Primal Scream have announced My Bloody Valentine's Debbie Googe as their new touring bass player.
Googe, who was a founding member of My Bloody Valentine and also a member of Showpony and the Bikini Mutants, will join the band's live line-up for the foreseeable future.
She replaces Gary 'Mani' Mountfield in the band's line-up. Mountfield left to rejoin The Stone Roses for their reunion tour late last year.
Bob Dylan will be rewarded with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor given by the United States, according to a report in the New York Times.
The White House said in a statement that President Obama had named 13 recipients of the medal, which is granted to “individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
Radiohead's Thom Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich debuted new songs from their Atoms For Peace supergroup during their DJ set at an LA club on Friday [April 27].
The duo, who play in the band alongside Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, Joey Waronker and Mauro Refosco, played the new songs during their set at Transmission LA: AV Club, a free 17-day music and visual arts festival series at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, curated by the Beastie Boys’ Mike D.
Sam Shepard himself takes a rare lead in Blackthorn, which expands on the theories that Butch Cassidy somehow survived the shoot out at San Vicente, Bolivia in 1908. “I woke up and found myself alone,” he explains. “Seemed like everybody I knew was either dead or in jail. And they thought I was dead, too. So I did what any good dead person would do. I went off and raised me some horses. 20 years. That’s a big change. Quiet times.” Cassidy, in his twilight years, decides to return to America, to be reunited with family.
Paul Simon has insisted that he was no regrets over the recording of his album Graceland in South Africa.
Simon was widely criticised for travelling to the country and making the 1986 with South African musicians, for effectively breaking the cultural boycott of the country due to its racist Apartheid regime.
It's a busy week for film. Marvel Comics' superhero team-up Avengers Assemble arrived in cinemas last night, while yesterday the inaugural three-day Sundance London Festival opened for business at the 02 Arena with a screening Under African Skies, a documentary about the making of Paul Simon's Graceland album.
One swift month ago, I wrote a blog about Ty Segall and White Fence’s excellent Hair album, repeating a story that Segall had another couple of albums in the pipeline. Well, one has already turned up; but before we get there, perhaps check this astounding live clip of Segall, Tim ‘White Fence’ Presley, Mikal Cronin et al going for it on “Scissor People”:
In the latest issue of Uncut (Take 181, June 2012), out now, we visit Tom Petty at his California home to discuss the history of the Heartbreakers, why he's "a ridiculous control freak" and why the group are heading to the UK for the first time in 15 years – so it seems like a good time to check out this great piece by Adam Sweeting on Petty's 'lost classic', 1985's Southern Accents, from Uncut's May 2004 issue.
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