Home Blog Page 500

Roy Harper: “I was an absolute rebel… I once painted the local town hall with swastikas and hammers and sickles”

0
Roy Harper has recently returned with a raved-about new album, Man & Myth, and a UK tour, including a date at London’s prestigious Royal Festival Hall on October 22 – he’s arguably bigger than he has been since the mid-‘70s. Celebrating Harper’s 70th birthday back in July 2011 (Take 17...

Roy Harper has recently returned with a raved-about new album, Man & Myth, and a UK tour, including a date at London’s prestigious Royal Festival Hall on October 22 – he’s arguably bigger than he has been since the mid-‘70s. Celebrating Harper’s 70th birthday back in July 2011 (Take 170), Uncut speaks to Roy about tales of escapes from psychiatric hospitals, tempestuous dealings with the music business, and the sinister connection between Tony Blair and Cliff… Words: Allan Jones

____________

A few weeks before we meet for the first time in 30 years, Roy Harper calls from his home in West Cork with directions to Clonakilty, where Uncut will spend an afternoon with him at April’s end, first at De Barra’s, a funky local folk club, then at a rocky headland called Simon’s Cove, where Harper stands under a vast, cloudless sky with his back to the Atlantic, which looks just about big enough to contain the vastness of at least some of his most expansive music.

On the phone, Roy asks me how long we’ve known each other and sounds taken aback when I tell him since 1974. “It seems like five minutes ago,” he says, wistfully. “I’ll be 70 soon,” he adds. How did that feel? “Fucking mad,” he laughs, a once-familiar cackle.

As mentioned recently in these pages, there was a time when Harper’s records meant as much to me as anyone’s ever has. In times of musical gloom, he was dependably a light that filled the darkest room. His greatest songs – confrontational long-form epics like “Circle”, “McGoohan’s Blues”, “I Hate The White Man”, “The Same Old Rock”, “Me And My Woman”, “The Lord’s Prayer” and “The Game” – came from a place of permanent turmoil and extreme emotion, and were therefore great theatre, uncompromising and grand. They nevertheless failed to bring him the kind of popularity enjoyed by many of his more famous fans – among them Led Zeppelin, who paid compliment to him on “Hats Off To (Roy) Harper”, Pink Floyd, who had him sing on “Have A Cigar”, from Wish You Were Here, Paul McCartney, who appeared on ’78’s One Of Those Days In England, and later Kate Bush, who sings on his albums Death Or Glory? and Once.

Punk pretty much derailed his career. He was written off, cast aside, dropped by EMI, retreated after a painful divorce in the early ’80s, a grim time for him, to the far west coast of Cork, where he’s lived in what he describes as exile for the past 20 years, the forgotten story of English music. Lately, though, he’s been rediscovered by a new generation of musicians – including Joanna Newsom, who brought him back into the spotlight as a guest on recent UK tours, and Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold – who’ve acknowledged him as an inspiration. With the large-scale digital reissue of his catalogue scheduled to coincide with his 70th birthday this month, what better time to revisit the life and career of a visionary iconoclast.

____________

UNCUT: What do you remember of yourself at 15?

ROY HARPER: I was an absolute rebel, uncontrollable. I wanted to stick it to everyone. I grew up in an environment of conflict that I knew I had to get away from. My stepmother was a Jehovah’s Witness. My father was absent a lot of the time and she took her frustration out on me and my brother. It was very hurtful, unbearable. I was getting into music in a big way while all this was getting on, skiffle at first, then the blues, like a lot of people of my age. And that was liberating, an alternative to whatever else was happening in my life, which was mostly trouble. I once painted the local town hall with swastikas and hammers and sickles and ended up on the centre pages of The Daily Mirror. I got a 60 quid fine and the permanent attention of the constabulary. This was in Lytham St Annes, near Blackpool, which increasingly was not somewhere I wanted to be. As someone I know later put it, it was like a cemetery with bus stops.

You must have been desperate to join the RAF as a way out.

Well, getting away from home was an absolute priority and the only way out I could see at the time was by joining one of the services. I signed up for 15 years and soon realised I’d made a dreadful mistake. It was like being in prison. I knew I had to get out, so I feigned madness. I thought if I convinced them I was crazy, they’d let me go. I wrecked the barracks and the mess hall and a couple of heavies hauled me off to the camp hospital where they kept me sedated for two or three days and then put me in Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Hospital in Wendover, where the air force parked all its mad people. I had to convince them I was insane, to make sure I got out. I locked myself in a padded cell and wouldn’t come out, which made them think I was genuinely unstable and unfit for service. I thought I was getting nearer to the door out of there, but they ended up giving me electric shock treatment.

The next day, I just flew at them in an absolute rage, but instead of discharging me they transferred me to Lancaster Moor Mental Institution, which hadn’t been part of my plan. So I escaped, through a bathroom window, in my hospital pyjamas, and walked through the night along this railroad track, freezing. I made it home, still wearing these weird one-colour pyjamas and a shirt I’d nicked. My father and stepmother were there and didn’t say a word, not a word. They obviously thought I was mad and capable of anything. They just watched as I grabbed my things. I high-tailed it down to London and just dropped out of sight.

What did you hope to do next?

I don’t think I had a particular plan for my life at the time. I was just enjoying it. I was free, that was the main thing, free of the life I’d been born into. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble. Back in Blackpool, I got involved with the wrong crew and ended up doing a year in Walton Green prison. One night, I was at a party that needed re-fuelling. I was totally drunk and tried to break into an off-licence by jumping through a skylight, but ended up in the chemist’s next door. So instead of nicking booze as planned, I made off with my pockets full of amphetamines, big aluminium tins of ephedrine. The police caught up with me in a snooker hall and I was put on probation, which I broke after an incident at St Pancras when I tried to change the time on the station clock and, after three months in Brixton, I ended up in Walton. I remember having Christmas dinner there, a tomato and two pieces of bacon, and thinking what a waste of time my life so far had been. I was stuck in there with murderers, one guy who’d killed his own kid, seven or eight of them. It was a hard experience.

When I finally surfaced at the age of 20, I was ready to do something that didn’t involve me ending up back in prison. My main desire was to be a poet, my ambition since I was 12, and I’d carried it all through that dangerous teenage period. There was nothing else I was prepared to do. There was nothing else I was remotely qualified to do, but it was only when I emerged from that awkward teenage period that I managed to put my desire to be a writer into motion and move forward. I’d picked up the guitar again and saw that music and songs were another language and you could say things through a mix of poetry and music that you couldn’t say with words alone, and that was incredibly appealing. So I became a singer and from that moment I never looked back.

When I started playing Les Cousins, which was like the centre of the folk world in London, I was off and away. It all happened very quickly. I signed a ridiculous contract with a small record company because I was desperate to make a record and inevitably got taken for a complete ride. But the album I made for them, Sophisticated Beggar, was a stepping stone. It created a bit of noise and I got signed to CBS.

You must’ve thought you’d made the big time.

It wasn’t like that at all. It was a long way from that. At CBS, not for the last time I found myself banging heads with a record company over what they expected. They wanted me to write commercial pop songs and when they heard the album I made for them [Come Out Fighting Ghengis Smith], they didn’t have a clue. They wanted hits. And I gave them “Circle”, which was a 12-minute soundscape of my difficult youth and totally unlike anything anyone else was doing. The Beatles weren’t doing anything like that at the time. The Stones weren’t doing anything like it, either. No-one was.

The albums you made for Harvest are probably the ones you are still best-known for. It was the beginning of a great period for you.

Yes, it was. In 1969, EMI saw something was happening, all these artists and players all over the place who were admittedly a disparate bunch but who were kind of working in the same area and a lot of us were brought together on Harvest – Pink Floyd, Mike Chapman, me, The Third Ear Band, Kevin Ayers, Syd Barrett, Pete Brown, The Edgar Broughton Band. It was EMI’s attempt to capture the underground on one label, which meant we were all labelled as hippies, which I resented. I wasn’t a hippy and I was being lumped in with people who were much younger than me who were doing something very different and often saying things I thought were totally meaningless and airy-fairy. My popularity, such as it was, was based on things being a lot more truthfully told and with a lot more honesty and integrity than flower power was ever capable of.

In a recent TV appearance you nevertheless described that time as ‘the high summer of our lives’.

In many ways, yes, it was. I was certainly in the high summer of my own life, at 28. It was a terrific time to be around, regardless of the numbskulls at record companies. There was a great feeling of positivity. Euphoria reigned. It was there, for real, a true feeling. It was the mood of the times and it was everywhere.

Did you think you could change the world for the better?

Yes, you did have those thoughts. There were those among us who thought we could change things, but what became evident is that we didn’t know how. It would have meant putting down the guitar and becoming a politician, joining the Labour Party or something. I’m not sure I’d have had the personality for that. There’s a confrontational side to me that people who are down-the-line-straight are not prepared to put up with.

The same can be said of some of your songs, “I Hate The White Man” being a famous example from Flat, Baroque And Berserk. Do you still stand by the sentiments of that song?

In some ways, it’s a relic of its age. But as long as there’s a BNP, that song will have a certain relevance, because the BNP and what people like them stand for is totally unacceptable to me, totally unacceptable, and so in that sense the song remains valid and I will continue to sing it and it will be what it was always intended to be, which is something for people who share the same feelings as me to rally around. I would offer up the same sentiments now to the same people I condemned in 1969, without apology.

Do you think Stormcock is the album from that time you’ll be best remembered for?

Very possibly, yes. It’s certainly somewhere I’ve always wanted to get back to, but haven’t since had the means. I was in a very privileged position then, the right manager and the right record company, for that year at least. I was allowed to do exactly what I wanted to do, which was something epic and symphonic and I really went for it. EMI buried it, though.

Notably, it was also the first of your albums to feature Jimmy Page. How did you meet?

We met at the Bath festival, which was a brilliant event. He came up to me and asked me to play my instrumental, “Blackpool”, for him. I did and he just said, “Yeah, very good.” Then he walked off. The only thing I thought about him at the time was that his trousers were too short. They were white pants and the trouser legs barely came down to his ankles. And then he appeared later on that day with a band I hadn’t seen, although I’d heard of them. They came on stage and I recognised the guitar player as the guy who’d asked me to play him “Blackpool”. I thought this could be interesting, so stayed to watch them. The first song was brilliant and I thought this was a powerhouse of a band. When they started the second song, it could have been “Dazed And Confused”, all the young women around me stood up involuntarily and they were crying, all of them. I knew I was witness to something I’d never forget, ever. They were almost extra-terrestrial. They weren’t part of the world. I became a fan from that moment, and then discovered they were fans of mine and we went on from there. I remember Jimmy later giving me a copy of Led Zeppelin III and playing with the little wheel on the cover and telling him it looked really nice and he said, “Read the back of the sleeve.” And I saw they’d recorded a track called “Hats Off To Harper” and remember thinking, ‘Wow. That’s a real accolade, a serious compliment.’

Tell us about the Jimmy you know.

Jimmy’s a gentleman, a first-rate gentleman. I’ll stand by him for the rest of time. There may be sides to him that he’s never shown me, that he kept hidden from me. But I doubt it and if he does have a dark side, I was never part of it. The heavy atmosphere that surrounded Zeppelin at times had everything to do with Peter Grant. He was something to behold, a very powerful man. He was a brilliant businessman as well as an ogre who had a reputation for breaking people’s fingers for just looking at him in the wrong way. He was someone you did not cross in any circumstance. You went to parties and there were two people who never ended up in the swimming pool, who you’d never, ever, think of throwing in the pool – Jimmy and Peter. Oh, and the woman who was carrying for the band and had something or other in her bra.

Were you envious of Zeppelin’s success?

I would like to have been more successful, yes, and sold more records. But I was only ever interested in success on my own terms. I wasn’t writing the right kind of songs.

There was a feeling that HQ was the album that would put you up there with your peers.

That was just a convenient thought. It was never going to happen. I’m sure my character got in the way of success to some extent. I can be as hard to deal with as my reputation suggests. At the same time, the records I was making weren’t destined for the mass market, though I think they’ll be re-discovered. At the time, it barely mattered, though. Punk came along and I was completely marginalised. People like me became expendable. We were beyond redemption. We were gone.

What was it like to be suddenly irrelevant?

It’s not a pleasant feeling at all. I’d been on top of the world then suddenly I was underneath it, buried. There was a total loss of enthusiasm. I really struggled in the ’80s. I was demoralised. I was in trouble on a couple of levels. I was in a terrible state physically and I didn’t think I was going to live much longer [Harper was diagnosed in the early ’70s with a congenital blood disorder serious enough for doctors to tell him he’d be dead before he was 40]. I was very ill. My second marriage also broke up. She ran off with someone else, a violin player [Nigel Kennedy] I’d been working on an adaptation of Brahms’ Violin Concerto with. I was really traumatised by that. Anybody who’s been suddenly left like that will know it’s very, very traumatic. I managed to come out of it, but it took about five years. It was like a death, a loss, like being told your child’s been killed in a war. There’s no other way to describe it. When you go through that, it changes your life forever, there’s no point in not admitting it. I withdrew, retreated, became an exile.

You made some good albums during your ‘exile’ that simply haven’t been widely heard – Once, The Dream Society, The Green Man – and there were some great songs, like “The Monster”, from The Green Man, a castigation of Tony Blair at a time everyone was fawning over New Labour.

I saw straight through him as soon as I saw him, poncing about in flares with this very dodgy Tony Blackburn haircut. He was a throwback to Thatcher – “the same old handbag at the helm”. He was a mouth with plenty to say, but could he think? I doubted it, I really doubted it. He was definitely a monster and when he became Prime Minister, it was like Cliff Richard becoming Prime Minister, Cliff Richard with a very bizarre attitude. But nobody was going to take notice of a fifty-something old man, screaming in the wilderness. I was overjoyed later, though, when a million people took to the streets to protest his war against Iraq. That was a crime. He’s a criminal and he’ll one day suffer for the lies he told and the deaths he caused. This is becoming a rant, sorry.

Maybe I should reel you back in.

That’s probably a good idea.

Let’s talk, then, about the things happening in your world right now, the reissue programme, the recognition of your work by people like Joanna Newsom, Robin Pecknold and others. After so long being ignored, it must feel pretty good being talked about again.

It does feel very good at the moment, but you have to take it with a pinch of salt. Because you know that everyone’s sort of come together for what after all is an anniversary year and a bit of a trumpet can be blown because of it. But it all might sink into a bit of a hollow triumphalist hoot next year. You have to be a realist.

Finally, then, as you look beyond 70, do you go forward with optimism?

Of course, yes. I am an optimist. I’ll continue to make music. Even when things weren’t looking too good, I never thought of giving up completely. I never retired. Music is in my bones and when something’s been in your bones that long it’s difficult to dislodge. I believe we have a future as a race and that I’ll be part of it for a while longer and I’ll write for that future for the rest of my life.

The Civil Wars – The Civil Wars

0

The final conflict? Roots revivalists find harmony in discord on self-titled second album... The vocal blend between Joy Williams and John Paul White is one of those effortless tongue-and-groove combinations which traditionally implies a bond forged in either church or kindergarten. In fact, the pair were thrown together in 2008 in the more prosaic surroundings of a Nashville songwriting camp. Californian Williams had spent most of the previous decade making white-bread Christian pop albums; White, ten years her senior, grew up in Alabama steeped in the work of Kris Kristofferson and Townes Van Zandt, and was once in a band named after Lynyrd Skynrd’s Nuthin’ Fancy. Their coming together was an odd couple pairing that shouldn’t have lasted the afternoon. Instead, within three years they had won a handful of Grammys for The Civil Wars’ self-released 2011 debut, Barton Hollow. Easy on the eye and even easier on the ear, their instant appeal is no great mystery. The Civil Wars make a patchwork quilt out of American roots music, stitching together a little bit of everything: gothic-folk, sensitive singer-songwriting, razor-edged bluegrass, dainty parlour pieces and corporate country, folding in slivers of Mazzy Star’s melancholic haze and the pop-Americana of The Pierces. Sleek but not slick, their songs have the gift of familiarity; many sound almost instantly like old friends. The catalytic element, however, is the chemistry between White and Williams. They are married, not to each other, but the potency of their entwined voices lends their music an air of passionate intimacy which in the past they haven’t been shy about amping up on stage, presumably in the knowledge that a little of that on-the-edge Tammy ’n’ George frisson doesn’t hurt ticket sales. Intriguingly, life has recently begun to imitate art, with the drama implicit in the songs seeping into the duo’s personal relationship. Shortly after the basic tracks for their second album were recorded, at the end of 2012 The Civil Wars posted a message on their website announcing the immediate cancellation of all tour dates “due to internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition,” which as an excuse certainly beats “unforeseen circumstances” or “exhaustion”. “The reality is, this was a really difficult album to make,” Joy Williams tells Uncut. “There were tensions in the band that we couldn’t ignore. There was a breakdown in communication, and we had to find new ways of working together.” At the time of writing it’s not entirely clear whether this record will be remembered as a bump in the road or a full stop. The off-stage commotion offers plenty to chew on for those inclined to sift through the lyrics for clues. Opener “The One That Got Away” – a dark little tale regretting bad choices which, like much of the album, foregrounds White’s crunching electric guitar – wishes that “I’d never ever seen your face”. The anthemic “Eavesdrop” begs “don’t say that it’s over,” while “Same Old Same Old”, a sublime ballad with a hint of Whiskeytown’s “Reasons To Lie” about it, is a pitiless account of a calcified relationship. White sings “I want to leave you, I want to lose us”; Williams counters with: “I’m gonna break things, I’m gonna cross the line.” We can draw our own conclusions. Of course, these layers of subtext very possibly did not exist when the songs were being written. In which case, The Civil Wars proves more than capable of producing its own dark drama. This is an album which steadfastly refuses to get happy. Of the dozen songs here, only “From This Valley” offers a ray of light. A rousing country-gospel strum which makes a virtue of its simplicity, it could have been written at any time during the past century. Much of rest runs the spectrum from twilit regret to simmering dread. Several songs feature William as the archetypal good woman willing to transgress in order to save her errant man. On “Devil’s Backbone”, a flinty minor-chord mountain stomp, she has fallen for a sinner on the lam from the hangman. On “Oh Henry” she cautions some local ne’er do well that “we don’t need one more grave in this town”, over a distorted bluegrass raga not a million miles away from the opening song-suite on Laura Marling’s Once I Was An Eagle. Williams switches tactics for the bleakly beautiful “Tell Mama”, disguising her predatory impulses beneath the veneer of maternal concern, her whispering entreaties bathed in the country darkness of weeping pedal steel and mandolin. If Williams’ voice and full immersion in her characters has star billing, musically much of The Civil Wars leans towards White’s swampy southern roots, taking the title track of Barton Hollow as its departure point and heading further into amplified Appalachian blues and heavier rhythms. On “The One That Got Away” and “I Had Me A Girl” in particular he’s like a one-man Plant and Page deep in hillbilly country, with some White Stripes thrown in for good measure. Elsewhere the songs strike out towards even more unexpected places. With its weary drum tattoo, drifting atmospherics and slow-pulsing bass line, “Dust To Dust” sounds like late-period Blue Nile drizzled in moonshine. The racked “Disarm”, mostly delivered by White, recalls the bleached melancholy of Low. Only on the final two songs do The Civil Wars hark back to the more restrained prettiness of Barton Hollow. “Sacred Heart” is sung by Williams in French, and the distancing effect of a second language lends this delicate chamber piece a cool formality, a welcome respite from the torrid heat of what has gone before. The mood of quiet valediction bleeds into the closing “D’Arline”, which has all the unadorned immediacy of a field recording, two voices pitched soft and high as a lone dobro weaves its way between. For those still hunting for clues “D’Arline” sounds awfully like a farewell – “Happiness was having you here with me” – but we should hope that the story of The Civil Wars doesn’t end just yet. On the evidence of their second album things are just starting to get interesting. Graeme Thomson Q&A JOY WILLIAMS Presumably you felt some pressure having to follow the enormous and unexpected success of Barton Hollow? Of course I felt pressure, we did such great work on Barton Hollow. I aspired to not only equal it, but to surpass it. John Paul was more of the ilk that it would happen organically; I was more of a mind to push the envelope and get out of our comfort zone. I spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking about how to accomplish that. But despite all of the tension and struggle, I think we made something even more universal, honest and beautiful than Barton Hollow. Did you still write together in the same way? Yes and no. The way we wrote was the same - in a room together, writing lyrics together, building a melody and harmonies together. But the energy was different. The former ease on some level became replaced by some struggle, and I think we both wrestled with how to navigate that creatively. But the strange thing that happened is, out of that struggle, we got something totally unexpected. How was this record made? We tracked for two weeks in the studio last fall, recording our performances live together exactly like we did for Barton Hollow. Same room and everything. John Paul played acoustic, and at times brought out the electric, which seemed to make him really happy. While he was working out electric parts to record, I was nursing my baby boy upstairs in-between takes. In places this is a considerably heavier record than Barton Hollow – both lyrically and musically... Lyrically, I don’t see this album as heavier, just more vulnerable at points. We’ve always specialized in sad. Sonically, this album has more grit and at times has a more electrified sound. Distorted guitars, using dobros and mandolins in some unconventional ways. What prompted the change? We didn't want to make the same album twice. I’m the type of person who always wants to plough new ground, to uncover more parts of myself. Lyrically, this album touches on a myriad of emotions - regret, loss, absence and desire. Rick Rubin assisted on one track, “I Had Me A Girl”. What did he bring to the process? Rick was really encouraging, peaceful and almost like a shaman while we recorded our performances. I can still remember him with his tanned skin, board shorts, white t-shirt, white-grey beard, laying on his back, eyes closed and rocking his head to the music while we sang. He encouraged us to “sing it like it's the very first time you’ve ever sung this song”, and he sent us on our way with encouragement to keep writing on the road. People like to idealize being off the road to write the next record, but sometimes the best songs are written while in motion. You sing “Sacred Heart” in French. Why? And what is it about? I took French starting at third grade. I am not fluent by any means, but I’ve always loved the language. I guess I was channelling my inner Edith Piaf. “C’est La Mort” on the last record had a French title, with lyrics in English. We thought it would be fun to turn it around on this record: song title in English, with the lyrics in French. We were in Paris with friends for a photo shoot, and John Paul brought out his guitar and started fiddling with an idea he’d been working on. All of the sudden, lyrics and a melody started flowing. I can still remember having a direct view of the Eiffel Tower that night, lights twinkling in a thousand directions, drinking a strange concoction of Coca-Cola and red wine in hand, which I later called Rednecks in Paris. When we were working on the lyric, I remember John Paul and I conjuring up the image of two people in a long distance relationship saying they would meet at a certain spot, at a specific time in Paris. But one of them never shows. Given the circumstances, do you have mixed feelings about the record? When I think about this album, the thing that sticks out in my mind is that I’m not the same person I was when I first began this album. I can’t say this album is completely autobiographical, but we left a lot of tracks in the snow. The process of writing and recording this album changed me, and I’ll never be the same – a lot of hard lessons learned. But you are what you overcome, and I’d like to think that this struggle has made me more awake, aware, alive and compassionate. INTERVIEW: JAAN UHELSZKI

The final conflict? Roots revivalists find harmony in discord on self-titled second album…

The vocal blend between Joy Williams and John Paul White is one of those effortless tongue-and-groove combinations which traditionally implies a bond forged in either church or kindergarten. In fact, the pair were thrown together in 2008 in the more prosaic surroundings of a Nashville songwriting camp. Californian Williams had spent most of the previous decade making white-bread Christian pop albums; White, ten years her senior, grew up in Alabama steeped in the work of Kris Kristofferson and Townes Van Zandt, and was once in a band named after Lynyrd Skynrd’s Nuthin’ Fancy.

Their coming together was an odd couple pairing that shouldn’t have lasted the afternoon. Instead, within three years they had won a handful of Grammys for The Civil Wars’ self-released 2011 debut, Barton Hollow. Easy on the eye and even easier on the ear, their instant appeal is no great mystery. The Civil Wars make a patchwork quilt out of American roots music, stitching together a little bit of everything: gothic-folk, sensitive singer-songwriting, razor-edged bluegrass, dainty parlour pieces and corporate country, folding in slivers of Mazzy Star’s melancholic haze and the pop-Americana of The Pierces. Sleek but not slick, their songs have the gift of familiarity; many sound almost instantly like old friends.

The catalytic element, however, is the chemistry between White and Williams. They are married, not to each other, but the potency of their entwined voices lends their music an air of passionate intimacy which in the past they haven’t been shy about amping up on stage, presumably in the knowledge that a little of that on-the-edge Tammy ’n’ George frisson doesn’t hurt ticket sales.

Intriguingly, life has recently begun to imitate art, with the drama implicit in the songs seeping into the duo’s personal relationship. Shortly after the basic tracks for their second album were recorded, at the end of 2012 The Civil Wars posted a message on their website announcing the immediate cancellation of all tour dates “due to internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition,” which as an excuse certainly beats “unforeseen circumstances” or “exhaustion”. “The reality is, this was a really difficult album to make,” Joy Williams tells Uncut. “There were tensions in the band that we couldn’t ignore. There was a breakdown in communication, and we had to find new ways of working together.” At the time of writing it’s not entirely clear whether this record will be remembered as a bump in the road or a full stop.

The off-stage commotion offers plenty to chew on for those inclined to sift through the lyrics for clues. Opener “The One That Got Away” – a dark little tale regretting bad choices which, like much of the album, foregrounds White’s crunching electric guitar – wishes that “I’d never ever seen your face”. The anthemic “Eavesdrop” begs “don’t say that it’s over,” while “Same Old Same Old”, a sublime ballad with a hint of Whiskeytown’s “Reasons To Lie” about it, is a pitiless account of a calcified relationship. White sings “I want to leave you, I want to lose us”; Williams counters with: “I’m gonna break things, I’m gonna cross the line.” We can draw our own conclusions.

Of course, these layers of subtext very possibly did not exist when the songs were being written. In which case, The Civil Wars proves more than capable of producing its own dark drama. This is an album which steadfastly refuses to get happy. Of the dozen songs here, only “From This Valley” offers a ray of light. A rousing country-gospel strum which makes a virtue of its simplicity, it could have been written at any time during the past century.

Much of rest runs the spectrum from twilit regret to simmering dread. Several songs feature William as the archetypal good woman willing to transgress in order to save her errant man. On “Devil’s Backbone”, a flinty minor-chord mountain stomp, she has fallen for a sinner on the lam from the hangman. On “Oh Henry” she cautions some local ne’er do well that “we don’t need one more grave in this town”, over a distorted bluegrass raga not a million miles away from the opening song-suite on Laura Marling’s Once I Was An Eagle. Williams switches tactics for the bleakly beautiful “Tell Mama”, disguising her predatory impulses beneath the veneer of maternal concern, her whispering entreaties bathed in the country darkness of weeping pedal steel and mandolin.

If Williams’ voice and full immersion in her characters has star billing, musically much of The Civil Wars leans towards White’s swampy southern roots, taking the title track of Barton Hollow as its departure point and heading further into amplified Appalachian blues and heavier rhythms. On “The One That Got Away” and “I Had Me A Girl” in particular he’s like a one-man Plant and Page deep in hillbilly country, with some White Stripes thrown in for good measure. Elsewhere the songs strike out towards even more unexpected places. With its weary drum tattoo, drifting atmospherics and slow-pulsing bass line, “Dust To Dust” sounds like late-period Blue Nile drizzled in moonshine. The racked “Disarm”, mostly delivered by White, recalls the bleached melancholy of Low.

Only on the final two songs do The Civil Wars hark back to the more restrained prettiness of Barton Hollow. “Sacred Heart” is sung by Williams in French, and the distancing effect of a second language lends this delicate chamber piece a cool formality, a welcome respite from the torrid heat of what has gone before. The mood of quiet valediction bleeds into the closing “D’Arline”, which has all the unadorned immediacy of a field recording, two voices pitched soft and high as a lone dobro weaves its way between.

For those still hunting for clues “D’Arline” sounds awfully like a farewell – “Happiness was having you here with me” – but we should hope that the story of The Civil Wars doesn’t end just yet. On the evidence of their second album things are just starting to get interesting.

Graeme Thomson

Q&A

JOY WILLIAMS

Presumably you felt some pressure having to follow the enormous and unexpected success of Barton Hollow?

Of course I felt pressure, we did such great work on Barton Hollow. I aspired to not only equal it, but to surpass it. John Paul was more of the ilk that it would happen organically; I was more of a mind to push the envelope and get out of our comfort zone. I spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking about how to accomplish that. But despite all of the tension and struggle, I think we made something even more universal, honest and beautiful than Barton Hollow.

Did you still write together in the same way?

Yes and no. The way we wrote was the same – in a room together, writing lyrics together, building a melody and harmonies together. But the energy was different. The former ease on some level became replaced by some struggle, and I think we both wrestled with how to navigate that creatively. But the strange thing that happened is, out of that struggle, we got something totally unexpected.

How was this record made?

We tracked for two weeks in the studio last fall, recording our performances live together exactly like we did for Barton Hollow. Same room and everything. John Paul played acoustic, and at times brought out the electric, which seemed to make him really happy. While he was working out electric parts to record, I was nursing my baby boy upstairs in-between takes.

In places this is a considerably heavier record than Barton Hollow – both lyrically and musically…

Lyrically, I don’t see this album as heavier, just more vulnerable at points. We’ve always specialized in sad. Sonically, this album has more grit and at times has a more electrified sound. Distorted guitars, using dobros and mandolins in some unconventional ways. What prompted the change? We didn’t want to make the same album twice. I’m the type of person who always wants to plough new ground, to uncover more parts of myself. Lyrically, this album touches on a myriad of emotions – regret, loss, absence and desire.

Rick Rubin assisted on one track, “I Had Me A Girl”. What did he bring to the process?

Rick was really encouraging, peaceful and almost like a shaman while we recorded our performances. I can still remember him with his tanned skin, board shorts, white t-shirt, white-grey beard, laying on his back, eyes closed and rocking his head to the music while we sang. He encouraged us to “sing it like it’s the very first time you’ve ever sung this song”, and he sent us on our way with encouragement to keep writing on the road. People like to idealize being off the road to write the next record, but sometimes the best songs are written while in motion.

You sing “Sacred Heart” in French. Why? And what is it about?

I took French starting at third grade. I am not fluent by any means, but I’ve always loved the language. I guess I was channelling my inner Edith Piaf. “C’est La Mort” on the last record had a French title, with lyrics in English. We thought it would be fun to turn it around on this record: song title in English, with the lyrics in French. We were in Paris with friends for a photo shoot, and John Paul brought out his guitar and started fiddling with an idea he’d been working on. All of the sudden, lyrics and a melody started flowing. I can still remember having a direct view of the Eiffel Tower that night, lights twinkling in a thousand directions, drinking a strange concoction of Coca-Cola and red wine in hand, which I later called Rednecks in Paris. When we were working on the lyric, I remember John Paul and I conjuring up the image of two people in a long distance relationship saying they would meet at a certain spot, at a specific time in Paris. But one of them never shows.

Given the circumstances, do you have mixed feelings about the record?

When I think about this album, the thing that sticks out in my mind is that I’m not the same person I was when I first began this album. I can’t say this album is completely autobiographical, but we left a lot of tracks in the snow. The process of writing and recording this album changed me, and I’ll never be the same – a lot of hard lessons learned. But you are what you overcome, and I’d like to think that this struggle has made me more awake, aware, alive and compassionate.

INTERVIEW: JAAN UHELSZKI

Be the first to see the Rolling Stones Sweet Summer Sun – Hyde Park Live concert film

0

To celebrate the imminent release of The Rolling Stones' Sweet Summer Sun – Hyde Park Live concert film on DVD and Blu-Ray, we've teamed up with Eagle Rock to give away a pair of tickets to attend an exclusive advance screening at the Electric Cinema in West London at 8.30pm on Thursday, October 10. The concert film chronicles The Rolling Stones’ historic and triumphant return to London’s Hyde Park this summer, where the band played to over 100,000 fans. To be in with a chance of winning a pair of tickets to this special screening, just tell us the correct answer to this question: Which former Stones guitarist joined the band on stage for "Midnight Rambler" and "Satisfaction"? Send your entries to UncutComp@ipcmedia.com by noon, Monday October 7. A winner will be chosen by the Uncut team from the correct entries. The editor's decision is final. Sweet Summer Sun – Hyde Park Live will be released on DVD and Blu Ray on Monday November, 11 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgIXgYFUErE

To celebrate the imminent release of The Rolling Stones‘ Sweet Summer Sun – Hyde Park Live concert film on DVD and Blu-Ray, we’ve teamed up with Eagle Rock to give away a pair of tickets to attend an exclusive advance screening at the Electric Cinema in West London at 8.30pm on Thursday, October 10.

The concert film chronicles The Rolling Stones’ historic and triumphant return to London’s Hyde Park this summer, where the band played to over 100,000 fans.

To be in with a chance of winning a pair of tickets to this special screening, just tell us the correct answer to this question:

Which former Stones guitarist joined the band on stage for “Midnight Rambler” and “Satisfaction”?

Send your entries to UncutComp@ipcmedia.com by noon, Monday October 7. A winner will be chosen by the Uncut team from the correct entries. The editor’s decision is final.

Sweet Summer Sun – Hyde Park Live will be released on DVD and Blu Ray on Monday November, 11 2013.

David Bowie announces three-disc reissue of ‘The Next Day’ featuring four new bonus tracks

0
David Bowie has announced details of a three-disc reissue of his album The Next Day. Titled The Next Day Extra, the box-set includes the original 14-track album, a 10-track CD of bonus songs and a DVD featuring the four videos made for the album for "Where Are We Now?", "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)...

David Bowie has announced details of a three-disc reissue of his album The Next Day.

Titled The Next Day Extra, the box-set includes the original 14-track album, a 10-track CD of bonus songs and a DVD featuring the four videos made for the album for “Where Are We Now?”, “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”, “The Next Day” and “Valentine’s Day”. It will be released on November 4, according to his website.

The bonus CD features four previously unreleased tracks titled “Atomica“, “The Informer”, “Like A Rocket Man” and “Born In A UFO”. It also includes two remixes – one by LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy who is fresh from producing the new Arcade Fire album, which also features Bowie on the title track “Reflektor”. The bonus disc also contains “God Bless The Girl”, which was previously only released on the Japanese version of the album.

The Next Day bonus album tracklisting:

‘Atomica’

‘Love Is Lost’ (Hello Steve Reich mix by James Murphy)

‘Plan’

‘The Informer’

‘Like A Rocket Man’

‘Born In A UFO’

‘I’d Rather Be High’ (Venetian Mix)

‘I’ll Take You There’

‘God Bless The Girl’

‘So She’

Elbow announce new album; arena tour for 2014

0
Elbow have announced the release of a new studio album. The as-yet-untitled album will be released on March 10, 2014. It will be the band's sixth studio album and is currently being recorded at the band's Blueprint Studios, Salford. The album is produced and mixed by keyboardist Craig Potter. The ...

Elbow have announced the release of a new studio album.

The as-yet-untitled album will be released on March 10, 2014. It will be the band’s sixth studio album and is currently being recorded at the band’s Blueprint Studios, Salford. The album is produced and mixed by keyboardist Craig Potter.

The band are also prepping their first ever live DVD, Live At Jodrell Bank, which consists of two CDs and a DVD covering their performance at the Cheshire Observatory and a documentary of the event.

Fans will have the opportunity to pre-order the new album, as well as an exclusive bundle including a DVD / double CD of the Jodrell Bank concert for immediate despatch, for a limited time only via the band’s website www.elbow.co.uk.

Tickets for all arena shows go on general sale at 9am on Friday October 4.

A fan pre-sale starts at 9am Monday 30th September via www.elbow.co.uk.

Elbow will play:

Saturday April 5, Birmingham LG Arena

Sunday April 6, Glasgow SSE Hydro

Tuesday April 8, Cardiff Motorpoint Arena

Wednesday April 9, Manchester Phones 4U Arena

Friday April 11, Leeds First Direct Arena

Saturday April 12, Liverpool Echo Arena

Monday April 14, Nottingham Capital FM Arena

Wednesday April 16, London The O2

Fleetwood Mac, London O2 Arena, September 27, 2013

0

“Life is good,” reflects Mick Fleetwood. We are over two hours into Fleetwood Mac’s third and final show at the O2, and it has fallen to Fleetwood to introduce his fellow bandmates on stage. While Fleetwood was talking for the most part about the enduring friendships that exist between the various members of Fleetwood Mac, he could just as easily be surveying the last, remarkable 12 months in the band’s career. This sprawling world tour has been a tremendous success – “We’re doing the best business we’ve done in 20 years,” Lindsey Buckingham recently told Rolling Stone. The 35th anniversary of Rumours earlier this year provided a useful reminder of the band's most successful and notorious period, while the Extended Play EP showcased a clutch of new songs that seem redolent of the Rumours-era sound. Elsewhere, there are the broader cultural threads that have pillowed Fleetwood Mac’s 2013 – the revival of the soft rock aesthetic, and the kind of West Coast vibes evoked on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories and Haim’s Days Are Gone. But in many respects Fleetwood Mac are actually a more interesting proposition away from the Rumours material. The reissue a few months ago of the band’s 1969 album, Then Play On was a terrific reminder of the magical guitar interplay between Peter Green and Danny Kirwan. Indeed, while it’s nice enough to watch Christine McVie join her old band for “Don’t Stop”, it would have been more remarkable if Green had strolled on stage to play “The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Prong Crown)”. Tonight, the band’s decision to foreground songs from Tusk is sort-of brave – a great chunk of the audience seem bewildered by this – while the weird tensions between Buckingham's songs and Nicks' is actually quite compelling. To some extent, Buckingham and Nicks might as well be in different bands. Buckingham (who, I should point out, plays without a plectrum) seems to think he’s in some early 80s New Wave band for great chunks of the set, throwing punk rock shapes or shredding; at one point, during the extended coda for "I'm So Afraid", he seems to think he's in the middle of some wonderful, digressive Crazy Horse jam. His introduction to the Tusk section of the show involves a lecture in the merits of art against commerce; he clearly still has an almost neurotic attachment to that particular material, as his need to explain – or, perhaps, defend – it suggests. Later, his acoustic treatment of “Big Love” displays his extraordinary fretwork skills (incidentally, those solo albums are amazing). He and Nicks are gracious with each other – if, say, she’s singing a song, she’ll step back a little from the mic to let him play a solo – it’s slightly formal, a little awkward, you might say. Nicks, meanwhile, doesn’t entirely seem comfortable during the faster Buckingham numbers – she totters visibly during “Not That Funny”. Sounding a little like Edie Falco in The Sopranos when she speaks, and dressed as if she’s going for dinner with Big Edie and Little Edie at Grey Gardens, she seems clearly more comfortable with the soft focus Laurel Canyon Goth of “Rhiannon” and “Gypsy” than Buckingham’s angrier compositions. Her attempt to explain the provenance of the Extended Play track “Without You”, originally written by Nicks in the early Seventies, lasts longer than the song itself. Behind them, but in their own ways no less interesting, are Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. Fleetwood himself is an engaging figure, a drumming Gandalf, surrounded by his kit, a giant Zildjian cymbal behind him, windchimes within easy reach. Fleetwood comes from a generation of idiosyncratic drummers – Ginger Baker, John Bonham, Keith Moon – and inevitably there are moments here, like “Tusk” or the mammoth solo on “World Turning”, where he gets to show us what he can do. Next to Fleetwood, on his right, stands John McVie: these days, arguably the most interesting member of Fleetwood Mac. I find McVie fascinating; in a band full of personalities, he stands out, partly because he has less of a public voice that his colleagues, but partly because he is an excellent musician whose contribution often feels critically overlooked in the Mac narrative. It would be reductive, I think, to see McVie as just the staunch backline, the anchor for Buckingham and Nicks’ very different creative impulses. Certainly, McVie’s ability to serve a song discretely and sympathetically is what is required of a skilled, high-level bass player of his standard. But in truth, McVie’s story stretches right back to the early days of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers – he played alongside Clapton and Mick Taylor, and presumably knows where the bodies are buried. Watching him tonight, though, he is a man who appears happiest when diligently going about his business. There’s something of the Charlie Watts about John McVie in that respect – both professionals, untroubled or uninterested in the spotlight, who came from a tradition where straightforward craftsmanship is highly valued. There is one moment, though, where, quietly and seemingly unbidden, McVie goes to help his ex-wife off the stage at the end of “Don’t Stop”; it’s a gallant gesture and one that you hope says much about the kind of man McVie might be. At two hours 40 minutes, the show could do with pruning. While giving the audience value for their money is commendable, the pool of material from which the band draw is limited - in this case, to five albums. You wonder what kind of setlist they could put together if only they'd go back further. As it is, the first hour or so – roughly up until “Landslide” – is well paced and the song choice seems thought out. It stutters then – a mighty “Gold Dust Woman” a notable exception – until “Go Your Own Way” and the first encore. The arrival of Christine McVie – Fleetwood Mac’s “Mick Taylor moment” – is understandably met with the largest cheer of the night. But as with Mick Taylor’s guest appearances with the Rolling Stones this year, her arrival reminds you of how significant her contribution was, and her departure seems cruelly premature. As someone who is admittedly mildly indifferent to Rumours, I can't help wondering whether Fleetwood and McVie would consider going out on a smaller scale than this, to present an alternative iteration of Fleetwood Mac, celebrating Future Games, Bare Trees and all their other great and interesting albums that have been overshadowed for too long by Rumours. It's a nice dream, isn't it? Michael Bonner Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner. Fleetwood Mac played: Second Hand News The Chain Dreams Sad Angel Rhiannon Not That Funny Tusk Sisters of The Moon Sara Big Love Landslide Never Going Back Again Without You Gypsy Eyes Of The World Gold Dust Woman I’m So Afraid Stand Back Go Your Own Way World Turning Don’t Stop [with Christine McVie] Silver Springs Say Goodbye Photo credit: REX/London News Pictures

“Life is good,” reflects Mick Fleetwood. We are over two hours into Fleetwood Mac’s third and final show at the O2, and it has fallen to Fleetwood to introduce his fellow bandmates on stage.

While Fleetwood was talking for the most part about the enduring friendships that exist between the various members of Fleetwood Mac, he could just as easily be surveying the last, remarkable 12 months in the band’s career. This sprawling world tour has been a tremendous success – “We’re doing the best business we’ve done in 20 years,” Lindsey Buckingham recently told Rolling Stone. The 35th anniversary of Rumours earlier this year provided a useful reminder of the band’s most successful and notorious period, while the Extended Play EP showcased a clutch of new songs that seem redolent of the Rumours-era sound. Elsewhere, there are the broader cultural threads that have pillowed Fleetwood Mac’s 2013 – the revival of the soft rock aesthetic, and the kind of West Coast vibes evoked on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories and Haim’s Days Are Gone.

But in many respects Fleetwood Mac are actually a more interesting proposition away from the Rumours material. The reissue a few months ago of the band’s 1969 album, Then Play On was a terrific reminder of the magical guitar interplay between Peter Green and Danny Kirwan. Indeed, while it’s nice enough to watch Christine McVie join her old band for “Don’t Stop”, it would have been more remarkable if Green had strolled on stage to play “The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Prong Crown)”. Tonight, the band’s decision to foreground songs from Tusk is sort-of brave – a great chunk of the audience seem bewildered by this – while the weird tensions between Buckingham’s songs and Nicks’ is actually quite compelling. To some extent, Buckingham and Nicks might as well be in different bands. Buckingham (who, I should point out, plays without a plectrum) seems to think he’s in some early 80s New Wave band for great chunks of the set, throwing punk rock shapes or shredding; at one point, during the extended coda for “I’m So Afraid”, he seems to think he’s in the middle of some wonderful, digressive Crazy Horse jam. His introduction to the Tusk section of the show involves a lecture in the merits of art against commerce; he clearly still has an almost neurotic attachment to that particular material, as his need to explain – or, perhaps, defend – it suggests. Later, his acoustic treatment of “Big Love” displays his extraordinary fretwork skills (incidentally, those solo albums are amazing). He and Nicks are gracious with each other – if, say, she’s singing a song, she’ll step back a little from the mic to let him play a solo – it’s slightly formal, a little awkward, you might say. Nicks, meanwhile, doesn’t entirely seem comfortable during the faster Buckingham numbers – she totters visibly during “Not That Funny”. Sounding a little like Edie Falco in The Sopranos when she speaks, and dressed as if she’s going for dinner with Big Edie and Little Edie at Grey Gardens, she seems clearly more comfortable with the soft focus Laurel Canyon Goth of “Rhiannon” and “Gypsy” than Buckingham’s angrier compositions. Her attempt to explain the provenance of the Extended Play track “Without You”, originally written by Nicks in the early Seventies, lasts longer than the song itself.

Behind them, but in their own ways no less interesting, are Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. Fleetwood himself is an engaging figure, a drumming Gandalf, surrounded by his kit, a giant Zildjian cymbal behind him, windchimes within easy reach. Fleetwood comes from a generation of idiosyncratic drummers – Ginger Baker, John Bonham, Keith Moon – and inevitably there are moments here, like “Tusk” or the mammoth solo on “World Turning”, where he gets to show us what he can do. Next to Fleetwood, on his right, stands John McVie: these days, arguably the most interesting member of Fleetwood Mac. I find McVie fascinating; in a band full of personalities, he stands out, partly because he has less of a public voice that his colleagues, but partly because he is an excellent musician whose contribution often feels critically overlooked in the Mac narrative. It would be reductive, I think, to see McVie as just the staunch backline, the anchor for Buckingham and Nicks’ very different creative impulses. Certainly, McVie’s ability to serve a song discretely and sympathetically is what is required of a skilled, high-level bass player of his standard. But in truth, McVie’s story stretches right back to the early days of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers – he played alongside Clapton and Mick Taylor, and presumably knows where the bodies are buried. Watching him tonight, though, he is a man who appears happiest when diligently going about his business. There’s something of the Charlie Watts about John McVie in that respect – both professionals, untroubled or uninterested in the spotlight, who came from a tradition where straightforward craftsmanship is highly valued. There is one moment, though, where, quietly and seemingly unbidden, McVie goes to help his ex-wife off the stage at the end of “Don’t Stop”; it’s a gallant gesture and one that you hope says much about the kind of man McVie might be.

At two hours 40 minutes, the show could do with pruning. While giving the audience value for their money is commendable, the pool of material from which the band draw is limited – in this case, to five albums. You wonder what kind of setlist they could put together if only they’d go back further. As it is, the first hour or so – roughly up until “Landslide” – is well paced and the song choice seems thought out. It stutters then – a mighty “Gold Dust Woman” a notable exception – until “Go Your Own Way” and the first encore. The arrival of Christine McVie – Fleetwood Mac’s “Mick Taylor moment” – is understandably met with the largest cheer of the night. But as with Mick Taylor’s guest appearances with the Rolling Stones this year, her arrival reminds you of how significant her contribution was, and her departure seems cruelly premature.

As someone who is admittedly mildly indifferent to Rumours, I can’t help wondering whether Fleetwood and McVie would consider going out on a smaller scale than this, to present an alternative iteration of Fleetwood Mac, celebrating Future Games, Bare Trees and all their other great and interesting albums that have been overshadowed for too long by Rumours. It’s a nice dream, isn’t it?

Michael Bonner

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

Fleetwood Mac played:

Second Hand News

The Chain

Dreams

Sad Angel

Rhiannon

Not That Funny

Tusk

Sisters of The Moon

Sara

Big Love

Landslide

Never Going Back Again

Without You

Gypsy

Eyes Of The World

Gold Dust Woman

I’m So Afraid

Stand Back

Go Your Own Way

World Turning

Don’t Stop [with Christine McVie]

Silver Springs

Say Goodbye

Photo credit: REX/London News Pictures

Manic Street Preachers reveal they have been asked to appear on ‘Question Time’

0
Manic Street Preachers have revealed they have been asked to appear on Question Time. The band shared the unusual press request with fans on Twitter yesterday (September 26): "Been asked to do question time again- time to unleash my inner nye bevan/malcolm tucker(thick of it)onto the tv screens of...

Manic Street Preachers have revealed they have been asked to appear on Question Time.

The band shared the unusual press request with fans on Twitter yesterday (September 26):

“Been asked to do question time again- time to unleash my inner nye bevan/malcolm tucker(thick of it)onto the tv screens of britain???x”

In a follow-up tweet, the band hinted that they would probably turn the invitation down by writing “Maybe not-xxx”.

Meanwhile, Manic Street Preachers released their largely acoustic 11th studio album, Rewind The Film, on September 16. Recorded in the band’s own studio in Cardiff, Rockfield in Monmouthshire and Hansa in Berlin, the album features guest appearances from Lucy Rose (on ‘This Sullen Welsh Heart’) Cate Le Bon (on ‘4 Lonely Roads’) and Richard Hawley on the title track.

The band are due to wrap up a six-date UK tour in support of the album with gigs at Manchester’s Ritz tonight (September 27) and Glasgow’s Barrowlands on Sunday (September 29).

Elbow hint at new album

0
Elbow have hinted that a new album could be on its way by promising to make a "special announcement" next week. The band posted a photo of themselves in the studio on their Facebook wall accompanied by the message: "Elbow will be making a special announcement next week. Make sure you're signed up t...

Elbow have hinted that a new album could be on its way by promising to make a “special announcement” next week.

The band posted a photo of themselves in the studio on their Facebook wall accompanied by the message: “Elbow will be making a special announcement next week. Make sure you’re signed up to the newsletter.” Fans are then directed to a sign-up page for the band’s mailing list.

Elbow released their fifth and most recent album, Build A Rocket Boys!, in March 2011. Their last live shows came during a six-date UK arena tour which took place during November and December of last year (2012).

Speaking on stage during a gig at Nottingham’s Capital FM Arena on November 26, frontman Guy Garvey told the crowd: “We’re taking a gap year”.

Shortly before the tour began, Garvey had outlined the band’s plans for a hiatus in an interview with The Sun. “We’ve got our arena tour this November and December, which will be like a farewell party,” he explained. “We’ve already done six songs for the next album, then we’ll come back to finish it next year.”

Jack White says digital recordings are ‘anything but fail-safe’

0
Jack White has spoken out about his thoughts on digital versus analogue recording, saying that digital formats have "proven to be anything but fail-safe" when it comes to the preservation of music. Speaking to The Atlantic, White commented: "A lot of the digital formats in the last 20 years have p...

Jack White has spoken out about his thoughts on digital versus analogue recording, saying that digital formats have “proven to be anything but fail-safe” when it comes to the preservation of music.

Speaking to The Atlantic, White commented: “A lot of the digital formats in the last 20 years have proven to be anything but fail-safe. The tapes break or the information can’t be retrieved.”

White – who recently donated $200,000 (£124,914) to the National Recording Preservation Foundation, a United States non-profit who seek to preserve and make accessible the recorded history of America – believes that more modern ways of recording aren’t as reliable as older approaches when it comes to keeping the original versions of songs safe. He also spoke about how people dismissed the masters of early phonograph recordings in the States, saying: “There are stories of early phonograph companies taking apart the masters used to press wax discs so they could be sold as roofing shingles. They didn’t think a recording was a document of anything cultural. It was just a way to sell phonographs.”

The Third Man Records founder spoke fondly about sheet music in the article, saying: “My mother was telling me in the ’30s when she was a little girl you could go to the department store downtown and there was a sheet music section. You could pick out a piece of sheet music and the lady running the section would play it for you on a piano.”

White’s Third Man Records are to co-release Paramount Records’ back catalogue on vinyl, starting from next month. Established in 1917, Paramount Records was home to artists such as Louis Armstrong, Ma Rainey, Fletcher Henderson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver and Ethel Walters. Third Man will release a comprehensive 800-song collection of the label’s material from its first decade in existence titled ‘The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume One (1917-27)’ on October 29.

White is also currently working on new songs with his band The Dead Weather. They released their debut album, Horehound, in 2009 and followed it in 2010 with Sea Of Cowards.

The Waterboys’ Mike Scott: “We could make magic on the head of a pin – U2 needed six artic trucks to do it!”

0
Mike Scott discusses the epic creation of Fisherman’s Blues in the new issue of Uncut (dated November 2013), out now, as well as the competition between The Waterboys and U2. “Was there competition between us? Bloody hell, yes,” says Scott. “They were the big band in town – we wanted to...

Mike Scott discusses the epic creation of Fisherman’s Blues in the new issue of Uncut (dated November 2013), out now, as well as the competition between The Waterboys and U2.

“Was there competition between us? Bloody hell, yes,” says Scott. “They were the big band in town – we wanted to depose them.

“I thought we wrote better songs and we could play better and we could make magic on the head of a pin – they needed six artic trucks to do it.”

Scott talks about his relocation to Dublin, his rejection of The Big Music and embracing of folk, and the two years of intensive sessions for Fisherman’s Blues – as well as the unreleased gems included on the mammoth Fisherman’s Box set.

The November 2013 issue of Uncut is out now.

Photo: Steve Meany

Kinks 50th anniversary reunion: “Let’s see,” says Ray Davies

0
Ray Davies has responded to comments from his brother, Dave, who told Rolling Stone there was a possibility that the Kinks would play shows to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Speaking to Uncut, Ray Davies said, “I’ve heard about the article but I haven’t read it. I saw Dave a couple of week...

Ray Davies has responded to comments from his brother, Dave, who told Rolling Stone there was a possibility that the Kinks would play shows to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

Speaking to Uncut, Ray Davies said, “I’ve heard about the article but I haven’t read it. I saw Dave a couple of weeks ago and he mentioned the idea of doing a tour. I said, ‘Yeah, but you’re the guy who keeps saying it’ll never happen.’

“I don’t understand where this new line, this new tack, has come from.

“But he’s a great player. Whenever I write a song, I think of how it could be improved by having him on it, and what his power chords would bring to it.

“I don’t know what next year will bring. Let’s see if he’s polite to me the next time we meet.”

That the two Davies brothers are talking and meeting once again is a major development in their relationship. For years it is believed they communicated only by fax and email, as neither was prepared to risk a potentially highly volatile meeting. In separate interviews with Uncut in 2012, the brothers admitted that they currently had no direct contact with each other whatsoever, and didn’t expect the situation to change. Ray even claimed to be unaware of where Dave lived.

The Kinks reissue Muswell Hillbillies on October 7, which will feature five previously unreleased songs as well as a smattering of alternate recordings and tracks taken from John Peel radio sessions on the BBC. Unreleased tracks include ‘Lavender Lane’, ‘Mountain Woman’, ‘Kentucky Moon’ and ‘Queenie’, in addition to a demo recording of the song ‘Nobody’s Fool’.

Can announce new box set details

0
Can are to release a vinyl box set containing remastered versions of all their studio albums. The 17-piece set will be released on 180g vinyl housed in a lined wrapped box. It is released by Mute Records on December 2. The box set features 13 of the band’s classic albums, alongside Out Of Reach,...

Can are to release a vinyl box set containing remastered versions of all their studio albums.

The 17-piece set will be released on 180g vinyl housed in a lined wrapped box. It is released by Mute Records on December 2.

The box set features 13 of the band’s classic albums, alongside Out Of Reach, which has been unavailable in any official format since its original release in 1978, and Can Live, a bonus live disc featuring the classic Can line up of Holger Czukay (bass), Michael Karoli (guitar), Jaki Liebezeit (drums) and Irmin Schmidt (keyboards). Can Live was recorded at Sussex University in 1975 and will be unavailable in any format outside of the Can Vinyl Box.

The artwork for the individual albums is all in its original form and five posters and a 20-page 12” booklet accompanies the box set featuring unseen photographs from the Can archive and sleevenotes by the author, Alan Warner (Morven Caller).

CAN VINYL BOX CONTENTS

Monster Movie

Soundtracks

Tago Mago (over two vinyl)

Ege Bamyasi

Future Days

Soon Over Babaluma

Delay

Unlimited Edition (over two vinyl)

Landed

Flow Motion

Saw Delight

Can

Rite Time

Out Of Reach

Can Live, Sussex University 1975

Can released The Lost Tapes box set in 2012.

David Bowie to appear in Louis Vuitton ad campaign

0
David Bowie has reportedly been signed by to appear in the latest television ad campaign by designer Louis Vuitton. Bowie will star in Vuitton's forthcoming campaign, L'Invitation au Voyage, alongside model Arizona Muse. The advert was shot in Venice this summer and due to be released later this ye...

David Bowie has reportedly been signed by to appear in the latest television ad campaign by designer Louis Vuitton.

Bowie will star in Vuitton’s forthcoming campaign, L’Invitation au Voyage, alongside model Arizona Muse. The advert was shot in Venice this summer and due to be released later this year, according to a story in WWD.

Lou Reed: “I’ve lied so much about the past, I can’t tell what is true any more”

0
In this archive piece from our March 2003 issue (Take 70), Uncut meets Lou Reed in his favourite Manhattan restaurant to discuss Edgar Allen Poe, Eminem, T’ai Chi, his illustrious career and his hatred of journalists: “I think in an interview what they essentially want to know is how big is your...

In this archive piece from our March 2003 issue (Take 70), Uncut meets Lou Reed in his favourite Manhattan restaurant to discuss Edgar Allen Poe, Eminem, T’ai Chi, his illustrious career and his hatred of journalists: “I think in an interview what they essentially want to know is how big is your dick…” Words: Gavin Martin / Photo: Julian Schnabel

_______________

Downtown New York, December 9 2002. It’s 10.30 on a sunny but ice-cold morning in the back room of Pastis, Lou Reed’s favourite neighbourhood restaurant. Around the corner, the Hudson river gives off a foreboding chill. In here, the power breakfasting stockbrokers are settling into their morning routine in a faux continental setting.

The surrounding neighbourhood – with its expensive loft apartments and real estate – has changed out of all recognition from the sleazy haunts that inspired Lou’s early work. But, Lou remains and lives nearby with the “love of his life”, artist Laurie Anderson. The former drug-addled poet of rock’s underbelly is now an international man of letters and the toast of the New York demimonde. Earlier this year he and Anderson duetted on The Drifters’ “Save The Last Dance For Me” at a tribute concert for the terpsichorean/ dance legend, Bill T Jones.

Four years in the making, Lou regards his latest album – the sprawling double CD The Raven – as the culmination of everything he’s striven to attain in a career that’s spanned five decades of rock’n’roll outrage. Based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven grew out of a collaboration with Robert Wilson, the theatrical director Reed previously worked with on Time Rocker and who also provided the theatrical starting points for Tom Waits’ recent Alice and Blood Money albums.

The Raven is immense in its lyrical, musical and thematic scope. The connection between the writer of dark classics like The Pit And The Pendulum, The Fall Of The House Of Usher and The Masque Of The Red Death – who, according to one critic, wielded his pen like “a scalpel, knife or a Tomahawk” – and the 21st-century rock legend is obvious. The most purposefully literate rocker of his generation, Reed has used his guitar, pen and stoic voice to perform autopsies on both the American dream and the human condition.

Lou arrives in Pastis a little late, snuggled inside a flamboyant black fur-lined leather jacket. There is a small Mandarina Duck designer handbag over his shoulder and he’s wearing leather trousers and heavy biker boots. He is a fascinating study in opposites, theatrical hand gestures and flouncy mannerisms when he’s giving his French-born PR Annie precise instructions to attain extra tickets for the evening’s “hottest ticket in town” – the premiere of Gangs Of New York. But he becomes noticeably wary, retreating into a macho shell as he approaches the interview table.

He gives the most non-committal handshake imaginable. The hand-over of a present, a new CD compilation of ’60s deep soul duo Eddie and Ernie, takes him off guard.

“Uhhn what is this? Omigod where did you get this… how did you even know to get this… fhh whoaah I didn’t even know this existed… whaa…” Reed scrutinises the CD up close. He’s not wearing glasses and seems to have trouble with contact lenses. He has a hand over his inflamed right eye. Up close, his thin-lipped, wrinkled and worn face shows the mixed effects of years of hard living and recuperation.

During the interview suspicion is often Lou’s first response to a question and he’ll suspect criticisms where there are none. He can be precious as a newborn baby’s heartbeat one minute, as flippant as a bar-room cynic the next. How do you gain the trust of someone whose parents sent him to have electric shock therapy in his teens? Don’t even try.

Lou has many tactics to avoid discussing the man who has created the cast of misfits, penitents, hedonists and heretics in his songs. He employs one immediately by picking up my mini-disc and embarking on a discourse on the history of digital technology. I hurriedly draw his attention to a promo copy of The Raven.

_______________

UNCUT: With the spoken-word contributions from Steve Buscemi and Willem Dafoe, the musical liaisons with Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Ornette Coleman and The Blind Boys Of Alabama, and all the research, The Raven must be the most ambitious album of your career.

LOU REED: Have you heard the double, the Grand Mal version? Can you imagine what it took to do that? I mean, I’m serious. Imagine! Even now I can’t believe that we’ve done it. This might be a nice way to say ‘Goodbye’, a good way to go out.

Really, you see it like a grand farewell, as suggested on “Vanishing Act”?

Yeah, it’s like ‘Pheww!’ Really. Anyway, I don’t think you’ll get a chance to make records like this with people downloading their music… unless you take the viewpoint that there’s only one good track on it.

You’ve always expanded the parameters of rock’n’roll. In recent years, you’ve talked about leaving the business entirely. Is that part of what The Raven is about?

I’ve been writing plays, I’ve got photography shows and I’m putting a photo book together. I’ve been involved with Hal Willner in his Halloween shows at St Anne’s church. When I read Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart aloud there, it was the first time I really understood it. I have a degree in English literature, and I still can’t remember when I first read Poe. Of course, I can’t remember things from last week. I’m kind of Reaganesque with that.

But I do know that, before, my understanding was only superficial. That’s one of the nice things about getting older – you can read something like that and have a better chance of taking it how it was meant by the writer. Poe is so incredible to read. In the essay, The Imp Of The Perverse, he’s saying, “Why are we drawn to that which we know is bad for us?” Now if there’s a human being on Earth with a pulse who doesn’t understand that, hasn’t experienced that or doesn’t know what that is about, I haven’t met them.

I was just ready, really, primed and ready when Bob [Wilson] came up with the idea. I do martial arts and there’s a saying that when you’re ready the teacher appears.

You turned 60 during the making of this record. Was that a major landmark?

No.

You didn’t mark it in any way?

Nope.

Do you feel blessed, lucky to be alive?

Do you? This is not what I want to talk about. I talk about music. If you want to talk about the ageing process, you should talk about someone who concentrates on that.

Burroughs imagined the writing machine, the place where all the great ideas are churned out. Is that where you get your creative juice?

Oh, I miss Burroughs. I love his writing. No one has taken his place, it’s so special and unique unto him, just as what Poe does is special and unique unto him. I’m also a big film noir fan, keep that in mind. If film noir had a drum, it would be me. I’m such a fan of that.

On “Who Am I?”, you depict a universe where God has left the stage.

Well there is a whole philosophical school of thought that God is dead. When I was at university it was one of the ideas I studied. God made a watch and walked away, you know all that stuff.

Is that still an attractive concept for you?

That requires a large bottle of Barola, my friend, a cigar and many hours to kick around. Would that I were wiser.

Are you nervous about how The Raven will be received?

Let me tell you something. I put out a thing called Metal Machine Music, and 20 years after the fact they put out an anniversary edition of it and it’s performed live by an orchestra in Berlin. It’s the sort of thing that I’ve had happen with a bunch of records. I would hate to see that happen with this. If people don’t get into it because of its length and complexity then you’ll just continue to have what you have. And you’ll deserve it.

There’s a strong gospel undercurrent on the album, the idea that community can overcome the dark torments Poe’s imagination unleashes, most explicitly on “I Wanna Know”, your duet with The Blind Boys Of Alabama.

I do things on instinct and if you ask me to explain it I wouldn’t be able to explain it. Well, I can make up an explanation, but I don’t want to bother any more. I’ve always loved The Blind Boys Of Alabama, and Jimmy [Carter] holds a note on there that sounds like it lasts a day, it’s just astonishing.

On “Old Poe”, the author addresses his younger self. If you had a chance to talk to the Lou Reed of 20 or 30 years ago, what would you say?

Bravo!

A big round of applause for the guy with the blond hair dye and the Iron Cross shaved on the temple?

I was young. I was having fun. You’ll never hear me saying, “How come you dye your hair purple or why are you piercing your cheek with a four-inch spike?” That’s what I was doing at that age, because that’s what you do when you’re that age. I love looking at photos of myself from back then. It was something you could get away with if you were a rock star.

These days, you can be on the furthest alternative whatever trajectory and it will be absorbed like purple hair, pins and spikes, and it becomes a business. It’s hilarious when you think about it… people are against something, then they see you can make money out of it. The culture is a massive sponge, a money sponge.

Have you always been conscious of having a “Guardian Angel”?

I keep the songs in the songs. If I start to apply them to me, I feel weird. But in the context of the album, I wanted an upbeat ending. Not just a Poe ending, with the King and all his cronies dressed as orang-utans going up in flames, or The Pit And The Pendulum or The Tell Tale Heart – all of which have pretty dark endings. I wanted something that was me, not him.

Maybe the younger Lou might have gone with the darker ending. Is the desire to have an upbeat ending a result of age and wisdom?

I certainly hope so. There’s a lot of thrills and chills in there and you can just leave it at that or you can explicate, which is what I chose to do. I don’t know the answers to some of those questions. I know you think I do, but I don’t. I don’t question when I’m writing. If I kept asking why, I might not get anywhere. I just go with it.

You recorded “Fire Music” two days after September 11 in a studio close to Ground Zero. What was that like?

Everything I experienced is in that piece of music. I really and truly mean that I can’t sum it up in words, that’s what music is for. It’s a very compressed piece, played in real time. It’s not looped. It is the big brother of Metal Machine Music, the next step. What I like is, it doesn’t have a key and the rhythm is always shifting – a very free form of music which I’ve been a fan of all the way back to Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler. To have Ornette on this album doing Ornette is beyond thrilling. I mean, is there anyone else in the world called Ornette?

How has New York changed since September 11?

I can’t tell you that. We’re here to talk music. I can’t give a good answer to something like that. That’s really a book.

How do you feel about the way your government has responded. Is it scary to see freedoms being restricted?

What about being in London – is it scary there? Tony Blair linking up with Mr Bush. I’m sure you have your own thoughts on that. I don’t get into these types of questions. I keep trying to pull you back toward music. You’re trying to do a personality thing, I guess.

You’ve done interviews before. You know the game.

I think in an interview what they essentially want to know is how big is your dick. Everything else is superfluous. It’s like, “Just tell us that, now.”

There is a quite frank assessment of the effect the ageing process has on the genitalia in the song “Change”.

[He quotes himself, shrieking with glee] “Your balls shrivel up in their sack.” Ha! To my mind that song – imagine Little Richard singing it instead of me. If I could have, I would have got him to sing it. That’s the way I wrote it and heard it. It’s my version of it, but I’m singing Little Richard. The minute you say that the song becomes much clearer.

Do you think rock’n’roll is a dying culture?

I don’t know anything. It’ll come through another door, there’s always going to be bands, people like bands getting together. There are two radio stations I listen to all the time, and you hear The White Stripes and The Strokes and hundreds more. Is it as exciting now as it was 30 years ago? I’m not a critic, but 30 years ago things were new. It’s not new now. What’s new is the technology. The sounds producers are getting today are just fantastic, really exciting, amazing. I couldn’t comment on what the songs are saying because it’s very hard to understand the words.

Do you listen to Eminem?

He’s very funny – and maybe it’s not fair to say this, but he is young and maybe as he gets older he might change. I just don’t like people advocating violence against other people.

But on “Who Am I?”, you fantasise about slitting someone’s throat and ripping their heart out.

…on the other hand, there’s some pretty extraordinarily tasteless things on my very own records so I can’t throw a rock at anybody. I like that rock stays raw and that includes Eminem.

I’d like to hear Eminem do “Street Hassle”.

A great epic, that one. I remember playing it to Clive [Davis, head of Reed’s then-label Arista] and it starts out “Hey, that c***’s not breathing, I think she’s had too much”, and Clive said, “There you go, that’s just like you. No airplay for this.” And there wasn’t any. A 12-minute song – just finished, dead in the water. This wasn’t the days when something could go underground. That didn’t happen, it just got killed.

Do you resent that?

No. I don’t resent anything along those lines. Those are business people. They do what they do and I have nothing to do with it. I would resent it if it drove me out of the whole thing, but I’ve survived. There’s room for everybody I guess, including me.

When The Velvet Underground split and you went back to work with your father, did you think your career was over?

Part of the myth? Look, why should any of that shit be true? What was the question? I’ve lied so much about the past I can’t even tell myself what is true any more.

The ’70s was the period when rock mythology was shaped. Were you a willing participant?

Rock interviews had never been done before. There weren’t sound systems. It was like the Wild West out there. The idea of being able to hear the lead singer was a whole new deal. It was like the Wright Brothers and the aeroplane. Then you got a guy like Lester Bangs trying to write with the rhythm of rock, but all those people, they were just doing it because they couldn’t be in a band.

Did you look down on them because of that?

I would look down on a journalist whether he wanted to be in a band or not, just because of their occupation. It’s just a game. Journalists ask if you look down on journalists and they’re baiting you. They want you to say yes, of course.

You were supposedly close to death several times.

And you know what? That shit, why should any of it be true?

Does Chinese medicine and T’ai Chi take the place in your life once filled by heroin, speed and alcohol?

Ha ha ha, you just won’t stop will you? Let me tell you something. Eagle Claw, Ying Ja Pow, T’ai Chi are about the most amazing physical experiences I can think of. I’m part of a foundation that is connected to all that, I’ve been studying it for 20 years. I’m not trying to make any converts but if you want to know something I feel strongly about, there it is. And, of course, it keeps your dick really big. Haven’t you figured that out yet?

_______________

The interview over, I offer him another present, a copy of An Introduction To The Velvet Underground. You’d imagine this was the last thing he’d need, but he’s never seen a copy and accepts it, as graciously as he can. He looks at the cover shot and shakes his head. “Poor Sterling, he missed all this,” he says, gesturing around the restaurant.

“And here we are,” he smirks and raises his glass, “drinking water.”

Cheers, Lou.

The Clash – Sound System

0

Great things come in crazy packages. Newly remastered albums, plus remastered ephemera... You can bake your tapes. You can preserve the oxides, futureproof your masters against all future music formats. But you’ll never improve on the authenticity of a group talking into a journalist’s tape recorder in 1976. Barely audible through the background noise (clanking coffee cups; rattling tube train carriages), on “Listen”, one of the early tracks collected here, the young Clash are interviewed by Tony Parsons, about whether they think they will succeed in “changing stuff”. Joe Strummer, (for all the logans on his shirts, a realist) is certain: “I don’t think we’ll ever have the power,” he says. “You just have to do what you can do.” Sound System (pitched as “the ultimate box set”) reminds us that one thing The Clash did succeed in changing was The Clash. Not a band shy of drawing an ideological line in the sand as far as music was concerned, whether that was “White Man In Hammersmith Palais” or “1977” (“No Elvis or Beatles or the Rolling Stones…”), The Clash still refused to be painted into a corner by punk. In a time when bands defined themselves by what they opposed, The Clash were about an embracing of possibilities. It was a policy that alienated as many people as it thrilled. If you were the kind of punk who couldn’t understand that a band from your subculture had given you the keys to a city filled with Zydeco, hip-hop, funk and dub, then you probably wouldn’t be the person to enjoy Sandinista – and indeed you were discouraged from buying it by the singer in the group. For all their military chic, The Clash didn’t want an army – they wanted free thinkers. Sound System poses the question of just how free-thinking a Clash fan is these days. Is there anything “punk” about a box set that collects the band’s first five albums and three discs of rarities into a box styled like a boombox stereo? Initial fan reaction would suggest not – not even when it includes repro fanzines, posters, stickers and Clash “dog tags”. As with the legacy material of Jimi Hendrix, Clash fans have a clear idea of want they rather than simply lapping up what they’re given. In the former list of demands are a live album from the band’s 1981 stand at Bond’s Casino in New York, and an issue of Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg, the moot double album from which Combat Rock was ultimately derived. Clash completists won’t be overwhelmed by Sound System. The “Extras” discs do contain interesting items: the band’s 1976 Beaconsfield Film School recordings with Julien Temple, and the Guy Stevens first album demos. Joe Strummer thought these left “White Riot” sounding “like Matt Monroe” because the producer insisted he pronounce the letter “t”. The accompanying DVD provides evocative film medleys of the early Clash from the collections of Temple and Don Letts. While these discs help with your Clash housekeeping, collecting B-sides and the scarce “Capital Radio” EP, actual unissued rarities are limited to the first two tracks of Rat Patrol: “The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too” and “Idle In Kangaroo Court” (formerly “Kill Time”). The unedited Straight To Hell and “Midnight To Stevens”, completists will already have from The Clash On Broadway. This, after all, is not a treasure trove – it is a handsome box with a poster tube shaped like a cigarette. Still, that paucity of extras obliquely provides more evidence for the band’s spontaneous creativity – there wasn’t a lot “spare”. As we know, “Train In Vain” was delivered too late for a sleeve credit on London Calling, and much of Sandinista was written in the studio. Even after their demise, The Clash were driven by spontaneity not strategy: as recently as 2010 a long-moot 30th anniversary reissue of Sandinista simply failed to materialize. The mood, we imagine, just wasn’t right. Instead, it and its partner albums are collected here in book style sleeves (a bit more recording detail wouldn’t have hurt), in remastering by Tim Young that is crisp, punchy and detailed. The debut benefits enormously from the enterprise, revealing anew how Mick Jones’s Mott-like lead lines served to elevate the group’s playing. Hearing Cut The Crap as an enormously loud military epic helps rehabilitate it somewhat, even if it can’t work miracles on what is basically three strong opening songs. The true breakthrough, London Calling could retain a thrilling room sound played down the line from a red phone box, and inevitably does so here. With their last two albums, as we know, the band attempted (not always successfully) to create empathetic music, without boundaries. With songs like “Magnificent Seven” and “Rebel Waltz” or “Straight To Hell” we’re hearing just how successfully The Clash had enacted a revolution on themselves – from a hardline, to music that was without orthoxy or dogma of any kind. So maybe the path to this point hadn’t actively changed stuff. The Clash had done what they could do – now society needed to follow their example. John Robinson

Great things come in crazy packages. Newly remastered albums, plus remastered ephemera…

You can bake your tapes. You can preserve the oxides, futureproof your masters against all future music formats. But you’ll never improve on the authenticity of a group talking into a journalist’s tape recorder in 1976. Barely audible through the background noise (clanking coffee cups; rattling tube train carriages), on “Listen”, one of the early tracks collected here, the young Clash are interviewed by Tony Parsons, about whether they think they will succeed in “changing stuff”. Joe Strummer, (for all the logans on his shirts, a realist) is certain: “I don’t think we’ll ever have the power,” he says. “You just have to do what you can do.”

Sound System (pitched as “the ultimate box set”) reminds us that one thing The Clash did succeed in changing was The Clash. Not a band shy of drawing an ideological line in the sand as far as music was concerned, whether that was “White Man In Hammersmith Palais” or “1977” (“No Elvis or Beatles or the Rolling Stones…”), The Clash still refused to be painted into a corner by punk. In a time when bands defined themselves by what they opposed, The Clash were about an embracing of possibilities.

It was a policy that alienated as many people as it thrilled. If you were the kind of punk who couldn’t understand that a band from your subculture had given you the keys to a city filled with Zydeco, hip-hop, funk and dub, then you probably wouldn’t be the person to enjoy Sandinista – and indeed you were discouraged from buying it by the singer in the group. For all their military chic, The Clash didn’t want an army – they wanted free thinkers.

Sound System poses the question of just how free-thinking a Clash fan is these days. Is there anything “punk” about a box set that collects the band’s first five albums and three discs of rarities into a box styled like a boombox stereo? Initial fan reaction would suggest not – not even when it includes repro fanzines, posters, stickers and Clash “dog tags”. As with the legacy material of Jimi Hendrix, Clash fans have a clear idea of want they rather than simply lapping up what they’re given. In the former list of demands are a live album from the band’s 1981 stand at Bond’s Casino in New York, and an issue of Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg, the moot double album from which Combat Rock was ultimately derived.

Clash completists won’t be overwhelmed by Sound System. The “Extras” discs do contain interesting items: the band’s 1976 Beaconsfield Film School recordings with Julien Temple, and the Guy Stevens first album demos. Joe Strummer thought these left “White Riot” sounding “like Matt Monroe” because the producer insisted he pronounce the letter “t”. The accompanying DVD provides evocative film medleys of the early Clash from the collections of Temple and Don Letts.

While these discs help with your Clash housekeeping, collecting B-sides and the scarce “Capital Radio” EP, actual unissued rarities are limited to the first two tracks of Rat Patrol: “The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too” and “Idle In Kangaroo Court” (formerly “Kill Time”). The unedited Straight To Hell and “Midnight To Stevens”, completists will already have from The Clash On Broadway.

This, after all, is not a treasure trove – it is a handsome box with a poster tube shaped like a cigarette. Still, that paucity of extras obliquely provides more evidence for the band’s spontaneous creativity – there wasn’t a lot “spare”. As we know, “Train In Vain” was delivered too late for a sleeve credit on London Calling, and much of Sandinista was written in the studio. Even after their demise, The Clash were driven by spontaneity not strategy: as recently as 2010 a long-moot 30th anniversary reissue of Sandinista simply failed to materialize. The mood, we imagine, just wasn’t right.

Instead, it and its partner albums are collected here in book style sleeves (a bit more recording detail wouldn’t have hurt), in remastering by Tim Young that is crisp, punchy and detailed. The debut benefits enormously from the enterprise, revealing anew how Mick Jones’s Mott-like lead lines served to elevate the group’s playing. Hearing Cut The Crap as an enormously loud military epic helps rehabilitate it somewhat, even if it can’t work miracles on what is basically three strong opening songs.

The true breakthrough, London Calling could retain a thrilling room sound played down the line from a red phone box, and inevitably does so here. With their last two albums, as we know, the band attempted (not always successfully) to create empathetic music, without boundaries. With songs like “Magnificent Seven” and “Rebel Waltz” or “Straight To Hell” we’re hearing just how successfully The Clash had enacted a revolution on themselves – from a hardline, to music that was without orthoxy or dogma of any kind.

So maybe the path to this point hadn’t actively changed stuff. The Clash had done what they could do – now society needed to follow their example.

John Robinson

The Haim Wars

0

Yesterday afternoon, I did something that I should probably, as a curious and more or less responsible music journalist, have done weeks ago: I listened to the debut album by Haim, “Days Are Gone”. The album is streaming at NPR, and it instantly provoked a good deal of social media praise for Haim, and a degree of rancour aimed at their detractors (perhaps surprisingly, considering my interests, I wasn’t actually hearing much from these purportedly omnipresent detractors on my Twitter timeline). Given the embattled tone of some of Haim’s fans, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were defending a minority cult like New Model Army (Number 20 in the midweeks, as I type) rather than the most universally celebrated new band of 2013. A lot of the Haim haters were misogynists, it was claimed, while Jonathan Dean of The Sunday Times suggested, “Middle-aged men moaning about Haim being derivative are the new boring.” I haven’t, thus far, paid a huge amount of attention to Haim, not least because I’ve found their media ubiquity a bit wearing. “Days Are Gone”, though, is an imposingly well-written and constructed album, and I genuinely like “Falling” (I’ve heard that one before; well done, me) and a warped R&B track, “My Song 5”, that calls to mind Destiny’s Child’s terrific “Get On The Bus”. Not all of the album is exactly to my taste, though, something crystallised by a note alongside the stream at NPR written by Ann Powers. “Geoff Barrow of the revered English band Portishead,” she reports, “recently maligned the fast-rising Los Angeles sister act with a snippy tweet: ‘Hiam [sic] sound like Shania Twain... When did that become a good thing?’ To which this critic replies: Who said it isn't?” Nevertheless, it really is a weird situation, at least for old-school music snobs, when a song that does sound a bit like Shania Twain (it’s called “The Wire”) seems to win broadly consensual critical approval. In the great scheme of things, it’s not a bad development that pop music formerly sneered at as disposable is treated much more seriously – and more than that, is unambiguously and enthusiastically liked by serious music writers - now. Not so long ago, in the halcyon days of landfill indie, the poptimists would complain about, say, a Rachel Stevens single being ignored in an aggrieved tone reminiscent of Steve Lamacq berating NME’s editor for not putting Leatherface on the cover (or of me championing Red House Painters against Oasis, if I’m honest). Now, the pro-pop stance is the majority critical voice, epitomised by The Guardian choosing Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” as the best single of 2012. I don’t want to align myself with a lot of the anti-Jepsen commenters who responded to that decision on Guardian blogs (now there was misogyny, for sure). But it does feel professionally risky to say, actually, I don’t really enjoy most of the Haim album. Amusingly risky, I’ll concede; our come-uppance may well be overdue after so many years of entitlement, and I don’t want this blog to come across like a wail of indignation from the Great Oppressed White Middle-Class Male. After all, I am fortunate enough to work for a magazine that continues to provide a handsome platform for my indulgences. My problem isn’t that “Days Are Gone” is derivative, as such: it actually seems to fuse a range of different influences rather than assiduously copy one of them (a sage colleague at Uncut reckons Ladyhawke is their closest antecedent). To adapt Dean’s indictment, I’m a middle-aged man moaning not because Haim are derivative, but because they’re derivative of some music I never much liked in the first place. Tweaked ‘90s/millennial R&B (especially Timbaland productions)? That’s fine, I was keen on a lot of that. Digitally upgraded ‘80s soft rock, latterday Fleetwood Mac, Shania Twain? Less so. You could justifiably argue that, instead of fussing over a record that really wasn’t designed for me, I should concentrate on new music I like, so I’ll swiftly link to a few recent blogs aboutCian Nugent and Chris Forsyth, Bill Callahan and Matthew E White. But I am old enough to remember a time when there were music critics who didn’t like “Tango In The Night” (an album which, interestingly, didn’t even make NME’s Top 60 of 1987). The generational shifting of critical attitudes; the past being reconsidered and rewritten (I wrote about this in a blog called ’Nostalgia, anti-nostalgia, personal revisionism and one last sort-of review of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories’); the debunking of elite male rock hegemonies – these are usually healthy and useful developments. But few things can rouse a critic more than the opportunity to be a dissenting or misunderstood voice, to assume the role of underdog, even victim. “Each person must, on some level, take himself as the calibration point for normalcy,” wrote Teju Cole in the book I was reading this morning, Open City, “must assume that the room of his own mind is not, cannot be, entirely opaque to him. Perhaps this is what we mean by sanity: that, whatever our self-admitted eccentricities might be, we are not the villains of our own stories.” I’m not crazy about Haim, and I really should have better things to do than feel self-reflexively guilty about it. Now let me tell you about how much I prefer Lindsey Buckingham solo to Fleetwood Mac… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

Yesterday afternoon, I did something that I should probably, as a curious and more or less responsible music journalist, have done weeks ago: I listened to the debut album by Haim, “Days Are Gone”.

The album is streaming at NPR, and it instantly provoked a good deal of social media praise for Haim, and a degree of rancour aimed at their detractors (perhaps surprisingly, considering my interests, I wasn’t actually hearing much from these purportedly omnipresent detractors on my Twitter timeline).

Given the embattled tone of some of Haim’s fans, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were defending a minority cult like New Model Army (Number 20 in the midweeks, as I type) rather than the most universally celebrated new band of 2013. A lot of the Haim haters were misogynists, it was claimed, while Jonathan Dean of The Sunday Times suggested, “Middle-aged men moaning about Haim being derivative are the new boring.”

I haven’t, thus far, paid a huge amount of attention to Haim, not least because I’ve found their media ubiquity a bit wearing. “Days Are Gone”, though, is an imposingly well-written and constructed album, and I genuinely like “Falling” (I’ve heard that one before; well done, me) and a warped R&B track, “My Song 5”, that calls to mind Destiny’s Child’s terrific “Get On The Bus”. Not all of the album is exactly to my taste, though, something crystallised by a note alongside the stream at NPR written by Ann Powers. “Geoff Barrow of the revered English band Portishead,” she reports, “recently maligned the fast-rising Los Angeles sister act with a snippy tweet: ‘Hiam [sic] sound like Shania Twain… When did that become a good thing?’ To which this critic replies: Who said it isn’t?”

Nevertheless, it really is a weird situation, at least for old-school music snobs, when a song that does sound a bit like Shania Twain (it’s called “The Wire”) seems to win broadly consensual critical approval. In the great scheme of things, it’s not a bad development that pop music formerly sneered at as disposable is treated much more seriously – and more than that, is unambiguously and enthusiastically liked by serious music writers – now. Not so long ago, in the halcyon days of landfill indie, the poptimists would complain about, say, a Rachel Stevens single being ignored in an aggrieved tone reminiscent of Steve Lamacq berating NME’s editor for not putting Leatherface on the cover (or of me championing Red House Painters against Oasis, if I’m honest).

Now, the pro-pop stance is the majority critical voice, epitomised by The Guardian choosing Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” as the best single of 2012. I don’t want to align myself with a lot of the anti-Jepsen commenters who responded to that decision on Guardian blogs (now there was misogyny, for sure). But it does feel professionally risky to say, actually, I don’t really enjoy most of the Haim album. Amusingly risky, I’ll concede; our come-uppance may well be overdue after so many years of entitlement, and I don’t want this blog to come across like a wail of indignation from the Great Oppressed White Middle-Class Male. After all, I am fortunate enough to work for a magazine that continues to provide a handsome platform for my indulgences.

My problem isn’t that “Days Are Gone” is derivative, as such: it actually seems to fuse a range of different influences rather than assiduously copy one of them (a sage colleague at Uncut reckons Ladyhawke is their closest antecedent). To adapt Dean’s indictment, I’m a middle-aged man moaning not because Haim are derivative, but because they’re derivative of some music I never much liked in the first place. Tweaked ‘90s/millennial R&B (especially Timbaland productions)? That’s fine, I was keen on a lot of that. Digitally upgraded ‘80s soft rock, latterday Fleetwood Mac, Shania Twain? Less so.

You could justifiably argue that, instead of fussing over a record that really wasn’t designed for me, I should concentrate on new music I like, so I’ll swiftly link to a few recent blogs aboutCian Nugent and Chris Forsyth, Bill Callahan and Matthew E White. But I am old enough to remember a time when there were music critics who didn’t like “Tango In The Night” (an album which, interestingly, didn’t even make NME’s Top 60 of 1987).

The generational shifting of critical attitudes; the past being reconsidered and rewritten (I wrote about this in a blog called ’Nostalgia, anti-nostalgia, personal revisionism and one last sort-of review of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories’); the debunking of elite male rock hegemonies – these are usually healthy and useful developments.

But few things can rouse a critic more than the opportunity to be a dissenting or misunderstood voice, to assume the role of underdog, even victim. “Each person must, on some level, take himself as the calibration point for normalcy,” wrote Teju Cole in the book I was reading this morning, Open City, “must assume that the room of his own mind is not, cannot be, entirely opaque to him. Perhaps this is what we mean by sanity: that, whatever our self-admitted eccentricities might be, we are not the villains of our own stories.”

I’m not crazy about Haim, and I really should have better things to do than feel self-reflexively guilty about it. Now let me tell you about how much I prefer Lindsey Buckingham solo to Fleetwood Mac…

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

Dave Davies says there’s a 50/50 chance The Kinks will tour next year

0
Dave Davies has said there is a "50/50" chance that the band could reform and tour together next year. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Davis said that there was a possibility that the group would play shows to celebrate their 50th anniversary, but he also warned that it would depend on the rela...

Dave Davies has said there is a “50/50” chance that the band could reform and tour together next year.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Davis said that there was a possibility that the group would play shows to celebrate their 50th anniversary, but he also warned that it would depend on the relationship with his brother Ray and ruled out the chance of them reuniting to record a new album.

Davies said he had met with Ray three times over the summer but said that although initial discussions were positive, they had become more difficult as they progressed. “The first two meeting were great,” he said. “We talked about the old days and maybe doing something next year. I thought to myself, ‘Oh shit, maybe we could do something before we fall down dead.’ It was very positive.”

He then added: “We had tea right before I came over to America, and he was so negative, grumpy and just mean. It was like he fell into a black hole. He didn’t want me to come back to America. I think it’s because I’m happy and I was doing something without his approval. I feel like he was miserable because I’m happy. He’s a really troubled man.”

Asked what the chances were of them playing together next year, he replied: “I’d say the odds of that happening are 50/50. The ball is very much in Ray’s court. We used to play tennis, and when I was beating him he’d always develop a strategy.

“Basically, when I was winning he’d be like, ‘Oh, I hurt my back!’ I’d sort of back off, and then he’d get aggressive again. Then I’d get real angry. He’d smile, and it was really like the Emperor in Star Wars testing Luke’s character. When he got Luke angry, the Emperor would be like ‘Yes! I’ve got you!'”

On the subject of making an album together, meanwhile, he simply said: “I can’t face the concept of days and days in the studio with Ray. I just can’t do it.”

The Kinks reissue Muswell Hillbillies on October 7, which will feature five previously unreleased songs as well as a smattering of alternate recordings and tracks taken from John Peel radio sessions on the BBC. Unreleased tracks include ‘Lavender Lane’, ‘Mountain Woman’, ‘Kentucky Moon’ and ‘Queenie’, in addition to a demo recording of the song ‘Nobody’s Fool’.

The tracklisting for the 2CD Deluxe Edition of ‘Muswell Hillbillies’ is as follows:

Disc One

’20th Century Man’

‘Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues’

‘Holiday’

‘Skin And Bone’

‘Alcohol’

‘Complicated Life’

‘Here Come The People In Gray’

‘Have A Cuppa Tea’

‘Holloway Jail’

‘Oklahoma USA’

‘Uncle Son’

‘Muswell Hillbilly’

Disc Two

‘Lavender Lane’ (Unreleased)

‘Mountain Woman’ (Unreleased)

‘Have A Cuppa Tea’ (Alternate version)

‘Muswell Hillbilly’ (1976 remix)

‘Uncle Son’ (Alternate version)

‘Kentucky Moon’ (Unreleased)

‘Nobody’s Fool’ (Demo – unreleased)

’20th Century Man (Instrumental)

’20th Century Man (1976 remix)

‘Queenie’ (Unreleased)

‘Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues’ (BBC Peel Session)

‘Holiday’ (BBC Peel Session)

‘Skin And Bone’ (BBC Peel Session)

Watch Christine McVie join Fleetwood Mac onstage at London’s 02 Arena for “Don’t Stop”

0
Christine McVie joined Fleetwood Mac onstage last night [September 25] at London's O2 Arena. Receiving a rapturous reception, she sang "Don't Stop" with the group on the second of their three nights at the venue on their current tour of the UK. Another former bandmember, Peter Green - who left the ...

Christine McVie joined Fleetwood Mac onstage last night [September 25] at London’s O2 Arena.

Receiving a rapturous reception, she sang “Don’t Stop” with the group on the second of their three nights at the venue on their current tour of the UK. Another former bandmember, Peter Green – who left the group in 1970 – was in the crowd for the show, and Stevie Nicks dedicated the song “Landslide” to the founding member of Fleetwood Mac.

See below to watch McVie perform “Don’t Stop” with the band.

You can read Uncut’s review of Fleetwood Mac’s o2 show from Friday, September 27 here.

David Crosby: “My new solo album is like sex – it’s warm and wet… and it feels really good”

0
David Crosby reveals that his new solo album is “like sex”, in the new issue of Uncut (dated November 2013), out now. The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young singer-songwriter explains that the forthcoming record, tentatively titled Dangerous Night, and produced by Dan Garcia and Crosby’s son ...

David Crosby reveals that his new solo album is “like sex”, in the new issue of Uncut (dated November 2013), out now.

The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young singer-songwriter explains that the forthcoming record, tentatively titled Dangerous Night, and produced by Dan Garcia and Crosby’s son James Raymond, is hard to label.

“Putting labels on this music is very tough,” he says. “It’s like trying to describe sex – it’s warm and wet, you go in and out and it really feels good. Somehow words just don’t convey the experience. Let’s just say that most people will be surprised by this record.”

The album will be Crosby’s fourth solo release, following 1993’s Thousand Roads.

The singer-songwriter takes us through some of the tracks on his new album, and also talks about the release of a new CSNY live album recorded in 1974 in the piece.

The November 2013 issue of Uncut is out now.

Bob Dylan announces Complete Album Collection Vol. One

0

A new box set, Bob Dylan Complete Album Collection Vol. One, collecting Dylan's entire official discography, is due for release on Monday 4 November 2013. The CD boxed set contains 35 studio titles (including the first-ever North American release of 1973's Dylan album on CD) as well as 6 live albums and a hardcover book featuring extensive new album-by-album liner notes penned by Clinton Heylin and a new introduction written by Bill Flanagan. It also contains two "Side Tracks" discs which round up previously released non-album singles, tracks from Biograph and other compilations, songs from films and more. The Bob Dylan Complete Album Collection Vol. One will also be available as a limited-edition harmonica-shaped USB stick containing all the music, in both MP3 and FLAC lossless formats, with a digital version of the hardcover booklet, housed in a deluxe numbered box. 14 albums have been remastered especially for this set. A new compilation, The Very Best Of Bob Dylan, is also released on the same date. The Bob Dylan Complete Album Collection Vol. One includes: Studio Albums Bob Dylan (1962) The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964) Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) Bringing It All Back Home (1965) Highway 61 Revisited (1965) Blonde on Blonde (1966) John Wesley Harding (1967) Nashville Skyline (1969) *Self Portrait (1970) - newly remastered for this collection New Morning (1970) *Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) - newly remastered for this collection *Dylan (1973) - newly remastered for this collection Planet Waves (1974) Blood on the Tracks (1975) The Basement Tapes (1975) Desire (1976) *Street Legal (1978) - newly remastered for this collection Slow Train Coming (1979) *Saved (1980) - newly remastered for this collection Shot of Love (1981) Infidels (1983) *Empire Burlesque (1985) - newly remastered for this collection *Knocked Out Loaded (1986) - newly remastered for this collection *Down in the Groove (1988) - newly remastered for this collection Oh Mercy (1989) *Under the Red Sky (1990) - newly remastered for this collection *Good as I Been to You (1992) - newly remastered for this collection *World Gone Wrong (1993) - newly remastered for this collection Time Out of Mind (1997) Love and Theft (2001) Modern Times (2006) Together Through Life (2009) Christmas in the Heart (2009) Tempest (2012) Live Albums Before the Flood (1972) *Hard Rain (1976) - newly remastered for this collection *Bob Dylan at Budokan (1979) - newly remastered for this collection *Real Live (1984) - newly remastered for this collection Dylan & the Dead (1989) MTV Unplugged (1995) "Side Tracks" Baby, I'm in the Mood for You Mixed-Up Confusion Tomorrow Is a Long Time (live) Lay Down Your Weary Tune Percy's Song I'll Keep It with Mine Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? Positively 4th Street Jet Pilot I Wanna Be Your Lover I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) (live) Visions of Johanna (live) Quinn the Eskimo Watching the River Flow When I Paint My Masterpiece Down in the Flood I Shall Be Released You Ain't Goin' Nowhere George Jackson (acoustic version) Forever Young You're a Big Girl Now Up to Me Abandoned Love Isis (live) Romance in Durango (live) Caribbean Wind Heart of Mine (live) Series of Dreams Dignity Things Have Changed The Very Best Of Bob Dylan tracklisting: Formats: 1 CD Standard / Standard Digital 2 CD Deluxe / Deluxe Digital Disc 1 Like a Rolling Stone Blowin' in the Wind Subterranean Homesick Blues Lay, Lady, Lay Knockin' on Heaven's Door I Want You All Along the Watchtower Tangled up in Blue Don't Think Twice, It's All Right Hurricane Just Like a Woman Mr. Tambourine Man It Ain't Me Babe The Times They Are A-Changin' Duquesne Whistle Baby, Stop Crying Make You Feel My Love Thunder on the Mountain Disc 2 (2 CD Deluxe / Deluxe Digital version only) Maggie's Farm Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 Girl from the North Country Positively 4th Street A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall Shelter from the Storm Mississippi (Quinn the Eskimo) The Mighty Quinn I Shall Be Released It's All Over Now, Baby Blue Forever Young Gotta Serve Somebody Things Have Changed Jokerman Not Dark Yet Ring Them Bells Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

A new box set, Bob Dylan Complete Album Collection Vol. One, collecting Dylan’s entire official discography, is due for release on Monday 4 November 2013.

The CD boxed set contains 35 studio titles (including the first-ever North American release of 1973’s Dylan album on CD) as well as 6 live albums and a hardcover book featuring extensive new album-by-album liner notes penned by Clinton Heylin and a new introduction written by Bill Flanagan.

It also contains two “Side Tracks” discs which round up previously released non-album singles, tracks from Biograph and other compilations, songs from films and more.

The Bob Dylan Complete Album Collection Vol. One will also be available as a limited-edition harmonica-shaped USB stick containing all the music, in both MP3 and FLAC lossless formats, with a digital version of the hardcover booklet, housed in a deluxe numbered box.

14 albums have been remastered especially for this set.

A new compilation, The Very Best Of Bob Dylan, is also released on the same date.

The Bob Dylan Complete Album Collection Vol. One includes:

Studio Albums

Bob Dylan (1962)

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)

The Times They Are a-Changin’ (1964)

Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)

Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Blonde on Blonde (1966)

John Wesley Harding (1967)

Nashville Skyline (1969)

*Self Portrait (1970) – newly remastered for this collection

New Morning (1970)

*Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) – newly remastered for this collection

*Dylan (1973) – newly remastered for this collection

Planet Waves (1974)

Blood on the Tracks (1975)

The Basement Tapes (1975)

Desire (1976)

*Street Legal (1978) – newly remastered for this collection

Slow Train Coming (1979)

*Saved (1980) – newly remastered for this collection

Shot of Love (1981)

Infidels (1983)

*Empire Burlesque (1985) – newly remastered for this collection

*Knocked Out Loaded (1986) – newly remastered for this collection

*Down in the Groove (1988) – newly remastered for this collection

Oh Mercy (1989)

*Under the Red Sky (1990) – newly remastered for this collection

*Good as I Been to You (1992) – newly remastered for this collection

*World Gone Wrong (1993) – newly remastered for this collection

Time Out of Mind (1997)

Love and Theft (2001)

Modern Times (2006)

Together Through Life (2009)

Christmas in the Heart (2009)

Tempest (2012)

Live Albums

Before the Flood (1972)

*Hard Rain (1976) – newly remastered for this collection

*Bob Dylan at Budokan (1979) – newly remastered for this collection

*Real Live (1984) – newly remastered for this collection

Dylan & the Dead (1989)

MTV Unplugged (1995)

“Side Tracks”

Baby, I’m in the Mood for You

Mixed-Up Confusion

Tomorrow Is a Long Time (live)

Lay Down Your Weary Tune

Percy’s Song

I’ll Keep It with Mine

Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?

Positively 4th Street

Jet Pilot

I Wanna Be Your Lover

I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) (live)

Visions of Johanna (live)

Quinn the Eskimo

Watching the River Flow

When I Paint My Masterpiece

Down in the Flood

I Shall Be Released

You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere

George Jackson (acoustic version)

Forever Young

You’re a Big Girl Now

Up to Me

Abandoned Love

Isis (live)

Romance in Durango (live)

Caribbean Wind

Heart of Mine (live)

Series of Dreams

Dignity

Things Have Changed

The Very Best Of Bob Dylan tracklisting:

Formats:

1 CD Standard / Standard Digital

2 CD Deluxe / Deluxe Digital

Disc 1

Like a Rolling Stone

Blowin’ in the Wind

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Lay, Lady, Lay

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

I Want You

All Along the Watchtower

Tangled up in Blue

Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right

Hurricane

Just Like a Woman

Mr. Tambourine Man

It Ain’t Me Babe

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Duquesne Whistle

Baby, Stop Crying

Make You Feel My Love

Thunder on the Mountain

Disc 2 (2 CD Deluxe / Deluxe Digital version only)

Maggie’s Farm

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

Girl from the North Country

Positively 4th Street

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Shelter from the Storm

Mississippi

(Quinn the Eskimo) The Mighty Quinn

I Shall Be Released

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

Forever Young

Gotta Serve Somebody

Things Have Changed

Jokerman

Not Dark Yet

Ring Them Bells

Beyond Here Lies Nothin’