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The Replacements announce 40th anniversary edition of Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash

Michael Bonner
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The Replacements announce 40th anniversary edition of Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash

The Replacements have announced a 40th anniversary deluxe edition of their 1981 debut album, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash.

Released through Rhino on October 22, the 4CD/1LP set features 100 tracks, 67 of which have never been released before. These include the band’s first demos recorded in early 1980, as well as a live show recorded at the 7th St Entry in Minneapolis from January 1981. Along with a newly remastered version of the original album, the deluxe edition also uncovers unreleased rough mixes, alternate takes and demos from the band’s first 18 months together.

The LP included in the set, titled Deliberate Noise, presents an alternate version of the original album using these previously unreleased tracks.

The deluxe edition will be available from Dig! on October 22 for £67.99 and can be pre-ordered now from here. An exclusive bundle is also available via Dig! for £70.99 that includes the boxed set and a 7” reissue of The Replacements’ first single “I’m In Trouble” b/w “If Only You Were Lonely”. The music from the collection will also be available through digital and streaming services. This edition contains new liner notes and unseen photos.

You can hear an unreleased version of “I Hate Music (Studio Demo)” below:

Disc One: Original Album (2021 Remaster)
“Takin A Ride”
“Careless”
“Customer”
“Hangin Downtown”
“Kick Your Door Down”
“Otto”
“I Bought A Headache”
“Rattlesnake”
“I Hate Music”
“Johnny’s Gonna Die”
“Shiftless When Idle”
“More Cigarettes”
“Don’t Ask Why”
“Somethin To Dü”
“I’m In Trouble”
“Love You Till Friday”
“Shutup”
“Raised In The City”
“If Only You Were Lonely” – B-Side

Disc Two: Raised In The City – The Early Recordings
“Try Me” – Demo
“She’s Firm” – Demo
“Lookin For Ya” – Demo
“Raised In The City” – Demo
“Shutup” – Demo
“Don’t Turn Me Down” – Demo
“Shape Up” – Demo
“I Hate Music” – Studio Demo
“Careless” – Studio Demo
“Shutup” – Studio Demo
“Otto” – Studio Demo
“Get On The Stick” – Studio Demo
“Oh Baby” – Studio Demo
“Raised In The City” – Studio Demo
“Shiftless When Idle” – Studio Demo
“More Cigarettes” – Studio Demo
“You Ain’t Gotta Dance” – Studio Demo
“Don’t Turn Me Down” – Studio Demo
“Rattlesnake” – Basement Version
“Takin’ A Ride” – Basement Version
“Lie About Your Age” – Basement Version
“We’ll Get Drunk/Customer” – Basement Version
“Johnny Fast” – Basement Version
“Mistake” – Basement Version
Basement Jam – Rehearsal

Disc Three: Tape’s Rolling – Studio Outtakes, Alternates & Home Demos
“Careless” – Alternate Version
“Takin A Ride” – Alternate Version
“Shutup” – Alternate Version
“Otto” – Alternate Mix
“Raised In The City” – Alternate Version
“Rattlesnake” – Alternate Mix
“Love You Till Friday” – Alternate Version
“Customer” – Alternate Version
“Somethin To Dü” – Alternate Version
“Johnny’s Gonna Die” – Alternate Version
“I’m In Trouble” – Alternate Version
“I Hate Music” – Alternate Version
“We’ll Get Drunk”
“More Cigarettes” – Alternate Mix
“Get Lost” – Instrumental
“Hangin Downtown” – Alternate Version
“Shutup” – Alternate Version 2
“Somethin To Dü” – Alternate Version 2
“Don’t Ask Why” – Alternate Mix
“Kick Your Door Down” – Alternate Mix
“Love You Till Friday” – Alternate Mix
“Johnny’s Gonna Die” – Alternate Mix
“Like You” – Outtake
“Get Lost” – Outtake
“A Toe Needs A Shoe” – Outtake
“You’re Pretty When You’re Rude” – Solo Home Demo
“If Only You Were Lonely” – Working Version/Solo Home Demo
“Bad Worker” – Solo Home Demo
“You’re Getting Married” – Solo Home Demo

Disc Four: Unsuitable for Airplay – The Lost KFAI Concert (Live at the 7th St Entry, Minneapolis, MN, 1/23/81)
“Careless”
“Takin A Ride”
“Trouble Boys”
“Hangin Downtown”
“Like You”
“Off Your Pants”
“Get Lost”
“Excuse Me”
“Customer”
“I Wanna Be Loved”
“Mistake”
“My Town”
“Shiftless When Idle”
“Oh Baby”
“I’m In Trouble”
“Johnny’s Gonna Die/All By Myself”
“More Cigarettes”
“Otto”
“Don’t Ask Why”
“Slow Down”
“Somethin To Dü”
“Love You Till Friday”
“Raised In The City”
“Rattlesnake”
“All Day And All Of The Night”
“I Hate Music”
“Shutup”

LP: Deliberate Noise – The Alternate Sorry Ma…
Vinyl Track Listing

Side One
“Takin A Ride” – Alternate Version
“Careless” – Alternate Version
“Customer” – Alternate Version
“Hangin Downtown” – Alternate Version
“Kick Your Door Down” – Alternate Mix
“Otto” – Alternate Mix
“I Bought A Headache” – Alternate Mix
“Rattlesnake” – Alternate Mix
“I Hate Music” – Studio Demo

Side Two
“Johnny’s Gonna Die” – Alternate Mix
“Shiftless When Idle” – Studio Demo
“More Cigarettes” – Alternate Mix
“Don’t Ask Why” – Alternate Mix
“Somethin To Dü” – Alternate Version 2
“I’m In Trouble” – Alternate Version
“Love You Till Friday” – Alternate Mix
“Shutup” – Alternate Version
“Raised In The City” – Alternate Version

Lynyrd Skynyrd cancel US dates after guitarist Rickey Medlocke tests positive for Covid-19

Daniel Seah
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Lynyrd Skynyrd cancel US dates after guitarist Rickey Medlocke tests positive for Covid-19

Lynyrd Skynyrd have cancelled four dates in the US with guitarist Rickey Medlocke having tested positive for COVID-19.

The band announced the cancellation of shows in Ohio, Michigan, Atlanta and Alabama on Facebook: “Rickey is home resting and responding well to treatment. We will continue to update you on his condition.”

The band’s show in Cullman, Alabama, which was originally slated for August 13, is “being rescheduled” to take place on October 23 instead. No announcement has yet been made on whether the other shows will get replacement dates.

Their next gig is still set to go down on August 19 in Canandaigua, New York.

This is the second medical emergency the Southern rockers have faced in recent times. In late July, guitarist Gary Rossington pulled out from the tour to recover from emergency heart surgery. In his stead, the band recruited Damon Johnson, who previously played with Alice Cooper and Thin Lizzy.

“Gary is home resting and recovering with his family at home. He wants everyone to know he is doing good and expects a full recovery,” the band wrote on Facebook at the time.

Lynyrd Skynyrd are currently on the Last Of The Street Survivors Farewell Tour, an extensive string of shows that was supposed to run from 2018 to late 2020. COVID-19 forced the band to reschedule most of their dates in 2020 to 2021.

Stevie Nicks cancels 2021 tour dates due to coronavirus concerns: “I’m devastated”

Tom Skinner
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Stevie Nicks cancels 2021 tour dates due to coronavirus concerns: “I’m devastated”

Stevie Nicks has cancelled her scheduled 2021 tour dates due to coronavirus concerns.

The Fleetwood Mac singer was due to perform a number of US solo shows this year, including at Austin City Limits, BottleRock Napa Valley and Colorado’s Jazz Aspen Festival.

Sharing a statement on social media last night (August 10), Nicks announced that the concerts will no longer take place while addressing these “challenging times with challenging decisions”.

“I want everyone to be safe and healthy and the rising Covid cases [in the US] should be of concern to all of us,” the 73-year-old singer wrote, adding that she is “still being extremely cautious” despite being fully vaccinated.

“Because singing and performing have been my whole life, my primary goal is to keep healthy so I can continue singing for the next decade or longer. I’m devastated and know the fans are disappointed, but we will look towards a brighter 2022.”

You can see the full statement below.

BottleRock, which takes place in Napa, California between September 3-5, has replaced Nicks with Chris Stapleton. ACL, meanwhile, told ticketholders that line-up additions would be “coming soon”.

See those posts below.

Nicks was also scheduled to perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, although the event was cancelled earlier this week due to an “exponential growth” in coronavirus cases.

Last month, Stevie Nicks reflected on her debut solo album Bella Donna to mark its 40th anniversary.

“I could not have been more proud of those songs or the three months it took me, the girls and [producer] Jimmy Iovine to craft it,” she wrote. “It did not break up Fleetwood Mac. If anything, it kept us together.”

Watch Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen perform “Like I Used To” acoustic version

Tom Skinner
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Watch Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen perform “Like I Used To” acoustic version

Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen performed their collaborative track “Like I Used To” on US TV last night – check out the video below.

The two singer-songwriters joined forces to record the John Congleton-produced single earlier this year.

Van Etten and Olsen were introduced as musical guests by guest host David Spade on Monday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. The duo then played a stripped-back version of “Like I Used To”, which saw them play acoustic guitars in a dark studio space.

The new take on the collaboration was later officially released on streaming platforms, which you can listen to below.

“Stripping songs back like we used to,” Olsen wrote on Instagram while announcing the release. Van Etten, meanwhile, said that the pair “love how this one came together” in its new form.

Speaking about the collaboration upon its release in May, Van Etten explained: “Even though we weren’t super close, I always felt supported by Angel and considered her a peer in this weird world of touring. We highway high-fived many times along the way…”

Olsen added: “I’ve met with Sharon here and there throughout the years and have always felt too shy to ask her what she’s been up to or working on.

“The song reminded me immediately of getting back to where I started, before music was expected of me, or much was expected of me, a time that remains pure and real in my heart.”

Meanwhile, Van Etten recently joined Beck onstage during his performance at the Newport Folk Festival. Together the pair played “Asshole” from the latter’s 1994 album One Foot In The Grave.

Big Thief share new tracks “Little Things” and “Sparrow”

Nick Reilly
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Big Thief share new tracks “Little Things” and “Sparrow”

Big Thief have shared two new tracks, “Little Things” and “Sparrow”, marking their first new material since their 2019 album Two Hands.

Produced by drummer James Krivchenia, the songs were recorded at Five Star Studios in Topanga, California and the Catskills’ Flying Cloud Recordings.

Describing “Little Things”, Krivchenia said: “It’s in this sort of evolving free time signature where the beat is always changing, so Max [Oleartchik, bassist] and I were just flowing with it and guessing where the downbeats were – which gives the groove a really cool light feeling.”

He added of “Sparrow”: “We all just scattered about the room without headphones, focused and in the music – you could feel that something special was happening.

“It was a funny instrumentation that had a really cool natural arrangement chemistry – Max on piano, Buck [Meek, guitarist/vocalist] providing this dark ambience, me on floor tom and snare and Adrianne in the middle of it with the acoustic and singing.”

In June, Big Thief announced a UK and European tour for early 2022.

The four-piece – Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek, Krivchenia and Max Oleartchik – will play 23 headline shows from January to March next year, concluding with a trio of gigs at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London.

In March, Meek gave an update on the status of the band’s new album, revealing that it’s “pretty much done”.

Speaking to Guitar.com, Meek revealed that the band have been quietly working on their fifth album over the past year.

“Lockdown was a well-needed respite, I needed a break,” he said. “And then Big Thief ended up making new music for nearly six months, which was really nice because we’ve been touring so hard we’ve had little chance to record in the last couple of years.”

Meek also revealed that he’s already been working on his new solo album, the follow-up to “Two Saviors”, which dropped in January this year.

The forthcoming Big Thief album will mark their first since the one-two punch of U.F.O.F. and Two Hands in 2019.

Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie sells song rights to Hipgnosis

Nick Reilly
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Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie sells song rights to Hipgnosis

Fleetwood Mac‘s Christine McVie, who wrote iconic hits such as “Little Lies” and “Don’t Stop”, has become the latest artist to sell her back catalogue of hits to Hipgnosis.

The singer-songwriter sold the copyright of 115 songs to the London firm for an undisclosed fee, which gives investors the chance to take advantage of royalties from a selection of classic hits.

Merck Mercuriadis, the founder and chief executive of Hipgnosis, said: “In the last 46 years the band have had three distinct writers and vocalists but Christine’s importance is amply demonstrated by the fact that eight of the 16 songs on the band’s Greatest Hits albums are from Christine.”

Mercuriadis, the former manager of Beyoncé and Elton John, obtained the catalogue of McVie‘s former bandmate Lindsey Buckingham in January. It included 161 songs including “Go Your Own Way”.

“I am so excited to belong to the Hipgnosis family, and thrilled that you all regard my songs worthy of merit,” said McVie.

Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac
Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac perform onstage during the 2018 iHeartRadio Music Festival at T-Mobile Arena on September 21, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for iHeartMedia

Hipgnosis, which has spent more than $2billion (£1.4billion) buying the rights to hits from iconic artists such as Neil Young, said it now owns the rights to 48 of 68 tracks on Fleetwood Mac’s most successful albums.

The investment company also made waves after purchasing the catalogues of artists including Blondie and half of Neil Young’s songs in a deal thought to be worth an estimated $150million (£110million).

Shakira also sold all 145 of her songs including “Hips Don’t Lie”, “She Wolf” and “Whenever, Wherever”, all part of the deal.

Earlier this year Mercuriadis said that cultural importance is key when it comes to the artists whose back catalogues they have acquired.

“So, with over £1bn invested, we only own 57,000 songs. But 10,000 of them are Top 10 songs, almost 3,000 of them are No.1 songs. So it’s a very small catalogue, relative to Universal, Warner or Sony. But the ratio of success within that catalogue is very high, there are very few songs that are not successes.”

The Ronnie Wood Band share Jimmy Reed covers “Shame Shame Shame” and “Roll And Rhumba”

Charlotte Krol
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The Ronnie Wood Band share Jimmy Reed covers “Shame Shame Shame” and “Roll And Rhumba”

The Ronnie Wood Band have shared two new covers from their forthcoming album Mr Luck – A Tribute to Jimmy Reed: Live at the Royal Albert Hall.

“Shame, Shame, Shame” and the instrumental “Roll And Rhumba” appear on the second instalment of the band’s live album trilogy. The project pays tribute to one of The Rolling Stones guitarist’s heroes, the Mississippi blues legend Jimmy Reed.

Mr Luck – A Tribute to Jimmy Reed: Live at the Royal Albert Hall is an 18-track live recording of the band’s performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall on November 1, 2013. Guest spots include Bobby Womack and Simply Red‘s Mick Hucknall.

Paul Weller appears on “Shame Shame Shame”, which was originally released in 1963, while “Roll And Rhumba” is a lively instrumental interpretation of Reed‘s song – listen below.

Wood said in a statement: “Jimmy Reed was one of the premier influences on the Rolling Stones and all the bands that love American blues from that era until the present day. It is my honour to have the opportunity to celebrate his life and legacy with this tribute.”

The live album follows The Ronnie Wood Band’s 2019 record Mad Lad that honoured the work of Chuck Berry. It’s set for release on September 17 via BMG.

Mr Luck – A Tribute to Jimmy Reed: Live at the Royal Albert Hall tracklist:

01. “Essence”
02. “Good Lover”
03. “Mr. Luck”
04. “Let’s Get Together”
05. “Ain’t That Loving You Baby”
06. “Honest I Do”
07. “High And Lonesome”
08. “Baby What You Want Me To Do”
09. “Roll and Rhumba”
10. “You Don’t Have To Go”
11. “Shame Shame Shame”
12. “I’m That Man Down There”
13. “Got No Where To Go”
14. “Big Boss Man”
15. “I Ain’t Got You”
16. “I’m Going Upside Your Head”
17. “Bright Lights Big City”
18. “Ghost Of A Man”

Meanwhile, The Rolling Stones are due to resume the US leg of their ‘No Filter’ tour in St. Louis on September 26 after the dates were postponed in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Members of the band have also shown their support for drummer Charlie Watts after he pulled out of their upcoming US tour to “rest and recuperate” following a medical procedure.

British Sea Power change name to Sea Power, announce new album with single “Two Fingers”

Charlotte Krol
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British Sea Power change name to Sea Power, announce new album with single “Two Fingers”

British Sea Power have announced a name change and new album alongside the release of the single “Two Fingers”.

Now known as Sea Power, the band are back after four years with new music and the follow-up to “Let The Dancers Inherit The Party”. New album Everything Was Forever is released on February 11, 2022.

Leading the news is “Two Fingers”, a song that the band describes as having “strong hopeful intent, a desire to start anew” amid contrasting observations about racism and the social fabric of the UK.

“The song is part inspired by our late dad”, co-frontman Yan Wilkinson said. “He was always giving a two-fingered salute to people on the telly – a kind of old-fashioned drinking term, toasting people or events: ‘I’ll drink two fingers to that’, to some news item or to memories of a childhood friend.

Yan, who is joined by his brother Hamilton alongside Martin Noble and Matthew Wood in the group, added: “In the song it’s a toast to everyone, remembering those in our lives and those sadly no longer here and to making the world a better place. The song is ‘Fuck me, fuck you, fuck everything.’ But it’s also ‘Love me, love you, love everything’ – exultation in the darkness. If you say ‘fuck you’ in the right way, it really can be cathartic, a new start.”

He continued: “It’s maybe interesting that the song mentions nightmare monsters from the world of [writer] HP Lovecraft. This song has been around a little while, partly because of the big interruption of Covid. Between the song being written and the album being finished, the TV series Lovecraft Country was broadcast – which took the supernatural Lovecraft and ran it alongside 1950s America and Lovecraft’s racism.

“[Lovecraft] was a terrible racist, a white supremacist, which is why his world is there in the song, like anti-matter – something full of horror and mankind at its worst. But, alongside the negative forces in the song, there’s also a strong hopeful intent, a desire to start anew. Beyond that, the track has influences that are just inspiring – David Lynch, Cold War Steve, the Sex Pistols, Joe Meek’s Telstar, the beauty of isolated landscapes.”

The band said they decided to change their name to Sea Power to avoid any misinterpretations of jingoism. They said in press material that they “deeply love the British Isles” but the name change “is modest gesture of separation from the wave of crass nationalism that has traversed our world recently”.

Sea Power, Everything Was Forever
Everything Was Forever artwork. Credit: Press

Everything Was Forever tracklist:

01. “Scaring At The Sky”
02. “Transmitter”
03. “Two Fingers”
04. “Fire Escape In The Sea”
05. “Doppelgänger”
06. “Fear Eats The Soul”
07. “Folly”
08. “Green Goddess”
09. “Lakeland Echo”
10. “We Only Want To Make You Happy”

Fans can pre-order Everything Was Forever here.

Big Red Machine’s Aaron Dessner: “We’ve never had a master plan. We just kept making things”

Laura Barton
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Big Red Machine’s Aaron Dessner: “We’ve never had a master plan. We just kept making things”

Late November, 2019 in downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin and lines of well-wrapped people snake through the cold night, stretching from the Masonic Ballroom on Graham Avenue to the Unitarian Universalist Chapel on Farwell Street. This is Eaux Claires Hiver, an event that hovers somewhere between a festival and an artistic residency. Musicians and artists have spent several days experimenting and working with one another and are now presenting their collaborations to small audiences in intimate locations across the town. The event’s curators, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and The National’s Aaron Dessner, have stood on the Ballroom stage and welcomed us. There have been sets by Jon Hopkins and Shahzad Ismaily and a Q&A with Ani DiFranco.

Later, there will be a tribute to Prince. On the third night, meanwhile, Big Red Machine take over the main hall at the Pablo Center – a large, modern arts building on the Chippewa River. The band, made up of Vernon and Dessner, play as if they are not so much performing as deep in conversation with one another. This is not a set of crowd-pleasers – only one track appeared on the band’s first album. The rest are new works, semi-formed, their edges still sketchy and blurred. Still, the audience is rapt.

Next month, many of those songs appear, fully fledged, on Big Red Machine’s second album, How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?. It is an extraordinary record: contemplative, tender, strikingly vulnerable, pulling in collaborations with Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold, Taylor Swift, Sharon Van Etten and Anaïs Mitchell among others. “I can’t think of another record like this, where it’s not really a band, but tons of lead singers,” says Vernon.

The album is the product of four years’ worth of recording sessions, live shows, dabblings, half-thoughts and conversations. “At some point, Justin and I got in the habit of getting together and bouncing off each other,” Dessner says, down the line from Long Pond – the studio in Upstate New York where he’s recorded everything from The National to Swift’s two lockdown albums, Folklore and Evermore, and where Big Red Machine songs are largely put together. “We were talking a lot about community and collaboration and the fabric of voices, about music that is meaningful. But we’ve never had a master plan. It’s kind of like we just kept making things.”

READ THE FULL STORY IN UNCUT SEPTEMBER 2021

Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide to Van Morrison

John Robinson
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Introducing the Ultimate Music Guide to Van Morrison

BUY THE VAN MORRISON ULTIMATE MUSIC GUIDE HERE

It’s the burden of a legendary performer to be a figure on whom everyone has an opinion. Some rise above it all, the books, the speculation, because they’re the ones who know the real story and, after all, what’s the harm?

Not so Van Morrison. A musician with a particularly acute wish to retain ownership not only of his process, but also of discussion of his process, he is not someone to let it lie. He’s no fan of biographers, being as they often are reliant on the testimony of individuals other than Van Morrison. Never precisely welcoming, he’s also become increasingly exacting with the reporters sent to uncover the stories behind his new records.

As you’ll read in this deluxe Ultimate Music Guide, in which we match up in-depth reviews of Van’s extensive catalogue with a series of lively – sometimes to the point of challenging – archive interviews from throughout his career, this can often take some slightly bizarre turns. In Uncut’s two most recent encounters with Van, the issue is raised of the manner in which the composer is able to guide his musicians across gradually unfolding compositions which arrive at transcendent heights, with seemingly little direction.

Van is having none of that. “That’s rubbish, for a start,” he tells David Cavanagh in 2017. “It’s makey-up. Fake news.” Courteously, but clearly unwilling to be the person that allows Morrison to flatly deny his own genius and undermine the legend of his sylvan and free-flowing 1970s classics, David quietly insists that all things considered, there must have been some kind of genius at work. Here Van and he come to a kind of compromise – Van seems ok with that idea, as long as it’s acknowledged that there was always a structure to the music, that it didn’t magically appear.

As you read in the following pages – updated to include an appraisal of Van’s recent surge of prolific creativity – and relisten to his albums, it’s worth bearing that insistence in mind. Not least because this is music which retains a magical quality, in spite of its maker’s recent insistence on stressing the nuts and bolts. Each chapter is quite different to the last but takes its place as a subtle movement in a much larger body of work.

Lately, I’ve been most drawn to Common One, a record which doesn’t begin so much as imperceptibly materialise with the song Haunts Of Ancient Peace. It appears almost inexplicably, like a miraculous change in expression on a religious statue, suddenly noticed by local people. As you’ll likely know, Van follows this song up with Summertime In England, an atomised 15 minute soul number in which the singer riffs on James Joyce, Wordsworth and Coleridge. “Why…” the song asks again and again, only to be answered, “…it just is.” It’s the sort of album you could rhapsodize about ad nauseam.

Van himself doesn’t really go in for that kind of thing. “I felt that we were on to something on that album, with that particular group of musicians,” he told Uncut’s Graeme Thomson last year. “The songs and the musicians and the way the thing happens sort of dictate the direction.”

Enjoy the magazine.

Buy a copy of the magazine here. Missed one in the series? Bundles are available at the same location.

Michael Small – The Parallax View: Original Soundtrack

Rob Young
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Michael Small – The Parallax View: Original Soundtrack

“If the picture works,” director Alan J Pakula said of 1974’s The Parallax View, “the audience will trust the person sitting next to them a little less at the end of the film.” The Parallax View is a key paranoia-conspiracy movie from a decade – the 1970s – that was full of them, from The Conversation to Three Days Of The Condor and Pakula’s next work, All The President’s Men. Adapted from a novel reflecting unease around the disappearance of many individuals connected to the JFK assassination, the film imagines a shady deep state organisation bumping off witnesses to a presidential murder. This release compiles every note of music from the original photoplay on vinyl for the first time.

Composer Michael Small had already soundtracked two previous Pakula movies, including the excellent Klute. He felt the latter had waded into too-dark waters, and his theme tune and cues – totalling just 24 minutes – speak to Parallax’s slow-burning, ominous disquiet. The main theme is a looming chord on deep strings with classic blips of piano and woodwind: menace and suspicion leach out of every bar. A lone violin slices diametrically athwart orchestral string-sweeps, an individual out of kilter with a larger entity. Written to accompany a tracking shot of corrupt judges dismissing a case, the cue was intended as a broody distortion of a patriotic anthem. The composer considered this appropriate in a film that was “exploring conspiracy as skewed, inverted loyalty.”

The most challenging sequence – the film’s notorious centrepiece – is Beatty’s induction at the Parallax organisation’s Division of Human Engineering (the chillingly calm voice of his unseen interlocutor is now revealed to be Pakula himself). In order to inculcate emotions of anger and injustice, prospective assassins are force-fed a montage of American iconography, from historical paintings to photos of Depression-era poverty, images of idealised family life and the unattainability of the American Dream. The music Small wrote to accompany the brainwashing is a nostalgic distillation of country rock and folk-pop, rising to a chest-swelling Sousa-style march, then whipping up passions with searing Farfisa-heavy acid rock. It’s a masterstroke that recognises the power of battle hymns to stoke nationalist fervour and inspire murderous vengeance.

Small’s soundtrack was praised at the time of the release – Pakula stated it was one of his favourite scores – and he went on to compose for unsettling thrillers such as The China Syndrome and Marathon Man. Meanwhile, with its pessimistic portrayal of subverted democracy, homegrown terrorism, and the engineered mistrust of government, The
Parallax View speaks more clearly than ever to a contemporary USA of 4chan nutjob recruitment, a besieged Capitol and weapons-toting members of Congress.

Various Artists – Fire Over Babylon: Dread, Peace & Conscious Sounds at Studio One

Jon Dale
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Various Artists – Fire Over Babylon: Dread, Peace & Conscious Sounds at Studio One

Over the past few decades, Soul Jazz have made a name for themselves with stylish, smartly conceptualised comps. Their curatorial touch is sure but lightly applied, and if they sometimes skirt predictability, there’s something to be said for the reliability of their approach, particularly when taking on a catalogue as deep as the productions made at Clement Dodd’s Studio One, the ‘Motown of Jamaica’. A legendary place, with Dodd a gifted producer, some of reggae’s greatest passed through – Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Bunny Wailer and Johnny Nash all cut sides there, often backed by house band the Skatalites; arranger Jackie Mittoo finetuned his craft at the studio, too.

Fire Over Babylon is particularly potent, though, for its focus, pulling together a selection of Studio One sides lit by the devotional spirit of Rastafarianism. A religion steeped in defiance of ongoing colonial invasion, Rastafarianism cohered as a belief system in the 1930s, with preachers calling for a return of all black people to Africa, following the appearance of their new god. Rastafarianism’s history is a complex one, a sect in perpetual battle with hegemonic institutional forces (the police, the government), defiantly anti-capitalist, and imbued with a deep sense of righteousness, ‘rebel spirit’, and a relentless drive towards black self-determination.

Dodd never clearly articulated his faith to the public, but he ran deep with Rastafarian artistic communities. He’d take members of the Skatalites to drummer Count Ossie’s ‘reasoning and jam sessions’ in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. Ossie was central to the development and dissemination of nyabinghi, a compelling rhythmic base to those reasoning sessions. At its most furious and expansive, Ossie’s music was properly psychedelic, as form-disruptive and mantric as free jazz: Soul Jazz head Stuart Baker describes Ossie’s work with Cedric “Im” Brooks and the Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari, as a “supergroup the equivalent of Sun Ra and John Coltrane in jazz”.

Ossie’s contribution to Fire Over Babylon, ecorded in collaboration with Brooks, feels like the centrepiece of the collection, the magnetic attractor around which all the other material gathers. On Give Me Back Me Language And Me Culture, the flipside of a 1971 single that originally appeared on producer and label owner Junior Lincoln’s Banana imprint, Ossie and Brooks tie everything together in a spectacular production: the bubbling brook of hand-pulsing rhythms draw from nyabinghi traditions; the brass arrangement calls back to mento; the bass is a slow, sly depth charge; the vocal chorus is gently insistent, an imploring chant.

Just as often, though, the heaviness of the songs’ content is often belied by the fleet-footedness of the production – Devon Russell’s Jah Jah Fire, for example, is breezy, aerated, its rustling, buzzing organ the melodic sugarcoating on Russell’s devotional plaint. By contrast, The Gladiators’ Sonia is starchy and stripped back, its rhythm carved from a granite block of texture, a minimalist masterpiece of interlocking parts. There’s a fierceness to the discipline here that can gift even the lightest of production touches with the heaviest gestural implications: the playing is tight, in the pocket, the better to build a solid foundation for the vocalists’ to-and-fro chants and soul-spun melancholy.

That discipline, something that’s always felt core to Clement Dodd’s productions with Studio One, isn’t stentorian, though. There’s great playfulness and pleasure at the heart of Fire Over Babylon: from the way the trumpet skates and glides over the lithe rhythms and dubbed-out rimshots of Judah Eskender Tafari, or the hissing hi-hats and wandering bass that grounds The Prospectors’ Glory For I, there’s space here for joy and celebration, too. Wailing Souls’ Rock But Don’t Fall, a lovely, chimeric thing that rides in on chiming piano chords and a muted guitar riff, captures the spirit here tidily: spiritual but open, light and loving but with depth of conviction.

If there’s any risk here, it’s that Fire Over Babylon doesn’t allow for the extension that can make Rastafarian roots music so intoxicating. Some of the most powerful material in this realm was recorded elsewhere, like Dadawah’s Peace And Love: Wadadasow, and the epochal sets Ossie and Brooks essayed with Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari, titles like Grounation, Tales Of Mozambique and One Truth. That’s maybe a little unfair to Soul Jazz’s focus on the Studio One archives, and they’ve certainly done an excellent job with Fire Over Babylon. Think of it as just one of many angles you could take on this eternally nourishing music, and you won’t walk wrong.

Van Morrison – The Ultimate Music Guide

Uncut
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Van Morrison – The Ultimate Music Guide

As the man rides a surging wave of creativity, and returns to playing live, we present the deluxe, updated Ultimate Music Guide to Van Morrison. In-depth writing on (and revealing interviews from) all eras of Van’s work: from Them to Latest Record Project, via Astral Weeks, Moondance and Common One. “Let your soul and spirit fly…”

Buy a copy here!

Two handwritten Beatles setlists from band’s early days going up for auction

David James Young
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Two handwritten Beatles setlists from band’s early days going up for auction

Two handwritten setlists from the early days of The Beatles are officially going under the hammer courtesy of Bonhams auction house.

The setlists, among only eight believed to still be in existence, are from gigs the band played in 1960 and 1963. The former, written by Paul McCartney, is from the band’s gig at Liscard’s Grosvenor Ballroom shortly before changing their name from The Silver Beetles to The Beatles. McCartney was the band’s drummer at the time.

The latter, meanwhile, comes from the first of two sets the band played at the Majestic Ballroom in Luton. It is also written by McCartney: it’s written in capital letters as opposed to the 1960’s setlist, which was penned in cursive. By this point, the band’s classic lineup had been established and their debut album, Please Please Me, had been released.

The setlists are expected to go for anywhere between $150,000 and $250,000 when they go under the hammer on October 28.

Bonhams’ Senior Specialist of Music for their Popular Culture department, Howard Kramer, explained the significance of both setlists in a statement to Rolling Stone.

“At this point, the Beatles were about to become a band in the truest sense,” he said of the 1960 setlist. “Pete Best had yet to join the band and the first Hamburg engagement was about two months out. Pretty soon, there was no looking back.”

Kramer also noted the rarity of the setlists. “There’s very few tangible, physical items directly used by the band that become available to the public,” he said. “The Beatles are still the most collectible music group, and these two documents reveal their inner workings.”

Other Beatles memorabilia that has recently gone under the hammer include letters, work permits and other documentation from the Fab Four’s time in Hamburg, as well as a letter handwritten by Macca jovially settling a long-standing ‘debt’ over a blanket.

In other Beatles news, the docuseries McCartney 3,2,1 will air in the UK on Disney+ later this month. In the six-episode series, McCartney will break down his career with the super producer Rick Rubin.

Black Sabbath announce huge new Technical Ecstasy box set

Patrick Clarke
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Black Sabbath announce huge new Technical Ecstasy box set

Black Sabbath will mark 45 years of their seventh album Technical Ecstasy with the release of a huge new box set.

The 1976 album will be repackaged in a five LP or four CD box set, encompassing remastered and alternate mixes of the album from producer Steven Wilson, as well as a host of outtakes and live versions.

It will be released on October 1, and priced between £90 and £210. You can take a look at the package, which also includes a booklet, recreated tour programme and poster, in the tweet below.

Released in September 1976 to mixed reviews, Technical Ecstasy was a commercial success, and backed with a tour that saw the band supported by AC/DC.

The fractious tour saw singer Ozzy Osbourne at one point leave the band to be replaced by Savoy Brown’s Dave Walker. Osbourne would return for 1978’s Never Say Die, but was afterwards replaced permanently by Ronnie James Dio.

The ‘Super Deluxe’ version of Technical Ecstasy is the latest in a series of reissues from the metal legends. Earlier this year, they put out a reissue of their fourth album Vol. 4 containing 20 previously unreleased tracks.

Damon Albarn announced for End Of The Road Festival

Michael Bonner
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Damon Albarn announced for End Of The Road Festival

Damon Albarn is the latest artist announced for this year’s End Of The Road Festival.

He joins a line up that also includes Hot Chip, Sleaford Mods, Stereolab, Jonny Greenwood, The Comet Is Coming and Shirley Collins.

As well as Albarn, other new additions include Crack Cloud, Sipho, Balimaya Project, Loraine James and Anna B Savage.

Also added to the bill are Kiran Leonard, Wesley Gonzalez, BABii, Gwenifer Raymond, Broadside Hacks, Sam Akpro, The Umlauts, Tiberius b, John Francis Flynn, Michael Clark and Joe Goddard (DJ).

Meanwhile, Uncut will be hosting a number of Q&As on site during the festival – check back here for further details!

The final line-up for End Of The Road Festival is:

HOT CHIP
KING KRULE
SLEAFORD MODS
DAMON ALBARN (SPECIAL GUEST)
STEREOLAB
JONNY GREENWOOD
LITTLE SIMZ
JOHN GRANT
THE COMET IS COMING
ARAB STRAP
ARLO PARKS
GIRL BAND
SHIRLEY COLLINS & THE LODESTAR BAND
FIELD MUSIC
SQUID
BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD
ROMARE
DRY CLEANING
RICHARD DAWSON
WARMDUSCHER
ANNA MEREDITH
JANE WEAVER
KIKAGAKU MOYO
ALTIN GUN
CRACK CLOUD
HEN OGLEDD
GIRL RAY
ALICE BOMAN
SORRY
SCALPING
VANISHING TWIN
BIG JOANIE
THE GOON SAX
JIM GHEDI
SIPHO
LONELADY
JERKCURB
DARREN HAYMAN
AHMED FAKROUN
MODERN NATURE
BILLY NOMATES
PENELOPE ISLES
KATY J PEARSON
JUST MUSTARD
GWENNO & ANGHARAD DAVIES perform live score to “Bait”
ANTELOPER (Jaimie Branch & Jason Nazary)
FENNE LILY
W. H. LUNG
BDRMM
KEELEY FORSYTH
WILLIAM DOYLE
DANA GAVANSKI
AUNTIE FLO (DJ)
ALL WE ARE
STUDIO ELECTROPHONIQUE
TENESHA THE WORDSMITH
TRASH KIT
SARATHY KORWAR
AOIFE NESSA FRANCES
PVA
BALIMAYA PROJECT
JOHN
THE GOA EXPRESS
PAN AMSTERDAM
JUNIOR BROTHER
ELIJAH WOLF
CAROLINE
LORAINE JAMES
YARD ACT
RED RIVER DIALECT
LAZARUS KANE
DRUG STORE ROMEOS
ZULU ZULU
THE GOLDEN DREGS
ANNA B SAVAGE
KIRAN LEONARD
CHUBBY & THE GANG
MODERN WOMAN
WU-LU
WESLEY GONZALEZ
BABii
ME REX
BINGO FURY
CMAT
REGRESSIVE LEFT
GWENIFER RAYMOND
EVE OWEN
JONNY DILLON
BROADSIDE HACKS
THE UMLAUTS
LEE PATTERSON
SLEEP EATERS
SAM AKPRO
TIBERIUS B
MARTHA ROSE
PAT T SMITH
MERMAID CHUNKY
OLDBOY
WILLY TEA TAYLOR
JOHN FRANCIS FLYNN
MICHAEL CLARK
FORTITUDE VALLEY
MELIN MELYN
JAMES LEONARD HEWITSON
JOE GODDARD (DJ)
TOM RAVENSCROFT (DJ)

Charlie Watts to miss the Rolling Stones’ upcoming American tour

Michael Bonner
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Charlie Watts to miss the Rolling Stones’ upcoming American tour

Charlie Watts will miss the Rolling Stones‘ upcoming US tour to allow him to recover from an unspecified medical procedure.

The Stones are set to resume their No Filter tour with a show in St Louis on September 26, but a spokesman for the drummer has confirmed that Watts’ place will be filled by Steve Jordan, a long-term collaborator of Keith Richards.

Said Watts, “For once my timing has been a little off. I am working hard to get fully fit but I have today accepted on the advice of the experts that this will take a while. After all the fans’ suffering caused by Covid I really do not want the many RS fans who have been holding tickets for this Tour to be disappointed by another postponement or cancellation. I have therefore asked my great friend Steve Jordan to stand in for me.”

Jordan said: “It is an absolute honour and a privilege to be Charlie’s understudy and I am looking forward to rehearsing with Mick, Keith and Ronnie. No-one will be happier than me to give up my seat on the drum-riser as soon as Charlie tells me he is good to go.”

The other Stones’ have sent public messages of sympathy to Watts.

“We really look forward to welcoming Charlie back as soon as he is fully recovered,” Mick Jagger wrote. “Thank you to our friend Steve Jordan for stepping in, so we can still play all the shows for you this fall.”

“This has been a bit of a blow to all of us, to say the least,” admitted Richards. “And we’re all wishing for Charlie to have a speedy recovery and to see him as soon as possible. Thank you to Steve Jordan for joining us in the meantime.”

“I will miss Charlie on the upcoming tour,” added Wood. “But he told me the show must go on! I’m really looking forward to Charlie getting back on stage with us as soon as he’s fully recovered. A huge thank you to the band’s old friend Steve Jordan for rockin’ on in Charlie’s place, and on his drum seat for the Autumn tour.”

https://twitter.com/ronniewood/status/1423162099480498183/photo/1

Dusty Hill recorded parts for a new ZZ Top album before his death

Cillian Breathnach
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Dusty Hill recorded parts for a new ZZ Top album before his death

Guitarist Billy Gibbons has revealed that the late bassist Dusty Hill recorded bass and vocal parts for an upcoming ZZ Top album.

Gibbons was speaking to Variety about ZZ Top’s forthcoming album, which will follow 2012’s La Futura. When he was asked how far Hill had gotten through his work on the album before his death, Gibbons said that the rough parts recorded will require “some completion work”.

He explained how Hill came to sing on several of the record’s tracks: “I think the luck of the draw was, I handed Dusty a couple of lyric sheets and I said, ‘Hey, see if you can make heads or tails out of this.’

“He said, ‘Can I sing it?’ I said, ‘Dusty, you could sing the calendar if you wanted to – people would love it.’ He goes, ‘Hey, that’s not a bad idea. If we ever get back to go to work, can we add the calendar into the show? I know all the words.’ I said, ‘Get in there. Go sing.’”

Gibbons added that the band has “a couple of things [with Dusty singing lead] that’ll make sense.”

La Futura co-producer Rick Rubin will also work on the album, which has yet to be officially announced.

Hill died last week, with the news being shared in a joint statement from the band on social media. Frank Beard and Billy Gibbons wrote: “We are saddened by the news today that our Compadre, Dusty Hill, has passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, TX.

“We, along with legions of ZZ Top fans around the world, will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top. We will forever be connected to that ‘Blues Shuffle in C.’”

“You will be missed greatly, amigo.”

Tom Morello announces new album, releases “Highway To Hell” cover with Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder

Cillian Breathnach
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Tom Morello announces new album, releases “Highway To Hell” cover with Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder

Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello has announced that his new studio solo album, entitled The Atlas Underground Fire, will be released on October 15.

The album has a huge cast of collaborators, and in that spirit the first single to arrive is a cover of AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell” featuring both Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder.

The record was created during the pandemic, with collaborators sending in their parts from around the world. Morello said of its recording: “During lockdown, I had no access to an engineer so I had to record all of the guitar parts on the voice memo of my phone. This seemed like an outrageous idea but it led to a freedom in creativity in that I could not overthink any of the guitar parts and just had to trust my instincts.”

“This record was a liferaft in a difficult time that allowed me to find new ways of creating new global artistic connections that helped transform a time of fear and anxiety into one of musical expression and rocking jams,” he added.

While the album arrives on October 15, you can hear its version of “Highway To Hell” right now.

Morello said of the track: “Our version of ‘Highway To Hell’ pays homage to AC/DC but with Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder, brings this legendary song into the future. One of the greatest rock n roll songs of all time sung by two of the greatest rock n roll singers of all time. And then I drop a shredding guitar solo. Thank you and good night.”

The Atlas Underground Fire’s tracklist is below, and can be preordered here.

  1. Harlem Hellfighter
  2. Highway to Hell (featuring Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder)
  3. Let’s Get The Party Started (featuring Bring Me The Horizon)
  4. Driving to Texas (featuring Phantogram)
  5. The War Inside (featuring Chris Stapleton)
  6. Hold The Line (featuring grandson)
  7. Naraka (featuring Mike Posner)
  8. The Achilles List (featuring Damian Marley)
  9. Night Witch (featuring phem)
  10. Charmed I’m Sure (featuring Protohype)
  11. Save Our Souls (featuring Dennis Lyxzén of Refused
  12. On The Shore Of Eternity (featuring Sama’ Abdulhadi)

New Order announce one-off Halifax show for next month

Tom Skinner
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New Order announce one-off Halifax show for next month

New Order have announced a one-off show in Halifax for next month – see all the details below.

The Manchester icons will take to the stage at the West Yorkshire town’s Piece Hall venue on Wednesday September 8.

Tickets go on general sale here at 10am BST this Friday (August 6). A pre-sale will be accessible to members at the same time the day before (August 5).

LoneLady and DJ Tin Tin will open for the band at the gig, with the former saying she is “delighted and honoured” to be performing. You can see the official announcement tweet below.

New Order’s concert at The Piece Hall comes just two days ahead of their huge homecoming at Manchester’s Heaton Park on September 10. Marking the group’s first hometown show in four years, the event is promising to be “a defining moment in their illustrious career”.

Support comes from Hot Chip and Working Men’s Club on this date.

“We promise to bring a celebration like no other to Heaton Park in 2021, and we can’t wait to see everyone come together for a night we’ll never forget,” New Order said in a statement to announce the show.

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