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M Ward – Hold Time

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M Ward – Hold Time

When Matt Ward released his first solo album, Duet For Guitars #2 in 1999, he appeared to be another bedroom hermit with a four-track recorder, inhabiting his private universe on the margins of indie. But through the course of the ’00s, the Portland, Oregon, native has progressively shown himself to be multitalented, popping up all over as guest musician and general creative go-to-guy. His accomplishments are many. Touring and recording with the comparably ambitious Conor Oberst. Co-producing and playing guitar on Rabbit Fur Coat, the first album of Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis. Forming She & Him with actress/singer Zooey Deschanel and concocting 2008’s soft-rock homage, Volume One. Not to mention making significant contributions to the records of artists ranging from Cat Power to Beth Orton and Norah Jones. Meanwhile, Ward’s own albums have incrementally expanded on the artist’s lo-fi roots, which put him alongside such fingerpicking solipsists as the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle, Smog’s Bill Callahan, Will Oldham and fellow Portlander Elliott Smith. His studio output, which now stands at six LPs, reveals him as a virtuoso guitarist and expressive singer, a passionate conservator of American roots music and a purveyor of Big Themes. All that is special about Ward is encapsulated in the captivating “Chinese Translation” from 2006’s Post-War, an epic metaphysical parable enclosed in a lilting alt.country song, embedding poetic verbiage about the cycle of life into a playful arrangement. The heady and ambitious Hold Time finds him delving deeper into the sounds and themes of Post-War and “Chinese Translation”. The album will be perceived by some as a religious tract because its rich Biblical imagery and intimations of immortality – and yes, he does thank God in his acknowledgments. But Hold Time is not an album-long testimony of belief; instead, it plays out as an extended meditation on the preciousness of time, the dance of life and death, and what evidence man can perceive of a spiritual dimension in the physical universe. After hushed opener “For Beginners”, the first of several contemplations of sin and salvation, Ward wastes no time connecting divine love with its human corollary. On “Nobody Like You”, he describes the redemptive power of true love via a lyric that mixes the language of traditional songs (“I trusted liars and thieves in my blindness”) and Motown (“But now it’s just like ABC/Life’s just like 1…2…3”), in a finger-snappin’ arrangement à la Dave Edmunds. Then comes the sprightly, string-enhanced shuffle “Jailbird”, the final minutes of a condemned man – one human who knows precisely when the life will go out of his body, which is what interests Ward in the subject. The words he puts in the mouth of his dead man walking directly address the album’s prevailing theme: “Save my soul ’fore they lay my old body down.” It’s easy to get lost in Ward’s lyrics, but this artist’s thematic concerns can’t be separated from his sonic impulses, which deftly draw on the hand-made sounds of Appalachian music, country blues, clapboard-church gospel and early rock’n’roll. At the same time, the album has all the lo-fi signifiers, from Ward’s imperfectly doubled lead vocals to the gauze of reverb he throws over the tracks. But these intimate elements co-exist with the most expansive arrangements of Ward’s career. The album’s leitmotif is its lush, dreamy string sections, which bring a gorgeous poignancy not only to the metaphysical songs “For Beginners”, “Hold Time”, “Save Me”, “Fisher Of Men” and “Epistemology”, but also to his radical reworkings of a pair of ’50s rockers, Buddy Holly’s “Rave On” (a duet with Deschanel) and Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me” (with Lucinda Williams). A third cover closes the album; it’s the Sinatra ballad “I’m a Fool To Want You”, with Ward transforming it into the end-title theme for an imaginary Spaghetti Western that doubles as a wordless hymn. “I have a lot of questions about that relationship between love and death,” Ward said in 2003. He’s pondering those questions in earnest now. UNCUT Q&A, M Ward: Your arrangements are lusher than ever, and yet you’ve retained your trademark lo-fi character. Growing up with making so many four-track tapes, that sound is forever in my head. Production-wise, I wanted a balance between rich string sounds and thin pawn-shop sounds. What prompted the Buddy Holly and Don Gibson covers? The short answer is that I’ve loved those songs as long as I’ve loved any song. The long answer is that I’d like to erase any kind of timeframe on these records I’m making. I like it when I hear a song on the radio and I don’t know how old it is, or where sounds are coming from. What’s the overarching theme of Hold Time? It’s inspired by being asked where my inspiration comes from. It’s the hardest question in the world, so I decided to make a record that tried to answer it. I like stories and songs that raise questions instead of pretending to have all the answers. There’s not many elements of life that can take you to those areas – but music can. BUD SCOPPA

When Matt Ward released his first solo album, Duet For Guitars #2 in 1999, he appeared to be another bedroom hermit with a four-track recorder, inhabiting his private universe on the margins of indie. But through the course of the ’00s, the Portland, Oregon, native has progressively shown himself to be multitalented, popping up all over as guest musician and general creative go-to-guy.

His accomplishments are many. Touring and recording with the comparably ambitious Conor Oberst. Co-producing and playing guitar on Rabbit Fur Coat, the first album of Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis. Forming She & Him with actress/singer Zooey Deschanel and concocting 2008’s soft-rock homage, Volume One. Not to mention making significant contributions to the records of artists ranging from Cat Power to Beth Orton and Norah Jones.

Meanwhile, Ward’s own albums have incrementally expanded on the artist’s lo-fi roots, which put him alongside such fingerpicking solipsists as the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle, Smog’s Bill Callahan, Will Oldham and fellow Portlander Elliott Smith. His studio output, which now stands at six LPs, reveals him as a virtuoso guitarist and expressive singer, a passionate conservator of American roots music and a purveyor of Big Themes. All that is special about Ward is encapsulated in the captivating “Chinese Translation” from 2006’s Post-War, an epic metaphysical parable enclosed in a lilting alt.country song, embedding poetic verbiage about the cycle of life into a playful arrangement.

The heady and ambitious Hold Time finds him delving deeper into the sounds and themes of Post-War and “Chinese Translation”. The album will be perceived by some as a religious tract because its rich Biblical imagery and intimations of immortality – and yes, he does thank God in his acknowledgments. But Hold Time is not an album-long testimony of belief; instead, it plays out as an extended meditation on the preciousness of time, the dance of life and death, and what evidence man can perceive of a spiritual dimension in the physical universe.

After hushed opener “For Beginners”, the first of several contemplations of sin and salvation, Ward wastes no time connecting divine love with its human corollary. On “Nobody Like You”, he describes the redemptive power of true love via a lyric that mixes the language of traditional songs (“I trusted liars and thieves in my blindness”) and Motown (“But now it’s just like ABC/Life’s just like 1…2…3”), in a finger-snappin’ arrangement à la Dave Edmunds.

Then comes the sprightly, string-enhanced shuffle “Jailbird”, the final minutes of a condemned man – one human who knows precisely when the life will go out of his body, which is what interests Ward in the subject. The words he puts in the mouth of his dead man walking directly address the album’s prevailing theme: “Save my soul ’fore they lay my old body down.”

It’s easy to get lost in Ward’s lyrics, but this artist’s thematic concerns can’t be separated from his sonic impulses, which deftly draw on the hand-made sounds of Appalachian music, country blues, clapboard-church gospel and early rock’n’roll. At the same time, the album has all the lo-fi signifiers, from Ward’s imperfectly doubled lead vocals to the gauze of reverb he throws over the tracks. But these intimate elements co-exist with the most expansive arrangements of Ward’s career.

The album’s leitmotif is its lush, dreamy string sections, which bring a gorgeous poignancy not only to the metaphysical songs “For Beginners”, “Hold Time”, “Save Me”, “Fisher Of Men” and “Epistemology”, but also to his radical reworkings of a pair of ’50s rockers, Buddy Holly’s “Rave On” (a duet with Deschanel) and Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me” (with Lucinda Williams). A third cover closes the album; it’s the Sinatra ballad “I’m a Fool To Want You”, with Ward transforming it into the end-title theme for an imaginary Spaghetti Western that doubles as a wordless hymn. “I have a lot of questions about that relationship between love and death,” Ward said in 2003. He’s pondering those questions in earnest now.

UNCUT Q&A, M Ward:

Your arrangements are lusher than ever, and yet you’ve retained your trademark lo-fi character.

Growing up with making so many four-track tapes, that sound is forever in my head. Production-wise, I wanted a balance between rich string sounds and thin pawn-shop sounds.

What prompted the Buddy Holly and Don Gibson covers?

The short answer is that I’ve loved those songs as long as I’ve loved any song. The long answer is that I’d like to erase any kind of timeframe on these records I’m making. I like it when I hear a song on the radio and I don’t know how old it is, or where sounds are coming from.

What’s the overarching theme of Hold Time?

It’s inspired by being asked where my inspiration comes from. It’s the hardest question in the world, so I decided to make a record that tried to answer it. I like stories and songs that raise questions instead of pretending to have all the answers. There’s not many elements of life that can take you to those areas – but music can.

BUD SCOPPA

Various Artists – Dark Was The Night

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Various Artists – Dark Was The Night

Back in 1993 with grunge at its height, the Red Hot Organisation’s AIDS fund-and-awareness raiser compilation No Alternative seemed to capture a generation coming of age. The record featured contributions from Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, The Breeders, and, in the kind of commercial contradiction that so tormented them, a song by Nirvana – “Verse Chorus Verse” – that their record company insisted could not be listed on the album sleeve. But amid stiff competition, the stand-out track was “Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence” by Pavement. In his ramshackle, elliptical way, Stephen Malkmus paid tribute to REM (“Southern boys, just like you and me”), harking back to the days of the “Chronic Town” EP, and even imagining an alternative pop prehistory where Buck, Stipe, Berry and Mills stood up to the might of Sherman’s Confederate army. Obliquely, amusingly, it defined the “alternative rock” generation as the cultural children of those first inklings of college rock in early-’80s Athens. Sixteen years later, the latest Red Hot comp rounds up the grandchildren. Compiled by Aaron and Bryce Dessner from The National, the two-disc, 31-song tracklisting of Dark Was The Night reads like a roll call of US indie rock of the last five years, a scene that’s burgeoned from the 2004 debut of the Arcade Fire (who contribute a new track, “Lenin”) to the overwhelming success of last year’s critics’ darling Bon Iver (who donates “Brackett, WI”, plus a spontaneous collaboration with Aaron, “Big Red Machine”). The comp seems to have had two major inspirations. The first was Red Hot founder and DWTN Executive Producer John Carlin’s sense that a lot of these younger indie kids seemed to be practically chamber orchestras, putting a baroque 21st-century spin on American roots music. And the second was Feist’s appearance on Letterman a couple of years ago, where she assembled a scratch backing choir comprising members of The National, The New Pornographers, Grizzly Bear and Broken Social Scene – the real tipping-point moment when, according to Aaron, the sense of a scene or a movement – the kind of thing musicians love to deny to trend-chasing journalists – seemed undeniable. Carlin’s “baroque folk” concept explicity inspires a clutch of tracks, though their roots are not necessarily American: The Books and José González cutely cover Nick Drake’s “Cello Song”, while Feist and Grizzly Bear’s Ben Gibbard offer a winsome take on Vashti Bunyan’s “Train Song”. Closer to that old weird America are Kronos Quartet’s spare, stunning reprise of Blind Willie Johnson’s moaning blues for the title track and Antony Hegarty and Bryce Dessner’s elegiac take on Bob Dylan’s “I Was Young When I Left Home”. However, even Hegarty’s startling voice struggles to escape what you might call the generic gravity of the record. Listen to successive tracks by Feist, Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, Yeasayer, Decemberists, Iron & Wine and the repeated force of the folksy plucking and briney voices can prove almost overwhelming. This is the polite, less freaky end of modern American indie folk: earnest, well-intentioned, Obama-fundraising, National Public Radio-supporting... and cumulatively a little dull. Even the Arcade Fire can’t quite get the party started: “Lenin” is a rumbling, oddly low-key number, recalling The Beatles’ late attempts to get back to their rock’n’roll roots. But such an extensive, stellar lineup can’t fail to hit the mark and Dark Was The Night features some real highlights, notably The National’s own track, “So Far Around The Bend”, augmented by a wonderful woodwind and string arrangement by classical wunderkind Nico Muhly, and Sufjan Stevens’ sprawling pan-genre odyssey through Castanets’ “You Are The Blood”. But best of all is “Knotty Pine”, a collaboration between Dirty Projectors, and David Byrne, who provided the lyric – “Here is the sound that photographs make/When I see them when I hear them/I see regions of sharp precision/Over-abundance /Overindulgence” – from an old scrap he’d held onto since the early days of Talking Heads, and suggested lead Projector Dave Longstreth come up with a new setting. The project seems to have energised both parties – Byrne sounds thrilled to be jamming with the new arthouse set, while The Dirty Projectors seem inspired into rare focus, their beguiling tangents resolving into something resembling a pop song. But more importantly, like Pavement paying homage to REM back in 1993, it suggests that college rock can still find fresh inspiration in returning to the old school. UNCUT Q&A, Aaron Dessner: How did you hook up with Red Hot? I actually worked for John Carlin from Red Hot in New York, at his design company. And I was playing music on the side and leaving all the time for little tours, and he was nice about it, and we bonded over it. He was always cool about me taking off. and when The National finally got big enough that we didn’t need to have a job, he was very supportive of us leaving – and that was kind of when the idea of trying to do a Red Hot record came up. Did you intend to document a scene or movement? When people used to ask us this question, we used to say we live in a little vacuum and we make the songs we make, we’re not part of a scene. And that was true back then. I think now, what we’ve found is by touring, your friends more and more become the people whose music you’ve listened to for years. Things come together when you’re out at festivals. And we discovered trying to make this record that people are willing to go the extra mile. STEPHEN TROUSSÉ

Back in 1993 with grunge at its height, the Red Hot Organisation’s AIDS fund-and-awareness raiser compilation No Alternative seemed to capture a generation coming of age. The record featured contributions from Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, The Breeders, and, in the kind of commercial contradiction that so tormented them, a song by Nirvana – “Verse Chorus Verse” – that their record company insisted could not be listed on the album sleeve.

But amid stiff competition, the stand-out track was “Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence” by Pavement. In his ramshackle, elliptical way, Stephen Malkmus paid tribute to REM (“Southern boys, just like you and me”), harking back to the days of the “Chronic Town” EP, and even imagining an alternative pop prehistory where Buck, Stipe, Berry and Mills stood up to the might of Sherman’s Confederate army.

Obliquely, amusingly, it defined the “alternative rock” generation as the cultural children of those first inklings of college rock in early-’80s Athens.

Sixteen years later, the latest Red Hot comp rounds up the grandchildren. Compiled by Aaron and Bryce Dessner from The National, the two-disc, 31-song tracklisting of Dark Was The Night reads like a roll call of US indie rock of the last five years, a scene that’s burgeoned from the 2004 debut of the Arcade Fire (who contribute a new track, “Lenin”) to the overwhelming success of last year’s critics’ darling Bon Iver (who donates “Brackett, WI”, plus a spontaneous collaboration with Aaron, “Big Red Machine”).

The comp seems to have had two major inspirations. The first was Red Hot founder and DWTN Executive Producer John Carlin’s sense that a lot of these younger indie kids seemed to be practically chamber orchestras, putting a baroque 21st-century spin on American roots music. And the second was Feist’s appearance on Letterman a couple of years ago, where she assembled a scratch backing choir comprising members of The National, The New Pornographers, Grizzly Bear and Broken Social Scene – the real tipping-point moment when, according to Aaron, the sense of a scene or a movement – the kind of thing musicians love to deny to trend-chasing journalists – seemed undeniable.

Carlin’s “baroque folk” concept explicity inspires a clutch of tracks, though their roots are not necessarily American: The Books and José González cutely cover Nick Drake’s “Cello Song”, while Feist and Grizzly Bear’s Ben Gibbard offer a winsome take on Vashti Bunyan’s “Train Song”. Closer to that old weird America are Kronos Quartet’s spare, stunning reprise of Blind Willie Johnson’s moaning blues for the title track and Antony Hegarty and Bryce Dessner’s elegiac take on Bob Dylan’s “I Was Young When I Left Home”.

However, even Hegarty’s startling voice struggles to escape what you might call the generic gravity of the record. Listen to successive tracks by Feist, Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, Yeasayer, Decemberists, Iron & Wine and the repeated force of the folksy plucking and briney voices can prove almost overwhelming. This is the polite, less freaky end of modern American indie folk: earnest, well-intentioned, Obama-fundraising, National Public Radio-supporting… and cumulatively a little dull. Even the Arcade Fire can’t quite get the party started: “Lenin” is a rumbling, oddly low-key number, recalling The Beatles’ late attempts to get back to their rock’n’roll roots.

But such an extensive, stellar lineup can’t fail to hit the mark and Dark Was The Night features some real highlights, notably The National’s own track, “So Far Around The Bend”, augmented by a wonderful woodwind and string arrangement by classical wunderkind Nico Muhly, and Sufjan Stevens’ sprawling pan-genre odyssey through Castanets’ “You Are The Blood”.

But best of all is “Knotty Pine”, a collaboration between Dirty Projectors, and David Byrne, who provided the lyric – “Here is the sound that photographs make/When I see them when I hear them/I see regions of sharp precision/Over-abundance /Overindulgence” – from an old scrap he’d held onto since the early days of Talking Heads, and suggested lead Projector Dave Longstreth come up with a new setting. The project seems to have energised both parties – Byrne sounds thrilled to be jamming with the new arthouse set, while The Dirty Projectors seem inspired into rare focus, their beguiling tangents resolving into something resembling a pop song. But more importantly, like Pavement paying homage to REM back in 1993, it suggests that college rock can still find fresh inspiration in returning to the old school.

UNCUT Q&A, Aaron Dessner:

How did you hook up with Red Hot?

I actually worked for John Carlin from Red Hot in New York, at his design company. And I was playing music on the side and leaving all the time for little tours, and he was nice about it, and we bonded over it. He was always cool about me taking off. and when The National finally got big enough that we didn’t need to have a job, he was very supportive of us leaving – and that was kind of when the idea of trying to do a Red Hot record came up.

Did you intend to document a scene or movement?

When people used to ask us this question, we used to say we live in a little vacuum and we make the songs we make, we’re not part of a scene. And that was true back then. I think now, what we’ve found is by touring, your friends more and more become the people whose music you’ve listened to for years. Things come together when you’re out at festivals. And we discovered trying to make this record that people are willing to go the extra mile.

STEPHEN TROUSSÉ

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Scoop Five Grammy Awards

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Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Scoop Five Grammy Awards
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss picked up an impressive haul of five Grammy Awards in Los Angeles last night (February 8). The duo's wins included beating the likes of Coldplay and Radiohead to pick up Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year for "Pease Read The Letter" at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards...

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss picked up an impressive haul of five Grammy Awards in Los Angeles last night (February 8).

The duo’s wins included beating the likes of Coldplay and Radiohead to pick up Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year for “Pease Read The Letter” at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards ceremony.

“I’m bewildered,” remarked Plant, “in the old days we would have called it selling out but now it’s a good way to spend a Sunday.”

Plant and Krauss performed “Rich Woman” and “Gone Gone Gone” with producer/bandleader and fellow Grammy winner T Bone Burnett.

T Bone Burnett as producer and Mike Piersante as engineer/mixer also received Grammys for Record of the Year and Album of the Year for ‘Raising Sand.’

A good evening for British artists, with Radiohead winning Best Alternative Album and Best Boxed/Limited Edition Package for In Rainbows. Singers Adele and Duffy also both pickedup awards.

“Thank you so much,” said an emotional Adele accepting the Best New Artist award from fellow Brit Estelle, “I’m going to cry.”

Coldplay won Best Rock Album and Song Of The Year. Decked out in a lurid, Sgt Pepper-style military jacket Chris Martin thanked the audience for the recognition:“We have never had so many Grammys in our lives. I feel so grateful to be here, I’m going to tear it up. Thank you so much.”

Earlier in the evening Martin duetted with Jay-Z on a version of Coldplay’s Lost, before performing Viva La Vida with the rest of the band. The ceremony was opened by U2 playing a new Song entitled “Get On Your Boots” and featured a performance of 15 Steps by Radiohead.

Chris Brown and girlfriend Rihanna both cancelled their appearances following Brown’s arrest for a suspected domestic violence incident earlier that evening.

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

Brian Wilson – That Lucky Old Sun

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Brian Wilson – That Lucky Old Sun
Brian Wilson’s story is fascinating, not least because Wilson shows little sign of being fascinated by it himself. Everywhere he goes, he is treated with reverence, and he responds with nonchalance. There is, for example, an interview by Zooey Deschanel on this DVD, in which the actress – all bu...

Brian Wilson’s story is fascinating, not least because Wilson shows little sign of being fascinated by it himself. Everywhere he goes, he is treated with reverence, and he responds with nonchalance. There is, for example, an interview by Zooey Deschanel on this DVD, in which the actress – all bubbly and excited – attempts to engage Wilson in discussion. They are at the Hollywood Bowl, so she asks about the shows he has seen there. The first was The Beatles, Wilson says blandly. “And I saw Andy Williams one time.”

So, while he can just about reminisce about hanging out at Skippy’s hot dog stand in the early 1960s, it seems as if memories, for Brian, are best left unpacked. Yet sometimes, in the flatness of his conversation, Wilson does reveal himself. Deschanel enquires whether he always knew that his brothers could sing, and he replies that he did. It’s a story he has told before, but the phrasing here is precise. “We used to sing in our bedroom. A song called ‘Come Down From Your Ivory Tower And Let Love Come Into Your Heart’ [presumably Porter Wagoner’s ‘Ivory Tower’]. And just two years after that we recorded ‘In My Room’, which is the same three parts we used to sing in our bedroom. So we got some practice. If you can learn the parts and you can do the harmonies, and do them just right, it’s going to sound like angels.”

This DVD focuses on Wilson’s 2008 album, That Lucky Old Sun, which marked a new stage in his creative recovery. There is a beautiful performance of the album in LA’s Capitol Studios, but just as interesting is the footage of it being recorded. It shows that while Wilson can be diffident, he is the boss in the studio. There are flashes of temper, and odd moments of humour – his impersonation of an Elvis karate kick – but mostly what you see is how Wilson’s whole life is concentrated on music. “Music is probably the biggest source of mental and emotional healing that I have in life,” he says. “When I’m at the piano, I dream.”

That Lucky Old Sun saw him back at the piano, dreaming with an intensity he hadn’t approached in decades. The tone was set by the title track, an inspired reworking of a Louis Armstrong song, but there does seem to have been an element of collaboration in the decision to frame the album as a kind of autobiography; of Wilson, and Los Angeles.

The song “Oxygen To The Brain”, Wilson explains, was “about how I laid around, didn’t do anything, gained weight, didn’t wash my face, and then one day I stepped on the gas and started exercising.” Inspired by the confessional tone, one of Wilson’s collaborators Scott Bennett wrote the lyrics to “Midnight’s Another Day”, in which Wilson sings about how his memories made him feel like stone, and how “all these people made me feel so alone”. “That’s exactly how I felt!” Wilson says, faintly amazed. “And he knew that!”

That wistfulness now permeates all of the Beach Boys’ material. Watch Wilson performing “California Girls” (on the Yahoo live set included here), and it’s apparent that the youthful complexion of the song is now barnacled with sadness. It is terribly poignant.

But, despite the reverential tone of the interviewees (among them Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold), this is no obituary. What you see here is a gentle man, in sympathetic company, trying to cope with the burdens of genius by refusing to acknowledge them, even when everyone around him remains awed by the myth. My favourite moment comes when Scott Bennett explains how his lyric for “You’ll Be My Surfer Girl” was inspired by his sense that Wilson was making a musical reference to the first song he wrote, “Surfer Girl”. So, “in addition to it being an ode to your first love, it’s like a love song to your first song.”

“I just think it’s all about how I still love my wife,” says Brian.

Anyway, he sings it like an angel.

EXTRAS: 4* Track-by-track commentary, feature-length Making Of, Yahoo! Nissan Live Sets performance, MySpace “Artist On Artist” interview by Zooey Deschanel, Black Cab Sessions performance.

ALASTAIR McKAY

Being There

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Being There

Among the directors who tried to turn Hollywood upside down during the ‘70s, Hal Ashby holds a special place. He’s almost a metaphor for the whole era: arriving in the early-70s with small, unexpected movies brimming with new energy; run aground by the end of the decade, burnt out on drugs and studio frustrations. Ashby directed eleven movies before his untimely death in 1988. Mainstream acclaim came with 1978’s post-Vietnam melodrama, Coming Home, but his cult rests on four films: Harold And Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo and this, the last weird flash before terminal decline, released, significantly enough, in December 1979. Revisit that quartet, though, and you’ll run into the central conundrum of Ashby’s career: it’s hard to locate the director’s presence at all. The success of all four films depends mainly on their writing and, in particular, their lead actor – none more than Being There, which frames Peter Sellers at his most restrained yet most brilliant, soloing with intensely quiet genius in his penultimate role. Adapted from Jerzy Kosinski’s 1971 novel, it’s a modern-day fable, a spin on the emperor with no clothes, about a simpleton who gets mistaken for a guru. Sellers plays the vacuum at the centre, a man called Chance. His origins are mysterious. All we know is he has lived his entire life in the townhouse of a wealthy old man in Washington DC, and that he is not quite right. As the maid who raised him puts it: “No brains at all. Stuffed with rice pudding between the ears.” For decades, the child-like Chance has tended the old man’s garden, but he has never ventured beyond its walls. His only contact with the world outside comes via the TV he obsessively surfs. One day, though, the old man dies, the house is sold and Chance – dressed in 1930s clothes inherited from the dead man – is cast out from his garden into the fallen world. With Sellers stumbling politely from quiet mahogany sanctuary into the loud, dirty and profane streets, clicking his TV remote control at youths who confront him, Ashby has great fun with this sequence. But the real joke is still to come. By chance, Chance is swept up into the orbit of Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas, who won an Oscar), a dying old industrialist billionaire and political kingmaker, known as the President’s closest confidante. Sitting by Rand’s side, Chance’s silence gets mistaken for wisdom. When pressed for comment, he talks meaninglessly about the only thing he knows about: “As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.” It is gobbledegook, but, blinded by their sophistry and the fear of being seen not to understand, the political elite, and the audiences watching on TV, seize on his utterances as pearls of profound insight. As people constantly read their own meanings into Chance’s uncomprehending silence, the gentle idiot is soon carried to the verge of assuming the Presidency. This was a deeply personal project for Sellers. He lobbied for the role since the novel was first published, but by the time he got to play the part, he was seriously ill. Being There would be the last film of his released before his death. Although nominated, he was reportedly devastated when he failed to win the Best Actor Oscar in 1980. The real reward, though, lies in the incredible performance he left. Sellers has an impossible job: to play a cipher, a man who isn't there, yet imbue that void with hints of something profound. Somehow, he pulls it off. With his little hat and umbrella he is as absurd, unsettling and enigmatic as a Magritte. Still and silent, a universe away from Clouseau’s clowning, he radiates. This is Sellers’ film. Still, it was Ashby who came up with the last, magical touch that pushes the thing towards masterpiece: the final scene when, unobserved, Chance steps onto the surface of a lake, and obliviously begins walking on water. It’s impossible to work out what the mysterious, mischievous image is supposed to convey. The scene sends shivers running backwards through the movie, connecting with Biblical references Kosinski litters through the plot - but the scene doesn’t exist in Kosinski’s book. Ashby apparently improvised it, inspired by Sellers’ reflection in a polished floor. He probably couldn’t tell you what it’s supposed to represent himself. Maybe Ashby was something of a Chance: just there at the right moment, beside the right people. Watching Sellers stroll curiously across that beautiful grey lake, though, you can’t deny that it *feels* like it means something. And, if you like, you can probably find your own meaning in it. Perfect, really. EXTRAS: 3* Ileana Douglas’ (Melvyn Douglas’ granddaughter) memories, trailer. The Blu-Ray additionally features deleted scenes, alternative ending and gag reel. DAMIEN LOVE Pic credit: Kobal Collection

Among the directors who tried to turn Hollywood upside down during the ‘70s, Hal Ashby holds a special place. He’s almost a metaphor for the whole era: arriving in the early-70s with small, unexpected movies brimming with new energy; run aground by the end of the decade, burnt out on drugs and studio frustrations.

Ashby directed eleven movies before his untimely death in 1988. Mainstream acclaim came with 1978’s post-Vietnam melodrama, Coming Home, but his cult rests on four films: Harold And Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo and this, the last weird flash before terminal decline, released, significantly enough, in December 1979. Revisit that quartet, though, and you’ll run into the central conundrum of Ashby’s career: it’s hard to locate the director’s presence at all. The success of all four films depends mainly on their writing and, in particular, their lead actor – none more than Being There, which frames Peter Sellers at his most restrained yet most brilliant, soloing with intensely quiet genius in his penultimate role.

Adapted from Jerzy Kosinski’s 1971 novel, it’s a modern-day fable, a spin on the emperor with no clothes, about a simpleton who gets mistaken for a guru. Sellers plays the vacuum at the centre, a man called Chance. His origins are mysterious. All we know is he has lived his entire life in the townhouse of a wealthy old man in Washington DC, and that he is not quite right. As the maid who raised him puts it: “No brains at all. Stuffed with rice pudding between the ears.”

For decades, the child-like Chance has tended the old man’s garden, but he has never ventured beyond its walls. His only contact with the world outside comes via the TV he obsessively surfs. One day, though, the old man dies, the house is sold and Chance – dressed in 1930s clothes inherited from the dead man – is cast out from his garden into the fallen world.

With Sellers stumbling politely from quiet mahogany sanctuary into the loud, dirty and profane streets, clicking his TV remote control at youths who confront him, Ashby has great fun with this sequence. But the real joke is still to come. By chance, Chance is swept up into the orbit of Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas, who won an Oscar), a dying old industrialist billionaire and political kingmaker, known as the President’s closest confidante.

Sitting by Rand’s side, Chance’s silence gets mistaken for wisdom. When pressed for comment, he talks meaninglessly about the only thing he knows about: “As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.” It is gobbledegook, but, blinded by their sophistry and the fear of being seen not to understand, the political elite, and the audiences watching on TV, seize on his utterances as pearls of profound insight. As people constantly read their own meanings into Chance’s uncomprehending silence, the gentle idiot is soon carried to the verge of assuming the Presidency.

This was a deeply personal project for Sellers. He lobbied for the role since the novel was first published, but by the time he got to play the part, he was seriously ill. Being There would be the last film of his released before his death. Although nominated, he was reportedly devastated when he failed to win the Best Actor Oscar in 1980.

The real reward, though, lies in the incredible performance he left. Sellers has an impossible job: to play a cipher, a man who isn’t there, yet imbue that void with hints of something profound. Somehow, he pulls it off. With his little hat and umbrella he is as absurd, unsettling and enigmatic as a Magritte. Still and silent, a universe away from Clouseau’s clowning, he radiates.

This is Sellers’ film. Still, it was Ashby who came up with the last, magical touch that pushes the thing towards masterpiece: the final scene when, unobserved, Chance steps onto the surface of a lake, and obliviously begins walking on water.

It’s impossible to work out what the mysterious, mischievous image is supposed to convey. The scene sends shivers running backwards through the movie, connecting with Biblical references Kosinski litters through the plot – but the scene doesn’t exist in Kosinski’s book. Ashby apparently improvised it, inspired by Sellers’ reflection in a polished floor. He probably couldn’t tell you what it’s supposed to represent himself.

Maybe Ashby was something of a Chance: just there at the right moment, beside the right people. Watching Sellers stroll curiously across that beautiful grey lake, though, you can’t deny that it *feels* like it means something. And, if you like, you can probably find your own meaning in it. Perfect, really.

EXTRAS: 3* Ileana Douglas’ (Melvyn Douglas’ granddaughter) memories, trailer. The Blu-Ray additionally features deleted scenes, alternative ending and gag reel.

DAMIEN LOVE

Pic credit: Kobal Collection

Mick Jones Unveils ‘Rock and Roll Public Library’

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Mick Jones Unveils ‘Rock and Roll Public Library’
Mick Jones is to display a collection of items gathered from working with The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite and Carbon Silicon in a new exhibition in a South London lock-up from next month. Presenting the collection as “The Rock & Roll Public Library”, items include marketing materials from all...

Mick Jones is to display a collection of items gathered from working with The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite and Carbon Silicon in a new exhibition in a South London lock-up from next month.

Presenting the collection as “The Rock & Roll Public Library”, items include marketing materials from all of the bands plus related magazines, books instruments, flight cases, posters and stage clothes.

Highlights are likely to be the boxes of boxes of correspondence, photographs and song lyrics.

Jones will show off his hoarded collection at the Cheslea Space in SW1 from March 18 – April 18.

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Pic credit: PA Photos

Howling Bells Live Webchat This Afternoon!

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Howling Bells Live Webchat This Afternoon!

Label mates with Fleet Foxes on Bella Union, the band are about to release their second album 'Radio Wars'. Part of the chat today will discuss the importance of independent music. The Howling Bells toured Europe last year with The Killers, so they have plenty of tips for new starters in the industry. The band are to be joined by music trends expert Andy Perry, so you can also pitch your questions about what music is likely to rock your world this year. The band will also treat fans to a taste of the new songs. Click here to log on and chat to the band at 2pm. You can submit your questions now! It's simple. More information about how to get started in music, see the Emusic site here: www.emusic.com/webtv For more music and film news click here

Label mates with Fleet Foxes on Bella Union, the band are about to release their second album ‘Radio Wars’. Part of the chat today will discuss the importance of independent music.

The Howling Bells toured Europe last year with The Killers, so they have plenty of tips for new starters in the industry.

The band are to be joined by music trends expert Andy Perry, so you can also pitch your questions about what music is likely to rock your world this year.

The band will also treat fans to a taste of the new songs.

Click here to log on and chat to the band at 2pm.

You can submit your questions now! It’s simple.

More information about how to get started in music, see the Emusic site here: www.emusic.com/webtv

For more music and film news click here

Buffalo Springfield drummer Dewey Martin RIP

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Buffalo Springfield drummer Dewey Martin RIP
Dewey Martin, drummer for Buffalo Springfield has died aged 68, Uncut has learnt today. He died on January 31, of as yet unknown causes. Martin – along with Neil Young and Stephen Stills, one of three Canadians in the Springfield – was born on September 30, 1940 as Walter Dwayne Midkiff in...

Dewey Martin, drummer for Buffalo Springfield has died aged 68, Uncut has learnt today.

He died on January 31, of as yet unknown causes.

Martin – along with Neil Young and Stephen Stills, one of three Canadians in the Springfield – was born on September 30, 1940 as Walter Dwayne Midkiff in Chesterfield, Ontario. Leaving Canada, he’d found his way to Nashville, where he’d earned his stripes playing for Roy Orbison, Patsy Cline, the Everly Brothers and Faron Young. Moving to LA, he even fronted his own band, British Invasion-copyists Sir Walter Raleigh And The Coupons, in between stints with the Standells, the Modern Folk Quarter and The Dillards.

In Spring, 1966, he was invited to audition for the Springfield by Stephen Stills. Arguably a more accomplished musician than the others, he later grumbled to Young’s biographer Jimmy McDonough: “I didn’t have to audition for Orbison or Pasty.”

Young, speaking to McDonough, was clearly impressed with Martin: “We started tryin’ drummers. I liked Dewey. He’s a sensitive drummer. You get harder, he gets harder. You pull back, he pulls back. He can feel the music – you don’t have to tell him. Eye contact. Signals. All natural. To me, that’s worth its weight in gold.”

After the Springfield collapsed in 1968, Martin attempted to put together a second line up, the New Buffalo Springfield; later, New Buffalo after a legal dispute with Stills and Young. But Martin was eventually fired from the band, and went on to work first as a solo artist then in Medicine Ball until 1971, when he retired from music to become a mechanic.

But Martin, it seems, could never quite shake the Springfield. In the mid-Eighties, he reunited with bassist Bruce Palmer for Buffalo Springfield Revisited, and they toured the chicken-in-a-basket circuit through to the early Nineties. In fact, Martin and Palmer briefly reunited with Young in 1987, when Young was assembling a backing band for his This Note’s For You album, but the sessions didn’t work.

In 1997, the members of Buffalo Springfield (without Young) were inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame. On the song “Buffalo Springfield Again”, from his Silver & Gold album [2000], Young sang of how he’d “Like to see those guys again/And give it another shot.” With Palmer’s death in October 2004, and now Martin’s, that, sadly, will now never happen.

Ray Davies and Clash Legends To Appear At Laugharne Weekend

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Ray Davies and Clash Legends To Appear At Laugharne Weekend
Kinks founder Ray Davies is to perform at this year's Laugharne Weekend in Wales. The Welsh literary festival welcomes poets, authors and 'travelling musicians' and venues range in capacity from Dylan Thomas' Boathouse (24) to Laugharne Castle (300). Taking place from April 3 - 5 musicians playing...

Kinks founder Ray Davies is to perform at this year’s Laugharne Weekend in Wales.

The Welsh literary festival welcomes poets, authors and ‘travelling musicians’ and venues range in capacity from Dylan Thomas’ Boathouse (24) to Laugharne Castle (300).

Taking place from April 3 – 5 musicians playing include Cate LeBon and Stuart Moxham and Johnny – a duo formed especially for the festival by Euros Childs, ex Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, and Norman Blake from Teenage Fan Club.

Davies will be performing a spoken word show based on his book ‘X-Ray.’ Other conversations, panels and readings will incllude Shirley Collins, Keith Allen, Simon Armitage and Irvine Welsh.

The Clash‘s Mick Jones and Nick “Topper” Headon will be interviewed about their careers by their former tour manager Johnny Green.

Limited weekend tickets are available, priced at £65, individual shows will be priced between £5 and £15.

Individual show tickets (not weekend tickets) will be on sale from The New Three Mariners in Laugharne, Borders in Swansea and Spillers in Cardiff.

Check out the festival website for a full line-up and ticket details: www.thelaugharneweekend.com

All tickets go on sale from Friday February 6 at 9am.

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Lux Interior, The Cramps’ frontman Has Died

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Lux Interior, The Cramps’ frontman Has Died
Lux Interior, The Cramps very influential frontman died at Glandale Memorial Hospital, California from a pre-existing heart condition yesterday (February 4), aged just 62. Lux Interior, born Erick Lee Purkhiser founded The Cramps with his wife Poison Ivy in the 70s and the band are attributed with ...

Lux Interior, The Cramps very influential frontman died at Glandale Memorial Hospital, California from a pre-existing heart condition yesterday (February 4), aged just 62.

Lux Interior, born Erick Lee Purkhiser founded The Cramps with his wife Poison Ivy in the 70s and the band are attributed with pioneering a unique variation on the rockabilly sound.

The band’s publicist released an official statement saying:”Lux was a fearless frontman who transformed every stage he stepped on into a place of passion, abandon, and true freedom. He is a rare icon who will be missed dearly.”

The Cramps have toured endlessly in the last few years and were at No 2 in this year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties Fans Strike Back list, the list of bands that fans want to see play the May festival.

Click here for the full Uncut Lux Interior obituary

Plus! Click here for a reprint of Editor Allan Jones’ encounter with Lux and The Police in 1980

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Farewell, then, Lux Interior. . .

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The first thing I heard this morning when I got into the office was the news that Lux Interior of The Cramps had died. As a tip of the hat in fond farewell, here's another entry from my regular Stop Me. . . column, from 1980, when The Cramps supported The Police on the Italian leg of their first world tour. Who: The Police and The Cramps Where: Italy, March 1980 The day before the tear-gas and gunfire in Reggio Emilia, scary Cramps guitarist Bryan Gregory, a sinister stick insect in black leather and peroxide quiff, walks up to me outside the Hotel Principe E Savoia, which The Police have commandeered as their Milan HQ, puts his mouth very close to my ear and whispers with husky intimacy: “Growl for me, Tiger.” Words, frankly, fail me. I head at a brisk pace towards the coach for the Palalido sports centre, where The Police are playing tonight, supported by The Cramps. Bryan follows me onto the bus, sits next to me. “Can I interest you,” he asks, “in a conversation about necromancy?” Hours go by, and I guess at some point I nod off. Anyway, the next time I see Bryan he’s onstage with The Cramps and 10,000 hysterical Police fans are jeering them very loudly and throwing things at them. An orange bounces off Lux Interior’s forehead and the Cramps’ singer dives into the crowd. Someone bites a chunk out of his shoulder, hands claw at his naked back. He’s thrown back on stage, covered in blood. The audience want nothing to do with him. More fruit flies at the stage, splattering against the equipment. Andy Summers isn’t amused. The Cramps are using The Police’s expensive new PA. “This is absolutely marvellous,” Andy says, seething. “We pay a fucking fortune for the best PA we can assemble, hand it over to this shower and watch it reduced to ashes before we even get to use it. Fine. I’ve got absolutely no problem with that.” Lux, meanwhile, has gone down beneath a barrage of missiles. “It’s like the damned playing for the doomed,” Sting says gloomily, turning away. The next night, in Reggie Emilia, it gets worse. The trouble starts in the afternoon. The Copeland brothers – Police drummer Stewart and manager Miles – are strolling through the streets around the Palasport stadium when they hear the sharp bark of orders, the ominous pounding of bootheels. Turning a corner, the Palasport is in front of them and they can’t believe what they see. Thousands of fans have forced open fire doors along one side of the building and are swarming into the arena, pursued by flying phalanx of riot police armed with batons and shields, who lay into the rioters with venom. Meanwhile, Sting and I are standing by the side of the stage inside the Palasport. We’re talking about Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, which Sting typically thinks only he’s read, when there’s a massive fucking bang and the plate glass doors at the back of the stadium just sort of explode, glass flying everywhere. Then the doors along the side of the stadium burst open, frames splintering and buckling. Hundreds of rock’n’roll shock troops stream into the cavernous hall, pursued by the baton-wielding riot police Stewart and Miles had seen charging through the town. We retire to the band’s dressing room, where the next thing we know we’re all hitting the deck as a volley of gunfire blasts through the night. “Fuck me,” Sting cries, incredulous. “They’re shooting people now.” We can hear screams, the sound of running feet, a crowd advancing or retreating, another bloody riot. And now we’re all coughing like coal miners, tear gas pouring into the dressing room from the battleground outside, the whole gang of us fleeing the dressing room, choking and spluttering. “”This is what I really like about Italy,” Andy Summers says, leaning against a wall, trying to catch his breath. “They really try to make you feel at home.” “We’ll get T-shirts made,” Miles Copeland blusters. “I SURVIVED THE BATTLE OF REGGIO EMILIA!” “Great,” Sting says. “There’s just one thing. . .” “What’s that?” “We haven’t survived it yet.” Another tear-gas canister goes off inside the stadium, there’s more gunfire from outside. “Just remember,” Miles grins, looking for the BBC film crew who are touring with The Police. “This is all great for the movie.” “I will remember that,” Sting says, “when they rush the stage and start tearing us to pieces.” “I don’t know why you’re so worried,” Miles laughs. “I’m worried,” Sting says angrily, “because I’ve got to go out there to face that mob, while you sit in here and count the money.” Ten minutes later The Police are on stage and Sting is in an even greater strop. “If you spit at me again,” he’s shouting at the crowd, “I’ll come down there and break your fucking legs.” He wipes the phlegm from his face. “It’s feeble,” he announces. “You spend all your energy rioting, and you’ve none left to dance. You people should get your priorities right.” What follows is fraught, ugly, hysterical, the crowd charging the barriers at the front of the stage, bodies being passed unconscious over the barricades, fights breaking out with security men, the police apparently having beaten a retreat in the face of the swelling mayhem. Sting comes off stage and kicks open the door of the band’s dressing room. “What the fuck was going on?” he wants to know. “What’s the matter with these people? Last night was bad. But that was ludicrous. People being crushed. Tear gas. Riot police. What the fuck are riot police doing at a gig?” “They certainly weren’t dancing,” Andy Summers says. “At least they weren’t cracking heads,” Miles offers. “Not in here, they weren’t,” Sting says. “But what the fuck was happening outside? Outside, it sounded like World War-fucking-Three.” On the coach back to Milan, Sting is calmer. “Some times I think this is the best job in the world,” he tells me. “Then I start wondering whether it’s all worth it. I know I’ll make a lot of money out of it, see the world. It’s certainly more exotic than teaching in Newcastle. But tonight, you know, it makes it all seem so worthless. I don’t mind being jeered, as long as I’m not ignored. I don’t mind what an audience does, but rioting - leave it out. I don’t want to be the focus for a fucking riot. It’s nonsense. It doesn’t even make great headlines – except for him,” he says with a hoarse laugh. Miles has his Sony headset on, couldn’t have heard Sting but must have sensed someone talking about him. “What’s up now?” he asks. “Nothing,” Sting says, walking towards the back of the coach, where through the window you can see the moon hanging over the Alps. “Nothing at all.”

The first thing I heard this morning when I got into the office was the news that Lux Interior of The Cramps had died. As a tip of the hat in fond farewell, here’s another entry from my regular Stop Me. . . column, from 1980, when The Cramps supported The Police on the Italian leg of their first world tour.

Continue

The Cramps’ Lux Interior: 1946 -2009

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The Cramps’ Lux Interior: 1946 -2009
LUX INTERIOR 1946-2009 A near obsessive passion for rough-hewn rockabilly and schlocky horror B-movies may not sound like the most obvious template on which to build a lasting music career, but it kept The Cramps busy for the best part of three-and-a-half decades. Almost oblivious to changing fad...

LUX INTERIOR 1946-2009

A near obsessive passion for rough-hewn rockabilly and schlocky horror B-movies may not sound like the most obvious template on which to build a lasting music career, but it kept The Cramps busy for the best part of three-and-a-half decades. Almost oblivious to changing fads and trends, the group stumbled into a twilight world somewhere between “Great Balls Of Fire” and The Creature From The Black Lagoon and decided to stay there.

Lux Interior – born Erick Lee Purkhiser just outside Akron, Ohio, and taking his stage name from a TV ad description of a Chevrolet – formed the band in the mid-1970s after picking up hitchhiker Kristy Wallace in California. Discovering they were both enrolled on the same course at Sacramento City College (which he claimed was called “art and shamanism”), they parlayed their shared interests into a group that was as much a reaction to the music scene as it was a platform for their own ideas.

“I have nothing to do with these bands that call themselves new wave when all they are is a bunch of snotty-nosed little art students that don’t care anything about rock ‘n’ roll,” he told NME in 1980. “We’ve loved rock ‘n’ roll all our lives, and this band is the end of it. We’re not using the band to get into galleries or become mime dancers or anything. We want to be a rock ‘n’ roll band, and I’ll do it ‘til past when I’m dead.”

Kristy was reborn as Poison Ivy Rorschach (the pair would later marry), and The Cramps set about chronicling white trash culture to a garage punk beat. Songs like “I Was A Teenage Werewolf”, “Goo Goo Muck”, “Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?” and “I Ain’t Nothin’ But A Gorehound” embraced all things low-brow, but there was nonetheless wit, intelligence and sophistication at work somewhere in the mix. One of their most enduring numbers, “Naked Girl Falling Down The Stairs”, was inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s 1912 painting Nude Descending Staircase.

Releasing two independent singles produced by Alex Chilton in 1977, the band went on to sign for Miles Copeland’s IRS label and made their UK bow with the 1979 EP Gravest Hits, but it was two 1983 albums, Off The Bone and Smell Of Female, that brought them to a wider audience, followed by 1985’s A Date With Elvis, perhaps their best-loved work.

Mainstream success eluded them, but their cult following was always devoted. One ardent fan, serial killer John Wayne Gacy wrote to them regularly, even sending gifts of paintings from Death Row. Ultimately, the band became part of the kitsch world they so lovingly celebrated, even cropping up in an episode of Bevery Hills 90120 (entitled “Gypsies, Cramps and Fleas”), while Lux himself got to voice a character in Spongebob Squarepants.

But it was as a live act that they’ll be best remembered, with Lux’s menacing scowl and athletic moves borrowed wholesale from his teenage idol Iggy pop commanding the stage, while Ivy, attired as a monster movie burlesque dancer, crunched out guitar riffs at his side. They were pioneers of psychobilly (a label Lux always held in disdain) whose stripped-down less-is-more approach harked back to their early heroes Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent, but equally informed the spirit of many who followed in their wake. It’s impossible to listen to early White Stripes albums without recalling the good-natured frights and maniacal howls Lux so deliciously delivered.

TERRY STAUNTON

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Blur Announced As Festival Headliners

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Blur Announced As Festival Headliners
Blur have announced that their only live show in Ireland in 2009 will be headlining the Oxegen festival in Co, Kildare. Blur, who recently announced their comeback will play at the festival which runs from July 10 - 12 at the Punchestown Racecourse. The week before Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Jame...

Blur have announced that their only live show in Ireland in 2009 will be headlining the Oxegen festival in Co, Kildare.

Blur, who recently announced their comeback will play at the festival which runs from July 10 – 12 at the Punchestown Racecourse.

The week before Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, James Rowntree and Alex James will play two sold-out shows at London’s Hyde Park on July 2 and 3.

Other artsists so far confirmed for this year’s Oxegen festival include Kings of Leon, Snow Patrol, Bloc Party and Katy Perry.

Oxegen ticket pre-sale runs from February 25 – March 5, for fans who register at www.oxegen.ie. General sale begins on Friday March 6 at 8am.

Blur have also been revealed as one of the headline acts for this year’s T In The Park festival in Scotland. They will play on Saturday July 11.

For more music and film news click here

BB King Announces UK Arena Live Shows

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BB King Announces UK Arena Live Shows
BB King has announced four UK arena live dates to take place this June, nearly three years after his official 'farewell' world tour in 2006. The American blues guitar legend did however perform one song at the 51st Grammy nominations concert last December. BB King will play the following live date...

BB King has announced four UK arena live dates to take place this June, nearly three years after his official ‘farewell’ world tour in 2006.

The American blues guitar legend did however perform one song at the 51st Grammy nominations concert last December.

BB King will play the following live dates in June:

Manchester MEN Arena (June 24)

Birmingham NIA Arena (25)

Cardiff CIA (27)

London Wembley Arena (28)

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

Kris Kristofferson On Gatecrashing Cash In A Helicopter

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Kris Kristofferson On Gatecrashing Cash In A Helicopter
In last month’s issue of Uncut , we brought you the inside story on the House Of Johny Cash. We spoke to his family, friends and collaborators to tell the definitive story of the Man In Black. Over the next few weeks on www.uncut.co.uk, we’ll be printing the complete transcripts of these intervi...

In last month’s issue of Uncut , we brought you the inside story on the House Of Johny Cash. We spoke to his family, friends and collaborators to tell the definitive story of the Man In Black. Over the next few weeks on www.uncut.co.uk, we’ll be printing the complete transcripts of these interviews.

And here’s the fourth transcript from the feature: KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

Close friend, fellow Highwayman and singer-songwriter inspired to move to Nashville by Cash in the ‘60s. Achieved success after appearing on Cash’s TV show.

For previous interviews with Rodney Crowell and Nick Cave and Johnny’s son John Carter Cash. Click on the links in the side panel on the right.

***

UNCUT: How did you meet Johnny Cash?

KRISTOFFERSON: I grew up listening to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, so arriving in Nashville in the ‘60s was really exciting for me. I’d just come out of five years in the army, so it represented everything I really wanted to do. Country music was still looked down upon back then. It didn’t have the respect that it came to have. When I was stationed in Germany, Johnny Cash was already a legend over there because he’d done some shows, then gone off to some bar straight afterwards and played just for the troops. So he was a real hero.

I’d quit Westpoint after a two-week leave in Nashville. And that’s when I met Cash, so it was the final nail in the coffin of my army career. I was backstage at the Ryman Auditorium, where they had the Grand Ole Opry, and he was prowling around like a panther. He was just the most exciting-looking person I’d ever seen. He was always larger than life, he never changed. [Songwriter and publisher] Marijohn Wilkin introduced me to him and I was hooked. I figured that if I couldn’t make it as a songwriter, then I could write about people like that. Just hangin’ out in that atmosphere. There were a lot of exciting people out there in Nashville. It was very liberating. I met a lot of young songwriters who were trying to make it there, but the older, established guys – people like Johnny Cash – were very supportive. Even if I didn’t make it as a songwriter, there were so many interesting people I could write about. It was kinda like Paris in the ’20s.

Didn’t you gate-crash Cash’s house in a helicopter, demos in hand, in the late ‘60s?

I suppose the helicopter thing was a little desperate, but you have to realise that I’d known John for a while anyway. I was his janitor at Columbia Records for nearly two years, where I’d try and pass him every song I ever wrote. I used to give [Cash guitarist] Luther Perkins or June Carter my tapes, so I wouldn’t get fired. He never cut any of ‘em, though. In fact, he told me later that he threw them in the lake! But he was very encouraging to me. I know he carried the lyrics to “The Golden Idol” around in his wallet. He never recorded that one, though. For me, it was enough to feel like I was makin’ it.

I still think I was lucky he didn’t shoot me that day! I’d briefly joined the National Guard, just trying to make some extra money. So I had a helicopter I was able to fly at the weekend. The story about me getting off the helicopter with a tape in one hand and a beer in the other isn’t true. Y’know, John had a very creative imagination. I’ve never flown with a beer in my life. Believe me, you need two hands to fly those things.

I would never have quit, I would have just hung around and been unsuccessful. But definitely, when John put me on the Newport Folk Festival, it started a whole performing career I just didn’t anticipate. I was tickled to death that people were just starting to cut my songs. And that was also down to him. He had a really radical TV show – full of people like Dylan, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, people who never came to Nashville – and he’d tell everybody in town that Blueberry [Mickey Newbury] and I were the best songwriters around. We’d all get together regularly at John’s house and there’d be a big circle with people passing a guitar around. I remember Graham Nash there with Joni Mitchell and nobody knew who he was. We thought he was just Joni’s boyfriend.

Then he picked up the guitar and sang “Marrakesh Express”. Knocked everybody out. To be endorsed by someone like Cash was really something, like being endorsed by Dylan. I watched Dylan record Blonde On Blonde in my first week at work at CBS. It was just incredible. I think because of his respect for Johnny Cash, he recorded in Nashville and gave country a legitimacy to a whole new audience of people who’d always thought it was just hillbilly music.

When we all got together for Highwayman [1985’s Cash, Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings album], it was incredible. I loved it, but I just wish now that I’d realised how short it was going to be. It’s like life in that respect. It was such a blessing because every guy up there was my hero. I got to stand next to Johnny Cash and sing harmony every night. Now Willie and I are the only ones left. I wish I’d appreciated it more.

INTERVIIEW: ROB HUGHES

ABC To Perform Lexicon Of Love Live In Full

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ABC To Perform Lexicon Of Love Live In Full
ABC are to perform their No 1 album 'Lexicon of Love' live in it's entirety at London's Royal Albert Hall this April, it has been announced today (February 4). The album which spawned such hits as "Poison Arrow" and "The Look of Love" will be performed by the band, fronted by Martin Fry (pictured a...

ABC are to perform their No 1 album ‘Lexicon of Love’ live in it’s entirety at London’s Royal Albert Hall this April, it has been announced today (February 4).

The album which spawned such hits as “Poison Arrow” and “The Look of Love” will be performed by the band, fronted by Martin Fry (pictured above) as well as the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Conducting will be original ‘Lexicon of Love’ arranger and keyboardist Anne Dudley.

The show takes place on April 8, tickets go on sale on Friday February 6 at 9am.

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Hold Steady To Release First Live Album

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Hold Steady To Release First Live Album
The Hold Steady have announced that they will release their first ever live album and a DVD documentary, 'A Positive Rage,' as a two-disc set on April 6. The two discs capture the band in 2007, when the success of third album 'Boys and Girls In America' saw them embark on a lengthy world tour. Th...

The Hold Steady have announced that they will release their first ever live album and a DVD documentary, ‘A Positive Rage,’ as a two-disc set on April 6.

The two discs capture the band in 2007, when the success of third album ‘Boys and Girls In America’ saw them embark on a lengthy world tour.

The live album, recorded on October 31, 2007 features seventeen songs performed at a sold-out Chicago Metro.

The new album will also feature five bonus studio tracks: ‘Ask Her For Adderall’, ‘Cheyenne Sunrise’, ‘Two Handed Handshake’, and the previously unreleased tracks ‘Spectres’ and ‘40 Bucks’.

Speaking about the show, the second of a two night stint, frontman Craig Finn sets the scene, saying: “It ended up being a fantastic suburban blow out with band and audience on the floor, Frisbee and tailgating in the adjoining parking lot, and everyone singing along to every song…. It reminded me of the hardcore shows I loved as a kid, everyone sweating and screaming together in a rented hall. And drinking in the parking lot, of course. The next night worlds converged…. “

The 53-minute film was made across the whole year and includes backstage interviews, live footage and fan commentary.

The Hold Steady return to the UK this May, after another tour of the US and an appearence at the Coachella festival in April.

The Hold Steady’s UK dates, supporting the Counting Crows are as follows:

Glasgow, SECC (May 10)

Manchester, Manchester Evening News Arena (11)

Birmingham, NIA (13)

London, Wembley Arena (14)

Cardiff, Cardiff Arena (16)

Bournemouth, BIC (18)

Nottingham, Royal Centre (19)

Brixton, UK @ Academy (21)

www.theholdsteady.com

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Hear Lily Allen’s New Album A Week Before Release

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Hear Lily Allen’s New Album A Week Before Release
Lily Allen's second album 'It's Not Me, It's You' is the latest record to preview on networking website MySpace a week prior to it's release next Monday (February 9). The follow-up to Allen's debut 'Alright, Still' is available to listen to here: www.myspace.com/lilymusic. The first single from th...

Lily Allen‘s second album ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’ is the latest record to preview on networking website MySpace a week prior to it’s release next Monday (February 9).

The follow-up to Allen’s debut ‘Alright, Still’ is available to listen to here: www.myspace.com/lilymusic.

The first single from the album “The Fear” debuted at No 1 in the UK singles chart this week (February 1).

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Madness Confirmed For European Festival

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Madness Confirmed For European Festival
Madness have been confirmed to play this year's Roskildefestival in Denmark this Summer. The North London nutty boys who will be releasing a new album 'The Liberty of Norton Folgate' in May, will perform at the festival for the first time. Mask-wearing nu metallers Slipknot have also been announce...

Madness have been confirmed to play this year’s Roskildefestival in Denmark this Summer.

The North London nutty boys who will be releasing a new album ‘The Liberty of Norton Folgate’ in May, will perform at the festival for the first time.

Mask-wearing nu metallers Slipknot have also been announced to play at the festival, now in it’s 39th year, and which this year takes place from July 2-5.

More artists will be announced each Wednesday in run up to the festival, Coldplay have already been confirmed to headline, one of only three outdoor European shows Chris Martin and co. will play in 2009.

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The Fifth Uncut Playlist Of 2009

John Mulvey
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The other day, it occurred to me that, after nearly two years of doing Wild Mercury Sound, I should put together some kind of list of other blogs I like. To that end, it’d be great if you could post your recommendations at the bottom of today’s playlist; that’d be really helpful (plug your own if you like, too). I’ll try and post a full blogroll in the next week or two, and I’ll also endeavour to write something about this new PJ Harvey album that’s been sitting here for a while, and which is finally repaying multiple listens. Among the new arrivals here, I’m particularly excited by the DOOM sampler, daft insistence on caps notwithstanding, since it features at least one track, the superb “Angelz”, from the sessions MF Doom did with Ghostface Killah that were promised years ago. Oh and Obits are nice, too, fronted by Rick Froberg from Drive Like Jehu, and good evidence that when Hot Snakes split, we got two good bands (Obits and Night Marchers) for the price of one. 1 Ilyas Ahmed – The Vertigo Of Dawn (Time-Lag) 2 Neko Case – Middle Cyclone (Anti-) 3 The Handsome Family – Honey Moon (Loose) 4 Obits – I Blame You (Sub Pop) 5 Vetiver – Tight Knit (Bella Union) 6 Condo Fucks – Fuckbook (Matador) 7 Black Lips – 200 Million Thousand (Vice) 8 Omar S – Detroit – Fabric45 (Fabric) 9 DOOM – BORN LIKE THIS sampler (Lex) 10 Extra Golden – Thank You Very Quickly (Thrill Jockey) 11 PJ Harvey & John Parish – A Woman A Man Walked By (Island) 12 Kelly Joe Phelps – Western Bell (Black Hen) 13 Jon Hopkins – Insides (Double Six)

The other day, it occurred to me that, after nearly two years of doing Wild Mercury Sound, I should put together some kind of list of other blogs I like. To that end, it’d be great if you could post your recommendations at the bottom of today’s playlist; that’d be really helpful (plug your own if you like, too).

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