The comedian Andy Kaufman is to release Andy And His Grandmother, which is being billed as the comedian's first-ever comedy record.
Kaufman, best known as one of the stars of TV series Taxi and who was played by Jim Carrey in the biopic Man In The Moon, is reported to have died in 1984. Scroll down to watch footage of Kaufman on the David Letterman show.
Andy And His Grandmother collects unreleased material culled from 82 hours of micro-cassette tapes that Kaufman recorded throughout 1977-79. It will be released on July 16 through Drag City Records.
The album has been compiled by writer, producer, and comedian Vernon Chatman. Saturday Night Live comic Bill Hader will provide narration while Kaufman collaborator Bob Zmuda has written the liner notes.
The tracklisting for Andy and His Grandmother is:
Andy Is Making A Record
Andy And His Grandmother
Andy’s Land Live
Andy Loves His Tape Recorder
Slice Of Life
Andy Goes To the Movies
Kick In the Pants
Andy Can Talk to Animals
I’m Not Capable Of Having A Relationship
Hookers
Andy And His Grandmother Go For A Drive
Sleep Comedy
[HONK] vs. [DOG] A
[HONK] vs. [DOG] B
Andy Goes For A Taxi Ride
Andy’s English Friend Paul
I Want Those Tapes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p0sr2BejUk
The comedian Andy Kaufman is to release Andy And His Grandmother, which is being billed as the comedian’s first-ever comedy record.
Kaufman, best known as one of the stars of TV series Taxi and who was played by Jim Carrey in the biopic Man In The Moon, is reported to have died in 1984. Scroll down to watch footage of Kaufman on the David Letterman show.
Andy And His Grandmother collects unreleased material culled from 82 hours of micro-cassette tapes that Kaufman recorded throughout 1977-79. It will be released on July 16 through Drag City Records.
The album has been compiled by writer, producer, and comedian Vernon Chatman. Saturday Night Live comic Bill Hader will provide narration while Kaufman collaborator Bob Zmuda has written the liner notes.
Courtney Love will be embarking on a solo tour under her own name next month in the United States.
Though she resurrected the Hole name to release the album Nobody's Daughter in 2010, at the end of last year she tweeted: "Hole is dead". Nobody's Daughter was the first Hole album since 1998's Celebr...
Courtney Love will be embarking on a solo tour under her own name next month in the United States.
Though she resurrected the Hole name to release the album Nobody’s Daughter in 2010, at the end of last year she tweeted: “Hole is dead”. Nobody’s Daughter was the first Hole album since 1998’s Celebrity Skin. Love was the only original member in the most recent incarnation of the group. She was instead backed by a band which included Micko Larkin, formerly of British indie act Larrikin Love.
In April of last year, Love briefly reunited with the classic Hole line-up of guitar player Eric Erlandson, bass player Melissa Auf Der Maur and drummer Patty Schemel to play a short, two-song set at the New York after-party for Hit So Hard, a film about Schemel’s battle with drugs.
Courtney Love will play seven dates as part of her forthcoming East Coast tour, starting in Philadelphia on June 20, visiting Boston, Silver Spring, Brooklyn, Port Chester and Asbury Park, before finishing up in Huntingdon, New York on June 29.
Speaking to Wonderland, Love recently said she was set to release a new single last month, however this has not yet materialised. She commented: “I have two A-sides coming out in mid-April… I had six songs, but I decided to pick the two excellent songs instead of four really good songs and two excellent songs.”
One of the new tracks is titled ‘California’, a title the former Hole singer knew had to be paired with a big song. “I keep writing about California so I just finally called a song straight up fucking ‘California’. Not even Malibu, which I still don’t have the keys to the city and I’m really pissed… It’s like when Billy Corgan told me he was calling a song ‘Tonight, Tonight’. I was like, ‘If that song isn’t the best fucking song I’ve ever heard, you will be carted out of town on a cross’. You don’t call a song ‘Tonight, Tonight’ or ‘California’ unless you know it’s major.”
A new song by The Avalanches has been revealed as part of a preview of the soundtrack to new musical version of King Kong.
The stage version of King Kong will hit Australia's Regent Theatre in Melbourne from May 28 and comes with an illustrious list of musical contributions including Guy Garvey of Elbow, Massive Attack's 3D, Justice and The Avalanches.
The Australian act have released a limited amount of material following the success of their 2000 album Since I Left You and contribute a cover of the song "Get Lucky", made famous by Judy Garland, to the musical score. Scroll down to hear snippets from all of the acts involved in the musical.
The music for King Kong is being overseen by composer and arranger Marius de Vries, whose credits include the soundtracks for Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet.
In 2008 it was reported that The Avalanches had finished work on their follow up to Since I Left You with the band updating their MySpace page promising fans "New material soon." However, despite both Ariel Pink and rapper Danny Brown claiming that they have worked on songs for the new alum, only a demo of a new track - a collaboration with Silver Jews' David Berman called "A Cowboy Overflow Of The Heart" released via the band's website - has so far surfaced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-agwxdEY6o
A new song by The Avalanches has been revealed as part of a preview of the soundtrack to new musical version of King Kong.
The stage version of King Kong will hit Australia’s Regent Theatre in Melbourne from May 28 and comes with an illustrious list of musical contributions including Guy Garvey of Elbow, Massive Attack’s 3D, Justice and The Avalanches.
The Australian act have released a limited amount of material following the success of their 2000 album Since I Left You and contribute a cover of the song “Get Lucky”, made famous by Judy Garland, to the musical score. Scroll down to hear snippets from all of the acts involved in the musical.
The music for King Kong is being overseen by composer and arranger Marius de Vries, whose credits include the soundtracks for Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet.
In 2008 it was reported that The Avalanches had finished work on their follow up to Since I Left You with the band updating their MySpace page promising fans “New material soon.” However, despite both Ariel Pink and rapper Danny Brown claiming that they have worked on songs for the new alum, only a demo of a new track – a collaboration with Silver Jews’ David Berman called “A Cowboy Overflow Of The Heart” released via the band’s website – has so far surfaced.
Entertaining documentary about the notoriously cantankerous drummer...
Beware Of Mr Baker begins with Ginger Baker breaking the nose of the film’s director Jay Bulger with a metal walking stick. It sets the tone for what follows: Baker is a man for whom confrontation is second nature.
Born on the outbreak of WW2 – “I love disasters” – he recalls early on in the film the counsel of his late father: “Be a man at all times, hold your own ground. Use your fists, they are your best pals.” It’s advice Baker has clearly taken to heart throughout his life, from his earliest outings with the Graham Bond Organisation through his career peaks in Cream, Blind Faith and with Fela Kuti and beyond.
As Bulger’s film opens, we find Baker living in South Africa in a gated commune that he shares with his fourth wife, her children and 39 polo ponies. He appears to spend his days reclining in a LazyBoy, wearing shades and chain-smoking Rothmans. He he suffers from degenerative osteoarthritis and intermittently sucks oxygen through a respirator – although this hasn’t conspicuously dampened his spirit, which, at 73, remains splenetic. The young Jagger is remembered as “a stupid little cunt”, while John Bonham “couldn’t swing a sack of shit” and the general public are just “fucking dumb”.
The film is propelled along by Baker’s various conflicts – with former friends, bandmates, record companies, the authorities and his family. “From time to time, I’d just break down,” admits Eric Clapton as he outlines Baker’s abrasive relationship with Jack Bruce in Cream. The archive footage provides ample evidence of Baker’s considerable drumming skills, and the subtext of Bulger’s film is that Baker’s tremendous gifts make his behaviour somehow permissible – especially within the context of the Sixties and Seventies music scene. As John Lydon says, “I cannot question anyone with end results that perfect.”
The source of Baker’s anger is presumably the loss of his father, who was killed in action in 1943 when his son was 4. In fact, the only time we see Baker soften is when he describes his friendship with jazz drummers Phil Seamen, Max Roach, Art Blakey and Elvin Jones, who were clearly surrogate fathers. Baker’s own family – three ex-wives and three children – are kept very much at arms length. “Horses don’t let you down,” he explains. “Nor do dogs.”
Michael Bonner
Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner
Entertaining documentary about the notoriously cantankerous drummer…
Beware Of Mr Baker begins with Ginger Baker breaking the nose of the film’s director Jay Bulger with a metal walking stick. It sets the tone for what follows: Baker is a man for whom confrontation is second nature.
Born on the outbreak of WW2 – “I love disasters” – he recalls early on in the film the counsel of his late father: “Be a man at all times, hold your own ground. Use your fists, they are your best pals.” It’s advice Baker has clearly taken to heart throughout his life, from his earliest outings with the Graham Bond Organisation through his career peaks in Cream, Blind Faith and with Fela Kuti and beyond.
As Bulger’s film opens, we find Baker living in South Africa in a gated commune that he shares with his fourth wife, her children and 39 polo ponies. He appears to spend his days reclining in a LazyBoy, wearing shades and chain-smoking Rothmans. He he suffers from degenerative osteoarthritis and intermittently sucks oxygen through a respirator – although this hasn’t conspicuously dampened his spirit, which, at 73, remains splenetic. The young Jagger is remembered as “a stupid little cunt”, while John Bonham “couldn’t swing a sack of shit” and the general public are just “fucking dumb”.
The film is propelled along by Baker’s various conflicts – with former friends, bandmates, record companies, the authorities and his family. “From time to time, I’d just break down,” admits Eric Clapton as he outlines Baker’s abrasive relationship with Jack Bruce in Cream. The archive footage provides ample evidence of Baker’s considerable drumming skills, and the subtext of Bulger’s film is that Baker’s tremendous gifts make his behaviour somehow permissible – especially within the context of the Sixties and Seventies music scene. As John Lydon says, “I cannot question anyone with end results that perfect.”
The source of Baker’s anger is presumably the loss of his father, who was killed in action in 1943 when his son was 4. In fact, the only time we see Baker soften is when he describes his friendship with jazz drummers Phil Seamen, Max Roach, Art Blakey and Elvin Jones, who were clearly surrogate fathers. Baker’s own family – three ex-wives and three children – are kept very much at arms length. “Horses don’t let you down,” he explains. “Nor do dogs.”
David Bowie's controversial new video has been branded "juvenile" by a former Archbishop of Canterbury.
The singer plays a Christ-like figure in the video for "The Next Day", while his co-star Gary Oldman appears as a priest and Marion Cotillard is seen with stigmata wounds on her hands. The video ...
David Bowie‘s controversial new video has been branded “juvenile” by a former Archbishop of Canterbury.
The singer plays a Christ-like figure in the video for “The Next Day”, while his co-star Gary Oldman appears as a priest and Marion Cotillard is seen with stigmata wounds on her hands. The video premiered yesterday (May 8) and was briefly banned from YouTube before being reinstated later in the day.
Writing in The Telegraph, former Archbishop of Cantebury Lord Carey states that the video is “juvenile” and criticises Bowie for “upsetting people”. “If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery perhaps Christians should not worry too much at such an exploitation of religious imagery,” Carey writes. “I doubt that Bowie would have the courage to use Islamic imagery – I very much doubt it. Frankly, I don’t get offended by such juvenilia – Christians should have the courage to rise above offensive language, although I hope Bowie will recognise that he may be upsetting some people.”
Additionally, the Catholic League, which bills itself as America’s “largest Catholic civil rights organisation”, has taken issue with the video’s overtly religious subject matter – posting a scathing blog post on its website titled “BOWIE’S ‘JESUS’ VIDEO IS A MESS”.
The group’s President Bill Donohue writes: “David Bowie is back, but hopefully not for long. The switch-hitting, bisexual, senior citizen from London has resurfaced, this time playing a Jesus-like character who hangs out in a nightclub dump frequented by priests, cardinals and half-naked women.”
Continuing, Donohue claims that the video is”strewn with characteristic excess” and Bowie himself is described as “nothing if not confused about religion”. Donohue concludes: “In short, the video reflects the artist – it is a mess.”
The controversial new David Bowie video is streaming once again on YouTube after being banned by the site.
A spokesperson for Bowie said that the promo for "The Next Day" single had been removed from the streaming site as it "contravened their terms of use".
However, the video is once again up on the site, with a YouTube spokesperson telling Billboard: "With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call. When it's brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it."
Alongside Bowie, the video features actors Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard.
'The Next Day' is the third single to be taken from Bowie's current album of the same name. The video was directed by Floria Sigismundi - the photographer and filmmaker who directed Bowie's last video, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)".
You can read our guide to Bowie on film here.
The controversial new David Bowie video is streaming once again on YouTube after being banned by the site.
A spokesperson for Bowie said that the promo for “The Next Day” single had been removed from the streaming site as it “contravened their terms of use”.
However, the video is once again up on the site, with a YouTube spokesperson telling Billboard: “With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call. When it’s brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.”
Alongside Bowie, the video features actors Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard.
‘The Next Day’ is the third single to be taken from Bowie’s current album of the same name. The video was directed by Floria Sigismundi – the photographer and filmmaker who directed Bowie’s last video, “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”.
Sonic brutality and lashings of existential dread!
Even by the quixotic standards of The Flaming Lips, The Terror is a strange affair, musically as prickly and uncomfortable as anything you'll hear this year, and so wracked with dread and disillusion that it's virtually challenging you to actively dislike it.
At every turn, Wayne Coyne seems to want to disabuse the listener of any comforting or uplifting notions. In the opening track "Look... The Sun Is Rising", this event - usually regarded as welcome evidence of the recurrent cycle of life, or at least observed with a sense of awed wonder and warmth - is characterised as the ghastly guillotine of nocturnal endeavour. The ensuing "Be Free, A Way" opens with the query, "Did god make pain so we can know the high that nothing is?". And the 13-minute electronic ooze of "You Lust" is periodically punctuated by a vicious, Gollum-like whisper of "Lust to succeed! Lust to succeed!". Coyne himself has described "Try To Explain" as "the sonic equivalent of Edvard Munch's The Scream". Another track is called "Turning Violent"; while at the album's centre, the title-track all but gloats over puny human insignificance: "We are standing alone/The terror's in our heads/We don't own the controls". It is not, you won't be surprised to learn, the world's greatest party album.
Nor are the various threads of disillusion sugared with the kind of sweetening melody that made "Do You Realise?", for example, such a joyous anthem. Initially begun by Stephen Drozd in an adjoining studio during time out from the arduous logistical problems of mixing last year's ...And Heady Fwends album, the music for The Terror is predominantly abstract electronic tones culled from old analogue synths like the Arp and Wasp, sculpted into brutal riffs and textures, low rumbling grumbles, whiskery synthscapes and keening pads, with any potential pleasantry summarily obliterated by harsh, discordant bursts of noise like those which grind home "The Terror". Amidst these unforgiving sonic surroundings, Wayne Coyne's frail falsetto is like a ghost trapped in a machine, struggling to bring sentience and emotion to the proceedings. At one point - I think it was during "Be Free, A Way", or maybe "You Are Alone" - his airily reverbed voice seemed like nothing so much as the chanting of disillusioned zen monks, coming to terms with a spiritually bleak prognosis.
As with most "difficult" albums, the more one listens, the more forgiving they become. Despite its unpromising title, the most welcoming track is "Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die", which employs a gently undulating synth line and piano motif over the roiling abstract electronic noise bed, with just a few sparse guitar chords helping move things along. Its lyric recalls the Chaos Theory linkage of a flapping butterfly wing causing a tsunami: the almost imperceptible delicacy of the insect licking an eye is compared to the universe-shifting mechanisms of sunset and sunrise, a brief meditation on macrocosmic forces which, by the album's overall standards, seems almost joyous.
Not that it's allowed to divert the general direction of The Terror, which eventually comes to a suitably pessimistic conclusion in the deceptively-titled "Always There... In Our Hearts", which appears to harbour uplift, but turns out to be a final grim rumination about the uglier primal urges lurking in the human id, a litany of fear and pain, selfishness and domination, sorrow and sadness: "Always there in our hearts, there is evil that wants out". But all these aspects of our character, Coyne suggests, are part of the Faustian pact that makes our lives worth living, the peaks and troughs that save us from the crushing defeat of bland mediocrity - a final twist that enables him to conclude the album with a gymnastic volte-face: "Always there in our hearts, a joy of life that overwhelms, overwhelms".
Andy Gill
Q&A
WAYNE COYNE
Just what the world needs - an album about existential dread!
Given that musicians are, at their core, sensitive artists, there are times when we know we're creating things, and other times when we know the desire to create is engaged by some other ghost of oneself. I think our best records are more when we're surrendering, not trying to make things go a certain way. But maybe it's just the nature of artists that they go towards existential dread!
On this album there's a distinct lack of chord changes and the usual narrative structures of songs - was that just how it turned out?
Sometimes when making a record, it isn't that you know what you want, you just know what you don't want, and what you end up making the record from is what's leftover from the things you didn't want. So I wouldn't say I wanted this, I just didn't reject it. I absolutely love this record, but I don't know why we made it. It's kind of like we're hypnotised.
Are you a glass-half-empty kind of guy?
It's a bit like a drug experience: there's a time when you know you're going to get high, and there's a moment when you're just absolutely taken away, then there's a time when that moment is over, and you come down: you aren't really there for very long. A lot of things in life are like that. Especially love - you don't want to live without it, so you pursue it and try to create it, but the minute you feel as though you have it, it flips over and you start worrying, Oh god, what would my life be like without this? You're never without that anxiety.
INTERVIEW: ANDY GILL
Sonic brutality and lashings of existential dread!
Even by the quixotic standards of The Flaming Lips, The Terror is a strange affair, musically as prickly and uncomfortable as anything you’ll hear this year, and so wracked with dread and disillusion that it’s virtually challenging you to actively dislike it.
At every turn, Wayne Coyne seems to want to disabuse the listener of any comforting or uplifting notions. In the opening track “Look… The Sun Is Rising”, this event – usually regarded as welcome evidence of the recurrent cycle of life, or at least observed with a sense of awed wonder and warmth – is characterised as the ghastly guillotine of nocturnal endeavour. The ensuing “Be Free, A Way” opens with the query, “Did god make pain so we can know the high that nothing is?”. And the 13-minute electronic ooze of “You Lust” is periodically punctuated by a vicious, Gollum-like whisper of “Lust to succeed! Lust to succeed!”. Coyne himself has described “Try To Explain” as “the sonic equivalent of Edvard Munch’s The Scream”. Another track is called “Turning Violent”; while at the album’s centre, the title-track all but gloats over puny human insignificance: “We are standing alone/The terror’s in our heads/We don’t own the controls”. It is not, you won’t be surprised to learn, the world’s greatest party album.
Nor are the various threads of disillusion sugared with the kind of sweetening melody that made “Do You Realise?”, for example, such a joyous anthem. Initially begun by Stephen Drozd in an adjoining studio during time out from the arduous logistical problems of mixing last year’s …And Heady Fwends album, the music for The Terror is predominantly abstract electronic tones culled from old analogue synths like the Arp and Wasp, sculpted into brutal riffs and textures, low rumbling grumbles, whiskery synthscapes and keening pads, with any potential pleasantry summarily obliterated by harsh, discordant bursts of noise like those which grind home “The Terror”. Amidst these unforgiving sonic surroundings, Wayne Coyne’s frail falsetto is like a ghost trapped in a machine, struggling to bring sentience and emotion to the proceedings. At one point – I think it was during “Be Free, A Way”, or maybe “You Are Alone” – his airily reverbed voice seemed like nothing so much as the chanting of disillusioned zen monks, coming to terms with a spiritually bleak prognosis.
As with most “difficult” albums, the more one listens, the more forgiving they become. Despite its unpromising title, the most welcoming track is “Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die”, which employs a gently undulating synth line and piano motif over the roiling abstract electronic noise bed, with just a few sparse guitar chords helping move things along. Its lyric recalls the Chaos Theory linkage of a flapping butterfly wing causing a tsunami: the almost imperceptible delicacy of the insect licking an eye is compared to the universe-shifting mechanisms of sunset and sunrise, a brief meditation on macrocosmic forces which, by the album’s overall standards, seems almost joyous.
Not that it’s allowed to divert the general direction of The Terror, which eventually comes to a suitably pessimistic conclusion in the deceptively-titled “Always There… In Our Hearts”, which appears to harbour uplift, but turns out to be a final grim rumination about the uglier primal urges lurking in the human id, a litany of fear and pain, selfishness and domination, sorrow and sadness: “Always there in our hearts, there is evil that wants out”. But all these aspects of our character, Coyne suggests, are part of the Faustian pact that makes our lives worth living, the peaks and troughs that save us from the crushing defeat of bland mediocrity – a final twist that enables him to conclude the album with a gymnastic volte-face: “Always there in our hearts, a joy of life that overwhelms, overwhelms”.
Andy Gill
Q&A
WAYNE COYNE
Just what the world needs – an album about existential dread!
Given that musicians are, at their core, sensitive artists, there are times when we know we’re creating things, and other times when we know the desire to create is engaged by some other ghost of oneself. I think our best records are more when we’re surrendering, not trying to make things go a certain way. But maybe it’s just the nature of artists that they go towards existential dread!
On this album there’s a distinct lack of chord changes and the usual narrative structures of songs – was that just how it turned out?
Sometimes when making a record, it isn’t that you know what you want, you just know what you don’t want, and what you end up making the record from is what’s leftover from the things you didn’t want. So I wouldn’t say I wanted this, I just didn’t reject it. I absolutely love this record, but I don’t know why we made it. It’s kind of like we’re hypnotised.
Are you a glass-half-empty kind of guy?
It’s a bit like a drug experience: there’s a time when you know you’re going to get high, and there’s a moment when you’re just absolutely taken away, then there’s a time when that moment is over, and you come down: you aren’t really there for very long. A lot of things in life are like that. Especially love – you don’t want to live without it, so you pursue it and try to create it, but the minute you feel as though you have it, it flips over and you start worrying, Oh god, what would my life be like without this? You’re never without that anxiety.
The Breeders performed two songs on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday (May 7). Scroll down to watch their performance.
Taking a break from their current US tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of 1993's Last Splash, the Kim Deal-fronted band performed their best-known song 'Cannonball', plu...
The Breeders performed two songs on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday (May 7). Scroll down to watch their performance.
Taking a break from their current US tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of 1993’s Last Splash, the Kim Deal-fronted band performed their best-known song ‘Cannonball’, plus a web exclusive of ‘Driving On 9’. ‘Last Splash’ was The Breeders’ second album and would be the last the band recorded until 2002’s ‘Title TK’.
The band recently released a special box set, LSXX, to celebrate the album’s anniversary. The limited edition collection features BBC radio sessions, demos, live recordings and a booklet of photos documenting the recording of the album and the two years spent touring it.
The Breeders will play five dates throughout the UK and Ireland next month, including a slot at ATP Camber Sands festival, which is curated by Deerhunter and also features performances from Atlas Sound, Panda Bear and a DJ set from Animal Collective.
Keith Richards has spoken out about Rolling Stones ticket prices.
Richards told Rolling Stone "From my point of view, it's like this: We say we want to put a Stones tour together and people come to us with proposals. And these proposals are all basically the same."
He added: "We actually did push...
Keith Richards has spoken out about Rolling Stones ticket prices.
Richards told Rolling Stone “From my point of view, it’s like this: We say we want to put a Stones tour together and people come to us with proposals. And these proposals are all basically the same.”
He added: “We actually did push down the prices a little bit. We took the lower offer, in other words. But, um, it’s the price of the market. I don’t really know. I don’t have much to do with it other than I would like people to get in, to be able to afford to get in, without sort of starving their babies and all. And that’s about it.”
The Rolling Stones are to play two gigs in London’s Hyde Park this July, with tickets – the majority of which were priced at £95 – having sold out in minutes. The band are also due to headline this year’s Glastonbury Festival, making their debut appearance on the Pyramid Stage.
The evidently controversial new video from David Bowie has been banned by YouTube.
A spokesperson for Bowie said that the promo for "The Next Day" single had been removed from the streaming site as it apparently went against YouTube's terms of use. They commented: "They took it down as they say it contravened their terms of use".
No further reason has been given for the removal of the video, though it is thought that the promo's religious themes may have been a factor.
Alongside Bowie, the video features actors Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard.
'The Next Day' is the third single to be taken from Bowie's current album of the same name. The video was directed by Floria Sigismundi - the photographer and filmmaker who directed Bowie's last video, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)".
You can read our guide to Bowie on film here.
The evidently controversial new video from David Bowie has been banned by YouTube.
A spokesperson for Bowie said that the promo for “The Next Day” single had been removed from the streaming site as it apparently went against YouTube’s terms of use. They commented: “They took it down as they say it contravened their terms of use”.
No further reason has been given for the removal of the video, though it is thought that the promo’s religious themes may have been a factor.
Alongside Bowie, the video features actors Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard.
‘The Next Day’ is the third single to be taken from Bowie’s current album of the same name. The video was directed by Floria Sigismundi – the photographer and filmmaker who directed Bowie’s last video, “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”.
Lindsey Buckingham has opened up about his current relationship with Stevie Nicks.
Speaking about being back on the road with the band and his former partner Nicks, Buckingham told Rolling Stone: "Stevie and I have probably more of a connection now than we have in years. You can feel it. It's tangible on stage."
In the interview, Buckingham also discussed the band's first new material in 10 years, which was recently released as the Extended Play EP."With You", one of the four tracks on the record, is around 40 years old, pre-dating either Buckingham or Nicks' involvement with Fleetwood Mac.
"Stevie and I had a little disagreement over when it was written," explained Buckingham. "I believe it was written when we were in the process of culling material for a possible second Buckingham-Nicks album, before we were dropped by Polydor. She claims it was written earlier, but I'm not so sure." He continued: "It's a very sweet song that really harkens back to a time when we were far more innocent. She's writing to me and it's about our relationship, when we'd only been together for a very short time."
Fleetwood Mac will play a string of UK dates later this year. The band will play:
Dublin 02 (September 20)
London O2 Arena (24, 25, 27)
Birmingham LG Arena (29)
Manchester Arena (October 1)
Glasgow The Hydro (3)
Lindsey Buckingham has opened up about his current relationship with Stevie Nicks.
Speaking about being back on the road with the band and his former partner Nicks, Buckingham told Rolling Stone: “Stevie and I have probably more of a connection now than we have in years. You can feel it. It’s tangible on stage.”
In the interview, Buckingham also discussed the band’s first new material in 10 years, which was recently released as the Extended Play EP.”With You”, one of the four tracks on the record, is around 40 years old, pre-dating either Buckingham or Nicks’ involvement with Fleetwood Mac.
“Stevie and I had a little disagreement over when it was written,” explained Buckingham. “I believe it was written when we were in the process of culling material for a possible second Buckingham-Nicks album, before we were dropped by Polydor. She claims it was written earlier, but I’m not so sure.” He continued: “It’s a very sweet song that really harkens back to a time when we were far more innocent. She’s writing to me and it’s about our relationship, when we’d only been together for a very short time.”
Fleetwood Mac will play a string of UK dates later this year. The band will play:
The unveiling of Bowie's latest video earlier today prompted me to dig out this piece I originally wrote for our Bowie Ultimate Music Guide, about Bowie on film...
Most of David Bowie’s more recent acting roles have required very little preparation. He has made entertaining cameos as himself in Z...
The unveiling of Bowie’s latest video earlier today prompted me to dig out this piece I originally wrote for our Bowie Ultimate Music Guide, about Bowie on film…
Most of David Bowie’s more recent acting roles have required very little preparation. He has made entertaining cameos as himself in Zoolander and The Office; and provided voices for animated characters in Spongebob’s Atlantis Squarepantis and Luc Besson’s Arthur And The Invisibles.
In 2006, though, director Christopher Nolan cast Bowie as the pioneering electrical engineer Nikolai Tesla in his elegant Victorian thriller, The Prestige. It’s hard not to draw parallels between Tesla, the reclusive genius, and Bowie himself these days, living out semi-retirement in his New York home – after all, he has often been powerfully connected to his acting roles, inhabiting his ’70s stage personae with Actor’s Studio dedication. As John Lennon dryly commented, “Meeting him… you don’t know which one you’re talking to.”
Bowie’s acting dates back to the earliest days of his career. In mid-1967, when “The Laughing Gnome” stalled his ‘other’ career for two years, he met choreographer and mime artist, Lindsay Kemp. Kemp gave Bowie his first stage role – as a clown, Cloud, in Pierrot In Turquoise, which first played in Oxford in December, 1967. It was filmed by Scottish Television and you can find it on YouTube, along with another early Bowie credit – as a mysterious, ghostly presence haunting a painter in 1967 short, The Image. Both of these are of-their-time oddities. But if Bowie’s earliest forays into acting are emblematic of a fledgling artist trying to establish himself, he’s a far more persuasive dramatic presence in the ’70s.
Much of that rests with his big breakthrough role: playing alien visitor Thomas Jerome Newton in Nic Roeg’s 1976 film, The Man Who Fell To Earth. Roeg cast Bowie after seeing him in Alan Yentob’s 1974 American tour documentary, Cracked Actor. In Cracked Actor, the disconnected, skeletally thin Bowie looked fantastically otherworldly: all Roeg really required him to do, then, was be himself. The Man Who Fell To Earth ends with Newton reviled, humiliated and broken; a fate suffered by many of Bowie’s characters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKF5lHcJY9k
It’s hard, however, to see where 1978’s Just A Gigolo fits into this period of Bowie’s acting career. Newton and many of the parts that followed into the early ’80s are all outsider figures: the Elephant Man, a vampire, and the goblin king. But for his friend David Hemmings, Bowie plays a Prussian officer in post-WWI Berlin who becomes a gigolo for wealthy widows. It’s a curiously ‘normal’ (read: dull) part, sandwiched between Newton and his next role as John Merrick, The Elephant Man.
If Newton was basically Bowie as himself, playing Merrick on the American stage in late 1980 required physical transformation – allowing Bowie to dust down his mime skills learned from Lindsay Kemp. When Tim Rice asked Bowie, on an edition of BBC chat show Friday Night, Saturday Morning, what appealed to him about the role, Bowie answered, “I have a thing about freaks, isolationists and alienated people.”
He’s very good in Baal, an adaptation by Scum director Alan Clarke for the BBC, which aired in February 1982. Both Merrick and Baal require the actor to put aside vanity, which Bowie does, full of piss and vinegar as Brecht’s murderous, itinerant poet. “Genius always suffers persecution,” Baal is told early on in the play; as good a description as any for many of the characters we’re talking about here.
He is persecuted further in 1983’s Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. Released while he was enjoying mainstream success with Let’s Dance, Bowie plays Japanese PoW Major Jack Celliers, who becomes the obsession of camp commander Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto). Though there are musings on honour, codes of conduct and east/west culture clashes, director Nagisa Oshima (In The Realm Of The Senses) lingers on the tensions between Celliers and Yonoi. They’re a handsome pair, and Bowie – with his blond hair and deep tan – appears almost golden. It’s a stretch when we see Bowie, then 36, playing the 10-year-old Celliers in flashback, but forgive that: he is excellent as the doomed, defiant army major, way out of his freakish comfort zone.
Bowie is required only for his Bowieness in Tony Scott’s The Hunger (1983), playing Catherine Deneuve’s vampire lover. He’s very funny as a terribly British hitman in John Landis’ comedy Into The Night (1985), facing Carl Perkins in a knife-fight. He fares less well as smarmy ad exec Vendice Partners in Julien Temple’s dreadful musical Absolute Beginners (1986). Bowie does get to dance on a giant typewriter, though.
And then there’s Jim Henson’s Labyrinth (1986). Bowie had contributed to children’s projects before – he’d narrated a version of Peter And The Wolf (1978) and recorded an introduction to The Snowman (1982). But as Jareth, the Goblin King, he will always be remembered for a dreadful fright wig, some very tight trousers and singing with Goth Muppets. To the Bog Of Eternal Stench, indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sF1HwRqXFw
After Labyrinth, Bowie’s acting career becomes bittier and less focused. He gives an intelligent reading of Pontius Pilate for Scorsese in The Last Temptation Of Christ (1988), playing him as a bureaucrat simply trying to keep the peace. Misfiring caper The Linguini Incident (1991) finds Bowie’s English bartender plotting with disgruntled colleague Roseanna Arquette. There’s a fun cameo as long-lost FBI agent Phillip Jeffries in Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), making cryptic pronouncements in an outrageous Texan accent before disappearing, literally, into thin air. Surprisingly, he’s less successful as Andy Warhol in Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat (1996); his performance too close to caricature. He is miscast as a baddie in Spaghetti western Gunslinger’s Revenge (1998) and as an ageing British gangster opposite Goldie in Everybody Loves The Sunshine (1999). His cameos in Zoolander (2001), judging a ‘walk off’ between rival models Ben Stiller and Luke Wilson, and serenading Ricky Gervais in a 2006 episode of The Office (“Pathetic little fat man/no-one’s bloody laughing”) are diverting amuse-bouches. These days, you’re likely to get your big Bowie fix from his son, Duncan, promising director of two excellent sci-fi movies, Moon (2009) and Source Code (2011).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF76qlwWM8s
But it’s Christopher Nolan’s brilliant casting of Bowie in The Prestige that reminds you – goblins, cowboys and Prussian officers aside – how compelling a dramatic presence he can be. Bowie enjoys a spectacular entrance as Tesla, walking into shot through fearsome arcs of electromagnetic current. This is Tesla the erratic genius, pioneering in isolation on his scientific projects: time travel, anti-gravity machines, teleportation devices. Nikolai Tesla. The man who harnessed electricity. Who else are you going to get to play him?
Former US president Bill Clinton has revealed that he tried and failed to get Led Zeppelin to reform in 2012.
According to a CBS, David Saltzman of the Robin Hood Foundation, which organised the Hurricane Sandy benefit concert in New York, said that he and the film executive Harvey Weinstein had flown to Washington DC to enlist Clinton's help in getting Led Zeppelin on the concert bill alongside The Who, Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones.
Clinton agreed to Saltzman and Weinberg's request and approached Led Zepplin band members Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones in Washington at the Kennedy Center Honors gala, which took place days prior to the Hurricane Sandy benefit. However, the former President could not get the band up on the stage.
"Harvey Weinstein had this great idea that we could enlist Bill Clinton to convince Led Zeppelin to reunite," Saltzman said. "The President was terrific – 'I really wanna do this, this will be a fantastic thing, I love Led Zeppelin'. And Bill Clinton himself asked Led Zeppelin to reunite, and they wouldn’t do it."
Robert plant has recently announced a string of North American tour dates.
Former US president Bill Clinton has revealed that he tried and failed to get Led Zeppelin to reform in 2012.
According to a CBS, David Saltzman of the Robin Hood Foundation, which organised the Hurricane Sandy benefit concert in New York, said that he and the film executive Harvey Weinstein had flown to Washington DC to enlist Clinton’s help in getting Led Zeppelin on the concert bill alongside The Who, Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones.
Clinton agreed to Saltzman and Weinberg’s request and approached Led Zepplin band members Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones in Washington at the Kennedy Center Honors gala, which took place days prior to the Hurricane Sandy benefit. However, the former President could not get the band up on the stage.
“Harvey Weinstein had this great idea that we could enlist Bill Clinton to convince Led Zeppelin to reunite,” Saltzman said. “The President was terrific – ‘I really wanna do this, this will be a fantastic thing, I love Led Zeppelin’. And Bill Clinton himself asked Led Zeppelin to reunite, and they wouldn’t do it.”
Robert plant has recently announced a string of North American tour dates.
Laura Marling has unveiled the video for her track "Master Hunter".
The song features on Marling's forthcoming new album Once I Was An Eagle. The follow-up to 2011's 'A Creature I Don't Know', it was recorded at the Three Crows Studio owned by producer and solo musician Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon, ...
Laura Marling has unveiled the video for her track “Master Hunter”.
The song features on Marling’s forthcoming new album Once I Was An Eagle. The follow-up to 2011’s ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’, it was recorded at the Three Crows Studio owned by producer and solo musician Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon, Ryan Adams, Vaccines), with Dom Monks on engineering duties.
Last month, Marling unveiled the first four tracks from the album via a short film, entitled When Brave Bird Saved – watch it here.
The film was directed by Fred & Nick, who commented: “When Brave Bird Saved is an introduction to a visual journey directly inspired, informed, and narrated by the first four tracks of ‘Once I Was An Eagle’. Having collaborated with Laura over the last four years, the ambition and scope of this film marks an exciting new direction for us – and we were given total freedom to focus strongly on the distinct journey of the four tracks.”
Once I Was An Eagle is set for release on May 27. You can read Uncut’s exclusive interview with the singer-songwriter in the new issue of Uncut, on sale now.
The tracklisting for ‘Once I Was An Eagle’ is:
‘Take The Night Off’
‘I Was An Eagle’
‘You Know’
‘Breathe’
‘Master Hunter’
‘Little Love Caster’
‘Devil’s Resting Place’
‘Interlude’
‘Undine’
‘Where Can I Go?’
‘Once’
‘Pray For Me’
‘When Were You Happy? (And How Long Has That Been)’
A rare guitar played by John Lennon and George Harrison has arrived in London before it goes up for sale at auction.
The custom-made prototype VOX guitar will go on public display at The Stafford London Hotel in London from Thursday (May 9) to Saturday (May 11) before it goes up for sale in New York on May 18 at Julien's Auctions. It was played by Harrison and Lennon during the 1967 Magical Mystery Tour period.
The guitar, which was made in 1966, was given to the band's friend "Magic Alex" Mardas by John Lennon. A plaque attached to the back of the instrument reads "To Magic Alex/ Alexi thank you/ for been [sic] a friend/ 2-5-1967 John." According to Madras the date refers to his 25th birthday earlier that year and not the date the guitar was given to him. It's one of the few guitars known to exist that was played by both John Lennon and George Harrison.
Last month, the door from Paul McCartney's childhood home fetched as much as £5,000 when it went up auction in Gloucestershire. The door was from 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton, Liverpool, where McCartney lived from 1955-1964 and learned to play guitar, piano, drums and the trumpet.
A rare guitar played by John Lennon and George Harrison has arrived in London before it goes up for sale at auction.
The custom-made prototype VOX guitar will go on public display at The Stafford London Hotel in London from Thursday (May 9) to Saturday (May 11) before it goes up for sale in New York on May 18 at Julien’s Auctions. It was played by Harrison and Lennon during the 1967 Magical Mystery Tour period.
The guitar, which was made in 1966, was given to the band’s friend “Magic Alex” Mardas by John Lennon. A plaque attached to the back of the instrument reads “To Magic Alex/ Alexi thank you/ for been [sic] a friend/ 2-5-1967 John.” According to Madras the date refers to his 25th birthday earlier that year and not the date the guitar was given to him. It’s one of the few guitars known to exist that was played by both John Lennon and George Harrison.
Last month, the door from Paul McCartney’s childhood home fetched as much as £5,000 when it went up auction in Gloucestershire. The door was from 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton, Liverpool, where McCartney lived from 1955-1964 and learned to play guitar, piano, drums and the trumpet.
David Bowie has released the title track from his current album The Next Day as a single.
The video was directed by Floria Sigismundi - the photographer and filmmaker who directed Bowie's last video, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)". She also directed The Runaways and the video for Justin Timberlake's...
David Bowie has released the title track from his current album The Next Day as a single.
The video was directed by Floria Sigismundi – the photographer and filmmaker who directed Bowie’s last video, “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”. She also directed The Runaways and the video for Justin Timberlake’s “Mirrors”.
The video for “The Next Day“, which is set in a pub, stars Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard alongside Bowie.
Bowie plays a Christ-like figure, Oldman portrays a priest and Cotillard plays a saint-like character while a Cardinal hands out cash and a nun prays.
Bowie and Oldman previously joined forces in 1995, when they recorded a duet of Bowie’s “You’ve Been Around” for guitarist Reeves Gabrels’ album The Sacred Squall Of Now. They worked together again in 1996 on the Jean-Michel Basquiat biopic Basquiat with Bowie portraying Andy Warhol and Oldman in the role of a fellow painter loosely based on Julian Schnabel.
All three have previously starred in Christopher Nolan films. Bowie starred in The Prestige, while Oldman is an alumni of all three Batman films, the last of which co-starred Cotillard.
There’s a great video on www.uncut.co.uk at the moment of Neil Young singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in affectionate celebration of Willie Nelson, who was, astonishingly, 80 last month.
It reminded me of a YouTube clip I came upon a while ago of Willie jamming with Neil and Crazy Horse on a typically raging Neil version of “All Along The Watchtower”, Willie looking more than a tad bemused by where he seems to have found himself and Neil utterly lost in the noise he’s making.
I’ve posted it here in belated birthday tribute to Willie along with some terrific footage of Willie with other of his friends, including Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Paul Simon and Merle Haggard. The version of “Wild Horses” with Keith, Ryan Adams and Hank Williams III is especially rocking.
The Uncut website, I should also mention, now has a dedicated features section, with plenty of our best long pieces archived there. You can find it here.
Have a good week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cusVoNKZF8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsR0Y-sWk-E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vvWiL3pifE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkqdQ2dnPFg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SQL-j3GVus
Willie Nelson and Neil Young pic: Ebet Roberts/Getty Images
There’s a great video on www.uncut.co.uk at the moment of Neil Young singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in affectionate celebration of Willie Nelson, who was, astonishingly, 80 last month.
It reminded me of a YouTube clip I came upon a while ago of Willie jamming with Neil and Crazy Horse on a typically raging Neil version of “All Along The Watchtower”, Willie looking more than a tad bemused by where he seems to have found himself and Neil utterly lost in the noise he’s making.
I’ve posted it here in belated birthday tribute to Willie along with some terrific footage of Willie with other of his friends, including Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Paul Simon and Merle Haggard. The version of “Wild Horses” with Keith, Ryan Adams and Hank Williams III is especially rocking.
The Uncut website, I should also mention, now has a dedicated features section, with plenty of our best long pieces archived there. You can find it here.
Have a good week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsR0Y-sWk-E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vvWiL3pifE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkqdQ2dnPFg
Willie Nelson and Neil Young pic: Ebet Roberts/Getty Images
Various malign forces conspired to prevent me from posting this playlist in its rightful timeslot last week; apologies for that. But better late than never, I guess, and some fine new arrivals here from, among others, Duane Pitre, Bitchin Bajas, The Cairo Gang and Houndstooth.
Especial love for the Iasos comp from Numero Group, too. But I should get on…
Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey
1 Bitchin Bajas – Bitchitronics (Drag City)
2 Duane Pitre – Bridges (Important)
3 Thee Oh Sees – Floating Coffin (Castlemania)
4 Matias Aguayo – The Visitor (Cómeme)
5 Jacqueline Humbert & David Rosenboom - Daytime Viewing (Unseen Worlds)
6 The White Stripes – Nine Miles From The White City (Third Man)
7 Lightning Dust – Fantasy (Jagjaguwar)
8 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Your Funeral… My Trial (Mute)
9 Date Palms – The Dusted Sessions (Thrill Jockey)
10 Animal Collective - Monkey Been To Burn Town (Domino)
11 Jozef Van Wissem - Nihil Obstat (Important)
12 Iasos - Celestial Soul Portrait (Numero Group)
13 Various Artists – Philly ReGrooved 3: Tom Moulton Remixes (Harmless)
14 Houndstooth – Ride Out The Dark (No Quarter)
15 Rollin Hunt – The Phoney (Moniker)
16 JJ Cale – Naturally (Mercury)
17 Daft Punk – Get Lucky (Sony)
18 Danny Paul Grody – Between Two Worlds (Three Lobed)
19 Master Musicians Of Bukkake – Far West (Important)
20 Thee Oh Sees – Putrifiers II (In The Red)
21 The New Mendicants – Australia 2013 (One Little Indian)
22 Hiss Golden Messenger – Haw (Paradise Of Bachelors)
23 The Cairo Gang – Tiny Rebels (Empty Cellar)
24 Data 70 – Space Loops: The Complete Sessions (Enraptured)
Various malign forces conspired to prevent me from posting this playlist in its rightful timeslot last week; apologies for that. But better late than never, I guess, and some fine new arrivals here from, among others, Duane Pitre, Bitchin Bajas, The Cairo Gang and Houndstooth.
Especial love for the Iasos comp from Numero Group, too. But I should get on…
The National played their song "Sorrow" live for six hours straight on Sunday (May 5) in New York.
The band played the High Violet track over and over in a collaboration with artist Ragnar Kjartansson called A Lot Of Sorrow. Click below to see fan-shot footage of one of the performances of the song...
The National played their song “Sorrow” live for six hours straight on Sunday (May 5) in New York.
The band played the High Violet track over and over in a collaboration with artist Ragnar Kjartansson called A Lot Of Sorrow. Click below to see fan-shot footage of one of the performances of the song.
The National ended up playing the track 105 times, reports Pitchfork, who add that drummer Bryan Devendorf sat out one take of the song.
On the Facebook page, the band commented, jokingly: “For the encore, The National played ‘Sorrow’.” The one-track setlist is pictured.
The show took place at Moma PS1 in Long Island City, New York. A press release from the gallery reads: “By stretching a single pop song into a day-long tour de force the artist continues his explorations into the potential of repetitive performance to produce sculptural presence within sound.”
It continues: “As in all of Kjartansson’s performances, the idea behind A Lot of Sorrow is devoid of irony, yet full of humour and emotion. It is another quest to find the comic in the tragic and vice versa.”
Last month The National played two songs from their forthcoming sixth studio album Trouble Will Find Me on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.
The band release Trouble Will Find Me on May 20 via 4AD.
The National will play six gigs in the UK and Ireland this November:
Blur may record a new album in Hong Kong this week, according to Damon Albarn.
The band were playing a date at Hong Kong's AsiaWorld-Expo last night, which was originally due to be followed by some postponed dates in Japan. Faced with a week to kill in Hong Kong, Damon Albarn teased that they may ...
Blur may record a new album in Hong Kong this week, according to Damon Albarn.
The band were playing a date at Hong Kong’s AsiaWorld-Expo last night, which was originally due to be followed by some postponed dates in Japan. Faced with a week to kill in Hong Kong, Damon Albarn teased that they may use the time to lay down some new material.
Speaking to the crowd, Albarn said: “So we have a week in Hong Kong, and we thought it would be a good time to try and record another record.” Scroll down to watch a clip.
The question of whether Blur will record a follow-up to 2003’s Think Tank is an ongoing saga. Blur penned two new tracks – ‘Under The Westway’ and ‘The Puritan’ – for last year’s Hyde Park shows, and the band have hinted that more could follow, with producer William Orbit telling NME that the band had been in the studio working on new material with him. However, most recently, Graham Coxon denied it would happen in a conversation with a fan on Twitter in November 2012. Asked if there is a new Blur album coming out and, if so, when? Coxon replied by simply saying, “No”.
Blur will play their only show on the British Isles this year at Dublin’s Irish Museum of Modern Art on August 1. The date marks Blur’s first show in Ireland in four years. Bat For Lashes and The Strypes support.
