The new issue of Uncut, out today (January 3), features Gram Parsons, Ray Davies, Morrissey on Mick Ronson, and Uncut's 2013 album preview.
Gram Parsons is on the cover, and inside, collaborators and friends tell the whole story of his incredible last stand – his legendary solo albums, GP and Grievous Angel.
There’s a lot to be said for the charisma of premature death. And the manner of his particular dying – turning blue on a motel floor at the age of 26, his heart fatally faltering, ice cubes being stuffed up his ass in a pathetic attempt to bring him back from the brink after one binge too many – booked Gram parsons an automatic place of honour in a rock’n’roll Valhalla already overcrowded with dead young heroes, Jimi, Janis, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke and more already among its spectral population when Gram died in September, 1973.
DIRECTOR Jacqui and David Morris
STARRING Don McCullin
Towards the end of last year, war photographer Don McCullin recently travelled to Syria for one last trip to the frontline.
Interviewed on Radio 4 from Aleppo in December 2012, 76 year-old McCullin said, “I’m not important in all this. I’m just a carrier pigeon bringing this back home.” An amazing, humbling reflection on a career spanning close to 50 years, that saw Don McCullin cover Biafra, Vietnam and Northern Ireland, bringing back home photographic proof of the horrific fallout of war on civilians.
Following on from my blog about Quentin Tarantino's favourite records, I thought I'd post another QT-related titbit, from 1994. In a previous life, as film editor at Melody Maker, I commissioned Jarvis Cocker to review Pulp Fiction for us. Here, then, is Jarvis on Tarantino's early masterpiece...
Beck has hinted that he could release two new albums in 2013.
The US star, who earlier this year released a 20-track album comprised of sheet music titled Song Reader, told NME that he could potentially release two more conventional records in the next twelve months.
The sales of albums in the UK fell by 10 percent in 2012.
The statistics, released by the BPI, also reveal that the CD album market shrunk by a fifth, with sales of albums on CD down 19.5 percent year-on-year with only 69.4m albums sold.
Sales of digital and physical albums combined fell overall again by 11.2 percent to 100.5m over the past 12 months – although singles sales hit a new high.
Bobby Womack has revealed he's suffering from brain disorder Alzheimer’s.
The 68-year-old, who released his first single in 1954, has admitted he struggles to recall the names of his songs and those of his collaborators.
He said: “The doctor says there are signs of Alzheimer’s. It’s not bad yet but will get worse.
He added: "How can I not remember songs I wrote? It’s frustrating. I don't feel together yet. Negative things come in my mind and it's hard for me to remember sometimes."
Ray Davies sheds light on his new projects, including an opera, a film and a solo album, in the new issue of Uncut, out on Thursday (January 3, 2013).
The former Kinks frontman also explains the conflicting feelings he experiences when songwriting.
Revealing what he goes through when he realises he's writing one of his great songs, Davies says: "It’s a moment of excessive emotion. And I do get very emotional when I write, sometimes… It’s just a chill you get.
Before Melody Maker swept me off the street in the manner of a benevolent old codger taking a pallid waif into his kindly, white-haired care in something written to make you weep by the venerable Dickens, I worked for a bleak season or two in the mail order department of a bookstore near Piccadilly Circus.
