starts talking about getting high, reveals itself to be a kind of theatrically disorienting scene-setting.
Abruptly, the discordance stops and a beautiful version of “Flying On The Ground Is Wrong” emerges, with all its elegiac power intact. One of the great pleasures of “Live At The Cellar Door” is the way it illustrates how malleable Young’s songs can be. “Cinnamon Girl”, for instance, is hardly diminished by that lunging riff being replaced by a quasi-baroque flurry of notes. Listen out, especially, for a powerful moment when Young sings “Loves to dance/Loves to…” and allows himself to be overwhelmed as his playing suddenly shifts from tenderness to a new bluesy intensity. “That’s the first time I ever did that one on the piano,” he notes at the death, and I’m not sure he’s done it again many times since.
Best of all is the version of “Expecting To Fly”. The take on “Sugar Mountain – Live at Canterbury House 1968” shows how Young’s ornate studio confection could be potently reconfigured in a solo context. This piano study, though, is even better; crashing, plangent notes juxtaposed, with disingenuous artlessness, up against the fragility of his voice. Here, too, there’s an intimation of what is to come next, in 1971, as “Expecting To Fly”’s evolves to contain hints of “A Man Needs A Maid”. As is the case so often, it shows Young working over his past to find a lead to pursue into the future.
So, is that how we should understand the arrival of “Live At The Cellar Door” at this point in Young’s career? Will the Carnegie Hall shows in January, presumably solo, put the spotlight on the piano over the guitar? Can Young’s latest strategy to stretch himself be a solo piano album, as Crazy Horse are parked once more and his other band options appear limited following the death of Ben Keith? Or is this yet another bizarre, compelling false lead in a career that’s been full of such capricious swerves and dummies from its very beginning?
This, latter, picture is one that comes through strikingly in the aforementioned Neil Young Ultimate Music Guide, which goes on sale towards the end of this week. At 68, Young remains more restless, unpredictable and hyper-productive than any other artist of a comparable age and reputation. Since 2000, The Rolling Stones have released one new album, while Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney have managed five each. Bruce Springsteen has produced six; Tom Waits, four; Leonard Cohen and David Bowie three apiece. In that time, Young has come up with an autobiography, seven personally-curated archive releases, five films, an environmentally-friendly car and a new audio format, plus the small matter of ten new albums. It is an eccentric, if not always magnanimously received, body of work that tells the tale of an artist driven to spontaneous creation, whim, rough-hewn experiments and rapid emotional responses that pay little heed to the expectations of his paymasters and, sometimes, his fans.
These are themes that run through the 148 pages of our latest Ultimate Music Guide: through interviews from the NME, Melody Maker and Uncut archives which reveal that, among many things, Young has been consistent in his contrary single-mindedness. The new reviews of every one of his albums provide a similarly weird and gripping narrative, finding significant echoes and hidden treasures on even his most misunderstood and neglected ‘80s records.
“You can’t worry about what people think. I never do. I never did, really,” Young told Uncut in 2012. Our Ultimate Music Guide is proof: one of rock’s greatest runs, anatomised and celebrated in all its weird, ragged glory…
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey
This edition of the Ultimate Music Guide is in shops now, but you can also order it online here.
The digital edition available to download on digital newsstands including Apple, Zinio and Google Play from Friday, November 29.
Bruce Springsteen has confirmed details of a new single, "High Hopes".
Reports circulated yesterday [November 18] that Springsteen was prepping "High Hopes", which reports claiming the single was due to be released today.
But a post on Springsteen's website confirms the release date as November 25...
Bruce Springsteen has confirmed details of a new single, “High Hopes”.
Reports circulated yesterday [November 18] that Springsteen was prepping “High Hopes“, which reports claiming the single was due to be released today.
But a post on Springsteen’s website confirms the release date as November 25.
The song was originally recorded by Los Angeles band The Havalinas; Springsteen included a version of it on the 1996 Blood Brothers EP. More recently, Springsteen had been playing the song with the E Street Band during their shows in Australia in March this year.
Meanwhile, Billboard have reported that a new Springsteen studio album might arrive as early as the New Year. The Billboard story claims “Sources tell Billboard that a larger release is on its way, and that a new Springsteen studio album could be out as early as January — a quick follow-up to 2012’s chart-topping Wrecking Ball.”
***** STORY UPDATED NOVEMBER 25 *****
The tracklisting and release date for Bruce Springsteen’s new studio album, High Hopes, have been confirmed. You can find them here.
Bob Dylan is to release the first official video for "Like A Rolling Stone", nearly 50 years after the song first came out.
The interactive video will launch on Dylan's website later today [November 19], to tie-in with the release of the new box set, The Complete Album Collection Volume 1.
Accordi...
Bob Dylan is to release the first official video for “Like A Rolling Stone“, nearly 50 years after the song first came out.
The interactive video will launch on Dylan’s website later today [November 19], to tie-in with the release of the new box set, The Complete Album Collection Volume 1.
According to Associated Press, the video will allow viewers to switch between 16 different story lines that mimic television channels. The actors and hosts on each of these channels lip-sync the lyrics to the song and viewers can move from one to another during the song seamlessly. There is a Dylan channel as well that features vintage footage.
You can read the full track list for The Complete Album Collection Volume 1 here.
Meanwhile, a new exhibition of iron works and original paintings by Dylan is running at London’s Halcyon Gallery until January 25, 2014.
Prince has shared a new track titled 'Da Bourgeoisie' on Twitter.
The singer posted a free download link to the song on his @3RDEYEGIRL account in the early hours of this morning (November 18). You can download and listen to the song by clicking here.
Prince has been releasing a slew of material o...
Prince has shared a new track titled ‘Da Bourgeoisie’ on Twitter.
The singer posted a free download link to the song on his @3RDEYEGIRL account in the early hours of this morning (November 18). You can download and listen to the song by clicking here.
Prince has been releasing a slew of material online in recent months via his 3rdEyeGirl website. Earlier this year, the singer and his new band embarked on a theatre tour of North America, with gigs in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Las Vegas, San Diego, Anaheim and Denver. They played two shows a night at most venues. Prince also made an appearance earlier this year on Janelle Monae‘s album The Electric Lady, duetting with the singer on the track “Givin Em What They Love”.
One-man garage auteur arrives at his natural home...
Detroit born and San Francisco based, Kelley Stoltz is a one man garage band intent on squeezing out all the goodness from a half century of pop and rock classicism. A dedicated home-recorder, Stoltz has been releasing fizzy, hugely enjoyable pop records for the best part of two decades, for the last ten years via Sub Pop. When that partnership dissolved after 2010’s To Dreamers, Stoltz hooked up to friend and fellow Detroiter Jack White’s Third Man label and has now made his best album to date.
To say that Double Exposure sounds more honed and expansive than previous releases is a matter of context and relativity. In reality, Stoltz has simply moved from a bedroom in his apartment to the garage of his new house. Little else has changed. He still plays almost all the music himself, records on an eight-track tape machine, and retains a natural inclination to honour the golden age of British beat music. Around a characteristic abundance of richly melodic twists and ear-catching hooks Double Exposure folds in elements of Nuggets-era garage rock, new wave, power pop, cosmic rock and, here perhaps more than ever, the relentless rhythmic pulse of krautrock.
Influences are merrily worn on both sleeves, but Stoltz’s sincerity married to an endearingly loose streak ensures his take on the past avoids the pitfalls of being faux-naif, or clever-clever, or too precisely reverential. “Marcy” – a desperately pretty acoustic ode to lost love, topped with sugar-coated strings – is worthy of McCartney at his most doe-eyed. “Still Feel” is not only propelled by a tight “Taxman” bass line, but also references that song’s skittering drum pattern and mazy burst of solo guitar. “Around Your Face” is soft focus west coast folk-pop with proggy accoutrements: a trippy flute interlude here, a phased Barrett-era Pink Floyd climax there.
The 60s is his benchmark, but Stoltz draws from more recent strains of British music. “Kim Chee Taco Man” is a glistening evocation of Echo & The Bunnymen, New Order and, more precisely, The Cure’s “Push”. The title track, a riot of fuzz bass rattling the herky-jerky structure of The Knack’s “My Sharona”, recalls Graham Coxon’s Q+A album in its meshing of eccentric post-punk British guitar pop and motorised European rhythm.
If the melodies tend to hit first, that beat isn’t far behind. It’s possible to identify a distinct rhythmic imprimatur stretching through Stoltz’s work right back to “Mt Fuji” from 2001’s Antique Glow, and on Double Exposure it’s more pronounced than ever, not least on “Are You My Love”, which has the relentless drive of the Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On”. The nine-minute “Inside My Head”, the album’s totemic track, stretches these parameters the furthest. Stoltz roots around in his psyche – “I’ve been living inside my head/ Making my little brain a bed” – as the fixed bassline and rhythm provide an anchor for a series of sonically inventive forays: a brief, ghostly approximation of the analogue synth riff from The Who’s “Baba O’Riley”, a late-Byrdsian cosmic-jangle, dubby atmospherics, splashes of tambourine and high, hooting backing vocals. This long, lovely journey of unhurried discovery culminates in a beautiful coda, the soft whine of feedback riding a glistening piano figure, bass throbbing below.
Lyrically, a sense of romantic upheaval circles these songs without ever threatening to drag them under. The otherwise breezy “Storms” has Stoltz telling a departed lover “I hope you’ll find your happy home”, but often the longing seems historic and not entirely unpleasant, located in some fondly recalled summer of the mind. On the Nilsson-ish “Down By The Sea” he remembers “the girl from a young man’s dream”, while the final song, “It’s Summertime Again”, is a similarly bittersweet recollection of hazy indolence and regret. Like much of the rest of this fine record, it sounds like a forgotten hit beamed in from some beatific version of the past.
Graeme Thomson
Q&A
How did the move to Third Man come about?
I signed to do three records with Sub Pop and it was the end of my time there. I could kind of sense that things were moving on, and the guys at Third Man are old friends. They said, ‘Hey, why don’t you play this stuff for Jack [White], and maybe he’ll want to put it out?’ They said yeah straight away. When someone calls you back within 24 hours and says they want to do it, then it’s pretty encouraging.
You’re on a new label, but the sound and overall approach seems familiar.
It’s part of a continuum. I used the same methods, I just have a few better microphones – and I moved out of my old apartment where I made the last three records and moved into my own house a couple blocks away and renovated the garage. It’s a little different, a dedicated recording place, which gives me more freedom and a helluva lot more space.
The rhythm element is really strong on this record.
Oh, I hope so. If I could mix Pete De Freitas from the Bunnymen, the Neu! beat and Mick Fleetwood, I’d be a happy man! That’s what I’m shooting for all the time.
INTERVIEW: GRAEME THOMSON
One-man garage auteur arrives at his natural home…
Detroit born and San Francisco based, Kelley Stoltz is a one man garage band intent on squeezing out all the goodness from a half century of pop and rock classicism. A dedicated home-recorder, Stoltz has been releasing fizzy, hugely enjoyable pop records for the best part of two decades, for the last ten years via Sub Pop. When that partnership dissolved after 2010’s To Dreamers, Stoltz hooked up to friend and fellow Detroiter Jack White’s Third Man label and has now made his best album to date.
To say that Double Exposure sounds more honed and expansive than previous releases is a matter of context and relativity. In reality, Stoltz has simply moved from a bedroom in his apartment to the garage of his new house. Little else has changed. He still plays almost all the music himself, records on an eight-track tape machine, and retains a natural inclination to honour the golden age of British beat music. Around a characteristic abundance of richly melodic twists and ear-catching hooks Double Exposure folds in elements of Nuggets-era garage rock, new wave, power pop, cosmic rock and, here perhaps more than ever, the relentless rhythmic pulse of krautrock.
Influences are merrily worn on both sleeves, but Stoltz’s sincerity married to an endearingly loose streak ensures his take on the past avoids the pitfalls of being faux-naif, or clever-clever, or too precisely reverential. “Marcy” – a desperately pretty acoustic ode to lost love, topped with sugar-coated strings – is worthy of McCartney at his most doe-eyed. “Still Feel” is not only propelled by a tight “Taxman” bass line, but also references that song’s skittering drum pattern and mazy burst of solo guitar. “Around Your Face” is soft focus west coast folk-pop with proggy accoutrements: a trippy flute interlude here, a phased Barrett-era Pink Floyd climax there.
The 60s is his benchmark, but Stoltz draws from more recent strains of British music. “Kim Chee Taco Man” is a glistening evocation of Echo & The Bunnymen, New Order and, more precisely, The Cure’s “Push”. The title track, a riot of fuzz bass rattling the herky-jerky structure of The Knack’s “My Sharona”, recalls Graham Coxon’s Q+A album in its meshing of eccentric post-punk British guitar pop and motorised European rhythm.
If the melodies tend to hit first, that beat isn’t far behind. It’s possible to identify a distinct rhythmic imprimatur stretching through Stoltz’s work right back to “Mt Fuji” from 2001’s Antique Glow, and on Double Exposure it’s more pronounced than ever, not least on “Are You My Love”, which has the relentless drive of the Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On”. The nine-minute “Inside My Head”, the album’s totemic track, stretches these parameters the furthest. Stoltz roots around in his psyche – “I’ve been living inside my head/ Making my little brain a bed” – as the fixed bassline and rhythm provide an anchor for a series of sonically inventive forays: a brief, ghostly approximation of the analogue synth riff from The Who’s “Baba O’Riley”, a late-Byrdsian cosmic-jangle, dubby atmospherics, splashes of tambourine and high, hooting backing vocals. This long, lovely journey of unhurried discovery culminates in a beautiful coda, the soft whine of feedback riding a glistening piano figure, bass throbbing below.
Lyrically, a sense of romantic upheaval circles these songs without ever threatening to drag them under. The otherwise breezy “Storms” has Stoltz telling a departed lover “I hope you’ll find your happy home”, but often the longing seems historic and not entirely unpleasant, located in some fondly recalled summer of the mind. On the Nilsson-ish “Down By The Sea” he remembers “the girl from a young man’s dream”, while the final song, “It’s Summertime Again”, is a similarly bittersweet recollection of hazy indolence and regret. Like much of the rest of this fine record, it sounds like a forgotten hit beamed in from some beatific version of the past.
Graeme Thomson
Q&A
How did the move to Third Man come about?
I signed to do three records with Sub Pop and it was the end of my time there. I could kind of sense that things were moving on, and the guys at Third Man are old friends. They said, ‘Hey, why don’t you play this stuff for Jack [White], and maybe he’ll want to put it out?’ They said yeah straight away. When someone calls you back within 24 hours and says they want to do it, then it’s pretty encouraging.
You’re on a new label, but the sound and overall approach seems familiar.
It’s part of a continuum. I used the same methods, I just have a few better microphones – and I moved out of my old apartment where I made the last three records and moved into my own house a couple blocks away and renovated the garage. It’s a little different, a dedicated recording place, which gives me more freedom and a helluva lot more space.
The rhythm element is really strong on this record.
Oh, I hope so. If I could mix Pete De Freitas from the Bunnymen, the Neu! beat and Mick Fleetwood, I’d be a happy man! That’s what I’m shooting for all the time.
The Small Faces have confirmed details for their Here Comes The Nice The Immediate Years Boxset 1967-1969 deluxe collector's box set.
The set contains 75 songs spread over 4 CDs remastered from original analogue master tapes and studio multitracks.
Rare and previously unreleased material, unheard...
The Small Faces have confirmed details for their Here Comes The Nice The Immediate Years Boxset 1967-1969 deluxe collector’s box set.
The set contains 75 songs spread over 4 CDs remastered from original analogue master tapes and studio multitracks.
Rare and previously unreleased material, unheard recording sessions from Olympic, IBC & Trident Studios, outtakes, early mixes, alternate versions and live material across 3CDs.
The set, which is due to be released in February 2014, has been curated and supervised by Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan. It will contain a 72-page handbound coffee table book, with a forward by Pete Townshend and an introduction by Jones and McLagen and over 90 classic, rare and previously unpublished photos alongside newly written contributions from Robert Plant, Paul Weller, David Bowie, Nick Mason, Peter Frampton, Chris Robinson, Glen Matlock, Chad Smith and Paul Stanley.
The set also contains a 64-page lyric booklet, two posters, replica press kit for Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, postcards and a fine art print.
It will also include three replica coloured 7-inch EPs of the rarest Small Faces vinyl originally released in 1967: Small Faces album sampler – excerpts from the LP, “Here Come The Nice” 4-song French EP in picture sleeve and “Itchycoo Park” 4-song French EP in picture sleeve. There will also be a replica studio acetate pressing for Andrew Loog-Oldham of “Mystery…”
The full tracklisting for Here Come The Nice is:
CD1 – Small Faces Singles Worldwide As, Bs and EPs
1 Here Come The Nice (mono) 2:55
2 Talk To You (mono) 2:05
3 (Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me (mono) 2:15
4 Something I Want To Tell You (mono) 2:07
5 Get Yourself Together (mono) 2:16
6 Become Like You (mono) 1:56
7 Green Circles (mono) 2:32
8 Eddie’s Dreaming (b-side edit) (mono) 2:41
9 Itchycoo Park (mono) 2:44
10 I’m Only Dreaming (mono) 2:22
11 Tin Soldier (mono) 3:19
12 I Feel Much Better (mono) 3:55
13 Lazy Sunday (mono) 3:02
14 Rollin’ Over (Part II of Happiness Stan) (mono) 2:12
15 Mad John (single version) (mono) 2:07
16 The Journey (single version) (mono) 2:51
17 The Universal (mono) 2:42
18 Donkey Rides, A Penny A Glass (mono) 2:47
19 Afterglow Of Your Love (single version) (mono) 3:22
20 Wham Bam Thank You Mam (mono) 3:18
Original Immediate single versions.
Taken from original mono master tapes.
CD2 – Small Faces In The Studio, Olympic. IBC and Trident Sessions part one
1 Shades Of Green (mono) 0:38
2 Green Circles (take 1) (mono) 1:04
3 Green Circles (take 1 alt mix 1) (mono) 2:45
4 Anything (tracking session) (stereo) 3:46
5 Anything (backing track) (stereo) 3:06
6 Show Me The Way (stripped down mix) (stereo) 2:09
7 Wit Art Yer (tracking session) (mono) 2:50
8 Wit Art Yer (backing track) (stereo) 2:27
9 I Can’t Make It (alt mix) (stereo) 2:26
10 Doolally (tracking session) (mono) 4:06
11 What’s It Called? (overdub session) (mono) 0:36
12 Call It Something Nice (take 9) (stereo) 2:04
13 Wide Eyed Girl (take 2) (stereo) 1:43
14 Wide Eyed Girl On The Wall (alt mix) (stereo) 3:28
15 Donkey Rides, A Penny A Glass (stripped down mix) (stereo) 3:21
16 Red Balloon With A Blue Surprise (take 5) (stereo) 0:46
Taken from original studio multitrack and session master tapes
CD3 – Small Faces In The Studio, Olympic, IBC and Trident Sessions part two
1 Wham Bam Thank You Mam (alt mix) (stereo) 3:22
2 I Can’t Make It (stripped down mix) (stereo) 2:33
3 This Feeling Of Spring (take 1) (stereo) 1:43
4 All Our Yesterdays (backing track) (mono) 2:09
5 Talk To You (alt mix) (stereo) 2:22
6 Mind The Doors Please (mono) 5:01
7 Things Are Going To Get Better (stripped down mix) (stereo) 2:43
8 Mad John (tracking session) (stereo) 3:58
9 A Collibosher (take 4) (stereo) 3:31
10 Lazy Sunday Afternoon (early mix) (mono) 3:00
11 Jack (backing track) (stereo) 3:35
12 Fred (backing track) (stereo) 3:06
13 Red Balloon (stripped down mix) (stereo) 1:33
14 Kolomodelomo (take 1) (stereo) 2:45
15 Donkey Rides, A Penny A Glass (alt mix) (stereo) 3:34
16 Jenny’s Song (take 2) (stereo) 4:04
All tracks previously unreleased versions.
Taken from original studio multitrack and session master tapes
CD4 – Alternate Small Faces Out-Takes and In Concert
1 Itchycoo Park (take 1 stereo mix) (stereo) 2:50
2 Here Come The Nice (take 1 stereo mix) (stereo) 3:01
3 I’m Only Dreaming (take 1 stereo mix) (stereo) 2:23
4 Don’t Burst My Bubble (mono) 2:24
5 I Feel Much Better (stereo) 3:56
6 Green Circles (take 1 Italian version) (mono) 2:44*
7 Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow (alt mix) (stereo) 1:50*
8 Piccanniny (alt mix) (stereo) 3:02
9 Get Yourself Together (alt mix) (stereo) 2:18*
10 Eddie’s Dreaming (take 2 alt mix) (stereo) 2:44*
11 (Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me (take 2 alt mix) (stereo) 2:08*
12 Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire (US alt mix) (mono) 2:00*
13 Afterglow Of Your Love (alt single version) (mono) 3:36*
14 (If You Think You’re) Groovy (mono) 2:55
(The Lot – P.P. Arnold & Small Faces)
15 Me You And Us Too (mono) 3:32
16 The Universal (take 1 stereo mix) (stereo) 2:39
17 Rollin’ Over (live) (stereo) 2:29
18 If I Were A Carpenter (live) (stereo) 2:29
19 Every Little Bit Hurts (live) (stereo) 6:12
20 All Or Nothing (live) (stereo) 4:05
21 Tin Soldier (live) (stereo) 3:19
All tracks rare or * previously unreleased versions.
Taken from original studio and session master tapes.
Live tracks recorded at Newcastle City Hall 18 November 1968.
Taken from Pye Studios master tape, pitch and speed corrected.
Small Faces Box Set Vinyl/
Small Faces Album Sampler
One Sided Single Promo
Excerpts from the Small Faces L.P. (mono)
The original 7-inch vinyl was issued as a promotional single for the debut Immediate album. Featuring excepts from ‘Get Yourself Together’, ‘Green Circles’, ‘Talk To You’, ‘All Our Yesterdays’, ‘Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire’ with DJ Tommy Vance announcements, the original vinyl has gone on to become the rarest Small Faces single amongst collectors.
Here Come The Nice French EP
This is the same performance as the regular ‘Here Come The Nice’ mixed to mono but similar to other releases at the time, was subjected to varispeed so plays slightly faster.
Here Come The Nice (mono)
Talk To You (mono)
Become Like You (mono)
Get Yourself Together (mono)
Itchycoo Park French EP
Itchycoo Park (mono)
I’m Only Dream (mono)
Green Circles (mono)
Eddie’s Dreaming (mono)
‘Mystery…’
Replica Acetate
As this was intended to be a single, a handful of acetates were produced for the band and Andrew Loog Oldham to check the mix. For whatever reason, the single never happened and Ronnie went back into Olympic to record a new vocal during April 1967 for the newly entitled ‘Something I Want To Tell You’. This is a replica of the acetate delivered to Andrew Loog Oldham back in 1967.
It is rumoured that Bruce Springsteen will release a new song this week.
Consequence Of Sound is reporting that Springsteen could be set to put out a new track called 'High Hopes' tomorrow (November 19), after artwork and release information was leaked by Danish magazine Wimp.
Consequence Of Sound points out that 'High Hopes' isn't a totally new song and that a version of the track – originally released in 1990 by The Havalinas – features on Springsteen's 1996 EP 'Blood Brothers'. However, they go on to state that Springsteen has recently reworked older material for newer releases, such as 'Land of Hope And Dreams' for his last album, 2012's Wrecking Ball. It is possible that the new version was recorded over the summer during Springsteen's tour dates in Australia, when he revealed that he had visited a studio and "did a couple of things that I wanted to put down".
It was recently reported that a US university is offering a theology class on Bruce Springsteen. Rutgers University in New Jersey is offering students the chance to take a semester-long class looking at the biblical references in The Boss' lyrics – from his 1973 debut Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ to his 2012 album Wrecking Ball.
As Time magazine pointed out, Rutgers is not the first US university to bring The Boss into the realms of academia. Princeton University has a sociology course on Bruce Springsteen's America, while Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey has hosted symposiums on the rock star’s legacy. Meanwhile, the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York offered a history course on the musician.
It is rumoured that Bruce Springsteen will release a new song this week.
Consequence Of Sound is reporting that Springsteen could be set to put out a new track called ‘High Hopes’ tomorrow (November 19), after artwork and release information was leaked by Danish magazine Wimp.
Consequence Of Sound points out that ‘High Hopes’ isn’t a totally new song and that a version of the track – originally released in 1990 by The Havalinas – features on Springsteen’s 1996 EP ‘Blood Brothers’. However, they go on to state that Springsteen has recently reworked older material for newer releases, such as ‘Land of Hope And Dreams’ for his last album, 2012’s Wrecking Ball. It is possible that the new version was recorded over the summer during Springsteen’s tour dates in Australia, when he revealed that he had visited a studio and “did a couple of things that I wanted to put down”.
It was recently reported that a US university is offering a theology class on Bruce Springsteen. Rutgers University in New Jersey is offering students the chance to take a semester-long class looking at the biblical references in The Boss’ lyrics – from his 1973 debut Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ to his 2012 album Wrecking Ball.
As Time magazine pointed out, Rutgers is not the first US university to bring The Boss into the realms of academia. Princeton University has a sociology course on Bruce Springsteen’s America, while Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey has hosted symposiums on the rock star’s legacy. Meanwhile, the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York offered a history course on the musician.
Johnny Marr was joined onstage by his former bandmate in The Smiths, Andy Rourke, onstage in New York on Saturday night (November 16).
Bass player Rourke accompanied Marr on two Smiths songs, 'How Soon Is Now?' and 'Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want', during Marr's sold-out headline sho...
Johnny Marr was joined onstage by his former bandmate in The Smiths, Andy Rourke, onstage in New York on Saturday night (November 16).
Bass player Rourke accompanied Marr on two Smiths songs, ‘How Soon Is Now?’ and ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’, during Marr’s sold-out headline show at Webster Hall in Manhattan, according to Brooklyn Vegan’s Instagram feed.
Rourke also played with Johnny Marr in New York back in May, again playing The Smiths’ ‘How Soon Is Now?’ at a show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn.
Johnny Marr recently revealed that he is planning on releasing an autobiography in the “next couple of years”. The guitarist’s former bandmate Morrissey published his autobiography earlier this year and the book has subsequently gone on to be a huge success. The Penguin published memoir sold just under 35,000 copies in its first week of sale and has been tipped to become a Christmas bestseller according to high-street retailer Waterstones.
In an interview with Brooklyn Vegan, Marr was asked if he had any plans to release his own autobiography and the guitarist responded: “There is gonna be one, yeah. I’ve had so many offers and so many people advising me that my story is worth it, but I understand it’s something that I have to do.”
He went onto add: “I’ll do it in the next couple of years. I’m into from the stance that I want it to be so thorough that I don’t make a record or tour whilst I was doing it. It is gonna happen, and I’ve already made an agreement with a publisher for it, so I will get it done.”
Folk-rock grande dame, still damned grand...
When Martin Scorsese heard that Linda Thompson was singing a version of “Paddy’s Lamentation”, as heard in his Gangs Of New York, he apparently asked, “Is she still alive?” It was a reaction that pleased her immensely. “Martin Scorsese thinking I’m dead,” she writes in the sleevenotes to her fourth solo album, “is as famous as I’m ever going to get.”
Contrary to word on the street in Tinseltown, the 66-year-old remains very much of this earth, though a knack for dealing in property and antique jewellery drew her attention away from music in the decades since her divorce from Richard Thompson in the wake of 1982’s Shoot Out The Lights. Her occasional works remain rock solid and sparkly, though, with her voice - Nico-harpy stark and Anne Briggs elemental – as fragile and fearsome as ever.
Severely limited by dysphonia – the same vocal condition that ended Shirley Collins’ singing career – Thompson might have called it a day after her ill-pitched 1985 solo debut One Clear Moment, had it not been for her children; her son Teddy Thompson engineered her 2002 return with Fashionably Late, while family friend Rufus Wainwright supplied material for the similarly low-key Versatile Heart five years later.
Kin and kindred spirits continue to play a huge role on Won’t Be Long Now – trad: arr star guests include Martin and Eliza Carthy, John Kirkpatrick and Gerry Conway, while a campfire stomp through Anna McGarrigle’s “As Fast As My Feet” features three generations of Thompsons: Linda, her three children, and grandson Zak Hobbs. However, unlike previous outings, Linda Thompson feels like the director here as well as the leading lady.
She supplies herself a riveting opening close-up with the self-penned “Love’s For Babies And Fools”, ex-husband Richard providing a suitably gaunt acoustic backing to a Bakelite-brittle lyric. Slowly unreeling a character study of a cruel narcissist (“I will never try to please you or abide by your rules,” she sings), Linda Thompson excavates the yawning hollow that lurks beneath those monstrous defences (“but before I ruled love out, I searched every north and south”).
Doomed and disastrous romance stalk every corridor – something of a surprise to Thompson given that, in her own words, she has “hardly spent a moment of my adult life UNMARRIED”. Sweethearts set off to sea and never return (“If I Was A Bluebird”); nuptial hopes remain eternally unfulfilled (“Never The Bride”), and spouses prove to be barely worth the wait (the unaccompanied traditional, “Blue Bleezin’ Blind Drunk”). Familiar enough territory for the woman whose voice graced misanthropic key texts as “Withered And Died” and “Walking On A Wire”, but there’s no disguising the cool delight with which she wraps her spider-silk around the darkest corners.
There are shafts of light, not least a merry salute to her one-time Home Service boss John Tams, under whom she helped create the score for the National Theatre’s extraordinary mid-‘80s production of the Mysteries. But it’s the misery, painful and unredeemed, that suits Linda Thompson’s faintly masochistic proclivities best. It’s no accident that the ancient mariner who narrates her bleak shanty “Never Put To Sea Boys” concludes his tale of blood and death on the high seas with the line: “And now I am an old man I wish, I wish that I could be/Once more upon the docks me boys/ Prepared to put to sea.”
Odd, then, that Won’t Be Long Now should end with a slightly grim twinkle rather than a Taxi Driver-style bloodbath. An unconventional gift from Teddy Thompson to his mother, the closing title track is a light-footed waltz along the banks of the River Of No Return. “Life’s short and getting shorter,” smiles Linda Thompson, adding, “Take care with your words and don’t go with regret.” With barely a syllable out of place, it’s a philosophy that Won’t Be Long Now lives by.
Jim Wirth
Q&A
Two of your three children are on the stage; did you encourage them?
Not at all. Who needs the competition? Like almost every mother, I wanted them to be doctors or particle physicists. Damned genes.
Your son Teddy is your main co-writer - how do you work together?
We bat ideas around on the computer. I recently sent him lyrics to a music hall song (I'm bonkers about that era) and he point-blank refused to do the tune. He's over my Vaudeville obsession.
Love’s For Babies And Fools is extraordinary. Have you reached a stage when you and Richard can be comfortable in each other’s company?
Extraordinary you say! I'll take it. It's going so well with Richard. We may even get back together. No, not really. I just see him as part of the family now.
What was Tim Buckley like as a flatmate? Was he more handsome in person than Nick Drake?
It's a tie! They were both beautiful to look at, and to listen to. Strung out, uncommunicative, tall; I love those attributes in a man.
There are a lot of cold, faithless men on your records; do you feel that you lived through a particularly sexist time?
Faithless men and women have existed since time immemorial. In my day, it was usually the men who were unfaithful. I worked with a lot of married musos who had a girl in every port. Now, even the older ladies - Madonna, I'm talking to you – seem to have schoolboy boyfriends. Good luck to them.
INTERVIEW: JIM WIRTH
Folk-rock grande dame, still damned grand…
When Martin Scorsese heard that Linda Thompson was singing a version of “Paddy’s Lamentation”, as heard in his Gangs Of New York, he apparently asked, “Is she still alive?” It was a reaction that pleased her immensely. “Martin Scorsese thinking I’m dead,” she writes in the sleevenotes to her fourth solo album, “is as famous as I’m ever going to get.”
Contrary to word on the street in Tinseltown, the 66-year-old remains very much of this earth, though a knack for dealing in property and antique jewellery drew her attention away from music in the decades since her divorce from Richard Thompson in the wake of 1982’s Shoot Out The Lights. Her occasional works remain rock solid and sparkly, though, with her voice – Nico-harpy stark and Anne Briggs elemental – as fragile and fearsome as ever.
Severely limited by dysphonia – the same vocal condition that ended Shirley Collins’ singing career – Thompson might have called it a day after her ill-pitched 1985 solo debut One Clear Moment, had it not been for her children; her son Teddy Thompson engineered her 2002 return with Fashionably Late, while family friend Rufus Wainwright supplied material for the similarly low-key Versatile Heart five years later.
Kin and kindred spirits continue to play a huge role on Won’t Be Long Now – trad: arr star guests include Martin and Eliza Carthy, John Kirkpatrick and Gerry Conway, while a campfire stomp through Anna McGarrigle’s “As Fast As My Feet” features three generations of Thompsons: Linda, her three children, and grandson Zak Hobbs. However, unlike previous outings, Linda Thompson feels like the director here as well as the leading lady.
She supplies herself a riveting opening close-up with the self-penned “Love’s For Babies And Fools”, ex-husband Richard providing a suitably gaunt acoustic backing to a Bakelite-brittle lyric. Slowly unreeling a character study of a cruel narcissist (“I will never try to please you or abide by your rules,” she sings), Linda Thompson excavates the yawning hollow that lurks beneath those monstrous defences (“but before I ruled love out, I searched every north and south”).
Doomed and disastrous romance stalk every corridor – something of a surprise to Thompson given that, in her own words, she has “hardly spent a moment of my adult life UNMARRIED”. Sweethearts set off to sea and never return (“If I Was A Bluebird”); nuptial hopes remain eternally unfulfilled (“Never The Bride”), and spouses prove to be barely worth the wait (the unaccompanied traditional, “Blue Bleezin’ Blind Drunk”). Familiar enough territory for the woman whose voice graced misanthropic key texts as “Withered And Died” and “Walking On A Wire”, but there’s no disguising the cool delight with which she wraps her spider-silk around the darkest corners.
There are shafts of light, not least a merry salute to her one-time Home Service boss John Tams, under whom she helped create the score for the National Theatre’s extraordinary mid-‘80s production of the Mysteries. But it’s the misery, painful and unredeemed, that suits Linda Thompson’s faintly masochistic proclivities best. It’s no accident that the ancient mariner who narrates her bleak shanty “Never Put To Sea Boys” concludes his tale of blood and death on the high seas with the line: “And now I am an old man I wish, I wish that I could be/Once more upon the docks me boys/ Prepared to put to sea.”
Odd, then, that Won’t Be Long Now should end with a slightly grim twinkle rather than a Taxi Driver-style bloodbath. An unconventional gift from Teddy Thompson to his mother, the closing title track is a light-footed waltz along the banks of the River Of No Return. “Life’s short and getting shorter,” smiles Linda Thompson, adding, “Take care with your words and don’t go with regret.” With barely a syllable out of place, it’s a philosophy that Won’t Be Long Now lives by.
Jim Wirth
Q&A
Two of your three children are on the stage; did you encourage them?
Not at all. Who needs the competition? Like almost every mother, I wanted them to be doctors or particle physicists. Damned genes.
Your son Teddy is your main co-writer – how do you work together?
We bat ideas around on the computer. I recently sent him lyrics to a music hall song (I’m bonkers about that era) and he point-blank refused to do the tune. He’s over my Vaudeville obsession.
Love’s For Babies And Fools is extraordinary. Have you reached a stage when you and Richard can be comfortable in each other’s company?
Extraordinary you say! I’ll take it. It’s going so well with Richard. We may even get back together. No, not really. I just see him as part of the family now.
What was Tim Buckley like as a flatmate? Was he more handsome in person than Nick Drake?
It’s a tie! They were both beautiful to look at, and to listen to. Strung out, uncommunicative, tall; I love those attributes in a man.
There are a lot of cold, faithless men on your records; do you feel that you lived through a particularly sexist time?
Faithless men and women have existed since time immemorial. In my day, it was usually the men who were unfaithful. I worked with a lot of married musos who had a girl in every port. Now, even the older ladies – Madonna, I’m talking to you – seem to have schoolboy boyfriends. Good luck to them.
