Bob Marley & The Wailers will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Exodus with four special editions.
Three of which will feature Exodus 40 – The Movement Continues, featuring Ziggy Marley’s newly curated “restatement” of the original album.
June 2 sees the release of three of the four new Exodus sets. A two-CD set includes the original album along with Ziggy Marley’s “restatement” version. A three-CD set, which will also be available digitally, features the original Exodus, The Movement Continues and Exodus Live. There will also be a limited edition gold vinyl version comprising the original 1977 album.
Meanwhile, on June 30, the Super Deluxe four-LP, two 7-inch singles edition will be released. It will include the original LP, Ziggy’s Movement version, and an Exodus Live set, which was recorded at London’s Rainbow Theatre the week of the album’s release. The fourth LP is entitled Punky Reggae Party. It packages a previously unreleased extended mix of “Keep on Moving” along with a pair of vinyl 7-inches: “Waiting in Vain” backed with “Roots” and “Smile Jamaica (Part One)” backed with “Smile Jamaica (Part Two).”
You can find more information about the editions and pre-order them by clicking here.
In a career that spanned most of the twentieth century, Ella Fitzgerald sold more than 40 million records, helped to define the American Songbook, became the first African-American woman to win a Grammy, and sang with almost all of her peers. And yet, twenty years after her death, she remains a strangely under-appreciated jazz singer, perhaps because she lacks the Rat Pack mythology of Frank Sinatra and the romanticized miseries of Billie Holiday.
Or, perhaps it’s simply because she sounds so happy. Her vocal tone is bright and clear, her phrasing so fluid and breezy that the songs become playgrounds, but that ebullience of voice should not suggest a lack of depth or a dearth of soul. Fitzgerald can sound melancholy, even lonely, but there’s always a hardy optimism lurking in even her slowest, bleakest tune—as though she knows the next tune will be a happy one.
100 Songs For A Centennial, a 4xCD retrospective chronicles the first two major chapters in her career, starting with Fitzgerald’s tenure at Decca and then with her even more impressive run at Verve. While not a comprehensive overview of her life and career, this box set provides apt context for a series of releases commemorating her 100th birthday.
Born in Virginia but raised in New York—where one of her first jobs was lookout for a brothel—Fitzgerald willed her career into existence, first by winning a talent show at the Apollo and then signing with Chick Webb’s orchestra, all while still a teenager. Her early hits were largely novelty tunes, including her immensely popular “A Tisket, A Tasket” in 1938. Like Sinatra, however, she gracefully weathered the change from singles to albums in the 1950s, understanding that the new format allowed her to make bigger and more complex statements.
At Verve she undertook one of the most significant endeavors in the history of recorded music: a series of albums exploring the catalogs of such songwriters as Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, Duke Ellington and George & Ira Gershwin. 100 Songs ends with Fitzgerald in her early forties, around the time she was enjoying her last smash hit, “Mack the Knife,” but even as the pop landscape made less room for her brand of pop music, the blithe excitement of her vocals never waned.
In the twentieth century and even in the twenty-first, there’s something incredibly compelling and even poignant about cheeriness of her interpretations. In the face of oppression within the jazz scene and without—she was dismissed for being too black, for being a woman, for not being traditionally beautiful and desirable—Fitzgerald met the world with what might be considered a radical happiness, which is the animating force on 100 Songs for a Centennial.
Roger Waters has released a new track, “Smell The Roses“, which is taken from his first rock album in 25 years, Is This The Life We Really Want?
You can hear the song below.
The album will be available for pre order today, April 21, and released globally on Friday 2 June on Columbia Records.
Additionally, Waters will launch his North American Us + Them Tour in Kansas City, MO on Friday 26 May. The Us + Them Tour runs until 28 October, concluding in Vancouver, BC. See full list of dates below.
Produced and mixed by Nigel Godrich, Is This The Life We Really Want? includes 12 new songs. The physical album release includes a double 180-gram vinyl LP in a gatefold jacket and a 4-panel soft pack CD. All album formats, physical and digital, are available for pre-order from 21 April.
The musicians on Is This The Life We Really Want? are: Roger Waters (vocals, acoustic, bass), Nigel Godrich (arrangement, sound collages, keyboards, guitar), Gus Seyffert (bass, guitar, keyboards), Jonathan Wilson (guitar, keyboards), Joey Waronker (drums), Roger Manning (keyboards), Lee Pardini (keyboards), and Lucius (vocals) with Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig.
Is This The Life We Really Want? tracklist When We Were Young
Déjà Vu
The Last Refugee
Picture That
Broken Bones
Is This The Life We Really Want?
Bird In A Gale
The Most Beautiful Girl
Smell The Roses
Wait For Her
Oceans Apart
Part of Me Died
The lyrics for “Wait for Her” were written by Roger Waters and inspired by an English translation by an unknown author of “Lesson from the Kama Sutra (Wait for Her)” by Mahmoud Darwish.
Meanwhile, The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains runs from May 13 – October 1, 2017 at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition includes more than 350 objects and artefacts on display, many of them never before seen, including hand-written lyrics, musical instruments, letters, original artwork and stage props.
Roger Waters Us + Them North American Tour 2017
May 26 Kansas City, MO Sprint Center
May 28 Louisville, KY KFC Yum! Center
May 30 St. Louis, MO Scottrade Center
June 01 Tulsa, OK BOK Center
June 03 Denver, CO Pepsi Center
June 04 Denver, CO Pepsi Center
June 07 San Jose, CA SAP Center at San Jose
June 10 Oakland, CA Oracle Arena
June 12 Sacramento, CA Golden 1 Center
June 14 Phoenix, AZ Gila River Arena
June 16 Las Vegas, NV T-Mobile Arena
June 20 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
June 21 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
June 24 Seattle, WA Tacoma Dome
June 27 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
July 01 San Antonio, TX AT&T Center
July 03 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
July 06 Houston, TX Toyota Center
July 08 New Orleans, LA Smoothie King Center
July 11 Tampa, FL Amalie Arena
July 13 Miami, FL American Airlines Arena
July 16 Atlanta, GA Infinite Energy Arena
July 18 Greensboro, NC Greensboro Coliseum
July 20 Columbus, OH Nationwide Arena
July 22 Chicago, IL United Center
July 23 Chicago, IL United Center
July 26 St. Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center
July 29 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
August 02 Detroit, MI The Palace of Auburn Hills
August 04 Washington, DC Verizon Center
August 08 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
August 09 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
August 13 Nashville, TN Bridgestone Arena
September 07 Newark, NJ Prudential Center
September 11 Brooklyn, NY Barclays Center
September 12 Brooklyn, NY Barclays Center
September 15 Uniondale, NY The New Coliseum
September 16 Uniondale, NY The New Coliseum
September 19 Pittsburgh, PA PPG Paints Arena
September 21 Cleveland, OH Quicken Loans Arena
September 23 Albany, NY Times Union Center
September 24 Hartford, CT XL Center
September 27 Boston, MA TD Garden
September 28 Boston, MA TD Garden
October 02 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre
October 03 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre
October 06 Quebec City, QC Videotron Centre
October 07 Quebec City, QC Videotron Centre
October 10 Ottawa, ONT Canadian Tire Centre
October 16 Montreal, QC Bell Centre
October 17 Montreal, QC Bell Centre
October 22 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre
October 24 Edmonton, AB Rogers Place
October 28 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
Nice to get back from a week or so’s holiday and find a heap of new music worth listening to. Quick highlights: Kendrick of course (the U2 track is, against the odds, tremendous); the new Floating Points jam; an amazing Kamasi Washington tune and film; the Como Mamas with a band; and James Elkington and Jeff Tweedy direct from the Wilco loft. Wish I had something to play you from the new (last?) Träd, Gräs Och Stenar album, but it’s very much of a piece with that gorgeous box set from last year. Also amazed and delighted to get Van’s Bang recordings and much more, finally, in a legitimate form, and the Mulatu Astatke reissue is beautiful.
To say Willie Nelson is old-fashioned is an understatement. As country music and the country it represents has shifted and evolved, Willie’s love songs and laid-back workingman’s laments have fallen in and out of fashion. But even now, at age 83, Nelson is operating precisely how he did back in the ’60s. He’s constantly on the road and releasing multiple albums a year, alternately trying out different styles and returning to his roots. In the time since his last collection of original songs, 2014’s diverse Band Of Brothers, he has recorded full-length tributes to both George Gershwin and Ray Price, sung on songs by Kacey Musgraves and Cyndi Lauper, and released an entire album of new collaborations with the late Merle Haggard. All the while, he’s toured his ass off – through sickness and health – and shown no signs of slowing down.
“They say my pace would kill a normal man,” Willie sings on his latest album, God’s Problem Child, “but I’ve never been accused of being normal anyway.” The song is called “Still Not Dead” and it makes no bones about its subject matter: “The internet said I had passed away,” he sings, “Well if I died I wasn’t dead to stay/And I woke up still not dead again today.” “Still Not Dead” has all the makings of a classic Willie Nelson song: funny in a sad way, sad in a funny way, and, despite its specificity to the octogenarian celebrity lifestyle, it could be sung by anyone who feels like the world is against them. Planted firmly at the center of God’s Problem Child, “Still Not Dead” is one of Willie’s modern masterpieces and the centrepiece of an album that can stand comfortably alongside any of his iconic work.
It helps that, even as he’s aged and wandered, Nelson’s voice has mostly retained its power. On God’s Problem Child, he sounds a bit like a weathered harmonica: he might have lost some of his higher notes, but he can soar through all the ones that count. The arrangements, which skew more toward classic country and slower tempos than Band Of Brothers, also help highlight Willie’s strengths. By this point, he knows precisely what he wants to say and how he wants to say it. Buddy Cannon, who has worked on almost all of Nelson’s records over the last decade, is a fine collaborator here, and together, they find new ways for Willie to channel his old self. Many of the album’s highlights arrive in its statelier, starker second half. “It Gets Easier” is as steady and true as any of his best relationship songs, while “Lady Luck” is an optimistic outlook at a downtrodden world.
As is to be expected from an artist losing more of his closest peers and collaborators with each passing year, Willie Nelson is haunted by death throughout God’s Problem Child. Sometimes the presence is literal, as on the title track, which features one of the final vocal takes by songwriter Leon Russell. But the song is no death march: it’s a defiant, swampy ode to living outside the lines of society, something both singers speak to with authority. In “He Won’t Ever Be Gone”, Nelson pays tribute to Merle Haggard, whose intrinsic toughness has always played as a foil to Willie’s more laconic wisdom. Over a bittersweet chord progression, Willie names the songs Merle wrote, recalls the “high times” they had together, and prays for the best afterlife a songwriter can dream of: that their songs will outlive them.
Despite the urgency of “He Won’t Ever Be Gone”, its line of thinking – that our work is what defines us – is nothing new for Willie Nelson. While remaining endlessly prolific, he has always looked at the album as a totemic work, collecting songs in ways that add up to something bigger than the individual pieces. Let’s not forget that this is the songwriter who crafted one of country music’s first concept records (1971’s Yesterday’s Wine) and one of its first crossover standards collections (1978’s Stardust). God’s Problem Child continues that tradition—approaching life and love from angles that can only result from a career spent studying both with a restless sense of wonder. It’s the kind of perspective that most songwriters can only dream of attaining: for Willie Nelson, it’s just another day at the office.
The Mark Lanegan Band have released a video for “Beehive“.
The song is taken from their latest album, Gargoyle, which is due April 28 on Heavenly Recordings.
Meanwhile, the band have a run of tour dates lined up in June, including a slot at Glastonbury:
Monday 19th June – BIRMINGHAM – Library
Tuesday 20th June – GLASGOW – Garage
Wednesday 21st June – MANCHESTER – Ritz
Thursday 22nd June – LONDON – KOKO
Friday 23rd June – PILTON – Glastonbury
Bruce Springsteen and Houserockers frontman Joe Grushecky have teamed up for a new anti-Trump protest song, titled “That’s What Makes Us Great“.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Grushecky already had the song before Springsteen and he began talking about a collaboration. “I sent it to him and he liked it. I said, ‘What do you think about singing on it?’ He gave it the Bruce treatment,” Grushecky explained.
Grushecky continued to say that Trump lost his vote “the moment he started making fun of special needs people. How could a person like that be president of the United States?” You can listen to “That’s What Makes Us Great” over on Grushecky’s website.
When Ray and Dave Davies performed together on stage for the first time in 20 years, playing “You Really Got Me” at Islington Assembly Hall in December 2015, it ignited hope that the brothers would put aside their differences and finally announce a reunion.
Of course, like any good soap opera, the exploits of the Davies siblings continue to tantalise us. And while we wait for the next development in their unpredictable relationship, why not revisit the many, remarkable achievements made by their band, The Kinks?
This deluxe, updated edition of our 148-page Ultimate Music Guide: The Kinks tells the band’s complete story, via wealth of interviews from the NME, Melody Maker and Uncut archives. We’ve exhaustively reviewed each of the band’s albums, as well as solo, live and compilation releases. “I don’t want to see the legacy of The Kinks sourced by two miserable old men doing it for the money,” Ray told Uncut in 2014. Here, we hope, we have done their vital, extraordinary body of work justice…
Supper’s ready: here’s the main course… Uncut’s latest Ultimate Music Guide is an ambitious survey of the entire, brilliant career of Genesis – from prog shapeshifters to stadium gods. We’ve delved deep into the archives of NME and Melody Maker, finding interviews with the band that have languished unseen since the 1970s and ‘80s. “If our present success continues, we’ll be in the situation where we can realize most of our ambitions in music,” Peter Gabriel tells Melody Maker in 1973. “I hope what we do will be completely new.”
Alongside all these revelations, we’ve written in-depth new reviews of every single Genesis album, from their 1969 debut right up until 1997’s Calling All Stations. We’ve also investigated the significant solo careers: not just of Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, but of Steve Hackett, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks, too. It’s a tricky tale, but an endlessly rewarding one – Genesis: The Ultimate Music Guide.
Glen Campbell has announced details of his final studio album, Adiós.
Adiós was recorded at Station West in Nashville following Campbell’s “Goodbye Tour”; according to a statement the album consists of “songs that Campbell always loved but never got a chance to record”.
Among these are tracks by Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Fred Neil as well as longtime collaborator Jimmy Webb.
Adiós will be released June 9 on UMe on CD, vinyl and digitally.
The tracklisting for Adiós is:
Everybody’s Talkin’
Just Like Always
Funny (How Time Slips Away) (feat. Willie Nelson)
Arkansas Farmboy
Am I All Alone (Or Is It Only Me) (intro by Roger Miller)
Am I All Alone (Or Is It Only Me) (feat. Vince Gill)
It Won’t Bring Her Back
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
She Thinks I Still Care
Postcard From Paris
A Thing Called Love
Adiós
A new collection of Bert Jansch’s final recordings, made between 2000 and 2006, is due for release in April.
Living In The Shadows Part 2: On The Edge Of A Dream follows Living In The Shadows, which was released in January this year.
This new anthology includes three Jansch albums, Crimson Moon, Edge Of A Dream and Black Swan as well as a fourth disc, The Setting Of The Sun, which includes demos and unreleased material.
Below you can hear a previously unreleased collaboration with Johnny Marr, “It Don’t Bother Me”.
As someone born at the end of 1967, I could, at a push, be described as a child of the Summer Of Love. But in or new and very special issue of Uncut to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that profound cultural uprising, we speak to many architects of peace and love who really were there – and who can, contrary to cliché, remember everything that happened. Eric Burdon, for instance, recalls the splendour of the Monterey Pop festival from that June. “It was so beautiful,” Burdon tells us. “People with facepaint, wearing flowers, and flags with peace. The colours alone were revolutionary. The smell of sage and marijuana was all around. It was the vibe of acceptance, grooving with one another. Old, young, straight, gay.”
Psychedelic revolutions were a little slower to manifest themselves in the market towns and mining villages of North Nottinghamshire. But still, intimations of change seeped into millions of homes: The Beatles, on June 25, singing “All You Need Is Love” to a massive worldwide TV audience, surrounded by every conceivable signifier of hippiedom. “It was amazing,” remembers one participant. “Smoking a joint in front of 400 million people.” By the end of September, Radio One had launched, and The Move’s “Flowers In The Rain” – along with many other songs in our Summer Of Love Top 50 – were subtly turning on a generation.
Beyond our 1967 happening, it’s a busy month in Uncut’s world. We memorialise the founding father of rock’n’roll, Chuck Berry, and get a sneak preview of his last album. We have an exclusive interview with one of 2017’s most auspicious comeback bands, the Fleet Foxes, and Robin Pecknold has compiled an amazing 15-song CD of some of the key influences on their new album, which comes free with the issue.*
There’s an unravelling of the mysteries of Twin Peaks’ music, and a night in Stockholm with Bob Dylan and his frank, unblinkered fans. Plus interviews with Fairport Convention (also celebrating their 50th anniversary), Royal Trux, the great Hailu Mergia, Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson and James Brown’s horniest horn man, Fred Wesley, plus a heavyweight reviews section that includes Feist, Paul Weller, Ray Davies, Perfume Genius, Joan Shelley, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, John Martyn, Johnny Cash and me on Alice Coltrane.
Come on people now; smile on your brother!
*Please note: the CD will not be available with copies on sale in the Birmingham, UK, area. Robin’s selection of tracks is, however, posted as a playlist on Spotify.
The new issue of Uncut, dated June 2017, is now available in shops and also to buy digitally
Dates have been announced for a UK tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of DA Penebaker‘s Bob Dylan documentary Dont Look Back.
Penebaker’s film follows Dylan’s 1965 UK tour. This run of screenings dates follows in the footsteps of that momentous tour, taking place in cities where Dylan performed in 1965.
Sunday April 30, 2017: Showroom Cinema, Sheffield
(Dylan performed at Sheffield City Hall)
Tickets: http://www.showroomworkstation.org.uk/dont-look-back
Monday May 1, 2017: FACT Cinema, Liverpool
(Dylan performed at Liverpool Odeon Theatre)
Tickets: http://www.fact.co.uk/whats-on/current/dont-look-back.aspx?when=choosedate&date=2017501/05/2017%2000:00:00
Tuesday May 2, 2017: Phoenix Cinema, Leicester
(Dylan performed at De Montfort Hall)
Tickets: http://www.phoenix.org.uk/film/dont-look-back/
Friday May 5, 2017: MAC Cinema, Birmingham
(Dylan performed at Birmingham Town Hall)
Tickets: https://macbirmingham.co.uk/whats-on/cinema/2017/may/05
Saturday May 6, 2017: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle
(Dylan performed at Newcastle City Hall)
Tickets: https://www.tynesidecinema.co.uk/whats-on/films/view/don-t-look-back
Sunday May 7, 2017: HOME Cinema, Manchester
(Dylan performed at Free Trade Hall)
Tickets: https://homemcr.org/cinema/
Wednesday May 10, 2017: Regent Street Cinema, London
(Dylan performed at Royal Albert Hall)
Tickets: https://www.regentstreetcinema.com/programme/dont-look-back/
The Summer Of Love remembered, Chuck Berry, Fleet Foxes and Twin Peaks all feature in the new issue of Uncut, dated June 2017, which is now available in shops and also to buy digitally.
In our cover feature, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of 1967’s Summer Of Love, talking to the musicians, promoters and scenesters who were there. Plus, we count down the 50 essential songs from the Summer Of Love, from The Seeds to The Smoke, and including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd.
“Right-wing politicians still get angry when you mention 1967,” says Floyd and Incredible String Band producer Joe Boyd.
In tribute to the late Chuck Berry, we look at how the pioneer embodied rock’n’roll right up until the end of his storied life, with the help of some of his closest collaborators. “Berry has as much to say about life and death as Cash and Bowie and Cohen did on their final albums,” writes Stephen Deusner.
Uncut also meets Fleet Foxes, returning with their long-awaited third album, Crack-Up: “There are times on this record,” admits Skyler Skjelset, “when you can hear Robin [Pecknold] losing it…”
Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise take us through the strange story of the theme song for David Lynch‘s Twin Peaks – how a rodent-infested studio produced music for people to make love to… “David Lynch thinks music is more beautiful if it’s slower – I felt like I was playing in reverse,” says Badalamenti.
Elsewhere, as Bob Dylan begins his latest European tour, we go native with the Bobcats in Stockholm and discover new perspectives on this enduringly provocative Nobel Laureate.
Fairport Convention answer your queries on their 50th anniversary, hanging out with John Bonham, craft beer vs real ale, and how they coped with the departure of Sandy Denny.
Legendary horn player Fred Wesley takes Uncut through the finest albums he’s worked on, from James Brown‘s The Payback to Count Basie‘s Live In Japan.
Jane Birkin chooses the songs that have soundtracked her life, from Elvis Presley to Serge Gainsbourg – “I think Serge knew he was probably the best lyricist alive,” she says.
Meanwhile, The Clash, Aldous Harding, Hailu Mergia, Royal Trux and Roger Hodgson all appear in our Instant Karma section.
In our Reviews section, we take a look at new albums from Feist, Paul Weller, Perfume Genius, Ray Davies and Joan Shelley, and archival releases from Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Johnny Cash, Alice Coltrane, John Martyn and more.
Our free CD presents 15 tracks chosen by Fleet Foxes‘ Robin Pecknold, including classic cuts from Todd Rundgren, Neu!, Van Dyke Parks, The Shaggs, Arthur Russell and Cate Le Bon.
The Summer Of Love remembered, Chuck Berry, Fleet Foxes and Twin Peaks all feature in the new issue of Uncut, dated June 2017, which is now available in shops and also to buy digitally.
In our cover feature, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of 1967’s Summer Of Love, talking to the musicians, promoters and scenesters who were there. Plus, we count down the 50 essential songs from the Summer Of Love, from The Seeds to The Smoke, and including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd.
“Right-wing politicians still get angry when you mention 1967,” says Floyd and Incredible String Band producer Joe Boyd.
In tribute to the late Chuck Berry, we look at how the pioneer embodied rock’n’roll right up until the end of his storied life, with the help of some of his closest collaborators. “Berry has as much to say about life and death as Cash and Bowie and Cohen did on their final albums,” writes Stephen Deusner.
Uncut also meets Fleet Foxes, returning with their long-awaited third album, Crack-Up: “There are times on this record,” admits Skyler Skjelset, “when you can hear Robin [Pecknold] losing it…”
Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise take us through the strange story of the theme song for David Lynch‘s Twin Peaks – how a rodent-infested studio produced music for people to make love to… “David Lynch thinks music is more beautiful if it’s slower – I felt like I was playing in reverse,” says Badalamenti.
Elsewhere, as Bob Dylan begins his latest European tour, we go native with the Bobcats in Stockholm and discover new perspectives on this enduringly provocative Nobel Laureate.
Fairport Convention answer your queries on their 50th anniversary, hanging out with John Bonham, craft beer vs real ale, and how they coped with the departure of Sandy Denny.
Legendary horn player Fred Wesley takes Uncut through the finest albums he’s worked on, from James Brown‘s The Payback to Count Basie‘s Live In Japan.
Jane Birkin chooses the songs that have soundtracked her life, from Elvis Presley to Serge Gainsbourg – “I think Serge knew he was probably the best lyricist alive,” she says.
Meanwhile, The Clash, Aldous Harding, Hailu Mergia, Royal Trux and Roger Hodgson all appear in our Instant Karma section.
In our Reviews section, we take a look at new albums from Feist, Paul Weller, Perfume Genius, Ray Davies and Joan Shelley, and archival releases from Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Johnny Cash, Alice Coltrane, John Martyn and more.
Our free CD presents 15 tracks chosen by Fleet Foxes‘ Robin Pecknold, including classic cuts from Todd Rundgren, Neu!, Van Dyke Parks, The Shaggs, Arthur Russell and Cate Le Bon.*
The new issue is out on April 20.
*Please note: the CD will not be available with copies on sale in the Birmingham, UK, area. Robin’s selection of tracks is, however, posted as a playlist on Spotify.
Originally published in Uncut’s August 2015 issue (Take 219). Words: Tom Pinnock
“It’s not the song that I think is my best,” admits Peter Perrett today, pondering the legacy of his best-known creation. Many, however, would disagree with his assessment of “Another Girl, Another Planet”, not least The Replacements, who last month ended their first British gig for 24 years with their own rowdy version.
On its original release, The Only Ones’ second single failed to chart – likely too psychedelic for punk and too weird for the mainstream – but the song has grown in stature over the years, being covered by acts as diverse as Blink-182, Pete Doherty, Belle & Sebastian and The Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain.
“We were lucky that so-called punk happened, ’cos the rulebook had been ripped up,” says Perrett, who is now clean of hard drugs after a lengthy struggle. “The one thing I had in common with punks was that I was quite angry. A lot of our early gigs ended in me smashing things.”
Even so, the group also had a foot firmly in the ’60s. Drummer Mike Kellie played with Spooky Tooth, while the young Perrett attended Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd gigs, factors that no doubt conspired to gave “Another Girl…” its more cosmic, psychedelic edge.
“Peter always had an aura,” explains bassist Alan Mair, still marvelling at the songwriter’s work. “From the start, he came over as someone who was very artistic, as someone who had an individual aura, an individual charisma.”
_______________________________
PETER PERRETT (vocals, guitar, organ, songwriting): I can remember what caused me to write “Another Girl, Another Planet”. It would have been about April ’77, because we had it recorded by June. It was inspired by this girl from Yugoslavia. I didn’t go out with her, but she was like a total space cadet, which when I was really young I found interesting. She was just a bit weird – she’d say crazy things, and it just got me thinking that every girl has something different to offer. It would have been written on my Guild acoustic. I think any good song should sound all right on an acoustic guitar.
JOHN PERRY (lead guitar): Peter never explained his lyrics. I never asked. The band rarely talked about music. We’d push a new song down the slipway, see if it floated, and see where it went. When a band is working well, there’s little point talking about it – everyone speaks more eloquently with their instruments.
PERRETT: It’s not about heroin. I mean, I’d started experimenting with heroin at that time – I was probably on it about once a month – but I didn’t think of myself as a junkie until 1980 or ’81, after the band broke up. Everyone thinks that they have it under control and they’re stronger than the idiots who fall prey to it. I always enjoyed writing ambiguous lyrics that could be taken on two or three different levels. You know, it’s like “Love Is The Drug” or “Addicted To Love”. I put in drug-related imagery, but it wasn’t about drugs. At that time I was more addicted to sex and infatuation than I was to drugs.
MIKE KELLIE (drums): Taking Peter’s wonderful songs, as he presented them, and turning them into what was The Only Ones was a very organic but intense process.
PERRETT: I used to be very definite about the structure. I would always have the song conceived in the writing stage, and I wouldn’t allow any suggestions for changing of structure.
ALAN MAIR (bass guitar): The intro to “Another Girl…” was developed with everyone playing together. The thing about The Only Ones is that nobody ever told somebody what they should play. Peter would show us a song and we would just listen to it and develop our own part without it being questioned by each other. That’s the way we worked right from the beginning.
Willie Nelson is launching the Outlaw Music Festival Tour, which takes in six dates during July.
The tour begins on July 1 at New Orleans’ Shrine on Airline with Nelson joined by The Avett Brothers, Sheryl Crow, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real and other guests.
Bob Dylan will join the tour for two dates – at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, MI on July 8 and at the Summerfest, Milwaukee, WI on July 9.
Other guests at various dates will include My Morning Jacket, Sheryl Crow, Margo Price, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit.
“We had such a blast launching and playing last year’s Outlaw Music Festival in Scranton, we had to take it out on the road this summer,” Nelson said a statement announcing the festival, according to Billboard.
Lineups and dates for the Outlaw Music Festival:
July 1 – New Orleans, LA @ Shrine on Airline
Willie Nelson & Family
The Avett Brothers
Sheryl Crow
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real
More TBA
July 2 – Dallas, TX @ Starplex Pavilion
Willie Nelson & Family
Sheryl Crow
The Avett Brothers
Hayes Carll
Margo Price
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real
July 6 – Rogers, AR @ Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion
Willie Nelson & Family
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Sheryl Crow
Margo Price
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real
July 8 – Detroit, MI @ Joe Louis Arena
Willie Nelson & Family
Bob Dylan and His Band
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Sheryl Crow
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real
July 9 – Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest
Willie Nelson & Family
Bob Dylan and His Band
Sheryl Crow
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
Margo Price
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real
July 16 – Syracuse, NY @ Lakeview Amphitheater
Willie Nelson & Family
My Morning Jacket
Sheryl Crow
Margo Price
“I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with this ‘voice of the people’ tag they’ve given us,” says Jason Williamson, frontman with Sleaford Mods. It is the middle of 2015 and Christine Franz’ film finds Williamson and his creative partner Andrew Fearn on a regional tour. Although their music clearly resonates with their young audience, Sleaford Mods are entering a period of transition. They are about to release a new album, Key Markets, and a Glastonbury slot, Later… With Jools Holland and the patronage of Iggy Pop soon follow.
Williamson and Fearn are both very different subjects. On stage, Williamson comes across as part John Cooper Clarke, part John Lydon, part Ken Loach – a confident frontman with a sharp wit and an eye for social injustice. But what Franz’ film doesn’t really address are the years Williamson – a 40something father of two and a former benefits advisor – spent slogging away trying to get Sleaford Mods off the ground. We hear briefly about a succession of dead end jobs, but it is only part of the story. “He’s one of these people who disappear off the radar and you hear that they were dead,” says Williamson’s wife, Claire.
By contrast, Fearn is chatty yet somehow more reserved: the closest Franz’ gets to illuminating his interior life is when he reveals plans to pilot his houseboat along the canals to Bristol. The band’s manager Steve Underwood – a former bus driver – provides the film’s warm, avuncular heart. At one point, we see him manually affixing labels to 12” records in his upstairs box room while wrestling aloud with the moral implications of signing a distribution deal with Rough Trade. “Sleafords is music for everybody,” he eventually decides.
In 1959, Warren Beatty was a struggling young actor with only a handful of minor TV appearances to his name. Perhaps coincidentally, the events of Rules Don’t Apply mostly take place during that same year, when a number of people – starlets, politicians, businessmen and lowly chauffeurs; some real, some imagined – are pulled into Howard Hughes’ orbit. You could be forgiven for thinking that Rules Don’t Apply – Beatty’s first film since 2001 – is really two different films. Is it a love story with a study of an ageing Hollywood monarch tacked on; or an ageing Hollywood monarch’s satire about another ageing Hollywood monarch with a love story bolted on? Considering the year in which it is set, how much of it is also rooted in Beatty’s own formative years in Los Angeles?
Either way, Rules Don’t Apply spends its first act detailing the budding – though strictly forbidden – romance between Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), one of the many actresses Hughes kept under contract at RKO, and Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), a driver employed by Hughes’ organization. It’s sprightly stuff, with some good comedy from Annette Bening as Marla’s devout mother and Matthew Broderick as Forbes’ wily mentor Levar. Then Hughes appears, sort of. We see him in shadow for the most part, sitting in hotel bungalows, listening to illicit tape recordings he’s made of conversations with employees, with Marla. Richard Nixon in Mulholland Drive.
If Frank, Marla and Levar are all engaged in lightly comedic pursuits, Hughes is night to their day: unpredictable, stubborn, paranoid. Ehrenreich (Disney’s young Han Solo) and Collins are both charming but framkly they’re amuse-bouches for Beatty’s bone-in prime rib. Beatty reminded me a little of Daniel Day Lewis in Scorsese’s Gangs Of New York, insofar as Day Lewis was clearly acting in a completely different film to everyone else. Here is a man who leaves hotels via the kitchens, under a blanket, strapped to a stretcher. There are some illusions to Donald Trump – another volatile man of significant wealth and unconventional business practices – but really Beatty’s Hughes feels like a continuation of the formidable, single-minded characters he has always excelled at, from Clyde Barrow through to John McCable, Dick Tracy, Bugsy Siegel or Senator Jay Bulworth.
David Bowie‘s Lazarus musical is set to become a virtual reality experience.
The show was performed at London’s Kings Cross Theatre from November 2016 to January 2017, following a six-week stint in New York in late 2015 and early 2016.
The new version of the show will form part of the V&A’s 2017 Performance Festival, which is due to take place between April 21 – 30 at the museum.
Footage of Lazarus is to be screened during the From VHS To VR event, which is scheduled for the festival’s final day. The clips being used were recorded at one of the performances in January and will feature the musical’s stars Michael C Hall, Amy Lennox and Sophia Anne Caruso.
Ahead of the VR experience, Emily Harris, the National Video Archive Of Performance curator, will speak about the making of the recording. The audience will then be invited to take part in the experience via the use of VR headsets.
Admission to the event is free and more information can be found on the V&A’s official website.
