Apologies for the lack of blogging action these past couple of days. I have a stack of excuses - perilous deadlines, aborted radio interviews, leaving the Super Furry Animals album at home, that sort of thing, as if you care. I'll try and write something about Super Furry Animals' "Hey Venus" in the next couple of days, as well as Richard Hawley, Caribou, Rilo Kiley, that Jason Isbell record I've been meaning to do something about for a month, and so on.
I’ve just finished reading Nick Tosches’ Hellfire, a jaw-dropping biography of Jerry Lee Lewis that is by common agreement the best book about rock’n’roll ever written. I’m reviewing it for next month’s Uncut, and can’t recommend it highly enough.
Been a bit distracted today, as I've been engaged in a Sisyphean task to try and compile all the catalogue numbers of the Factory label, including the cat, Rob Gretton's dental work and so on. Further to my Robert Wyatt review yesterday, I now have a fraction more info to flesh out my impressions.
I've been promising to write about this Robert Wyatt album for quite a while now, I'm aware. But it's been hard to blog about this one. Not because of any problems with the music - it's wonderful, actually. The problem I'm finding is that listening to "Comicopera" is a kind of immersive experience, so much so that it's hard to come out of it with a critical angle.
I was talking recently to fellow Uncut Bob fanatic Damien Love, ostensibly about a feature we are working on together for Uncut’s looming 10th anniversary issue. Pretty soon, however, the conversation had drifted somewhat in the direction of Dylan bootlegs – the alternative Bob universe, if you like – and what might be the best of them.
I just noticed this morning that Jack White has two albums coming out on June 18. There's the White Stripes' "Icky Thump", and then there's "Hentch-Forth.Five" by The Hentchmen.
