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Thom Yorke composes soundtrack for new documentary

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Thom Yorke composes soundtrack for new documentary
Thom Yorke has composed the score for a forthcoming documentary film about tax avoidance. The Daily Telegraph says that Yorke and Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja will provide the music for The UK Gold, which explores the history of tax avoidance and will be narrated by The Wire actor Dominic West...

Thom Yorke has composed the score for a forthcoming documentary film about tax avoidance.

The Daily Telegraph says that Yorke and Massive Attack‘s Robert Del Naja will provide the music for The UK Gold, which explores the history of tax avoidance and will be narrated by The Wire actor Dominic West.

The film, which is directed by Mark Donne, will premiere at London’s Troxy Theatre on June 25. A musical performance by a special secret act will also take place immediately after the screening.

Speaking about the film, which will reportedly follow the story of a vicar in the London borough of Hackney and will look at the history of tax avoidance and the UK’s financial powers, Donne said: “This is a political documentary, but more than anything else it is an extraordinary story. To have a quintessentially English figure embarking on an odyssey to understand how London remains the financial capital of the world is in itself a fascinating story.

“To have this journey unfurling at the exact time that the eyes of the world were on this country, during the Jubilee and the Olympics, gives the story a powerful twist,” he added. “A pretty stunning soundtrack from the creative hearts of Radiohead and Massive Attack creates a spellbinding experience.”

Watch Laura Marling cover Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark”

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Watch Laura Marling cover Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark”
Laura Marling has covered Bruce Springsteen's hit single, 'Dancing In The Dark'. Marling covered the classic track from 1984 with fellow singer-songwriter Eddie Berman for The Lab magazine. Click below to watch the acoustic performance. Meanwhile, Marling's forthcoming new album Once I Was An Eag...

Laura Marling has covered Bruce Springsteen’s hit single, ‘Dancing In The Dark’.

Marling covered the classic track from 1984 with fellow singer-songwriter Eddie Berman for The Lab magazine. Click below to watch the acoustic performance.

Meanwhile, Marling’s forthcoming new album Once I Was An Eagle, is set for release on May 27.

You can read our exclusive interview with the singer-songwriter in the new issue of Uncut, on sale now.

AC/DC back plans to erect Bon Scott monument in his hometown

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AC/DC back plans to erect Bon Scott monument in his hometown
AC/DC have backed plans which call for a monument to be erected in honour of former singer Bon Scott in his hometown. The campaign to pay tribute to Scott, who died aged 33 in 1980, by building a statue in Kirriemuir, Scotland started last year when DD8 Music, who are also behind the annual Bon Sc...

AC/DC have backed plans which call for a monument to be erected in honour of former singer Bon Scott in his hometown.

The campaign to pay tribute to Scott, who died aged 33 in 1980, by building a statue in Kirriemuir, Scotland started last year when DD8 Music, who are also behind the annual Bon Scott music festival in the town, approached sculptor John McKenna to design a tribute.

As the BBC reports, they are hoping to raise £50,000 by June 5 in order to create the life-sized statue, and the campaign has now been given support by AC/DC who have highlighted the cause on their website. DD8’s Graham Galloway said that although he had not been in official communication with the band, he was hopeful they might pledge more support in the future.

“They don’t just put anything up there, so it’s certainly a big step forward for us in getting worldwide support for the statue,” he said. Asked about receiving any feedback from the band themselves, he added: “We wouldn’t want to put words in their mouths, certainly it’s a good sign.”

Previously, former AC/DC bassist Mark Evans had lent his support to the campaign, telling Ultimate Classic Rock: “It’s so amazing that Bon is getting honoured like this, especially since Scotland is such an important place in the history of AC/DC. Bon already had a street named after him in Kirriemuir and now this!”

Scott was born in nearby Forfar in Scotland in 1946, before his family moved to Australia when he was six. He has a statue in his honour in Claremont, Australia, which was erected in 2008 and is situated at the Freemantle Fishing Boat Harbour.

Bob Dylan misses induction into American Academy of Arts and Letters

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Bob Dylan misses induction into American Academy of Arts and Letters
Bob Dylan missed his induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, held yesterday (May 15). According to Rolling Stone, Dylan was voted in as an honorary member, joining a prestigious pool of individuals including Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese. "In 1983 the category of American Honora...

Bob Dylan missed his induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, held yesterday (May 15).

According to Rolling Stone, Dylan was voted in as an honorary member, joining a prestigious pool of individuals including Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese.

“In 1983 the category of American Honorary membership was inaugurated, to comprise not more than 15 persons of great distinction in the creative arts whose work falls outside or transcends the Academy’s Departments of Art, Literature, and Music,” Academy president Henry Cobb said in a statement. “The members of the Academy have this year elected to American Honorary Membership Bob Dylan – poet, composer, musician, who has moved our culture with a consequence perhaps unmatched by any artist of our time.”

Dylan skipped the induction, however, with Cobb citing Dylan’s touring schedule as the reason for his no show. In a statement Dylan wrote, “I feel extremely honoured and very lucky to be included in this pantheon of great individual artists who comprise the Academy of Arts and Letters. I look forward to meeting all of you some time soon.”

Dylan will soon be heading out with Wilco and My Morning Jacket on the AmericanaramA tour.

The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby

The cover story of this month’s Vanity Fair paints a disturbing picture of a major Hollywood movie going off the rails. Over-budget and with its release date delayed, the film is further troubled by a lack of creative vision and no clear sense of how to deliver a concluding third act. These are production problems that you might assume would beset a mainstream blockbuster – the film in the Vanity Fair story is Brad Pitt’s zombie epic World War Z, by the way. But you wouldn’t expect them to occur with an adaptation of a finely tuned period novel about loneliness, obsession, disillusionment and lost love. But Baz Luhrmann’s take on The Great Gatsby arrives five months behind its original planned release date, beyond its $130 million budget, over-produced and with a third act that drizzles to a standstill, as if the director has lost interest once the parties stopped. Indeed, the greater focus is on the extravagant set-pieces, the gleaming, sumptuous parties, than the things that arguably really matter in Scott Fitzgerald’s 1920s novel. The focus should be the doomed romance between the elusive Gatsby and the object of his obsession, Daisy Buchanan, and the sad collapse of Gatsby’s “grand vision for his life and Daisy’s part in it”. Yet this is toploaded with Jazz Age parties, where everything is thrown at the screen in dizzying 3D crane shots, zoom cuts and vertiginous tracking shots, all cut to a bludgeoning hip hop soundtrack. It’s a film of colossal artifice and superficiality, in love with surface dazzle – but as it turns out, none of the spectacle is remotely thrilling. This is meant to be a time of obscene indulgence and self-destructive decadence, both thrilling and diabolical - yet in Luhrmann’s hands the experience feels broadly equivalent to witnessing a major American city reduced to rubble by giant robots in a Michael Bay film. It’s loud, frenetic and quite boring. Which is strange, because Luhrmann and his co-screenwriter Craig Pearce make a virtue of the story’s literary origins. Creating a framing sequence, they introduce us to the narrator Nick Carraway recovering from alcohol addiction in a clinic who, as part of his therapy, writes down his memories of summer, 1922 spent in Long Island Sound and New York City – this, then, becomes Carraway’s book, ‘The Great Gatsby’. It’s an intriguing idea, and riffs loosely on both Fitzgerald’s own breakdown in the 1930s and more broadly the ruin of America during the 1929 crash and the Great Depression. But for Luhrmann and Pearce, it simply becomes an opportunity to superimpose the novel’s text on screen – another gimmick, something else to throw at the audience. I wonder whether much of the hyperactivity on display here comes from a rather patronizing belief that an audience can’t be trusted to sit through the film without some kind of distraction being flung at them every five minutes. As it is, the whole thing feels like he's repeating the tropes and tricks of Moulin Rouge, with little attempt to move forward creatively. Reinforcing his bang-for-the-buck strategy, Luhrmann goes a bundle on sweeping digitalized New York vistas and Disney-like castles that appear out from firework smoke and clouds, all so patently unreal you might as well be watching Avatar. It becomes difficult to successfully engage with the characters in such a hyper-stylized environment: they’re overshadowed by the bombast. When Leonardo DiCaprio’s Gatsby eventually makes his entrance it’s to a mangled piece of Gershwin and a colossal firework explosion, some distance away from his artfully low-key introduction in the novel. Incidentally, DiCaprio is the best thing in the film – he has what Fitzgerald describes as “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it… It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.” He also catches something of the sad unraveling of Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy – but I don’t think he’s given the chance to explore Gatsby’s darker impulses. As Nick says, people don’t just “drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound”: Gatsby’s reasons for his self-actualization isn’t, as Luhrmann and his soundtrack cohort Jay-Z seem to think “aspirational”, but in truth a particularly bleak assessment of the American Dream. Carey Mulligan’s Daisy has none of the brittle translucence I rather liked about Mia Farrow’s performance in the 1974 film version; or much of her natural style. Emma Watson, perhaps, would have brought a keener intelligence to the part, as it is Mulligan plays Daisy as simply as possible, as shallow and vain, which gives you no real sense of why she evokes such monumental obsession in Gatsby. As Daisy’s brutish husband Tom, Joel Edgerton has the right physical presence, but I wonder whether an actor like Guy Pearce would perhaps have conveyed more clearly the contradictions of Tom's character. Tobey Maguire’s Nick is dorky and bewildered. One pivotal sequence, where Gatsby confronts Tom over Daisy in a Manhattan hotel on a sweltering day, is well played – and, mercifully, unaccompanied by crashing beats – but it feels too little, too late. The key to Gatsby, I think, is the book’s final chapter – the quiet disentanglement of Gatsby’s myth, the arrival of his father, revelations regarding the true extent of Daisy and Tom’s moral decrepitude. Luhrmann evidently has no patience for such reflective business and jettisons it. We end, still, with the “boats against the current” line, appearing on screen in typewriter script to flag up its importance, though I don’t think Luhrmann really nails what it means or what it’s about. It's a problem which persists throughout this movie. Michael Bonner Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

The cover story of this month’s Vanity Fair paints a disturbing picture of a major Hollywood movie going off the rails. Over-budget and with its release date delayed, the film is further troubled by a lack of creative vision and no clear sense of how to deliver a concluding third act. These are production problems that you might assume would beset a mainstream blockbuster – the film in the Vanity Fair story is Brad Pitt’s zombie epic World War Z, by the way. But you wouldn’t expect them to occur with an adaptation of a finely tuned period novel about loneliness, obsession, disillusionment and lost love.

But Baz Luhrmann’s take on The Great Gatsby arrives five months behind its original planned release date, beyond its $130 million budget, over-produced and with a third act that drizzles to a standstill, as if the director has lost interest once the parties stopped. Indeed, the greater focus is on the extravagant set-pieces, the gleaming, sumptuous parties, than the things that arguably really matter in Scott Fitzgerald’s 1920s novel. The focus should be the doomed romance between the elusive Gatsby and the object of his obsession, Daisy Buchanan, and the sad collapse of Gatsby’s “grand vision for his life and Daisy’s part in it”. Yet this is toploaded with Jazz Age parties, where everything is thrown at the screen in dizzying 3D crane shots, zoom cuts and vertiginous tracking shots, all cut to a bludgeoning hip hop soundtrack. It’s a film of colossal artifice and superficiality, in love with surface dazzle – but as it turns out, none of the spectacle is remotely thrilling. This is meant to be a time of obscene indulgence and self-destructive decadence, both thrilling and diabolical – yet in Luhrmann’s hands the experience feels broadly equivalent to witnessing a major American city reduced to rubble by giant robots in a Michael Bay film. It’s loud, frenetic and quite boring.

Which is strange, because Luhrmann and his co-screenwriter Craig Pearce make a virtue of the story’s literary origins. Creating a framing sequence, they introduce us to the narrator Nick Carraway recovering from alcohol addiction in a clinic who, as part of his therapy, writes down his memories of summer, 1922 spent in Long Island Sound and New York City – this, then, becomes Carraway’s book, ‘The Great Gatsby’. It’s an intriguing idea, and riffs loosely on both Fitzgerald’s own breakdown in the 1930s and more broadly the ruin of America during the 1929 crash and the Great Depression. But for Luhrmann and Pearce, it simply becomes an opportunity to superimpose the novel’s text on screen – another gimmick, something else to throw at the audience. I wonder whether much of the hyperactivity on display here comes from a rather patronizing belief that an audience can’t be trusted to sit through the film without some kind of distraction being flung at them every five minutes. As it is, the whole thing feels like he’s repeating the tropes and tricks of Moulin Rouge, with little attempt to move forward creatively.

Reinforcing his bang-for-the-buck strategy, Luhrmann goes a bundle on sweeping digitalized New York vistas and Disney-like castles that appear out from firework smoke and clouds, all so patently unreal you might as well be watching Avatar. It becomes difficult to successfully engage with the characters in such a hyper-stylized environment: they’re overshadowed by the bombast. When Leonardo DiCaprio’s Gatsby eventually makes his entrance it’s to a mangled piece of Gershwin and a colossal firework explosion, some distance away from his artfully low-key introduction in the novel. Incidentally, DiCaprio is the best thing in the film – he has what Fitzgerald describes as “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it… It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.” He also catches something of the sad unraveling of Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy – but I don’t think he’s given the chance to explore Gatsby’s darker impulses. As Nick says, people don’t just “drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound”: Gatsby’s reasons for his self-actualization isn’t, as Luhrmann and his soundtrack cohort Jay-Z seem to think “aspirational”, but in truth a particularly bleak assessment of the American Dream.

Carey Mulligan’s Daisy has none of the brittle translucence I rather liked about Mia Farrow’s performance in the 1974 film version; or much of her natural style. Emma Watson, perhaps, would have brought a keener intelligence to the part, as it is Mulligan plays Daisy as simply as possible, as shallow and vain, which gives you no real sense of why she evokes such monumental obsession in Gatsby. As Daisy’s brutish husband Tom, Joel Edgerton has the right physical presence, but I wonder whether an actor like Guy Pearce would perhaps have conveyed more clearly the contradictions of Tom’s character. Tobey Maguire’s Nick is dorky and bewildered. One pivotal sequence, where Gatsby confronts Tom over Daisy in a Manhattan hotel on a sweltering day, is well played – and, mercifully, unaccompanied by crashing beats – but it feels too little, too late.

The key to Gatsby, I think, is the book’s final chapter – the quiet disentanglement of Gatsby’s myth, the arrival of his father, revelations regarding the true extent of Daisy and Tom’s moral decrepitude. Luhrmann evidently has no patience for such reflective business and jettisons it. We end, still, with the “boats against the current” line, appearing on screen in typewriter script to flag up its importance, though I don’t think Luhrmann really nails what it means or what it’s about. It’s a problem which persists throughout this movie.

Michael Bonner

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

Mike Mills: “There are zero plans” for an R.E.M. reunion

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Mike Mills: “There are zero plans” for an R.E.M. reunion
Mike Mills has revealed that there are "zero plans" for an R.E.M. reunion. Speaking to Rolling Stone ahead of the 25th anniversary re-release of the band's Green album, Mills admitted, "We said we're done and we're done. If we honestly thought there was a chance of a reunion tour, we might have sai...

Mike Mills has revealed that there are “zero plans” for an R.E.M. reunion.

Speaking to Rolling Stone ahead of the 25th anniversary re-release of the band’s Green album, Mills admitted, “We said we’re done and we’re done. If we honestly thought there was a chance of a reunion tour, we might have said so at the time.”

R.E.M. broke up in September 2011, six months after the release of their fifteenth studio album, Collapse Into Now.

Mills continued, “It was time to break up. That’s never really been done before. The idea of breaking up and not reforming for a reunion tour is kind of attractive to us. I doubt you’ll see us touring as R.E.M. again. On the other hand, I just played with Peter [Buck] in New York City the other night, so fun things do happen.”

“Absolutely nobody can predict the future,” added Mills. “But right now, there are zero plans for an R.E.M. reunion. Absolutely zero. But the future is a strange place. We could all be hit by a meteor tomorrow, but I would consider it highly unlikely.”

Mills also hinted that the band might engage with the possibility of launching a bootleg series in the future. “There may be something like that down the road,” he says. “But it’s not something we’re thinking about right now. There’s enough activity with these remasterings that we don’t have to worry about the odds-and-ends part yet. But that could happen someday.”

Glastonbury to become first UK festival with a dedicated 4G network

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Glastonbury to become first UK festival with a dedicated 4G network
Glastonbury will become the first UK festival with its own dedicated 4G network, it has been confirmed. The festival has struck a deal with mobile service provider EE which will give fans attending the festival fast mobile internet speeds and allow for even quicker photo and video upload times. The...

Glastonbury will become the first UK festival with its own dedicated 4G network, it has been confirmed.

The festival has struck a deal with mobile service provider EE which will give fans attending the festival fast mobile internet speeds and allow for even quicker photo and video upload times. There will also be an official Glastonbury festival app, which will give festival goers updates from around the site and news alerts. Additionally, two large recharge tents will be built onsite with users of any mobile network able to charge their phones in between watching bands.

As previously reported, the Rolling Stones, Arctic Monkeys and Mumford & Sons will headline Glastonbury. This year’s festival is to be live streamed for the first time with viewers able to watch different stages as they happen. The BBC will use the latest digital technology to allow viewers to choose from simultaneous live streams from all the major stages.

The Glastonbury line-up as it stands is:

Pyramid stage

Arctic Monkeys; The Rolling Stones; Mumford & Sons; Dizzee Rascal; Primal Scream; Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds; Vampire Weekend; Elvis Costello; the Vaccines; Kenny Rogers; Ben Howard; Rita Ora; Rufus Wainwright; Jake Bugg; Professor Green; Laura Mvula; Billy Bragg; Rokia Traoré; First Aid Kit; Haim

Other stage

Portishead; Chase & Status; The xx; Foals; Example; The Smashing Pumpkins; Alt-J; Two Door Cinema Club; PiL; Tame Impala; Alabama Shakes; Editors; Azealia Banks; Of Monsters and Men; the Lumineers; Enter Shikari; I Am Kloot; The Hives; Amanda Palmer

West Holts stage

Bobby Womack, Chic featuring Nile Rogers; Public Enemy; The Weeknd; Seasick Steve; Major Lazer; Tom Tom Club; Maverick Sabre; Lianne Les Havas; Toro Y Moi; Ondatrópica; Sérgio Mendes; Dub Colossus; the Orb & Indigenous People; The Child of Lov; Alice Russell; Goat; Badbadnotgood; The Bombay Royale; Matthew E. White; Riot Jazz

The Park stage

Cat Power; The Horrors; Fuck Buttons; Django Django; Rodriguez; Dinosaur Jr; Calexico; Steve Mason; Palma Violets; Devendra Banhart; Michael Kiwanuka; Solange; King Krule; Stealing Sheep; Tim Burgess; Melody’s Echo Chamber; Ed Harcourt; Half Moon Run; Josephine; Teleman

John Peel stage

Crystal Castles; Hurts; Phoenix; Bastille; Everything Everything; James Blake; Johnny Marr; The Courteeners; Jessie Ware; Tyler, The Creator; Frightened Rabbit; Miles Kane; Local Natives; The Strypes; Savages; Tom Odell; Peace; Daughter; Villagers; Toy; Jagwar Ma

Silver Hayes

Nas; Hot Natured; Disclosure; Rudimental; The Family Stone; Skream & Benga; Sub Focus; Charles Bradley; SBTRKT; Netsky; Dogblood; The Congos; The 2 Bears; Aluna George; Julio Bashmore; Wiley; TEED; Gold Panda; David Rodigan

Acoustic tent

Sinéad O’Connor; Stevie Winwood; Lucinda Williams; Glen Hansard; Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings; Gabrielle Aplin; The Proclaimers; Martha Wainwright; Seth Lakeman; KT Tunstall; Gretchen Peters; Martin Stevenson & The Daintees

Avalon stage

Ben Caplan; Beverley Knight; Crowns; Evan Dando; Gary Clark Jr.; JJ Grey & Mofro; Josh Doyle; Lucy Rose; Mad Dog Mcrea; Molotov Jukebox; Newton Faulkner; Oysterband; Penguin Café; Shooglenifty; Stornoway; The Destroyers; The Staves; The Urban Voodoo Machine; Vintage Trouble; Xavier Rudd

Bruce Springsteen and Dropkick Murphys to release new EP in aid of Boston victims

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Bruce Springsteen and Dropkick Murphys to release new EP in aid of Boston victims
Bruce Springsteen has recorded a track with Dropkick Murphys to raise funds for victims of the recent bombing in Boston. The Boston band were approached by Springsteen following the recent Boston marathon bombings and have re-recorded a new version of the band's song "Rose Tattoo" for inclusion on ...

Bruce Springsteen has recorded a track with Dropkick Murphys to raise funds for victims of the recent bombing in Boston.

The Boston band were approached by Springsteen following the recent Boston marathon bombings and have re-recorded a new version of the band’s song “Rose Tattoo” for inclusion on an EP released on iTunes today (May 15). The three song release will also include live acoustic versions of the songs “Jimmy Collins’s Wake” and “Don’t Tear Us Apart” by Dropkick Murphys.

“Our friend Bruce Springsteen joins us for a new version of ‘Rose Tattoo,’ featuring his vocals, plus two live acoustic tracks recorded at the Gibson Showroom in Las Vegas just four days after those tragic events,” the band reveal in a press release. “Bruce actually called us up the day of the bombing and asked what he could do to help,” adds guitarist James Lynch. “We didn’t have to reach out. He was there for us.”

All funds from the sale of the EP will be disbursed directly to The Claddagh Fund, a charity run by Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys.

Phoenix – Bankrupt!

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Phoenix – Bankrupt!

Life is finally sweeter for Paris’ all-conquering indie favourites... Asked by Uncut to account for the runaway success of their Grammy-winning 2009 album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix after close to a decade of diminishing returns, Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars scratched his head and put it down to “some collective hallucination”. Mars is a man who should be used to pinching himself for a reality check – in August 2011 he married Sofia Coppola, director of Lost In Translation and daughter of Francis – but even by his standards, the story of the struggling Paris indie quartet who went on to sell two million albums and conquer the US, as relayed in the title of their feelgood documentary From A Mess To The Masses, is akin to that of the golden bird from Greek mythology that rises from the ashes. To the casual observer, Phoenix look to have led a charmed existence. Youthful contemporaries and labelmates of Daft Punk and Air, they scampered like Andrex puppies out of Paris’ late-’90s ‘French Touch’ dance boom, a preppy blend of West Coast ’70s pop and ’80s European disco. They had a bit of form, too: in the early ’90s, guitarist Christian Mazzalai was in a short-lived indie outfit called Darlin’ with Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who were dismissed in a Melody Maker live review as “daft punk”. That act soon ditched guitars for synths and drum machines and changed their name, while Mazzalai joined his brother Laurent Brancowitz in Phoenix alongside Mars and bassist Deck D’Arcy. Their first British shows came in 1998 when they performed as Air’s backing band. But while we embraced Homework and Moon Safari, the UK, traditionally resistant to Anglophile French pop, found the band’s debut album United rather générique. We weren’t alone. Still, in its singles “If I Ever Feel Better” and “Too Young”, Phoenix minted a template for dreamy FM college rock that would just about see them though the fallow years of Alphabetical and the one nobody bought, It’s Never Been Like That (it hadn’t). Labelless and without management or little else to lose, they began recording its follow-up in the Montmartre studio of their friend Philippe Zdar, who’d handled most of United. Zdar’s passionate approach to production galvanised the band – he’s effectively their fifth member in the studio – and breathed life into the artful powerpop of what would become Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. With it, they’d slowly seduce the States, starting with appearances on the late-night TV chat show circuit. Oddly for a group due to headline Coachella this month, much of Phoenix’s fifth album Bankrupt! seems framed around Mars’ usual sheepishness or lack of confidence, his preoccupation with surface – that is, where his lyrics are decipherable. It’s as if, perhaps, he feels he doesn’t deserve the wife, the lifestyle, the acclaim, like the numbed actor installed in the Chateau Marmont in his partner’s last film Somewhere. “And you can’t cross the line but you can’t stop trying”, he repeats on “S.O.S. In Bel Air” before the chorus of “Alone, alone, alone”. In “Drakkar Noir”, a reference to the cheap cologne French teenagers would splash on in the ’80s, he mentions “a better standard of mediocrity” and you can’t help but think of Phoenix, essentially a very good band but seldom outrageously excellent. As with parts of Wolfgang…, you tend to notice the craft, the effort that goes into the songwrting, because it often sounds as if this doesn’t come naturally to them. “Entertainment”, “Chloroform” and “Trying To Be Cool” roll out with fixed grins and stuck-on melody. On the other hand, “Bourgeois” and “Don’t” surprise and sparkle as they unravel, the latter this Sigue Sigue Sputnik rumble that erupts into a swooning Dinosaur Jr chorus. If Wolfgang… was the album that gave Phoenix everything they’d always strived for, Bankrupt! is the record that finds them trying to come to terms with it all. They’re not celebrating – at least not yet. Piers Martin Q&A Thomas Mars Can you explain the success of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix? It felt like the planets were aligned and there was some common hallucination where there’s a gap and something can happen and it becomes a big success. With this album the pressure was from outside. Friends would say, “Good luck with that one” in a jokey way, but the amount of them wishing us luck started to build. There was this feeling of being observed, whereas before we were in our own world and we thought people didn’t even listen to our music anymore. Why the title Bankrupt!? It’s to do with this idea of starting from scratch, the fear of being a greatest hits band, the fear of accumulation. When you accumulate things it goes against creation: it means comfort, bigger live shows, more songs, more hits, and you want to be free of that. At some point, when you have success, it’s a weight. Bankrupt! is getting rid of that – it’s a good bankrupt. You recently bought the Thriller mixing desk. Did you use it? Here and there, but there’s so much going on on this record that you can’t hear the console breathe. There’s a piece attached to it called ‘the producer’s desk’ and the seller was asking if we wanted it, as it’s heavy, or would we just want the machine. I asked him what it was for and he said, “Well, it’s where Michael Jackson would eat his hamburgers.” I said ship it! INTERVIEW: PIERS MARTIN

Life is finally sweeter for Paris’ all-conquering indie favourites…

Asked by Uncut to account for the runaway success of their Grammy-winning 2009 album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix after close to a decade of diminishing returns, Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars scratched his head and put it down to “some collective hallucination”. Mars is a man who should be used to pinching himself for a reality check – in August 2011 he married Sofia Coppola, director of Lost In Translation and daughter of Francis – but even by his standards, the story of the struggling Paris indie quartet who went on to sell two million albums and conquer the US, as relayed in the title of their feelgood documentary From A Mess To The Masses, is akin to that of the golden bird from Greek mythology that rises from the ashes.

To the casual observer, Phoenix look to have led a charmed existence. Youthful contemporaries and labelmates of Daft Punk and Air, they scampered like Andrex puppies out of Paris’ late-’90s ‘French Touch’ dance boom, a preppy blend of West Coast ’70s pop and ’80s European disco. They had a bit of form, too: in the early ’90s, guitarist Christian Mazzalai was in a short-lived indie outfit called Darlin’ with Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who were dismissed in a Melody Maker live review as “daft punk”. That act soon ditched guitars for synths and drum machines and changed their name, while Mazzalai joined his brother Laurent Brancowitz in Phoenix alongside Mars and bassist Deck D’Arcy. Their first British shows came in 1998 when they performed as Air’s backing band. But while we embraced Homework and Moon Safari, the UK, traditionally resistant to Anglophile French pop, found the band’s debut album United rather générique. We weren’t alone.

Still, in its singles “If I Ever Feel Better” and “Too Young”, Phoenix minted a template for dreamy FM college rock that would just about see them though the fallow years of Alphabetical and the one nobody bought, It’s Never Been Like That (it hadn’t). Labelless and without management or little else to lose, they began recording its follow-up in the Montmartre studio of their friend Philippe Zdar, who’d handled most of United. Zdar’s passionate approach to production galvanised the band – he’s effectively their fifth member in the studio – and breathed life into the artful powerpop of what would become Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. With it, they’d slowly seduce the States, starting with appearances on the late-night TV chat show circuit.

Oddly for a group due to headline Coachella this month, much of Phoenix’s fifth album Bankrupt! seems framed around Mars’ usual sheepishness or lack of confidence, his preoccupation with surface – that is, where his lyrics are decipherable. It’s as if, perhaps, he feels he doesn’t deserve the wife, the lifestyle, the acclaim, like the numbed actor installed in the Chateau Marmont in his partner’s last film Somewhere. “And you can’t cross the line but you can’t stop trying”, he repeats on “S.O.S. In Bel Air” before the chorus of “Alone, alone, alone”. In “Drakkar Noir”, a reference to the cheap cologne French teenagers would splash on in the ’80s, he mentions “a better standard of mediocrity” and you can’t help but think of Phoenix, essentially a very good band but seldom outrageously excellent.

As with parts of Wolfgang…, you tend to notice the craft, the effort that goes into the songwrting, because it often sounds as if this doesn’t come naturally to them. “Entertainment”, “Chloroform” and “Trying To Be Cool” roll out with fixed grins and stuck-on melody. On the other hand, “Bourgeois” and “Don’t” surprise and sparkle as they unravel, the latter this Sigue Sigue Sputnik rumble that erupts into a swooning Dinosaur Jr chorus.

If Wolfgang… was the album that gave Phoenix everything they’d always strived for, Bankrupt! is the record that finds them trying to come to terms with it all. They’re not celebrating – at least not yet.

Piers Martin

Q&A

Thomas Mars

Can you explain the success of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix?

It felt like the planets were aligned and there was some common hallucination where there’s a gap and something can happen and it becomes a big success. With this album the pressure was from outside. Friends would say, “Good luck with that one” in a jokey way, but the amount of them wishing us luck started to build. There was this feeling of being observed, whereas before we were in our own world and we thought people didn’t even listen to our music anymore.

Why the title Bankrupt!?

It’s to do with this idea of starting from scratch, the fear of being a greatest hits band, the fear of accumulation. When you accumulate things it goes against creation: it means comfort, bigger live shows, more songs, more hits, and you want to be free of that. At some point, when you have success, it’s a weight. Bankrupt! is getting rid of that – it’s a good bankrupt.

You recently bought the Thriller mixing desk. Did you use it?

Here and there, but there’s so much going on on this record that you can’t hear the console breathe. There’s a piece attached to it called ‘the producer’s desk’ and the seller was asking if we wanted it, as it’s heavy, or would we just want the machine. I asked him what it was for and he said, “Well, it’s where Michael Jackson would eat his hamburgers.” I said ship it!

INTERVIEW: PIERS MARTIN

Suede add dates to autumn UK tour

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Suede add dates to autumn UK tour
Suede have added a trio of new shows to their October tour of the UK and Ireland. The band will now play additional shows in Southampton, Southend and Bristol, as well as previously announced dates in Leeds, Glasgow, Dublin, Manchester and Birmingham. Tickets for the new shows go on sale May 17 at ...

Suede have added a trio of new shows to their October tour of the UK and Ireland.

The band will now play additional shows in Southampton, Southend and Bristol, as well as previously announced dates in Leeds, Glasgow, Dublin, Manchester and Birmingham. Tickets for the new shows go on sale May 17 at 9am [BST].

The band released their sixth album, Bloodsports, in March. Singer Brett Anderson hinted recently that the album’s success could see band continue to record music together. “I’d like to think we could make another great record to follow this great record and start a new chapter for the band.”

Suede will play:

Southampton Guildhall (October 22)

Southend Cliff Pavilion (23)

Bristol O2 Academy (24)

Leeds O2 Academy (26)

Glasgow Barrowlands (27)

Dublin Olympia (27)

Manchester Academy 1 (30)

Birmingham Academy 1 (31)

Jack White’s Third Man label joins forces with Sun Records for 7″ reissues

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Jack White’s Third Man label joins forces with Sun Records for 7″ reissues
Jack White's Third Man Records have joined forces with the Sun Records label for a series of releases. Third Man will be reissuing a number of songs from Sun's iconic back catalogue on 7" black vinyl, including Johnny Cash's 1956 single 'Get Rhythm', which was originally backed with 'I Walk The Lin...

Jack White‘s Third Man Records have joined forces with the Sun Records label for a series of releases.

Third Man will be reissuing a number of songs from Sun’s iconic back catalogue on 7″ black vinyl, including Johnny Cash‘s 1956 single ‘Get Rhythm’, which was originally backed with ‘I Walk The Line’. The initial three 45rpm releases will include Rufus Thomas’ ‘Bear Cat’ and The Prisonaires’ ‘Just Walking In The Rain’ – both originally released in 1953 – alongside the Johnny Cash reissue. All three will be released on May 21. A limited 150 copies will be released on yellow and black splatter vinyl that Third Man have dubbed “sun-ray vinyl”.

The Third Man blog says: “This will be an ongoing partnership between Sun and Third Man and future releases are already in the works.”

They add: “Each release remains faithful to its original issue on Sun, replicating the classic logo and label design coupled with a striking Sun company sleeve that dutifully employs the rooster Sam Philips lamented losing as labels switched from 78’s to 45’s.”

Third Man Records recently released versions of the soundtrack to The Great Gatsby on gold and platinum vinyl. The vinyl used on Third Man’s deluxe edition of the soundtrack is described as “blindingly reflective metalized discs”, and is the first-ever commercially available records produced in the style. Both the standard and deluxe editions of the vinyl release are packaged in a “laser-cut wooden LP jacket riveted to aluminum spines” complete with the “Art Deco-meets-modern” style of the Baz Luhrmann movie.

Pic credit: Jo McCaughey

Bill Wyman on playing with The Rolling Stones: ‘Never again’

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Bill Wyman on playing with The Rolling Stones: ‘Never again’
Bill Wyman has said he will "never" play live with the Rolling Stones again. Wyman, who played with the The Rolling Stones between 1962 until 1993, joined the band onstage for their 50th anniversary gigs at London's O2 Arena last November (2012), but in April he said that he would not be intereste...

Bill Wyman has said he will “never” play live with the Rolling Stones again.

Wyman, who played with the The Rolling Stones between 1962 until 1993, joined the band onstage for their 50th anniversary gigs at London’s O2 Arena last November (2012), but in April he said that he would not be interested in rejoining the group on a permanent basis because he has “better things to do”.

Now, in an interview with the Huffington Post, Wyman seemingly ruled out the possibility of performing with his former bandmates ever again. “The nice thing was that my kids saw me on stage with the Stones,” he said. “They’d asked me the December before, and I had to jam with them for three days. I was under the impression I was going to get really involved, but when it came to it, they only wanted me to do two songs, which was very disappointing.”

He then added: “I’ve always maintained that you can’t go back to things, and they can never be the same. it’s like a school reunion, or Tony Hancock’s Army reunion. If you try to go back and have a relationship with someone, it doesn’t work, and it’s the same musically. It doesn’t work. It was a one-off. Five minutes. OK, never again. No regrets, we’re still great friends.”

The Rolling Stones are currently on their 50 & Counting tour. The band return to the UK for their Glastonbury headline set on June 29 and a pair of massive gigs in London’s Hyde Park on July 6 and 13.

Nick Cave – The Ultimate Music Guide, on sale this week!

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Nick Cave – The Ultimate Music Guide, on sale this week!

“I think I was reaching quite high from the beginning. I may not have had any right to be, but I was. I was always interested in people that were older than me and I looked up to them – people really from a different era to me: Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker, even writers like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. I wasn’t particularly influenced by my contemporaries. They weren’t very good.” This is Nick Cave, if you were wondering, writing in the introduction to the latest in our series of Ultimate Music Guides, which will be on sale from May 16, and dedicated to Cave and his albums with The Birthday Party, The Bad Seeds and Grinderman. This is our 14th Ultimate Music Guide and follows specials on David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, The Clash, Paul Weller, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Kinks, U2 and The Smiths, which are all available to order online at www.uncut.co.uk/store or to download digitally at www.uncut.co.uk/download. As ever, Nick Cave – the Ultimate Music Guide gathers together an amazing collection of features from the archives of NME and Melody Maker, including some eye-popping early encounters with The Birthday Party, all of them unseen for years. Additionally, there are brand new in-depth reviews of every Cave album by a top team of Uncut writers, a full discography, sections on his books and the films he’s been involved with as writer, actor and soundtrack composer and guides to Cave rarities, guest slots and his many loyal sidemen in the three bands he has so memorably fronted. To put you in the mood, here are a couple of clips - The Birthday Party doing “Fears Of Gun” and The Bad Seeds laying waste to the mighty “Tupelo” at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6-p81SC9_U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXjyJPQEblM The Great Escape festival, meanwhile, is finally upon us, so some of us will be heading to Brighton on Thursday, where we’ll be taking over what used to be called The Pavilion Theatre but has apparently been renamed this year and is now known as The Dome Studio. We’re there for three nights, with the following line-ups, our strongest ever we think. Thursday, May 16 Phosphorescent Lord Huron Dean McPhee Red River Dialect Friday, May 17 Mikal Cronin Allah-Las Charlie Boyer & the Voyeurs C Joynes Saturday, May 18 Woods White Fence Mary Epworth The Strypes Hopefully, we’ll see a lot of you there!

“I think I was reaching quite high from the beginning. I may not have had any right to be, but I was. I was always interested in people that were older than me and I looked up to them – people really from a different era to me: Johnny Cash, John Lee Hooker, even writers like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. I wasn’t particularly influenced by my contemporaries. They weren’t very good.”

This is Nick Cave, if you were wondering, writing in the introduction to the latest in our series of Ultimate Music Guides, which will be on sale from May 16, and dedicated to Cave and his albums with The Birthday Party, The Bad Seeds and Grinderman.

This is our 14th Ultimate Music Guide and follows specials on David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, The Clash, Paul Weller, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Kinks, U2 and The Smiths, which are all available to order online at www.uncut.co.uk/store or to download digitally at www.uncut.co.uk/download.

As ever, Nick Cave – the Ultimate Music Guide gathers together an amazing collection of features from the archives of NME and Melody Maker, including some eye-popping early encounters with The Birthday Party, all of them unseen for years. Additionally, there are brand new in-depth reviews of every Cave album by a top team of Uncut writers, a full discography, sections on his books and the films he’s been involved with as writer, actor and soundtrack composer and guides to Cave rarities, guest slots and his many loyal sidemen in the three bands he has so memorably fronted.

To put you in the mood, here are a couple of clips – The Birthday Party doing “Fears Of Gun” and The Bad Seeds laying waste to the mighty “Tupelo” at the Paradiso in Amsterdam.

The Great Escape festival, meanwhile, is finally upon us, so some of us will be heading to Brighton on Thursday, where we’ll be taking over what used to be called The Pavilion Theatre but has apparently been renamed this year and is now known as The Dome Studio. We’re there for three nights, with the following line-ups, our strongest ever we think.

Thursday, May 16

Phosphorescent

Lord Huron

Dean McPhee

Red River Dialect

Friday, May 17

Mikal Cronin

Allah-Las

Charlie Boyer & the Voyeurs

C Joynes

Saturday, May 18

Woods

White Fence

Mary Epworth

The Strypes

Hopefully, we’ll see a lot of you there!

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young delay live 1974 album until next year

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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young delay live 1974 album until next year
CSNY have delayed their upcoming live 1974 album until next year, according to Graham Nash. As previously reported in Uncut, Nash had announced that the album would be released on August 27. Speaking recently to ABC Radio News, Nash however revised the release date, explaining, "We were gonna brin...

CSNY have delayed their upcoming live 1974 album until next year, according to Graham Nash.

As previously reported in Uncut, Nash had announced that the album would be released on August 27.

Speaking recently to ABC Radio News, Nash however revised the release date, explaining, “We were gonna bring it out in August, but next year is the 40th anniversary of the tour, and so I’m gonna wait for spring of next year.

“You gotta understand, our shows were three or four hours long and there are four of us and we were all writing like crazy. I just found a one-minute, 10-second song of Neil Young‘s about Richard Nixon that I can’t leave off. It’s brilliant… So, my point is, I’m still forming and shaping the album.”

Nash claimed the finished album will contain 38 songs.

The 19th Uncut Playlist Of 2013

John Mulvey
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The 19th Uncut Playlist Of 2013

Playing the Daft Punk album this morning (it’s streaming on iTunes if you haven’t found it yet), which is quite interesting. Bits of it are astonishing, I’d say (“Get Lucky” of course, “Contact”, “Giorgio By Moroder” especially). I am finding it hard, though, to completely sign up to a record that intermittently reminds me of Christopher Cross record. Evidently, I still carry traces of ‘80s indie militancy. Let me know what you think when you’ve had a listen. Lots more to play this week, as you can see from the embedded content below (apologies for the two blanks: embargoes, I’m afraid). Not new, but can I especially recommend the Carolyn Crawford track? Been obsessed with this one since I found it on a Philly International comp last year, but as far as I can tell it’s only just turned up on Youtube Couple of other bits of housekeeping while I’m here. First, we’ve finally introduced a dedicated Features section at www.www.uncut.co.uk (click here to go straight to Uncut Features), where we’re archiving a lot of long reads from the magazine: worth a browse, I would hope. Second, our latest Ultimate Music Guide arrives in UK shops on Thursday, this one dedicated to the long and eventful career of Nick Cave. Usual drill: extended new reviews of every Boys Next Door, Birthday Party, Bad Seeds and Grinderman album (plus essays about Cave’s films and books); then loads of old, uncut features from NME and Melody Maker. Plenty of highlights, though I should probably especially recommend Gavin Martin’s interview with an unusually candid Cave, conducted between drinking binges in Sao Paolo in 1994, and the Steve Sutherland piece from 1982 that we’ve headlined, “Maybe they’ll all piss on us tonight like the scum we are!” Enjoy… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey 1 Houndstooth – Ride Out The Dark (No Quarter) 2 The Oblivians – Desperation (In The Red) 3 The Cairo Gang – Tiny Rebels (Empty Cellar)

Playing the Daft Punk album this morning (it’s streaming on iTunes if you haven’t found it yet), which is quite interesting. Bits of it are astonishing, I’d say (“Get Lucky” of course, “Contact”, “Giorgio By Moroder” especially). I am finding it hard, though, to completely sign up to a record that intermittently reminds me of Christopher Cross record. Evidently, I still carry traces of ‘80s indie militancy.

Let me know what you think when you’ve had a listen. Lots more to play this week, as you can see from the embedded content below (apologies for the two blanks: embargoes, I’m afraid). Not new, but can I especially recommend the Carolyn Crawford track? Been obsessed with this one since I found it on a Philly International comp last year, but as far as I can tell it’s only just turned up on Youtube

Couple of other bits of housekeeping while I’m here. First, we’ve finally introduced a dedicated Features section at www.www.uncut.co.uk (click here to go straight to Uncut Features), where we’re archiving a lot of long reads from the magazine: worth a browse, I would hope.

Second, our latest Ultimate Music Guide arrives in UK shops on Thursday, this one dedicated to the long and eventful career of Nick Cave. Usual drill: extended new reviews of every Boys Next Door, Birthday Party, Bad Seeds and Grinderman album (plus essays about Cave’s films and books); then loads of old, uncut features from NME and Melody Maker. Plenty of highlights, though I should probably especially recommend Gavin Martin’s interview with an unusually candid Cave, conducted between drinking binges in Sao Paolo in 1994, and the Steve Sutherland piece from 1982 that we’ve headlined, “Maybe they’ll all piss on us tonight like the scum we are!” Enjoy…

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

1 Houndstooth – Ride Out The Dark (No Quarter)

2 The Oblivians – Desperation (In The Red)

3 The Cairo Gang – Tiny Rebels (Empty Cellar)

The Cairo Gang – Tiny Rebels (Out 7/23/2013) from Empty Cellar on Vimeo.

4 Iasos – Celestial Soul Portrait (Numero Group)

5 Dead Meadow – Dead Meadow (Xemu)

6

7 These New Puritans – Field Of Reeds (Infectious)

8 Bitchin Bajas – Bitchitronics (Drag City)

9 μ-Ziq – Chewed Corners (Planet Mu)

10 Phil Yost – Bent City (Takoma)

11 Nadine Shah – Love Your Dum And Mad (Apollo)

12 Jon Hopkins – Immunity (Domino)

13 Grant Hart – The Argument (Domino)

14

15 Jozef Van Wissem – Nihil Obstat (Important)

16 Diana Jones – Museum Of Appalachia Recordings (Proper)

17 Link Wray/Various Artists – The King Of Distortion Meets The Red Line Rebels (Righteous)

18 Nick Mulvey – Fever To The Form (Communion)

19 Alela Diane – The Way We Fall (Rusted Blue)

20 Carolyn Crawford – If You Move, You Lose (Philadelphia International)

21 Daft Punk – Random Access Memories (Columbia)

Listen to Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories

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Listen to Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories
Daft Punk are currently streaming their new album 'Random Access Memories' online via iTunes. The album is officially released on May 20. Earlier today, Daft Punk previewed new song "Give Life Back To Music" in a trailer for their new LP. The snippet of the song comes at the end of an advert that ...

Daft Punk are currently streaming their new album ‘Random Access Memories’ online via iTunes. The album is officially released on May 20.

Earlier today, Daft Punk previewed new song “Give Life Back To Music” in a trailer for their new LP. The snippet of the song comes at the end of an advert that shows Daft Punk “unboxing” the album. “Give Life Back To Music” is the first track on Random Access Memories and is the second song to be heard from the album after the smash hit “Get Lucky” featuring Pharrell.

“Get Lucky” held its place at Number One in the Official UK Singles Chart this weekend after passing 100,000 sales per week for the third week in a row. Last week it was reported that Daft Punk had no plans to perform live around the release of Random Access Memories. The album also features collaborations with the likes of Julian Casablancas, Panda Bear and Giorgio Moroder.

The tracklisting for ‘Random Access Memories’ is:

‘Give Life Back To Music’

‘The Game Of Love’

‘Giorgio By Moroder’

‘Within’

‘Instant Crush’

‘Lose Yourself To Dance’

‘Touch’

‘Get Lucky’

‘Beyond’

‘Motherboard’

‘Fragments Of Time’

‘Doin’ It Right’

‘Contact’

Kiss plan to open over 100 restaurants

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Kiss plan to open over 100 restaurants
Kiss plan to open over 100 restaurants in North America. The band have just opened the third branch of Rock & Brews in the greater Los Angeles area and have said that they wish to open 100 more in the next five years. Of the chain's expansion, the band's frontman Paul Stanley told Hollywood R...

Kiss plan to open over 100 restaurants in North America.

The band have just opened the third branch of Rock & Brews in the greater Los Angeles area and have said that they wish to open 100 more in the next five years.

Of the chain’s expansion, the band’s frontman Paul Stanley told Hollywood Reporter: “We are spreading our tentacles! It’s a family friendly place where you don’t have to compromise your palate. Most of the time when you bring your kids to a restaurant, you are eating cardboard pizza or dried out macaroni and cheese. This is really your place where you can hang out, choose from one of our 80 craft beers, hear quality rock music and have a great night with your friends.”

The band plan to open new branches at LAX airport in Los Angeles, Maui in Hawaii and Kansas City in Missouri over the coming year.

Last year, Kiss opened their own mini-golf course in Las Vegas. The Kiss By Monster Mini Golf Site features a glow-in-the-dark mini golf course, as well as an arcade, party rooms and wedding chapel. Speaking about the course, bassist Gene Simmons said: “This venue is perfect for Las Vegas. Where else can you go play a round of Kiss By Monster Mini Golf, and then renew your wedding vows in an official Kiss Hotter Than Hell Wedding Chapel? Only in Vegas.” To find out more information about the course, click here.

The National streaming new album Trouble Will Find Me online

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The National streaming new album Trouble Will Find Me online
The National are streaming their forthcoming new album Trouble Will Find Me online. The Brooklyn band don't release their sixth studio LP until May 20, but have now made the record available for stream via iTunes. Trouble Will Find Me is the follow-up to the band's 2010 album, High Violet, and fe...

The National are streaming their forthcoming new album Trouble Will Find Me online.

The Brooklyn band don’t release their sixth studio LP until May 20, but have now made the record available for stream via iTunes.

Trouble Will Find Me is the follow-up to the band’s 2010 album, High Violet, and features contributions from St Vincent, Sharon Van Etten and Sufjan Stevens. It was produced by Craig Silvey.

The National will play six gigs in the UK and Ireland this November:

Belfast Odyssey Arena (November 9)

Dublin O2 Arena (10)

Manchester O2 Apollo (11, 12)

London Alexandra Palace (13, 14)

You can read Uncut’s exclusive interview with the band in the new issue of Uncut, on sale now.

Country Joe & The Fish – Electric Music For The Mind And Body

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Country Joe & The Fish – Electric Music For The Mind And Body

Lysergic landmark gets stereo/mono remaster treatment... It isn’t easy to pinpoint singular, watershed moments in a culture’s evolution – in fact, it’s a messy business, heroes and hucksters alike laying claims to history. But it is safe to say that when Electric Music For The Mind And Body arrived via Vanguard on May 11, 1967 – six weeks ahead of the fabled Summer Of Love – the pop landscape had seen nothing of its kind. Bursting forth as if it could hardly hold Young America’s collective, bottled-up repression and restlessness a second longer, Country Joe & The Fish’s super-charged debut was a game-changer, a one-of-a-kind artefact, projecting a hippy “new normal” out to an almost uncomprehending world. While certain mega-popular recording artists danced around the notion of mind expansion via recreational drug use circa 1965-67, the Fish came right out with it. “Hey partner, won’t you pass that reefer round,” singer Country Joe McDonald moaned in “Bass Strings”. In the daring “Superbird”, the Fish harboured the suggestion that Lyndon Johnson retire to his Texas ranch and, oh, drop some LSD. And then things got really weird without any lyrics at all in “Section 43”, a virtually indescribable swirl of fog and sound, a psychedelic masterpiece assembled in movements, that simulated an acid trip. “I liked the music full of holes,” McDonald said recently, “as opposed to a wash of sound.” A product of the radicalised San Fran/Berkeley mix of progressive politics, youth culture, the Beats and anti-war protests, Country Joe & The Fish (singer/writer/guitarist Joe McDonald, guitarist Barry Melton, keyboardist David Cohen, bassist Bruce Barthol, drummer “Chicken” Hirsh) evolved from McDonald’s solo talking-blues coffeehouse sets into a full-blown, even-the-kitchen-sink electric band circa early 1966. Two DIY-style EPs, the second of which included a trippy early version of “Section 43”, were grassroots hits. Under the production tutelage of musicologist and folk/blues wunderkind Sam Charters (whose original stereo mix-down appears here), though, the Fish poured their chaotic all into Electric Music, (arguably) outgunning the celebrated psychedelic frontiers represented by the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Musically, the Fish revolved around Melton’s blistering, raga-like guitar runs – which sparred with McDonald’s vocals – and Cohen’s buzzsaw Farfisa leads, which took Al Kooper’s keyboard work with Bob Dylan to an electrifying extreme. Their ostentatious approach is so varied, though, that high-minded analysis is useless. Blues structures collide with unconventional time changes, classical composition blends with backwoods harmonica, straightforward folk/rock morphs into baroque improv, jazz/world music undertones float by – Electric Music came at listeners from myriad angles. Lyrically, the Fish were provocative, outrageous, absurd. Politically strident, yes, but their protests, like the scathing “Superbird” – Melton’s wildfire guitar front-and-centre – carried plenty of good-natured, common sense humour. Their aural acid trips, a Fish specialty in the early years, are infused with grandeur and exploratory wonder. But they could be darkly fatalistic, too, as on the feral “Death Sound Blues”. From the hyper-blues riffs opening the tumbling rollercoaster “Flying High”, Electric Music transcends the polite coffeehouse fare often passing for 1960s folk/rock. McDonald’s wry, wide-eyed vocal approach is perfectly apropos here, and even better on “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine”. A character sketch of sorts, a romance gone awry, it leaves boy/girl, moon/spoon pop fare in the dust, its unconventional rhythms and surreal storytelling making it the album’s most compelling track. There were less-distinguished moments: “Sad And Lonely Times”, pleasant as it is, aims for a Byrds-style melding of psych and country, and misses the mark; “Love”, more-or-less straight boogie, gets by on some intricate interplay. But it’s an inadvertent preview of the moribund soul/blues workouts that would eventually sour the San Francisco scene. But “The Masked Marauder” and “Grace” close out Electric Music amid some of the more outré recesses of early psych. The former, another of the group’s dizzying patchworks, traverses a cycle of spacey keyboards, childlike chants and bluesy harmonica – a band showpiece. On the latter, written for Grace Slick, they opt, for once, for some studio trickery – bells, chimes, water sound effects, reverbed vocals – an enchanting work of no small mystery. EXTRAS: Original mono mix – not heard since the late ’60s – extensive photos, reproduced posters, liner notes by Alec Paleo, and reminiscences from many principals, including Country Joe McDonald and Barry Melton. Like Torn Q+A Country Joe McDonald What were some of the influences in this record? R’n’B from my teenage years and C&W; cool West Coast jazz… some semi-classical stuff. I was a big fan of John Fahey and he probably influenced “Section 43”. All the songs were written by me on my guitar with harmonica. “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine” has a very unusual sound. How did that one come about? It just popped into my head one day. It is odd because it has a verse, chorus and bridge. It is of course blues-based, but not a blues as such. The guitar parts and organ give it a unique sound. Also Chicken and Bruce gave everything a very distinct drum and bass bottom to the songs – not typical of rock or blues bands. How did “Superbird” go over back then? Was it censored from radio? I don’t remember anyone ever objecting to “Superbird”. Of course there was hardly any radio for us to get play on back then. Just progressive FM stations and very few of those. I think we put it in our shows all the time because it had a nice beat and seemed like a regular R’n’B song. INTERVIEW: LUKE TORN

Lysergic landmark gets stereo/mono remaster treatment…

It isn’t easy to pinpoint singular, watershed moments in a culture’s evolution – in fact, it’s a messy business, heroes and hucksters alike laying claims to history. But it is safe to say that when Electric Music For The Mind And Body arrived via Vanguard on May 11, 1967 – six weeks ahead of the fabled Summer Of Love – the pop landscape had seen nothing of its kind. Bursting forth as if it could hardly hold Young America’s collective, bottled-up repression and restlessness a second longer, Country Joe & The Fish’s super-charged debut was a game-changer, a one-of-a-kind artefact, projecting a hippy “new normal” out to an almost uncomprehending world.

While certain mega-popular recording artists danced around the notion of mind expansion via recreational drug use circa 1965-67, the Fish came right out with it. “Hey partner, won’t you pass that reefer round,” singer Country Joe McDonald moaned in “Bass Strings”. In the daring “Superbird”, the Fish harboured the suggestion that Lyndon Johnson retire to his Texas ranch and, oh, drop some LSD. And then things got really weird without any lyrics at all in “Section 43”, a virtually indescribable swirl of fog and sound, a psychedelic masterpiece assembled in movements, that simulated an acid trip. “I liked the music full of holes,” McDonald said recently, “as opposed to a wash of sound.”

A product of the radicalised San Fran/Berkeley mix of progressive politics, youth culture, the Beats and anti-war protests, Country Joe & The Fish (singer/writer/guitarist Joe McDonald, guitarist Barry Melton, keyboardist David Cohen, bassist Bruce Barthol, drummer “Chicken” Hirsh) evolved from McDonald’s solo talking-blues coffeehouse sets into a full-blown, even-the-kitchen-sink electric band circa early 1966. Two DIY-style EPs, the second of which included a trippy early version of “Section 43”, were grassroots hits. Under the production tutelage of musicologist and folk/blues wunderkind Sam Charters (whose original stereo mix-down appears here), though, the Fish poured their chaotic all into Electric Music, (arguably) outgunning the celebrated psychedelic frontiers represented by the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.

Musically, the Fish revolved around Melton’s blistering, raga-like guitar runs – which sparred with McDonald’s vocals – and Cohen’s buzzsaw Farfisa leads, which took Al Kooper’s keyboard work with Bob Dylan to an electrifying extreme. Their ostentatious approach is so varied, though, that high-minded analysis is useless. Blues structures collide with unconventional time changes, classical composition blends with backwoods harmonica, straightforward folk/rock morphs into baroque improv, jazz/world music undertones float by – Electric Music came at listeners from myriad angles.

Lyrically, the Fish were provocative, outrageous, absurd. Politically strident, yes, but their protests, like the scathing “Superbird” – Melton’s wildfire guitar front-and-centre – carried plenty of good-natured, common sense humour. Their aural acid trips, a Fish specialty in the early years, are infused with grandeur and exploratory wonder. But they could be darkly fatalistic, too, as on the feral “Death Sound Blues”. From the hyper-blues riffs opening the tumbling rollercoaster “Flying High”, Electric Music transcends the polite coffeehouse fare often passing for 1960s folk/rock. McDonald’s wry, wide-eyed vocal approach is perfectly apropos here, and even better on “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine”. A character sketch of sorts, a romance gone awry, it leaves boy/girl, moon/spoon pop fare in the dust, its unconventional rhythms and surreal storytelling making it the album’s most compelling track.

There were less-distinguished moments: “Sad And Lonely Times”, pleasant as it is, aims for a Byrds-style melding of psych and country, and misses the mark; “Love”, more-or-less straight boogie, gets by on some intricate interplay. But it’s an inadvertent preview of the moribund soul/blues workouts that would eventually sour the San Francisco scene.

But “The Masked Marauder” and “Grace” close out Electric Music amid some of the more outré recesses of early psych. The former, another of the group’s dizzying patchworks, traverses a cycle of spacey keyboards, childlike chants and bluesy harmonica – a band showpiece. On the latter, written for Grace Slick, they opt, for once, for some studio trickery – bells, chimes, water sound effects, reverbed vocals – an enchanting work of no small mystery.

EXTRAS: Original mono mix – not heard since the late ’60s – extensive photos, reproduced posters, liner notes by Alec Paleo, and reminiscences from many principals, including Country Joe McDonald and Barry Melton.

Like Torn

Q+A

Country Joe McDonald

What were some of the influences in this record?

R’n’B from my teenage years and C&W; cool West Coast jazz… some semi-classical stuff. I was a big fan of John Fahey and he probably influenced “Section 43”. All the songs were written by me on my guitar with harmonica.

“Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine” has a very unusual sound. How did that one come about?

It just popped into my head one day. It is odd because it has a verse, chorus and bridge. It is of course blues-based, but not a blues as such. The guitar parts and organ give it a unique sound. Also Chicken and Bruce gave everything a very distinct drum and bass bottom to the songs – not typical of rock or blues bands.

How did “Superbird” go over back then? Was it censored from radio?

I don’t remember anyone ever objecting to “Superbird”. Of course there was hardly any radio for us to get play on back then. Just progressive FM stations and very few of those. I think we put it in our shows all the time because it had a nice beat and seemed like a regular R’n’B song.

INTERVIEW: LUKE TORN

Astronaut records David Bowie ‘Space Oddity’ video from International Space Station – watch

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Astronaut records David Bowie ‘Space Oddity’ video from International Space Station – watch

Astronaut Chris Hadfield has become the first person ever to record a music video in space, filming his version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" from the International Space Station. The video, which you can see above, was shot in space and sees Commander Hadfield singing the songs lyrics "Here am I sitting in a tin can, far above the world, Planet Earth is blue, And there's nothing left to do" as he floats in zero gravity. The track has a full full arrangement, recorded by producer Joe Corcoran and piano arranger Emm Gryner back on earth but the guitar and vocals were recorded live in space. Tweeting about his video, Hadfield wrote: "With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here's Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo Meanwhile, David Bowie's new video for "The Next Day" has been criticised by the Catholic Church.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield has become the first person ever to record a music video in space, filming his version of David Bowie‘s “Space Oddity” from the International Space Station.

The video, which you can see above, was shot in space and sees Commander Hadfield singing the songs lyrics “Here am I sitting in a tin can, far above the world, Planet Earth is blue, And there’s nothing left to do” as he floats in zero gravity. The track has a full full arrangement, recorded by producer Joe Corcoran and piano arranger Emm Gryner back on earth but the guitar and vocals were recorded live in space.

Tweeting about his video, Hadfield wrote: “With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here’s Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World.”

Meanwhile, David Bowie’s new video for “The Next Day” has been criticised by the Catholic Church.

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