Latest in our Best Of NME series is The Best Of NME: 1990-1994. Featuring classic interviews from the archives of the world’s best music title, and new insights from our issue godfather Bobby Gillespie, the issue plots the success of PJ Harvey, the rise and tragic fall of Nirvana, as well as all the most pivotal news events, albums and singles as grunge turned into Britpop. Also features an exclusive afterword from Tim Burgess.
Wilco and The Waterboys for Black Deer 2020
Wilco and The Waterboys have been unveiled as the first major names to play 2020’s Black Deer Festival, taking place at Eridge Park, Kent, on June 19-21.
They’ll be joined by Courtney Marie Andrews, The Felice Brothers, The Milk Carton Kids, Jack Broadbent and more.
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Early bird tickets for Black Deer 2020 are on sale now from the official festival site.
Tame Impala announce new album, The Slow Rush
Tame Impala have announced that their new album The Slow Rush will be released by Fiction Records on February 14.
Listen to latest single “It Might Be Time” below:
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The Slow Rush was recorded between Los Angeles and Kevin Parker’s studio in his hometown of Fremantle, Australia. The twelve tracks were recorded, produced and mixed by Parker himself.
You can pre-order the album here, including limited edition coloured vinyl versions.
Paul Weller announces 2020 UK tour
Following his Forest Live dates in the summer, Paul Weller has announced his first proper UK tour since 2017.
He’ll play 12 shows across the country in May, full dates below:
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01 – CAMBRIDGE Corn Exchange
02 – NORWICH UEA
04 – MARGATE Winter Gardens
05 – SOUTHEND Cliffs Pavillion
06 – OXFORD New Theatre
08 – ABERDEEN Music Hall
09 – GLASGOW Barrowland
10 – MIDDLESBROUGH Town Hall
12 – LLANDUDNO Venue Cymru
13 – LIVERPOOL Olympia
14 – STOKE Victoria Hall
16 – PORTSMOUTH Guildhall
Tickets go on sale at 9am on Friday (November 1) from the usual outlets.
According to the press release, “Paul has recently been in the studio writing and playing new songs. The fruits of these labours will surface in the new year… watch this space.”
Little Feat guitarist Paul Barrere has died, aged 71
Little Feat guitarist Paul Barrere has died, aged 71. He passed away at UCLA Hospital on Saturday morning (October 26), according to a statement on the Little Feat website.
A member of the band since the early 70s, he was forced to sit out their current tour due to side effects from his ongoing treatment for liver disease.
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Barrere initially auditioned for Little Feat as a bassist, before eventually joining the band on guitar (and occasional lead vocals) prior to the recording of 1973’s Dixie Chicken. His songwriting credits for the band included “Skin It Back”, “Hi Roller” and “Down On The Farm”. Barrere was instrumental in putting the band back together in the 80s, following the death of original frontman Lowell George.
“As the song he sang so many times put it, he was always “Willin’,” but it was not meant to be,” said the band statement. “Paul, sail on to the next place in your journey with our abiding love for a life always dedicated to the muse and the music. We are grateful for the time we have shared.”
Fellow musicians paid tribute on social media. Bonnie Raitt called Barrere, “A brilliant guitarist, singer and songwriter -a cornerstone of one of the greatest bands of all time.”
“Rest In Peace my friend,” wrote Nils Lofgren. “You’ve blessed us all with a lifetime of inspired, soulful music.”
(1/2) Oh my God. I just heard about the passing of another dear friend, Little Feat's Paul Barrere. A brilliant guitarist, singer and songwriter—a cornerstone of one of the greatest bands of all time. #PaulBarrere pic.twitter.com/vS4rqXhD4J
— Bonnie Raitt (@TheBonnieRaitt) October 27, 2019
Rest In Peace my friend. You’ve Blessed us all with a lifetime of inspired, soulful music. #Paul Barrere pic.twitter.com/5jHJxO9ge0
— Nils Lofgren (@nilslofgren) October 27, 2019
The Beach Bum
It’s staggering that gonzo director Harmony Korine was given money to make a film again after 2009’s near-unwatchable Trash Humpers, but the unexpected critical success of 2012’s Spring Breakers salvaged his reputation. The Beach Bum follows in a similar vein, being a surprisingly enjoyable stoner comedy with a ridiculously eclectic Hollywood cast and an even more promiscuous soundtrack, mixing Jimmy Buffett, gangster rap, Christian metal and The Cure.
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Matthew McConaughey stars as Moondog, a once-great writer who has gone to seed, having a wild time in the Florida Keys while his rich wife, Minnie (Isla Fisher), lives in their Miami mansion. Just when it seems the film is going to have no plot whatsoever, Moondog is called back for their daughter’s wedding. After which, tragedy strikes – Minnie is killed in a car crash – and Moondog is thrown onto the streets, with one proviso: if he writes another book, he’ll be reinstated as Minnie’s heir. However, Moondog doesn’t like to be told what to do, and when faced with a year in rehab, he goes on the run with the heavy-metal-loving Flicker (Zac Efron).
It’s a simple, wilfully naïve premise and yet Korine still finds a way to make it debauched: there’s gratuitous nudity and reckless violence, drug-taking is venerated, and for some reason Moondog dresses almost exclusively in women’s clothing. For all that, though, it’s quite a sweet film, with a rich vein of offbeat comedy. Snoop Dogg is good value as Moondog’s friend Lingerie, and Jonah Hill is a hoot as his snarky agent. But the real scene-stealer is Martin Lawrence as Captain Wack, a fiercely eccentric Vietnam vet who finds out the hard way the difference between dolphins and sharks.
Pink Floyd in 1986: “David was determined… to carry on”
As Pink Floyd gear up for the release of The Later Years box set, the new issue of Uncut – in UK shops now or available to order online by clicking here – features a fresh look at Pink Floyd’s post-Roger Waters years, with contributions from band members and associates.
In the feature, Tom Pinnock talks to David Gilmour, Nick Mason, creative director Aubrey Powell and long-time engineer Andy Jackson about regrouping following Waters’ departure in December 1985.
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“By 1984, Roger had very obviously decided that enough was enough for him,” Gilmour said, “and I hadn’t decided that enough was enough for me. So I imagine I thought, ‘Yes, we’ll go back to doing [Floyd].’”
In December 1985, Waters announced his departure, but Gilmour was keen to begin a new album. The legal wrangling escalated throughout 1986, until Waters took his fight to the High Court in October. As Mason recalls, “I think David led on the idea [of continuing]. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to carry on – I did – but I don’t think I cared as much as David did. We’d be partly in the studios and partly in the lawyers’ office – ‘Was Roger going to injunct?’ And the answer was, of course he couldn’t, because he’d left the band, and the one thing clear in all our contractual arrangements was that if someone left, they left, and the band continued without them… That gave David and me the authority to carry on.”
In the spirit of continuity, the duo had enlisted The Wall producer Bob Ezrin and begun work at the Astoria in early 1986. It was a risky move, for more than just legal reasons: Waters’ solo tours, featuring a good helping of prime Floyd material, had performed much better than Gilmour’s About Face shows.
“The whole thing was a bit of a gamble,” says Aubrey Powell. “It was naturally daunting to have the responsibility of carrying on Pink Floyd. I think financially it was an anxious time, too… but David is a very confident person.”
“David was very determined not to be told that he can’t do it any more,” explains Andy Jackson. “In some ways you could interpret Roger saying, ‘There is no more Pink Floyd’ as [from David’s point of view], ‘Well, you can’t tell me that…’ He had the desire to carry on as a band, so he had to make that work really.”
“We were trying to make something that sounded very much of the time,” Jackson continues, “which means of course that as time progresses it ends up sounding dated. As Bob Ezrin was prone to do, at the start of the album he came in with a stack of CDs and said, ‘This is what’s happening now.’ In ’86, digital was very much at the forefront. [Dire Straits’] Brothers In Arms had just come out and that had a very particular sound, and that was one bar Bob said we should be aiming for.”
“We sort of laid everything on it,” says Mason. “There was a sense of trepidation over what it would be like without Roger, so we slightly over-egged the pudding in terms of lots of session players. Some of it’s overproduced, far too much stuff on it…”
“I thought it didn’t really sound like a Pink Floyd record,” says bassist Guy Pratt, who joined the band in 1987 for their live work, “but it was a very good record. It’s very of its time – Floyd were suited to ’80s bombast.”
You can read much more from Pink Floyd in the new issue of Uncut, in shops now with Bob Dylan on the cover.
The Who’s film Tommy is being reissued – here’s an exclusive look at the mind-boggling new trailer…
The Who‘s exhilarating rock opera Tommy is back in cinemas soon.
To celebrate this momentous event, we’re thrilled to bring you a first look at the new trailer, cut exclusively for this reissue.
Starring the band alongside Jack Nicholson, Elton John, Oliver Reed, Ann-Margret and Tina Turner – Tommy is Pete Townshend’s ode to teenage spirit, given suitably outlandish treatment by director, Ken Russell.
You can watch the trailer below.
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TOMMY is released by the BFI in selected cinemas UK-wide from November 22. Click here for more information.
Watch a video for new Leonard Cohen song, “Happens To The Heart”
“Happens To The Heart” is the latest single to be taken from Leonard Cohen’s posthumous album Thanks For The Dance, due out on November 22.
It has been matched with a new video by Daniel Askill, which draws inspiration from Cohen’s experience as a Buddhist monk. Watch it below:
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John Lydon announces new book and spoken word tour
John Lydon has announced the publication of a new book called I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right in Autumn 2020, coinciding with a 54-date UK spoken word tour of the same name.
According to a press release, “Lydon will reflect on the Sex Pistols, Public Image Limited (PiL), his art and his life’s story during informal evenings of conversation and audience questions.”
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Lydon himself adds: “I could be sh*t. I could be sh*te. I’m left-handed.”
Signed limited edition copies of I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right will be available at venues – only 5,000 numbered copies will be printed.
Check out the full list of tourdates below. Tickets go on sale on Friday November 1, with a limited number of pre-release tickets for fans available from Monday October 28. VIP meet & greet packages will also be available.
22 September Camberley Theatre
23 September Hertford Theatre
24 September Hastings White Rock Theatre
25 September Clacton-On-Sea West Cliff Theatre
26 September Watford Colosseum
27 September Basingstoke Anvil
29 September Bristol St. George’s
30 September Bournemouth International Centre
1 October Carmarthen – The Lyric
2 October Porthcawl Grand Pavilion
3 October Yeovil Westlands
4 October Exeter Corn Exchange
6 October Lincoln New Theatre Royal
7 October Hull City Hall
8 October Stafford Gatehouse
9 October Leeds City Varieties
10 October Chesterfield Winding Wheel
11 October Loughborough Town Hall
13 October Wrexham William Aston Hall
14 October Shrewsbury Theatre Severn
15 October Birmingham Town Hall
16 October Leicester De Montfort Hall
17 October Cheltenham Pump Room
18 October Crewe Lyceum
20 October Newport Riverfront
21 October Dudley Town Hall
22 October Worthing Pavilion
23 October Dorking Halls
24 October Coventry Warwick Arts Centre
25 October Kingston Rose Theatre
27 October Port Sunlight Gladstone Theatre
28 October Durham Gala Theatre
29 October Yarm Princess Alexandra Auditorium
30 October Lytham St. Annes Lowther Pavilion
31 October Lancaster Grand
1 November Burnley Mechanics
3 November Dundee Rep
4 November Greenock Beacon Arts Centre
5 November Glasgow Pavilion Theatre
6 November Falkirk FTH Theatre
7 November Glenrothes Rothes Hall
8 November Kilmarnock Grand Hall
10 November Bury St. Edmunds – The Apex
11 November Bedford Corn Exchange
12 November Wimborne Tivoli
13 November London Union Chapel
14 November Ipswich Corn Exchange
15 November Crawley – The Hawth
17 November Whitley Bay Playhouse
18 November Bradford St. Georges Hall
19 November Warrington Parr Hall
20 November Northallerton Forum
21 November Scarborough Spa
22 November St. Albans – The Alban Arena
Bob Dylan’s Tarantula to get audiobook release
Bob Dylan‘s book of lyrics, prose, and poetry Tarantula is set to be released as an audiobook later this year.
Written in 1966, Tarantula received its first official release in 1971.
This audiobook has been narrated by the actor Will Patton and is released by Simon & Schuster on December 3.
Meanwhile, Bobcats can read about the latest instalment in Dylan’s ongoing Bootleg Series in the new issue of Uncut – on sale now and available to buy online.
Our latest cover story focusses on Bob Dylan (Featuring Johnny Cash) Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15 and previously unavailable recordings made with Johnny Cash.
The issue comes with a free CD which includes an exclusive unreleased Dylan track from Travelin’ Thru. You can read more about it by clicking here.
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Watch a video for Beck’s new single, “Uneventful Days”
Beck’s new album Hyperspace will be released by Capitol on November 22.
Watch a video for the single “Uneventful Days” below – it’s directed by Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes:
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Seven of Hyperspace’s 11 tracks feature co-writing and co-production from Pharrell Williams. Vocal guests on the album include Chris Martin and Sky Ferreira.
Check out the tracklisting below:
1. Hyperlife
2. Uneventful Days
3. Saw Lightning
4. Die Waiting
5. Chemical
6. See Through
7. Hyperspace
8. Stratosphere
9. Dark Places
10. Star
11. Everlasting Nothing
“Ragged inspiration!” Nils Lofgren on Neil Young with Crazy Horse
It hopefully won’t have escaped your notice that there’s a new Neil Young album out this week – his first with Crazy Horse since Psychedelic Pill in 2012. I wrote a pretty in-depth review of the album in our November issue, but here’s also the Q&A I conducted with Nils Lofgren about his return to the Horse. Some interesting nuggets, I think, not least the slightly weird logistics about this new album’s origins…
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The new Uncut is in shops from Thursday, October 17 but available to buy now by clicking here
How is it, being back with Crazy Horse?
They’re probably my oldest musical family – Crazy Horse. 50 years ago in May, I walked in on them at the Cellar Door. We made friends. I made the first definitive Crazy Horse album with Danny Whitten, with Jack Nitzsche producing. It was an amazing thing and have had some great chapters ever since. And here we are!
When was the idea of Crazy Horse recording a new album first mooted?
This February, we did two shows in Winnipeg. We had what we called the Polar Vortex – the whole country was being slammed with ice and snow. Ralphie and I went to Billy’s house in South Dakota, really in the middle of nowhere, we rehearsed for a few days without Neil. Neil isn’t a big fan of rehearsal. He knows his songs! Then we got on a crazy, 13-hour bus journey from South Dakota to Winnipeg. All the shows were rocking and fun, but that last show in Winnipeg, to me became more of a band than we’d been. It had a special feel. So that’s when I think Neil started writing. A couple of weeks before I was going to start touring my own record Blue With Lou, Neil called and said, “I’m writing songs. Can I send you a few? I know you’re got your own record and tour, but any chance you come up to Colorado for a couple of weeks and start recording?” That was my first exposure to the idea of a new album. Neil kept sending these primitive demos to my email in batches of twos and threes. He said, “Just get a little familiar with them. Don’t get too inside them. We like things to involve.” It’s like Tonight’s The Night – if you catch people a little off guard without too much preparation you get a more emotional tape.
Tell us about the studio.
It was this mountain top studio that was scrambling to get ready for us. There was a room with oxygen tanks, because of the altitude. Amy, my wife, and I got there three days early to get acclimatised. We jumped into it with all the craziness and technical glitches and got used to playing as live as we could, without all the baffles and everyone in iso-booths. We chipped away and got 11 or 12 songs recorded. At the last minute, we had a listening party at Neil and Daryl’s, which was beautiful. It was a Sunday night. We drove down the mountain – there was snow, ice, hail and rain, terrible roads – to get to Cortez. When we left, we all felt really good about it. Neil was off to Europe to play festival shows with Promise Of The Real; he thought maybe we’d get back together in August and do some more recording. Then, as the weeks went by, he did some serious listening and figured he had a record he felt great about already. We didn’t need to keep going at it.
Reading John Hanlon’s posts on NYA, it seems that Neil was working on a solo album originally. Then it morphed into a Crazy Horse album. Is this your understanding, too?
I was not aware of that. I don’t know if he did some solo recording with John. I know he played a couple of the songs at the shows in Winnipeg – he played a 20-minute set before he brought Crazy Horse out. I remember how “Green is Blue” deeply affected me. I didn’t realise I’d be recording it with Crazy Horse months later!
How did the sessions unfold?
The main goal was to play live and record live but hear each other. We set up in the room, with all the amps bleeding into each other, but with some sense of limiting the bleeding. I’d move my amp back a bit into the room, maybe we’d put a baffle by it but not enclose it. Then it was a question of moving round the drum kit so Neil could hear me and I could hear him. But you don’t want the amps blaring into the vocal mics louder than the vocal either. So it was more a logistical thing. Last time I did a record like that was Tonight’s The Night. Even when we did Trans in the early ’80s, in Hawaii, sometimes we had to use headphones.
How did Neil manage the sessions?
There were a handful of songs where Neil and I would look at each other and he’d say, “Maybe I’ll be on acoustic.” I’d go, “You want me on piano?” We did than on “Think Of Me”. Then there were some other songs where I’d like Neil was getting an acoustic and I’d have a lap steel or an accordion. Or he’d say, “Why don’t we try rough Crazy Horse approach with two electrics?” Some of the songs came out that way, like “Rainbow Of Colors”.
“She Showed Me Love” is a classic Horse jam.
That was one where we got to an arrangement of the song – which we barely knew – and then all followed Neil into this jam. We just didn’t stop! I thought we were just getting used to the groove of the song. But 13 minutes later, there we were. It was a bunch of old friends reconnecting and rediscovering what they’ve always had.
Neil had a pretty rough start to the year, with the fire in Malibu and then losing Pegi. Has this Crazy Horse album been therapeutic?
Oh, sure. I love Pegi, I love Neil, I have such a long history with them. Just such a heartbreaking thing. And all the stuff he’s gone through with his own health, that I just felt that he wanted to play it all – he kept going out and singing and letting the music, which I believe is the planet’s sacred weapon, work through him and help him and his family. For all of us, too – we get older, we all got stuff going on. It was very therapeutic and healing – the ragged inspiration of it, playing with old friends and creating something new. It won’t bring anyone back, but it reminds you their spirits are with you and they want you to carry on.
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Hear PJ Harvey cover Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand”
The first ever official Peaky Blinders soundtrack album will be released by UMC on November 15.
Across two LPs or three CDs, it features much of the music employed in the hit series, including songs by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Arctic Monkeys, The White Stripes, Royal Blood, The Last Shadow Puppets, Queens of the Stone Age, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Laura Marling and Foals.
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There are also a handful of tracks recorded exclusively for Peaky Blinders, including Richard Hawley’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of A Thin Man”, Jehnny Beth’s “I’m The Man”, Anna Calvi’s series 5 score “You’re Not God” and PJ Harvey’s version of the show’s theme song, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand”. Listen to that below:
Pre-order the album and check out the full tracklisting here.
Wire announce new album, Mind Hive
Wire have announced that their new album Mind Hive will be released through their own Pinkflag label on January 24.
The follow-up to 2017’s Silver/Lead features the same line-up of original members Colin Newman, Graham Lewis and Robert ‘Gotobed’ Grey, plus Matthew Simms on guitar.
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Listen to lead single “Cactused” below, accompanied by in-the-studio footage taken from forthcoming Wire documentary People In A Film, due later in 2020.
Pre-order Mind Hive here and check out Wire’s latest tourdates below:
January 27 – Bristol, UK @ The Fleece
January 28 – Manchester, UK @ Band on the Wall
January 29 – Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds
January 30 – Glasgow, UK @ G2 (The Garage)
January 31 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
February 1 – Brighton, UK @ Chalk
March 3 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line
March 4 – Chicago, IL @ Metro
March 6 – Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge
March 7 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
March 9 – Washington, DC @ Union Stage
March 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
March 11 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
March 12 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
March 13 – Boston, MA @ Sinclair
March 14 – Ottawa, ON @ Bronson Centre
March 16 – Toronto, ON @ Great Hall
May 21 – London, UK @ Islington Assembly Hall
Kacy & Clayton – Carrying On
If there’s one song on the new album from Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum that speaks to life’s rhythm – something of a preoccupation in folk and country music – it’s “Providence Place”. Employing effortless vocal harmonies and an elegant swing, the cousins paint a tender portrait of an elderly musician hanging up a fiddle on the wall and laying a mandolin in its case, ready for the move into a care home – very likely the same centre in Moose Jaw, south Saskatchewan, where the teenage Kacy & Clayton used to play a regular Sunday evening set. The emotional force of the song lies in its unsentimental acknowledgement that all things must pass, but that there’s real comfort in longstanding friendships and shared pleasures – making music, especially – given extra resonance by being rooted in a specific place.
Anderson and Linthicum cut their teeth on folk, polka and country standards, which explains why their 2011 self-released debut leaned so heavily on the past, with the likes of “Ain’t No Tellin’” and “Henry Lee”. The follow-up was similarly indebted, with just three originals, but 2016’s British-folk-attuned Strange Country flipped that ratio, their fine instrumental teamwork and Anderson’s effortlessly emotive voice marking them as significant new talents. Their breakthrough, though, was The Siren’s Song, a year later. Produced by Jeff Tweedy, it proved that the duo were nether revivalists nor modernists; rather, translators of tradition with an intuitive syntax of their own.
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As the title suggests, Carrying On follows through. Its 10 electro-acoustic songs were written on the road out of necessity, not choice: Kacy & Clayton went straight from a tour of western Canada to recording at Tweedy’s Loft in Chicago, which they did in just four days, mostly live. It’s a warm, beguiling set that tips its hat to roots music interpreters as disparate as Hoyt Axton (Linthicum cites his moody, baroque folk-pop effort, My Griffin Is Gone), Fairport Convention, Dolly Parton, The Byrds and Bobbie Gentry (notably, her Delta Sweete), while also tapping Cajun fiddle music and the work of Ralph Mooney, a celebrated steel guitarist on the Bakersfield country scene. It’s to their credit, though, that there’s no strained lifting. Explaining her own relationship with the past, Anderson tells Uncut: “A favourite folk musician of mine, Shirley Collins, said when she sings she feels past generations standing behind her. It’s a real feeling that speaks louder than the fear of bastardising a song that’s not my mother tongue.”
Kacy & Clayton’s natural eloquence shines throughout, from airily twanging opener “The Forty-Ninth Parallel” – where, with the same bell-like purity and unforced warble of a young Parton, Anderson chastises herself for marrying for love, rather than money, “like any woman in her right mind would do” – to “That Sweet Orchestra Sound”, a jangling charmer with a gaggle of guitars set to a bar-room swing, that’s dedicated to “the memory of Bud Romanski, Bob McGlynn, Lonnie Harden and the many other pickers from our region”. In between sit the alluringly woody and rhythmic “The South Saskatchewan River”, Linthicum conjuring a singular landscape via mention of hoar frost on aspen and polluting factories, and the deceptively romantic, slo-mo “Mom And Dad’s Waltz #2”, which ponders the fate of a “child passed around for years and years” between his struggling mother, grandmother and a father who works away.
It’s one of the album’s two sober tracks, the other “In A Time Of Doubt”, which suggests Julia Jacklin having a ’70s country moment, its cheerfully fat chunks of 12-string guitar disguising Anderson’s snapshot of a cruelly manipulative relationship. “Intervention”, though, is a brief but joyous counter to that pain, set to a steady canter, her strong, clear voice announcing that thanks to her new love, “the pills I take to keep my mind, I don’t need them anymore”.
That there are no covers on Carrying On (a first) says much: Kacy & Clayton are so in tune with their heritage they no longer need to exercise it explicitly. For them it’s not an obligation to carry the traditional country-folk baton, more a deep pleasure and privilege, interpretation with flair being their right.
The Replacements – Dead Man’s Pop
If ever an album was a fixer-upper, it’s The Replacements’ 1989 Don’t Tell A Soul. With a recording process that was chaotic and self-destructive even by the Minnesota quartet’s peerless standards, a firestorm of external and internal band pressures, and sky-high expectations after their peak Let It Be/Tim/Pleased To Meet Me run, the album was primed to fail.
So Dead Man’s Pop, the working title for Don’t Tell A Soul, is the rarer form of deluxe-edition boxset, not an obsessive documentation of a treasured work, but a reclamation project. Presenting essentially two new versions of the record, in addition to a live show and bonus tracks from the period, it argues that a few tweaks can rewrite the historical place of The Replacements’ sixth record from the start of their decline to a last gasp of their ’80s college-rock dominance.
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At the time, Don’t Tell A Soul set its sights even higher, as the Warner Brothers executive suite felt they were ready to graduate to mainstream success. With frontman Paul Westerberg finally taking his singer-songwriter role seriously and wildman guitarist Bob Stinson officially departed, the industry was ready to anoint them, alongside their friendly rivals REM, as The Great American Rock Hope at the end of the ’80s.
But after two troubled sessions with inexperienced producers steamrolled by The Replacements’ path of bottle-draining destruction, Don’t Tell A Soul landed like the double compromise it was – between Westerberg’s ambitions and the limitations of his band, and between the polished hit single dreams of the record company and the band’s untameable anarchy.
Funnily enough, one of those production casualties gets first crack at a salvage job, as original producer Matt Wallace – who would later record successes for Maroon 5, John Hiatt and Faith No More – helms the remixed, “redux” version of Don’t Tell A Soul. Beyond just updating the original’s reedy, compressed mix to modern loudness standards and reshuffling the tracklist, Wallace chips away at the ’80s jangle and gated drums to reveal the ragtag glory beneath.
“We’ll Inherit The Earth”, which originally sidled in with Mellotron and a morse-code diddle, now stomps into the room with distorted bass and unhinged arpeggios, while quirky, radio-unfriendly decisions – a banjo in “Talent Show”, a trumpet in “Back To Back”, assorted studio chatter – are restored. Most dramatically altered is “They’re Blind”, a gauzy slow dance now even slower, lengthened by almost a minute and menaced by guitar feedback instead of an insipid mandolin.
The second disc presents yet another alternate-dimension Don’t Tell A Soul, this time drawn from the infamously scrapped Bearsville sessions, concisely summed up by Westerberg (in Bob Mehr’s brilliant biography Trouble Boys) as, “We went up there, hit a fucking tree, threw knives at each other, walked across the board, smashed up some shit, scared Metallica.”
For the most part, these sessions sound like very, very expensive demos, not put through The Hit Machine yet, but not particularly energetic either. Here, the real gem is an early version of “Portland”, a countrified apology for one of their legendarily worst concerts, later stripped for parts and repurposed as “Talent Show”. There’s also an unadorned “Rock’N’Roll Ghost” – just acoustic guitar, voice, and organ – that puts the song up with “Here Comes A Regular” in the echelon of disquieting Westerberg self-assessments.
Another holy grail for ’Mats completists is the impromptu session with Tom Waits, recorded one whiskey-fuelled overnight in a Los Angeles studio. Waits and Westerberg trade improvised lines over stock blues in “Lowdown Monkey Blues”, and rehearse a couple of Replacements tracks and Billy Swan’s “I Can Help”. Like a lot of drunken nights, it was probably more fun to experience than to hear about later.
The other two discs, The Complete Inconcerated Live, present a full June 1989 show from Milwaukee that nicely complements For Sale: Live at Maxwell’s 1986, released in 2017. Where that set captured the ’Mats on their hyperactive upswing, feverishly launching into covers they only barely knew how to play, the 1989 show is the band, if not exactly mature, at least at the peak of their songbook and still ornery in all the right ways.
Live is also probably where the Don’t Tell A Soul material sounds most naturally Replacements, fitting snugly alongside classics “Bastards Of Young” and “Little Mascara”. In fact, the best version of the record might be assembled from these pressure-free versions. A forgettable album track like the bubblegummy “Asking Me Lies” finds new life in Westerberg’s slurred, sweary vocals and the rhythm section’s gutter swing, while “Darlin’ One” hits the sweet spot in their Venn diagram of sad, angry and anthemic.
That Dead Man’s Pop even exists is a small miracle, given the band’s propensity to erase master tapes or throw them into rivers. And for a band whose chaotic vibe was infamously difficult to capture in the studio, having so many data points by which to triangulate this less-lauded era is valuable. While the full deluxe treatment might not lift Don’t Tell A Soul all the way to “lost classic” status, it at least fleshes out an underappreciated chapter of The Replacements’ messy saga.
Gary Numan: “David Bowie asked for me to be thrown out of the studio”
Originally published in Uncut’s March 2018 issue
While Gary Numan’s music is defiantly industrial in construction and dystopian in theme, the man himself cuts a pleasingly down-to-earth figure. Here he is, explaining to Uncut what’s on his touring rider: “Americans aren’t very good at bread,” he says. “So I ask for some decent bread, some butter and peanut butter. I’m so easily pleased, it’s embarrassing…”
It is late December and Numan is in Colorado on the closing dates of a 30-date North American tour. It is the latest leg in a global trek that has been running since September in support of Numan’s current album, Savage: Songs From A Broken World. “The energy level is good,” he reports. “But the repetitive nature is beginning to wear a little bit.” Nevertheless, Numan is still vibed up for the business of the day: soon he has a pre-show meet-and-greet with fans, a soundcheck and then emails to catch up with before the gig. But first, he has your questions to answer – on a range of subjects, including voting Tory in his youth, ferrying indie pop stars round the UK in his private airplane and an unexpected encounter with Queen in the Far East. “It’s easy – talking about myself! I could do that all day!”
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__________________________
A lot of people fetishise old synths: ARPs, Wasps and so on. Do you see the appeal
in that? Or are you
glad technology
has moved on?
Nat Wellington, London
I don’t see any appeal in it at all. To me, synthesisers have always been like screwdrivers, hammers – tools you use to do a certain job, and once that job is done then I prefer to move on and find a new tool for the next job. There are a lot of people who look back on that early era of synthesisers, but those machines are of a kind. I think if you’ve made a number of albums with them, you’ve used the available palette of sound. Electronic music is about finding new sounds and new methods and moving forward.
Do you still have the
fabled Mini Moog you discovered in the studio
in late 1978?
Grace Astor, Leeds
I have few items of
the original gear, but I do have a Mini Moog. When I lived in East Sussex, I had
a garage with an attic roof. We put the house on the market, and I decided to clean out all this ivy that had grown in through the attic and smothered everything up there. I was hacking away, and I found a fucking
Mini Moog pretty much growing under a bush. I got it done up again and it’s all lovely. I think my dad’s got it.
You were at Victoria Station in May 1976 when Bowie arrived off the Orient Express. Did he really make
a Nazi salute?
Nick Edwards, Cambridge
I was there all day and never saw him!
I was 18. I’m pretty sure I was wearing a green boiler suit. I just remember being there with lots and lots of Bowie fans and everyone went mad, screaming with exciting, but I couldn’t see him. In the ’80s, I did the Kenny Everett show and Bowie was on, too. I was a massive fan, I had seen him countless times; I had an embarrassing array of bootlegs. The chance to even be remotely near him was an honour. But he asked for me to be thrown out of the studio and then taken off the programme, which was very disappointing. But as the years have gone by, I understood far more the way he saw things then. He was still a young man, with ups and downs in his own career, and I think he saw people like me as little upstarts. But later he said some nice
things about me, so that made the whole thing better!
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds announce European and UK tour dates
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds have announce details of a 2020 European and UK tour.
The tour begins in April in Portugal and closes in June in Israel. The band also play seven shows in the UK, including two shows at London’s O2 Arena.
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The band’s latest album, Ghosteen, is reviewed in the new issue of Uncut – in shops now.
Wednesday 22 April Campo Pequeno, Lisbon, Portugal
Thursday 23 April Campo Pequeno, Lisbon, Portugal
Saturday 25 April WiZink Center, Madrid, Spain
Sunday 26 April Palau Sant Jordi, Barcelona, Spain
Wednesday 29 April Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam, Holland
Thursday 30 April Sportpaleis, Antwerp, Belgium
Saturday 2 May Arena Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Sunday 3 May Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, UK
Tuesday 5 May The SSE Hydro, Glasgow, UK
Wednesday 6 May Manchester Arena, Manchester, UK
Friday 8 May 3Arena, Dublin, Ireland
Tuesday 12 May First Direct Arena, Leeds, UK
Thursday 14 May The O2, London, UK
Friday 15 May The O2, London, UK
Sunday 17 May Lanxess Arena, Cologne, Germany
Monday 18 May Barclaycard Arena, Hamburg, Germany
Wednesday 20 May Royal Arena, Copenhagen, Denmark
Thursday 21 May Royal Arena, Copenhagen, Denmark
Saturday 23 May Ericsson Globe, Stockholm, Sweden
Monday 25 May Spektrum, Oslo, Norway
Wednesday 27 May Mercedes-Benz Arena, Berlin, Germany
Thursday 28 May Arena Gliwice, Gliwice, Poland
Saturday 30 May O2 Arena, Prague, Czech Republic
Monday 1 June Stadthalle, Vienna, Austria
Tuesday 2 June László Papp Budapest Sportaréna, Budapest, Hungary
Thursday 4 June Stark Arena, Belgrade, Serbia
Saturday 6 June Olympiahalle, Munich, Germany
Monday 8 June Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland
Tuesday 9 June Mediolanum Forum, Milan, Italy
Thursday 11 June Cavea Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, Italy
Sunday 14 June AccorHotels Arena, Paris, France
Wednesday 17 June Bloomfield Stadium, Tel Aviv, Israel
Tickets on sale Friday 25 October at 10am local times at nickcave.com
*Paris on sale Monday 28 October at 10am local time
*Tel Aviv on sale Tuesday 22 October at 8am local time
Revealed! The inside story of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash’s Nashville summit
With Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15 – the latest lavish archeological survey of Bob Dylan‘s archive – due for release on November 1, Uncut talks to the musicians closest to Dylan about this remarkable chapter in his career – and his momentous summit with a fellow titan of American music, Johnny Cash.
The issue also comes with an exclusive unreleased Dylan track on our free CD.
In the new issue of Uncut, in UK shops now or available to order online by clicking here, Cash biographer Graeme Thomson unearths the truth behind Dylan’s Nashville sojourn – including a momentous February 1969 session with Cash.
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“You know, it wasn’t anything that we thought was strange, Dylan being in Nashville,” insists Cash’s drummer, WS “Fluke” Holland. “We were happy for him to be there; it made a kind of sense. If you think about types of music – country, rockabilly, rock’n’roll, blues, whatever – I don’t really know what you’d call the type of music that Bob was doing. It was always something different, but always him.”
On the night of February 17, Dylan and Cash cut three songs together. Documentary maker Bob Elfstrom was among those watching the session. “Neither of them could remember the lyrics, and the session had to stop for an hour if not longer,” Elfstrom recalls. “They had people dashing around the building to find a copy of the lyrics so they could do the song… The general impression I had was that it was highly improvised. They would go and listen to playback and then try something else. Very casual. They were having fun together.”
This light-hearted mood sustains throughout the takes featured on Travelin’ Thru. The highlight of the first night is a mash-up of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and Cash’s brazen doppelgänger, “Understand Your Man”. The men sing their own compositions separately before, at Cash’s behest, they swap, singing the other’s song simultaneously over the same chord pattern. “Do you know it?” Cash asks Dylan with a chuckle, adding, “We both stole it from the same song…” – a reference to the fact that the melody was liberally ‘adapted’ from Paul Clayton’s 1960 song, “Who’s Gonna Buy You Ribbons When I’m Gone?”
They convened again the following day, cutting further versions of their own songs alongside old country tunes, rock’n’roll staples, traditional standards, religious hymns, Jimmie Rodgers blue yodels and much else besides. “It was kind of like a Sun Records session,” says WS Holland, who played drums on both days. “We go in, and nobody knew exactly what they were going to do or sing. We were more or less cutting up and having a big time, and not really all that serious about being really good. We didn’t think too much about what we were doing.”
In Cash, Dylan had also found a man who shared his love of making music on the hoof. “We didn’t ever really know what John was thinking when he went into a session,” says Holland. “He liked to be spontaneous. He did things on impulse, and often it worked really good.”
On the tapes, you hear Cash generate the fuel that keeps the session running. He’s a fount of ideas, demands, suggestions, ad libs and cornball jokes. On “Mountain Dew”, Cash says, “You know, this would be real funny if you talked off a verse…” and Dylan duly gives it a good-natured stab. Later the Man in Black asks, “What religious songs do you know, Bob?”, prompting Dylan to offer a strangulated “amen” in response to Cash’s earnest testifying. On “Careless Love”, there’s much light-hearted messing around with numbers relating to various firearms. There’s further joshing on “Five Feet High And Rising”: “How high’s the water, Bob?” jabs Cash. “How high’s the manure, Bob?”
“It’s a recording of two guys doing a song pull on a porch – except it’s those two guys!” says Bootleg Series co-producer Steve Berkowitz. “There is clearly a joy and mutual respect. They’re liking doing this – and they know a lot of songs! They’ve had incomparable success, but they really love playing and they love music. They’re doing this American history thing, just calling it out like brothers or cousins. It’s a beautiful thing to hear that moment of creation.”
You can read much more about Dylan and Cash in the new issue of Uncut, out now with Bob Dylan on the cover.
