Subscribe
Home Blog Page 511

Daughn Gibson – Me Moan

Uncut
-
0
Daughn Gibson – Me Moan

Modern-day country star steps out of the shadows... Daughn Gibson had done the rounds before he realised he could sing. He’d been a truck driver hammering the Philadelphia to New York beat. Worked in an adult bookshop and as an outside news broadcast engineer, erecting transmitters and receivers. He’d packed boxes in a warehouse and handled the sound in local Philly dive bars. He’d played drums in bands called Nokturnal Acid and Natal Cream and, notably, the Drag City stoner-rock act Pearls And Brass, back when he went by the name of plain old Josh Martin. More recently he roadied for his pals Pissed Jeans. All this, and he still hadn’t found his calling. When he decided to go it alone and came to record the first song of what would become his alluring debut album, last year’s All Hell, he discovered he possessed a striking baritone akin to that of Scott Walker. In this tremulous, resonant croon which also calls to mind the honeyed boom of Johnny Cash or even Elvis, Gibson proved to be quite the storyteller. And with a voice like that, those who heard him listened, bewitched, to All Hell’s small-town tales of corrupt cops and dysfunctional families as he unveiled a sleepy psychodrama every bit as compelling as his music, this readymade mongrel hoedown constructed from hotwired country and Americana tethered to loops of beat-up dub-techno. Released on Pissed Jeans’ frontman Matt Korvette’s White Denim label, All Hell was barely promoted, but those who did come across Gibson online tended to latch on to certain qualities such as his old-school authenticity, honesty and black humour. Word soon spread of this strapping 6’5” troubadour from the backwater of Carlisle in central Pennsylvania whose rugged good looks made it easy to believe he was playing the lead role of the flawed romantic in his own cinematic songs. Like Ben Affleck cast as a lumberjack, you could strike a match on his stubble and swim in his eyes. In press shots he seemed to have difficulty doing up his plaid shirt. As an indication of that album’s magnetism, it’s worth watching a new short film inspired by Gibson and his music by the British director Saam Farahmand, who was so intrigued by the imagery and mood conjured by All Hell that he wrote, funded and shot Another Hell, in which Gibson stars as the disturbed protagonist sprinting through misty woodland. Bearing all of this in mind, Gibson’s second solo album Me Moan is still a remarkably potent brew that scrambles your thoughts for the first few listens as points of reference collide in unfamiliar ways, as if you’ve just huffed bath salts in the parking lot. Pedal steel abounds and Gibson sings like an old-time country boy (he’s 32), yet his vivid stories unpick a murkier side to small-town, rural America ignored in the patriotic bluster of the likes of Toby Keith and Tim McGraw. He tackles the same territory as All Hell – relationships, hopes and dreams – but this time the songs are realised in brilliant high-definition, the choruses almost euphoric. Gibson’s confidence at the computer allows for wild risks – slathering a field recording of bagpipes across “Mad Ocean”, an ode to his wife, for example, or dicing vocals like a house track on the lolloping “You Don’t Fade” – to the extent that you cannot predict how a song will unfold. Gibson’s sleek style of electronic production is influenced by his love of British shapeshifters such as Shackleton and Demdike Stare, but the digital doesn’t dominate Me Moan. Rather, these textures embellish the woozy soul of “The Pisgee Nest” or build atmosphere on The xx-ish “Franco”, the tale of a husband trying to help his wife get over the suicide of their son. At its slinkiest, “Phantom Rider” is the kind of drowsy disco that other neo-cowboy Matthew Dear would kill to write. Traditionally, country music and club-derived electronics make for awkward bedfellows, but it’s a testament to the strength of Gibson’s strange vision that Me Moan might well become a touchstone of modern-day Americana. Piers Martin Q&A DAUGHN GIBSON Your sonic palette is incredibly broad. When starting a song, how do you know which style to begin with? The most fun part of this is starting somewhere and ending somewhere completely different. I never know where I’m going to end up. It’s a lot like cooking – keep tasting until it’s good. It’s all accident. If it makes me blush a little bit or makes me feel slightly embarrassed, that’s when I know it’s a great-looking accident. Why the title Me Moan? I like the idea of a primitive confession. What it would be like if I was an early subhuman who had discovered religion, a channel for my bad vices and guilt? I thought, how would the caveman or neanderthal express that? You used to be a truck driver. What’s the allure of that job? It really is like the embodiment of the American troubadour, I guess, and that’s what attracted me to it when I was a kid. I just wanted to get out there on my own and do my own thing and not have a boss. Turns out it’s lonely and provokes a mild form of insanity. Mixing electronics with country – kind of James Blake meets Johnny Cash – is not common, possibly with good reason, but you pull it off. It’s not easy to explain to people what music I do. Country and techno? Oh, that sounds terrible! INTERVIEW: PIERS MARTIN

Modern-day country star steps out of the shadows…

Daughn Gibson had done the rounds before he realised he could sing. He’d been a truck driver hammering the Philadelphia to New York beat. Worked in an adult bookshop and as an outside news broadcast engineer, erecting transmitters and receivers. He’d packed boxes in a warehouse and handled the sound in local Philly dive bars. He’d played drums in bands called Nokturnal Acid and Natal Cream and, notably, the Drag City stoner-rock act Pearls And Brass, back when he went by the name of plain old Josh Martin. More recently he roadied for his pals Pissed Jeans. All this, and he still hadn’t found his calling.

When he decided to go it alone and came to record the first song of what would become his alluring debut album, last year’s All Hell, he discovered he possessed a striking baritone akin to that of Scott Walker. In this tremulous, resonant croon which also calls to mind the honeyed boom of Johnny Cash or even Elvis, Gibson proved to be quite the storyteller. And with a voice like that, those who heard him listened, bewitched, to All Hell’s small-town tales of corrupt cops and dysfunctional families as he unveiled a sleepy psychodrama every bit as compelling as his music, this readymade mongrel hoedown constructed from hotwired country and Americana tethered to loops of beat-up dub-techno.

Released on Pissed Jeans’ frontman Matt Korvette’s White Denim label, All Hell was barely promoted, but those who did come across Gibson online tended to latch on to certain qualities such as his old-school authenticity, honesty and black humour. Word soon spread of this strapping 6’5” troubadour from the backwater of Carlisle in central Pennsylvania whose rugged good looks made it easy to believe he was playing the lead role of the flawed romantic in his own cinematic songs. Like Ben Affleck cast as a lumberjack, you could strike a match on his stubble and swim in his eyes. In press shots he seemed to have difficulty doing up his plaid shirt. As an indication of that album’s magnetism, it’s worth watching a new short film inspired by Gibson and his music by the British director Saam Farahmand, who was so intrigued by the imagery and mood conjured by All Hell that he wrote, funded and shot Another Hell, in which Gibson stars as the disturbed protagonist sprinting through misty woodland.

Bearing all of this in mind, Gibson’s second solo album Me Moan is still a remarkably potent brew that scrambles your thoughts for the first few listens as points of reference collide in unfamiliar ways, as if you’ve just huffed bath salts in the parking lot. Pedal steel abounds and Gibson sings like an old-time country boy (he’s 32), yet his vivid stories unpick a murkier side to small-town, rural America ignored in the patriotic bluster of the likes of Toby Keith and Tim McGraw. He tackles the same territory as All Hell – relationships, hopes and dreams – but this time the songs are realised in brilliant high-definition, the choruses almost euphoric. Gibson’s confidence at the computer allows for wild risks – slathering a field recording of bagpipes across “Mad Ocean”, an ode to his wife, for example, or dicing vocals like a house track on the lolloping “You Don’t Fade” – to the extent that you cannot predict how a song will unfold.

Gibson’s sleek style of electronic production is influenced by his love of British shapeshifters such as Shackleton and Demdike Stare, but the digital doesn’t dominate Me Moan. Rather, these textures embellish the woozy soul of “The Pisgee Nest” or build atmosphere on The xx-ish “Franco”, the tale of a husband trying to help his wife get over the suicide of their son. At its slinkiest, “Phantom Rider” is the kind of drowsy disco that other neo-cowboy Matthew Dear would kill to write. Traditionally, country music and club-derived electronics make for awkward bedfellows, but it’s a testament to the strength of Gibson’s strange vision that Me Moan might well become a touchstone of modern-day Americana.

Piers Martin

Q&A

DAUGHN GIBSON

Your sonic palette is incredibly broad. When starting a song, how do you know which style to begin with?

The most fun part of this is starting somewhere and ending somewhere completely different. I never know where I’m going to end up. It’s a lot like cooking – keep tasting until it’s good. It’s all accident. If it makes me blush a little bit or makes me feel slightly embarrassed, that’s when I know it’s a great-looking accident.

Why the title Me Moan?

I like the idea of a primitive confession. What it would be like if I was an early subhuman who had discovered religion, a channel for my bad vices and guilt? I thought, how would the caveman or neanderthal express that?

You used to be a truck driver. What’s the allure of that job?

It really is like the embodiment of the American troubadour, I guess, and that’s what attracted me to it when I was a kid. I just wanted to get out there on my own and do my own thing and not have a boss. Turns out it’s lonely and provokes a mild form of insanity.

Mixing electronics with country – kind of James Blake meets Johnny Cash – is not common, possibly with good reason, but you pull it off.

It’s not easy to explain to people what music I do. Country and techno? Oh, that sounds terrible!

INTERVIEW: PIERS MARTIN

Watch Arctic Monkeys video for “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?”

Uncut
-
0
Watch Arctic Monkeys video for “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?”
Arctic Monkeys have unveiled a video for their new single "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?" – you can watch the promo at the end of the page. The video, directed by Nabil, is the latest single to be taken from the band's fifth studio album AM, which will be released on September 9 and al...

Arctic Monkeys have unveiled a video for their new single “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?” – you can watch the promo at the end of the page.

The video, directed by Nabil, is the latest single to be taken from the band’s fifth studio album AM, which will be released on September 9 and also features the tracks “R U Mine?” and “Do I Wanna Know?”. Guests on the album include Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme and former member of The Coral, Bill Ryder-Jones.

Later this year, Arctic Monkeys will embark on a nine-date UK tour including a homecoming gig at Sheffield’s Motorpoint Arena. Starting in Newcastle at the Metro Radio Arena on October 22, the tour will then visit Manchester, London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham and Glasgow before ending with the Sheffield gig on November 2. The Strypes will support on all dates.

Arctic Monkeys will play:

Newcastle Metro Radio Arena (October 22)

Manchester Arena (23)

London Earls Court (25, 26)

Liverpool Echo Arena (28)

Cardiff Motorpoint Arena (29)

Birmingham LG Arena (31)

Glasgow Hydro Arena (November 1)

Sheffield Motorpoint Arena (2)

Watch The National perform ‘Terrible Love’ with the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir

Uncut
-
0
Watch The National perform ‘Terrible Love’ with the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir
The National were joined onstage by Grateful Dead's Bob Weir at the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco – you can watch footage below. The band performed the track, which appeared on their High Violet album, with Weir on Friday (August 9). Last year, Weir covered Cass McCombs' "Love Thine Ene...

The National were joined onstage by Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir at the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco – you can watch footage below.

The band performed the track, which appeared on their High Violet album, with Weir on Friday (August 9). Last year, Weir covered Cass McCombs’ “Love Thine Enemy” with members of the band during a ‘Bridge Sessions webcast.

Last week, it was revealed The National are planning on recording a Grateful Dead covers album in collaborations with the likes of Vampire Weekend, Bon Iver and Kurt Vile. Relix says that Aaron and Bryce Dessner have also recruited members from the likes of The War On Drugs and The Walkmen for the project and hope to convince more high-profile musicians to take part, too, including Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo and Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan.

Although no tracklisting or release date has been revealed for the LP yet, proceeds from the album will be given to the not-for-profit organisation Red Hot, which is focused on raising AIDS-awareness. Speaking about their plans for the record, Aaron Dessner said: “We’ve done a lot of work talking to various artists and laying the groundwork. It is kind of an ambitious project both because of the legacy and the material. We are obsessed enough with the Grateful Dead that it is kind of a monumental idea.”

The National recently released their sixth album “Trouble Will Find Me”, which debuted at Number Three in both the UK and the US. They are set to tour the UK this November, when they will play shows in Belfast, Manchester and London as well as Dublin, Ireland.

The National will play:

Belfast Odyssey Arena (November 9)

Dublin O2 Arena (10)

Manchester O2 Apollo (11, 12)

London Alexandra Palace (13, 14)

Ty Segall, “Sleeper”

John Mulvey
-
0
Ty Segall, “Sleeper”

For all his flailing locks and dazed expression, Ty Segall does not make a particularly convincing slacker. In a short promotional clip for his new album, released on Youtube back in May, he pretends to be asleep in bed, on his couch, in a garden and then, preposterously, up a tree and at the wheel of a moving van. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp0RyAJJYfI Last year, Segall made three excellent albums, and seemed to play gigs on the rare nights when he wasn’t recording. This year, his alleged plan was to take it easy, reacquaint himself with domesticity, maybe catch up on his surfing. The film, and the record which accompanies it, tell a different story: Ty Segall finds the act of making music so essential, he even does it in his sleep. In the dog days of grunge, of course, J Mascis, Evan Dando and the most prominent slackers nurtured a fastidious work ethic behind the stoned mien. Like Kurt Vile, Segall is very much a throwback to that time – echoes of Nirvana can be detected on a bunch of his records – though his productivity would put most early ‘90s grafters to shame. Indeed, even by the fecund standards of the Bay Area garage rock scene from which he emerged, Segall is peculiarly unstoppable. Since 2008, a conservative estimate suggests he has made nine original albums with his name on the front cover, and God knows how many singles and EPs. Quantity has, unusually, meant quality, too: the variegated psychedelic ramalams of 2013’s Twins, Slaughterhouse and Hair (the latter with White Fence) were collectively the best work of his breakneck career thus far. Sleeper, in contrast, is styled very much as a pause for thought. With his usual bandmates dispersed, Segall multitracked the ten songs by himself in San Francisco, with only K Dylan Edrich, providing viola and violin on a couple of songs, for company. Sleeper begins, with dissolute strumming, in a not dissimilar way to 2011’s Goodbye Bread. But while that album broadened out into a showcase of Segall’s songwriting range, this one keeps the focus tight and intimate. “I wanna sleep all day/I wanna go away/OK I want to sleep all day with you,” he drawls, in what passes for the album’s manifesto, while Edrich’s droning strings turn the song – it’s the title track, “Sleeper” – into a sort of rickety baroque. If anything, there’s a rather British air to proceedings, a sense that Segall has been assiduously studying those records on the cusp of the ‘70s where psychedelic whimsy evolved into something woodier, folkier, more self-consciously ‘natural’, only for the prospect of glam to loom distantly on the horizon. His love of Marc Bolan has already been telegraphed by two “Ty Rex” covers EPs, and “Crazy” is a pinched trinket that could only be improved by Steve Took on bongos. “The Keepers” - a buccaneering, mildly apocalyptic dirge, the best song here – and “The Man Man” are both heavily redolent of Michael Chapman circa Fully Qualified Survivor. Segall’s voice on his last few records has often recalled that of John Lennon, but he’s never sounded quite so quaintly, unnervingly English. At times, the mellow ambience does a disservice to the songs: “Come Outside”, in particular, feels like a demo requiring a more full-blooded band treatment. And the closing “The West” would have benefited from some Everlys-style harmonies with Mikal Cronin, Segall’s regular bassist, currently touring his own fine album, MCII. Mostly, though, Sleeper sounds a lot more crafted and complete than all the lethargic mythologizing would have you believe. Segall, it should be noted, has another album out in September, as part of a Blue Cheer-loving sludge-rock band called Fuzz. A second solo promo clip, meanwhile, again finds him dozing on his sofa, before being rudely slapped awake by an unseen figure who cackles, “Time for tour, sleepyhead!” US dates run through August and September. The hiatus, if there ever was one, is officially over. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4-p6VP2Fko Q & A: Ty Segall So what happened to the year off? Hahaha. I definitely took some time off from touring, maybe a couple of months, and it was nice to take a moment away from music. Always a good idea. I need to refresh my mind, and the music you make after a break is always better because of it. I realise now that I’ll never stop writing and recording. It’s just too much fun. How did Sleeper come about? Sleeper started as just a couple of demos of different-sounding songs than I usually do. It was more of a purge, really. There was no intention behind it to become a record. I think that’s why I like it so much.... Have you always wanted to make a quieter, relatively introverted record like this one? I have, but it’s never been the right time. I feel like whenever I’ve gone down that road, it’s sounded like I was trying too hard. Should we expect you getting back to the normal schedule of three albums in 2014? And will the band, with Mikal Cronin, be getting back together? No three albums! No way! Hopefully just one in 2014. And yes, the band should be coming back over with Mikal, Emily and Charlie next summer... Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

For all his flailing locks and dazed expression, Ty Segall does not make a particularly convincing slacker. In a short promotional clip for his new album, released on Youtube back in May, he pretends to be asleep in bed, on his couch, in a garden and then, preposterously, up a tree and at the wheel of a moving van.

Last year, Segall made three excellent albums, and seemed to play gigs on the rare nights when he wasn’t recording. This year, his alleged plan was to take it easy, reacquaint himself with domesticity, maybe catch up on his surfing. The film, and the record which accompanies it, tell a different story: Ty Segall finds the act of making music so essential, he even does it in his sleep.

In the dog days of grunge, of course, J Mascis, Evan Dando and the most prominent slackers nurtured a fastidious work ethic behind the stoned mien. Like Kurt Vile, Segall is very much a throwback to that time – echoes of Nirvana can be detected on a bunch of his records – though his productivity would put most early ‘90s grafters to shame. Indeed, even by the fecund standards of the Bay Area garage rock scene from which he emerged, Segall is peculiarly unstoppable. Since 2008, a conservative estimate suggests he has made nine original albums with his name on the front cover, and God knows how many singles and EPs. Quantity has, unusually, meant quality, too: the variegated psychedelic ramalams of 2013’s Twins, Slaughterhouse and Hair (the latter with White Fence) were collectively the best work of his breakneck career thus far.

Sleeper, in contrast, is styled very much as a pause for thought. With his usual bandmates dispersed, Segall multitracked the ten songs by himself in San Francisco, with only K Dylan Edrich, providing viola and violin on a couple of songs, for company. Sleeper begins, with dissolute strumming, in a not dissimilar way to 2011’s Goodbye Bread. But while that album broadened out into a showcase of Segall’s songwriting range, this one keeps the focus tight and intimate. “I wanna sleep all day/I wanna go away/OK I want to sleep all day with you,” he drawls, in what passes for the album’s manifesto, while Edrich’s droning strings turn the song – it’s the title track, “Sleeper” – into a sort of rickety baroque.

If anything, there’s a rather British air to proceedings, a sense that Segall has been assiduously studying those records on the cusp of the ‘70s where psychedelic whimsy evolved into something woodier, folkier, more self-consciously ‘natural’, only for the prospect of glam to loom distantly on the horizon. His love of Marc Bolan has already been telegraphed by two “Ty Rex” covers EPs, and “Crazy” is a pinched trinket that could only be improved by Steve Took on bongos. “The Keepers” – a buccaneering, mildly apocalyptic dirge, the best song here – and “The Man Man” are both heavily redolent of Michael Chapman circa Fully Qualified Survivor. Segall’s voice on his last few records has often recalled that of John Lennon, but he’s never sounded quite so quaintly, unnervingly English.

At times, the mellow ambience does a disservice to the songs: “Come Outside”, in particular, feels like a demo requiring a more full-blooded band treatment. And the closing “The West” would have benefited from some Everlys-style harmonies with Mikal Cronin, Segall’s regular bassist, currently touring his own fine album, MCII. Mostly, though, Sleeper sounds a lot more crafted and complete than all the lethargic mythologizing would have you believe.

Segall, it should be noted, has another album out in September, as part of a Blue Cheer-loving sludge-rock band called Fuzz. A second solo promo clip, meanwhile, again finds him dozing on his sofa, before being rudely slapped awake by an unseen figure who cackles, “Time for tour, sleepyhead!” US dates run through August and September. The hiatus, if there ever was one, is officially over.

Q & A: Ty Segall

So what happened to the year off?

Hahaha. I definitely took some time off from touring, maybe a couple of months, and it was nice to take a moment away from music. Always a good idea. I need to refresh my mind, and the music you make after a break is always better because of it. I realise now that I’ll never stop writing and recording. It’s just too much fun.

How did Sleeper come about?

Sleeper started as just a couple of demos of different-sounding songs than I usually do. It was more of a purge, really. There was no intention behind it to become a record. I think that’s why I like it so much….

Have you always wanted to make a quieter, relatively introverted record like this one?

I have, but it’s never been the right time. I feel like whenever I’ve gone down that road, it’s sounded like I was trying too hard.

Should we expect you getting back to the normal schedule of three albums in 2014? And will the band, with Mikal Cronin, be getting back together?

No three albums! No way! Hopefully just one in 2014. And yes, the band should be coming back over with Mikal, Emily and Charlie next summer…

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

Neil Young & Crazy Horse tour cancellation: latest update

Uncut
-
0
Neil Young & Crazy Horse tour cancellation: latest update

Following last night's breaking news that Neil Young & Crazy Horse have cancelled the remaining dates on their European tour, a source has now confirmed the reasons behind the cancellation. According to a report on Rolling Stone, a source close to the Young camp has explained that Crazy Horse guitarist Frank 'Poncho' Sampedro has broken his hand. "It's a mild fracture," the source told Rolling Stone. "He's expected to make a complete recovery in time for the North American tour." The accident appears to have taken place following the band's performance in Oslo on Wednesday night. "We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes to our fans or the festivals where we were scheduled to appear," Young said in a statement. "As you must be, we too are disappointed at this unfortunate turn of events." The affected dates are: Way Out West Festival, Gothenburg, Sweden (August 8) Bergenhus Festning, Bergen, Norway (10) Copenhagen Forum, Copenhagen, Denmark (12) Dresden, Germany (14) Pukkelpop Festival, Kiewit, Belgium (16) Echo Arena, Liverpool, England (18) The O2 Arena, London, England (19) Picture credit: Brian Rasic/Rex Features

Following last night’s breaking news that Neil Young & Crazy Horse have cancelled the remaining dates on their European tour, a source has now confirmed the reasons behind the cancellation.

According to a report on Rolling Stone, a source close to the Young camp has explained that Crazy Horse guitarist Frank ‘Poncho’ Sampedro has broken his hand.

“It’s a mild fracture,” the source told Rolling Stone. “He’s expected to make a complete recovery in time for the North American tour.”

The accident appears to have taken place following the band’s performance in Oslo on Wednesday night.

“We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes to our fans or the festivals where we were scheduled to appear,” Young said in a statement. “As you must be, we too are disappointed at this unfortunate turn of events.”

The affected dates are:

Way Out West Festival, Gothenburg, Sweden (August 8)

Bergenhus Festning, Bergen, Norway (10)

Copenhagen Forum, Copenhagen, Denmark (12)

Dresden, Germany (14)

Pukkelpop Festival, Kiewit, Belgium (16)

Echo Arena, Liverpool, England (18)

The O2 Arena, London, England (19)

Picture credit: Brian Rasic/Rex Features

We want your questions for Tony Joe White

Uncut
-
0
We want your questions for Tony Joe White

As he releases his new album Hoodoo, the legendary Tony Joe White is set to answer your questions in Uncut as part of our regular Audience With… feature. So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask the Swamp Fox? Did he enjoy Elvis Presley's version of "Polk Salad Annie"? What does he remember about filming 'rock opera' Catch My Soul with Patrick McGoohan? How on earth did he end up opening for Roger Waters' Dark Side Of The Moon tour? Send up your questions by noon, Tuesday, August 13 to uncutaudiencewith@ipcmedia.com. The best questions, and Tony's answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine. Please include your name and location with your question. Photo credit: Anne Goetze

As he releases his new album Hoodoo, the legendary Tony Joe White is set to answer your questions in Uncut as part of our regular Audience With… feature.

So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask the Swamp Fox?

Did he enjoy Elvis Presley‘s version of “Polk Salad Annie”?

What does he remember about filming ‘rock opera’ Catch My Soul with Patrick McGoohan?

How on earth did he end up opening for Roger Waters‘ Dark Side Of The Moon tour?

Send up your questions by noon, Tuesday, August 13 to uncutaudiencewith@ipcmedia.com. The best questions, and Tony’s answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine. Please include your name and location with your question.

Photo credit: Anne Goetze

An interview with Elliott Smith: “If everybody really acted like how they felt all the time, it would be total madness.”

John Mulvey
-
0
An interview with Elliott Smith: “If everybody really acted like how they felt all the time, it would be total madness.”

Reading a magazine this morning, I noticed that there are a bunch of tribute shows to Elliott Smith coming up; ostensibly I guess to commemorate the fact that, horrifyingly, the tenth anniversary of his death is coming up in a couple of months. This week, Smith would have turned 44. I first met him in the late ‘90s in London, when he was just releasing “Either/Or” in the UK. The piece below, though, is from spring 2000, when I spent some time with him in Austin at South By Southwest. After that, there’s a long essay/review I wrote around the time of “From A Basement On The Hill”. Hopefully they remain of some interest. Both were originally published in NME. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey The word is out there's a man on the line. Where the railroad leaves Austin, Texas, where weeds and rust mingle between the track and semi-derelict warehouses, that's where you'll find Elliott Smith today. Taking the sun, having his picture taken, an ordinary guy dealing with the attention his extraordinary songs bring him. He's just like somebody that you used to know - though perhaps a little more distant. His life, for the most part, hasn't been a smooth, ever-ascending arc of achievement, nothing so clearly defined. It's vague, confused, erratic, mixed-up - but then again, what's so unusual about that? The moment the sirens start, it's not immediately obvious they're for him. Some trouble on the freeway, maybe, or a test on the systems over at the power plant. It becomes clear when a truck, lights strobing, comes barrelling round the corner, along the track towards him. When it stops and the hard-hatted, harder-headed maintenance man stalks out and says, “Your life is more important to me, than that photo." You don't mess in Texas, for sure. There are many ways it's been assumed Elliott Smith - stereotyped so often as a noble tragic figure - would die. To go out in a flash and a smash while being shot for the music press, however, hardly fits the legend. Especially since he's not much interested in having any pictures taken, let alone ones that put his life in jeopardy. For now, there'll be no blood on the tracks. He's a more contented figure nowadays, but Smith's disgust at doing what's expected of him - to indulge the mythologies and play the lonesome outsider role to the hilt - still remains. His life can't be reduced to a series of bullet points and easily assimilable cliches. The idea of being understood is anathema to him: if he can't work it all out, why should anyone else? Nevertheless, you've got to try. At 30, he is about to release his fifth solo album, Figure 8 - and his eighth record in all, counting the three he made as leader of Heatmiser. Like its predecessors, notably XO and Either/Or, it's tremendous: the work of a man capable of investing new spirit into old ways of songwriting without ever appearing to be some dim plagiarist. The closest British equivalent is Mick Head, and The Magical World Of The Strands album in particular. There's the same infectious belief in the power of a great song, and a fundamental understanding that sadness and trauma are part of a bigger picture. Nothing, ever, is black and white. But while Head shines bright light on the specifics and fills his songs with names, addresses and brutal candour, Smith is altogether more allusive. He may gather images with snapshot accuracy, nail characters who pass by his seat at the bar swiftly and vividly. But this is a mere supporting cast to the complex ebb and flow of emotions at the heart of his songs. Always, there's that profound horror of simplification. Love and life, he repeatedly infers, are messy and volatile: "Happy and sad come in quick succession", as he points out on XO's “Bled White”. It's a brilliant knack of articulating vagueness and it isn't, predictably, limited to his songs. Back at his hotel - he's at Austin's South By Southwest music festival to debut his excellent new backing band - he's peerless at countering demands for solid fact with loose, abstract theories. "It's less about me and more about what might be interesting about my situation," he explains."If we were really going to talk about my specific life then i couldn't do that. The songs are like little movies that you can watch if you want, they're not supposed to make people feel like I do." There are never any easy answers. Elliott Smith is full of the contradictions that other people in his situation hide to make their lives appear more straightforward. For instance, when he went touring a year or so ago, he gave up the place where he was living in Brooklyn. At the end of his work, he crashed at friends’ houses before deciding to move full-time to Los Angeles, where he recorded Figure 8. For a man who has continually railed against the winners, the flash and the shallow, "the cult of the victor", it must've seemed like entering the belly of the beast. "It's the last place I thought I'd ever live," he says, swivelling the stem of a glass between his fingers, "but that was part of the attraction. I like to move, and I like being close to the thing I don't like. It's good to have something that makes you a little mad and keeps you thinking about something other than yourself. that keeps you focused outwards." For the past few months, he's listened to virtually nothing except The Marble Index by Nico, and album that puts the alleged miserabilism of his own music into gruesome perspective and which he describes, plausibly, as the "perfect antidote" to LA. Figure 8, nevertheless, is a significantly brighter album, richly arranged and even, in places, imbued with the sense that the clouds are gradually lifting. These are less angry, more accepting songs that, more than ever, assert his self-sufficiency. Shit goes on around him, but he doesn't have to be a part of it. "That was what the title was supposed to suggest - a self-contained pursuit that potentially could be kind of beautiful and has no destination. Like when figure skaters are skating a figure eight and they're trying to make it just right. as soon as they stop they're gonna fuck it up, cos they can't get out of it without ruining it. i kinda like that." Smith's the type of person who melts in and out of conversations. His mind wanders from time to time but, as he's keen to point out, "That happens to everybody, but it's not usually appropriate to say that it's happening. If there weren't little drifts like that no-one would think of anything to say." If there's "a good, happy side to isolation", he's OK with being isolated. A loner, you could say. "Well, no. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody called me that, but it's not a word I would choose to describe myself. It has a darker connotation. A loner in a lot of people's minds is someone who's alone because they can't interact, not that they maybe choose not to. I don't know why that freaks people out. I mean, why do they care? Why go out of your way to give someone shit for not interacting with you? "Sometimes it seems that the simple fact that I’ve played acoustic music equals that I’m some sort of hermit, a very depressed hermit who can't do anything but sit on the edge of his bed and look at his shoes writing song. and it's not like that at all. I dunno, it's a strange thing. I can talk to people, but sometimes I don't want to." The opening song on Figure 8, named “Son Of Sam after the New York serial killer, is about that distance from normal people. "It really has little to do with that actual historical figure," says Smith, "other than as an image of a destructive, repetitive person." At one point, in what seems to be the pivot of the whole album, he sings, defiantly, "I’m not uncomfortable feeling weird." "Why beat your head against a wall?" he continues. "I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn't in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television," he grins wryly. You're very dismissive of generalisations, the simplistic way ideas are usually presented. "There's a certain language people use when they're talking about music, to make it more marketable, by narrowing down what it is until it has one name and price tag. That's sort of necessary, I guess, if you're trying to sell things to people who don't know what they are. It's got to have a name like a car or a suit. You can't say, well, it's sort of like this and it's sort of like that and you should try it, because no-one will buy it. It has to have a name, so people go to great lengths to sell themselves into a tiny little situation. Sometimes it's cool when people get locked into a style, but I can't stand it." One story about Elliott Smith's perceived weirdness is that he was committed to a hospital in Arizona around the time of Either/Or. At its mention, he becomes cagier than ever. "That episode is long passed. I guess it was two, two-and-a-half years ago now, maybe. It was a psychiatric hospital. Let's just say I didn't want to go there. If you took TV culture and then focused it through a magnifying glass onto a blade of grass and burned it up - that's what it was like in there, this concentrated version of the same kind of pressure that people feel all the time. Y'know, ‘Get ahead! Get ahead! Be like everybody else!’ It's ridiculous. It made things worse. A lot of that seemed to be based on fear: maybe if we scare these people enough they'll act like they don't feel like they do." So it didn't work for you? "It didn't work for me, no, but I was only there for a week, or less." How'd you get out? "Oh, somebody had to threaten to sue them." Why did they put you in there? "I don't want to perpetuate the myth. It doesn't have anything to do with the music… Well, it does. There's some stuff about doctors and infirmaries and stuff on the new record and it does have something to do with that, but I don't want to perpetuate the notion that if somebody plays music they must be fucked up or crazy. mostly I don't like that whole myth because if you're a kid and all you can ever hear is that people who are in your favourite band are really weird and unlike everybody else, it seems like you have to be unusual to make good music. "Y'know, on the one hand there's the cult of the winner, on the other hand there's the cult of the artist. It makes it seem like people who do some artistic thing are different from everybody else. That's why there's so many people walking around saying, ‘I can't draw.’ Well of course you could." The tortured artist is a very saleable commodity for a record label, though, so to have this glamorous troubled past… "I don't think it's glamorous in the least. It winds up being another part of your cartoon costume, because then it's supposed to stand in for actual life - not that it matters what my actual life is. I don't have any desire to try and put across my life to people." Have you changed since then? "Oh yeah, everybody changes over the course of a couple of years. There are certain things that I didn't think would bother me but did, and now they don't any more. Like lining up in situations that were more set up for someone who lives and breathes a the role of a star and always looks like one and always acts like one and projects this image at all times and expends mass energy doing all those things. And I just can't do that. And I don't even want to. It's a lot more important to be thinking about a new song than to be thinking about what I’m wearing, y'know?" Today's choice from the wardrobe of the anti-stars - and indeed at last night's gig - is an incredibly tattered Steve Martin shirt chosen, quite possibly, to take the piss out of his image. On the back it reads, ‘a wild and crazy guy’. It isn't quite proof, but there's a new song called “Everything Means Nothing To Me”, all cascading piano and disorientating strings, that Smith wrote in LA during a two-day mushrooms bender. Hours all over the place, at some point he sat down at the piano and thought, "Wow, look at all these keys! There's so many of them! I’ve made some things up in different states, but that was a pretty new thing for me." Do you ever go back to a song and wonder what the fuck you were doing? "that song ‘Cupid's Trick’, it's from Either/Or, that one I had virtually no idea what I was going on about after." What was that written on? "Ohhh, I'd rather not say." Whenever it gets too personal, he flashes a coy smile and purses his lips. Speak no evil. Don't name names. Very cautious "I feel quite the opposite, actually. See, that's the other problem I have with all this stuff about being depressed. If I’m so fragile, then what am I doing putting records out and going on tour for nine months of the year? I don't really feel very cautious at all. Maybe I’m cautious when it comes to tangling my life up with someone else's, at this point." There's a tentative line on “In The Lost And Found (Honky Bach)” where you sing, "I’m in love, love I hope." Has it ever happened to you? "Uh-huh." How many times? "Once." When was that? "Mmm, about maybe four or five years ago. I still have little flashes of it." Did that end? "Sort of. But it's unclear." More enigmatic than ever. "I mean, that's not to say that was the only time I’ve felt like that. But yeah - very intensely for a certain time, but I think it'll return." See, you're not meant to say optimistic things like that. "I know." Shy laugh. "I can't do the same thing forever and, if anything, the fact that people start describing you in one way makes you want to be another way. You get sick of it." You go looking for evidence, for what you hope is the truth. And sometimes, amid the swerves and obfuscations, you find it a little. It may be treachery to be so reductive, but Elliott Smith seems - by the planet's standards, as well as his own - to be a relatively contented, passably well-adjusted, normally confused human being. For now. On the fabulous, Dylan-tinged “Happiness”, he sings, again and again, "What I used to be will pass away and then you'll see/That all I want now is happiness for you and me". There is not even a trace element of irony. "It's a better place. There's no weird pressure on me to be some kind of…" he searches for the words, "rock star. It seems that I can just do my thing and not worry about it. I dunno: I'll probably feel different in a little while. Maybe it's just this hour, this day, and the fact that we stood out in the sun for a couple of hours that really improved my mood." Yesterday you preferred dull weather because it reminded you of Portland (where he lived for many years). "Well I do. But then at other times it's nice when it's sunny." You're so inconsistent. Come on, check your script. "Everybody is," he almost shouts. "Everybody pretends like they're more coherent so that other people can pretend that they understand them better. That's what you have to do. If everybody really acted like how they felt all the time, it would be total madness." That'll be the outlook, then: changeable but, don't forget, with bright spells. # In March 2003, Elliott Smith gave what would turn out to be his last interview, to a small American magazine called Under The Radar. He hadn’t released a record for three years (since 2000’s ‘Figure 8’) and, in that time, dark tales about his condition had proliferated. Smith’s long-term battles with heroin addiction and alcoholism, and the severe depressive episodes which had led to him being incarcerated in a mental hospital, were reasonably well-known. Recently, though, he had struggled to even get through a gig without disintegrating. In early 2003, NME witnessed a show in LA that amounted to an excruciating “hour of false starts and rambling”. “The whole spectacle’s so messy that you want to offer empathy,” the writer concluded, “but all you can do is watch. Uncomfortably.” Under The Radar’s journalist repeated worse rumours, chiefly that Smith had been found out cold in an LA toilet, a needle hanging from his arm. But when the magazine visited the singer-songwriter at his home studio in the city, they were confronted by an unusually bright Smith. He had successfully passed through rehab, and was now grappling with a vast number of songs planned for his sixth solo album. Smith’s relationship with his label, Dreamworks, had become strained since the commercial failure of ‘Figure 8’, and they had come to an agreement that his next album, tentatively named ‘From A Basement On The Hill’, could be released on an indie label. Consequently, Smith turned his back on the elaborate, Beatles-style chamber pop that had made ‘Figure 8’ and its predecessor, ‘XO’, such grand affairs. ‘From A Basement…’ promised at least a partial return to the raw style with which he had made his name on 1997’s ‘Either/Or’. Here, we would be reminded, was a singer-songwriter of ineffable delicacy and, even by the solipsistic extremes of the genre, unnerving emotional force. Smith could be tender and misanthropic, romantic and self-loathing, candid about his drug use and densely, poetically allusive. When these confessions were accompanied by such simple, beautiful tunes, their impact was incalculable: not least on other songwriters, from Badly Drawn Boy to Sufjan Stevens, who faithfully copied Smith’s tone, if not his morbid preoccupations. Smith’s plans for ‘From A Basement…’ were more complex and ambitious, though. It was to be a double album where, he claimed, “the songs get weirder as they go along, and then, when you get near the end, you get to the really weird ones. They’re kind of more noisy with the pitch all distorted.” Smith never quite finished the record. On October 21, 2003, his girlfriend Jennifer Chiba found him dead in their bathroom, stabbed through the heart. In spite of much grisly speculation about the tragedy, what had happened seemed clear enough: Smith may have been clean of drugs, but his depression was not so easily abandoned. He had done what he’d threatened for so long, and committed suicide. Now, almost a year to the day since his death, ‘From A Basement On The Hill’ finally arrives. Overseen by his parents and pieced together by Rob Schnapf (who co-produced many of Smith’s earlier albums) and Joanna Bolme (an ex-girlfriend of the singer, currently employed as Steve Malkmus’ bassist), it’s not quite what Smith had envisaged. With 15 songs on one CD, the album is about half the length he’d planned, and never descends into noise, as originally conceived. It does, though, begin with noise – a distant roar of ambient feedback that gradually solidifies into the clanging first track, ‘Coast To Coast’. With The Flaming Lips’ Steven Drozd (another recovering heroin user) one of two drummers on the song, the sound is undoubtedly more smudged and ragged than on Smith’s previous solo albums – it recalls, if anything, his early work fronting Heatmiser. But Smith’s uncanny ear for melody, for finding prettiness even when he’s writhing in despair, is still all too obvious. It’s a great start, and one which sets out the themes which run through the whole album: chronic self-doubt, poisonous sarcasm, a prevailing sense of having had enough of trying to fulfil other people’s expectations. “I’ve got no new act to amuse you… Anything that I could do/Will never be good enough for you” he sings, and even though his voice is as high and lulling as ever, the contempt is palpable. For, while this is clearly not the record Smith intended to make, it’s still an immensely gripping and cohesive piece of work. For all his experiments with grungier rock and spectral acoustics, ‘From A Basement…’ holds together convincingly. It sounds like a completely finished album, and one which, remarkably, is a match for the very best in Smith’s catalogue. The songs that stand out, perhaps inevitably, are the most unadorned, largely acoustic ones, where the brilliance of Smith’s craft is most apparent. On ‘A Fond Farewell’ and ‘Let’s Get Lost’ (the latter named after a song popularised by one of Smith’s heroes, the heroin-ravaged jazz singer and trumpeter Chet Baker), it’s clear that Smith deserves to be treated as the equal to such venerated melancholics as Nick Drake and Big Star’s Alex Chilton. In ‘A Fond Farewell’ he characterises himself, poignantly, as “A little less than a human being/A little less than a happy high/A little less than a suicide”. ‘From A Basement…’ is full of such terrible intimations, it will inevitably be read by some as an extended suicide note. “Give me one good reason not to do it”, he threatens desperately in ‘King’s Crossing’, a churning fantasia that betrays Smith’s love of George Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’. At the song’s death, though, he’s pleading for redemption: “Don’t let me get carried away/Don’t let me be carried away”. Drug allusions abound, from the titles of ‘Strung Out Again’ and ‘Shooting Star’, to the waiting-for-the-man hymnal of ‘A Passing Feeling’. Of course, it would’ve been easy to read the lyrics of every Smith album as a suicide note. Even on his 1994 solo debut, ‘Roman Candle’, the template is set: “I wanted her to tell me that she would never wake me” he repeats again and again on ‘Last Call’. And since some of the material on ‘From A Basement…’ dates from as early as 2000, it may be rash to draw a direct connection between the lyrical sentiments and Smith’s awful fate. The lovely chronicle of doubt and surrender that is ‘Pretty (Ugly Before)’ , for instance, was a staple of Smith’s live set from around the time of ‘Figure 8’, long before its release as a seven-inch single in August 2003 on the ghoulishly-named Suicide Squeeze label. Better, then, to see this as the last work of a permanently troubled, inordinately gifted songwriter – although, tantalisingly, there may well be another dozen or so finished songs still awaiting release. Elliott Smith despised his reputation as a depressive icon, hated the fact that people were attracted to his music because of the grim assumptions they made about his life. “I don’t want to perpetuate the notion that if somebody plays music they must be fucked up or crazy,” he told NME in 2000. But the news that veteran director and scandal-monger Kenneth Anger is planning a movie about Smith’s death suggests that seedy myth currently has more cachet than musical genius. In this context, ‘From A Basement On The Hill’ is a magnificent album, but it’s simultaneously a terrible kind of failure: a last testament which cements Smith’s reputation as a tormented, terminally unhappy figure, and which rarely shows the kindness and humour that was so fundamental to his personality away from the microphone. Death has ensured that, for all the praise his music will undoubtedly receive in the years to come, it is Smith’s unfortunate destiny to be saddled forever with a stereotype he abhorred: as a doomed, tragic hero.

Reading a magazine this morning, I noticed that there are a bunch of tribute shows to Elliott Smith coming up; ostensibly I guess to commemorate the fact that, horrifyingly, the tenth anniversary of his death is coming up in a couple of months.

This week, Smith would have turned 44. I first met him in the late ‘90s in London, when he was just releasing “Either/Or” in the UK. The piece below, though, is from spring 2000, when I spent some time with him in Austin at South By Southwest. After that, there’s a long essay/review I wrote around the time of “From A Basement On The Hill”. Hopefully they remain of some interest. Both were originally published in NME.

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

The word is out there’s a man on the line. Where the railroad leaves Austin, Texas, where weeds and rust mingle between the track and semi-derelict warehouses, that’s where you’ll find Elliott Smith today. Taking the sun, having his picture taken, an ordinary guy dealing with the attention his extraordinary songs bring him.

He’s just like somebody that you used to know – though perhaps a little more distant. His life, for the most part, hasn’t been a smooth, ever-ascending arc of achievement, nothing so clearly defined. It’s vague, confused, erratic, mixed-up – but then again, what’s so unusual about that?

The moment the sirens start, it’s not immediately obvious they’re for him. Some trouble on the freeway, maybe, or a test on the systems over at the power plant. It becomes clear when a truck, lights strobing, comes barrelling round the corner, along the track towards him. When it stops and the hard-hatted, harder-headed maintenance man stalks out and says, “Your life is more important to me, than that photo.”

You don’t mess in Texas, for sure. There are many ways it’s been assumed Elliott Smith – stereotyped so often as a noble tragic figure – would die. To go out in a flash and a smash while being shot for the music press, however, hardly fits the legend. Especially since he’s not much interested in having any pictures taken, let alone ones that put his life in jeopardy. For now, there’ll be no blood on the tracks.

He’s a more contented figure nowadays, but Smith’s disgust at doing what’s expected of him – to indulge the mythologies and play the lonesome outsider role to the hilt – still remains. His life can’t be reduced to a series of bullet points and easily assimilable cliches. The idea of being understood is anathema to him: if he can’t work it all out, why should anyone else?

Nevertheless, you’ve got to try. At 30, he is about to release his fifth solo album, Figure 8 – and his eighth record in all, counting the three he made as leader of Heatmiser. Like its predecessors, notably XO and Either/Or, it’s tremendous: the work of a man capable of investing new spirit into old ways of songwriting without ever appearing to be some dim plagiarist.

The closest British equivalent is Mick Head, and The Magical World Of The Strands album in particular. There’s the same infectious belief in the power of a great song, and a fundamental understanding that sadness and trauma are part of a bigger picture. Nothing, ever, is black and white. But while Head shines bright light on the specifics and fills his songs with names, addresses and brutal candour, Smith is altogether more allusive. He may gather images with snapshot accuracy, nail characters who pass by his seat at the bar swiftly and vividly. But this is a mere supporting cast to the complex ebb and flow of emotions at the heart of his songs. Always, there’s that profound horror of simplification. Love and life, he repeatedly infers, are messy and volatile: “Happy and sad come in quick succession”, as he points out on XO’s “Bled White”.

It’s a brilliant knack of articulating vagueness and it isn’t, predictably, limited to his songs. Back at his hotel – he’s at Austin’s South By Southwest music festival to debut his excellent new backing band – he’s peerless at countering demands for solid fact with loose, abstract theories.

“It’s less about me and more about what might be interesting about my situation,” he explains.”If we were really going to talk about my specific life then i couldn’t do that. The songs are like little movies that you can watch if you want, they’re not supposed to make people feel like I do.”

There are never any easy answers. Elliott Smith is full of the contradictions that other people in his situation hide to make their lives appear more straightforward. For instance, when he went touring a year or so ago, he gave up the place where he was living in Brooklyn. At the end of his work, he crashed at friends’ houses before deciding to move full-time to Los Angeles, where he recorded Figure 8. For a man who has continually railed against the winners, the flash and the shallow, “the cult of the victor”, it must’ve seemed like entering the belly of the beast.

“It’s the last place I thought I’d ever live,” he says, swivelling the stem of a glass between his fingers, “but that was part of the attraction. I like to move, and I like being close to the thing I don’t like. It’s good to have something that makes you a little mad and keeps you thinking about something other than yourself. that keeps you focused outwards.”

For the past few months, he’s listened to virtually nothing except The Marble Index by Nico, and album that puts the alleged miserabilism of his own music into gruesome perspective and which he describes, plausibly, as the “perfect antidote” to LA. Figure 8, nevertheless, is a significantly brighter album, richly arranged and even, in places, imbued with the sense that the clouds are gradually lifting. These are less angry, more accepting songs that, more than ever, assert his self-sufficiency. Shit goes on around him, but he doesn’t have to be a part of it.

“That was what the title was supposed to suggest – a self-contained pursuit that potentially could be kind of beautiful and has no destination. Like when figure skaters are skating a figure eight and they’re trying to make it just right. as soon as they stop they’re gonna fuck it up, cos they can’t get out of it without ruining it. i kinda like that.”

Smith’s the type of person who melts in and out of conversations. His mind wanders from time to time but, as he’s keen to point out, “That happens to everybody, but it’s not usually appropriate to say that it’s happening. If there weren’t little drifts like that no-one would think of anything to say.” If there’s “a good, happy side to isolation”, he’s OK with being isolated. A loner, you could say.

“Well, no. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody called me that, but it’s not a word I would choose to describe myself. It has a darker connotation. A loner in a lot of people’s minds is someone who’s alone because they can’t interact, not that they maybe choose not to. I don’t know why that freaks people out. I mean, why do they care? Why go out of your way to give someone shit for not interacting with you?

“Sometimes it seems that the simple fact that I’ve played acoustic music equals that I’m some sort of hermit, a very depressed hermit who can’t do anything but sit on the edge of his bed and look at his shoes writing song. and it’s not like that at all. I dunno, it’s a strange thing. I can talk to people, but sometimes I don’t want to.”

The opening song on Figure 8, named “Son Of Sam after the New York serial killer, is about that distance from normal people. “It really has little to do with that actual historical figure,” says Smith, “other than as an image of a destructive, repetitive person.” At one point, in what seems to be the pivot of the whole album, he sings, defiantly, “I’m not uncomfortable feeling weird.”

“Why beat your head against a wall?” he continues. “I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn’t in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they’re normal. People who think it’s possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don’t know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television,” he grins wryly.

You’re very dismissive of generalisations, the simplistic way ideas are usually presented.

“There’s a certain language people use when they’re talking about music, to make it more marketable, by narrowing down what it is until it has one name and price tag. That’s sort of necessary, I guess, if you’re trying to sell things to people who don’t know what they are. It’s got to have a name like a car or a suit. You can’t say, well, it’s sort of like this and it’s sort of like that and you should try it, because no-one will buy it. It has to have a name, so people go to great lengths to sell themselves into a tiny little situation. Sometimes it’s cool when people get locked into a style, but I can’t stand it.”

One story about Elliott Smith’s perceived weirdness is that he was committed to a hospital in Arizona around the time of Either/Or. At its mention, he becomes cagier than ever.

“That episode is long passed. I guess it was two, two-and-a-half years ago now, maybe. It was a psychiatric hospital. Let’s just say I didn’t want to go there. If you took TV culture and then focused it through a magnifying glass onto a blade of grass and burned it up – that’s what it was like in there, this concentrated version of the same kind of pressure that people feel all the time. Y’know, ‘Get ahead! Get ahead! Be like everybody else!’ It’s ridiculous. It made things worse. A lot of that seemed to be based on fear: maybe if we scare these people enough they’ll act like they don’t feel like they do.”

So it didn’t work for you?

“It didn’t work for me, no, but I was only there for a week, or less.”

How’d you get out?

“Oh, somebody had to threaten to sue them.”

Why did they put you in there?

“I don’t want to perpetuate the myth. It doesn’t have anything to do with the music… Well, it does. There’s some stuff about doctors and infirmaries and stuff on the new record and it does have something to do with that, but I don’t want to perpetuate the notion that if somebody plays music they must be fucked up or crazy. mostly I don’t like that whole myth because if you’re a kid and all you can ever hear is that people who are in your favourite band are really weird and unlike everybody else, it seems like you have to be unusual to make good music.

“Y’know, on the one hand there’s the cult of the winner, on the other hand there’s the cult of the artist. It makes it seem like people who do some artistic thing are different from everybody else. That’s why there’s so many people walking around saying, ‘I can’t draw.’ Well of course you could.”

The tortured artist is a very saleable commodity for a record label, though, so to have this glamorous troubled past…

“I don’t think it’s glamorous in the least. It winds up being another part of your cartoon costume, because then it’s supposed to stand in for actual life – not that it matters what my actual life is. I don’t have any desire to try and put across my life to people.”

Have you changed since then?

“Oh yeah, everybody changes over the course of a couple of years. There are certain things that I didn’t think would bother me but did, and now they don’t any more. Like lining up in situations that were more set up for someone who lives and breathes a the role of a star and always looks like one and always acts like one and projects this image at all times and expends mass energy doing all those things. And I just can’t do that. And I don’t even want to. It’s a lot more important to be thinking about a new song than to be thinking about what I’m wearing, y’know?”

Today’s choice from the wardrobe of the anti-stars – and indeed at last night’s gig – is an incredibly tattered Steve Martin shirt chosen, quite possibly, to take the piss out of his image. On the back it reads, ‘a wild and crazy guy’. It isn’t quite proof, but there’s a new song called “Everything Means Nothing To Me”, all cascading piano and disorientating strings, that Smith wrote in LA during a two-day mushrooms bender. Hours all over the place, at some point he sat down at the piano and thought, “Wow, look at all these keys! There’s so many of them! I’ve made some things up in different states, but that was a pretty new thing for me.”

Do you ever go back to a song and wonder what the fuck you were doing?

“that song ‘Cupid’s Trick’, it’s from Either/Or, that one I had virtually no idea what I was going on about after.”

What was that written on?

“Ohhh, I’d rather not say.”

Whenever it gets too personal, he flashes a coy smile and purses his lips. Speak no evil. Don’t name names. Very cautious

“I feel quite the opposite, actually. See, that’s the other problem I have with all this stuff about being depressed. If I’m so fragile, then what am I doing putting records out and going on tour for nine months of the year? I don’t really feel very cautious at all. Maybe I’m cautious when it comes to tangling my life up with someone else’s, at this point.”

There’s a tentative line on “In The Lost And Found (Honky Bach)” where you sing, “I’m in love, love I hope.” Has it ever happened to you?

“Uh-huh.”

How many times?

“Once.”

When was that?

“Mmm, about maybe four or five years ago. I still have little flashes of it.”

Did that end?

“Sort of. But it’s unclear.”

More enigmatic than ever.

“I mean, that’s not to say that was the only time I’ve felt like that. But yeah – very intensely for a certain time, but I think it’ll return.”

See, you’re not meant to say optimistic things like that.

“I know.” Shy laugh. “I can’t do the same thing forever and, if anything, the fact that people start describing you in one way makes you want to be another way. You get sick of it.”

You go looking for evidence, for what you hope is the truth. And sometimes, amid the swerves and obfuscations, you find it a little. It may be treachery to be so reductive, but Elliott Smith seems – by the planet’s standards, as well as his own – to be a relatively contented, passably well-adjusted, normally confused human being. For now. On the fabulous, Dylan-tinged “Happiness”, he sings, again and again, “What I used to be will pass away and then you’ll see/That all I want now is happiness for you and me”. There is not even a trace element of irony.

“It’s a better place. There’s no weird pressure on me to be some kind of…” he searches for the words, “rock star. It seems that I can just do my thing and not worry about it. I dunno: I’ll probably feel different in a little while. Maybe it’s just this hour, this day, and the fact that we stood out in the sun for a couple of hours that really improved my mood.”

Yesterday you preferred dull weather because it reminded you of Portland (where he lived for many years).

“Well I do. But then at other times it’s nice when it’s sunny.”

You’re so inconsistent. Come on, check your script.

“Everybody is,” he almost shouts. “Everybody pretends like they’re more coherent so that other people can pretend that they understand them better. That’s what you have to do. If everybody really acted like how they felt all the time, it would be total madness.”

That’ll be the outlook, then: changeable but, don’t forget, with bright spells.

#

In March 2003, Elliott Smith gave what would turn out to be his last interview, to a small American magazine called Under The Radar. He hadn’t released a record for three years (since 2000’s ‘Figure 8’) and, in that time, dark tales about his condition had proliferated. Smith’s long-term battles with heroin addiction and alcoholism, and the severe depressive episodes which had led to him being incarcerated in a mental hospital, were reasonably well-known. Recently, though, he had struggled to even get through a gig without disintegrating.

In early 2003, NME witnessed a show in LA that amounted to an excruciating “hour of false starts and rambling”. “The whole spectacle’s so messy that you want to offer empathy,” the writer concluded, “but all you can do is watch. Uncomfortably.”

Under The Radar’s journalist repeated worse rumours, chiefly that Smith had been found out cold in an LA toilet, a needle hanging from his arm. But when the magazine visited the singer-songwriter at his home studio in the city, they were confronted by an unusually bright Smith. He had successfully passed through rehab, and was now grappling with a vast number of songs planned for his sixth solo album. Smith’s relationship with his label, Dreamworks, had become strained since the commercial failure of ‘Figure 8’, and they had come to an agreement that his next album, tentatively named ‘From A Basement On The Hill’, could be released on an indie label.

Consequently, Smith turned his back on the elaborate, Beatles-style chamber pop that had made ‘Figure 8’ and its predecessor, ‘XO’, such grand affairs. ‘From A Basement…’ promised at least a partial return to the raw style with which he had made his name on 1997’s ‘Either/Or’. Here, we would be reminded, was a singer-songwriter of ineffable delicacy and, even by the solipsistic extremes of the genre, unnerving emotional force. Smith could be tender and misanthropic, romantic and self-loathing, candid about his drug use and densely, poetically allusive. When these confessions were accompanied by such simple, beautiful tunes, their impact was incalculable: not least on other songwriters, from Badly Drawn Boy to Sufjan Stevens, who faithfully copied Smith’s tone, if not his morbid preoccupations.

Smith’s plans for ‘From A Basement…’ were more complex and ambitious, though. It was to be a double album where, he claimed, “the songs get weirder as they go along, and then, when you get near the end, you get to the really weird ones. They’re kind of more noisy with the pitch all distorted.”

Smith never quite finished the record. On October 21, 2003, his girlfriend Jennifer Chiba found him dead in their bathroom, stabbed through the heart. In spite of much grisly speculation about the tragedy, what had happened seemed clear enough: Smith may have been clean of drugs, but his depression was not so easily abandoned. He had done what he’d threatened for so long, and committed suicide.

Now, almost a year to the day since his death, ‘From A Basement On The Hill’ finally arrives. Overseen by his parents and pieced together by Rob Schnapf (who co-produced many of Smith’s earlier albums) and Joanna Bolme (an ex-girlfriend of the singer, currently employed as Steve Malkmus’ bassist), it’s not quite what Smith had envisaged. With 15 songs on one CD, the album is about half the length he’d planned, and never descends into noise, as originally conceived.

It does, though, begin with noise – a distant roar of ambient feedback that gradually solidifies into the clanging first track, ‘Coast To Coast’. With The Flaming Lips’ Steven Drozd (another recovering heroin user) one of two drummers on the song, the sound is undoubtedly more smudged and ragged than on Smith’s previous solo albums – it recalls, if anything, his early work fronting Heatmiser. But Smith’s uncanny ear for melody, for finding prettiness even when he’s writhing in despair, is still all too obvious. It’s a great start, and one which sets out the themes which run through the whole album: chronic self-doubt, poisonous sarcasm, a prevailing sense of having had enough of trying to fulfil other people’s expectations. “I’ve got no new act to amuse you… Anything that I could do/Will never be good enough for you” he sings, and even though his voice is as high and lulling as ever, the contempt is palpable.

For, while this is clearly not the record Smith intended to make, it’s still an immensely gripping and cohesive piece of work. For all his experiments with grungier rock and spectral acoustics, ‘From A Basement…’ holds together convincingly. It sounds like a completely finished album, and one which, remarkably, is a match for the very best in Smith’s catalogue.

The songs that stand out, perhaps inevitably, are the most unadorned, largely acoustic ones, where the brilliance of Smith’s craft is most apparent. On ‘A Fond Farewell’ and ‘Let’s Get Lost’ (the latter named after a song popularised by one of Smith’s heroes, the heroin-ravaged jazz singer and trumpeter Chet Baker), it’s clear that Smith deserves to be treated as the equal to such venerated melancholics as Nick Drake and Big Star’s Alex Chilton. In ‘A Fond Farewell’ he characterises himself, poignantly, as “A little less than a human being/A little less than a happy high/A little less than a suicide”.

‘From A Basement…’ is full of such terrible intimations, it will inevitably be read by some as an extended suicide note. “Give me one good reason not to do it”, he threatens desperately in ‘King’s Crossing’, a churning fantasia that betrays Smith’s love of George Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’. At the song’s death, though, he’s pleading for redemption: “Don’t let me get carried away/Don’t let me be carried away”. Drug allusions abound, from the titles of ‘Strung Out Again’ and ‘Shooting Star’, to the waiting-for-the-man hymnal of ‘A Passing Feeling’.

Of course, it would’ve been easy to read the lyrics of every Smith album as a suicide note. Even on his 1994 solo debut, ‘Roman Candle’, the template is set: “I wanted her to tell me that she would never wake me” he repeats again and again on ‘Last Call’. And since some of the material on ‘From A Basement…’ dates from as early as 2000, it may be rash to draw a direct connection between the lyrical sentiments and Smith’s awful fate. The lovely chronicle of doubt and surrender that is ‘Pretty (Ugly Before)’ , for instance, was a staple of Smith’s live set from around the time of ‘Figure 8’, long before its release as a seven-inch single in August 2003 on the ghoulishly-named Suicide Squeeze label. Better, then, to see this as the last work of a permanently troubled, inordinately gifted songwriter – although, tantalisingly, there may well be another dozen or so finished songs still awaiting release.

Elliott Smith despised his reputation as a depressive icon, hated the fact that people were attracted to his music because of the grim assumptions they made about his life. “I don’t want to perpetuate the notion that if somebody plays music they must be fucked up or crazy,” he told NME in 2000. But the news that veteran director and scandal-monger Kenneth Anger is planning a movie about Smith’s death suggests that seedy myth currently has more cachet than musical genius.

In this context, ‘From A Basement On The Hill’ is a magnificent album, but it’s simultaneously a terrible kind of failure: a last testament which cements Smith’s reputation as a tormented, terminally unhappy figure, and which rarely shows the kindness and humour that was so fundamental to his personality away from the microphone. Death has ensured that, for all the praise his music will undoubtedly receive in the years to come, it is Smith’s unfortunate destiny to be saddled forever with a stereotype he abhorred: as a doomed, tragic hero.

Robert Plant joins Twitter and Instagram

Uncut
-
0
Robert Plant joins Twitter and Instagram
Robert Plant has joined the world of social media, opening Twitter and Instagram accounts as well as a Google+ account, while also relaunching his website. Within 24 hours of opening his Twitter account, Plant promised a Q&A with fans, and garnered more than 25,000 followers. Plant's first tw...

Robert Plant has joined the world of social media, opening Twitter and Instagram accounts as well as a Google+ account, while also relaunching his website.

Within 24 hours of opening his Twitter account, Plant promised a Q&A with fans, and garnered more than 25,000 followers. Plant’s first tweet simply read “Are we rolling?”, and was signed ‘RP’. Meanwhile, his sole Instagram post features a shot taken onstage behind his band as they take a bow.

Plant’s first 25,000 followers will receive an exclusive free download of his current band – Robert Plant Presents Sensational Space Shifters – performing Led Zeppelin’s “What Is And What Should Never Be” live from their 2012/2013 world tour.

The relaunched website will feature videos, including an exclusive docu-series, filmed by Plant, chronicling his recent visit to Mali. It will be shown in 10 weekly instalments. Among the first questions answered by Plant in the Q&A came from a user called @spaceoddity2304. He asked “What was your favourite moment or memory from your career?”, to which Plant replied: “The release of my first record in 1966.”

An Audience With… Manic Street Preachers’ Nicky Wire

Uncut
-
0
An Audience With… Manic Street Preachers’ Nicky Wire
As the Manics gear up to release their latest album – the predominantly acoustic, pastoral and Motown-tinged Rewind The Film – it seems a good time to revisit the Manics bassist and lyricist’s October 2006 (Take 113) grilling from fans and famous names. Topics include Cuba post-Castro, Live8, ...

As the Manics gear up to release their latest album – the predominantly acoustic, pastoral and Motown-tinged Rewind The Film – it seems a good time to revisit the Manics bassist and lyricist’s October 2006 (Take 113) grilling from fans and famous names. Topics include Cuba post-Castro, Live8, aircraft leg-room and winning Wimbledon… Interview: Stephen Trousse

___________________

“The well-bred contradict other people, the wise contradict themselves,” said 19th-century glam punk Oscar Wilde and, on those terms at least, Nicky Wire continues to be a well-bred font of wisdom. At 37, 17 years and seven albums on from the moment the Manics came straight out of Blackwood with the avowed ambition to outsell Guns N’ Roses, headline Wembley and split up, age has not withered his passionately contrary, avidly autodidactic intellect. Eschewing the mascara and frocks of yesteryear (“Karen O has stolen my wardrobe!” he moans. “Mind you, she does it better than me…”) for the kind of corduroy jacket worn by peeved young men of the 1950s, Nicky arrives today with a surly, lo-fi new solo album (I Killed The Zeitgeist), hatching plans for the next Manics record (“It will be post-Iraq rock,” he says), and feeling strangely desolate after the recent demise of The West Wing. But the prospect of a record mailbag of questions from the readers of Uncut soon has him back on hilariously vituperative form.

___________________

I Killed The Zeitgeist is a very old-school, inflammatory Manics title. What do you think of the current zeitgeist bands?

David Martin, via e-mail

I like Bloc Party. I like The View. There’s a lot of music I like, but it’s the overall idea that you take a bassline from Joy Division and weld it to a drum track and just mutter inane lyrics over the top that I find woeful. Aren’t Bloc Party the modern-day Slowdive? That’s a fucking terrible thing to say about someone, I suppose! I just think there’s something about them that’s genuinely real. But there’s no music that’s really amateur any more – everything is so well produced. There’s lots of pretty good music, but not much truly great music. I hate fucking Rufus Wainwright more than I hate most things. The whole fucking Wainwright family! These intellectual fucking New Yorkers! I hate this sacred cow culture as much as I hate modern music. I’m probably one of the few people who devoured the Babyshambles album. “Fuck Forever” is one of the worst played, worst produced records I’ve ever heard in my life and I really admire that.

Did Geldof even ask the Manics to play Live8?

Dave Percival, Bolton

He didn’t ask, but I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have done it. I think it’s admirable and it saves lives, but they seem to think it changes political systems. Capitalism needs poverty to survive – every fucker knows that. You learn that in CSE! And they seem to think you can tinker with capitalism and change governments, but you can’t. Live8 seemed to want to go beyond saving people’s lives. Gordon Brown was trying to get rid of the debt anyway. For all his faults, George Bush has given more aid to Africa than any president in history. And he’s a complete cunt! I’ve got no problem with Bono at all, it’s more… Midge Ure. I’m not going to be lectured to by Midge Ure, I’m sorry. I’ve got a degree in politics! They’re just so naïve politically. I couldn’t have a conversation with them to be honest. They haven’t read Engels. For fuck’s sake, they’ve read No Logo and they think they’ve got political insight! But I dunno, I might have been forced into it by the other lot. I think James is more open. But no one would have wanted us at Live8, ’cause our last LP didn’t sell any records! Not enough records, anyway!

In an alternative life, which of these would have been your preferred occupation: The manager of a Heineken Cup-winning Scarlets (Llanelli); Wales’ first ever Wimbledon-winning tennis player; or a legendary captain of Glamorgan County Cricket Club?

James Dean Bradfield, Manic Street Preachers

I think winning Wimbledon – because it would resonate around the world. Just to wear a little wristband with a Welsh dragon on. I love Andy Murray. He’s miserable, he’s surly – he reminds me of myself in my teens. I’ve got no problem with the English in any sport; I’m not a bitter Welsh person. Cricket, I love. And, of course, having Simon Jones and, last year, Geraint Jones made it even more special. But to be a Formula 1 champion might beat all of them, ’cause you can be a fucked-up playboy on top of everything! And Wales is brilliant at those.

How do you see Cuba after Fidel Castro?

Eliud Correa, Mexico City

Scary! It’s like the runt of the family is going to get the job. When that happens it’s always bad news. I was impressed by Fidel, when we played in Cuba 2001, in the sense that he was so well briefed and so on it. Cuba was what I expected. Communism is a failure – I’m fully aware of that. I just wanted to see the one place it still operates. People go on about the poverty in Cuba, but the life expectancy is 79.4 years. That’s not poverty. Africa is poverty. And the education – everyone I met spoke English. I was impressed by certain parts, but the reality of a communist state was… a reality. There were elements of it that were absolutely shit.

I met you back in 1999 and you signed a receipt for me. The receipt was for five boxes of Calvin Klein boxers, at £25 each – was this a case of Nye Bevan’s theory that “Socialists can have good taste, too”, or simply rock-star extravagance, Nicky Wire-style?

Jon Lawley, Cardiff

I have a problem that I tend to get rid of my underwear very quickly. Not a medical problem! It’s just something I do all the time: I don’t like underwear that has hung around. I’m not extravagant at all. I’ve got a nice house but nothing over the top. I find I just spend more money on the things I liked when I was young – records, books, clothes, make-up. There’s no problem mixing style with socialism – Fidel was stylish! When he went to the UN in his army fatigues, that was better than Margaret Beckett turning up in a piss-stained dress from Dorothy Perkins.

Nicky, how does it feel to be writing without James and Sean?

Catherine Wilson, Huddersfield

It was just an outpouring. It was going to be a poetry album, but I turned up at the studio and did four songs in two days. It was effortless just in the sense that I had no expectations. When I made it, I wasn’t even going to release it. It was like one of my favourite periods of music – C86. A wilful, independent attitude. We really did once spend a summer arguing over who was better out of McCarthy and Guns N’ Roses. We ended up sounding much more like Guns N’ Roses, but if I was ever asked to curate one of those festivals like Meltdown, if there was one band I could get to reform, it would be McCarthy. I Am A Wallet – that album is just fantastic. I think C86 was political in its… independence. Did Talulah Gosh stand for everything we despised? Well, yeah, we pretended that… but seeing them at Port Talbot was one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen! I just have a huge soft spot for C86 – everyone from the Arctic Monkeys to Franz Ferdinand owes a huge debt to those bands. They did it before, much better. Franz Ferdinand’s last single was a total rip-off of “Up The Hill And Down The Slope” by The Loft!

As a band perceived to be political, how did it feel to lose your bottle just when the world went tits up?

Fi Oakes, Liverpool

I don’t quite understand that! When the world went tits up? When Blair was elected? When Bush got elected? We were in Cuba at the time! Am I disappointed that bands don’t take political stands against Iraq or Blair and Bush? I don’t know. I think it’s partly down to the musical media. They’re not interested in talking to anyone about politics. My generation had us, Blur, Radiohead – we were all verging on getting dropped at times. It took us ages to make our great records. And with that came an expectation of ideas. And I think that’s just been ditched. I dunno if it’s the bands’ fault or the media’s fault. I don’t think we’ve ever bottled it. The world is so much more complex. When we grew up, there was Thatcherism, it was black and white… you had the Berlin Wall. We do live in a decadent society and bands are part of that. Some of that is down to 10 years of economic prosperity. The thing about Live8 is it’s a single issue. The war is a single issue. But there’s no kind of narrative that binds that together, is there?

Have you ever considered doing reality TV and, if so, which show would you go on?

Ricky Wilson, Kaiser Chiefs

That’s strange because I often fantasise about going into the jungle. I’d like to go in there and be as miserable as possible and refuse to do any of the tasks and we’d all starve to death. And everyone would despise me. So on that level I quite fancy it. I thought John Lydon was brilliant. Maggot was a bit disappointing – I’m a big fan of GLC. I was disappointed when Germaine Greer did it. She hasn’t been the same since. The most fucking intellectual woman of the last 20 years saying: “I didn’t realise it was going to be used!” Pathetic!

Do you see any parallels between Syd Barrett and Richey?

Martin Benjamin, via e-mail

I do a bit. I’m not a huge fan. I mean, everyone likes some Pink Floyd. But it was quite a bit different, ’cause they lost a frontman. I watched the BBC4 documentary on Syd – and it was odd the way he was gone, but still around. I’m not saying Richey was still around, but he still was a presence. There was no finality for us, and obviously there wasn’t for Pink Floyd either. A kind of freakish thing with me and Richey was that we would sit down and write lyrics together. It wasn’t like Keith and Mick, bringing along lyrics to the guitarist. To sit down and write “Motorcycle Emptiness” at my mum and dad’s house – at my desk! We did that a lot. It’s just really rare. And that was obviously missing when he was gone.

If you were an angry young man today, would you have gone into politics rather than pop?

Theresa Jacks, Stevenage

I think I might have strayed into politics! I think I would have enjoyed it, with the Welsh Assembly and an easier way in. To be minister of culture or sport or something would have been great. But I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes! With my history! But you have to be immoral if you’re in politics, otherwise you end up like Tony Benn. He’s great and all that, but those kind of people stopped Labour getting elected, which meant that Wales was destroyed by the Tories for 20 years. They could sit back with their principles, but we got all the fucking shit!

I was shocked when in 1993 Nicky said: “Let’s pray that Michael Stipe goes the same way as Freddie Mercury.” At the time there were rumours about Stipe and AIDS. Why did you say that and how do you feel about it now?

Edwin de Corti, Holland

Regret always comes up in these interviews, doesn’t it? I don’t understand it when say Iggy Pop says “I have no regrets!” I regret shitloads of stuff! It’s part of facing up to reality. The only thing I don’t regret is talking a lot: you learn a lot about yourself by doing it.

Blueberry-flavoured Ribena. What’s the point?

Katherine Heggarty, via e-mail

It’s disgusting – it’s too fucking healthy! They’ll be having pomegranate fucking Ribena next!

Being a tall gentleman, how do you cope with leg-room in cars and on long-haul flights?

Maggot, Goldie Looking Chain

My great failings as a failed communist are first-class travel and big cars. I don’t drive myself so I get black cabs everywhere. Perfect for leg-room. Good hotels and travels are my only real vices. I think I’ve earned it now. I am a failed communist – but I think that’s a good thing, because communism is a failure. Is there anything that gives me hope? No, I think we’re all waiting for the great leap forward. You can’t tinker – capitalism will use up all the poverty in the world in the next 100 years. There’s not going to be any cheap labour left. A recession wouldn’t be a bad thing. We’d get better music. It’d show kids what a fucking recession actually is!

Are you going to end up one of those Grumpy Old Men on the BBC2 show of the same name?

Martin Reeves, Whitechapel

I don’t usually like Jenny Eclair, but she was on one of those programmes the other day talking about how kids don’t know how to be bored today. Boredom is fantastic! Sitting on a wall for six hours was exciting when I was a kid! I’m not just being a grumpy old man. Boredom is important to learn – to have nothing do and control that boredom. It’s such a glorious feeling, to feel like there’s nothing happening, there’s nothing to do! Kids are scared of having nothing to do. I’m not a grumpy old man – I think the future could be wonderful. I think there’s a political movement that’s gonna come along and enlighten us all! Communism, the suffragettes, something always comes along. It’s not very nice waiting though, is it?

Photo: Sam Jones

Linda Thompson: “Working with Richard Thompson is just like having another session player, only a really, really good one”

Uncut
-
0
Linda Thompson: “Working with Richard Thompson is just like having another session player, only a really, really good one”
Linda Thompson has revealed that collaborating with ex-husband Richard Thompson on her new album was just like working with any other session player. Speaking in the new issue of Uncut, dated September 2013 and out now, Thompson says that she finds it “easy” working with the guitarist, despit...

Linda Thompson has revealed that collaborating with ex-husband Richard Thompson on her new album was just like working with any other session player.

Speaking in the new issue of Uncut, dated September 2013 and out now, Thompson says that she finds it “easy” working with the guitarist, despite their difficult break-up in the early ’80s.

“I mean, you can’t get a better guitarist, can you?” Thompson says. “A lot of people say to me, ‘Oh, it must be hard to work with Richard.’ But it’s easy, as you know he’s not going to fuck up.

“I’m not one for dwelling on the past. It was just like having another session player, only a really, really good one.”

Linda Thompson talks about her new album, and her collaboration with Richard Thompson, in the new issue of Uncut, out now.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse cancel European tour

Uncut
-
0
Neil Young & Crazy Horse cancel European tour
Neil Young has cancelled the last shows on his European tour "due to an accident involving Crazy Horse" – reportedly guitarist Frank 'Poncho' Sampedro breaking his hand. A message posted on www.neilyoung.com today read, "Due to an accident involving Crazy Horse, the remaining dates on the Neil ...

Neil Young has cancelled the last shows on his European tour “due to an accident involving Crazy Horse” – reportedly guitarist Frank ‘Poncho’ Sampedro breaking his hand.

A message posted on www.neilyoung.com today read, “Due to an accident involving Crazy Horse, the remaining dates on the Neil Young and Crazy Horse tour of Europe and the British isles have been cancelled. We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes to our fans or the festivals where we were scheduled to appear. As you must be, we too are disappointed at this unfortunate turn of events.”

The message was credited to Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

The affected dates are:

Way Out West Festival, Gothenburg, Sweden (August 8)

Bergenhus Festning, Bergen, Norway (10)

Copenhagen Forum, Copenhagen, Denmark (12)

Dresden, Germany (14)

Pukkelpop Festival, Kiewit, Belgium (16)

Echo Arena, Liverpool, England (18)

The O2 Arena, London, England (19)

According to Young’s website, the North American dates beginning at the end of August remain unaffected.

Picture credit: Brian Rasic/Rex Features

Diana Jones – Museum of Appalachia Recordings

Uncut
-
0
Diana Jones – Museum of Appalachia Recordings

Stripped mountain music - recorded in a cabin, in a museum... 'Authenticity' is an ambiguous concept in popular music. But if you're serious in its pursuit, a restored homesteaders cabin in a museum devoted to preserving the rustic folk traditions of old Tennessee isn't a bad place to set up the mikes, tune your strings and let the tape roll. Recorded over two days in December 2012, like its acclaimed predecessors, Better Times Will Come (2009) and High Atmosphere (2011), the latest set from the forty-something Nashville-based singer exquisitely channels the weathered but deathless heritage of American mountain music. You might imagine that songs with titles such as ''O Sinner'' and ''Drunkard's Daughter'' are redolent with history - and in a sense they are. Yet these are not antique memories salvaged from the Harry Smith anthology, but Jones's own vibrant compositions. Just as Kate Rusby has mined English folk idiom with such conviction that her compositions sound like they've been plucked from another time, Jones' immersion in Appalachian tradition is so absolute that the argot of her songs has become indistinguishable from the antique styles that inspired her. Every note, played on guitar, fiddle, banjo and mandolin without overdubs, might've sounded familiar to the Carter Family. Similarly, all references to contemporary life have been stripped from her lyrics; there's not a word that couldn’t have been written a century ago. Yet what's left is far from anachronistic or ersatz. Rather, these are songs which acutely emphasise that the most profound aspects of the human condition remain unchanging. ''Ohio''' is about a relative who committed suicide. ''Satan'' deals with temptation. '''Sparrow'' was inspired by a tale of familial sexual abuse. ''The Other Side'', written to sing at her grandmother's funeral, works as timelessly as ''Swing Low, Sweet Chariot'' or ''Abide With Me''. The obvious comparison is with Gillian Welch, and both were adopted at birth, which perhaps explains a mutual search for identity in the roots of Americana. But Jones is a unique voice, breathing new life into a tradition that is far too vital to gather dust in a museum. NIGEL WILLIAMSON Photo credit Alan Messer

Stripped mountain music – recorded in a cabin, in a museum…

‘Authenticity’ is an ambiguous concept in popular music. But if you’re serious in its pursuit, a restored homesteaders cabin in a museum devoted to preserving the rustic folk traditions of old Tennessee isn’t a bad place to set up the mikes, tune your strings and let the tape roll. Recorded over two days in December 2012, like its acclaimed predecessors, Better Times Will Come (2009) and High Atmosphere (2011), the latest set from the forty-something Nashville-based singer exquisitely channels the weathered but deathless heritage of American mountain music.

You might imagine that songs with titles such as ”O Sinner” and ”Drunkard’s Daughter” are redolent with history – and in a sense they are. Yet these are not antique memories salvaged from the Harry Smith anthology, but Jones’s own vibrant compositions.

Just as Kate Rusby has mined English folk idiom with such conviction that her compositions sound like they’ve been plucked from another time, Jones’ immersion in Appalachian tradition is so absolute that the argot of her songs has become indistinguishable from the antique styles that inspired her. Every note, played on guitar, fiddle, banjo and mandolin without overdubs, might’ve sounded familiar to the Carter Family. Similarly, all references to contemporary life have been stripped from her lyrics; there’s not a word that couldn’t have been written a century ago. Yet what’s left is far from anachronistic or ersatz. Rather, these are songs which acutely emphasise that the most profound aspects of the human condition remain unchanging. ”Ohio”’ is about a relative who committed suicide. ”Satan” deals with temptation. ”’Sparrow” was inspired by a tale of familial sexual abuse. ”The Other Side”, written to sing at her grandmother’s funeral, works as timelessly as ”Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” or ”Abide With Me”.

The obvious comparison is with Gillian Welch, and both were adopted at birth, which perhaps explains a mutual search for identity in the roots of Americana. But Jones is a unique voice, breathing new life into a tradition that is far too vital to gather dust in a museum.

NIGEL WILLIAMSON

Photo credit Alan Messer

The 30th Uncut Playlist Of 2013

John Mulvey
-
0
The 30th Uncut Playlist Of 2013

Nuts week. A lot to recommend and check out here, including plenty of Youtube and Soundcloud links. Among the auspicious comebacks, one that’s slightly obscured is Cavern Of Anti-Matter, who feature Tim Gane and his old bandmate from the first Stereolab lineup, Joe Dilworth. The Purling Hiss and White Denim trailers look predictably tantalising; will report back when I’ve managed to grab the albums. Meanwhile, the Omar Souleyman (produced by Four Tet) and William Onyeabor (a bit of a cratedigger holy grail, this one) albums are mighty addictive; Jonathan Wilson has basically – and rather nobly - attempted to recreate “Pacific Ocean Blue”; “Crimson/Red” is the first Paddy McAloon album I’ve enjoyed since “Jordan: The Comeback”; Wooden Shjips still sound pretty much the same as ever, no matter how much their press releases hilariously try to differentiate from one album to another; “Another Self Portrait” is so much richer than many of us might have expected; and, yeah, Bill Callahan In Dub is quite the thing. Dig in… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey 1 Bob Dylan – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971): The Bootleg Series Vol. 10 (Columbia) 2 Mark Kozelek & Desertshore - Mark Kozelek & Desertshore (Caldo Verde)… Review here 3 Wooden Shjips – Back To Land (Thrill Jockey) 4 Desert Heat – Cat Mask At Huggie Temple (MIE Music) 5 Prefab Sprout – Crimson/Red (Icebreaker) 6 Juana Molina – Wed 21 (Crammed Discs) 7 Lee Ranaldo & The Dust – Revolution Blues (Live At Maxwells) 8 Mandolin Orange – This Side Of Jordan (Yeproc) 9 William Onyeabor – World Psychedelic Classics 5: Who Is William Onyeabor? (Luaka Bop) 10 PJ Harvey – Shaker Aamer (Island) 11 Omar Souleyman – Wenu Wenu (Ribbon) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqg702HcnBs 12 Ronnie Lane With Slim Chance – Anymore For Anymore (GM) 13 The Next Uncut Free CD 14 Bill Callahan – Expanding Dub (Drag City) 15 Jenks Miller – Spirit Signal (Northern Spy) 16 17 Various Artists – Live At Caffè Lena: Music From America's Legendary Coffeehouse, 1967-2013 (Tompkins Square) 18 19 Purling Hiss – Paisley Montage Promo (Richie Records) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUzHMIt4ts 20 Jonathan Wilson – Fanfare (Bella Union) 21 Bill Callahan – Dream River (Drag City) 22 Midlake – Antiphon (Bella Union) 23 Cavern Of Anti-Matter – Blood-Drums (Grautag) 24 White Denim – Corsicana Lemonade (Trailer) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOcWeg5PgWo 25 White Denim – Pretty Green (Downtown) 26 The Julie Ruin – Ha Ha Ha (TJR Records) 27 Various Artists - Theo Parrish's Black Jazz Signature: Black Jazz Records 1971-1976 (Snow Dog)

Nuts week. A lot to recommend and check out here, including plenty of Youtube and Soundcloud links. Among the auspicious comebacks, one that’s slightly obscured is Cavern Of Anti-Matter, who feature Tim Gane and his old bandmate from the first Stereolab lineup, Joe Dilworth.

The Purling Hiss and White Denim trailers look predictably tantalising; will report back when I’ve managed to grab the albums. Meanwhile, the Omar Souleyman (produced by Four Tet) and William Onyeabor (a bit of a cratedigger holy grail, this one) albums are mighty addictive; Jonathan Wilson has basically – and rather nobly – attempted to recreate “Pacific Ocean Blue”; “Crimson/Red” is the first Paddy McAloon album I’ve enjoyed since “Jordan: The Comeback”; Wooden Shjips still sound pretty much the same as ever, no matter how much their press releases hilariously try to differentiate from one album to another; “Another Self Portrait” is so much richer than many of us might have expected; and, yeah, Bill Callahan In Dub is quite the thing. Dig in…

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

1 Bob Dylan – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971): The Bootleg Series Vol. 10 (Columbia)

2 Mark Kozelek & Desertshore – Mark Kozelek & Desertshore (Caldo Verde)… Review here

3 Wooden Shjips – Back To Land (Thrill Jockey)

4 Desert Heat – Cat Mask At Huggie Temple (MIE Music)

5 Prefab Sprout – Crimson/Red (Icebreaker)

6 Juana Molina – Wed 21 (Crammed Discs)

7 Lee Ranaldo & The Dust – Revolution Blues (Live At Maxwells)

8 Mandolin Orange – This Side Of Jordan (Yeproc)

9 William Onyeabor – World Psychedelic Classics 5: Who Is William Onyeabor? (Luaka Bop)

10 PJ Harvey – Shaker Aamer (Island)

11 Omar Souleyman – Wenu Wenu (Ribbon)

12 Ronnie Lane With Slim Chance – Anymore For Anymore (GM)

13 The Next Uncut Free CD

14 Bill Callahan – Expanding Dub (Drag City)

15 Jenks Miller – Spirit Signal (Northern Spy)

16

17 Various Artists – Live At Caffè Lena: Music From America’s Legendary Coffeehouse, 1967-2013 (Tompkins Square)

18

19 Purling Hiss – Paisley Montage Promo (Richie Records)

20 Jonathan Wilson – Fanfare (Bella Union)

21 Bill Callahan – Dream River (Drag City)

22 Midlake – Antiphon (Bella Union)

23 Cavern Of Anti-Matter – Blood-Drums (Grautag)

24 White Denim – Corsicana Lemonade (Trailer)

25 White Denim – Pretty Green (Downtown)

26 The Julie Ruin – Ha Ha Ha (TJR Records)

27 Various Artists – Theo Parrish’s Black Jazz Signature: Black Jazz Records 1971-1976 (Snow Dog)

Pere Ubu and DNA bassist Tim Wright dies

Uncut
-
0
Pere Ubu and DNA bassist Tim Wright dies
Tim Wright of Pere Ubu and DNA has died. The bassist joined Pere Ubu in 1975, staying with the group for three years before he relocated to New York. He joined DNA - formed by Arto Lindsay and Robin Crutchfield - shortly afterwards. Four DNA tracks ('Egomaniac's Kiss', 'Lionel', 'Not Moving' and '...

Tim Wright of Pere Ubu and DNA has died.

The bassist joined Pere Ubu in 1975, staying with the group for three years before he relocated to New York. He joined DNA – formed by Arto Lindsay and Robin Crutchfield – shortly afterwards. Four DNA tracks (‘Egomaniac’s Kiss’, ‘Lionel’, ‘Not Moving’ and ‘Size’) featured on Brian Eno’s 1978 compilation No New York.

According to a statement on the Facebook page of his Pere Ubu bandmate David Thomas: “Tim Wright died Sunday, August 4, 2013, reports longtime partner Mary Ann Livchak. He was an original member of Pere Ubu and later a contributor to the No Wave scene of New York City.”

HMV to return to flagship store on Oxford Street

Uncut
-
0
HMV to return to flagship store on Oxford Street
HMV has announced that it will return to the 363 Oxford Street store, which it opened more than 90 years ago. The site was the first HMV and was opened by Sir Edward Elgar in July 1921. The music and entertainment retailer occupied the site until 2000. HMV, which was bought out of administration...

HMV has announced that it will return to the 363 Oxford Street store, which it opened more than 90 years ago.

The site was the first HMV and was opened by Sir Edward Elgar in July 1921. The music and entertainment retailer occupied the site until 2000.

HMV, which was bought out of administration in April by restructuring firm Hilco, will replace the footwear chain Footlocker at the site when it reopens in early October. HMV chairman and Hilco boss Paul McGowan told Retail Week: “We are thrilled to be returning HMV to its original home at 363 Oxford Street and this reflects HMV’s renewed focus on going back to its roots and getting the basics right, providing the deepest range of entertainment products.”

According to reports, HMV’s other Oxford Street store could be sold to Sports Direct.

HMV has also hired former Vodafone executive James Coughlan to head its new online business, which will launch in October, Retail Week reports.

HMV collapsed into administration in January with £176 million of debt. It now operates 140 stores.

Patti Smith, St Vincent and The National to appear on Boardwalk Empire soundtrack

Uncut
-
0
Patti Smith, St Vincent and The National to appear on Boardwalk Empire soundtrack
Patti Smith, St Vincent and The National's Matt Berninger are amongst those set to appear on Volume Two of the soundtrack to hit HBO show Boardwalk Empire. Due for release on September 3, the compilation follows Volume One, which won a Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack. The new release sees ar...

Patti Smith, St Vincent and The National’s Matt Berninger are amongst those set to appear on Volume Two of the soundtrack to hit HBO show Boardwalk Empire.

Due for release on September 3, the compilation follows Volume One, which won a Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack. The new release sees artists tackling songs from the 1920s.

The show’s music supervisor Randall Poster said in a statement: “Boardwalk Empire provides an incredible backdrop for music. It’s been a steady treat to mark the passing of time in song over the course of four seasons. Terry Winters, Martin Scorsese and the entire Boardwalk Empire team inspire the sound of the episodes.”

The full tracklisting for Boardwalk Empire Volume Two: Music From The HBO Original Series is as follows:

David Johansen – ‘Strut Miss Lizzie’

Stephen DeRosa – ‘Old King Tut’

Elvis Costello – ‘It Had To Be You’

Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks – Everybody Loves My Baby

Liza Minnelli – ‘You’ve Got To See Mama Ev’ry Night (Or You Can’t See Mama At All)’

Leon Redbone – ‘Baby Won’t You Please Come Home’

St. Vincent – ‘Make Believe’

Pokey LaFarge – ‘Lovesick Blues’

Neko Case – ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out’

Karen Elson – ‘Who’s Sorry Now’

Stephan DeRosa – ‘You’d Be Surprised’

Margot Bingham – ‘I’m Going South’

Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks – ‘Sugarfoot Stomp’

Rufus Wainwright – ‘Jimbo Jambo’

Kathy Brier – ‘There’ll Be Some Changes Made’

Margot Bingham – ‘Somebody Loves Me’

Chaim Tannenbaum – ‘All Alone’

Loudon Wainwright III – ‘The Prisoner’s Song’

Patti Smith – ‘I Ain’t Got Nobody’

Matt Berninger – ‘I’ll See You In My Dreams’

Arcade Fire to score new Spike Jonze film

Uncut
-
0
Arcade Fire to score new Spike Jonze film
Arcade Fire will team up with director Spike Jonze to provide the score for his new film, Her. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson and follows a man who falls in love with a computer operating system. It will be released in selected cinemas on November 20. The project is not the ...

Arcade Fire will team up with director Spike Jonze to provide the score for his new film, Her.

The film stars Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson and follows a man who falls in love with a computer operating system. It will be released in selected cinemas on November 20.

The project is not the first time Arcade Fire have worked with Jonze. They previously provided him with an acoustic version of “Wake Up” for a trailer for his last film, Where The Wild Things Are. Jonze also directed a short film, Scenes From The Suburbs, for the band.

You can see the trailer for Her below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS8zOLOcPMQ

Richie Havens’ ashes to be spread over site of Woodstock Festival

Uncut
-
0
Richie Havens’ ashes to be spread over site of Woodstock Festival

The ashes of performer Richie Havens are to be spread over the site of 1969's Woodstock Festival at a special event on August 18. Havens, who died of a heart attack aged 72 in April 2013, famously performed a three-hour set in front of 400,000 people at the original Woodstock Festival. He will be remembered with a tribute concert at the site of the festival, now known as Bethel Woods, in Sullivan County, New York. Woodstock Festival organisers Michael Lang and Joel Rosenman will speak, and musical performers will include Jose Feliciano, John Hammond and John Sebastian, reports Rolling Stone. A statement from Havens' family reads: "Though he traveled throughout the world for decades visiting and returning to countless locations, Max Yasgur's field in the Town of Bethel, Sullivan County, New York always remained the location where Richie felt his deepest connection." It continues: "Richie used to say a day never went by that he wasn't asked about Woodstock. He certainly understood its profound and indelible cultural impact. As he said on the festival's 40th anniversary, 'Woodstock was both a peaceful protest and a global celebration. We came together communally to be heard and to be acknowledged.'"

The ashes of performer Richie Havens are to be spread over the site of 1969’s Woodstock Festival at a special event on August 18.

Havens, who died of a heart attack aged 72 in April 2013, famously performed a three-hour set in front of 400,000 people at the original Woodstock Festival. He will be remembered with a tribute concert at the site of the festival, now known as Bethel Woods, in Sullivan County, New York. Woodstock Festival organisers Michael Lang and Joel Rosenman will speak, and musical performers will include Jose Feliciano, John Hammond and John Sebastian, reports Rolling Stone.

A statement from Havens’ family reads: “Though he traveled throughout the world for decades visiting and returning to countless locations, Max Yasgur’s field in the Town of Bethel, Sullivan County, New York always remained the location where Richie felt his deepest connection.”

It continues: “Richie used to say a day never went by that he wasn’t asked about Woodstock. He certainly understood its profound and indelible cultural impact. As he said on the festival’s 40th anniversary, ‘Woodstock was both a peaceful protest and a global celebration. We came together communally to be heard and to be acknowledged.'”

Mark Kozelek & Desertshore

John Mulvey
-
0
Mark Kozelek & Desertshore

I was reading this interesting Wilco piece a few days ago, which talks about how Jeff Tweedy has parlayed cult success into what appears to be a viable business model. It made me think of the strategies used by Mark Kozelek these past few years: how he keeps a steady stream of music, predominantly live albums, coming through his Caldo Verde label to satisfy his obsessive fans (and I suspect Kozelek fans tend to be by nature obsessive; I know I am). This year, Kozelek’s productivity has accelerated. Besides the discreet glut of live sets (actually only a couple thus far, now I’ve checked), there’s been a solo covers album (“Like Rats”), the Jimmy Lavalle collaboration (“Perils From The Sea”) and, now, a return hookup with his old friends Desertshore (“Mark Kozelek & Desertshore”). Kozelek, one might imagine, would see kindred spirits in Wilco, not least because they share a mutual friend or two (not least Alan Sparhawk, who’s back here singing on “You Are Not Of My Blood”; Kozelek was more or less an original member of Retribution Gospel Choir). That, though, would be underestimating the perverse care with which Kozelek strives to present himself as a curmudgeon. “Mark Kozelek & Desertshore” once again proves that great artists - and I’d strenuously argue that Kozelek has shown himself, over the past two decades, to be one – do not diminish their potency through thematic repetition. It features a lot of songs that once again confront family memories, girls, the consolations of San Francisco, the iniquities of touring, the allure of boxing, the act of creation, dead cats, dead friends and so forth. The songs don’t feel like they were conjured up as a batch for this specific project, even though guitarist and Red House Painters vet Phil Carney, and pianist Chris Connolly are credited as having written all the music. Instead, they roll on effortlessly from the diaristic studies of “Among The Leaves” (which I wrote about here) and “Perils From The Sea”. The settings may change - predominantly Spanish classical guitar for “Among The Leaves”, muted electronica on “Perils…”, downbeat chamber rock this time out – but Kozelek’s approach, and especially his sputtering new sprechgesang style, a kind of sadcore (ha) rapping (cf “Gustavo” on “Perils…”), is unerringly consistent. If there’s a lyrical shift, it’s a slow move away from the drolleries of “Among The Leaves”, and a return to more direct poignancies. “Livingstone Bramble”, though, is a striking exception, and the reason why Kozelek’s attitudes towards Wilco have been pushed to the fore. It begins with the singer unable to sleep, thinking once again about boxing (Bramble, it transpires, was a fighter), before turning into one of his songs about the compulsion to make music, with the focus on the technicalities of guitar playing. Kozelek, we learn, can play like Robert Fripp and Johnny Marr, like Malcolm Young and Neil Young. He rates Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Steve Vai and Kirk Hammett. He is less impressed, though, with Jay Farrar, Derek Trucks and Eric Clapton, and reserves special contempt for, hilariously, Nels Cline. Twice, he pulls out the punchline, “I hate Nels Cline,” and follows it with a preposterously squiggly parody of a Cline solo. It’s a funny song, and one which artfully perpetuates Kozelek’s persona as a middle-aged grouch that he cultivates so assiduously at gigs nowadays. Maybe, too, it’s a calculated move to drum up a little controversy and notoriety, and – like the tale of meeting Anton LaVey in “Hey You Bastards I’m Still Here” - a tactical attempt to deflect attention away from the ruefully self-flagellating lyrics elsewhere on “Mark Kozelek & Desertshore”. They don’t detract in any way from a tender detailing of his uncles’ deaths and how his father responded to them (“Brothers”), or meditations on mortality prompted by the passing of his peers (Tim Mooney on “Tavoris Cloud”; Jason Molina on the amazing “Sometimes I Can’t Stop”, a song that, like "Somehow The Wonder Of Life Prevails" from “Perils…”, ranks as one of his very best). It just all presents Kozelek as a plausibly complex figure – one who admits “at the age of 46, I’m still one fucked up little kid.” Desertshore, meanwhile, provide the sort of empathetic support that recalls the backdrops Kozelek used in one of his strongest periods, around Red House Painters’ delayed last album, “Old Ramon” and Sun Kil Moon’s debut, “Ghosts Of The Great Highway”. If the relationship between Kozelek and the band seemed sketchy, exploratory on “Drawing Of Threes”, it feels fully resolved this time, as the band flesh out his ruminations with cycling, almost Tortoise-like figures on “Katowice Or Cologne” and “Seal Rock Hotel”, or bulk up with a Crazy Horse trudge (a mode that suits Kozelek, and that he should revisit more often) for “Livingstone Bramble”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW5jC8YE1Q0 Connolly’s work is especially great on “Brothers”, and on the little flourishes he adds to the end of “Mariette”, playing with a looseness that complements that familiar sense of Kozelek improvising his lyrics on the spot. It feels like fine craftsmen working with a mediated kind of spontaneity, and it suggests that, in the disappointing eventuality of anyone having fallen off the Kozelek wagon these past few years, this might be the album to bring you back onboard. Oh, and “You Are Not Of My Blood” wouldn’t have been out of place on the Rollercoaster album. How’s that sound? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM45pcQaafE Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey Picture credit: Gavin Jeffries

I was reading this interesting Wilco piece a few days ago, which talks about how Jeff Tweedy has parlayed cult success into what appears to be a viable business model. It made me think of the strategies used by Mark Kozelek these past few years: how he keeps a steady stream of music, predominantly live albums, coming through his Caldo Verde label to satisfy his obsessive fans (and I suspect Kozelek fans tend to be by nature obsessive; I know I am).

This year, Kozelek’s productivity has accelerated. Besides the discreet glut of live sets (actually only a couple thus far, now I’ve checked), there’s been a solo covers album (“Like Rats”), the Jimmy Lavalle collaboration (“Perils From The Sea”) and, now, a return hookup with his old friends Desertshore (“Mark Kozelek & Desertshore”). Kozelek, one might imagine, would see kindred spirits in Wilco, not least because they share a mutual friend or two (not least Alan Sparhawk, who’s back here singing on “You Are Not Of My Blood”; Kozelek was more or less an original member of Retribution Gospel Choir).

That, though, would be underestimating the perverse care with which Kozelek strives to present himself as a curmudgeon. “Mark Kozelek & Desertshore” once again proves that great artists – and I’d strenuously argue that Kozelek has shown himself, over the past two decades, to be one – do not diminish their potency through thematic repetition. It features a lot of songs that once again confront family memories, girls, the consolations of San Francisco, the iniquities of touring, the allure of boxing, the act of creation, dead cats, dead friends and so forth.

The songs don’t feel like they were conjured up as a batch for this specific project, even though guitarist and Red House Painters vet Phil Carney, and pianist Chris Connolly are credited as having written all the music. Instead, they roll on effortlessly from the diaristic studies of “Among The Leaves” (which I wrote about here) and “Perils From The Sea”. The settings may change – predominantly Spanish classical guitar for “Among The Leaves”, muted electronica on “Perils…”, downbeat chamber rock this time out – but Kozelek’s approach, and especially his sputtering new sprechgesang style, a kind of sadcore (ha) rapping (cf “Gustavo” on “Perils…”), is unerringly consistent.

If there’s a lyrical shift, it’s a slow move away from the drolleries of “Among The Leaves”, and a return to more direct poignancies. “Livingstone Bramble”, though, is a striking exception, and the reason why Kozelek’s attitudes towards Wilco have been pushed to the fore. It begins with the singer unable to sleep, thinking once again about boxing (Bramble, it transpires, was a fighter), before turning into one of his songs about the compulsion to make music, with the focus on the technicalities of guitar playing. Kozelek, we learn, can play like Robert Fripp and Johnny Marr, like Malcolm Young and Neil Young. He rates Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Steve Vai and Kirk Hammett. He is less impressed, though, with Jay Farrar, Derek Trucks and Eric Clapton, and reserves special contempt for, hilariously, Nels Cline. Twice, he pulls out the punchline, “I hate Nels Cline,” and follows it with a preposterously squiggly parody of a Cline solo.

It’s a funny song, and one which artfully perpetuates Kozelek’s persona as a middle-aged grouch that he cultivates so assiduously at gigs nowadays. Maybe, too, it’s a calculated move to drum up a little controversy and notoriety, and – like the tale of meeting Anton LaVey in “Hey You Bastards I’m Still Here” – a tactical attempt to deflect attention away from the ruefully self-flagellating lyrics elsewhere on “Mark Kozelek & Desertshore”. They don’t detract in any way from a tender detailing of his uncles’ deaths and how his father responded to them (“Brothers”), or meditations on mortality prompted by the passing of his peers (Tim Mooney on “Tavoris Cloud”; Jason Molina on the amazing “Sometimes I Can’t Stop”, a song that, like “Somehow The Wonder Of Life Prevails” from “Perils…”, ranks as one of his very best). It just all presents Kozelek as a plausibly complex figure – one who admits “at the age of 46, I’m still one fucked up little kid.”

Desertshore, meanwhile, provide the sort of empathetic support that recalls the backdrops Kozelek used in one of his strongest periods, around Red House Painters’ delayed last album, “Old Ramon” and Sun Kil Moon’s debut, “Ghosts Of The Great Highway”. If the relationship between Kozelek and the band seemed sketchy, exploratory on “Drawing Of Threes”, it feels fully resolved this time, as the band flesh out his ruminations with cycling, almost Tortoise-like figures on “Katowice Or Cologne” and “Seal Rock Hotel”, or bulk up with a Crazy Horse trudge (a mode that suits Kozelek, and that he should revisit more often) for “Livingstone Bramble”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW5jC8YE1Q0

Connolly’s work is especially great on “Brothers”, and on the little flourishes he adds to the end of “Mariette”, playing with a looseness that complements that familiar sense of Kozelek improvising his lyrics on the spot. It feels like fine craftsmen working with a mediated kind of spontaneity, and it suggests that, in the disappointing eventuality of anyone having fallen off the Kozelek wagon these past few years, this might be the album to bring you back onboard. Oh, and “You Are Not Of My Blood” wouldn’t have been out of place on the Rollercoaster album. How’s that sound?

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

Picture credit: Gavin Jeffries

Ozzy Osbourne claims drummer Bill Ward was too ‘overweight’ to tour with Black Sabbath

Uncut
-
0
Ozzy Osbourne claims drummer Bill Ward was too ‘overweight’ to tour with Black Sabbath

Ozzy Osbourne has said that original Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward was "too overweight" to join the band on their reunion tour. Ward was meant to be a part of the band as they returned earlier this year for a new studio album and world tour. However, he pulled out of the reunion with reasons including money, time and his ability to drum all cited as being behind the departure. In a new interview, Osbourne has now claimed that the drummer is out of shape and that a gruelling set of live dates was too much of a health concern. "I don’t think he could have done the gig, to be honest. He’s incredibly overweight," Osbourne told the New York Daily News. "A drummer has to be in shape. He’s already had two heart attacks. I don’t want to be responsible for his life." Osbourne previously claimed that Ward was no longer a capable drummer, stating that he required too much help to play along with his bandmates: "We looked at Bill, and he couldn't remember what the fuck we were doing," he explained earlier this year. "But he didn't come clean and say, 'I can't cut this gig, but can we work something out, guys, where I'll come on but with another drummer backing me up?' Or, 'I'll come and play a few songs.' That would have been cool." Guitarist Tony Iommi also explained that his recent cancer diagnosis made him want to reform the band, with Ward or without him. "We waited a long time for Bill and we wanted to sort it out. But at the end of the day, especially after I was diagnosed, I thought 'Fucking hell, that’s it – we’ve got to get a move on. I might pop off next year!' So I emailed him and said 'Bill, we can’t wait any longer. We’ve got to get a move on with it.' And that was it." However, Ozzy Osbourne has said he hopes Ward will appear on the next Black Sabbath album, following their recent Number One record, '13'. Speaking to NME in LA earlier this year Osbourne said: "Maybe we can work things out by the next one. But it won't take another 35 years. I'm 65 now. There's no fucking recording studios in the afterlife. We're all even closer for all this shit, so there's one positive, one fucking silver lining." Black Sabbath go on a UK tour in December. They play: London O2 Arena (December 10) Belfast Odyssey Arena (12) Sheffield Arena (14) Glasgow Hydro (16) Manchester Arena (18) Birmingham LG Arena (20)

Ozzy Osbourne has said that original Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward was “too overweight” to join the band on their reunion tour.

Ward was meant to be a part of the band as they returned earlier this year for a new studio album and world tour. However, he pulled out of the reunion with reasons including money, time and his ability to drum all cited as being behind the departure. In a new interview, Osbourne has now claimed that the drummer is out of shape and that a gruelling set of live dates was too much of a health concern.

“I don’t think he could have done the gig, to be honest. He’s incredibly overweight,” Osbourne told the New York Daily News. “A drummer has to be in shape. He’s already had two heart attacks. I don’t want to be responsible for his life.”

Osbourne previously claimed that Ward was no longer a capable drummer, stating that he required too much help to play along with his bandmates: “We looked at Bill, and he couldn’t remember what the fuck we were doing,” he explained earlier this year. “But he didn’t come clean and say, ‘I can’t cut this gig, but can we work something out, guys, where I’ll come on but with another drummer backing me up?’ Or, ‘I’ll come and play a few songs.’ That would have been cool.”

Guitarist Tony Iommi also explained that his recent cancer diagnosis made him want to reform the band, with Ward or without him. “We waited a long time for Bill and we wanted to sort it out. But at the end of the day, especially after I was diagnosed, I thought ‘Fucking hell, that’s it – we’ve got to get a move on. I might pop off next year!’ So I emailed him and said ‘Bill, we can’t wait any longer. We’ve got to get a move on with it.’ And that was it.”

However, Ozzy Osbourne has said he hopes Ward will appear on the next Black Sabbath album, following their recent Number One record, ’13’. Speaking to NME in LA earlier this year Osbourne said: “Maybe we can work things out by the next one. But it won’t take another 35 years. I’m 65 now. There’s no fucking recording studios in the afterlife. We’re all even closer for all this shit, so there’s one positive, one fucking silver lining.”

Black Sabbath go on a UK tour in December. They play:

London O2 Arena (December 10)

Belfast Odyssey Arena (12)

Sheffield Arena (14)

Glasgow Hydro (16)

Manchester Arena (18)

Birmingham LG Arena (20)

1...510511512...1,270Page 511 of 1,270

SHOP UNCUT