Reading a magazine this morning, I noticed that there are a bunch of tribute shows to Elliott Smith coming up; ostensibly I guess to commemorate the fact that, horrifyingly, the tenth anniversary of his death is coming up in a couple of months.
“When it came out people were like, ‘Where in the world did this come from? What kind of music is this?’” Robbie Robertson tells Uncut in an exclusive interview for this month’s cover story celebrating the 45th anniversary of The Band’s landmark debut album, Music From Big Pink.
“The one thing that saved Mick at this point was Dylan,” Mick Ronson’s wife, Suzi, recalls in a terrific feature on her late husband by Garry Mulholland in the new issue of Uncut. She was talking about the shambles Mick’s career had become after he was dumped by David Bowie and his first two solo albums, Slaughter On 10th Avenue and Play Don’t Worry, had both flopped. Things hadn’t really worked out with the Hunter-Ronson Band, either, and you wondered where Mick might go from here when he unexpectedly hove into view as a member of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue.
Last year, I spent a fair amount of time listening to a mighty blown-out Philadelphia band called Purling Hiss, whose mainman Mike Pollize was sprung from another excellent local band called the Birds Of Maya.
The new Uncut isn't on sale until Thursday, which is March 29. But here’s a quick run-down on what’s in it, which is a lot, so you may want to pull up a chair.
This month, I’ve been listening a lot to a band (or solo project; it’s not entirely clear) called Purling Hiss. It’s been fun but, at times, quite a challenge, even for those of us who can deal with lo-fidelity music that’s disseminated through several thick coats of distortion.
