Page 505 – UNCUT

The Clash – Sound System

Uncut

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26th September 2013

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

John Mulvey

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26th September 2013

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

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26th September 2013

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

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”

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26th September 2013

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

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”

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26th September 2013

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

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

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25th September 2013

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Bob Dylan announces Complete Album Collection Vol. One

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’

The Pogues to perform Rum, Sodomy & The Lash live

News

Uncut

-

25th September 2013

0

The Pogues to perform Rum, Sodomy & The Lash live

The Pogues are set to play their classic 1985 album Rum, Sodomy & The Lash at four separate shows in the UK this December. The band will visit Manchester O2 Apollo on December 15, before gigs at Glasgow O2 Academy (December 17) and two shows at London's O2 Academy Brixton on December 19 and 20....

The Pogues are set to play their classic 1985 album Rum, Sodomy & The Lash at four separate shows in the UK this December.

The band will visit Manchester O2 Apollo on December 15, before gigs at Glasgow O2 Academy (December 17) and two shows at London’s O2 Academy Brixton on December 19 and 20. Tickets go on sale at 9.30am [BST] on September 27. As well as playing their second album in full, they will also perform other “favourite tracks”.

Earlier this year it was reported that The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan was searching for a dentist who could fix his infamously bad teeth so he might start a Hollywood film career. MacGowan’s hedonistic lifestyle caused his teeth to rot and fall out and, although he had dentures fitted in 2009, he no longer wears them. His girlfriend Victoria Mary Clarke launched an appeal on Twitter for a dentist to fix his gnashers and also promised that the frontman would front an advertising campaign in exchange for the work.

“Shane is keen to find a dentist, so he can start in Hollywood film,” she wrote. “Pogues/Shane fans who are great dentists please apply!” She later added: “Shane promises to do advertising campaign for the winning dentist!!!”

The Pogues released the live album and DVD Pogues In Paris: 30th Anniversary Concert At The Olympia, which features two shows in the French capital, in November 2012. Their last studio album, Pogue Mahone, was released in 1996.

Iron gates welded by Bob Dylan set to go on display at exhibition

News

Uncut

-

25th September 2013

0

Iron gates welded by Bob Dylan set to go on display at exhibition

A new exhibition of iron works and original paintings by Bob Dylan is set to open at London's Halcyon Gallery on November 16. 'Mood Swings' will feature seven iron gates welded out of vintage iron by the legendary singer-songwriter, who, states a press release for the event, has had a "lifelong fascination with welding and metalwork." Dylan comments: "I've been around iron all my life ever since I was a kid. I was born and raised in iron ore country - where you could breathe it and smell it every day. And I've always worked with it in one form or another. Gates appeal to me because of the negative space they allow. They can be closed but at the same time they allow the seasons and breezes to enter and flow. They can shut you out or shut you in. And in some ways there is no difference." The exhibition, which will run until January 25, 2014, also features original silkscreen works on canvas by Dylan. President of the Halcyon Gallery, Paul Green, has said of the exhibition: "The forthcoming exhibition will be the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of Bob Dylan’s art to date. While Dylan has been a committed visual artist for more than four decades, this exhibition will cast new light on one of the world's most important and influential cultural figures of our time. His iron works demonstrate his boundless creativity and talent. As these artworks are made at home, not on the road, they give us a rare glimpse into another part of the artist's own personal universe." A series of Bob Dylan's paintings are also currently on display at London's National Portrait Gallery. The 12 pastel works are a mix of real and fictitious characters. 'Bob Dylan: Face Value' will be in the Contemporary Collection displays until January 5, 2014. Bob Dylan's welding skills have been reported previously in Uncut. In a 2011 interview in the magazine, David Stewart told us, "Jeff Rosen, who’s his publishing manager, was really laughing because Dylan very rarely responds to requests for this or that but… I bought this land with a friend in the woods in Jamaica and we were building this house and it had these broken down old stones and it had this bit where there could be a gate… and I sent a fax saying would Bob design these metal gates? And it came straight back – ‘I’m into it!’ He does metal welding, like sculptural, and he’s brilliant.”

A new exhibition of iron works and original paintings by Bob Dylan is set to open at London’s Halcyon Gallery on November 16.

‘Mood Swings’ will feature seven iron gates welded out of vintage iron by the legendary singer-songwriter, who, states a press release for the event, has had a “lifelong fascination with welding and metalwork.” Dylan comments: “I’ve been around iron all my life ever since I was a kid. I was born and raised in iron ore country – where you could breathe it and smell it every day. And I’ve always worked with it in one form or another. Gates appeal to me because of the negative space they allow. They can be closed but at the same time they allow the seasons and breezes to enter and flow. They can shut you out or shut you in. And in some ways there is no difference.”

The exhibition, which will run until January 25, 2014, also features original silkscreen works on canvas by Dylan. President of the Halcyon Gallery, Paul Green, has said of the exhibition: “The forthcoming exhibition will be the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of Bob Dylan’s art to date. While Dylan has been a committed visual artist for more than four decades, this exhibition will cast new light on one of the world’s most important and influential cultural figures of our time. His iron works demonstrate his boundless creativity and talent. As these artworks are made at home, not on the road, they give us a rare glimpse into another part of the artist’s own personal universe.”

A series of Bob Dylan’s paintings are also currently on display at London’s National Portrait Gallery. The 12 pastel works are a mix of real and fictitious characters. ‘Bob Dylan: Face Value’ will be in the Contemporary Collection displays until January 5, 2014.

Bob Dylan’s welding skills have been reported previously in Uncut. In a 2011 interview in the magazine, David Stewart told us, “Jeff Rosen, who’s his publishing manager, was really laughing because Dylan very rarely responds to requests for this or that but… I bought this land with a friend in the woods in Jamaica and we were building this house and it had these broken down old stones and it had this bit where there could be a gate… and I sent a fax saying would Bob design these metal gates? And it came straight back – ‘I’m into it!’ He does metal welding, like sculptural, and he’s brilliant.”

King Crimson unveil new-line up and 2014 tour plans

News

Uncut

-

25th September 2013

0

King Crimson unveil new-line up and 2014 tour plans

Robert Fripp has unveiled a new incarnation of King Crimson. Speaking to Uncut, Fripp said: "King Crimson is returning to active service. We are on-call to be ready for a live performance on September 1, 2014. Seven members. Four English, three American. Three drummers. It’s a different configura...

Robert Fripp has unveiled a new incarnation of King Crimson.

Speaking to Uncut, Fripp said: “King Crimson is returning to active service. We are on-call to be ready for a live performance on September 1, 2014. Seven members. Four English, three American. Three drummers. It’s a different configuration of King Crimson than before. Some are familiar names, maybe more than others.”

This line-up – the 8th in the band’s history – will be Fripp, Gavin Harrison, Bill Rieflin, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Mel Collins and Jakko Jakszyk.

They are all former Crimson members, except Rieflin and Jakszyk who have been involved on the fringes of Crimson for a few years. Rieflin collaborated with Chris Wong, Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox in a project called The Humans, while Jakszyk played in Jakszyk Fripp & Collins, alongside Robert Fripp and Mel Collins.

Fripp has been embroiled in a legal dispute with Universal Music Group for six years, which has only recently been resolved. This legal dispute caused him to retire from live performance. King Crimson last played together in 2008, while Fripp himself hasn’t performed live since 2010. There are no plans, he says, for the new King Crimson to enter a studio. They will play “reconfigured” versions of existing Crimson material.

“The first performance will take place in either North or South America,” Fripp told Uncut. “There will be rehearsals primarily in England, and the final batch of rehearsals will most likely be in America in August or September 2014. There is a plan to include the UK in the tour dates, but it depends on a number of circumstances. Right now the primary geographical focus is the United States.”

The 35th Uncut Playlist Of 2013

John Mulvey

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25th September 2013

0

Conspicuously wealthy blues collectors probably know about this by now, but a copy of Tommy Johnson’s “Alcohol And Jake Blues” has surfaced – only the second that’s ever been found – and is on sale at Ebay. It’ll be interesting to see how bidding shapes up before the auction closes around 10 tonight (UK time): at time of writing, the highest offer is $16,800.00. There’s a great exchange in the Ebay Q&A when someone tries to get the seller to digitise his copy and replace the scratchy transfer that currently circulates (as on the Youtube link below). That doesn’t work, as you might imagine. Back in 2013, there’s a nice new Limiñanas record, the best Alasdair Roberts in a while, King Champion Sounds (a Dutch-based band featured one of The Ex and Ajay from one of my favourite lost ‘90s noise bands, Donkey, and the Daniel Bachman and Trans (interesting story there…) releases get better with each listen. Also, if you were drawn in by my Television/Forsyth/Nugent/Nico blog last week, there’s a trailer for the Chris Forsyth album gone live, that I’ve embedded below. And a quick reminder that our new issue is on sale today (Read about the November 2013 Uncut here): cool, I think, to have The Waterboys, Clarence White, Throwing Muses, Archie Shepp and Laraaji in there, among all the other stuff. As ever, let us know what you think… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey 1 Daniel Bachman – Jesus I’m A Sinner (Tompkins Square) 2 Kurt Vile & The Violators - it's a big world out there (and i am scared) EP (Matador) 3 The Limiñanas - Costa Blanca (Trouble In Mind) 4 Cliff Martinez – Solaris: Original Music (Invada) 5 Van Morrison – Into The Mystic (Unreleased Version) (Warner Bros) 6 Neil Young – Reason To Believe (Live At Farm Aid) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du98mhHRdGI 7 Date Palms – The Dusted Sessions (Thrill Jockey) Read my live review of Date Palms here 8 Roy Harper – Man And Myth (Bella Union) Read my live review of Roy Harper here 9 Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson – Hrta Songs (Stone Tape) 10 Tommy Johnson – Alcohol And Jake Blues (Paramount) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayltwUwpW04 11 Chris Forsyth – Solar Motel (Paradise Of Bachelors)

Conspicuously wealthy blues collectors probably know about this by now, but a copy of Tommy Johnson’s “Alcohol And Jake Blues” has surfaced – only the second that’s ever been found – and is on sale at Ebay. It’ll be interesting to see how bidding shapes up before the auction closes around 10 tonight (UK time): at time of writing, the highest offer is $16,800.00.

There’s a great exchange in the Ebay Q&A when someone tries to get the seller to digitise his copy and replace the scratchy transfer that currently circulates (as on the Youtube link below). That doesn’t work, as you might imagine.

Back in 2013, there’s a nice new Limiñanas record, the best Alasdair Roberts in a while, King Champion Sounds (a Dutch-based band featured one of The Ex and Ajay from one of my favourite lost ‘90s noise bands, Donkey, and the Daniel Bachman and Trans (interesting story there…) releases get better with each listen. Also, if you were drawn in by my Television/Forsyth/Nugent/Nico blog last week, there’s a trailer for the Chris Forsyth album gone live, that I’ve embedded below.

And a quick reminder that our new issue is on sale today (Read about the November 2013 Uncut here): cool, I think, to have The Waterboys, Clarence White, Throwing Muses, Archie Shepp and Laraaji in there, among all the other stuff. As ever, let us know what you think…

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

1 Daniel Bachman – Jesus I’m A Sinner (Tompkins Square)

2 Kurt Vile & The Violators – it’s a big world out there (and i am scared) EP (Matador)

3 The Limiñanas – Costa Blanca (Trouble In Mind)

4 Cliff Martinez – Solaris: Original Music (Invada)

5 Van Morrison – Into The Mystic (Unreleased Version) (Warner Bros)

6 Neil Young – Reason To Believe (Live At Farm Aid)

7 Date Palms – The Dusted Sessions (Thrill Jockey)

Read my live review of Date Palms here

8 Roy Harper – Man And Myth (Bella Union)

Read my live review of Roy Harper here

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

10 Tommy Johnson – Alcohol And Jake Blues (Paramount)

11 Chris Forsyth – Solar Motel (Paradise Of Bachelors)

Chris Forsyth – Solar Motel (teaser) from Chris Forsyth on Vimeo.

12 Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Idea & Deed/On My Way Home Again/You Have Cum In Your Hair And Your Dick Is Hanging Out/Time To Be Clear (Ace Hotel & Jackpot! Recording MFNW Sessions)

Download the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy tracks for free here

13 Trans – Trans Red EP (Rough Trade)

14 Date Palms – USA & Europe Dusted Sessions Tour 2013 (Date Palms)

15 Dead Meadow – Warble Womb (Xemu)

16 Olan Mill – Hiraeth (Preservation)

17 Jeffrey Novak – Lemon Kid (Trouble In Mind)

18 Autechre – L-Event (Warp)

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

20 King Champion Sounds – Different Drummer (Wormer Brothers)

This month in Uncut!

News

Uncut

-

25th September 2013

0

Pink Floyd, John Lydon, The Waterboys and Vampire Weekend are in the new issue of Uncut (dated November 2013), out now. In the cover feature, Nick Mason, Alan Parsons, Roy Harper and more finally reveal the secrets of The Dark Side Of The Moon, 40 years after its release. “However much success...

Pink Floyd, John Lydon, The Waterboys and Vampire Weekend are in the new issue of Uncut (dated November 2013), out now.

In the cover feature, Nick Mason, Alan Parsons, Roy Harper and more finally reveal the secrets of The Dark Side Of The Moon, 40 years after its release.

“However much success you have,” Mason tells Uncut, “it’s never quite enough to ease the egos of everyone.”

John Lydon talks us through the rocky creation of his greatest albums, from the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks… and Public Image Limited’s Metal Box to his own Psycho’s Path and PiL’s This Is PiL from 2012.

Mike Scott also reveals how he got deep into folk, started competing with U2 and made The Waterboys’ 1988 folk masterpiece Fisherman’s Blues, while Vampire Weekend reflect on their impressive trilogy of albums, and why being into preppy things at 29 is “a bit stunted”.

Elsewhere, The Animals discuss the making of “We’ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place”, David Crosby talks about his new solo album and a CSNY ’74 live album, Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb answers your questions and the astounding, tragic tale of Clarence White, the Byrd who sparked two musical revolutions, is told.

Returning alternative heroes Throwing Muses look back over their history, champagne, painkillers and Jagger’s bed included, while Uncut meets teenage rabble-rousers The Strypes, and Graham Parker takes us back through the records that have defined his life.

In the huge reviews section, new albums by Paul McCartney, Arcade Fire, Jonathan Wilson, Prefab Sprout and Linda Thompson are reviewed, alongside archive material from John Martyn, Nirvana, The Beta Band and Bruce Springsteen.

The film and DVD section looks at Captain Phillips, The Wicker Man and Basically, Johnny Moped, while The Replacements, End Of The Road Festival and Björk are reviewed in our live section.

Uncut’s CD this month includes tracks from Okkervil River, Jonathan Wilson, Linda Thompson, Bill Callahan, Tony Joe White, Howe Gelb and The Sufis.

The new issue of Uncut (dated November 2013) is out now.

John Lennon interactive album app due for release

News

Uncut

-

24th September 2013

0

John Lennon interactive album app due for release

A new interactive album app called John Lennon: The Bermuda Tapes will be released on November 5. The app, which is to be launched exclusively through the iTunes App Store, is directed by Michael Epstein, who previously wrote and directed by documentary, LENNONYC. The app is based on Lennon's 1980 visit to Bermuda, and his collaborations with Ono, which informed the Double Fantasy album. According to a report in Billboard, users will be able to navigate stormy seas to Bermuda, visit a disco, and hear Lennon's demos of tracks like “Woman”, “Starting Over”, “I’m Losing You”, “(Just Like) Starting Over”, “Nobody Told Me” and “Dear Yoko". "Writing Double Fantasy was a very exciting time creatively for both John and me," said Yoko Ono. "I think the album app captures the sense of discovery and the artistic dialogue that John and I shared at that time and provides a new way to help us imagine a world without hunger." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhV5dtzHY1w

A new interactive album app called John Lennon: The Bermuda Tapes will be released on November 5.

The app, which is to be launched exclusively through the iTunes App Store, is directed by Michael Epstein, who previously wrote and directed by documentary, LENNONYC.

The app is based on Lennon’s 1980 visit to Bermuda, and his collaborations with Ono, which informed the Double Fantasy album. According to a report in Billboard, users will be able to navigate stormy seas to Bermuda, visit a disco, and hear Lennon’s demos of tracks like “Woman”, “Starting Over”, “I’m Losing You”, “(Just Like) Starting Over”, “Nobody Told Me” and “Dear Yoko”.

“Writing Double Fantasy was a very exciting time creatively for both John and me,” said Yoko Ono. “I think the album app captures the sense of discovery and the artistic dialogue that John and I shared at that time and provides a new way to help us imagine a world without hunger.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhV5dtzHY1w

Roy Harper and Date Palms, reviewed live, September 23, 2013

John Mulvey

-

24th September 2013

0

Roy Harper and Date Palms, reviewed live, September 23, 2013

“I am guilty,” says Roy Harper, “of taking you on some strange journeys, I have to admit.” We are two songs into a solo Harper show to mark the release of his first new album in 13 years, taking place in a record shop (Rough Trade East) and being streamed live on the internet; a confluence of events that clearly amuses the singer on some essential and bemused level. Thus far, he has reconstructed Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country” as brittle, almost ethereal English folk, stretching its climax into a series of forlorn wails that reveal his voice has weathered miraculously well these 72 years. Before acknowledging the release of “Man And Myth”, he has celebrated the “50th anniversary” of “Legend” (the anniversary of its writing, presumably; it surfaced on “Sophisticated Beggar” in 1966) and prefaced it with a lengthy digression on the influence of TS Eliot and Rousseau. In his conversation, as much as in his music, Harper’s longeurs are critical to his charm; the further he meanders, the deeper he gets. Tonight, though, he is on relatively economical form: eight songs in an hour represents a pretty frantic pace by his normally leisurely standards. Four of them, understandably, come from “Man And Myth”, and in some cases flourish in this unadorned state: the gentle progressions of “Time Is Temporary”, with its prickly, fingerpicked punctuation; “The Enemy”, especially forceful and plaintive. “The Stranger” has the tough job of following a gorgeous version of “Another Day”, but it’s a mark of the new songs’ strength that there’s no alarming drop in quality here. These are elegiac and labyrinthine constructions that show Harper has lost none of his brackish mystique or scholarly nimbleness. It’s a shame that he couldn’t find room for the 15-minute reverie of “Heaven Is Here”, but there’ll be other nights for that. Instead, Harper finishes with the deathlessly lovely “When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease”, performed with the requisite former England test player (Derek Pringle, who once scandalised the cricket establishment by wearing an earring, and who I once spotted towering above the crowd at an American Music Club show at the Astoria) in attendance. “Well this way of life's recollection, the hallowed strip in the haze/The fabled men and the noonday sun are much more than just yarns of their days.” An hour or so later, I make it up to Café Oto in Dalston to catch Oakland’s Date Palms, whose languorous instrumentals could have been baked in a heat haze. I wrote about one of Date Palms’ old albums, “Of Psalms”, a couple of years ago, and a lot of those observations still hold true for this year’s very fine “Dusted Sessions” set and the live show. Marielle Jakobsons and Gregg Kowalsky have now recruited a bassist and guitarist, though, so their live shows have a heft and intricacy that is a match for their records, and for one of their most obvious – at least to me – antecedents, Brightblack Morning Light. Most songs begin with Kowalsky cueing up a loop or drone, often of the tanpura that figures so prominently on “The Dusted Sessions”. Slowly and methodically, the quartet map a pattern over the top, pinned down with a lugubrious, almost-funk bassline, from Ben Bracken, and Jakobsons providing further beatific cycles on either violin or flute. Kowalsky, meanwhile, adds intuitive flecks of electric piano, and Noah Phillips is equally spare on guitar: using a brush on his strings to create a fluttering ambience; once, briefly, wallowing into the space of Dave Gilmour. It’s lovely stuff, at once heavy and featherlight; simple in conception, meticulous in detail, profound in impact. Sacred minimalist blues might work as a tag, though it might be better just to link to another track and let you take it from there. A good night out, anyway… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

“I am guilty,” says Roy Harper, “of taking you on some strange journeys, I have to admit.” We are two songs into a solo Harper show to mark the release of his first new album in 13 years, taking place in a record shop (Rough Trade East) and being streamed live on the internet; a confluence of events that clearly amuses the singer on some essential and bemused level.

Thus far, he has reconstructed Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country” as brittle, almost ethereal English folk, stretching its climax into a series of forlorn wails that reveal his voice has weathered miraculously well these 72 years. Before acknowledging the release of “Man And Myth”, he has celebrated the “50th anniversary” of “Legend” (the anniversary of its writing, presumably; it surfaced on “Sophisticated Beggar” in 1966) and prefaced it with a lengthy digression on the influence of TS Eliot and Rousseau.

In his conversation, as much as in his music, Harper’s longeurs are critical to his charm; the further he meanders, the deeper he gets. Tonight, though, he is on relatively economical form: eight songs in an hour represents a pretty frantic pace by his normally leisurely standards. Four of them, understandably, come from “Man And Myth”, and in some cases flourish in this unadorned state: the gentle progressions of “Time Is Temporary”, with its prickly, fingerpicked punctuation; “The Enemy”, especially forceful and plaintive.

“The Stranger” has the tough job of following a gorgeous version of “Another Day”, but it’s a mark of the new songs’ strength that there’s no alarming drop in quality here. These are elegiac and labyrinthine constructions that show Harper has lost none of his brackish mystique or scholarly nimbleness. It’s a shame that he couldn’t find room for the 15-minute reverie of “Heaven Is Here”, but there’ll be other nights for that.

Instead, Harper finishes with the deathlessly lovely “When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease”, performed with the requisite former England test player (Derek Pringle, who once scandalised the cricket establishment by wearing an earring, and who I once spotted towering above the crowd at an American Music Club show at the Astoria) in attendance. “Well this way of life’s recollection, the hallowed strip in the haze/The fabled men and the noonday sun are much more than just yarns of their days.”

An hour or so later, I make it up to Café Oto in Dalston to catch Oakland’s Date Palms, whose languorous instrumentals could have been baked in a heat haze. I wrote about one of Date Palms’ old albums, “Of Psalms”, a couple of years ago, and a lot of those observations still hold true for this year’s very fine “Dusted Sessions” set and the live show. Marielle Jakobsons and Gregg Kowalsky have now recruited a bassist and guitarist, though, so their live shows have a heft and intricacy that is a match for their records, and for one of their most obvious – at least to me – antecedents, Brightblack Morning Light.

Most songs begin with Kowalsky cueing up a loop or drone, often of the tanpura that figures so prominently on “The Dusted Sessions”. Slowly and methodically, the quartet map a pattern over the top, pinned down with a lugubrious, almost-funk bassline, from Ben Bracken, and Jakobsons providing further beatific cycles on either violin or flute. Kowalsky, meanwhile, adds intuitive flecks of electric piano, and Noah Phillips is equally spare on guitar: using a brush on his strings to create a fluttering ambience; once, briefly, wallowing into the space of Dave Gilmour.

It’s lovely stuff, at once heavy and featherlight; simple in conception, meticulous in detail, profound in impact. Sacred minimalist blues might work as a tag, though it might be better just to link to another track and let you take it from there. A good night out, anyway…

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

The new Uncut: Pink Floyd, the Replacements, the Waterboys, David Crosby, Jimi Hendrix, John Lydon, Paul McCartney, Arcade Fire

News

Michael Bonner

-

24th September 2013

0

The new Uncut: Pink Floyd, the Replacements, the Waterboys, David Crosby, Jimi Hendrix, John Lydon, Paul McCartney, Arcade Fire

It’s a busy week here at Uncut. Last night, John and I went to see Roy Harper play a predictably excellent show at Rough Trade East – you can read all about it on his blog here. Tomorrow, I’m off to see Pixies at the Roundhouse and on Friday, it's Fleetwood Mac at the O2. Oh, and at some point there’s the final episode of Breaking Bad to watch... But the most important news in our world this week is the arrival in the shops tomorrow of the new issue of Uncut, which as you can see above features Pink Floyd on the cover. In a brilliantly written piece by David Cavanagh, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Dark Side Of The Moon, along with the band, their closest friends, confidants and collaborators. Elsewhere in the issue, Alastair McKay travels to Dublin to hear Mike Scott tell the epic tale behind The Waterboys’ Fisherman’s Blues album; Alastair has also spoken to Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman and Gene Parsons for their memories of the late, great Byrd Clarence White. Meanwhile, with their first album in ten years looming, I caught up Throwing Muses past and present to look back at their extraordinary career, and Sharon O’Connell headed to New York to drink coffee and hang out in some nice warehouse apartments with Vampire Weekend. Elsewhere, Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb pontificates on your questions in An Audience With…, a typically uncompromising John Lydon talks us through his back catalogue in Album By Album and The Animals discuss the Making Of their classic single, “We’ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place”. This month’s CD includes new music by Bill Callahan, Jonathan Wilson, Mark Kozelek & Desertshore, Okkervil River, Linda Thompson and Deer Tick among others. Our reviews pages are groaning under the weight of our autumn releases – including some heavy-duty new albums from Arcade Fire, Paul McCartney, Prefab Sprout, Peter Gabriel, Pearl Jam and Omar Souleyman. In our Archive section, there are reissues by John Martyn, Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, Lemonheads and the Beta Band. On DVD, we discover the strange tale of Johnny Moped, while in Film, I review Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips, the Muscle Shoals documentary and – God help us – The Wicker Man turns 40. In our Live section, we go a little bit loco about the return of The Replacements and round up the best artists from this year’s End Of The Road festival. In Instant Karma!, David Crosby fills us in on his first solo album in 20 years and the much-delayed CSNY 1974 live album, we preview the new Jimi Hendrix biopic, catch up with the Strypes, Archie Shepp and Eno favourite, Laraaji. And you’ll also find a little teaser for our next Ultimate Music Guide: the Small Faces and the Faces, which is in shops on September 27. That, I think, is pretty much that. We hope you like the new Uncut – and, as ever, do drop Allan a line to let him know what you think: Allan_Jones@ipcmedia.com. Enjoy the rest of your week. Michael Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

It’s a busy week here at Uncut. Last night, John and I went to see Roy Harper play a predictably excellent show at Rough Trade East – you can read all about it on his blog here. Tomorrow, I’m off to see Pixies at the Roundhouse and on Friday, it’s Fleetwood Mac at the O2. Oh, and at some point there’s the final episode of Breaking Bad to watch…

But the most important news in our world this week is the arrival in the shops tomorrow of the new issue of Uncut, which as you can see above features Pink Floyd on the cover. In a brilliantly written piece by David Cavanagh, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Dark Side Of The Moon, along with the band, their closest friends, confidants and collaborators. Elsewhere in the issue, Alastair McKay travels to Dublin to hear Mike Scott tell the epic tale behind The Waterboys’ Fisherman’s Blues album; Alastair has also spoken to Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman and Gene Parsons for their memories of the late, great Byrd Clarence White. Meanwhile, with their first album in ten years looming, I caught up Throwing Muses past and present to look back at their extraordinary career, and Sharon O’Connell headed to New York to drink coffee and hang out in some nice warehouse apartments with Vampire Weekend. Elsewhere, Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb pontificates on your questions in An Audience With…, a typically uncompromising John Lydon talks us through his back catalogue in Album By Album and The Animals discuss the Making Of their classic single, “We’ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place”. This month’s CD includes new music by Bill Callahan, Jonathan Wilson, Mark Kozelek & Desertshore, Okkervil River, Linda Thompson and Deer Tick among others.

Our reviews pages are groaning under the weight of our autumn releases – including some heavy-duty new albums from Arcade Fire, Paul McCartney, Prefab Sprout, Peter Gabriel, Pearl Jam and Omar Souleyman. In our Archive section, there are reissues by John Martyn, Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, Lemonheads and the Beta Band. On DVD, we discover the strange tale of Johnny Moped, while in Film, I review Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips, the Muscle Shoals documentary and – God help us – The Wicker Man turns 40.

In our Live section, we go a little bit loco about the return of The Replacements and round up the best artists from this year’s End Of The Road festival. In Instant Karma!, David Crosby fills us in on his first solo album in 20 years and the much-delayed CSNY 1974 live album, we preview the new Jimi Hendrix biopic, catch up with the Strypes, Archie Shepp and Eno favourite, Laraaji. And you’ll also find a little teaser for our next Ultimate Music Guide: the Small Faces and the Faces, which is in shops on September 27.

That, I think, is pretty much that. We hope you like the new Uncut – and, as ever, do drop Allan a line to let him know what you think: Allan_Jones@ipcmedia.com.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Michael

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

Watch the trailer for the final episode of Breaking Bad

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24th September 2013

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Watch the trailer for the final episode of Breaking Bad

A trailer for the last ever episode of Breaking Bad has been released. Scroll down to watch it. "All bad things come to an end," the minute-long clip teases, giving very little away about the how the show might sign off. The final episode, titled "Felina", will air on US network AMC this Sunday (September 29) before being made available to UK Netflix subscribers shortly afterwards. Star Bryan Cranston has recently promised that the show's finale is "very unapologetic and exciting". His co-star Aaron Paul previously told viewers: "You guys are gonna shit your pants!" Breaking Bad collected the 'Outstanding Drama Series' prize at the Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday night [September 22] and Anna Gunn took home the trophy for 'Supporting Actress In A Drama Series'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B98x6Z-zgiE

A trailer for the last ever episode of Breaking Bad has been released. Scroll down to watch it.

“All bad things come to an end,” the minute-long clip teases, giving very little away about the how the show might sign off. The final episode, titled “Felina“, will air on US network AMC this Sunday (September 29) before being made available to UK Netflix subscribers shortly afterwards.

Star Bryan Cranston has recently promised that the show’s finale is “very unapologetic and exciting”. His co-star Aaron Paul previously told viewers: “You guys are gonna shit your pants!”

Breaking Bad collected the ‘Outstanding Drama Series’ prize at the Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday night [September 22] and Anna Gunn took home the trophy for ‘Supporting Actress In A Drama Series’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B98x6Z-zgiE

Paul McCartney reveals ‘New’ album artwork

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24th September 2013

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Paul McCartney reveals ‘New’ album artwork

Paul McCartney has revealed the artwork to his latest solo album, New. The image, which you can see above, will accompany McCartney's album when it is released on October 14. McCartney debuted three new songs during a concert in Las Vegas on Saturday [September 21]. You can watch footage here. Th...

Paul McCartney has revealed the artwork to his latest solo album, New.

The image, which you can see above, will accompany McCartney’s album when it is released on October 14.

McCartney debuted three new songs during a concert in Las Vegas on Saturday [September 21]. You can watch footage here.

The tracklisting for New is:

‘Save Us’ (produced by Paul Epworth)

‘Alligator’ (produced by Mark Ronson)

‘On My Way to Work’ (produced by Giles Martin)

‘Queenie Eye’ (produced by Paul Epworth)

‘Early Days’ (produced by Ethan Johns)

‘New’ (produced by Mark Ronson)

‘Appreciate’ (produced by Giles Martin)

‘Everybody Out There’ (produced by Giles Martin)

‘Hosanna’ (produced by Ethan Johns)

‘I Can Bet’ (produced by Giles Martin)

‘Looking At Her’ (produced by Giles Martin)

‘Road’ (produced by Giles Martin)

Happy Mondays to play Bummed album in full at live shows

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24th September 2013

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Happy Mondays to play Bummed album in full at live shows

Happy Mondays have announced details of a UK tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their second album, Bummed. The Mondays will play the 1988 LP in full at a number of gigs to take place this November and December, kicking off with a show at Canterbury Kings Hall on November 21 and wrapping up ...

Happy Mondays have announced details of a UK tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their second album, Bummed.

The Mondays will play the 1988 LP in full at a number of gigs to take place this November and December, kicking off with a show at Canterbury Kings Hall on November 21 and wrapping up with a gig at Bristol O2 Academy on December 14. The band reformed with their full original line-up for the first time in over 19 years in 2012, although Bez later announced that he wouldn’t be performing with the band on tour, but would instead act as compere and DJ at the shows.

They have reunited twice before, most recently in 2004, but without founding members Mark Day, Paul Davis and Paul Ryder. Paul had sworn he wanted nothing to do with the band again when they split for a second time in 2000. In 2012, meanwhile, the Mondays confirmed that they were working on a new album – which would be the first new material from the original line-up since 1992’s …Yes Please! – but the LP has yet been released.

Happy Mondays will play:

Canterbury Kings Hall (November 21)

London The Forum (22)

Manchester Ritz (23)

Norwich UEA (25)

Leicester O2 Academy (28)

Newcastle O2 Academy (29)

Leeds O2 Academy (30)

Glasgow O2 Academy (December 1)

Hertfordshire The Forum (4)

Bournemouth O2 Academy (5)

Birmingham O2 Academy (6)

Liverpool O2 Academy (7)

Sheffield O2 Academy (12)

Oxford O2 Academy (13)

Mick Jagger to become great-grandfather?

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24th September 2013

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Mick Jagger to become great-grandfather?

Mick Jagger is set to become a great-grandfather for the first time, according to reports. The Daily Mirror says that Jagger's granddaughter Assisi, aged 21, is expecting her first child with her boyfriend Alex. According to sources, the 70-year-old singer is pleased at the news, although his daug...

Mick Jagger is set to become a great-grandfather for the first time, according to reports.

The Daily Mirror says that Jagger’s granddaughter Assisi, aged 21, is expecting her first child with her boyfriend Alex. According to sources, the 70-year-old singer is pleased at the news, although his daughter Jade, 42, is ‘expecting some ribbing’ at becoming a grandmother.

“She and Alex are thrilled and broke the news to their immediate families last week,” they said. “Jade was a little taken aback at first, not least because it means she will be a grandmother by the age of 42. She’s expecting some ribbing from her showbiz pals.”

They added: “Mick is delighted and has no qualms about being a great-grandfather. He’s been joking about becoming a great, great, granddad and still performing!” Jagger has seven children from four relationships, with his daughters Karis and Jade coming from his relationships with Marsha Hunt and Bianca Jagger respectively. He and Jerry Hall have four children together – Elizabeth, James, Georgia and Gabriel – while his youngest child, 14-year-old son Lucas, is from his relationship with Brazilian TV presenter Luciana Gimenez.

Earlier this month, The Rolling Stones confirmed plans to release their Hyde Park gig on DVD and Blu-Ray in November.

Pond – Hobo Rocket

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24th September 2013

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Aussie psych-rockers make a splash with their tightest album yet. Tame, it ain't... Pond for the last couple of years has been the noise Jay Watson and Nick Allbrook make with likeminded confederates when they aren’t touring with Tame Impala. This particular arrangement has made it sometimes seem like Pond are a Tame Impala spin-off, a side project, a kind of hobby, Jay and Nick and their mates going into the studio as the mood vaguely takes them, the equivalent of some blokes retreating to a garden shed to potter aimlessly about, smoke some weed, goof off. There’s a possibility this perception will even survive Nick’s recent departure from Tame Impala, although it would continually rather wrong-headedly ignore the fact that Pond have a thriving history of their own that goes back to Nick’s early band, Mink Mussel Creek, who also featured a pre-Impala Kevin Parker and includes also four previous albums, Psychedelic Mango (2009), Corridors Of Blissterday (2009), Frond (2010) and last year’s Beards, Wives, Denim, alongside Japandroids’ Celebration Rock the most exultant rock album of 2012. At one point it seemed there might be two more Pond albums this year, the other being the splendidly-titled Man, It Feels Like Space Again, whose songs were written first but won’t now be recorded until September, the band’s enthusiasm for the newer material evidently making Hobo Rocket a more immediate priority. Beards, Wives, Denim was a sometimes anarchic sprawl in which explosive elements of the MC5, Stooges, Hendrix, early Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were flung into a highly combustible mix. It was sexy, loud, debauched, brash and mind-blowing. The terrific Hobo Rocket has many of the admirable assets that made BWD great, but there’s a sense in the album’s overall finesse that things as far as possible are being taken perhaps a little more seriously than hitherto. Which is not to say Pond have become suddenly as serious as monks, a glum-fest in brooding cloisters, but merely to acknowledge Hobo Rocket’s greater focus, concentration and concision. At seven tracks, it’s half the length of BWD, which was exhausting enough in parts to make you feel like you’d been subjected to a vigorous waterboarding. Hobo Rocket is more like a series of tracks that go off like target-specific drone strikes than BWD’s wider field of fire, and its ballistic spray of passably random blasts, salvoes and window-shattering detonations. They are still capable of making a wonderfully infernal din, but there’s conspicuously less errant cacophony here, not so much mucking about. “Whatever Happened To The Million Heads Collide” starts the album spectacularly. There’s a lulling wash of synthesisers and what sounds like something scratching beneath the floorboards, before Joe Ryan’s bass walks into the room with a Bo Diddley swagger accompanied by war drums and sibilant vocal effects that recall the way Kevin Parker’s whispering on “Be Above It”, the opening cut on Tame Impala’s Lonerism, became part of the song’s rhythm track. You may also be reminded of something like Pink Floyd’s “Pow R. Toc H.” This is heavy stuff, man, and things get heavier still on “Xanman” (featured on this month’s free CD), “Aloneaflameaflower” and “Giant Tortoise”, with their blistered layers of guitars, synthesisers, subatomic rhythm tracks and Nick sounding here and there like something brightly feathered making a racket in a rain forest. The dreamy “Oh Dharma” deviates from this pummelling template, introducing a mood of lysergic nostalgia, the kind of poignant wistfulness you might associate with Barrett-era Floyd or The Beach Boys of “In My Room” and “Caroline, No”, a gorgeous interlude about half way through recalling something serene and drifty by Groove Armada. “Hobo Rocket” itself is a magnificent thing, a funky psychedelic groove with Nick on lead guitar, Joe Ryan on sitar and far-out phlegmy vocals from Cowboy John, a colourful local character befriended by the band, probably over drinks. “Where do I find my horse with wings?” Cowboy John demands, in such full-on declamatory mode it makes you wonder if in some alternative Pond-designed universe Jim Morrison instead of dying in a Paris bathtub might have somehow made his way undetected to Perth where for the last 40 years has been propping up a bar in Western Australia waiting for Pond to find him. “What kind of drugs you on, man?” he finally enquires, before invoking the prophet Ezekial and hilariously berating Pond for being unprofessional. The closing “Midnight Mass (At The Market Street Payphone)”, meanwhile, is simply beautiful, its long instrumental coda making you feel like you’re falling through space in a suit of lights. Allan Jones Q&A Nick Allbrook Do people still think of Pond as a Tame Impala spin-off? I have no idea what people think. Band names and album titles and songwriting credits and all this business...it gives everyone really concrete definitions to grasp onto, which are probably false. I guess the easiest thing for people to wind their heads around would probably be to invent a new name to tag onto the whole gamete of shart that comes from our mob. Everything we do is a spin-off of something bigger, something probably too fun and pure to put a silly ol' name to. It worked for Wu-Tang, ya? Hobo Rocket is the second of two albums Pond have written since last year’s Beards Wives Denim. How did it end up being recorded first? Well, the songs were written after Man, It Feels Like Space Again and we got scared that if we waited too long we would be inconsolably bored with them by the time it came to doing them. So we figured to put them in an e.p. Then we decided the same thing about some more Space Again songs and then it turned into an album. Where does Hobo Rocket take Pond that they haven’t been before? Well, it’s the only time we've wanted anything to be really heavy, then listened to it after and said "Wow, that is *really heavy*". So that’s pretty grand. It's also a whole lot more sonically interesting, lyrically interesting, cohesive, barbaric... Yeah I guess it’s just completely removed from everything so far from our rather biased perspective. What are your own plans now that you’ve left Tame Impala? Well, I just finished the book I was reading, so I'll need to go find another one. Showering is a must, too, although it’s sunny and I woke up at one o'clock so I should get a move on. Oh, and I'm gonna do some stuff with my spin off band, Pond. Interview Allan Jones

Aussie psych-rockers make a splash with their tightest album yet. Tame, it ain’t…

Pond for the last couple of years has been the noise Jay Watson and Nick Allbrook make with likeminded confederates when they aren’t touring with Tame Impala. This particular arrangement has made it sometimes seem like Pond are a Tame Impala spin-off, a side project, a kind of hobby, Jay and Nick and their mates going into the studio as the mood vaguely takes them, the equivalent of some blokes retreating to a garden shed to potter aimlessly about, smoke some weed, goof off.

There’s a possibility this perception will even survive Nick’s recent departure from Tame Impala, although it would continually rather wrong-headedly ignore the fact that Pond have a thriving history of their own that goes back to Nick’s early band, Mink Mussel Creek, who also featured a pre-Impala Kevin Parker and includes also four previous albums, Psychedelic Mango (2009), Corridors Of Blissterday (2009), Frond (2010) and last year’s Beards, Wives, Denim, alongside Japandroids’ Celebration Rock the most exultant rock album of 2012.

At one point it seemed there might be two more Pond albums this year, the other being the splendidly-titled Man, It Feels Like Space Again, whose songs were written first but won’t now be recorded until September, the band’s enthusiasm for the newer material evidently making Hobo Rocket a more immediate priority. Beards, Wives, Denim was a sometimes anarchic sprawl in which explosive elements of the MC5, Stooges, Hendrix, early Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were flung into a highly combustible mix. It was sexy, loud, debauched, brash and mind-blowing. The terrific Hobo Rocket has many of the admirable assets that made BWD great, but there’s a sense in the album’s overall finesse that things as far as possible are being taken perhaps a little more seriously than hitherto. Which is not to say Pond have become suddenly as serious as monks, a glum-fest in brooding cloisters, but merely to acknowledge Hobo Rocket’s greater focus, concentration and concision. At seven tracks, it’s half the length of BWD, which was exhausting enough in parts to make you feel like you’d been subjected to a vigorous waterboarding.

Hobo Rocket is more like a series of tracks that go off like target-specific drone strikes than BWD’s wider field of fire, and its ballistic spray of passably random blasts, salvoes and window-shattering detonations. They are still capable of making a wonderfully infernal din, but there’s conspicuously less errant cacophony here, not so much mucking about. “Whatever Happened To The Million Heads Collide” starts the album spectacularly. There’s a lulling wash of synthesisers and what sounds like something scratching beneath the floorboards, before Joe Ryan’s bass walks into the room with a Bo Diddley swagger accompanied by war drums and sibilant vocal effects that recall the way Kevin Parker’s whispering on “Be Above It”, the opening cut on Tame Impala’s Lonerism, became part of the song’s rhythm track. You may also be reminded of something like Pink Floyd’s “Pow R. Toc H.”

This is heavy stuff, man, and things get heavier still on “Xanman” (featured on this month’s free CD), “Aloneaflameaflower” and “Giant Tortoise”, with their blistered layers of guitars, synthesisers, subatomic rhythm tracks and Nick sounding here and there like something brightly feathered making a racket in a rain forest. The dreamy “Oh Dharma” deviates from this pummelling template, introducing a mood of lysergic nostalgia, the kind of poignant wistfulness you might associate with Barrett-era Floyd or The Beach Boys of “In My Room” and “Caroline, No”, a gorgeous interlude about half way through recalling something serene and drifty by Groove Armada. “Hobo Rocket” itself is a magnificent thing, a funky psychedelic groove with Nick on lead guitar, Joe Ryan on sitar and far-out phlegmy vocals from Cowboy John, a colourful local character befriended by the band, probably over drinks. “Where do I find my horse with wings?” Cowboy John demands, in such full-on declamatory mode it makes you wonder if in some alternative Pond-designed universe Jim Morrison instead of dying in a Paris bathtub might have somehow made his way undetected to Perth where for the last 40 years has been propping up a bar in Western Australia waiting for Pond to find him. “What kind of drugs you on, man?” he finally enquires, before invoking the prophet Ezekial and hilariously berating Pond for being unprofessional. The closing “Midnight Mass (At The Market Street Payphone)”, meanwhile, is simply beautiful, its long instrumental coda making you feel like you’re falling through space in a suit of lights.

Allan Jones

Q&A

Nick Allbrook

Do people still think of Pond as a Tame Impala spin-off?

I have no idea what people think. Band names and album titles and songwriting credits and all this business…it gives everyone really concrete definitions to grasp onto, which are probably false. I guess the easiest thing for people to wind their heads around would probably be to invent a new name to tag onto the whole gamete of shart that comes from our mob. Everything we do is a spin-off of something bigger, something probably too fun and pure to put a silly ol’ name to. It worked for Wu-Tang, ya?

Hobo Rocket is the second of two albums Pond have written since last year’s Beards Wives Denim. How did it end up being recorded first?

Well, the songs were written after Man, It Feels Like Space Again and we got scared that if we waited too long we would be inconsolably bored with them by the time it came to doing them. So we figured to put them in an e.p. Then we decided the same thing about some more Space Again songs and then it turned into an album.

Where does Hobo Rocket take Pond that they haven’t been before?

Well, it’s the only time we’ve wanted anything to be really heavy, then listened to it after and said “Wow, that is *really heavy*”. So that’s pretty grand. It’s also a whole lot more sonically interesting, lyrically interesting, cohesive, barbaric… Yeah I guess it’s just completely removed from everything so far from our rather biased perspective.

What are your own plans now that you’ve left Tame Impala?

Well, I just finished the book I was reading, so I’ll need to go find another one. Showering is a must, too, although it’s sunny and I woke up at one o’clock so I should get a move on. Oh, and I’m gonna do some stuff with my spin off band, Pond.

Interview Allan Jones

Nick Mason on Pink Floyd: “We were obviously very depressed people”

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24th September 2013

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Nick Mason on Pink Floyd: “We were obviously very depressed people”

Nick Mason jokes that Pink Floyd were “obviously very depressed people” while making The Dark Side Of The Moon, in the new issue of Uncut (dated November 2013), and out now. The band’s drummer makes the wry remark while explaining the creation of the group’s landmark 1973 release. “We ...

Nick Mason jokes that Pink Floyd were “obviously very depressed people” while making The Dark Side Of The Moon, in the new issue of Uncut (dated November 2013), and out now.

The band’s drummer makes the wry remark while explaining the creation of the group’s landmark 1973 release.

“We were obviously very depressed people,” Mason says. “I don’t think Pink Floyd ever found an ideal way of working together, but The Dark Side Of The Moon was probably the closest we came to it.

“The problem is trying to work out exactly who did what. Not only is it a mystery, but it tends to get everyone incredibly worked up. ‘I did that.’ ‘No, I did that.’”

The key players talk mental disintegration, cricket matches, echo chambers and dawn rushes to Heathrow in the piece, which also touches on the fate of the Harvest label and the group’s subsequent rocky journey.

The new issue of Uncut is out on September 25, 2013.

The Clash – Sound System

The Haim Wars

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

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

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

Bob Dylan announces Complete Album Collection Vol. One

The Pogues to perform Rum, Sodomy & The Lash live

Iron gates welded by Bob Dylan set to go on display at exhibition

King Crimson unveil new-line up and 2014 tour plans

The 35th Uncut Playlist Of 2013

This month in Uncut!

John Lennon interactive album app due for release

Roy Harper and Date Palms, reviewed live, September 23, 2013

The new Uncut: Pink Floyd, the Replacements, the Waterboys, David Crosby, Jimi Hendrix, John Lydon, Paul McCartney, Arcade Fire

Watch the trailer for the final episode of Breaking Bad

Paul McCartney reveals ‘New’ album artwork

Happy Mondays to play Bummed album in full at live shows

Mick Jagger to become great-grandfather?

Pond – Hobo Rocket

Nick Mason on Pink Floyd: “We were obviously very depressed people”

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