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The Rolling Stones announce 60th anniversary tour dates

Michael Bonner
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The Rolling Stones announce 60th anniversary tour dates
The Rolling Stones have announced details of their 60th anniversary tour dates. ORDER NOW: Paul McCartney is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut The tour - called, perhaps unsurprisingly, SIXTY - includes two shows as part of American Express presents BST Hyde Park on Saturday, June 2...

The Rolling Stones have announced details of their 60th anniversary tour dates.

The tour – called, perhaps unsurprisingly, SIXTY – includes two shows as part of American Express presents BST Hyde Park on Saturday, June 25 and Sunday, July 3.

The tour comprises fourteen shows in 10 countries including the band’s first gig in Liverpool in over 50 years.

The full run of dates are:

JUNE
Wednesday, June 1 – Wanda Metropolitano Stadium, Madrid, Spain
Sunday, June 5 – Olympic Stadium, Munich, Germany
Thursday, June 9 – Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, UK
Monday, June 13 – Johan Cruijff ArenA, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Friday, June 17 – Wankdorf Stadium, Bern, Switzerland
Tuesday, June 21 – San Siro Stadium, Milan, Italy
Saturday, June 25 – American Express presents BST Hyde Park, London, UK

JULY
Sunday, July 3 – American Express presents BST Hyde Park, London, UK
Monday, July 11 – King Baudouin Stadium, Brussels, Belgium
Friday, July 15 – Ernst Happel Stadium, Vienna, Austria
Tuesday, July 19 – Groupama Stadium, Lyon, France
Saturday, July 23 – Hippodrome ParisLongchamp, Paris, France
Wednesday, July 27 – Veltins-Arena, Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Sunday, July 31 – Friends Arena, Stockholm, Sweden

The American Express® Cardmembers pre-sale for Tickets for BST Hyde Park starts Monday, March 14; Rolling Stones mailing list and BST Hyde Park pre-sales start Wednesday, March 16 at 10am GMT. General tickets go on sale 10am Friday, March 18. Ticket prices start at £79.95.

Meanwhile, Keith Richards talks about the future of the Stones in the new issue of Uncut – in shops now or available to buy direct from our online store.

Belle And Sebastian share powerful “If They’re Shooting At You” video in support of Ukraine

Tom Skinner
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Belle And Sebastian share powerful “If They’re Shooting At You” video in support of Ukraine
Belle And Sebastian have shared a new single called "If They're Shooting At You" alongside an accompanying video in support of those affected by the conflict in Ukraine. ORDER NOW: Paul McCartney is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut The Scottish group enlisted various photographers ...

Belle And Sebastian have shared a new single called “If They’re Shooting At You” alongside an accompanying video in support of those affected by the conflict in Ukraine.

The Scottish group enlisted various photographers who are on the ground covering the ongoing crisis to create a powerful “visual collage” set to their latest single, which will appear on their 10th album A Bit Of Previous.

As well as offering a message of solidarity and hope, Belle And Sebastian have pledged to donate all artist income from the song – including streaming, digital sales and publishing royalties – to the Red Cross.

Additionally, donations made via Bandcamp until next Friday (March 18) will be matched by the UK government as part of a joint appeal with the Disasters Emergency Committee. An option to donate directly is also available with the song on streaming platforms.

“When the situation in Ukraine first started to happen it became clear that the lives of the people there, and probably ‘ours’ too, were never going to be the same,” said frontman Stuart Murdoch.

“The band had just started rolling out tracks for our new album, and it all felt a bit silly to be honest. We had one track called ‘If They’re Shooting At You’, it’s a song about being lost, broken and under threat of violence. The key line is: ‘If they’re shooting at you kid you must be doing something right’.”

Murdoch continued: “We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and hope that their pain and suffering can be brought to a halt as soon as possible.

“We got in touch with various photographers and creatives in Ukraine and they generously said that we could put their pictures to music. In creating this we aspire to show a hopeful, defiant side, as well as bringing an awareness to the plight of the people there.”

He added: “We think any way in which we can get behind Ukraine – politically, culturally, practically, spiritually – it must all add up in the end. Together we have to do what it takes to help Ukraine beat this tyranny.”

Murdoch went on to ask fans to consider making a donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee, the Red Cross “or any other humanitarian charity involved in the crisis”.

“If you choose to donate to the Red Cross, please visit here redcross.org.uk/ukraine,” he wrote. “They are part of the joint appeal with the DEC until March 18th, and money donated before then will be matched by the UK government.”

Ukraine flag
Ukraine flag. Image: Ayhan Altun/Getty Images

Many figures from the worlds of music and entertainment have posted messages of support and solidarity with the people of Ukraine in recent weeks. Elton John said he was “heartbroken” over the “nightmare” that civilians are facing.

Various acts have also cancelled their scheduled performances in Russia and Ukraine, including Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Iggy Pop, Green Day and Franz Ferdinand.

On Wednesday (March 9), the latter band made a last-minute appearance at a fundraising gig for Ukraine at the Roundhouse in Camden, London. The Night For Ukraine event also featured performances from the likes of Bob Geldof and Chrissie Hynde.

In other news, Factory Records co-founder Alan Erasmus recently travelled to Ukraine to work with humanitarian organisations in the country.

You can donate redcross.org.uk/ukraine to help those affected by the conflict, or via a number of other ways through redcross.org.uk/ukraine.

Pink Floyd and David Gilmour remove music from streaming services in Russia, Belarus

Elizabeth Aubrey
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Pink Floyd and David Gilmour remove music from streaming services in Russia, Belarus
Pink Floyd and David Gilmour are removing their music from streaming services in Russia and Belarus to show their support for Ukraine. ORDER NOW: Paul McCartney is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut Ukraine officially severed diplomatic ties with Russia and declared martial law afte...

Pink Floyd and David Gilmour are removing their music from streaming services in Russia and Belarus to show their support for Ukraine.

Ukraine officially severed diplomatic ties with Russia and declared martial law after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an attack on the neighbouring nation on February 24. At the time of writing, the Russian invasion has killed at least 549 citizens, including 41 children. 957 civilians have also been injured.

Pink Floyd have removed all their music from 1987 onwards to stand in solidarity with Ukraine, as has former lead singer Gilmour.

Writing on Twitter, Pink Floyd said: “To stand with the world in strongly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the works of Pink Floyd, from 1987 onwards, and all of David Gilmour’s solo recordings are being removed from all digital music providers in Russia and Belarus from today.”

UKRAINE

A NOTE FROM ROGER REGARDING UKRAINE. BUT FIRST, A NOTE FROM ALINA:Hello!My name is Alina Mitrofanova, I am 19 years old, and I live in Ukraine. Today my country is resisting the Russian invasion and the real war started by Russian president and led by Russian army. I am a huge Pink Floyd and Roger Waters fan, and it was very important for me to hear Roger's opinion on this whole situation. It may not seem as urgent and critical, because this war can be considered as only "our problem", but unfortunately it rapidly becomes a catastrophe for the entire Europe and world.The war started 11 days ago, and everyday we hear sirens that signalize about bombs thrown by Russian occupants. Russia's aggression destroys MY country, kills hundreds of innocent adults and children in MY country, and I cannot explain how many Ukrainians are forced to leave their homes and run away from this madness. Ukrainian Eastern cities are being destroyed by Russian army, hundreds of thousands of people are evacuating and becoming refugees, and their number is increasing every minute. I'm in pain, as many other Ukrainians, because it hurts a lot to see how MY country becomes a military target for Russia and its mad leader, who's convinced that there are "neo-Nazis", who have to be killed. It's absolutely false, because I live here, and I can tell 200% that there are no such people there!I ask Roger to speak publicly about this war, because I still cannot understand how a person, who wrote a significant number of anti-war lyrics, hasn't spoken about tragedy yet. Furthermore, fully understand that Roger's point of view may be different, but I ask him to share his own opinion on this war. It's better than just being silent, because in this situation, silence is one of the worst enemies – it's impossible to build a wall in this situation and stay isolated from this problem. I'm 95% sure that this letter will not be delivered to Roger directly, and it would be just a miracle if a have an answer. However, a man who speaks about risks of nuclear catastrophe and about the senselessness of the war cannot be silent in this situation. Tell the world your position!Best regards from Ukraine, Alina Mitrofanova—Dear Alina, I read your letter, I feel your pain, I am disgusted by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it is a criminal mistake in my opinion, the act of a gangster, there must be an immediate ceasefire. I regret that Western governments are fueling the fire that will destroy your beautiful country by pouring arms into Ukraine, instead of engaging in the diplomacy that will be necessary to stop the slaughter. Rest assured if all our leaders don’t turn down the rhetoric and engage in diplomatic negotiations there will be precious little of Ukraine left when the fighting is over. A long drawn out insurgency in Ukraine would be great for the gangster hawks in Washington, it’s what they dream of, “playing the game” as they do, ”with the bravery of being out of range” I desperately hope your President is not a gangster too and that he will do what is best for his people, and demand of the Americans that they come to the table. Sadly however, many world leaders are gangsters and my disgust for political gangsters did not start last week with Putin. I was disgusted by the gangsters Bush and Blair when they invaded Iraq in 2003, I was and still am disgusted by the gangster government of Israel's invasion of Palestine in 1967 and its subsequent apartheid occupation of that land which has now been going on for over fifty years. I was disgusted by the gangsters Obama and Clinton ordering NATO's illegal bombings of both Libya and Serbia. I am disgusted by the wholesale destruction of Syria initiated, as it was, in 2011 by outside interference in the cause of regime change. I was disgusted by the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 when the gangster Shimon Peres connived with the Christian Phalangist Militias in the murder of Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in the south of that country. I feel for you Alina, and your Mum and Dad and your uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters and cousins, I lost both my father Eric Fletcher Waters and my grandfather George Henry Waters in wars fighting the Germans. Please believe me when I tell you that I believe in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed in Paris 1948. I have fought as hard as I know how to foster and support human rights for all my brothers and sisters all over the world for as long as I can remember, and I support you and yours now, with all my heart. Speaking of gangsters, I do have to take issue with you about one thing in your letter, your “200%” belief that there are no Neo-Nazis in your country is almost certainly mistaken. Both the Azov Battalions in your army, the National Militia and C14 are well known self-proclaimed Neo Nazis groups. They are gangsters too. Also, I have not been silent on Ukraine, I wrote a piece which was distributed six days ago by Globetrotter, I shall append it to this post: https://braveneweurope.com/roger-waters-the-war-profiteering-gangsters-will-kill-us-all-unless-we-unite-against-themWhat else Alina? Well, we the people, all of us in every country in the world, including Ukraine and Russia, can fight the gangsters, we can tell them we will not be part of their obscene and deadly wars to garner power and wealth at the expense of others, we can tell them that our families, in fact all families all over the world mean more to us than all the power and money in the world. Where I live in the USA we can join Black Lives Matter or Code Pink or BDS or Veterans For Peace or myriad other anti-war, pro law, pro freedom, pro human rights organizations. I will do anything I can to help effect the end of this awful war in your country, anything that is except wave a flag to encourage the slaughter. That is what the gangsters want, they want us to wave flags. That is how they divide and control us, by encouraging the waving of flags, to create a smokescreen of enmity to blind us to our innate capacity to empathize with one another, while they plunder and rape our fragile planet. I will do everything in my power to help bring peace back to you and your family and your beautiful country. The long drawn-out war/insurgency that Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice and the rest of the has been gangster Washington Hawks are encouraging is not in your nor Ukraine’s best interests. I wish you well Alina. Thank you for your letter, and if you chose to send a reply to this. I will print that reply. I promise.LoveR.PS. Have you got a dog? If so please send a pic.

Posted by Roger Waters on Wednesday, March 9, 2022

 

Gilmour added: “Russian soldiers, stop killing your brothers. There will be no winners in this war. My daughter in law is Ukrainian and my grand-daughters want to visit and know their beautiful country. Stop this before it is all destroyed.”

He concluded: “Putin must go”.

Roger Waters meanwhile called the invasion “the act of a gangster” in an open letter responding to a Ukrainian fan.

“I am disgusted by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” he continued. “It is a criminal mistake in my opinion, the act of a gangster. There must be an immediate ceasefire. I regret that Western governments are fueling the fire that will destroy your beautiful country by pouring arms into Ukraine instead of engaging in the diplomacy that will be necessary to stop the slaughter.”

Many figures from the worlds of music and entertainment have posted messages of support and solidarity with the people of Ukraine in recent weeks. Elton John said he was “heartbroken” over the “nightmare” that civilians are facing.

Various acts have also cancelled their scheduled performances in Russia and Ukraine, including Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Iggy Pop, Green Day and Franz Ferdinand.

On Wednesday (March 9), the latter band made a last-minute appearance at a fundraising gig for Ukraine at the Roundhouse in Camden, London. The Night For Ukraine event also featured performances from the likes of Bob Geldof and Chrissie Hynde.

You can donate At the time of writing to help those affected by the conflict, or via a number of other ways through At the time of writing.

Radiohead side-project The Smile unveil new one-time single pressing

Elizabeth Aubrey
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Radiohead side-project The Smile unveil new one-time single pressing
Radiohead side-project The Smile have unveiled details of a new one-time single pressing for recently released singles "You Will Never Work In Television Again" and "The Smoke". ORDER NOW: Paul McCartney is on the cover in the latest issue of Uncut READ MORE: Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood o...

Radiohead side-project The Smile have unveiled details of a new one-time single pressing for recently released singles “You Will Never Work In Television Again” and “The Smoke”.

The trio – comprising Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner – released their debut single “You Will Never Work In Television Again” and its follow-up, “The Smoke”, earlier this year.

The single is a limited 7″ pressing and fans can win a copy of the single by entering a lottery.

Fans can pick up a free lottery ticket at selected record stores around the world between March 12-24.

The single will not be available to purchase. Fans must scan the QR code on their ticket by March 24 to enter for a chance to win one of the pressings.

You can find a full list of the participating record stores here.

A video on the band’s social media pages showed Thom Yorke and long-time artistic collaborator Stanley Donwood pressing the singles – you can watch below:

The band will hit the road this spring for a run of European headline shows. Kicking off in Zagreb on May 16, the tour also includes appearances in Vienna (May 17), Prague (19), Berlin (20), Stockholm (23), Oslo (24) and Amsterdam (27).

Yorke and co. will then return to these shores for a two-night billing at the Roundhouse in Camden, London on May 29/30. Further UK concerts are scheduled for Edinburgh’s Usher Hall (June 1) and Manchester’s Albert Hall (2).

Bobbie Nelson, Willie Nelson’s sister and bandmate, has died

Elizabeth Aubrey
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Bobbie Nelson, Willie Nelson’s sister and bandmate, has died
Bobbie Nelson, Willie Nelson's sister and bandmate, has died aged 91. Bobbie was the pianist in the original line-up of the Willie Nelson Family band and had recently co-authored two books with her brother. Bobbie died on March 10 and news of her passing was confirmed in a family statement. ...

Bobbie Nelson, Willie Nelson’s sister and bandmate, has died aged 91.

Bobbie was the pianist in the original line-up of the Willie Nelson Family band and had recently co-authored two books with her brother.

Bobbie died on March 10 and news of her passing was confirmed in a family statement.

“Her elegance, grace, beauty and talent made this world a better place,” the statement from the Nelson family began.

“She was the first member of Willie’s band, as his pianist and singer. Our hearts are broken and she will be deeply missed. But we are so lucky to have had her in our lives. Please keep her family in your thoughts and give them the privacy they need at this time.”

Bobbie was raised in Abbot, Texas, and learned to play the piano as a child. After working odd jobs as a musician, she joined Willie’s band in 1972 soon after he’d signed with Atlantic Records. She was a part of her brother’s band for over 50 years and despite being Willie’s senior by two years, he always referred to her as his “little sister” on stage.

Bobbie was a regular performer at her brother’s shows and appeared on several of his albums including Red Headed Stranger, Shotgun Willie, Stardust, To Lefty From Willie and more.

Bobbie’s debut solo album Audiobiography was released in 2008 aged 76. Over the last two years, she released two books with her brother. They released the memoir Me and My Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band in 2020 and Sister, Brother, Family: An American Childhood in Music, in 2021.

Last year, Bobbie also joined Willie, nephews Lukas and Micah Nelson, and nieces Paula and Amy on The Willie Nelson Family album, an LP of gospel songs.

In their memoir, Willie credited Bobbie with his success, saying “If I was the sky, Sister Bobbie was the Earth. She grounded me,” he wrote. “There is no longer or stronger or steadier relationship in my life.”

Many tributes have been paid to Bobbie on social media. Margo Price wrote: “Nobody played piano like Bobbie Nelson and nobody ever will. She was the epitome of class, grace and style. I’m sure gonna miss seeing her on stage next to @WillieNelson…my heart goes out to Willie and the family band.”

You can read some of the tributes here:

The 2nd Uncut New Music Playlist Of 2022

Sam Richards
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The 2nd Uncut New Music Playlist Of 2022
At times like these we can always take heart from the musical community, whether they are directly trying to raise money and awareness or simply putting more joy and understanding into the world. Belle And Sebastian’s new single “If They’re Shooting At You” (“…kid, you must be doing some...

At times like these we can always take heart from the musical community, whether they are directly trying to raise money and awareness or simply putting more joy and understanding into the world. Belle And Sebastian’s new single “If They’re Shooting At You” (“…kid, you must be doing something right”) comes with a video created in collaboration with photographers covering the conflict in Ukraine. All income and royalties will go to the Red Cross/DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal and you can also donate directly here.

This playlist includes some similarly emotional and thought-provoking new videos from the likes of Fantastic Negrito and El Khat; there are also people in horror film costumes dancing goofily on their patios. Plus terrific new tunes from The Black Keys, Gruff Rhys, Hannah Peel, Altin Gün, Spiritualized, Kevin Morby, Fatoumata Diawara, José González, Floating Points and lots, lots more…

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN
“If They’re Shooting At You”
(Matador)

THE BLACK KEYS
“Wild Child”
(Nonesuch)

FANTASTIC NEGRITO
“Oh Betty”
(Storefront Records)

SPIRITUALIZED
“The Mainline Song”
(Bella Union)

KEVIN MORBY
“This Is A Photograph”
(Dead Oceans)

OLIVER SIM
“Romance With A Memory”
(Young)

VEPS
“Ballerina (Norah)”
(Kanine)

ALTIN GÜN
“Badi Sabah Olmadan”
(Glitterbeat)

LALALAR
“Abla Deme Lazım Olur”
(Bongo Joe)

HANNAH PEEL & PARAORCHESTRA
“We Are Part Mineral”
(Real World)

FLOCK
“Expand”
(Strut)

JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ
“El Invento (Sofia Kourtesis Remix)”
(City Slang)

FLOATING POINTS
“Vocoder”
(Ninja Tune)

FATOUMATA DIAWARA
“Yakandi”
(Google Arts & Culture)

TOMBERLIN
“Tap”
(Saddle Creek)

GRUFF RHYS
“People Are Pissed”
(Rough Trade)

EL KHAT
“La Sama”
(Glitterbeat)

JOHN CARROLL KIRBY
“Dawn Of New Day feat. Laraaji”
(Stones Throw)

THE UTOPIA STRONG
“Shepherdess”
(Rocket Recordings)

Carson McHone – Still Life

Rob Hughes
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Carson McHone – Still Life
A vivid presence on the Austin music scene for nearly a decade now, Carson McHone drew wider acclaim with 2018’s exceptional Carousel, issued on Loose the following year. And while subsequent tours of the UK and Europe furthered her reputation as a country traditionalist with leftfield leanings, S...

A vivid presence on the Austin music scene for nearly a decade now, Carson McHone drew wider acclaim with 2018’s exceptional Carousel, issued on Loose the following year. And while subsequent tours of the UK and Europe furthered her reputation as a country traditionalist with leftfield leanings, Still Life feels altogether more ambitious.

It’s certainly rockier in places, with McHone and producer/multi-instrumentalist Daniel Romano driving hard on tunes like “Hawks Don’t Share” and “Only Lovers”, punctuated by fat brass and gnarly guitars. Saxophonist David Nardi and Mark Lalama (piano, organ and accordion) are key to all this too, helping bring an intuitive sense of motion. There’s swishy R&B and some Southern soul as well, though McHone and her acoustic guitar remain squarely front and centre of these captivating songs, so that any embellishments are complementary rather than a distraction.

Her supple voice is a thing of understated beauty, bonded to tales of emotional attachment and release in a way that suggests full closure is still a little way off. With its nod to Dolly Parton’s “Little Sparrow”, the narrator of the expertly measured “Folk Song” is blindsided by reckless desire, leaving herself hopelessly vulnerable in the process: “But let it be known I was not broken/I let myself become undone”. At other times, self-preservation seems to be paramount. The conflicted character in the piano-led “Sweet Magnolia” attempts to resolve their turmoil by pre-emptively cutting themselves loose from heartbreak; On “Spoil On The Vine”, a lonely folk dispatch that slowly gains colour from strings and electric guitar, McHone trusts no-one, least of all herself.

“Dream scars across my face/Ain’t it strange/A privileged pain,” she sings, waking from troubled slumber. McHone navigates all this knotty psychic terrain with real assurance, be it the forbidden thrills of “Someone Else” or the search for completeness that guides the elegant “Fingernail Moon”. In the end, as she points out in the upbeat “Only Lovers”, it might just be safer to stay strangers.

The Coral – The Coral

Tom Pinnock
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The Coral – The Coral
Time has a way of smoothing the rough edges of songs, sanding down what was once shocking until it feels safe. Some moments are curiously resistant, though: The Beatles’ “Revolution”, say, its stinging fuzz still as unhealthily exciting as it must have been almost 54 years ago. ORDER NOW:...

Time has a way of smoothing the rough edges of songs, sanding down what was once shocking until it feels safe. Some moments are curiously resistant, though: The Beatles’ “Revolution”, say, its stinging fuzz still as unhealthily exciting as it must have been almost 54 years ago.

The Coral’s “Skeleton Key”, too, has proved rather hardy: the first proper taste of their self-titled 2002 debut, it combined unhinged Beefheart clatter with shanty chants and a space-rock middle-eight seemingly beamed in from a post-Syd Floyd album. Oh, and a jokey disco-funk coda in which the band seem to shout-out kids TV series Byker Grove. The mixing of these elements isn’t noteworthy in itself, but the way the sextet managed to make the result feel so natural and cohesive certainly is.

The Coral were in their late teens or early twenties by this point, and had been playing since the late ’90s, feverishly handing around music – Safe As Milk and Forever Changes were two big favourites – and joints. Alan Wills formed the Deltasonic label primarily to release their early stuff, and debut single “Shadows Fall” appeared in July 2001, with the NME immediately championing them. If they were part of the ‘New Rock Revolution’, though, they were outliers: “Shadows Fall” mixed psychedelic dub, monastic harmonies and Shack melodicism with a swing-jazz middle-eight at a completely different tempo.

After “The Oldest Path” EP, their debut arrived in July 2002. “Skeleton Key” is – of course – the weirdest thing on it, but other cuts at least match its ambition and sense of adventure, if not the sonic maelstrom. “Wildfire” is packed with tiny sections that other bands might have expanded into full songs; “Waiting For The Heartaches” moves from a jazz and bossa nova verse to a garagey, fuzz-toned chorus; “Goodbye” spices its Gregorian Merseybeat with a 90-second break of freeform, interstellar psych.

These recordings have an unusual, crystalline sound – even more pronounced on this 2022 version – with each player sounding strangely separated from the rest even though much of it was recorded live: a result, James Skelly tells Uncut, of wanting to crossbreed The Beatles with Dr Dre’s 2001. It works, too; Nick Power’s single-note organ lines are a sonic trademark across the record, with Bill Ryder-Jones’ echoed lead guitar and Lee Southall’s glassy Telecaster riffs just as hooky. Skelly’s voice is a wonder throughout, from the soulful roar of “Dreaming Of You” and the high, tender coo of “Simon Diamond” to his McCulloch-does-Walker croon on closer “Calendars And Clocks”.

The latter is the most mature moment on the record, written by Skelly after the band went tripping on a Wirral beach. It’s very Arthur Lee, majestic and melancholy, even as it moves into swampy spaghetti western and then a gorgeous, acoustic lull. This being The Coral, that moment of transcendence is followed by the hidden “Time Travel”, diseased conspiracy-theory dub that morphs brilliantly into something like Bob Marley’s “Get Up Stand Up”.

The album now comes with a second disc of EP tracks, B-sides and previously unreleased cuts that really showcase their range and point to the future. “The Oldest Path” EP’s freakbeat title track hinted at “Skeleton Key”, but the other songs presented the acoustic style that would come to dominate their sound in the years to come. “God Knows” is especially good, capturing their juvenile high jinks over a mournful shuffle and melodica.

“Dressed Like A Cow”, from the “Skeleton Key” EP, descends into psychedelic madness before exploding like Love’s “Seven And Seven Is”, while “Sweet Sue” is a soulful stomp delivered with lysergic glee: 20 years on it sounds like pure, unadulterated Coral, a fine distillation of their tricks and tics.

Two previously unreleased tracks from the sessions round things off. “She’s The Girl For Me”, a mid-tempo lament with jangling guitars and unsteady horns, is a little vanilla, but points the way to the classicist Roots & Echoes five years later. Spacey ballad “Tumble Graves”, however, written by drummer Ian Skelly after that fabled beach trip, captures the magic and mystery of their early days. It’s astonishing that it’s remained buried for so long.

Despite some brilliant later records, including 2003’s UK No 1 Magic And Medicine and last year’s Coral Island, the group have not managed to equal the boundless invention of their debut, its EPs and singles. A special kind of sorcery was at work then, an unrepeatable alchemy of youthful naïvety, potent influences and cheap weed. The results? As a voice mutters at the end of “Sweet Sue”, “fucking mega”.

Andy Bell – Flicker

Peter Watts
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Andy Bell – Flicker
The cover of Andy Bell’s second solo album features an obscured portrait of Bell shot for Ride’s 1990 debut, Nowhere. This old image of distorted youth reflects the themes of Flicker, a record that sees Bell explore ideas of nostalgia and memory while re-engaging with the optimism and playfulnes...

The cover of Andy Bell’s second solo album features an obscured portrait of Bell shot for Ride’s 1990 debut, Nowhere. This old image of distorted youth reflects the themes of Flicker, a record that sees Bell explore ideas of nostalgia and memory while re-engaging with the optimism and playfulness of youth from the perspective of a man of 50. The songs similarly cross time zones: some were written as far back as the 1990s and all were initially recorded in 2016 by Oasis’s Gem Archer before Bell completed them in lockdown in 2021, when it was hard to do anything but reflect.

Bell has been coaxed into his late-blossoming solo career by the Sonic Cathedral label. It started with a 7” (“Plastic Bag”/“The Commune”) in 2019 that Bell immediately recognised as the first step in his long-delayed journey into the spotlight. It’s taken a few decades for Bell to leave the security of a band, but he has now embraced the situation, releasing two albums in 18 months. The first, The View From Halfway Down, saw Bell test the waters before this more ambitious double album, which features 18 tunes bathed in reverb, coloured by synths and electronica, but essentially following a traditional singer-songwriter pattern.

Many double albums are endearingly scattershot, but Flicker has a consistency of sound and theme. The initial tracks were laid down by Bell in 2016 when the death of David Bowie persuaded him to finally record various songs and fragments that had never really been suitable for ongoing band projects. These recordings, all made at the same time with the same instruments, create a coherent backbone – a through line – that Bell embellished during lockdown with overdubs, horns and lyrics that all come from the same place and time. Following instrumental “The Sky Without You”, the album’s opening lines come from “It Gets Easier” – “I was halfway down/And I woke up late/
I took a typical turn/And found my dream state” – a nod to his previous album and belated arrival as a solo artist. From there, the album is rife with cross-references and crossword clues, from the yearning jangle of “Something Like Love”, which echoes Ride’s “Vapour Trail”, or the line from crystalline folk charmer “Lifeline” – “the other side of the looking glass” – which borrows the title of previous track, “The Looking Glass”, a song that is itself “Lifeline” played backwards.

Songs are rife with musical and lyrical allusions like the line about “the sound of confusion” on the paranoid Spacemen 3 drone of “No Getting Out Alive”, but while these are fun to track down, they aren’t just Bell being cute but reflect a broader theme of nostalgia and youth. “Memory is the only place I’m free”, he sings with his frighteningly youthful voice on the jangly “World Of Echo”, a song that references The Smiths. But Bell isn’t simply recreating the past; he is aware of the danger of pure nostalgia. While “Something About Love” recalls youthful days of “playing tunes to block out the bad dreams/Lost in the reverie of future days”, he warns “not to confuse your memories with something real”. The trippy, Hunky Dory-esque “This Is Our Year” looks forward tentatively to the future, albeit in the company of David Bowie – “David, are you watching our collective fever dream/Or did we shift dimensions back in 2016?” On “It Gets Easier” he is more defiant: “I’m living my best life/This is how it feels to feel”.

That track also claims “there’s no narrative that’s real” and the different strands of psychedelia find a place on Flicker. There’s speedy dark psych on “No Getting Out Alive” and the grandiose LSD-spider patterns of “Way Of The World”; the repeated use of phasing, reverb and backwards tracks; and songs like the instrumental “Gyre And Gimble”, “We All Fall Down” and “The Looking Glass”, which draw on Beatles/Floyd whimsy influenced by Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear and The Goons. This is another layer of nostalgia, an acknowledgement of both the music of Bell’s youth as well as the books and comedians of his father’s generation.

Yet Flicker is never derivative or predictable, with Bell using these influences to craft often beautiful songs, from the groove of “Riverside” to the lovely strum of the Simon And Garfunkel-influenced “Lifeline” or the springy disco-beat of “Sidewinder”. Bell says he can “overthink things”, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of when it produces such well-structured and thoughtful records. Flicker feels almost like a memoir, a monograph, and just as Bell welcomed listeners into his “dream state” on the opening track, he ends with a polite goodbye on “Holiday In The Sun”. “I’ll see you all again sometime/But for now my race is run”, he drawls, having downed tools and poured himself a margarita. It’s one, or more, well earned.

Binker & Moses – Feeding The Machine

Louis Pattison
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Binker & Moses – Feeding The Machine
Binker Golding and Moses Boyd cut their first album Dem Ones back in 2015, when the talk of the UK jazz renaissance was just a gleam on the face of a neatly polished hi-hat. Both were alumni of Tomorrow’s Warriors, a London-based education programme dedicated to giving a young generation of multir...

Binker Golding and Moses Boyd cut their first album Dem Ones back in 2015, when the talk of the UK jazz renaissance was just a gleam on the face of a neatly polished hi-hat. Both were alumni of Tomorrow’s Warriors, a London-based education programme dedicated to giving a young generation of multiracial jazz musicians a leg up, and both had carved out a reputation on the scene. Binker Golding was the senior of the pair, a skilful tenor saxophonist who had risen to a key role in the Warriors’ Soon Come Ensemble. Boyd, some six years his junior, was a young drummer-for-hire from south-east London who was studying at the prestigious conservatoire Trinity Laban, but also expressed his love for grime artists like Dizzee Rascal. You could hear a lot of this in Dem Ones. Six sax-and-drums improvisations with a distinctly London swagger, it scooped a MOBO for Best Jazz Album and put the spotlight on a new generation of UK jazz musicians pushing through.

Seven years later, much has changed. Both have made a dent as artists in their own right – Golding leads a top-flight quartet, while Boyd’s solo album Dark Matter was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Together, meanwhile, they’ve cut a string of studio and live records that showcase their affinity. Feeding The Machine is the latest. Cut in an exploratory, off-the-cuff session at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, it sees the duo quietly expanded to a trio. New on board is Max Luthert, who has built up some renown as a double bassist, and previously played alongside Golding and Boyd in Zara McFarlane’s band. Here, Luthert’s duty is to operate what one must assume is “The Machine” of the title – a web of modular synths, tape loops and other electronic trickery that ingests Golding and Boyd’s improvised sounds and spits them out in sometimes radically altered forms.

This is a different sound to Binker & Moses material of yore. Whereas those early albums felt like a supercharged take on jazz tradition, Feeding The Machine operates in a bold and unorthodox way, hotwiring familiar jazz improvisational techniques to create a sound that drifts, builds and fades in line with some cosmic logic. The opening “Asynchronous Intervals” sets out their stall, an epic 11 minutes of music that moves from a place of blissful levitation to the brink of frenzy through a series of almost imperceptible shifts. Golding’s saxophone begins lush and undulating but gradually moves to harsh yelps and fits; Boyd, meanwhile, moves in a more clandestine fashion, keeping up a steady, patient rumble on the toms.

The pair explain that they wanted to step into the studio without any premeditated musical ideas in mind, and moments on Feeding The Machine feel very much like a step into alien territory. The track titles – such as “Accelerometer Overdose” and “Feed Infinite” – read like they were torn from a William Gibson novel, and this sci-fi feel seems of a piece with the technologically assisted music within. The latter is Boyd’s most creative moment on the record, his live playing full of twitches and glitches, as Luthert fires down a torrent of electronic bleeps and bloops. A track going by the startling name “Active-Multiple-Fetish-Overlord”, meanwhile, is equally creative. It starts out in a loose, free improvisatory style. But as the energy rises, the track starts to fold in on itself like a collapsing black hole, Luthert looping and distorting Golding’s sax squalls into ghostly echoes that orbit tighter and tighter before being pulverised on the
edge of some imaginary event horizon.

There are moments here where Golding, Boyd and Luthert lean hard into ambience. “After The Machine Settles” and “Because Because” see saxophone and drums part-submerged within in a delicate nimbus of synthesiser. But despite this, Feeding The Machine never feels sedate. In comparison to other recent landmark fusions of electronica and jazz – think Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders’ elegantly smooth 2021 album Promises – there’s still plenty of grit here; a live and unchecked quality that brings with it a residual whiff of the sweat and toil of the rehearsal room.

Making a record like this – improvised and off-the-cuff, yet unorthodox and filled with new ideas – is no mean feat. Feeding The Machine seems destined to bewilder a certain strain of jazz purists. But then, their number seems to be thinner with every passing year. In the hands of the likes of Binker Golding and Moses Boyd, jazz feels again like a space of boundless possibilities.

Inside the landmark issue: 300 greatest albums of Uncut’s lifetime

Uncut
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Inside the landmark issue: 300 greatest albums of Uncut’s lifetime
In keeping with this landmark issue of Uncut, we decided to celebrate some – 300, no less – of the great albums that have helped define who we are and what we do over the past 25 years. As you’d imagine, it proved to be a herculean task – involving a panel of 55 Uncut contributors, both pres...

In keeping with this landmark issue of Uncut, we decided to celebrate some – 300, no less – of the great albums that have helped define who we are and what we do over the past 25 years. As you’d imagine, it proved to be a herculean task – involving a panel of 55 Uncut contributors, both present and past, who voted for a total of 926 records between them. The results, we proudly think, speak for themselves.

As well as much-loved albums reaching back to the dawn of Uncut’s history, gratifyingly this list also includes more recent releases – underscoring our firm belief that, firstly, veteran Uncut favourites continue to evolve creatively and, secondly, that new music from younger artists is a vital part of this magazine’s ongoing mission. There are albums that have fallen off the radar or are ripe for reappraisal, classics and more obscure items. There’s Bob Dylan here – of course! – but also James Blackshaw, Liberation Music Orchestra, The Necks, Manu Chao, Burial, Courtney Marie Andrews, D’Angelo, Jack Rose, Amy Winehouse and Myriam Gendron.

When Uncut launched in 1997, CDs were the dominant format and the digital landscape was in its infancy. Times, clearly, have changed – but the album has prevailed. Indeed, at a time when streaming platforms privilege playlists, our lifestyles impact on valuable listening time and supply-chain issues continue to wreak havoc on vinyl manufacturing schedules, celebrating the album might appear to be a faintly radical gesture – foolish, even. But just as Uncut has endured for 300 issues, so the album continues to be the defining artefact for artists, fans and heads. Critically, we all know the pleasures of deep listening to a record, just as the artist intended, from the opening track to the final fade-out…

You can read more about the May 2022 issue of Uncut here, and buy your copy direct from us here.

Uncut – May 2022

Uncut
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Uncut – May 2022
HAVE A COPY SENT STRAIGHT TO YOUR HOME Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Low, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Kurt Vile, Spiritualized, Wilco, Keith Richards, Mark Lanegan and all feature in the new Uncut, dated May 2022 and in UK shops from March 15 or available to buy online now. This issue comes with an ex...

HAVE A COPY SENT STRAIGHT TO YOUR HOME

Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Low, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Kurt Vile, Spiritualized, Wilco, Keith Richards, Mark Lanegan and all feature in the new Uncut, dated May 2022 and in UK shops from March 15 or available to buy online now. This issue comes with an exclusive free CD, comprising tracks featured in Uncut’s 300 Greatest Album.

PAUL MCCARTNEY: We’re not the only ones with something to celebrate… On June 18, Paul McCartney turns 80. To celebrate this landmark birthday, we’ve asked friends, collaborators and admirers – including David Crosby, Elvis Costello, Klaus Voormann, Brian Wilson, Pattie Boyd, Paul Weller, Robert Plant, Pete Townshend, Noel Gallagher, Jeff Lynne, Nigel Godrich, Johnny Marr and Nile Rodgers– to share their most memorable Macca encounters with us. Starting out on a number 80 bus in the mid ’50s, we take in a historic meeting at St Peter’s Church Hall, trips to Hamburg and Rishikesh, margaritas at Cavendish Avenue and picnics in Yorkshire before arriving, some seven decades later, at the premiere for Get Back. Along the way, there is a poem from Donovan, a Polaroid from Lulu, a children’s game called Get The Guest and many, many warm and wonderful stories.

OUR FREE CD! MODERN CLASSICS: 15 tracks from the greatest albums of Uncut’s lifetime, including songs by Wilco, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Fleet Foxes, The Flaming Lips, Björk, Weyes Blood and more.

This issue of Uncut is available to buy by clicking here – with FREE delivery to the UK and reduced delivery charges for the rest of the world.

Inside the issue, you’ll find:

BOB DYLAN: As Dylan’s landmark debut album turns 60, we return to where it all began – Greenwich Village – to find new revelations about his early years, from impromptu jam sessions at Allan Block’s Sandal Shop to the stage at Gerde’s Folk City and beyond. “I ate him alive as a harmonica player,” one eyewitness tells Stephen Deusner. “But I couldn’t touch him as a songwriter…”

JIMMY PAGE: He has spent the past 25 years exploring new music while continuing to nurture Led Zeppelin’s formidable legacy. For Uncut 300, regular Uncut reader Jimmy Page revisits his personal highlights since he first appeared on the cover of our 11th issue – reuniting with Robert Plant for Walking Into Clarksdale, the O2 triumph, the acclaimed remasters… and more. “Let’s get started, then,” he tells Peter Watts.

DAVID BOWIE: In an extract from a new bookstore edition of Moonage Daydream: The Life & Times Of Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie and Mick Rock’s long-out-of-print ‘biography’ – Bowie himself recounts the brief but colourful journey of rock’s greatest space invader, from his genesis in Haddon Hall to his shocking exit on stage at the Hammersmith Odeon. “Zig rather grew as he grew, if you know what I mean…”

KURT VILE: At home in Philadelphia, Kurt Vile is preparing to release (watch my moves) – his brilliant new album of warm, freewheeling indie rock. But how have outlaw country, Alan Vega’s vocal inflections and an early Wu-Tang Clan hit contributed to the slacker king’s latest burst of creativity? “Most of my songs are about sitting in a chair,” he reveals to Laura Barton, “and travelling into outer space.”

LOW: The much-loved Minnesota duo discuss sonic weapons, dub mixtapes, writing Easter musicals and those dungarees…

SPIRITUALIZED: The making of “I Think I’m In Love”.

WILCO: Album by album with one of Uncut’s all-time favourites.

DANIEL ROSSEN: Grizzly Bear mainstay finds comfort, wisdom and some bewitching tunes from going it alone.

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

In our expansive reviews section, we take a look at new records from Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder, Father John Misty, Wet Leg, Oumou Sangaré and more, and archival releases from T.Rex, Pavement, Hank Williams, Norma Tanega and others. We catch Echo & The Bunnymen and Arooj Aftab live; among the films, DVDs and TV programmes reviewed are The Batman, Compartment No 6, The Outfit, The Worst Person In The World and Benedetta; while in books there’s Vashti Bunyan and Mark Hollis.

Our front section, meanwhile, features Keith Richards, Congotronics, Park Jiha and a tribute to Mark Lanegan, while, at the end of the magazine, Khruangbin’s Laura Lee shares her life in music.

You can pick up a copy of Uncut in the usual places, where open. But otherwise, readers all over the world can order a copy from here.

CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR

Welcome to Uncut’s 300th issue!

Michael Bonner
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Welcome to Uncut’s 300th issue!
Welcome to a very special issue of Uncut: our 300th, which is in shops next week but you can pre-order a copy now from our online store. For the last few weeks or so, I’ve been looking back at the magazine since it first went on sale on May 1, 1997. While there have been some changes along the ...

Welcome to a very special issue of Uncut: our 300th, which is in shops next week but you can pre-order a copy now from our online store.

For the last few weeks or so, I’ve been looking back at the magazine since it first went on sale on May 1, 1997. While there have been some changes along the way – cosmetic, mostly – I’m gratified to see that some things remain constant. The emphasis on high-quality longform journalism, the imperative to discover new music and the commitment to unearthing untold stories that are evident in Take 1 all remain a critical part of what we do here, 299 issues later.

In our bumper-sized Take 300, we’ve chosen to feature some of our best-loved artists – from regular reader Jimmy Page to Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Spiritualized, Wilco, Low, Kurt Vile and our cover star Paul McCartney, who is about to celebrate a milestone of his own. A large part of the issue – 31 pages, no less – is occupied by a survey of the 300 best albums released during our lifetime. Readers with long memories will recall we did this once before, for our 150th issue. Running a new vote for Uncut 300 has allowed us to reflect a little on how far we’ve come, reminding us that while many of our favourite artists endure, we can also celebrate new things. Our free CD this month brings together 15 tracks from the 300 list: Uncut’s greatest hits, if you like.

A lot of this, of course, wouldn’t be possible without a number of people. I should thank my predecessors, Allan and John, who in no small part helped us get this far. To the current Uncut team – John, Marc, Tom, Sam, Mike, Michael, Phil, Mark, Johnny and Lora. And a special thanks to Mick, our doughty Production Editor, who carries the dubious distinction of having worked here, along with me, since that very first issue.

Critically, though, I should thank you, the readers, without whom we wouldn’t be here at all. It’s heartening that, 25 years later, such a large number of you value a monthly music magazine like Uncut. On behalf of all of us, to all of you: sincere thanks.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Keith Richards, another reader, who says on page 8: “See you for your 600th issue!”

Paul Weller completes Teenage Cancer Trust line-up

Sam Richards
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Paul Weller completes Teenage Cancer Trust line-up
Paul Weller is among the final additions to the line-up of the Teenage Cancer Trust fundraising shows at London's Royal Albert Hall later this month. Weller and his band will play an acoustic set supporting Madness on March 24. Teenage Cancer Trust Honorary Patron Roger Daltrey plays his own a...

Paul Weller is among the final additions to the line-up of the Teenage Cancer Trust fundraising shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall later this month.

Weller and his band will play an acoustic set supporting Madness on March 24.

Teenage Cancer Trust Honorary Patron Roger Daltrey plays his own acoustic show with The Who the following evening, supported by The Wild Things.

The final line-up is as follows:

Monday 21st March – Don Broco (with full orchestra) + Deaf Havana

Tuesday 22nd – An Evening of Comedy hosted by Joel Dommett with special guests Tom Allen, Rob Beckett, Rosie Jones, Judi Love, Romesh Ranganathan, Suzi Ruffell and Seann Walsh

Wednesday 23rd – Yungblud + Nova Twins + Daisy Brian

Thursday 24th – Madness + Paul Weller & Band (acoustic)

Friday 25th – The Who (acoustic) + The Wild Things

Saturday 26th – Liam Gallagher + Kid Kapichi + RATS

Sunday 27th – Ed Sheeran + Dylan

You can buy tickets for all shows here.

Bob Dylan announces new book, The Philosophy Of Modern Song

Michael Bonner
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Bob Dylan announces new book, The Philosophy Of Modern Song
Bob Dylan has announced details of a new book, The Philosophy Of Modern Song. His first book since Chronicles: Volume One, 18 years ago, it is due for publication on November 8 via Simon & Schuster. You can pre-order a copy by clicking here. Dylan reportedly began work on the book in 2010. The...

Bob Dylan has announced details of a new book, The Philosophy Of Modern Song.

His first book since Chronicles: Volume One, 18 years ago, it is due for publication on November 8 via Simon & Schuster. You can pre-order a copy by clicking here.

Dylan reportedly began work on the book in 2010. The book will compile over 60 essays focusing on songs by other artists, including Nina Simone, Elvis Costello and Hank Williams.

“He analyses what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal,” reads the announcement. “These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny. And while they are ostensibly about music, they are really meditations and reflections on the human condition. Running throughout the book are nearly 150 carefully curated photos as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence.”

Simon & Schuster’s president and CEO Jonathan Karp said, “The publication of Bob Dylan’s kaleidoscopically brilliant work will be an international celebration of songs by one of the greatest artists of our time. The Philosophy Of Modern Song could only have been written by Bob Dylan. His voice is unique, and his work conveys his deep appreciation and understanding of songs, the people who bring those songs to life, and what songs mean to all of us.”

Fontaines D.C. talk uprooting and having a sense of identity on Skinty Fia

Laura Barton
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Fontaines D.C. talk uprooting and having a sense of identity on Skinty Fia
“I’m realising recently that I feel suspended,” says Grian Chatten, sitting in the darkening light of an East London pub, in the early days of December. It is nearly two years since Chatten moved over from Dublin. “Fell in love with a girl from London,” he explains, “and chased her over....

“I’m realising recently that I feel suspended,” says Grian Chatten, sitting in the darkening light of an East London pub, in the early days of December. It is nearly two years since Chatten moved over from Dublin. “Fell in love with a girl from London,” he explains, “and chased her over.” But increasingly he has begun to think of home.

Sometimes he finds himself picturing the streets of Ireland. “I can’t stop thinking about one road or one street,” he says. “A street I’ve never really paid much attention to, a road that you take for granted, because it’s between a place and a place.” Often he thinks of the north circular road in Dublin, “With all of its leaves and its wideness. I lay awake at night thinking about that road.”

To be Irish in London is to be part of a long pattern of migration, a story of famine and bigotry, cheap labour and economic ambition that spans generations and has, inevitably, encompassed the country’s music scene. Perhaps then it should not be surprising that the rest of Chatten’s bandmates in Fontaines D.C. have all relocated here too in recent times – guitarist Conor Curley, the last to make the move, arrived from Paris only the day before we meet.

While it might seem odd that Ireland’s biggest young band should choose London as the place from which to release their new album, Skinty Fia, it is in fact a record that captures much of their feelings of dislocation, their complicated relationship with identity and their homeland. In the course of his time in London, Chatten has seen how a displaced culture can develop an intensity. “It covets itself and reinforces itself,” he says. “I think people get more and more Irish when they go to different places.”

So it is that alongside tracks about love and relationships – with the self and with others, Skinty Fia contains songs about the Irish language, turns of phrase rendered political, references to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, to the scandal of mass graves at Mother and Baby homes, songs named for James Joyce, songs about bidding farewell to your homeland.

Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide to Robert Plant

John Robinson
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Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide to Robert Plant
BUY THE ROBERT PLANT ULTIMATE MUSIC GUIDE HERE How do you follow Led Zeppelin? That’s a question that Robert Plant gamely engages with in his exclusive introduction to our Ultimate Music Guide to his magnificent solo career. The Led Zeppelin he departed after the death of drummer John Bonham in...

BUY THE ROBERT PLANT ULTIMATE MUSIC GUIDE HERE

How do you follow Led Zeppelin? That’s a question that Robert Plant gamely engages with in his exclusive introduction to our Ultimate Music Guide to his magnificent solo career. The Led Zeppelin he departed after the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980 was, he says, very different to the band he joined in 1968.

“There were pretty radical changes between, 1968-1977,” he writes. “By the time we got to In Through The Out Door it was a totally different Zeppelin.”

No getting around it, the musical change that he’d participated in during that time was pretty extraordinary. From their origin in heavy blues rock, the Zeppelin oeuvre had grown to accommodate traditional folk, north African music, and latterly, even groovy synthesizers. Change having served him pretty well to this point, Plant saw no reason not to continue embracing it when he embarked on his solo career in earnest. “I’d always thought the music had to keep on morphing,” he says.

This, as you’ll read in the in-depth reviews and entertaining archive features (sample quote: “I never asked to be the king of cock rock”) in our premium 124-page issue is something that Robert has managed to achieve. Having taken steps to reconcile himself with the achievements of his previous band, Plant as he puts it has been “free to fail” while pursuing his own direction. He has embraced the 1980s, synths, reverb, suit jackets and all. He has drawn strength from his psychedelic roots. He has convened with the Queen of Bluegrass, Alison Krauss, to make next-level, 21st century Americana.

Along the way, he has even found the appropriate occasion to meet again with Jimmy Page. First, the guitarist made a couple of guest appearances on Plant records of the 1980s. Then in the 1990s, Page presented himself with “dark and lustrous” new music which fuelled the inventive, largely acoustic first Page & Plant album, No Quarter and its follow-up Walking Into Clarksdale, recorded with engineer Steve Albini. By 2007, and following the release of Raising Sand, Plant was ready to commit to a Led Zeppelin reunion – if only for one fantastic show at the London O2 Arena. Who knows what the 2020s may hold for the pair?

Whatever happens, Plant’s story has many more chapters in it. “Zeppelin was magnificent, you can’t compete with that – it was so fresh, explosive and lyrical and young,” he tells us. “But these last two records are something I feel really good about: for a man of my years, a man who didn’t let go. When someone delivers a good landscape of sound, you want to be in it and around it, so that you can absorb it into your story…”

Buy a copy of the magazine here. Missed one in the series? Bundles are available at the same location…

Robert Plant – Ultimate Music Guide

Uncut
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Robert Plant – Ultimate Music Guide
What next, after fronting the most successful rock band of all time? If you’re Robert Plant, you embark on a bold musical journey, now 40 years old. Having embraced the 1980s, its drum machines and haircuts, he has since pursued the rich essence of his music. “Please read the letter, I wrote it ...

What next, after fronting the most successful rock band of all time? If you’re Robert Plant, you embark on a bold musical journey, now 40 years old. Having embraced the 1980s, its drum machines and haircuts, he has since pursued the rich essence of his music. “Please read the letter, I wrote it in my sleep / With help and consultation from the angels of the deep…”

Buy a copy here!

An audience with Cowboy Junkies: “If you don’t reinterpret a song, then you’re just covering it and what’s the point?”

Sam Richards
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An audience with Cowboy Junkies: “If you don’t reinterpret a song, then you’re just covering it and what’s the point?”
It’s mid-January in Simcoe County and the temperature has dropped to a bracing -15°c. “My dogs won’t even go outside,” reports Margo Timmins. “I open the door and they look at me like, ‘Are you crazy?’” Thankfully, the biting cold hasn’t deterred Cowboy Junkies, one of Canada’s ...

It’s mid-January in Simcoe County and the temperature has dropped to a bracing -15°c. “My dogs won’t even go outside,” reports Margo Timmins. “I open the door and they look at me like, ‘Are you crazy?’” Thankfully, the biting cold hasn’t deterred Cowboy Junkies, one of Canada’s most enduring bands, from recently completing their 19th album. “Over the last two years, Mike’s rented a house up here near me for about a month each time. We would do whatever we were doing in the morning and then in the afternoons I would go up to his place and work on new songs. It was fantastic because I didn’t have to go into Toronto, which is not my favourite place to go!”

They’re due to mix the new album soon with a view to releasing it in the autumn. In the meantime there’s a “holdover record” coming next month, comprising covers old and new – including their acclaimed version of “I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You” from Uncut’s Dylan Revisited CD. “We’ve done tons of covers over the years but these are the ones that we really love,” explains Michael Timmins. “It’s basically a snapshot of what inspired us as musicians – David Bowie, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, The Cure, Gram Parsons. These are the people who made us feel, ‘Wow – I’d like to do that’.”

Some of your covers have become almost as famous as the originals. What’s the secret of a good cover version?

Andy Perkins, Earlsfield, London

MICHAEL: It’s being true to the song, but not so true that you’re like a wedding band. It’s about finding a way into a song so it becomes an expression of yourself. We don’t really think of them as covers – once we’ve put our stamp on them and imbued them with our personality, they become sort of our songs.

MARGO: I have to be able to sing them from my perspective, as a female, with my worldview and my experiences. If you don’t reinterpret the song, then you’re just covering it and what’s the point? But we’re also very much aware of the original because we’re fans of that song. We don’t want people to be upset that we destroyed their favourite song!

Fellow musicians and collaborators dissect the masterful work of Television’s Tom Verlaine

Rob Hughes
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Fellow musicians and collaborators dissect the masterful work of Television’s Tom Verlaine
In December 2007, Television entered New York’s Stratosphere Sound to begin work on a new album. The band spent two or three days recording ideas, but the long-overdue successor to 1992’s Television stalled right there. According to the band themselves, it hasn’t been touched since. ORDER...

In December 2007, Television entered New York’s Stratosphere Sound to begin work on a new album. The band spent two or three days recording ideas, but the long-overdue successor to 1992’s Television stalled right there. According to the band themselves, it hasn’t been touched since.

“We did around 14 things,” reveals guitarist Jimmy Rip. “They don’t have vocals on them and there are no guitar solos, but they’re songs. And some of them are great, I really love them.”

Rip puts in a call to Television leader Tom Verlaine around the same time each year. It’s become something of an in-joke over the past decade or so, a larkish reminder of unfinished business. “In the week between Christmas and New Year, I’ll call Tom up and say, ‘Happy anniversary!’ He’ll say, ‘What are you talking about?’ I’ll go, ‘I’m talking about those tracks!’ But it’s never had any effect. He’s like, ‘Well, Jim. Some day old Tom will just have it all finished.’”

The prospect of new Television songs, however remote, is a tantalising one. Never mind their slim studio legacy – 1977’s monumental Marquee Moon, its luminous successor Adventure and the self-titled album from their early-’90s comeback – the vitality and significance of their work remains unbroken by the roll of time.

Verlaine’s solo career has followed similar lines. After Television’s initial split in the late ’70s, he began with a flurry of purpose, continuing deep into the next decade. But he slowed dramatically in the early ’90s, not long after Television’s brief first reunion. His last solo album arrived in 2006, prompting speculation that New York’s most mercurial guitar hero may have run out of things to say.

Songwriter, producer and author Lenny Kaye first met Verlaine in 1974. “He’s somewhat guarded,” he observes. “When I think of Tom, I have this image of him smoking a cigarette and peering out through the smoke with this inquisitive gleam in his eye. He’s not an effusive public persona and has never been into putting on the costume of rock stardom. I believe he’s remained pretty true to himself over all the years, just following his instincts.”

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