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NEIL YOUNG – SUGAR MOUNTAIN: LIVE AT CANTERBURY HOUSE 1968

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NEIL YOUNG – SUGAR MOUNTAIN: LIVE AT CANTERBURY HOUSE 1968

On May 5, 1968, in Long Beach, California, Neil Young played his final show with Buffalo Springfield, a band he’d already left and re-joined at least twice. “I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do next,” he told me in 1989. This seemed unlikely. For someone with only a vague notion of what he was going to do, he moved decisively, quickly hiring Elliot Roberts as his manager. Roberts - on his way to becoming one of the most powerful people in the American music business - had worked briefly with the Springfield earlier in their last disputatious year together, before being sacked by Neil for playing golf when he should have been attending to the group’s multiple whims. Roberts now signed his new client to Reprise, where apart from a short and unhappy liaison with Geffen Records, Young would remain for the rest of his career. That summer, Neil started work on his first solo album. The next step was to get Young in front of an audience, to test their reactions. In November, with the release of his debut solo album, Neil Young, now looming, two shows were booked, at Canterbury House, part of the University Of Michigan. The gigs were recorded on two-track tape, and exactly 40 years later finally see the light of the proverbial day as Sugar Mountain. I think if I’d been there on either night, my first reaction would have been something akin to shock. From what I knew of him at the time, Young was by reputation surly and remote, inclined towards fractious discord. In pictures, he had a tendency to look sullen, a moody loner. What a flattening surprise, then, to hear him here sounding so, well, goofy, I suppose you’d say. Ten of the 23 tracks listed on Sugar Mountain are spoken word introductions, rambling asides, random observations, often hilarious anecdotes delivered in a youthfully high-pitched voice that he at one point makes fun of himself. This awe-shucks folksiness is thoroughly disarming, as no doubt intended. Down the years, Young’s played this part to serial perfection – the straw-chewing backwoods philosopher, the bucolic savant, plain-speaking, daffy but wise, Jimmy Stewart on his way to Washington as Mr Deeds. “I never plan anything,” he says at one point, sounding baffled by his present circumstance in front all these people, some of them calling out for Buffalo Springfield songs he thought no one had even heard. But how true, you wonder, is this? Among the Buffalo Springfield songs for which he was perhaps best known were elaborate patchworks like 'Mr Soul', 'Expecting To Fly' and 'Broken Arrow' (all featured here). These were post-Pepper sonic collages, painstakingly assembled during long hours of over-dubbing in the studio, which was also how much of Neil Young had been produced, a process that had left him by his own admission disenchanted. For these Canterbury Hall shows, though, there clearly would be no attempt to replicate the unreleased album’s dense arrangements, orchestral flourishes and gospel backing vocals. This is just Neil, his voice and guitar and 13 songs, six from his Buffalo Springfield days, four from the forthcoming album, the unrecorded 'Sugar Mountain', an exquisite version of 'Birds', a song that would appear on After The Goldrush, and a brief snippet of Winterlude that barely merits a track listing of its own. In virtually every instance, these solo versions are preferable to the originals, performed with a singular confidence that suggests he may already have realised how dated when it came out aspects of Neil Young would sound, the stereo panning and overlaying of studio effects giving it an ornate fussiness that sat uneasily in the mutating musical climate of the late 60s. What’s striking here is how cleverly Young by now had grasped the fundamental changes in American music essayed already by Dylan and The Band on John Wesley Harding and Music From Big Pink. The summer of 1968 had seen the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. A season of riot had left cities on fire across the republic and Nixon was in the White House. Dark times were getting darker. It was as if the only legitimate response to more complicated times was a new kind of simplicity. And so the precocious psychedelic technician of those Springfield epics is calculatedly recast as a soulful solo voyager whose songs spoke without undue adornment of shared apprehensions, collective uncertainties. On songs like 'Sugar Mountain', 'If I Could Have Her Tonight' and 'I've Been Waiting For You', his vulnerability is something tangible and universal. On a quartet of great Springfield songs included here – 'Out Of My Mind', 'Mr Soul', 'Expecting To Fly', 'Broken Arrow' – he expresses among other things an uneasy discomfort with fame and its hollow trappings that places him on the side of the people he’s playing to, an unchallenged alliance. These songs and similarly intimate others like them were unquestionably personal. Young brilliantly, however, was able to make the ‘you’ of the songs not only the individual they initially were addressed to, but also the people who would shortly be buying his albums in their thousands and then millions. The ‘you’ in this instance being the plurality of his audience, spoken to as if in private conversation, with whom he shared mutual intimacies, feelings about love and loss in which his fans would increasingly hear aspects of themselves and what they were going through. One of the pivotal songs here, I think, is the surreal 'Last Trip To Tulsa', which as the closing track of Neil Young would be regarded by some as an aberration, too heavily indebted to Dylan, its solo acoustic setting at odds with the rest of the album. Now, of course, its impressionistic narrative – nightmarish, absurd, paranoid, awash with grim portent - can be heard as the precursor to masterpieces to come, like 'Ambulance Blues' or 'Thrasher' and even 'Ordinary People', that similarly took the pulse of the nation and its people. Sugar Mountain is a fascinating snapshot of Neil Young at a transitory moment in his long career, for which it also provides an indelible template. This is in many ways how he would sound for the next 40 years. At least, that is, when he wasn’t raging noisily with Crazy Horse, taking various detours into unadulterated country, winsome folk, synthesiser-pop, stylised rockabilly, big band R&B, grunge, electronic experimentalism, otherwise undermining convenient expectation or elsewhere meandering down the musical avenues that have at various times left fans baffled and at least one record company exasperated enough to want to sue him for not sounding enough like himself, when in fact for all this time he has sounded like no one at all but himself. ALLAN JONES

On May 5, 1968, in Long Beach, California, Neil Young played his final show with Buffalo Springfield, a band he’d already left and re-joined at least twice. “I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do next,” he told me in 1989. This seemed unlikely. For someone with only a vague notion of what he was going to do, he moved decisively, quickly hiring Elliot Roberts as his manager. Roberts – on his way to becoming one of the most powerful people in the American music business – had worked briefly with the Springfield earlier in their last disputatious year together, before being sacked by Neil for playing golf when he should have been attending to the group’s multiple whims. Roberts now signed his new client to Reprise, where apart from a short and unhappy liaison with Geffen Records, Young would remain for the rest of his career. That summer, Neil started work on his first solo album.

The next step was to get Young in front of an audience, to test their reactions. In November, with the release of his debut solo album, Neil Young, now looming, two shows were booked, at Canterbury House, part of the University Of Michigan. The gigs were recorded on two-track tape, and exactly 40 years later finally see the light of the proverbial day as Sugar Mountain.

I think if I’d been there on either night, my first reaction would have been something akin to shock. From what I knew of him at the time, Young was by reputation surly and remote, inclined towards fractious discord. In pictures, he had a tendency to look sullen, a moody loner. What a flattening surprise, then, to hear him here sounding so, well, goofy, I suppose you’d say. Ten of the 23 tracks listed on Sugar Mountain are spoken word introductions, rambling asides, random observations, often hilarious anecdotes delivered in a youthfully high-pitched voice that he at one point makes fun of himself.

This awe-shucks folksiness is thoroughly disarming, as no doubt intended. Down the years, Young’s played this part to serial perfection – the straw-chewing backwoods philosopher, the bucolic savant, plain-speaking, daffy but wise, Jimmy Stewart on his way to Washington as Mr Deeds. “I never plan anything,” he says at one point, sounding baffled by his present circumstance in front all these people, some of them calling out for Buffalo Springfield songs he thought no one had even heard. But how true, you wonder, is this?

Among the Buffalo Springfield songs for which he was perhaps best known were elaborate patchworks like ‘Mr Soul’, ‘Expecting To Fly’ and ‘Broken Arrow’ (all featured here). These were post-Pepper sonic collages, painstakingly assembled during long hours of over-dubbing in the studio, which was also how much of Neil Young had been produced, a process that had left him by his own admission disenchanted. For these Canterbury Hall shows, though, there clearly would be no attempt to replicate the unreleased album’s dense arrangements, orchestral flourishes and gospel backing vocals.

This is just Neil, his voice and guitar and 13 songs, six from his Buffalo Springfield days, four from the forthcoming album, the unrecorded ‘Sugar Mountain’, an exquisite version of ‘Birds’, a song that would appear on After The Goldrush, and a brief snippet of Winterlude that barely merits a track listing of its own. In virtually every instance, these solo versions are preferable to the originals, performed with a singular confidence that suggests he may already have realised how dated when it came out aspects of Neil Young would sound, the stereo panning and overlaying of studio effects giving it an ornate fussiness that sat uneasily in the mutating musical climate of the late 60s.

What’s striking here is how cleverly Young by now had grasped the fundamental changes in American music essayed already by Dylan and The Band on John Wesley Harding and Music From Big Pink. The summer of 1968 had seen the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. A season of riot had left cities on fire across the republic and Nixon was in the White House. Dark times were getting darker. It was as if the only legitimate response to more complicated times was a new kind of simplicity. And so the precocious psychedelic technician of those Springfield epics is calculatedly recast as a soulful solo voyager whose songs spoke without undue adornment of shared apprehensions, collective uncertainties.

On songs like ‘Sugar Mountain’, ‘If I Could Have Her Tonight’ and ‘I’ve Been Waiting For You’, his vulnerability is something tangible and universal. On a quartet of great Springfield songs included here – ‘Out Of My Mind’, ‘Mr Soul’, ‘Expecting To Fly’, ‘Broken Arrow’ – he expresses among other things an uneasy discomfort with fame and its hollow trappings that places him on the side of the people he’s playing to, an unchallenged alliance.

These songs and similarly intimate others like them were unquestionably personal. Young brilliantly, however, was able to make the ‘you’ of the songs not only the individual they initially were addressed to, but also the people who would shortly be buying his albums in their thousands and then millions. The ‘you’ in this instance being the plurality of his audience, spoken to as if in private conversation, with whom he shared mutual intimacies, feelings about love and loss in which his fans would increasingly hear aspects of themselves and what they were going through.

One of the pivotal songs here, I think, is the surreal ‘Last Trip To Tulsa’, which as the closing track of Neil Young would be regarded by some as an aberration, too heavily indebted to Dylan, its solo acoustic setting at odds with the rest of the album. Now, of course, its impressionistic narrative – nightmarish, absurd, paranoid, awash with grim portent – can be heard as the precursor to masterpieces to come, like ‘Ambulance Blues’ or ‘Thrasher’ and even ‘Ordinary People’, that similarly took the pulse of the nation and its people.

Sugar Mountain is a fascinating snapshot of Neil Young at a transitory moment in his long career, for which it also provides an indelible template. This is in many ways how he would sound for the next 40 years. At least, that is, when he wasn’t raging noisily with Crazy Horse, taking various detours into unadulterated country, winsome folk, synthesiser-pop, stylised rockabilly, big band R&B, grunge, electronic experimentalism, otherwise undermining convenient expectation or elsewhere meandering down the musical avenues that have at various times left fans baffled and at least one record company exasperated enough to want to sue him for not sounding enough like himself, when in fact for all this time he has sounded like no one at all but himself.

ALLAN JONES

THE REAL JIMMY PAGE – PART 2

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THE REAL JIMMY PAGE – PART 2

In the January issue of UNCUT, we celebrated the career of rock's greatest and most mysterious guitar hero through the first hand accounts of the people who know him best. Here at Uncut.co.uk, we'll be posting the full and unedited transcripts from those interviews, including words from Robert Plant, Jeff Beck, Roy Harper, Steve Albini and more. Today… DONOVAN Page and John Paul Jones featured on many early recordings by the Zelig-like Scottish singer-songwriter, forming Zeppelin during sessions for 'Hurdy Gurdy Man'… UNCUT: When did you first become aware of Jimmy Page? DONOVAN: There was Big Jim and Little Jim - Big Jim Sullivan and little Jim Page. Big Jim was the no. 1 session guitarist at that time, the master of the riff, and I think he might have taken little Jim under his wing - maybe got him jobs. Maybe they'd say, “This is a job for Big Jim,” and he wouldn’t have time, he’d say, “Give it to little Jim.” It was a time when there were less producers, less session guys, and they were all pretty much jazz. I’m not sure if Jimmy was asked for specially. I didn't know him socially, because in those days sessions were three songs, three hours. He was long-legged, not-so-long-haired then, dark clothes, bohemian but quiet. Who would've thought this guy would become a giant - the great treasure of the Pagan Celtic Rock of Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. What can you tell us about the 1968 sessions for 'Hurdy Gurdy Man'? Many people have said over the years how important that session of John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and me - and maybe Bonham, who said he was there - doing 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' was. I was developing a story-telling thing, and I wanted power-chords, because I'd obviously heard Dave Davies and Hendrix, and knew Pete Townshend. Originally I wanted to give 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' to Hendrix, but he couldn't come in. So Mickie Most suggested Jimmy. [Musical director] John Cameron told him, “All you’ve got to do is listen to Donovan’s guitar. Although it’s acoustic, the way he’s hitting it is the way the power-chords would go.” Rather than plug in, I was hitting driving chords on the acoustic in such a way that they buzz. So I guess Page listened. Jimmy added power and pagan rock. To this day, everyone wants that sound. And John Paul Jones arranged it, he gave the shapes to those sounds. And of course we really should have stopped the guitar solo, because I had another verse to sing that George Harrison had given me. But when we heard this thing that Page was doing coming out, we just said, “Keep playing…” That might have been the first power-chord solo. Mickie Most's office in Oxford Street had an adjoining door to Peter Grant’s. Maybe the band heard how 'Hurdy Gurdy Man' went…and why are we doing sessions when we can do this? And they became the greatest Pagan British Rock Band. What about later? Did you stay in touch? I got to know Jimmy a little bit later [in the early 1980s], when he lived near Windsor, in the house he bought, twice, from Michael Caine. He was mourning, because Bonham had died. I said, “Is that it?” He said, “That’s it. No more Zep.” He took me down to a cottage. He said, “This is the Guitar Cottage. These are my guitars.” And they were all in little cases, maybe 300. I said, “Can I open one?’ He said, “Yeah.” I said, “It’s in tune, Jimmy!” He said, “They’re all in tune…” It was Spinal Tap. It felt like he wasn’t going to lift those guitars again? Jimmy was quieter than I remembered him. His interest in esoterica was interesting. He was a collector of rare Aleister Crowley books, and people spoke of it as black magic. But the performance with stringed instruments comes with a tradition of philosophy and literature, and I considered him very well-read, Jimmy, and one of the three great gunslingers of our generation on the guitar, with Beck and Clapton. What distinguished him was invention; the folk style, arpeggio; and, not so much jazz, that was more Beck. But the Celtic rock, which was not like Clapton or Beck. NICK HASTED Picture: Redferns.

In the January issue of UNCUT, we celebrated the career of rock’s greatest and most mysterious guitar hero through the first hand accounts of the people who know him best.

Here at Uncut.co.uk, we’ll be posting the full and unedited transcripts from those interviews, including words from Robert Plant, Jeff Beck, Roy Harper, Steve Albini and more.

Today… DONOVAN

Page and John Paul Jones featured on many early recordings by the Zelig-like Scottish singer-songwriter, forming Zeppelin during sessions for ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’…

UNCUT: When did you first become aware of Jimmy Page?

DONOVAN: There was Big Jim and Little Jim – Big Jim Sullivan and little Jim Page. Big Jim was the no. 1 session guitarist at that time, the master of the riff, and I think he might have taken little Jim under his wing – maybe got him jobs. Maybe they’d say, “This is a job for Big Jim,” and he wouldn’t have time, he’d say, “Give it to little Jim.” It was a time when there were less producers, less session guys, and they were all pretty much jazz. I’m not sure if Jimmy was asked for specially. I didn’t know him socially, because in those days sessions were three songs, three hours. He was long-legged, not-so-long-haired then, dark clothes, bohemian but quiet. Who would’ve thought this guy would become a giant – the great treasure of the Pagan Celtic Rock of Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

What can you tell us about the 1968 sessions for ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’?

Many people have said over the years how important that session of John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and me – and maybe Bonham, who said he was there – doing ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’ was. I was developing a story-telling thing, and I wanted power-chords, because I’d obviously heard Dave Davies and Hendrix, and knew Pete Townshend. Originally I wanted to give ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’ to Hendrix, but he couldn’t come in. So Mickie Most suggested Jimmy. [Musical director] John Cameron told him, “All you’ve got to do is listen to Donovan’s guitar. Although it’s acoustic, the way he’s hitting it is the way the power-chords would go.” Rather than plug in, I was hitting driving chords on the acoustic in such a way that they buzz. So I guess Page listened. Jimmy added power and pagan rock. To this day, everyone wants that sound. And John Paul Jones arranged it, he gave the shapes to those sounds. And of course we really should have stopped the guitar solo, because I had another verse to sing that George Harrison had given me. But when we heard this thing that Page was doing coming out, we just said, “Keep playing…” That might have been the first power-chord solo. Mickie Most‘s office in Oxford Street had an adjoining door to Peter Grant’s. Maybe the band heard how ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’ went…and why are we doing sessions when we can do this? And they became the greatest Pagan British Rock Band.

What about later? Did you stay in touch?

I got to know Jimmy a little bit later [in the early 1980s], when he lived near Windsor, in the house he bought, twice, from Michael Caine. He was mourning, because Bonham had died. I said, “Is that it?” He said, “That’s it. No more Zep.” He took me down to a cottage. He said, “This is the Guitar Cottage. These are my guitars.” And they were all in little cases, maybe 300. I said, “Can I open one?’ He said, “Yeah.” I said, “It’s in tune, Jimmy!” He said, “They’re all in tune…” It was Spinal Tap.

It felt like he wasn’t going to lift those guitars again?

Jimmy was quieter than I remembered him. His interest in esoterica was interesting. He was a collector of rare Aleister Crowley books, and people spoke of it as black magic. But the performance with stringed instruments comes with a tradition of philosophy and literature, and I considered him very well-read, Jimmy, and one of the three great gunslingers of our generation on the guitar, with Beck and Clapton. What distinguished him was invention; the folk style, arpeggio; and, not so much jazz, that was more Beck. But the Celtic rock, which was not like Clapton or Beck.

NICK HASTED

Picture: Redferns.

Foals Added To The Breeders’ ATP Festival Line-Up

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Foals Added To The Breeders’ ATP Festival Line-Up
Foals have been added to the line-up of May's All Tomorrow's Parties festival curated by The Breeders. The Oxford five-piece have been added alongside Zach Hill and The Soft Pack. They join a host of bands set to perform at Minehead's Butlins Holiday Park in Somerset over the weekend of May 15-17 ...

Foals have been added to the line-up of May’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival curated by The Breeders.

The Oxford five-piece have been added alongside Zach Hill and The Soft Pack.

They join a host of bands set to perform at Minehead‘s Butlins Holiday Park in Somerset over the weekend of May 15-17 2009.

The Breeders, Throwing Muses, Bon Iver, Deerhunter and Gang Of Four are all set to play at the event.

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Folk Hero Odetta Critically Ill In Hospital

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Folk Hero Odetta Critically Ill In Hospital
Odetta, the folk singer who influenced Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, is in a critical condition in hospital after suffering - then recovering from - kidney failure. The 77-year-old, who Dylan mentions throughout the early part of his "Chronicles" book, is currently in New York's Lenox Hill Hospital. Ho...

Odetta, the folk singer who influenced Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, is in a critical condition in hospital after suffering – then recovering from – kidney failure.

The 77-year-old, who Dylan mentions throughout the early part of his “Chronicles” book, is currently in New York‘s Lenox Hill Hospital.

However, she hopes to be well enough to perform, as scheduled, at President-elect Barack Obama‘s inauguration in January 2009.

According to The Guardian, her manager, Doug Yeager, wrote to fans: “She has a big poster of Barack Obama taped on the wall across from her bed. Odetta believes she is going to sing at Obama‘s inauguration and I believe that is the reason she is still alive.”

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Picture: PA Photos.

Billy Bragg Announces Welsh Tour To Remember Miners’ Strike

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Billy Bragg Announces Welsh Tour To Remember Miners’ Strike
Billy Bragg has announced a solo tour of Welsh venues next summer to remember the miners' strike of 1984 and 1985. The singer-songwriter will play nine dates in June 2009, kicking off with a special show at Blaenafon Workmen's Hall where he'll perform and discuss the strike and its impact on him. ...

Billy Bragg has announced a solo tour of Welsh venues next summer to remember the miners’ strike of 1984 and 1985.

The singer-songwriter will play nine dates in June 2009, kicking off with a special show at Blaenafon Workmen’s Hall where he’ll perform and discuss the strike and its impact on him.

Tickets for the gigs are on sale now.

Billy Bragg plays:

Blaenafon Workmen’s Hall (June 5)

Porthcawl Grand Pavillion (6)

Cardigan Theatr Mwldan (7)

Pontardawe Arts Centre (9)

Brecon Theatr Brycheiniog (10)

Caernarfon Galeri (11)

Wrexham William Aston Hall (12)

Aberystwyth Arts Centre (14)

Blackwood Miners Institute (15)

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Phil Manzanera To Play Solo Shows At Ronnie Scott’s

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Phil Manzanera To Play Solo Shows At Ronnie Scott’s
Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera has announced a three-night stint at London's legendary Ronnie Scott's. Manzanera will perform at the jazz club with his new backing band The Firebird V11 from February 9-11 2009. His group features This Heat's Charles Hayward on drums, Yaron Stavi on bass and p...

Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera has announced a three-night stint at London‘s legendary Ronnie Scott’s.

Manzanera will perform at the jazz club with his new backing band The Firebird V11 from February 9-11 2009.

His group features This Heat‘s Charles Hayward on drums, Yaron Stavi on bass and pianist Leszek Mozdzer – the four-piece released an album, Firebird V11, last month.

In a statement, Manzanera said: “The last time I was at Ronnie Scott’s was to see the great Charlie Mingus, I was accompanied by Robert Wyatt, and the performance left a lasting impression on me.

“I’m delighted to be returning, some 40 years later, to play on that hallowed stage and with such a great band of musicians.”

Tickets for the shows are available from the Ronnie Scott’s website or by calling the box office on 020 7439 0747.

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The Specials Announce UK 2009 Tour!

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The Specials Announce UK 2009 Tour!
The Specials' original line-up are reforming for a UK tour next year. The legendary Coventry group will play eight dates around England and Scotland, beginning in Newcastle on April 22. Formed in 1977, the band released two albums, "The Specials" and "More Specials", before splitting in 1981. The...

The Specials‘ original line-up are reforming for a UK tour next year.

The legendary Coventry group will play eight dates around England and Scotland, beginning in Newcastle on April 22.

Formed in 1977, the band released two albums, “The Specials” and “More Specials”, before splitting in 1981.

The reunited band will play:

Newcastle Academy (April 22)

Sheffield Academy (23)

Birmingham Academy (25, 26)

Glasgow Academy (28)

Manchester Apollo (May 3)

London Brixton Academy (6, 7)

Tickets for the gigs go on sale on December 11.

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Beirut: “March Of The Zapotec/Realpeople: Holland”

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A few weeks ago, I found myself guesting on a music show on Al-Jazeera, talking about, of all things, Calexico. The idea of musical fusion was very prominent in the programme, and the band’s German members talked about the affinities between German oompah and Mexican forms like Mariachi; heightend, if I remember rightly, by German brewmasters relocating to America. This story came back to me as I was listening to the new Beirut album the other day. For half of its duration, Zach Condon is augmented by a 19-piece funeral band (I know someone who sounded informed pooh-poohed this concept when I mentioned it last week, but who am I to doubt the sanctity of the press release?) from Teotitlan del Valle, apparently “a tiny weaver village” in Oaxaca. The music of this group, The Jimenez Band, actually seems closer to oompah than mariachi, with an endearingly drunken galumph to it. But what’s most striking is how Condon seems to be chasing this sound around the world, finding woozy, brassy parallels between French boulevard sways (that he exploited so brilliantly on “The Flying Club Cup”) and, especially, the Balkan brass of "Gulag Orkestar". So “March Of The Zapotec” begins with a brief Mexican parade, “El Zocalo”, before lumbering gracefully into “La Llorona”, an exceptional Condon song heavy on the tuba. As with the previous Beirut records, there’s a hugely self-conscious air to the project, but the idiosyncratic songwriting and the way it meshes with the local sonic environment always, against the odds, works beguilingly. Then, just when you think you’ve nailed Condon as an indie/oompah aesthete, however, he pulls something of a fast one. “March Of The Zapotec” isn’t so much an album so much as two EPs grafted together. And so once the six tracks of “March Of The Zapotec” itself are over, Condon moves on to “Realpeople: Holland”. Realpeople, it transpires, is the artist name he dallied with prior to Beirut (when he was about 14, presumably), and is very hard to confuse with those Oasis-affiliated cloggers The Real People, if I can gratuitously remind you of that horror for a moment. In fact, these five songs are ostensibly synthpop trinkets recorded in Condon’s bedroom, which compound the similarities – often obscured by the oompah, of course – between his voice and melodic style and those of Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields. “My Night With A Prostitute From Marseilles” is very much in this vein – though, as the title suggests, the actual song could have been written during the “Flying Club Cup” sessions. The closing “No Dice”, however, is straightforwardly bouncy instrumental electropop, not entirely appealing. In the interim, you can hear Condon struggling, entertainingly, to maintain the purity of his concept. The stand-out “Venice” might start like an old Warp “Artificial Intelligence” track from the mid-‘90s, burbling and nebulously nostalgic. But soon enough, a bunch of horns ebb in, and the song drifts into more familiar terrain; terrain compounded by the martial pitter pat and accordion of “The Concubine”. Even in his bedroom, working in miniature, it seems Condon can’t stop himself from swaggering.

A few weeks ago, I found myself guesting on a music show on Al-Jazeera, talking about, of all things, Calexico. The idea of musical fusion was very prominent in the programme, and the band’s German members talked about the affinities between German oompah and Mexican forms like Mariachi; heightend, if I remember rightly, by German brewmasters relocating to America.

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New Glastonbury Film To Premiere This Week

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New Glastonbury Film To Premiere This Week
Glastonbury's Left Field is set to be immortalised in a new film, set to premiere this Thursday (December 4). "Glastonbury Left Field 2008 - The Movie", which will be previewed at the Bread And Roses in south London, focuses on the biggest covered stage of the Somerset festival. Artists featuring ...

Glastonbury‘s Left Field is set to be immortalised in a new film, set to premiere this Thursday (December 4).

“Glastonbury Left Field 2008 – The Movie”, which will be previewed at the Bread And Roses in south London, focuses on the biggest covered stage of the Somerset festival.

Artists featuring in the film include British Sea Power, Billy Bragg, Alabama 3, The Beat, Dirty Pretty Things and Reverend And The Makers.

The stage is supported by a range of trade unions and organisations, including Unison.

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Raconteurs Release Bluegrass Version Of ‘Old Enough’ Today

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Raconteurs Release Bluegrass Version Of ‘Old Enough’ Today
The Raconteurs have released a new bluegrass version of "Old Enough" as a download today (December 2). Jack White and Brendan Benson's supergroup teamed up with country stars Ricky Skaggs and Ashley Monroe to re-record the song, originally featured on the band's "Consolers Of The Lonely" album. "O...

The Raconteurs have released a new bluegrass version of “Old Enough” as a download today (December 2).

Jack White and Brendan Benson‘s supergroup teamed up with country stars Ricky Skaggs and Ashley Monroe to re-record the song, originally featured on the band’s “Consolers Of The Lonely” album.

“Old Enough” is available to download from Amazon‘s US site now, and will head to other download sites next week.

The legendary Skaggs is a 13-time Grammy Award-winning mandolinist and multi-instrumentalist, while Monroe is a 22-year-old Nashville singer and songwriter.

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Bruce Springsteen Releases New Song On Amazon And MySpace

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Bruce Springsteen Releases New Song On Amazon And MySpace
Bruce Springsteen is releasing a song from his new album "Working On A Dream" online on Amazon and MySpace for a week from today (December 1). "My Lucky Day"'s video will also be streamed on the sites, along with two minutes of behind-the-scenes footage of Springsteen and the E Street Band. "Worki...

Bruce Springsteen is releasing a song from his new album “Working On A Dream” online on Amazon and MySpace for a week from today (December 1).

“My Lucky Day”‘s video will also be streamed on the sites, along with two minutes of behind-the-scenes footage of Springsteen and the E Street Band.

“Working On A Dream” is set for release on January 27 2009.

The track can be downloaded from Amazon and MySpace Music.

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Michael Eavis Reveals His Favourite Song Of All Time

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Michael Eavis Reveals His Favourite Song Of All Time
Michael Eavis has revealed that his favourite song of all time is Elvis Presley's "How Great Thou Art". Appearing on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, the Glastonbury organiser explained that Presley's 1967 recording of the hymn would be the one song he'd take with him to a desert island. The son...

Michael Eavis has revealed that his favourite song of all time is Elvis Presley‘s “How Great Thou Art”.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4‘s Desert Island Discs, the Glastonbury organiser explained that Presley‘s 1967 recording of the hymn would be the one song he’d take with him to a desert island.

The song was the title track of the singer’s second gospel album.

Eavis also picked Bob Dylan‘s “I Threw It All Away”, The Smiths‘ “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”, T-Rex‘s “Children Of The Revolution” and The Grateful Dead‘s “Uncle John’s Band”.

The farmer also elected to take Peter Ackroyd‘s biography of William Blake and a harmonica with him to a desert island.

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The Police, Queen, Morricone Honoured At Grammy Hall Of Fame

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The Police, Queen, Morricone Honoured At Grammy Hall Of Fame

Music by The Police, Queen and Ennio Morricone has been entered into the Grammy Hall Of Fame. The Police's classic 1983 album "Synchronicity", Queen's 1977 single "We Are The Champions/We Will Rock You" and Morricone's soundtrack to 1966's "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly" are all new entries into the Grammy Museum. Stevie Wonder's "For Once In My Life" will also join the collection, which now stands at 826 recordings. The new LA Live centre will host the Grammy Museum, which will feature an exhibition on the history of the inductees. For more music news, head to Uncut.co.uk. Uncut is the perfect Christmas treat. Subscribe and save up to 38%.

Music by The Police, Queen and Ennio Morricone has been entered into the Grammy Hall Of Fame.

The Police‘s classic 1983 album “Synchronicity”, Queen‘s 1977 single “We Are The Champions/We Will Rock You” and Morricone‘s soundtrack to 1966’s “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly” are all new entries into the Grammy Museum.

Stevie Wonder‘s “For Once In My Life” will also join the collection, which now stands at 826 recordings.

The new LA Live centre will host the Grammy Museum, which will feature an exhibition on the history of the inductees.

For more music news, head to Uncut.co.uk.

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RIVALS

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RIVALS

Magnetic but disarming, like a combination of Pacino and Hoffman, French actor Francois Cluzet is probably best known here for 2006's thriller "Tell No One", and one of the underlying pleasures of this grainy cop drama is seeing him reunited with that film's director, Guillaume Canet – this time, though, both are in front of the camera. Set in late-'70s Lyons, Canet plays Francois, who has overcome upbringing in a rough estate to become a diligent police inspector, estranging himself from his charismatic criminal brother, Gabriel (Cluzet). With Gabriel about to be released after a 10-year murder sentence, Francois reluctantly agrees to help him go straight; but that's rarely an easy task in movies. Meanwhile, seeing his own name tarnished by association as Gabriel drifts back into the underworld, Francois has other problems looming, due to his love for the wife of a gangster he put in prison. Maillot's movie offers few surprises, but it's great strength is the recreation of an era. Simply, Rivals feels like a really good '70s movie, though not a great one; indeed, an attempt to inject some Godfather-like portent actually blunts the impact. But it motors on Cluzet's mercurial performance as a man somehow charming, cold, self-pitying and selfless at once. DAMIEN LOVE

Magnetic but disarming, like a combination of Pacino and Hoffman, French actor Francois Cluzet is probably best known here for 2006’s thriller “Tell No One”, and one of the underlying pleasures of this grainy cop drama is seeing him reunited with that film’s director, Guillaume Canet – this time, though, both are in front of the camera.

Set in late-’70s Lyons, Canet plays Francois, who has overcome upbringing in a rough estate to become a diligent police inspector, estranging himself from his charismatic criminal brother, Gabriel (Cluzet). With Gabriel about to be released after a 10-year murder sentence, Francois reluctantly agrees to help him go straight; but that’s rarely an easy task in movies.

Meanwhile, seeing his own name tarnished by association as Gabriel drifts back into the underworld, Francois has other problems looming, due to his love for the wife of a gangster he put in prison.

Maillot’s movie offers few surprises, but it’s great strength is the recreation of an era. Simply, Rivals feels like a really good ’70s movie, though not a great one; indeed, an attempt to inject some Godfather-like portent actually blunts the impact. But it motors on Cluzet’s mercurial performance as a man somehow charming, cold, self-pitying and selfless at once.

DAMIEN LOVE

‘Biggest Reformation’ Of 2009 Set To Be Announced

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‘Biggest Reformation’ Of 2009 Set To Be Announced

The "biggest reformation" of 2009 is set to be announced soon, according to promoter Rob Hallett. Claiming that they're second only to Led Zeppelin in popularity and legend, Hallett explained that the announcement "isn't a million miles away". Speaking to BBC News, he said: "I do have another reformation up my sleeve that I can't talk about yet that is going to please a lot of people of a certain age. "If you were a teenage boy in the pre-punk '70s you're going to be very excited. Outside of Led Zeppelin, this is probably the biggest reformation you can hope for." Over on Uncut's Wild Mercury Sound blog we've been trying work out who the mysterious band are. Head over to the blog to add your own suggestions about who could be reforming. Deep Purple? ELO? Slade?! Uncut is the perfect Christmas treat. Subscribe and save up to 38%.

The “biggest reformation” of 2009 is set to be announced soon, according to promoter Rob Hallett.

Claiming that they’re second only to Led Zeppelin in popularity and legend, Hallett explained that the announcement “isn’t a million miles away”.

Speaking to BBC News, he said: “I do have another reformation up my sleeve that I can’t talk about yet that is going to please a lot of people of a certain age.

“If you were a teenage boy in the pre-punk ’70s you’re going to be very excited. Outside of Led Zeppelin, this is probably the biggest reformation you can hope for.”

Over on Uncut‘s Wild Mercury Sound blog we’ve been trying work out who the mysterious band are. Head over to the blog to add your own suggestions about who could be reforming.

Deep Purple? ELO? Slade?!

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Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Chinese Democracy’ Beaten To Number One

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Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Chinese Democracy’ Beaten To Number One
Guns N' Roses' first album since 1993's ""The Spaghetti Incident?"" has failed to reach the top spot in the charts on its first week of release. "Chinese Democracy" was beaten to number one by The Killers' third album "Day And Age". The album was first begun in 1994, and has seen a multitude of ba...

Guns N’ Roses‘ first album since 1993’s “”The Spaghetti Incident?”” has failed to reach the top spot in the charts on its first week of release.

“Chinese Democracy” was beaten to number one by The Killers‘ third album “Day And Age”.

The album was first begun in 1994, and has seen a multitude of band members come and go since then.

Guns N’ Roses‘ last record of original material was 1991’s double set “Use Your Illusion I & II”.

For more news, head to Uncut.co.uk.

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The “Biggest Reformation” Of 2009

John Mulvey
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As I mentioned the other day, the “Tips For The New Year” business has become something of a self-perpetuating industry now. But it occurred to me over the weekend that another journalistic phenomenon is on the rise at this time of year: who’s going to reunite in, say, 2009? Already, there’s a lot of gossip zinging about with regard to Blur, who’ve outed themselves to a degree, and about Guns N’Roses and The Smiths; two projects curiously twinned, as it happens, since Axl Rose and Morrissey are both now handled by Irving Azoff’s management company, which has an enviable track record of pulling off these things. But my thinking was prompted by this BBC interview with the promoter Rob Hallett. In it, he says, “I do have another reformation up my sleeve that I can't talk about yet that is going to please a lot of people of a certain age. If you were a teenage boy in the pre-punk '70s you're going to be very excited. Outside of Led Zeppelin, this is probably the biggest reformation you can hope for.” So who could it be? My first thoughts were of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, but surely they’ve been active recently enough for a reunion to be less of a big deal. ELO crossed my mind, but maybe their biggest successes came when punk was notionally revolutionising the music scene. ELP, maybe? Slade? I’m a bit stumped, to be honest, but heartily intrigued. “The announcement isn't a million miles away,” says Hallett in the BBC interview. But in the interim, who do you think it might be? I’m sure there’s someone obvious that I’ve missed. . .

As I mentioned the other day, the “Tips For The New Year” business has become something of a self-perpetuating industry now. But it occurred to me over the weekend that another journalistic phenomenon is on the rise at this time of year: who’s going to reunite in, say, 2009?

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Live Earth India Cancelled After Mumbai Attacks

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Live Earth India Cancelled After Mumbai Attacks
Live Earth India has been cancelled after the attacks in Mumbai last week. Following the three days of terrorism, in which it is believed that at least 172 people died, Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, Bon Jovi and Will.I.Am pulled out of the Mumbai concert. Organisers have now shelved the gig, which wa...

Live Earth India has been cancelled after the attacks in Mumbai last week.

Following the three days of terrorism, in which it is believed that at least 172 people died, Pink Floyd‘s Roger Waters, Bon Jovi and Will.I.Am pulled out of the Mumbai concert.

Organisers have now shelved the gig, which was set to take place on December 7, stating they are “shocked and saddened by the tragic events of the last few days”.

The event would have been the first Live Earth event in the country, following stints around the world, including London, Sydney and Tokyo.

For more music news, head to Uncut.co.uk.

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Patti Smith: Dream Of Life

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Patti Smith: Dream Of Life

The most remarkable thing about Steven Sebring's documentary about Patti Smith may be that it was completed at all. Over the course of 11 years, through maxed out credit cards and miles of 16mm film, Sebring diligently documented Smith's return to rock and roll after the years of Detroit domesticity, trailing her around the world, from the Chelsea Hotel to the marketplace of Jaffa. And yet somehow he emerged from this decade-long encounter with one of the world's most fascinating creatures with a strangely insubstantial film. Sebring is a fashion photographer by trade and this may be part of the problem. At one point, Smith explains how she used to imitate Dylan, right down to the way he hailed cabs, from endlessly reviewing Don't Look Back. Sebring characteristically confesses he's never heard of it. It feels typical of a film that almost entirely abdicates imaginative enquiry. In one disappointing sequence, Smith hooks up with ex-lover and collaborator Sam Shepard for a jam session (where she gamely demonstrates how she's failed to learn guitar in the course of 30 years in the business). The pair exchange embarrassed small talk, withering in the gaze of the camera, until Smith excitedly remembers some intoxicated 70s evening when the pair decided to get matching tattoos. “Yeah,” sighs Sam, “That was a weird night at the Chelsea.” Sebring doesn’t press the point. Repeatedly, promises of revelation flare, only to fizzle as the film unwinds in an endless stream of dressing rooms and tour buses, pilgrimages to the tombs of Shelley and Corso, homages to Williams Blake and Burroughs, Roberts Mapplethorpe and Zimmerman… It's all like a pretty, pretentious, slightly embarrassed home movie. And yet it does have the virtues of that form: it's touching to follow Patti’s return to her parents home in south Jersey or to see her pride in her children, who grow from grungy kids to elegant, acerbic adults before our eyes. But you get little sense of Smith as an artist, and there’s scandalously little footage of her as a performer. Instead, you’re left with the portrait of a woman lost in remembrance for lovers, friends and idols. The title comes from Shelley’s elegy for Keats, but the next lines might better capture Smith today: “Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep / With phantoms an unprofitable strife”. STEPHEN TROUSSÉ

The most remarkable thing about Steven Sebring‘s documentary about Patti Smith may be that it was completed at all. Over the course of 11 years, through maxed out credit cards and miles of 16mm film, Sebring diligently documented Smith’s return to rock and roll after the years of Detroit domesticity, trailing her around the world, from the Chelsea Hotel to the marketplace of Jaffa. And yet somehow he emerged from this decade-long encounter with one of the world’s most fascinating creatures with a strangely insubstantial film.

Sebring is a fashion photographer by trade and this may be part of the problem. At one point, Smith explains how she used to imitate Dylan, right down to the way he hailed cabs, from endlessly reviewing Don’t Look Back. Sebring characteristically confesses he’s never heard of it. It feels typical of a film that almost entirely abdicates imaginative enquiry. In one disappointing sequence, Smith hooks up with ex-lover and collaborator Sam Shepard for a jam session (where she gamely demonstrates how she’s failed to learn guitar in the course of 30 years in the business). The pair exchange embarrassed small talk, withering in the gaze of the camera, until Smith excitedly remembers some intoxicated 70s evening when the pair decided to get matching tattoos. “Yeah,” sighs Sam, “That was a weird night at the Chelsea.” Sebring doesn’t press the point. Repeatedly, promises of revelation flare, only to fizzle as the film unwinds in an endless stream of dressing rooms and tour buses, pilgrimages to the tombs of Shelley and Corso, homages to Williams Blake and Burroughs, Roberts Mapplethorpe and Zimmerman…

It’s all like a pretty, pretentious, slightly embarrassed home movie. And yet it does have the virtues of that form: it’s touching to follow Patti’s return to her parents home in south Jersey or to see her pride in her children, who grow from grungy kids to elegant, acerbic adults before our eyes. But you get little sense of Smith as an artist, and there’s scandalously little footage of her as a performer. Instead, you’re left with the portrait of a woman lost in remembrance for lovers, friends and idols. The title comes from Shelley’s elegy for Keats, but the next lines might better capture Smith today: “Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep / With phantoms an unprofitable strife”.

STEPHEN TROUSSÉ

THE REAL JIMMY PAGE

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THE REAL JIMMY PAGE

In the January issue of UNCUT, we celebrated the career of rock's greatest and most mysterious guitar hero through the first hand accounts of the people who know him best. Here at Uncut.co.uk, we'll be posting the full and unedited transcripts from those interviews, including words from Robert Plant, Jeff Beck, Donovan, Steve Albini and more. Today… ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM The Stones manager and legendary impresario founded Immediate Records in 1965 – promptly hiring Page as house producer and A&R man… The first time Jimmy Page came into my life I was already doing sessions with either Marianne Faithfull or Vashti Bunyan or The Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra. Charlie Katz was our musical fixer at Immediate, a lovely old Jewish gent, and our main guitarists at that time were Big Jim Sullivan, John McLaughlin and Joe Moretti. One day Charlie said to me “You know, I’ve got this new young lad. I think you’ll like him, Andrew.” And I think he may have said “He doesn’t read.” So there Jimmy was, in Pye Studios or Olympic or wherever the fuck we were, sitting next to Big Jim and the others. And that was the first time I saw him. I think he might have just left Carter-Lewis & The Southerners. So Jimmy’s there on most of our sessions, basically from "As Tears Go By" onwards. I'm not sure if he was on the Gene Pitney stuff, but we're talking April or May ’64. Do I remember my first reaction to hearing him? Well, you have to remember that we were gatecrashing into a business that hoped we would soon go away. So my first impression of someone was always empathy, meeting guys your own age and wondering if they could work for you. But it was immediately apparent that Jimmy would. He also had to take a while to stretch, but the other session players took him under their wing. So he was on probation for a little while. He didn’t suddenly come in and say “Look, I’m fucking brilliant”. I more recall him working his way in slyly. We offered him the job as in-house producer based really on an affinity of purpose. We were so fed up with old farts that you would gravitate towards people your own age. It was all in the nod, the look in the eye. And I saw that in Jimmy. It was apparent that he knew that too. I don’t think it was ever my agenda to discover what a great guitar player he was. I didn’t look at him that way. I used to do a lot of elaborate demos of Mick and Keith’s songs and I know Jimmy played on one of those, which I think ended up as the first “Heart Of Stone”. He wrote the b-side of Marianne’s “Come And Stay With Me”, with Jackie DeShannon [“What Have I Done Wrong”]. And I was in the studio when he was playing on [The Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra’s] 16 Hip Hits. We were all learning on the job, but it was two or three takes and that was it. Jimmy was like a wisp. I don’t really know what kind of a person he was, because the great ones keep it hidden and metamorphose on us, so that the room works. But he auditioned people for me. John Paul Jones auditioned Nico, but Jimmy and I co-wrote the b-side to the single [“The Last Mile”]. It should have been the a-side, because that was fucking awful [“I’m Not Sayin’”]. It really was stiff as Britain. Then he went on the road with Marianne Faithfull. We were all impressed by this new wave of women who were coming in. They weren’t like these English tea cups. Here were these teutonic forces who were incredibly strong women. They had incredible beauty and allure. But it was all about the work. Jimmy and I never really socialized. I ran into Jimmy about four years ago on the streets of Soho and that was the first time I’d seen him since back then. I never really saw him through the Led Zeppelin period. But Zeppelin changed so much about the record business. I mean, that was the first branding, wasn’t it? Without being disrespectful to the Stones, they were the ones who opened up the stadiums. And they had the first manager who was real violence as opposed to the Mickey Mouse stuff that had been practised in England before. With the branding of Led Zeppelin, especially on American radio, there you suddenly saw all of them, and Jimmy in particular, coming into their full force of direction with a manager who was less a svengali and more of a bean-counter and leg-breaker. It changed everything. When you can be your own Diagliev, that’s pretty fucking amazing. But then look at the mess they left behind them, musically. We had to listen to a million wankers who all thought they could sound as good. ROB HUGHES Picture: Redferns.

In the January issue of UNCUT, we celebrated the career of rock’s greatest and most mysterious guitar hero through the first hand accounts of the people who know him best.

Here at Uncut.co.uk, we’ll be posting the full and unedited transcripts from those interviews, including words from Robert Plant, Jeff Beck, Donovan, Steve Albini and more.

Today… ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM

The Stones manager and legendary impresario founded Immediate Records in 1965 – promptly hiring Page as house producer and A&R man…

The first time Jimmy Page came into my life I was already doing sessions with either Marianne Faithfull or Vashti Bunyan or The Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra. Charlie Katz was our musical fixer at Immediate, a lovely old Jewish gent, and our main guitarists at that time were Big Jim Sullivan, John McLaughlin and Joe Moretti. One day Charlie said to me “You know, I’ve got this new young lad. I think you’ll like him, Andrew.” And I think he may have said “He doesn’t read.”

So there Jimmy was, in Pye Studios or Olympic or wherever the fuck we were, sitting next to Big Jim and the others. And that was the first time I saw him. I think he might have just left Carter-Lewis & The Southerners. So Jimmy’s there on most of our sessions, basically from “As Tears Go By” onwards. I’m not sure if he was on the Gene Pitney stuff, but we’re talking April or May ’64.

Do I remember my first reaction to hearing him? Well, you have to remember that we were gatecrashing into a business that hoped we would soon go away. So my first impression of someone was always empathy, meeting guys your own age and wondering if they could work for you. But it was immediately apparent that Jimmy would. He also had to take a while to stretch, but the other session players took him under their wing. So he was on probation for a little while. He didn’t suddenly come in and say “Look, I’m fucking brilliant”. I more recall him working his way in slyly. We offered him the job as in-house producer based really on an affinity of purpose. We were so fed up with old farts that you would gravitate towards people your own age. It was all in the nod, the look in the eye. And I saw that in Jimmy. It was apparent that he knew that too.

I don’t think it was ever my agenda to discover what a great guitar player he was. I didn’t look at him that way. I used to do a lot of elaborate demos of Mick and Keith’s songs and I know Jimmy played on one of those, which I think ended up as the first “Heart Of Stone”. He wrote the b-side of Marianne’s “Come And Stay With Me”, with Jackie DeShannon [“What Have I Done Wrong”]. And I was in the studio when he was playing on [The Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra’s] 16 Hip Hits. We were all learning on the job, but it was two or three takes and that was it.

Jimmy was like a wisp. I don’t really know what kind of a person he was, because the great ones keep it hidden and metamorphose on us, so that the room works. But he auditioned people for me. John Paul Jones auditioned Nico, but Jimmy and I co-wrote the b-side to the single [“The Last Mile”]. It should have been the a-side, because that was fucking awful [“I’m Not Sayin’”]. It really was stiff as Britain. Then he went on the road with Marianne Faithfull. We were all impressed by this new wave of women who were coming in. They weren’t like these English tea cups. Here were these teutonic forces who were incredibly strong women. They had incredible beauty and allure. But it was all about the work.

Jimmy and I never really socialized. I ran into Jimmy about four years ago on the streets of Soho and that was the first time I’d seen him since back then. I never really saw him through the Led Zeppelin period. But Zeppelin changed so much about the record business. I mean, that was the first branding, wasn’t it? Without being disrespectful to the Stones, they were the ones who opened up the stadiums. And they had the first manager who was real violence as opposed to the Mickey Mouse stuff that had been practised in England before. With the branding of Led Zeppelin, especially on American radio, there you suddenly saw all of them, and Jimmy in particular, coming into their full force of direction with a manager who was less a svengali and more of a bean-counter and leg-breaker. It changed everything. When you can be your own Diagliev, that’s pretty fucking amazing. But then look at the mess they left behind them, musically. We had to listen to a million wankers who all thought they could sound as good.

ROB HUGHES

Picture: Redferns.

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