The new Uncut’s only been on sale since the end of last week, but there’s already been a fair amount of correspondence about our cover story on The Byrds. Most of it’s been about our Top 20 countdown of The Byrds’s greatest tracks. You were broadly in agreement with what was included, but many of you wondered aloud at certain omissions – “Chestnut Mare” was particularly missed by many, including me it must be said.
Calexico’s new album, Algiers, is reviewed in the current issue of Uncut (October 2012, Take 185) – so we thought we’d take a trip back to April 2003 (Take 71), when Uncut’s John Mulvey flew out to Tucson, Arizona to discover more about the duo’s redrawing of the alt.country map.
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Chan Marshall’s new album, Sun, is reviewed in the latest issue of Uncut (Take 185, October 2012) – this week’s archive feature, from December 2006 (Take 115), finds Marshall recovering from a breakdown after perhaps her most successful year to date. Here, she tells Marc Spitz how she pulled herself back from the edge…
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Bob Dylan’s fantastic new album opens with a train song. Given the wrath to come and the often elemental ire that accompanies it, not to mention all the bloodshed, madness, death, chaos and assorted disasters that will shortly be forthcoming, you may be surprised that what’s clattering along the tracks here isn’t the ominous engine of a slow train coming, a locomotive of doom and retribution, souls wailing in a caboose crowded with the forlorn damned and other people like them.
Stevie Wonder has spoken out about comments he made regarding the sexuality of soul singer Frank Ocean last week.
Speaking to the Guardian, Wonder had said that he thought Ocean – who publicly revealed that his first love had been a man earlier this year – might be 'confused'. He said: "I think honestly, some people who think they're gay, they're confused. People can misconstrue closeness for love. People can feel connected, they bond."
50 years is a long time to wait for a book. In September 1956, Alan Garner started writing his debut novel, a children’s book set among the landscape and folklore he’d known all his life – Alderley Edge in Cheshire, 12 miles south of Manchester. First published in 1960, The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen followed the adventures of 12 year-old twins, Colin and Susan, on the Edge – “a long-backed hill… high and sombre and black.”
Neil Young and Crazy Horse have unveiled their cover of the UK national anthem 'God Save The Queen', scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to hear it.
