The new issue of Uncut will be on sale from Friday. Subscribers, of course, those sensibly organised people who plan ahead and have their lives in probably perfect order, may already have started receiving their copies. Lucky them! We’re actually still waiting for ours, but not yet fretting that they’ve been re-routed, sent via some staging post on a distant tundra where passing yaks may end up feasting upon them, the chomp-chomp-chomp of their distracted munching the only sound in that vast space, the hairy ruminants quite indifferent, of course, to what’s actually in the issue. Which is a lot, and includes in the grand annual tradition of these things, our review of the year, a 30-page special, featuring our Top 75 Albums Of 2012, plus the best reissues and box sets, films, DVDs and books, as voted for by over 40 Uncut contributors.
The deluxe reissue of The Jam’s final album, The Gift, is reviewed in the new issue of Uncut (December 2012, Take 187) – so for this week’s archive feature, we’ve stepped back to Uncut’s December 2008 (Take 139) issue, to spend a year by Paul Weller’s side, as he celebrates his 50th birthday. We are invited into the Guv’nor’s inner sanctum, to his star-studded birthday party, and into dressing rooms across Britain and America. And we learn that, like any good mod, Weller remains “more interested in the future than the past”. Words: Paul Moody
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Just finishing the Ultimate Music Guide on The Kinks while listening to Gurdjieff’s harmonium improvisations from 1949. There are, though, a bunch of interesting newer things here as well. Have a listen to the new Mark Kozelek song, for a start (he played a really compelling gig in London last Friday, incidentally, which I haven’t had a chance to write about).
Usual excuses about too much work to do (currently: a forthcoming Ultimate Music Guide on The Kinks, and the dark mathematics of Uncut’s end-of-year charts, as well as the rest of the next issue) mean that I failed yesterday to write a review of the Six Organs Of Admittance show at Birthdays in Dalston.
Lou Reed at 70 arrives onstage at the Festival Hall to do his bit for Antony Hegarty’s Meltdown programme dressed like a stroppy teenager in a baggy black basketball vest, gold medallions around his neck and what looks like a pair of tracksuit bottoms. He looks frail these days, though tonight slightly less so than last year at the Hammersmith Apollo, and perhaps no wonder when you consider what he’s put his body through over the years before he embraced his current sobriety.
The Who officially brought the London Olympics to a close with "My Generation".
Ray Davies, Madness and Pink Floyd's Nick Mason were among the other artists who performed at the Olympics closing ceremony.
Beady Eye played Oasis' 'Wonderall' during the 'A Symphony of British Music' segment. Backed by a string orchestra, Liam Gallagher was joined by the athletes and the thousands in attendance in singing the 90's Britpop hit. It is the first time Liam has sang the track live since Oasis split up in 2009.
The new issue of Uncut, which hits shelves today (July 27), features Joe Strummer, Captain Beefheart, Bob Dylan and Animal Collective.
Strummer is on the cover, and inside is the story of the late Clash legend’s secret history – the wilderness years between the end of his group and his final creative rebirth.
Captain Beefheart’s whole story is told by The Magic Band, while Bob Dylan’s live show at Hop Farm is reviewed and Animal Collective talk us through their back catalogue.
Ray Davies has announced a 14 date UK tour, to coincide with the release of The Kinks At The BBC box set.
Along with already announced dates at Millennium Forum, Derry on June 24 and Hop Farm on June 29, Davies and his band play:
Sunday, September 30: The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury
Monday, October 1: Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Tuesday, October 2: The Sage, Gateshead
Thursday, October 4: Royal Albert Hall, London
Friday, October 5: Cliffs Pavilion, Southend
Saturday, October 6: Guildhall, Southampton
Monday, October 8: Barbican, York
The line-up for Antony Hegarty's Meltdown festival at London's Southbank Centre has been revealed.
The Antony And The Johnsons singer is curating the annual festival, following in the footsteps of Jarvis Cocker, David Bowie and, most recently, The Kinks' Ray Davies, by curating the 12-day festival which runs August 1-12.
