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Graham Coxon, Alt-J, Patrick Watson added to End Of The Road festival

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Graham Coxon, Alt-J, Patrick Watson added to End Of The Road festival

Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, Alt-J and Patrick Watson are among the new additions to this summer's End Of The Road festival. The festival, which will take place in Larmer Tree Gardens in Wiltshire on August 31 – September 2, will be headlined by Grandaddy, Midlake and a co-headline effort from Grizzy Bear and Tindersticks. Also newly confirmed for the festival are Savages, Creature With The Atom Brain, Gravenhurst, Abi Wade, Big Wave, Olympians, Horse Thief, Hurray For The Riff Raff, King Charles, The Step Kids, Woods, and Zachary Cale. They join a line-up that also includes Anna Calvi, The Antlers, First Aid Kit, Beach House, Veronica Falls, The Low Anthem, Toy, Islet and many others. For more information, visit Endoftheroadfestival.com. The line-up for End Of The Road so far is as follows: Grandaddy Tindersticks Grizzly Bear The Antlers Delicate Steve Doug Paisley Driver Drive Faster First Aid Kit Frank Fairfield I Break Horses Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard Justin Townes Earle Moulettes Mountain Man Midlake The Low Anthem Alessi's Ark Cashier no 9 Dirty Three John Grant Graham Coxon Alt-J Patrick Watson Savages Creature with the Atom Brain Gravenhurst Abi Wade Big Wave Olympians Horse Thief Hurray For The Riff Raff King Charles The Step Kids Woods Zachary Cale Jonathan Wilson Lanterns On The Lake Roy Harper Veronica Falls Beach House The Antlers I Break Horses Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard Justin Townes Earle Moulettes Robyn Hitchcock Anna Calvi Villagers Abigail Washburn with Kai Welch Cold Specks Dark Dark Dark Francois & The Atlas Mountains Islet Toy Outfit

Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, Alt-J and Patrick Watson are among the new additions to this summer’s End Of The Road festival.

The festival, which will take place in Larmer Tree Gardens in Wiltshire on August 31 – September 2, will be headlined by Grandaddy, Midlake and a co-headline effort from Grizzy Bear and Tindersticks.

Also newly confirmed for the festival are Savages, Creature With The Atom Brain, Gravenhurst, Abi Wade, Big Wave, Olympians, Horse Thief, Hurray For The Riff Raff, King Charles, The Step Kids, Woods, and Zachary Cale.

They join a line-up that also includes Anna Calvi, The Antlers, First Aid Kit, Beach House, Veronica Falls, The Low Anthem, Toy, Islet and many others.

For more information, visit Endoftheroadfestival.com.

The line-up for End Of The Road so far is as follows:

Grandaddy

Tindersticks

Grizzly Bear

The Antlers

Delicate Steve

Doug Paisley

Driver Drive Faster

First Aid Kit

Frank Fairfield

I Break Horses

Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard

Justin Townes Earle

Moulettes

Mountain Man

Midlake

The Low Anthem

Alessi’s Ark

Cashier no 9

Dirty Three

John Grant

Graham Coxon

Alt-J

Patrick Watson

Savages

Creature with the Atom Brain

Gravenhurst

Abi Wade

Big Wave

Olympians

Horse Thief

Hurray For The Riff Raff

King Charles

The Step Kids

Woods

Zachary Cale

Jonathan Wilson

Lanterns On The Lake

Roy Harper

Veronica Falls

Beach House

The Antlers

I Break Horses

Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard

Justin Townes Earle

Moulettes

Robyn Hitchcock

Anna Calvi

Villagers

Abigail Washburn with Kai Welch

Cold Specks

Dark Dark Dark

Francois & The Atlas Mountains

Islet

Toy

Outfit

Morrissey announces North American tour dates

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Morrissey announces North American tour dates
Morrissey has announced an extensive tour of North America. The singer, who recently reissued his 1998 debut album Viva Hate, will play 33 dates beginning in Boston on October 5. The tour eventually closes in Atlantic City on December 8. Morrissey will play his only UK show of the year at Manchest...

Morrissey has announced an extensive tour of North America.

The singer, who recently reissued his 1998 debut album Viva Hate, will play 33 dates beginning in Boston on October 5. The tour eventually closes in Atlantic City on December 8.

Morrissey will play his only UK show of the year at Manchester Arena on July 28.

The North American tour dates are:

10/05 – Boston, Massachusetts – Wang Theatre

10/06 – Waterbury, Connecticut – Palace Theater

10/10 – New York, New York – Radio City Music Hall

10/15 – Portland, Maine – State Theatre

10/16 – Burlington, Vermont – Flynn Center for the Performing Arts

10/18 – Albany, New York – Palace Theatre

10/19 – Niagara Falls, New York – Rapids Theatre

10/23 – Pittsburgh, Pennysylvania – Heinz Hall

10/24 – Columbus, Ohio – LC Indoor Pavilion

10/26 – Flint, Michigan – James H Whiting Auditorium

10/27 – Chicago, Illinois – Chicago Theatre

10/29 – Minneapolis, Minnesota – Orpheum Theatre

10/30 – Clear Lake, Iowa – Surf Ballroom

11/01 – Lincoln, Nebraska – Rococo Theatre

11/03 – Denver, Colorado – Ellie Caulkins Opera House

11/04 – Salt Lake City, Utah – Kingsbury Hall at University of Utah

11/08 – Seattle, Washington – Moore Theatre

11/10 – Bellingham, Washington – Mount Baker Theatre

11/11 – Portland, Oregon – Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

11/14 – Davis, California – Robert Mondavi Center at UC Davis

11/16 – San Francisco, California – Davies Symphony Hall

11/17 – Reno, Nevada – John Ascuaga’s Nugget – Rose Ballroom

11/21 – Tempe, Arizona – Marquee Theater

11/23 – Las Vegas, Nevada – The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas at The Chelsea Ballroom

11/24 – Los Angeles, California – Staples Center Arena

11/27 – El Paso, Texas – Tricky Falls

11/28 – Wichita Falls, Texas – Kay Yeager Coliseum

11/30 – Pharr, Texas – Pharr Entertainment Center

12/01 – Beaumont, Texas – Jefferson Theatre

12/03 – Atlanta, Georgia – Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

12/05 – Asheville, North Carolina – Orange Peel

12/07 – North Bethesda, Maryland – The Music Center at Strathmore

12/08 – Atlantic City, New Jersey – Showboat Resort and Casino – House of Blues

Beatles actor Victor Spinetti dies aged 82

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Beatles actor Victor Spinetti dies aged 82
Victor Spinetti, the comic actor who appeared in three Beatles films, has died aged 82. The Welsh star appeared in a string of acclaimed movies as well as appearing on the West End and Broadway. He died in a hospice in Monmouth this morning after battling with pancreatic cancer, reports BBC. Once...

Victor Spinetti, the comic actor who appeared in three Beatles films, has died aged 82.

The Welsh star appeared in a string of acclaimed movies as well as appearing on the West End and Broadway. He died in a hospice in Monmouth this morning after battling with pancreatic cancer, reports BBC.

Once described by Paul McCartney as “the man who makes clouds disappear”, Spinetti was the only non-Beatle to appear in the films A Hard Day’s Night, Help! and Magical Mystery Tour.

Born Victorio G A Spinetti on 2 September 1929 south Wales, he attended Monmouth School before studying at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff. He worked as a waiter and factory worker before his acting career took off.

Spinetti appeared in more than 30 films, including Zeffirelli’s The Taming Of The Shrew, The Return Of The Pink Panther, The Krays, and Under Milk Wood with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. He also appeared frequently on television and theatre as an actor and director.

George Harrison once told him: “You’ve got to be in all our films. If you’re not in them me mum won’t come and see them – because she fancies you.”

In 1968, he also worked with John Lennon to turn Lennon’s book, In His Own Write, into to a play which he then directed at the National Theatre – where Laurence Olivier was Artistic Director.

Victor Spinetti’s partner of 44 years, Graham Curnow, died in 1997.

Mark and Colleen Hayward/Getty Images

Ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith to play first UK dates in over 30 years

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Ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith to play first UK dates in over 30 years
Michael Nesmith, the former Monkee and country rock pioneer, is to play the UK for the first time in over 30 years. Nesmith, who left the Monkees in 1970, went on to release three albums with The First National Band between 1970 and 1971, which were later hailed as country rock classics. “The sh...

Michael Nesmith, the former Monkee and country rock pioneer, is to play the UK for the first time in over 30 years.

Nesmith, who left the Monkees in 1970, went on to release three albums with The First National Band between 1970 and 1971, which were later hailed as country rock classics.

“The shows will take a complete look at the songs I’ve recorded over the years, starting back when I was just a solo folk singer,” says Nesmith of the forthcoming dates. “I have decades of music to draw from and I think I can put together something exciting, something that will make for a very full, dramatic and emotional evening.”

Speaking to Uncut in 2008, Nesmith recalled his last UK tour, playing “workingmen’s clubs for three or four months. The audiences were mostly morbidly curious: I was out of The Monkees, and they weren’t on for giving any deference to yesterday’s TV star.”

This time, Nesmith will play:

Friday, October 26:

Oran Moor, Glasgow

Sunday, October 28:

Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London

Monday, October 29:

RNCM, Manchester

American Music Club’s Tim Mooney: RIP

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American Music Club’s Tim Mooney: RIP

One of the records I’ve been playing the absolute hell out of these last couple of weeks is The Graceless Age, the new album by John Murry, who Uncut regulars may remember from World Without End, a sensationally bleak 2006 collection of contemporary murder ballads he made with the Memphis singer-songwriter Bob Frank. The Graceless Age, like World Without End, produced by Tim Mooney, the former American Music Club drummer, at Closer Recording, the studio Tim owned in San Francisco, at 1441 Howard Street. The more I played it, the more The Graceless Age sounded like one of the best things Mooney had been involved in, as either producer or musician, a dark and festering masterpiece. Because I’m reviewing the album for Uncut, I was actually listening to it last week when I got an email from my friend Chris Metzler at Décor Records, home of AMC and the label that put out World Without End in the UK. Chris said he had been about to write to me with details of a new album by AMC’s Mark Eitzel, but instead had sad news for me. Tim Mooney - second from left in the picture above of AMC - had died suddenly, at the age of only 53, from a heart attack. Tim, who’d previously played with Bay Area punk bands like Negative Trend, The Sleepers and Toiling Midgets, joined AMC in 1992, just as it looked like they were finally going to make what’s usually called the big time after signing major label deals in America, with Reprise, and the UK, with Virgin, for whom they recorded two albums, Mercury and San Francisco. Neither sold, and the band split, reconvening almost a decade later for 2003’s Love Songs For Patriots, which Mooney played on and produced. In 2007, AMC split again, with Eitzel and guitarist Vudi relocating to Los Angeles. Mooney stayed in San Francisco, where during AMC’s 1994-2003 hiatus he had worked with Red House Painters’ Mark Kozelek. “I knew Tim Mooney for over 20 years,” Kozelek wrote on his blog last week. “As many Red House Painters fans may know, American Music Club was very helpful in giving Red House Painters our start. Later on, Tim played drums on my first solo album, Rock’N’Roll Slinger, and then on Sun Kil Moon’s Ghosts Of The Great Highway. We shared many long days and hours together. Tim was a peaceful, patient and incredibly talented person. The last time I saw Tim was in 2009, in Petaluma, he was having ice cream with his daughter. He was as happy and contented as ever. I’ve been overwhelmed with memories of Tim since learning of the news yesterday. My heart goes out to his family, his many friends, and to the members of AMC.” Mark Eitzel also remembered Mooney in a blog: “I haven’t seen Tim for a few years now but that still didn’t lessen the impact of his passing. He was the drummer of AMC for many years. He was absolutely instrumental in whatever sound we had. His style was absolutely unique and as an artist no one could match what he did. He was a good friend to so many people and will be missed. What an absolute loss. I wish all the best to his wife Jude and his daughter Dixie. I have spent all day in a fog thinking about him.” In a separate email that Chris Metzler has passed on to me, Eitzel added: "We were always surprised that Tim wanted to play with us. Before AMC he played in a band called the Toiling Midgets. (If you can find it check out their album 'Sea Of Unrest' - It's a masterpiece). He took all our disparate musical ideas and tied it them together with a style that just cut through. The collision of Tim's playing with Bruce's pedal steel and Vudi and Danny was something I had never heard before (and won't again). Tim was a good and sweet man and in music a true believer. I was lucky to play with him and have him in my life." Chris also forwarded me an email from Vudi, who wrote: "I was a fan of Tim Mooney some years before our friendship. Though just a kid, he was already rock’n' roll star while I was still finding my way. He had made his mark in some great music, with great style. To sense where things were at and WHEN they were at, and - if it was something good - there he was; a real force, right in the beating heart of it all. I'm talking about more than just music, friends. “Tim had a cat-like cat, hungry intelligence, was beautiful to behold, and an inspiring companion. Mooney had a rare gift: the first time he came to my flat for a social call (I was drummer-stealing), my flatmate thought 'lightning was gonna strike the house', and went out. His presence could have that effect. Tim could be the quiet man in the room, but every bright and beautiful thing knew that if he got up and left, the light would dim. Well,...." The next issue Uncut was already on its way to the printers when we heard about Tim’s death, but there’ll be more on him the following issue. Have a good week. Allan

One of the records I’ve been playing the absolute hell out of these last couple of weeks is The Graceless Age, the new album by John Murry, who Uncut regulars may remember from World Without End, a sensationally bleak 2006 collection of contemporary murder ballads he made with the Memphis singer-songwriter Bob Frank. The Graceless Age, like World Without End, produced by Tim Mooney, the former American Music Club drummer, at Closer Recording, the studio Tim owned in San Francisco, at 1441 Howard Street. The more I played it, the more The Graceless Age sounded like one of the best things Mooney had been involved in, as either producer or musician, a dark and festering masterpiece.

Because I’m reviewing the album for Uncut, I was actually listening to it last week when I got an email from my friend Chris Metzler at Décor Records, home of AMC and the label that put out World Without End in the UK. Chris said he had been about to write to me with details of a new album by AMC’s Mark Eitzel, but instead had sad news for me. Tim Mooney – second from left in the picture above of AMC – had died suddenly, at the age of only 53, from a heart attack.

Tim, who’d previously played with Bay Area punk bands like Negative Trend, The Sleepers and Toiling Midgets, joined AMC in 1992, just as it looked like they were finally going to make what’s usually called the big time after signing major label deals in America, with Reprise, and the UK, with Virgin, for whom they recorded two albums, Mercury and San Francisco. Neither sold, and the band split, reconvening almost a decade later for 2003’s Love Songs For Patriots, which Mooney played on and produced. In 2007, AMC split again, with Eitzel and guitarist Vudi relocating to Los Angeles. Mooney stayed in San Francisco, where during AMC’s 1994-2003 hiatus he had worked with Red House Painters’ Mark Kozelek.

“I knew Tim Mooney for over 20 years,” Kozelek wrote on his blog last week. “As many Red House Painters fans may know, American Music Club was very helpful in giving Red House Painters our start. Later on, Tim played drums on my first solo album, Rock’N’Roll Slinger, and then on Sun Kil Moon’s Ghosts Of The Great Highway. We shared many long days and hours together. Tim was a peaceful, patient and incredibly talented person. The last time I saw Tim was in 2009, in Petaluma, he was having ice cream with his daughter. He was as happy and contented as ever. I’ve been overwhelmed with memories of Tim since learning of the news yesterday. My heart goes out to his family, his many friends, and to the members of AMC.”

Mark Eitzel also remembered Mooney in a blog: “I haven’t seen Tim for a few years now but that still didn’t lessen the impact of his passing. He was the drummer of AMC for many years. He was absolutely instrumental in whatever sound we had. His style was absolutely unique and as an artist no one could match what he did. He was a good friend to so many people and will be missed. What an absolute loss. I wish all the best to his wife Jude and his daughter Dixie. I have spent all day in a fog thinking about him.”

In a separate email that Chris Metzler has passed on to me, Eitzel added: “We were always surprised that Tim wanted to play with us. Before AMC he played in a band called the Toiling Midgets. (If you can find it check out their album ‘Sea Of Unrest’ – It’s a masterpiece). He took all our disparate musical ideas and tied it them together with a style that just cut through. The collision of Tim’s playing with Bruce’s pedal steel and Vudi and Danny was something I had never heard before (and won’t again). Tim was a good and sweet man and in music a true believer. I was lucky to play with him and have him in my life.”

Chris also forwarded me an email from Vudi, who wrote: “I was a fan of Tim Mooney some years before our friendship. Though just a kid, he was already rock’n’ roll star while I was still finding my way. He had made his mark in some great music, with great style. To sense where things were at and WHEN they were at, and – if it was something good – there he was; a real force, right in the beating heart of it all. I’m talking about more than just music, friends.

“Tim had a cat-like cat, hungry intelligence, was beautiful to behold, and an inspiring companion. Mooney had a rare gift: the first time he came to my flat for a social call (I was drummer-stealing), my flatmate thought ‘lightning was gonna strike the house’, and went out. His presence could have that effect. Tim could be the quiet man in the room, but every bright and beautiful thing knew that if he got up and left, the light would dim. Well,….”

The next issue Uncut was already on its way to the printers when we heard about Tim’s death, but there’ll be more on him the following issue.

Have a good week.

Allan

Tom Petty: Royal Albert Hall, London, June 18

Michael Bonner
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Tom Petty: Royal Albert Hall, London, June 18
Tom Petty is a man of many guitars, most of which seem to make an appearance on stage at some point in tonight’s proceedings. Here’s a red Fender, a blonde Rickenbacker, a white Gibson, back to the Fender, and on. It seems fitting, I suppose: Petty’s first show in the UK for 13 years is very m...

Tom Petty is a man of many guitars, most of which seem to make an appearance on stage at some point in tonight’s proceedings. Here’s a red Fender, a blonde Rickenbacker, a white Gibson, back to the Fender, and on. It seems fitting, I suppose: Petty’s first show in the UK for 13 years is very much about craft and musicianship.

Speaking to Uncut a few issues ago, Petty revealed that he and the Heartbreakers gave up soundchecks a long while ago. You could argue that, after over 30 years of playing together, they no longer need to trouble themselves with this kind of trivial business, such is the level at which they function. The Heartbreakers are a thoroughly doughty bunch of dudes – I’d imagine you could rely on them to water your plants while you’re on holiday. There isn’t a note out of place here, it’s a precision-engineered performance – the opposite, say, of the freewheeling jams you’d expect from a bunch like Crazy Horse. The Heartbreakers are quietly professional men, going about their business with the minimum of fuss. Keyboard player Benmont Tench and rhythm guitarist Scott Thurston, for instance, barely trouble the limelight, but their contribution here is both understated and formidable.

The band are decked out in casual suits, dark greys and blues. Guitarist Mike Campbell wears a black corduroy jacket, and with his hair in dreadlocks, he resembles a hip university lecturer; you could cast him as the Donald Sutherland character in a remake of Animal House, pontificating on the size of the universe while pulling on the end of a roach. Petty himself wears a three-piece grey pinstripe suit and Cuban heels. He reminds me a little of Keith Carradine in Deadwood. There’s something about his manner that appears almost formal – a remnant, you might think, of his Southern upbringing. He’ll take a stiff half bow after each song, as if he’s greeting royalty. And when he introduces “Here Comes My Girl” as “from our 1979 album, Damn The Torpedoes. It was track two on side one,” I half expect him to follow it up by telling us the catalogue number. Surprisingly, he sounds a lot like George Harrison when he sings. Probably because of his long association with Dylan, I expected him to sound more Bob-like. There’s a moment during the Traveling Wilburys’ “Handle With Care” where I wonder whether he’ll slip into Bob or George; as it is, Scott Thurston mans up with what appears to be an impressive Roy Orbison impression.

The hits are tremendous, particularly “Listen To Your Heart” with its hopped-up Byrds vibe. Mike Campbell regularly gets to show his chops, particularly a brilliant extended coda on “Don’t Come Around Here No More”, when the band finally cut loose, wind the clock back a couple of decades and throw themselves into the feedback Campbell coaxes out of his guitar. A few more moments like this would have been great. There’s fun, too, with a muscular version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well”, where Petty trades one of his many guitars for maracas and Campbell cranks out the riffs. At the other end of the scale, “Learning To Fly” is nicely understated, as is a semi-acoustic “Free Fallin’”.

As Petty’s first gig in the UK since a mini-tour of Europe in 1999, this felt like a triumphant return to English soil. At one point, coincidentally or not, the lights hit Petty full on as he stood with his arms raised and outstretched; it causes the first of the night’s many ovations.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played:

Listen To Your Heart

You Wreck Me

I Won’t Back Down

Here Comes My Girl

Handle With Care

Good Enough

Oh Well

Something Big

Don’t Come Around Here No More

Free Fallin’

It’s Good To Be King

Something Good Coming

Learning To Fly

Yer So Bad

I Should Have Known It

Refugee

Runnin’ Down A Dream

Mary Jane’s Last Dance

American Girl

Photo credit: Rune Hellestad/Corbis

The Same Boy You’ve Always Known: A Jack White Interview

John Mulvey
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The Same Boy You’ve Always Known: A Jack White Interview
The way Jack White tells it – though historically, his relationship with the truth can be a little capricious – his solo career started by accident. For the past three years, White has been inviting musicians down to his Nashville studio to record 45s for his Third Man label; recent visitors hav...

The way Jack White tells it – though historically, his relationship with the truth can be a little capricious – his solo career started by accident. For the past three years, White has been inviting musicians down to his Nashville studio to record 45s for his Third Man label; recent visitors have included Tom Jones, The Alabama Shakes, and the Insane Clown Posse.

Sometime last July, White thinks, he was waiting at Third Man to produce a couple of tracks for the RZA. Not entirely out of character, the Wu Tang rapper cancelled at the last moment, which left White and a bunch of musicians hanging around with nothing else to do except work up a couple of ideas he’d been toying with for a while. That day, White says, he recorded three songs, including a shit-kicking homage to James Booker called “Trash Tongue Talker”, and embarked on a trajectory that culminates this month with the release of his first solo album, the rich, nuanced and thoroughly entertaining Blunderbuss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTW6yKnmO08

“With The White Stripes, I wanted to have a new blues,” he says. “‘Seven Nation Army’ has become a soccer chant to some people, but to me it’s a blues song, a struggle of one person against the world. The sound, the rhythm, is not what someone would label blues, and I think that happens with a lot of songs on this album as well. I consider all of it to be the blues, but I’m trying to present it in a way that shakes it up for me and the listener.”

It would be easy to envisage Blunderbuss – the 11th album of White’s mature career, after six with Meg White in The White Stripes, two fronting The Raconteurs alongside Brendan Benson, and two playing mostly drums in The Dead Weather – as the point where much of the subterfuge stops, and something akin to a real Jack White emerges. This is not, though, how he works. The enigmatic strategies and outlandish concepts remain just as critical to his appeal as the songs and virtuosity. The charming game of hide-and-seek is, it seems, still on.

“We can talk about the intensity of Jimi Hendrix’s playing, and how unbelievable it is,” he says. “But make no mistake, the man was full of gimmicks. He was setting his guitar on fire, playing with his teeth, dressing in marching band outfits, with amazing giant hair. And all of that stuff was no different from Charley Patton playing between his legs at juke joints, or Tommy Johnson playing behind his head. What some people call a gimmick, others will call art.”

It is March 2, and Jack White is in a Manhattan hotel chosen, perhaps, because its pale blue colour scheme matches the palette of Blunderbuss. The hotel is also conveniently close to the NBC television studios at Rockefeller Plaza, where White will make his first appearance as a solo artist the following night. The occasion is a guest spot on Saturday Night Live, an edition hosted by Lindsay Lohan, making a tentative comeback of her own at the age of 25.

As White and his band arrive onstage for their first number, his gimmick this time seems obvious. Around the blue amplifiers (mono tube amps, originally used in schools), the band consists of six women dressed in powder blue gowns and elaborate hairstyles that have been created by the touring party’s resident wigmaker. The song they are playing is “Love Interruption”, an unusually gory take on relationships, played out as a duet between White and a sultry Nashville singer called Ruby Amanfu.

“Love Interruption” is brief and understated on Blunderbuss, a little like an Everly Brothers song, but live it becomes something fuller and looser, peaking with a duel of sorts between Lillie May Rische, a fiddler from Nashville, and Maggie Bjorklund, a pedal steel player from Denmark (“I’m telling you the truth, man,” says White, “she’s one of four or five female pedal steel players in the world. There are none in the States. We went on forums and typed in ‘female pedal steel player’ and it was bone dry.”). White, meanwhile, contents himself with keeping the rhythm on his new Gibson acoustic, which turns out to be nearly a century old.

An hour or so later, however, White returns with a light blue Telecaster and an entirely different group. This time he is dressed in a black t-shirt and tight black jeans rather than a blue western suit, looking uncannily as he did around 2003. The image shift turns out to be serendipitous, since “Sixteen Saltines” is a priapic rocker reminiscent of “The Hardest Button To Button” from that year’s Elephant album. Notably, a second band have turned up: an all-male ensemble featuring a hip hop drummer (Daru Jones), a mandolin player from The Old Crow Medicine Show (Cory Younts) and the fervid organist Ikey Owens, plucked from the unlikely environment of The Mars Volta.

White’s extravagant concept is to take both bands out with him on the road. At each gig, the audience will not know whether it is the all-male or the all-female band backing White until they come onstage. “It’ll be completely random,” he says gleefully. “It’s something to make me work harder. For weeks now I’ve been travelling between two different locations, playing music with this band, driving over to the other side of town, playing different versions of the exact same songs that I just played.”

White claims he doesn’t really know why he came up with such an audacious and demanding new gimmick, even though Blunderbuss’ lyric sheet often reads like a theatrically heightened battle of the sexes, where cruel Delilahs face off against vainglorious Samsons.

“I want something to happen, I want to shake it up,” he finally decides. “I also have a strong interest in messing with people’s preconceptions. To me it’s art, and very funny, and a very big slap in the face of anyone who is easily made cynical by their own preconceived notions of male and female, of authenticity, of who can play and who can’t play.”

You don’t make thing easy for yourself, do you?

He laughs hysterically. “Have you noticed?”

Continue

Watch video for new Richard Hawley single “Down In The Woods”

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Watch video for new Richard Hawley single “Down In The Woods”
Richard Hawley has unveiled the video for his new single, "Down In The Woods". Scroll down to watch it. The heavy, psychedelic single is the second to be taken from his latest album, following "Leave Your Body Behind You". The album, Standing At The Sky's Edge, is Hawley's seventh solo LP and it de...

Richard Hawley has unveiled the video for his new single, “Down In The Woods”. Scroll down to watch it.

The heavy, psychedelic single is the second to be taken from his latest album, following “Leave Your Body Behind You”. The album, Standing At The Sky’s Edge, is Hawley’s seventh solo LP and it debuted at Number Three in the Official UK Album Chart last month, his highest ever chart placing.

Richard Hawley recently said that his only ambition in his music career was to “avoid flipping burgers”. He told Shortlist magazine that he was happy to live in a separate “bubble” away from the mainstream. Asked about his chart success, he replied: “Well, the chart thing is fucking mental so I presume people are digging what I do. But I can’t really feel anything else yet. I live in a bubble anyway and that’s for a good reason. It keeps you real and keeps you sane.”

Hawley, who also said he’d “never, ever been interested in fashion or being fashionable”, added: “I would have been content just playing the music I loved in clubs and pubs. My only real ambition was to avoid flipping burgers or ending up in the steelworks.”

Hawley is set to embark on an extensive UK tour later this year.

Richard Hawley will play:

Holmfirth Picture House (September 16)

Norwich UEA (17)

Portsmouth Pyramids Centre (18)

Brighton Dome (19)

Bath Pavilion (21)

Birmingham HMV Institute (22)

Sheffield City Hall (23)

O2 Academy Leeds (25)

Manchester Academy (26)

O2 Academy Newcastle (27)

Glasgow Barrowlands (28)

Lincoln Engine Shed (30)

Derby Assembly Rooms (October 1)

O2 Academy Brixton (3)

Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth members collaborate on new Fleetwood Mac covers compilation

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Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth members collaborate on new Fleetwood Mac covers compilation
Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis have collaborated on a cover of Peter Green's guitar instrumental "Albatross" for a new Fleetwood Mac covers compilation. To be released on August 14 via Hear Music/Concord, the compilation also features contributions from Marianne Faithful, Ant...

Sonic Youth‘s Lee Ranaldo and Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis have collaborated on a cover of Peter Green’s guitar instrumental “Albatross” for a new Fleetwood Mac covers compilation.

To be released on August 14 via Hear Music/Concord, the compilation also features contributions from Marianne Faithful, Antony Hegarty and MGMT.

The track listing for the compilation is:

Entrance Band – ‘Green Manalishi’

Crystal Ark – ‘Tusk’

Best Coast – ‘Rhiannon’

The New Pornographers – ‘Think About Me’

MGMT – ‘Future Games’

Marianne Faithful – ‘Angel’

Antony Hegarty – ‘Landslide’

Ranaldo and Mascis – ‘Albatross’

Trixie Whitley – ‘Before The Beginning’

Washed Out – ‘Straight Back’

Super Wolf – ‘Storms’

The Kills – ‘Dreams’

Gardens And Villa – ‘Gypsy’

Billy Gibbons – ‘Oh Well’

Lykke Li – ‘Silver Springs’

Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon designs ‘cruelty free’ shoe

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Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon designs ‘cruelty free’ shoe
Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon has helped to design a sneaker for 'cruelty free' footwear brand, Keep. The double Grammy winning musician has joined forces with Los Angeles based company Keep to make a 'salmon' pink canvas shoe, which features "herringbone accents" and "a black fishbone detail acr...

Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon has helped to design a sneaker for ‘cruelty free’ footwear brand, Keep.

The double Grammy winning musician has joined forces with Los Angeles based company Keep to make a ‘salmon’ pink canvas shoe, which features “herringbone accents” and “a black fishbone detail across the toe”.

The project is hoping to raise awareness for Best Friends Animal Society, which is described as “an animal advocacy group which operates the nation’s largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals. Both Vernon and Una Kim, Keep’s founder, are proud adopters of rescued pets, pictures of whom often make appearances on both the band and Keep’s blogs.”

Advance sales for the shoe are running until July 1 and there will be a limited global instore release of the sneaker in October. Last year, Animal Collective teamed up with Keep for a similar project.

Bon Iver release a new live EP, the ‘iTunes Session EP’, today (June 19), which will include a version of Bjork’s ‘Who Is It?’. The band will then go on to headline this summer’s Latitude festival. They are also set to play Glasgow’s SECC on November 10.

Red Hot Chili Peppers to release singles series

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Red Hot Chili Peppers to release singles series
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are planning to release 18 previously unheard songs from the sessions for their last album, I'm With You. According to Rolling Stone, the band will begin on August 14 with the release of "Strange Man" and "Long Progression", and on September 11 they will release a follow-...

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are planning to release 18 previously unheard songs from the sessions for their last album, I’m With You.

According to Rolling Stone, the band will begin on August 14 with the release of “Strange Man” and “Long Progression”, and on September 11 they will release a follow-up, “Magpies” and “Victorian Machinery”.

“Some songs seem to have a lot more of an agenda than others,” said Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer in a statement. “Some songs play well with others and some songs need more attention and a little extra care. Here are some songs that seemed to want to pair up and take a later train. Keep your eye on them, they’re up to something . . .”

Each instalment will be available as a 7″ single and digitally.

Rolling Stones deny Glastonbury rumours

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Rolling Stones deny Glastonbury rumours
The Rolling Stones have denied reports they will retire next year with a headline slot at Glastonbury. It was reported "sources" close to the band had indicated that their Glastonbury appearance will be their final date in a "handful" of shows in the UK and USA in 2012. It was also suggested that, ...

The Rolling Stones have denied reports they will retire next year with a headline slot at Glastonbury.

It was reported “sources” close to the band had indicated that their Glastonbury appearance will be their final date in a “handful” of shows in the UK and USA in 2012. It was also suggested that, as it is part of the group’s 50-year anniversary, it will be seen as a good time to call it a day on live performances.

Representatives for the band insisted there is no truth in the claim, which appeared in the Sunday Mirror yesterday (June 17) and they would not be playing at Worthy Farm next summer.

The veteran four-piece have never played Glastonbury before. A spokesman for the festival told The Guardian there have been no conversations as yet. He added: “Everybody in the year off thinks they’ve come up with the perfect Glastonbury lineup. But at the moment there isn’t anything to confirm or deny.”

In a Twitter post the band said, “Every year the @RollingStones are asked to play this UK festival..but playing Glastonbury is not in our plans”.

Hear new Damon Albarn song

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Hear new Damon Albarn song
Damon Albarn unveiled a new track at a poetry festival in London earlier this week (June 14) – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to watch. Consequence Of Sound reports that the singer, who was performing at the Poetry Olympics at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, included a brand new song ...

Damon Albarn unveiled a new track at a poetry festival in London earlier this week (June 14) – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to watch.

Consequence Of Sound reports that the singer, who was performing at the Poetry Olympics at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, included a brand new song in his set which he told the crowd he had recorded “last week”.

Although initial reports claimed that the bouncing and melodic acoustic track constituted new material from Blur, there has been no confirmation if the song will be used by the Britpop legends or if it will be released in one of Albarn’s other musical projects.

Last month (May 23), producer William Orbit told NME that he had been in the studio with Blur working on new material, but that Albarn had decided to halt the recording sessions. “The new stuff sounded amazing,” he said. “Then it all stopped suddenly. It was all over with Damon, and the rest of the band were like, ‘Is this it?’.”

In April, however, Albarn denied he was finished with Blur after earlier suggesting that their huge Hyde Park reunion gig to coincide with the close of this summer’s Olympics in August would be their final show, while last week (June 9), guitarist Graham Coxon admitted that he and his bandmates felt “pressure” from fans to record new material.

The band are due to warm up for the show with a short tour taking in dates in Margate, Wolverhampton and Plymouth, along with headlining Sweden’s Way Out West in the same month.

The Best Of 2012: Halftime Report

John Mulvey
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The Best Of 2012: Halftime Report

Here we go, then: my 40 favourite albums of 2012 thus far. A very personal list, I should say, so please don’t think it constitutes any kind of canonical Uncut pronouncement. The theory is that these are all January-June 2012 releases, so apologies if any rogues have inadvertently been admitted (I suspect there may be a few things I’ve forgotten, too). As you’ll see, I’ve chickened out of putting them in anything other than alphabetical order, though at this point in the year I may well have played the unlikely pair of Julia Holter and Chris Robinson more than anything else. Links lead to previous blogs on that record, as you might have worked out. Next step, I guess, is for you to submit your own Top Tens in the Facebook Comments boxes below, and I’ll use the traditional dark mathematics to crunch them into something approximating a proper chart. Once again, thanks for all your engagement, feedback and support over the last six months, and of course beyond; it’s always really appreciated. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey 1. Damon Albarn – Dr Dee (Parlophone) 2. Arbouretum/Hush Arbors – Aureola (Thrill Jockey) 3. Beachwood Sparks – The Tarnished Gold (Sub Pop) 4. Sir Richard Bishop - Intermezzo (Ideologic Organ) 5. James Blackshaw - Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death (Important) 6. Blues Control – Valley Tangents (Drag City) 7. Neneh Cherry & The Thing – The Cherry Thing (Smalltown Supersound) 8. Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas (Columbia) 9. Cornershop – Urban Turban: The Singhles Club (Ample Play) 10. Dexys – One Day I’m Going To Soar (BMG) 11. The Dirty Three – Towards The Low Sun (Bella Union) 12. Dr John – Locked Down (Nonesuch) 13. Elephant Micah - Louder Than Thou (Product Of Palmyra) 14. The Entrance Band – The Entrance Band (Latitudes) 15. Chris Forsyth & Koen Holtkamp – Early Astral (Blackest Rainbow) 16. Go-Kart Mozart – On The Hot Dog Streets (West Midlands) 17. Gunn/Truscinski Duo - Ocean Parkway (Three-Lobed) 18. Julia Holter – Ekstasis (RVNG INTL) 19. Hot Chip – In Our Heads (Domino) 20. Howlin Rain – The Russian Wilds (Agitated) 21. Icebreaker & BJ Cole – Apollo (Canteloupe/Naxos) 22. Eyvind Kang - – The Narrow Garden (Kranky) 23. King Blood – Vengeance Man (Richie/Testoster Tunes) 24. Lubomyr Melnyk (Hinterzimmer) 25. The Men – Open Your Heart (Sacred Bones) 26. Orbital – Wonky (ACP) 27. Lee Ranaldo - Between The Times And The Tides (Matador) 28. The Chris Robinson Brotherhood – Big Moon Ritual (Silver Arrow) 29. Ty Segall & White Fence – Hair (Drag City) 30. The Ty Segall Band – Slaughterhouse (In The Red) 31. Patti Smith – Banga (Columbia) 32. Spain – The Soul Of Spain (Glitterhouse) 33. “Blue” Gene Tyranny – Detours (Unseen Worlds) 34. Spacin’ - Deep Thuds (Richie/Testoster Tunes) 35. Starving Weirdos - Land Lines (Amish) 36. Sun Araw/M Geddes Gengras/The Congos - FRKWYS Vol. 9: Sun Araw & M. Geddes Gengras meet The Congos (RVNG Intl) 37. Sun Kil Moon – Among The Leaves (Caldo Verde) 38. Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning The Entrance Into Eternity (Important) 39. Jack White – Blunderbuss (XL) 40. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Americana (Reprise)

Here we go, then: my 40 favourite albums of 2012 thus far. A very personal list, I should say, so please don’t think it constitutes any kind of canonical Uncut pronouncement.

The theory is that these are all January-June 2012 releases, so apologies if any rogues have inadvertently been admitted (I suspect there may be a few things I’ve forgotten, too). As you’ll see, I’ve chickened out of putting them in anything other than alphabetical order, though at this point in the year I may well have played the unlikely pair of Julia Holter and Chris Robinson more than anything else. Links lead to previous blogs on that record, as you might have worked out.

Next step, I guess, is for you to submit your own Top Tens in the Facebook Comments boxes below, and I’ll use the traditional dark mathematics to crunch them into something approximating a proper chart. Once again, thanks for all your engagement, feedback and support over the last six months, and of course beyond; it’s always really appreciated.

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

1. Damon Albarn – Dr Dee (Parlophone)

2. Arbouretum/Hush Arbors – Aureola (Thrill Jockey)

3. Beachwood Sparks – The Tarnished Gold (Sub Pop)

4. Sir Richard Bishop – Intermezzo (Ideologic Organ)

5. James Blackshaw – Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death (Important)

6. Blues Control – Valley Tangents (Drag City)

7. Neneh Cherry & The Thing – The Cherry Thing (Smalltown Supersound)

8. Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas (Columbia)

9. Cornershop – Urban Turban: The Singhles Club (Ample Play)

10. Dexys – One Day I’m Going To Soar (BMG)

11. The Dirty Three – Towards The Low Sun (Bella Union)

12. Dr John – Locked Down (Nonesuch)

13. Elephant Micah – Louder Than Thou (Product Of Palmyra)

14. The Entrance Band – The Entrance Band (Latitudes)

15. Chris Forsyth & Koen Holtkamp – Early Astral (Blackest Rainbow)

16. Go-Kart Mozart – On The Hot Dog Streets (West Midlands)

17. Gunn/Truscinski Duo – Ocean Parkway (Three-Lobed)

18. Julia Holter – Ekstasis (RVNG INTL)

19. Hot Chip – In Our Heads (Domino)

20. Howlin Rain – The Russian Wilds (Agitated)

21. Icebreaker & BJ Cole – Apollo (Canteloupe/Naxos)

22. Eyvind Kang – – The Narrow Garden (Kranky)

23. King Blood – Vengeance Man (Richie/Testoster Tunes)

24. Lubomyr Melnyk (Hinterzimmer)

25. The Men – Open Your Heart (Sacred Bones)

26. Orbital – Wonky (ACP)

27. Lee Ranaldo – Between The Times And The Tides (Matador)

28. The Chris Robinson Brotherhood – Big Moon Ritual (Silver Arrow)

29. Ty Segall & White Fence – Hair (Drag City)

30. The Ty Segall Band – Slaughterhouse (In The Red)

31. Patti Smith – Banga (Columbia)

32. Spain – The Soul Of Spain (Glitterhouse)

33. “Blue” Gene Tyranny – Detours (Unseen Worlds)

34. Spacin’ – Deep Thuds (Richie/Testoster Tunes)

35. Starving Weirdos – Land Lines (Amish)

36. Sun Araw/M Geddes Gengras/The Congos – FRKWYS Vol. 9: Sun Araw & M. Geddes Gengras meet The Congos (RVNG Intl)

37. Sun Kil Moon – Among The Leaves (Caldo Verde)

38. Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch – Concerning The Entrance Into Eternity (Important)

39. Jack White – Blunderbuss (XL)

40. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Americana (Reprise)

Listen to REM’s Peter Buck debut solo track “10 Million BC”

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Listen to REM’s Peter Buck debut solo track “10 Million BC”

REM's Peter Buck has posted his first solo material online – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to hear his track '10 Million BC'. The song, which surfaced via Slicing Up Eyeballs, is set to appear on the guitarist's debut album, although a title or release date for the LP have yet to be revealed. In March of this year, Scott McCaughey – Buck's Minus 5 band mate and frequent REM collaborator – confirmed that he had been working on the record and hinted that it would be released on vinyl only. It is likely that the LP will be the first album made by any of the members of REM since they split up in September last year, following the release of their 15th studio album Collapse Into Now. Last November, frontman Michael Stipe said it was "unfathomable" that he would make a solo LP, with reports suggesting that the singer is more interested in pursuing his artistic interests such as sculpture and photography. The band's bassist Mike Mills, meanwhile, has given no indication that he will record or release material by himself. All three members of the seminal alternative rock band, meanwhile, have repeatedly quashed any speculation that they will reunite in the future, with Mills describing the timing of their split as "perfect" and Stipe insisting that they will not play together again.

REM’s Peter Buck has posted his first solo material online – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to hear his track ’10 Million BC’.

The song, which surfaced via Slicing Up Eyeballs, is set to appear on the guitarist’s debut album, although a title or release date for the LP have yet to be revealed. In March of this year, Scott McCaughey – Buck’s Minus 5 band mate and frequent REM collaborator – confirmed that he had been working on the record and hinted that it would be released on vinyl only.

It is likely that the LP will be the first album made by any of the members of REM since they split up in September last year, following the release of their 15th studio album Collapse Into Now. Last November, frontman Michael Stipe said it was “unfathomable” that he would make a solo LP, with reports suggesting that the singer is more interested in pursuing his artistic interests such as sculpture and photography. The band’s bassist Mike Mills, meanwhile, has given no indication that he will record or release material by himself.

All three members of the seminal alternative rock band, meanwhile, have repeatedly quashed any speculation that they will reunite in the future, with Mills describing the timing of their split as “perfect” and Stipe insisting that they will not play together again.

The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne: ‘Our new album could be the best we ever make’

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The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne: ‘Our new album could be the best we ever make’
Wayne Coyne has said that the band's new album could be the best Flaming Lips album that the band ever make. The Oklahoman band are set to release their collaboration-heavy LP The Flaming Lips And Heavy Fwends on CD and digitally on June 25 but, in an interview with Spinner, the singer said the ban...

Wayne Coyne has said that the band’s new album could be the best Flaming Lips album that the band ever make.

The Oklahoman band are set to release their collaboration-heavy LP The Flaming Lips And Heavy Fwends on CD and digitally on June 25 but, in an interview with Spinner, the singer said the band were already looking ahead to their new studio record.

Asked to describe the album, he said: “Big songs, big arrangements, big productions, big mixing. It feels to me like religious music from the future that’s like this distorted melody coming from somewhere else in the universe and we’re just sort of collecting them.”

The frontman, who also said that the record was “almost exclusively” about “internal fear, and an internal sadness about living/oblivion”, added: “I would say I think it could be the best Flaming Lips record that could ever be made.”

Earlier this month, Coyne became embroiled in a public spat with singer Erykah Badu, after she told him to “kiss my glittery ass” when he leaked an unapproved edit of the highly NSFW video to “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face“. Last week (June 9), however, Coyne insisted that vthe ideo was “wonderful” and claimed that Badu’s public display of rage was a means of garnering publicity.

‘The Flaming Lips And Heady Fwends’ was originally released as a double vinyl album for this year’s Record Store Day. The LP sees Coyne and co teaming up with a variety of artists including Ke$ha, Bon Iver, Yoko Ono, Nick Cave, My Morning Jacket and Tame Impala.

Photo credit: Andy Willsher

Radiohead stage collapse kills drum technician

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Radiohead stage collapse kills drum technician
Radiohead's drum technician, Scott Johnson, has been named as the man who died after a stage collapsed before the band's concert in Toronto on Saturday (June 16). A relative confirmed to the BBC that the 33-year-old from Doncaster had died when the roof of the stage fell on top of him. A further t...

Radiohead‘s drum technician, Scott Johnson, has been named as the man who died after a stage collapsed before the band’s concert in Toronto on Saturday (June 16).

A relative confirmed to the BBC that the 33-year-old from Doncaster had died when the roof of the stage fell on top of him.

A further three people are injured, with one reported to be in a serious condition, in the incident at Downsview Park. Scroll down the page and click to view footage, shot from a helicopter, of the aftermath.

The stage collapsed an hour before the gates opened to the public and queues were already forming outside the venue. Emergency crews were quick on the scene and the area was evacuated. The victims were all part of the team setting up equipment.

Speaking to the BBC, Alexandra Halbert, who was working in a nearby beer tent at the time of the collapse, said she heard a noise “that sounded like fireworks”.

She continued: “I turned around and the whole top part of the stage had collapsed, as well as the scaffolding. It seemed like there were a couple of minutes of hesitation and no one knew quite what to do. It was only afterwards that we all realised how serious it was.”

Radiohead later announced on their Twitter that the show would be cancelled and advised fans to stay away from Downsview Park.

They Tweeted:

Due to unforeseen circumstances tonight’s at downsview park tonight has been cancelled. Fans are advised not to make their way to the venue.

Radiohead (@radiohead) June 16, 2012

40,000 people were expected to attend the sold-out show in the Canadian city. Police are now investigating the cause of the stage collapse and have appealed for witnesses to come forward to speak to them.

The Rolling Stones to bow out at Glastonbury?

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The Rolling Stones to bow out at Glastonbury?
The Rolling Stones will bow out from live performances with a headline slot at next year's Glastonbury festival, according to a tabloid report. The band have never played the Worthy Farm festival but a rumour suggests that they will be heading there for their first and only time next summer, accord...

The Rolling Stones will bow out from live performances with a headline slot at next year’s Glastonbury festival, according to a tabloid report.

The band have never played the Worthy Farm festival but a rumour suggests that they will be heading there for their first and only time next summer, according to the Sunday Mirror.

The tabloid newspaper reports that “sources” close to the band have indicated that their Glastonbury appearance will be their final date in a “handful” of shows in the UK and USA in 2012. It is also suggested that, as it is part of the group’s 50-year anniversary, it will be seen as a good time to call it a day on live performances.

One source revealed: “All four members have agreed that next year is the right time to have one final hurrah and put on the gig of their lives. It’s a case of now or never, and obviously Glastonbury is the most important festival on the circuit. Everybody’s incredibly excited… it’s a final bow.”

Meanwhile, A new photography exhibition called The Rolling Stones: 50 is set to open at London’s Somerset House this summer.

The free exhibition will be held from July 13 – August 27 in the landmark venue’s East Wing Galleries and will coincide with the release of a book of the same time. The book will feature 700 shots and words from the band on their history, and will hit UK bookshops on July 12.

The exhibition will show a host of unseen and rare photographs, including more than 70 prints, with live shots, studio images and reportage pictures on display as well as contact sheets and negative strips.

The Bridge

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The Bridge

The latest Scandi-TV import proves the Nordic crime wave hasn’t peaked just yet... Another gripping slab of Nordic noir, The Bridge isn’t simply the latest in the wave of imports arriving to feed our recent appetite for Scandinavian television. Shot late last year, it’s also the first to have been made after the much-chattered-upon international success of shows like The Killing, which, originally broadcast in Denmark in 2007, took four years to become an overnight sensation in the UK. Drawing over 1 million viewers on its BBC Four debut – a bigger audience than The Killing – The Bridge undoubtedly benefitted from its predecessors’ word-of-mouth buzz. But there’s more going on than that. A co-production between DR, the Danish broadcaster behind The Killing, and Sweden’s SVT, house of Wallander, the series feels very much a carefully calculated response to the region’s recent successes in exporting cop thrillers. You half suspect it was designed more for us tourists than domestic audiences. The bridge in question is the Øresund Bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark, and the story begins with the discovery of a woman’s body, placed on display exactly at the midway point: meaning cops from both countries must join forces to work together. Essentially, then, what we have is the Scandi-crime equivalent of one of those Spidey-Meets-The-Hulk style Marvel Comics team ups. A curious, self-aware quality permeates proceedings, most pointedly in the figure of the Swedish cop, Saga Norén (Sofia Helin). At first glance, with her complete absorption in her work and chronic lack of social skills, the character seems practically a goofy pastiche of The Killing’s ever-isolated detective, Sarah Lund – until, that is, you realise Saga actually has some high-functioning, Asperger’s-like autistic condition. Joining her from Denmark, and bearing the pastries to prove it, is Martin Rohde (the excellent Kim Bodina, from Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher), an easygoing, shambling, shagged-out Baloo Bear, nursing his own problems. The day before the killing, he had a vasectomy: “My nether regions are tender.” Odd couples don’t come much odder, but this is no comedy, and the sparks of warmth in their strange, sideways relationship become the only glimmers of light as things turn grisly and grim. On closer inspection, it turns out the body on the bridge is actually two bodies. Bits of them, anyway: half of it belongs to a Swedish politician; half to a Danish prostitute. You see, the serial killer, swiftly dubbed “The Truth Teller” by the media, has political points to make. The initial crime is only the overture to a vast, messianic mission, supposedly aimed at drawing society’s attention to itself, highlighting the plight of the homeless, the vulnerability of the mentally ill, the “failure of immigration policies” and on and on. Here, to self-conscious degree, the series deals in the familiar pop socio-political concerns that run through much Nordic noir, the stuff Henning Mankell explores in his Wallander novels and Stieg Larsson kicked in his Millenium Trilogy: beneath the abiding stereotype of the Scandinavian countries as content, liberal havens, something is rotten in Europe’s chill northern heart. Really, though, for all its slow-burning surface gloom and supposed political concerns, at heart, The Bridge, like The Killing, is pure pulp, with a diabolical-mastermind plot that has the relentless, hook-and-twist forward motion of an old cliff-hanger serial. For box set bingers, though, the true attraction is less to do with plot and themes, anyway, than the sheer mood the programme generates as it plunges us back into the crepuscular world we have come to love: nights in the forgotten zones of curious, unfamiliar cityscapes, where the light outdoors seems rubbed in copper and soaked in whisky, and rooms have the tinge of the aquarium or the mortuary. Damien Love

The latest Scandi-TV import proves the Nordic crime wave hasn’t peaked just yet…

Another gripping slab of Nordic noir, The Bridge isn’t simply the latest in the wave of imports arriving to feed our recent appetite for Scandinavian television. Shot late last year, it’s also the first to have been made after the much-chattered-upon international success of shows like The Killing, which, originally broadcast in Denmark in 2007, took four years to become an overnight sensation in the UK.

Drawing over 1 million viewers on its BBC Four debut – a bigger audience than The Killing – The Bridge undoubtedly benefitted from its predecessors’ word-of-mouth buzz. But there’s more going on than that. A co-production between DR, the Danish broadcaster behind The Killing, and Sweden’s SVT, house of Wallander, the series feels very much a carefully calculated response to the region’s recent successes in exporting cop thrillers. You half suspect it was designed more for us tourists than domestic audiences.

The bridge in question is the Øresund Bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark, and the story begins with the discovery of a woman’s body, placed on display exactly at the midway point: meaning cops from both countries must join forces to work together. Essentially, then, what we have is the Scandi-crime equivalent of one of those Spidey-Meets-The-Hulk style Marvel Comics team ups.

A curious, self-aware quality permeates proceedings, most pointedly in the figure of the Swedish cop, Saga Norén (Sofia Helin). At first glance, with her complete absorption in her work and chronic lack of social skills, the character seems practically a goofy pastiche of The Killing’s ever-isolated detective, Sarah Lund – until, that is, you realise Saga actually has some high-functioning, Asperger’s-like autistic condition.

Joining her from Denmark, and bearing the pastries to prove it, is Martin Rohde (the excellent Kim Bodina, from Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher), an easygoing, shambling, shagged-out Baloo Bear, nursing his own problems. The day before the killing, he had a vasectomy: “My nether regions are tender.”

Odd couples don’t come much odder, but this is no comedy, and the sparks of warmth in their strange, sideways relationship become the only glimmers of light as things turn grisly and grim. On closer inspection, it turns out the body on the bridge is actually two bodies. Bits of them, anyway: half of it belongs to a Swedish politician; half to a Danish prostitute. You see, the serial killer, swiftly dubbed “The Truth Teller” by the media, has political points to make. The initial crime is only the overture to a vast, messianic mission, supposedly aimed at drawing society’s attention to itself, highlighting the plight of the homeless, the vulnerability of the mentally ill, the “failure of immigration policies” and on and on.

Here, to self-conscious degree, the series deals in the familiar pop socio-political concerns that run through much Nordic noir, the stuff Henning Mankell explores in his Wallander novels and Stieg Larsson kicked in his Millenium Trilogy: beneath the abiding stereotype of the Scandinavian countries as content, liberal havens, something is rotten in Europe’s chill northern heart. Really, though, for all its slow-burning surface gloom and supposed political concerns, at heart, The Bridge, like The Killing, is pure pulp, with a diabolical-mastermind plot that has the relentless, hook-and-twist forward motion of an old cliff-hanger serial.

For box set bingers, though, the true attraction is less to do with plot and themes, anyway, than the sheer mood the programme generates as it plunges us back into the crepuscular world we have come to love: nights in the forgotten zones of curious, unfamiliar cityscapes, where the light outdoors seems rubbed in copper and soaked in whisky, and rooms have the tinge of the aquarium or the mortuary.

Damien Love

First Look – William Friedkin’s Killer Joe

Michael Bonner
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First Look – William Friedkin’s Killer Joe

Welcome back William Friedkin and Matthew McConaughey - both missing in action, it seems, for some years now - with the terribly funny Killer Joe. Typically, for the director of transgressive genre pieces like The Exorcist and Cruising, one of the first things we see here is Gina Gershon’s lower half, naked. “It’s a bit distracting, your bush in my face,” complains her step-son, Chris (Emile Hirsch). Chris is in debt to some bad dudes because his mother “stole two ounces of coke from me.” Dismayed by such inappropriate parenting, Chris, his father (Thomas Hayden Church) and step mother Sharla hire Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a Texas cop sidelining as a contract killer, to murder Chris’ mother for her life insurance policy. Friedkin has never been one for understatement. What could have been a predictable piece of Jim Thompson-style pulp business becomes something much more subversive in Friedkin’s hands. Joe wants Chris’ barely legal sister, Dottie (Julien Temple's daughter, Juno), as an advance on his fee. One character is forced to fellate a piece of deep fried chicken. Another has their skull smashed in with a tin of Libby’s pumpkin puree. Friedkin doesn’t quite know when to stop. This is his second collaboration with playwright Tracy Letts after the similarly out-there Bug; the relationship appears to have revived Friedkin. As an actor, Matthew McConaughey has been in danger of getting lost in rom-com’s darkest woods – Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, Failure To Launch, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. But with this and last year’s unexpectedly brilliant The Lincoln Lawyer, he seems to be channeling some terrific Woody Harrelson-style vibes right now.

Welcome back William Friedkin and Matthew McConaughey – both missing in action, it seems, for some years now – with the terribly funny Killer Joe. Typically, for the director of transgressive genre pieces like The Exorcist and Cruising, one of the first things we see here is Gina Gershon’s lower half, naked. “It’s a bit distracting, your bush in my face,” complains her step-son, Chris (Emile Hirsch).

Chris is in debt to some bad dudes because his mother “stole two ounces of coke from me.” Dismayed by such inappropriate parenting, Chris, his father (Thomas Hayden Church) and step mother Sharla hire Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a Texas cop sidelining as a contract killer, to murder Chris’ mother for her life insurance policy. Friedkin has never been one for understatement. What could have been a predictable piece of Jim Thompson-style pulp business becomes something much more subversive in Friedkin’s hands. Joe wants Chris’ barely legal sister, Dottie (Julien Temple’s daughter, Juno), as an advance on his fee.

One character is forced to fellate a piece of deep fried chicken. Another has their skull smashed in with a tin of Libby’s pumpkin puree. Friedkin doesn’t quite know when to stop. This is his second collaboration with playwright Tracy Letts after the similarly out-there Bug; the relationship appears to have revived Friedkin. As an actor, Matthew McConaughey has been in danger of getting lost in rom-com’s darkest woods – Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, Failure To Launch, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. But with this and last year’s unexpectedly brilliant The Lincoln Lawyer, he seems to be channeling some terrific Woody Harrelson-style vibes right now.

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