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The Who – The Who Sell Out

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The Who – The Who Sell Out

For those who’ve let it slip under their radar, 'The Who Sell Out' is all these: An unlikely amalgam of belting songs, real radio jingles, fake adverts and a proto-opera… Something that could have been a hideous mess, but instead is a wonderfully strange, strangely wonderful minor master-piece... A last hurrah for, and fond farewell to, the UK Pop Art scene, and to the pirate radio stations closed down in the summer of ’67 by Tony Benn... Unlike anything in British rock before or since... The band’s bridge between parochial power pop and global stadium rock. But most astonishing of all is how the record emerged at all, never mind in its unique form. In the middle months of ’67 The Who were adrift. In a UK left reeling by Sgt Pepper, they were snootily regarded as a singles band. Despite the hits, they were still not filling megadomes; in the run-up to this LP, The Who played Granada cinemas in Walthamstow, Kettering and Maidstone. In America, they’d performed at Monterey (their set was later described by Eric Burdon as “a monster... brutality... rape”), but their theatrical thunder had been stolen by Track labelmate Jimi Hendrix. And Pete Townshend (still months away from the calming influence of marriage to Karen Astley and the discovery of Meher Baba) was growing increasingly irascible and directionless. In the prevailing atmosphere, Townshend might have been expected to jump aboard the psychedelic train that was then at full steam. But he’d already slagged off both The Beatles’ groundbreaking “Strawberry Fields Forever” and the evident brilliance of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. When …Sell Out’s own psych opus, “I Can See For Miles”, didn’t top the UK charts, he snarled, “To me it was the ultimate Who record... I spat on the British record buyer.” Equally, the influence of Hendrix had proved a double-edged sword. Pete switched to a Fender Stratocaster and his playing became wilder, more free. But he was also cowed by the sheer genius of the American, and his songwriting took on a quieter, introspective bent. Thus, when he returned to London in the middle of a US summer tour (with Herman’s Hermits!), Townshend found co-manager Chris Stamp preparing to release a hotchpotch comprised of vaguely psychedelic rockers and archetypical Who character vignettes. “Cheesy” was how the guitarist later described the proposed slop of material, some of it substandard. More songs would need to be recorded for sure, and there also ensued a frantic brainstorm, as guitarist and manager sought to find something that would give the album an angle, a focus, a point of difference. The offshore radio stations had just been closed down (to be replaced by the white bread bonhomie of Radio 1). They decided to try and make the record sound like a pirate broadcast; the original jingles of Radio London – which broadcast from an ex-US navy minesweeper moored just off Frinton-on-Sea – were sought and used; the original American makers of the jingles would eventually sue the band. The Who had also recently made some commercials for Coca-Cola; now the group would create a bunch of fake promos (John Entwistle and Keith Moon composed most of them in the boozer) to add to the whole thing’s sense of manic ingenuity. Even after four decades of familiarity, the jingles and ads are still amazing, rendering the record both more in touch with the real, commercial, world in which music is made, and simultaneously completely at odds with the arty aloofness of the music biz itself. Still things didn’t run smoothly; that wasn’t The Who way. John Entwistle broke a finger punching a dressing-room wall; Keith Moon suffered a hernia; Roger Daltrey – required for the now-classic sleeve to sit for hours in a bath of baked beans – got pneumonia. And The Who’s recording sessions (unlike those of, say, The Beatles) were haphazard affairs, done here and there, all over the place. The mini-opera “Rael” (itself the blueprint for several parts of Tommy) had to be recorded twice, on two different continents, after the first lot of tapes were thrown into a dumpster by a studio cleaner. And the Track Records ad that finishes the second side was recorded over the phone, Moon and Entwistle crooning it from a nearby public bar. This definitive two-disc edition – crammed with try-outs, outtakes and discards, some of them brilliant (“Glittering Girl”, “Jaguar”) – perfectly and finally captures that creative chaos. In the end, though, Townshend’s wonderful songs (“I Can See For Miles”, “Our Love Was”, “I Can’t Reach You”, “Relax” and the rest), and the band’s sheer exuberance, overcame all obstacles. The Who went on to make more important records (Live At Leeds, Tommy) and better records (Who’s Next, Quadrophenia). But, as this package joyously proves, they never made anything more entertaining or endearing. DANNY KELLY For more album reviews, click here for the UNCUT music archive

For those who’ve let it slip under their radar, ‘The Who Sell Out’ is all these: An unlikely amalgam of belting songs, real radio jingles, fake adverts and a proto-opera… Something that could have been a hideous mess, but instead is a wonderfully strange, strangely wonderful minor master-piece… A last hurrah for, and fond farewell to, the UK Pop Art scene, and to the pirate radio stations closed down in the summer of ’67 by Tony Benn… Unlike anything in British rock before or since… The band’s bridge between parochial power pop and global stadium rock. But most astonishing of all is how the record emerged at all, never mind in its unique form.

In the middle months of ’67 The Who were adrift. In a UK left reeling by Sgt Pepper, they were snootily regarded as a singles band. Despite the hits, they were still not filling megadomes; in the run-up to this LP, The Who played Granada cinemas in Walthamstow, Kettering and Maidstone. In America, they’d performed at Monterey (their set was later described by Eric Burdon as “a monster… brutality… rape”), but their theatrical thunder had been stolen by Track labelmate Jimi Hendrix. And Pete Townshend (still months away from the calming influence of marriage to Karen Astley and the discovery of Meher Baba) was growing increasingly irascible and directionless.

In the prevailing atmosphere, Townshend might have been expected to jump aboard the psychedelic train that was then at full steam. But he’d already slagged off both The Beatles’ groundbreaking “Strawberry Fields Forever” and the evident brilliance of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. When …Sell Out’s own psych opus, “I Can See For Miles”, didn’t top the UK charts, he snarled, “To me it was the ultimate Who record… I spat on the British record buyer.” Equally, the influence of Hendrix had proved a double-edged sword. Pete switched to a Fender Stratocaster and his playing became wilder, more free. But he was also cowed by the sheer genius of the American, and his songwriting took on a quieter, introspective bent.

Thus, when he returned to London in the middle of a US summer tour (with Herman’s Hermits!), Townshend found co-manager Chris Stamp preparing to release a hotchpotch comprised of vaguely psychedelic rockers and archetypical Who character vignettes. “Cheesy” was how the guitarist later described the proposed slop of material, some of it substandard. More songs would need to be recorded for sure, and there also ensued a frantic brainstorm, as guitarist and manager sought to find something that would give the album an angle, a focus, a point of difference.

The offshore radio stations had just been closed down (to be replaced by the white bread bonhomie of Radio 1). They decided to try and make the record sound like a pirate broadcast; the original jingles of Radio London – which broadcast from an ex-US navy minesweeper moored just off Frinton-on-Sea – were sought and used; the original American makers of the jingles would eventually sue the band. The Who had also recently made some commercials for Coca-Cola; now the group would create a bunch of fake promos (John Entwistle and Keith Moon composed most of them in the boozer) to add to the whole thing’s sense of manic ingenuity. Even after four decades of familiarity, the jingles and ads are still amazing, rendering the record both more in touch with the real, commercial, world in which music is made, and simultaneously completely at odds with the arty aloofness of the music biz itself.

Still things didn’t run smoothly; that wasn’t The Who way. John Entwistle broke a finger punching a dressing-room wall; Keith Moon suffered a hernia; Roger Daltrey – required for the now-classic sleeve to sit for hours in a bath of baked beans – got pneumonia. And The Who’s recording sessions (unlike those of, say, The Beatles) were haphazard affairs, done here and there, all over the place. The mini-opera “Rael” (itself the blueprint for several parts of Tommy) had to be recorded twice, on two different continents, after the first lot of tapes were thrown into a dumpster by a studio cleaner. And the Track Records ad that finishes the second side was recorded over the phone, Moon and Entwistle crooning it from a nearby public bar. This definitive two-disc edition – crammed with try-outs, outtakes and discards, some of them brilliant (“Glittering Girl”, “Jaguar”) – perfectly and finally captures that creative chaos.

In the end, though, Townshend’s wonderful songs (“I Can See For Miles”, “Our Love Was”, “I Can’t Reach You”, “Relax” and the rest), and the band’s sheer exuberance, overcame all obstacles. The Who went on to make more important records (Live At Leeds, Tommy) and better records (Who’s Next, Quadrophenia). But, as this package joyously proves, they never made anything more entertaining or endearing.

DANNY KELLY

For more album reviews, click here for the UNCUT music archive

Marianne Faithfull – Easy Come, Easy Go

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Marianne Faithfull – Easy Come, Easy Go

You could listen for a long time to Marianne Faithfull singing “Down From Dover” before you identified the author of the song. As Faithfull delivers it, “Dover” is a maudlin thing, slightly soulful, and faintly funky in a Southern way. Leave the voice out of it, and it sounds like a companion piece to “Ode To Billy Joe”, though Faithfull and Bobbie Gentry are not easily confused. Structurally, “Down From Dover” is a song without a chorus, and a verse which is ominous to the point of being literally dreadful. So, even before Faithfull reaches the part of the narrative in which the singer reveals the stillbirth of a baby fathered by an absent, careless father, the dire outcome of the lyric is never in doubt. It is a story that’s always going to end badly. Who would give life to a song this black, this hopeless? You might guess Nick Cave. But “Down From Dover” was written by Dolly Parton. And that, really, is what Hal Willner does. As a producer, he’s noted for his extravagantly realised tribute albums, in which unsuitable artists remake the music of improbable songwriters. When this process works, as it mostly does, the negatives cancel each other out, and the song is reborn. Of course, Faithfull and Willner go back a long way. The singer and the producer first met in 1982, and Willner manned the desk on two of her best records, Blazing Away and Strange Weather. Willner understands – perhaps better than the singer herself – how to get the best out of Faithfull. This is a matter of direction as much as production. Again, there’s an element of counter-intuitiveness in play, since Faithfull is nobody’s idea of a technically gifted singer. Bluntly, her voice is wrecked, but rather than shy away from this, Willner makes a virtue of it. Faithfull’s voice is a tough muscle, harder than it is pretty. It doesn’t really matter how it got that way, whether through cigarettes or whisky or cocaine: the sound it makes now is one of endurance and strength. It’s stoneground, and oddly harsh for a woman. Easy Come Easy Go is a sequel of sorts to Strange Weather. It is a covers album in which the predictable choices (in thrall to Billie Holiday on “Solitude”, Sarah Vaughan on “Black Coffee”, or duetting with a heavy-breathing Jarvis Cocker on “Somewhere”), are outnumbered by the shocks. “Dear God, Please Help Me” really is the Morrissey song, but Faithfull delivers it as a hymn to decrepitude without any of the author’s archness. (Apparently, Lou Reed suggested it, which is almost too much information.) Yes, “Hold On, Hold On” is the Neko Case song, and Chan Marshall does a lovely job on harmonies, but the ’60s twang of the original is pulled into a new shape by the psychedelic droning of Sean Lennon and Barry Reynolds’ guitars and Warren Ellis’ ritual torture of the electric violin (Willner calls his solo “Hendrix meets Alice Coltrane”). The eerie sensation you get on listening to “How Many Worlds” is only partly explained by the dawning realisation that this actually is the Brian Eno song, albeit delivered in a spirit of blatant disregard for the ambient rhyming of the original. And there’s a lovely moment when Faithfull’s forceful retooling of the traditional “Kimbie” (much more Mark Lanegan than it is Nick Drake) fades into a verse of “I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground” (which Willner previously revisited on his tribute to Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music.) It’s an extravagantly orchestrated set, but with Marc Ribot as lead guitarist and the Dirty Three’s Jim White on drums, the playing remains off-kilter, to quite thrilling effect. True, there are moments when Willner overreaches with his urge to subvert, notably on Smokey Robinson’s “Ooh Baby Baby”: Steven Bernstein’s arrangement comes over all Barry White, with Ribot’s wah-wah pedal indulging a previously suppressed love of blaxploitation soundtracks, but the mood is squandered by the sudden appearance of Antony Hegarty, sounding ever more like a bewildered eunuch. And Traffic’s “Many A Mile To Freedom” comes and goes to little effect. But wait! There’s Nick Cave offering grim harmonies on The Decemberists’ “The Crane Wife 3”, and the strange, deathly rattle that accompanies Faithfull on Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home” is none other than Keith Richards, reprising a tune he used to play with Gram Parsons. This reading is inspired by the solo version Richards performed on a 1977 Toronto bootleg. Granted, Keith is no Gram, Marianne is no Emmylou, and it sounds nothing like Merle. But it is haggard, almost derelict, and defiantly beautiful. ALASTAIR MCKAY For more album reviews, click here for the UNCUT music archive

You could listen for a long time to Marianne Faithfull singing “Down From Dover” before you identified the author of the song. As Faithfull delivers it, “Dover” is a maudlin thing, slightly soulful, and faintly funky in a Southern way. Leave the voice out of it, and it sounds like a companion piece to “Ode To Billy Joe”, though Faithfull and Bobbie Gentry are not easily confused. Structurally, “Down From Dover” is a song without a chorus, and a verse which is ominous to the point of being literally dreadful. So, even before Faithfull reaches the part of the narrative in which the singer reveals the stillbirth of a baby fathered by an absent, careless father, the dire outcome of the lyric is never in doubt. It is a story that’s always going to end badly.

Who would give life to a song this black, this hopeless? You might guess Nick Cave. But “Down From Dover” was written by Dolly Parton. And that, really, is what Hal Willner does. As a producer, he’s noted for his extravagantly realised tribute albums, in which unsuitable artists remake the music of improbable songwriters. When this process works, as it mostly does, the negatives cancel each other out, and the song is reborn.

Of course, Faithfull and Willner go back a long way. The singer and the producer first met in 1982, and Willner manned the desk on two of her best records, Blazing Away and Strange Weather. Willner understands – perhaps better than the singer herself – how to get the best out of Faithfull. This is a matter of direction as much as production. Again, there’s an element of counter-intuitiveness in play, since Faithfull is nobody’s idea of a technically gifted singer. Bluntly, her voice is wrecked, but rather than shy away from this, Willner makes a virtue of it. Faithfull’s voice is a tough muscle, harder than it is pretty. It doesn’t really matter how it got that way, whether through cigarettes or whisky or cocaine: the sound it makes now is one of endurance and strength. It’s stoneground, and oddly harsh for a woman. Easy Come Easy Go is a sequel of sorts to Strange Weather.

It is a covers album in which the predictable choices (in thrall to Billie Holiday on “Solitude”, Sarah Vaughan on “Black Coffee”, or duetting with a heavy-breathing Jarvis Cocker on “Somewhere”), are outnumbered by the shocks. “Dear God, Please Help Me” really is the Morrissey song, but Faithfull delivers it as a hymn to decrepitude without any of the author’s archness. (Apparently, Lou Reed suggested it, which is almost too much information.) Yes, “Hold On, Hold On” is the Neko Case song, and Chan Marshall does a lovely job on harmonies, but the ’60s twang of the original is pulled into a new shape by the psychedelic droning of Sean Lennon and Barry Reynolds’ guitars and Warren Ellis’ ritual torture of the electric violin (Willner calls his solo “Hendrix meets Alice Coltrane”).

The eerie sensation you get on listening to “How Many Worlds” is only partly explained by the dawning realisation that this actually is the Brian Eno song, albeit delivered in a spirit of blatant disregard for the ambient rhyming of the original. And there’s a lovely moment when Faithfull’s forceful retooling of the traditional “Kimbie” (much more Mark Lanegan than it is Nick Drake) fades into a verse of “I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground” (which Willner previously revisited on his tribute to Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music.)

It’s an extravagantly orchestrated set, but with Marc Ribot as lead guitarist and the Dirty Three’s Jim White on drums, the playing remains off-kilter, to quite thrilling effect. True, there are moments when Willner overreaches with his urge to subvert, notably on Smokey Robinson’s “Ooh Baby Baby”: Steven Bernstein’s arrangement comes over all Barry White, with Ribot’s wah-wah pedal indulging a previously suppressed love of blaxploitation soundtracks, but the mood is squandered by the sudden appearance of Antony Hegarty, sounding ever more like a bewildered eunuch. And Traffic’s “Many A Mile To Freedom” comes and goes to little effect.

But wait! There’s Nick Cave offering grim harmonies on The Decemberists’ “The Crane Wife 3”, and the strange, deathly rattle that accompanies Faithfull on Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home” is none other than Keith Richards, reprising a tune he used to play with Gram Parsons. This reading is inspired by the solo version Richards performed on a 1977 Toronto bootleg. Granted, Keith is no Gram, Marianne is no Emmylou, and it sounds nothing like Merle. But it is haggard, almost derelict, and defiantly beautiful.

ALASTAIR MCKAY

For more album reviews, click here for the UNCUT music archive

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Beware

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Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Beware

This album apparently marks a rare occasion when Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (that’s singer/songwriter Will Oldham) is to be found playing the game. He’s broken his customary cover and done major interviews – a declaration of alt.country glasnost apparently designed, with what some might see as his typical perversity, to prove to his record company he will sell no more records than normal by doing so. Beware has no hint of such guile. Warmed through by pedal steel (the title track, a beautiful tune), and by soulful backing singers (throughout), the impression is periodically of Exile…-era Rolling Stones songs, buffed up to a Nashville shine. If in the past BPB has made death records (I See A Darkness) and love records (Ease Down The Road), Beware is a body record, a playful and intimate piece (the album’s most referenced body part is the stomach) that lyrically and melodically invites you in, where his remote personae have occasionally served to push one away. JOHN ROBINSON For more album reviews, click here for the UNCUT music archive

This album apparently marks a rare occasion when Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (that’s singer/songwriter Will Oldham) is to be found playing the game. He’s broken his customary cover and done major interviews – a declaration of alt.country glasnost apparently designed, with what some might see as his typical perversity, to prove to his record company he will sell no more records than normal by doing so.

Beware has no hint of such guile. Warmed through by pedal steel (the title track, a beautiful tune), and by soulful backing singers (throughout), the impression is periodically of Exile…-era Rolling Stones songs, buffed up to a Nashville shine. If in the past BPB has made death records (I See A Darkness) and love records (Ease Down The Road), Beware is a body record, a playful and intimate piece (the album’s most referenced body part is the stomach) that lyrically and melodically invites you in, where his remote personae have occasionally served to push one away.

JOHN ROBINSON

For more album reviews, click here for the UNCUT music archive

Vetiver – Tight Knit

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Vetiver – Tight Knit

On Vetiver’s first two albums he conjured up something akin to the output of his sometime sidekick Devendra Banhart: a patchouli-scented Americana full of chiming acoustic guitars, fiddle, banjo and the clink of finger cymbals. A third album of cover versions was a holding operation – but holding only for this pedestrian lo-fi set. There are echoes of the old magic – “Down From Above” has cascades of spangling acoustics and a dreamy, socially sculpted atmosphere it shares with “At Forest Edge”. Otherwise it’s a trudge from one ordinary rock to the next – “Lying next to me/How happy we would be” (‘Everyday’) is a mundanity one would not expect. Cabic’s limited vocal powers are part of the problem. His dusty delivery is allusive when wrapped in instrumental swirls – asked to front up a song, it sounds merely flat. NEIL SPENCER For more album reviews, click here for the UNCUT music archive

On Vetiver’s first two albums he conjured up something akin to the output of his sometime sidekick Devendra Banhart: a patchouli-scented Americana full of chiming acoustic guitars, fiddle, banjo and the clink of finger cymbals. A third album of cover versions was a holding operation – but holding only for this pedestrian lo-fi set.

There are echoes of the old magic – “Down From Above” has cascades of spangling acoustics and a dreamy, socially sculpted atmosphere it shares with “At Forest Edge”. Otherwise it’s a trudge from one ordinary rock to the next – “Lying next to me/How happy we would be” (‘Everyday’) is a mundanity one would not expect. Cabic’s limited vocal powers are part of the problem. His dusty delivery is allusive when wrapped in instrumental swirls – asked to front up a song, it sounds merely flat.

NEIL SPENCER

For more album reviews, click here for the UNCUT music archive

Anvil Inducted Into Canadian Hall of Fame

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Anvil Inducted Into Canadian Hall of Fame
Anvil, the heavy metal trio from Canada, have been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame 36 years after first forming. Accepting their plaque at the 9th annual Indie Music Awards, which took place this year, at Canada Music Week in Toronto on Saturday (March 14), Steve "Lips" Kudlow, Robb R...

Anvil, the heavy metal trio from Canada, have been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame 36 years after first forming.

Accepting their plaque at the 9th annual Indie Music Awards, which took place this year, at Canada Music Week in Toronto on Saturday (March 14), Steve “Lips” Kudlow, Robb Reiner and Glenn Five thanked their fans and in attendence family for the ongoing belief and support over the years.

Anvil, who finally found fame after a Sacha Gervasi’s film The Story of Anvil was a surprise hit around the world, found time to talk to Uncut backstage at the Indie Awards to talk about the new album.

Coming out around September, the new album, their 14th studio album will be called ‘Juggernaut of Justice’, the title of which “pretty much sums up” how they feel about finally being heard outside of their home country.

Recording the album around movie promotional tours and shows, Glenn Five says “we’ve never stopped writing material, and we knew we had to come up with a great album after all this fanfare.”

As well as being inducted into Canada’s Hall of Fame, the band also had some other good news at Canada Music Week; they just found out they’ve been booked to play this Summer’s Glastonbury Festival.

“Unbelievable,” says Reiner, “this is the stuff dreams are made of.”

For more music and film news click here

Grizzly Bear: “Veckatimest”

John Mulvey
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The first Monday morning of spring seems a good time to finally tackle the new Grizzly Bear album, “Veckatimest”, which I know I’ve been promising for a while. Without getting into some blog hype thing in the tradition of the Animal Collective (it was Grizzly Bear who reputedly leaked a couple of AC tracks and caused a lot of the fuss, if I remember right), “Veckatimest” is looking from here like the best album of this bit of 2009, at the very least. The comparison with Animal Collective is apposite, of course, because Grizzly Bear are another band out of Brooklyn, and another one who specialise in a kind of ethereally-adjusted close harmony singing. Grizzly Bear, though, aren’t quite as untethered as AC; there’s a distant kinship with Fleet Foxes, too, and Robin Pecknold has already been vocal in his support for “Veckatimest”. But if the last Grizzly Bear album, 2006’s “Yellow House”, contained distinct trace elements of folk, “Veckatimest” is a subtly different beast. From the shuffling, jazzy chords that open “Southern Point”, there’s another kind of ghostly retro-futurism that inflects these lovely and saturated pop songs. At heart, for sure, Grizzly Bear are four scholarly young men with a taste for a sort of melodic, fey music which is at once both intimate and expansive. But repeatedly in these 12 songs, you can just detect an odd hint of soul. It’s most evident in “Two Weeks”, a song which has been around for a while on Youtube. Ostensibly, it’s a street corner doo-wop song, something like Dion & The Belmonts, given an unearthly, even angelic sheen by the curious dynamics and effects which seem to be a speciality of Grizzly Bear. The song’s anchored by a constant piano plonk, which sounds creaky and weathered, as if sampled from a record recorded long ago in a distant New York. “Two Weeks” has a fabulous melody, too, but it’s this harmonious tension between vintage sounds, massed voices and contemporary disorientation which makes “Veckatimest” so dreamy. “Cheerleader” works similarly, with a thin guitar sound that could’ve sloped in from Motown working as a prelude to a rapturous, yearning “Pet Sounds” chorus (no mention of The Beach Boys ‘til the sixth paragraph is something to be moderately proud of here, I’d say). Even on songs fronted by Daniel Rossen, that echo the genteel McCartneyisms of his lovely Department Of Eagles record from the end of last year, there are moments that tap into an alternative soulfulness: at the end of the discreet chamber fantasia, “All We Ask”, Rossen leads the band in an agonisingly sweet chant of “I can’t get out of what I’m into with you” over handclaps, loose beats and unsteady hum. It’s one of the most striking sections of a constantly surprising and beautiful record. “Veckatimest” isn’t one of those over-compressed albums, and the dynamic field in which the sounds move about is another one of its pleasures. It’s not always clear what you’re actually hearing – not through muffled sound, but because the atmosphere is so strong it sometimes distracts you from picking out individual instruments. Intricate baroque chorales appear in unexpected pockets, while there are passages of Nico Muhly’s orchestrations, often mixed low and cut short, which add an unexpected texture. But the real dynamic weapon is the brittle, buccaneering guitar sound, which looms up and down with quite a swagger. “Fine For Now” might start as a churchy chorale, but by the end, Rossen’s guitar has become actively abrasive, even going so far as to form a wiry, teeth-rattling solo. It would be – and will be, as they become better-known – easy to stereotype Grizzly Bear as precious, but that would underestimate the gristle and punch there, too. That becomes most potent in “While You Wait For The Others” (the other song that’s been around for a while), where Rossen’s cranked guitar nails down Ed Droste’s lovely song with heft and tension. I’m reminded for some reason of Radiohead, maybe “There There” or something, compounded by the vivid invention of the next track, “I Live With You”, which begins with Disney orchestras and choirs, and artfully wanders into a series of clattering Technicolor crescendos. It’s exhilarating, and the whole package, from the album’s evocative name (that Veckatimest is an uninhabited island off the coast of Cape Cod, is incidental) to the beautiful sleeve. I think this is going to be a biggish record in our world this year, and I’m sure the love it’s going to receive around the internet in the next couple of months will wind a fair few people up. But when you get a chance to hear, let me know, as ever, what you think.

The first Monday morning of spring seems a good time to finally tackle the new Grizzly Bear album, “Veckatimest”, which I know I’ve been promising for a while. Without getting into some blog hype thing in the tradition of the Animal Collective (it was Grizzly Bear who reputedly leaked a couple of AC tracks and caused a lot of the fuss, if I remember right), “Veckatimest” is looking from here like the best album of this bit of 2009, at the very least.

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New Bob Dylan Album Title Is Confirmed

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New Bob Dylan Album Title Is Confirmed
As reported last week, Bob Dylan has readied an album of new material which is due for release on April 27, and Columbia records have now confirmed that it is to be called 'Together Through Life'. Dylan's 46th release is his first studio album since 2006's Modern Times and it's making was prompted ...

As reported last week, Bob Dylan has readied an album of new material which is due for release on April 27, and Columbia records have now confirmed that it is to be called ‘Together Through Life’.

Dylan’s 46th release is his first studio album since 2006’s Modern Times and it’s making was prompted when he recorded a tarck “Life Is Hard” for the forthcoming film ‘My Own Love’, starring Renee Zellweger and Forest Whitaker.

In the run-up to ‘Together Through Life’s release, three exclusive ‘conversations between Bob Dylan and Bill Flanagan will be published at www.bobdylan.com, the first part is up to read now.

Speaking to Flanagan about the new album, comparing the new material to Modern Times, Dylan says: “I think we milked it all we could on that last record and then some. We squeezed the cow dry. All the Modern Times songs were written and performed in the widest range possible so they had a little bit of everything. These new songs have more of a romantic edge.”

Bob Dylan’s UK tour dates, starting next month, are as follows:

Sheffield Arena (April 24)

London O2 Arena (25)

Cardiff CIA (28)

Birmingham NIA (29)

Liverpool Echo Arena (May 1)

Glasgow SECC (2)

Edinburgh Playhouse (3)

For more music and film news click here

Gene Simmons Has Public Row With US Music Industry Mogul

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Gene Simmons Has Public Row With US Music Industry Mogul
Kiss founder Gene Simmons has taken on US music industry mogul Bob Lefsetz in a public 'discussion' panel at Canada Music Week today (March 13). Simmons and Lefsetz were both Keynote speakers on the opening day of the 5 day music conference and showcase in Toronto (March 12), with Leftsetz, a music...

Kiss founder Gene Simmons has taken on US music industry mogul Bob Lefsetz in a public ‘discussion’ panel at Canada Music Week today (March 13).

Simmons and Lefsetz were both Keynote speakers on the opening day of the 5 day music conference and showcase in Toronto (March 12), with Leftsetz, a music consultant and commentator taking offence at the way the Kiss singer had used his panel to ‘vulgarly’ speak about money.

Simmons used his morning Q&A panel, for which Kiss fans could buy tickets to advertise his new endeavor Simmons Records, a new partnership with Universal Records to develop Canadian talent and exploit new “stars who are bigger than the songs they sing.”

Lefsetz in his afternoon keynote speech called Simmons a “sell-out” and after emails were exchanged, an impromptu ‘face-off’ style panel was set up in haste at CMW’s base the Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

To all intents and purposes, Lefsetz won the ‘argument’ face to face, saying afterwards: “KISS will continue to tour. Gene will concoct whatever circus is necessary to put asses in the seats. Whether it be another reunion or an execution on stage. But the band will still be way past its prime, will still be has-beens, will still garner no respect in the world of music. The reason being primarily Gene himself. Such a hateable guy is going to find it impossible to garner any respect.

Furthermore, Gene doesn’t seem to realize the Internet allows the public to fight back. The stories filling up my inbox would make Gene cry. But just

watch this one for illustration. The fireworks reach a frenzy at 1:48”

Simmons, although meant to stay for the rest of Canada Music Week, checked out of the hotel immediately with a “no comment” to press.

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The Dead Weather: “Hang You From The Heavens”

John Mulvey
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Well, this is a surprise. The White Stripes might have made their comeback on American TV the other week, but it seems Jack White's most pressing engagement right now is yet another band, pleasingly called The Dead Weather. Oddly, White apparently cedes lead vocal and guitar responsibilities in The Dead Weather, with Alison Mosshart of The Kills fronting the project and Dean Fertita on guitar (Fertita is currently multi-instrumentalist in Queens Of The Stone Age and, if memory serves, was the first touring keyboard player for The Raconteurs). Little Jack Lawrence, from The Raconteurs and The Greenhornes, fills out the line-up on bass. The good news, though, is that the single which has magically turned up on iTunes - and is announced here on Jack White's Third Man Records site - is way better than, say, The Kills. “Hang You From The Heavens” might share that band’s aspirations to create a sort of buzzing blues menace, but there’s a fine tune here, novelly. A tune that wouldn’t sound entirely out of place next to, say, “Icky Thump” or “Salute Your Solution”, actually. Mosshart actually seems to be mimicking White’s vocal style at times; that pinched, sulky indignation that can suddenly transform itself into eruptive spleen. There are no comparable guitar peaks, though – instead, Fertita keeps within a narrow, low range of evil hum and crunch. And the fireworks come from – guess where? – the drumkit, with White employing stark rolls and clatter in much the same way as he punctuates songs in his other bands with those staticky, high end guitar solos. Just great. Not quite as sold on the b-side, an unusually rollicking take on Gary Numan’s “Are Friends Electric”. It’s fun, for sure, and it has a sort of loose funkiness that Numan can never have dreamed of. But Mosshart’s a bit forced, back in that drama school gothic zone that she’s overused for years in The Kills. An album’s coming in June called “Horehound”, anyway. Should be interesting, at the very least. If you get hold of the single, let me know what you think. And apologies to anyone who’s here looking for the promised blog on Grizzly Bear’s “Veckatimest”. That’ll come next week.

Well, this is a surprise. The White Stripes might have made their comeback on American TV the other week, but it seems Jack White‘s most pressing engagement right now is yet another band, pleasingly called The Dead Weather.

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Ask Stevie Nicks Your Questions!

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Ask Stevie Nicks Your Questions!
Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks is in the hot seat soon for our An Audience With... feature. As usual, we’d like to know what questions you’ve got for her. So, is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask Stevie..? What’s like being back on the road with Fleetwood Mac? What did she th...

Fleetwood Mac‘s Stevie Nicks is in the hot seat soon for our An Audience With… feature. As usual, we’d like to know what questions you’ve got for her.

So, is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask Stevie..?

What’s like being back on the road with Fleetwood Mac?

What did she think of Courtney Love’s version of “Gold Dust Woman”?

And just where does she keep all her hats from the ’80s?

Send your questions by Thursday, March 19 to: uncutaudiencewith@ipcmedia.com

The best questions and Stevie’s answers will be published in a future edition of Uncut .

Crosby, Stills and Nash Confirm Glastonbury Festival Appearance

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Crosby, Stills and Nash Confirm Glastonbury Festival Appearance
Crosby, Stills and Nash are set to play this year's Glastonbury Festival, confirming their appearance on their band website Crosbystillsnash.com. CSN are scheduled to play the Somerset festival on Saturday June 27, although it is very unlikely that they will collaborate with previously announced fe...

Crosby, Stills and Nash are set to play this year’s Glastonbury Festival, confirming their appearance on their band website Crosbystillsnash.com.

CSN are scheduled to play the Somerset festival on Saturday June 27, although it is very unlikely that they will collaborate with previously announced festival headliner and former bandmate Neil Young, who will appear on a different night.

Glastonbury’s other headliners are Bruce Springsteen and Blur.

Crosby, Stills and Nash are also set to play the following, previously announced dates:

Cork The Marquee (June 29)

London Royal Albert Hall (July 1)

Manchester MEN Arena (10)

Edinburgh Castle (11)

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

Michael Jackson Extends London Run To 50 shows

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Michael Jackson Extends London Run To 50 shows
Michael Jackson has extended his London O2 Arena residency to 50 live dates, it was announced on Thursday (March 12). The singer, who appeared at a press conference at the O2 Arena to announce the shows last week (March 5), will now perform his "final shows" in London from July 8 to February 24, 20...

Michael Jackson has extended his London O2 Arena residency to 50 live dates, it was announced on Thursday (March 12).

The singer, who appeared at a press conference at the O2 Arena to announce the shows last week (March 5), will now perform his “final shows” in London from July 8 to February 24, 2010.

Tickets went on presale to fans who registered at michaeljackson.com on Wednesday (March 11), and an estimated 360,000 tickets for the 20,000 capacity London Arena have been sold so far. If Jackson sells out the newly announced shows too, he will have sold a million tickets.

The ‘This Is It’ ‘tour’ is said by the concert’s promoters, AEG Live, to be the fastest selling live show of all time, with 33 tickets sold every minute since they went on sale.

Tickets for the London shows will go on general sale to the public on Friday (March 13) although it is still possible to get a presale registration code.

Full details of Michael Jackson’s This Is It live dates are available here:michaeljackson.com/tickets

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

The Tenth Uncut Playlist Of 2009

John Mulvey
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A lot of records on the playlist this week, I think, probably due to the fact that I’ve kept a note of what we’ve been playing for three full days. I guess the big one here is “Veckatimest”, the new Grizzly Bear album, which we now have a copy of. Incredible record, which I’ll be writing about soon, possibly tomorrow. Not everything here’s quite so great, of course, and after one or two optimistic emails it’s worth pointing out again that these are just the things we’ve listened to in the Uncut office, not a filtered list of things we’ve actually liked. Thanks, by the way, to everyone who’s contributed to the debate on the Super Furry Animals thread. We were so intrigued by the resounding lack of consensus over SFA’s best album that John Robinson suggested we listen to all of them and come to some kind of pseudo-scientific conclusion in the office. We’ll see how that works out in the next few days. In the meantime, though. . . 1 Sleepy Sun – Embrace (ATP Recordings) 2 Pocahaunted – Passage (Troubleman) 3 Pink Mountaintops – Outside Love (Jagjaguwar) 4 Tim Hecker – An Imaginary Country (Kranky) 5 Sir Richard Bishop – The Freak Of Araby (Drag City) 6 Patrick Watson – Wooden Arms (Peacefrog) 7 St Vincent – Actor (4AD) 8 Magik Markers – Balf Quarry (Drag City) 9 Lotus Plaza – The Floodlight Collective (Kranky) 10 Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years (Rough Trade) 11 Jarvis Cocker – Selections From The Second Jarvis Cocker Record (Rough Trade) 12 Neil Young – Fork In The Road (Reprise) 13 Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (Warp) 14 Peaches – I Feel Cream (XL) 15 Morrissey – Southpaw Grammar (New Version) (Sony) 16 Bill Wells And Maher Shalal Hash Baz – GOK (Geographic) 17 The Von Bondies – Love, Hate And Then There’s You (Fierce Panda) 18 Various Artists – Loving Takes This Course: A Tribute To The Songs Of Kath Bloom (Chapter Music) 19 Brian Borcherdt – Coyotes (http://www.myspace.com/brianborcherdt) 20 The Horrors – Primary Colours (XL) 21 Howlin Rain – Three From A Phantom Saloon EP (Silver Currant blog) 22 Kath Bloom & Loren Connors – Sing The Children Over/ San In My Shoe (Chapter Music) 23 Brass Monkey – Head Of Steam (Topic) 24 Kid 606 – Shout At The Doner (Tigerbeat6/Very Friendly) 25 Pan American – White Bird Release (Kranky)

A lot of records on the playlist this week, I think, probably due to the fact that I’ve kept a note of what we’ve been playing for three full days. I guess the big one here is “Veckatimest”, the new Grizzly Bear album, which we now have a copy of. Incredible record, which I’ll be writing about soon, possibly tomorrow.

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Amy Winehouse, Paul Weller, Cat Stevens For Island Festival

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Amy Winehouse, Paul Weller, Cat Stevens For Island Festival
Amy Winehouse, Paul Weller and Cat Stevens are amongst the headliners for Island records 50th birthday celebrations this May. The festival, called 'Island Life' will see see gigs taking place from May 26, all at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire in West London. Also confirmed for the bill are Sly &am...

Amy Winehouse, Paul Weller and Cat Stevens are amongst the headliners for Island records 50th birthday celebrations this May.

The festival, called ‘Island Life’ will see see gigs taking place from May 26, all at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in West London.

Also confirmed for the bill are Sly & Robbie, Toots & The Maytals, Tom Tom Club and Baaba maal.

Full listings are below. Tickets for the intimate shows will go onsale on Friday (March 13), with a presale available through the Island 50 website: Island50.com

The Island Life festival billing so far looks like this:

SLY & ROBBIE & THE COMPASS POINT ALLSTARS (May 26)

THE FRATELLIS; VERY SPECIAL GUEST; BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB (27)

CAT STEVENS/YUSUF and friends, BAABA MAAL (28)

PAUL WELLER; ERNEST RANGLIN; SPOOKY TOOTH (29)

KEANE; TOM TOM CLUB; LADYHAWKE (30)

AMY WINEHOUSE; TOOTS & THE MAYTALS; I BLAME COCO (31)

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Jerry Dammers Performs Ghost Town With The Spatial AKA Orchestra

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Jerry Dammers Performs Ghost Town With The Spatial AKA Orchestra
Jerry Dammers paid tribute to The Specials reunion, of which he is not taking part, by performing "Ghost Town" at a perfomance at London's Barbican on Tuesday (March 10). The founder Specials man, accompanied by the Spatial AKA Orchestra, played a two-and-a-half hour set, under the banner 'Cosmic E...

Jerry Dammers paid tribute to The Specials reunion, of which he is not taking part, by performing “Ghost Town” at a perfomance at London’s Barbican on Tuesday (March 10).

The founder Specials man, accompanied by the Spatial AKA Orchestra, played a two-and-a-half hour set, under the banner ‘Cosmic Engineering: A Tribute To Sun Ra And Other Musical Mavericks.’

Click here to read the full review of the Jerry Dammers live show

Jerry Dammer’s full London Barbican set list was:

Intro (It’s After The End of The World/ I Hear A New World)

Bachanal Chez Satan

Egypt Strut

We’re Gonna Unmask The Batman

I’ll Wait For You

Jungle Madness

Birds Lament

Sabayinda

Ghost Town

Discipline In Retrospect

Where Pathways Meet

Journey In Satchandanda

Om Armageddon

Soul Vibrations Of Man

Space Is The Place

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

Jerry Dammers’ Spatial AKA Orchestra: London Barbican, March 10, 2009

John Mulvey
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I don’t want to simplify a harrowing business. But when, in the middle of this concert with his Spatial AKA Orchestra, Jerry Dammers has a go at “Ghost Town”, the idea that this man would ever rejoin The Specials seems, frankly, insane. Sorry to be a tease, but the full review's at our Wild Mercury Sound blog.

I don’t want to simplify a harrowing business. But when, in the middle of this concert with his Spatial AKA Orchestra, Jerry Dammers has a go at “Ghost Town”, the idea that this man would ever rejoin The Specials seems, frankly, insane.

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Jerry Dammers’ Spatial AKA Orchestra: London Barbican, March 10, 2009

John Mulvey
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I don’t want to simplify a harrowing business. But when, in the middle of this concert with his Spatial AKA Orchestra, Jerry Dammers has a go at “Ghost Town”, the idea that this man would ever rejoin The Specials seems, frankly, insane. Tonight, “Ghost Town” begins with Dammers gargling the riff, with the forced assistance of the audience. His 19-piece big band, meanwhile, are playing the song like Duke Ellington’s orchestra transported to Studio One. Eventually, one of the vocalists, Anthony Josep, steps up to the mic, then proceeds to chant, Last Poets style, the lyrics of “Nuclear War” by Sun Ra. After five or ten minutes of this, Dammers scuttles offstage and harries another vocalist, Space Ape (best known as Kode 9’s MC), back to the mic. Returned to his throbbing bank of keyboards, Dammers sets up a menacing synth hum, over which Space Ape solemnly intones the lyrics to “Ghost Town”, until he is overwhelmed by a cacophonous effort from the eight-strong horn section. Not the way, perhaps, that most Specials fans – or indeed, most Specials members – would like to hear the song. Great, though, and perfectly in tune with the two and a half hour show. This is Cosmic Engineering: A Tribute To Sun Ra And Other Musical Mavericks, and a chance for Dammers, in the wake of The Specials reunion, to show the esoteric path he has travelled on in the years since their split. Mostly, the crack band of UK jazz illuminati – from veterans like Larry Stabbins (a personal hero, thanks to his involvement alongside the likes of Robert Wyatt and Julie Tippetts on those great early Working Week singles) to new stars like Nathaniel Facey from Empirical – not a band I’ve particularly liked, to be honest, but it’s Facey on sax who takes the best solo of the night, leaping off from the original Pharaoh Sanders riff in Alice Coltrane’s “Journey In Satchidanda”. There are, though, relatively few solos here and, apart from a rousing jam during another Coltrane tune, “Om Armageddon”, Dammers’ band are more orchestrated than the wild reputation of Sun Ra might suggest. That said, when I saw the Arkestra itself a few years ago, lead at that time by Marshall Allen, they played it pretty straight. And perhaps part of Dammers’ excellent vision is to show how accessible Sun Ra’s music actually is, very much in the Ellington tradition. He’s also good at showing up some of Sun Ra’s hokeyness. For all of the cosmic implications, the realities of 19 British musicians in tie-dye robes, masks and Egyptian headgear, playing amongst various bits of sci-fi tat, looks sweetly daft rather than unearthly in the flesh. He draws links between Sun Ra and exotica, playing a Martin Denny tune (“Jungle Madness”) to illustrate his point. This is fun music, is the general idea, and the prospect of presenting Dammers as a supernatural magus, as he fumbles with his mic and makes endearing announcements between songs, is touchingly implausible. Dammers, though, is clearly having a great, if slightly nervous time. His half-hearted attempts to conduct the well-drilled band are pretty unnecessary, but his keyboard playing – from the Louis & Bebe Barron style retro-futurist skronk he unleashes as his band troop into the venue – is terrific. He really comes into his own during “I’ll Wait For You”, a beautiful, ethereal slow blues by Sun Ra, with Dammers on organ sparring gracefully with the excellent pianist, Zoe Rahman and the vocalist, Francine Luce. There is one more relative lull; the sombre, angry processional of Sun Ra’s “Discipline In Retrospect” which Dammers pointedly suggests expresses his feelings towards his “six former bandmates”. You could also sense an assertion of Dammers’ own independent spirit in the Sun Ra poems recited by himself and Josep, not least when Dammers declaims, ““Abandon them, abandon them." Josep follows suit: “A man wants to be a natural free, so he can be.” Not when he’s playing cabaret versions of “Too Much Too Young” he can’t. It’s curious, though, that Dammers finds creative liberation by subtly updating these strange old jazz songs: adding a slithery funk undertow – courtesy of the breaks-fixated drummer, Patrick Illingworth – to “It’s After The End Of The World” and a superb “Soul Vibrations Of Man” (with an eruptive solo from Stabbins); playing a “Bird’s Lament” that’s closer to Mr Scruff’s version than the Moondog original; finding a way through “Journey In Satchinanda” (one of my favourite pieces of music, apropos nothing) without the aid of a harp. I suppose there’s a slight sadness here, in that Dammers, for whatever reason, has presented so little of his own music over the past two decades or so. In a perfect world, perhaps he’d be playing new songs inspired by Sun Ra, rather than cover versions. But that seems a petty whinge in the face of such an exultant night of music. By the end, the band have trooped out of the auditorium and are playing “Space Is The Place” by the Barbican’s toilets. Dammers, meanwhile, is on his own, levering great blats of noise out of his console. The Ricoh Arena, you feel, is truly light years away.

I don’t want to simplify a harrowing business. But when, in the middle of this concert with his Spatial AKA Orchestra, Jerry Dammers has a go at “Ghost Town”, the idea that this man would ever rejoin The Specials seems, frankly, insane.

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Part 10: Poco’s George Grantham

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Part 10: Poco’s George Grantham

In last March issue Uncut , we brought you the inside story on Neil Young’s long-awaited Archives project. We spoke to his friends, colleagues and conspirators and, over the next few weeks on www.uncut.co.uk, we’ll be printing the complete transcripts of these interviews. Previous installments are available by using the links in the side panel on the right. GEORGE GRANTHAM Drummer on Neil Young. Also a member of Poco *** UNCUT: When did you first meet Neil? GRAHAM: Well, I did Neil’s first solo album with Jimmy Messina. Jimmy was a lead guitar player, and a great bass-player. He played bass in Buffalo Springfield before they split up. That was the first time we really got to talk - just about the songs. Neil was hard to get to know. I enjoyed his music a lot. He communicated. But mostly, we recorded. I know Neil had issues over control in Buffalo Springfield… They all had issues! But was he very much in control of this solo album? Yes he was. He played everything except bass and drums. The most we ever had was three of us in the studio. He’d give us a tape of the songs, to just practise with. He didn’t talk about what he wanted. The songs spoke for themselves. It was just work, pretty much. Jimmy and I just laid down the bass and drum tracks. It took us a couple of weeks, probably. The production changed a lot of things. Some of it I liked, some of it I didn’t. But it was Neil’s record, to do what he wanted. I just played. If he liked it, he said, “Fine”. If he didn’t, we’d do something different. Anyone would have done what Neil said, not just session men. I didn’t see much of Neil after that. He went on his own way. I think he was more a loner than anything. He was used to being by himself. Did he seem very intense in the studio? Driven to get this thing done, now he finally had the freedom to make his own thing? Yes. Yes he did. “The Loner” I definitely remember making. That was the single. It was pretty quick. One of the first few takes. And it sounded like a single. Everyone was very pleased with it. “The Loner” sticks out more than anything. It sounded a lot like Neil from the Buffalo Springfield. Did you get to see much of him back at his home, in Topanga Canyon? Not much. In fact, I think the way he picked Jimmy and I was he came to a rehearsal Richie Furay was having at his house. We were in Richie’s band, Poco. He just asked if he could use us to play on this album. And we said, “Yes, sir…” It was more of a friendship thing than it was anything else. Only way I knew Neil was, I followed the Buffalo Springfield. And when they started breaking up is when Poco started getting together. So as we were rehearsing, we’d see Neil every now and again, up in Topanga Canyon. I guess he just didn’t have anybody else in mind. INTERVIEW BY NICK HASTED

In last March issue Uncut , we brought you the inside story on Neil Young’s long-awaited Archives project. We spoke to his friends, colleagues and conspirators and, over the next few weeks on www.uncut.co.uk, we’ll be printing the complete transcripts of these interviews.

Previous installments are available by using the links in the side panel on the right.

GEORGE GRANTHAM

Drummer on Neil Young. Also a member of Poco

***

UNCUT: When did you first meet Neil?

GRAHAM: Well, I did Neil’s first solo album with Jimmy Messina. Jimmy was a lead guitar player, and a great bass-player. He played bass in Buffalo Springfield before they split up. That was the first time we really got to talk – just about the songs. Neil was hard to get to know. I enjoyed his music a lot. He communicated. But mostly, we recorded.

I know Neil had issues over control in Buffalo Springfield…

They all had issues!

But was he very much in control of this solo album?

Yes he was. He played everything except bass and drums. The most we ever had was three of us in the studio. He’d give us a tape of the songs, to just practise with. He didn’t talk about what he wanted. The songs spoke for themselves. It was just work, pretty much. Jimmy and I just laid down the bass and drum tracks. It took us a couple of weeks, probably. The production changed a lot of things. Some of it I liked, some of it I didn’t. But it was Neil’s record, to do what he wanted. I just played. If he liked it, he said, “Fine”. If he didn’t, we’d do something different. Anyone would have done what Neil said, not just session men. I didn’t see much of Neil after that. He went on his own way. I think he was more a loner than anything. He was used to being by himself.

Did he seem very intense in the studio? Driven to get this thing done, now he finally had the freedom to make his own thing?

Yes. Yes he did. “The Loner” I definitely remember making. That was the single. It was pretty quick. One of the first few takes. And it sounded like a single. Everyone was very pleased with it. “The Loner” sticks out more than anything. It sounded a lot like Neil from the Buffalo Springfield.

Did you get to see much of him back at his home, in Topanga Canyon?

Not much. In fact, I think the way he picked Jimmy and I was he came to a rehearsal Richie Furay was having at his house. We were in Richie’s band, Poco. He just asked if he could use us to play on this album. And we said, “Yes, sir…” It was more of a friendship thing than it was anything else. Only way I knew Neil was, I followed the Buffalo Springfield. And when they started breaking up is when Poco started getting together. So as we were rehearsing, we’d see Neil every now and again, up in Topanga Canyon. I guess he just didn’t have anybody else in mind.

INTERVIEW BY NICK HASTED

Bloc Party To Kick Off North American Tour At Canada Music Week

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Bloc Party To Kick Off North American Tour At Canada Music Week
Bloc Party are set to headline Canada Music Week in Toronto this week, having to add a second show on Saturday (March 14) due to demand. Showcasing their third album 'Intimacy', the UK act's two Toronto shows are the bands first live dates on their extensive Canadian and North American tour. Toro...

Bloc Party are set to headline Canada Music Week in Toronto this week, having to add a second show on Saturday (March 14) due to demand.

Showcasing their third album ‘Intimacy’, the UK act’s two Toronto shows are the bands first live dates on their extensive Canadian and North American tour.

Toronto-based electronic music duo Crystal Castles are also set to make a homecoming appearance at the five day showcase festival. Crystal Castles will be performing at the 9th annual Indies Awards which take place on March 14, at which they are nominated for Best Electronic Group and Best Group. Other nominees at the Awards, include Black Mountain, Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Alt.rock Toronto band The Midway State are also up for two gongs at the ceremony which celebrates the best of independent music.

The festival runs from March 11-15, with over 500 artists playing across 40 venues in Toronto. Similar to events like Brighton’s Great Escape, just one wristband is needed to access all of the events, which include films, conferences as well as the array of gigs.

Check back to www.uncut.co.uk as the week progresses for news, blogs and live reports from CMW.

Full line-ups and ticket details are available from the CMW website here: www.canadianmusicfest.com

For more music and film news click here

Part 9: Chris Sarns, Buffalo Springfield’s Road Manager and the ’68 drugs bust

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Part 9: Chris Sarns, Buffalo Springfield’s Road Manager and the ’68 drugs bust

In last March issue Uncut , we brought you the inside story on Neil Young’s long-awaited Archives project. We spoke to his friends, colleagues and conspirators and, over the next few weeks on www.uncut.co.uk, we’ll be printing the complete transcripts of these interviews. Previous installments are available by using the links in the side panel on the right. Part 9: CHRIS SARNS The Springfields road manager. Played guitar on “Broken Arrow” and, briefly, for Young’s former band The Mynah Byrds in the late 60s. UNCUT: How did you first meet Neil? SARNS: Stephen Stills had asked me to be in what became Buffalo Springfield. Later I was round Peter Tork’s house, and Stephen turned up and said, “Do you want to be road manager?” My first job as road manager was to get Neil Young back in the group. Stephen and I went to visit Neil in Laurel Canyon, where he was living. He was working with [Jack] Nitzsche, and he’d done “Expecting To Fly”, and we listened to that and jaw-jacked for a while. And evidently it worked out, because Neil came back. He struck me as a nice, kind of quiet guy. Stephen was being super-nice to him then, because he wanted him back. But they’re two very different, strong-minded people. So we all ended in this great old house that Vincent Price used to own and had a lot of good vibes in it, in Malibu Road, just a little bit above the Colony. It was crooked, because it was sinking into the ocean slowly. Everybody lived there except Richie and Nancy [Furay], who were in Laurel Canyon. There was this big, outside, covered patio area, and I closed off the front of it, put in this huge bay window. And Neil had that. And Stephen and Dewey [Martin] had the upstairs bedrooms. Dewey managed to finagle the master bedroom, don’t know how he managed that. And then Bruce Palmer and Dale had a room downstairs, and I did. And Charley Brown, another roadie we picked up, was upstairs. And what would be going on there, on a typical night? The people that we knew were a group called The Doppler Effect, who lived right down the street, including No Pants Lance, who was absolutely frickin’ crazy. And then there were was Ray and Tay. Tay got the lead in Hair for a while. Buffalo and the Jefferson Airplane were not necessarily tight, but they knew each other and hung together somewhat, also. And once Neil was back in the band, did he fit in pretty well? Did he hang out? Stephen and he would still get into fights occasionally. But for the most part they got along really good. Most of the time I remember having a hell of a good time. It was like a big family. We would make music, and sit down and eat dinner as a family most of the time, with Bruce and his wife Dale, who had a little baby, and any girlfriends anybody happened to have. And we lived there for about six months. And were songs worked out and put together there? Yes. I would think so. That’s when they were doing the second album [Buffalo Springfield Again]. Thinking specifically about the material on Archives, what can you tell us about recording “Broken Arrow”? We learned “Broken Arrow” in the studio. Which is a rather expensive way of doing things, because it has a lot of time-changes. It goes from 4/4 to ¾ back to 4/4 again, a lot. And we spent all freaking day, 117 takes. A lot of those were just two bars and stop. Stephen and Richie and I were playing guitar, except on the final take. Neil was producing until the final take, then he came in and played the guitar. What state was that song in when Neil brought it into the studio? He had it together. It was finished. But we had to learn it, on the spot. In those days, did Neil generally have his songs ready to go in the studio, or was there much collaboration? The songs were mostly done. He didn’t sit and write songs in the studio. The way “Broken Arrow” ends up on the record is this sort of collage… Yeah, we had to learn that. There’s no cuts. We played it beginning to end. That’s what took so long. Did Neil talk about why he wanted that snatch of “Mr. Soul” sung by Dewey at the start, and the crowd noises? Was that was some previous live show? The crowd noises may have come later. I think he did that at the time, he had that concept he wanted somebody else doing his song, I don’t remember why. And Dewey used to be the lead singer in a group called Sir Walter Raleigh & the Coupons. But he had a vision. He would flesh it out, but he basically had it all together in his head. Did he tell you what that vision was? He just played it a couple of times. “Here’s the chords. Learn it.” Then he went in the booth, and he was in there producing while the rest of us learned it. It’s a very ambitious bit of work, the way it’s all put together. Makes you think maybe Neil had been listening to The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”. Absolutely. They were all huge Beatles fans. The Buffalos got together right around Rubber Soul time. When Neil was in the booth, was he just letting you get on and learn it for most of those 117 takes? Or was he really pushing you where he wanted you to go? He was mostly doing the technical stuff, while we were all taking turns screwing up. Neil was very calm, polite, helpful, because he knew it was difficult. In the studio, from what I saw, everybody was always way cool. It was a nurturing, supportive atmosphere. Nobody minded doing those 118 takes. It was the task in hand get it done. What do you remember about the ’68 Springfield drugs bust? Eric Clapton was there at the house, and Neil, and myself and Richie, and Jim Messina. Five guys and five girls. Earlier in the evening, we’d passed a doobie. There was no grass or drugs there of any kind. They were playing “Un Mundo” [released on posthumous Springfield album Last Time Around], Eric Clapton was there jamming on it. We had received a couple of complaints, so we knocked off at 9 o’clock. Then a couple of girls knocked on the door, came running in, said the cops are behind us, get rid of this stuff. I was trying to flush three or four containers of pot they’d given me down the toilet, I was watching it swirl round and it wouldn’t go down. It was a fuckin’ set-up. Eight or ten cops turned up at 9.10 for a noise compaint - five sheriffs from Malibu, and five from West Hollywood, so they had to have planned this days in advance. They were looking for an excuse. And the West Hollywood sheriffs were total fucking assholes, with combats on, helmets and sunglasses, just reeking with authority. The pressure of that bust was part of why Springfield split up, wasn’t it? Yeah. Another one of the Archives tracks is “This is it!”, from Buffalo Springfield’s final concert. Can you tell us about that? It was in Long Beach. It was a helluva night, a great crowd. A bunch of teenage boys started to climb up on the stage and there were fuckin’ police everywhere. I motioned the police to go back, and told the head guy of those boys to get down, we don’t want a frickin’ riot here. And they were cool. They were just a bunch of enthusiastic teenage boys, not much younger than we were. The police had got nervous, but they relaxed after that. We had a full house, it was an auditorium, held 1000 people, and they were a great, cheering audience. It was a cool way to go out. What was it like in the dressing room afterwards? I assume everyone knew it was the last show? Yeah. But I don’t remember the details. Except that it was a good show, and we were all still living together in Malibu. I guess shortly after that, we left… Did you spend much time with Neil in Topanga Canyon? When we left, Bruce got a cool little place in Topanga Canyon, in the Old Canyon, then when he left, he gave it to me. I took Stephen to introduce him to my friend Linda Stevens, and when we walked in she had Buffalo Springfield on the record player. I was up on the ridge, and Stephen ended up down in the valley, a quarter-mile apart. I was on Skyline, Stephen was on Old Topanga Canyon Road… Neil was living in Topanga too, over near where the Eagles lived. He bought it from the guy that owned the Topanga Corral. It was really cool, two, three stories. But the garage was open. It was 20’ by 20’. And out there was this one four-by-four post holding up this whole frickin’ two-storey house. It was nuts. I know wood has a lot of compressive strength. But a four-by-four holding up two storeys? If somebody had hit back into that, they could have brought the whole house down. It was the dumbest design I have ever seen. Then Neil put a studio in, and had it lined with lead. I’m amazed that house stood up. What was special about that Topanga neighbourhood? You were right next to LA, but you were 100 years away. It was uncrowded, unhurried. Very steep hills, with little bitty roads, and houses tucked hither and yon. Sometimes there’d be a bunch in a row, if there was a ridge where you could get them. But it was a community. Neil’s girlfriend at the time owned the Canyon Kitchen. It was laid-back. It strikes me it was like living in a Western… Almost. You would see horses at the Center, where the market and Neil’s girl’s café was. It was really rustic. Funky. There was one gas station, a market, a café, and maybe a leather shop. That was the Center, as we called it. At the time, it was a little piece of heaven. I know you were in the studio for the whole of the Crosby, Stills and Nash album. Did you stick around when Neil joined? How did he fit into that outfit? Well there was about a year in between. David had a house in Beverly Canyon, and Stephen was in Laurel Canyon. They wanted Graham Nash, and Stephen went to a Hollies concert, and he’s a good talker, and managed to persuade Graham to come to his house afterwards. It was Stepehen and his girlfriend at the time, Susan, and David, and Doug Dillard, the bluegrass player was there too, we got a little drunk, had a hell of a good time, a ball, and sang all night. That was the birth of Crosby, Stills and Nash. And then Neil came along. I remember we were in New York, at a club called the Bitter End. It was in the daytime, and they were negotiating it. It was an argument - a heated, very serious debate. It was Stephen and Neil, and maybe somebody else. It was still amiable and friendly, because they had to work it out. But Stephen and Neil are both incredibly strong-minded, bull-headed people. Had Neil changed? Because obviously he’d had some solo success. No. He was always the same guy. What do you remember of the gigs you did with CSNY? I just did the first couple of gigs. We did Chicago, and then Woodstock, and then the Greek Theater, and then Big Sur. Oh, boy, Woodstock was a blur. Hadn’t slept for 24, 36 hours. Things had got screwed up, we’d got stranded at La Guardia. We finally got there, and we got it done. We missed the party. But the boys did a good job. I seem to remember they had trouble keeping the guitars in tune, because of the wind. I remember Grace Slick at breakfast the morning after, and she had gold contact lenses. What are your main impressions of Neil, looking back? Actually, he’s kind of a quiet guy. Very soft-spoken - unless he was arguing with Stephen. Got a very wry sense of humour. And just a very thoughtful guy. As a person, hanging out with him in Topanga, he was an easygoing guy. There was one instance. They [Springfield] were playing the Cheetah, on New Year’s Eve, and they were playing very, very loud. I’ve got hearing loss because of it. Neil blew a fuse, and the spare I was supposed to have on me wasn’t there. And he went off on me afterwards, when there weren’t other people around. And I was so pissed. When we got home, I got in Neil’s face and said: “Don’t you ever do that to me again.” And he didn’t. I would never have hit the guy. But I did my best to give the impression that I would. Since then, he’s always been very, very good with road managers. INTERVIEW BY NICK HASTED

In last March issue Uncut , we brought you the inside story on Neil Young’s long-awaited Archives project. We spoke to his friends, colleagues and conspirators and, over the next few weeks on www.uncut.co.uk, we’ll be printing the complete transcripts of these interviews.

Previous installments are available by using the links in the side panel on the right.

Part 9: CHRIS SARNS

The Springfields road manager. Played guitar on “Broken Arrow” and, briefly, for Young’s former band The Mynah Byrds in the late 60s.

UNCUT: How did you first meet Neil?

SARNS: Stephen Stills had asked me to be in what became Buffalo Springfield. Later I was round Peter Tork’s house, and Stephen turned up and said, “Do you want to be road manager?” My first job as road manager was to get Neil Young back in the group. Stephen and I went to visit Neil in Laurel Canyon, where he was living. He was working with [Jack] Nitzsche, and he’d done “Expecting To Fly”, and we listened to that and jaw-jacked for a while. And evidently it worked out, because Neil came back. He struck me as a nice, kind of quiet guy. Stephen was being super-nice to him then, because he wanted him back. But they’re two very different, strong-minded people.

So we all ended in this great old house that Vincent Price used to own and had a lot of good vibes in it, in Malibu Road, just a little bit above the Colony. It was crooked, because it was sinking into the ocean slowly. Everybody lived there except Richie and Nancy [Furay], who were in Laurel Canyon. There was this big, outside, covered patio area, and I closed off the front of it, put in this huge bay window. And Neil had that. And Stephen and Dewey [Martin] had the upstairs bedrooms. Dewey managed to finagle the master bedroom, don’t know how he managed that. And then Bruce Palmer and Dale had a room downstairs, and I did. And Charley Brown, another roadie we picked up, was upstairs.

And what would be going on there, on a typical night?

The people that we knew were a group called The Doppler Effect, who lived right down the street, including No Pants Lance, who was absolutely frickin’ crazy. And then there were was Ray and Tay. Tay got the lead in Hair for a while. Buffalo and the Jefferson Airplane were not necessarily tight, but they knew each other and hung together somewhat, also.

And once Neil was back in the band, did he fit in pretty well? Did he hang out?

Stephen and he would still get into fights occasionally. But for the most part they got along really good. Most of the time I remember having a hell of a good time. It was like a big family. We would make music, and sit down and eat dinner as a family most of the time, with Bruce and his wife Dale, who had a little baby, and any girlfriends anybody happened to have. And we lived there for about six months.

And were songs worked out and put together there?

Yes. I would think so. That’s when they were doing the second album [Buffalo Springfield Again].

Thinking specifically about the material on Archives, what can you tell us about recording “Broken Arrow”?

We learned “Broken Arrow” in the studio. Which is a rather expensive way of doing things, because it has a lot of time-changes. It goes from 4/4 to ¾ back to 4/4 again, a lot. And we spent all freaking day, 117 takes. A lot of those were just two bars and stop. Stephen and Richie and I were playing guitar, except on the final take. Neil was producing until the final take, then he came in and played the guitar.

What state was that song in when Neil brought it into the studio?

He had it together. It was finished. But we had to learn it, on the spot.

In those days, did Neil generally have his songs ready to go in the studio, or was there much collaboration?

The songs were mostly done. He didn’t sit and write songs in the studio. The way “Broken Arrow” ends up on the record is this sort of collage…

Yeah, we had to learn that. There’s no cuts. We played it beginning to end. That’s what took so long.

Did Neil talk about why he wanted that snatch of “Mr. Soul” sung by Dewey at the start, and the crowd noises? Was that was some previous live show?

The crowd noises may have come later. I think he did that at the time, he had that concept he wanted somebody else doing his song, I don’t remember why. And Dewey used to be the lead singer in a group called Sir Walter Raleigh & the Coupons. But he had a vision. He would flesh it out, but he basically had it all together in his head.

Did he tell you what that vision was?

He just played it a couple of times. “Here’s the chords. Learn it.” Then he went in the booth, and he was in there producing while the rest of us learned it.

It’s a very ambitious bit of work, the way it’s all put together. Makes you think maybe Neil had been listening to The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”.

Absolutely. They were all huge Beatles fans. The Buffalos got together right around Rubber Soul time.

When Neil was in the booth, was he just letting you get on and learn it for most of those 117 takes? Or was he really pushing you where he wanted you to go?

He was mostly doing the technical stuff, while we were all taking turns screwing up. Neil was very calm, polite, helpful, because he knew it was difficult. In the studio, from what I saw, everybody was always way cool. It was a nurturing, supportive atmosphere. Nobody minded doing those 118 takes. It was the task in hand get it done.

What do you remember about the ’68 Springfield drugs bust?

Eric Clapton was there at the house, and Neil, and myself and Richie, and Jim Messina. Five guys and five girls. Earlier in the evening, we’d passed a doobie. There was no grass or drugs there of any kind. They were playing “Un Mundo” [released on posthumous Springfield album Last Time Around], Eric Clapton was there jamming on it. We had received a couple of complaints, so we knocked off at 9 o’clock. Then a couple of girls knocked on the door, came running in, said the cops are behind us, get rid of this stuff. I was trying to flush three or four containers of pot they’d given me down the toilet, I was watching it swirl round and it wouldn’t go down. It was a fuckin’ set-up. Eight or ten cops turned up at 9.10 for a noise compaint – five sheriffs from Malibu, and five from West Hollywood, so they had to have planned this days in advance. They were looking for an excuse. And the West Hollywood sheriffs were total fucking assholes, with combats on, helmets and sunglasses, just reeking with authority.

The pressure of that bust was part of why Springfield split up, wasn’t it?

Yeah.

Another one of the Archives tracks is “This is it!”, from Buffalo Springfield’s final concert. Can you tell us about that?

It was in Long Beach. It was a helluva night, a great crowd. A bunch of teenage boys started to climb up on the stage and there were fuckin’ police everywhere. I motioned the police to go back, and told the head guy of those boys to get down, we don’t want a frickin’ riot here. And they were cool. They were just a bunch of enthusiastic teenage boys, not much younger than we were. The police had got nervous, but they relaxed after that. We had a full house, it was an auditorium, held 1000 people, and they were a great, cheering audience. It was a cool way to go out.

What was it like in the dressing room afterwards? I assume everyone knew it was the last show?

Yeah. But I don’t remember the details. Except that it was a good show, and we were all still living together in Malibu. I guess shortly after that, we left…

Did you spend much time with Neil in Topanga Canyon?

When we left, Bruce got a cool little place in Topanga Canyon, in the Old Canyon, then when he left, he gave it to me. I took Stephen to introduce him to my friend Linda Stevens, and when we walked in she had Buffalo Springfield on the record player. I was up on the ridge, and Stephen ended up down in the valley, a quarter-mile apart. I was on Skyline, Stephen was on Old Topanga Canyon Road… Neil was living in Topanga too, over near where the Eagles lived. He bought it from the guy that owned the Topanga Corral. It was really cool, two, three stories. But the garage was open. It was 20’ by 20’. And out there was this one four-by-four post holding up this whole frickin’ two-storey house. It was nuts. I know wood has a lot of compressive strength. But a four-by-four holding up two storeys? If somebody had hit back into that, they could have brought the whole house down. It was the dumbest design I have ever seen. Then Neil put a studio in, and had it lined with lead. I’m amazed that house stood up.

What was special about that Topanga neighbourhood?

You were right next to LA, but you were 100 years away. It was uncrowded, unhurried. Very steep hills, with little bitty roads, and houses tucked hither and yon. Sometimes there’d be a bunch in a row, if there was a ridge where you could get them. But it was a community. Neil’s girlfriend at the time owned the Canyon Kitchen. It was laid-back.

It strikes me it was like living in a Western…

Almost. You would see horses at the Center, where the market and Neil’s girl’s café was. It was really rustic. Funky. There was one gas station, a market, a café, and maybe a leather shop. That was the Center, as we called it. At the time, it was a little piece of heaven.

I know you were in the studio for the whole of the Crosby, Stills and Nash album. Did you stick around when Neil joined? How did he fit into that outfit?

Well there was about a year in between. David had a house in Beverly Canyon, and Stephen was in Laurel Canyon. They wanted Graham Nash, and Stephen went to a Hollies concert, and he’s a good talker, and managed to persuade Graham to come to his house afterwards. It was Stepehen and his girlfriend at the time, Susan, and David, and Doug Dillard, the bluegrass player was there too, we got a little drunk, had a hell of a good time, a ball, and sang all night. That was the birth of Crosby, Stills and Nash. And then Neil came along. I remember we were in New York, at a club called the Bitter End. It was in the daytime, and they were negotiating it. It was an argument – a heated, very serious debate. It was Stephen and Neil, and maybe somebody else. It was still amiable and friendly, because they had to work it out. But Stephen and Neil are both incredibly strong-minded, bull-headed people.

Had Neil changed? Because obviously he’d had some solo success.

No. He was always the same guy.

What do you remember of the gigs you did with CSNY?

I just did the first couple of gigs. We did Chicago, and then Woodstock, and then the Greek Theater, and then Big Sur. Oh, boy, Woodstock was a blur. Hadn’t slept for 24, 36 hours. Things had got screwed up, we’d got stranded at La Guardia. We finally got there, and we got it done. We missed the party. But the boys did a good job. I seem to remember they had trouble keeping the guitars in tune, because of the wind. I remember Grace Slick at breakfast the morning after, and she had gold contact lenses.

What are your main impressions of Neil, looking back?

Actually, he’s kind of a quiet guy. Very soft-spoken – unless he was arguing with Stephen. Got a very wry sense of humour. And just a very thoughtful guy. As a person, hanging out with him in Topanga, he was an easygoing guy. There was one instance. They [Springfield] were playing the Cheetah, on New Year’s Eve, and they were playing very, very loud. I’ve got hearing loss because of it. Neil blew a fuse, and the spare I was supposed to have on me wasn’t there. And he went off on me afterwards, when there weren’t other people around. And I was so pissed. When we got home, I got in Neil’s face and said: “Don’t you ever do that to me again.” And he didn’t. I would never have hit the guy. But I did my best to give the impression that I would. Since then, he’s always been very, very good with road managers.

INTERVIEW BY NICK HASTED

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