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T Bone Burnett – Tooth Of Crime

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T Bone Burnett – Tooth Of Crime

Now a lauded producer, Burnett conquered his disillusionment with the music business by collaborating on Sam Shepard’s 1996 reworking of his play Tooth of Crime. The play was characterised by the New York Times as “high noon at the O.K. Corral in a jukebox universe”, but while there is no doubting the power of Marc Ribot’s off-kilter twanging or the noirish density of the music, the songs don’t really work on their own. The exception is “Kill Zone”, which calls out for a vocal by its co-writer, Roy Orbison. ALASTAIR McKAY

Now a lauded producer, Burnett conquered his disillusionment with the music business by collaborating on Sam Shepard’s 1996 reworking of his play Tooth of Crime. The play was characterised by the New York Times as “high noon at the O.K. Corral in a jukebox universe”, but while there is no doubting the power of Marc Ribot’s off-kilter twanging or the noirish density of the music, the songs don’t really work on their own. The exception is “Kill Zone”, which calls out for a vocal by its co-writer, Roy Orbison.

ALASTAIR McKAY

Otis Redding – Otis Blue (Collector’s Edition)

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Otis Redding – Otis Blue (Collector’s Edition)

By the sweltering July of 1965, 23 year old Otis Redding’s career had just lifted off. A star turn on the ‘chitlin circuit’ with a string of minor hits, the Georgia singer just bust the mainstream charts with “I Been Loving You Too Long”, which he’d written with singer Jerry Butler. Still, when Otis pitched up to Stax’s Memphis studios to cut his third album he was struggling for material. Remarkably, over the next two days he and the Stax house band the MGs would record the greatest album of his career, arguably the definitive album of the soul era. Perhaps it’s no accident it’s essentially a covers album, with Otis laying his trademark huff’n’puff, grits’n’grunt vocals on material by Smokey Robinson (“My Girl”), B.B.King (“Rock Me Baby”), William Bell (“You Don’t Miss Your Water”) and the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”, a number Otis had never heard before MGs’ guitarist Steve Cropper presented it to him in studio. Otis fluffed the lyrics but conquered the song, an inspired reversal of black America’s contribution to “the Brit invasion”. Then there was a trio of songs by Otis’ hero, Sam Cooke, just six months dead. “Wonderful World” and “Shake” are Staxed competently, but “A Change Is Gonna Come” is renewed into a definitive anthem of civil rights era hope. Otis often yelped and stammered through songs, but when it mattered, like here, he delivered beautifully grained, gospel-rich performances. To pound his talents into the mix, Otis delivered “Ole Man Trouble”, whose slow stoicism echoes Paul Robeson’s “Ole Man River”, and “Respect”, a number he said took “a day to write, 20 minutes to arrange, and one take to record.” Aretha would turn the song into a feminist anthem, but here it’s the rant of a wounded lover, with Otis pushed to his scatting limits by the driving Jackson/Dunne rhythm section. The band, Cropper’s stinging guitar and the atonal Memphis horns, are phenomenal throughout – this is almost as much their album as Redding’s. The ‘mono mix of stereo version’ extras here are so much padding, while the live performances (all previously released) affirm Otis Blue’s message of a tender, profound and sadly lost talent. NEIL SPENCER Pic credit: Rex Features

By the sweltering July of 1965, 23 year old Otis Redding’s career had just lifted off. A star turn on the ‘chitlin circuit’ with a string of minor hits, the Georgia singer just bust the mainstream charts with “I Been Loving You Too Long”, which he’d written with singer Jerry Butler.

Still, when Otis pitched up to Stax’s Memphis studios to cut his third album he was struggling for material. Remarkably, over the next two days he and the Stax house band the MGs would record the greatest album of his career, arguably the definitive album of the soul era.

Perhaps it’s no accident it’s essentially a covers album, with Otis laying his trademark huff’n’puff, grits’n’grunt vocals on material by Smokey Robinson (“My Girl”), B.B.King (“Rock Me Baby”), William Bell (“You Don’t Miss Your Water”) and the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”, a number Otis had never heard before MGs’ guitarist Steve Cropper presented it to him in studio. Otis fluffed the lyrics but conquered the song, an inspired reversal of black America’s contribution to “the Brit invasion”.

Then there was a trio of songs by Otis’ hero, Sam Cooke, just six months dead. “Wonderful World” and “Shake” are Staxed competently, but “A Change Is Gonna Come” is renewed into a definitive anthem of civil rights era hope. Otis often yelped and stammered through songs, but when it mattered, like here, he delivered beautifully grained, gospel-rich performances.

To pound his talents into the mix, Otis delivered “Ole Man Trouble”, whose slow stoicism echoes Paul Robeson’s “Ole Man River”, and “Respect”, a number he said took “a day to write, 20 minutes to arrange, and one take to record.” Aretha would turn the song into a feminist anthem, but here it’s the rant of a wounded lover, with Otis pushed to his scatting limits by the driving Jackson/Dunne rhythm section. The band, Cropper’s stinging guitar and the atonal Memphis horns, are phenomenal throughout – this is almost as much their album as Redding’s.

The ‘mono mix of stereo version’ extras here are so much padding, while the live performances (all previously released) affirm Otis Blue’s message of a tender, profound and sadly lost talent.

NEIL SPENCER

Pic credit: Rex Features

No Age – Nouns

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No Age – Nouns

Los Angeles duo No Age surfaced last year with Weirdo Rippers, a compilation of early vinyl cuts that suggested a couple of wide-eyed punk kids dudes discovering the manifold delights of effects pedals for the very first time. A year later, and singer/guitarist Randy Randall and singer/drummer Dean Spunt are ensconced on Seattle’s Sub Pop, perfecting a debut album proper that promises much more. Nouns poses an hypothesis of sorts: what happens when the punk rock of The Misfits and Black Flag meets the hissy lo-fi of Pavement’s Slanted And Enchanted and the ecstatic throb of My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything? The answer is thirty minutes and twelve songs long, bashed out with Fonz-like cool, but captured with a fuzz-soaked, dreamy production that makes good use of the tools and methods of budget production: the smeared, neo-psychedelia of hissy four-tracks and cheap guitars played through cheap pedals, applied here not through necessity, but for sheer love of the sound. No Age are still punks at heart: the opening “Miner” busts out the traps at speed, but it’s blurred and chaotic, vocals subsumed in a mush of effects. Spunt and Randell make this sound their own, though: the joyful “Sleeper Hold” imagines surfboards waxed and skate ramps traversed through a humid haze, azure guitars crashing like waves, while at the other of the spectrum, “Impossible Bouquet” offers a drifting, ambient guitar interlude with more in common with Fennesz’s Endless Summer or The Durutti Column than any more familiarly punk touchstone. The gorgeous “Cappo”, meanwhile, echoes a much earlier generation of Californian songsmiths, voices multi-tracked in some surreal echo of Pet Sounds: “Don’t you wanna cry?/If I were you, I’d cry/Force it out…” In an age where every rock riff must be compressed for maximum punch, No Age’s quixotic recording techniques might leave them feeling slight. Taken on its own terms, though, Nouns is a righteous success: delightfully dazed, good-times punk rock for a new generation of Californian dreamers. LOUIS PATTISON

Los Angeles duo No Age surfaced last year with Weirdo Rippers, a compilation of early vinyl cuts that suggested a couple of wide-eyed punk kids dudes discovering the manifold delights of effects pedals for the very first time. A year later, and singer/guitarist Randy Randall and singer/drummer Dean Spunt are ensconced on Seattle’s Sub Pop, perfecting a debut album proper that promises much more.

Nouns poses an hypothesis of sorts: what happens when the punk rock of The Misfits and Black Flag meets the hissy lo-fi of Pavement’s Slanted And Enchanted and the ecstatic throb of My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything? The answer is thirty minutes and twelve songs long, bashed out with Fonz-like cool, but captured with a fuzz-soaked, dreamy production that makes good use of the tools and methods of budget production: the smeared, neo-psychedelia of hissy four-tracks and cheap guitars played through cheap pedals, applied here not through necessity, but for sheer love of the sound.

No Age are still punks at heart: the opening “Miner” busts out the traps at speed, but it’s blurred and chaotic, vocals subsumed in a mush of effects. Spunt and Randell make this sound their own, though: the joyful “Sleeper Hold” imagines surfboards waxed and skate ramps traversed through a humid haze, azure guitars crashing like waves, while at the other of the spectrum, “Impossible Bouquet” offers a drifting, ambient guitar interlude with more in common with Fennesz’s Endless Summer or The Durutti Column than any more familiarly punk touchstone.

The gorgeous “Cappo”, meanwhile, echoes a much earlier generation of Californian songsmiths, voices multi-tracked in some surreal echo of Pet Sounds: “Don’t you wanna cry?/If I were you, I’d cry/Force it out…” In an age where every rock riff must be compressed for maximum punch, No Age’s quixotic recording techniques might leave them feeling slight. Taken on its own terms, though, Nouns is a righteous success: delightfully dazed, good-times punk rock for a new generation of Californian dreamers.

LOUIS PATTISON

Beck Announces Wireless Warm Up Shows

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Beck Announces Wireless Warm Up Shows
Beck has announced that he is to play two UK headline live shows, in the run up to his performance at this year's Wireless Festival in London's Hyde Park. The singer, whose classic Odelay album has just been expanded and reissued is set to play two wram-up shows, the first at Southampton's Guildha...

Beck has announced that he is to play two UK headline live shows, in the run up to his performance at this year’s Wireless Festival in London’s Hyde Park.

The singer, whose classic Odelay album has just been expanded and reissued is set to play two wram-up shows, the first at Southampton’s Guildhall on July 1 and the second at Manchester Apollo on July 2.

Beck, who has recently recorded a brand new studio album with producer Danger Mouse is to play at Wireless Festival on July 4, the same day that former Smiths’ frontman Morrissey headlines.

John Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance Lyrics To Be Sold

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John Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance Lyrics To Be Sold

Late Beatle John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" hadwritten lyrics are to be sold at Christies pop memorabilia auction this July. The London auction house says that the lyrics, along with never-seen-before photos were given to 16-year old writer Gail Renard in 1969, when Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their Montreal 'bed-in.' According to BBC News, John Lennon gave Renard a few mementos of the week she spent with them, including the famous song lyrics, telling her "one day they will be worth something". The collection is estimated to go for around £300,000 at the rock and pop auction on July 10.

Late Beatle John Lennon‘s “Give Peace a Chance” hadwritten lyrics are to be sold at Christies pop memorabilia auction this July.

The London auction house says that the lyrics, along with never-seen-before photos were given to 16-year old writer Gail Renard in 1969, when Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their Montreal ‘bed-in.’

According to BBC News, John Lennon gave Renard a few mementos of the week she spent with them, including the famous song lyrics, telling her “one day they will be worth something”.

The collection is estimated to go for around £300,000 at the rock and pop

auction on July 10.

Radiohead Pay Tribute To Jazz Legend Lyttelton

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Radiohead Pay Tribute To Jazz Legend Lyttelton
Radiohead have paid tribute to Humphrey Littleton, the jazz musician and radio broadcaster who died last week aged 86. The band previously recorded with Lyttelton on the Amnesiac album track "Life In a Glasshouse" and commended him for his inspiration. The band said in a statement today "We were a...

Radiohead have paid tribute to Humphrey Littleton, the jazz musician and radio broadcaster who died last week aged 86.

The band previously recorded with Lyttelton on the Amnesiac album track “Life In a Glasshouse” and commended him for his inspiration.

The band said in a statement today “We were all sorry to hear of Humphrey Lyttleton’s death – he was an inspiring person to record with, and without his direction, we’d never have recorded/released ‘Life In A Glasshouse’. So go and find ‘Bad Penny Blues’, and celebrate his life with some hot jazz…”.

To read Uncut’s obituary for Humphrey Lyttelton,

click here.

Pic credit: PA Photos

Shakin’ Stevens And Gilbert O’Sullivan For Glastonbury!

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Shakin’ Stevens And Gilbert O’Sullivan For Glastonbury!
Shakin' Stevens and Gilbert O'Sullivan are amongst the artists revealed to be playing this year's Glastonbury Festival, after the full main stage line-up for the June event has leaked online. Welsh rock 'n' roller Shakin' Stevens has been confirmed as a surprising opening act on the main Pyramid S...

Shakin’ Stevens and Gilbert O’Sullivan are amongst the artists revealed to be playing this year’s Glastonbury Festival, after the full main stage line-up for the June event has leaked online.

Welsh rock ‘n’ roller Shakin’ Stevens has been confirmed as a surprising opening act on the main Pyramid Stage on the festival’s second day (June 28). Stevens’ career has spanned four decades and was the UK’s top selling male artist of the 80s, and recently released a new album Now Listen.

Another surprise addition to Glastonbury’s bill is Irish crooner Gilbert O’Sullivan who is most famous for his two early ’70s chart toppers “Clair” and “Get Down”.

The Pyramid Stage this year will also see bands such as The Raconteurs, Editors, Goldfrapp and The Hold Steady join headliners previously announced Kings of Leon, Jay-Z and The Verve.

This year’s Glastonbury Festival takes place from June 27 – 29, at Worthy Farm, Somerset.

The full Glastonbury main stages line-up is:

June 27:

Pyramid Stage

Kings Of Leon

The Fratellis

Editors

The Gossip

The Feeling

KT Tunstall

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly

The Subways

Kate Nash

Other Stage

Panic At The Disco

The Enemy

We Are Scientists

Foals

The Hoosiers

Ben Folds

Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong

Vampire Weekend

Hilltop Hoods

John Peel Stage

Jamie T

The Cribs

Reverend And The Makers

MGMT

The Ting Tings

Young Knives

LIghtspeed Champion

Glasvegas

June 28:

Pyramid Stage

Jay-Z

Very Special Guest TBC

Manu Chao

The Raconteurs

James Blunt

Crowded House

Seasick Steve

The Hold Steady

Shakin’ Stevens

Other Stage

Massive Attack

Hot Chip

Elbow

Duffy

The Wombats

Neon Neon

Black Kids

The Golden Silvers

The Travelling Band

John Peel Stage

Biffy Clyro

The Futureheads

Band Of Horses

The Courteneers/The Black Keys

Vampire Weekend

The Teenagers

June 29:

The Verve

Leonard Cohen

Goldfrapp

Very Special Guest TBC

John Mayer

Gilbert O’ Sullivan

TBC

Other Stage

Groove Armada

The Zutons

The Pigeon Detectives

Mark Ronson

Scouting For Girls

Jack Penate

Newton Faulkner

Black Mountain

Hoodoo Gurus

John Peel Stage

The National

Spiritualized

Crystal Castles

Brian Jonestown Massacre

The Stars

The Courteneers/The Black Keys

Rocket Summer

COACHELLA FESTIVAL DAY 3 – Roger Waters and Spiritualized!

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OK, so now it’s 103 degrees so you’ll forgive me if I stay under canvas in VIP and neck a cool beer instead of hauling myself the quarter mile across this parched site to see Duffy. Today’s not the celebfest it has been and there are way fewer people here than Saturday. That said, here are the highlights: LOOK TO THE SKIES! It’s a flying pig! Like Glastonbury, Coachella isn’t one of those festivals organised by a faceless committee; it’s the personal baby of a guy called Paul Tollett who once told us that one of his dream headliners would be Pink Floyd. You can see his point. There can hardly be anywhere on earth more fitting to witness the Floyd in full majestic flow than out here under the freakily expansive desert skies. Unfortunately, the Floyd aren’t a functioning unit so we get the closest option which is ROGER WATERS who, of course, used to be in Floyd. Unfortunately old Rog is a bit of a bore and his three hour festival closing set on the Main Stage – complete with intermission – is a bit of an endurance test, truth be told. In the first half he plods through some pompous solo stuff that no-one knows, his massive band jazz-soloing like billy-o, plus he pads out some classics like ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’ and ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’. Then he almost wins us back by releasing this giant inflatable pig which has scrawled on it images of Uncle Sam wielding bloody meat cleavers, the words “Don’t be led to slaughter” and “Obama” next to a ticked ballot box. Subtle eh? Set two is a stodgy run through of ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ topped off with the wearisome ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ and ‘Comfortably Numb’… which we aren’t actually. We’re shattered. This is not what either Syd died for. SUNDAY BEST SPIRITUALIZED There aren’t that many of us in the sticky Mojave Tent but those of us who are get taken to church. This is just about the last of Jason Pierce’s Acoustic Mainline performances and we’re damn glad we caught it because stripped down like this – just Jason on acoustic plus a keyboard player, a three-piece choir and a string quartet - these songs bleed. The whole thing is entrancing but if we have to pick out the best, the teary-eyed moments are the old space companion ‘I Think I’m In Love’, the fragile cover of Daniel Johnson’s ‘Soul On Fire’ and the set-closer, a rousing Velvet Underground take on the Edwin Hawkins Singers 60s gospel classic ‘Oh Happy Day’. SUNDAY SNATCHES… GOGOL BORDELLO whipping up a gypsy dust storm on the Main Stage, PERRY FARRELL, fresh from the reuniting Jane’s Addiction for last week’s NME Awards, does ‘Stop’ and ‘Jane Says’ electronically with a backing tape at lunchtime in the Sahara dance tent – go figger! MY MORNING JACKET play the slot before Roger Waters on the Main Stage and are funkier than expected while SEAN PENN, who was whizzing around in a golf cart yesterday, speechifies from the Main Stage, encouraging us to join something called the Dirty Hands Caravan which is a bunch of biodiesel-fuelled buses which will leave from the site tomorrow and snake across country towards New Orleans cleaning up parks, protesting the war and generally making the world a better place to live in while Ben Harper serenades us around the evening campfire. Only in America, dudes, only in America… STEVE SUTHERLAND

OK, so now it’s 103 degrees so you’ll forgive me if I stay under canvas in VIP and neck a cool beer instead of hauling myself the quarter mile across this parched site to see Duffy.

Continue

Bonnie Prince Billy Announces New Album Is Ready

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Bonnie Prince Billy Announces New Album Is Ready
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy has announced that he is to release a brand new studio album Lie Down In The Light on May 19. This is Will Oldham's first full studio album since 2006's Letting Go. The prolific Americana songwriter has since released Ask Forgiveness, a covers album last year, which included o...

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy has announced that he is to release a brand new studio album Lie Down In The Light on May 19.

This is Will Oldham‘s first full studio album since 2006’s Letting Go. The prolific Americana songwriter has since released Ask Forgiveness, a covers album last year, which included one original track “I’m Loving The Street” and a live album “Wilding In The West” earlier this year.

Lie Down In The Dark features twelve tracks and the album features duets with Ashley Webber as well as regular musicians Paul Oldham and Emmett Kelly.

Oldham has enlisted the help of Lambchop engineer Mark Nevers to mix the new album.

Lie Down In The Dark’s full track listing is as follows:

‘Easy Does It’

‘You Remind Me Of’

‘Something (The Glory Goes)’

‘So Everyone’

‘For Every Field There’s A Mole’

‘(Keep Eye On) Other’s Gain’

‘You Want That Picture’

‘Missing One’

‘What’s Missing Is’

‘Where Is The Puzzle?’

‘Lie Down In The Light’

‘Willow Trees Bend’

‘I’ll Be Glad’

Joy Division

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Joy Division

DIR: GRANT GEE ST: BERNARD SUMNER, PETER HOOK, STEPHEN MORRIS, TONY WILSON Click here for an exclusive Uncut interview with Joy Division co-founder Peter Hook. Four decades after Ian Curtis found his way out, after all the compilations and remasterings, the biographies and histories, the videos, documentaries and features films, what can there possibly be left to say about Joy Division? Within its own lifetime the Factory story turned from tragedy to farce; now the relentless stream of modern media reminscence seems determined to run it through every other conceivable genre. Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People imagined Factory as some absurd Northern soap. Anton Corbijn’s Control presented the Ian Curtis story as the tragedy of a man who couldn’t work out whether he was in a ’60s kitchen sink drama or some existential ’80s Wim Wenders romance. More insidious is the modern desire to turn the troubled, conflicted, unsettled, convulsive art of the past into frozen “Icons”, tame commodities – as on last year’s BBC4 Factory documentary, which smoothed everything to psycho-sociological cliché, and seemed happy to present Joy Division as the ur-Indie Band, a kind of prototype Editors. “There’s just the two albums,” designer Peter Saville notes towards the end of this latest jerky version of the dream. “All the rest is the merchandising of memory...” What’s missing from the playful fictions and damned facts, is precisely the art of Joy Division – the band’s power, and the mystery of how it arrived from such unlikely sources – and its this that Jon Savage and Grant Gee’s Joy Division addresses. From the start, it’s clear this isn’t any straightforward, plausibly causal slice of northern life. The film begins with a Marshall Berman epigram on the vertigo of modernity and Gee’s direction is always toying with continuity – messing with the flow of film the way producer Martin Hannett did with the band’s sound. Time speeds up and slows down; the TV career of Tony Wilson or the road tales of Hooky’n’Barney are cut-up into bad-dream blasts. Corbijn’s stately video for “Atmosphere” is run at double-speed, so it resembles avant-garde Benny Hill, in honour of John Peel. The film focuses on absences: a series of “Things That Aren’t There” – from the Russell Club to the Haçienda – and the ghosts of the story: most notably Rob Gretton, who’s previously come across as hooligan stooge, but who’s densely plotted notebooks reveal rare focus and determination. And Martin Hannett, who as Paul Morley notes, managed to make Manchester sound “cosmic”. Beyond Morley, the film draws on a more obscurely enlightening crew of talking heads, from Savage’s own circles on the arty fringes of the Factory floor: City Fun editor Liz Naylor, designer and theorist Jon Wozencroft, and best of all Genesis P-Orridge, who has now successfully willed himself into the middle-aged lovechild of Brian Jones and Marianne Faithfull. All emphasise the dark art at the heart of the band, the way that their records drew on, transformed and acted as enchanted wardrobe-portals into the worlds of Burroughs and Ballard. Savage’s assiduous historical scholarship has brought some fantastic old footage to light: the first Sex Pistols show in Manchester, early rehearsals, late gigs and even the uncanny audiotape of Ian’s hypnotic regression to a past life that sounds eerily like a Kafka fable. The biggest coup, however, is the presence of Annik Honoré, Curtis’ Belgian lover, talking for the first time on film, still visibly shaken by his suicide, still profoundly moved by the music. But if the story has a flaw, it’s that it is too much in love with the European arthouse possibilities she seemed to offer Ian: you feel the film would have very much liked him to have moved to Holland, as was once broached, to open an arty book shop, hanging out with Belgian metal-bashers and Burroughs groupies... The film also buys in a little too much to the Wilsonian myth of the civic revival of Manchester being inspired by Joy Division – an idea that looks increasingly flimsy as those loft-style city centre apartments are repossessed and the credit goes bad. But these are quibbles. For the most part, Joy Division is a resounding, absorbing success. “I saw Joy Division as part of the resistance” says filmmaker Malcom Whitehead at one point, suggesting that their art and music was engaged in a kind of psychic struggle with the likes of Manchester God Cop James Anderton for the soul of the city. Savage and Gee’s film reminds us how urgent, alive and abrasive that music remains, the vital alternatives it still offers. STEPHEN TROUSSE

DIR: GRANT GEE

ST: BERNARD SUMNER, PETER HOOK, STEPHEN MORRIS, TONY WILSON

Click here for an exclusive Uncut interview with Joy Division co-founder Peter Hook.

Four decades after Ian Curtis found his way out, after all the compilations and remasterings, the biographies and histories, the videos, documentaries and features films, what can there possibly be left to say about Joy Division? Within its own lifetime the Factory story turned from tragedy to farce; now the relentless stream of modern media reminscence seems determined to run it through every other conceivable genre. Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People imagined Factory as some absurd Northern soap. Anton Corbijn’s Control presented the Ian Curtis story as the tragedy of a man who couldn’t work out whether he was in a ’60s kitchen sink drama or some existential ’80s Wim Wenders romance.

More insidious is the modern desire to turn the troubled, conflicted, unsettled, convulsive art of the past into frozen “Icons”, tame commodities – as on last year’s BBC4 Factory documentary, which smoothed everything to psycho-sociological cliché, and seemed happy to present Joy Division as the ur-Indie Band, a kind of prototype Editors.

“There’s just the two albums,” designer Peter Saville notes towards the end of this latest jerky version of the dream. “All the rest is the merchandising of memory…” What’s missing from the playful fictions and damned facts, is precisely the art of Joy Division – the band’s power, and the mystery of how it arrived from such unlikely sources – and its this that Jon Savage and Grant Gee’s Joy Division addresses.

From the start, it’s clear this isn’t any straightforward, plausibly causal slice of northern life. The film begins with a Marshall Berman epigram on the vertigo of modernity and Gee’s direction is always toying with continuity – messing with the flow of film the way producer Martin Hannett did with the band’s sound. Time speeds up and slows down; the TV career of Tony Wilson or the road tales of Hooky’n’Barney are cut-up into bad-dream blasts.

Corbijn’s stately video for “Atmosphere” is run at double-speed, so it resembles avant-garde Benny Hill, in honour of John Peel.

The film focuses on absences: a series of “Things That Aren’t There” – from the Russell Club to the Haçienda – and the ghosts of the story: most notably Rob Gretton, who’s previously come across as hooligan stooge, but who’s densely plotted notebooks reveal rare focus and determination. And Martin Hannett, who as Paul Morley notes, managed to make Manchester sound “cosmic”.

Beyond Morley, the film draws on a more obscurely enlightening crew of talking heads, from Savage’s own circles on the arty fringes of the Factory floor: City Fun editor Liz Naylor, designer and theorist Jon Wozencroft, and best of all Genesis P-Orridge, who has now successfully willed himself into the middle-aged lovechild of Brian Jones and Marianne Faithfull. All emphasise the dark art at the heart of the band, the way that their records drew on, transformed and acted as enchanted wardrobe-portals into the worlds of Burroughs and Ballard.

Savage’s assiduous historical scholarship has brought some fantastic old footage to light: the first Sex Pistols show in Manchester, early rehearsals, late gigs and even the uncanny audiotape of Ian’s hypnotic regression to a past life that sounds eerily like a Kafka fable. The biggest coup, however, is the presence of Annik Honoré, Curtis’ Belgian lover, talking for the first time on film, still visibly shaken by his suicide, still profoundly moved by the music. But if the story has a flaw, it’s that it is too much in love with the European arthouse possibilities she seemed to offer Ian: you feel the film would have very much liked him to have moved to Holland, as was once broached, to open an arty book shop, hanging out with Belgian metal-bashers and Burroughs groupies…

The film also buys in a little too much to the Wilsonian myth of the civic revival of Manchester being inspired by Joy Division – an idea that looks increasingly flimsy as those loft-style city centre apartments are repossessed and the credit goes bad.

But these are quibbles. For the most part, Joy Division is a resounding, absorbing success. “I saw Joy Division as part of the resistance” says filmmaker Malcom Whitehead at one point, suggesting that their art and music was engaged in a kind of psychic struggle with the likes of Manchester God Cop James Anderton for the soul of the city. Savage and Gee’s film reminds us how urgent, alive and abrasive that music remains, the vital alternatives it still offers.

STEPHEN TROUSSE

South Park: The Complete Sixth Season

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South Park: The Complete Sixth Season

Animated comedy – or “cartoons” as the ancients called it – changed forever in the 1990s. Under the twin assault of The Simpsons (wit and cynicism disguised as family television) and Beavis And Butthead (stupidity and rudeness disguised as, er, stupidity and rudeness) animated comedy stopped being the retarded cousin of proper comedy and suddenly became a sweary drunk playground for the imagination. Taboos were eroding, bad language and sex was the ordure of the day and suddenly smart, funny people were making cartoons instead of writing for Letterman. And then came South Park. Barriers weren’t so much knocked down as kicked in the knackers, mugged and bum-harmed. South Park really did change the world, in that the world is now both funnier and a bit more evil. But even the bad kid has to get older, and it is to South Park’s credit that it got older, but didn’t grow up much. As The Simpsons turned into a sort of soft yellow hell and Beavis And Butthead started to look like a documentary about American teenagers, South Park just got on with it. So we come to the year 2002. At this stage in its run, South Park has come a long way since its early peak as a mid-’90s soft toy and wind-up figure world obsession, but has yet to reach the level of Scientology-baiting and later, deeper strangenesses. It has already made its movie, called Bigger, Longer & Uncut, a title which not only references cocks (didn’t see that one coming) but also rather begged the question – what do you do when you’ve been bigger, longer and uncut? So South Park was, pretty much, mid-career at this point, excellent going for a series that had started out as an animated Christmas card. Season Six is most notable among fans for one thing; the fact that creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone got fed up with writing death scenes for Kenny and just got rid of him, replacing him with abused lad Butters (and later rejecting Butters, too, turning him into Professor Chaos, the somewhat lame super-villain.) Well, it’s notable for other things, too. The splendidly self-referential episode “The Simpsons Already Did It”, which is probably the nearest this series will ever get to doffing its cap, would be one. There’s the use of language; “bloody vaginal belch” is charmless, typical and something The Simpsons would never do. There’s new, or continuing, it’s hard to tell, childishness and misogyny. There’s deeper levels of nerdism, in both a Lord Of The Rings tribute and, um, every single line of dialogue and every cut-out image. There’s perverts, disfigurement, the decision that AIDS is now funny as 22.3 years have passed... there is, in short, everything that makes South Park either appalling or brilliant. It was a busy 2002. Of course, at this point, it didn’t matter how rude or nasty or naughty the show was; acceptability standards had changed, and South Park was no longer shocking, it was just itself. The only criterion – given that the show’s darkly political and personalised ethical streak was yet to emerge – for viewer interest was if the thing was funny. These days, the benchmark is no longer Homer Simpson saying “D’oh”, it’s not even Peter Griffin making AIDS gags in Family Guy. There are real controversies, and now you can say or do anything so long as it doesn’t offend a major corporation or take the piss out of a war, or mock a religion. Later, South Park would magnificently become the only great right-wing satire show ever made – and also make Tom Cruise cry like a baby. Meanwhile, despite the loss of Kenny, despite the relentless hammering of taste in the fat mouth, and even despite the fact that all the storylines had been done by The Simpsons, Season Six of South Park is, somehow, incredibly funny. DAVID QUANTICK

Animated comedy – or “cartoons” as the ancients called it – changed forever in the 1990s. Under the twin assault of The Simpsons (wit and cynicism disguised as family television) and Beavis And Butthead (stupidity and rudeness disguised as, er, stupidity and rudeness) animated comedy stopped being the retarded cousin of proper comedy and suddenly became a sweary drunk playground for the imagination. Taboos were eroding, bad language and sex was the ordure of the day and suddenly smart, funny people were making cartoons instead of writing for Letterman.

And then came South Park.

Barriers weren’t so much knocked down as kicked in the knackers, mugged and bum-harmed. South Park really did change the world, in that the world is now both funnier and a bit more evil. But even the bad kid has to get older, and it is to South Park’s credit that it got older, but didn’t grow up much. As The Simpsons turned into a sort of soft yellow hell and Beavis And Butthead started to look like a documentary about American teenagers, South Park just got on with it.

So we come to the year 2002.

At this stage in its run, South Park has come a long way since its early peak as a mid-’90s soft toy and wind-up figure world obsession, but has yet to reach the level of Scientology-baiting and later, deeper strangenesses. It has already made its movie, called Bigger, Longer & Uncut, a title which not only references cocks (didn’t see that one coming) but also rather begged the question – what do you do when you’ve been bigger, longer and uncut?

So South Park was, pretty much, mid-career at this point, excellent going for a series that had started out as an animated Christmas card. Season Six is most notable among fans for one thing; the fact that creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone got fed up with writing death scenes for Kenny and just got rid of him, replacing him with abused lad Butters (and later rejecting Butters, too, turning him into Professor Chaos, the somewhat lame super-villain.)

Well, it’s notable for other things, too. The splendidly self-referential episode “The Simpsons Already Did It”, which is probably the nearest this series will ever get to doffing its cap, would be one. There’s the use of language; “bloody vaginal belch” is charmless, typical and something The Simpsons would never do. There’s new, or continuing, it’s hard to tell, childishness and misogyny. There’s deeper levels of nerdism, in both a Lord Of The Rings tribute and, um, every single line of dialogue and every cut-out image. There’s perverts, disfigurement, the decision that AIDS is now funny as 22.3 years have passed… there is, in short, everything that makes South Park either appalling or brilliant. It was a busy 2002.

Of course, at this point, it didn’t matter how rude or nasty or naughty the show was; acceptability standards had changed, and South Park was no longer shocking, it was just itself. The only criterion – given that the show’s darkly political and personalised ethical streak was yet to emerge – for viewer interest was if the thing was funny. These days, the benchmark is no longer Homer Simpson saying “D’oh”, it’s not even Peter Griffin making AIDS gags in Family Guy. There are real controversies, and now you can say or do anything so long as it doesn’t offend a major corporation or take the piss out of a war, or mock a religion. Later, South Park would magnificently become the only great right-wing satire show ever made – and also make Tom Cruise cry like a baby.

Meanwhile, despite the loss of Kenny, despite the relentless hammering of taste in the fat mouth, and even despite the fact that all the storylines had been done by The Simpsons, Season Six of South Park is, somehow, incredibly funny.

DAVID QUANTICK

Honeydripper

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Honeydripper

DIR: JOHN SAYLES | ST: DANNY GLOVER, LISA GAY HAMILTON, CHARLES S DUTTON The beginnings of rock’n’roll have been memorialised so often thatJohn Sayles is taking a risk by revisiting them, particularly as Craig Brewer travelled so recently along this track with Black Snake Moan. But Brewer’s film wasn’t a period piece, it just felt that way. Sayles sets the action in 1950, in Harmony, Alabama, and documents a particular moment in time – the Jim Crow laws are in place, the white sheriff is corrupt, the cotton is picked by hand, and a black stranger in town can still expect to find himself in jail, looking for a way out. The Honeydripper is a club run by Pine Top Purves (Danny Glover), an old-time musician who is struggling in the face of competition from the juke-joint across the yard. The sheriff (Stacy Keach) is after a cut of his business, and a meal or two cooked by Pine Top’s wife (Lisa Gay Hamilton), who is toying with religion as a way out. The debts are mounting, and the gold-toothed gangsters from out of town are circling, waiting for the Honeydripper to fold. So, in a last roll of the dice, Pine Top books Guitar Sam, an electric blues player (the character is based on New Orleans guitarist Guitar Slim). But Sam doesn’t show, and disaster looms. Then, into town comes Sonny (Gary Clark Jr), a kid with an electric guitar, and a head full of dreams. A railway porter mentions him to Harmony: “I’ve only been arrested once,” he says. “And the town was called Liberty.” You don’t have to be Dewey Phillips to predict what will happen when Sonny starts playing “Good Rockin’ Tonight”. Essentially, the tale is no more complicated than one of those rock’n’roll exploitation movies where – against the odds – the band turns up at the hop and saves the day. But, as always with Sayles, the good stuff is in the characterisations. Glover is a treat as Pine Top, and there’s a fine comic turn from Charles S Dutton as his long-suffering sidekick, Maceo. The allusions to the civil rights movement are understated, but they’re visible. And, hell, the kid can play that guitar. ALASTAIR McKAY

DIR: JOHN SAYLES | ST: DANNY GLOVER, LISA GAY HAMILTON, CHARLES S DUTTON

The beginnings of rock’n’roll have been memorialised so often thatJohn Sayles is taking a risk by revisiting them, particularly as Craig Brewer travelled so recently along this track with Black Snake Moan. But Brewer’s film wasn’t a period piece, it just felt that way.

Sayles sets the action in 1950, in Harmony, Alabama, and documents a particular moment in time – the Jim Crow laws are in place, the white sheriff is corrupt, the cotton is picked by hand, and a black stranger in town can still expect to find himself in jail, looking for a way out.

The Honeydripper is a club run by Pine Top Purves (Danny Glover), an old-time musician who is struggling in the face of competition from the juke-joint across the yard. The sheriff (Stacy Keach) is after a cut of his business, and a meal or two cooked by Pine Top’s wife (Lisa Gay Hamilton), who is toying with religion as a way out. The debts are mounting, and the gold-toothed gangsters from out of town are circling, waiting for the Honeydripper to fold.

So, in a last roll of the dice, Pine Top books Guitar Sam, an electric blues player (the character is based on New Orleans guitarist Guitar Slim). But Sam doesn’t show, and disaster looms. Then, into town comes Sonny (Gary Clark Jr), a kid with an electric guitar, and a head full of dreams. A railway porter mentions him to Harmony: “I’ve only been arrested once,” he says. “And the town was called Liberty.”

You don’t have to be Dewey Phillips to predict what will happen when Sonny starts playing “Good Rockin’ Tonight”. Essentially, the tale is no more complicated than one of those rock’n’roll exploitation movies where – against the odds – the band turns up at the hop and saves the day. But, as always with Sayles, the good stuff is in the characterisations. Glover is a treat as Pine Top, and there’s a fine comic turn from Charles S Dutton as his long-suffering sidekick, Maceo. The allusions to the civil rights movement are understated, but they’re visible. And, hell, the kid can play that guitar.

ALASTAIR McKAY

Peter Hook Talks To Uncut About New Joy Division Film

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Peter Hook Talks To Uncut About New Joy Division Film
Up Close And Personal: Peter Hook This is the third cinematic film about Joy Division and Factory… HOOK: I think the thing is that it’s an interesting story – I don’t think you can deny that. Compared to how safe and boring things are these days, I think it’s remarkable. Did this docume...

Up Close And Personal: Peter Hook

This is the third cinematic film about Joy Division and Factory…

HOOK: I think the thing is that it’s an interesting story – I don’t think you can deny that. Compared to how safe and boring things are these days, I think it’s remarkable.

Did this documentary tell you anything new? Were you surprised by any of it?

I suppose the interesting thing for me is that we’d never had a conversation like that – me, Bernard [Sumner] and Stephen [Morris]. I’ve talked about it to other people, but I’ve never talked about it to them. So it was quite a revelation for me, to hear their thoughts.

Whose idea was the film?

It was Tom Atencio’s idea, New Order’s US manager. He rightly rushed it through before Control – and I kept wondering why. But if we’d done it after Control, after all the publicity we did for the film, none of us would spoken the way we did…

You would have been burnt out by it?

Absolutely.

If 24 Hour Party People dealt with the comedy of Factory, and Control the tragedy, this feels like the first film to focus on the music…

That’s an interesting point, because it features mainly the people who made the music. [Director] Grant Gee and Tom unearthed a lot of footage of Manchester and I found that quite riveting! In a strange way I’ve been very lucky, because I’ve had the comedy and I’ve had the tragedy – now I get the truth. For me, I was able to watch Control and watch this documentary and think that this was the perfect answer.

They’ve dug up loads of great old footage of the band – was that new to you?

I hadn’t seen any of that footage before. The thing about Joy Division is from when we started it to when left it, our personal circumstances never changed. You were getting success, and playing bigger venues. But you weren’t getting any more money. So it came and went and left you more or less in exactly the same position.

You were a bit more famous though?

I don’t know. Once Ian died, none of that mattered. I remember going to tax my car in Stretford and listening to the chart rundown on the Monday and “Love Will Tear Us Apart” had gone it at 9, I think. And it didn’t matter. It was an odd feeling. The thing was that we all just switched to New Order. New Order was like throwing a drowning man a life belt.

Stephen says in the film that after Ian died your attitude was – “Well… see you on Monday then!” It was as if you really did work at a factory and just clocked on as though nothing had happened…

The thing is that any kind of grief or loss – and unfortunately the older you get, the more you have to deal with it – is dealt with by a certain numbness. But we were young enough almost to just get on with it. We could see a light! Ha ha ha! Suddenly we were in darkness when Ian died, and with New Order we saw a light again.

There’s a clip in the film of a radio interview with Ian, and it occurred to me that this is the first time I’d heard his speaking voice…

Yes. It’s quite odd. I’ve managed to track down one other radio interview of Ian talking that’s very clear. I’ve only ever heard three: one was really bad quality in a pub, there were two where you could actually hear him, which I only heard quite recently. So it is a revelation.

The film plays up the tension between his artiness and the band’s laddishness…

The four of us were lads. And when we made music it came from somewhere else. I think people are interested to hear, and it adds to the myth that Ian would have opened a bookshop in Holland – if he didn’t want to be a builder! “Fuck this bookshop, I’m going back to the building site to get fucked with my mates on whizz!” But Ian was very arty compared to Bernard and I. Steve was always weird as fuck.

It’s great to hear you talking about the band – you sound like a fan…

The thing about Joy Division and early New Order is that we just got on with it. Everybody had a pivotal role and you can hear that in Joy Division. It’s not about Ian’s vocal, it’s not about any one thing – it’s that combination of the whole lot. Early New Order, the New Order that I loved, was about a combination of everything. It changed when it became more vocal orientated. Which left me very disenchanted. Whenever you listen to any Joy Division tape, it always sounds powerful. One of the greatest and saddest things in my life is that I’ll never know what would have happened to Joy Division. And that really gets me down. Especially because I got so disenchanted with New Order towards the end. It’s always the one that got away. It’s one of the saddest things.

INTERVIEW:

STEPHEN TROUSSE

Roger McGuinn’s Private Byrds Archives To Be Released

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Roger McGuinn’s Private Byrds Archives To Be Released

Previously unreleased archive material from The Byrds is shortly to surface for the first time. A recording of the group’s 1971 appearance at London’s Royal Albert Hall – featuring a line up of Roger McGuinn, Clarence White, Skip Battin and Gene Parsons – is to be released in June by Sundazed. Founder member Roger McGuinn has told www.uncut.co.uk that the recording came from his private collection – and that more releases of a similar kind would probably follow it. “We’ve carried these tapes around for 30-something years,” he said. “We just never paid much attention to them. [Sundazed’s] Bob Irwin came down, and he’s a genius at discerning these things. He could look at a box, and go ‘Oh, this is that, and so-and-so was there, this is wonderful.’” Irwin has taken further tapes from McGuinn, with a view to further releases. “He’s gonna check them out,” said Roger. “There are tentative plans to put out good things we find, but I’m not sure what.” Though McGuinn’s archive has yielded some delights, Irwin’s investigations have provided one minor disappointment. Says McGuinn: “He thought he had the only existing recording of the Byrds doing “Milestones” because it said so on the tape box. But when he got it up to his studio and played it back, the track wasn’t there….”

Previously unreleased archive material from The Byrds is shortly to surface for the first time. A recording of the group’s 1971 appearance at London’s Royal Albert Hall – featuring a line up of Roger McGuinn, Clarence White, Skip Battin and Gene Parsons – is to be released in June by Sundazed.

Founder member Roger McGuinn has told www.uncut.co.uk that the recording came from his private collection – and that more releases of a similar kind would probably follow it.

“We’ve carried these tapes around for 30-something years,” he said. “We just never paid much attention to them. [Sundazed’s] Bob Irwin came down, and he’s a genius at discerning these things. He could look at a box, and go ‘Oh, this is that, and so-and-so was there, this is wonderful.’”

Irwin has taken further tapes from McGuinn, with a view to further releases. “He’s gonna check them out,” said Roger. “There are tentative plans to put out good things we find, but I’m not sure what.”

Though McGuinn’s archive has yielded some delights, Irwin’s investigations have provided one minor disappointment.

Says McGuinn: “He thought he had the only existing recording of the Byrds doing “Milestones” because it said so on the tape box. But when he got it up to his studio and played it back, the track wasn’t there….”

Coldplay To Play Free Shows In London and New York

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Coldplay To Play Free Shows In London and New York
Coldplay have announced that they are to play two free shows in London and New York in June - marking the release of their new studio album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, which is now brought forward to June 12 in the UK. Chris Martin and co. will play London's Brixton Academy on June 1...

Coldplay have announced that they are to play two free shows in London and New York in June – marking the release of their new studio album Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, which is now brought forward to June 12 in the UK.

Chris Martin and co. will play London’s Brixton Academy on June 16 and New York’s Madison Square Gardens on June 23.

Tickets will only be available for competition winners, and fans are being urged not to phone venues for information. Details of how to obtain tickets will be released through www.coldplay.com.

The band are set to release “Violet Hill” as the first track from the album, which is the anticipated follow-up to 2005’s X & Y.

The single will be availble as a free download from tomorrow (April 29) at 12.15pm for one week prior to it’s official release next week (May 6) from the band’s official website www.coldplay.com too.

Coldplay’s first single from the album will also be given away free with the NME issue dated May 10. The exclusive 7-inch vinyl will include a brand new track, ‘A Spell A Rebel Yell’, which won’t be available anywhere else.

To ensure you get your copy of the exclusive Coldplay vinyl you can pre-order your issue from www.nme.com at the NME online shop.

Alex Turner Scores Album Chart Topper Treble

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Alex Turner Scores Album Chart Topper Treble
Arctic Monkey's frontman Alex Turner has scored his third album number one with his project The Last Shadow Puppets, exactly one year after topping the UK album charts with the Monkeys second album Favourite Worst Nightmare. The Last Shadow Puppets' The Age Of The Understatement album features a co...

Arctic Monkey‘s frontman Alex Turner has scored his third album number one with his project The Last Shadow Puppets, exactly one year after topping the UK album charts with the Monkeys second album Favourite Worst Nightmare.

The Last Shadow Puppets’ The Age Of The Understatement album features a collaboration between Turner and his friend Miles Kane who performs with The Rascals.

Both recorded the album in just two weeks whilst on a break from their usual musical commitments.

The Artic Monkeys’ 2006 debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not is still the fastest selling album by a group in the UK.

The only other new entry in the UK Albums Chart this week (April 27, 2008) is Whitesnake‘s eleventh studio album Good To Be bad at number seven. It is the band’s first new material to be released in a decade.

Over on the UK singles chart, Madonna retains the top spot for a seconmd week with “Four Minutes” – her collaboration with Juston Timberlake.

This weeks’ chart top five’s are:

Albums:

1. The Age of the Understatement – The Last Shadow Puppets

2. Konk – Kooks

3. Spirit – Leona Lewis

4. Rockferry – Duffy

5. E=MC2 – Mariah Carey

Singles:

1. 4 Minutes – Madonna

2. Black & Gold – Sam Sparro

3. American Boy – Estelle

4. Wearing My Rolex – Wiley

5. Cry For You – September

Data: The Official UK Charts Company

The Clash’s Paul Simonon Dubs Anti-Racism Festival A Success

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The Clash’s Paul Simonon Dubs Anti-Racism Festival A Success
The Clash's Paul Simonon has spoken about his experiences at the Love Music Hate Racism Carnival, held in east London's Victoria Park. The bassist, who headlined the set with The Good The Bad And The Queen, told Uncut.co.uk he believed there were more people at the festival yesterday (April 27) tha...

The Clash‘s Paul Simonon has spoken about his experiences at the Love Music Hate Racism Carnival, held in east London‘s Victoria Park.

The bassist, who headlined the set with The Good The Bad And The Queen, told Uncut.co.uk he believed there were more people at the festival yesterday (April 27) than there were at the 1978 Rock Against Racism gig, which The Clash headlined.

Asked what he remembered about the original festival, Simonon replied: “I remember [Sham 69‘s] Jimmy Pursey jumping onstage! I think we were too busy concentrating on our chords and [thinking] ‘what’s the next song’ and then suddenly I realised there were a whole heap of people out there, and it’s good to see the same here again – I dunno, though, maybe there were a few more today.”

Simonon also highlighted the importance of the cause, explaining: “This country has been built on immigration, people since the Vikings, the Belgai, the Huguenots, people fleeing Franco’s Spain, it’s what makes this place what it is. I don’t mean to be silly about it, but it’s nice to have egg and chips, but it’s pretty nice to have chicken, rice and peas too, you know?”

Damon Albarn told Uncut.co.uk of his memories of the original 1978 festival, saying: “I was aware of its existence, but it was a bit before my time. I don’t want to age myself even more!

“At primary school [in Leytonstone, east London] we didn’t really experience any racism. I went to a very mixed primary school, I’d say it was a third white, a third Pakistani and Bangladeshi and a third Jamaican. I only became really aware of racism when I moved to Colchester and went to an all-white school, and all that came with that at that time, Thatcher’s Britain, etc., etc.”

Filmmaker and musician Don Letts, perhaps most famous for working with Mick Jones in Big Audio Dynamite, also stressed the importance of vigilance against racism.

“[Racism is] a lot more insidious, it might not be as overt,” he explained. “When I used to walk around you’d see all this graffiti saying ‘KBW’, Keep Britain White, and the National Front used to be really recognisable but now all these dudes are in suits and ties.

“Someone once said ‘the price of freedom is eternal vigilance’ and it’s never been truer than now, look at the world. [Racists] have got hip to it, they’ve got media-savvy, and we’ve got to get double hip, do you know what I mean? It’s when you think everything’s ok that it’s not. We’ve got to keep on our toes.”

Love Music Hate Racism Carnival

Tom Pinnock
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Put on partly to raise awareness of the dangers of racist political parties in the run-up to London's elections this week and partly to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Rock Against Racism festival, the Love Music Hate Racism Carnival has got a lot to live up to. So it wouldn't be pessimistic to expect a bit of a shambles – a badly organised excuse for people to pick a fight under overcast skies. As it turns out you would have been right about only one of those predictions, although the sun did burst through as The Good The Bad And The Queen took to the stage just before six o'clock. The atmosphere amongst the crowds was heart-warming, to say the least. Any pronouncement from the stage about combating the BNP was met with unanimous applause and cheers from the thousands of people at the main stage, and Tony Benn was, not undeservedly, greeted like a rock star and saviour rolled into one. That the turnout was a pretty equal cross-section of whites, blacks and Asians, surely the point of Love Music Hate Racism, says a lot for the event's success. Even more comforting was to see the crowd react as wildly to grime crew Roll Deep as they did to Jimmy Pursey's performance of The Clash's 'White Riot', backed up by Babyshambles' Drew McConnell and his Helsinki project. At normal festivals the press and artist areas are pretty well separated, but luckily the relatively small backstage zone was home to both the musicians and journalists at Victoria Park. Among the stars we saw hide underneath trees as the heavens opened or squeeze into the photo pit to see the bands playing were Don Letts, Ken Livingstone, The Reverend Jon McClure, Sham 69's Jimmy Pursey, Damon Albarn, Paul Simonon, Tony Benn, Andy Nicholson, Carl Barat, Wiley and Edward Larrikin. The Good The Bad And The Queen were worthy headliners, and not just because Paul Simonon headlined the original 1978 Rock Against Racism gig in the very same park with The Clash. Kicking off with Kinks-ian single 'Kingdom Of Doom' – which Albarn stopped and restarted a few minutes in after it was plagued by ear-splitting feedback – the group sounded much meatier than on their self-titled album, with Simonon's dubby bass punching out over Simon Tong's clanging, clattering guitar. As always though, the star was Albarn, who sent the crowd whooping as he left his piano and came to the front of the stage to sing 'Three Changes', one of the labyrinthine highlights of their set. 'The Good The Bad And The Queen' and its noisy free-form outro would have been a perfect ending to the set – however, The Specials' Jerry Dammers' bizarre ten-minute version of 'Ghost Town' followed. In anyone's book, a strange end to the festival, but no matter; from where we were, today seemed like a resounding success. An uplifting display of human solidarity and some good music – what could be better?

Put on partly to raise awareness of the dangers of racist political parties in the run-up to London‘s elections this week and partly to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Rock Against Racism festival, the Love Music Hate Racism Carnival has got a lot to live up to.

Continue

Clash Man Closes Anti-Racism Carnival

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Clash Man Closes Anti-Racism Carnival
The Good The Bad And The Queen, the project led by The Clash's Paul Simonon and Damon Albarn, brought the Love Music Hate Racism carnival to a close tonight (April 27) with a unique collaboration with The Specials' Jerry Dammers. The band, also featuring The Verve's Simon Tong and Afrobeat legend T...

The Good The Bad And The Queen, the project led by The Clash‘s Paul Simonon and Damon Albarn, brought the Love Music Hate Racism carnival to a close tonight (April 27) with a unique collaboration with The Specials‘ Jerry Dammers.

The band, also featuring The Verve‘s Simon Tong and Afrobeat legend Tony Allen, performed an extended rendition of the Coventry band’s “Ghost Town” at the event, held in east London‘s Victoria Park.

This afternoon’s version of the song, orchestrated by Dammers, featured a number of MCs delivering anti-racist raps, including Syrian musician Eslam Jawaad, who also joined the band on “Three Changes”.

The rainy weather cleared to bright sunshine as soon as the group took the stage and launched into “Kingdom Of Doom”, which was restarted by Albarn after a few minutes due to continual piercing feedback.

Simonon performed with The Clash at the original Rock Against Racism gig, held in Victoria Park in 1978.

Earlier in the afternoon, the carnival saw a performance from an all-star group led by Babyshambles‘ Drew McConnell.

Joining the bassist for various songs were Sham 69‘s Jimmy Pursey, who sang on a rendition of The Clash‘s “White Riot”, Arctic Monkeys‘ former bassist Andy Nicholson, Babyshambles‘ Mik Whitnall and Reverend And The Makers‘ Jon McClure, who joined the group on a version of The La’s‘ “Son Of A Gun”.

Hard-Fi also performed a crowd-pleasing set just after 2pm, featuring their singles “Hard To Beat”, “Living For The Weekend” and “Suburban Knights”.

The Good The Bad And The Queen played:

“Kingdom Of Doom”

“Three Changes”

“Herculean”

“Green Fields”

“The Good The Bad And The Queen”

“Untitled” [New track with Hypnotic Brass]

“Ghost Town”

COACHELLA FESTIVAL DAY 2 – Portishead, Prince and Kraftwerk!

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OK, so now it’s 101 degrees and the crowd is crawling from patch of shade to tented shelter, the mass influx of Hollywood types and music biz bigwigs (them that’s left!) arriving in limos when the sun goes down. The cops are on horseback, there are drug amnesty bins on the way in (300 tabs of acid, 46 grammes of coke collected so far) and, if you’re well enough festooned with passes, golf buggies to get us from stage to stage. Hop aboard. Here’s how it all went down for Uncut on Day Two: BEST SHOW MGMT Could be Band Of The Weekend already. Sidestage is packed with celebs, the Mohave Tent is heaving, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon, we’re wearing sunglasses and on a mission from God. Or something. Whatever it takes, these young dudes have got it and are sweating it like ice water from their every cool pore. The set’s just about all of Album Of The Year So Far ‘Ocacular Spectacular’, ‘Time To Pretend’ is the shout-along song of the day and when Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser disappear into the adoring crowd during the closing ‘Kids’, we have what is commonly described as a “moment”. COVER VERSION FROM HEAVEN PRINCE doing ‘Creep’. We think the sun has boiled our brains. We can’t believe our ears. But, yeah, that is definitely Prince, headlining the Main Stage as a late addition to the bill, and he is definitely playing a funked-up version of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’! Let’s go crazy, indeed. The rumour is His Dandyness had been drafted in late to help ticket sales at the cost of $4m but, dapper in a crisp white suit, He sure makes certain to give us our money’s worth. We get ‘Little Red Corvette’, ‘1999’ a memory for life in ‘Purple Rain’ and another cover, The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’. He busts the curfew by an hour, still up there noodling at 1am but heck, we’ll never see Prince in such a magical setting again. HOTTEST HOTPANTS JENNY LEWIS of RILO KILEY Doing the dusk spot at the Outdoor Theatre, local(ish… Silverlake’s three hours off) heroes Rilo Kiley turn in a sultry set for all the laydees. Jenny Lewis, foxy as always, sports the nautical look with sailor blue hotpants, leads mass singalongs through the ‘Under The Blacklight’ album and we finish with popular oldie ‘Portions For Foxes’, the band wigging out over the frets. They do nicely. Next year, the real Fleetwood Mac? COMEBACK…er…KIDS PORTISHEAD Grumbling to all and sundry that Prince’s late addition to the bill means they have to cut four songs from their set, nevertheless, Portishead do the comeback thing consummately. This is the money spot, after all. Past years have seen Rage Against The Machine, Pixies and Jesus And Mary Chain rise from the ashes here to take their bow for posterity and Beth Gibbons ensures a palpable sense of occasion, characteristically torturing herself through oldies like ‘Glory Box’ and newies from ‘Third’. A chill in the heat of the night. BIG COACHELLA MOMENT KRAFTWERK doing ‘RADIACTIVITY’ Main Stage big screens reel out images of autobahns and robots and suchlike while, off in the distance, those little men who could be hired stand-ins for all we know, do… something… while the tracks majestically unfold. ‘Radioactivity’ is a blast and even the coolest of the cool involuntarily gyrate and get their rave heads on. PARTAYYYY! M.I.A. Never one to come quietly, M.I.A’s Sahara Tent session develops into a showdown with security as the lady calls the ravenous crowd up onstage for ‘Bird Flu’. The house (tent?) lights are turned on, she won’t budge and eventually, under her burning stare, the powers cave in and the show rocks on with a brilliant ‘Boys’ and even a sarcastic dig at The Verve with an off-key ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’. Uncut crowns her Queen of Coachella. PARTAYYY TOO! MARK RONSON Nattily laundered after collapsing onstage during the NME’s US Awards, the master socialite gets all his mates up with him for his evening slot in the Outdoor Theatre. Kaiser Chief Ricky Wilson does his ‘Oh My God’, Charlatan Tim Burgess does his ‘Only One I Know’, Klaxon Jamie Reynolds shares vocal duties on The Smiths’ ‘Stop Me’ with newbie Sam Sparro, and Kelly Osbourne, appropriately enough wearing some sort of toga affair, leads a mass celeb choir through The Supremes’ ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’. Fun. Fun. Fun. Uncut crowns him the Fresh Prince of SoCal. CELEB SPOT Crazier than yesterday, we’ve got… DAVID HASSELHOFF (Yup, the Hoff!), KELLY OSBOURNE, AGYNESS DEYN (loves MGMT, mad for ANIMAL COLLECTIVE), SEAN PENN whizzing about in a golf cart, JARED LETO, MELANIE GRIFFITHS (big Prince fan), JAMIE-LYNN SIEGLER (Meadow Soprano to you) and SIENNA MILLER, who’s mates with MICK JONES and gave him the Inspiration Award at the NME Awards on Tuesday. COOL IN THE HEAT KATE NASH Sweltering in the Mojave Tent, it’s late afternoon when Kate takes the stage looking hot and flustered. Her band attack ‘Pumpkin Pie’ with such venom, the drums get dislodged! Rawk mayhem? Kate Nash! God’s own truth! Anyhoo, things settle down with a lovely ‘Birds’ and Kate’s got us eating out of the palm of her hand. Her main hug Ryan from The Cribs is side-stage lending moral support. All together now: aaaaahhh! Check back tomorrow for Day 3 inclusding Roger Waters doing ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’. STEVE SUTHERLAND

OK, so now it’s 101 degrees and the crowd is crawling from patch of shade to tented shelter, the mass influx of Hollywood types and music biz bigwigs (them that’s left!) arriving in limos when the sun goes down.

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