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The Descendants

Michael Bonner
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The Descendants

Oscar nominated George Clooney leads funny, sophisticated drama... DIRECTED BY Alexander Payne STARRING George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer These days, only a handful of American directors can be relied on to make intelligent, enjoyable, properly grown-up films. Among them are Jason Reitman (Up In The Air, the forthcoming Young Adult), the seldom-seen Todd Haynes and – perhaps most consistently of all – Alexander Payne. The Omaha-born writer-director may have made his reputation with a high school political satire (1999 Reece Witherspoon starrer Election). But since then, Payne has specialized in stories about older males looking ruefully back at chances missed and wrong roads taken: About Schmidt, which allowed Jack Nicholson to act his weary age, and wine-steeped mid-life-crisis road movie Sideways. At first glance, his new offering The Descendants is Payne’s straightest film yet, a tragi-comic family story about life, love, death and inter-generational misunderstanding. But this deceptively simple film – based on the 2008 novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings – is distinguished by its unusual Hawaiian location, a superb cast headed by George Clooney on top of his game, and an audacious way of wrong-footing all the expectations that accompany the gentle family melodrama this initially resembles. Clooney plays Hawaii resident Matt King, who begins proceedings by telling us in voice-over that he’s sick of hearing that life on the island must be paradise – a point proved by shots of freeways and drab parking lots. Matt’s own life is certainly anything but blissful - his wife Elizabeth is in a coma following a waterskiing accident, and Matt is looking after the two daughters he barely knows – 10-year-old Scottie (mara Miller) and contemptuous, wayward teen Alexandra (Shailene Woodley). In addition, he has to decide how best to sell the magnificent tract of family land that’s been handed down through generations, going right back to the Hawaiian royalty who were his ancestors. Then Matt discovers that his wife had been having an affair, and decides that it’s time to track down her lover – ostensibly so that the man can say his farewells before Elizabeth dies, but partly also in the spirit of good old-fashioned stalking. What ensues is a road trip – or in this case, an island hop – as Matt goes on the trail of the other man, accompanied by his daughters and by Alex’s clueless pal Sid (a hilariously lunkish Nick Krause) who can be relied on to say the wrong thing in any possible situation. The film is superbly acted, both by its young unknowns and by familiar faces including Beau Bridges (rheumy-eyed and laid-back as one of Matt’s sprawling clan), a formidably blunt Robert Forster (of Jackie Brown fame) as Matt’s disapproving father-in-law, and by Matthew Lillard as the other man. You may remember Lillard as the goofy arch-slacker of the Scream films, or as Scooby-Doo’s sidekick Shaggy; it’s quite alarming how quickly he’s aged, but Lillard seems to have discovered fruitful new career prospects playing smarmy middle-aged dorks, and he rises to the challenge wonderfully. What makes The Descendants – scripted by Payne with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash – so exceptional is its ill-mannered mischief, its willingness to step on conventional emotional sensibilities. It’s not enough that Matt and family are living through a uniquely painful situation, Payne makes the emotional comedy that much more excruciating too. In one scene, Matt steps into the hospital room for what we expect to be a tear-stained tête-à-tête with the comatose Elizabeth – only to heartily lambast her for messing up his life. Later in the film, a superb and affecting Judy Greer, as the lover’s wronged wife, gets her chance to speak some bedside home truths too. Yet, no matter how far the film goes in a black comedy direction, there’s always a sense of emotional fragility and tenderness that makes The Descendants feel not just bearable but compellingly wise too. Few of today’s Hollywood male leads could have carried off the delicacy of this drama, or given the essentially stolid, self-absorbed Matt some substance without grandstanding or laying on the redemptive humanity too thick. But Clooney – having revealed several new layers of subtlety in Up In The Air – pushes his register even further here, and gives us cinema’s best Harassed Middle-aged Man for some time – with an ordinary vulnerability to match the greying hair. The Descendants is another film, like Sideways, that shows Payne to be a master in making something exceptional out of the almost exaggeratedly ordinary. And like Sideways, it’s at once hugely entertaining and at the same time, deep in an almost throwaway fashion. It’s about as classy and mature as contemporary American cinema gets. JONATHAN ROMNEY

Oscar nominated George Clooney leads funny, sophisticated drama…

DIRECTED BY Alexander Payne

STARRING George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer

These days, only a handful of American directors can be relied on to make intelligent, enjoyable, properly grown-up films. Among them are Jason Reitman (Up In The Air, the forthcoming Young Adult), the seldom-seen Todd Haynes and – perhaps most consistently of all – Alexander Payne. The Omaha-born writer-director may have made his reputation with a high school political satire (1999 Reece Witherspoon starrer Election). But since then, Payne has specialized in stories about older males looking ruefully back at chances missed and wrong roads taken: About Schmidt, which allowed Jack Nicholson to act his weary age, and wine-steeped mid-life-crisis road movie Sideways.

At first glance, his new offering The Descendants is Payne’s straightest film yet, a tragi-comic family story about life, love, death and inter-generational misunderstanding. But this deceptively simple film – based on the 2008 novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings – is distinguished by its unusual Hawaiian location, a superb cast headed by George Clooney on top of his game, and an audacious way of wrong-footing all the expectations that accompany the gentle family melodrama this initially resembles.

Clooney plays Hawaii resident Matt King, who begins proceedings by telling us in voice-over that he’s sick of hearing that life on the island must be paradise – a point proved by shots of freeways and drab parking lots. Matt’s own life is certainly anything but blissful – his wife Elizabeth is in a coma following a waterskiing accident, and Matt is looking after the two daughters he barely knows – 10-year-old Scottie (mara Miller) and contemptuous, wayward teen Alexandra (Shailene Woodley). In addition, he has to decide how best to sell the magnificent tract of family land that’s been handed down through generations, going right back to the Hawaiian royalty who were his ancestors.

Then Matt discovers that his wife had been having an affair, and decides that it’s time to track down her lover – ostensibly so that the man can say his farewells before Elizabeth dies, but partly also in the spirit of good old-fashioned stalking. What ensues is a road trip – or in this case, an island hop – as Matt goes on the trail of the other man, accompanied by his daughters and by Alex’s clueless pal Sid (a hilariously lunkish Nick Krause) who can be relied on to say the wrong thing in any possible situation.

The film is superbly acted, both by its young unknowns and by familiar faces including Beau Bridges (rheumy-eyed and laid-back as one of Matt’s sprawling clan), a formidably blunt Robert Forster (of Jackie Brown fame) as Matt’s disapproving father-in-law, and by Matthew Lillard as the other man. You may remember Lillard as the goofy arch-slacker of the Scream films, or as Scooby-Doo’s sidekick Shaggy; it’s quite alarming how quickly he’s aged, but Lillard seems to have discovered fruitful new career prospects playing smarmy middle-aged dorks, and he rises to the challenge wonderfully.

What makes The Descendants – scripted by Payne with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash – so exceptional is its ill-mannered mischief, its willingness to step on conventional emotional sensibilities. It’s not enough that Matt and family are living through a uniquely painful situation, Payne makes the emotional comedy that much more excruciating too. In one scene, Matt steps into the hospital room for what we expect to be a tear-stained tête-à-tête with the comatose Elizabeth – only to heartily lambast her for messing up his life. Later in the film, a superb and affecting Judy Greer, as the lover’s wronged wife, gets her chance to speak some bedside home truths too. Yet, no matter how far the film goes in a black comedy direction, there’s always a sense of emotional fragility and tenderness that makes The Descendants feel not just bearable but compellingly wise too.

Few of today’s Hollywood male leads could have carried off the delicacy of this drama, or given the essentially stolid, self-absorbed Matt some substance without grandstanding or laying on the redemptive humanity too thick. But Clooney – having revealed several new layers of subtlety in Up In The Air – pushes his register even further here, and gives us cinema’s best Harassed Middle-aged Man for some time – with an ordinary vulnerability to match the greying hair. The Descendants is another film, like Sideways, that shows Payne to be a master in making something exceptional out of the almost exaggeratedly ordinary. And like Sideways, it’s at once hugely entertaining and at the same time, deep in an almost throwaway fashion. It’s about as classy and mature as contemporary American cinema gets.

JONATHAN ROMNEY

Bob Dylan ‘turned away’ by his hero, folk archivist Harry Smith

Tom Pinnock
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Bob Dylan ‘turned away’ by his hero, folk archivist Harry Smith

Bob Dylan was turned away by his hero, Harry Smith, when he went to visit the American folk music archivist in the mid-'80s. The incident, recalled in the new issue of Uncut, which hits shelves on January 31, apparently occurred in 1985. At the time, Smith was living as a lodger with Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who brought Dylan round to meet the archivist – however, Smith insisted on staying in bed, and Dylan was turned away. The songwriter had long been inspired by Smith’s compilation, the 'Anthology Of American Folk Music', which catalogued decades of obscure recordings from the backwaters of the US in the early 20th century. For more on Harry Smith, including his interest in the occult, his liquid diets and the incredible impact of his anthology, check out the new issue of Uncut, on shelves from January 31.

Bob Dylan was turned away by his hero, Harry Smith, when he went to visit the American folk music archivist in the mid-’80s.

The incident, recalled in the new issue of Uncut, which hits shelves on January 31, apparently occurred in 1985.

At the time, Smith was living as a lodger with Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who brought Dylan round to meet the archivist – however, Smith insisted on staying in bed, and Dylan was turned away.

The songwriter had long been inspired by Smith’s compilation, the ‘Anthology Of American Folk Music’, which catalogued decades of obscure recordings from the backwaters of the US in the early 20th century.

For more on Harry Smith, including his interest in the occult, his liquid diets and the incredible impact of his anthology, check out the new issue of Uncut, on shelves from January 31.

Ry Cooder’s Los Angeles Stories

Uncut
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Ry Cooder’s Los Angeles Stories

Post-war Los Angeles was doubtless a swell place to live if you were a movie star, Hollywood mogul, business tycoon, captain of industry, political big-wig, gangster or otherwise a money-bags, cosseted by wealth, not much in life you couldn’t afford. On the other hand, if you were more the common drudge than the high-roller of your dreams, going home every night from a dreary job to your one room, a hot-plate and only the radio for company, Los Angeles, as much as anywhere else, would have resembled nothing much more than the arse end of a cruel world. And how much worse for you if you are unemployed, no money, none at all, those lavish spreads in Beverly Hills and similarly swish places a mocking reminder of your low place in the unhappy scheme of things, which is somewhere that makes you disinclined to see your fellow man in the best of all possible lights. This is understandable, to the extent that in such disconsolate circumstances your fellow man may often be out to kill you, or at least rob you blind of even the little you’ve got, including your dreams. “Everyone out there is a mad dog from hell until proven otherwise,” says one of the characters in Ry Cooder’s Los Angeles Stories (City Lights Books), his wholly impressive fiction debut, of the Los Angeles in which these stories, eight of them, are set. It’s a purely hardboiled universe, down here. Nearly all and sundry are scrapping for whatever they can get, on the make, hungry for whatever it is they haven’t got, including money, fame, drugs, pussy, a new outlook on things and a way forward that doesn’t end up with them in a ditch. It’s a world at least partly familiar from fatalist noir classics from the time in which these stories are set (1940-1958), the kind of movies in which the way a character lights a cigarette tells you everything you need to know about them and how and where they may end up, which as a rule is nowhere they’d want to be. You’ll also recognise it from the books of Raymond Chandler, say, or James M Cain, and their tales of multiple duplicity, greed and murder, although there are also hints in the often surreal humour Cooder brings to bear on things of more recent writing by Denis Johnson, Barry Gifford and Barry Hannah. There’s also something often off-kilter about these stories that’s reminiscent of the Coen Brothers, who had similarly disturbing period fun in this vein with Barton Fink, whose blackly comedic horrors are several times recalled. There’s at least one murder, usually a lot more, in each of these stories, which serially introduce us to ordinary people whose lives by accident or weird coincidence are derailed or otherwise made fraught by unpredictable circumstance and inexplicable happenings, chance encounters and the schemes of gangsters – “bright boys”, in the book’s sharply evocative vernacular – hucksters, hoodlums, grifters, extortionists and generally disreputable types. So we have a door to door collector of census data, Frank St Clair, in the opening “All In A Day’s Work”, who can’t make a call without becoming involved in someone’s untimely passing, in one case especially grisly. In “Who Do You Know That I Don’t?”, a tailor specialising in suits for mariachi bands attempts to solve the mysterious death of a popular young singer, modelled on Johnny Ace, while in “Kill Me, Por Favor”, a drummer playing a deadbeat residency finds himself an unwitting accomplice to a double homicide and goes on the lam with an underage girl and a transsexual moll. “My Telephone Keeps Ringin’”, meanwhile, drops a middle-aged mechanic into a plot about property swindling in Santa Monica as complicated as Chinatown. In “End Of The Line”, a recently laid-off tram driver out on one last run picks up a girl who’s just plugged her gangster boyfriend and comes into a bundle of mob dough, which certain people will kill to reclaim and eventually do. Taken as a whole, this collection offers a panoramic view of a rapidly changing Los Angeles and its immigrant communities, rich in period detail and idiomatic dialogue, sometimes based on Cooder’s own memories of growing up in the same neighbourhoods in which the stories are often set. Music plays an important part in all this and musicians, too, of course – including “the code-talking black men of jazz, the card-playing Filipinos of the Temple Street dance halls, the nihilistic pachuco boogie boys”. There are also walk-on parts for John Lee Hooker, John Coltrane, T-Bone Walker and Merle Travis, variously on their ways up or down, each with some piece of gnomic wisdom ruefully passed on as they themselves pass through these pages. No dates are attached to these stories apart from the years in which they are individually set, so there’s no clear indication of when Cooder wrote them. You’d guess, though, that Los Angeles Stories was written alongside his so-called “California Trilogy” of Chavez Ravine, My Name Is Buddy and I, Flathead, with which the book has much in common as part of a truly remarkable late-career renaissance. Ry Cooder pic by Vincent Valdez

Post-war Los Angeles was doubtless a swell place to live if you were a movie star, Hollywood mogul, business tycoon, captain of industry, political big-wig, gangster or otherwise a money-bags, cosseted by wealth, not much in life you couldn’t afford.

On the other hand, if you were more the common drudge than the high-roller of your dreams, going home every night from a dreary job to your one room, a hot-plate and only the radio for company, Los Angeles, as much as anywhere else, would have resembled nothing much more than the arse end of a cruel world. And how much worse for you if you are unemployed, no money, none at all, those lavish spreads in Beverly Hills and similarly swish places a mocking reminder of your low place in the unhappy scheme of things, which is somewhere that makes you disinclined to see your fellow man in the best of all possible lights.

This is understandable, to the extent that in such disconsolate circumstances your fellow man may often be out to kill you, or at least rob you blind of even the little you’ve got, including your dreams.

“Everyone out there is a mad dog from hell until proven otherwise,” says one of the characters in Ry Cooder’s Los Angeles Stories (City Lights Books), his wholly impressive fiction debut, of the Los Angeles in which these stories, eight of them, are set. It’s a purely hardboiled universe, down here. Nearly all and sundry are scrapping for whatever they can get, on the make, hungry for whatever it is they haven’t got, including money, fame, drugs, pussy, a new outlook on things and a way forward that doesn’t end up with them in a ditch.

It’s a world at least partly familiar from fatalist noir classics from the time in which these stories are set (1940-1958), the kind of movies in which the way a character lights a cigarette tells you everything you need to know about them and how and where they may end up, which as a rule is nowhere they’d want to be. You’ll also recognise it from the books of Raymond Chandler, say, or James M Cain, and their tales of multiple duplicity, greed and murder, although there are also hints in the often surreal humour Cooder brings to bear on things of more recent writing by Denis Johnson, Barry Gifford and Barry Hannah. There’s also something often off-kilter about these stories that’s reminiscent of the Coen Brothers, who had similarly disturbing period fun in this vein with Barton Fink, whose blackly comedic horrors are several times recalled.

There’s at least one murder, usually a lot more, in each of these stories, which serially introduce us to ordinary people whose lives by accident or weird coincidence are derailed or otherwise made fraught by unpredictable circumstance and inexplicable happenings, chance encounters and the schemes of gangsters – “bright boys”, in the book’s sharply evocative vernacular – hucksters, hoodlums, grifters, extortionists and generally disreputable types.

So we have a door to door collector of census data, Frank St Clair, in the opening “All In A Day’s Work”, who can’t make a call without becoming involved in someone’s untimely passing, in one case especially grisly. In “Who Do You Know That I Don’t?”, a tailor specialising in suits for mariachi bands attempts to solve the mysterious death of a popular young singer, modelled on Johnny Ace, while in “Kill Me, Por Favor”, a drummer playing a deadbeat residency finds himself an unwitting accomplice to a double homicide and goes on the lam with an underage girl and a transsexual moll. “My Telephone Keeps Ringin’”, meanwhile, drops a middle-aged mechanic into a plot about property swindling in Santa Monica as complicated as Chinatown. In “End Of The Line”, a recently laid-off tram driver out on one last run picks up a girl who’s just plugged her gangster boyfriend and comes into a bundle of mob dough, which certain people will kill to reclaim and eventually do.

Taken as a whole, this collection offers a panoramic view of a rapidly changing Los Angeles and its immigrant communities, rich in period detail and idiomatic dialogue, sometimes based on Cooder’s own memories of growing up in the same neighbourhoods in which the stories are often set. Music plays an important part in all this and musicians, too, of course – including “the code-talking black men of jazz, the card-playing Filipinos of the Temple Street dance halls, the nihilistic pachuco boogie boys”. There are also walk-on parts for John Lee Hooker, John Coltrane, T-Bone Walker and Merle Travis, variously on their ways up or down, each with some piece of gnomic wisdom ruefully passed on as they themselves pass through these pages.

No dates are attached to these stories apart from the years in which they are individually set, so there’s no clear indication of when Cooder wrote them. You’d guess, though, that Los Angeles Stories was written alongside his so-called “California Trilogy” of Chavez Ravine, My Name Is Buddy and I, Flathead, with which the book has much in common as part of a truly remarkable late-career renaissance.

Ry Cooder pic by Vincent Valdez

March 2012

Ipclee
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March 2012
I went to the Star-Club once, but I didn’t see The Beatles. They'd long since left the building, playing their last residency there 50 years ago, in 1962. By the time I fetched up on Hamburg's Reeperbahn, that legendary strip where The Beatles and many more like them served their rock'n'roll appr...

I went to the Star-Club once, but I didn’t see The Beatles. They’d long since left the building, playing their last residency there 50 years ago, in 1962.

By the time I fetched up on Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, that legendary strip where The Beatles and many more like them served their rock’n’roll apprenticeships, the Star-Club itself was also a place of fond memory. It was by then a sex club, called The Salambo.

This was May 1978. I was in Germany on assignment for what used to be Melody Maker. My mission, as it was explained to me, was to “take the temperature of the German rock scene”. To this end, I get in touch with a jovial soul named Teddy Meier, European Artist Development Manager for Chrysalis Records. Teddy has an office on Feldbrunnenstrasse. I tell him I can be there in half an hour, but Teddy’s having none of it. He’ll come to me. “At once!” he adds with high-pitched urgency. Not long after this, Teddy’s on his third or fourth huge stein of a powerful local brew, quaffing for the fatherland from a glass so heavy he has to hoist it from the table in a double-handed grip, like a Viking.

The hotel bar’s too dull for Teddy, though. After giving me an astonishingly detailed account of the German rock scene, he suggests a trip to the Reeperbahn. Our first stop is The Salambo, which seems lively enough to me. Teddy, though, is still restless and we go on to another similar establishment, where we’re shown to a table by a naked blonde, whose neatly trimmed pubic thatch Teddy is clearly mesmerised by. Soon things are happening onstage that those of a delicate disposition might prefer not to have described to them in too much detail.
I’m thinking especially of the energetic sexual episodes featuring a company of strapping gals and a small but colourful menagerie of animals – principal among them a baffled-looking chimp, a small horse and sundry well-built hounds, the lot of them characterised by much drooling, lolling of tongues, shuddering flanks and visibly alert members. Where the dogs are concerned, there’s also a terrific amount of tail-wagging when they are called on to do their bit.

Anyway, not for the first time, I digress. I have other news to pass on. This is the last printed issue of Uncut in its present incarnation. From next month, the magazine will have a cool new look and there’ll be changes to what’s in it and how it’s presented. The big change is a major overhaul and expansion of our reviews section, for so many readers the most important part of Uncut. We’ll also be introducing a new front section next month, but to reassure the wary among you, regular reader favourites will still be part of Uncut’s editorial mix. Anyway, see what you think of the new-look Uncut when it goes on sale on February 28. We’ll be looking forward to your views.

Get Uncut on your iPad, laptop or home computer

The Troggs’ frontman Reg Presley reveals he is battling lung cancer

Tom Goodwyn
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The Troggs’ frontman Reg Presley reveals he is battling lung cancer
Reg Presley, frontman with The Troggs, has revealed that he has been diagnosed with lung cancer. The singer, whose band are best known for their hit singles 'Wild Thing' and 'Love Is All Around', has also confirmed that he will be retiring from the band to focus on his recovery. Writing on the b...

Reg Presley, frontman with The Troggs, has revealed that he has been diagnosed with lung cancer.

The singer, whose band are best known for their hit singles ‘Wild Thing’ and ‘Love Is All Around’, has also confirmed that he will be retiring from the band to focus on his recovery.

Writing on the band’s official website, Presley confirmed that he was undergoing chemotherapy and was doing well, but had realised he could not continue to perform with the band.

He wrote on My-generation.org.uk/Troggs: “I was taken ill whilst doing a gig in Germany in December. During my stay in hospital tests showed that in fact I have lung cancer. I am receiving chemotherapy treatment and at the moment not feeling too bad.”

He continued: “However I’ve had to call time on The Troggs and retire. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the cards and calls and for your love, loyalty and support over the years.”

The band released 12 studio albums during their 48 year career, with their last LP ‘Athens Andover’ released in 1992.

Barack Obama causes sales of Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together’ to go up by 490%

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Barack Obama causes sales of Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together’ to go up by 490%

Sales of Al Green's soul classic 'Let's Stay Together' have gone up by almost 500% after US president Barack Obama surprised a packed crowd by singing a couple of lines from the track at a fundraiser in New York last week. The president cracked out the rendition, which you can see by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking, at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem last Thursday (January 19). As a result, sales of the track have been given a huge boost, reports Billboard. The track, which was originally released in 1971, sold over 16,000 downloads in the week ending January 22, which is a 490% increase from the previous week. As well as singing, Obama also paid tribute to Green, who was sitting in the crowd, saying: "Don't worry Rev, I cannot sing like you, but I just wanted to show my appreciation." The US president, who is currently campaigning for re-election, is thought to have raised $3.1 million during the day he spent campaigning in New York. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-hDt2E8MoE

Sales of Al Green‘s soul classic ‘Let’s Stay Together’ have gone up by almost 500% after US president Barack Obama surprised a packed crowd by singing a couple of lines from the track at a fundraiser in New York last week.

The president cracked out the rendition, which you can see by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking, at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem last Thursday (January 19). As a result, sales of the track have been given a huge boost, reports Billboard.

The track, which was originally released in 1971, sold over 16,000 downloads in the week ending January 22, which is a 490% increase from the previous week.

As well as singing, Obama also paid tribute to Green, who was sitting in the crowd, saying: “Don’t worry Rev, I cannot sing like you, but I just wanted to show my appreciation.”

The US president, who is currently campaigning for re-election, is thought to have raised $3.1 million during the day he spent campaigning in New York.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-hDt2E8MoE

Hot Chip to headline Camp Bestival

Tom Goodwyn
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Hot Chip to headline Camp Bestival
Hot Chip will headline this year's Camp Bestival festival in Dorset. The electro band, who released their fourth album 'One Life Stand' in 2010, will headline the festival's opening night (July 27), with the event's other two headliners yet to be announced. Also confirmed to play the event are ...

Hot Chip will headline this year’s Camp Bestival festival in Dorset.

The electro band, who released their fourth album ‘One Life Stand’ in 2010, will headline the festival’s opening night (July 27), with the event’s other two headliners yet to be announced.

Also confirmed to play the event are Kool And The Gang, Adam Ant and his band The Good, The Mad & The Lovely Posse, Little Dragon, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Spector, Rizzle Kicks, Bellowhead and a host of others.

The event takes place at Lulworth Castle from July 27–29. See Campbestival.net for more information.

The line-up for Camp Bestival so far is as follows:

Hot Chip

Kool And The Gang

Chic with Nile Rodgers

The Earth, Wind And Fire Experience

Jimmy Cliff

Rizzle Kicks

Adam Ant & The Good, The Mad & The Lovely Posse

Little Dragon

Bellowhead

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs

The Cuban Brothers

The Japanese Popstars

Breakfast with Henry (Henry Rollins Spoken Word)

Lianne La Havas

Delilah

Spector

Stooshe

P Money

Youngman

Jaipur Kawa Brass Band

Dub Pistols

DJ Yoda & The Transiberian Marching Band

Jaipur Kawa Circus

Clement Marfo & The Frontline

Scroobius Pip

Random Impulse

Frankie Rose

Liz Green

3 Bonzos & A Piano

Prince Fatty

We Were Evergreen

2:54

Gabrielle Aplin

Pearl & The Beard

Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo

The Moonflowers

Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer

Duke Special

This Is The Kit

Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas

Michael Bonner
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Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas

His first studio album for eight years finds Cohen addressing waning physical powers and moral uncertainties... Once upon a time - as so many magical fantasies begin - there was a character called Leonard Cohen. He wrapped himself in the raiment of a poet, which turned out to be a role for which he was well equipped, blessed as he was with an imaginative, questing soul and a clever way with words. Leonard was a lucky fellow, for when poetry, allied to music, developed an hitherto unforeseen popularity in the 1960s, he was perfectly placed to capitalise upon that collusion. He had a voice, unusually low, that seemed to speak straight to the deepest hidden desires of women, in particular. Which was nice. And he was one of those particularly lucky fellows who, though not especially blessed with film-star good looks in his youth, matured like a fine wine or noble cheese, developing a winning handsomeness as he grew older. By the time he was in his Sixties, he had that kind of glowing charm, shared by such as Sean Connery and Jack Nicholson, that slayed all hearts that crossed his path. Lucky old Leonard! But of course, as with all magical fantasies, there is a downside, a price to be paid for being so abundantly blessed, and for our hero, it's the constriction that such an image places upon the inner man. Unlike most film and pop stars, Leonard Cohen has always displayed - if that's quite the right word - deeply introspective leanings that confound the usual showbiz mores. He was quite happy, until suffering the cruelest of financial mishaps, to spend his dotage meditating, shaven-headed, on a mountaintop. Forced back out onto the road to replenish his pension fund at an age when most are drawing theirs, he had to don the poet's raiment again, which in his case took the form of a stylish suit and raffish trilby. "I love to speak with Leonard, he's a sportsman and a shepherd, he's a lazy bastard living in a suit," is the sentiment which opens this first album in eight years, a typically wry, self-deprecating acknowledgement which in a few words sums up Cohen's indulgent good fortune, his spirituality, and his easy charm; but which also casts the shadow later illuminated in the same song, the self-knowledge that, for all the supposed wisdom of his words, he's "nothing but a brief elaboration of a tune", and for that matter, keen to discard "this costume that I wear". The song is called "Going Home", which is about as valedictory as it gets. It's a textbook Cohen slice of insightful resignation, tinged with regret, and delivered over the wistful electric piano and synthetic reeds that made I'm Your Man so lazily beguiling. It's a perfect opener for an album titled Old Ideas, which is itself a brilliant title for an album which pores over the passing and the past with such defiant, deadpan nobility. In "The Darkness", a track whose subdued, whiskery blues style and sentiment makes it sound like something from Dylan's Time Out Of Mind, Cohen confronts the inevitable with sanguine grace. "I've got no future, I know my days are few," he admits. "I thought the past would last me, but the darkness got that too." Ouch! So much, then, for posterity, even if he does try and dress the theme up in some of his characteristic obsessive-romantic erotic entendres later in the song. Set to the plaintive plunking of banjo and poignant wisps of violin over a reassuring bed of organ and cooing angels, the track "Amen" gives some idea of the Old Ideas involved here. Again, it's a rumination on deeper, darker matters delivered in the guise of a love song, the refrain "Tell me that you love me, Amen" punctuating a series of requests to "Tell me again..." that grow progressively bleaker as the song progresses: what kind of love song, for instance, includes a line like "...when the filth of the butcher is washed in the blood of the lamb"? Clearly, this is about love on a larger scale, about notions of ethics and morality being eroded away as if unnecessary for the future, as Cohen acknowledges with some asperity: "...when the victims are singing and the laws of remorse are restored". Continuing this theme, "Come Healing" is this album's most likely heir to "Hallelujah", a plea that the heavens might hear "the penitential hymn" and visit succour on both the heart and the mind, the body and the spirit. Although, given that "Hallelujah" was as much about triumphing over waning potency as it was about anything religious, "Show Me The Place" might be a more fitting successor. "Show me the place where you want your slave to go," sings Cohen, "show me I've forgotten I don't know." Again: Ouch! So much for the endurance of sexual desire, presented here and in "Anyhow" as a matter of self-abasement before a reluctant lover - both songs plodding along to a glum blend of organ and piano that perfectly straddles the fine line between pathos and bathos, between cabaret suavity and crushing ignominy. Elsewhere, "Lullaby" wafts languidly on an undulating guitar figure that's like the breathing of a deep sleeper; "Different Side" pulses trenchantly along as Cohen examines the wretched situation of an increasingly antagonistic couple who "find ourselves on different sides of a line nobody drew"; and "Banjo"uses quaintly antique dobro, horn and clarinet to evoke how the mysterious image of "a broken banjo bobbing on a dark infested sea" affects him. But it's "Crazy To Love You" that perhaps summarises Old Ideas most effectively: the thrumming acoustic guitar harks all the way back to his debut album whilst Cohen makes reference to "Tower Of Song" in confronting his waning powers. "I'm tired of choosing desire, I'm saved by a blessed fatigue," he admits. "But crazy has places to hide in that are deeper than any goodbye." Time to get back in the suit, Leonard. Andy Gill

His first studio album for eight years finds Cohen addressing waning physical powers and moral uncertainties…

Once upon a time – as so many magical fantasies begin – there was a character called Leonard Cohen. He wrapped himself in the raiment of a poet, which turned out to be a role for which he was well equipped, blessed as he was with an imaginative, questing soul and a clever way with words. Leonard was a lucky fellow, for when poetry, allied to music, developed an hitherto unforeseen popularity in the 1960s, he was perfectly placed to capitalise upon that collusion. He had a voice, unusually low, that seemed to speak straight to the deepest hidden desires of women, in particular. Which was nice. And he was one of those particularly lucky fellows who, though not especially blessed with film-star good looks in his youth, matured like a fine wine or noble cheese, developing a winning handsomeness as he grew older. By the time he was in his Sixties, he had that kind of glowing charm, shared by such as Sean Connery and Jack Nicholson, that slayed all hearts that crossed his path. Lucky old Leonard!

But of course, as with all magical fantasies, there is a downside, a price to be paid for being so abundantly blessed, and for our hero, it’s the constriction that such an image places upon the inner man. Unlike most film and pop stars, Leonard Cohen has always displayed – if that’s quite the right word – deeply introspective leanings that confound the usual showbiz mores. He was quite happy, until suffering the cruelest of financial mishaps, to spend his dotage meditating, shaven-headed, on a mountaintop. Forced back out onto the road to replenish his pension fund at an age when most are drawing theirs, he had to don the poet’s raiment again, which in his case took the form of a stylish suit and raffish trilby.

“I love to speak with Leonard, he’s a sportsman and a shepherd, he’s a lazy bastard living in a suit,” is the sentiment which opens this first album in eight years, a typically wry, self-deprecating acknowledgement which in a few words sums up Cohen’s indulgent good fortune, his spirituality, and his easy charm; but which also casts the shadow later illuminated in the same song, the self-knowledge that, for all the supposed wisdom of his words, he’s “nothing but a brief elaboration of a tune”, and for that matter, keen to discard “this costume that I wear”.

The song is called “Going Home“, which is about as valedictory as it gets. It’s a textbook Cohen slice of insightful resignation, tinged with regret, and delivered over the wistful electric piano and synthetic reeds that made I’m Your Man so lazily beguiling. It’s a perfect opener for an album titled Old Ideas, which is itself a brilliant title for an album which pores over the passing and the past with such defiant, deadpan nobility. In “The Darkness”, a track whose subdued, whiskery blues style and sentiment makes it sound like something from Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind, Cohen confronts the inevitable with sanguine grace. “I’ve got no future, I know my days are few,” he admits. “I thought the past would last me, but the darkness got that too.” Ouch! So much, then, for posterity, even if he does try and dress the theme up in some of his characteristic obsessive-romantic erotic entendres later in the song.

Set to the plaintive plunking of banjo and poignant wisps of violin over a reassuring bed of organ and cooing angels, the track “Amen” gives some idea of the Old Ideas involved here. Again, it’s a rumination on deeper, darker matters delivered in the guise of a love song, the refrain “Tell me that you love me, Amen” punctuating a series of requests to “Tell me again…” that grow progressively bleaker as the song progresses: what kind of love song, for instance, includes a line like “…when the filth of the butcher is washed in the blood of the lamb”? Clearly, this is about love on a larger scale, about notions of ethics and morality being eroded away as if unnecessary for the future, as Cohen acknowledges with some asperity: “…when the victims are singing and the laws of remorse are restored”.

Continuing this theme, “Come Healing” is this album’s most likely heir to “Hallelujah”, a plea that the heavens might hear “the penitential hymn” and visit succour on both the heart and the mind, the body and the spirit. Although, given that “Hallelujah” was as much about triumphing over waning potency as it was about anything religious, “Show Me The Place” might be a more fitting successor. “Show me the place where you want your slave to go,” sings Cohen, “show me I’ve forgotten I don’t know.” Again: Ouch! So much for the endurance of sexual desire, presented here and in “Anyhow” as a matter of self-abasement before a reluctant lover – both songs plodding along to a glum blend of organ and piano that perfectly straddles the fine line between pathos and bathos, between cabaret suavity and crushing ignominy.

Elsewhere, “Lullaby” wafts languidly on an undulating guitar figure that’s like the breathing of a deep sleeper; “Different Side” pulses trenchantly along as Cohen examines the wretched situation of an increasingly antagonistic couple who “find ourselves on different sides of a line nobody drew”; and “Banjo”uses quaintly antique dobro, horn and clarinet to evoke how the mysterious image of “a broken banjo bobbing on a dark infested sea” affects him. But it’s “Crazy To Love You” that perhaps summarises Old Ideas most effectively: the thrumming acoustic guitar harks all the way back to his debut album whilst Cohen makes reference to “Tower Of Song” in confronting his waning powers. “I’m tired of choosing desire, I’m saved by a blessed fatigue,” he admits. “But crazy has places to hide in that are deeper than any goodbye.”

Time to get back in the suit, Leonard.

Andy Gill

The National ‘wouldn’t have existed without REM’

Tom Pinnock
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0
The National ‘wouldn’t have existed without REM’

The National’s Bryce Dessner has revealed that the band wouldn’t have formed without REM. In the new issue of Uncut, in stores on January 31, the guitarist explains that the legacy of the Athens, Georgia band, especially the influence of singer Michael Stipe, has allowed groups like his to flourish. “For American musicians especially,” he says, ”they opened up a door in terms of what they symbolised. “They provided an alternative to the mainstream, especially Michael as a frontman. The National wouldn’t have existed if REM hadn’t." Dessner goes on to reveal that his most treasured REM album is 1986’s 'Lifes Rich Pageant'. For more of Bryce Dessner on the most important albums of his life, check out the new March issue of Uncut, out January 31.

The National’s Bryce Dessner has revealed that the band wouldn’t have formed without REM.

In the new issue of Uncut, in stores on January 31, the guitarist explains that the legacy of the Athens, Georgia band, especially the influence of singer Michael Stipe, has allowed groups like his to flourish.

“For American musicians especially,” he says, ”they opened up a door in terms of what they symbolised.

“They provided an alternative to the mainstream, especially Michael as a frontman. The National wouldn’t have existed if REM hadn’t.”

Dessner goes on to reveal that his most treasured REM album is 1986’s ‘Lifes Rich Pageant’.

For more of Bryce Dessner on the most important albums of his life, check out the new March issue of Uncut, out January 31.

Lubomyr Melnyk: “The Voice Of Trees”

John Mulvey
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0
Lubomyr Melnyk: “The Voice Of Trees”

Mildly annoying evening last night, as I watched the ecstatic tweets coming in from the Lubomyr Melnyk show at Café Oto, unable to be there myself. Comfort came from the Ukrainian pianist’s new album, “The Voice Of Trees”, which I think has been one of my favourite personal discoveries of the last month or two. Melnyk, I must confess, is a new name to me, though it transpires he’s been playing what he calls “continuous music” since the 1970s. .www.lubomyr.com is quite a treasure trove of information, claiming, “First there came Franz Lizst… then came LUBOMYR!”, and “probably the most unique piano music of the 20th Century ... demanding a new and stupendous mental/physical technique!” There is certainly an athletic intensity to Melnyk’s playing on the 65-minute continuous sprint of “The Voice Of Trees”, showcasing what his website again reveals to be a world record-holding technique: as the fastest pianist in the world (“sustaining speeds of over 19.5 notes per second in each hand, simultaneously); and for the most number of notes in one hour (93,650, apparently). All the stats make Melnyk seem like one of those musicians whose virtuosity somehow overwhelms their musicality. But listening to “The Voice Of Trees”, in which two cascading piano tracks share compositional space with three tubas, booming out like foghorns in a hailstorm, the awe at Melnyk’s technique soon subsides. What becomes dominant, then, is the sheer immersive, rapturous intensity of his music. I’m not entirely sure how to classify Melnyk’s music – I’ve seen allusions to post-classical, to sacred minimalism, neither of which remotely capture the kinetic and vivacious nature of what he does, here at least. What it does remind me of, though, (besides one reference to Charlemagne Palestine I spotted somewhere) might be the oceanic piano lines on the Boredoms’ “Seadrum”, that seemed similarly improbable. And also, I keep thinking of Terry Riley; not his solo piano pieces, since the ones I know tend to be rather stark and meditative. Instead, Melnyk’s playing seems to be recreating Riley’s time-lag accumulator in real time, a human loop station. Of course, if he had just artificially generated this velocity and density, the impact of the music would be just as powerful. Nevertheless, quite a backstory. I’ve just discovered he was on the Today programme this morning explaining his kung-fu technique.Listen here and let me know what you think. Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRMulvey

Mildly annoying evening last night, as I watched the ecstatic tweets coming in from the Lubomyr Melnyk show at Café Oto, unable to be there myself. Comfort came from the Ukrainian pianist’s new album, “The Voice Of Trees”, which I think has been one of my favourite personal discoveries of the last month or two.

Melnyk, I must confess, is a new name to me, though it transpires he’s been playing what he calls “continuous music” since the 1970s. .www.lubomyr.com is quite a treasure trove of information, claiming, “First there came Franz Lizst… then came LUBOMYR!”, and “probably the most unique piano music of the 20th Century … demanding a new and stupendous mental/physical technique!”

There is certainly an athletic intensity to Melnyk’s playing on the 65-minute continuous sprint of “The Voice Of Trees”, showcasing what his website again reveals to be a world record-holding technique: as the fastest pianist in the world (“sustaining speeds of over 19.5 notes per second in each hand, simultaneously); and for the most number of notes in one hour (93,650, apparently).

All the stats make Melnyk seem like one of those musicians whose virtuosity somehow overwhelms their musicality. But listening to “The Voice Of Trees”, in which two cascading piano tracks share compositional space with three tubas, booming out like foghorns in a hailstorm, the awe at Melnyk’s technique soon subsides.

What becomes dominant, then, is the sheer immersive, rapturous intensity of his music. I’m not entirely sure how to classify Melnyk’s music – I’ve seen allusions to post-classical, to sacred minimalism, neither of which remotely capture the kinetic and vivacious nature of what he does, here at least. What it does remind me of, though, (besides one reference to Charlemagne Palestine I spotted somewhere) might be the oceanic piano lines on the Boredoms’ “Seadrum”, that seemed similarly improbable.

And also, I keep thinking of Terry Riley; not his solo piano pieces, since the ones I know tend to be rather stark and meditative. Instead, Melnyk’s playing seems to be recreating Riley’s time-lag accumulator in real time, a human loop station.

Of course, if he had just artificially generated this velocity and density, the impact of the music would be just as powerful. Nevertheless, quite a backstory. I’ve just discovered he was on the Today programme this morning explaining his kung-fu technique.Listen here and let me know what you think.

Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRMulvey

Paul Simon: ‘I thought about putting political songs on ‘Graceland’, but I’m no good at them’

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Paul Simon: ‘I thought about putting political songs on ‘Graceland’, but I’m no good at them’
Paul Simon has spoken out about the making of his seminal 1986 album 'Graceland', in a new documentary film, Under African Skies. Directed by Joe Berlinger, the film documents the recording of the album, the political fall-out which ensued after Simon broke the United Nations' cultural boycott of...

Paul Simon has spoken out about the making of his seminal 1986 album ‘Graceland’, in a new documentary film, Under African Skies.

Directed by Joe Berlinger, the film documents the recording of the album, the political fall-out which ensued after Simon broke the United Nations’ cultural boycott of South Africa and the 1987 Graceland world tour as well as last year’s 25th anniversary concert.

In the film, Paul Simon explains that he thought about putting songs on the album which referenced apartheid and the racial tensions in South Africa at the time of recording, but that he decided against it. He said: “I thought about writing political songs about the situation, but I’m not actually very good at it.” He added of the South African musicians he worked with on the album: “They didn’t say ‘come and tell our story'”.

Paul Simon went on to explain that he was “unprepared” for the atmosphere in South Africa when he went there to record and later added that he “wasn’t comfortable there”.

Lambasted for breaking the UN boycott by the Artists Against Apartheid organisation and by a number of commentators who accused him of being a cultural tourist after the album’s release, he said in the film that the “intensity of the criticism really did surprise me.”

Paul McCartney also features in the film to comment on the album’s negative reaction, saying: “Its always an interesting debate – its happened through history, particularly black history… With The Beatles, we recycled American black music to Americans. We were doing a lot of Motown and a lot of American white kids hadn’t heard Motown.”

Paul Simon also explained that he made the album in the wake of the “relative failure” of his 1983 album Hearts and Bones, which allowed him a certain amount of creative freedom. He said there was no-one “looking over my shoulder… I can do whatever I want and I’m not going to be getting calls from the record company every week.”

‘Graceland’ will be reissused this Spring in a commemorative edition deluxe collector’s box set as well as a two-disc set. Both feature the original album, bonus tracks and the director’s cut of Under African Skies.

Paul Simon is set to take ‘Graceland’ on the road later this year, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 1987 tour of the album. Dates are yet to be announced.

Michael Stipe calls YouTube ‘disgraceful’ over removal of Perfume Genius clip

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Michael Stipe calls YouTube ‘disgraceful’ over removal of Perfume Genius clip

Former REM frontman Michael Stipe has described the managers of YouTube as ''disgraceful and cowardly'' after they removed a clip which has been made by the singer Perfume Genius. The video, which advertised the new Perfume Genius album 'Put Your Back N 2 It', has been taken down from YouTube for apparently violating the site's 'adult image policy'. The 16 second clip featured Perfume Genius, otherwise known as Mike Hadreas, embracing gay porn star Arpad Miklos, in shots taken from the video to the song 'Hood'. YouTube took the video down after saying that it "promoted mature sexual themes". Stipe, writing on his blog Confessionsofamichaelstipe.tumblr.com, hit out at the site's decision to take the clip down, which he described as "dumbheaded discrimination". He wrote: "I've been listening to the new Perfume Genius record. It is a beautiful and amazing record and a stunning 2nd album and achievement. But in trying to advertise the record and first video, this short clip has been banned by YouTube. For YouTube to deem this advertisement as "non family safe" is dumbheaded discrimination; I find their actions in doing so disgraceful and cowardly. YouTube, shame on you. You were born of the 21st Century, now act like it." YouTube sent to following message to Perfume Genius' record label Matador after taking down the video: "The ad has been disapproved because it violates our Adult Image/Video Content policy. Per this policy, video content, audio, static imagery, and site content must be family safe." "Any ads that contain non family safe material are disapproved. I noted to the team that the people in the video are not entirely unclothed, but the overall feeling of the video is one of a more adult nature, including promoting mature sexual themes and what appears to be nude content." Matador's Nils Bernsetin added: "I should note that this isn’t a user-uploaded video - the music video itself is on YouTube and not even flagged as 'adult' - this is what’s called a "pre-roll" ad, those annoying ads that we pay YouTube to run before videos you want to watch. So it seems they're worried about upsetting unsuspecting viewers that don’t want to see two men looking romantically at each other." 'Put Your Back N 2 It' is released on February 20.

Former REM frontman Michael Stipe has described the managers of YouTube as ”disgraceful and cowardly” after they removed a clip which has been made by the singer Perfume Genius.

The video, which advertised the new Perfume Genius album ‘Put Your Back N 2 It’, has been taken down from YouTube for apparently violating the site’s ‘adult image policy’.

The 16 second clip featured Perfume Genius, otherwise known as Mike Hadreas, embracing gay porn star Arpad Miklos, in shots taken from the video to the song ‘Hood’. YouTube took the video down after saying that it “promoted mature sexual themes”.

Stipe, writing on his blog Confessionsofamichaelstipe.tumblr.com, hit out at the site’s decision to take the clip down, which he described as “dumbheaded discrimination”.

He wrote: “I’ve been listening to the new Perfume Genius record. It is a beautiful and amazing record and a stunning 2nd album and achievement. But in trying to advertise the record and first video, this short clip has been banned by YouTube. For YouTube to deem this advertisement as “non family safe” is dumbheaded discrimination; I find their actions in doing so disgraceful and cowardly. YouTube, shame on you. You were born of the 21st Century, now act like it.”

YouTube sent to following message to Perfume Genius‘ record label Matador after taking down the video: “The ad has been disapproved because it violates our Adult Image/Video Content policy. Per this policy, video content, audio, static imagery, and site content must be family safe.”

“Any ads that contain non family safe material are disapproved. I noted to the team that the people in the video are not entirely unclothed, but the overall feeling of the video is one of a more adult nature, including promoting mature sexual themes and what appears to be nude content.”

Matador’s Nils Bernsetin added: “I should note that this isn’t a user-uploaded video – the music video itself is on YouTube and not even flagged as ‘adult’ – this is what’s called a “pre-roll” ad, those annoying ads that we pay YouTube to run before videos you want to watch. So it seems they’re worried about upsetting unsuspecting viewers that don’t want to see two men looking romantically at each other.”

‘Put Your Back N 2 It’ is released on February 20.

Perfume Genius ad from nils bernstein on Vimeo.

Etta James album sales increase by 378% after her death

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Etta James album sales increase by 378% after her death

Sales of Etta James' back catalogue have increased by 378% since she passed away last week. James passed away last Friday (January 20) at the age of 73. She had been suffering from terminal leukemia, kidney disease, hepatitis C and dementia. According to Billboard, James has posthumously scored her highest ever chart position with her 'Best Of' compilation 'The Best of Etta James - 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection', which rose from Number 162 to Number 46 on the US Billboard chart. Overall sales of James' albums numbered at just over 30,000 copies, which marked a 378% increase from the previous week, when sales of all her albums was just over 6,000. The singer's biggest hit 'At Last' has also shifted over 63,000 downloads in the last week, out of a total of 118,000 downloads of James' tracks. Etta James' funeral is set to take place this Saturday, January 28, in Gardena, Los Angeles.

Sales of Etta James‘ back catalogue have increased by 378% since she passed away last week.

James passed away last Friday (January 20) at the age of 73. She had been suffering from terminal leukemia, kidney disease, hepatitis C and dementia.

According to Billboard, James has posthumously scored her highest ever chart position with her ‘Best Of’ compilation ‘The Best of Etta James – 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection’, which rose from Number 162 to Number 46 on the US Billboard chart.

Overall sales of James’ albums numbered at just over 30,000 copies, which marked a 378% increase from the previous week, when sales of all her albums was just over 6,000.

The singer’s biggest hit ‘At Last’ has also shifted over 63,000 downloads in the last week, out of a total of 118,000 downloads of James’ tracks.

Etta James’ funeral is set to take place this Saturday, January 28, in Gardena, Los Angeles.

New Order, The Horrors added to Benicassim 2012 bill

Tom Goodwyn
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0
New Order, The Horrors added to Benicassim 2012 bill
New Order and The Horrors have been added to the bill for this summer's Benicassim festival. The bands join The Stone Roses and Florence And The Machine at the event, with the 'Ceremonials' singer and reunited band already confirmed to headline the festival, which runs from July 12-15 next summer...

New Order and The Horrors have been added to the bill for this summer’s Benicassim festival.

The bands join The Stone Roses and Florence And The Machine at the event, with the ‘Ceremonials’ singer and reunited band already confirmed to headline the festival, which runs from July 12-15 next summer.

Also added to the Spanish event’s line-up are Katy B, Crystal Castles, Example, Spector and Thee Brandy Hips. They join Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Bombay Bicycle Club and Miles Kane, who were added earlier this week.

This is the first European festival appearance New Order have confirmed since they reformed last year and it seems to suggest that the band will be touring the European festival circuit during the summer.

Four day tickets for Benicassim , which are priced at €165, are available from Fiberfib.com.

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

The Stone Roses

Florence And The Machine

Crystal Castles

The Vaccines

Katy B

Spector

Example

The Horrors

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Miles Kane

Bombay Bicycle Club

New Order

Cooper

Deparment S

Thee Brandy Hips

Los Tiki Phantoms

Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon to play tiny London club show

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon to play tiny London club show
Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon is set to play a tiny London club show with her new musical project, Body/Head. Collaborating with 'free-noise' guitarist, Bill Nace, the pair will play London's Café Oto on February 22. Body/Head is an improv based duo, inspired by Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd and filmmak...

Sonic Youth‘s Kim Gordon is set to play a tiny London club show with her new musical project, Body/Head.

Collaborating with ‘free-noise’ guitarist, Bill Nace, the pair will play London’s Café Oto on February 22. Body/Head is an improv based duo, inspired by Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd and filmmaker Catherine Breillat.

Last year Sonic Youth‘s Lee Ranaldo revealed that Sonic Youth have played their “last shows for a while” and admitted he didn’t know what the future held for them.

In October, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore announced they were separating after 27 years of marriage and sparked rumours that the band could split up, with their label Matador Records admitting they were “uncertain” of their future plans.

Then Ranaldo, who releases his ninth solo LP ‘Between The Times And The Tides’ on March 20, told Rolling Stone that he does not believe the band will play together again anytime soon.

The guitarist went on to add: “I’m feeling optimistic about the future no matter what happens at this point. I mean, every band runs its course.”

He continued: “We’ve been together way longer than any of us ever imagined would happen and it’s been for the most part an incredibly pleasurable ride. There’s still a lot of stuff we’re going to continue to do.”

Sonic Youth released their 16th studio album, ‘The Eternal’, in 2009.

The Flaming Lips post clips from Record Store Day collaboration album online

Tom Goodwyn
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0
The Flaming Lips post clips from Record Store Day collaboration album online
The Flaming Lips have posted up audio of their forthcoming collaborative LP with Bon Iver and Yoko Ono online. Frontman Wayne Coyne took to Twitter to upload his collaboration with the former. He wrote: "Yes! Bon Iver track is coming along!" Other collaborations on the record, which is due for ...

The Flaming Lips have posted up audio of their forthcoming collaborative LP with Bon Iver and Yoko Ono online.

Frontman Wayne Coyne took to Twitter to upload his collaboration with the former. He wrote: “Yes! Bon Iver track is coming along!”

Other collaborations on the record, which is due for release for Record Store Day on April 21, include Nick Cave, Ke$ha, Lykke Li and Erykah Badu.

Speaking about the collaborators, the singer previously said: “All these things happen within a couple of days. You set up these [collaborations] in your mind and immediately get to work. Sometimes it just takes a matter of connecting.”

The frontman had previously made his desire to work with both Ke$ha and Lykke Li public last October, and also spoke of the Flaming Lips’ collaboration with Nick Cave,

Last year, The Flaming Lips released a 24-hour long track to coincide with Halloween. The song, titled ‘7 Skies H3’, was embedded in a hard drive inside 13 actual human skulls topped with chrome drips – and was available to buy for a cool $5,000 (£3,100) a pop.

Paul McCartney: ‘Stevie Wonder is a genius’

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Paul McCartney: ‘Stevie Wonder is a genius’
Paul McCartney has spoken about working with Stevie Wonder on his new album 'Kisses On The Bottom', 30 years after the pair collaborated on the Number One song 'Ebony and Ivory'. The pair join forces once again on new track, 'Only Our Hearts', which is one of only two new McCartney songs on the r...

Paul McCartney has spoken about working with Stevie Wonder on his new album ‘Kisses On The Bottom’, 30 years after the pair collaborated on the Number One song ‘Ebony and Ivory’.

The pair join forces once again on new track, ‘Only Our Hearts’, which is one of only two new McCartney songs on the record.

Of working with Wonder at Los Angeles’ Capitol Studio, McCartney said: “Stevie came along to the studio in LA and he listened to the track for about ten minutes and he totally got it. He just went to the mic and within 20 minutes had nailed this dynamite solo. When you listen you just think, ‘How do you come up with that?’ But it’s just because he is a genius, that’s why.”

Paul McCartney‘s new album, ‘Kisses On The Bottom’, is out on February 6. Eric Clapton features on the album’s other new song ‘My Valentine’.

‘Kisses On The Bottom’ is a collection of standards McCartney grew up listening to in his childhood as well as the two new McCartney compositions mentioned above. The album was produced by Grammy Award-winning Tommy LiPuma and also features Diana Krall and her band.

Disney stop selling their Joy Division-inspired Mickey Mouse shirt

Tom Goodwyn
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Disney stop selling their Joy Division-inspired Mickey Mouse shirt

Disney's Joy Division inspired Mickey Mouse t-shirt has been withdrawn from sale. Pitchfork reports that a representative from Disney has said: "As soon as we became aware there could be an issue, we pulled it from our shelves and our online store to review the situation further." Peter Hook recently spoke to NME to say that he felt it was "quite a compliment" that Disney used Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures' artwork in the Mickey Mouse item of clothing. The former bassist with New Order suggested that the garment was a "tongue in cheek compliment" to the defunct band. The T-shirt features the classic image of a pulsar, which was originally taken from the Cambridge Encyclopedia Of Astronomy. It was chosen by the band's guitarist Bernard Sumner, with help from graphic designer Peter Saville. Speaking to NME, Hook also confirmed that he had not given permission for Disney to use the image, adding that it was a legal grey area. "From a legal point of view, the image is in the public domain, as Disney know and, in a funny way, it's quite a compliment for a huge conglomerate like Disney to pick up on a poor little Manchester band that only existed for a couple of years, it's quite startling," he commented. "I'm amazed they're that hard up that they need to prey on little indie bands, but I get the feeling that someone may have done it as a tongue in cheek compliment." Hook continued: "I must admit, over the years I've become used to Mickey Mouse T-shirts, especially where Joy Division are concerned, because it was something that we never bothered with early on in our career and we've never attached much importance to that side of things actually. I'm used to bootleggers." The bassist added that though he spends a chunk of his time "policing" Joy Division bootlegs, all he usually required was that wannabe bootleggers made a contribution to an Epilepsy charity in memory of Ian Curtis, and called on Disney to do the same. The T-shirt was priced at $24.99 but can no longer be purchased from the Disney store.

Disney’s Joy Division inspired Mickey Mouse t-shirt has been withdrawn from sale.

Pitchfork reports that a representative from Disney has said: “As soon as we became aware there could be an issue, we pulled it from our shelves and our online store to review the situation further.”

Peter Hook recently spoke to NME to say that he felt it was “quite a compliment” that Disney used Joy Division‘s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ artwork in the Mickey Mouse item of clothing. The former bassist with New Order suggested that the garment was a “tongue in cheek compliment” to the defunct band.

The T-shirt features the classic image of a pulsar, which was originally taken from the Cambridge Encyclopedia Of Astronomy. It was chosen by the band’s guitarist Bernard Sumner, with help from graphic designer Peter Saville.

Speaking to NME, Hook also confirmed that he had not given permission for Disney to use the image, adding that it was a legal grey area. “From a legal point of view, the image is in the public domain, as Disney know and, in a funny way, it’s quite a compliment for a huge conglomerate like Disney to pick up on a poor little Manchester band that only existed for a couple of years, it’s quite startling,” he commented. “I’m amazed they’re that hard up that they need to prey on little indie bands, but I get the feeling that someone may have done it as a tongue in cheek compliment.”

Hook continued: “I must admit, over the years I’ve become used to Mickey Mouse T-shirts, especially where Joy Division are concerned, because it was something that we never bothered with early on in our career and we’ve never attached much importance to that side of things actually. I’m used to bootleggers.”

The bassist added that though he spends a chunk of his time “policing” Joy Division bootlegs, all he usually required was that wannabe bootleggers made a contribution to an Epilepsy charity in memory of Ian Curtis, and called on Disney to do the same.

The T-shirt was priced at $24.99 but can no longer be purchased from the Disney store.

The Fourth Uncut Playlist Of 2012

John Mulvey
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The Fourth Uncut Playlist Of 2012

A long list this week, reflecting perhaps a certain current fixation on the work of Julia Holter and Elephant Micah. Couple of other notes. Lubomyr Melnyk is purportedly the world’s fastest pianist, and is playing tonight at Café Oto: wish I could be there. And Lightships is the solo album by Gerard Love from Teenage Fanclub that he seems to have been loosely promising for the best part of two decades. That one’s just arrived, and I need to play it some more. 1 Disappears – Pre Language (Kranky) 2 Elephant Micah – Louder Than Thou (Product Of Palmyra) 3 Grimes – Visions (4AD) 4 Richard James – Pictures In The Morning (Gwymon) 5 Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch – Concerning The Entrance Into Eternity (Important) 6 James Blackshaw – Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death (Important) 7 Orbital – Wonky (?) 8 Michael Kiwanuka – Home Again (Polydor) 9 Julia Holter – Ekstasis (RVNG INTL) 10 Julia Holter – Tragedy (Leaving) 11 Elephant Micah – Echoer's Intent (Product Of Palmyra) 12 Black Dice – Mr Impossible (Domino) 13 Matthew Bourne – The Montauk Variations (Leaf) 14 Oren Ambarchi – Audience of One (Touch) 15 Various Artists – Tally Ho: Flying Nun’s Greatest Bits (Flying Nun) 16 Lubomyr Melnyk – The Voice of Trees (Hinterzimmer) 17 Robert Turman – Flux (Spectrum Spools) 18 The Dirty Three – Toward The Low Sun (Bella Union) 19 WhoMadeWho – Brighter (Kompakt) 20 Esperanza Spalding – Radio Music Society (Decca) 21 Lightships – Electric Cables (Geographic) Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRMulvey

A long list this week, reflecting perhaps a certain current fixation on the work of Julia Holter and Elephant Micah.

Couple of other notes. Lubomyr Melnyk is purportedly the world’s fastest pianist, and is playing tonight at Café Oto: wish I could be there. And Lightships is the solo album by Gerard Love from Teenage Fanclub that he seems to have been loosely promising for the best part of two decades. That one’s just arrived, and I need to play it some more.

1 Disappears – Pre Language (Kranky)

2 Elephant Micah – Louder Than Thou (Product Of Palmyra)

3 Grimes – Visions (4AD)

4 Richard James – Pictures In The Morning (Gwymon)

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

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

7 Orbital – Wonky (?)

8 Michael Kiwanuka – Home Again (Polydor)

9 Julia Holter – Ekstasis (RVNG INTL)

10 Julia Holter – Tragedy (Leaving)

11 Elephant Micah – Echoer’s Intent (Product Of Palmyra)

12 Black Dice – Mr Impossible (Domino)

13 Matthew Bourne – The Montauk Variations (Leaf)

14 Oren Ambarchi – Audience of One (Touch)

15 Various Artists – Tally Ho: Flying Nun’s Greatest Bits (Flying Nun)

16 Lubomyr Melnyk – The Voice of Trees (Hinterzimmer)

17 Robert Turman – Flux (Spectrum Spools)

18 The Dirty Three – Toward The Low Sun (Bella Union)

19 WhoMadeWho – Brighter (Kompakt)

20 Esperanza Spalding – Radio Music Society (Decca)

21 Lightships – Electric Cables (Geographic)

Follow me on Twitter: @JohnRMulvey

Johnny Cash – Bootleg Vol.3: Live Around The World

Michael Bonner
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Johnny Cash – Bootleg Vol.3: Live Around The World

The man in black takes it to the masses across three decades and two CDs... There’s a fair argument to say Johnny Cash was a performer first and a recording artist second. Notwithstanding that fine Indian summer with Rick Rubin, he was never quite as vivid in the studio as he was before a live audience. A fact borne out by this third instalment in the bootleg series, which bolts together various shows, most of them unreleased, from 1956 to ’79. As such it offers a fascinating cultural timelock of post-war American history, with Cash stage centre as we witness firsthand the onrush of rock’n’roll and Elvis, the ‘60s folk boom and age of protest, Vietnam, Nixon and beyond. It all begins at the Big ‘D’ Jamboree in Dallas, where a rousing “I Walk The Line” is so fresh that Cash prefaces it with “here’s our latest on Sun”. The ‘50s and early ‘60s performances find him and the band in playful, rambunctious mode, untamed and engaged, tossing out asides and jokey parodies of Ernest Tubb and Presley. By the time Pete Seeger introduces him at Newport Folk in ’64, Cash is marginally more serious, spreading the word on new pal Bob Dylan and delivering stentorian takes of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” and “The Ballad Of Ira Hayes”. Disc One ends on a roar, with Cash, wife June Carter and Carl Perkins heading out to Southeast Asia in between Folsom Prison and San Quentin gigs to deliver a highly animated set for US troops. “Big River” and “Daddy Sang Bass” are pick of the bunch, all scalding guitar twang, big harmonies and oodles of yee-haw. Nixon’s windy intro to the White House show of April 1970 pays tribute to Jim Lovell and the Apollo 13 crew, who’d just made it home, before Cash settles into a sombre set of mainly religious songs. It’s a theme extended across the rest of CD Two, with stripped renditions of “Ragged Old Flag” and “One Piece At A Time” from the Carter Family Fold in Virginia six years later. The sound quality may sometimes vary, but Bootleg Vol.3 is a visceral portrait of a man making sense of both himself and his times. Rob Hughes

The man in black takes it to the masses across three decades and two CDs…

There’s a fair argument to say Johnny Cash was a performer first and a recording artist second. Notwithstanding that fine Indian summer with Rick Rubin, he was never quite as vivid in the studio as he was before a live audience. A fact borne out by this third instalment in the bootleg series, which bolts together various shows, most of them unreleased, from 1956 to ’79. As such it offers a fascinating cultural timelock of post-war American history, with Cash stage centre as we witness firsthand the onrush of rock’n’roll and Elvis, the ‘60s folk boom and age of protest, Vietnam, Nixon and beyond.

It all begins at the Big ‘D’ Jamboree in Dallas, where a rousing “I Walk The Line” is so fresh that Cash prefaces it with “here’s our latest on Sun”. The ‘50s and early ‘60s performances find him and the band in playful, rambunctious mode, untamed and engaged, tossing out asides and jokey parodies of Ernest Tubb and Presley. By the time Pete Seeger introduces him at Newport Folk in ’64, Cash is marginally more serious, spreading the word on new pal Bob Dylan and delivering stentorian takes of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” and “The Ballad Of Ira Hayes”.

Disc One ends on a roar, with Cash, wife June Carter and Carl Perkins heading out to Southeast Asia in between Folsom Prison and San Quentin gigs to deliver a highly animated set for US troops. “Big River” and “Daddy Sang Bass” are pick of the bunch, all scalding guitar twang, big harmonies and oodles of yee-haw.

Nixon’s windy intro to the White House show of April 1970 pays tribute to Jim Lovell and the Apollo 13 crew, who’d just made it home, before Cash settles into a sombre set of mainly religious songs. It’s a theme extended across the rest of CD Two, with stripped renditions of “Ragged Old Flag” and “One Piece At A Time” from the Carter Family Fold in Virginia six years later.

The sound quality may sometimes vary, but Bootleg Vol.3 is a visceral portrait of a man making sense of both himself and his times.

Rob Hughes

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