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Bob Dylan honoured by Barack Obama at the White House

Tom Goodwyn
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Bob Dylan honoured by Barack Obama at the White House
Bob Dylan was honoured with the Medal Of Freedom by US president Barack Obama at the White House last night (May 29). The singer-songwriter, among 13 new recipients of the US' highest civilian award, was paid a glowing tribute by Obama, who said there was "no bigger giant in the history of Americ...

Bob Dylan was honoured with the Medal Of Freedom by US president Barack Obama at the White House last night (May 29).

The singer-songwriter, among 13 new recipients of the US’ highest civilian award, was paid a glowing tribute by Obama, who said there was “no bigger giant in the history of American music”.

Obama, who said he was a “really big fan”, continued: “By the time he was 23, Bob’s voice, with its weight, its unique, gravelly power was redefining not just what music sounded like, but the message it carried and how it made people feel. Today, everybody from Bruce Springsteen to U2 owes Bob a debt of gratitude.”

Meanwhile, in the award’s official citation Dylan was described as “one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century”. Novelist Toni Morrison and astronaut John Glenn were among the others honoured, while past recipients have included Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr.

Dylan, who was reported to be recording a new studio album earlier this year, is due to play a number of festival dates this summer.

As well as playing the Hop Farm Festival in Kent (June 29-July 1), Bob Dylan is set to headline this summer’s Benicassim festival. The folk legend joins The Stone Roses, Florence And The Machine and At The Drive-In in headlining the event in Spain. The festival runs from July 12-15 this summer.

Swans announce new album featuring Karen O, Low

Tom Pinnock
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0
Swans announce new album featuring Karen O, Low
Swans are set to release a new album, featuring Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O and Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low, on August 27. The Seer, the new album from Michael Gira's reunited New York noise-rock troupe, runs for around two hours, and also features guests including Mercury Rev's Grasshopper, ...

Swans are set to release a new album, featuring Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O and Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low, on August 27.

The Seer, the new album from Michael Gira’s reunited New York noise-rock troupe, runs for around two hours, and also features guests including Mercury Rev’s Grasshopper, Akron/Family and “honorary Swan” Bill Rieflin.

Karen O sings lead vocal on “Song For A Warrior”, while Parker and Sparhawk feature as co-vocalists on opener “Lunacy”.

“The Seer took 30 years to make,” explains Gira. “It’s the culmination of every previous Swans album as well as any other music I’ve ever made, been involved in or imagined. But it’s unfinished, like the songs themselves. It’s one frame in a reel. The frames blur, blend and will eventually fade.”

The album is the follow-up to 2010’s My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky, and is set to also be released as a special edition with a live DVD through Gira’s Young God label site.

The Seer’s tracklisting is:

“Lunacy”

“Mother Of The World”

“The Wolf”

“The Seer”

“The Seer Returns”

“93 Ave. B Blues”

“The Daughter Brings The Water”

“Song For A Warrior”

“Avatar”

“A Piece Of The Sky”

“The Apostate”

Picture credit: Owen Swenson

The 22nd Uncut Playlist Of 2012

John Mulvey
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0
The 22nd Uncut Playlist Of 2012

Sixteen entries on the playlist this week, and I should point out that the latest session from the Natch project is, as usual, a free download that’s definitely worth picking up. Any questions about the rest of these, leave a message in the Facebook Comments box below, and I’ll see if I can help. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey 1 Plant And See - Plant And See (Paradise Of Batchelors) 2 Nguzunguzu – Warm Pulse (Hippos In Tanks) 3 Baio – Sunburn (Greco-Roman) 4 Minotaur Shock – Orchard (Melodic) 5 Antibalas – Antibalas (Daptone) 6 Savages – Flying To Berlin/Husbands (Pop Noire) 7 Sun Kil Moon – Among The Leaves (Caldo Verde) 8 – 9 Adele & Glenn – Carrington Street (Glitterhouse) 10 Go-Kart Mozart – On The Hot Dog Streets (West Midlands) 11 Black Twig Pickers – Whompyjawed (Thrill Jockey) 12 Cornershop – Urban Turban: The Singhles Club (Ample Play) 13 Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellan (Domino) 14 Sparkling Wide Pressure – Grandfather Harmonic (Preservation) 15 Nirvana ’69 – Cult (GRA) 16 Zachary Cale, Mighty Moon & Ethan Schmid – Natch 5 (http://natchmusic.tumblr.com/)

Sixteen entries on the playlist this week, and I should point out that the latest session from the Natch project is, as usual, a free download that’s definitely worth picking up.

Any questions about the rest of these, leave a message in the Facebook Comments box below, and I’ll see if I can help.

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

1 Plant And See – Plant And See (Paradise Of Batchelors)

2 Nguzunguzu – Warm Pulse (Hippos In Tanks)

3 Baio – Sunburn (Greco-Roman)

4 Minotaur Shock – Orchard (Melodic)

5 Antibalas – Antibalas (Daptone)

6 Savages – Flying To Berlin/Husbands (Pop Noire)

7 Sun Kil Moon – Among The Leaves (Caldo Verde)

8 –

9 Adele & Glenn – Carrington Street (Glitterhouse)

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

11 Black Twig Pickers – Whompyjawed (Thrill Jockey)

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

13 Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellan (Domino)

14 Sparkling Wide Pressure – Grandfather Harmonic (Preservation)

15 Nirvana ’69 – Cult (GRA)

16 Zachary Cale, Mighty Moon & Ethan Schmid – Natch 5 (http://natchmusic.tumblr.com/)

Make It Your Sound Make It Your Scene – Vanguard Records And The 1960s Musical Revolution

Uncut
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0
Make It Your Sound Make It Your Scene – Vanguard Records And The 1960s Musical Revolution

4 CD box stuffed with blues, folk and songs that shaped an era... When New Yorkers Seymour and Maynard Solomon founded Vanguard Records in 1950 they surely didn’t suspect just how influential their creation would be in shaping the music and ideals of the post-war generation. The brothers were classical buffs focussed on the past – Maynard was to write a definitive Beethoven biography – but with ears open to the present and with a radical streak. Alongside its fastidiously recorded Mahler symphonies Vanguard also built a substantial jazz catalogue and signed singer Paul Robeson and folk revivalists The Weavers when both were political outcasts in McCarthyite America. Astutely, the Solomons also bagged the rights to record the Newport Folk festival from its inception in 1959, a move that brought them into closer contact with the burgeoning folk movement – after her scene-stealing performance at Newport ’59 they immediately signed the 19 year old Joan Baez – and blues acts ancient (Mississippi John Hurt) and modern (Charlie Musselwhite). Not everyone recorded at Newport was available for Vanguard’s resulting live albums (certainly not, say, Bob Dylan) but time’s passing means there are rich live pickings on the well assembled and annotated Make It Your Sound. “The Solomons were interested in everything,” reflects writer Samuel Charters in his liner notes, adding that what allowed the brothers to succeed in the cut-throat world of indie labels was their “arrogance”, their belief in quality acts and meticulous production techniques. Charters worked for Vanguard in the 1960s, signing a tranche of outstanding Chicago blues artists to the label and, later, recruiting psychedelic upstarts like Country Joe and The Fish. By the time LSD was frying young America’s minds, Vanguard’s glory days were on the wane, yet between the late 1950s and mid 1960s the label exerted a defining influence on America’s idea of its musical heritage. The seeds planted by the Weavers when they popularised hokey songs like “Old Smokey” and raised Woody Guthrie's standard on “This Land Is Your Land” helped grow a generation of earnest, upstanding folkies. The scene was divided between cloying acts like Ian and Sylvia, whose “Four Strong Winds” is surely the template for the Spinal Tap team’s folk spoof A Mighty Wind, and wilder souls like Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk and Dylan. The latter trio, none signed to Vanguard, are all present here thanks (to Newport Festival appearances, Van Ronk spikily drawling “Cocaine”, Ochs with the furrow-browed “There But For Fortune” and Dylan with “North Country Blues”. Alongside them come overlooked singer-songwriters like Patrick Sky, Eric Anderson and Richard and Mimi Farina, all of whom sported Vanguard’s badge of integrity and quality – unlike, say, The Kingston Trio (another Newport borrowing) whose cheery, anodyne trad – here they cover Guthrie’s “Hard, It Ain’t Hard” - were astonishingly popular. In 1963 Vanguard achieved similar crossover success with an antique blues, “Walk Right In”, winningly glossed and flossed by young trio The Rootftop Singers, whose jaunty version, power-strummed version on twin 12 string acoustics, would help shape the Byrds guitar jangle (and, one suspects, Beatles tracks like “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”). The divide between ‘folk’ and ‘blues’ was indistinct – white folkies played blues, admired black ‘folk blues’ (ie acoustic) artists like Odetta, but became twitchy when, say, Muddy Waters plugged in an electric guitar. Disc One here features both strands - great Newport performances from the likes of The Reverend Gary Davis and Koerner, Ray & Glover, alongside tough electric sides by J.B. Hutto, James Cotton, Otis Rush and Junior Wells. All the latter come from sessions overseen by Sam Charters, and when moodily packaged as Chicago/The Blues/Today! became seminal, much covered albums for the British blues boom. The collection of bluegrass sides on disc two illustrates how hardcore high, lonesome moaners like The Stanley Brothers and Bill Monroe were readily accepted into the folk fold, though their banjos, mandolins and harmonies were also softened by urban acts like The Country Gentlemen and The Greenbriar Boys, whose familiarity with Ozark mountain life was largely theoretical. However one drew the lines between authenticity and commerciality, the Vanguard catalogue offered a fascinating matrix of American roots music (though no-one called it that). The Newport albums alone were hugely influential in presenting a jumble of performers – young/old, black/white – in a live context and broadcasting the still novel idea of the music festival. After so much studious picking, the stream of psychedelia that arrives on disc three is quite a wrench. Alerted to the rock revolution on the West Coast, Sam Charters chose well by signing Country Joe and The Fish, who had the definitive anti-Vietnam anthem in “I Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag” and an ace acid-rock guitarist in Barry Melton (a clear model for Neil Young). Less successful were quirky folk-psyche outfits Serpent Power and Circus Maximus, though the latter featured an early incarnation of Jerry Jeff Walker, later to find fame on Vanguard as a songwriter and Austin outlaw. Charters’ other signings included powerhouse Detroit rockers The Frost, who proved also-rans to the MC5, and Notes From The Underground, whose 1968 song “I Wish I was A Punk” arrived several years too soon. Unlike its distant indie cousin Elektra, the arrival of the rock machine signalled the slow decline of Vanguard. The label had always prided itself on the natural ambience of its recordings (often made in a disused ballroom) and struggled with the age of drum attack and overloaded guitar amp. Sensibly, the Solomons mostly stuck to what they knew best. Disc Four gathers country rockers like Gary and Randy Scruggs, The Dillards and Kinky Friedman, along with native American songwriter Buffy St. Marie and oddities like Oregon, whose 1972 “Sail” is an east-west world fusion before its time. Also here are two 1968 tracks by the lost guitar genius John Fahey, whose style on “March! For Martin Luther King” manages, like many of his recordings, to be both spartan and intricate at the same time. Vanguard would stagger on for a few years more, buoyed, incongruously, by disco hits, but the pulse of its heartening story is captured on Make It Your Sound. NEIL SPENCER Q&A SAMUEL CHARTERS (Vanguard Producer and author of important historical blues work The Country Blues) How was the way Vanguard made records different? What people don’t remember was that Vanguard was enormously successful as a classical label and it was founded to record all the music of Bach. Their first great success was recording the songs of Mahler. Maynard Solomon had an ear for what was happening in the culture, but they brought to recording artists like Sandy Bull the same level of care that they brought to classical recordings: the level of recording was very high, the recordings were beautifully presented and they treated artists with the same level of respect musically – they weren’t out to make hits. The fact that they were so successful, was due to the fact that there were artists who weren’t being represented in this way. Still, there were hits? At one point Joan Baez had three recordings in the top ten. It meant that Vanguard was pretty much free to allow artists they respected to do what they wanted. We really had no idea what we were working with…What LPs would reach the market. This was before the days of studio time and large advances so we had the freedom and the opportunity to innovate, which by the end of the 1960s was completely lost. How did people arrive at Vanguard? John Fahey had sent me his first record in 1959 in the summer and I listened to it and just didn’t get it at all. I sent him a letter just dismissing the whole thing as nonsense. But John was just totally determined, he had created his own record label, Takoma – he was partners with ED Denson, who managed Country Joe and The Fish who I brought to Vanguard. And ED said, “John has gone as far as he can with his own label - perhaps Vanguard could offer him more resources for his recordings…” Which is why John came to Vanguard. He had made a career for himself and was looking for a chance to expand his possibilities. Vanguard was never part of the pop world – you have to believe in it to master it and they never quite believed in it. There was a mission there? Politically they put themselves out on a limb by recording Paul Robeson and the Weavers. It meant that you were deeply in trouble with the anti-Communist area that was raging in the country. Vanguard not only believed in artistry, it was willing to fight for it. They had standards, and they never accepted anyone who didn’t have high standards too. How did Vanguard feel about hippies? People don’t understand what it meant to record Pete Seeger and The Weavers – they had been branded Communist Infiltrators by the house of Unamerican activities commission. There were riots by rightists when Pete Seeger or Paul Robeson tried to perform. Vanguard put the Wevers in Carnegie Hall and recorded the concert. So they were simply saying “Hey, we have to take a stand.” That first Country Joe album. l passed Maynard in the corridor and he held out his hand and told me how wonderful he thought it was. We all wanted someone to make that statement, and there was Country Joe. Simply having Joan Baez as your leading artist put you in a very exposed position. How did this compare with other labels? There was much less concern for this in a company like Elektra. Jac Holzman had none of this commitment and as a consequence became much more successful. He recognised that the audience did not share Vanguard’s feelings in many ways. Phil Ochs was committed but he was not enough of an artist – the songs weren’t all there. Their standards got in their ways. We tried lots of different things, and some of them worked. Vanguard felt we would know about an artist by the third album, which is not the pop way at all. The idea was that they would stay with Vanguard and establish a body of work. INTERVIEW: JOHN ROBINSON

4 CD box stuffed with blues, folk and songs that shaped an era…

When New Yorkers Seymour and Maynard Solomon founded Vanguard Records in 1950 they surely didn’t suspect just how influential their creation would be in shaping the music and ideals of the post-war generation. The brothers were classical buffs focussed on the past – Maynard was to write a definitive Beethoven biography – but with ears open to the present and with a radical streak. Alongside its fastidiously recorded Mahler symphonies Vanguard also built a substantial jazz catalogue and signed singer Paul Robeson and folk revivalists The Weavers when both were political outcasts in McCarthyite America.

Astutely, the Solomons also bagged the rights to record the Newport Folk festival from its inception in 1959, a move that brought them into closer contact with the burgeoning folk movement – after her scene-stealing performance at Newport ’59 they immediately signed the 19 year old Joan Baez – and blues acts ancient (Mississippi John Hurt) and modern (Charlie Musselwhite). Not everyone recorded at Newport was available for Vanguard’s resulting live albums (certainly not, say, Bob Dylan) but time’s passing means there are rich live pickings on the well assembled and annotated Make It Your Sound.

“The Solomons were interested in everything,” reflects writer Samuel Charters in his liner notes, adding that what allowed the brothers to succeed in the cut-throat world of indie labels was their “arrogance”, their belief in quality acts and meticulous production techniques. Charters worked for Vanguard in the 1960s, signing a tranche of outstanding Chicago blues artists to the label and, later, recruiting psychedelic upstarts like Country Joe and The Fish.

By the time LSD was frying young America’s minds, Vanguard’s glory days were on the wane, yet between the late 1950s and mid 1960s the label exerted a defining influence on America’s idea of its musical heritage. The seeds planted by the Weavers when they popularised hokey songs like “Old Smokey” and raised Woody Guthrie‘s standard on “This Land Is Your Land” helped grow a generation of earnest, upstanding folkies. The scene was divided between cloying acts like Ian and Sylvia, whose “Four Strong Winds” is surely the template for the Spinal Tap team’s folk spoof A Mighty Wind, and wilder souls like Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk and Dylan. The latter trio, none signed to Vanguard, are all present here thanks (to Newport Festival appearances, Van Ronk spikily drawling “Cocaine”, Ochs with the furrow-browed “There But For Fortune” and Dylan with “North Country Blues”.

Alongside them come overlooked singer-songwriters like Patrick Sky, Eric Anderson and Richard and Mimi Farina, all of whom sported Vanguard’s badge of integrity and quality – unlike, say, The Kingston Trio (another Newport borrowing) whose cheery, anodyne trad – here they cover Guthrie’s “Hard, It Ain’t Hard” – were astonishingly popular. In 1963 Vanguard achieved similar crossover success with an antique blues, “Walk Right In”, winningly glossed and flossed by young trio The Rootftop Singers, whose jaunty version, power-strummed version on twin 12 string acoustics, would help shape the Byrds guitar jangle (and, one suspects, Beatles tracks like “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”).

The divide between ‘folk’ and ‘blues’ was indistinct – white folkies played blues, admired black ‘folk blues’ (ie acoustic) artists like Odetta, but became twitchy when, say, Muddy Waters plugged in an electric guitar. Disc One here features both strands – great Newport performances from the likes of The Reverend Gary Davis and Koerner, Ray & Glover, alongside tough electric sides by J.B. Hutto, James Cotton, Otis Rush and Junior Wells. All the latter come from sessions overseen by Sam Charters, and when moodily packaged as Chicago/The Blues/Today! became seminal, much covered albums for the British blues boom.

The collection of bluegrass sides on disc two illustrates how hardcore high, lonesome moaners like The Stanley Brothers and Bill Monroe were readily accepted into the folk fold, though their banjos, mandolins and harmonies were also softened by urban acts like The Country Gentlemen and The Greenbriar Boys, whose familiarity with Ozark mountain life was largely theoretical.

However one drew the lines between authenticity and commerciality, the Vanguard catalogue offered a fascinating matrix of American roots music (though no-one called it that). The Newport albums alone were hugely influential in presenting a jumble of performers – young/old, black/white – in a live context and broadcasting the still novel idea of the music festival.

After so much studious picking, the stream of psychedelia that arrives on disc three is quite a wrench. Alerted to the rock revolution on the West Coast, Sam Charters chose well by signing Country Joe and The Fish, who had the definitive anti-Vietnam anthem in “I Feel Like I’m Fixing To Die Rag” and an ace acid-rock guitarist in Barry Melton (a clear model for Neil Young). Less successful were quirky folk-psyche outfits Serpent Power and Circus Maximus, though the latter featured an early incarnation of Jerry Jeff Walker, later to find fame on Vanguard as a songwriter and Austin outlaw. Charters’ other signings included powerhouse Detroit rockers The Frost, who proved also-rans to the MC5, and Notes From The Underground, whose 1968 song “I Wish I was A Punk” arrived several years too soon.

Unlike its distant indie cousin Elektra, the arrival of the rock machine signalled the slow decline of Vanguard. The label had always prided itself on the natural ambience of its recordings (often made in a disused ballroom) and struggled with the age of drum attack and overloaded guitar amp. Sensibly, the Solomons mostly stuck to what they knew best. Disc Four gathers country rockers like Gary and Randy Scruggs, The Dillards and Kinky Friedman, along with native American songwriter Buffy St. Marie and oddities like Oregon, whose 1972 “Sail” is an east-west world fusion before its time. Also here are two 1968 tracks by the lost guitar genius John Fahey, whose style on “March! For Martin Luther King” manages, like many of his recordings, to be both spartan and intricate at the same time.

Vanguard would stagger on for a few years more, buoyed, incongruously, by disco hits, but the pulse of its heartening story is captured on Make It Your Sound.

NEIL SPENCER

Q&A

SAMUEL CHARTERS (Vanguard Producer and author of important historical blues work The Country Blues)

How was the way Vanguard made records different?

What people don’t remember was that Vanguard was enormously successful as a classical label and it was founded to record all the music of Bach. Their first great success was recording the songs of Mahler. Maynard Solomon had an ear for what was happening in the culture, but they brought to recording artists like Sandy Bull the same level of care that they brought to classical recordings: the level of recording was very high, the recordings were beautifully presented and they treated artists with the same level of respect musically – they weren’t out to make hits. The fact that they were so successful, was due to the fact that there were artists who weren’t being represented in this way.

Still, there were hits?

At one point Joan Baez had three recordings in the top ten. It meant that Vanguard was pretty much free to allow artists they respected to do what they wanted. We really had no idea what we were working with…What LPs would reach the market. This was before the days of studio time and large advances so we had the freedom and the opportunity to innovate, which by the end of the 1960s was completely lost.

How did people arrive at Vanguard?

John Fahey had sent me his first record in 1959 in the summer and I listened to it and just didn’t get it at all. I sent him a letter just dismissing the whole thing as nonsense. But John was just totally determined, he had created his own record label, Takoma – he was partners with ED Denson, who managed Country Joe and The Fish who I brought to Vanguard. And ED said, “John has gone as far as he can with his own label – perhaps Vanguard could offer him more resources for his recordings…” Which is why John came to Vanguard. He had made a career for himself and was looking for a chance to expand his possibilities. Vanguard was never part of the pop world – you have to believe in it to master it and they never quite believed in it.

There was a mission there?

Politically they put themselves out on a limb by recording Paul Robeson and the Weavers. It meant that you were deeply in trouble with the anti-Communist area that was raging in the country. Vanguard not only believed in artistry, it was willing to fight for it. They had standards, and they never accepted anyone who didn’t have high standards too.

How did Vanguard feel about hippies?

People don’t understand what it meant to record Pete Seeger and The Weavers – they had been branded Communist Infiltrators by the house of Unamerican activities commission. There were riots by rightists when Pete Seeger or Paul Robeson tried to perform. Vanguard put the Wevers in Carnegie Hall and recorded the concert. So they were simply saying “Hey, we have to take a stand.” That first Country Joe album. l passed Maynard in the corridor and he held out his hand and told me how wonderful he thought it was. We all wanted someone to make that statement, and there was Country Joe. Simply having Joan Baez as your leading artist put you in a very exposed position.

How did this compare with other labels?

There was much less concern for this in a company like Elektra. Jac Holzman had none of this commitment and as a consequence became much more successful. He recognised that the audience did not share Vanguard’s feelings in many ways. Phil Ochs was committed but he was not enough of an artist – the songs weren’t all there. Their standards got in their ways. We tried lots of different things, and some of them worked. Vanguard felt we would know about an artist by the third album, which is not the pop way at all. The idea was that they would stay with Vanguard and establish a body of work.

INTERVIEW: JOHN ROBINSON

Dave Rowntree hits out after historic Blur graffiti is removed from London path

Tom Pinnock
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0
Dave Rowntree hits out after historic Blur graffiti is removed from London path
Blur drummer Dave Rowntree has criticised local officials in London's Primrose Hill after they removed graffiti which featured lyrics from the band's 1993 hit single 'For Tomorrow' from a local footpath. The lyrics, which read "And the view's so nice", were inspired by Primrose Hill and have been p...

Blur drummer Dave Rowntree has criticised local officials in London’s Primrose Hill after they removed graffiti which featured lyrics from the band’s 1993 hit single ‘For Tomorrow’ from a local footpath.

The lyrics, which read “And the view’s so nice”, were inspired by Primrose Hill and have been present on a footpath in the London area since 2000. However, last week, they removed by cleaners, leading Rowntree to hit out.

The drummer told Camden New Journal: “It’s a jobsworth attitude in an Olympic year where we’re supposed to celebrating British culture, and Blur did contribute to British culture. It’s part of the Blur story.”

He continued: “I can understand the decision, but I lived in the area for about 15 years and even I got used to it being there. It’s a shame, it was in one of our videos, we felt deeply about the lyric and about the hill.”

Some loyal fans did subsequently attempt to repaint the lyrics on the path, but according to local paper Ham & High, their efforts were rendered useless by rain.

Blur are currently gearing up for their huge summer shows. The band announced an intimate tour last week, which will see them play four shows, beginning at Margate’s Winter Gardens on August 1. They will then play two shows at Wolverhampton’s Civic Hall on August 5 and 6, before finishing off at Plymouth’s Pavilions on August 7.

The shows will act as a warm-up for the band’s huge outdoor gig at London’s Hyde Park on August 12. That show sees Blur topping a bill that also includes New Order and The Specials. The gig has been put on to coincide with the closing ceremony of the Olympic games.

Along with playing at Hyde Park, Blur are also scheduled to headline Sweden’s Way Out West festival in August.

Mogwai to headline Green Man Festival 2012

Tom Pinnock
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0
Mogwai to headline Green Man Festival 2012
Mogwai have been confirmed as the final headliner of this year's Green Man festival. The Scottish rockers, who released their seventh studio album 'Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will' in 2011, join Feist and Van Morrison in headlining the event, which takes place in Wales' Brecon Beacons from Au...

Mogwai have been confirmed as the final headliner of this year’s Green Man festival.

The Scottish rockers, who released their seventh studio album ‘Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will’ in 2011, join Feist and Van Morrison in headlining the event, which takes place in Wales’ Brecon Beacons from August 17-19.

Also newly added to the line-up are Dexys, Cate Le Bon, Lower Dens, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Crybaby, Paul Thomas Saunders, Stuff, Withered Hand and King Charles.

They join a bill that already includes Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, The Walkmen, Jonathan Richman, The Felice Brothers, Tune-Yards, Of Montreal, King Creosote & Jon Hopkins, Michael Kiwanuka and over 30 other acts.

See Greenman.net for more information about the festival.

To check the availability of Green Man Festival tickets and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/TICKETS now, or call 0871 230 1094.

The line-up for Green Man festival so far is as follows:

Van Morrison

Feist

Mogwai

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

The Walkmen

Jonathan Richman

The Felice Brothers

Tune-Yards

Of Montreal

King Creosote & Jon Hopkins

Michael Kiwanuka

Yann Tiersen

Scritti Politti

Dexys

Cate Le Bon

Lower Dens

Benjamin Francis Leftwich

Crybaby

Paul Thomas Saunders

Stuff

Withered Hand

King Charles

Junior Boys

The Time & Space Machine (live)

Damien Jurado

Bowerbirds

Field Music

James Blake

Mr Scruff

Vondelpark

Lone

Airhead

The Chain

Friends

Cass McCombs

CW Stoneking

Slow Club

Ghostpoet

Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny

Willy Mason

Dark Dark Dark

Daughter

Peaking Lights

Three Trapped Tigers

Megafaun

Islet

Joe Pug

Lucy Rose

Trembling Bells

Cashier No 9

The Wave Pictures

TOY

Pictish Trail

Teeth of the Sea

Laura J Martin

Sweet Baboo

Alt-J

KWES

Gang Colours

Rocketnumbernine

Steve Smyth

Jamie N Commons

Stealing Sheep

Vadoinmessico

Treetop Flyers

Tiny Ruins

Seamus Fogarty

Chailo Sim

RM Hubbert

Mowbird

Goodnight Lenin

Pete Paphides – Vinyl Revival

The Perch Creek Family Jug Band

Cold Specks

Richard Warren

Bob Geldof: ‘If I hadn’t done ‘Live Aid’, I’d have been like Paul Weller or Sting’

Tom Pinnock
-
0
Bob Geldof: ‘If I hadn’t done ‘Live Aid’, I’d have been like Paul Weller or Sting’
Bob Geldof has said that he is convinced he could have enjoyed a solo career on the scale of Sting and Paul Weller if his commitment to fundraising hadn't got in the way. The Boomtown Rats man, who set up Band Aid and the accompanying concert Live Aid back in the 1980s, told the Evening Standard th...

Bob Geldof has said that he is convinced he could have enjoyed a solo career on the scale of Sting and Paul Weller if his commitment to fundraising hadn’t got in the way.

The Boomtown Rats man, who set up Band Aid and the accompanying concert Live Aid back in the 1980s, told the Evening Standard that it would have been “criminally irresponsible” of him not to hold the events, but he does believe it “damaged his music career”.

Asked if he thought his activism had affected his career, Geldof said: “It’s completely damaged my ability to do the thing I love. If it hadn’t happened I think I would have been able to make the transition from the Boomtown Rats to a solo thing more like Paul Weller or Sting.”

Geldof also said he refused to despair of the music industry, calling it a “truly democratic medium”.

He added that he remained convinced that anyone, whether they were “Posh boys like Radiohead and Pink Floyd” or a “Council estate lad like John Lydon” can succeed.

The singer added that he didn’t believe he was a national icon in the manner of Sir Paul McCartney, adding: “I’m not a national treasure, and have no desire to be”.

Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats are on the bill for the supermarket chain Morrisons’ first ever UK festival MFest later this summer.

Uncut’s Bruce Springsteen App, The Sex Pistols’ Jubilee Boat Trip

Uncut
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0
Uncut’s Bruce Springsteen App, The Sex Pistols’ Jubilee Boat Trip

Some news first of all on our iPad app version of ‘Bruce Springsteen: The Ultimate Music Guide’, which is finally on sale. As with the print edition, the Bruce Ultimate Music Guide offers an in-depth overview of Springsteen’s entire career through a host of classic interviews, unseen for years, from the archives of NME and Melody Maker, plus new reviews of all of his studio albums, including this year’s Wrecking Ball. Also included in the app are classic photo galleries, video links and playable MP3 samples of every track on his studio albums. Other highlights include ‘Introducing The E Street Band’, a fully interactive guide to each member of one of the greatest rock groups ever, and is something of a master-class, according to experts, in Springsteen collectables and rarities. The first chapter of ‘Bruce Springsteen: The Ultimate Music Guide’ is available now for free from iTunes – the other four chapters are available for 69p each. Go here to get them: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bruce-springsteen/id518672897?ls=1&mt=8?ls=1&mt=8?utm_source=uncut&utm_medium=ads&utm_campaign=Uncutnewsletter Back in the Uncut office, meanwhile, the last of the decorative bunting is going up in anticipation of this weekend’s Jubilee celebrations, the Uncut editorial team all done up rather splendidly in a gay variety of Union Jack waistcoats and top hats, draped in flags and festooned with rosettes and the colourful like. I have been taken rather aback – gobsmacked is the technical term - to discover that among this excited cheering throng are people who are too young to remember the 1977 Silver Jubilee, which old lags like myself have been turning up to reminisce about on TV news reports and in various newspaper features. It may be an opportune moment, therefore, to dust off the following account of what for some of us was the Silver Jubilee’s singular highlight, The Sex Pistols’ boat trip up on the Thames on Jubilee Day itself, an eventful trip that went something like this: LONDON: June, 1977. I get a call from my friend Al Clark, head of press at Virgin Records. He wants to know what I’m planning for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. I tell him I’m seriously thinking about climbing to the top of the tallest nearby building and raking street parties with hostile gunfire. He’s kind enough to laugh at this, but I can tell he’s pretty stressed. And no wonder. Virgin have recently signed The Sex Pistols, and they’re proving quite a handful for Al – Fleet Street constantly on the phone, digging for dirt – after several years dealing with more typical Virgin acts like Gong and Hatfield & The North, in whom even the music press have long-since lost interest. Things are heating up even more for Al right now, following the release on May 27 of the Pistols’ “God Save The Queen”. At which point, of course, all hell breaks loose. Fleet Street’s glare these last couple of weeks has been blinding, like nothing Al has ever known – Henry Cow and Wigwam never coming in for this kind of treatment. Anyway, what he’s telling me now is something I’m not supposed to mention to anyone else – as if! – but the gist of it is that in a gloriously calculated act of defiance the Pistols will be sailing down the Thames on a boat they’ve hired and on which they intend to play a short set as they cruise past the Houses of Parliament, some time during the late evening of Monday, June 7: Jubilee Day itself, the 25th anniversary of the Queen’s accession. Do I want to be there? I don’t even have to think about it. I arrive with a friend at Charing Cross Pier in the early afternoon. It’s a grim old day, overcast, the sky dull and gloomy, a nipping wind coming off the river. Down on the pier, it’s bedlam. Word about the trip’s got out, obviously, and there’s a teeming horde of punks trying to get on the boat, which my friend now points out is called The Queen Elizabeth. Someone with a clipboard and a guest-list is trying to maintain order, but it’s a losing battle, and he starts shouting for the boat to pull away from the pier. It’s touch and go at this point whether we’re going to make it onto the boat before it – what? – casts off, I guess is the nautical phrase I’m looking for. A bit of pushing and a fearless amount of barging, however, and we’re at the bottom of the gang-plank and then we’re on the boat. Behind us on the pier, it’s more chaotic than ever. Furious punks, angry at being excluded from the Pistols’ party, are screaming, spitting and cursing. Some of them leap from the pier, cling to the side of the boat, scramble onto the deck. There’s a splash or two as the boat chugs down river, out of their reach. Packs of them now begin to race along the Embankment, trying to keep up with us as we steam out into the middle of the Thames, heading towards Greenwich. On one of the bridges ahead of us, we can see a gang of punks dismantling a road sign. As the boat goes under the bridge, they lob the road sign – this huge metal sheet – over the side of the bridge, onto the deck of the boat, which it hits with an enormous clang, luckily killing no one. The mood on The Queen Elizabeth is oddly sour, tense, vaguely unpleasant. There’s not much sense of this being any kind of celebration. The atmosphere’s too fraught. Every other person you bump into is speeding off their tits, everyone hitting the sulphate early and washing it down with can-after-can of lager, beer, whatever. We’re going back up river now, towards Chelsea Bridge, and tempers are fraying badly. There’s a scuffle towards the back of the boat, a photographer getting kicked about by someone we’re told is Jah Wobble. It’s getting dark now, as we turn around and head back towards Charing Cross Pier and the Houses of Parliament which is when we first see the police launches, two of them, keeping at a fair distance, but just close enough to let us know they’re there. The Sex Pistols have set up their gear on the top deck of The Queen Elizabeth and at around 9.30 pm, Rotten, Jones, Cook and Sid Vicious get ready to play. There are squeals of feedback, horrendously loud in this cramped space, as Jones plugs in his guitar. Cook smacks a couple of drums. Sid is – who knows? – somewhere else. And Rotten? Rotten looks ready for war. And suddenly – when did this happen? – they’re screaming into “Anarchy In The UK”, and the whole deck takes on a life of its own. The crowd is a heaving mass, delirious, lost in the sheer electricity of the moment. I’m about four feet in front of Rotten, whose eyes look like something from the final seconds of Rosemary’s Baby, burning from the ghost his face has become. They play “No Feelings” and “Pretty Vacant” – “And we don’t caaaaaare!!!!!!” The police launches are closer now and we’re alongside the Houses of Parliament and the Pistols are playing “No Fun”. The police launches have searchlights on and they’re circling us, and on one of the police launches there’s someone in a uniform and he’s shouting something through a megaphone that we can’t quite hear but take to be instructions to get the boat back to the pier. And there’s the pier up ahead, and on the pier there are the police, lined up under more searchlights, rank-upon-rank of them, looking mean and menacing, metropolitan storm troopers. Now the power on the boat’s been cut off. You can’t hear Jones anymore, and I don’t think Sid’s been plugged in at all. Cook hammers the drums. Rotten’s screaming, “No Fun! No Fun!” Now we’re alongside the pier and you can see how pissed-off the police are. They’ve been on duty all day, smiling the good cop smile for the Silver Jubilee crowds. They’re tired, irritable. Any excuse and they’ll be among us, busting heads. Whoever’s in charge comes aboard. He tells Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren and Virgin supremo Richard Branson that he wants the boat cleared, sharpish. McLaren throws a fit. Branson says he’s hired the boat until midnight, has a contract to prove it, and won’t be moved. He waves a bit of paper, a dramatic little flourish that brings supportive cheers. The copper’s not impressed, and repeats his demand for the boat to be cleared. McLaren wants to know what will happen if we refuse. Then it’s made clear the police will come aboard and with as much force as is required will remove us. This makes everyone twitchy. Branson suggests that anyone who wants to leave should leave now because things look like getting ugly in a hurry. The police thunder up the gang-planks, angry men in leather and serge. It gets rough pretty quickly, people being man-handled onto the pier. There’s a lot of shoving, punching and kicking from the boys in blue as we’re herded up the stairs to the Embankment, police on either side of us. McLaren goes down in front of me. A couple of us scoop him up before he’s trampled. This is all turning very nasty. We stumble into the street and McLaren – I can’t believe this – raises a clenched fist and in the direction of the nearest police, screams: “You fucking fascist bastards!” He’s then dragged behind a souvenir kiosk, beaten up and arrested – one of 11 people from the boat trip who ended up that night in jail. I stand there on the Embankment, police vans screaming off into the darkness, Jubilee bunting strewn across the road, blood on the wall behind me, sirens in the distance, the sound of England at war with itself. Sex Piostols pic: Rex features

Some news first of all on our iPad app version of ‘Bruce Springsteen: The Ultimate Music Guide’, which is finally on sale.

As with the print edition, the Bruce Ultimate Music Guide offers an in-depth overview of Springsteen’s entire career through a host of classic interviews, unseen for years, from the archives of NME and Melody Maker, plus new reviews of all of his studio albums, including this year’s Wrecking Ball.

Also included in the app are classic photo galleries, video links and playable MP3 samples of every track on his studio albums. Other highlights include ‘Introducing The E Street Band’, a fully interactive guide to each member of one of the greatest rock groups ever, and is something of a master-class, according to experts, in Springsteen collectables and rarities.

The first chapter of ‘Bruce Springsteen: The Ultimate Music Guide’ is available now for free from iTunes – the other four chapters are available for 69p each. Go here to get them: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bruce-springsteen/id518672897?ls=1&mt=8?ls=1&mt=8?utm_source=uncut&utm_medium=ads&utm_campaign=Uncutnewsletter

Back in the Uncut office, meanwhile, the last of the decorative bunting is going up in anticipation of this weekend’s Jubilee celebrations, the Uncut editorial team all done up rather splendidly in a gay variety of Union Jack waistcoats and top hats, draped in flags and festooned with rosettes and the colourful like.

I have been taken rather aback – gobsmacked is the technical term – to discover that among this excited cheering throng are people who are too young to remember the 1977 Silver Jubilee, which old lags like myself have been turning up to reminisce about on TV news reports and in various newspaper features.

It may be an opportune moment, therefore, to dust off the following account of what for some of us was the Silver Jubilee’s singular highlight, The Sex Pistols’ boat trip up on the Thames on Jubilee Day itself, an eventful trip that went something like this:

LONDON: June, 1977. I get a call from my friend Al Clark, head of press at Virgin Records. He wants to know what I’m planning for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. I tell him I’m seriously thinking about climbing to the top of the tallest nearby building and raking street parties with hostile gunfire. He’s kind enough to laugh at this, but I can tell he’s pretty stressed.

And no wonder. Virgin have recently signed The Sex Pistols, and they’re proving quite a handful for Al – Fleet Street constantly on the phone, digging for dirt – after several years dealing with more typical Virgin acts like Gong and Hatfield & The North, in whom even the music press have long-since lost interest. Things are heating up even more for Al right now, following the release on May 27 of the Pistols’ “God Save The Queen”. At which point, of course, all hell breaks loose. Fleet Street’s glare these last couple of weeks has been blinding, like nothing Al has ever known – Henry Cow and Wigwam never coming in for this kind of treatment.

Anyway, what he’s telling me now is something I’m not supposed to mention to anyone else – as if! – but the gist of it is that in a gloriously calculated act of defiance the Pistols will be sailing down the Thames on a boat they’ve hired and on which they intend to play a short set as they cruise past the Houses of Parliament, some time during the late evening of Monday, June 7: Jubilee Day itself, the 25th anniversary of the Queen’s accession. Do I want to be there? I don’t even have to think about it.

I arrive with a friend at Charing Cross Pier in the early afternoon. It’s a grim old day, overcast, the sky dull and gloomy, a nipping wind coming off the river. Down on the pier, it’s bedlam. Word about the trip’s got out, obviously, and there’s a teeming horde of punks trying to get on the boat, which my friend now points out is called The Queen Elizabeth. Someone with a clipboard and a guest-list is trying to maintain order, but it’s a losing battle, and he starts shouting for the boat to pull away from the pier.

It’s touch and go at this point whether we’re going to make it onto the boat before it – what? – casts off, I guess is the nautical phrase I’m looking for. A bit of pushing and a fearless amount of barging, however, and we’re at the bottom of the gang-plank and then we’re on the boat. Behind us on the pier, it’s more chaotic than ever. Furious punks, angry at being excluded from the Pistols’ party, are screaming, spitting and cursing. Some of them leap from the pier, cling to the side of the boat, scramble onto the deck. There’s a splash or two as the boat chugs down river, out of their reach. Packs of them now begin to race along the Embankment, trying to keep up with us as we steam out into the middle of the Thames, heading towards Greenwich. On one of the bridges ahead of us, we can see a gang of punks dismantling a road sign. As the boat goes under the bridge, they lob the road sign – this huge metal sheet – over the side of the bridge, onto the deck of the boat, which it hits with an enormous clang, luckily killing no one.

The mood on The Queen Elizabeth is oddly sour, tense, vaguely unpleasant. There’s not much sense of this being any kind of celebration. The atmosphere’s too fraught. Every other person you bump into is speeding off their tits, everyone hitting the sulphate early and washing it down with can-after-can of lager, beer, whatever. We’re going back up river now, towards Chelsea Bridge, and tempers are fraying badly. There’s a scuffle towards the back of the boat, a photographer getting kicked about by someone we’re told is Jah Wobble.

It’s getting dark now, as we turn around and head back towards Charing Cross Pier and the Houses of Parliament which is when we first see the police launches, two of them, keeping at a fair distance, but just close enough to let us know they’re there.

The Sex Pistols have set up their gear on the top deck of The Queen Elizabeth and at around 9.30 pm, Rotten, Jones, Cook and Sid Vicious get ready to play. There are squeals of feedback, horrendously loud in this cramped space, as Jones plugs in his guitar. Cook smacks a couple of drums. Sid is – who knows? – somewhere else. And Rotten? Rotten looks ready for war. And suddenly – when did this happen? – they’re screaming into “Anarchy In The UK”, and the whole deck takes on a life of its own. The crowd is a heaving mass, delirious, lost in the sheer electricity of the moment. I’m about four feet in front of Rotten, whose eyes look like something from the final seconds of Rosemary’s Baby, burning from the ghost his face has become. They play “No Feelings” and “Pretty Vacant” – “And we don’t caaaaaare!!!!!!” The police launches are closer now and we’re alongside the Houses of Parliament and the Pistols are playing “No Fun”. The police launches have searchlights on and they’re circling us, and on one of the police launches there’s someone in a uniform and he’s shouting something through a megaphone that we can’t quite hear but take to be instructions to get the boat back to the pier.

And there’s the pier up ahead, and on the pier there are the police, lined up under more searchlights, rank-upon-rank of them, looking mean and menacing, metropolitan storm troopers. Now the power on the boat’s been cut off. You can’t hear Jones anymore, and I don’t think Sid’s been plugged in at all. Cook hammers the drums. Rotten’s screaming, “No Fun! No Fun!” Now we’re alongside the pier and you can see how pissed-off the police are. They’ve been on duty all day, smiling the good cop smile for the Silver Jubilee crowds. They’re tired, irritable. Any excuse and they’ll be among us, busting heads. Whoever’s in charge comes aboard. He tells Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren and Virgin supremo Richard Branson that he wants the boat cleared, sharpish.

McLaren throws a fit. Branson says he’s hired the boat until midnight, has a contract to prove it, and won’t be moved. He waves a bit of paper, a dramatic little flourish that brings supportive cheers. The copper’s not impressed, and repeats his demand for the boat to be cleared. McLaren wants to know what will happen if we refuse. Then it’s made clear the police will come aboard and with as much force as is required will remove us. This makes everyone twitchy. Branson suggests that anyone who wants to leave should leave now because things look like getting ugly in a hurry.

The police thunder up the gang-planks, angry men in leather and serge. It gets rough pretty quickly, people being man-handled onto the pier. There’s a lot of shoving, punching and kicking from the boys in blue as we’re herded up the stairs to the Embankment, police on either side of us. McLaren goes down in front of me. A couple of us scoop him up before he’s trampled. This is all turning very nasty. We stumble into the street and McLaren – I can’t believe this – raises a clenched fist and in the direction of the nearest police, screams: “You fucking fascist bastards!” He’s then dragged behind a souvenir kiosk, beaten up and arrested – one of 11 people from the boat trip who ended up that night in jail.

I stand there on the Embankment, police vans screaming off into the darkness, Jubilee bunting strewn across the road, blood on the wall behind me, sirens in the distance, the sound of England at war with itself.

Sex Piostols pic: Rex features

Elvis Presley’s Memphis crypt up for auction

Tom Goodwyn
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Elvis Presley’s Memphis crypt up for auction

The original crypt in which Elvis Presley was buried is to go up for auction. The singer's body was kept in a private crypt in Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis for roughly two months, before he was buried on his Graceland estate, reports Rolling Stone. Elvis's mother was also interred in the mausoleum's crypt before being buried alongside her son at Graceland after Elvis's father received permission from the State of Tennessee to bury them both on the private land. The crypt has been empty since mother and son were both removed. The auction is part of a two day sale which takes place June 23-24 by Julien's Auctions. Darren Julian of the auction house has said: "It's definitely a conversation piece. Only one person can say, 'Hey, I'm going to be buried where Elvis Presley was.'" Bidding is set to start at $100,000 (£63,7550). In April of this year, Madonna scored her 12th Number One in the Official UK Albums Chart with 'MDNA', breaking a UK album record held by Elvis. The Queen Of Pop overtook The King as the solo artist with the most Number One albums in the UK, according to the Official Charts Company.

The original crypt in which Elvis Presley was buried is to go up for auction.

The singer’s body was kept in a private crypt in Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis for roughly two months, before he was buried on his Graceland estate, reports Rolling Stone.

Elvis’s mother was also interred in the mausoleum’s crypt before being buried alongside her son at Graceland after Elvis’s father received permission from the State of Tennessee to bury them both on the private land. The crypt has been empty since mother and son were both removed.

The auction is part of a two day sale which takes place June 23-24 by Julien’s Auctions. Darren Julian of the auction house has said: “It’s definitely a conversation piece. Only one person can say, ‘Hey, I’m going to be buried where Elvis Presley was.'”

Bidding is set to start at $100,000 (£63,7550).

In April of this year, Madonna scored her 12th Number One in the Official UK Albums Chart with ‘MDNA’, breaking a UK album record held by Elvis. The Queen Of Pop overtook The King as the solo artist with the most Number One albums in the UK, according to the Official Charts Company.

John Lydon: ”The Voice’ and ‘American Idol’ are humiliating’

Tom Goodwyn
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0
John Lydon: ”The Voice’ and ‘American Idol’ are humiliating’
Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon has slammed music reality shows, labelling both The Voice and American Idol as "humiliating". Lydon, whose band Public Image Ltd released their first album in 20 years, 'This Is PiL', on Monday (May 28), has said that music reality shows are "dragging us back into ...

Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon has slammed music reality shows, labelling both The Voice and American Idol as “humiliating”.

Lydon, whose band Public Image Ltd released their first album in 20 years, ‘This Is PiL’, on Monday (May 28), has said that music reality shows are “dragging us back into Las Vegas wannabees”.

He told Reuters when asked for his thoughts on music reality shows like The Voice: “They’re dragging us back into Las Vegas wannabes. And there’s the painful tone of humiliation, the smirking at who gets voted off. And people now think that’s the universe of music. That’s utterly corrupting too.”

Lydon also said he had no sympathy for record labels and their financial woes, adding: “The record companies fell apart – quite deservedly. Their corrupting, all-binding contract nonsense had to stop. But this modernisation of sampling and regurgitating of old ideas isn’t healthy either. Live music is healthy.”

The singer also spoke about the lengthy gap between PiL albums and said that the 20-year gap was “not my choice”. He said of this: “Not my choice. The record company and contract obligations kept me in a state of non-recoupment and I had to outwait them.”

He continued: “It was a very difficult time for me, almost like a state of mental starvation. You’re gagging at the bit to work, and music’s my life. But I found that the law worked against me, all the corporations and accountants. So I had a very negative view of business-as-usual.”

Last month, Lydon distanced himself from the re-release of Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save The Queen’, also on May 28, which coincides with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. In a statement he said that the campaign to push the track to the Number One spot is “not my campaign” and claimed it “totally undermines what the Sex Pistols stood for”.

Mumford & Sons join Bruce Springsteen onstage to perform ‘Hungry Heart’ – watch

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Mumford & Sons join Bruce Springsteen onstage to perform ‘Hungry Heart’ – watch
Mumford And Sons joined Bruce Springsteen onstage last night (May 28) to perform 'Hungry Heart', scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to watch the performance. Springsteen was headlining Dutch festival Pinkpop and invited the folk mega-sellers up to sing with him during the encore of h...

Mumford And Sons joined Bruce Springsteen onstage last night (May 28) to perform ‘Hungry Heart’, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to watch the performance.

Springsteen was headlining Dutch festival Pinkpop and invited the folk mega-sellers up to sing with him during the encore of his 23-song set.

He had earlier performed a career-spanning set, with classics ‘Born To Run’, ‘Because The Night’ and ‘Dancing In The Dark’ aired alongside a selection of new songs from his latest LP ‘Wrecking Ball’.

Mumford And Sons had earlier revealed from the stage at Pinkpop that they are set to release the follow-up to 2009’s ‘Sigh No More’ on September 24.

Frontman Marcus Mumford apparently told the crowd that the band had finished recording the album, before keyboard player Ben Lovett revealed their plan for an autumn release.

Mumford And Sons will stage two festivals this summer. The first event will take place at Huddersfield’s Greenhead Park on June 2, with Michael Kiwanuka, Willy Mason, The Correspondents and Nathaniel Rateliff also on the bill. The second will happen a week later on June 9 at Galway’s Salthill Park, with The Vaccines, Zulu Winter, Nathaniel Rateliff, Willy Mason and The Correspondents booked to play the event.

Bruce Springsteen tours the UK this summer, playing a stadium tour as well as headlining the Isle Of Wight and Hard Rock Calling festivals.

The Beach Boys announce one-off UK show for September

Tom Goodwyn
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0
The Beach Boys announce one-off UK show for September
The Beach Boys have announced a one-off UK show for later this year. The band, who announced that they had reformed to celebrate their 50th anniversary last December, will play London's Wembley Arena on September 28. It is part of a full European tour. The Beach Boys, who now consist of Brian W...

The Beach Boys have announced a one-off UK show for later this year.

The band, who announced that they had reformed to celebrate their 50th anniversary last December, will play London’s Wembley Arena on September 28. It is part of a full European tour.

The Beach Boys, who now consist of Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks, release their 29th studio album ‘That’s Why God Made The Radio’ on Monday (June 4).

‘That’s Why God Made The Radio’ is the first album to feature all of the band’s surviving original members since 1963, and has been produced by Brian Wilson and executive produced by Mike Love.

The Beach Boys formed in 1961 and enjoyed huge success throughout the following decades. Wilson last performed with The Beach Boys during the making of their 1996 album ‘Stars And Stripes Vol 1’, and has toured as a solo artist since. Two former founding members, Dennis and Carl Wilson, died in 1983 and 1998 respectively.

Go-Kart Mozart: “On The Hot Dog Streets”

John Mulvey
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0
Go-Kart Mozart: “On The Hot Dog Streets”

What is Lawrence for? Given the acclaim for the recent “Lawrence Of Belgravia” documentary, you could be forgiven for thinking that his role as a British eccentric and pop star manqué is now much more important than the actual music he makes. That his character is more entertaining than his records. It’s not hard to see how this might have happened, given how Lawrence’s wonderful interviews sometimes touch on a kind of droll, absurd, tragi-comic performance art (one I did a few years ago involved much tricky scheduling around episodes of “Home & Away”). Worth noting, too, that Lawrence tends to talk about releasing records more than he actually releases them: “On The Hot Dog Streets” is Go-Kart Mozart’s first album in six years, with many of its songs dating back to the ‘90s Denim era, and was preceded by a Record Store Day seven-inch with a Roger Whittaker cover. A few years away from Lawrence’s new records tends to make me forget, too, what they’re actually like - for all his pronounced affection for novelty rock, not all his songs are quite as daft as “The New Potatoes”. “On The Hot Dog Streets” isn’t just a very funny record, it frequently makes vital and potent new music out of a junkshop glam aesthetic that roughly privileges Staveley Makepeace over Kraftwerk. The superb “Blowing In The Secular Breeze”, for instance, is an ambiguous paean to declining standards and the fall of Great Britain, set to a rollicking pub singalong tune that possibly resembles Smokie, if I could remember with any certainty what Smokie actually sounded like. “Come On You Lot”, meanwhile, is a terrifically effete terrace chant set to music reminiscent of Space (the “Magic Fly” ones). Again and again, the musical references fall way outside of the stuff that I usually listen to (unless @junkshopglamman has brought a bunch of seven-inches into the office), but they feel invigorated by Lawrence and his band’s approach: one that’s much more complicated, intense and beguiling than the nostalgic pastiches you’d imagine from reading about them. It’s a tough challenge, though, to separate how “On The Hot Dog Streets” sounds from the whole fastidious package, and the overwhelming stamp of Lawrence. Take the way his chief henchman is billed: on one side of the inner sleeve, he’s listed in the personnel as “K-Tel: Myriad Of Synthesisers – Synth bass – Wurlitzer – Claptrap upright piano – drum machine – vocals”; on the other side – “K-Tel would like it known that in real life his name is Terry Miles.” The sleevenotes provide vast pleasures, before you even get to the lyrics. The reading and listening provide many tantalising, if not entirely trustworthy, suggestions: a book called “Arbouretums Along The Old Walsall Road” by SF O’Reilly, perhaps? Alex Ferguson’s erotically-charged version of “Stay With Me Tonight”? The songs themselves, of course, are endlessly quotable: “Mickie Made The Most” alone concerns itself with Ricky Wilde and Shack’s Mick Head before extensively reminiscing about 1980s Aston Villa starlet Gary Shaw. And that’s before we get near some of Lawrence’s pronouncements on women, relationships and sex, that come to the fore in “I Talk With Robot Voice”, “Electrosex” and “Men Look At Women”. There’s a thesis to be written about those three songs alone. Once again, though, the cult of Lawrence’s pulls us away from the excellent tunes, richer and so much less superficial than stereotype might suggest. It’s not a pop record, as much as the deathlessly ambitious singer might imagine it to be – or certainly not a record that resembles much popular music that’s been made in the last 35-odd years. But “Electrosex”, “Ollie Ollie Get Your Collie”, “White Stilettos In The Sand” and the belt-buckle rocking “Queen Of The Scene” (“You think you’re in Poland but it’s Edmonton Green!”) are all great, some of the best songs he’s released since the demise of Felt, over 20 years ago. Which brings us to the elephant in the room. Good as “On The Hot Dog Streets” might be – and the pulsating, mostly spoken-word drama of “Retro-Glancing” is a classic, I think – it’s hard not to wish Lawrence could find a way back to making records with at least some of the atmosphere and aesthetic of those he made steering Felt. Perhaps his long-promised solo album, if it ever arrives, will be something like that. Eventually, he’ll make his own “Berlin”, albeit one with much better jokes… Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

What is Lawrence for? Given the acclaim for the recent “Lawrence Of Belgravia” documentary, you could be forgiven for thinking that his role as a British eccentric and pop star manqué is now much more important than the actual music he makes. That his character is more entertaining than his records.

It’s not hard to see how this might have happened, given how Lawrence’s wonderful interviews sometimes touch on a kind of droll, absurd, tragi-comic performance art (one I did a few years ago involved much tricky scheduling around episodes of “Home & Away”). Worth noting, too, that Lawrence tends to talk about releasing records more than he actually releases them: “On The Hot Dog Streets” is Go-Kart Mozart’s first album in six years, with many of its songs dating back to the ‘90s Denim era, and was preceded by a Record Store Day seven-inch with a Roger Whittaker cover.

A few years away from Lawrence’s new records tends to make me forget, too, what they’re actually like – for all his pronounced affection for novelty rock, not all his songs are quite as daft as “The New Potatoes”. “On The Hot Dog Streets” isn’t just a very funny record, it frequently makes vital and potent new music out of a junkshop glam aesthetic that roughly privileges Staveley Makepeace over Kraftwerk.

The superb “Blowing In The Secular Breeze”, for instance, is an ambiguous paean to declining standards and the fall of Great Britain, set to a rollicking pub singalong tune that possibly resembles Smokie, if I could remember with any certainty what Smokie actually sounded like. “Come On You Lot”, meanwhile, is a terrifically effete terrace chant set to music reminiscent of Space (the “Magic Fly” ones).

Again and again, the musical references fall way outside of the stuff that I usually listen to (unless @junkshopglamman has brought a bunch of seven-inches into the office), but they feel invigorated by Lawrence and his band’s approach: one that’s much more complicated, intense and beguiling than the nostalgic pastiches you’d imagine from reading about them. It’s a tough challenge, though, to separate how “On The Hot Dog Streets” sounds from the whole fastidious package, and the overwhelming stamp of Lawrence. Take the way his chief henchman is billed: on one side of the inner sleeve, he’s listed in the personnel as “K-Tel: Myriad Of Synthesisers – Synth bass – Wurlitzer – Claptrap upright piano – drum machine – vocals”; on the other side – “K-Tel would like it known that in real life his name is Terry Miles.”

The sleevenotes provide vast pleasures, before you even get to the lyrics. The reading and listening provide many tantalising, if not entirely trustworthy, suggestions: a book called “Arbouretums Along The Old Walsall Road” by SF O’Reilly, perhaps? Alex Ferguson’s erotically-charged version of “Stay With Me Tonight”? The songs themselves, of course, are endlessly quotable: “Mickie Made The Most” alone concerns itself with Ricky Wilde and Shack’s Mick Head before extensively reminiscing about 1980s Aston Villa starlet Gary Shaw. And that’s before we get near some of Lawrence’s pronouncements on women, relationships and sex, that come to the fore in “I Talk With Robot Voice”, “Electrosex” and “Men Look At Women”. There’s a thesis to be written about those three songs alone.

Once again, though, the cult of Lawrence’s pulls us away from the excellent tunes, richer and so much less superficial than stereotype might suggest. It’s not a pop record, as much as the deathlessly ambitious singer might imagine it to be – or certainly not a record that resembles much popular music that’s been made in the last 35-odd years. But “Electrosex”, “Ollie Ollie Get Your Collie”, “White Stilettos In The Sand” and the belt-buckle rocking “Queen Of The Scene” (“You think you’re in Poland but it’s Edmonton Green!”) are all great, some of the best songs he’s released since the demise of Felt, over 20 years ago.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room. Good as “On The Hot Dog Streets” might be – and the pulsating, mostly spoken-word drama of “Retro-Glancing” is a classic, I think – it’s hard not to wish Lawrence could find a way back to making records with at least some of the atmosphere and aesthetic of those he made steering Felt. Perhaps his long-promised solo album, if it ever arrives, will be something like that. Eventually, he’ll make his own “Berlin”, albeit one with much better jokes…

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

Robin Gibb could be honoured with public memorial service at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral

Tom Pinnock
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Robin Gibb could be honoured with public memorial service at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral
Robin Gibb, the Bee Gees singer and songwriter who died last week aged 62 (May 20), could be remembered with a public memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral in London. The pop legend is to be buried next month at a private funeral in Oxfordshire. However, his son Robin-John has suggested that a la...

Robin Gibb, the Bee Gees singer and songwriter who died last week aged 62 (May 20), could be remembered with a public memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The pop legend is to be buried next month at a private funeral in Oxfordshire. However, his son Robin-John has suggested that a larger memorial service could take place in September at the historic central London cathedral.

Gibb’s son also told the Sunday Express that his father, who had suffered with cancer in recent years, died of kidney failure, and recalled his passing.

“We watched him go and told him we loved him,” he said. “The end was peaceful and dignified… It was only later that I cried and cried.”

Flaming Lips re-record ‘Race For The Prize’ for local basketball team

Tom Pinnock
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0
Flaming Lips re-record ‘Race For The Prize’ for local basketball team
The Flaming Lips have re-recorded 1999's "Race For The Prize" for the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team. The band pay tribute to their hometown NBA team in the new version of the song, which was originally on their acclaimed album "The Soft Bulletin". The bandmembers repeatedly chant "Thunder ...

The Flaming Lips have re-recorded 1999’s “Race For The Prize” for the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team.

The band pay tribute to their hometown NBA team in the new version of the song, which was originally on their acclaimed album “The Soft Bulletin”.

The bandmembers repeatedly chant “Thunder up!” over the song’s main refrain, while the verses end with the lines: “They’ll keep fighting/For Oklahoma!”

You can watch a video featuring the new version below.

The Flaming Lips recently released an album of collaborations for Record Store Day, titled “The Flaming Lips And Heady Fwends” – Nick Cave, Tame Impala, Yoko Ono and Bon Iver are among the artists who feature.

Bobby Womack and Lana Del Rey’s duet ‘Dayglo Reflection’ unveiled – listen

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Bobby Womack and Lana Del Rey’s duet ‘Dayglo Reflection’ unveiled – listen

Bobby Womack has unveiled 'Dayglo Reflection', his duet with Lana Del Rey, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to hear the track. The track is taken from Womack's new album 'The Bravest Man In The Universe', which has been co-produced by Blur's Damon Albarn and is released next month. The album, which will come out on June 11, was recorded at the Blur man's Studio 13 in West London with XL Records boss Richard Russell. Speaking to NME about the sessions earlier this year, Womack discussed working with Lana Del Rey on 'Dayglo Reflection' describing the pair as being like "two people in a church". He added: "She's one of a kind. I've never sung with a girl like that before." The album is soul singer Womack's first LP of original material in 18 years, following 1994's 'Resurrection'. The album will be released on the XL label, also home to Adele and The xx. Womack recently revealed that he has been given the all-clear from colon cancer, after being diagnosed with the illness in March. A posting on the soul singer's Facebook page last week said that surgery to remove a tumour was successful and Womack was expected to make a full recovery. The singer is due to play two UK gigs next month - one at London's Heaven on June 14, followed by a slot at the capital's Lovebox festival two days later (16). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eJkETkfdSg

Bobby Womack has unveiled ‘Dayglo Reflection’, his duet with Lana Del Rey, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to hear the track.

The track is taken from Womack’s new album ‘The Bravest Man In The Universe’, which has been co-produced by Blur’s Damon Albarn and is released next month.

The album, which will come out on June 11, was recorded at the Blur man’s Studio 13 in West London with XL Records boss Richard Russell.

Speaking to NME about the sessions earlier this year, Womack discussed working with Lana Del Rey on ‘Dayglo Reflection’ describing the pair as being like “two people in a church”. He added: “She’s one of a kind. I’ve never sung with a girl like that before.”

The album is soul singer Womack’s first LP of original material in 18 years, following 1994’s ‘Resurrection’. The album will be released on the XL label, also home to Adele and The xx.

Womack recently revealed that he has been given the all-clear from colon cancer, after being diagnosed with the illness in March.

A posting on the soul singer’s Facebook page last week said that surgery to remove a tumour was successful and Womack was expected to make a full recovery.

The singer is due to play two UK gigs next month – one at London’s Heaven on June 14, followed by a slot at the capital’s Lovebox festival two days later (16).

The Stone Roses’ ‘Spike Island’ film writer: ‘The timing of the reunion couldn’t be better’

Tom Goodwyn
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0
The Stone Roses’ ‘Spike Island’ film writer: ‘The timing of the reunion couldn’t be better’

The writer of the new film which is set during The Stone Roses' 1990 Spike Island show has spoken about how the reunion of the Manchester legends has affected the film's production. Chris Coghill, the man behind the suitably named Spike Island, told NME that the band's reunion after 16 years has definitely increased interest in his film and he hopes the renewed buzz around the band will lead to a bumper box office return. Speaking about the film, which stars Shameless actor Elliott Tittensor and Games Of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke and revolves around an unsigned band from a council estate in Manchester, Coghill said the timing of its release feels "like a moment of synchronicity". Asked about how the reunion had affected Spike Island, Coghill said: "The fact that the band have got back together can only help things. The timing's amazing, literally as we were about to go into production, they announced the reunion, it was amazing." He continued: "It's funny, we never knew when the film would be ready and with the reunion and the fact that the Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets are back out there too, it feels like a moment of synchronicity. There's a massive buzz amount about the reunion and, let's face it, if everyone who's bought a ticket to see the band comes to see the film, then we'll definitely do alright." Then asked to describe the film, Coghill said: "It's a road-movie, it's a love story, it's a classic story. It's my love letter to The Stone Roses and to Manchester in 1990. It was an amazing time to grow up, and it's my way of telling the story of that time." Spike Island is due for release later this year, with Coghill also promising that the trailer will be unveiled soon. The Stone Roses made their live comeback last Wednesday (May 23), playing a rapturously received show at Warrington Parr Hall. It was the band's first show with drummer Alan 'Reni' Wren since their Glasgow Green performance in June 1990. The Manchester legends played an 11-song set, with no encore, but did include classics 'Sally Cinammon', 'She Bangs The Drums' and set closer 'Love Spreads'. They didn't debut any new material. The show will act as warm-up for the band's summer European tour, which kicks off in Barcelona next month. The band will then play their first scheduled UK shows in Manchester's Heaton Park on June 29, 30 and July 1. Following the hometown shows, they'll then play at Dublin's Phoenix Park (5) and Spain's Benicassim (12-15), along with shows in Italy and the Far East.

The writer of the new film which is set during The Stone Roses‘ 1990 Spike Island show has spoken about how the reunion of the Manchester legends has affected the film’s production.

Chris Coghill, the man behind the suitably named Spike Island, told NME that the band’s reunion after 16 years has definitely increased interest in his film and he hopes the renewed buzz around the band will lead to a bumper box office return.

Speaking about the film, which stars Shameless actor Elliott Tittensor and Games Of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke and revolves around an unsigned band from a council estate in Manchester, Coghill said the timing of its release feels “like a moment of synchronicity”.

Asked about how the reunion had affected Spike Island, Coghill said: “The fact that the band have got back together can only help things. The timing’s amazing, literally as we were about to go into production, they announced the reunion, it was amazing.”

He continued: “It’s funny, we never knew when the film would be ready and with the reunion and the fact that the Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets are back out there too, it feels like a moment of synchronicity. There’s a massive buzz amount about the reunion and, let’s face it, if everyone who’s bought a ticket to see the band comes to see the film, then we’ll definitely do alright.”

Then asked to describe the film, Coghill said: “It’s a road-movie, it’s a love story, it’s a classic story. It’s my love letter to The Stone Roses and to Manchester in 1990. It was an amazing time to grow up, and it’s my way of telling the story of that time.”

Spike Island is due for release later this year, with Coghill also promising that the trailer will be unveiled soon.

The Stone Roses made their live comeback last Wednesday (May 23), playing a rapturously received show at Warrington Parr Hall. It was the band’s first show with drummer Alan ‘Reni’ Wren since their Glasgow Green performance in June 1990.

The Manchester legends played an 11-song set, with no encore, but did include classics ‘Sally Cinammon’, ‘She Bangs The Drums’ and set closer ‘Love Spreads’. They didn’t debut any new material.

The show will act as warm-up for the band’s summer European tour, which kicks off in Barcelona next month. The band will then play their first scheduled UK shows in Manchester’s Heaton Park on June 29, 30 and July 1.

Following the hometown shows, they’ll then play at Dublin’s Phoenix Park (5) and Spain’s Benicassim (12-15), along with shows in Italy and the Far East.

The Beach Boys’ Bruce Johnston: ‘We’d be happy with a dollar for our album’

Tom Goodwyn
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0
The Beach Boys’ Bruce Johnston: ‘We’d be happy with a dollar for our album’
The Beach Boys' Bruce Johnston has said he would be happy to make $1 (64p) per album in order to reach more fans. The band, who announced plans to reform for their 50th anniversary last December, are currently working on new material and last month unveiled a clip of 'That's Why God Made The Radi...

The Beach Boys‘ Bruce Johnston has said he would be happy to make $1 (64p) per album in order to reach more fans.

The band, who announced plans to reform for their 50th anniversary last December, are currently working on new material and last month unveiled a clip of ‘That’s Why God Made The Radio’, the first single from their new album, which is due out in June.

Speaking to Billboard, Johnston said: “Years fly by and people are making albums on their own and they sell them for $10 (£6.40), and if they sell 10,000 they’re happy. I’d rather make $1 an album, sell a million and reach more people.”

Johnston, who joined The Beach Boys in 1965 to replace Glen Campbell in the band’s touring line-up, also said the songs on their new record have been predominantly penned by Brian Wilson.

He added: “Brian had scraps of songs and we’ve just been shoving them together. It’s more Brian-heavy than Al [Jardine] or myself. This band is about the songs Brian wrote with different collaborators.”

The Beach Boys formed in 1961 and enjoyed huge success throughout the following decades. Wilson last performed with The Beach Boys during the making of their 1996 album ‘Stars And Stripes Vol 1’, and has toured as a solo artist since. Two former founding members, Dennis and Carl Wilson, died in 1983 and 1998 respectively.

Elton John ‘doing well’ after hospitalisation

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Elton John ‘doing well’ after hospitalisation
Elton John is making a good recovery following his hospitalisation earlier this week, according to reports. The iconic singer was taken to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles earlier this week (May 23) so he could receive treatment for a respiratory infection, forcing him to cancel a run of show...

Elton John is making a good recovery following his hospitalisation earlier this week, according to reports.

The iconic singer was taken to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles earlier this week (May 23) so he could receive treatment for a respiratory infection, forcing him to cancel a run of shows in Las Vegas.

A spokesperson for John, however, told ET Online that he was “at home and doing well” following his spell in hospital.

John himself had previously apologised to fans for having to scrap the scheduled gigs, stating: “It feels strange not to be able to perform these ‘Million Dollar Piano’ concerts at the Colosseum… I love performing the show and I will be thrilled when we return to the Colosseum in October to complete the 11 concerts… All I can say to the fans is ‘sorry I can’t be with you’.”

a]Elton John is still set to tour the UK next month and will release a new album titled ‘The Diving Board’ this autumn. Speaking about the LP, which is the follow-up to his 2010 effort ‘The Union’, he claimed that the album was his “most exciting” for a long time and said he was ‘psyched’ about the finished product.

Elton John will play:

Taunton Somerset Country Cricket Club (June 3)

Harrogate Great Yorkshire Showground (5)

Belfast Odyssey Arena (7)

Chesterfield B2NET Stadium (9)

Falkirk Stadium (10)

Newcastle Metro Radio Arena (13)

Birmingham LG Arena (15)

Blackpool Tower Festival Headland (16)

Hot Chip: ‘Pop music has become conservative’

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Hot Chip: ‘Pop music has become conservative’
Hot Chip have said they feel pop music has become too "conservative". The band have complained about what they see as a lack of imperfection in pop music, in an interview with the Guardian. Bandmember Joe Goddard has put this down to records that "feel like they've come from a factory that tries ...

Hot Chip have said they feel pop music has become too “conservative”.

The band have complained about what they see as a lack of imperfection in pop music, in an interview with the Guardian. Bandmember Joe Goddard has put this down to records that “feel like they’ve come from a factory that tries to correct everything”.

He added: “They take out all the flaws that make everything really loveable for me. Pop music’s become quite conservative in a lot of ways.”

Lead singer, Alexis Taylor, agreed with his bandmate and used Tulisa as an example. He said: “There’s quite a lot of cynicism now about how to make pop records and what the point of it is. I saw the lady from N-Dubz on a chatshow and they were asking how she felt about the band splitting up. She just talked about having to pay her mortgage as being the main issue.”

Hot Chip are set to release the follow-up to 2010’s ‘One Life Stand’ next month. The LP, titled ‘In Our Heads’, contains a total of 11 tracks and has been co-produced with Mark Ralph. It is the group’s first album for Domino Records and will come out on June 11.

You can watch the Peter Serafinowicz-directed video for ‘Night And Day’, a track taken from the album, by scrolling down the page and clicking.

They will preview their new album with a short UK tour this June. The tour begins at Sheffield Leadmill on June 10, before moving onto Cambrige Junction on June 11 and finally London’s Heaven venue on June 13.

The band will play a series of UK festivals during the summer, with slots at Lovebox festival, Bestival and Camp Bestival among those the band will play.

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