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Gran Torino

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Gran Torino
DIRECTED BY Clint Eastwood STARRING Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her *** What makes Gran Torino more than the merely watchable, well-meaning, but heavy-handed parable about racism and redemption it may have been in the hands of a lesser film-maker is Clint Eastwood, directing himself in what, ...

DIRECTED BY Clint Eastwood

STARRING Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her

***

What makes Gran Torino more than the merely watchable, well-meaning, but heavy-handed parable about racism and redemption it may have been in the hands of a lesser film-maker is Clint Eastwood, directing himself in what, at 78, he’s hinted may be his final screen performance.

If this is truly the case, it’s a rousing last hurrah, a snarling salute to the leathery invincibility of every uncompromising, provocative, mean-eyed motherfucker he’s ever played – from the Man With No Name, to Dirty Harry, Josey Wales, William Munny in Unforgiven and even Frankie Dunn, the veteran fight manager in Million Dollar Baby. No one over the years has filled the screen with as much seething pent-up violent menace as Clint, and even pushing 80, you would not fancy your chances if you had to go up against him. “Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while that you shouldn’t have messed with?” he asks someone here, squinty-eyed and scowling, fury growing within him, his voice a wholly intimidating growl. “That’s me.” Later, after giving one punk a severe beating, he leaves him with a terse warning: “If I have to come back, it’s going to be ugly.” You have no reason to believe this will not, painfully for someone, be the case.

Eastwood in Gran Torino is Walk Kowalski, a retired veteran of Detroit’s once-thriving automobile industry, recently widowed. Walt is bitter and cantankerous, a brutally intolerant racist, a man with a grudge against everything in the world that doesn’t conform to his own crude opinion, including his own sons and their ghastly children. He lives alone, with his dog and his guns, in a neighbourhood that has changed around him in ways he can’t accommodate, a recent influx of Asian immigrants, Hmong refugees, former allies of America in Vietnam, especially inflaming his angry prejudice. About the only thing that lights up what’s left of his life is the 1972 Gran Torino, a car he helped build on the Ford assembly line that now sits in his garage, a gleaming metaphor for what Walt no doubt believes was a better America.

Walt makes you think of the crude and mirthless Archie Bunker, the American incarnation of Alf Garnett, and Peter Boyle as the eponymous homicidal blue-collar bigot of John Avildsen’s 1970 cult classic, Joe (coincidentally just out for the first time on DVD). There’s nothing remotely likable about Walt, he’s an unpleasant furnace of hostility, and Eastwood fearlessly doesn’t attempt to make him to any extent sympathetic.

Walt has elsewhere been described as ‘Dirty Harry in retirement’, and there is merit in this apparent flippancy. You can certainly imagine Walt going to see the original Dirty Harry movie, for instance, and cheering Harry Callahan’s vigilante brutality, thus missing the point of Don Siegel’s ambiguous, provocative challenge to liberal America. By the time his own story is told here, however, you like to think Walt would have seen Harry not so much as Travis Bickle with a badge, but a tragic hero as flawed, dangerous and frighteningly heroic as John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in The Searchers which Dirty Harry so often resembles (both films crucially involve the search for an abducted girl).

Back in Detroit, meanwhile, Walt finds himself incrementally drawn into the world of his previously-despised Hmong neighbours, specifically the sparky Sue (Ahney Her, wonderful) and her younger brother Thao (Bee Vang), a likable dreamy kid being pressed by his machine-gun toting cousin to run with him and his gangbanger buddies.

When Walt takes the kid’s side in a rowdy confrontation between the gang and Thao’s family, he’s celebrated as their saviour, a hero to Thao, who comes quietly to idolise him. For his part, Walt is touched by the uncomplicated generosity shown towards him by the grateful Hmong, who he finds are altogether more preferable company than his own family. He has for a moment, it seems, found a kind of peace, a truce declared in his ongoing war with everything around him.

Then it all goes bad in a hurry. Humiliated by Walt, the gang take dreadful revenge, recklessly inviting a final showdown. And now we think we know where we are going here, and prepare to be returned to the savage universe of, say, High Plains Drifter, Clint about to become an agent of bloody retribution. We also think inevitably of Unforgiven, and Clint as William Munny, the retired gunfighter who by the film’s end has once again become a formidable killing machine, violence his answer to everything and bodies piled up around him. You may also be reminded of David Cronenberg’s A History Of Violence, in which Viggo Mortensen as Tom Stall, a reformed former mob killer, reverts to murderous type when his peaceful new family life is threatened by pathological types from the past he believed was behind him.

We know already, for instance, that Walt is familiar with violence. He fought in Korea, that appalling forgotten war, where he did things he would prefer to forget. We get a harrowing glimpse of his experience there when Walt confronts one of the Hmong hoodlums terrorising Thao’s family, shoving the barrel of his old army-issue M1 in the punk’s face and telling him in one of the most powerful scenes Eastwood has performed in: “You’re nothing to me. We used to stack fucks like you five feet high in Korea and use you for sandbags.”

The growing intimacy between Walt and Thao by now also inevitably recalls Shane, in which the young Brandon de Wilde is besotted by Alan Ladd’s haloistic gunfighter, and also The Shootist, in which in his own valedictory screen appearance John Wayne as the dying gunman John B Books must similarly resolve a violent conflict without encouraging a young man’s emulation of his gun-toting ways. The Shootist was, of course also the last great film directed by Don Siegel, Eastwood’s most influential movie-making mentor, whose terse, understated, classic visual style informs every crisp frame of Gran Torino.

I’m not sure the way in which Eastwood here resolves an identical dilemma is the unequivocal denial of his violent cinematic past that has been suggested elsewhere. But the way Walt in the end deals with the havoc he has partially unleashed suggests levels of human contact that have not always been evident in his films and in this wholly vintage performance he has perhaps found a new kind of heroism.

Allan Jones

Cadillac Records

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Cadillac Records
DIR: DARNELL MARTIN ST: ADRIEN BRODY, JEFFREY WRIGHT, MOS DEF, BEYONCE KNOWLES *** In the wake of the Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Bobby Darin biopics, what price McKinley Morganfield? Evidently the man better known as Muddy Waters doesn’t warrant a movie in his own right, but su...

DIR: DARNELL MARTIN

ST: ADRIEN BRODY, JEFFREY WRIGHT, MOS DEF, BEYONCE KNOWLES

***

In the wake of the Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Bobby Darin biopics, what price McKinley Morganfield?

Evidently the man better known as Muddy Waters doesn’t warrant a movie in his own right, but surely, every music fan plays Chess? Chuck Berry, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Etta James… They all cut their first hit records for the Chicago label in the 1950s, laying the bedrock for the blues, R&B and rock-n-roll. Resisting the temptation to make Leonard Chess the de facto hero – though he’s played sympathetically enough by Adrien Brody – writer-director Darnell Martin (I Like It Like That) shoots for a bigger picture. In essence, she gives us a potted popular history of the blues through the mixed fortunes of the company’s artists.

To this end, we get Chess sideman and songwriter Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer) as narrator. An unreliable one, given that Phil Chess – Leonard’s brother and business partner – has been written out completely. Later on, in a throwaway scene, the Rolling Stones drop by to pay their respects, though this appears to be some time before Elvis Presley has left the army. You wouldn’t want to mistake Martin’s blues for gospel, as it were.

Still, fast and loose can be fun, and there are advantages to the all-star approach. While Jeffrey Wright (Waters), and Brody enjoy the dramatic through-line, Mos Def (Chuck Berry), Beyoncé (Etta James), and Columbus Short (Little Walter) each gets enough screen time to make an impression and dig a little a deeper, and they all go for it. It’s like a relay team; everyone wants to run the best lap. For my money Eamonn Walker’s hulking, lop-sided but rock-solid Howlin’ Wolf takes the gold, but you won’t soon forget Short’s white-hot Little Walter either. And for the first time Beyoncé looks like a real actress; she gives us Etta’s pride and fury, then a peak at the demons underneath.

But it’s Jeffrey Wright who dominates. A tremendous actor too often stuck in supporting roles – like Felix Lighter in the Bond movies – he illuminates the wonder and perplexity of a singer who is a grown man before he hears a recording of his own voice; the son of a sharecropper who heads north to Chicago and can’t quite believe the change in his fortunes when Chess shakes his hand and presses the keys to a brand new Cadillac into his palm. It feels like a transformative moment for a black man in America – maybe even a significant step towards President Obama. Of course, “Cadillacs don’t come free,”: he learns that later. Martin’s lively revue takes liberties, but it’s pretty astute when it comes to black, white and green.

Tom Charity

Vetiver – Tight Knit

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Vetiver – Tight Knit
Andy Cabic seems to have run out of road. 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 ver...

Andy Cabic seems to have run out of road. 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

Neko Case – Middle Cyclone

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Neko Case – Middle Cyclone

They don’t make country queens like they used to. Those singers with big-sky voices who somehow managed to sound both tough and teary at the same time – people like Patsy Cline or Tammy Wynette or Kitty Wells. If there’s one latterday singer deserving of such company, though, it’s Neko Case. Like members of that elite, she pulls off the enviable trick of appearing both simple and sophisticated, but crucially, has never flirted with the mawkish mush that too often passes for “authentic” country. She’s more attuned to the vernacular idioms of rural music than the false trinketry of Nashville Central. Her sixth album Middle Cyclone both reasserts and expands on all that. It’s more than just country; it’s a glorious pop album with roots in classic rock, folk, Motown and more. Nowhere is this unfettered style more evident than on Case’s cover of Harry Nilsson’s break-up ballad, “Don’t Forget Me”. Out goes the orchestral largesse, in comes her eight-pianos-in-a-barn approach. The result, with Case at her most delicately stoic, is truly moving. There’s a similar feel to “Vengeance Is Sleeping”, another restless anti-ballad intoned over flowing acoustic guitar. And while prior form has given her a reputation as something of a robust free-spirit, this record carries a fair share of unlikely love songs. The title track itself is, for Case, a lyrical rarity: “I can’t give up acting tough / It’s all that I’m made of / Can’t scrape together quite enough / To ride a bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love…” Of course even the most independent spirits need help from time to time – M Ward and Garth Hudson, members of Giant Sand, Los Lobos and Calexico are all present and correct on Middle Cyclone lending their distinctive instrumental hands – but this ultimately Case’s tour de force, and hers alone. For more album reviews, click here for the UNCUT music archive

They don’t make country queens like they used to. Those singers with big-sky voices who somehow managed to sound both tough and teary at the same time – people like Patsy Cline or Tammy Wynette or Kitty Wells.

If there’s one latterday singer deserving of such company, though, it’s Neko Case. Like members of that elite, she pulls off the enviable trick of appearing both simple and sophisticated, but crucially, has never flirted with the mawkish mush that too often passes for “authentic” country. She’s more attuned to the vernacular idioms of rural music than the false trinketry of Nashville Central. Her sixth album Middle Cyclone both reasserts and expands on all that. It’s more than just country; it’s a glorious pop album with roots in classic rock, folk, Motown and more.

Nowhere is this unfettered style more evident than on Case’s cover of Harry Nilsson’s break-up ballad, “Don’t Forget Me”. Out goes the orchestral largesse, in comes her eight-pianos-in-a-barn approach. The result, with Case at her most delicately stoic, is truly moving. There’s a similar feel to “Vengeance Is Sleeping”, another restless anti-ballad intoned over flowing acoustic guitar. And while prior form has given her a reputation as something of a robust free-spirit, this record carries a fair share of unlikely love songs. The title track itself is, for Case, a lyrical rarity: “I can’t give up acting tough / It’s all that I’m made of / Can’t scrape together quite enough / To ride a bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love…”

Of course even the most independent spirits need help from time to time – M Ward and Garth Hudson, members of Giant Sand, Los Lobos and Calexico are all present and correct on Middle Cyclone lending their distinctive instrumental hands – but this ultimately Case’s tour de force, and hers alone.

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

U2’s Bono Joins Coldplay and The Killers For War Child Gig In The Capital

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U2’s Bono Joins Coldplay and The Killers For War Child Gig In The Capital
War Child got two of the biggest bands in the world, Coldplay and The Killers to play an intimate show at the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire after the BRIT Awards on Wednesday night (February 18). U2's Bono and Take That's Gary Barlow also made surprise guest appearances for the shows encore at 1.30am, ...

War Child got two of the biggest bands in the world, Coldplay and The Killers to play an intimate show at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire after the BRIT Awards on Wednesday night (February 18).

U2’s Bono and Take That’s Gary Barlow also made surprise guest appearances for the shows encore at 1.30am, both of them singing on The Killers track “All These Things That I’ve Done”, with both Coldplay and The Killers onstage.

Bono sang a part of the verse and the lines “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier.”

Earlier on Chris Martin had welcomed Barlow on stage to sing “Back For Good” saying: “Shall we welcome the greatest comeback kid of all time?”, adding “The band to see at the moment is Take That. We’ve just had a really bad day. Didn’t win anything at the Brits and we’ve just come back from Japan,” referencing Coldplays four unwon BRIT nominations.

The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft, Courtney Love, Pet Shop Boys and Natalie Imbruglia were some of the other artists watching the show from the intimate venue’s balcony.

The show was also the launch event for the brand new War Child compilation ‘Heroes: Vol 1″ – which marks the 15th Anniversary of War Child. The album sees music legends select a favourite track from their back catalogue and nominate a contemporary artist to perform a cover version. It includes Beck covering Bob Dylan’s “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”, Duffy performing Wings’ “Live And Let Die” and Elbow tackling U2’s “Running To Stand Still”.

For more music and film news click here

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy: “Beware”

John Mulvey
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Of course the practicalities of listening to music in the Uncut office shouldn’t concern you much, but it’s worth noting that for some weeks, possibly months now, we’ve been grappling with the new Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy album, “Beware”, widely proclaimed as one of his best ever and yet, round these parts at least, treacherously hard to hear properly. There’s some clever scheming going on around “Beware”, which I’ll get to shortly, and which conceivably was behind our first copy of the album being rendered unlistenable by security announcements every couple of minutes totally interrupting the songs. Then we received a watermarked copy, which our capricious stereo chose to spit out after about three tracks. A bit of a pain. Now I’ve managed to play it properly, however, I can see that all the wry hype around “Beware” is justified; it’s one of the most consistent, crafted and immediate records that Will Oldham has made in his exceptional career. In his superb New Yorker profile of Oldham last month, Kelefa Sanneh reported, “He intends to promote the album with singles, a photo shoot, and a handful of interviews, if only to prove that record promotion doesn’t really work, at least not for him.” With the security-heavy CDs and comparatively hyperbolic press releases privileging the accessibility of “Beware”, it began to look as if Drag City/Domino were calling Oldham’s bluff, doing everything in their power to point up the new record as distinct from his vast catalogue. It was as if they were marketing it as a major statement to ensure that it would sell more than, say, 2008’s “Lie Down In The Light” (a record which was not even promoed to journalists ahead of release) and consequently prove Oldham, so sceptical of marketing, wrong. The thing is, “Beware” really does feel like a major statement from this most elusive of brilliant songwriters. In terms of sound, it’s something of a return to country, with a richness that verges on the territory of 2004’s “Sings Greatest Palace Music” and a confident roll that recalls “Ease Down The Road” from 2001. On the past few albums, Oldham’s gradually strengthening voice has been countered by potent female singers like Dawn The Faun, Meg Baird and Ashley Webber. Here, on songs like the triumphal opening “Beware Your Only Friend” the whooping "I Am Goodbye" or “My Life’s Work”, Oldham fronts up alongside a swelling Nashville choir of sorts, while there’s a hint of the McGarrigles, perhaps, to “I Won’t Ask Again”. “My Life’s Work”, incidentally, has a brief saxophone solo that betrays the jazz backgrounds of many of the players on these Chicago sessions. By the final and extraordinary “Afraid Ain’t Me”, there’s an airy, orbital feel to the music that’s vaguely reminiscent, in places, of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks”. As part of his calculated press offensive, Oldham crops up in the new Uncut, talking through his best albums (though not, weirdly, “Days In The Wake”). There’s some talk of Dillard & Clark in relation to “Beware”, which seems apposite. In The New Yorker piece, Sanneh calls the record “deeply satisfying” and notes how it “conjures a mood of resolution, maybe even finality.” That’s palpable in some truly beautiful songs here, “Death Final” and “I Don’t Love Anyone” (a distant cousin of Dylan’s “Senor”, perhaps), which are just about as good as Oldham has ever written. “Beware” is more rueful than morbid, though (this is far from a sequel to “I See A Darkness”), and there are some very funny moments. The roistering “You Don’t Love Me” presents the Prince as a somewhat unlikely sex object, confronted with a woman who only wants him for his body. “Sometimes you like the smell of me or how my stomach jiggles,” he sings, as horns contribute to the generally uproarious atmosphere. “You don’t love me, but that’s alright/’Cos you bring to me, all through the night.”

Of course the practicalities of listening to music in the Uncut office shouldn’t concern you much, but it’s worth noting that for some weeks, possibly months now, we’ve been grappling with the new Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy album, “Beware”, widely proclaimed as one of his best ever and yet, round these parts at least, treacherously hard to hear properly.

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David Byrne To Play Big Chill

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David Byrne To Play Big Chill

Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne will headline this year’s Oxygen Festival. Headlining Sunday night (August 9), Byrne will join Friday night headliners Basement Jaxx, while Orbital top Saturday’s bill. Taking place between August 7 - 9 in Herefordshire, other acts confirmed for The Big Chill include Spiritualized, Friendly Fires, Lamb, Mr Scruff and Norman Jay. Early bird tickets for the festival are available until February 28. For more music and film news click here Pic credit: PA Photos

Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne will headline this year’s Oxygen Festival.

Headlining Sunday night (August 9), Byrne will join Friday night headliners Basement Jaxx, while Orbital top Saturday’s bill.

Taking place between August 7 – 9 in Herefordshire, other acts confirmed for The Big Chill include Spiritualized, Friendly Fires, Lamb, Mr Scruff and Norman Jay.

Early bird tickets for the festival are available until February 28.

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

Simon And Garfunkel Reunite For Tour

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Simon And Garfunkel Reunite For Tour
Simon and Garfunkel are to reunite for a string of tour dates. Speaking after his surprise appearance on stage with Paul Simon last week (February 13), Art Garfunkel said the pair planned to work together again, although he added there were no plans as yet to play the UK. “Our plan to work toget...

Simon and Garfunkel are to reunite for a string of tour dates.

Speaking after his surprise appearance on stage with Paul Simon last week (February 13), Art Garfunkel said the pair planned to work together again, although he added there were no plans as yet to play the UK.

“Our plan to work together is coming together but it doesn’t go through England this time.”

Simon and Garfunkel have fallen out a number of times since the 1960’s. The duo split in 1970 before briefly reuniting in 1981, they did not play together again until a series of concerts in 1993. A performance at the 2003 Grammys and a world tour in 2004 marked their first collaboration in over a decade.

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Coldplay Leave BRIT Awards Empty Handed

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Coldplay Leave BRIT Awards Empty Handed

Despite being nominated in four categories, Coldplay failed to win a single award at last night’s Brit Awards (February18). The band lost both Best British Album and Best British Single to Duffy, while Iron Maiden won Best Live Act and Elbow were awarded Best British Group – both awards Coldplay were up for. "We've just got back from Japan, lost all the BRITs,” said a visibly disappointed Martin after the ceremony, “it's been a shit day frankly". Duffy won a total of four awards, including Best Breakthrough Act and Best British Female. Paul Weller, who was not present at the ceremony, won Best British Male, while Kings of Leon won Best international Album and Best International Group. The Outstanding Contribution To Music award was given to The Pet Shop Boys, while newcomer Florence and the Machine won the Critic’s Choice. For more music and film news click here Pic credit: PA Photos

Despite being nominated in four categories, Coldplay failed to win a single award at last night’s Brit Awards (February18).

The band lost both Best British Album and Best British Single to Duffy, while Iron Maiden won Best Live Act and Elbow were awarded Best British Group – both awards Coldplay were up for.

“We’ve just got back from Japan, lost all the BRITs,” said a visibly disappointed Martin after the ceremony, “it’s been a shit day frankly”.

Duffy won a total of four awards, including Best Breakthrough Act and Best British Female. Paul Weller, who was not present at the ceremony, won Best British Male, while Kings of Leon won Best international Album and Best International Group.

The Outstanding Contribution To Music award was given to The Pet Shop Boys, while newcomer Florence and the Machine won the Critic’s Choice.

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

Adam Payne: “Organ”

John Mulvey
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Sad news this morning, inevitably overshadowed in the UK by all the Brits bullshit, that Touch & Go Records are to cease putting out new music (not sure where that leaves, say, the forthcoming Crystal Antlers album, for a start). A slight unhappy coincidence, in that this morning I was playing a new record which has distinct ties to the ‘80s post-hardcore from which Touch & Go emerged, allbeit closer ones to the SST sound of that time. The record is “Organ”, the first solo album by Adam Payne, who’s relatively better known as frontman of Residual Echoes, a super-gungy freak-out band from San Francisco. Residual Echoes are usually categorised as being in the psychedelic slipstream of Comets On Fire, and you could more or less classify “Organ” as being Payne’s equivalent to Howlin Rain, or at least the first Howlin Rain album, minus the Southern boogie – a cleaner, defuzzed sound. It begins with “The One After Eyes”, and a riff uncannily like that of The Only Ones’ “Another Girl, Another Planet”. Soon enough, though, it locks into something of a default tone: broadly, exuberant power-pop as played by The Meat Puppets. There are distinct echoes of early Dinosaur Jr too in songs like “Never See You Anymore”, thanks to Payne’s pinched vocals and his pugnacious, ambulatory solos – though the guitar sound throughout “Organ” is skinnier, much less laden with effects than that of J Mascis, or of Payne in his work with Residual Echoes. There’s another slightly weird affinity with Comets On Fire side projects on “In Hell”, which is a lop-sided piano number that recalls Utrillo Kushner’s Colossal Yes. Kushner has a new album, “Charlemagne’s Big Thaw”, incidentally, which is worth checking out, if not quite as good as the Colossal Yes debut. It was produced by Kelley Stoltz, whose own gnarly take on power-pop is probably quite a good analogue to Adam Payne’s record, too. Stoltz has never, to my knowledge, recorded anything like “Incidental Arrangement”, however, a lengthy guitar instrumental that begins as a fractious, unstructured jam and then gradually acquires shape and momentum. It reminds me a lot of those unravelling epics favoured by mid-period Yo La Tengo like “Blue Line Swinger” and “I Heard you Looking”: free, heady, ecstatic guitar freak-outs. Works for me, needless to say.

Sad news this morning, inevitably overshadowed in the UK by all the Brits bullshit, that Touch & Go Records are to cease putting out new music (not sure where that leaves, say, the forthcoming Crystal Antlers album, for a start). A slight unhappy coincidence, in that this morning I was playing a new record which has distinct ties to the ‘80s post-hardcore from which Touch & Go emerged, allbeit closer ones to the SST sound of that time.

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Tricky Joins Line Up For ATP

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Tricky Joins Line Up For ATP
Tricky has been added to the bill for this year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties. Curated by The Breeders, the festival takes place at Butlins, Minehead between May 15-17. Other acts confirmed so far include Throwing Muses, Gang Of Four, Bon Iver, Teenage Fanclub, Kimya Dawson, Blood Red Shoes, Deerh...

Tricky has been added to the bill for this year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties.

Curated by The Breeders, the festival takes place at Butlins, Minehead between May 15-17.

Other acts confirmed so far include Throwing Muses, Gang Of Four, Bon Iver, Teenage Fanclub, Kimya Dawson, Blood Red Shoes, Deerhunter, Shellac and CSS.

For more music and film news click here

The Rakes To Preview New Album At Intimate Gig

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The Rakes To Preview New Album At Intimate Gig
The Rakes will preview their third album ‘Klang!’ at an intimate gig at The Lexington in Islington, London next Friday (June 27). Recorded in Berlin with Les Savy Fav producer Chris Zane, ‘Klang!’ is the follow up to 2007’s Ten New Messages. "The album is raw, playful, exciting, complex ...

The Rakes will preview their third album ‘Klang!’ at an intimate gig at The Lexington in Islington, London next Friday (June 27).

Recorded in Berlin with Les Savy Fav producer Chris Zane, ‘Klang!’ is the follow up to 2007’s Ten New Messages.

“The album is raw, playful, exciting, complex and schizophrenic – much like the personality of Berlin itself,” said singer Alan Donohoe, “it couldn’t be more of a fitting place to record it.”

Tickets for The Lexington gig are priced at £10.

The band will tour the UK in April, the dates are:

Tue 21, Brighton, Concorde 2

Wed 22, Portsmouth, Wedgewood Rooms

Thu 23, Manchester, Club Academy

Fri 24, Dublin, The Button Factory

Sat 25, Glasgow, Oran Mor

Sun 26, Newcastle, The Cluny

Tue 28, Nottingham, Rescue Rooms

Wed 29, London, Koko

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Portishead Ask Fans For Ways To Release New Album

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Portishead Ask Fans For Ways To Release New Album
Portishead have appealed to fans for ideas on how to release their next album. Follow the release of last year’s ‘Third’, voted Uncut's Album of 2008, the band are now free from their contract with Universal Music. "We're free of a deal and free of commitment,” Geoff Barrow wrote on th...

Portishead have appealed to fans for ideas on how to release their next album.

Follow the release of last year’s ‘Third’, voted Uncut’s Album of 2008, the band are now free from their contract with Universal Music.

“We’re free of a deal and free of commitment,” Geoff Barrow wrote on the band’s myspace blog. “With the world being the way it is there are lots of options open. But if you lot have any bright ideas of how we should sell our music in the future let us know”

One option the band reject however is a Radiohead-style free give away.

“I don’t think that were into giving out music away for free to be honest. It fuckin’ takes ages to write, and we have to heat our swimming pools!”

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Kasabian To Play Great Escape Festival

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Kasabian To Play Great Escape Festival
Kasabian have announced they will be playing Brighton’s Great Escape Festival this May. Taking place between May 14 – 16 across 34 venues, the band will join British Sea Power, Little Boots, Lightspeed Champion, The Black Lips, Metronomy, Esser, VV Brown, The Soft Pack, Golden Silvers and Ben K...

Kasabian have announced they will be playing Brighton’s Great Escape Festival this May.

Taking place between May 14 – 16 across 34 venues, the band will join British Sea Power, Little Boots, Lightspeed Champion, The Black Lips, Metronomy, Esser, VV Brown, The Soft Pack, Golden Silvers and Ben Kweller.

Uncut will be revealing the line-up for our stage very soon.

In other news, Kasabian will release their third album, produced by Gorillaz collaborator Dan The Automator, in June.

For more music and film news click here

Duran Duran Announced For Lovebox

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Duran Duran Announced For Lovebox
Duran Duran have been announced as headliners for London’s Lovebox Weekender on July 18. Groove Armada will headline the Sunday night (July 19) of the festival, which they organnise annually. This year's festival will take place on the weekend of July 18/19 at East London's Victoria Park. Other...

Duran Duran have been announced as headliners for London’s Lovebox Weekender on July 18.

Groove Armada will headline the Sunday night (July 19) of the festival, which they organnise annually. This year’s festival will take place on the weekend of July 18/19 at East London’s Victoria Park.

Other acts confirmed to play so far include N.E.R.D, Florence And The Machine, Ladyhawke, Friendly Fires and Simian Mobile Disco.

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The Killers To Headline Oxygen And T In The Park

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The Killers To Headline Oxygen And T In The Park
The Killers have been announced as headliners for the Oxygen and T In The Park festivals. Both Oxygen and T In The Park take place between July 10 -12. Other acts confirmed to play both festivals include Kings of Leon, Snow Patrol, Blur, Razorlight, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Pete Doherty, Elbow...

The Killers have been announced as headliners for the Oxygen and T In The Park festivals.

Both Oxygen and T In The Park take place between July 10 -12. Other acts confirmed to play both festivals include Kings of Leon, Snow Patrol, Blur, Razorlight, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Pete Doherty, Elbow, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and White Lies.

Oxygen will be held at Punchestown Racecourse, County Kildare, while T In The Park is taking place outside Kinross in Scotland.

Meanwhile, The Killers are to to perform an intimate gig at London’s newly renamed O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in aid of War Child tonight (February 18) – co-headlining with Coldplay.

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Pic credit: PA Photos

Spandau Ballet Bury Hatchet and Announce Reunion!

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Spandau Ballet Bury Hatchet and Announce Reunion!

80’s New Romantics Spandau Ballet are set to reform, their manager has confirmed. “It is true’” manager Steve Dagger told the Sunday Express, “we’re not making announcements yet but yes, the boys are back in town. Not just a nostalgic re-run of the old, but a fresh slant on what Spandau Ballet are about.” The band will announce the reunion at a launch party aboard the H.M.S Belfast – the venue for their launch gig 30 years ago. The announcement will be even more surprising given the acrimony surrounding singer Tony Hadley, saxophonist Steve Norman and drummer John Keeble’s decision to sue bassist and songwriter Gary Kemp for unpaid royalties in 1999. “Every band on the way down is a band on the way up, but I never thought I’d see this one,” said Roy Eldridge former head of the band’s old record label Chrysalis. “Once they couldn’t stand to be in the same room together, let alone play. But now they are older, fatter, poorer, there’s every reason to see if the magic still works.” For more music and film news click here

80’s New Romantics Spandau Ballet are set to reform, their manager has confirmed.

“It is true’” manager Steve Dagger told the Sunday Express, “we’re not making announcements yet but yes, the boys are back in town. Not just a nostalgic re-run of the old, but a fresh slant on what Spandau Ballet are about.”

The band will announce the reunion at a launch party aboard the H.M.S Belfast – the venue for their launch gig 30 years ago.

The announcement will be even more surprising given the acrimony surrounding singer Tony Hadley, saxophonist Steve Norman and drummer John Keeble’s decision to sue bassist and songwriter Gary Kemp for unpaid royalties in 1999.

“Every band on the way down is a band on the way up, but I never thought I’d see this one,” said Roy Eldridge former head of the band’s old record label Chrysalis. “Once they couldn’t stand to be in the same room together, let alone play. But now they are older, fatter, poorer, there’s every reason to see if the magic still works.”

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The Seventh Uncut Playlist Of 2009

John Mulvey
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It’s beginning to look as if, in certain online circles, there’s going to be quite a fuss around the new Grizzly Bear album, “Veckatimest” – comparable perhaps to the heat around the Animal Collective record at the end of last year. Security’s comparably tight around “Veckatimest” – ironic considering it was Grizzly Bear themselves who benignly leaked a couple of “Merriweather Post Pavilion” tracks – but we did manage to sneak one listen yesterday. A lot to take in on one listen, so I’ll hold off a proper preview until I get hold of my own copy, but first impressions suggest that if you enjoyed the breadth and atmospherics of “Yellow House”, the delicately-threaded melodies, a sort of grandeur and otherness that remains magically subtle and unself-conscious, then you’ll be fine with “Veckatimest”. I guess a few people will be expecting more compacted, shaped songs in the vein of the Department Of Eagles album, but that’s not really the case. Lovely stuff – and no, before you ask, I’m not going to leak it, stream it, post MP3s or anything like that. Some more good new arrivals among this lot, along with a couple of donkeys. 1 The Hold Steady – A Positive Rage (Rough Trade) 2 The Rockingbirds - The Rockingbirds (Heavenly) 3 Rodriguez – Coming From Reality (Light In The Attic) 4 Prefuse 73 – Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian (Warp) 5 Cluster – Grosses Wasser (Water) 6 Peter Walker – Spanish Guitar (Birdman) 7 Royal Bangs – We Breed Champions (City Slang) 8 Richard Swift – The Atlantic Ocean (Secretly Canadian) 9 Love Is All – A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night (What’s Your Rupture) 10 Part Chimp – Thriller (Rock Action) 11 Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! (Polydor) 12 Pink Mountaintops – Outside Love (Jagjaguwar) 13 Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (Warp) 14 Wildbirds & Peacedrums – The Snake (Leaf) 15 The Juan Maclean – The Future Will Come (DFA) 16 Omar-S – Detroit: Fabric 45 (Fabric) 17 Alasdair Roberts – Spoils (Drag City)

It’s beginning to look as if, in certain online circles, there’s going to be quite a fuss around the new Grizzly Bear album, “Veckatimest” – comparable perhaps to the heat around the Animal Collective record at the end of last year. Security’s comparably tight around “Veckatimest” – ironic considering it was Grizzly Bear themselves who benignly leaked a couple of “Merriweather Post Pavilion” tracks – but we did manage to sneak one listen yesterday.

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Coldplay Up For Four Awards At Tonight’s BRITs

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Coldplay Up For Four Awards At Tonight’s BRITs
Coldplay and Duffy lead the field for tonight's (February 18) BRIT Awards, with both artists shortlisted in four categories each, including Best Album and Best Single. Elbow are also in contention for two BRITs, one for Best Album and for Best British Group, hoping to follow up their Mercury Musoc...

Coldplay and Duffy lead the field for tonight’s (February 18) BRIT Awards, with both artists shortlisted in four categories each, including Best Album and Best Single.

Elbow are also in contention for two BRITs, one for Best Album and for Best British Group, hoping to follow up their Mercury Musoc Prize win for ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ album.

If confirmation were needed of a heavy rock return to the mainstream, AC/DC and Iron Maiden have also both been shortlisted. AC/DC are up for two awards, Best International Album for Black Ice and for Best International Group. Whilst Iron Maiden are up for Best Live Act, for their Somewhere Back In Time Tour which kicked off last year.

Kings Of Leon, Girls Aloud, Take That, Coldplay, Duffy and U2 are to perform at this year’s BRIT Awards.

Presenting the ceremony will be Kylie Minogue appearing alongside James Corden and Matthew Horne.

Pet Shop Boys are to receive the 2009 Lifetime Achievement award, whilst Florence And The Machine are named this year’s Critic’s Choice.

The whole ceremony is being broadcast live on ITV1 from 8pm.

The full list of nominees for the BRIT Awards 2009 is:

MasterCard British Album

Coldplay – ‘Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends’

Duffy – ‘Rockferry’

Elbow – ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’

Radiohead – ‘In Rainbows’

The Ting Tings – ‘We Started Nothing’

British Group

Coldplay

Elbow

Girls Aloud

Radiohead

Take That

British Single

Adele – ‘Chasing Pavements’

Alexandra Burke – ‘Hallelujah’

Coldplay – ‘Viva La Vida’

Dizzee Rascal featuring Calvin Harris and Chrome – ‘Dance Wiv Me’

Duffy – ‘Mercy’

Estelle ft Kanye West – ‘American Boy’

Girls Aloud – ‘The Promise’

Leona Lewis – ‘Better in Time’

Scouting for Girls – ‘Heartbeat’

‘The X Factor’ Finalists – ‘Hero’

British Male Solo Artist

Ian Brown

James Morrison

Paul Weller

The Streets

Will Young

British Female Solo Artist

Adele

Beth Rowley

Duffy

Estelle

M.I.A.

British Breakthrough Act

Adele

Duffy

The Last Shadow Puppets

Scouting For Girls

The Ting Tings

British Live Act

Coldplay

Elbow

Iron Maiden

Scouting For Girls

The Verve

International Album

AC/DC – ‘Black Ice’

Fleet Foxes – ‘Fleet Foxes’

The Killers – ‘Day & Age’

Kings of Leon – ‘Only By The Night’

MGMT – ‘Oracular Spectacular’

International Group

AC/DC

Fleet Foxes

The Killers

Kings Of Leon

MGMT

International Male Solo Artist

Beck

Neil Diamond

Jay-Z

Kanye West

Seasick Steve

International Female Solo Artist

Beyonce

Gabriella Cilmi

Katy Perry

Pink

Santogold

British Producer of the Year

Bernard Butler

Brian Eno

Steve Mac

Outstanding Contribution Award

Pet Shop Boys

Gerry Rafferty Found Living In Hiding

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Gerry Rafferty Found Living In Hiding

After his disappearance six months ago, singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty has been discovered living in hiding in the south of England. Fears had been growing in recent months for the safety and whereabouts of Rafferty after he disappeared from St Thomas’ Hospital last Summer. Rafferty has battled alcoholism for years and trashed his London hotel room last August, before checking out of St Thomas’ where he was being treated for liver problems. Friends and family of the singer were alarmed after his disappearance, especially as Rafferty left his clothes and personal belongings at the London hospital. The proprietor of the London hotel Rafferty had previously been staying at reported to the press that the carpets, bedframe and curtains in Rafferty’s room had to be removed and incinerated. "He has damaged quite a lot of his room, because he has been incontinent for four days,” said Alex Huggan, “there was blood and urine everywhere." Last month the website ultimate-guitar.com reported that Rafferty may have been kidnapped. However, the story prompted a response from one of the site’s users. "Don't worry. He's fine,” read the post, “I served him in a restaurant just off Piccadilly Circus tonight, then helped him to his hotel. Thought he looked familiar, so I went back and asked the porter his name.” Earlier this month another reader reportedly spotted Rafferty at a hotel in Bournemouth, it is believed he is currently being looked after by a friend. "I spoke to him two weeks ago and he's fine," Rafferty's spokesperson, Paul Charles, today told The Independent . "There's no album, there's no tour, so he's not coming out in public.” The Paisley-born singer formed the Humblebums with Billy Connolly and fronted Stealers Wheel before having an international smash with “Baker Street” in 1978. "I was extremely worried when I heard that he had walked out of hospital in the middle of the night and that he left clothes and belongings behind,” said former Stealers Wheel member Tony Williams, now a councillor in Blackpool. “As a councillor I am the chair of BSafe Blackpool and through police contacts tried to see if there were any reports of him - but there weren't." Rafferty retired from music in 1983 to spend more time with his family, he is reasoned to earn a steady income from the royalties for “Baker Street” and Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck In The Middle With You”. In 2005, he collapsed at his home in Hampstead, London, issuing denials that he had overdosed on prescription drugs. For more music and film news click here

After his disappearance six months ago, singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty has been discovered living in hiding in the south of England.

Fears had been growing in recent months for the safety and whereabouts of Rafferty after he disappeared from St Thomas’ Hospital last Summer.

Rafferty has battled alcoholism for years and trashed his London hotel room last August, before checking out of St Thomas’ where he was being treated for liver problems.

Friends and family of the singer were alarmed after his disappearance, especially as Rafferty left his clothes and personal belongings at the London hospital.

The proprietor of the London hotel Rafferty had previously been staying at reported to the press that the carpets, bedframe and curtains in Rafferty’s room had to be removed and incinerated. “He has damaged quite a lot of his room, because he has been incontinent for four days,” said Alex Huggan, “there was blood and urine everywhere.”

Last month the website ultimate-guitar.com reported that Rafferty may have been kidnapped. However, the story prompted a response from one of the site’s users. “Don’t worry. He’s fine,” read the post, “I served him in a restaurant just off Piccadilly Circus tonight, then helped him to his hotel. Thought he looked familiar, so I went back and asked the porter his name.”

Earlier this month another reader reportedly spotted Rafferty at a hotel in Bournemouth, it is believed he is currently being looked after by a friend. “I spoke to him two weeks ago and he’s fine,” Rafferty’s spokesperson, Paul Charles, today told The Independent . “There’s no album, there’s no tour, so he’s not coming out in public.”

The Paisley-born singer formed the Humblebums with Billy Connolly and fronted Stealers Wheel before having an international smash with “Baker Street” in 1978.

“I was extremely worried when I heard that he had walked out of hospital in the middle of the night and that he left clothes and belongings behind,” said former Stealers Wheel member Tony Williams, now a councillor in Blackpool. “As a councillor I am the chair of BSafe Blackpool and through police contacts tried to see if there were any reports of him – but there weren’t.”

Rafferty retired from music in 1983 to spend more time with his family, he is reasoned to earn a steady income from the royalties for “Baker Street” and Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck In The Middle With You”. In 2005, he collapsed at his home in Hampstead, London, issuing denials that he had overdosed on prescription drugs.

For more music and film news click here

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