I would have bought the issue of Melody Maker in which I first read about Bruce Springsteen on my way into the art school in Newport, where in March 1973 I was in my last term, only a few months away from moving to London and not long after that fetching up on MM as a junior reporter/feature writer, a turn of events that was wholly unexpected and still seems somewhat unreal. Anyway, that was all to come. That Thursday morning, as ever in those days, I picked up a copy of MM at the paper shop at the top of Stow Hill, then eagerly devoured it on the bus into town.
ARE WE ROLLING?
Before meeting him for the first time recently for the feature in this month's issue, I read a lot of interviews with Tame Impala's Kevin Parker in which he was variously cast as a brooding outsider, a sullen introvert, generally moody, an outcast, someone on the edge of things, inclined to solitary misery.
A couple of months ago, I was staying with an old friend, whose teenage daughter was heading out to an ‘80s movie all-nighter. Before she went, she listed what they were going to watch; Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – the kind of John Hughes films that are now routinely used as exemplars of that decade. Her father and I were talking, and we realised we hadn’t actually seen any of them.
Laura Marling is streaming her new album, Once I Was An Eagle, online a week before its official release.
Listen to the follow-up to 2011's A Creature I Don't Know via The Guardian.
Her fourth album, it was recorded at the Three Crows Studio owned by producer and solo musician Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon, Ryan Adams, Vaccines), with Dom Monks on engineering duties. It is set for release on May 27.
Queens Of The Stone Age have compiled all their recent animated videos into a 15 minute long promo for their forthcoming new album, …Like Clockwork.
Click below to watch the video, which starts with the previously released clip for 'I Appear Missing' before segueing into 'Kalopsia', 'Keep Your Eyes Peeled' and 'If I Had A Tail', finishing up with 'My God Is The Sun', which was the very first track to be revealed from the band's sixth album, after being played live at Lollapalooza Brazil in March.
The Clash are to release a new box set featuring remastered versions of their first five albums, The Clash (1977), Give ‘Em Enough Rope (1978), London Calling (1979), Sandinista! (1980) and Combat Rock (1982).
Ray Manzarek has died after a battle with cancer. He was 74.
The news was broken by The Doors' official Facebook page who wrote that Manzarek passed away at 12:31pm (PT) today (May 20) at the RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, Germany. They add that Manzarek was surrounded by family, his brothers Ric and James and his wife Dorothy at the time of his death.
Uncut contributor Damon Wise is at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Here's his first look review of the new Coen brothers film, set in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s: Inside Llewyn Davis...
