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Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant: ‘I once lied about working for NME’

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Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant: ‘I once lied about working for NME’

Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant has revealed that he once lied about working for NME to gain access to a festival in Marrakech. The singer pretended he was a journalist for the magazine so that he could get down the front of the barrier and record the folklore music that was being played by the band on stage. Plant told The Guardian: "Every year there was a folklore festival in Marrakech and I got a press pass. I said I was working for the NME. And I could get right to the front with my recorder, and there were a lot of Berber rhythms that were spectacular." Plant went on to say that he believes he and his bandmate Jimmy Page introduced rock music to India by playing an intoxicated jam in a club while high on "illicit substances". He added: "Jimmy and I played in a club in Bombay in 1972. I played drums and he played guitar and it was the only club in Bombay that had a drum kit. Somehow or other we ended up in there with loads and loads of illicit substances. "Some guy is writing a book about rock in India – and apparently it was born in this club with Page and me wired out of our faces. I'm not a very good drummer, to say the least, but for some reason or another it left a mark." Led Zeppelin release Celebration Day, a concert film shot at the band's 2007 reunion gig at London's 02 Arena, in cinemas on October 17. The film will then get a general DVD release on November 19. A deluxe edition will also include footage of the Shepperton rehearsals, as well as BBC news footage.

Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant has revealed that he once lied about working for NME to gain access to a festival in Marrakech.

The singer pretended he was a journalist for the magazine so that he could get down the front of the barrier and record the folklore music that was being played by the band on stage.

Plant told The Guardian: “Every year there was a folklore festival in Marrakech and I got a press pass. I said I was working for the NME. And I could get right to the front with my recorder, and there were a lot of Berber rhythms that were spectacular.”

Plant went on to say that he believes he and his bandmate Jimmy Page introduced rock music to India by playing an intoxicated jam in a club while high on “illicit substances”.

He added: “Jimmy and I played in a club in Bombay in 1972. I played drums and he played guitar and it was the only club in Bombay that had a drum kit. Somehow or other we ended up in there with loads and loads of illicit substances.

“Some guy is writing a book about rock in India – and apparently it was born in this club with Page and me wired out of our faces. I’m not a very good drummer, to say the least, but for some reason or another it left a mark.”

Led Zeppelin release Celebration Day, a concert film shot at the band’s 2007 reunion gig at London’s 02 Arena, in cinemas on October 17. The film will then get a general DVD release on November 19. A deluxe edition will also include footage of the Shepperton rehearsals, as well as BBC news footage.

Bruce Springsteen to join Obama campaign trail

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Bruce Springsteen to join Obama campaign trail
Bruce Springsteen is set to join Barack Obama on the campaign trail this week (October 18). The rocker will join the President as he campaigns for his re-election at a rally in Parma, Ohio on Thursday, and later on the same day in Ames, Iowa, Rolling Stone reports. Springsteen had previously clai...

Bruce Springsteen is set to join Barack Obama on the campaign trail this week (October 18).

The rocker will join the President as he campaigns for his re-election at a rally in Parma, Ohio on Thursday, and later on the same day in Ames, Iowa, Rolling Stone reports.

Springsteen had previously claimed that despite supporting Obama at a series of rallies in 2008 and Democratic candidate John Kerry in 2004, he would not be campaigning at this election. In 2004, he joined other rockers including Pearl Jam, Death Cab For Cutie and R.E.M for a series of Vote For Chance shows across swing states in support of Kerry.

Springsteen joins a host of artists showing their support for Obama in the forthcoming US election, which will take place on November 6. Beyonce and Jay Z recently raised $4 million (£2.46 million) for the campaign at a New York fundraiser.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn band The National played a rally for the incumbent president in Iowa and the Foo Fighters dedicated their track “My Hero” to Obama when they played a two-song acoustic set at the Democratic National Convention.

First Look – Skyfall

Michael Bonner
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First Look – Skyfall

James Bond at 50 seems in pretty good shape. Much as the Rolling Stones have marked their half-century with a new single, “Doom And Gloom”, celebrating all that’s best about the band’s musical heritage, so the producers of Skyfall have set out to commemorate James Bond’s 50th anniversary on screen by stacking up reminders of the franchise’s most successful tropes. So we get a pre-credits chase sequence round an exotic foreign location, a ballsy theme song, the return of several familiar characters from the franchise and, in Javier Bardem, a deliciously larger-than-life villain of the kind not seen since Roger Moore’s heyday on the series. But for all that is familiar about Skyfall, the idea of change is also floated quite freely here. One of the recurring themes in this, the 23rd official film in the series, is that the world is moving forward. There is much talk about “the inevitability of time” and, as Bardem’s Raoul Silva leers at Bond, “England, the Empire, MI6. You’re living in a ruin.” Indeed, this is a world where the conventional methods of espionage are, we’re told, redundant. The plot of Skyfall hinges – Wikileaks style – on a stolen hard drive containing a list of Nato operatives embedded in terrorist cells that Silva proceeds to leak online in batches, a week at a time. Judi Dench’s M is hauled in front of a parliamentary committee. Ralph Fiennes’ government bod suggests she step down. Can Bond adapt to the modern world? Is he an analogue agent in a point-and-click digital age? You can almost see the winds of change ruffling through Daniel Craig’s bristly buzzcut. As Q (Ben Wishaw, playing the part like a hipster version of Moss from The IT Crowd) tells 007, “We don’t make exploding fountain pens anymore.” As well-paced as it as, this first hour – shot washed out blues and steely greys, like Christopher Nolan's Gotham – feels like a little like an episode of Spooks. On the other hand, Craig is a splendid, sinewy Bond, scowling and authoritative, like a bulldog in a tuxedo. Bardem is a great match for him: sporting a ridiculous nicotine-yellow dye-job, his Silva is grotesque, playful, an MI6 agent gone rogue who’s surfaced with the intention of bringing down M, his former boss in pre-handover Hong Kong. Bardem has a strange, watchable face – thick lips, equine teeth, a round jaw, buggy eyes. One of the pleasures of Skyfall is watching a number of very good actors – chief among them, Bardem, Dench and Fiennes – in some meaty scenes. If there’s one thing Skyfall does well, it’s actually allow its actors space in between chases, explosions and gunfights to talk and breathe. A lot of this, I suspect, is down to Sam Mendes. Unusually, the producers have chosen a ‘name’ director for the franchise - perhaps it's a present for their birthday boy - but as you’d hope Mendes has chops. A recurring criticism I have of Mendes is that I don’t think he’s a particularly good director of actors. I reminded of the scene in Road To Perdition, where Paul Newman is gunned down, at night, in the rain, in slow-motion, and what should have been a moment of shocking violence – a turning point in the film – became instead all about fetishizing Conrad Hall’s cinematography. Similarly, in Revolutionary Road, the final image of Kate Winslet standing in her living room, looking out of the window, a small patch of blood blossoming on the back of her nightdress was so much more about Mendes’ painterly eye for composition, robbing the shot of its emotional heft. Here, Mendes and Coens’ regular Director of Photography Roger Deakins conspicuously deliver high-end, memorable visuals. A night sequence in Shanghai, with Bond and his opponent fighting in a glass-fronted skyscraper, lit by a wash of neon light from the giant advertising signs outside is stunning, like a clean Blade Runner. A detour to a casino in Macau is shot in luxurious golds and yellows. The oranges and reds he washes over the final act give a striking sepia glow, but again you feel that the drama unfolding on screen is given second place to how its being presented. Mendes, though, satisfactorily pulls his plot threads together. It comes as a surprise when you realize that the “Bond girl” in Skyfall isn’t really Naomi Harris’ shonky MI6 operative or Bérenice Marlohe’s femme fatale – but M herself, and the interplay between her and Bond is very much at the centre of the film. Indeed, for this anniversary film, the producers have dug a little into Bond’s personal history. The final third, set in the Scottish glens, where Bond's back story is touched on, suggests at one point that Skyfall is going to go down the road of recent Doctor Who stories and get bogged down in overblown notions of its own inner-history. Fortunately, Mendes pulls its back before it navel gazes too deeply. M’s line – “Orphans make the best agents” – plainly delivered by Dench says enough, really, about why Bond is Bond. I guess Skyfall feels quite personal. It’s not just the gentle prods into Bond’s own history, or the unspoken headmistress/pupil relationship between him and M, but the relatively parochial settings (mostly London and Scotland) and the make-do Straw Dogs finale that combined create a unusually intimate film, one that pays tribute to the series' heritage but also confidently shows us the way forward. The message is: sometimes you have to go back to go forward. Skyfall is released in the UK on October 26; the OST by Thomas Newman is released on October 29 by Sony Classical http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScsNCHY-bYU

James Bond at 50 seems in pretty good shape.

Much as the Rolling Stones have marked their half-century with a new single, “Doom And Gloom”, celebrating all that’s best about the band’s musical heritage, so the producers of Skyfall have set out to commemorate James Bond’s 50th anniversary on screen by stacking up reminders of the franchise’s most successful tropes. So we get a pre-credits chase sequence round an exotic foreign location, a ballsy theme song, the return of several familiar characters from the franchise and, in Javier Bardem, a deliciously larger-than-life villain of the kind not seen since Roger Moore’s heyday on the series.

But for all that is familiar about Skyfall, the idea of change is also floated quite freely here. One of the recurring themes in this, the 23rd official film in the series, is that the world is moving forward. There is much talk about “the inevitability of time” and, as Bardem’s Raoul Silva leers at Bond, “England, the Empire, MI6. You’re living in a ruin.” Indeed, this is a world where the conventional methods of espionage are, we’re told, redundant. The plot of Skyfall hinges – Wikileaks style – on a stolen hard drive containing a list of Nato operatives embedded in terrorist cells that Silva proceeds to leak online in batches, a week at a time. Judi Dench’s M is hauled in front of a parliamentary committee. Ralph Fiennes’ government bod suggests she step down. Can Bond adapt to the modern world? Is he an analogue agent in a point-and-click digital age? You can almost see the winds of change ruffling through Daniel Craig’s bristly buzzcut. As Q (Ben Wishaw, playing the part like a hipster version of Moss from The IT Crowd) tells 007, “We don’t make exploding fountain pens anymore.”

As well-paced as it as, this first hour – shot washed out blues and steely greys, like Christopher Nolan‘s Gotham – feels like a little like an episode of Spooks. On the other hand, Craig is a splendid, sinewy Bond, scowling and authoritative, like a bulldog in a tuxedo. Bardem is a great match for him: sporting a ridiculous nicotine-yellow dye-job, his Silva is grotesque, playful, an MI6 agent gone rogue who’s surfaced with the intention of bringing down M, his former boss in pre-handover Hong Kong. Bardem has a strange, watchable face – thick lips, equine teeth, a round jaw, buggy eyes. One of the pleasures of Skyfall is watching a number of very good actors – chief among them, Bardem, Dench and Fiennes – in some meaty scenes. If there’s one thing Skyfall does well, it’s actually allow its actors space in between chases, explosions and gunfights to talk and breathe.

A lot of this, I suspect, is down to Sam Mendes. Unusually, the producers have chosen a ‘name’ director for the franchise – perhaps it’s a present for their birthday boy – but as you’d hope Mendes has chops. A recurring criticism I have of Mendes is that I don’t think he’s a particularly good director of actors. I reminded of the scene in Road To Perdition, where Paul Newman is gunned down, at night, in the rain, in slow-motion, and what should have been a moment of shocking violence – a turning point in the film – became instead all about fetishizing Conrad Hall’s cinematography. Similarly, in Revolutionary Road, the final image of Kate Winslet standing in her living room, looking out of the window, a small patch of blood blossoming on the back of her nightdress was so much more about Mendes’ painterly eye for composition, robbing the shot of its emotional heft.

Here, Mendes and Coens’ regular Director of Photography Roger Deakins conspicuously deliver high-end, memorable visuals. A night sequence in Shanghai, with Bond and his opponent fighting in a glass-fronted skyscraper, lit by a wash of neon light from the giant advertising signs outside is stunning, like a clean Blade Runner. A detour to a casino in Macau is shot in luxurious golds and yellows. The oranges and reds he washes over the final act give a striking sepia glow, but again you feel that the drama unfolding on screen is given second place to how its being presented.

Mendes, though, satisfactorily pulls his plot threads together. It comes as a surprise when you realize that the “Bond girl” in Skyfall isn’t really Naomi Harris’ shonky MI6 operative or Bérenice Marlohe’s femme fatale – but M herself, and the interplay between her and Bond is very much at the centre of the film. Indeed, for this anniversary film, the producers have dug a little into Bond’s personal history. The final third, set in the Scottish glens, where Bond’s back story is touched on, suggests at one point that Skyfall is going to go down the road of recent Doctor Who stories and get bogged down in overblown notions of its own inner-history. Fortunately, Mendes pulls its back before it navel gazes too deeply. M’s line – “Orphans make the best agents” – plainly delivered by Dench says enough, really, about why Bond is Bond.

I guess Skyfall feels quite personal. It’s not just the gentle prods into Bond’s own history, or the unspoken headmistress/pupil relationship between him and M, but the relatively parochial settings (mostly London and Scotland) and the make-do Straw Dogs finale that combined create a unusually intimate film, one that pays tribute to the series’ heritage but also confidently shows us the way forward. The message is: sometimes you have to go back to go forward.

Skyfall is released in the UK on October 26; the OST by Thomas Newman is released on October 29 by Sony Classical

Jeff Lynne – Long Wave/Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra

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Jeff Lynne – Long Wave/Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra

ELO man upgrades his hits and re-imagines his youth... At a certain point in their career, the successful rock star naturally leans towards a touch of retrospection, whether by way of an autobiography (as with Dylan’s Chronicles Vol. 1), a variously revised, remixed or re-recorded edition of their oeuvre (as with Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut), or a sentimental indulgence in the kind of greasy-kidstuff radio fodder that first drew their attention to music (as in McCartney’s Kisses On The Bottom). Never one for half measures, Jeff Lynne has opted for two out of the three, with the simultaneous release of a re-recorded greatest hits album and an album of teen favourites from the dawn of rock’n’roll. Can his life story be far behind, one wonders? Unlike Kate Bush’s career retrospective, Mr. Blue Sky (in which Lynne replays and re-records his old songs), doesn’t seek to find new depths in any of ELO’s classic hits, or re-contextualise them in the light of subsequent musical developments. The new versions are, to all intents and purposes, exactly the same as the old versions, they’re just more so, if that makes sense. Like many a musician forever encountering their own back catalogue on random radio broadcast, Lynne seems to have become able to hear only the imperfections: rather than an ego-boost, it afforded him instead the nagging irritation that, surely, these tracks could sound so much better? And being a top studio boffin type and all-round musical polymath with state-of-the-art equipment at his everyday disposal, he realised he was perfectly placed to give these old hits the presence and pizzazz he felt they lacked. One by one, the ELO songs were given the musical equivalent of a software upgrade. The effect is understandably more noticeable on the older tracks, like “Showdown” and “10538 Overture”, than on the later material: the latter song, for instance, now has a spangly presence that distances it slightly from its Walrusian origins. But in general, this is a subtle restoration exercise that shouldn’t annoy even the most obsessive of anorak fans. The bonus track “Point Of No Return”, with its arpeggiated guitar figures, melodic logicality and sleek harmonies, sounds like a refugee from Tom Petty’s Lynne-produced Full Moon Fever, which is fine by me. Long Wave – named after the wireless waveband that carried the BBC Light Programme of Lynne’s youth – takes a very different approach to its source material, which is re-imagined in ways that set it sometimes strikingly apart from the original versions. The older, pre-rock crooner tracks like “She” and “If I Loved You” are reminiscent more of the early Beatles covers of things like “Bésame Mucho”, with arrangements stripped back to guitars and piano, and chiming harmonies illuminating complex melodies. Lynne’s version of “Beyond The Sea” prances along on his swaggering bassline where Bobby Darin’s glides, and there’s a similarly lollopy bonhomie to his take on Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile”, a sort of lazy cowpoke trot that suits the song perfectly. The tone of relaxed confidence extends to Chuck Berry’s “Let It Rock”, which accrues a low-slung gangster lean through being taken as a lazily galloping boogie rather than a motorvating rocker. And there’s an interesting adaptation of Etta James’s R’n’B inflections to suit Lynne’s milder pop intonations on his version of “At Last”. The most drastic re-imagining occurs on a version of Don Covay’s “Have Mercy” that harks back to Lynne’s own youth in The Idle Race: here, there’s a brash, primitive beat-boom attack to the guitar and drum groove that recalls The Spencer Davis Group’s “Keep On Running”, no mean thing to pull off on your own. Elsewhere, his take on Roy Orbison’s “Running Scared” is suitably respectful as it climbs to its operatic climax, while the harmonies on the Everlys’ “So Sad” are so spot-on it’s as if Lynne has located his inner Don for one pass, followed by his inner Phil for another. All in all, an interesting exercise, far less arch and shamateurish than Kisses On The Bottom. Andy Gill Q&A Jeff Lynne Did you play all the ELO parts? Yes, I played all the instruments myself, except for the string lines, played by Mark Mann. Didn’t you once play strings? Not really. I could scrape out a crummy tune on a cello. Then I had frets put on my cello, to make it more tuneful. I used to love doing slides, but you could hear it on the frets: badumbadumbrrrrrup! It’s interesting how the earlier, pre-rock’n’roll songs are more reliant on melody than rhythm, compared to the rock songs. Those chord structures are very, very complex. You have to do a kind of tunnel-hearing thing, just listen to an individual instrument and think away those big arrangements that are fluffing all around it, with all those flutes and clarinets that obscured what the real chords were. If you listen in a different mode and just learn the guitar chords, they’re actually very simple songs – but you would never know that from hearing those old recordings of them. “Have Mercy” is effective in beat-boom style. I tried to get a live feel, which is difficult to do when you’re playing it all yourself – you can’t really bounce off yourself: once you’ve laid down one track you can’t think about it again, because you’ve got to try and get the next one to bounce against that one. The reason I know that song so well is that it was one of my favourites when we used to play it in The Idle Race, in the pubs and clubs of Birmingham. INTERVIEW: ANDY GILL

ELO man upgrades his hits and re-imagines his youth…

At a certain point in their career, the successful rock star naturally leans towards a touch of retrospection, whether by way of an autobiography (as with Dylan’s Chronicles Vol. 1), a variously revised, remixed or re-recorded edition of their oeuvre (as with Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut), or a sentimental indulgence in the kind of greasy-kidstuff radio fodder that first drew their attention to music (as in McCartney’s Kisses On The Bottom). Never one for half measures, Jeff Lynne has opted for two out of the three, with the simultaneous release of a re-recorded greatest hits album and an album of teen favourites from the dawn of rock’n’roll. Can his life story be far behind, one wonders?

Unlike Kate Bush’s career retrospective, Mr. Blue Sky (in which Lynne replays and re-records his old songs), doesn’t seek to find new depths in any of ELO’s classic hits, or re-contextualise them in the light of subsequent musical developments. The new versions are, to all intents and purposes, exactly the same as the old versions, they’re just more so, if that makes sense. Like many a musician forever encountering their own back catalogue on random radio broadcast, Lynne seems to have become able to hear only the imperfections: rather than an ego-boost, it afforded him instead the nagging irritation that, surely, these tracks could sound so much better? And being a top studio boffin type and all-round musical polymath with state-of-the-art equipment at his everyday disposal, he realised he was perfectly placed to give these old hits the presence and pizzazz he felt they lacked.

One by one, the ELO songs were given the musical equivalent of a software upgrade. The effect is understandably more noticeable on the older tracks, like “Showdown” and “10538 Overture”, than on the later material: the latter song, for instance, now has a spangly presence that distances it slightly from its Walrusian origins. But in general, this is a subtle restoration exercise that shouldn’t annoy even the most obsessive of anorak fans. The bonus track “Point Of No Return”, with its arpeggiated guitar figures, melodic logicality and sleek harmonies, sounds like a refugee from Tom Petty’s Lynne-produced Full Moon Fever, which is fine by me.

Long Wave – named after the wireless waveband that carried the BBC Light Programme of Lynne’s youth – takes a very different approach to its source material, which is re-imagined in ways that set it sometimes strikingly apart from the original versions. The older, pre-rock crooner tracks like “She” and “If I Loved You” are reminiscent more of the early Beatles covers of things like “Bésame Mucho”, with arrangements stripped back to guitars and piano, and chiming harmonies illuminating complex melodies. Lynne’s version of “Beyond The Sea” prances along on his swaggering bassline where Bobby Darin’s glides, and there’s a similarly lollopy bonhomie to his take on Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile”, a sort of lazy cowpoke trot that suits the song perfectly. The tone of relaxed confidence extends to Chuck Berry’s “Let It Rock”, which accrues a low-slung gangster lean through being taken as a lazily galloping boogie rather than a motorvating rocker. And there’s an interesting adaptation of Etta James’s R’n’B inflections to suit Lynne’s milder pop intonations on his version of “At Last”. The most drastic re-imagining occurs on a version of Don Covay’s “Have Mercy” that harks back to Lynne’s own youth in The Idle Race: here, there’s a brash, primitive beat-boom attack to the guitar and drum groove that recalls The Spencer Davis Group’s “Keep On Running”, no mean thing to pull off on your own. Elsewhere, his take on Roy Orbison’s “Running Scared” is suitably respectful as it climbs to its operatic climax, while the harmonies on the Everlys’ “So Sad” are so spot-on it’s as if Lynne has located his inner Don for one pass, followed by his inner Phil for another. All in all, an interesting exercise, far less arch and shamateurish than Kisses On The Bottom.

Andy Gill

Q&A

Jeff Lynne

Did you play all the ELO parts?

Yes, I played all the instruments myself, except for the string lines, played by Mark Mann.

Didn’t you once play strings?

Not really. I could scrape out a crummy tune on a cello. Then I had frets put on my cello, to make it more tuneful. I used to love doing slides, but you could hear it on the frets: badumbadumbrrrrrup!

It’s interesting how the earlier, pre-rock’n’roll songs are more reliant on melody than rhythm, compared to the rock songs.

Those chord structures are very, very complex. You have to do a kind of tunnel-hearing thing, just listen to an individual instrument and think away those big arrangements that are fluffing all around it, with all those flutes and clarinets that obscured what the real chords were. If you listen in a different mode and just learn the guitar chords, they’re actually very simple songs – but you would never know that from hearing those old recordings of them.

“Have Mercy” is effective in beat-boom style.

I tried to get a live feel, which is difficult to do when you’re playing it all yourself – you can’t really bounce off yourself: once you’ve laid down one track you can’t think about it again, because you’ve got to try and get the next one to bounce against that one. The reason I know that song so well is that it was one of my favourites when we used to play it in The Idle Race, in the pubs and clubs of Birmingham.

INTERVIEW: ANDY GILL

Rolling Stones to headline Glastonbury 2013?

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Rolling Stones to headline Glastonbury 2013?
The Rolling Stones are being lined up to headline next year's Glastonbury festival, according to reports. With the band's guitarist Keith Richards letting slip that they had been booked to play live shows in London and New York, and sax player Bobby Keys later claiming that the shows would take pl...

The Rolling Stones are being lined up to headline next year’s Glastonbury festival, according to reports.

With the band’s guitarist Keith Richards letting slip that they had been booked to play live shows in London and New York, and sax player Bobby Keys later claiming that the shows would take place in November, the legendary rockers look set to finally hit the road and celebrate their 50th anniversary.

Now, according to the Sun, a source has claimed that Glastonbury boss Michael Eavis is desperate to convince the band to top the bill at Worthy Farm in 2013. “The band are gearing up for a load of live dates but tend to leave big decisions like this until the last minute,” they said. “Michael Eavis is desperate to get the band confirmed and has made initial contact with their people.”

“It would be a massive coup to get the band playing Glasto on what could be their last round of live dates,” they added. “Getting a decision from the whole band can be tough and at the moment they are without an agent for live shows, which is not helping the situation. But there is a good chance 2013 will finally be the year they make it,”

Yesterday (October 11), the band debuted a new track titled “Doom And Gloom“. Recorded in Paris and produced by Don Was, “Doom And Gloom” is one of two brand new songs taken from the forthcoming hits collection GRRR!, which will be released on November 12. The other new track, titled “One More Shot”, is still under wraps, but “Doom And Gloom” is available to buy now.

The Who’s Pete Townshend: ‘We feel the ghosts of Keith and John’

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The Who’s Pete Townshend: ‘We feel the ghosts of Keith and John’

The Who's Pete Townshend has said he feels "the ghosts" of drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle onstage. The guitarist, who publishes his long-awaited memoir Who I Am yesterday (October 11), told Rolling Stone that he and singer Roger Daltrey feel the presence of their former band mates. Speaking about the difficulty he faced continuing the band after John Entwistle's death in 2002, he said: "We feel the ghosts of Keith and John. The second phase of The Who in a sense was really when we started to tour again around the year 2000, 2001. We were still able to evoke the sound, particularly with Zak Starkey. Now it's much more difficult even though Zak's there. John's sound was very big and rich and organic." He added: "When John died, there was a hole in the sound onstage and I was able to grow into that and find space. And I have to say as a guitar player, I prefer working without John. But as a member of The Who creating the incredible, powerful, driving, visceral sound, he's gone. I can't really do that again." The rocker also said that Daltrey had been pushing the band to take risks lately, adding that he had given the singer control of production and video for their up-coming North American Quadrophenia tour. "He's working on a new dramatic scenario for it, working on a new video, trying to find a way to be comfortable being the narrator," he said. Last month, Townshend broke his silence on the child pornography scandal that engulfed him in 2003. He said his his decision to investigate child pornography was a product of "white knight syndrome, an attempt to be seen to be the one that's helping", adding: "I had experienced something creepy as a child, so you imagine: what if I was a girl of nine or 10 and my uncle had raped me every week? I felt I had an understanding and I could help." Townshend - who is the founder of sexual abuse charity Double O - paid a £7 charge to a child pornography site, which he cancelled straight away, to expose the financial chain of child abuse from Russian orphanages. When police discovered the files, he was cautioned and placed on the sex offenders register for five years after he admitted to breaking the law.

The Who’s Pete Townshend has said he feels “the ghosts” of drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle onstage.

The guitarist, who publishes his long-awaited memoir Who I Am yesterday (October 11), told Rolling Stone that he and singer Roger Daltrey feel the presence of their former band mates.

Speaking about the difficulty he faced continuing the band after John Entwistle‘s death in 2002, he said: “We feel the ghosts of Keith and John. The second phase of The Who in a sense was really when we started to tour again around the year 2000, 2001. We were still able to evoke the sound, particularly with Zak Starkey. Now it’s much more difficult even though Zak’s there. John’s sound was very big and rich and organic.”

He added: “When John died, there was a hole in the sound onstage and I was able to grow into that and find space. And I have to say as a guitar player, I prefer working without John. But as a member of The Who creating the incredible, powerful, driving, visceral sound, he’s gone. I can’t really do that again.”

The rocker also said that Daltrey had been pushing the band to take risks lately, adding that he had given the singer control of production and video for their up-coming North American Quadrophenia tour. “He’s working on a new dramatic scenario for it, working on a new video, trying to find a way to be comfortable being the narrator,” he said.

Last month, Townshend broke his silence on the child pornography scandal that engulfed him in 2003. He said his his decision to investigate child pornography was a product of “white knight syndrome, an attempt to be seen to be the one that’s helping”, adding: “I had experienced something creepy as a child, so you imagine: what if I was a girl of nine or 10 and my uncle had raped me every week? I felt I had an understanding and I could help.”

Townshend – who is the founder of sexual abuse charity Double O – paid a £7 charge to a child pornography site, which he cancelled straight away, to expose the financial chain of child abuse from Russian orphanages. When police discovered the files, he was cautioned and placed on the sex offenders register for five years after he admitted to breaking the law.

The Black Keys and Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA collaborate on new song – listen

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The Black Keys and Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA collaborate on new song – listen
The Black Keys and RZA of the Wu Tang Clan have teamed up for a new song, "The Baddest Man Alive". The song is taken from the soundtrack to the forthcoming movie The Man With The Iron Fists, which was written and directed by RZA, real name Robert Fitzgerald Diggs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1...

The Black Keys and RZA of the Wu Tang Clan have teamed up for a new song, “The Baddest Man Alive”.

The song is taken from the soundtrack to the forthcoming movie The Man With The Iron Fists, which was written and directed by RZA, real name Robert Fitzgerald Diggs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1VillVWmxE

The kung-fu movie is set for a US release next month (November 2).

The Black Keys and RZA have collaborated before, on 2009’s Blakroc album, which also saw the blues rock duo teaming up with Mos Def, Q-Tip, Raekwon, Ludacris and Pharoahe Monch.

The album also featured vocals from the late Wu-Tang Clan member Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

The Black Keys return to the UK later this year for a full arena tour. They will kick off their six-date trek at Newcastle Metro Radio Arena on December 7, before playing Glasgow SECC on November 8, Birmingham NIA on December 9 and Manchester Arena on December 11. The tour will conclude at London’s O2 Arena on December 12 and 13.

A year on the road with Leonard Cohen, by his bandmates

Michael Bonner
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A year on the road with Leonard Cohen, by his bandmates
In this archive feature from December 2008 (Take 139), we get the inside story from Cohen’s bandmates on their extraordinary year with the singer-songwriter that even Bob Dylan calls “a real poet”. Interviews: Michael Bonner, Nick Hasted and John Lewis. Photograph: Lorca Cohen  ____________...

GLASTONBURY, PILTON, ENGLAND, JUNE 29, 2008

Charley Webb: We stood there all together, and he peeked round the curtain, and said: “There’s a few people here tonight, friends…” And there were 100,000 people in front of us. I think he’s often a little nervous. Every time we walk on, he says: “Come on, friends, let’s go!” I think he feels an obligation to all of us. So he doesn’t like to show his nerves too much.

Mark Radcliffe [BBC presenter]: He was the only person at Glastonbury who refused to be televised. The excuse he gave was that the cameras interfere with his connection with the audience. Some people were thinking that was a little precious. But having seen that connection, you couldn’t argue.

Roscoe Beck: Someone called us “the world’s quietest band”, and it is the quietest band I’ve ever played in. He was concerned about whether it would work in front of 100,000 people. He’s a very humble man. It makes him want to give even more. He just wants to make sure everyone leaves with something they’ll never forget.

Charley Webb: Leonard will always choose the smallest or least comfortable seat in the room or on the plane, and he’ll always leave the nicest ones to other people. He insists on that, and if you try to change it he goes: “No, please, after you…” Total graciousness and gentlemanliness, all the time. But then surprising openness, with very amusing stories. He doesn’t make any apologies for the way he feels, and he’s not nervous to say what he thinks.

Hattie Webb: One time we were on the plane and it was incredibly bumpy, and all the people around me were very frightened. I was gripping hold of my drink and seeing my life flashing before my eyes, and I looked over at Leonard. He was completely and utterly calm, and said: “Don’t worry, darling, nothing can happen to you – it’s just the way it is.” That’s what we take from Leonard. He worries about the small things and deals with those. And with the big things, he lets nature take its course.

_____________________

THE LAST SHOW OF THE SUMMER TOUR: THE BIG CHILL FESTIVAL, LEDBURY, ENGLAND, AUGUST 3, 2008

Hattie Webb: Charley and I went into the festival a little early, and I walked backstage in a hippy festival dress, and Leonard said to me: “You’d better cover up your knees, darlin’, because there are old men in here!”

Charley Webb: I think everybody was quite happy to play that festival, but also happy that it was the last of the leg. We had been out for what seemed to be too long. Too long, certainly, for Leonard. When he was onstage you’d never have known, because he’s so professional. But offstage, he and all of us were weary.

Sharon Robinson: We were somewhat anxious to get back to our lives, and families and take care of things. It was time to go home. And so we went our separate ways. And reconvened at rehearsal.

_____________________

THE FIRST SHOW OF THE AUTUMN TOUR: ARCUL DE TRIUMF, BUCHAREST, ROMANIA, SEPTEMBER 21, 2008

Roscoe Beck: We took three or four weeks off, then we reconvened in Los Angeles again at the SIR studio for two weeks, just to brush up.

Charley Webb: The first show back was his 74th birthday. It was a good birthday. We talked the day before, as a band: “What shall we do on Leonard’s birthday?” And we agreed “nothing” was the right response. But people in Bucharest were charming and the show was punctuated with “Happy Birthday to you,” over and over. And then some people came up onstage with some enormous cakes that were heavier than Leonard, which he held for a few minutes, ’til we rescued him. He always tastes, but he never really indulges in an enormous portion.

Sharon Robinson: The set has changed a little on this leg. Leonard has added “The Partisan” to the show, and “Famous Blue Raincoat” is coming back in. There are no new songs, not yet.

Roscoe Beck: Well, he’s already got some things written. He’s played me two new songs. And there are more. I saw him writing on the plane yesterday, in his notebooks. And he’s talked to me about wanting to do a new record. But it will probably be when the touring’s done. We’ll break for Christmas, then I think we’re going to Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia and the Far East. After that will be the US and Western Canada. So there’s at least that much touring before we can start on a record. That will take us to at least October 2009 before we can even think about recording.

The December 2016 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Pink Floyd, plus a free CD compiled by Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner that includes tracks by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Sleaford Mods, Yo La Tengo, Can. Elsewhere in the issue, there’s TheDamned, Julia Holter, Desert Trip, Midlake, C86, David Pajo, Nils Frahm and the New Classical, David Bowie, Tim Buckley, REM, Norah Jones, Morphine, The Pretenders and more plus 140 reviews

Watch Jack White’s new video for ‘I’m Shakin”

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Watch Jack White’s new video for ‘I’m Shakin”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvpoiiBW9bc Jack White has unveiled his new video for 'I'm Shakin'' – watch it above. In it, two Jack Whites – one in a pale blue suit, one in a dark blue suit – duel face-to-face in a rehearsal space, backed up by their correspondingly-dressed bands. The trac...

Jack White has unveiled his new video for ‘I’m Shakin” – watch it above.

In it, two Jack Whites – one in a pale blue suit, one in a dark blue suit – duel face-to-face in a rehearsal space, backed up by their correspondingly-dressed bands. The track is the fourth single to be taken from White’s debut solo album, Blunderbuss.

The seven-inch vinyl single will be available to pre-order from October 16 and will feature the B-side ‘Blues On Two Trees’. It will be released digitally on October 30.

The guitar virtuoso and former White Stripes man will return to the UK and Ireland this month for a string of live dates across October and November.

The run of dates begins at Dublin’s O2 Arena on October 31 and runs until November 8 when White headlines Edinburgh’s Usher Hall.

Jack White will play:

O2 Arena Dublin (October 31)

London Alexandra Palace (November 2)

Bridlington Spa (4)

Blackpool Empress Ballroom (6)

O2 Academy Birmingham (7)

Edinburgh Usher Hall (8)

Photo credit: Jo McCaughey

Freed Pussy Riot member vows to continue group’s fight

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Freed Pussy Riot member vows to continue group’s fight

Freed Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich has vowed to continue the group's fight against Russian authorities. Samutsevich was released from jail yesterday (October 10) after a Moscow court accepted her appeal on the grounds that she had been thrown out of Moscow's main catherdral before she could remove her guitar from its case for the Pussy Riot's "punk prayer" protest against Putin. "We are not finished," she said in her first interview since leaving jail. "We have to act in such a way so that they (Russian authorities) do not learn about the concerts ahead of time, and be caught and jailed afterwards," she added. Three members of Pussy received two-year prison sentences on August 17 after being found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after they were arrested following an anti-Putin gig in Moscow's main cathedral. While Samutsevich has been freed on appeal, the other two women - Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova - have had their jail terms upheld. Although two of Samutsevich's bandmates remain behind bars, she says she has reunited with other members of Pussy Riot and will continue to take part in the movement that cast a global spotlight on Russia's political situation, telling journalists that Pussy Riot is "more united than ever … fighting for the freedom of Masha and Nadia!" In an interview last night with CNN, Samutsevich said: "We are not finished, nor are we going to end our political protest...The situation in the country has deteriorated since our performance and the trial itself is a testimony to that." Although she said she will be "more cautious" in her actions going forward, her "negative" attitude toward Vladimir Putin and what she calls his "mega authoritarian project" remains unchanged.

Freed Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich has vowed to continue the group’s fight against Russian authorities.

Samutsevich was released from jail yesterday (October 10) after a Moscow court accepted her appeal on the grounds that she had been thrown out of Moscow’s main catherdral before she could remove her guitar from its case for the Pussy Riot’s “punk prayer” protest against Putin.

“We are not finished,” she said in her first interview since leaving jail. “We have to act in such a way so that they (Russian authorities) do not learn about the concerts ahead of time, and be caught and jailed afterwards,” she added.

Three members of Pussy received two-year prison sentences on August 17 after being found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after they were arrested following an anti-Putin gig in Moscow’s main cathedral. While Samutsevich has been freed on appeal, the other two women – Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova – have had their jail terms upheld.

Although two of Samutsevich’s bandmates remain behind bars, she says she has reunited with other members of Pussy Riot and will continue to take part in the movement that cast a global spotlight on Russia’s political situation, telling journalists that Pussy Riot is “more united than ever … fighting for the freedom of Masha and Nadia!”

In an interview last night with CNN, Samutsevich said: “We are not finished, nor are we going to end our political protest…The situation in the country has deteriorated since our performance and the trial itself is a testimony to that.”

Although she said she will be “more cautious” in her actions going forward, her “negative” attitude toward Vladimir Putin and what she calls his “mega authoritarian project” remains unchanged.

London’s O2 Arena up for sale

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London’s O2 Arena up for sale

The giant US concert venue company that runs London's O2 Arena is up for sale. Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), who own a stake in David Beckham's football team LA Galaxy, also owns AEG Live – the world's second biggest ticket and live music company behind Live Nation, the Evening Standard reports. The firm's owners said it was "an appropriate time" to sell up as the company could "maximise value for all concerned". It has been speculated that the whole company could fetch £4.25 billion. The O2 arena is one of AEG's biggest venues after it turned the Millennium Dome into a massive gig arena. In the next few months alone it will host Muse, The Killers, Mumford and Sons, Florence and the Machine and The Black Keys. The Government sold the £850 million Dome for the reported sum of £1. AEG subsequently invested in the space to create the 20,000 seater venue, for which O2 pays a reported £6 million per year for the site's name.

The giant US concert venue company that runs London’s O2 Arena is up for sale.

Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), who own a stake in David Beckham’s football team LA Galaxy, also owns AEG Live – the world’s second biggest ticket and live music company behind Live Nation, the Evening Standard reports.

The firm’s owners said it was “an appropriate time” to sell up as the company could “maximise value for all concerned”. It has been speculated that the whole company could fetch £4.25 billion.

The O2 arena is one of AEG’s biggest venues after it turned the Millennium Dome into a massive gig arena. In the next few months alone it will host Muse, The Killers, Mumford and Sons, Florence and the Machine and The Black Keys.

The Government sold the £850 million Dome for the reported sum of £1. AEG subsequently invested in the space to create the 20,000 seater venue, for which O2 pays a reported £6 million per year for the site’s name.

First Look – Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie

Michael Bonner
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First Look – Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie

Tim Burton's kid friendly Frankenstein opens this year's London Film Festival... It’s true, there is very little that's unfamiliar about Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie. The obsessive references to RKO horror movies, Ray Harryhausen and Edgar Allen Poe, designs that are pitched somewhere between Edward Gorey and Rod Sterling, the ongoing devotion to Vincent Price, an angry mob carrying flaming torches. Never let it be said that Tim Burton shies away from wearing his influences on his sleeve: Frankenweenie is a Frankenstein movie, sewn together from parts of other films, comic books, TV shows, and whatever vintage pop cultural detritus clutters up Burton’s mind. Weirdly, it’s also the filmmaker’s most straightforwardly enjoyable film in a long while. In its earliest incarnation, Frankenweenie was a live action 30 minute short, made in 1984 while Burton was working at Disney, which the studio rejected as being too scary for children. Resurrected now as a full-length, stop-motion feature, this new Frankenweenie is an amiable piece of kiddie-Gothery, not remotely scary but certainly a vast improvement on Burton’s last film, the wretched Dark Shadows. We’re in a suburban America town called New Holland – a black and white Twilight Zone of small-minded prejudice, picket fences and robust housewives that feels stuck in the 1950s. Young Victor Frankenstein makes Super 8 monster movies starring his cheery pup, Sparky. When Sparky is run over and killed, the enterprising Victor – inspired by the school science teacher and Vincent Price lookalike, Mr Rzykruski (Martin Landau) – retrieves the corpse from the pet cemetery and wires him into a Heath Robinson-style contraption and a handy thunderstorm revives him. See! He rises! Soon, the local school kids are all bringing their own deceased animals back to life, and before long, the horrified townsfolk are being terrorised by a roving band of zombie pets: a tortoise, Sea Monkeys, a hamster and a weird cat/bat hybrid. Clearly, no good will come of this. While enjoying his most commercially successful period, Tim Burton’s trajectory in the last ten years has also resembled a career in creative decline. His projects have been so-so remakes and adaptations that have gradually chipped away at the goodwill he’d earned up to the end of the Nineties. I’m aware that Alice In Wonderland was a massive box office hit for Burton – but I suspect that had more to do with the pull of Carroll’s book than Burton himself. The last Burton film I remember enjoying was 2005’s Corpse Bride –also a stop-motion animation, and another film in which a dead dog features prominently. It had a lightness of touch and, perhaps because of its brisk 77-minute running time, its felt focussed: particularly when compared to the cumbersome, rudderless Dark Shadows. I quite liked the swagger of Sweeney Todd, but it lacked any sense of danger. Frankenweenie is also Burton’s first film without Johnny Depp in almost a decade. Coincidentally, it’s also the first since Edward Scissorhands in 1990 to feature Winona Ryder (voicing Victor’s neighbour, called – what else? – Elsa Van Helsing). Hooking up with Ryder after a gap of 20 years and returning to a decades-old project might suggest Burton is tacitly acknowledging that he was at his most creative in his youth. Indeed, how much does Burton see of himself in Victor, the unconventional boy trapped in a conventional town, who dreams of being a filmmaker? Frankenweenie's narrative has an undeniably strong pull – the desire to bring back something that is gone forever. Yes, the film is sentimental; but it never quite slips into Spielbergian hokum. One of the film’s best scenes – where Victor, believing his attempts to resurrect Sparky have failed, embraces the dog, only for Sparky’s tail to slowly twitch back to life – is nicely understated. But the overwhelming vibe here of innocent fun; childlike, but not childish. Perhaps by going back to the very start of his career, Burton can now move forward. Frankenweenie opens in the UK on October 17 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cqI6hPra7c

Tim Burton’s kid friendly Frankenstein opens this year’s London Film Festival…

It’s true, there is very little that’s unfamiliar about Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie. The obsessive references to RKO horror movies, Ray Harryhausen and Edgar Allen Poe, designs that are pitched somewhere between Edward Gorey and Rod Sterling, the ongoing devotion to Vincent Price, an angry mob carrying flaming torches. Never let it be said that Tim Burton shies away from wearing his influences on his sleeve: Frankenweenie is a Frankenstein movie, sewn together from parts of other films, comic books, TV shows, and whatever vintage pop cultural detritus clutters up Burton’s mind. Weirdly, it’s also the filmmaker’s most straightforwardly enjoyable film in a long while.

In its earliest incarnation, Frankenweenie was a live action 30 minute short, made in 1984 while Burton was working at Disney, which the studio rejected as being too scary for children. Resurrected now as a full-length, stop-motion feature, this new Frankenweenie is an amiable piece of kiddie-Gothery, not remotely scary but certainly a vast improvement on Burton’s last film, the wretched Dark Shadows. We’re in a suburban America town called New Holland – a black and white Twilight Zone of small-minded prejudice, picket fences and robust housewives that feels stuck in the 1950s. Young Victor Frankenstein makes Super 8 monster movies starring his cheery pup, Sparky. When Sparky is run over and killed, the enterprising Victor – inspired by the school science teacher and Vincent Price lookalike, Mr Rzykruski (Martin Landau) – retrieves the corpse from the pet cemetery and wires him into a Heath Robinson-style contraption and a handy thunderstorm revives him. See! He rises! Soon, the local school kids are all bringing their own deceased animals back to life, and before long, the horrified townsfolk are being terrorised by a roving band of zombie pets: a tortoise, Sea Monkeys, a hamster and a weird cat/bat hybrid. Clearly, no good will come of this.

While enjoying his most commercially successful period, Tim Burton’s trajectory in the last ten years has also resembled a career in creative decline. His projects have been so-so remakes and adaptations that have gradually chipped away at the goodwill he’d earned up to the end of the Nineties. I’m aware that Alice In Wonderland was a massive box office hit for Burton – but I suspect that had more to do with the pull of Carroll’s book than Burton himself. The last Burton film I remember enjoying was 2005’s Corpse Bride –also a stop-motion animation, and another film in which a dead dog features prominently. It had a lightness of touch and, perhaps because of its brisk 77-minute running time, its felt focussed: particularly when compared to the cumbersome, rudderless Dark Shadows. I quite liked the swagger of Sweeney Todd, but it lacked any sense of danger.

Frankenweenie is also Burton’s first film without Johnny Depp in almost a decade. Coincidentally, it’s also the first since Edward Scissorhands in 1990 to feature Winona Ryder (voicing Victor’s neighbour, called – what else? – Elsa Van Helsing). Hooking up with Ryder after a gap of 20 years and returning to a decades-old project might suggest Burton is tacitly acknowledging that he was at his most creative in his youth. Indeed, how much does Burton see of himself in Victor, the unconventional boy trapped in a conventional town, who dreams of being a filmmaker?

Frankenweenie‘s narrative has an undeniably strong pull – the desire to bring back something that is gone forever. Yes, the film is sentimental; but it never quite slips into Spielbergian hokum. One of the film’s best scenes – where Victor, believing his attempts to resurrect Sparky have failed, embraces the dog, only for Sparky’s tail to slowly twitch back to life – is nicely understated. But the overwhelming vibe here of innocent fun; childlike, but not childish. Perhaps by going back to the very start of his career, Burton can now move forward.

Frankenweenie opens in the UK on October 17

Daft Punk unveil new blues mix – listen

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Daft Punk unveil new blues mix – listen
Daft Punk have released new mix – and it's all blues. The 15-minute mix samples music by American bluesman Junior Kimbrough, including "I Gotta Try You Girl". It was created for designer Hedi Slimane's Yves Saint Laurent show at last week's Paris Fashion Week. Scroll down to listen to the track,...

Daft Punk have released new mix – and it’s all blues.

The 15-minute mix samples music by American bluesman Junior Kimbrough, including “I Gotta Try You Girl”. It was created for designer Hedi Slimane’s Yves Saint Laurent show at last week’s Paris Fashion Week. Scroll down to listen to the track, titled “Junior Kimbrough Edited by Daft Punk”.

Daft Punk are known to have been working on a new album with Chic frontman Nile Rogers and other collaborators. In August, Rogers said he ranked the work he had been doing with the French duo as amongst the finest of his career. Speaking about the sessions, he told Mixmag: “All I can say is those guys are geniuses and to think that after all these years we’ve been trying to get together, they just show up at my apartment in New York City and the vibe between us is so powerful and so strong – it’s unbelievable.”

Italian disco pioneer Giorgio Moroder is also known to have worked on the as-yet untitled record. Daft Punk’s last album was the Tron: Legacy soundtrack in 2010.

Jarvis Cocker: ‘I love The Beatles – even though I haven’t named any of my kids after them’

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Jarvis Cocker: ‘I love The Beatles – even though I haven’t named any of my kids after them’
Jarvis Cocker has professed his love for The Beatles, even though, he says: "I haven't named any kids after them." Writing in the Guardian, the Pulp frontman explained: "I love the Beatles. I haven't named any kids after them but I still really love them. They were the first group that I was ever p...

Jarvis Cocker has professed his love for The Beatles, even though, he says: “I haven’t named any kids after them.”

Writing in the Guardian, the Pulp frontman explained: “I love the Beatles. I haven’t named any kids after them but I still really love them. They were the first group that I was ever properly aware of. In my early teens I would sometimes stay in and listen to the radio all day in the hope that I would catch a song by them that I’d never heard before and be able to tape it on my radio-cassette player.”

He added that the power of The Beatles rested in their ‘ordinariness’.

He said they were “four working-class boys from Liverpool who showed that not only could they create art that stood comparison with that produced by ‘the establishment’ – they could create art that pissed all over it. From the ranks of the supposedly uncouth, unwashed barbarians came the greatest creative force of the 20th century.”

Cocker made the comments in a review of the Hunter Davies edited book The John Lennon Letters, in which he also asks why 1990s Britpop was doomed to failure. In answer to his own question, he writes: “Too many factors to go into here, but one was: too much information. Too much reverence. Wearing the same clothes and taking the same drugs will not make us into Beatles. It will make us fat and ill.”

Yesterday it was revealed that Jarvis Cocker will resurrect his Relaxed Muscle project in order to provide a live soundtrack to a contemporary dance production from the Michael Clark Company.

The shows will take place at London’s Barbican from October 17-27 and will also see the company performing to music by Scritti Politti.

Beatle ‘penises’ defaced at Liverpool gallery

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Beatle ‘penises’ defaced at Liverpool gallery

An artwork depicting the penises of the four members of The Beatles has been defaced while on public display at the Museum Of Liverpool, reports Click Liverpool. Titled The Beatles In America, the painting was created by artist Jonathan Gent, who donated it to Liverpool Love, an exhibition of artworks to be auctioned for children's charity Claire House. Gent said of his artwork: "It's as intimate a piece as you can get about The Beatles. What was really what I was after because they are such a global thing - this untouchable thing and that is what interests me most about them. So this idea of suddenly having their penises on a canvas it was, I guess, about closeness, getting close to this idol in some way" .The penises, rendered in still-soft oil paint and labelled for each band member, have been pressed and smudged in an attack carried out by unknown visitors to the exhibition. The artwork has been removed from display and specialists are assessing the damage. It is not known whether it will be auctioned as planned on October 17. A spokesperson for the museum says: "The damage is all the more regrettable because along with other works in the exhibition the painting is due to be auctioned to raise funds for children's charity Claire House. The decision as to whether the work will be displayed again, and included in the auction, is now dependent on what can be done to return the work to its original condition."

An artwork depicting the penises of the four members of The Beatles has been defaced while on public display at the Museum Of Liverpool, reports Click Liverpool.

Titled The Beatles In America, the painting was created by artist Jonathan Gent, who donated it to Liverpool Love, an exhibition of artworks to be auctioned for children’s charity Claire House. Gent said of his artwork: “It’s as intimate a piece as you can get about The Beatles. What was really what I was after because they are such a global thing – this untouchable thing and that is what interests me most about them. So this idea of suddenly having their penises on a canvas it was, I guess, about closeness, getting close to this idol in some way”

.The penises, rendered in still-soft oil paint and labelled for each band member, have been pressed and smudged in an attack carried out by unknown visitors to the exhibition. The artwork has been removed from display and specialists are assessing the damage. It is not known whether it will be auctioned as planned on October 17.

A spokesperson for the museum says: “The damage is all the more regrettable because along with other works in the exhibition the painting is due to be auctioned to raise funds for children’s charity Claire House. The decision as to whether the work will be displayed again, and included in the auction, is now dependent on what can be done to return the work to its original condition.”

Hear new Rolling Stones track ‘Doom And Gloom’

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Hear new Rolling Stones track ‘Doom And Gloom’

The Rolling Stones have debuted brand new track 'Doom And Gloom' – click the video below to listen. The song premiered on BBC Radio 2 at 8.15am. Breakfast Show host Chris Evans played it twice, back to back. A hard-rocking, bluesy number, 'Doom And Gloom' recalls the likes of 'Gimme Shelter' and 'Honky Tonk Women'. "All I hear is doom and gloom, all is darkness in my room," say the lyrics. 'Doom And Gloom' is the result of the band's first studio session in seven years. Recorded in Paris and produced by Don Was, 'Doom and Gloom' is one of two brand new songs taken from the forthcoming hits collection 'GRRR!', which will be released on November 12. The other new track, titled 'One More Shot', is still under wraps, but 'Doom And Gloom' is available to buy now. Earlier this week, (October 8) guitarist Keith Richards revealed that the band have been booked to play live shows in London and New York, although he didn't reveal when the dates would take place. Two days later, the band's sax player Bobby Keys said that the shows will take place in November. "[The Rolling Stones are] gonna do some more concerts, starting in November with two in England and then a couple here in the States, then there's a few added concerts after that," Keys told Billboard. No live dates have been confirmed by the band at this point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPFGWVKXxm0

The Rolling Stones have debuted brand new track ‘Doom And Gloom’ – click the video below to listen.

The song premiered on BBC Radio 2 at 8.15am. Breakfast Show host Chris Evans played it twice, back to back.

A hard-rocking, bluesy number, ‘Doom And Gloom’ recalls the likes of ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ‘Honky Tonk Women’. “All I hear is doom and gloom, all is darkness in my room,” say the lyrics.

‘Doom And Gloom’ is the result of the band’s first studio session in seven years.

Recorded in Paris and produced by Don Was, ‘Doom and Gloom’ is one of two brand new songs taken from the forthcoming hits collection ‘GRRR!’, which will be released on November 12. The other new track, titled ‘One More Shot’, is still under wraps, but ‘Doom And Gloom’ is available to buy now.

Earlier this week, (October 8) guitarist Keith Richards revealed that the band have been booked to play live shows in London and New York, although he didn’t reveal when the dates would take place.

Two days later, the band’s sax player Bobby Keys said that the shows will take place in November. “[The Rolling Stones are] gonna do some more concerts, starting in November with two in England and then a couple here in the States, then there’s a few added concerts after that,” Keys told Billboard.

No live dates have been confirmed by the band at this point.

The 41st Uncut Playlist Of 2012

John Mulvey
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The 41st Uncut Playlist Of 2012

Pretty busy trying to finish an issue here, but as usual, Neil Young is providing a distraction. Today there’s an opportunity to see why we’ve been making such a fuss about “Psychedelic Pill”: a video for the 16-odd minute “Ramada Inn”… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8qkDQ_QP8A Also some way into “Waging Heavy Peace”. This sentence on page 114 seems to sum it up thus far - “Point is, there were a lot of cars” – but if you’re further on than me, please let me know what you think. As for the playlist this week, a belated and wholehearted discovery of Goat here in the office, a fine new Michael Chapman venture, a lot of Godspeed’s extraordinary return, plus Mark Kozelek US TV debut, which is well worth a look… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey 1 Serafina Steer – The Moths Are Real (Stolen) 2 Villagers – Awayland (Domino) 3 Eternal Tapestry – A World Out Of Time (Thrill Jockey) 4 Michael Chapman – Pachyderm (Blast First Petite) 5 Tame Impala – Lonerism (Modular) 6 Goat – World Music (Rocket) 7 Yo La Tengo – Fade (Matador) 8 Bee Mask – Vaporware/Scanops (Room 40) 9 Gareth Dickson – Quite A Way Away (12k) 10 Mark Kozelek & The Roots – Mistress (Live on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon) 11 Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend Ascend (Constellation) 12 Woo – It’s Cosy Inside (Drag City) 13 Hiss Golden Messenger – Lord I Love The Rain (Jellyfant) 14 Arbouretum – Coming Out Of The Fog (Thrill Jockey) 15 Pelt – Effigy (MIE) 16 Various Artists – Pendle 1612 (Lancashire Folklore Tapes) 17 Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs – I Watch You (Heavenly) 18 The Levon Helm Band - Midnight Ramble Sessions Volume 3 (Vanguard) 19 The White Meadows – A Time For Drunken Horses (Tor Press) 20 Obnox – Rojo (Permanent) 21 Fontanelle – Vitamin F (Southern Lord)

Pretty busy trying to finish an issue here, but as usual, Neil Young is providing a distraction. Today there’s an opportunity to see why we’ve been making such a fuss about “Psychedelic Pill”: a video for the 16-odd minute “Ramada Inn”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8qkDQ_QP8A

Also some way into “Waging Heavy Peace”. This sentence on page 114 seems to sum it up thus far – “Point is, there were a lot of cars” – but if you’re further on than me, please let me know what you think.

As for the playlist this week, a belated and wholehearted discovery of Goat here in the office, a fine new Michael Chapman venture, a lot of Godspeed’s extraordinary return, plus Mark Kozelek US TV debut, which is well worth a look…

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

1 Serafina Steer – The Moths Are Real (Stolen)

2 Villagers – Awayland (Domino)

3 Eternal Tapestry – A World Out Of Time (Thrill Jockey)

4 Michael Chapman – Pachyderm (Blast First Petite)

5 Tame Impala – Lonerism (Modular)

6 Goat – World Music (Rocket)

7 Yo La Tengo – Fade (Matador)

8 Bee Mask – Vaporware/Scanops (Room 40)

9 Gareth Dickson – Quite A Way Away (12k)

10 Mark Kozelek & The Roots – Mistress (Live on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon)

11 Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend Ascend (Constellation)

12 Woo – It’s Cosy Inside (Drag City)

13 Hiss Golden Messenger – Lord I Love The Rain (Jellyfant)

14 Arbouretum – Coming Out Of The Fog (Thrill Jockey)

15 Pelt – Effigy (MIE)

16 Various Artists – Pendle 1612 (Lancashire Folklore Tapes)

17 Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs – I Watch You (Heavenly)

18 The Levon Helm Band – Midnight Ramble Sessions Volume 3 (Vanguard)

19 The White Meadows – A Time For Drunken Horses (Tor Press)

20 Obnox – Rojo (Permanent)

21 Fontanelle – Vitamin F (Southern Lord)

Led Zeppelin call journalist a “schmuck” at ‘Celebration Day’ press conference in New York

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Led Zeppelin call journalist a “schmuck” at ‘Celebration Day’ press conference in New York
Led Zeppelin clashed with journalists at a press conference in New York yesterday (October 9) when asked if the release of their concert DVD Celebration Day could lead to another reunion. Speaking at New York's Museum of Modern Art to promote the release of the DVD recording of their 2007 concert ...

Led Zeppelin clashed with journalists at a press conference in New York yesterday (October 9) when asked if the release of their concert DVD Celebration Day could lead to another reunion.

Speaking at New York’s Museum of Modern Art to promote the release of the DVD recording of their 2007 concert at London’s O2 Arena, the band got shirty with reporters when asked if the film could lead to another set of gigs, Rolling Stone reports. “We’ve been thinking about all sorts of things,” singer Robert Plant said. “And then we can’t remember what we were thinking of. Schmuck.”

“There are some people in here who are not journalists,” he said. “There’s a masseuse in here who’s not a journalist. I think that’s ever so exciting.”

Another journalist then praised the film but asked if it would satisfy fans who would rather see the rock legends reunite in the flesh. Plant replied simply, “Sorry!”.

He then added: “We’re pretty good at what we do but the tail should never wag the dog, really. If we’re capable of doing something, in our own time, that will be what will happen. So any inane questions from people who are from syndicated outlets, you should just really think about what it takes to answer a question like that in one second. We know what we’ve got, you know.”

Celebration Day, which is a concert film of the band’s 2007 appearance at London’s 02 Arena, will screen in cinemas from October 17. It will then get a general DVD release on November 19. A deluxe edition will also include footage of the Shepperton rehearsals, as well as BBC news footage.

Rolling Stones to play London in November, according to band source

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Rolling Stones to play London in November, according to band source
The Rolling Stones look set to play two shows in London in November, according to the band's long-time saxophonist. Earlier this week, (October 8) guitarist Keith Richards revealed that the band have been booked to play live shows in London and New York, although he didn't reveal when the dates wo...

The Rolling Stones look set to play two shows in London in November, according to the band’s long-time saxophonist.

Earlier this week, (October 8) guitarist Keith Richards revealed that the band have been booked to play live shows in London and New York, although he didn’t reveal when the dates would take place.

Now the band’s sax player Bobby Keys has said that the shows will take place in November, as previously denied by the band. “[The Rolling Stones are] gonna do some more concerts, starting in November with two in England and then a couple here in the States, then there’s a few added concerts after that,” Keys told Billboard.

“Keith told me a couple months ago there was something in the wind and just be ready to go. I’m waiting for them to send me the plane ticket and the information, and then I’ll go,” he said.

Music industry website Record Of The Day reports that it is rumoured that the dates will be 25 and 29 November, but this has not been confirmed.

When asked if the shows will mark the last live performances from the band, Keys added: “The reality is this train is going to pull into the last station pretty soon – I don’t know how soon. I’ve been saying this since 1980!” he said. “But I feel like it’s kind of winding down. This may be sort of the ‘Sayonara, see you later, had a good time, keep in touch.’ I don’t know that for sure. I haven’t officially been told anything…I just take my cue primarily from what Keith says, so we’ll have to see.”

The band had long been rumoured to be playing live again this year to celebrate their 50th anniversary, with frontman Mick Jagger claiming in July that they were planning on sharing a stage together this autumn.

The Rolling Stones release a new single, “Doom And Gloom”, on Thursday October 11. The single can be downloaded from iTunes.

“Doom And Gloom” marks the first time that Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood have been in the studio together for seven years. Taken from the forthcoming Greatest Hits album GRRR!, “Doom And Gloom” was recorded in Paris and produced by longtime Rolling Stones producer Don Was.

Brian Wilson responds to Mike Love: ‘It sorta feels like we’re being fired from The Beach Boys’

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Brian Wilson responds to Mike Love: ‘It sorta feels like we’re being fired from The Beach Boys’
Brian Wilson has responded to Mike Love's letter claiming he didn't fire him from The Beach Boys. Last week (October 6) Love defended his plans to continue touring under the Beach Boys name after the band's current 50-year anniversary, which ended in London last month, in an open letter published b...

Brian Wilson has responded to Mike Love’s letter claiming he didn’t fire him from The Beach Boys.

Last week (October 6) Love defended his plans to continue touring under the Beach Boys name after the band’s current 50-year anniversary, which ended in London last month, in an open letter published by the LA Times.

Love wrote: “I did not fire Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. I cannot fire Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. I am not his employer. I do not have such authority. And even if I did, I would never fire Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. I love Brian Wilson.”

However, now Wilson has responded with a letter in the same publication. “Normally I wouldn’t respond to something like this,” he wrote in the LA Times, “but because I love what the 50th has done for the band’s image and its legacy, I feel I need to.”

“As far as I know I can’t be fired – that wouldn’t be cool,” he wrote. “The negativity surrounding all the comments bummed me out. What’s confusing is that by Mike not wanting or letting Al, David and me tour with the band, it sort of feels like we’re being fired.”

He added: “What’s a bummer to Al and me is that we have numerous offers to continue, so why wouldn’t we want to? We all poured our hearts and souls into that album and the fans rewarded us by giving us a No. 3 debut on the Billboard charts, and selling out our shows. We were all blown away by the response. Al and I would like to be included in the continuous promotion of ‘That’s Why God Made The Radio‘. That’s what I’ve been doing for over a decade: making records and going out and supporting them. It’s what I do.” He concluded:

“It’s Al and my opinion that all of us together makes for a great representation of the Beach Boys. While I appreciate the nice cool things Mike said about me in his letter, and I do and always will love him as my cousin and bandmate, at the same time I’m still left wondering why he doesn’t want to continue this great trip we’re on. Al and I want to keep going because we believe we owe it to the music.

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