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Alice Cooper: “Calling Mumford And Sons a rock band is an offence to rock ‘n’ roll”

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Alice Cooper: “Calling Mumford And Sons a rock band is an offence to rock ‘n’ roll”
Alice Cooper has claimed that branding Mumford and Sons a rock band would be an "offence to rock 'n' roll". Speaking to Fuse, the shock-rock singer said that modern musicians were "afraid to be in a rock band" and claimed that the current generation need to "quit eating vegetarian food" and "eat a...

Alice Cooper has claimed that branding Mumford and Sons a rock band would be an “offence to rock ‘n’ roll”.

Speaking to Fuse, the shock-rock singer said that modern musicians were “afraid to be in a rock band” and claimed that the current generation need to “quit eating vegetarian food” and “eat a steak” instead.

Asked for his views on current rock music, he said: “I just feel that this whole generation needs to all eat a steak. Maybe they just need to quit eating vegetarian food and get out there and get some blood pumping in their system. Rock ‘n’ roll is not about ‘Happy happy happy, everything’s okay. We’re The Lumineers, let’s clog dance.’ Hey, there’s a place for that. If I wanted to see a great clog dancing band, I’d see The Lumineers.”

Using Mumford And Sons as an example, meanwhile, he went on to add: “Mumford And Sons are great at what they do. But it’s not rock ‘n’ roll. Don’t call it rock ‘n’ roll. It’s an offence to rock ‘n’ roll.”

“I get they want to be folk rock, and I guess they want to look like everybody else,” he continued. “I’m old school when it comes to if you’re in a band, you’re an outlaw. You don’t play by those rules, you’re a rock ‘n’ roll outlaw. It doesn’t mean you have to be on drugs,, but when you get onstage you don’t play the guitar up here, and it’s not an acoustic guitar. You play the guitar down here. It doesn’t come from your brain, it comes from your guts. It comes from your groin. It’s sexual. It’s tribal.”

He finished by saying: “Finally, I just went ‘Okay – you guys don’t want to be rock bands, great. That’s better for us’. There’s more for Foo Fighters, there’s more for Green Day, more for the bands that really are rock bands. I don’t understand why everybody is so afraid to be in a rock band.”

Cooper, who recently gave fans the chance to play a round of golf with him for the sum of $10,000, released his most recent studio album Welcome 2 My Nightmare in September 2011.

John Bonham to appear as hologram in son’s tribute band?

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John Bonham to appear as hologram in son’s tribute band?
John Bonham could appear as a hologram in his son Jason Bonham's tribute band. Jason, who joined Led Zeppelin for their last proper show at London's O2 Arena in December 2007, told Legendary Rock Interviews that he had been speaking to special effects experts about the possibility of duetting with...

John Bonham could appear as a hologram in his son Jason Bonham’s tribute band.

Jason, who joined Led Zeppelin for their last proper show at London’s O2 Arena in December 2007, told Legendary Rock Interviews that he had been speaking to special effects experts about the possibility of duetting with his father in his group The Led Zeppelin Experience.

“When I first started doing this I was working with some of the people behind some of the biggest tribute tours like Pink Floyd Experience, The Beatles and now I’m doing it,” he said. “It’s imperative that i continue putting together the best shows and take it to the next level. I’m talking to people about holograms and my dream is to do the hologram drum solo with my dad next to me.”

Last month, John Paul Jones quashed hopes that the rock behemoths could play a series of reunion shows in the near future as he is too busy writing an opera. Singer Robert Plant had hinted in February that he would be open to the idea of Zeppelin reuniting next year, but Jones said a tour was unlikely as “2014 is full of opera for me at the moment.”

Although the band have not performed together since their London O2 Arena gig in 2007, a film of the concert titled Celebration Day was released on DVD in November 2012 following a brief run in cinemas.

Hear Kings Of Leon new single “Supersoaker”

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Hear Kings Of Leon new single “Supersoaker”
Kings Of Leon have debuted their new single "Supersoaker" - scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to listen. The track, which was broadcast on Zane Lowe's Radio One show yesterday evening (July 17), is the first track to be taken from the band's forthcoming new album Mechanical Bull. The...

Kings Of Leon have debuted their new single “Supersoaker” – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to listen.

The track, which was broadcast on Zane Lowe’s Radio One show yesterday evening (July 17), is the first track to be taken from the band’s forthcoming new album Mechanical Bull. The single is also now available as a download.

Speaking on Radio One last night, singer Caleb Followill said that the band had felt under no pressure while making the highly-anticipated new LP. “I think the last one took the pressure of us,” he said. “Come Around Sundown followed-up to what was at the point the biggest record of our career [2008’s Only By The Night], so going into this record it was like, ‘The monkey’s off our back, we don’t have that pressure of whether we’re going to be able to match what the last record did.’ We changed it up a bit on this record.”

He and his bandmate Nathan Followill also hinted that they had enough material left over from the sessions to start work on another LP straight away as there was “still a lot of material at the studio waiting” and that the “next record’s halfway done, almost”.

The album is out on September 24. Bassist Jared Followill told NME in March of this year: “I thought we were going to make a really mature album but I’m amazed how youthful it sounds.”

Since then, Jared has revealed that the album is “more musically complicated” than the band’s previous efforts. In a Q&A with fans on Twitter last month (May 27), he also said the “vibe” of the record could be compared to their first two albums – 2003’s Youth And Young Manhood and 2004’s Aha Shake Heartbreak – but that the songs sounded like a “culmination” of all their previous work.

Van Morrison to release deluxe edition of Moondance

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Van Morrison to release deluxe edition of Moondance
Van Morrison is to release a deluxe edition of his 1970 album, Moondance. It will be released by Warner Bros on September 30 across various formats. A 4 CD/1 Blu-ray Deluxe Edition will feature a newly remastered version of the original album, three discs of previously unreleased music from the se...

Van Morrison is to release a deluxe edition of his 1970 album, Moondance.

It will be released by Warner Bros on September 30 across various formats.

A 4 CD/1 Blu-ray Deluxe Edition will feature a newly remastered version of the original album, three discs of previously unreleased music from the sessions, and a Blu-ray Audio disc with high-resolution 48K 24 bit PCM stereo and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound audio of original album. It will be presented in a linen-wrapped folio and includes a booklet with liner notes from Alan Light and original engineer Elliot Scheiner.

A 2CD Expanded Edition set that features the newly remastered version of the original album and 11 previously unreleased tracks drawn from highlights from the Deluxe Edition.

A Standard Edition of the newly remastered version of the original album.

The full track listing for Moondance Deluxe Edition is:

Disc One – Original Album Remastered

1 “And It Stoned Me”

2 “Moondance”

3 “Crazy Love”

4 “Caravan”

5 “Into The Mystic”

6 “Come Running”

7 “These Dreams Of You”

8 “Brand New Day”

9 “Everyone”

10 “Glad Tidings”

Disc Two – All Previously Unreleased

1. “What do we call this Van?”

2. “Caravan” (Take 1)

3. “Caravan” (Takes 2-3)

4. “Caravan” (Take 4)

5. “Caravan” (Takes 5-6)

6. “Caravan” (Take 7)

7. “Caravan” (Take 8)

8. “I’ve Been Working” (Early Version Take 1)

9. “I’ve Been Working” (Early Version Take 2)

10. “I’ve Been Working” (Early Version Take 5)

11. “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out” (Outtake)

12. “I Shall Sing” (Take 1)

13. “I Shall Sing” (Takes 2-3)

14. “I Shall Sing” (Takes 4-6)

15. “I Shall Sing” (Take 7)

16. “I Shall Sing” (Takes 8-12)

17. “I Shall Sing” (Take 13)

Disc Three – All Previously Unreleased

1. “Into The Mystic” (Take 10)

2. “Into The Mystic” (Take 11)

3. “Into The Mystic” (Takes 12-13)

4. “Into The Mystic” (Takes 14-16)

5. “Into The Mystic” (Take 17)

6. “Brand New Day” (Take 1)

7. “Brand New Day” (Take 2)

8. “Brand New Day” (Take 3)

9. “Brand New Day” (Take 4)

10. “Brand New Day” (Takes 5-6)

11. “Brand New Day” (Take 7)

12. “Glad Tidings (Take 1)

13. “Glad Tidings (Takes 2-4)

14. “Glad Tidings (Takes 7-8)

15. “Glad Tidings (Take 9)

16. “Caravan Redo” (Takes 1-2)

17. “Caravan Redo” (Take 3)

Disc Four – All Previously Unreleased

1. “Come Running” (Take 1)

2. “Come Running” (Take 2)

3. “Come Running” (Takes 3-4)

4. “Come Running” (Take 5)

5. “Come Running” (“Rolling On 4”)

6. “Moondance” (Take 21)

7. “Moondance” (Take 22)

8. “Glad Tidings” (Alt. Version)

9. “These Dreams Of You” (Alt Version)

10. “Crazy Love” (Remix)

11. “Glad Tidings” (Remix 1)

12. “Glad Tidings” (Remix 2)

13. “Glad Tidings” (Remix 3)

14. “Caravan” (Remix)

15. “These Dreams Of You” (Remix)

16. “I Shall Sing” (Mix)

Disc Five

Blu-Ray Audio disc with high-resolution 48K 24 bit PCM stereo and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound audio of original album (no video)

The track listing for Moodance Expanded Edition is:

Disc One

Original Album Remastered

Disc Two – All Previously Unreleased

1. “Caravan” (Take 4)

2. “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out” (Outtake)

3. “Into The Mystic” (Take 11)

4. “Brand New Day” (Take 3)

5. “Glad Tidings” (Alt. Version)

6. “Come Running”(Take 2)

7. “Crazy Love” (Mono Mix)

8. “These Dreams Of You” (Alt. Version)

9. “Moondance” (Take 22)

10. “I Shall Sing” (Take 7)

11. “I’ve Been Working” (Early Version, Take 5)

ZZ Top – The Complete Studio Albums 1970 – 1990

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ZZ Top – The Complete Studio Albums 1970 – 1990

100 tracks from the first twenty years of "that Little ol’ band from Texas" By Luke Torn... As high-minded concepts from low-aiming modern primitives go, ZZ Top, the blues-and-boogie trio that arose from the ashes of the Texas garage/psych scene at the dawn of the 1970s, are a wonder of nature, a genuine pop culture phenomenon. Simple to the extreme—not to say simplistic—the group (singer/guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill, drummer Frank Beard) has parlayed a penchant for amped-up John Lee Hooker rhythms, gonzo guitar, and a rare knack for reinvention into four-decades-plus of sustained, oftentimes absurd, madness and mayhem. The Complete Studio Albums conveniently collects ZZ Top’s signature work—their first 10 albums—reverting to long-unavailable original mixes for three titles (first two albums, plus 1976’s Tejas), cutting out in time to skip their sketchier, post-Warners era. Arriving just as '60s social upheaval was bisecting into ‘70s introspection and hedonism, proto-Top headed decidedly in the latter direction, greasily riffing on the popular power-trio approach of the day (cf. Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Grand Funk Railroad), attaching teenage lyrics of drugs, booze, and wild, wild women to filthy electric blues templates laid out by the aforementioned Hooker, Elmore James, Slim Harpo, T-Bone Walker, Albert King, and so on. Other than Gibbons' teeth-rattling guitar, they were unflashy purists, harboring few concessions to pop ornateness. Oddly enough, ZZ Top might have been most notable—circa their ‘80s arena-rocking prime—for everything they weren’t. "Brown Sugar," a sprawling, raucous bloozer from their 1970 debut, is as accurate a Top blueprint as any: leering sexuality (see also: sexism, misogyny), Gibbons' slurred, drunk-as-a-pirate vocals, grimy guitar blasts reverberating through the song's midsection, and a roiling rhythmic undertow. Then there's "Backdoor Love Affair": See above, but string it tighter, and push the tempo a bit. Repeat when necessary. As they evolved—a relative term here—they sharpened their stubborn individualism, carving out comic portraits, as on Tres Hombres' “Waitin’ for the Bus,” of sad-sack characters beaten down by the system, just trying to get by. But mostly their protagonists, sad sacks or not, just wanted to get drunk, high, and laid. As such, ZZ Top proved the perfect elixir. You really didn't need to think, other than where the next joint and tequila shot were coming from. And in this, ZZ Top excelled: Endless sex-and-drug double entendres and catchy sing-song slogans—stretched out in exalted redundancy via boogie-til-your-eyeballs-fall-out stomps. Their sonic trademark for the next decade set, ZZ Top set about sharpening up their repertoire. 1972's Rio Grande Mud mostly repeated the first album's formula, but on 1973's Tres Hombres they hit their stride, sometimes pushing their blues into funkyland. Gibbons' stabbing riffs are sharper here, and surprising attempts at balladic moderation--like “Hot, Blue and Righteous”--poke through. If the crackling, metalloid "Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers" was an idealistic statement of purpose—Gibbons machine-gunning frantic riffs in all directions—it was "La Grange," Hooker's "Boogie Chillun" retooled for white Texas kids headed to the brothel, that nudged the charts, pushing them aboveground, into pop consciousness. Fandango! was 1975’s entrée, and though it contained the prototypical ZZ Top single—“Tush”—it was weighted down by a just-ok live side. The tired-and-drained Tejas portended a kind of dead-end, especially given that white-boy blues bands, historically speaking, are hardly adept at reinvention. But three years of woodshedding—during which disco and punk whizzed by—witnessed a new trajectory. Degüello (1979) and El Loco (1981) presented new, sleek, modernized thumpa-thumpa, liberally spiked with heretofore undetected comic distance and self-deprecating humor. Signature songs, FM staples - “Dark Sunglasses,” “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” “Pearl Necklace,” “Tube Snake Boogie”— were duly minted, extending their raunchy repertoire, and proving a weird theory: The more ZZ Top dumbed it down—the more beloved they became, the more their legacy grew. This revelation came in handy: Eliminator and its cheap knockoff Afterburner were stoopid taken to new heights; see, especially, "TV Dinners," "Velcro Fly," "Woke Up With Wood," for god's sake. But within their nefarious mix of bludgeoning, metronomic (headache-inducing) hi-tech beats, synth washes, machine-cut guitar licks, and hairy, cartoon videos—were irresistible, airwave-ready hooks, escapist fodder nerve for the MTV minions: "Sharp Dressed Man", "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Legs", "Sleeping Bag", raced up the charts, monuments to '80s cheese. Ultimately, the stereotype backed them into a corner; 1990's Recycler completed the trashy trilogy, but barely registered—an afterthought—beckoning yet further new-look incarnations. Luke Torn

100 tracks from the first twenty years of “that Little ol’ band from Texas” By Luke Torn…

As high-minded concepts from low-aiming modern primitives go, ZZ Top, the blues-and-boogie trio that arose from the ashes of the Texas garage/psych scene at the dawn of the 1970s, are a wonder of nature, a genuine pop culture phenomenon. Simple to the extreme—not to say simplistic—the group (singer/guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill, drummer Frank Beard) has parlayed a penchant for amped-up John Lee Hooker rhythms, gonzo guitar, and a rare knack for reinvention into four-decades-plus of sustained, oftentimes absurd, madness and mayhem.

The Complete Studio Albums conveniently collects ZZ Top’s signature work—their first 10 albums—reverting to long-unavailable original mixes for three titles (first two albums, plus 1976’s Tejas), cutting out in time to skip their sketchier, post-Warners era.

Arriving just as ’60s social upheaval was bisecting into ‘70s introspection and hedonism, proto-Top headed decidedly in the latter direction, greasily riffing on the popular power-trio approach of the day (cf. Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Grand Funk Railroad), attaching teenage lyrics of drugs, booze, and wild, wild women to filthy electric blues templates laid out by the aforementioned Hooker, Elmore James, Slim Harpo, T-Bone Walker, Albert King, and so on. Other than Gibbons’ teeth-rattling guitar, they were unflashy purists, harboring few concessions to pop ornateness. Oddly enough, ZZ Top might have been most notable—circa their ‘80s arena-rocking prime—for everything they weren’t.

“Brown Sugar,” a sprawling, raucous bloozer from their 1970 debut, is as accurate a Top blueprint as any: leering sexuality (see also: sexism, misogyny), Gibbons’ slurred, drunk-as-a-pirate vocals, grimy guitar blasts reverberating through the song’s midsection, and a roiling rhythmic undertow. Then there’s “Backdoor Love Affair”: See above, but string it tighter, and push the tempo a bit. Repeat when necessary.

As they evolved—a relative term here—they sharpened their stubborn individualism, carving out comic portraits, as on Tres Hombres‘ “Waitin’ for the Bus,” of sad-sack characters beaten down by the system, just trying to get by. But mostly their protagonists, sad sacks or not, just wanted to get drunk, high, and laid. As such, ZZ Top proved the perfect elixir. You really didn’t need to think, other than where the next joint and tequila shot were coming from. And in this, ZZ Top excelled: Endless sex-and-drug double entendres and catchy sing-song slogans—stretched out in exalted redundancy via boogie-til-your-eyeballs-fall-out stomps.

Their sonic trademark for the next decade set, ZZ Top set about sharpening up their repertoire. 1972’s Rio Grande Mud mostly repeated the first album’s formula, but on 1973’s Tres Hombres they hit their stride, sometimes pushing their blues into funkyland. Gibbons’ stabbing riffs are sharper here, and surprising attempts at balladic moderation–like “Hot, Blue and Righteous”–poke through. If the crackling, metalloid “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers” was an idealistic statement of purpose—Gibbons machine-gunning frantic riffs in all directions—it was “La Grange,” Hooker’s “Boogie Chillun” retooled for white Texas kids headed to the brothel, that nudged the charts, pushing them aboveground, into pop consciousness.

Fandango! was 1975’s entrée, and though it contained the prototypical ZZ Top single—“Tush”—it was weighted down by a just-ok live side. The tired-and-drained Tejas portended a kind of dead-end, especially given that white-boy blues bands, historically speaking, are hardly adept at reinvention.

But three years of woodshedding—during which disco and punk whizzed by—witnessed a new trajectory. Degüello (1979) and El Loco (1981) presented new, sleek, modernized thumpa-thumpa, liberally spiked with heretofore undetected comic distance and self-deprecating humor. Signature songs, FM staples – “Dark Sunglasses,” “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” “Pearl Necklace,” “Tube Snake Boogie”— were duly minted, extending their raunchy repertoire, and proving a weird theory: The more ZZ Top dumbed it down—the more beloved they became, the more their legacy grew.

This revelation came in handy: Eliminator and its cheap knockoff Afterburner were stoopid taken to new heights; see, especially, “TV Dinners,” “Velcro Fly,” “Woke Up With Wood,” for god’s sake. But within their nefarious mix of bludgeoning, metronomic (headache-inducing) hi-tech beats, synth washes, machine-cut guitar licks, and hairy, cartoon videos—were irresistible, airwave-ready hooks, escapist fodder nerve for the MTV minions: “Sharp Dressed Man“, “Gimme All Your Lovin'”, “Legs”, “Sleeping Bag”, raced up the charts, monuments to ’80s cheese. Ultimately, the stereotype backed them into a corner; 1990’s Recycler completed the trashy trilogy, but barely registered—an afterthought—beckoning yet further new-look incarnations.

Luke Torn

Beck unveils extended version of “I Won’t Be Long”: now featuring Kim Gordon

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Beck unveils extended version of “I Won’t Be Long”: now featuring Kim Gordon
Beck has unveiled a new version of his recent stand-alone single "I Won't Be Long", this time featuring Kim Gordon. The track follows another new song, "Defriended", which Beck unveiled last month. The new, 15 minute long version of "I Won't Be Long" features a spoken word segment by the former Son...

Beck has unveiled a new version of his recent stand-alone single “I Won’t Be Long”, this time featuring Kim Gordon.

The track follows another new song, “Defriended”, which Beck unveiled last month. The new, 15 minute long version of “I Won’t Be Long” features a spoken word segment by the former Sonic Youth member. Listen to the track here.

.

Speaking exclusively to NME about his latest project, Beck recently said that although he’ll be releasing plenty of new material in the near future, he has no firm plans to make an album. “For 10 years I’ve been talking about putting out a series of 12-inch singles, one at a time. But I was holding them back ‘cos I wasn’t sure what I was doing with them. And I just wanted people to hear them.”

The Waterboys unveil Fisherman’s Box tracklisting

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The Waterboys unveil Fisherman’s Box tracklisting
The Waterboys have unveiled the tracklisting for their six CD Fisherman's Box set. Due to be released on October 14, the set comprises of tracks from the band's Fisherman's Blues sessions recorded between January 23, 1986 to June 2, 1988. Mike Scott will be writing the liner notes with additional ...

The Waterboys have unveiled the tracklisting for their six CD Fisherman’s Box set.

Due to be released on October 14, the set comprises of tracks from the band’s Fisherman’s Blues sessions recorded between January 23, 1986 to June 2, 1988.

Mike Scott will be writing the liner notes with additional contributions from Decemberist Colin Meloy.

Fisherman’s Box Tracklist CDs 1-6

CD 1

1. Stranger To Me

2. Girl Of The North Country

3. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry

4. Fisherman’s Blues (Piano Version)

5. Fisherman’s Blues

6. Meet Me At The Station

7. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight

8. Born To Be Together

9. The Wayward Wind

10. World Party (1st Version)

11. World Party / A Golden Age

12. Sleek White Schooner

13. Drunken Head Ghost Of Rimbaud Blues

14. Sweet Thing

15. Sweet Thing (Conclusion)

16. Saints And Angels

CD 2

1. We Will Not Be Lovers

2. One Step Closer

3. My Beautiful Baby

4. She Could Have Had Me Step By Step

5. When The Ship Comes In

6. The Ladder

7. Will You Ever Be My Friend?

8. Too Close To Heaven (Rolling Piano)

9. Higherbound (Prototype)

10. Happy Birthday Bp Fallon

11. The Prettiest Girl In Church

12. You Don’t Have To Be In The Army To Fight In The War

13. Dee Jay Way

14. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home

15. Thistlethwaite’s Declaration

16. Strange Boat (First Play)

17. Lost Highway

18. Higherbound Blues

19. Let Us Be Drinking And Kissing The Women

20. Will The Circle Be Unbroken

21. Tenderfootin’

22. Too Close To Heaven

23. Space Out There, Trevor

CD 3

1. Steve And Anto’s Overture

2. Ain’t Leavin, I’m Gone

3. When Will We Be Married? (1st Version)

4. When I First Said I Loved Only You, Maggie

5. Love Is Letting Go

6. On My Way To Heaven (1st Version)

7. You In The Sky (1st Version)

8. The Secret Place Of The Most High

9. Too Hot For Cleanhead

10. Wickham’s Proclamation

11. Blues For Your Baby

12. Lonesome Old Wind

13. If Jimi Was Here

14. Soon As I Get Home

15. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

CD 4

1. Billy The Kid

2. Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down

3. Come Live With Me

4. I Miss The Road

5. Higher In Time (Two Pianos)

6. Too Hot For Cleanhead (Fast Version)

7. Higher In Time (Scottish)

8. Higherbound (3rd Tune)

9. A Golden Age

10. You In The Sky

11. I Will Meet You In Heaven Again

12. Nobody ‘Cept You

13. (He Hasn’t Been The Same Since) Jimmy Shand

14. Rattle My Bones And Shiver My Soul

15. The Scotsman’s Delight

16. Killing My Heart

17. Industrial Mr Brown

18. Custer’s Blues

19. Shall We Gather By The River

20. Higher In Time Symphony

CD 5

1. Higherbound (3rd Version)

2. The Grief Of Pan

3. World Party

4. Working On A Building

5. If I Can’t Have You

6. Killing My Heart (2nd Version)

7. Trunk Call

8. Headphone Mix Song

9. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)

10. When Will We Be Married? (2nd Version)

11. Bp’s Bathtub Boogie

12. We Will Not Be Lovers (Sax Solo)

13. Heading Down The Highway

14. Strange Boat

15. Fisherman’s Blues (2nd Version)

16. Has Anybody Here Seen Hank? (Bridgeman Version)

17. On My Way To Heaven

18. Let Me Feel Holy Again

19. A Home In The Meadow

20. Strange Boat (3rd Version) / The Good Ship Sirius

21. The Stolen Child (Prototype)

CD 6

1. On My Way To Tara

2. Twa Recruitin’ Sergeants

3. Incident At Puck Fair

4. And A Bang On The Ear

5. Mr Customs Man

6. Strange Boat (Acoustic)

7. Spring Comes To Spiddal

8. In Search Of A Rose (Band)

9. The Stolen Child (Piano Demo)

10. When Will We Be Married?

11. In Search Of A Rose (Duo)

12. The Good Ship Sirius (Set Of Jigs)

13. This Land Is Your Land

14. Jimmy Hickey’s Waltz

15. Live Aid And After

16. Carolan’s Welcome

17. When Ye Go Away

18. When Ye Go Away (Frankie’s Fiddle)

19. Has Anybody Here Seen Hank?

20. The Stolen Child (Vocal Demo)

21. Dunford’s Fancy

22. The Stolen Child

23. Pictish National Anthem (Comati)

24. Bo Diddley Was A Caveman

25. The Last Jam

26. Buckets Of Rain

The band will also tour the UK in December, which will reunite Scott and Steve Wickham with Fisherman’s-era members Anto Thistlethwaite and Trevor Hutchinson alongside current Waterboys drummer Ralph Salmins.

The tour dates are as follows:

December 8, Liverpool Philharmonic.

December 9, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

December 10, Glasgow Barrowland.

December 11, York Barbican.

December 12, Birmingham Alexandra.

December 15, Oxford New Theatre.

December 16, Guildford Glive.

December 17, Bristol Colston Hall.

December 18, Hammersmith Apollo

December 20, Drogheda Tlt.

December 21, Killarney Inec.

December 22, Galway Leisureland

December 23, Dublin Convention Centre

Full Waterboys tour dates can be found here.

Photo credit: Steve Meany

Mazzy Star to release first new album in 17 years

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Mazzy Star to release first new album in 17 years
Mazzy Star are set to release their first new album in 17 years, Seasons Of Your Day. The band's fourth studio album will come out on September 24 and was recorded in California and Norway. Click below to listen to the first single from the album, "California". The album follows 1990's She Hangs Br...

Mazzy Star are set to release their first new album in 17 years, Seasons Of Your Day.

The band’s fourth studio album will come out on September 24 and was recorded in California and Norway. Click below to listen to the first single from the album, “California”. The album follows 1990’s She Hangs Brightly, 1993’s So Tonight That I Might See and 1996’s Among My Swan.

Written by Hope Sandoval and David Roback, the new album follows the 2011 release of the single “Common Burn”/”Lay Myself Down”, and features a guest spot from the late guitarist Bert Jansch, on the track “Spoon”. The band will tour Europe and North America this autumn after appearances last year at the Coachella and Field Day festivals.

The tracklisting for Seasons Of Your Day is:

‘In The Kingdom’

‘California’

‘I’ve Gotta Stop’

‘Does Someone Have Your Baby Now’

‘Common Burn’

‘Seasons Of Your Day’

‘Flying Low’

‘Sparrow’

‘Spoon’

‘Lay Myself Down’

God bless Rod Stewart

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God bless Rod Stewart

God bless Rod Stewart Not even creepy celebrity horse-whisperer Alan Yentob could wholly ruin last week’s highly entertaining BBC Arena special on Rod Stewart. His contributions were laughably witless all the same. “You look just like brothers!” he exclaimed excitedly of Rod and long-time mucker Ronnie Woods, which may have been true 40 years ago. These days they don’t even look like cousins. Ronnie was sunken-cheeked and jittery, eager to please. Rod was tanned, relaxed, confident, radiating good health and clearly couldn’t give a fuck what anyone thought about him, which has always been one of his most endearing characteristics. Ronnie and Rod together were, however, a gas – a wonderful double act that a better interviewer might have successfully pumped for even more hilarious anecdotes and colourful matey banter. The archive footage, meanwhile, was sensational, going all the way back to Steampacket and beyond. Where did they dig this stuff up? The Arena show comes at a time when Rod’s enjoying something of a critical rehabilitation, due partly to Rod: The Autobiography, by some distance the most entertaining of last year’s glut of rock star memoirs and Time, his first album of self-composed songs since about the discovery of penicillin, which is still in the Top 5 at the time of writing. He seems to be popping up at the O2 or somewhere similar every other week at the moment, but things have been so busy here, where we are as usual working like galley slaves, I haven’t had a chance to go to one of the shows. It probably still passes as unfashionable to admit to liking Rod, but I’d like to have seen him – schmaltzy bits included. When I went to see him at Twickenham Stadium in July 2007, a rotten, rainy day, it was probably only because I lived just about near enough to walk there. The show was terrific, though, and I’ve reprinted my review below. First of all, here are a couple of vintage Rod and the Faces clips. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxILBWzA0J0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOPJXrUWII Rod Stewart Twickenham Stadium, London One of the first festivals I covered not long after joining Melody Maker in 1974 was in Buxton, a bleak outpost on the Yorkshire Moors, headlined by Rod Stewart and The Faces, as they were increasingly billed after the departure of Ronnie Lane and not long before Rod himself legged it to LA and a subsequent solo career of great success if variable artistic merit. The weather then was every bit as bad as it has been recently, and a lot of bands simply pulled out – Captain Beefheart and The New York Dolls among them. Apparently Humble Pie were on the bill, but I have no memory of them, although I recall a storming set in appalling conditions by Mott The Hoople on the Saturday night. By the Sunday, the driving rain and gale force winds were so bad, it seemed unlikely The Faces would bother playing, cynics predicting a definite no show, Rod suddenly deemed too prissy to risk a soaking. In the event, they not only played – they were brilliant, rocking through a deluge of Biblical proportions, The Memphis Horns in splendid evidence, and Rod cheerfully disregarding the malevolent elements with a bravura display. Walking towards Twickenham Stadium last Saturday through an absolutely drenching downpour, I kept thinking of that earlier waterlogged fiasco. On early, the vast stadium filling slowly during their opening numbers, The Pretenders luckily avoided the worse of the rain that would quickly follow and it was great to hear Chrissie Hynde in such great voice on old favourites like “Back On The Chain Gang” (dedicated to Jimmy Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon), “Kid”, “Talk Of The Town”, “Day After Day”, “Brass In Pocket”, “Mystery Achievement” and “Precious”. The rain holds off during the interval that follows, but during the self-deprecating The Rodfather ‘mockumentary’ that affectionately sends up Rod’s career it’s coming down in proverbial buckets. With his tartan-suited band of slick session musos already drawing vast cheers from the crowd as they essay the beguiling opening to “You Wear It Well”, Rod appears in a puff of smoke, like a panto villain, from a trap door in the small stage at the end of a steep catwalk from the main stage. By the time he’s slithered up the walkway, he’s soaked, despite a rather pretty brolly he’s picked up from somewhere and expertly twirls as he makes his way gingerly to the stage, which is covered but offers little protection from the deluge. The audience by now is in full voice, as they will be for most of the two hours that follow, Rod at times just leaving them to it. You would not in the circumstances have much blamed him for rattling through the set and splitting for somewhere out of the growing storm, but just as he did at Buxton, lo those many years ago, he just gets on with it, a trouper to the end. “Good evening my friends,” he says over great cheers at the end of “This Old Heart Of Mine”. “It’s raining, but it’s not cold. It’s Saturday night and we’re all in this together – so let’s make the most of it.” A raucous “Sweet Little Rock’N’Roller” follows, and as unfashionable as it might be to admit it, a lot of tonight is just brilliant. It’s unapologetically a greatest-hits set, rammed with crowd pleasers – no radical interpretations here of the Joanna Newsom songbook, for instance – and the crowd is duly pleased, Rod’s sheer chutzpah lifting their spirits and the music taking care of the rest. It’s a weird crowd, older on average I’d say than recent audiences at the same venue for the Stones – including coach parties of what appear to be alcoholic divorcees squeezed into clothes that wouldn’t fit their children who treat the entire evening as a mass karaoke session. More than a few of the men around me, meanwhile, look like dodgy lower league football managers or gangland killers with cleaned-up pasts. Things get a wee bit cheesier later on, but in the first half of the show there are great versions of “Reason To Believe”, Cat Stevens’ “Fathers And Sons” – just beautiful when I had expected something unilaterally mawkish – and a very moving “Dirty Old Town”, played against a filmed backdrop of clips from an apparently distant past of the recently-deceased Glasgow Celtic football legend Jimmy Johnstone. The first set ends with rowdy versions of “We’re Having A Party” and “Stay With Me”, replete with hilarious archive film of The Faces in all their misspent glory. The second half of the show is given over almost entirely to singalongs on “The First Cut is The Deepest”, “Tonight’s The Night”, “You’re In My Heart” and a rather egrettable “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy”. There’s an inevitable outing for “Sailing” which might more correctly have been re-titled “Raining”, or even “Drowning”, but the second half honours go to the much-anticipated “Maggie May”, which is a bit rushed but eventually glorious, much to the soggy delight of a wet but ecstatic Twickenham. Have a great week! Pic CEA Cache Agency

God bless Rod Stewart

Not even creepy celebrity horse-whisperer Alan Yentob could wholly ruin last week’s highly entertaining BBC Arena special on Rod Stewart. His contributions were laughably witless all the same. “You look just like brothers!” he exclaimed excitedly of Rod and long-time mucker Ronnie Woods, which may have been true 40 years ago. These days they don’t even look like cousins.

Ronnie was sunken-cheeked and jittery, eager to please. Rod was tanned, relaxed, confident, radiating good health and clearly couldn’t give a fuck what anyone thought about him, which has always been one of his most endearing characteristics.

Ronnie and Rod together were, however, a gas – a wonderful double act that a better interviewer might have successfully pumped for even more hilarious anecdotes and colourful matey banter. The archive footage, meanwhile, was sensational, going all the way back to Steampacket and beyond. Where did they dig this stuff up?

The Arena show comes at a time when Rod’s enjoying something of a critical rehabilitation, due partly to Rod: The Autobiography, by some distance the most entertaining of last year’s glut of rock star memoirs and Time, his first album of self-composed songs since about the discovery of penicillin, which is still in the Top 5 at the time of writing. He seems to be popping up at the O2 or somewhere similar every other week at the moment, but things have been so busy here, where we are as usual working like galley slaves, I haven’t had a chance to go to one of the shows.

It probably still passes as unfashionable to admit to liking Rod, but I’d like to have seen him – schmaltzy bits included. When I went to see him at Twickenham Stadium in July 2007, a rotten, rainy day, it was probably only because I lived just about near enough to walk there. The show was terrific, though, and I’ve reprinted my review below.

First of all, here are a couple of vintage Rod and the Faces clips.

Rod Stewart

Twickenham Stadium, London

One of the first festivals I covered not long after joining Melody Maker in 1974 was in Buxton, a bleak outpost on the Yorkshire Moors, headlined by Rod Stewart and The Faces, as they were increasingly billed after the departure of Ronnie Lane and not long before Rod himself legged it to LA and a subsequent solo career of great success if variable artistic merit.

The weather then was every bit as bad as it has been recently, and a lot of bands simply pulled out – Captain Beefheart and The New York Dolls among them. Apparently Humble Pie were on the bill, but I have no memory of them, although I recall a storming set in appalling conditions by Mott The Hoople on the Saturday night.

By the Sunday, the driving rain and gale force winds were so bad, it seemed unlikely The Faces would bother playing, cynics predicting a definite no show, Rod suddenly deemed too prissy to risk a soaking.

In the event, they not only played – they were brilliant, rocking through a deluge of Biblical proportions, The Memphis Horns in splendid evidence, and Rod cheerfully disregarding the malevolent elements with a bravura display.

Walking towards Twickenham Stadium last Saturday through an absolutely drenching downpour, I kept thinking of that earlier waterlogged fiasco.

On early, the vast stadium filling slowly during their opening numbers, The Pretenders luckily avoided the worse of the rain that would quickly follow and it was great to hear Chrissie Hynde in such great voice on old favourites like “Back On The Chain Gang” (dedicated to Jimmy Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon), “Kid”, “Talk Of The Town”, “Day After Day”, “Brass In Pocket”, “Mystery Achievement” and “Precious”.

The rain holds off during the interval that follows, but during the self-deprecating The Rodfather ‘mockumentary’ that affectionately sends up Rod’s career it’s coming down in proverbial buckets. With his tartan-suited band of slick session musos already drawing vast cheers from the crowd as they essay the beguiling opening to “You Wear It Well”, Rod appears in a puff of smoke, like a panto villain, from a trap door in the small stage at the end of a steep catwalk from the main stage. By the time he’s slithered up the walkway, he’s soaked, despite a rather pretty brolly he’s picked up from somewhere and expertly twirls as he makes his way gingerly to the stage, which is covered but offers little protection from the deluge.

The audience by now is in full voice, as they will be for most of the two hours that follow, Rod at times just leaving them to it.

You would not in the circumstances have much blamed him for rattling through the set and splitting for somewhere out of the growing storm, but just as he did at Buxton, lo those many years ago, he just gets on with it, a trouper to the end.

“Good evening my friends,” he says over great cheers at the end of “This Old Heart Of Mine”. “It’s raining, but it’s not cold. It’s Saturday night and we’re all in this together – so let’s make the most of it.” A raucous “Sweet Little Rock’N’Roller” follows, and as unfashionable as it might be to admit it, a lot of tonight is just brilliant.

It’s unapologetically a greatest-hits set, rammed with crowd pleasers – no radical interpretations here of the Joanna Newsom songbook, for instance – and the crowd is duly pleased, Rod’s sheer chutzpah lifting their spirits and the music taking care of the rest.

It’s a weird crowd, older on average I’d say than recent audiences at the same venue for the Stones – including coach parties of what appear to be alcoholic divorcees squeezed into clothes that wouldn’t fit their children who treat the entire evening as a mass karaoke session. More than a few of the men around me, meanwhile, look like dodgy lower league football managers or gangland killers with cleaned-up pasts.

Things get a wee bit cheesier later on, but in the first half of the show there are great versions of “Reason To Believe”, Cat Stevens’ “Fathers And Sons” – just beautiful when I had expected something unilaterally mawkish – and a very moving “Dirty Old Town”, played against a filmed backdrop of clips from an apparently distant past of the recently-deceased Glasgow Celtic football legend Jimmy Johnstone. The first set ends with rowdy versions of “We’re Having A Party” and “Stay With Me”, replete with hilarious archive film of The Faces in all their misspent glory.

The second half of the show is given over almost entirely to singalongs on “The First Cut is The Deepest”, “Tonight’s The Night”, “You’re In My Heart” and a rather egrettable “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy”. There’s an inevitable outing for “Sailing” which might more correctly have been re-titled “Raining”, or even “Drowning”, but the second half honours go to the much-anticipated “Maggie May”, which is a bit rushed but eventually glorious, much to the soggy delight of a wet but ecstatic Twickenham.

Have a great week!

Pic CEA Cache Agency

Bob Dylan confirms full track listing and release date for The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)

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Bob Dylan confirms full track listing and release date for The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)
Bob Dylan has confirmed the full tracklisting for The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 - Another Self Portrait (1969-1971). The album will be released on multiple formats on August 26 in the UK via Columbia Records. It includes 35 rarities alongside unreleased recordings and will be available in two disc s...

Bob Dylan has confirmed the full tracklisting for The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971).

The album will be released on multiple formats on August 26 in the UK via Columbia Records.

It includes 35 rarities alongside unreleased recordings and will be available in two disc standard and four disc deluxe editions and a vinyl edition.

According to a press release issued today by Dylan’s record company, “Columbia Records will release Bob Dylan’s The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) on August 27, bringing fresh perspective to one of the artist’s most controversial periods and revealing it to be one of his most wonderfully creative and prolific. Containing 35 rarities and previously unreleased recordings, Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) is the latest edition of Dylan’s acclaimed Bootleg Series and is available in both a standard two-disc set and in a four-disc deluxe box set.

“The unreleased recordings, demos and alternate takes on Another Self Portrait – drawn mainly from the 1970 studio recording sessions that resulted in the official 1970 albums Self Portrait and New Morning albums – shed new light on an essential and pivotal period in the artist’s ongoing musical evolution.

“The original Self Portrait, released in June 1970, was Dylan’s tenth studio album and his first to receive real pans from the music press (‘What is this shit?’ was literally the opening sentence of Greil Marcus‘s review in Rolling Stone while Robert Christgau gave the album a “C PLUS” rating in the Village Voice). Nevertheless, Self Portrait hit Number 4 on the US Billboard 200 and Number 1 on the UK album charts.

“In the Self Portrait sessions, Dylan played a selection of songs accompanied by a small ensemble of musicians, primarily David Bromberg (guitar) and Al Kooper (keyboards, guitar), with producer Bob Johnston later adding overdubs to the basic tracks in Nashville. Another Self Portrait presents these original session masters for the first time without overdubs.

“Another Self Portrait reveals fresh aspects of Dylan’s vocal genius as he reimagines traditional and contemporary folk music as well as songs of his own. Across these unvarnished performances, Dylan is the country singer from Nashville Skyline (“Country Pie” and “I Threw It All Away”), an interpreter of traditional folk (“Little Sadie,” “Pretty Saro”) who’s right at home singing the songs of his contemporaries (Tom Paxton’s “Annie’s Gonna Sing Her Song” and Eric Andersen’s “Thirsty Boots”) before returning to writing and singing his own new music (“Went To See The Gypsy,” “Sign On The Window”).

“While the original Self Portrait was a deliberate act of iconoclasm that shattered Dylan’s image as ‘generational spokesperson’ while stretching the boundaries of pop music and his own, the album’s successor, New Morning, marked Dylan’s return to songwriting. Another Self Portrait gives fans a chance to reappraise the pivotal recordings that marked Dylan’s artistic transformation as the 1960s ended and the 1970s began.

“Featured on Another Self Portrait are a previously unavailable version of “Only A Hobo” and the demo version of “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” a track that finds Dylan, who’d been signed as a recording artist not quite a decade earlier, looking to the future, promising that “Someday, everything’s gonna be smooth like a rhapsody, when I paint my masterpiece.”

“Bob Dylan has created a new painting as the cover art for The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971).

“The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) will be available in a standard two-disc configuration as well as in a four-disc deluxe boxed set which will include, for the first time ever, the complete historic performance by Bob Dylan and The Band from the Isle of Wight Festival on August 31, 1969. Housed in a slipcase, the deluxe edition will include the newly remastered version of the 1970 Self Portrait album, in its entirety with original sequencing, in addition to two hardcover books featuring revisionist liner notes penned by Greil Marcus (author of the notorious “What is this shit?” 1970 Self Portrait review in Rolling Stone).

“A vinyl version of The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) will include the album’s 35 tracks on three LPs plus a 12″ x 12″ booklet.”

The tracklisting for The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)

CD 1

1 Went To See The Gypsy (demo)

2 In Search Of Little Sadie (without overdubs, Self Portrait)

3 Pretty Saro (unreleased, Self Portrait)

4 Alberta #3 (alternate version, Self Portrait)

5 Spanish Is The Loving Tongue (unreleased, Self Portrait)

6 Annie’s Going To Sing Her Song (unreleased, Self Portrait)

7 Time Passes Slowly #1 (alternate version, New Morning)

8 Only A Hobo (unreleased, Greatest Hits II)

9 Minstrel Boy (unreleased, The Basement Tapes)

10 I Threw It All Away (alternate version, Nashville Skyline)

11 Railroad Bill (unreleased, Self Portrait)

12 Thirsty Boots (unreleased, Self Portrait)

13 This Evening So Soon (unreleased, Self Portrait)

14 These Hands (unreleased, Self Portrait)

15 Little Sadie (without overdubs, Self Portrait)

16 House Carpenter (unreleased, Self Portrait)

17 All The Tired Horses (without overdubs, Self Portrait)

The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)

CD 2

1 If Not For You (alternate version, New Morning)

2 Wallflower (alternate version, 1971)

3 Wigwam (original version without overdubs, Self Portrait)

4 Days Of ’49 (original version without overdubs, Self Portrait)

5 Working On A Guru (unreleased, New Morning)

6 Country Pie (alternate version, Nashville Skyline)

7 I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (Live With The Band, Isle Of Wight 1969)

8 Highway 61 Revisited (Live With The Band, Isle Of Wight 1969)

9 Copper Kettle (without overdubs, Self Portrait)

10 Bring Me A Little Water (unreleased, New Morning)

11 Sign On The Window (with orchestral overdubs, New Morning)

12 Tattle O’Day (unreleased, Self Portrait)

13 If Dogs Run Free (alternate version, New Morning)

14 New Morning (with horn section overdubs, New Morning)

15 Went To See The Gypsy (alternate version, New Morning)

16 Belle Isle (without overdubs, Self Portrait)

17 Time Passes Slowly #2 (alternate version, New Morning)

18 When I Paint My Masterpiece (demo)

Bob Dylan & The Band

Isle of Wight – August 31, 1969

1 She Belongs To Me

2 I Threw It All Away

3 Maggie’s Farm

4 Wild Mountain Thyme

5 It Ain’t Me, Babe

6 To Ramona/ Mr. Tambourine Man

7 I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine

8 Lay Lady Lay

9 Highway 61 Revisited

10 One Too Many Mornings

11 I Pity The Poor Immigrant

12 Like A Rolling Stone

13 I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight

14 Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)

15 Minstrel Boy

16 Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

Details of how to pre-order the album are available from Bob Dylan’s website.

On April 20, Dylan released a 7″ single for Record Store Day, “Wigwam” b/w “Thirsty Boots”, which dated from the spring 1970 sessions for the Self Portrait album.

Bob Dylan will also tour the UK later this year. You can find the dates here.

Earlier today, a trailer for Another Self Portrait (1969 – 1971) was released on Youtube.

Guy Clark – My Favourite Picture Of You

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Guy Clark – My Favourite Picture Of You

Deeply personal return for seasoned Texan... Guy Clark’s first studio offering in four years comes at a bittersweet time in his life. Starry tribute This One’s For Him, stuffed with covers by fans like Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris, was voted best album at last September’s Americana Awards in Nashville. Clark chose to mark this major recognition of four decades of craft by playing a new tune, "My Favourite Picture Of You". It was written for his wife and fellow songwriter Susanna, who’d passed away just three months earlier. The song forms the emotional heart of the album itself, which is adorned with a John Lomax photograph of Susanna during one of her frostier moments. Taken outside the Clark homestead in the ‘70s, she’d just stormed out after finding Guy and Townes Van Zandt inside, drunk as baboons. Over simple acoustic guitar and trilling mandolin, the title track finds Clark addressing the image directly: "You’ve got your heart on your sleeve/A curse on your lips/But all I can see is beautiful". Not that My Favourite Picture Of You is mawkish or overly sentimental. Instead this is Clark, now in his 72nd year, as the rumpled poet of American folk-blues, imparting these semi-brisk, string-driven tales with his own unique brand of sad, funny, dry wisdom. With the exception of Lyle Lovett’s "The Waltzing Fool", the songs are all co-written with some of Nashville’s more underrated talents, most notably Shawn Camp. There are mean Mexican border rats, broken soldiers, cornmeal dancefloors and tunes about poisoned fiddle players. Though perhaps the choicest pick is "I’ll Show Me", in which Clark and Rodney Crowell lay out the delusional interior life of a ne’er do well who sees himself as a young Richard Burton or bullfighter, but whose actual domain is ladies’ night at the Blue Gazelle. With his health in steady decline over recent years, it’s hoped that this isn’t the last we’ll hear of Guy Clark. Though it’s edifying to know that the quality of his songwriting remains resolutely firm. Rob Hughes

Deeply personal return for seasoned Texan…

Guy Clark’s first studio offering in four years comes at a bittersweet time in his life. Starry tribute This One’s For Him, stuffed with covers by fans like Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris, was voted best album at last September’s Americana Awards in Nashville. Clark chose to mark this major recognition of four decades of craft by playing a new tune, “My Favourite Picture Of You”. It was written for his wife and fellow songwriter Susanna, who’d passed away just three months earlier.

The song forms the emotional heart of the album itself, which is adorned with a John Lomax photograph of Susanna during one of her frostier moments. Taken outside the Clark homestead in the ‘70s, she’d just stormed out after finding Guy and Townes Van Zandt inside, drunk as baboons. Over simple acoustic guitar and trilling mandolin, the title track finds Clark addressing the image directly: “You’ve got your heart on your sleeve/A curse on your lips/But all I can see is beautiful”.

Not that My Favourite Picture Of You is mawkish or overly sentimental. Instead this is Clark, now in his 72nd year, as the rumpled poet of American folk-blues, imparting these semi-brisk, string-driven tales with his own unique brand of sad, funny, dry wisdom. With the exception of Lyle Lovett’s “The Waltzing Fool”, the songs are all co-written with some of Nashville’s more underrated talents, most notably Shawn Camp. There are mean Mexican border rats, broken soldiers, cornmeal dancefloors and tunes about poisoned fiddle players. Though perhaps the choicest pick is “I’ll Show Me”, in which Clark and Rodney Crowell lay out the delusional interior life of a ne’er do well who sees himself as a young Richard Burton or bullfighter, but whose actual domain is ladies’ night at the Blue Gazelle.

With his health in steady decline over recent years, it’s hoped that this isn’t the last we’ll hear of Guy Clark. Though it’s edifying to know that the quality of his songwriting remains resolutely firm.

Rob Hughes

Thom Yorke on Spotify debate: “In Rainbows was a statement of trust”

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Thom Yorke on Spotify debate: “In Rainbows was a statement of trust”
Thom Yorke has defended his position on Spotify, after he and producer Nigel Godrich took to Twitter to express their views that the streaming service was "bad for new music" before announcing that they would be pulling their material from it. The debut album from their Atoms For Peace project has...

Thom Yorke has defended his position on Spotify, after he and producer Nigel Godrich took to Twitter to express their views that the streaming service was “bad for new music” before announcing that they would be pulling their material from it.

The debut album from their Atoms For Peace project has been removed from the site, as has Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser. Godrich explained his position yesterday in a series of tweets criticising the low royalty rates paid to artists – who he said received “f*ck all” from the service.

Producer Stephen Street criticised Yorke’s position, claiming that Radiohead played a role in devaluing digital music when they allowed fans to pay what they wanted for their 2007 album In Rainbows. “Bit rich coming from Thom Yorke that Spotify doesn’t work for new artists,” he wrote on Twitter. “It’s exactly what I said when Radiohead made their album available for free/ pay what you want a few years back.” Street added: “Suits superstars with 10 years of EMI investment behind them. It didn’t help new upcoming artists at all. Gave the wrong message that music had no value. It’s bitten you on the arse Thom!”

Thom Yorke later responded to criticism on Twitter: “Make no mistake new artists you discover on ‪#Spotify will no get paid. Meanwhile shareholders will shortly being rolling in it. Simples,” he wrote. “‘Your small meaningless rebellion is only hurting your fans … a drop in the bucket really’ No we’re standing up for our fellow musicians.” He added: “For me In Rainbows was a statement of trust. People still value new music…That’s all we’d like from Spotify. Don’t make us the target.”

Meanwhile, Radiohead’s co-manager Brian Message has also commented on the debate, saying that Spotify will ultimately offer artists ‘equitable remuneration”. He told the he told the BBC: “Streaming services are a new way for artists and fans to engage. As a manager of Thom I obviously sit up and take note when he says, ‘Listen guys we need to look at how this works’. It’s a healthy debate that’s going on right now…He’s rightly asking the question of, ‘What’s in this for new music and new artists?’ I think we’re all debating this. [But] as the model gets bigger I think we’ll find a place where artists and managers and all creators can all receive what they regard as equitable remuneration.”

Spotify yesterday told NME that its long-term goal is to make sure artists are properly remunerated for putting their music on the service. Radiohead albums such as The Bends, OK, Computer and Kid A are still available to stream on Spotify.

Teaser footage from new Nick Cave film revealed

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Teaser footage from new Nick Cave film revealed

A website has been launched for 20,000 Days On Earth, the fictional film charting 24 hours in the life of Nick Cave. The film, directed by multi-media artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, features cameos from Ray Winstone and Kylie Minogue, is due for release in Spring 2014. The website contains teaser footage from the film. A Facebook page has also been launched.

A website has been launched for 20,000 Days On Earth, the fictional film charting 24 hours in the life of Nick Cave.

The film, directed by multi-media artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, features cameos from Ray Winstone and Kylie Minogue, is due for release in Spring 2014.

The website contains teaser footage from the film.

A Facebook page has also been launched.

Watch new David Bowie video for “Valentine’s Day”

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Watch new David Bowie video for “Valentine’s Day”
David Bowie has unveiled the video for "Valentine's Day" – watch it below. The track is the fourth single from Bowie's album The Next Day. It was directed by Indrani and Markus Klinko, who previously collaborated with Bowie on the artwork for the 2002 Heathen album. The track will also be releas...

David Bowie has unveiled the video for “Valentine’s Day” – watch it below.

The track is the fourth single from Bowie’s album The Next Day. It was directed by Indrani and Markus Klinko, who previously collaborated with Bowie on the artwork for the 2002 Heathen album. The track will also be released as a limited edition picture disc on August 19, with the track ‘Plan’ as a b-side.

The video follows Bowie’s previous promo for “The Next Day”, which starred the singer as a priest and Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard as part of a cast of religious characters. It was criticised by the Catholic church and was briefly banned from YouTube before being reinstated.

Bowie’s 24th studio album The Next Day was released on March 8, 2013.

Watch trailer for Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series Vol. 10

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Watch trailer for Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series Vol. 10
Bob Dylan has released a trailer for the Bootleg Series Volume 10. The trailer for Another Self Portrait (1969 - 1971) includes interviews with Al Kooper and David Bromberg, who both played on the sessions, as well as clips for songs including “Went To See The Gypsy”, “Pretty Saro”, “Tel...

Bob Dylan has released a trailer for the Bootleg Series Volume 10.

The trailer for Another Self Portrait (1969 – 1971) includes interviews with Al Kooper and David Bromberg, who both played on the sessions, as well as clips for songs including “Went To See The Gypsy”, “Pretty Saro”, “Tell Old Bill”, “Time Passes Slowly” and “When I Paint My Masterpiece”.

More information about Another Self Portrait (1969 – 1971) is expected later today.

Tropicalia: Alegria, Alegria! The brief, exhilarating history of a Brazilian musical revolution.

John Mulvey
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Tropicalia: Alegria, Alegria! The brief, exhilarating history of a Brazilian musical revolution.

When unpleasant right-wing governments seize control by one means or another, a lot of wishful thinking often goes on among radical artists. Hard times, they speculate, will encourage a new counterculture; angry political art will flourish in the face of oppression. We heard a lot of this rhetoric from dissenters trying to put a positive gloss on the election of David Cameron in 2010. But as yet, a provocative cultural revolt against the Tories, if there is one, remains too underground to register on most radar. In late ‘60s Brazil, however, there was ample evidence of how inspiring – and messy – the political reactions of artists could be. A military coup in 1964 had overthrown a leftist government, and protest could be found everywhere: on the streets, in art galleries, even at television song contests. While many of the country’s young singers and songwriters vehemently opposed the regime, they were not – as so frequently happens on the left – above squabbling among themselves. At the TV Globo festival in 1968, a young artist called Caetano Veloso provoked what, from the sound recordings and photographs in "Tropicalia", looks rather like a riot among the audience of left-leaning students. A year earlier, Veloso had colluded with a motley gang of other Brazilian artists to come up with a new movement that they named Tropicalia, after an installation piece by Hélio Oiticica. Their guiding principle was anthropophagy, or cannibalism: anything and everything – Brazilian folk music, American and British rock, the avant-garde, movies, philosophy, surrealism – would be enthusiastically devoured and regurgitated in a new form. For a couple of heady years, the Tropicalistas – chiefly Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes, Gal Costa, Nara Leao and Tom Zé – made a series of eclectic and mostly terrific albums showcasing a fierce local interpretation of ‘60s rock. But as Marcelo Machado’s new documentary illustrates, they had to contend with the opprobrium of both the military regime and most of the left-wing establishment. That leftist opposition was suspicious of even the most subversive American music, prizing the sanctity of Brazilian indigenous forms. When Veloso, backed by Os Mutantes, performed what was ostensibly a feedback jam at the TV Globo song contest, the hardline audience were appalled by what they perceived as a manifestation of American cultural imperialism. In "Tropicalia" you can see Mutantes turn their backs on the crowd, and hear Veloso ranting above the boos, “If you are the same in politics as you are in aesthetics, then we are done for.” Gil joined them onstage and was wounded by one of the missiles targeted at them. “We left the theatre a little frightened,” recalled Veloso in his autobiography. “On the sidewalk out front people were screaming.” “Anti-Americanism always seemed a bit shallow to me,” he notes in "Tropicalia". It’s a compelling story, and one of many that Machado chooses to tell impressionistically in his movie. "Tropicalia" begins with Gil and Veloso performing “Alfomega” together in 1969 and proclaiming, with typical contrariness, that “Tropicalia as a movement doesn’t exist anymore.” From there, Machado unleashes a kaleidoscopic bombardment of music and images, while the major players provide rueful, cerebral and (especially in the cases of Zé and the gruff, piratical theorist, Rogério Duarte) idiosyncratic commentaries. “The Tropicalia aesthetic was the only one that could take my contradictions,” claims Duarte. “Between the rogue and the man of culture… Between the European and the African.” Certain knowledge is assumed, or at least deemed unnecessary: “anthropophagy” is much discussed, but never quite explained. The richness of the subject matter inevitably means there is little room for some extraordinary tales, like that of Torquado Neto, the vampiric lyricist and “Bad Angel” who introduced marijuana to the scene before committing suicide in 1972. The psychedelic Os Mutantes could fill a film by themselves, and Machado secures interviews not only with Sergio Dias, the reformed band’s sole original member, but also with singer Rita Lee (distractedly cleaning her glasses throughout) and, frustratingly briefly, with Dias’ brother, Arnaldo Baptista, whose life and career were derailed by a taste for LSD and a leap from the window of a psychiatric hospital. The focus, understandably, rests on Gil and, especially, Veloso; “A sort of civilizing hero,” says Zé admiringly of the latter. Machado documents the pair’s 1969 arrest, imprisonment and subsequent exile in London, and uncovers home movies that show them immersed in an expat hippy scene, participating in an anarchic happening at the Isle Of Wight Festival. He’s not afraid of slowing the movie down and letting a whole song tell its own story, either, so the doleful, hirsute Veloso is caught in extreme close-up, playing “Asa Branca” on a French TV show, his words emotionally devolving into buzzes, tongue-clicks and rhythmic lip-smacks. Finally, Machado runs an extended clip of the pair returning to their home state of Bahia in 1972. It begins with crowded beaches and the ecstasies of Carnival, before Gil and his band kick into a wild version of “Back In Bahia”. For much of the film, the director has kept his protagonists hidden, only using his new interviews as voiceovers. Now, though, he reveals Veloso and Gil (Brazil's Minister Of Culture between 2003 and 2008) watching the old footage of themselves, quietly and movingly singing along, reflecting on a brief but seismic period in their lives, and in the history of Brazilian music. In 1968, Hélio Oiticica had printed the image of a protester knocked to the ground that became a flag of the Tropicalia movement, emblazoned with the slogan, “Seja marginal, seja heroi” (“Be an outcast, be a hero”). Soon enough, Gil and Veloso would become part of the country’s musical establishment, but on their own, unusually fearless terms. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

When unpleasant right-wing governments seize control by one means or another, a lot of wishful thinking often goes on among radical artists. Hard times, they speculate, will encourage a new counterculture; angry political art will flourish in the face of oppression. We heard a lot of this rhetoric from dissenters trying to put a positive gloss on the election of David Cameron in 2010. But as yet, a provocative cultural revolt against the Tories, if there is one, remains too underground to register on most radar.

In late ‘60s Brazil, however, there was ample evidence of how inspiring – and messy – the political reactions of artists could be. A military coup in 1964 had overthrown a leftist government, and protest could be found everywhere: on the streets, in art galleries, even at television song contests. While many of the country’s young singers and songwriters vehemently opposed the regime, they were not – as so frequently happens on the left – above squabbling among themselves.

At the TV Globo festival in 1968, a young artist called Caetano Veloso provoked what, from the sound recordings and photographs in “Tropicalia”, looks rather like a riot among the audience of left-leaning students. A year earlier, Veloso had colluded with a motley gang of other Brazilian artists to come up with a new movement that they named Tropicalia, after an installation piece by Hélio Oiticica. Their guiding principle was anthropophagy, or cannibalism: anything and everything – Brazilian folk music, American and British rock, the avant-garde, movies, philosophy, surrealism – would be enthusiastically devoured and regurgitated in a new form.

For a couple of heady years, the Tropicalistas – chiefly Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes, Gal Costa, Nara Leao and Tom Zé – made a series of eclectic and mostly terrific albums showcasing a fierce local interpretation of ‘60s rock. But as Marcelo Machado’s new documentary illustrates, they had to contend with the opprobrium of both the military regime and most of the left-wing establishment.

That leftist opposition was suspicious of even the most subversive American music, prizing the sanctity of Brazilian indigenous forms. When Veloso, backed by Os Mutantes, performed what was ostensibly a feedback jam at the TV Globo song contest, the hardline audience were appalled by what they perceived as a manifestation of American cultural imperialism. In “Tropicalia” you can see Mutantes turn their backs on the crowd, and hear Veloso ranting above the boos, “If you are the same in politics as you are in aesthetics, then we are done for.” Gil joined them onstage and was wounded by one of the missiles targeted at them. “We left the theatre a little frightened,” recalled Veloso in his autobiography. “On the sidewalk out front people were screaming.” “Anti-Americanism always seemed a bit shallow to me,” he notes in “Tropicalia”.

It’s a compelling story, and one of many that Machado chooses to tell impressionistically in his movie. “Tropicalia” begins with Gil and Veloso performing “Alfomega” together in 1969 and proclaiming, with typical contrariness, that “Tropicalia as a movement doesn’t exist anymore.” From there, Machado unleashes a kaleidoscopic bombardment of music and images, while the major players provide rueful, cerebral and (especially in the cases of Zé and the gruff, piratical theorist, Rogério Duarte) idiosyncratic commentaries. “The Tropicalia aesthetic was the only one that could take my contradictions,” claims Duarte. “Between the rogue and the man of culture… Between the European and the African.”

Certain knowledge is assumed, or at least deemed unnecessary: “anthropophagy” is much discussed, but never quite explained. The richness of the subject matter inevitably means there is little room for some extraordinary tales, like that of Torquado Neto, the vampiric lyricist and “Bad Angel” who introduced marijuana to the scene before committing suicide in 1972. The psychedelic Os Mutantes could fill a film by themselves, and Machado secures interviews not only with Sergio Dias, the reformed band’s sole original member, but also with singer Rita Lee (distractedly cleaning her glasses throughout) and, frustratingly briefly, with Dias’ brother, Arnaldo Baptista, whose life and career were derailed by a taste for LSD and a leap from the window of a psychiatric hospital.

The focus, understandably, rests on Gil and, especially, Veloso; “A sort of civilizing hero,” says Zé admiringly of the latter. Machado documents the pair’s 1969 arrest, imprisonment and subsequent exile in London, and uncovers home movies that show them immersed in an expat hippy scene, participating in an anarchic happening at the Isle Of Wight Festival. He’s not afraid of slowing the movie down and letting a whole song tell its own story, either, so the doleful, hirsute Veloso is caught in extreme close-up, playing “Asa Branca” on a French TV show, his words emotionally devolving into buzzes, tongue-clicks and rhythmic lip-smacks.

Finally, Machado runs an extended clip of the pair returning to their home state of Bahia in 1972. It begins with crowded beaches and the ecstasies of Carnival, before Gil and his band kick into a wild version of “Back In Bahia”. For much of the film, the director has kept his protagonists hidden, only using his new interviews as voiceovers. Now, though, he reveals Veloso and Gil (Brazil’s Minister Of Culture between 2003 and 2008) watching the old footage of themselves, quietly and movingly singing along, reflecting on a brief but seismic period in their lives, and in the history of Brazilian music. In 1968, Hélio Oiticica had printed the image of a protester knocked to the ground that became a flag of the Tropicalia movement, emblazoned with the slogan, “Seja marginal, seja heroi” (“Be an outcast, be a hero”). Soon enough, Gil and Veloso would become part of the country’s musical establishment, but on their own, unusually fearless terms.

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

Mark Mulcahy – Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You

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Mark Mulcahy – Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You

Influential former Miracle Legion mainstay breaks a long silence... Conventional wisdom consoles that a compensation for adversity is that it teaches you who your friends are. In September 2008, Mark Mulcahy’s wife, Melissa, died suddenly aged 41, leaving Mulcahy the sole parent of three-year-old twins. Without his prompting, or knowledge, a benefit album of versions of his songs, 2009’s (i)Ciao My Shining Star(i) was recorded by luminaries including Thom Yorke, Michael Stipe, Vic Chesnutt, The National and Dinosaur Jr, among other peers and fans who wanted to ensure that Mulcahy was able to continue making records. Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You is Mulcahy’s first release since then – his first studio album, indeed, since 2005’s weirdo pop epic “In Pursuit Of Your Happiness”. It largely finds Mulcahy reconnecting with the foundations that have underpinned his music ever since Miracle Legion were one of many groups of mid-80s college janglers burdened by the allegation that they were the next R.E.M. Mulcahy’s songs, now as then, are defined by a refusal to go quite where one might expect, lyrically or musically: on Dear Mark J. Mulcahy... he negotiates their manifold quirks and veers armed with little beyond an acoustic guitar and his husky, worried voice. This is an album of complex songs, simply arranged. There are traces both of the artists that might have inspired Mulcahy when he started out (R.E.M., Warren Zevon, The Go-Betweens, Modern Lovers) and the artists who have been inspired by him since (The Shins, The National, Frank Turner, The Decemberists). The two opening tracks, “I Taketh Away” and “Everybody Hustles Leo”, share with The Go-Betweens circa “Spring Hill Fair” the charming, disorienting conceit of setting what are essentially acoustic pop tunes to a stomping glam rhythm section. The latter, the title of which appears to be borrowed from the screenplay of Robert Aldrich’s 1975 film “Hustle”, is especially terrific, a giddy lollop accompanied by handclaps and decorated by a breezy chorus and some characteristically oblique wordplay (“The first time is the worst time/The next time is the time before the third time/And so on, and so on”). The tracks on Dear Mark J. Mulcahy... were recorded quickly, Mulcahy and his musicians setting themselves the challenge of getting each one wrapped in a day. This sort of pre-planned spontaneity can go badly when things end up sounding forced, but everything here radiates the refreshed sense of possibility that comes of doing something again after a lengthy interregnum of not doing it. The pretty, pastoral psychedelia of “She Makes The World Turn Backwards” is like sunlight falling through clouds. “He’s A Magnet” is a Velvets-ish choogle incongruously embellished with a flute. “Poison Candy Heart” is so joyously upbeat, its wry lyrical vitriol notwithstanding, as to include whistling. The album has the unmistakeable lightness of a record which was easy and fun for everybody involved. Artists intent summoning portentous truth, or giving the appearance of so doing, tend not to include Jonathan Richman-esque whimsy like “Let The Fireflies Fly Away”, which begins with Mulcahy attempting alert a passing waiter to a frog in his starter, and ends with a coda in the sort of falsetto induced by laughing gas, accompanied by a banjo which sounds like it’s learning the song as it goes. In the context, this observation is intended to be nothing but complimentary. There are some more reflective moments providing ballast, and/or a reminder that Mulcahy the melancholic strummer of yore has not completely slipped his moorings. The bleakly beautiful “Bailing Out On Everything Again” suggests a wilfully lo-fi Radiohead, and “Badly Madly” has something of the earnest melodramatics of Kevin Rowland’s ruminative monologues. Mostly, however, “Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You” sounds supremely happy to be here: it’s an infectious feeling. Andrew Mueller

Influential former Miracle Legion mainstay breaks a long silence…

Conventional wisdom consoles that a compensation for adversity is that it teaches you who your friends are. In September 2008, Mark Mulcahy’s wife, Melissa, died suddenly aged 41, leaving Mulcahy the sole parent of three-year-old twins. Without his prompting, or knowledge, a benefit album of versions of his songs, 2009’s (i)Ciao My Shining Star(i) was recorded by luminaries including Thom Yorke, Michael Stipe, Vic Chesnutt, The National and Dinosaur Jr, among other peers and fans who wanted to ensure that Mulcahy was able to continue making records.

Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You is Mulcahy’s first release since then – his first studio album, indeed, since 2005’s weirdo pop epic “In Pursuit Of Your Happiness”. It largely finds Mulcahy reconnecting with the foundations that have underpinned his music ever since Miracle Legion were one of many groups of mid-80s college janglers burdened by the allegation that they were the next R.E.M. Mulcahy’s songs, now as then, are defined by a refusal to go quite where one might expect, lyrically or musically: on Dear Mark J. Mulcahy… he negotiates their manifold quirks and veers armed with little beyond an acoustic guitar and his husky, worried voice. This is an album of complex songs, simply arranged.

There are traces both of the artists that might have inspired Mulcahy when he started out (R.E.M., Warren Zevon, The Go-Betweens, Modern Lovers) and the artists who have been inspired by him since (The Shins, The National, Frank Turner, The Decemberists). The two opening tracks, “I Taketh Away” and “Everybody Hustles Leo”, share with The Go-Betweens circa “Spring Hill Fair” the charming, disorienting conceit of setting what are essentially acoustic pop tunes to a stomping glam rhythm section. The latter, the title of which appears to be borrowed from the screenplay of Robert Aldrich’s 1975 film “Hustle”, is especially terrific, a giddy lollop accompanied by handclaps and decorated by a breezy chorus and some characteristically oblique wordplay (“The first time is the worst time/The next time is the time before the third time/And so on, and so on”).

The tracks on Dear Mark J. Mulcahy… were recorded quickly, Mulcahy and his musicians setting themselves the challenge of getting each one wrapped in a day. This sort of pre-planned spontaneity can go badly when things end up sounding forced, but everything here radiates the refreshed sense of possibility that comes of doing something again after a lengthy interregnum of not doing it. The pretty, pastoral psychedelia of “She Makes The World Turn Backwards” is like sunlight falling through clouds. “He’s A Magnet” is a Velvets-ish choogle incongruously embellished with a flute. “Poison Candy Heart” is so joyously upbeat, its wry lyrical vitriol notwithstanding, as to include whistling.

The album has the unmistakeable lightness of a record which was easy and fun for everybody involved. Artists intent summoning portentous truth, or giving the appearance of so doing, tend not to include Jonathan Richman-esque whimsy like “Let The Fireflies Fly Away”, which begins with Mulcahy attempting alert a passing waiter to a frog in his starter, and ends with a coda in the sort of falsetto induced by laughing gas, accompanied by a banjo which sounds like it’s learning the song as it goes. In the context, this observation is intended to be nothing but complimentary.

There are some more reflective moments providing ballast, and/or a reminder that Mulcahy the melancholic strummer of yore has not completely slipped his moorings. The bleakly beautiful “Bailing Out On Everything Again” suggests a wilfully lo-fi Radiohead, and “Badly Madly” has something of the earnest melodramatics of Kevin Rowland’s ruminative monologues. Mostly, however, “Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You” sounds supremely happy to be here: it’s an infectious feeling.

Andrew Mueller

Arcade Fire to release new album on October 29

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Arcade Fire to release new album on October 29
Arcade Fire will release their fourth studio album on October 29. The band announced the release date on Twitter earlier today (July 12) in a pretty unusual fashion - in reply to a fan who had tweeted "you're my favourite" at them. The band Tweeted in response: "Thanks. Our new album will be out O...

Arcade Fire will release their fourth studio album on October 29.

The band announced the release date on Twitter earlier today (July 12) in a pretty unusual fashion – in reply to a fan who had tweeted “you’re my favourite” at them.

The band Tweeted in response: “Thanks. Our new album will be out October 29th”.

It had previously been reported that the album, the band’s follow-up to 2010’s The Suburbs, would be released on September 9.

Last month (June), James Murphy, who is helping to produce the as-yet-untitled album, gave an update on its progress. “The album is going great. I’m too in the middle of it to know which way it will go in the end. But it’s going to be a fantastic record,” he told the Daily Star.

Murphy also clarified his contribution to the album, saying: “They are so good they could produce themselves, so my role in the band depends on the song. Sometimes I’m going around making suggestions and playing instruments, other times I’m just helping the arrangements. We feel like part of each other’s bands because we toured a lot together over the years.”

In an interview with MusicWeek late last year, the band’s manager Scott Rodger confirmed that Arcade Fire were going into the studio with Murphy to work on their fourth album. He said at the time: “They’re in with James Murphy on three or so songs, plus Markus Dravs who is a long-time collaborator. They write too many songs – that’s a good problem to have. There’s around 35 songs with Arcade Fire, two albums’-worth for sure.”

Arctic Monkeys reveal artwork for new album AM

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Arctic Monkeys reveal artwork for new album AM
Arctic Monkeys have revealed the artwork to their new album AM. The artwork, which you can see above, was posted on Twitter by the band this morning (July 14) along with a message which reads: "Here's the artwork for 'AM', released on 9th Sept 2013." The minimal design is in keeping with the animat...

Arctic Monkeys have revealed the artwork to their new album AM.

The artwork, which you can see above, was posted on Twitter by the band this morning (July 14) along with a message which reads: “Here’s the artwork for ‘AM’, released on 9th Sept 2013.” The minimal design is in keeping with the animated video and artwork for the album’s lead single ‘Do I Wanna Know?’.

Last month Arctic Monkeys confirmed details of their fifth studio album AM, which includes the songs ‘R U Mine?’ and ‘Do I Wanna Know?’. Guests on the album include Josh Homme and former member of The Coral, Bill Ryder-Jones.

Last month (June 28), Arctic Monkeys headlined Glastonbury festival. The headline slot was the second time the band have topped the bill at Worthy Farm having first played in 2007 with the band playing new songs as well as fan favourites in a triumphant set.

Arctic Monkeys will play nine dates on the 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. The second London date will take place on October 26.

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)

The Rolling Stones 50 & Counting tour – the Uncut review

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The Rolling Stones 50 & Counting tour – the Uncut review
The Rolling Stones brought to a close their 50 & Counting tour on Saturday (June 13), with a second show at London's Hyde Park. The band had kicked off their 50 & Counting tour on October 25 last year with a club show in the 600 capacity La Trabendo in Paris and another at the 1,800 capacit...

The Rolling Stones brought to a close their 50 & Counting tour on Saturday (June 13), with a second show at London’s Hyde Park.

The band had kicked off their 50 & Counting tour on October 25 last year with a club show in the 600 capacity La Trabendo in Paris and another at the 1,800 capacity venue le Théâtre Mogador on October 29.

They played two shows at London’s 02 Arena on November 25 and 29, followed by three shows in New York in December.

In between the London and New York dates, the band released a feature-length documentary, Crossfire Hurricane, on October 18 and a new greatest hits comp, GRRR! on November 13.

On April 28, they began a 19-date North American tour with a surprise show at Los Angeles’ Echoplex.

During the American leg of the 50 & Counting tour, the band were joined on stage by guest artists including Tom Waits, Arcade Fire’s Win Butler and Dave Grohl.

The Stones played Glastonbury on June 29 as well as two Hyde Park shows on July 6 and 13.

On July 22, the band released their Hyde Park Live album, recorded at the July 6 and 13 shows, on iTunes.

You can read our review of the 02 Arena, November 29 show here.

You can read our review of the GRRR! compilation here.

You can read our review of Crossfire Hurricane here.

You can read our review of the Glastobury show here.

You can read our review of the Hyde Park, July 6 show here.

You can read our review of the Hyde Park, July 13 show here.

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