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The Smiths – The Sound Of The Smiths

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The Smiths – The Sound Of The Smiths
This is not the first Smiths compilation, but unlike previous efforts, it comes with the blessing of the group. Morrissey, it seems, supplied the title (not – it must be said – one of his more inspired efforts), while Johnny Marr supervised the mastering, ensuring that it is aurally brighter tha...

This is not the first Smiths compilation, but unlike previous efforts, it comes with the blessing of the group. Morrissey, it seems, supplied the title (not – it must be said – one of his more inspired efforts), while Johnny Marr supervised the mastering, ensuring that it is aurally brighter than the WEA Singles album, and sounds oddly contemporary for music that is up to a quarter-century old.

Most of it is familiar, and, surprisingly, most of it is timeless. Surprisingly, because at the time of its first release, Morrissey’s moaning seemed precisely-tuned to the ill winds of Thatcherism, industrial decline, and student angst – a mordant corrective to the high tides of new romanticism, Club Tropicana and all that.

But Morrissey was a classicist, and old for his years, taking his imagery from kitchen sink dramas while others fooled around with the politics of pleasure. He was living in a black-and-white world; listening to his words now, what’s most striking is just how unlikely they are in a rock’n’roll context. Morrissey minted his own clichés, employing the wisdom of grandmothers. The lyrics are beyond John Braine, and into a deeper strain of English melancholy, somewhere between the sentimentality of John Betjeman and the deferred pleasure of Philip Larkin. There’s a bit of Kenneth Williams (the bit in Carry On Cleo, with Williams’ camp Caesar falling on the sword of his favourite gladiator, shouting “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it infamy!”).

Interestingly, it still sounds brilliant. And if nothing can quite replicate the excitement of hearing these songs for the first time, the first disc of this double-CD set makes a good job of restating the importance of The Smiths as a singles band. It moves chronologically, from the extraordinary first two Rough Trade singles, “Hand In Glove” and “This Charming Man”, through “How Soon Is Now” And “Panic”, and closes with “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” – adding the odd album track, European release, or projected single release, along the way.

From the start – the deceptively bluesy fade-in of “Hand In Glove” – Morrissey pitches his vocal on the nursery slopes of hysteria, so birthing an entirely singular pop persona. It’s hard to say who he sounds like. There’s a bit of Johnnie Ray (hence the hearing aid), but equally he could be a shower stall crooner at the public baths. He is both coy and boastful, and despite all his protestations of abstinence and incompetence, avowedly homoerotic. The sun, remember, shines out of his behind. It is an odd pitch for a rock singer to make, particularly one so enamoured with the New York Dolls. (Morrissey’s other youthful passion, for James Dean, may have had more impact on the way he presented himself as a lonely, repressed pin-up.)

It’s true to say that The Smiths built on ground prepared by Edwyn Collins in Orange Juice, who interpreted the rules of punk in a way which gave them to be arch and fey and gentle rather than artificially angry (see “Blue Boy” or “Lovesick”); and the Buzzcocks, who were expert at romantic detachment. (You can feel the warning tremors in Howard Devoto’s “Boredom”.) But Morrissey delivered a complete package. He was the outsiders’ outsider. And no one would have heard of him, if it wasn’t for Johnny Marr.

It’s a matter of chemistry. The Smiths work as a group because Marr’s music was as bright as Morrissey’s words were black. The singer brought clouds, Marr was the breeze. And he doesn’t sound much like his influences either. You’d listen to the Smiths for a long time before you detected Lieber and Stoller or the Shangri-La’s, and critics who sensed the Byrds in Marr’s jangling guitar were imagining things. There are some psychedelic flourishes, but listen to “Ask” and what you hear is the jittery positivity of African pop.

More conventionally, it’s just about possible to perceive echoes in Marr’s playing of the decorative shading James Honeyman-Scott brought to The Pretenders, even if Chrissie Hynde and Morrissey would make implausible bedfellows. Marr’s tunes make Morrissey’s peculiarities pretty, but they are complimentary in one important respect: Marr is a colourist, not a glory-hunter, and Morrissey’s posturing is all about self-deprecation, if not self-abuse, which is why the Smiths remain the antidote to cock rock.

There is a second disc, of B-sides, and it’s less vital. The lovely moments – “Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”, “Wonderful Woman” – collide with throwaway items which should have been thrown away. In particular, the “New York” version of “This Charming Man” – with “Motown” interlude and 1980s’ drums – illustrates just how fragile the ecology of the Smiths was.

ALASTAIR McKAY

Genesis – 1970 – 75

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Genesis – 1970 – 75

There’s an instructive anecdote that Phil Collins has told about his 1970 audition to become drummer of Genesis, then a young band who had just completed their second album, Trespass. While aspirant percussionists auditioned in an outbuilding at Peter Gabriel’s parental home, the young hopeful relaxed in the swimming pool, taking in the unfamiliar grandeur of the surroundings. A peculiar feature of this was guitarist Mike Rutherford, who Collins observed striding over the lawn, apparently having just got out of bed. What marked the situation out as odd was when Collins realized Rutherford wasn’t staying in the house at all: he had driven 50 miles from his own home, dressed in pyjamas and a dressing gown. Partly theatrical, partly eccentric, very public school, it’s an image that’s worth bearing in mind when considering Genesis’s early works, collected here in a comprehensive box set. After 1975, Genesis journeyed gradually from slick prog, ultimately becoming what we know them as today: men in linen suits, playing slightly wry pop. For their first five albums, however, Genesis and their original singer Peter Gabriel were up to something unimaginably weirder. A curious blend of pantomime, progressive rock, and Brideshead Revisited, these former Charterhouse pupils presented a Mellotron-soaked vision based in fantasy and religion, and pricked, on occasion, by social conscience. It’s interesting to note, though, that while much of what this set contains is pretty forbidding to the listener – Genesis specialized then in allusive pieces at which even band members confess to occasionally now cringing – there is only one truly disingenuous-sounding moment in the set. It arrives courtesy of the last words sung on the band’s final album, and comes in the form of a quote from the Rolling Stones: “It’s only rock ‘n’roll…” Peter Gabriel sings on the final track, “It”. “But I like it….” A song about Victorian botany (“The Return Of The Giant Hogweed”). A 23 minute concept song about death and dying, (“Supper’s Ready”), which would be performed live with the lead singer dressed as a flower. A hit single sung from the point of view of a lawnmower. The records that Genesis made in the first part of the 1970s were many things, but simple rock ‘n’ roll was not one of them. The most successful parts of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway bear comparison to The Who’s Tommy, but really that was as far as Genesis seem to have wanted to go with rock ‘n’ roll. Instead, the story of this set (there is an interesting Extras disc, and pertinent DVD content accompanies each album) is of a break with rock ‘n’ roll tradition, if not as musically enduring, then certainly as purposeful as that made by Germany’s “Krautrock” musicians at about the same time. Before Trespass, Genesis had been a talented beat group, whose 1968 Jonathan King-produced single “Silent Sun” was a late-blooming fruit of British psych pop. The impetus for the band’s change into Darwinian rock band seems to have been the growing pains of another group. “I wanted to write something with the energy of “Rondo” by The Nice,” Peter Gabriel said of the band’s eureka moment. What he ended up writing was a ten minute piece (with pastoral flute midsection) called “The Knife”. A progressive rock milestone, “The Knife” very much drew out a map for the band’s subsequent explorations. A churning, Bach-like, keyboard-driven piece in which a nation is encouraged to throw off its oppressors, it’s not so much a song, as it is a dramatic recitation, and marks the point at which some good ideas seem to change, for Genesis, into some pretty inelastic principles, and ultimately harden into full-blown concepts. Throughout their next two albums, (1971’s Nursery Cryme and 1972’s more commercially successful Foxtrot) Genesis moved towards longer and longer songs, and further into suite-like constructions. 1971’s ten minute “The Musical Box” not only evokes the band’s customary mood of malevolent Victoriana, but seems to herald the hugeness of Foxtrot’s centerpiece, “Supper’s Ready”. These are on occasion musically striking songs, Peter Gabriel’s vocals bringing an unexpected soul into these macabre tales, the band a tight negotiator of labyrinthine paths, but the pieces that fail seem terribly unwieldy. With the music having grown larger in rehearsal improvisation, the themes of these songs have expanded to fit it, not always to their benefit. Some of them, (property development homily “Get ‘Em Out By Friday” or “The Battle Of Epping Forest” (from 1973’s Selling England By The Pound) today seem like curiosities from a different historical period, like a maze in a stately home. Once, people entered for pleasure. Now you simply get lost in them. The logical end of this growth and expansion was, inevitably, the double concept album. Evidently difficult to conceive of, 1974’s The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway effectively split the band – the frankly unfathomable story followed the fortunes of Rael, a Puerto Rican graffiti artist – but is nonetheless not without genuinely great moments. Soaked in American influence after touring throughout the United States, Lamb released Genesis from its English captivity, and set it in a wider context, in which the band undoubtedly prospered. “Fly On A Windshield”, in which the band conceived of themselves “as Pharoahs traveling down the Nile”, guitarist Steve Hackett and keyboard player Tony Banks engaged in an effort to out grandiose each other, is an undoubted highlight, while the album is rich in sexual innuendo, which is creepily successful at least as often as it is plain embarrassing. What becomes evident as the album moves forward into its second disc, however, is the sound of a band being imprisoned by the very format which they had entered, hoping for liberation. Their one unifying concept has become a burden too heavy to carry – and in spite of Genesis’s efforts, a thousand songs, and as many changes of time signature would never be enough to satisfactorily support it. So much so, that as the band enter the interminable peregrinations of the final song, “It”, you come to think when Peter Gabriel quotes the Stones, it’s less an ironic gesture, and more a plea for a certain kind of musical simplicity. Though they’d taken it a long way, what Genesis were up to was only rock ‘n’ roll, after all. Now, after a fashion, they had to find a way back to it. JOHN ROBINSON

There’s an instructive anecdote that Phil Collins has told about his 1970 audition to become drummer of Genesis, then a young band who had just completed their second album, Trespass. While aspirant percussionists auditioned in an outbuilding at Peter Gabriel’s parental home, the young hopeful relaxed in the swimming pool, taking in the unfamiliar grandeur of the surroundings. A peculiar feature of this was guitarist Mike Rutherford, who Collins observed striding over the lawn, apparently having just got out of bed. What marked the situation out as odd was when Collins realized Rutherford wasn’t staying in the house at all: he had driven 50 miles from his own home, dressed in pyjamas and a dressing gown.

Partly theatrical, partly eccentric, very public school, it’s an image that’s worth bearing in mind when considering Genesis’s early works, collected here in a comprehensive box set. After 1975, Genesis journeyed gradually from slick prog, ultimately becoming what we know them as today: men in linen suits, playing slightly wry pop. For their first five albums, however, Genesis and their original singer Peter Gabriel were up to something unimaginably weirder. A curious blend of pantomime, progressive rock, and Brideshead Revisited, these former Charterhouse pupils presented a Mellotron-soaked vision based in fantasy and religion, and pricked, on occasion, by social conscience.

It’s interesting to note, though, that while much of what this set contains is pretty forbidding to the listener – Genesis specialized then in allusive pieces at which even band members confess to occasionally now cringing – there is only one truly disingenuous-sounding moment in the set. It arrives courtesy of the last words sung on the band’s final album, and comes in the form of a quote from the Rolling Stones: “It’s only rock ‘n’roll…” Peter Gabriel sings on the final track, “It”. “But I like it….”

A song about Victorian botany (“The Return Of The Giant Hogweed”). A 23 minute concept song about death and dying, (“Supper’s Ready”), which would be performed live with the lead singer dressed as a flower. A hit single sung from the point of view of a lawnmower. The records that Genesis made in the first part of the 1970s were many things, but simple rock ‘n’ roll was not one of them. The most successful parts of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway bear comparison to The Who’s Tommy, but really that was as far as Genesis seem to have wanted to go with rock ‘n’ roll.

Instead, the story of this set (there is an interesting Extras disc, and pertinent DVD content accompanies each album) is of a break with rock ‘n’ roll tradition, if not as musically enduring, then certainly as purposeful as that made by Germany’s “Krautrock” musicians at about the same time. Before Trespass, Genesis had been a talented beat group, whose 1968 Jonathan King-produced single “Silent Sun” was a late-blooming fruit of British psych pop. The impetus for the band’s change into Darwinian rock band seems to have been the growing pains of another group. “I wanted to write something with the energy of “Rondo” by The Nice,” Peter Gabriel said of the band’s eureka moment. What he ended up writing was a ten minute piece (with pastoral flute midsection) called “The Knife”.

A progressive rock milestone, “The Knife” very much drew out a map for the band’s subsequent explorations. A churning, Bach-like, keyboard-driven piece in which a nation is encouraged to throw off its oppressors, it’s not so much a song, as it is a dramatic recitation, and marks the point at which some good ideas seem to change, for Genesis, into some pretty inelastic principles, and ultimately harden into full-blown concepts.

Throughout their next two albums, (1971’s Nursery Cryme and 1972’s more commercially successful Foxtrot) Genesis moved towards longer and longer songs, and further into suite-like constructions. 1971’s ten minute “The Musical Box” not only evokes the band’s customary mood of malevolent Victoriana, but seems to herald the hugeness of Foxtrot’s centerpiece, “Supper’s Ready”. These are on occasion musically striking songs, Peter Gabriel’s vocals bringing an unexpected soul into these macabre tales, the band a tight negotiator of labyrinthine paths, but the pieces that fail seem terribly unwieldy. With the music having grown larger in rehearsal improvisation, the themes of these songs have expanded to fit it, not always to their benefit.

Some of them, (property development homily “Get ‘Em Out By Friday” or “The Battle Of Epping Forest” (from 1973’s Selling England By The Pound) today seem like curiosities from a different historical period, like a maze in a stately home. Once, people entered for pleasure. Now you simply get lost in them.

The logical end of this growth and expansion was, inevitably, the double concept album. Evidently difficult to conceive of, 1974’s The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway effectively split the band – the frankly unfathomable story followed the fortunes of Rael, a Puerto Rican graffiti artist – but is nonetheless not without genuinely great moments. Soaked in American influence after touring throughout the United States, Lamb released Genesis from its English captivity, and set it in a wider context, in which the band undoubtedly prospered. “Fly On A Windshield”, in which the band conceived of themselves “as Pharoahs traveling down the Nile”, guitarist Steve Hackett and keyboard player Tony Banks engaged in an effort to out grandiose each other, is an undoubted highlight, while the album is rich in sexual innuendo, which is creepily successful at least as often as it is plain embarrassing.

What becomes evident as the album moves forward into its second disc, however, is the sound of a band being imprisoned by the very format which they had entered, hoping for liberation. Their one unifying concept has become a burden too heavy to carry – and in spite of Genesis’s efforts, a thousand songs, and as many changes of time signature would never be enough to satisfactorily support it.

So much so, that as the band enter the interminable peregrinations of the final song, “It”, you come to think when Peter Gabriel quotes the Stones, it’s less an ironic gesture, and more a plea for a certain kind of musical simplicity. Though they’d taken it a long way, what Genesis were up to was only rock ‘n’ roll, after all. Now, after a fashion, they had to find a way back to it.

JOHN ROBINSON

Razorlight – Slipaway Fires

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Razorlight – Slipaway Fires

The tousled locks, the Persil-challenge wardrobe, the ‘A’ List girlfriends -like it or not Johnny Borrell is a bonafide rock star these days, thanks to the radio-friendly jingles which made up 2005’s Razorlight. If the odd clunker remains (“Hostage Of Love” could be a Meatloaf out-take) Slipway Fires largely sees a return to the introspection of debut album Up All Night, Borrell ditching the arena-rock for pin-sharp dissections of the fame game (“Tabloid Lover”), his own meteoric rise (“North London Trash”) and, in “The House”, his own mortality. PAUL MOODY

The tousled locks, the Persil-challenge wardrobe, the ‘A’ List girlfriends -like it or not Johnny Borrell is a bonafide rock star these days, thanks to the radio-friendly jingles which made up 2005’s Razorlight.

If the odd clunker remains (“Hostage Of Love” could be a Meatloaf out-take) Slipway Fires largely sees a return to the introspection of debut album Up All Night, Borrell ditching the arena-rock for pin-sharp dissections of the fame game (“Tabloid Lover”), his own meteoric rise (“North London Trash”) and, in “The House”, his own mortality.

PAUL MOODY

Fleet Foxes Announce New London Show

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Fleet Foxes Announce New London Show
Fleet Foxes have announced that they will return to play the London Roundhouse on February 22 next year. The highly-praised Seattle band who kick off their Autumn UK tour in Norwich tonight (October 28) have seen huge demand for the shows, resulting in a total sell-out. Tickets for the new London ...

Fleet Foxes have announced that they will return to play the London Roundhouse on February 22 next year.

The highly-praised Seattle band who kick off their Autumn UK tour in Norwich tonight (October 28) have seen huge demand for the shows, resulting in a total sell-out.

Tickets for the new London date are on sale now.

Fleet Foxes current UK tour stops at the following places:

Norwich, Waterfront (October 28)

Sheffield, Union (29)

Bristol, University Anson Rooms (30)

Birmingham, Space 2 (31)

Nottingham, Trent University (November 2)

London, Shepherd’s Bush Empire (5)

Dublin, Vicar Street (7)

Glasgow, ABC (8)

Manchester, Academy (9)

London, Shepherd’s Bush Empire (10)

Cambridge, Junction (11)

For more music and film news click here

Unique Beatles Live Footage Up For Auction Next Week

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Unique Beatles Live Footage Up For Auction Next Week

Costing just $4 to develop, a 2 minute live film recording of the Beatles' only ever concert in Kansas City is set to be auctioned by Reading-based Cameo Auctioneers next week (November 4) with a guide price of £4 - 6,000. Filmed by a 15-year old fan at the Municipal Stadium on September 17, 1964, when the Beatles made an unscheduled stop to play there on their first American tour, the 8mm silent colour reel film was only found again this August. The owner of the film explains: “We cleared out my parent’s estate 2 months ago. And there I discovered it…at the bottom of the old drawer, still lying in its original photo- lab box with “Beatles 1964” on the back of the box where I’d feverishly scrawled it in blue ballpoint pen…the one and only motion picture, in existence, of the one and only concert the Beatles would ever perform in Kansas City.” The Beatles were paid a fee of $150,000 for the 31 minute show, unprecendented at the time after a series of bids by Kansas City's Baseball team owner Mr Finley and the band's manager Brian Epstein. You can see a clip of the previously unseen video by clicking here. More information about the sale is available here: www.cameo-auctioneers.co.uk For more music and film news click here

Costing just $4 to develop, a 2 minute live film recording of the Beatles‘ only ever concert in Kansas City is set to be auctioned by Reading-based Cameo Auctioneers next week (November 4) with a guide price of £4 – 6,000.

Filmed by a 15-year old fan at the Municipal Stadium on September 17, 1964, when the Beatles made an unscheduled stop to play there on their first American tour, the 8mm silent colour reel film was only found again this August.

The owner of the film explains: “We cleared out my parent’s estate 2 months ago. And there I discovered it…at the bottom of the old drawer, still lying in its original photo- lab box with “Beatles 1964” on the back of the box where I’d feverishly scrawled it in blue ballpoint pen…the one and only motion picture, in existence, of the one and only concert the Beatles would ever perform in Kansas City.”

The Beatles were paid a fee of $150,000 for the 31 minute show, unprecendented at the time after a series of bids by Kansas City’s Baseball team owner Mr Finley and the band’s manager Brian Epstein.

You can see a clip of the previously unseen video by clicking here.

More information about the sale is available here: www.cameo-auctioneers.co.uk

For more music and film news click here

New Kylie Live Film To Be Released

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New Kylie Live Film To Be Released

A live film of Kylie's X2008 tour recorded at London's O2 Arena, is set to be released on December 1. The Australian singer's worldwide tour cost an estimated £10 million to stage and featured Kylie's new live band as well as a troupe of dancers. The new Freemantle release will also come with a bonus short film called 12 Hours, spanning a day in the life of the pop princess. Uncut caught the KylieX2008 show when it hit London's O2 Arena this Summer, you can read the review here. For more music and film news click here Pic credit: PA Photos

A live film of Kylie’s X2008 tour recorded at London’s O2 Arena, is set to be released on December 1.

The Australian singer’s worldwide tour cost an estimated £10 million to stage and featured Kylie’s new live band as well as a troupe of dancers.

The new Freemantle release will also come with a bonus short film called 12 Hours, spanning a day in the life of the pop princess.

Uncut caught the KylieX2008 show when it hit London’s O2 Arena this Summer, you can read the review here.

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

See W Before It’s Released At An Exclusive Uncut Screening!

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See W Before It’s Released At An Exclusive Uncut Screening!
Uncut.co.uk is giving you a chance to watch the latest Oliver Stone film ‘W’ (Dubya) at an exclusive screening; before it's nationwide cinema release next week! The Oscar winning director's third film about an American President follows on from 'JFK' and 'Nixon' and stars Josh Brolin, James Cro...

Uncut.co.uk is giving you a chance to watch the latest Oliver Stone film ‘W’ (Dubya) at an exclusive screening; before it’s nationwide cinema release next week!

The Oscar winning director’s third film about an American President follows on from ‘JFK’ and ‘Nixon’ and stars Josh Brolin, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn, Elizabeth Banks, Thandie Newton and Richard Dreyfuss.

The film opens on November 7, but Uncut is offering readers the chance to get a free pair of tickets to see W on November 4, the same day as the 2008 US Presendential Election.

Tickets are available at cinemas nationwide (see below for list of venues), on a first-come first-served basis. All you have to do is go to the seefilmfirst.com website and enter the unique code: 108851.

For further information on the film and to see the trailer, check out the film’s official website here: www.wthemovie.co.uk

Cinema venues include the following:

Belfast

Birmingham

Tallaght

Blackpool

Cardiff

Dundee

Edinburgh LR

Gateshead

Glasgow Braehed

Greenwich

Kingston

Lee Valley

Leeds Bradford

Liverpool One

Manchester Printworks

Milton Keynes

Norwich

Sheffield

Southampton

Stoke on Trent

Wimbledon

For more music and film news click here

First Look — The Brothers Bloom

Michael Bonner
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In 2005’s Brick, Rian Johnson played a cute twist on the high school movie genre, importing the tropes of film noir for a murder thriller set in the halls of academe. The Brothers Bloom, last night’s premier at the London Film Festival, is a similarly knowing piece of work. On face value, it’s a movie about two con men brothers, played by Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody; but, more than that, it’s also a movie about the act of fiction itself. Stephen (Ruffalo) and Bloom (Brody) are the greatest con men in the world. That’s no idle boast. Stephen’s scams are wonderful, exotic creations, almost baroque in their complexity, but when boiled down to basics they invariably involve using Bloom as some kind of bait. As the film opens, Bloom is in the throes of an existential crisis; he feels Stephen is writing his life, that his personality has just become a part in one of his brother's ingenious stings. He craves “an unwritten life” away from Stephen and their mute explosives expert Bang-Bang (Rinko Kikuchi). Bloom agrees to one last con: fleecing Penelope (Rachel Weisz), an eccentric, semi-reclusive millionairess. But, of course, things don’t go according to plan, as you might imagine when you factor in a one-eyed Russian gangster, Robbie Coltrane’s Belgian “museum curator” and the small matter that Bloom and Penelope falling in love. I’m reminded, in the costumes and set design, of a Wes Anderson movie; while there’s something in the exploration of dysfunctional families that chimes with, well, everything Anderson’s done. And, more conspicuously, the casting of Brody, who was so good in The Darjeeling Limited. But Johnson’s writing is looser, less arch than Anderson’s; in fact, after the heavily stylised exchanges in Brick, it’s quite a surprise to find The Brothers Bloom’s writing feels this warm. As a rule, The Brothers Bloom is simple very funny; though there are, sure, a couple of notably quirky moments. In one scene, Penelope explains to Bloom how she’s addicted to hobbies: we cut to a series of montages of her playing table tennis, kick boxing, DJing, breakdancing... I think what works best is the dynamic between Stephen, Bloom and Penelope. Stephen is colourful, flamboyant presence; Bloom more introverted, pensive. He seems to, well, bloom when he meets Penelope, who in turn grows from an awkward, gawky woman, clearly not too used to having many people around, into a warm, vibrant figure. The shifts in character are gentle and endearing. They anchor the film, to some extent, as Stephen’s final scam significantly blurs the lines between reality and fiction. As in any great con movie, you find yourself questioning, as the film enters its third act, the veracity of what you’re watching on screen. Who’s scamming who here, exactly? The Brothers Bloom will open next year in the UK.

In 2005’s Brick, Rian Johnson played a cute twist on the high school movie genre, importing the tropes of film noir for a murder thriller set in the halls of academe. The Brothers Bloom, last night’s premier at the London Film Festival, is a similarly knowing piece of work. On face value, it’s a movie about two con men brothers, played by Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody; but, more than that, it’s also a movie about the act of fiction itself.

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Brightblack Morning Light: “Perhaps a humanitarian focus would be to legalise LSD?”

John Mulvey
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A few weeks ago now, I blogged about the third Brightblack Morning Light, “Motion To Rejoin”. In the interim, I’ve played it to death, decided it’s one of my favourite albums of 2008, and written about it at length for the new issue of Uncut. I’ve also done an interesting email interview with Naybob Shineywater from the band, which reveals some of Brightblack’s key philosophies. There wasn’t room in the mag to print much of this, but I thought it was worth posting the whole thing online. Let me know what you think. . . JM: First, can you tell us a bit about your background? Where you’re from, what you’ve done, how Brightblack formed – that sort of thing? NS: I am from Alabama originally, lower Alabama, and grew up working with my hands, surrounded by people who work with their hands. I grew with an appreciation for being out of doors. Rachael and I have a dedication to making music in rural, wild environments, while also focusing on ecological recovery or even direct action for local ecological issues. Our last place in Northern California was mostly an outdoors living scenario, with multiple tents near the same ancient redwood forest where they filmed the Ewok footage in the old Star Wars. The cabin was a fully remodelled chicken coop nearby a creek. We put instruments in the cabin and lived outside, both working full-time community oriented jobs. Rachael made bread from an almond-wood-fired bakery and drove it to sale at the Berkeley farmer’s market. She also worked doing creek restoration for endangered coho salmon. But our music is southern to us and our friendship is built on both growing up in rural Alabama. Will Oldham helped you out a lot early on? Can you tell us more about that? Well not really... We opened for him on some national tours. We actually didn’t live near enough to help each other. Will is respected by many as a true southern folk singer, he’s stayed in his home state of Kentucky, it reflects in his songs, especially the early work. I like it when music is a reflection of a region’s lifestyle. America has more culture than most would like to admit. In the west, it’s the last place to really contrive the limits of birthright freedom, because the wilderness is very much alive, with people living out there thinking about ways to be more responsible and aligned with earth power than ever before! Have you always lived an itinerant life? In the sleevenotes of the new album, you mention your favourite tent and sleeping bag. Is living out in the open important to you? Freedom is important to me. Wilderness is the only true freedom. It is ours to honour, respect and party with. Every city is a design of the hand of human kind. I believe, like many we are at a crossroads, that these designs have to serve the common good of everything alive. That we should depave and have large inner city food gardens... Perhaps railroads can be run by solar power and nano technology, perhaps all medicine should be made available, now, to the sick. These are things we should change today. And we could. When was the last time you lived in an actual house? I live in an adobe, tee-pee and tent. I rotate on that. I however do not have a room nor ever want a room, I suppose life energy is a flow that walls can and do alter. Was the industrial age the first recorded instance of schizophrenia? How much raw night sky-star energy do we require in a lifetime? Can you tell us the full story of how you moved to the mesa? How is it enchanted, exactly? New Mexico is the land of enchantment. Home of the Pueblo nation, the only successful North American resistance to European conquest. That means these people around here have been maintaining ceremonial dances for thousands of years! A new day is upon us. As the economy shifts, energy and clean water become a birthright. Yet we need to refocus how and why we use it. Here in New Mexico, a New York City corporation is trying to build up a coal-powered plant where the traditional Navajo graze livestock, at a place called Desert Rock. There’s everyday issues still affecting people trying to live in harmony with their ancient ways, ways we should be learning from instead of destroying. History and mainstream culture would have you believe that all the Indians are dead, along with their language and religion, however this is a lie. In fact, recently in Brazil they discovered this year what is believed to be the last untouched tribe of the rai forest. We should all begin looking to ancient cultures as a responsibility for what we call a reality today. Is there a way to open our intellect to a primitive simplicity while engaging the new technology? Or is it one way or the other? Who says the current boundary is representative of freedom? Who says it’s one way or the other? What could happen we if found a new pride in the simple things? It takes a reminder every now and then to actually know what is and is not simple these days. The ecological issues will be endless and there is no guru or literature for the revolution we all need. Perhaps a humanitarian focus would be to legalise LSD? Isn’t it true that it’s a “must have experience?” Then we’ll all appreciate the life and see how it’s all smiling back at us! Is it that easy to walk around knowing that people’s blood have spilt so that truck drivers might drive us our food while we sit in a box all day? What should happen we if found a new pride in the simple things? Was the entire album recorded there, and entirely run on solar energy? Did the guest musicians all come out and lay down their parts with you there? Of course. Are you living there now? How isolated is it? Yes. Back-country! Why did you include those prismatic glasses with the last record? I find them a quality way to heal. This album, even more than the last one, seems filled with Native American imagery. Why is that so important to you? I would call it country imagery, or experience imagery. Many primitive folk tales of all nations share simple notions. I am indeed knowing that the primitive is still alive in every one of us. Maybe I am not a city person, but someone who lives in and for wilderness, as a family style of love. To give each day my full energy like a wildflower! Not a nursery flower! Language itself is a waste if there is no life reality behind the words. Maria Montessori believes we are all born with what we need to know, and that environment shapes us. How much depends on us. I hate the English language and anyone who loves to write probably does. It doesn’t hold enough heart-based responsibility to the subject matter, so that’s probably why music interests me, as it would anyone who chooses word-based expression. In “Oppressions Each”, you talk of being “beat down by police”. Did that actually happen? Can you give us the full story? Sure, yes. I was beaten by San Jose, California police on Valentine’s Day, the day of the first protest in San Francisco against the Iraq war. I sat in jail, completely innocent, and my charges of resisting arrest where dismissed on George Orwell’s birthday. How did you come to formulate the Brightblack sound? This album seems to focus on that slow funk feel more than ever: what are your musical influences? Livity. Knowing that others find solace in vinyl like I do. Is the Fender Rhodes a sacred object? It seems to be the cornerstone of your music? Yes, ours was handmade, with its own geometry to the acoustic harp. We understand it as a sacred geometry. Again, this old electric piano has been hauled into almost every bar in America! It weighs over a hundred pounds, we carry the piano with a deep respect. We both know how to work on them as well. You have a very strong environmentalist stance; can you briefly articulate that for our readers, and maybe give us some details and examples of your activism? The best examples are the daily ones. We ate 65 per cent of our food from the garden this summer. Over the past few years, a bunch of myths seem to have congregated around Brightblack. Do you think you could tell us the full true stories behind these rumours: That on the last European tour you sang with an arrowhead in your mouth? Yes. That you asked for audience members to bring crystals to gigs? Everyone should know crystals can help bring on a peace. Rose quartz helps the heart. It is written the throne of the great spirit is made of many kinda of crystals, yet we have them here, so perhaps we should hold them more? That you tried to ban members of the US military from your shows? Specifically it was concerning military recruitment. We are not part of a war machine and want folks to reconsider it all. That your dog was a critical part of your live show? Yes, my friend’s dog was present all over the place for a while. How do you feel about being stereotyped as hippies? I wasn”t aware of that. Remember that LSD came from America, no culture to date has devised such a revolutionary and alternate experience. The ‘60s also granted women’s right to vote, racial equality and sexual equality, these movements need ingredients and there are lessons to be learned from their mistakes, however we must, should and will embrace these mind-liberating tools in order to move forward in unity! Not label them as bad, when the folks doing the labelling are approving bad wars for bad oil for bad excess. Every individual could use a severe change, and violence is not the answer, yet it is usually the most recurring factor of change? Huh? Ha!

A few weeks ago now, I blogged about the third Brightblack Morning Light, “Motion To Rejoin”. In the interim, I’ve played it to death, decided it’s one of my favourite albums of 2008, and written about it at length for the new issue of Uncut.

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Led Zeppelin To Tour

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Led Zeppelin To Tour
Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones has confirmed to BBC Radio Devon that the band will record and tour, without original singer Robert Plant. John Paul Jones, speaking whilst at a guitar show in Exeter has confirmed that Jimmy Page, John Bonham's son Jason and himself had been trying out new sing...

Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones has confirmed to BBC Radio Devon that the band will record and tour, without original singer Robert Plant.

John Paul Jones, speaking whilst at a guitar show in Exeter has confirmed that Jimmy Page, John Bonham’s son Jason and himself had been trying out new singers since Plant has ruled himself out of performing with the band.

He said: “We are trying out a couple of singers. We want to do it. It’s sounding great and we want to get on and get out there.”

The bassist also added that they were not looking to simply replace Plant, explaining: “It’s got to be right. There’s no point in just finding another Robert. You could get that out of a tribute band, but we don’t want to be our own tribute band. There would be a record and a tour, but everyone has to be on board.”

Recent speculation has suggested that American singer Myles Kennedy could be the new singer, though John Paul Jones did not confirm this.

The last time Plant, Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham played was the one-off reunion show in December 2007, as a tribute to Ahmet Ertegun.

JPJ told the BBC that the show was “very hard work” but “wonderful” and that “The most pleasure is making music. I love listening to it, but nothing as much fun as having an instrument in my hand and communicating with people.”

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: Getty Images

Recording With Bob Dylan, Engineer Chris Shaw Tells All!

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Recording With Bob Dylan, Engineer Chris Shaw Tells All!
BOB DYLAN SPECIAL: The Complete Tell Tale Signs In the November issue of Uncut, we celebrated the release of Tell Tale Signs, the Bootleg Series Vol 8, Bob Dylan’s astonishing 2 and 3CD collection of unreleased material from 1989-2006. By speaking to the musicians, producers and crew who wor...

BOB DYLAN SPECIAL: The Complete Tell Tale Signs

In the November issue of Uncut, we celebrated the release of Tell Tale Signs, the Bootleg Series Vol 8, Bob Dylan’s astonishing 2 and 3CD collection of unreleased material from 1989-2006.

By speaking to the musicians, producers and crew who worked with him during this period, we uncovered a fascinating insight into how Dylan has recorded in the studio.

Over the the month, we have published the full, unedited transcripts of those interviews, and now present the final installment.

So, today, we present part thirteen: Chris Shaw, longtime engineer for Dylan.

For the full in-depth interview, click here.

You can read the previous five transcripts by clicking on the side panel (right) and all 13 parts of our exclusive online series in the Uncut Special features archive by clicking here.

On The Hour: “This Is The On The Hour” and “Arise Sir News”

John Mulvey
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Kidderminster has been found abandoned in a hedge. The M25 is missing. Events are continually unravelling. And Lynda Chalker exists. We’ve been steadily working our way through Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci’s On The Hour series these past couple of days, which are finally coming out as two CD box sets thanks to the Warp label next month. It’s weird, listening to supposedly topical comedy over 15 years after it was originally broadcast. And I would have thought that On The Hour’s blend of surreal non-sequiturs and relentless satire on news programming might seem a bit tired, given the preponderance of comedy shows full of surreal non-sequiturs and relentless satire on news programming in the intervening years. On The Hour still works, though. For a start, Morris is so much smarter and funnier than all of his incalculably dimmer clones. When he wades into soft targets like American evangelical churches, the pointed, withering oddness of his comedy is still striking. And second, the occasional references to Tory dinosaurs like Chalker and Kenneth Baker notwithstanding, On The Hour seems to be surprisingly timeless. It’s strangely comforting, listening to these 12 half-hour episodes, to discover that the world - or at least the broad strokes of the media world - hasn’t changed a great deal since the early ‘90s. That the British press are fixated on the same hobby-horses that they have been for, it’s clear, decades. War is on the horizon. “Green” issues are a fashionable selling point. Specifics aren’t really worth going into, because that would credit news broadcasters with tackling issues in depth. Much of On The Hour is about precisely nothing; Episode 3 of the first series is about “events”, that eventually – and utterly anti-climactically – become “war”. It’s all bombastic hot air. There’s also something perversely satisfying to be reminded that the sound of Radio 4 is fundamentally unchanged. In Episode Five, for instance, there’s a pastiche of a radio comedy called Thank God It’s Satire Day (but which could have been called The Now Show), which is appallingly reminiscent of virtually every Radio 4 satire show of the past 20 years (apart from the ones that have ripped off On The Hour, of course). But anyway, I thought I’d spotted a continuity error in this meticulously controlled universe, when the bumptious young Alan Partridge’s wife unexpectedly dies. By the next episode, however, she’s risen from the dead, the better to leave him later in his fictional life. And now I’ve switched the programmes off, and I’m in that post-Morris state of mind perhaps you’ll recognise, where everything you read seems completely absurd. Here’s a press release I just opened: “Electronic artist and DJ Andrea Parker climbs 5 of the world’s volcanoes for in aid of the NSPCC.” You couldn’t make it up, I suppose.

Kidderminster has been found abandoned in a hedge. The M25 is missing. Events are continually unravelling. And Lynda Chalker exists.

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Recording With Bob Dylan, Chris Shaw Tells All!

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Recording With Bob Dylan, Chris Shaw Tells All!
BOB DYLAN SPECIAL: The Complete Tell Tale Signs In the November issue of Uncut, we celebrated the release of Tell Tale Signs, the Bootleg Series Vol 8, Bob Dylan’s astonishing 2 and 3CD collection of unreleased material from 1989-2006. By speaking to the musicians, producers and crew who worked ...

BOB DYLAN SPECIAL: The Complete Tell Tale Signs

In the November issue of Uncut, we celebrated the release of Tell Tale Signs, the Bootleg Series Vol 8, Bob Dylan’s astonishing 2 and 3CD collection of unreleased material from 1989-2006.

By speaking to the musicians, producers and crew who worked with him during this period, we uncovered a fascinating insight into how Dylan has recorded in the studio.

Over the the month, we have published the full, unedited transcripts of those interviews, and now present the final installment.

So, today, we present part thirteen: Chris Shaw, longtime engineer for Dylan’s recording.

You can read the previous five transcripts by clicking on the side panel (right) and all 13 parts of our exclusive online series in the Uncut Special features archive by clicking here.

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CHRIS SHAW

Dylan’s engineer of choice since the turn of the millennium. Previously worked with Booker T And The MGs and Jeff Buckley, but he got the gig with Dylan “when he heard I got my start doing Public Enemy records.”

The very first thing I did with Bob was the song “Things Have Changed”, off the Wonder Boys movie, which was the song that got him his Oscar. I just got a phone call randomly one afternoon about three days before the session, asking if I wanted to work with Bob. And the first thing I said wasn’t “Yes” – it was *“Why me?”

I was recommended for the job by Steve Berkowitz, the A&R guy at Sony Legacy Records, who handles all of Bob’s back-catalogue. I’d hooked up with Steve prior to that for some amazing session work, with people like Booker T & the MGs and Jeff Buckley. And, at first, Bob’s manager wasn’t too sure if he’d want to work with me, *because* I’d worked with Booker T and Jeff Buckley, he thought I might be like an old-school style engineer. But then he heard that I got my start doing Public Enemy records, and he got very interested. That was the reason I got the gig with Bob.

We did “Things Have Changed” in one afternoon, and when we were done we did a very quick mix of it, and I thought it was just going to be a rough mix to give to Bob who’d maybe give it to someone else, like Daniel Lanois, who’d wind up engineering and mixing the final thing. But it turned out that that rough mix ended up being the final mix. And that was pretty funny, because the very last thing Bob did was raise the shaker up like 10db, making it ridiculously loud, and that was the mix he wanted to go with. So, I’ve been his engineer since then, seven or eight years now. One other thing we were desperately trying to find for the new Bootleg Series record, actually, but we weren’t able to locate, was the outtakes for “Things Have Changed”. Because there are at least two other complete versions of that, and one that I distinctly remember that was really great, it had a kind of New Orleans shuffle to it. But we weren’t able to locate the masters in time. Hopefully, if that gets found, it might show up on the next Bootleg Series…

I’m not sure why Bob decided to start producing himself. I think, maybe, because of the success he had with “Things Have Changed”, which he produced himself, and we did a couple of other things between that and “Love And Theft”, and I think he just realised he could do it himself. I don’t think he every really thinks he needs a producer, but this was the was first time he had a chance to do it without a producer, and he just realised, “I can do this myself. I know what I want.” It’s funny, because I’ve met other engineers and producers who have worked with Bob, and I’ve heard stories about, y’know, how he can be difficult, and how he’s difficult to work with. And I’ve found it to be exactly the opposite. I don’t find it difficult to get along with him at all. The thing about Bob is that: he just knows exactly what he wants. And I think the people who have said that Bob is difficult are people who were trying to put what *they* wanted on the record – but that’s not what Bob wants. I heard stories about arguments between him and Daniel Lanois in the studio, and I think that’s basically what it comes down to: Daniel’s got his idea how it should sound, and Bob’s got his idea about how it should sound, and that’s where they butt heads.

On “Love And Theft”, Bob really wanted to get the live sound of the band he had at that time, which, in my opinion, is the best band he’s ever had. Charlie Sexton, Larry Campbell, David Kemper, Tony Garnier, and we had Augie Meyers in playing organ. His idea was just, basically, get the whole band in the room and get them playing. You can never, ever know or predict exactly what it is that Bob wants. We went into that record thinking that he was going to be playing guitar, and he had this whole concept about how he wanted to “sing into the corner.” Y’know, he wanted to face the corner of the room and sing into it, kind of like that Robert Johnson album cover. The word came down that he wanted to try and do something like that, so we spent a whole day, before he got there, creating this elaborate set-up in the studio for him to do that. We got the whole band set up and rehearsed and got some sounds going on. And so, Bob walks in the room while we’re running through a song, and he starts doing the whole singing into the corner thing – and within about, like, two minutes, he abandoned the whole idea and just wandered over to the piano and sat down at it, and I had a microphone sitting there just in case he wanted to record an idea, and he sat down at the piano, and never got off it for the rest of the session, except for two songs, “High Water” and “Poor Boy”, I think.

His songs kind of continuously evolve. They’re not static. For him, it’s all about getting the track to fit the words, and not the other way around. So that’s why there are so many bootlegs, six different versions of “Like A Rolling Stone”, four different versions of “Visions Of Johanna”, he’s always trying to find the arrangement that works best with the sentiment he’s trying to express. To that end, he might say, “Well, I’m kinda hearing this like this old Billie Holiday song.” And so we’ll start with that, the band will actually start playing that song, try to get that sound, and then he’ll go, “Okay, and this is how my song goes.” It’s a weird process, and it’s unique to him out of any of the bands I’ve worked with over the past 20 years. It’s always interesting, always unbelievably exciting, and it’s a lot of hard work – and I mean that in a very good way. His sessions are always challenging, but, at the end of the day, you always feel like you’ve got something done, and you’ve done the best to get the song to work.

For Bob, especially when he’s producing on his own, if he can’t get a song completely recorded in a day, he thinks there’s (A) Something wrong with the band, (B) Something wrong with the song or (C) Something wrong with me or the studio. “Love And Theft”, I think there’s twelve songs on that record, and we did twelve songs in twelve days, completed. Then we spent another ten days mixing it, and I think we mixed four of the songs in one day, in something like six hours. He decided at the last minute to change a couple of things.

It’s very nerve wracking when you’re working with Bob, especially as a mixer, and especially if he’s there, because you don’t get much time to mix the record. He really hates being in the studio, I think, on that part of the process. So you have to be on your toes. More time is spent getting the sounds right when we’re recording than in mixing. And I’d say about 85 per cent of the sound of that record is the band spilling into Bob’s microphone, because he’d sing live in the room with the band. Most of the time without headphones. That’s why the record has this big, think, almost kind of swampy sound to it, and he loves it, he really goes for that sound.

Part of the problem for me on that record was because he didn’t want to wear headphones. We were sitting there on the first day of mixing, and he said, “I wanna rerecord the second verse again, change a couple of lines.” And I said, “Okay, let me get a headphone mix together so you can have something to sing to.” And he’s like, “Nah, nah, I don’t like wearing headphones.” So I said, “Kay, well, let me get a pair of speakers rigged up and you can sing to the speakers.” And he goes, “Oh, I used to do that with Daniel, I dunno if I like doing that.” So what I wound up having to do was, we put the whole band back in the room with him, and *the band* would wear headphones, and then the band would play along with the track, and Bob would kind of look over at Charlie Sexton, and Charlie would be mouthing the words to the song so Bob would know where he was, and then Bob would sit there and start singing into the microphone, and the I’d just drop-in Bob’s new mic, onto the existing track. And the great thing was, all the spill from the “new” band would still be there, all this bleed, so a lot of times on that record, you’re actually hearing two bands playing on each track.

Bob is constantly changing it. He’ll be like, “What key are we in?” “Oh we’re in G.” “What tempo?” “85 bpm, Bob.” “Okay, well let’s do it in C-minor, and let’s crank up the tempo to 104, and, Charlie, I want you on electric instead of acoustic, Tony, I want you to play upright bass instead of electric, I’m gonna switch to guitar, oh, and I want you playing lap-steel.” And so, we’re like, “Ooookay…” And, as an engineer, you’re suddenly racing to get all these sounds on all these new instruments, while they’re rehearsing it, and Bob looks up and says, “Okay, let’s take.”

So you’ve got to be on the ball, and make sure you’re not missing anything he’s recording. Hence, when Jeff Rosen and I were going through the tapes for Time Out Of Mind for the new Tell Tale Signs, there were something 85 tapes we had to sort through looking for the specific songs we were looking for. You wind up with like 30 takes of a certain song or whaterver. There were only two takes of that song “Dreamin’ Of You”, that just got released on the website, we found that one pretty easy, but there were others that took forever to find, like “Red River Shore”, there were four versions of that that we had to go looking for. It’s an archival process, and it’s fun digging through that stuff, especially all the banter you hear between tracks and stuff.

For me, personally, I have really fond memories of recording that song on “Love And Theft”, “Moonlight.” It’s really gorgeous, and I think the take that’s on the record is the second take, the whole thing is completely live, vocals and all, not a single overdub, no editing, it all just flowed together at once, and it was a really beautiful moment. During that session, at the end of every night, I would do a quick rough mix of the songs that we had been working on so he could hear them. And the rough mix of “Moonlight” ended up being the final master. I took two more stabs at mixing it, and everytime, we would wind up going back to that rough mix, there’s just something about it.

But, the thing was, there’s a lyric on the song where Bob sings, “The leaves cast their shadows on the stones,” and, when he was singing it live, he was reading his lyrics off a piece of paper, and, I guess, for a split-second, he got dyslexic, because on the live take, he actually sang, “The leaves cast their *stadows* on the stones.” So, the only time I did any editing on that song, was when I heard this word “stadows” go by, I knew he meant shadows, because I had the lyric sheet in front of me. So, when I tried a remix, I took the vocal, and I found a “sh” from somewhere else, and I chopped the “st” out and put that in, so he was singing “shadows,” y’know. And Bob was listening to all these mixes, and he kept saying, “Nah, man, I really wanna use that rough mix.” Finally, I said, “Well, you know, on the rough mix, you don’t sing ‘shadows,’ you sing, ‘stadows.” And he took a long hit on his cigarette, and he kind of looked at me deadpan, and he went, “Well, you know:*‘stadows.’*” So, at the final mastering, we figured that we really couldn’t let that stadows go by, because everybody would give him shit about it, so we did sliver edit, literally just for the “sh,” like a 15 milisecond edit.

There aren’t really any outtakes from “Love And Theft”. There are a couple of alternate takes, a lot of outtakes, but they weren’t fully complete unfortunately, or maybe the vocal wasn’t up to par, because Bob was just kind of still going through it. Bob, often, wouldn’t really start truly singing until he felt the band was getting their groove together, he would just kind of mumble through a take and listen to them, and say, “Okay, that’s not really working, let’s try something else.” There was one outtake I was trying to get put on Tell Tale Signs, though, the very first take of “Lonesome Day Blues,” because, it might have been the first track we did, we had the whole band playing in the room, and there’s a moment when it’s the first time the band really got their groove together, and Bob was just starting to sing it, and as the song progresses, you can hear him getting really into and the band really getting into it, the song builds up.

But the thing was, the first two verses were just Bob not really singing, because he wasn’t sure if it was right yet. But by that third verse he starts singing, and by the fifth he’s just *really* leaning into it. I distinctly remember that moment, standing in the control room watching the band, everyone in the control room, the hair on the back of the neck was standing up, people are saying, “Oh my God, this sounds amazing.” When it came to whether or not to put it on the new record, though, we had to decide that, for the listener, because the first two verses aren’t really there, it’s just not a fully satisfying experience.

“Lonesome Day Blues” really set the mood for that whole record. “Love And Theft” was an amazingly fun record to do. I think Bob was just having a blast producing himself, and he had one of his best bands ever with him. And they laid down that groove so hard. There were ten of us in the control room, and we were all whooping and hollering the entire time that song was going down. It was the first time we had heard Bob really just lay into a vocal in ages. We were so excited about that. In the same way that, on Modern Times, we were really excited to have Bob playing harmonica again.

That was amazing – I remember sitting there thinking to myself, “Holy shit. I’m recording Bob Dylan *playing harmonica.* This is incredible.” I’m a jaded studio guy, y’know, I’ve been working in studios for twenty two years. But every day on those two albums, every day I work with the guy for like five minutes, I’ll be sitting behind that console, and I’ll have this voice in the back of my head: *Holy fucking shit. I’m recording Bob Dylan.* And all of a sudden the hair on my arm is standing up, and I’m looking around, waiting for someone to barge in and point at me and say, “He shouldn’t be here.” He’s a blast to work with, Bob. As serious as the guy is, he has an incredibly wicked sense of humour, and he’s actually a lot of fun in the studio. When he’s in a good mood, it’s phenomenal.

On “Love And Theft” and Modern Times, Bob would sometimes come in with reference tracks, old songs, saying, “I want the track to be like this.” So, like, on Modern Times, there’s the Muddy Waters track [“Trouble No More”] that eventually became “Someday Baby”. He’d come in and present these templates and use them as reference points. The songs were pretty much written before he came in, they weren’t jammed out, but it was a case of him trying to get the band to play them the way he heard it. And sometimes that meant going down all these detours, “Okay it’s not really working like this, let’s try it like this.”

Like on the new Bootleg Series record, there’s the slow version of “Someday Baby” on there, the kind of gospel one. That was just like, he was getting kind of frustrated with the “Muddy Waters” version not coming together, and, after dinner I think, he walked back into the room and George Receli, his drummer, was tapping out that groove, and Bob sat down at the piano, and all of a sudden they came up with *that* version. We really raced to record that, I think it was only done for one or two takes. I think the vocal is pretty much untouched, maybe just one or two lines he changed later. And I think the reason he abandoned *that* version was that he was still really stuck on the Muddy Waters version. And, also, because he may have thought it sounded a little too much like Time Out Of Mind.

Bob really, *really* hates to repeat himself. He just hates it. A lot of times on “Love & Theft”, he’d do a version of a song and he’d say, “Aww, I’ve *done* that already. We gotta figure out some other way of doing it.” That’s really what it’s all about with him. For him, it’s like the whole thing is like a big chunk of marble, and he’s just got to chisel away at it to find exactly what it is he’s looking for. He’s not 100 per cent sure to begin with – he knows he wants it to be a statue of some sort, but he’s not sure if it’s going to be a statue of a man or a woman or a child or a horse or whatever.

Modern Times took a little bit longer to record. By that point, Charlie Sexton had left the band and shortly after Larry Campbell had left, and, just in my opinion, they were such an incredible pair of guitar players for Bob to work with, and they left becuyase opportunities had presented themselves to them, y’know, like, Charlie became a producer in his own right, he had produced a Lucinda Williams record, and it was really good, and he was getting a lot offers to produce, and I think at one point he sat down and said to himself, “I can be in Bob’s band for the rest of my life, or I can strike out on my own.” And Charlie’s a young man, so he decided to go off an do it, and Larry Campbell left shortly after. So it took three new guitar players to replace the two that Bob had.

The sessions for Modern Times went a little slower, it took maybe a month rather than three weeks. Not for any real reason I can pinpoint. Bob had a lot of ideas to sort through, there were a lot of different versions of each song he had to settle on before he could decide where he wanted them to go, and I think he had this vision in his head that maybe he couldn’t quite articulate to the band as quickly, so it took a few times trying out ideas to get it to land where he wanted it to be. And I think there was a lot more lyric writing he had to deal with. Bob never has a shortage of ideas where song lyrics are concerned. That was something that always astounded me, especially on “Love And Theft”. He’d be like, “Oh, I wanna re-write the second verse. And he’d walk off, and ten minutes later come back, and say, “Okay, “ and he’d sing something and I’d be, like, “Jesus Christ, you just wrote that in ten minutes?” I know guys who have spent their whole lives trying to write a verse that good. I’ve worked with a lot of great artists, musicians and songwriters, but, man, when you walk in the studio with *that* guy, he’s operating on a completely different level. It’s really refreshing when. You have to work hard to make a record sound *bad* with him.

There was a lot of editing done on “Love And Theft”. Like, the song “High Water”, for example, the verse order of that was changed quite a few times, literally hacking the tape up. He was like, “Nah, maybe the third verse should come first. And maybe we should put *that* *there*.” There was a lot of that. But the really big breakthrough on Modern Times was that we didn’t do it on tape at all, it was the very first album he had ever done using ProTools. That whole record was done digitally, and so everything was preserved, we have hours and hours and hours of all the outtakes, because we left the machine running just 24 hours a day.

Actually, it wasn’t difficult to get him to go for using ProTools.

Between “Love And Theft” and Modern Times, we did a couple of things for movie soundtracks. There was “Cross the Green Mountain”, the song we did for Gods And Generals, and a couple of others, and, when we went into the studio for that, I said to Bob, “You know, since this is just a one-off song, it’s not going to be for an album, I wouldn’t mind trying ProTools, just so I can show you the benefits of it.” And he said, “Okay, whatever.” And we did a take of the song, and he was like, “Okay, I want to edit out the second verse and put the fourth verse in there.” And I said, “Okay, and by the time he walked into the control room from the studio, I had it done.” And his eyes just opened wide. “You can edit that fast on ProTools?” “Yeah.” “And you can keep everything?” “You can keep everything, Bob.” You could just see the gears in his head suddenly spinning.

The thing is, now, he’s gotten so used to the speed of that, when we were doing Modern Times, he was actually getting impatient with the machine. He’s be, like, “Okay, let’s swap the second and third verse.” And ten minutes later he’s like, “Are you done yet?” I’m like, “Bob, don’t you remember the last record we did, it took me about an hour to do that, can you give me somewhere between zero and an hour to get it done?”

But, working with Bob, that’s what unique, is everything is always live. He might edit the structure of a song, he might switch verses around because it tells the story better, but we never go in and do these micro-edits and tuning instruments or other computer tweaking that so many other people do: basically, to him, the computer is just one big tape machine. And that’s the reason Modern Times sounds so good: yeah, it was recorded using this new technology, ProTools, but we used an old desk, old microphones, old pre-amps.

The downside of using that stuff is, though – a couple of times during Modern Times, the computer crashed, in the middle of a take. And, I’ll tell you right now, there is no worse feeling in the world than having to walk out into a live room while the band is playing and have to stand in front of Bob and make him stop and tell him it’s because a computer has crashed. You feel about four inches tall. I mean it’s no one’s fault, it’s nothing anyone can control, but that …*irked* him a couple of times. I love working with Bob, it’s such an adventure, and he *always* keeps you on your toes, because you can never, ever, ever predict what he likes. Just when you think you know what he’s going to do, he doesn’t do it. He’s constantly evolving.

The word “chameleon” has been tossed around quite a bit, but he truly is, he just adapts to whatever is going on in the studio.

Bob has made me totally rethink the way I record a lot of other bands since, as far as getting the band to play live in the studio, doing minimal editing, getting away from the fucking computer. The biggest thing I’ve learned from him is the importance of the lyric and the vocal to a song – most bands you work with today, the lyrics and the sentiment are so disposable. And one of the things I find myself getting on bands’ backs about now is the essence of the vocal – you know, are the band actually paying attention to the vocal.

That’s the biggest memory I came away from “Love And Theft” with – whenever things were going wrong, it was almost always because the band weren’t listening to what Bob was saying. And “Love And Theft” is a great record because Bob doesn’t want *anything* getting in the way of a vocal. There should be no guitar riffs going on while he’s singing, no soloing while he’s singing, no fancy playing while he’s singing, and so, the great thing about “Love And Theft” is, there’s this tension in all the songs, because, all the other musicians are trying to get theirs in while he’s not singing, y’know. Whenever Bob stops singing, Charlie or Larry will try to put a little riff in there, or do a solo. If you go see Bob live, you’ll see these little times when he might turn to the guitarist and give him the eye, like, “You’re playing on top of me – don’t do that.” So, there’s kind of boxing match going on, and everyone’s trying to get their kicks in when Bob isn’t singing.

The studio, recording, for him is sort of like a necessary evil – I mean, he enjoys it, but he just hates the time it takes. He’s always talking about when he used to make albums: “This record, we did, like, four songs in one day.”

The thing about Bob is, on the last couple of albums, in the studio, he was always playing these old Carter family albums, old Bob Wills records, and one of the things he’s really enamoured with is the technology back then- you could only record with one or two microphones. You listen to a Carter Family record, that’s them just standing around one microphone. He would talk about how immediate it sounds, how raw and vital it sounds. And, you know, I said I’m really down with that, if he wants to try it, but the thing is, doing it that way, you can’t take anything away – you can add to it, but you can’t take anything out, so everything has to be right. So we’re always trying to get that sound with modern techniques. Which is always a struggle. And he understands it all, he’s not ignorant of modern technology. He just hates how records sound today. But he has said, “I really wanna try doing a record with a microphone.” So, who knows, we might be doing that on the next record, you never know. It might start that way…

But, for him, a recording is just a document of the song at that moment in time. My favourite Bob Dylan songs is probably, “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding”. Especially today, because I think the lyrics mean even more today than when he wrote it. And he has this really wicked way of playing it live now, it’s kind of raucous, and I saw him backstage once after the show, and I said, “Hey, I love the new version of ‘It’s Alright Ma…’ – but do you ever play it like the original recording?”

And he looked at me, and he said, “Well, y’know, a record is just a recording of what you were doing that day.

“You don’t wanna live the same day over and over again, now, do ya?”

DAMIEN LOVE

Win! Rolling Stones Shine A Light DVDs!

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Win! Rolling Stones Shine A Light DVDs!

Win! www.uncut.co.uk has teamed up with Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment to offer the chance to win a copy of The Rolling Stones film Shine A Light! The film, which was released earlier this year, from Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese will be available to buy on DVD and Blu-Ray from November 3 - and we have 3 copies of the DVD to giveaway right now! All versions of the film which was recorded over two nights at New York's Beacon Theater in 2006 come with bonus features: including four songs (Undercover of The Night, Little T & A, I’m Free and Paint It Black) which weren't in the cinema release as well a ‘behind the scenes’ featurette and archive footage. To be in with a chance of winnning one of three copies of Shine A Light on DVD, simply log in and answer the question here Closing date for entries is Friday November 14, 2008. For more competitions, keep checking back to Uncut.co.uk's special features here

Win!

www.uncut.co.uk has teamed up with Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment to offer the chance to win a copy of The Rolling Stones film Shine A Light!

The film, which was released earlier this year, from Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese will be available to buy on DVD and Blu-Ray from November 3 – and we have 3 copies of the DVD to giveaway right now!

All versions of the film which was recorded over two nights at New York’s Beacon Theater in 2006 come with bonus features: including four songs (Undercover of The Night, Little T & A, I’m Free and Paint It Black) which weren’t in the cinema release as well a ‘behind the scenes’ featurette and archive footage.

To be in with a chance of winnning one of three copies of Shine A Light on DVD, simply log in and answer the question here

Closing date for entries is Friday November 14, 2008.

For more competitions, keep checking back to Uncut.co.uk’s special features here

Of Time And The City

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Of Time And The City

Like Morrissey with Manchester or Joyce and Dublin, Terence Davies enjoys an intense love-hate relationship with the half-remembered Liverpool of his youth. A low-budget docu-memoir blending music, poetry and archive footage, Of Time And The City is highly personal and exquisitely beautiful in places. Drawing on a childhood dominated by poverty, Catholicism and guilt-ridden homosexuality, Davies cuts between footage of monochrome post-war austerity, the full-colour 1960s and the designer drinking dens of contemporary Liverpool. Endless shots of terraced streets and kitchen-sink squalor glide past with little guiding narrative. Davies cites the great social documentarian Humphrey Jennings as an inspiration, but there are echoes of Derek Jarman and Patrick Kieller here too. Alternating between mournful and scornful, Davies prissy voiceover declaims pet hates including Britain’s “fossil monarchy” and The Beatles, who he blames for the decline of wit and glamour in popular music. More elaboration of these bitchy one-liners would have been welcome, as would more depth to the film’s sketchy musings on class war, religious oppression and sexual politics. But once you tune in to its musical grace, Of Time And The City becomes a mesmerising and immersive experience. STEPHEN DALTON

Like Morrissey with Manchester or Joyce and Dublin, Terence Davies enjoys an intense love-hate relationship with the half-remembered Liverpool of his youth. A low-budget docu-memoir blending music, poetry and archive footage, Of Time And The City is highly personal and exquisitely beautiful in places.

Drawing on a childhood dominated by poverty, Catholicism and guilt-ridden homosexuality, Davies cuts between footage of monochrome post-war austerity, the full-colour 1960s and the designer drinking dens of contemporary Liverpool. Endless shots of terraced streets and kitchen-sink squalor glide past with little guiding narrative.

Davies cites the great social documentarian Humphrey Jennings as an inspiration, but there are echoes of Derek Jarman and Patrick Kieller here too. Alternating between mournful and scornful, Davies prissy voiceover declaims pet hates including Britain’s “fossil monarchy” and The Beatles, who he blames for the decline of wit and glamour in popular music.

More elaboration of these bitchy one-liners would have been welcome, as would more depth to the film’s sketchy musings on class war, religious oppression and sexual politics. But once you tune in to its musical grace, Of Time And The City becomes a mesmerising and immersive experience.

STEPHEN DALTON

Oasis Joined by a 50-Piece Choir To Close Electric Proms

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Oasis Joined by a 50-Piece Choir To Close Electric Proms
Oasis closed the BBC Electric Proms backed with the 50-strong Crouch End Festival Chorus in London last night (October 26). Taking a break from their current 18-date Dig Out Your Soul UK arena tour, Oasis brought their swaggering show to London's Roundhouse, the most intimate sized show they've pla...

Oasis closed the BBC Electric Proms backed with the 50-strong Crouch End Festival Chorus in London last night (October 26).

Taking a break from their current 18-date Dig Out Your Soul UK arena tour, Oasis brought their swaggering show to London’s Roundhouse, the most intimate sized show they’ve played in years.

The 20-track ‘greatest hits’ set, also saw the group joined by the 50-piece chorus on six songs, including “The Masterplan”, “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova”, although for much of the songs, the choir were barely audible over the loudness of Oasis.

Liam Gallagher dedicated “Falling Down” to comedian Russell Brand who was in the audience, as was James Bond actor Daniel Craig who also got a shout out from the stage, prompting fans to chant “Bond – Who are ya?”

Noel Gallagher took the opportunity to take a pop at the current Bond theme tune “Die Another Day”, saying to the audience: “James Bond is upstairs, I might see if I can blag it so that he can get me the next James Bond theme tune instead of fucking dopey Americans doing it all the time”.

Highlight of last night’s collaboration was Oasis usual set closer, a cover of The Beatles’ “I Am The Walrus”, on which the choir really made an impact.

The song’s finale artfully incorporated Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 in D minor, the Ode to Joy (O Freunde) section, which is used at the end of the Beatles film Help! when Ringo is stuck in the pub cellar with a tiger.

The BBC Electric Proms also saw Bee Gee Robin Gibb perform at the weekend, hosting a 30th anniversary disco celebration to Saturday Night Fever. You can read the Uncut live review here.

The week saw over 100 artists such as Burt Bacharach, Africa Express, The Streets and Last Shadow Puppets perform across 12 venues in London and Liverpool.

You can watch performances from the five day festival, including Oasis on the BBC website here.

Oasis’ Electric Proms set list was:

‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Star’

‘Lyla’

‘The Shock Of The Lightning’

‘Cigarettes And Alcohol’

‘The Meaning Of Soul’

‘To Be Where There’s Life’

‘Wating For The Rapture’

‘The Masterplan’

‘Songbird’

‘Slide Away’

‘Morning Glory’

‘Ain’t Got Nothin”

‘The Importance Of Being Idle’

‘I’m Outta Time’

‘Wonderwall’

‘Supersonic’

‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’

‘Falling Down’

‘Champagne Supernova’

‘I Am The Walrus’

For more music and film news click here

Island Announce 50th Anniversary Celebrations

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Island Announce 50th Anniversary Celebrations
Island Records are collaborating with the label's founder Chris Blackwell to oversee the company's 50th anniversary next year. Island 50 is set to take place next May, and will include live music, film screenings and photography and memorabilia exhibitions. 'Island 50 Live' will be a week-long fes...

Island Records are collaborating with the label’s founder Chris Blackwell to oversee the company’s 50th anniversary next year.

Island 50 is set to take place next May, and will include live music, film screenings and photography and memorabilia exhibitions.

‘Island 50 Live’ will be a week-long festival of live shows by Island artists past and present at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire. All money raised from the shows will go to Amnesty International and The Oracabessa Foundation in Jamaica.

The label has been home to a diverse range of major artists over the years including U2, Bob Marley, Roxy Music and Tom Waits.

The current roster includes Amy Winehouse, Portishead and Paul Weller.

Looking back over the label’s success, Blackwell has commented: “When I recorded ‘Lance Hayward at the Half Moon’ in 1959 at Federal Records Studio in Kingston, Jamaica, I had no inkling what path this had set me on. It has been an honour and a privilege to work with some of the greatest musical artists of all time. It was always my intention at Island to make records that stood the test of time, and I’m proud that Island is still a potent force in music 50 years since that first release. I’m very excited to be collaborating with the label to organise a number of events to celebrate Island’s 50th birthday in 2009.”

As well as the live shows, the Island 50 Film Festival will show films such as The Harder They Come’ and ‘Bob Marley Live At The Lyceum’ and will screen nationwide. An exhibition of artwork and photography will also tour around the country through 2009.

Island 50 will also see lots of classic albums get deluxe resisues, as well as new compilations to mark the label’s milestone.

For more music and film news click here

AC/DC Are Top Of The Pops For First Time In 28 Years

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AC/DC Are Top Of The Pops For First Time In 28 Years
AC/DC have stormed to the top of the UK album chart with new album 'Black Ice', claiming their first number one since 'Back In Black in 1980. The veteran rockers who start their world tour in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Tuesday (October 28) sold double the number of albums than other high new ent...

AC/DC have stormed to the top of the UK album chart with new album ‘Black Ice’, claiming their first number one since ‘Back In Black in 1980.

The veteran rockers who start their world tour in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Tuesday (October 28) sold double the number of albums than other high new entry, Kaiser Chiefs – who chart at number two with their third album ‘Off With Their Heads’.

You can click here to read Uncut’s reviews of Black Ice and Off With Their Heads.

The rest of the UK’s album top 10 (w/c October 26, 2008) looks like this:

1. AC/DC – Black Ice (Columbia)

2. Kaiser Chiefs – Off With Their Heads (B Unique/Polydor)

3. Kings Of Leon – Only By The Night (Hand Me Down)

4. Leon Jackson – Right Now (Syco Music)

5. Katherine Jenkins Sacred Arias (UCJ)

6. Keane – Perfect Symmetry (Island)

7. Oasis – Dig Out Your Soul (Big Brother)

8. Sugababes – Catfights And Spotlights (Island)

9. Boyzone – Back Again – No Matter What (Polydor)

10. Sash – The Best Of (Hard2Beat)

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

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

BBC Electric Proms: Saturday Night Fever, October 25, 2008

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Saturday Night Fever, a 30th anniversary orchestral disco inferno celebration, helmed by Bee Gee Robin Gibb... Against the odds, this was a spectacularly successful tribute at London's Roundhouse to the songs which offered a generation romance and rhythm, and first topped the UK album charts thir...

Saturday Night Fever, a 30th anniversary orchestral disco inferno celebration, helmed by Bee Gee Robin Gibb…

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BBC Electric Proms: Burt Bacharach, October 22, 2008

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Burt Bacharach was joined onstage by guest vocalists Adele, Beth Rowley and Jamie Cullum at the opening night of the BBC Electric Proms in London last night (October 22). The composer and songwriter who's had a 60 year career in music, crammed as much as possible into the 90 minute set at the Roundhouse, with much of the set played as medleys. Bacharach played piano throughout, accompanied by the 50-strong BBC Concert Orchestra and his four touring singers, and even sang himself on songs like "Alfie" and "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head." Jamie Callum was the first guest to join him on the Roundhouse stage, performing "Make It Easy On Yourself" before Beth Rowley sang "24 Hours From Tulsa." Star turn of the evening was Adele, who joined Burt onstage for a belting "Baby It's You." The singer who is currrently toppping the US iTunes chart after appearing on the episode of Saturday Night Live with Sarah Palin impersonator Tina Fey last week, got one of the biggest rounds of applause of the evening. Bacharach, a sprightly showman, bantered with the audience throughout and constantly got up from behind the piano to applaud the musicians onstage. Introducing the section made up of his film compositions, he joked about his prolific career, saying: "How many composers go from having songs recorded by the great artists, to film scoring and writing title songs for them, to even appearing in..." Adding after a pause, "Austin Powers 1, Austin Powers 2, Austin Powers 3. I can't tell you what being in those movies has done for my career!" As well as going through his very famous songbook, Bacharach also treated the intimate venue to a new instrumental piece "For The Children", which was originally written for and recorded live with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It was the first time the string-laden piece had been played outside of Sydney. The BBC Electric Proms Festival continues with shows including The Streets at the same venue tonight (October 23) and Keane at London's Koko. Burt Bacharach's BBC Electric Proms set list was: 'What The World Needs Now Is Love' 'Don't Make Me Over' 'Walk On By' 'This Guy's In Love With You' 'I Say A Little Prayer' 'Trains & Boats & Planes' 'Wishin & Hopin'' '(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me' 'One Less Bell' 'I'll Never Fall In Love Again' 'Only Love Can Break A Heart' 'Do You Know The Way To San Jose' 'Anyone Who Had A Heart' 'Make It Easy On Yourself' '(They Long To Be) Close To You' 'Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa' 'For The Children' 'Baby It's You' 'The Look Of Love' 'Arthur's Theme' 'What's New Pussycat?' 'The World Is A Circle' 'April Fools' 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head' 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' 'Alfie' 'A House Is Not A Home' 'Any Day Now' 'Magic Moments' 'Story Of My Life' 'The Blob' 'Tower Of Strength'

Burt Bacharach was joined onstage by guest vocalists Adele, Beth Rowley and Jamie Cullum at the opening night of the BBC Electric Proms in London last night (October 22).

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