He’s worked with Brian Wilson, Joanna Newsom and The Byrds. With such impeccable credentials, you wonder what else life has to offer to a multi-talented composer, arranger, producer and singer like Van Dyke Parks. Well, now Van Dyke is set to answer your questions in Uncut as part of our regular Audience With… feature.

So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask him?

Why did he really turn down an invitation to join The Byrds?

How did he earn the nickname “Pinocchio” from Frank Zappa?

His first paid gig was arranging “The Bare Necessities” for The Jungle Book soundtrack. How on earth did that come about?

Send up your questions by noon, Monday, November 5 to uncutaudiencewith@ipcmedia.com. The best questions, and Van Dyke’s answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine. Please include your name and location with your question.

Spiritualized frontman Jason Pierce has described music festivals as “the death of art” and says they’ve “gotten straighter as the years have gone on”.

Speaking to Drowned In Sound, the singer also hits out at other bands’ egos.

Pierce says: “I know everyone has started thinking that [festivals are] the way you see bands now, but I’ve always said bands are the least important part of a festival. What’s important is standing around and seeing who you live with and what your world is why you’re there. Bands have always been a side issue to that, but now more so. And everybody is compromised as a result. The audience are, and the bands are because they get short time slots and no sound check.”

He continues: “Yet bands, in their wisdom still soak up the glory, like they’re worth THIS many people. Or worse, when you get those awful singalongs, and a band’s ego kicks in when the crowd sings their words back. It’s as if they’re standing on stage thinking ‘This is what we’re worth’ and really the audience would sing ‘We’ll Meet Again‘ if it was playing. There’s something about a communal sing-song that’s inherent in people. People love it. So yeah, it’s been a long old summer playing festivals. I felt more and more a part of the entertainment industry as it went on. And I’m not part of the entertainment industry. I’m an artist and I want to feel like an artist. It’s important that I push where I want to go and the audience goes with that if they want to, or doesn’t if they don’t. Festivals are the death of that. And they’ve gotten straighter as the years have gone on too. They’re less about drugs and rock and roll now. They’re more about community.”

Pierce also spoke about his plans for his next album, the follow-up to this year’s Sweet Heart, Sweet Light. He says he’s been influenced by the improvisational performances he’s seen at London’s Café Oto. “I want to do something freer,” he says, adding that the album is likely to be more collaborative.

“I want to follow through on some of the collaborative ideas I had for the last album that I never pursued… Rather than having an existing band that you try to get to go with you, I figured I would find musicians who were already working in an area that I wanted to go to, that I found interesting. So if I wanted to do something that sounded like Thurston [Moore], and I’m not talking about Sonic Youth, I mean the freer stuff he does, I would go to him rather than finding a way there with my band. I’m full of ideas at the moment. I haven’t really got a solid plan. I really feel this whole phase is a step on the way somewhere, but I’m not sure where that is. I’m trying to get the tools in place so I can get there.”

Depeche Mode have announced an extra night at London’s O2 Arena in May 2013.

The electronic band will now play the venue on Wednesday, May 29 as well as the previously publicised May 28. These are currently the only UK dates the band have announced as part of a wider European tour next year.

Depeche Mode’s 34-date European tour kicks off on May 7 in Tel Aviv and features stop-offs at the Rock Werchter Festival in Belgium (July 7), BBK Festival in Spain (July 11) and Optimus Alive Festival in Portugal (July 13). A North American tour will follow later in the year.

The tour is in support of the follow-up to 2009’s Sounds Of The Universe, which is, according to band sources, due out in Spring 2013. The album will be their 13th studio LP.

Gahan has previously said that the recording sessions for the new album were “very different” to the way they had worked in the past. The singer also thanked Fever Ray producer Christopher Berg for his work on the album and his “fantastic ideas”.

Earlier this year, meanwhile, founding member Martin Gore collaborated with the band’s former keyboardist and songwriter Vince Clarke under the moniker VCMG. They released their debut album, ‘Ssss’, in March.

The Rolling Stones played another secret gig in Paris on October 29.

The Stones played 12 tracks at the 1,800 capacity venue le Théâtre Mogador, including “Tumbling Dice”, “It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (But I Like It)” and “Honky Tonk Women”. They also played new single “Doom And Gloom”. Watch fan-filmed footage of them arriving at the venue below.

The gig follows the band’s first performance in over five years last Thursday (October 25) at the tiny 600-capacity La Trabendo venue.

Ronnie Wood previously revealed to NME that the band would perform tiny warm-up gigs under their Cockroaches guise during their breaks from rehearsing in Paris.

“There’s going to be little club gigs that we’re gonna surprise ourselves to do,” he said. “We’ll bung a few in next week or the week after, so look out for any Cockroaches gigs or whatever! I don’t know who we’ll be billed as but we’ll turn up somewhere and put a few to the test. Tiny, 200, 300 people kind of places.”

The Rolling Stones are set to play two dates at London’s O2 Arena on November 25 and 29 to celebrate the their 50th anniversary. They will also be playing two nights at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey in the US on December 13 and 15.

To coincide with the dates, the The Stones will release a brand new greatest hits compilation in November titled GRRR!

Bob Dylan‘s high school yearbook, containing a personal message written by him to a friend, will go up for auction at Christie’s in London on November 29.

The yearbook, from 1958, features a photograph of the young Robert Zimmerman pictured as a high-school student at the age of 17, before he left Minnesota for New York. In the yearbook he has written: “Dear Jerry, Well the year’s almost all over now huh. Remember the ‘sessions’ down at Collier. Keep practicing the guitar and maybe someday you’ll be great! A friend, Bob Zimmerman.”

The book is expected to go for up to £6,000.

Other items scheduled to be sold at the auction include a sleeveless white velour jumpsuit made for Mick Jagger by Ossie Clark for the Rolling Stones’ US tour in 1972, which has been valued between £8,000 and £12,000, and the bass guitar which was smashed up in the music video for Nirvana‘s 1991 single “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. The battered instrument is estimated to fetch £15,000 – £25,000.

Cat Power has said she may have to cancel her European tour.

The singer was due to come to the UK for a one-off show later this year to headline London’s Roundhouse on December 12. It would be her first UK gig in over four years. The show is part of a full European run of shows that also includes gigs in Amsterdam, Koln, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Milan, Bologna, Zurich, Paris and Brussels.

Earlier today, she posted a photo onto her Instagram, with the message: “I may have to cancel my European tour due to bankruptcy and my health struggle with angioedema. I have not thrown in any towel, I am trying to figure out what best I can do.”

She added: “Heart broken. Worked so hard. Got sick day after ‘Sun‘ came out and been struggling to keep all points of me in equilibrium: mind, spirit, body healthy, centered and grounded. I am doing the best I can. I fucking love this planet. I refuse to give up. Though I may need to restrategise for my security and health.”

News from Oliver Gray, who runs The Railway in Winchester, where he has promoted the Uncut Sessions, as a kind of Club Uncut in exile since we quit our original home at London’s Borderline. The Uncut Sessions started a couple of years ago when Oliver booked Richmond Fontaine for two special shows. The first, on what I remember was a rather damp and windswept Saturday afternoon, saw Richmond Fontaine play their brilliant Post To Wire album in its entirety. Their second show, that evening, featured just about every other song the band had ever played, written, recorded, covered or merely just heard, possibly once, blasting out of the radio of a passing car, whistled by a waitress, hummed by a barman or otherwise brought to their passing attention in vague and possibly unremembered ways. The set went on for what people later reckoned was about four hours, although by its end the crowd had in all likelihood have lost all sense of time and the band could have carried on well into the following week without complaint from anyone there.

Anyway, not for the first time, I digress. Oliver actually wrote with what I presume they still call somewhere a ‘heads-up’ about a couple of forthcoming Railway shows, neither of which if you are within reasonable travelling distance of Winchester you won’t want to miss.

The first is coming up pretty soon, on November 4, actually, and features long time Uncut favourites, Baltimore’s Arbouretum, whose new album, Coming Out Of The Fog, has been getting a lot of airplay in the office here ahead of its January 2013 release on Thrill Jockey.

The second show, in the New Year, is a rare UK show by the amazing John Murry (above), exciting news for anyone as thrilled as I was by his recent album, The Graceless Age, a record high on my list of the best albums of 2013, a personal favourite of the last 12 months, second only to Bob Dylan’s Tempest. Murry plays The Railway on January 30. For more details, go to http://www.railwaylive.co.uk.

As you’ll have seen from the new issue, I’ve recently been nose deep in new autobiographies by Neil Young, Pete Townshend and Rod Stewart, and I’m currently just finishing a new Mick Jagger biography by Philip Norman, who’s previously written at length about Mick and the Stones. There’s not much in the book Stones’ fans will be unfamiliar with, but, by God, it’s still an amazing story, despite Norman’s oddly condescending tone and the many instances in which Mick’s behaviour is truly appalling. I’m also working my way through The John Lennon Letters, a hefty collection of Lennon’s correspondence, including hand-drawn postcards, apparently drunken rants, acrimonious screeds, various fragments and scraps and even shopping lists, edited by Hunter Davies, who published the first biography of The Beatles, authorised by the band themselves, in 1968. There’ll be more on both in next month’s Uncut.

Have a good week.

The Ohio University student group responsible for using a track by The National in a pro-Mitt Romney video have apologised to the band.

The group, called Ohio University Students For Romney, used the band’s track “Fake Empire”, from their 2007 album Boxer, as the soundtrack to an advert promoting the Republican politician’s candidacy. The clip was previously able to be viewed via YouTube, but has since been removed by the group after coming under-fire from The National.

An apology, via Spin, read: “We apologize for offending The National and their fans by using a cover/remix of the band’s melody for ‘Fake Empire’. We were attempting to reinvigorate and unite the disgruntled fans wary of supporting the President as they did in 2008 with ‘Signs of Hope and Change’, with a new movement of people who believe in real recovery and reform in supporting Mitt Romney.”

It continued: “Unfortunately we’ve learned that partisan divide exists on YouTube and in music as much as it does in Washington…we respectfully took down the video, and will repost with music representing a better future with Romney & Ryan in Washington.”

The National have long been supporters of current US President Barack Obama and, unsurprisingly, reacted with disdain to their music being used in the video. Frontman Matt Berninger posted a comment on YouTube in response to the advert, writing: “Our music was used without our permission in this ad. The song you’re using was written about the same backward, con game policies Romney is proposing.

“We encourage all students to educate themselves about the differences between the inclusive, pro-social, compassionate, forward-thinking policies of President Obama and the self-serving politics of the neo-conservative movement and Mitt Romney,” he added. “Every single person involved in the creation of the music you’re using is voting for President Obama.”

Earlier this month (October 6), The National revealed that they have received hate mail for supporting Obama’s campaign for four more years in the oval office, with guitarist/keyboardist Aaron Dessner claiming that they were sent insulting messages on Facebook for playing a Democratic campaign rally for the incumbent President in Des Moines in September.

Jack White‘s new song “Blues On Two Trees” featuring the former White Stripes frontman rapping.

The track, which will be released as the b-side to new single “I’m Shakin’“, starts off as a typically bluesy garage track White is famous for before the deadpan rhyming starts. “Three trees lying on the side of the road/ One tree barks, ‘Where the hell do we go?’” White raps. Scroll down the page to hear a preview of the song.

White has previously dabbled in hip-hop, having recorded tracks with both Insane Clown Posse and Black Milk. “Blues On Two Trees” will be available in full from the Third Man Records store today (October 30). ‘I’m Shakin’ is the latest single to be taken from White’s critically acclaimed solo album Blunderbuss.

The Rolling Stones have confirmed that they will be broadcasting one of their two New Jersey shows live on Sky Box Office in December

The band, who are reuniting for two London shows and a further pair of dates in America, will make their December 15 date at Newark’s Prudential Centre available to fans in the UK who will be able to pay £14.95 to see the band on TV. The Sky Box Office broadcast will start at 2AM (GMT) on December 16 with viewers also able to download the show to their Sky planner for viewing at a more convenient time.

Speaking about the broadcast of The Rolling Stones US gig, Ian Lewis, director of Sky Box Office said: “Sky is thrilled to be able to offer our customers The Rolling Stones’ 50th Anniversary Concert live in their living room. Whether live or on demand, customers will be able to enjoy the gig exactly at a time that suits them. And with the whole gig available in HD and in Dolby Surround Sound, it’s the next best thing to being there.”

The decision to charge fans to see a broadcast of the reunion show may well anger fans already left smarting at being priced out of the band’s London shows. Tickets started at around £95 each and rose to around £375 for the best seats, meaning many people could not afford to attend. Despite this, tickets for both O2 Arena dates are making thousands of pounds on secondary ticketing sites online.

The Rolling Stones warmed up for their comeback shows with a tiny date in Paris last week. Just 600 lucky fans got to watch the Stones in full glory as they played a string of hits including “Tumbling Dice”, “It’s Only Rock And Roll”, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Brown Sugar”. They also debuted new track “Doom And Gloom”.

The Stone Roses have announced three UK shows in June 2013.

The group will play two nights in London’s Finsbury Park on June 7 and 8 followed by a single show at Glasgow Green on June 15. The supports for the Glasgow show are Primal Scream, Jake Bugg and The View. Supports for London will be announced shortly.

The band’s only London appearance since reuniting was a secret gig at the tiny Village Underground venue. Glasgow Green was the scene of one of The Stone Roses’ best-regarded live appearances, taking place on 9 June 1990. “When we were on stage that day, we all looked at each other, and then just went up another level,” bassist Mani has said.

The Stone Roses recently revealed that they will carry on playing together next year, announcing a series of shows at the Future Music Festival in Australia next March.

The band recently entered the Guinness World Book Of Records for the fastest selling rock concerts in UK history. The 220,000 tickets for their Heaton Park comeback gigs at the end of June and beginning of July sold out in 68 minutes.

Paul McCartney has said Yoko Ono did not split up The Beatles.

The singer told David Frost, in a new interview to be aired next month, that Yoko Ono’s relationship with John Lennon was not the main reason why the band split up, reports The Guardian.

The newspaper, which has seen extracts from Frost’s exclusive interview, reports that McCartney admits he had found Yoko sitting in on The Beatles’ recording sessions very difficult but did not blame her for the group’s demise.

Speaking to Frost, McCartney said: “She certainly didn’t break the group up, the group was breaking up. When Yoko came along, part of her attraction was her avant garde side, her view of things, so she showed him another way to be, which was very attractive to him. So it was time for John to leave, he was definitely going to leave one way or another.”

McCartney goes on to say that without the support of Yoko Ono, he believes Lennon would not have written songs such as “Imagine”, adding: “I don’t think he would have done that without Yoko, so I don’t think you can blame her for anything.”

However, the singer placed more of the blame of The Beatles break-up on businessman Allen Klein, who succeeded manager Brian Epstein following his death in 1967.

Mock punching a photograph of Klein, the 70-year-old added: “I was fighting against the other three guys who’d been my lifelong soul buddies. I said I wanted to fight Klein.”

The Frost/McCartney interview will be screened on TV channel Al Jazeera English next month. The series of 60-minute interviews begins on November 6.

Guy Garvey has said that Elbow’s upcoming UK arena tour will be the last we hear from the band for a while.

The singer revealed to The Sun that the group plan to head off to do other things after the November and December tour, and said they will treat the UK tour as a “farewell party”.

Garvey said: “We’ve got our arena tour this November and December, which will be like a farewell party. We’ve already done six songs for the next album, then we’ll come back to finish it next year.”

The frontman is taking a break from Elbow for most of 2013 to concentrate on writing music for a new stage musical adaptation of King Kong, after he was asked to join the writing team by Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja.

“As soon as the tour ends I’m off to New York for six months,” he confirmed. “Where better to write songs for a King Kong musical than the place it’s set?”

Elbow’s UK arena tour kicks off at Nottingham’s Capital FM Arena on November 26, the band will then play Wembley Arena on November 27 before they head to Birmingham NIA on November 28 and then Liverpool’s Echo Area on November 29, before heading to their Manchester hometown on December 1. They will finish up at London’s The O2 on December 2.

Elbow will play:

Nottingham Capital FM Arena (November 26)

London O2 Arena (2)

The American guitarist and singer-songwriter Terry Callier has died at the age of 67, reports Chicago Sun Times

The Chicago-born performer was found dead at his home on Sunday (October 28).

Terry Callier’s 50-year career began when he signed to Chess Records in 1962, aged just 17. Leaving behind the doo-wop sound of his teenage years, his most famous trio of albums – 1972’s Occasional Rain, 1973’s What Color Is Love and 1974’s I Just Can’t Help Myself exemplified the hybrid of funk, soul and jazz that he created.

Callier quit music to study computer programming and sociology in the 1980s, but his cult grew through the patronage of the UK’s Acid Jazz label and a younger generation of singer-songwriters, and he was eventually lured back to performing and recording. He collaborated with British singer-songwriter Beth Orton in 1997, appearing on her Best Bit EP, and worked with writers and producers Massive Attack on his 2009 comeback album Hidden Conversations.

Earlier this year, Mercury Music Prize-nominated singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka described the appeal of Callier’s music. “Those nuances, colors, times and chords inspire me so much I want to make a mish-mash of all that. I knew Terry’s first album very well,” Kiwanuka told the Sun Times

In 1996, Callier told the same newspaper: “People respond to me because I’m a throwback to an older tradition that believed you should do more than sing a song for an audience, that you should make people feel something. You can make accessible music and still sing about love and peace and truth and life and death. In the end, those are the only things that matter.”

Bob Dylan, Joe Strummer and Nirvana are among the artists who’re releasing exclusive limited editions on November 23 as part of Record Store Day’s “Black Friday”.

A full list of this year’s release is available here.

Among the highlights are:

David Bowie – “The Jean Genie”. 7″ picture disc in advance of the 40th Anniversary reissue of Aladdin Sane. The b-side is “The Jean Genie (BBC Top of the Pops 1973)”.

Bob Dylan – Duquesne Whistle 7″: “Duquesne Whistle”, a song Dylan wrote with Robert Hunter on his latest album Tempest, backed with a previously unreleased version of “Meet Me In The Morning” from the Blood On The Tracks sessions. Limited to 5,000 copies. The appearance of this unreleased version of “Meet Me In The Morning” adds to speculation that a forthcoming edition of Dylan’s Bootleg Series will focus on Blood On The Tracks.

Nirvana – 20th Anniversary Edition of Incesticide 45RPM Edition: Recompiled and remastered from the original analog master tape and recording sources, this limited edition audiophile edition of Incesticide was pressed by Analogue Productions on two 180gram virgin vinyl discs and cut at 45 RPM vinyl for superior audio quality to past 33 1/3 RPM reissues. The faithful recreation of the jacket designed by Kurt Cobain includes the lyric sheet art and for the first time comes housed in a deluxe gatefold sleeve. Gold foiled stamped and individually numbered. Limited to 4,000 copies.

The Rolling Stones – The Rolling Stones EP. 7″ vinyl EP (originally released in 1964) now available in its original format for the first time since the original release.

Joe Strummer – Live at Action Town Hall: Vinyl recording of Strummer’s historic reunion with Mick Jones in 2002. Limited to 1,800 copies.

The Velvet Underground – Velvet Underground & Nico – Scepter Studios Acetate: The rare April 1966 Scepter Studios recordings captured on acetate featuring early, alternate versions of songs later issued on The Velvet Underground & Nico available now for the first time ever on 180g vinyl, gold foil stamped with individual number. Limited to 5,000 copies.

The White Stripes 7″ singles: Three early 45RPMS singles from the band repressed on red vinyl: “Fell in Love With a Girl” b/w “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself”; “Hotel Yorba” (Live at the Hotel Yorba) b/w “Rated X” (Live at the Hotel Yorba); “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” b/w “Stop Breaking Down”

The Rolling Stones played an hour-long gig in Paris last night as a warm-up for their forthcoming dates in London and New Jersey.

The group made the announcement on Twitter yesterday morning [October 25], writing: “The Rolling Stones are playing a short warm-up gig tonight, Thursday 25th Oct, in Paris.” The show took place at La Trabendo, a small, 600-seat club in the Parc de la Villette area of Paris. Tickets cost 15 Euros and were available from noon yesterday at the Virgin Megastore on Paris’s Champs Elysees.

According to the band’s Twitter feed, they took the stage at around 9pm.

The Rolling Stones played:

Route 66

Tumbling Dice

Jumping Jack Flash

Brown Sugar

Arcade Fire drummer Jeremy Gara has given an update on the progress of the band’s new album.

Speaking to Ottawa radio station CKCU 93.1 – via Pitchfork, he explained that for the follow-up to 2010’s The Suburbs they had to leave their old church based studio, as the roof collapsed. However, they now have a new space where they are working ‘full-time’. He said: “Now we’re in the studio pretty much full-time just doing what we do. And we kind of shut the door. We haven’t really gone out and done anything in over a year now. We haven’t done photos or interviews or anything. We’re just working on music and growing beards and living at home a lot and going out to dinner together.”

He added that they’re not very far into the recording process, but have been working on the album for “a few months”.

He said: “We are under no pressure from record labels or management or whatever to do anything on any sort of schedule. We’re just working. We have no deadlines. It’s kind of coming along.”

Earlier this month, a new track by Arcade Fire, titled “Crucified Again“, surfaced online – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to listen.

The Montreal band first played the new song at a show in Haiti earlier this year but, after performing the track at another gig in New York on October 4, it has now been posted by the Arcade Fire Tube account on YouTube.

In July of this year, a statement released on the band’s Twitter newsfeed confirmed that they will release their new album in 2013.