“The truth is, I don’t like dangerous things and am quite normal,” Christopher Walken told Uncut in September 2006. “I was born into show business and that brings with it being a little eccentric, the way you speak, the way you approach things. This innately gives me a sense of foreignness, which can easily translate into…s-t-r-a-n-g-e.”
The War On Drugs’ new album, Lost In The Dream, is out on Monday (March 17). Here, in this feature from Uncut’s November 2011 issue (Take 174), Sam Richards joins Adam Granduciel’s friend and collaborator Kurt Vile on tour in California to uncover the blood ties between Vile’s Violators and The War On Drugs…
The Take Off And Landing Of Everything, Elbow’s sixth album, is out on Monday (March 10) – in this archive piece from Uncut’s August 2011 issue (Take 171), Guy Garvey, Mark Potter and Craig Potter stroll through two decades’ worth of musical memories. “We’ve never had the word ‘can’t’ bandied around the room,” says Garvey. “It’s like a red rag to a bull.” Interview: Graeme Thomson
I had the good fortune to interview Jim Jarmusch recently for our An Audience With… feature. As you’d imagine, it was interesting, wide-ranging chat, and inevitably not everything we talked about made it into the magazine. There’s a couple of things in particular that seemed pretty interesting – not least the ‘full’ answer he gave to a question regarding the current status of The Sons Of Lee Marvin, a shadowy cabal whose members – allegedly – include Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Iggy Pop.
St Vincent releases her self-titled fourth album on Monday (February 24) – here, from the Uncut archives (October 2012, Take 185), is a reminder of Annie Clark’s last project – Love This Giant, created with David Byrne. Gather round, then, as Byrne and Clark reveal the secrets of a successful art-rock team-up, swish parties at the French Ambassador’s residence, and being “allergic to cymbals”... Words: Peter Shapiro___________________
The Heartbreakers’ Benmont Tench is about to release a solo album, You Should Be So Lucky, produced by the legendary Glyn Johns. In this star-studded archive piece from Uncut’s December 2011 issue (Take 175), Johns takes us through producing and engineering The Beatles, the Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and more – not a bad CV, you could say… Interview: Graeme Thomson
There’s a very good feature in the current Uncut on the making of XTC’s “Making Plans For Nigel”, which reminded me of a time when I was often in their company, usually in far flung corners of the world, far from their Swindon homes, including the following adventure.
George Clooney's latest film as both actor and director, The Monuments Men, opens in the UK later this week, so it seemed an appropriate moment to dig out this interview I conducted for the late Uncut DVD in New York with Clooney around the release of 2005's Good Night, And Good Luck and Syriana.
