I'm not sure what kind of symmetry this represents, but Richard Swift's new album begins with the sound of tapdancing and nears a close with him crooning, rather sweetly, "I wish I were dead most of the time." "Dressed Up For The Letdown" is Swift's third album, and is a concept album of sorts. It's about a singer-songwriter - let's call him Richard Swift - who struggles for years without success, cursing the ignorance of the labels who refuse to sign him.
What I’ve been playing most recently has been Neon Bible, the second album from The Arcade Fire, the follow-up to Funeral and possibly one of the most keenly-anticipated albums of the year, for which great things are predicted and will probably happen.
I worry, occasionally, that this blog has started to give the impression we spend our days at Uncut listening to nothing but serious, respectable artists with a good decade or two of critical acclaim under their belts. Of course, we do listen to Cave, and Bowie, and Neil Young, and Cat Power, and a hell of a lot of Grateful Dead at the moment. You might not believe this, but Allan even digs out a dusty Dylan CD from time to time.
Looking for facts in Nick Cave lyrics is a bit of a dumb game. If you were to take everything he's said at face value, he'd have been dead long ago: hanged for murder, perhaps, at some point in the 19th Century.
It's not often, I must admit, that I have a reason to visit Chanel's website. But there's a great video on there at the moment that amounts to an unveiling of Cat Power's new live line-up. It's quite a shock.
Someone’s put up large printed signs all down Stockwell Road and around Brixton Academy, large black letters on a bright orange background, their authorship unknown but their message starkly clear.
You’ll have to excuse me if I sound as hoarse as a hacksaw this morning and seem more than a little rough around the edges, but I am in slow recovery from an extraordinary night in the company of The Hold Steady, who for today at least are officially the best rock’n’roll band on the planet.
Hard to know what to play this morning. My ears are still ringing from a massive night in the company of The Hold Steady, who played an astonishing gig in a Hoxton bar. As I left, Allan was deep in conversation with their singer, Craig Finn. I'm sure he'll be writing something on his blog about it later. In the meantime, I've found a new David Bowie comp called "The Best Of Bowie 1980/1987" in this morning's post and, perhaps out of wilful perversity, I'm playing it now.
