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September 2013

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September 2013
ARE WE ROLLING? I was sorry to read in last month's Uncut that old-school country star Slim Whitman had died, news that had otherwise passed me by. Slim was a great favourite in our house when I was growing up, my father much enamoured of "Rose Marie", which Slim had taken to No 1 on the pop charts,...

ARE WE ROLLING?
I was sorry to read in last month’s Uncut that old-school country star Slim Whitman had died, news that had otherwise passed me by. Slim was a great favourite in our house when I was growing up, my father much enamoured of “Rose Marie”, which Slim had taken to No 1 on the pop charts, where it stayed for 11 weeks in 1955.

Years later, my dad was still playing it, and moved on occasions, usually inspired by drink, to actually serenade the household with his game if not entirely tuneful rendition of it.

I recalled brushing shoulders once with Slim, backstage at a show in Aberdeen. This was March, 1975. Slim had just come through the stage door, a big, raffish man. It was a foul night, rain sweeping the streets. Slim, I was impressed to notice, was dressed for the weather. He was sporting a Stetson that had been fitted into a clear plastic mould, shaped to accommodate every contour of his hat to protect it from the rain. It made him look like he was wearing an upturned chamber pot on his head, but seemed effective enough, even if when he doffed it to one of the ladies on the door he fair drenched the pour soul with the rainwater that had accumulated in its brim.

I was actually in Aberdeen that night to meet Wayne Nutt, otherwise known as ‘The Singing Oil Man’. Until being discovered by CBS, Wayne had been working the off-shore rigs up here. Now he has an album out called Oil Field Man, which causes much hilarity when it’s played in the offices of what used to be Melody Maker. He seems like a colourful sort, though, so I am soon on my way to Scotland where he’s touring with Slim. Unfortunately, by the time I get there MM’s unflattering review of his album has just appeared. Wayne thinks I’ve written it and tries to hang me by my scarf from a lamppost. He’s reluctantly talked out of stringing me up, but is clearly unhappy.

“Y’all were damn near dead and gone to hell,” he says, with much snarling menace, walking off.
When I get to know him a bit better, Wayne turns out to be thoroughly obnoxious, an unpleasantly surly Texan, a genuine redneck, his conversation full of bar-room brawls, assaults and what he calls knock-down drag-outs just for the pure hellish fun of it.
“A good fight,” he says, “is as good as a good drink. There’s nothing like fighting just for
the manly fun of it. You should try it some time. The worst beating I ever got was in Houston at The Polka Dot Lounge. Three old boys got to mouthin’ off and I thought, ‘Hell, there’s only three of them.’ I jumped and they proceeded to kick the livin’ hell out of me. I was in hospital for four days, but what the hell?”

And then he’s telling me how much he hates New York.
“The people there are damn Yankee idiots. I had six fights my first day there and I won them all, by God. The people were rude and intolerant. Don’t have time for no one. Don’t talk polite. Hell, where I come from, you talk to a man like that, he’s gonna knock your damn head off.

I stayed in New York a day and a half, fought my way from one end of Manhattan to the other.”
A couple of nights after the Aberdeen show, we are at his home outside Dunblane. There’s a dog named Rebel at his feet who looks as mean as Wayne.

“Rebel might look docile now,” Wayne tells us, “but when he gets angry, even I wouldn’t tangle with this old dog. If he’s after you, he’s gon’ get you. Your soul may belong to God, but your ass belongs to Reb.”

Wayne chuckles heartily at this and knocks back another large one.
“Anyone want to hear a nigra joke?” he asks then, the room emptying quickly, even Rebel giving him an appalled look.

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These New Puritans – Field Of Reeds

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These New Puritans – Field Of Reeds

Tough to make, astonishingly realised: Southenders' melodic third raises their game again... When news of These New Puritans’ third album began to circulate at the end of April, the announcement felt more like a warning. Be prepared, sit up straight, and wipe that smile off your face, it insinuated, Field Of Reeds is not to be taken lightly. A short video showed the band driving at night and hard at work in various studios, rehearsing brass ensembles and playing expensive percussion. We glimpsed them in their element – vexed, curious, disciplined – and were reminded that These New Puritans are unlike any other British band in recent memory. Pitched awkwardly on the hinterland between rock, pop and classical, they closely resemble an indie outfit – six years ago they were teenage contemporaries of fellow Southend-on-Sea tearaways The Horrors – and their music is framed and presented in a pop context. This made sense for their 2008 debut Beat Pyramid, an itchy, urgent post-punk racket bristling with precocious ideas – YouTube the brilliant “Elvis” – but now seems inadequate to cater for Field Of Reeds, with its great sweeps of brass and woodwind, its lush, crepuscular mood and hazy, murmured vocals. No choruses here, let alone obvious singles, and yet its mellow nature and real-ale warmth contrive to make this their friendliest – or least threatening – collection. Even so, this must be a nightmarish proposition for any record label, you’d imagine, with sales what they are, but their devoted fanbase is large and in a surprise move following a protracted legal wrangle, TNPs have switched from Domino and Angular, the label that nurtured them, to Infectious Music, becoming labelmates with last year’s Mercury Prize winners Alt-J. Field Of Reeds seems a safe bet for this year’s shortlist. Unmarketable it might be, but there’s no cooler album to be associated with. Led by the 26-year-old Barnett twins, Jack and George, These New Puritans were last spotted in public two years ago patrolling the stages of London’s Barbican and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. There they performed their ambitious 2010 album Hidden in full – a treatment usually reserved for classic albums by newly reformed groups at Don’t Look Back events – accompanied by the Britten Sinfonia, a children’s choir, ten-foot taiko drums and a Foley rig with melons which, when hit with a hammer, suggested a human skull being smashed in, like a scene from Berberian Sound Studio. It didn’t matter that they’d never attempted anything on that scale before. TNPs are not ones to shrink from a challenge. Original and bold, particularly when you consider its authors were 22 years old, Hidden took the band and the listener out of their comfort zone. With that record, Jack Barnett, TNPs’ de facto leader, singer and main creative force, wanted to unite the ephemeral qualities of pop with the broader themes of classical music. He went about this by fusing the icy precision of hip-hop rhythms and the digital swagger of dancehall in a pastoral hymn to Benjamin Britten’s Thames Estuary heartland, a region the group share with the composer. Not long after, Barnett embarked on, and then abandoned, a musical project about the 12 islands of Essex. Easy to admire though hard to really love, Hidden impressed enough to rank high in many end-of-year charts, including NME’s No.1, but you’ll struggle to find a milkman whistling anything off it. In order to correctly score Hidden, Barnett taught himself classical notation, and would compose every note of Field Of Reeds in this way. When it came to arranging Hidden for the live shows, he recruited the renowned German conductor André de Ridder, whose involvement seems to have had an edifying effect on Barnett and an influence on the softer, harmonious sound of Field Of Reeds. To capture that particular Puritanical mood that swerves between anxiety and euphoria, Barnett again turned to Bark Psychosis and Boymerang veteran Graham Sutton, who reprised his Hidden role as co-producer and almost gave himself a heart attack during one of the band’s famously intense recording sessions in the Cotswolds. Barnett’s perfectionism demands that his players perform for as long as it takes to get the piece right. For example, a drum track on “Fragment Two” played by his brother George, whose part-time modelling for Paris fashion houses funds the band’s videos, was take No.76, and they spent a whole day smashing panes of glass to achieve the desired effect for “The Light In Your Name” – yet it’s barely audible in the mix. Barnett has no interest in using soft-synths or preset sounds. He’d much rather create the sounds from scratch, even if that means hiring a hawk to flap around the studio for hours. Another plausible explanation for the record’s sense of dreamy intimacy, aside from the title’s reference to the ancient Egyptian notion of heaven, stems from Barnett’s fascination with the great American songbook. A field recording of a vaguely recollected rendition of Herb Alpert’s “This Guy’s In Love With You” is submerged beneath piano at the beginning of opening track “The Way I Do”. When his vocals overlap with those of Portuguese singer Elisa Rodrigues during the discordant climax of “The Light In Your Name”, each singing lyrics from their perspective, Barnett admits to borrowing this device from Stephen Sondheim’s “Send In The Clowns”. There’s no reason not to believe him, but it is difficult to decipher what they’re actually saying. Elsewhere, wrapped around a suspiciously jaunty piano figure, “Fragment Two” is the album’s most orthodox song, with Barnett half-singing, half-mumbling lines such as “In crushed glass by the train line, there is something there” like a drunk trial witness. On “Organ Eternal”, a lovely descending organ melody cascades into swirling strings and rasping brass. The tone-drone of “Dream”, which features Rodrigues, is one of those tracks you’d barely tolerate on a Björk record, but the closing title track, a blast of basso profondo so stickily resonant it sounds almost synthetic, sprinkled with woodwind and windchime, is quite remarkable. Never less than interesting, These New Puritans have raised their game once again. A tough one to make but astonishingly realised, Field Of Reeds is further evidence that they’re out there, on their own. Piers Martin Credit Willy Vanderperre

Tough to make, astonishingly realised: Southenders’ melodic third raises their game again…

When news of These New Puritans’ third album began to circulate at the end of April, the announcement felt more like a warning. Be prepared, sit up straight, and wipe that smile off your face, it insinuated, Field Of Reeds is not to be taken lightly. A short video showed the band driving at night and hard at work in various studios, rehearsing brass ensembles and playing expensive percussion. We glimpsed them in their element – vexed, curious, disciplined – and were reminded that These New Puritans are unlike any other British band in recent memory.

Pitched awkwardly on the hinterland between rock, pop and classical, they closely resemble an indie outfit – six years ago they were teenage contemporaries of fellow Southend-on-Sea tearaways The Horrors – and their music is framed and presented in a pop context. This made sense for their 2008 debut Beat Pyramid, an itchy, urgent post-punk racket bristling with precocious ideas – YouTube the brilliant “Elvis” – but now seems inadequate to cater for Field Of Reeds, with its great sweeps of brass and woodwind, its lush, crepuscular mood and hazy, murmured vocals. No choruses here, let alone obvious singles, and yet its mellow nature and real-ale warmth contrive to make this their friendliest – or least threatening – collection. Even so, this must be a nightmarish proposition for any record label, you’d imagine, with sales what they are, but their devoted fanbase is large and in a surprise move following a protracted legal wrangle, TNPs have switched from Domino and Angular, the label that nurtured them, to Infectious Music, becoming labelmates with last year’s Mercury Prize winners Alt-J. Field Of Reeds seems a safe bet for this year’s shortlist. Unmarketable it might be, but there’s no cooler album to be associated with.

Led by the 26-year-old Barnett twins, Jack and George, These New Puritans were last spotted in public two years ago patrolling the stages of London’s Barbican and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. There they performed their ambitious 2010 album Hidden in full – a treatment usually reserved for classic albums by newly reformed groups at Don’t Look Back events – accompanied by the Britten Sinfonia, a children’s choir, ten-foot taiko drums and a Foley rig with melons which, when hit with a hammer, suggested a human skull being smashed in, like a scene from Berberian Sound Studio. It didn’t matter that they’d never attempted anything on that scale before. TNPs are not ones to shrink from a challenge.

Original and bold, particularly when you consider its authors were 22 years old, Hidden took the band and the listener out of their comfort zone. With that record, Jack Barnett, TNPs’ de facto leader, singer and main creative force, wanted to unite the ephemeral qualities of pop with the broader themes of classical music. He went about this by fusing the icy precision of hip-hop rhythms and the digital swagger of dancehall in a pastoral hymn to Benjamin Britten’s Thames Estuary heartland, a region the group share with the composer. Not long after, Barnett embarked on, and then abandoned, a musical project about the 12 islands of Essex. Easy to admire though hard to really love, Hidden impressed enough to rank high in many end-of-year charts, including NME’s No.1, but you’ll struggle to find a milkman whistling anything off it.

In order to correctly score Hidden, Barnett taught himself classical notation, and would compose every note of Field Of Reeds in this way. When it came to arranging Hidden for the live shows, he recruited the renowned German conductor André de Ridder, whose involvement seems to have had an edifying effect on Barnett and an influence on the softer, harmonious sound of Field Of Reeds. To capture that particular Puritanical mood that swerves between anxiety and euphoria, Barnett again turned to Bark Psychosis and Boymerang veteran Graham Sutton, who reprised his Hidden role as co-producer and almost gave himself a heart attack during one of the band’s famously intense recording sessions in the Cotswolds.

Barnett’s perfectionism demands that his players perform for as long as it takes to get the piece right. For example, a drum track on “Fragment Two” played by his brother George, whose part-time modelling for Paris fashion houses funds the band’s videos, was take No.76, and they spent a whole day smashing panes of glass to achieve the desired effect for “The Light In Your Name” – yet it’s barely audible in the mix. Barnett has no interest in using soft-synths or preset sounds. He’d much rather create the sounds from scratch, even if that means hiring a hawk to flap around the studio for hours.

Another plausible explanation for the record’s sense of dreamy intimacy, aside from the title’s reference to the ancient Egyptian notion of heaven, stems from Barnett’s fascination with the great American songbook. A field recording of a vaguely recollected rendition of Herb Alpert’s “This Guy’s In Love With You” is submerged beneath piano at the beginning of opening track “The Way I Do”. When his vocals overlap with those of Portuguese singer Elisa Rodrigues during the discordant climax of “The Light In Your Name”, each singing lyrics from their perspective, Barnett admits to borrowing this device from Stephen Sondheim’s “Send In The Clowns”. There’s no reason not to believe him, but it is difficult to decipher what they’re actually saying.

Elsewhere, wrapped around a suspiciously jaunty piano figure, “Fragment Two” is the album’s most orthodox song, with Barnett half-singing, half-mumbling lines such as “In crushed glass by the train line, there is something there” like a drunk trial witness. On “Organ Eternal”, a lovely descending organ melody cascades into swirling strings and rasping brass. The tone-drone of “Dream”, which features Rodrigues, is one of those tracks you’d barely tolerate on a Björk record, but the closing title track, a blast of basso profondo so stickily resonant it sounds almost synthetic, sprinkled with woodwind and windchime, is quite remarkable. Never less than interesting, These New Puritans have raised their game once again. A tough one to make but astonishingly realised, Field Of Reeds is further evidence that they’re out there, on their own.

Piers Martin

Credit Willy Vanderperre

Manic Street Preachers share ‘Show Me The Wonder’ video

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Manic Street Preachers share ‘Show Me The Wonder’ video
Manic Street Preachers have revealed the video for new single "Show Me The Wonder" – scroll down to watch. The track, due for release on September 9, is the lead single from the band's 11th studio album, Rewind The Film, which follows a week later. Recorded in the band's own studio in Cardiff,...

Manic Street Preachers have revealed the video for new single “Show Me The Wonder” – scroll down to watch.

The track, due for release on September 9, is the lead single from the band’s 11th studio album, Rewind The Film, which follows a week later.

Recorded in the band’s own studio in Cardiff, Rockfield in Monmouthshire and Hansa in Berlin, the album features guest appearances from Lucy Rose (on ‘This Sullen Welsh Heart’) Cate Le Bon (on ‘4 Lonely Roads’) and Richard Hawley on the title track. The band have said: “[If] this record has a relation in the Manics back catalogue, it’s probably the sedate coming of age that was ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours’.”

Shortly after the album’s release, the band will tour the UK and Ireland – playing Newport, Dublin, Bristol, London, Manchester and Glasgow. Manic Street Preachers will play:

Newport Centre (September 13)

Dublin Olympia (20)

Bristol Colston Hall (22)

London Shepherds Bush Empire (24)

Manchester Ritz (27)

Glasgow Barrowland (29)



Manic Street Preachers – Show Me The Wonder on MUZU.TV.

Jonathan Wilson announces new album; Graham Nash, David Crosby, Jackson Browne guest

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Jonathan Wilson announces new album; Graham Nash, David Crosby, Jackson Browne guest
Jonathan Wilson has announced details of his new album, Fanfare. Listen to a track from Fanfare, "Dear Friend", here. The album, which will be released through Bella Union on October 14, is the follow up to 2011's Gentle Spirit. "Fanfare as a word represents a fanciful showing, a bodacious moveme...

Jonathan Wilson has announced details of his new album, Fanfare.

Listen to a track from Fanfare, “Dear Friend”, here.

The album, which will be released through Bella Union on October 14, is the follow up to 2011’s Gentle Spirit.

“Fanfare as a word represents a fanciful showing, a bodacious movement of energy, a celebration of sound,” explains Wilson. “Something to signify an arrival, a very special occasion.”

The album was recorded over a nine-month period at Wilson’s Fivestar Studios in Echo Park, Los Angeles, and then mixed at Jackson Browne’s Groove Masters studio in Santa Monica.

Guests appearing on the album include Graham Nash, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Josh Tillman, Wilco’s Patrick Sansone, Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith and Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell from Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. Additionally, Wilson co-wrote several songs on the record with Roy Harper: Wilson and his band will also feature on Harper’s album, Man And Myth.

“There are an awful lot of wizards on this album; wizards of all ages and life experiences, all these amazing voices and musicians. There is a high degree of musical prowness and pedigree here. Cross-generational musical sharing and passing down traditions is very important to me, and is something that must continue. This is the way you keep the fanfare’s blowing, this is how you keep the energies interacting.”

Debbie Harry is considering calling time on Blondie, says Clem Burke

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Debbie Harry is considering calling time on Blondie, says Clem Burke
Blondie drummer Clem Burke has revealed that singer Debbie Harry is considering bringing the band to an end after 40 years. "Debbie is 11 years older than the rest of us, so it's on her mind," 57-year-old Burke told the Daily Mail. "We've tried to keep it going for as long as possible, but it's not...

Blondie drummer Clem Burke has revealed that singer Debbie Harry is considering bringing the band to an end after 40 years.

“Debbie is 11 years older than the rest of us, so it’s on her mind,” 57-year-old Burke told the Daily Mail. “We’ve tried to keep it going for as long as possible, but it’s not just up to me. Nothing is finalised yet, but obviously there’s no Blondie without Debbie Harry.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Harry told the newspaper: “They are in a hiatus at the moment. They will do some tour dates next year. Nothing is confirmed yet.”

Blondie completed an extensive UK tour earlier this month (July), including a set at Isle Of Wight Festival, and have a run of North American dates scheduled during September and October. The band are due to release a new album called Ghosts Of Download later this year and the lead single, “A Rose By Any Name”, which features Gossip singer Beth Ditto, was released on iTunes last month.

Uncut take an exclusive look at Bob Dylan’s new Bootleg Series, Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait

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Uncut take an exclusive look at Bob Dylan’s new Bootleg Series, Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait

Uncut editor Allan Jones takes an exclusive look at Bob Dylan’s latest Bootleg Series instalment, Volume 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969 – 1971), in the new issue (dated September 2013 and out on Wednesday, July 31). The new archival release looks at Dylan’s sessions for Self Portrait and New Morning, and spans the period from 1969-71. As well as shedding light on the release, we hear from a host of musicians who featured on the original sessions, including Charlie McCoy, David Bromberg and Al Kooper. We talk to music journalist Greil Marcus, and Steve Berkowitz, producer of the archival series, reveals how he painstakingly recovered the lost gems included on The Bootleg Series, Volume 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969 – 1971). The new issue of Uncut, dated September 2013, is out on Wednesday, July 31. Photo: Al Clayton

Uncut editor Allan Jones takes an exclusive look at Bob Dylan’s latest Bootleg Series instalment, Volume 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969 – 1971), in the new issue (dated September 2013 and out on Wednesday, July 31).

The new archival release looks at Dylan’s sessions for Self Portrait and New Morning, and spans the period from 1969-71.

As well as shedding light on the release, we hear from a host of musicians who featured on the original sessions, including Charlie McCoy, David Bromberg and Al Kooper.

We talk to music journalist Greil Marcus, and Steve Berkowitz, producer of the archival series, reveals how he painstakingly recovered the lost gems included on The Bootleg Series, Volume 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969 – 1971).

The new issue of Uncut, dated September 2013, is out on Wednesday, July 31.

Photo: Al Clayton

Mick Farren 1943 – 2013

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Mick Farren 1943 – 2013
Mick Farren, author, counterculture radical and singer, has died aged 69. According to reports, he collapsed on stage at London's Borderline last night [July 27] while playing with his band, the Deviants. Farren, who was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was a man of many disciplines. A key wri...

Mick Farren, author, counterculture radical and singer, has died aged 69.

According to reports, he collapsed on stage at London’s Borderline last night [July 27] while playing with his band, the Deviants.

Farren, who was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was a man of many disciplines. A key writer (and, briefly, editor) of the International Times, he also wrote for the NME, for whom he authored the famous The Titanic Sails At Dawn polemic, first published June 19, 1976, which prefigured punk: “The iceberg in this case seems to be one of a particularly threatening nature,” he wrote. “In fact it is an iceberg that is drifting uncomfortably close to the dazzlingly lit, wonderfully appointed Titanic that is big-time, rock-pop, tax exile, jet-set show business.”

He also authored a memoir, Give The Anarchist A Cigarette – a vivid snapshot of the British counter-culture during the 1960s – as well as 23 novels, 11 non-fiction books and four books on Elvis Presley. A career-spanning anthology of his writing, Elvis Died For Somebody’s Sins But Not Mine, was published earlier this year by Headpress.

As a musician, Farren was best known as singer with his band, the Deviants, which formed in 1967 in Ladbroke Grove. They released three classic LPs between 1967 and 1969: Ptoof!, Disposable, and 3. In 1970, Farren released his first solo album Mona: The Carnivorous Circus. But his place within the counterculture went deeper. He was doorman at the UFO club in 1967, the Deviants played at the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream and also opened for Led Zeppelin early on in their career. He wrote lyrics for Hawkwind and Motörhead, and in 1970 he brought both the MC5 and William Burroughs to Worthing, Sussex, to appear at his Phun City Festival. The same year, he was instrumental in “freeing” the Isle of Wight festival after helping bring down the fences.

Politically active throughout his life, Farren had taken part in the anti Vietnam war march on the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, March 1968 and also founded the London chapter of the White Panthers.

Most recently, he co-authored a hardback book, Classic Rock Posters: 60 Years Of posters, Flyers And Handbills: 1952–2012, published by Omnibus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmNavln3NAU

Photo: Estate Of Keith Morris/Redferns

JJ Cale 1938-2013

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JJ Cale 1938-2013

Sad news this afternoon, with the announcement that the great JJ Cale has died. According to a statement on www.jjcale.com, the singer-songwriter suffered a heart attack and died at 8pm last night (Pacific time) in Scripps Hospital, La Jolla, California. He was 74. "Donations are not needed," the statement continued, "but he was a great lover of animals so, if you like, donations can be made to your favorite local animal shelter." Born John Weldon Cale in Oklahoma City, and raised in Tulsa, Cale's career was inexorably connected with that of Eric Clapton: it was Clapton who recorded one of Cale's early songs, "After Midnight", raising his profile and allowing him to embark on a solo career that encompassed 14 solo albums (the last, "Roll On", was released in 2009). Cale continued to work with Clapton up to this year's "Old Sock" album, the latter also covering perhaps his most famous song, "Cocaine". Other notable versions of his songs included Spiritualized's take on "Call Me The Breeze". Cale's trademark Tulsa sound was a kind of mellow boogie, a laidback interpretation of the blues that was further enhanced - especially on his 1972 debut, "Naturally" - by an irreverent approach to roots music, where his gently noodling guitar lines would be underpinned by a prototype drum machine. In the press biography for "Roll On", Cale was asked whether it bothered him, "that contemporaries and critics list him amongst legends, and fans might love his songs yet not even know his name?" "No, it doesn't bother me," he replied, laughing. "What's really nice is when you get a cheque in the mail." JJ Cale opened an aptly-named Twitter account, @SlowerBaby, in 2009. He posted, however, one solitary tweet: "I make rock n roll records."

Sad news this afternoon, with the announcement that the great JJ Cale has died.

According to a statement on www.jjcale.com, the singer-songwriter suffered a heart attack and died at 8pm last night (Pacific time) in Scripps Hospital, La Jolla, California. He was 74. “Donations are not needed,” the statement continued, “but he was a great lover of animals so, if you like, donations can be made to your favorite local animal shelter.”

Born John Weldon Cale in Oklahoma City, and raised in Tulsa, Cale’s career was inexorably connected with that of Eric Clapton: it was Clapton who recorded one of Cale’s early songs, “After Midnight”, raising his profile and allowing him to embark on a solo career that encompassed 14 solo albums (the last, “Roll On”, was released in 2009). Cale continued to work with Clapton up to this year’s “Old Sock” album, the latter also covering perhaps his most famous song, “Cocaine”. Other notable versions of his songs included Spiritualized’s take on “Call Me The Breeze”.

Cale’s trademark Tulsa sound was a kind of mellow boogie, a laidback interpretation of the blues that was further enhanced – especially on his 1972 debut, “Naturally” – by an irreverent approach to roots music, where his gently noodling guitar lines would be underpinned by a prototype drum machine.

In the press biography for “Roll On”, Cale was asked whether it bothered him, “that contemporaries and critics list him amongst legends, and fans might love his songs yet not even know his name?”

“No, it doesn’t bother me,” he replied, laughing. “What’s really nice is when you get a cheque in the mail.”

JJ Cale opened an aptly-named Twitter account, @SlowerBaby, in 2009. He posted, however, one solitary tweet: “I make rock n roll records.”

Peter Gabriel covers album tracklisting and release date confirmed

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Peter Gabriel covers album tracklisting and release date confirmed

The long-awaited album of Peter Gabriel covers, And I'll Scratch Yours, now has a tracklisting and release date. The record, a counterpart to Gabriel's 2010 album, Scratch My Back, which featured the musician performing covers of songs by artists including Arcade Fire, David Bowie and Bon Iver, will be released on September 23, 2013. All the artists that Gabriel covered have returned the favour, apart from Radiohead and Neil Young – they have been replaced on And I'll Scratch Yours by Feist and Joseph Arthur. While ""Heroes"" was covered on Scratch My Back, David Bowie does not appear, and the song's co-writer, Brian Eno, instead contributes. The set seems to promise some interesting reimaginings – from Lou Reed's "snarling" version of "Solsbury Hill", to Brian Eno's "frighteningly futuristic" take on "Mother Of Violence". The tracklisting for And I'll Scratch Yours is: I Don't Remember – David Byrne Come Talk To Me – Bon Iver Blood Of Eden – Regina Spektor Not One Of Us – Stephin Merritt Shock The Monkey – Joseph Arthur Big Time – Randy Newman Games Without Frontiers – Arcade Fire Mercy Street – Elbow Mother Of Violence – Brian Eno Don't Give Up – Feist feat. Timber Timbre Solsbury Hill – Lou Reed Biko – Paul Simon Picture: Jon Enoch

The long-awaited album of Peter Gabriel covers, And I’ll Scratch Yours, now has a tracklisting and release date.

The record, a counterpart to Gabriel’s 2010 album, Scratch My Back, which featured the musician performing covers of songs by artists including Arcade Fire, David Bowie and Bon Iver, will be released on September 23, 2013.

All the artists that Gabriel covered have returned the favour, apart from Radiohead and Neil Young – they have been replaced on And I’ll Scratch Yours by Feist and Joseph Arthur. While “”Heroes”” was covered on Scratch My Back, David Bowie does not appear, and the song’s co-writer, Brian Eno, instead contributes.

The set seems to promise some interesting reimaginings – from Lou Reed’s “snarling” version of “Solsbury Hill”, to Brian Eno’s “frighteningly futuristic” take on “Mother Of Violence”.

The tracklisting for And I’ll Scratch Yours is:

I Don’t Remember – David Byrne

Come Talk To Me – Bon Iver

Blood Of Eden – Regina Spektor

Not One Of Us – Stephin Merritt

Shock The Monkey – Joseph Arthur

Big Time – Randy Newman

Games Without Frontiers – Arcade Fire

Mercy Street – Elbow

Mother Of Violence – Brian Eno

Don’t Give Up – Feist feat. Timber Timbre

Solsbury Hill – Lou Reed

Biko – Paul Simon

Picture: Jon Enoch

Frances Ha

Michael Bonner
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Frances Ha

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig chronicle the life of an East coast intellectual struggling to stay afloat... The son of a writer and a Village Voice critic, Noah Baumbach’s earlier films were erudite and chatty and usually centred around estranged and fiercely competitive families during a period of crisis. His last film, 2010’s Greenberg, starred Ben Stiller as an introspective malcontent brooding his way round Los Angeles. None of Baumbach’s previous films have been funny particularly – though they have humour within them – but Frances Ha is certainly a comedy. Co-written with Greta Gerwig – who plays Frances and who the director met when he cast her in Greenberg – Frances Ha has a warmth and lightness absent from Baumbach’s earlier films, The Squid And The Whale (2005) and Margot At The Wedding (2007). A lot of that is down to Gerwig – incidentally, Baumbach’s girlfriend – who essentially plays the same giddy, goofy character she always plays, most recently in Whit Stillman’s Damsels In Distress. Both Baumbach and Stillman are avid chroniclers of East Coast intellectual life and equally partial to a joke or two about books. Frances Ha certainly feels a little Stillman, but a lot Woody Allen, too. After all, this is a black and white film set in New York featuring a ditzy female lead who happens to be the girlfriend of the filmmaker. Baumbach and Gerwig follow Frances as she drifts round apartments in New York, California and – briefly – Paris, caught in the awkward transitional point between the end of college and the realities of grown-up responsibilities. Frances wants nothing more than to spend her days with BFF Sofie (Sting’s daughter, Mickey Sumner: excellent) in their apartment, sharing little in-jokes and contriving to keep the real world at bay. The film is really a sweet piece about their friendship, set in the NYC boho milieu, and how it’s tested as Frances – like Greenberg, a perennial underachiever – spirals through ever-decreasing circles until she finds herself sleeping back at her old college (Vassar, of course), reduced to pouring wine for visiting dignitaries to pay her board. Michael Bonner Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig chronicle the life of an East coast intellectual struggling to stay afloat…

The son of a writer and a Village Voice critic, Noah Baumbach’s earlier films were erudite and chatty and usually centred around estranged and fiercely competitive families during a period of crisis. His last film, 2010’s Greenberg, starred Ben Stiller as an introspective malcontent brooding his way round Los Angeles. None of Baumbach’s previous films have been funny particularly – though they have humour within them – but Frances Ha is certainly a comedy.

Co-written with Greta Gerwig – who plays Frances and who the director met when he cast her in Greenberg – Frances Ha has a warmth and lightness absent from Baumbach’s earlier films, The Squid And The Whale (2005) and Margot At The Wedding (2007). A lot of that is down to Gerwig – incidentally, Baumbach’s girlfriend – who essentially plays the same giddy, goofy character she always plays, most recently in Whit Stillman’s Damsels In Distress. Both Baumbach and Stillman are avid chroniclers of East Coast intellectual life and equally partial to a joke or two about books. Frances Ha certainly feels a little Stillman, but a lot Woody Allen, too. After all, this is a black and white film set in New York featuring a ditzy female lead who happens to be the girlfriend of the filmmaker.

Baumbach and Gerwig follow Frances as she drifts round apartments in New York, California and – briefly – Paris, caught in the awkward transitional point between the end of college and the realities of grown-up responsibilities. Frances wants nothing more than to spend her days with BFF Sofie (Sting’s daughter, Mickey Sumner: excellent) in their apartment, sharing little in-jokes and contriving to keep the real world at bay. The film is really a sweet piece about their friendship, set in the NYC boho milieu, and how it’s tested as Frances – like Greenberg, a perennial underachiever – spirals through ever-decreasing circles until she finds herself sleeping back at her old college (Vassar, of course), reduced to pouring wine for visiting dignitaries to pay her board.

Michael Bonner

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

John Cale: “Nico hated being blonde and beautiful… she wanted to do something more substantial”

Uncut
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John Cale: “Nico hated being blonde and beautiful… she wanted to do something more substantial”
John Cale has recalled his time working with Nico in the new issue of Uncut, dated August 2013 and out now. The musician, producer and former Velvet Underground member arranged and played on much of the singer’s exceptional 1969 album, The Marble Index, and describes Nico as “defined by her n...

John Cale has recalled his time working with Nico in the new issue of Uncut, dated August 2013 and out now.

The musician, producer and former Velvet Underground member arranged and played on much of the singer’s exceptional 1969 album, The Marble Index, and describes Nico as “defined by her need to be other than beautiful”.

“I think Nico saw The Marble Index as a chance to be taken seriously, which she craved, and be known for something more than her beauty,” Cale says. “She thought that was a flimsy kind of fame. She hated it.

“That whole scene around The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol she’d got into, she was really turned off by a lot of it and had walked away from it.

“She hated fashion. She hated the idea of being blonde and beautiful, and in some ways she hated being a woman, because she figured all her beauty had brought her was grief.”

Elektra head Jac Holzman, A&R Danny Fields, fan Sharon Van Etten and more also discuss Nico and the making of The Marble Index in the piece.

The new issue of Uncut is out now.

New Bob Dylan touring guitarist revealed?

Uncut
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New Bob Dylan touring guitarist revealed?
Bob Dylan has unveiled a new touring guitarist, following the departure of Duke Robillard on June 30 in Nashville. Robillard had joined Dylan's band in April. He played only played 27 shows with Dylan before he was replaced by Charlie Sexton - the guitarist that Robillard had replaced in Dylan's ba...

Bob Dylan has unveiled a new touring guitarist, following the departure of Duke Robillard on June 30 in Nashville.

Robillard had joined Dylan’s band in April. He played only played 27 shows with Dylan before he was replaced by Charlie Sexton – the guitarist that Robillard had replaced in Dylan’s band three month’s previously.

Then on July 15 at the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto, Ontario, Dylan debuted a new guitarist, Colin Linden, a Canadian born musician and producer who’s previously worked with T-Bone Burnett, Lucinda Williams and Rick Danko.

It’s not clear whether Linden is a permanent addition Dylan’s touring band.

Dylan is currently on the AmericanaramA tour, with Wilco and My Morning Jacket. Bob Dylan was recently joined on stage by Jeff Tweedy and Jim James for a cover of “The Weight” by The Band.

Independent record shop sales up 44 per cent thanks to vinyl boost

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Independent record shop sales up 44 per cent thanks to vinyl boost
Independent record shops sales soared by 44 per cent in the first half of 2013 compared with the same period in 2012. According to an analysis of Official Charts Company data by the Entertainment Retailers Association, indies have seen a huge increase in sales, despite an overall decline in the sa...

Independent record shops sales soared by 44 per cent in the first half of 2013 compared with the same period in 2012.

According to an analysis of Official Charts Company data by the Entertainment Retailers Association, indies have seen a huge increase in sales, despite an overall decline in the sale of albums over the same period by 1.5 per cent.

The ERA, which represents music retailers in the UK, says that increased sales of vinyl albums – boosted by Record Store Day – is a key factor to the increase. As previously reported, UK vinyl sales were up 78 per cent in the first quarter of 2013. In 2012, vinyl sales across all music genres surged by 15 per cent to 389,000 copies sold, the highest level since 2004.

Although independent record shops only accounted for 3.2 per cent of the total albums sold over the first six months of 2013, 50 per cent of all vinyl album sold were in indies. Around one in seven albums sold in independent record shops are sold on vinyl, while in major retailers and online, only one in 250 albums sold is on LP.

The biggest selling album through independent stores in the first half of 2013 was David Bowie‘s The Next Day. The album is the 15th biggest selling album of the year, and overall indies accounted for 5 per cent of the album’s sales. Meanwhile, independent shops accounted for 35 per cent of sales for the new Boards Of Canada album Tomorrow’s Harvest and 31 per cent of sales for Savages’ debut Silence Yourself.

The 10 best-selling albums in independent record shops in the first half of 2013 are:

1. ‘The Next Day’, David Bowie

2. ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’, Boards of Canada

3. ‘Graffiti On The Train’, Stereophonics

4. ‘Random Access Memories’, Daft Punk

5. ‘Anna’, Courteeners

6. ‘Push The Sky Away’, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

7. ‘AMOK’, Atoms For Peace

8. ‘Like Clockwork’, Queens Of The Stone Age

9. ‘Tape Deck Heart’, Frank Turner

10. ‘Trouble Will Find Me’, The National

James Murphy confirms he has finished work on new Arcade Fire album

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James Murphy confirms he has finished work on new Arcade Fire album
James Murphy has said that Arcade Fire's new album has been "the food I eat and the air I breathe" and that he has now finished his work on the record. The band, who teamed up with Murphy to record their forthcoming studio album, will release the new record in October. Speaking to Billboard about ...

James Murphy has said that Arcade Fire’s new album has been “the food I eat and the air I breathe” and that he has now finished his work on the record.

The band, who teamed up with Murphy to record their forthcoming studio album, will release the new record in October.

Speaking to Billboard about his role in making the album with the band, Murphy said: “Producing is always really hard, and you can never tell who’s going to be easy to get along with and who’s going to be difficult. So I wasn’t sure what was going to be the case, since there’s a lot of them. I figured, they’re all super talented, do they need another dude there with his opinions? It turned out it was really nice, and everyone was amazingly respectful of one another.”

Elaborating further on the album, which was recorded between Murphy’s hometown of New York and Arcade Fire‘s native Montreal, he continued: “When you work on a record you don’t know any of the things around it. So when it comes out I’ll just be like, ‘The Arcade Fire record’s out — oh, right!’ It’s been the food I eat and the air I breathe for a long time now. That happens with my own records. I am officially done with it, we’ve just been passing things back and forth making choices on mixes.”

Earlier this month Murphy spoke to NME about the new Arcade Fire album, which he is helping produce. Quizzed on what it sounds like, Murphy said: “It sounds like Arcade Fire in the way that only Arcade Fire sound like Arcade Fire, you know? It’s really fucking epic. Seriously. I mean, I feel at this point like I’m too close to it to really talk it up and do it justice. You know?”

Arcade Fire announced the news of the record’s release last week by replying to a fan on Twitter who wrote “you’re my favourite”.

Watch Bob Dylan, Jeff Tweedy and Jim James cover The Band’s “The Weight”

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Watch Bob Dylan, Jeff Tweedy and Jim James cover The Band’s “The Weight”
Bob Dylan was joined on stage by Jeff Tweedy and Jim James last night [July 24] for a cover of "The Weight" by The Band. The performance took place on the AmericanaramA tour at Farm Bureau Live, Virginia Beach. You can watch footage of the performance below. This is not the first time The Band's ...

Bob Dylan was joined on stage by Jeff Tweedy and Jim James last night [July 24] for a cover of “The Weight” by The Band.

The performance took place on the AmericanaramA tour at Farm Bureau Live, Virginia Beach.

You can watch footage of the performance below.

This is not the first time The Band‘s presence has been felt on the AmericanaramA tour.

On July 20, at the Comcast Center, Mansfield, Massachusetts, guest opener Ryan Bingham joined My Morning Jacket for a cover of “Don’t Do It” – an arrangement of Marvin Gaye’s “Baby, Don’t You Do It” recorded by The Band.

On July 22, Band keyboardist Garth Hudson joined Wilco at Saratoga PAC in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he played on “California Stars”, The Band-adopted “Long Black Veil”, “Genetic Method” and “Chest Fever”.

Meanwhile, Dylan recently confirmed details of The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 – Another Self Portrait (1969-1971).

You can read the story of The Band in this month’s Uncut on sale now.

Bob Dylan’s set list for the Virginia Beach show was:

Things Have Changed

Love Sick

High Water (For Charley Patton)

Soon After Midnight

Early Roman Kings

Tangled Up In Blue

Duquesne Whistle

She Belongs To Me

Beyond Here Lies Nothin’

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Blind Willie McTell

Simple Twist Of Fate

Summer Days

The Weight

All Along the Watchtower

Blowin’ In The Wind

Atoms For Peace, London Roundhouse, July 24, 2013

John Mulvey
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Atoms For Peace, London Roundhouse, July 24, 2013

At 7pm on the first night of Atoms For Peace’s London residency, the Amok Drawing Room has already sold out of commemorative mugs. The Enterprise pub across the road from the Roundhouse has been rebranded in expressionist monochrome, and an upstairs room has been upholstered in Stanley Donwood wallpaper, the better to sell exquisite £500 prints, t-shirts screenprinted while-you-wait, and a pointedly apocalyptic jigsaw puzzle. There are 12”s too, great racks of DJ-friendly vinyl that assert, boldly, how Atoms For Peace are embedded in the culture of dance and electronic music. Radiohead shows might still attract a rump of gig-goers who will be frustrated by the band’s focus on their 21st century music. These people do not, one suspects, come too close to Thom Yorke’s extra-curricular activities. Atoms For Peace represent the triumph of his latterday aesthetic, where his music can be finally untethered from those expectations and from the weight of Radiohead’s early legacy. For those of us who only started really warming to Radiohead’s music around the time of “Kid A”, and who believe the band, together and apart, have gone from strength to strength with more or less every subsequent record, this is all good news. A sceptic might perceive Atoms For Peace as either a solo vanity project, or else a supergroup, chiefly thanks to Yorke’s recruitment of Flea, a gifted bassist whose creative brilliance so often comes with the caveat “…even if he is in the Red Hot Chili Peppers.” (Only Flea’s decision to highkick in a sarong hints at that band’s more dubious charms.) As “Before Your Very Eyes” kicks into perpetual motion, though, the five members reveal themselves to be, essentially, a kind of ornate pararhythmical unit, with Joey Waronker and Mauro Refosco plotting endless percussion circles around one another, and Flea finding elaborate basslines that carry a lot of melodic as well as rhythmic thrust. There’s a weird parallel with Phil Lesh at times, albeit immeasurably funkier, in the way Flea takes charge of the spaces where, in more orthodox rock bands, lead guitar and keyboard lines might sit more prominently. In Atoms For Peace, Yorke’s voice (all those epically wrought sighs and extended vowels) and guitar, and Nigel Godrich’s contributions on keyboards and guitar, mostly provide slow, ebbing melodies that slide over each other, ceding the foreground to a barrage of rhythmic intricacies. If “Amok”’s antecedents often suggested themselves to be the likes of Caribou and Four Tet, many of these songs tonight – “Default”, say, or “Amok” itself – have a dynamic that more closely resembles an older Yorke touchstone, Autechre. It’s a structural comparison rather than a precise one, of course. If Autechre derived their beat science from hip hop and the electronic avant-garde, the roots of Atoms For Peace’s jitter and throb seem to be as much a sort of extrapolated worldbeat, of global learning being channelled and accelerated into a relentless techno cascade. So “Before Your Very Eyes” and “Stuck Together Pieces” are a sort of hyperdetailed Afrobeat – though it’s unclear whether a washboard, which is what Refosco seems to be playing on the latter – ever got much of a workout at The Shrine. Refosco’s instrumental choices often provide a clue as to at least part of the influences on specific tracks. During “Unless”, he wanders into Flea’s performance space with a drum, for what might be a kind of batucada workout. For “The Clock”, he has a stringed gourd which brisk internet research possibly identifies as a berimbau, another hint of his Brazilian roots – though the song itself has a faint North African feel to it, too. “The Clock” is one of six songs from “The Eraser” that are treated to the full band upgrade, austere digitalia given a skittering new complexity. The transition works brilliantly for the most part: “Cymbal Rush” and “Black Swan”, which close the main set and the encores respectively, are two of the show’s highlights; and only “Harrowdown Hill” misfires slightly, overdriven to the point where Yorke’s vocal line becomes frayed and strained, the whole construct a little too fragile to withstand the battering. It’s a solitary miscalculation, though. In general, Yorke’s gauzy melodies prove a lot more robust than they first appear, and if the percussive assault visited upon Satie-esque piano figures in “Cymbal Rush” and “Ingenue” on one level seem perverse – a calculated attempt to undermine Radiohead’s sombre prettiness, perhaps – it’s also immediately, pulverisingly effective. Ironically, the most becalmed part of a frantic night comes when Yorke exhumes his first (if memory serves) public negotiation with electronica; “Rabbit In Your Headlights”, a DJ Shadow collaboration from Unkle’s bloated and mostly ghastly “Psyence Fiction” album (1998). Out of its original context, “Rabbit…” turns out to be a decent song, even if it feels like Yorke is rootling around to find anything but Radiohead songs to play (One piece of Radiohead marginalia, “Paperbag Writer”, has found its way into some Atoms For Peace gigs, though it’s been literally struck off tonight’s setlist). There are also two fine songs from the 2009 solo single, “The Hollow Earth” and “Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses”, the latter recalling – probably thanks to the massive bassline of Flea, a noted post-punk/punk-funk scholar – 23 Skidoo. Before they play “Feeling…”, Yorke makes a droll aside, the gist of which is that they’re going to make a “workout video”. The prospect seems reasonable, actually, given that Yorke, with topknot, vest and taut demeanour, looks very much like a yoga instructor (a bikram specialist, maybe, given the venue temperature). Yorke’s interpretive dancing has sometimes seemed an odd, even uncomfortable mixture of the self-conscious and the abandoned, but tonight it feels more forceful and necessary; an essential physical response to the orchestrated frenzy of the band’s music. It also reflects a sense that Atoms For Peace’s music is exhilarating and liberating, while always following its own fastidious set of rules – even when those rules are being processed with an astonishing, breakneck fluidity. At the centre of it all, Yorke has every reason to feel proud and fulfilled: a pan-global techno yogi, achieving transcendence through discipline. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey SETLIST 1. BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES 2. DEFAULT 3. THE CLOCK 4. INGENUE 5. STUCK TOGETHER PIECES 6. UNLESS 7. AND IT RAINED ALL NIGHT 8. HARROWDOWN HILL 9. DROPPED 10. CYMBAL RUSH # 11. THE HOLLOW EARTH 12. FEELING PULLED APART BY HORSES 13. RABBIT IN YOUR HEADLIGHTS 14. AMOK # 15. ATOMS FOR PEACE 16. BLACK SWAN

At 7pm on the first night of Atoms For Peace’s London residency, the Amok Drawing Room has already sold out of commemorative mugs. The Enterprise pub across the road from the Roundhouse has been rebranded in expressionist monochrome, and an upstairs room has been upholstered in Stanley Donwood wallpaper, the better to sell exquisite £500 prints, t-shirts screenprinted while-you-wait, and a pointedly apocalyptic jigsaw puzzle.

There are 12”s too, great racks of DJ-friendly vinyl that assert, boldly, how Atoms For Peace are embedded in the culture of dance and electronic music. Radiohead shows might still attract a rump of gig-goers who will be frustrated by the band’s focus on their 21st century music. These people do not, one suspects, come too close to Thom Yorke’s extra-curricular activities. Atoms For Peace represent the triumph of his latterday aesthetic, where his music can be finally untethered from those expectations and from the weight of Radiohead’s early legacy.

For those of us who only started really warming to Radiohead’s music around the time of “Kid A”, and who believe the band, together and apart, have gone from strength to strength with more or less every subsequent record, this is all good news. A sceptic might perceive Atoms For Peace as either a solo vanity project, or else a supergroup, chiefly thanks to Yorke’s recruitment of Flea, a gifted bassist whose creative brilliance so often comes with the caveat “…even if he is in the Red Hot Chili Peppers.” (Only Flea’s decision to highkick in a sarong hints at that band’s more dubious charms.)

As “Before Your Very Eyes” kicks into perpetual motion, though, the five members reveal themselves to be, essentially, a kind of ornate pararhythmical unit, with Joey Waronker and Mauro Refosco plotting endless percussion circles around one another, and Flea finding elaborate basslines that carry a lot of melodic as well as rhythmic thrust. There’s a weird parallel with Phil Lesh at times, albeit immeasurably funkier, in the way Flea takes charge of the spaces where, in more orthodox rock bands, lead guitar and keyboard lines might sit more prominently.

In Atoms For Peace, Yorke’s voice (all those epically wrought sighs and extended vowels) and guitar, and Nigel Godrich’s contributions on keyboards and guitar, mostly provide slow, ebbing melodies that slide over each other, ceding the foreground to a barrage of rhythmic intricacies. If “Amok”’s antecedents often suggested themselves to be the likes of Caribou and Four Tet, many of these songs tonight – “Default”, say, or “Amok” itself – have a dynamic that more closely resembles an older Yorke touchstone, Autechre.

It’s a structural comparison rather than a precise one, of course. If Autechre derived their beat science from hip hop and the electronic avant-garde, the roots of Atoms For Peace’s jitter and throb seem to be as much a sort of extrapolated worldbeat, of global learning being channelled and accelerated into a relentless techno cascade. So “Before Your Very Eyes” and “Stuck Together Pieces” are a sort of hyperdetailed Afrobeat – though it’s unclear whether a washboard, which is what Refosco seems to be playing on the latter – ever got much of a workout at The Shrine.

Refosco’s instrumental choices often provide a clue as to at least part of the influences on specific tracks. During “Unless”, he wanders into Flea’s performance space with a drum, for what might be a kind of batucada workout. For “The Clock”, he has a stringed gourd which brisk internet research possibly identifies as a berimbau, another hint of his Brazilian roots – though the song itself has a faint North African feel to it, too.

“The Clock” is one of six songs from “The Eraser” that are treated to the full band upgrade, austere digitalia given a skittering new complexity. The transition works brilliantly for the most part: “Cymbal Rush” and “Black Swan”, which close the main set and the encores respectively, are two of the show’s highlights; and only “Harrowdown Hill” misfires slightly, overdriven to the point where Yorke’s vocal line becomes frayed and strained, the whole construct a little too fragile to withstand the battering.

It’s a solitary miscalculation, though. In general, Yorke’s gauzy melodies prove a lot more robust than they first appear, and if the percussive assault visited upon Satie-esque piano figures in “Cymbal Rush” and “Ingenue” on one level seem perverse – a calculated attempt to undermine Radiohead’s sombre prettiness, perhaps – it’s also immediately, pulverisingly effective.

Ironically, the most becalmed part of a frantic night comes when Yorke exhumes his first (if memory serves) public negotiation with electronica; “Rabbit In Your Headlights”, a DJ Shadow collaboration from Unkle’s bloated and mostly ghastly “Psyence Fiction” album (1998). Out of its original context, “Rabbit…” turns out to be a decent song, even if it feels like Yorke is rootling around to find anything but Radiohead songs to play (One piece of Radiohead marginalia, “Paperbag Writer”, has found its way into some Atoms For Peace gigs, though it’s been literally struck off tonight’s setlist). There are also two fine songs from the 2009 solo single, “The Hollow Earth” and “Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses”, the latter recalling – probably thanks to the massive bassline of Flea, a noted post-punk/punk-funk scholar – 23 Skidoo.

Before they play “Feeling…”, Yorke makes a droll aside, the gist of which is that they’re going to make a “workout video”. The prospect seems reasonable, actually, given that Yorke, with topknot, vest and taut demeanour, looks very much like a yoga instructor (a bikram specialist, maybe, given the venue temperature). Yorke’s interpretive dancing has sometimes seemed an odd, even uncomfortable mixture of the self-conscious and the abandoned, but tonight it feels more forceful and necessary; an essential physical response to the orchestrated frenzy of the band’s music.

It also reflects a sense that Atoms For Peace’s music is exhilarating and liberating, while always following its own fastidious set of rules – even when those rules are being processed with an astonishing, breakneck fluidity. At the centre of it all, Yorke has every reason to feel proud and fulfilled: a pan-global techno yogi, achieving transcendence through discipline.

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

SETLIST

1. BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES

2. DEFAULT

3. THE CLOCK

4. INGENUE

5. STUCK TOGETHER PIECES

6. UNLESS

7. AND IT RAINED ALL NIGHT

8. HARROWDOWN HILL

9. DROPPED

10. CYMBAL RUSH

#

11. THE HOLLOW EARTH

12. FEELING PULLED APART BY HORSES

13. RABBIT IN YOUR HEADLIGHTS

14. AMOK

#

15. ATOMS FOR PEACE

16. BLACK SWAN

First look – Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

Michael Bonner
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0
First look – Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

For Steve Coogan, Alan Partridge’s big screen debut represents a pivotal moment in the actor’s relationship with his most famous creation. You sense that Coogan has been trying to escape Alan's gravitational pull for some years now, and not always successfully. From the range of characters he presented in Coogan’s Run – his first attempt to extend his repertoire after the success of Knowing Me, Knowing You – the most memorable was regional salesman Gareth Cheeseman (best line: “A wank, I think”), essentially a Partridge clone. Tony Ferrino, The Parole Office and Dr Terrible’s House Of Horror were all equally unsuccessful attempts to move Coogan’s career out of Norwich’s finest Travelodges. Critically, they just weren’t funny. It was only really when he worked with Michael Winterbottom for the first time, in 24 Hour Party People, that Coogan found a way to move forward – his other collaborations with the director on A Cock And Bull Story and The Trip numbering among his career highs. But as the box office failure of yet another non-Partridge project (this year’s enjoyable Paul Raymond biopic The Look Of Love, also for Winterbottom) proved, audiences find it difficult to separate Coogan from Alan. So is Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa a testimony to Alan timelessness, or an admission that Coogan will never manage to shake off the character? In many respects, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa feels very much like a straight continuation of the TV series. Alan is unchanged by the upgrade to the big screen: as ever, what drives the film are his grotesque and clumsy attempts to further his career. Where perhaps the film doesn’t quite work is moving Alan into what you might loosely term a “real world” situation. For the most part, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa takes place in the offices of North Norfolk Digital, where Alan currently broadcasts his Mid-Morning Matters show. As Alan’s co-creator Armando Iannucci explained to me recently, “The key to Alan is keeping his attitude and his world small, even though we’re on a big screen.” As the film opens, we find Alan moithering over predictable concerns – “Which is the worst monger?” he asks listeners. “Fish, iron, rumour or war?” But North Norfolk Digital has been taken over, its core brand values reimagined; it has been renamed Shape and given a particularly meaningless new tag-line: “The way you want it to be”. This leads to presenter Pat Farrell, who’s been sacked in the takeover, laying armed siege to the station’s offices, holding a group of hostages to randsom. Alan, inexplicably, finds himself liaising between the police and Pat. (For the record, Alan’s favourite siege is the Iranian embassy). What follows is mostly very funny, in particular the jaw-dropping awfulness of Alan’s attempts to use his role as hostage negotiator to his own ends. Fans of the show will be pleased to see the return of Alan’s long-suffering assistant Lynne as well as Geordie Michael and rival DJ Dave Clifton. I remember, ahead of the release of In The Loop, discussing with Armando Iannucci the problems a showrunner might encounter attempting to transform a successful TV sitcom into a full length feature film. We both had grim memories of films like Holiday On The Buses and Are You Being Served?, which relocated the action from their natural setting to - traditionally - a poorly constructed holiday resort in Spain, where many misunderstandings regarding language, diet and sex would inevitably follow. For the record, it's worth pointing out that Iannucci and the rest of the Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa writers know their geographical limits. Thus it is, that the furthest Alan travels during the course of this film is the pier at Cromer. Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

For Steve Coogan, Alan Partridge’s big screen debut represents a pivotal moment in the actor’s relationship with his most famous creation.

You sense that Coogan has been trying to escape Alan’s gravitational pull for some years now, and not always successfully. From the range of characters he presented in Coogan’s Run – his first attempt to extend his repertoire after the success of Knowing Me, Knowing You – the most memorable was regional salesman Gareth Cheeseman (best line: “A wank, I think”), essentially a Partridge clone.

Tony Ferrino, The Parole Office and Dr Terrible’s House Of Horror were all equally unsuccessful attempts to move Coogan’s career out of Norwich’s finest Travelodges. Critically, they just weren’t funny. It was only really when he worked with Michael Winterbottom for the first time, in 24 Hour Party People, that Coogan found a way to move forward – his other collaborations with the director on A Cock And Bull Story and The Trip numbering among his career highs.

But as the box office failure of yet another non-Partridge project (this year’s enjoyable Paul Raymond biopic The Look Of Love, also for Winterbottom) proved, audiences find it difficult to separate Coogan from Alan. So is Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa a testimony to Alan timelessness, or an admission that Coogan will never manage to shake off the character?

In many respects, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa feels very much like a straight continuation of the TV series. Alan is unchanged by the upgrade to the big screen: as ever, what drives the film are his grotesque and clumsy attempts to further his career. Where perhaps the film doesn’t quite work is moving Alan into what you might loosely term a “real world” situation. For the most part, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa takes place in the offices of North Norfolk Digital, where Alan currently broadcasts his Mid-Morning Matters show. As Alan’s co-creator Armando Iannucci explained to me recently, “The key to Alan is keeping his attitude and his world small, even though we’re on a big screen.”

As the film opens, we find Alan moithering over predictable concerns – “Which is the worst monger?” he asks listeners. “Fish, iron, rumour or war?” But North Norfolk Digital has been taken over, its core brand values reimagined; it has been renamed Shape and given a particularly meaningless new tag-line: “The way you want it to be”. This leads to presenter Pat Farrell, who’s been sacked in the takeover, laying armed siege to the station’s offices, holding a group of hostages to randsom. Alan, inexplicably, finds himself liaising between the police and Pat. (For the record, Alan’s favourite siege is the Iranian embassy). What follows is mostly very funny, in particular the jaw-dropping awfulness of Alan’s attempts to use his role as hostage negotiator to his own ends. Fans of the show will be pleased to see the return of Alan’s long-suffering assistant Lynne as well as Geordie Michael and rival DJ Dave Clifton.

I remember, ahead of the release of In The Loop, discussing with Armando Iannucci the problems a showrunner might encounter attempting to transform a successful TV sitcom into a full length feature film. We both had grim memories of films like Holiday On The Buses and Are You Being Served?, which relocated the action from their natural setting to – traditionally – a poorly constructed holiday resort in Spain, where many misunderstandings regarding language, diet and sex would inevitably follow. For the record, it’s worth pointing out that Iannucci and the rest of the Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa writers know their geographical limits. Thus it is, that the furthest Alan travels during the course of this film is the pier at Cromer.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

Bobby Whitlock – The Bobby Whitlock Story: Where There’s A Will, There’s A Way

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Bobby Whitlock – The Bobby Whitlock Story: Where There’s A Will, There’s A Way

It’s not only who you know, it’s what you know, too... Bobby Whitlock’s story is a classic rock’n’roll saga about a guy who was in the right place at the right time and made the most of it. The son of a preacher man, the Memphis native would sneak out of his father’s services to revel in the ecstatic sounds of the choir at a nearby black church. Already an accomplished pianist by this teens, Whitlock became a fixture at Stax studios, where he learned the nuances of R&B from the masters, released a couple of singles and hung with Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn. When the latter brought Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett to Stax to record what would be their first album, Home, for the label, early in 1969, Whitlock was enlisted as the first of Delaney & Bonnie’s Friends. Later that year, Eric Clapton became so taken with the band that he brought them to the UK for a tour, becoming an unofficial band member and persuading George Harrison to jump on board as well. Following the run of dates (documented on 1970’s On Tour With Eric Clapton), the whole crew contributed to Clapton’s self-titled first solo album, after which D&B&F splintered, several of them joining Mad Dogs and Englishmen while Clapton grabbed Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon and formed Derek And The Dominos. After playing on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, they headed to Miami and recorded the one-off masterpiece Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs, Whitlock co-writing and harmonizing with Clapton as well as playing keys. Booking studio time at London’s Olympic Studios in April 1972, the month before Derek And The Dominos were scheduled to record their second album at the facility, Whitlock cut his self-titled solo debut (which shares a single disc with follow-up Raw Velvet on this reissue) in front of a mind-blowing studio band: Clapton and Harrison on guitars, Gordon on drums and Beatles buddy Klaus Voormann on bass, with Andy Johns co-producing. Fronting a band for the first time, the expat Southerner unleashes his rich, fervent, gospel-rooted baritone on the soulful rockers “Where There’s A Will” (written with Bonnie Bramlett) and the made-up-on-the-spot “Back In My Life Again”. He’s even more striking as an R&B balladeer on tracks like “A Game Called Life” (featuring a flute solo by Traffic’s Chris Wood) and “The Scenery Has Slowly Changed”, which recaptures the dusky melancholy of his Layla closer “Thorn Tree In The Garden”. After finishing the album in LA, Whitlock turned it in to his label, Atlantic, which rejected it despite the record’s all-star cast. It was picked up and released in the US by ABC Dunhill but sank without a trace. That wasn’t the only disappointment for Whitlock, as Clapton pulled the plug on the sessions for the second Dominos LP. Determined to turn around his recent run of bad luck, Whitlock formed a new band in LA with lead guitarist Rick Vito (who’d be on the Stones’ shortlist following the departure of Mick Taylor and would later briefly replace Lindsey Buckingham in Fleetwood Mac), bassist Keith Ellis and drummer David Poncher, and went right back into the studio with Stones producer Jimmy Miller. They emerged with Raw Velvet, a far more uptempo record overall than its predecessor, featuring the guitar interaction of Vito on lead and Whitlock on rhythm. They revisit Layla with a blistering “Tell The Truth” and summon up the intensity of the Dominos on “Write You A Letter” and “If You Ever”, all featuring jaw-dropping solos from Vito, who also plays a rhapsodic, Clapton-esque slide on the yearning “Dearest I Wonder”. Slowhand himself, Gordon and the Bramletts appear on Delaney and Mac Davis’ rousing “Hello LA, Bye Bye Birmingham”, which sounds like an outtake from On Tour. The album closes with “Start All Over”, Whitlock wailing on Leslie guitar and singing his heart out, though hardly anyone would hear him do so. He had no choice but to start all over following his brush with fame – playing music was the only thing he knew how to do, and he’s continued making records in semi-obscurity over the decades. But for those three remarkable years, Bobby Whitlock was swept up in history, serving as an essential, if unsung, participant in its making. Bud Scoppa

It’s not only who you know, it’s what you know, too…

Bobby Whitlock’s story is a classic rock’n’roll saga about a guy who was in the right place at the right time and made the most of it. The son of a preacher man, the Memphis native would sneak out of his father’s services to revel in the ecstatic sounds of the choir at a nearby black church. Already an accomplished pianist by this teens, Whitlock became a fixture at Stax studios, where he learned the nuances of R&B from the masters, released a couple of singles and hung with Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn. When the latter brought Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett to Stax to record what would be their first album, Home, for the label, early in 1969, Whitlock was enlisted as the first of Delaney & Bonnie’s Friends.

Later that year, Eric Clapton became so taken with the band that he brought them to the UK for a tour, becoming an unofficial band member and persuading George Harrison to jump on board as well. Following the run of dates (documented on 1970’s On Tour With Eric Clapton), the whole crew contributed to Clapton’s self-titled first solo album, after which D&B&F splintered, several of them joining Mad Dogs and Englishmen while Clapton grabbed Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon and formed Derek And The Dominos. After playing on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, they headed to Miami and recorded the one-off masterpiece Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs, Whitlock co-writing and harmonizing with Clapton as well as playing keys.

Booking studio time at London’s Olympic Studios in April 1972, the month before Derek And The Dominos were scheduled to record their second album at the facility, Whitlock cut his self-titled solo debut (which shares a single disc with follow-up Raw Velvet on this reissue) in front of a mind-blowing studio band: Clapton and Harrison on guitars, Gordon on drums and Beatles buddy Klaus Voormann on bass, with Andy Johns co-producing. Fronting a band for the first time, the expat Southerner unleashes his rich, fervent, gospel-rooted baritone on the soulful rockers “Where There’s A Will” (written with Bonnie Bramlett) and the made-up-on-the-spot “Back In My Life Again”. He’s even more striking as an R&B balladeer on tracks like “A Game Called Life” (featuring a flute solo by Traffic’s Chris Wood) and “The Scenery Has Slowly Changed”, which recaptures the dusky melancholy of his Layla closer “Thorn Tree In The Garden”. After finishing the album in LA, Whitlock turned it in to his label, Atlantic, which rejected it despite the record’s all-star cast. It was picked up and released in the US by ABC Dunhill but sank without a trace.

That wasn’t the only disappointment for Whitlock, as Clapton pulled the plug on the sessions for the second Dominos LP. Determined to turn around his recent run of bad luck, Whitlock formed a new band in LA with lead guitarist Rick Vito (who’d be on the Stones’ shortlist following the departure of Mick Taylor and would later briefly replace Lindsey Buckingham in Fleetwood Mac), bassist Keith Ellis and drummer David Poncher, and went right back into the studio with Stones producer Jimmy Miller. They emerged with Raw Velvet, a far more uptempo record overall than its predecessor, featuring the guitar interaction of Vito on lead and Whitlock on rhythm. They revisit Layla with a blistering “Tell The Truth” and summon up the intensity of the Dominos on “Write You A Letter” and “If You Ever”, all featuring jaw-dropping solos from Vito, who also plays a rhapsodic, Clapton-esque slide on the yearning “Dearest I Wonder”. Slowhand himself, Gordon and the Bramletts appear on Delaney and Mac Davis’ rousing “Hello LA, Bye Bye Birmingham”, which sounds like an outtake from On Tour. The album closes with “Start All Over”, Whitlock wailing on Leslie guitar and singing his heart out, though hardly anyone would hear him do so.

He had no choice but to start all over following his brush with fame – playing music was the only thing he knew how to do, and he’s continued making records in semi-obscurity over the decades. But for those three remarkable years, Bobby Whitlock was swept up in history, serving as an essential, if unsung, participant in its making.

Bud Scoppa

First picture released of Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix in All Is By My Side biopic

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First picture released of Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix in All Is By My Side biopic

The first picture of Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix in the forthcoming biopic has been released. The picture is taken from the website for the Toronto International Film Festival, where the biopic - titled All Is By My Side - will receive its world premiere in September. The festival has also released a new synopsis for the biopic. It reads: "Jimmy James, an unknown backup guitarist, left New York City for London, England in 1966. A year later he returned — as Jimi Hendrix. All Is By My Side brings authenticity and poignancy to the story of the man behind the legend, and of the people who loved and inspired him." All Is By My Side will not feature any songs recorded or composed by Hendrix himself, as the late guitarist's estate declined permission. Instead, the film will see Andre 3000 perform songs by The Beatles and Muddy Waters that Hendrix himself covered in the '60s. The supporting cast includes Hayley Atwell, Imogen Poots, Burn Gorman and Ashley Charles, who plays a young Keith Richards. Although All Is By My Side focuses on Hendrix's period in England over 1966-7, director John Ridley shot the film in Wicklow, Ireland last summer. A UK release date has yet to be announced.

The first picture of Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix in the forthcoming biopic has been released.

The picture is taken from the website for the Toronto International Film Festival, where the biopic – titled All Is By My Side – will receive its world premiere in September. The festival has also released a new synopsis for the biopic.

It reads: “Jimmy James, an unknown backup guitarist, left New York City for London, England in 1966. A year later he returned — as Jimi Hendrix. All Is By My Side brings authenticity and poignancy to the story of the man behind the legend, and of the people who loved and inspired him.”

All Is By My Side will not feature any songs recorded or composed by Hendrix himself, as the late guitarist’s estate declined permission. Instead, the film will see Andre 3000 perform songs by The Beatles and Muddy Waters that Hendrix himself covered in the ’60s.

The supporting cast includes Hayley Atwell, Imogen Poots, Burn Gorman and Ashley Charles, who plays a young Keith Richards. Although All Is By My Side focuses on Hendrix’s period in England over 1966-7, director John Ridley shot the film in Wicklow, Ireland last summer. A UK release date has yet to be announced.

Prefab Sprout announce long-awaited new album

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Prefab Sprout announce long-awaited new album
Prefab Sprout release a new album, Crimson/Red, on October 7. The band's first record of new material for over a decade, the album was conceived, written and recorded by Paddy McAloon over the last 18 months – McAloon plays all the instruments on the recording. Subjects tackled on the album in...

Prefab Sprout release a new album, Crimson/Red, on October 7.

The band’s first record of new material for over a decade, the album was conceived, written and recorded by Paddy McAloon over the last 18 months – McAloon plays all the instruments on the recording.

Subjects tackled on the album include Bob Dylan on “Mysterious”, songwriting on “The Best Jewel Thief In The World” and, on “The Songs Of Danny Galway”, a 1991 meeting between McAloon and Jimmy Webb.

The group rose to prominence with their mid-’80s albums Swoon, Steve McQueen and From Langley Park To Memphis, but have released no genuinely new material since 2001’s The Gunman And Other Stories.

The tracklisting for Crimson/Red is:

The Best Jewel Thief In The World

The List Of Impossible Things

Adolescence

Grief Built The Taj Mahal

Devil Came A Calling

Billy

The Dreamer

The Songs Of Danny Galway

The Old Magician

Mysterious

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