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Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon play to be released on CD

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Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon play to be released on CD

Tom Stoppard' BBC Radio 2 play Darkside is to be released as a deluxe CD package on November 25. The play, which incorporates music from Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, was an original commission by Radio 2 to mark the 40th anniversary of the album, and broadcast on August 26, 2013. Tom Stoppard said: “When The Dark Side of the Moon was a new album in 1973, a friend of mine walked into my room where I was working with a copy in his hand and said 'You really have to do a play about this album.' So, when, roughly 39-and-a-half years later, Jeff Smith from Radio 2 asked me if I’d like to do some kind of play around the 40thbirthday of the Pink Floyd album, it really wasn’t a very difficult decision.” Produced in collaboration with Faber And Faber, the package resembles a hard-backed book, including a CD carrying the 54-minute play, which includes the majority of the Dark Side of the Moon album, plus a 56-page bound insert of the play’s script. The cover features artwork by Hipgnosis designer Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell in collaboration with StormStudios, based on the specially-created Aardman Animations piece used to publicise the broadcast. The full play script includes all the dialogue and stage directions, plus Roger Waters’ original lyrics from the album. The package will feature a bonus disc with text translations in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin and Russian. “I found the script of Tom’s play fascinating," said Dave Gilmour. "I can’t think of a better way to celebrate The Dark Side of The Moon’s 40 year anniversary.” “I love it," said Nick Mason. "If anyone is going to mess with the crown jewel of albums, Tom is a very good choice.” Pink Floyd and Dark Side Of The Moon are on the cover of the current issue of Uncut. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvaSzYcDXFw

Tom Stoppard’ BBC Radio 2 play Darkside is to be released as a deluxe CD package on November 25.

The play, which incorporates music from Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, was an original commission by Radio 2 to mark the 40th anniversary of the album, and broadcast on August 26, 2013.

Tom Stoppard said: “When The Dark Side of the Moon was a new album in 1973, a friend of mine walked into my room where I was working with a copy in his hand and said ‘You really have to do a play about this album.’ So, when, roughly 39-and-a-half years later, Jeff Smith from Radio 2 asked me if I’d like to do some kind of play around the 40thbirthday of the Pink Floyd album, it really wasn’t a very difficult decision.”

Produced in collaboration with Faber And Faber, the package resembles a hard-backed book, including a CD carrying the 54-minute play, which includes the majority of the Dark Side of the Moon album, plus a 56-page bound insert of the play’s script.

The cover features artwork by Hipgnosis designer Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell in collaboration with StormStudios, based on the specially-created Aardman Animations piece used to publicise the broadcast.

The full play script includes all the dialogue and stage directions, plus Roger Waters’ original lyrics from the album. The package will feature a bonus disc with text translations in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin and Russian.

“I found the script of Tom’s play fascinating,” said Dave Gilmour. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate The Dark Side of The Moon’s 40 year anniversary.”

“I love it,” said Nick Mason. “If anyone is going to mess with the crown jewel of albums, Tom is a very good choice.”

Pink Floyd and Dark Side Of The Moon are on the cover of the current issue of Uncut.

Grateful Dead launch their own craft beer

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Grateful Dead launch their own craft beer
The Grateful Dead are releasing their own craft beer. Called American Beauty, the pale ale has been developed with Delaware brewery Dogfish Head. The brewery and the band asked fans to help decide on one ingredient to add to the recipe that would complement the pale ale base. They received more t...

The Grateful Dead are releasing their own craft beer.

Called American Beauty, the pale ale has been developed with Delaware brewery Dogfish Head.

The brewery and the band asked fans to help decide on one ingredient to add to the recipe that would complement the pale ale base.

They received more than 1,500 entries, before settling on granola – an idea submitted by Thomas Butler, a 39-year-old chemist and homebrewer who saw his first Dead show when he was nine.

According to a report on Rolling Stone, “The components of granola – honey, toasted grains, oats and fruit – offer a lot from a beer perspective,” Butler said on the Dogfish Head website. “The idea is to have a sessionable ale that highlights the oats and honey with a nice ‘dank’ hop selection.”

American Beauty will be available on draft and in 750-ml bottles in America – at least for now. To find retailers selling the beer, try Dogfish Head’s “Fish Finder” app here.

Metallica’s James Hetfield says band are ‘itchin” to start work on new album

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Metallica’s James Hetfield says band are ‘itchin” to start work on new album
Metallica frontman James Hetfield has revealed that the band are planning to start recording their next studio album early next year. The metal titans released their last studio album 'Death Magnetic' in 2008 and claimed that they had amassed 600 song ideas for a follow-up in June of this year. N...

Metallica frontman James Hetfield has revealed that the band are planning to start recording their next studio album early next year.

The metal titans released their last studio album ‘Death Magnetic’ in 2008 and claimed that they had amassed 600 song ideas for a follow-up in June of this year. Now, in an interview with The Oakland Press, Hetfield said he and his bandmates were “itchin'” to return to the studio and finish work on the LP.

Asked about progress on the long-awaited follow-up, the frontman said: “Hopefully it happens soon. I’m itchin’. We have tons of material to sift through. That takes a lot of time, because there’s a lot of great stuff. I know we only need a few songs, but there’s 800 riffs we’re going through. It’s kind of insane. We have sifted through a lot of the stuff and pulled the cream of the crop – it’s just sitting there waiting for us to take it to the next level.”

Hetfield also said that the band would need a break after working on their 3D film Metallica: Through The Never, which was released on October 4. “I know we do need to decompress after this, get this film thing out of our systems,” he said. “It’s taken up a lot of time and a lot of effort. We go full-throttle into something and multitasking is not what we’re after. So the next record will hopefully start some time in the spring.”

Metallica: Through The Never was directed by Nimród Antal (who worked on Predators and Kontroll) and stars the band as themselves. Dane DeHann (The Place Beyond The Pines, Kill Your Darlings, The Amazing Spider-Man 2) plays the lead role in the film, which follows her character Trip – a young roadie sent on an urgent mission during one of the band’s shows.

John Lennon’s Hollywood Star defaced by vandals

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John Lennon’s Hollywood Star defaced by vandals
John Lennon's star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame has been defaced by vandals. The damage was noticed by a Beatles tour guide Gillian Lomax, who organises A Magical Mystery Tour around California. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she was showing a group of tourists John Lennon's star on Vine St...

John Lennon‘s star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame has been defaced by vandals.

The damage was noticed by a Beatles tour guide Gillian Lomax, who organises A Magical Mystery Tour around California. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she was showing a group of tourists John Lennon’s star on Vine Street on October 5 when she discovered that vandals had covered it with graffiti, which included drawings and the words “I love you,” and “Blackbird… Rain was here.”

“Morons did it,” Lomax said. “Rather tacky. There was a group of them, judging from the different coloured pens. I tried to rub it out, but to no avail.”

Representatives from the Hollywood Walk Of Fame reacted promptly when alerted to the damage, by October 7 the graffiti had gone. “We don’t mess around,” Ana Martinez from the Hollywood Walk Of Fame said. “I think Capitol is looking into seeing if there’s any video [of the crime]. They’re registered state landmarks. Those are my babies! We’ve had people destroy stars, cracking or prying out parts of the stars, and they do go to jail and they have to pay back for the repairs. We just had one recently damaged – Arsenio Hall‘s, and a couple near him.”

Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich ‘distraught’ over LSE report on music piracy

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Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich ‘distraught’ over LSE report on music piracy
Nigel Godrich has said he is "distraught" over a report published by London School of Economics which claims that digital filesharing has not had an adverse affect on music industry profits. The briefing paper sent to MPs, published by the university, counters claims that the creative industries a...

Nigel Godrich has said he is “distraught” over a report published by London School of Economics which claims that digital filesharing has not had an adverse affect on music industry profits.

The briefing paper sent to MPs, published by the university, counters claims that the creative industries are suffering an overall revenue decline because of digital filesharing and streaming services.

“We show that new business models are enabling the industry to gain advantage by building on a digital culture based on sharing and co-creating,” it reads. “Taking total revenues of the music industry into account – i.e. including revenues from concerts and publishing rights, these revenues have not declined as dramatically has been suggested; they have increased considerably from 1998 to the 2000s. These revenues have stagnated in the last few years, but the claims of many in the music industry about a dramatic decline in revenue apply specifically to the sale of CDs and vinyl. As Figure 1 shows, overall revenue of the industry in 2011 was almost USD 60 bn, and revenues from live performances and publishing rights largely offset the revenue decline associated with sales of CDs and vinyl.”

Writing on Twitter, the producer and Atoms For Peace member said: “The recorded music industry has been so decimated by piracy that the only way for artists to survive is by gaining visibility at any cost, which includes allowing piracy itself, or virtual piracy like subscription streaming services, and earning from other means like merchandise or concert tickets, none of which are ‘content’.”

He continued: “That is not an argument for relaxing copyright law! T-shirts and tickets are nothing to do with ‘copyright and creation’, which is the supposed subject of this document. I hope the government sees how ridiculous this document seems to people who make records. The authors are ‘pro piracy’ and they wish to influence the UK government’s upcoming review of digital copyright law. It’s madness.”

Hear David Bowie’s “Sound And Vision 2013” remix

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Hear David Bowie’s “Sound And Vision 2013” remix
David Bowie has released his "Sound And Vision 2013" remix. The new version of 1977 track was originally recorded for an Xperia Z smartphone advert and mixed from the original recording session tapes by Sonjay Prabhakar. The track, which is only one minute and 48 seconds long, is available to down...

David Bowie has released his “Sound And Vision 2013” remix.

The new version of 1977 track was originally recorded for an Xperia Z smartphone advert and mixed from the original recording session tapes by Sonjay Prabhakar.

The track, which is only one minute and 48 seconds long, is available to download digitally here.

It has been uploaded to the official David Bowie YouTube page, and you can hear it at the bottom of this page.

A description of the song on YouTube reads, “By stripping away much of the original instrumentation to just leave Roy Young’s plaintive piano, Mary Hopkin’s backing vocal and the lead vocal, the song takes on a new reflective resonance.”

Meanwhile, James Murphy‘s reworking of “Love Is Lost” from The Next Day will debut tomorrow.

First Look – Captain Phillips

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First Look – Captain Phillips

This year's London Film Festival opens with a bang: Somali pirates, Navy SEALS and Tom Hanks... What happened to the little guy in the movies? In a crowded superhero marketplace, the humble blue-collar worker is – alas – a neglected figure in today’s movie landscape. We’re a long way away from Paul Shrader’s Blue Collar – or even Ridley Scott’s Alien: the ultimate regular joes in space in movie. Imagine Tom Cruise working construction. Or Bradley Cooper earning minimum wage in manufacturing. Christian Bale: a plumber? Movies are so disconnected from the reality of working class American life, you could be forgiven for wondering which major Hollywood star could open a movie populated by guys’ guys – all of them paunchy, the wrong side of 40 and distinctly unglamorous. Fortunately – you might say – cuddly 57 year-old Tom Hanks ticks those particular boxes. Never one to show off, Hanks immerses himself behind specs and stubble as Rich Phillips, the captain of cargo ship the Maersk Alabama that was seized by Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa in 2009. This real life story is filmed by Paul Greengrass much as you’d expect, with shaky hand-held cameras shoved so closely into people’s faces that you can see sweat literally ooze from their pores. And this is a very sweaty film. A companion piece of sorts to United 93 – another Greengrass film about normal people trapped in confined space under extraordinary circumstances – Captain Phillips also invites comparisons with Tobias Lindholm’s excellent film, A Hijacking, from earlier this year. But while Lindholm’s film followed the hijacking of a Danish cargo ship from multiple perspectives – both on the boat and back in Denmark – Greengrass maintains tight focus on the Maersk Alabama and, later, a covered lifeboat. By the time he brings in the Navy SEALS and it gets a bit Zero Dark Thirty, you might be thankful for a bit of light relief. What lingers most about Phillips’ story is the lack of robust security on broad the Maersk Alabama; the crew appear to have no significant protection against pirates beyond some slightly ineffectual water canons, after that the only option available is to lock themselves in the engine room and hope for the best. The Maersk Alamaba was the sixth vessel in a week to be attacked off the Somali coast – very much a “real world scenario”, as Phillips calls it. Incidentally, Captain Phillips is one of two Tom Hanks films bookending this year’s BFI London Film Festival – in the other, Saving Mr. Banks, he plays Walt Disney, the man responsible for the ultimate blue-collar line-up in the movies: the Seven Dwarfs. Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

This year’s London Film Festival opens with a bang: Somali pirates, Navy SEALS and Tom Hanks…

What happened to the little guy in the movies? In a crowded superhero marketplace, the humble blue-collar worker is – alas – a neglected figure in today’s movie landscape. We’re a long way away from Paul Shrader’s Blue Collar – or even Ridley Scott’s Alien: the ultimate regular joes in space in movie. Imagine Tom Cruise working construction. Or Bradley Cooper earning minimum wage in manufacturing. Christian Bale: a plumber? Movies are so disconnected from the reality of working class American life, you could be forgiven for wondering which major Hollywood star could open a movie populated by guys’ guys – all of them paunchy, the wrong side of 40 and distinctly unglamorous.

Fortunately – you might say – cuddly 57 year-old Tom Hanks ticks those particular boxes. Never one to show off, Hanks immerses himself behind specs and stubble as Rich Phillips, the captain of cargo ship the Maersk Alabama that was seized by Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa in 2009. This real life story is filmed by Paul Greengrass much as you’d expect, with shaky hand-held cameras shoved so closely into people’s faces that you can see sweat literally ooze from their pores. And this is a very sweaty film.

A companion piece of sorts to United 93 – another Greengrass film about normal people trapped in confined space under extraordinary circumstances – Captain Phillips also invites comparisons with Tobias Lindholm’s excellent film, A Hijacking, from earlier this year. But while Lindholm’s film followed the hijacking of a Danish cargo ship from multiple perspectives – both on the boat and back in Denmark – Greengrass maintains tight focus on the Maersk Alabama and, later, a covered lifeboat. By the time he brings in the Navy SEALS and it gets a bit Zero Dark Thirty, you might be thankful for a bit of light relief.

What lingers most about Phillips’ story is the lack of robust security on broad the Maersk Alabama; the crew appear to have no significant protection against pirates beyond some slightly ineffectual water canons, after that the only option available is to lock themselves in the engine room and hope for the best. The Maersk Alamaba was the sixth vessel in a week to be attacked off the Somali coast – very much a “real world scenario”, as Phillips calls it. Incidentally, Captain Phillips is one of two Tom Hanks films bookending this year’s BFI London Film Festival – in the other, Saving Mr. Banks, he plays Walt Disney, the man responsible for the ultimate blue-collar line-up in the movies: the Seven Dwarfs.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

Sinéad O’Connor says Miley Cyrus fans are urging her to commit suicide

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Sinéad O’Connor says Miley Cyrus fans are urging her to commit suicide
Sinéad O'Connor has claimed that she has received threatening messages from Miley Cyrus fans urging her to commit suicide since publishing her open letter urging the pop star not to let the music industry take advantage of her. The latest exchange in a week-long war of words between the pair, O'C...

Sinéad O’Connor has claimed that she has received threatening messages from Miley Cyrus fans urging her to commit suicide since publishing her open letter urging the pop star not to let the music industry take advantage of her.

The latest exchange in a week-long war of words between the pair, O’Connor addresses the dangers in mocking people with mental health problems in another lengthy letter published on her website, and calls on Cyrus to apologise to both herself and the actress Amanda Bynes, whom Cyrus referred to in earlier Twitter posts about the Irish singer.

“As a result of what you did I have had numerous communications from people urging me to commit suicide,” O’Connor writes. “Not to mention I have been the subject of literally thousands of abusive articles and or comments left after articles, which state that I and therefore all perceived mentally ill people, should be bullied and be invalidated.” Read the full post here.

Cyrus and O’Connor had a disagreement last week after O’Connor published an open letter warning Cyrus not let the music industry make a “prostitute” out of her. Cyrus has since been criticised by mental health charities for mocking O’Connor’s battles with psychological illnesses over the years, although O’Connor subsequently claimed that their spat was “over”.

The 37th Uncut Playlist Of 2013

John Mulvey
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The 37th Uncut Playlist Of 2013

Not much to say here, other than I think I’ve managed to embed more tracks you can actually play into this playlist than ever before. Dig in, I guess… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey 1 Spain – The Morning Becomes Eclectic Session (Glitterhouse) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSbPGImK9l4 2 Four Tet – Beautiful Rewind (Text) 3 Katie Gately – Pipes/Acahella (Blue Tapes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZIcjPethrg 4 Circuit Des Yeux – Overdue (Ba Da Bing) 5 Courtney Barnett – The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas (House Anxiety) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcnIhzaDTd0 6 Goat – Let It Bleed (Rocket) 7 My Bloody Valentine – m b v (MBV) 8 The Bottle Rockets – Bottle Rockets (Bloodshot) 9 bEEdEEgEE – Sum/One (4AD) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWHEdFkMhMY 10 Pixies – Big New Prinz (Live At The El Rey) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe6mMvQC4mk 11 The Fall – Big New Prinz (Beggar’s Banquet) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wygQmJ59E4Q 12 The Necks – Open (Northern Spy) 13 Trans – Trans Red EP (Rough Trade) Read my review here 14 White Denim – Corsicana Lemonade (Downtown) 15 Roy Harper – Man And Myth (Bella Union) 16 Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson – Hrta Songs (Stone Tape) 17 Israel Nash Gripka – Israel Nash’s Rain Plains (Loose) 18 David Van Tieghem x Ten - FRKWYS Vol. 10: Fits & Starts (RVNG INTL) 19 Cian Nugent & The Cosmos – Born With The Caul (No Quarter) 20 Bill Callahan – Dream River (Drag City) Read my review here

Not much to say here, other than I think I’ve managed to embed more tracks you can actually play into this playlist than ever before. Dig in, I guess…

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

1 Spain – The Morning Becomes Eclectic Session (Glitterhouse)

2 Four Tet – Beautiful Rewind (Text)

3 Katie Gately – Pipes/Acahella (Blue Tapes)

4 Circuit Des Yeux – Overdue (Ba Da Bing)

5 Courtney Barnett – The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas (House Anxiety)

6 Goat – Let It Bleed (Rocket)

7 My Bloody Valentine – m b v (MBV)

8 The Bottle Rockets – Bottle Rockets (Bloodshot)

9 bEEdEEgEE – Sum/One (4AD)

10 Pixies – Big New Prinz (Live At The El Rey)

11 The Fall – Big New Prinz (Beggar’s Banquet)

12 The Necks – Open (Northern Spy)

13 Trans – Trans Red EP (Rough Trade)

Read my review here

14 White Denim – Corsicana Lemonade (Downtown)

15 Roy Harper – Man And Myth (Bella Union)

16 Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson – Hrta Songs (Stone Tape)

17 Israel Nash Gripka – Israel Nash’s Rain Plains (Loose)

18 David Van Tieghem x Ten – FRKWYS Vol. 10: Fits & Starts (RVNG INTL)

19 Cian Nugent & The Cosmos – Born With The Caul (No Quarter)

20 Bill Callahan – Dream River (Drag City)

Read my review here

Pogues guitarist Phil Chevron dies aged 56

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Pogues guitarist Phil Chevron dies aged 56
Phil Chevron, the guitarist with the Pogues, has died, aged 56. A post on the Pogues website reads: "After a long illness Philip passed away peacefully this morning [October 8]. We all send our sincere condolences to his family." Chevron, whose real name was Philip Ryan, was first diagnosed with e...

Phil Chevron, the guitarist with the Pogues, has died, aged 56.

A post on the Pogues website reads: “After a long illness Philip passed away peacefully this morning [October 8]. We all send our sincere condolences to his family.”

Chevron, whose real name was Philip Ryan, was first diagnosed with esophageal cancer in June 2007 and had been undergoing treatment since. Despite being given an all-clear in 2008, in May 2013, it was announced that the cancer had returned.

Chevron formed one of Ireland’s first punk bands, The Radiators From Space, in Dublin 1976. He lived in London in the early 1980s, where he met Shane MacGowan in 1981; in 1984, Chevron was invited to tour with the Pogues, initially as a temporary replacement for Jem Finer, although he became a full-time member of the band in time for the recording of their second album, Rum, Sodomy And The Lash.

He continued to play with the Pogues after they reformed in 2001, and in 2004, Chevron oversaw the remastering of the Pogues‘ back catalogue ahead of its reissue on CD.

Chevron was last seen in public in August, during a fundraiser for the guitarist which saw actor Aidan Gillen and writer Roddy Doyle pay tribute; the Irish Independent reports that Shane MacGowan also performed.

At the event, Joseph O’Connor, author of Star Of The Sea and Redemption Falls, said, “Philip Chevron is one of the greatest Irish songwriters of all time, certainly the best of my generation, an artist of a unique and absolutely compelling sensibility.

“To any Irish person of my age who loves music, Philip is nothing less than a hero.”

A full obituary will appear in the next issue of Uncut.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M0h_nPTq2k

Trans: The return of Bernard Butler and Jackie McKeown

John Mulvey
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Trans: The return of Bernard Butler and Jackie McKeown

A few weeks ago, an EP turned up from the Rough Trade label, credited to a band called Trans (I’ve included some tracks below). Information was sketchy, at best: among the gnomic statements of intent on the press release, the most concrete were probably “Hard-panned stereo”, “Glasgow left/London right”, “celebrate good times” and, most pointedly, “MESSAGE: OBLIQUE”. More edifying, perhaps, were the four tracks that made up the “Trans Red” EP: rubbery, linear jams that operated in a space somewhere between Neu! And Television, occasionally punctuated by vocals that were either yelping, quotemarks rock’n’roll (Bobby Gillespie would be an unflattering comparison, but stick with me here) or else hushed, understated for maximum contrast. One other good reference point suggested by a colleague was that the first vocalist recalled a Scottish band from a few years back, The 1990s, who were on Rough Trade and who mastered a kind of arch, snarky take on CBGB punk to unfortunately little success. After a bit of internet research that inadvertently lead to some interesting places, it transpired that, while Trans weren’t being exactly forthcoming about their identities, they weren’t completely obscuring them, either. Half of Trans – the “Glasgow left” channel - actually is Jackie McKeown, frontman of the 1990s. More unexpectedly, “London right” is occupied by Bernard Butler; guitar master, songwriter and producer for hire, Suede refusenik, and a man whose virtuosity has usually been channelled into more conventional melodic parameters. The playing on the four Trans tracks is skinny, quicksilver, following a narrow motoric pathway, and wholly unrecognisable as the work of Butler, whose playing – while undoubtedly flexible – has historically been more fulsome (one of the many great pleasures of early Suede was that such a shy man could play guitar in such a florid and emotionally saturated way). After presumably doing rather well out of his involvement with the first Duffy album a few years back, Butler has taken an eccentric path through 2013 thus far, moving from work with Texas, of all people, through production shifts for a bunch of newish indie bands, up to the current burst of Trans activity which has encompassed, in the last fortnight, a show at the Liverpool Psych Festival, and a couple of gigs at London’s cosy Shacklewell Arms (a place whose hipness never ceases to amuse me, since when I lived a few yards away it was the focal point for activities which sometimes resulted in the entire road being cordoned off of a Sunday morning). The second one found Trans backing the irrepressibly fearless Damo Suzuki, which should have tested their new improvisational imperative to the utmost. Wish I’d gone. Anyhow, one of my jobs this afternoon is to edit an interview with Butler and McKeown for next month’s Uncut, in which they reveal that there’s another 30 hours’ worth of jams where these four came from. It’s a determinedly low-key project but, at a time when plenty of Butler’s contemporaries are opting for pragmatic career manoeuvres rather than adventurous ones, it seems a quietly heroic one, too. See what you think… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJOFpcX6OV4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYermPqGME4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7KLafVFiOg Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey Photograph: Chris McAndrew

A few weeks ago, an EP turned up from the Rough Trade label, credited to a band called Trans (I’ve included some tracks below). Information was sketchy, at best: among the gnomic statements of intent on the press release, the most concrete were probably “Hard-panned stereo”, “Glasgow left/London right”, “celebrate good times” and, most pointedly, “MESSAGE: OBLIQUE”.

More edifying, perhaps, were the four tracks that made up the “Trans Red” EP: rubbery, linear jams that operated in a space somewhere between Neu! And Television, occasionally punctuated by vocals that were either yelping, quotemarks rock’n’roll (Bobby Gillespie would be an unflattering comparison, but stick with me here) or else hushed, understated for maximum contrast.

One other good reference point suggested by a colleague was that the first vocalist recalled a Scottish band from a few years back, The 1990s, who were on Rough Trade and who mastered a kind of arch, snarky take on CBGB punk to unfortunately little success. After a bit of internet research that inadvertently lead to some interesting places, it transpired that, while Trans weren’t being exactly forthcoming about their identities, they weren’t completely obscuring them, either.

Half of Trans – the “Glasgow left” channel – actually is Jackie McKeown, frontman of the 1990s. More unexpectedly, “London right” is occupied by Bernard Butler; guitar master, songwriter and producer for hire, Suede refusenik, and a man whose virtuosity has usually been channelled into more conventional melodic parameters.

The playing on the four Trans tracks is skinny, quicksilver, following a narrow motoric pathway, and wholly unrecognisable as the work of Butler, whose playing – while undoubtedly flexible – has historically been more fulsome (one of the many great pleasures of early Suede was that such a shy man could play guitar in such a florid and emotionally saturated way).

After presumably doing rather well out of his involvement with the first Duffy album a few years back, Butler has taken an eccentric path through 2013 thus far, moving from work with Texas, of all people, through production shifts for a bunch of newish indie bands, up to the current burst of Trans activity which has encompassed, in the last fortnight, a show at the Liverpool Psych Festival, and a couple of gigs at London’s cosy Shacklewell Arms (a place whose hipness never ceases to amuse me, since when I lived a few yards away it was the focal point for activities which sometimes resulted in the entire road being cordoned off of a Sunday morning). The second one found Trans backing the irrepressibly fearless Damo Suzuki, which should have tested their new improvisational imperative to the utmost. Wish I’d gone.

Anyhow, one of my jobs this afternoon is to edit an interview with Butler and McKeown for next month’s Uncut, in which they reveal that there’s another 30 hours’ worth of jams where these four came from. It’s a determinedly low-key project but, at a time when plenty of Butler’s contemporaries are opting for pragmatic career manoeuvres rather than adventurous ones, it seems a quietly heroic one, too. See what you think…

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

Photograph: Chris McAndrew

Ramones box set details revealed

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Ramones box set details revealed

The Ramones first six albums are to be collected in a new box set. The Sire Years 1976-1981 contained Ramones (1976), Leave Home (1977), Rocket to Russia (1977), Road to Ruin (1978), End of the Century (1980) and Pleasant Dreams (1981). The set will be released on October 29. An expanded digital version of the set, titled The Sire Years 1976-1989, features a total of 11 studio albums, including the six in the physical box as well as Subterranean Jungle (1983), Too Tough To Die (1984), Animal Boy (1986), Halfway To Sanity (1987), and Brain Drain (1989). According to a report on Slicing Up Eyeballs, the discs on this box set will feature the 2002 remasters of the original albums, but without the bonus material.

The Ramones first six albums are to be collected in a new box set.

The Sire Years 1976-1981 contained Ramones (1976), Leave Home (1977), Rocket to Russia (1977), Road to Ruin (1978), End of the Century (1980) and Pleasant Dreams (1981).

The set will be released on October 29.

An expanded digital version of the set, titled The Sire Years 1976-1989, features a total of 11 studio albums, including the six in the physical box as well as Subterranean Jungle (1983), Too Tough To Die (1984), Animal Boy (1986), Halfway To Sanity (1987), and Brain Drain (1989).

According to a report on Slicing Up Eyeballs, the discs on this box set will feature the 2002 remasters of the original albums, but without the bonus material.

Springsteen, Radiohead, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page to appear on Amnesty International box set

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Springsteen, Radiohead, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page to appear on Amnesty International box set
Amnesty International has announced the release of a major box set featuring live performances from artists including Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Titled ¡Released!, the six-disc DVD and two-disc CD box set will feature 12 hours of concert footage shot at Human Rig...

Amnesty International has announced the release of a major box set featuring live performances from artists including Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.

Titled ¡Released!, the six-disc DVD and two-disc CD box set will feature 12 hours of concert footage shot at Human Rights shows between 1986 and 1998 plus five hours of bonus material including interviews with Springsteen and Sting and a never-before-seen Peter Gabriel tour video.

The live footage is taken from the 1986 A Conspiracy Of Hope US concert tour, the 1988 Human Rights Now! world tour, the 1990 An Embrace of Hope concert in Chile and the 1998 The Struggle Continues concert in Paris, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The 1986 tour footage includes performances by U2, The Police and Lou Reed, while sets by Springsteen, Gabriel and are among the highlights of the 1988 tour footage.

The 1990 concert features sets by Sting, Sinead O’Connor and Jackson Browne, while the 1998 show boasts a stellar line-up including Radiohead, Page & Plant and Alanis Morissette. The box set will be released on November 5 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Human Rights Now! world tour.

David Bowie to unveil James Murphy remix on Thursday

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David Bowie to unveil James Murphy remix on Thursday

James Murphy's remix of David Bowie's "Love Is Lost" will be revealed on Thursday (October 10). Murphy's reworking of the track will premiere on BBC 6Music at 8.50am on Thursday and will be available to stream on David Bowie's website from midnight the same day. The new mix, titled "Love Is Lost' (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy For The DFA)", is longer than ten minutes in duration, it has been revealed. Artwork for the release, pictured below, is by Jonathan Barnbrook. Murphy's remix is set to appear on The Next Day Extra, the extended, three-disc version of Bowie's 2013 album The Next Day. Set for a November 4 release, The Next Day Extra includes the original 14-track album, a 10-track CD of bonus songs and a DVD featuring the four videos made for the album. The bonus CD features four previously unreleased tracks titled "Atomica", "The Informer", "Like A Rocket Man" and "Born In A UFO". The bonus disc also contains "God Bless The Girl", which was previously only released on the Japanese version of the album.

James Murphy’s remix of David Bowie‘s “Love Is Lost” will be revealed on Thursday (October 10).

Murphy’s reworking of the track will premiere on BBC 6Music at 8.50am on Thursday and will be available to stream on David Bowie’s website from midnight the same day. The new mix, titled “Love Is Lost’ (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy For The DFA)”, is longer than ten minutes in duration, it has been revealed. Artwork for the release, pictured below, is by Jonathan Barnbrook.

Murphy’s remix is set to appear on The Next Day Extra, the extended, three-disc version of Bowie’s 2013 album The Next Day.

Set for a November 4 release, The Next Day Extra includes the original 14-track album, a 10-track CD of bonus songs and a DVD featuring the four videos made for the album. The bonus CD features four previously unreleased tracks titled “Atomica”, “The Informer”, “Like A Rocket Man” and “Born In A UFO”. The bonus disc also contains “God Bless The Girl”, which was previously only released on the Japanese version of the album.

Neko Case – The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

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Neko Case – The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

Songs of bereavement and grief on mature sixth... Considering her 20-year career, it makes sense that Neko Case has moved through a host of different identities. Probably best known as Case the New Pornographer, there’s also the Case of ‘90s acts Cub, Maow, The Sadies and The Corn Sisters. There’s Case the self-deprecating Twitter wit, prone to posting butt jokes and photos of the cows on her Vermont ranch, a quite different persona to the woman partially visible through her increasingly rugged solo albums to date. After moving from honky-tonk gal to the bruised, unceremonious opposite on her earliest solo releases, over Case’s past couple of albums, she’s smuggled her own stories within broader narratives: mutated American myths on 2006’s Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, and a whirl through the fury of the natural world on 2009’s fantastic Middle Cyclone, where she personified herself as different destructive wind formations and an array of critters. Written over a three-year period where Case lost both her parents along with several close friends, she’s billed her sixth studio album, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, as a more inward-looking record. Perhaps surprisingly, here, declarations of identity are scant – she’s a man, a Friday night girl, and a fighter for the right to be wild, though she bristles at someone’s suggestion that she might be a lady. Taken as a whole, however, the album’s most striking statement is the revelation that these bereavements left Case grasping for her sense of self. She rebuilds it with meticulous control (and with the help of heavy friends M. Ward, Carl Newman, Tracyanne Campbell, Howe Gelb among others) over these 12 largely boisterous songs, and cannily uses the uncertainty to tackle some prescriptive ideas of how a woman should be along the way. Case has sung beautifully about grief before, most notably on “South Tacoma Way” from 2000’s Furnace Room Lullaby. Where that song took place in the immediate aftermath of a friend’s death, grief skirts the periphery here, sidling up in a change of light, as in life. Among the seafaring circular guitar figures of opener ‘Wild Creatures’, Case recounts how in childhood she was told she could be anything – well, “the king’s pet, or the king” – her flayed voice growing angrier at the futility of it all before shrugging in the last line that it barely matters anyway, since now “there’s no mother’s hands to quiet me.” The knowing ‘Where Did I Leave That Fire?’ goes from ambient introduction to a crisp snare rim snap and nervy tug of electric guitar as Case admits, “I wanted so badly not to be me,” before imagining a tragi-comical situation where her internal flame ends up in some celestial lost property office. What makes The Worse… work is that Case’s fire is still very much in evidence; if these songs were written at rock bottom, at least that flame illuminated the idiosyncrasies of the crevices, and fueled her defiance. Lead single “Man” is potentially the hardest song Case has ever made, where metallic guitar judders between lines about being a man in the essential, human sense – picking up the theme from Middle Cyclone’s “I’m An Animal”. On “City Swan”, she realises her unmooring has become a near-permanent state, but reclaims it on a stellar cover of Nico’s ‘Afraid’, a bell-like layer of voices reassuring, “You are beautiful and you are alone.” “Perhaps it’s best if I continue starring me as you,” Case sings on the cool-headed “I’m From Nowhere”. On The Worse Things Get…, Case asserts herself less in a literal sense, but paints the most emboldening and endearing portrait of herself yet, standing at a crossroads where self-sufficiency is the only path to survival and realising you have to be everything for yourself, because those you love won’t be around forever. Laura Snapes Q&A Tell me a bit about making the album and the people who play on it with you. Well, it took long enough! I worked with my regular band – Kelly Hogan, Kurt Dahle, Paul Rigby, Tom V. Ray, Jon Rauhouse, John Convertino – plus a ton of guests. Everyone who took part is family and it was a lovely time with lots of good dinners with quality people. The Worse… marks your emergence from a long period of grief. Was it cathartic to make in any sense? No, it was dirty and crappy and dragged time around like a dead leg. I hope to never have to work like that again. I learned what it means to wrestle serious depression and get through, which is good and not so good at the same time. It's sad that that much work makes you stronger but leaves you with omething to genuinely fear. I didn't have that before. It gives you respect for endurance, but it’s not an exciting struggle – it's more like having to slowly empty an Olympic swimming pool of dirty dish water through a straw. Slow, monotonous. The songs turned out well despite the circumstance rather than because of it. You cover Nico’s song "Afraid" on the album – what’s your connection to that song? I have always been comforted by it and I thought the songs on the record needed similar comforting. INTERVIEW: LAURA SNAPES

Songs of bereavement and grief on mature sixth…

Considering her 20-year career, it makes sense that Neko Case has moved through a host of different identities. Probably best known as Case the New Pornographer, there’s also the Case of ‘90s acts Cub, Maow, The Sadies and The Corn Sisters. There’s Case the self-deprecating Twitter wit, prone to posting butt jokes and photos of the cows on her Vermont ranch, a quite different persona to the woman partially visible through her increasingly rugged solo albums to date.

After moving from honky-tonk gal to the bruised, unceremonious opposite on her earliest solo releases, over Case’s past couple of albums, she’s smuggled her own stories within broader narratives: mutated American myths on 2006’s Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, and a whirl through the fury of the natural world on 2009’s fantastic Middle Cyclone, where she personified herself as different destructive wind formations and an array of critters. Written over a three-year period where Case lost both her parents along with several close friends, she’s billed her sixth studio album, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, as a more inward-looking record.

Perhaps surprisingly, here, declarations of identity are scant – she’s a man, a Friday night girl, and a fighter for the right to be wild, though she bristles at someone’s suggestion that she might be a lady. Taken as a whole, however, the album’s most striking statement is the revelation that these bereavements left Case grasping for her sense of self. She rebuilds it with meticulous control (and with the help of heavy friends M. Ward, Carl Newman, Tracyanne Campbell, Howe Gelb among others) over these 12 largely boisterous songs, and cannily uses the uncertainty to tackle some prescriptive ideas of how a woman should be along the way.

Case has sung beautifully about grief before, most notably on “South Tacoma Way” from 2000’s Furnace Room Lullaby. Where that song took place in the immediate aftermath of a friend’s death, grief skirts the periphery here, sidling up in a change of light, as in life. Among the seafaring circular guitar figures of opener ‘Wild Creatures’, Case recounts how in childhood she was told she could be anything – well, “the king’s pet, or the king” – her flayed voice growing angrier at the futility of it all before shrugging in the last line that it barely matters anyway, since now “there’s no mother’s hands to quiet me.” The knowing ‘Where Did I Leave That Fire?’ goes from ambient introduction to a crisp snare rim snap and nervy tug of electric guitar as Case admits, “I wanted so badly not to be me,” before imagining a tragi-comical situation where her internal flame ends up in some celestial lost property office.

What makes The Worse… work is that Case’s fire is still very much in evidence; if these songs were written at rock bottom, at least that flame illuminated the idiosyncrasies of the crevices, and fueled her defiance. Lead single “Man” is potentially the hardest song Case has ever made, where metallic guitar judders between lines about being a man in the essential, human sense – picking up the theme from Middle Cyclone’s “I’m An Animal”. On “City Swan”, she realises her unmooring has become a near-permanent state, but reclaims it on a stellar cover of Nico’s ‘Afraid’, a bell-like layer of voices reassuring, “You are beautiful and you are alone.”

“Perhaps it’s best if I continue starring me as you,” Case sings on the cool-headed “I’m From Nowhere”. On The Worse Things Get…, Case asserts herself less in a literal sense, but paints the most emboldening and endearing portrait of herself yet, standing at a crossroads where self-sufficiency is the only path to survival and realising you have to be everything for yourself, because those you love won’t be around forever.

Laura Snapes

Q&A

Tell me a bit about making the album and the people who play on it with you.

Well, it took long enough! I worked with my regular band – Kelly Hogan, Kurt Dahle, Paul Rigby, Tom V. Ray, Jon Rauhouse, John Convertino – plus a ton of guests. Everyone who took part is family and it was a lovely time with lots of good dinners with quality people.

The Worse… marks your emergence from a long period of grief. Was it cathartic to make in any sense?

No, it was dirty and crappy and dragged time around like a dead leg. I hope to never have to work like that again. I learned what it means to wrestle serious depression and get through, which is good and not so good at the same time. It’s sad that that much work makes you stronger but leaves you with omething to genuinely fear. I didn’t have that before. It gives you respect for endurance, but it’s not an exciting struggle – it’s more like having to slowly empty an Olympic swimming pool of dirty dish water through a straw. Slow, monotonous. The songs turned out well despite the circumstance rather than because of it.

You cover Nico’s song “Afraid” on the album – what’s your connection to that song?

I have always been comforted by it and I thought the songs on the record needed similar comforting.

INTERVIEW: LAURA SNAPES

“And what of the true God?”: The return of The Wicker Man

Michael Bonner
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“And what of the true God?”: The return of The Wicker Man
The Wicker Man, the granddaddy of British cult horror movies celebrates its 40th anniversary with what we’re told is ‘The Final Cut’ making an appearance in cinemas this month before a Blu-ray and DVD release. Coincidentally, the BFI are releasing on DVD a near-forgotten BBC Play For Today,...

The Wicker Man, the granddaddy of British cult horror movies celebrates its 40th anniversary with what we’re told is ‘The Final Cut’ making an appearance in cinemas this month before a Blu-ray and DVD release.

Coincidentally, the BFI are releasing on DVD a near-forgotten BBC Play For Today, Robin Redbreast, that shares similar themes with The Wicker Man. Although today the farming methods practised in most rural communities are sophisticated and modern, a cold, miserable spring can still prove disastrous for a crop. Such a failure might prompt a correspondence with DEFRA, or perhaps a concerned editorial on Farming Today; in these two films, however, a successful harvest is secured by other means.

Robin Redbreast – which originally aired in December 1970 as part of the BBC’s Play For Today strand – and 1974’s The Wicker Man are part of a wider cultural re-engagement with England’s folkloric history during the late Sixties and early Seventies. Led Zeppelin got it together at Bron-Yr-Aur, folk musicians embraced the spirit of old Albion, and authors Alan Garner and Susan Cooper delved into Arthurian magic, Gaia myths and the occult history of Britain. In cinemas, Blood On Satan’s Claw, Winstanley and Witchfinder General revisited an older, agrarian landscape. But Robin Redbreast and The Wicker Man – along with another BBC Play For Today, Penda’s Fen – had slightly different heads on. They were not so much concerned with reviving the past as they were with illustrating the continued existence of pagan traditions in contemporary life. They also both drew inspiration from the same real life incident: the 1945 murder of farmer Charles Walton in Lower Quinton, Warwickshire, who was discovered in a field with a cross carved on his face and neck and his body pinned to the ground by his pitchfork.

Both pieces follow broadly the same narrative: an outsider enters a remote community; a specific set of events must be played out to ensure a successful harvest ensues for the locals. In Robin Redbreast, the outsider is Norah Palmer (Anna Cropper) a TV script editor who moves to the country to get her head together following a relationship break-up. “You don’t speak the Old Tongue, I suppose?” asks local historian Fisher (Bernard Hepton). “If you mean Anglo Saxon, not since Oxford,” replies Norah. At first, Norah finds the aarr-thee isms of the locals eccentric but harmless; less so later. Norah is presented as a modern, liberated woman, self-aware and articulate (at one point, she chides herself: “Stop talking to yourself, you’re making me nervous.”). Her counterpart in The Wicker Man, sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) is very much the opposite – an uptight man of strong Christian values, purse-lipped throughout. But whatever their differences, both Norah and Howie make the same mistake of failing to fully comprehend what’s going on around them until it’s too late. At the heart of the respective communities in Robin Redbreast The Wicker Man are Fisher and Lord Summerisle. Both are very different men: Fisher is a peculiar, owlish man – he works for the council by day – with none of the apparent charisma of the more urbane, intellectual Lord Summerisle.

Robin Redbreast has been largely unseen since 1971. Watched today, it stands up well, accents of tharr locals notwithstanding. Director James McTaggart – a former producer of The Wednesday Play who helped launch the careers of Dennis Potter and Ken Loach – shoots Robin Redbreast straight, with the minimum of fuss and no histrionics. The Wicker Man is still very creaky, though Anthony Shaffer’s discursive script is full of compelling ideas – the clash of oppositional belief systems, the pursuit of an alternative lifestyle, the enduring power of myth – complimented by plenty of memorable images: a breast-feeding woman holding an egg in the ruined churchyard, a beetle attached by a piece of string to a pin in a school desk, the wicker man itself. The first 20 minutes or so are Hauntology 1.0: ambient noise, hymns, folk songs. But The Wicker Man doesn’t entirely live up to its reputation. The tone is inconsistent, with half the cast playing their parts as grotesques (especially Lindsay Kemp’s pub landlord) and the other half playing it straight – or trying to. As actors, Ingrid Pitt and Britt Ekland are slow to reveal their talents. Meanwhile, cast as Lord Summerisle, Christopher Lee plays Christopher Lee: ripe. The final sequence still feels genuinely transgressive, but there’s a lot of woody undergrowth to hack through before you get there.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

Hear new Gorillaz track, “Whirlwind”

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Hear new Gorillaz track, “Whirlwind”
Gorillaz have debuted a new track titled "Whirlwind" – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to listen. The song was originally recorded for the band's 2010 album Plastic Beach but failed to make the LP's final tracklisting. However, singer Damon Albarn appeared as a guest DJ on BBC Rad...

Gorillaz have debuted a new track titled “Whirlwind” – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to listen.

The song was originally recorded for the band’s 2010 album Plastic Beach but failed to make the LP’s final tracklisting. However, singer Damon Albarn appeared as a guest DJ on BBC Radio 2 over the weekend (October 5) and played the track, which features the Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra, during the show.

In May of last year, Albarn suggested that there could be another Gorillaz album without his partner Jamie Hewlett, and also said that the pair could work together again once they had reconciled from falling out. “Jamie wants to do other things and I understand,” he said. “But you never know, in a few years he might have a burning desire to draw those pictures again, and as soon as he does that, as far as I’m concerned, there could be another Gorillaz album.”

The Jesus And Mary Chain confirm tracklisting for new box set

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The Jesus And Mary Chain confirm tracklisting for new box set
The Jesus And Mary Chain have announced details of a new box set, due on December 2. The Complete Vinyl Collection is a deluxe, 11-album box set featuring remastered editions of the band's six studio albums, a double album set of BBC sessions, a live album and an LP of fan-selected B-sides and rari...

The Jesus And Mary Chain have announced details of a new box set, due on December 2.

The Complete Vinyl Collection is a deluxe, 11-album box set featuring remastered editions of the band’s six studio albums, a double album set of BBC sessions, a live album and an LP of fan-selected B-sides and rarities.

The set, which is released to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the band’s formation, will also include a 32 page hardback book containing interviews and photography.

To take part in the vote for the B-sides and rarities compilation, click here.

The box set can be pre-ordered here. You can watch a trailer for the box set below:

The tracklisting for the Complete Vinyl Collection is:

LP 1: Psychocandy

Just Like Honey

The Living End

Taste The Floor

The Hardest Walk

Cut Dead

In A Hole

Taste Of Cindy

Never Understand

Inside Me

Sowing Seeds

My Little Underground

You Trip Me Up

Something’s Wrong

It’s So Hard

LP 2: Darklands

Darklands

Deep One Perfect Morning

Happy When It Rains

Down On Me

Nine Million Rainy Days

April Skies

Fall

Cherry Came Too

On The Wall

About You

LP 3: Automatic

Here Comes Alice

Coast To Coast

Blues From A Gun

Between Planets

UV Ray

Her Way Of Praying

Head On

Take It

Half Way To Crazy

Gimme Hell

LP 4: Honey’s Dead

Reverence

Teenage Lust

Far Gone And Out

Almost Gold

Sugar Ray

Tumbledown

Catchfire

Good For My Soul

Rollercoaster

I Can’t Get Enough

Sundown

Frequency

LP 5: Stoned & Dethroned

Dirty Water

Bullet Lovers

Sometimes Always

Come On

Between Us

Hole

Never Saw It Coming

She

Wish I Could

Save Me

God Help Me

Girlfriend

Everybody I Know

You’ve Been A Friend

These Days

Feeling Lucky

LP 6 & 7: Munki

I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll

Birthday

Stardust Remedy

Fizzy

Moe Tucker

Perfume

Virtually Unreal

Degenerate

Cracking Up

Commercial

Super Tramp

Never Understood

I Can’t Find The Time For Times

Man On The Moon

Black

Dream Lover

I Hate Rock ‘N’ Roll

LP 8 & 9: The BBC Sessions

Tracks recorded 23/10/1984

In A Hole

You Trip Me Up

Never Understand

Taste The Floor

Tracks recorded 03/02/1985

The Living End

Inside Me

Just Like Honey

Tracks recorded 29/10/1985

Some Candy Talking

Psycho Candy

You Trip Me Up

Cut Dead

Tracks recorded 23/11/1986

Darklands

Down On Me

Deep One Perfect Morning

Tracks recorded 25/11/1986

Fall

In The Rain

Happy Place

Tracks recorded 31/05/1988

Sidewalking

Coast To Coast

Take It

My Girl

Tracks recorded 26/11/1989

Far Gone And Out

Silverblade

Here Comes Alice

Tracks recorded 06/07/1994

Come On

God Help Me (William Vocal)

Everybody I Know

The Perfect Crime

Tracks recorded 04/1998

Reverence

I Love Rock’n’Roll

Degenerate

Mo Tucker

LP 10: Live In Concert

Tracks recorded March 28, 1992 at Sheffield Arena

Catch Fire

Blues From A Gun

Head On

Reverence

Far Gone And Out

Halfway To Crazy

Sidewalking

Tracks recorded April 19, 1995 at Trinity, Bristol

Reverence

Snakedriver

Come On

Happy When It Rains

Teenage Lust

The Perfect Crime

Everybody I Know

Girlfriend

Hole

Head On

Sugar Ray

I Hate Rock ‘N’ Roll

LP 11: Fan Selected B-sides & Rarities LP

To Be Confirmed

Elvis Costello & The Roots – Wise Up Ghost

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Elvis Costello & The Roots – Wise Up Ghost

EC’s metatextual affair with the jazz y neo-hip-hoppers... Elvis Costello has seldom played it safe in his choice of collaborators. From Billy Sherrill to the Brodksy Quartet, Anne Sofie von Otter to Wendy James, Bill Frisell to Burt Bacharach, eclectic and promiscuous just about covers it. His latest unlikely partnership is with The Roots, the jazzy neo-hip-hoppers who moonlight as the house band on NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, which is where this union first sparked into life. Having been given carte blanche to deconstruct the likes of “High Fidelity” when backing Costello on the show, talk then turned to The Roots retooling a Costello classic for Record Store Day. That grew into a mooted EP, before both parties realised that they were already in the throes of making an album. The plan to re-record material from Costello’s past was dropped, but the outline of that idea remains visible. Wise Up Ghost is a metatextual affair: on one level its sights are set on new frontiers; on another it’s hugely self-referential, constantly recycling words and musical motifs from his back catalogue. Half of this curious but at times compelling collaboration sets lyrics from old songs to new tracks – though not always to their benefit. “Refuse To Be Saved” marries the words from Mighty Like A Rose’s “Invasion Hit Parade” to one of those strident non-melodies that Costello tends to throw at his music when inspiration isn’t returning his calls. The skeletal “(She Might Be A) Grenade” reconfigures “She’s Pulling Out The Pin” to similarly slight reward. At other times the past is resurrected more effectively. The tender “Trip Wire” revisits the circular doo-wop of “Satellite”, while “Wake Me Up” creates a convincing new home for the bloodied words to “Bedlam”, from The Delivery Man, setting them to the kind of sparse New Orleans funk which invokes the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s contributions on Spike. There’s nothing random about any of it. These are some of Costello’s most acerbic, even apocalyptic words, and amount to a full-bore indictment of personal, corporate and political mendacity. The spectral dub of “Walk Us Uptown” sets the tone, Costello crowing: “Keep a red flag flying, keep a blue flag as well/And a white flag in case it all goes to hell.” Elsewhere there are swipes at “boom to bust” culture and those who insist that “two and two is five”. Musically, Wise Up Ghost is equally stark. A brooding rhythm record most closely resembling the claustrophobic beat-music of When I Was Cruel, it’s sweetened only slightly by Brent Fischer’s inventive string arrangements and Mexican-American singer La Marisoul, who duets on “Cinco Minutos Con Vos”. When the combination works it conjures a sense of foreboding. “Viceroy’s Row” – “where all of the nightmares go” – is malevolent and hypnotic, its dragnet groove filled with dubby bass, trippy flute and fluttering layers of backing vocals. “Sugar Won’t Work” welds a sharp guitar lick to one of the record’s few really persuasive melodies, while the title track is an ominous meditation intoned over feedbacking guitar and a string figure sampled from yet another corner of Costello’s past. It has drama, poise and – unlike many other tracks here – evolves, rather than staying locked in its rhythmic straitjacket. Such moments justify this collaboration, yet when Wise Up Ghost goes wrong it goes really wrong. The Roots are tight but a tad slow-footed – hip-hop you can happily take home to mother. “Come The Meantimes” is like G Love & Special Sauce tackling Portishead’s “Sour Times”, with Isleys guitar tacked to the end. “Stick Out Your Tongue” does unseemly things to “Pills And Soap”, laying out one of EC’s greatest lyrics like a corpse over a lacklustre jam. For all its purposeful intent, the prevalence of these and other misfires prevent Wise Up Ghost fulfilling its intriguing promise. It’s still better than that Anne Sofie von Otter album, though. Graeme Thomson Q+A Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson How did the idea for the album start to take shape? On the Fallon show, Elvis gave us the liberty to flip his songs, he trusted us so much, and after the last time he was on we thought, ‘Why don’t we do this for real instead of every six months?’ At first it was going to be to remix Elvis’ favourites, but I objected to that pretty quickly. I didn’t want to get the blame for messing with his classic stuff! How were the songs written? Elvis might come to us with a ghost of an idea and we would flesh it out, or sometimes the ghost of the idea was enough. We approached it like a hobby. It wasn’t until we had 13 songs we thought were great that we knew we had a record on our hands. He is the most open-minded artist I’ve ever encountered. We recorded this entire record in our dressing room [on Fallon], not even in the studio. The whole room can barely hold eight people. Any shows planned? Are you kidding? I can’t wait to put my spin on a 20-minute version of “I Want You”! I’ve got four separate song lists, and I guess by October or November we’ll start doing heavy rehearsals for our dream show. INTERVIEW BY GRAEME THOMSON

EC’s metatextual affair with the jazz y neo-hip-hoppers…

Elvis Costello has seldom played it safe in his choice of collaborators. From Billy Sherrill to the Brodksy Quartet, Anne Sofie von Otter to Wendy James, Bill Frisell to Burt Bacharach, eclectic and promiscuous just about covers it. His latest unlikely partnership is with The Roots, the jazzy neo-hip-hoppers who moonlight as the house band on NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, which is where this union first sparked into life. Having been given carte blanche to deconstruct the likes of “High Fidelity” when backing Costello on the show, talk then turned to The Roots retooling a Costello classic for Record Store Day. That grew into a mooted EP, before both parties realised that they were already in the throes of making an album.

The plan to re-record material from Costello’s past was dropped, but the outline of that idea remains visible. Wise Up Ghost is a metatextual affair: on one level its sights are set on new frontiers; on another it’s hugely self-referential, constantly recycling words and musical motifs from his back catalogue.

Half of this curious but at times compelling collaboration sets lyrics from old songs to new tracks – though not always to their benefit. “Refuse To Be Saved” marries the words from Mighty Like A Rose’s “Invasion Hit Parade” to one of those strident non-melodies that Costello tends to throw at his music when inspiration isn’t returning his calls. The skeletal “(She Might Be A) Grenade” reconfigures “She’s Pulling Out The Pin” to similarly slight reward. At other times the past is resurrected more effectively. The tender “Trip Wire” revisits the circular doo-wop of “Satellite”, while “Wake Me Up” creates a convincing new home for the bloodied words to “Bedlam”, from The Delivery Man, setting them to the kind of sparse New Orleans funk which invokes the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s contributions on Spike. There’s nothing random about any of it. These are some of Costello’s most acerbic, even apocalyptic words, and amount to a full-bore indictment of personal, corporate and political mendacity. The spectral dub of “Walk Us Uptown” sets the tone, Costello crowing: “Keep a red flag flying, keep a blue flag as well/And a white flag in case it all goes to hell.” Elsewhere there are swipes at “boom to bust” culture and those who insist that “two and two is five”.

Musically, Wise Up Ghost is equally stark. A brooding rhythm record most closely resembling the claustrophobic beat-music of When I Was Cruel, it’s sweetened only slightly by Brent Fischer’s inventive string arrangements and Mexican-American singer La Marisoul, who duets on “Cinco Minutos Con Vos”. When the combination works it conjures a sense of foreboding. “Viceroy’s Row” – “where all of the nightmares go” – is malevolent and hypnotic, its dragnet groove filled with dubby bass, trippy flute and fluttering layers of backing vocals. “Sugar Won’t Work” welds a sharp guitar lick to one of the record’s few really persuasive melodies, while the title track is an ominous meditation intoned over feedbacking guitar and a string figure sampled from yet another corner of Costello’s past. It has drama, poise and – unlike many other tracks here – evolves, rather than staying locked in its rhythmic straitjacket.

Such moments justify this collaboration, yet when Wise Up Ghost goes wrong it goes really wrong. The Roots are tight but a tad slow-footed – hip-hop you can happily take home to mother. “Come The Meantimes” is like G Love & Special Sauce tackling Portishead’s “Sour Times”, with Isleys guitar tacked to the end. “Stick Out Your Tongue” does unseemly things to “Pills And Soap”, laying out one of EC’s greatest lyrics like a corpse over a lacklustre jam. For all its purposeful intent, the prevalence of these and other misfires prevent Wise Up Ghost fulfilling its intriguing promise. It’s still better than that Anne Sofie von Otter album, though.

Graeme Thomson

Q+A

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson

How did the idea for the album start to take shape?

On the Fallon show, Elvis gave us the liberty to flip his songs, he trusted us so much, and after the last time he was on we thought, ‘Why don’t we do this for real instead of every six months?’ At first it was going to be to remix Elvis’ favourites, but I objected to that pretty quickly. I didn’t want to get the blame for messing with his classic stuff!

How were the songs written?

Elvis might come to us with a ghost of an idea and we would flesh it out, or sometimes the ghost of the idea was enough. We approached it like a hobby. It wasn’t until we had 13 songs we thought were great that we knew we had a record on our hands. He is the most open-minded artist I’ve ever encountered. We recorded this entire record in our dressing room [on Fallon], not even in the studio. The whole room can barely hold eight people.

Any shows planned?

Are you kidding? I can’t wait to put my spin on a 20-minute version of “I Want You”! I’ve got four separate song lists, and I guess by October or November we’ll start doing heavy rehearsals for our dream show.

INTERVIEW BY GRAEME THOMSON

We want your questions for Lloyd Cole

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We want your questions for Lloyd Cole
Lloyd Cole is set to answer your questions in Uncut as part of our regular Audience With… feature. So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask the legendary singer songwriter? Does he still favour cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin? How on earth did he end up recording an album w...

Lloyd Cole is set to answer your questions in Uncut as part of our regular Audience With… feature.

So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask the legendary singer songwriter?

Does he still favour cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin?

How on earth did he end up recording an album with Krautrock supremo, Hans-Joaquim Roedelius?

What’s his current golf handicap?

Send up your questions by noon, Thursday, October 10 to uncutaudiencewith@ipcmedia.com. The best questions, and Lloyd’s answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine. Please include your name and location with your question.

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