“You’ll be hearing from me baby, long after I’m gone…” Leonard Cohen, rock’s poet laureate, is the subject of the latest edition of Uncut’s Ultimate Music Guides, a series of in-depth magazines that provide definitive overviews of the greatest musicians of the past 60 years. Full of interviews from the archives of NME, Melody Maker and Uncut, many unseen for decades, the Ultimate Music Guide to Leonard Cohen tells the complete story of a major artist ruefully trying to make some sense of the mysteries of life and love; trying to persevere on a quest towards transcendence, with caveats. Alongside the rich quotes from Cohen himself, you’ll also find in-depth new reviews of every album, book and volume of poetry. What emerges is a complete portrait of a man who started and finished his career as too old for this sort of thing, by most measures, but whose maturity and poetic insight enabled him to loom, benignly, over nearly every single one of his peers. He’s your man.
The Best of 1970s New Musical Express
Following our first rewarding trip into the NME archives, The Best Of The 1970s is another essential collection of incredible stories from the back pages of Britain’s premier music paper.
This second edition of our classic NME interviews series travels covers glam upstarts, stadium giants and punk revolutionaries. Don’t miss a boisterous session with Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop; on the road adventures with Springsteen, Led Zeppelin and Bob Marley; a studio visit to see Queen perfect “Bohemian Rhapsody”; and some wild tales from the early days of punk… Would you trust Sid Vicious as a babysitter?
Relive it all with The NME Interviews: The Best Of The 1970s.
Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide: Bob Dylan
Fear. Mystery. Confusion. Awe. The magnetic strangeness of Bob Dylan has dominated our world for well over half a century, casting a long shadow over most everyone who has followed in his wake. Now, in the wake of him being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, we’ve revisited, upgraded and expanded our Ultimate Music Guide to Dylan. Over 148 pages, we pursue rock’s most capricious and elusive genius through the back pages of NME, Melody Maker and Uncut, revisiting precious time spent with Dylan over the years: from a relative innocent in a Mayfair hotel room, complaining about how, already, “people pick me apart”; to a verbose prophet of Armageddon revealing, with deadly intent, “Satan’s working everywhere!” To complement these archive reports, you’ll also find in-depth pieces on all 37 of Dylan’s storied albums, from 1962’s Bob Dylan to this year’s Fallen Angels; 37 valiant, insightful attempts to unpick a lifetime of unparalleled creativity, in which the rich history, sounds and stories of America have been transformed, again and again, into something radical and new. In which Dylan has revolutionised our culture, several times, more or less single-handedly.
Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide: John Lennon
Gimme some truth! Uncut’s latest Ultimate Music Guide is a deluxe and upgraded edition dedicated to John Lennon. Thirty-six years on from his death, we’ve revisited the volatile and compelling interviews Lennon gave to the NME and Melody Maker through the 1970s, thrown in poignant reminiscences from Yoko Ono, and mixed in in-depth reviews of every one of his solo recordings. Filled with rare photographs and fan-friendly detail, the Ultimate Music Guide is an essential addition to any Lennon library.
Bruce Springsteen plays private farewell gig for Barack Obama
Bruce Springsteen has played a private acoustic set for Barack Obama and his staff at the White House.
According to Springsteen fansite Backstreets, via The Guardian, The Boss performed 15 songs for around 200 people last week (January 12), showcasing a career-spanning set of material.
After a short reception, staff and guests were called into the East Room, where Barack and Michelle Obama entered from the Green Room, followed by Springsteen, who first thanked the outgoing President and his staff.
Much of his set was understated, with Backstreets’ correspondent writing: “The mood in the room the whole night — both reception and concert — was not exactly sombre, but it wasn’t festive, either. It was elegiac, I’d say. There was a clear sense of something ending, both with the conclusion of an adventure for the staff and the silent presence of the coming political transition. Bruce’s demeanour was definitely in line with that overall vibe.”
Later on, Springsteen was joined by his wife and E Street Band mate Patti Scialfa on “Tougher Than The Rest” and “If I Should Fall Behind”, before he ended with a melancholy take on Born In The USA‘s “Dancing In The Dark”, and Wrecking Ball‘s “Land Of Hope And Dreams”.
Bruce Springsteen played:
Working On The Highway
Growin’ Up
My Hometown
My Father’s House
The Wish
Thunder Road
The Promised Land
Born In The U.S.A.
Devils & Dust
Tougher Than the Rest (with Patti Scialfa)
If I Should Fall Behind (with Patti Scialfa)
The Ghost If Tom Joad
Long Walk Home
Dancing In The Dark
Land Of Hope And Dreams
Robert Plant to appear on new Fairport Convention album
Fairport Convention will release a new album to celebrate their 50th anniversary, featuring guest vocals from Robert Plant.
The singer joins Pentangle vocalist Jacqui McShee on the record, titled 50:50@50 and tentatively set for release in May. It will consist of both new studio recordings and live favourites.
Plant has collaborated with Fairport Convention before, including joining them onstage at their Cropredy festival in 1986 and 2008, at the latter performing a version of Led Zeppelin‘s “The Battle Of Evermore”, which originally featured Fairport’s Sandy Denny on vocals.
Fairport – whose lineup since 1998 has comprised co-founder Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Ric Sanders, Chris Leslie and Gerry Conway – will also perform at London’s Union Chapel on May 27, 50 years to the day since the group’s first ever live performance.
The group will tour in January, and then in May, before they hold their Cropredy event in Oxfordshire in August.
Fairport Convention’s last album was 2015’s Myths And Heroes.
The Third Uncut Playlist Of 2017
A quick reminder before we get stuck in that the new issue of Uncut is on sale in the UK tomorrow: full details here; subscribers might well have their copies already.
Another good week for new arrivals, anyhow. Unfortunately I don’t have anything to play you from the excellent new Arbouretum, Joan Shelley and Wooden Wand albums as yet. Nevertheless, please try: Glenn Kotche and Darin Gray’s On Fillmore project; the unexpected return of Chavez (I was delighted to learn Clay Tarver is now productively employed as a writer on Silicon Valley); an early ‘70s find from Curtiss Maldoon, that I came across when watching Orange Sunshine, a good documentary about the idealistic LSD kingpins The Brotherhood Of Eternal Love; post-Labradford operatives Anjou, whose new album materialised literally hours after I went on a Twitter-induced Labradford binge; Ron Gallo, who’s fun; and a track from that really strong new Brokeback set. Lots more here, too; as ever, dig in…
Follow me on Twitter @JohnRMulvey
1 On Fillmore – Happiness Of Living (Northern Spy)
2 Chavez – Cockfighters (Matador)
3 Wooden Wand – Clipper Ship (Three Lobed Recordings)
4 Brent Cobb – Shine On Rainy Day (Atlantic)
5 Ron Gallo – Heavy Meta (New West)
6 Anjou – Epithymia (Kranky)
7 Curtiss Maldoon – Man From Afghanistan (Cherry Red)
8 Mike Collins – Lost Tapes 1983 – 1989 (Mic Records)
9 Bargou 08 – Targ (Glitterbeat)
10 Various Artists – Studio One Rocksteady Volume 2 (Soul Jazz)
11 Children Of Alice – Children Of Alice (Warp)
12 Ibibio Sound Machine – Uyai (Merge)
13 Lydia Ainsworth – Darling Of The Afterglow (Arbutus/Bella Union)
14 Brokeback – Illinois River Valley Blues (Thrill Jockey)
15 Arbouretum – Song Of The Rose (Thrill Jockey)
16 Grandaddy – Evermore (30th Century Records)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX34Qhmto0Y
17 Joan Shelley – Joan Shelley (No Quarter)
18 Samantha Crain – You Had Me At Goodbye (Full Time Hobby)
19 Bardo Pond – Under The Pines (Fire)
20 Nadia Reid – Preservation (Basin Rock)
21 Hurray For The Riff Raff – The Navigator (ATO)
22 Tamikrest – Kidal (Glitterbeat)
23 Spoon – Hot Thoughts (Matador)
24 Brian Eno – Reflection (Warp)
25 Elliott Smith – Either/Or: Expanded Edition (Kill Rock Stars)
26 Jesus And Mary Chain – Damage And Joy (Warner Bros)
Radiohead announce US live dates
Radiohead have announced live dates in the US, to coincide with their performances at California’s Coachella in April.
The five-piece, presumably joined by additional live drummer Clive Deamer, will start the dates at Miami’s American Airlines Arena on March 3, before heading to Georgia, Washington, Oregon and other states over the next two months, including two nights at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre on April 17-18.
Radiohead are confirmed to headline this year’s Glastonbury festival, and will also perform at festivals including Denmark’s Northside (June 11), Holland’s Best Kept Secret (June 18), Belgium’s Rock Werchter (June 30) and France’s Main Square (July 2).
The band released their ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool, on May 8 last year.
In the US, Radiohead will perform at:
Miami, FL – American Airlines Arena (March 3)
Atlanta, GA – Philips Arena (April 1)
New Orleans, LA – Smoothie King Center (3)
Kansas City, MO – Sprint Center (5)
Seattle, WA – Key Arena (8)
Portland, OR – Moda Center (9)
Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Bowl (11)
Indio, CA – Coachella (14)
Berkeley, CA – Greek Theatre (17-18)
Indio, CA – Coachella (21)
In other news, Roger Waters recently previewed his new album, produced by longtime Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich.
Uncut: the past, present and future of great music.
William Onyeabor dies aged 70
William Onyeabor has died at home in Nigeria, aged 70, according to his label Luaka Bop.
The Nigerian synth-funk musician recorded nine albums between 1977 and 1985, but found international fame with the 2013 compilation Who Is William Onyeabor?.
Also a successful businessman, awarded West African Industrialist Of The Year in the late ’80s, Onyeabor produced and pressed his own records at his own pressing plant, Wilfilms Limited. Quitting music, however, Onyeabor found religion and thereafter widely refused any interview requests about his recordings, even after the release of Who Is William Onyeabor?, 2014 covers and remix album What?! and boxsets of his entire work.
In 2014, Damon Albarn assembled a group to perform Onyeabor’s music live – guests included Luaka Bob head David Byrne, Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, LCD Soundsystem’s Pat Mahoney, Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke, Money Mark and The Lijadu Sisters – while a documentary, Fantastic Man, also surfaced that same year.
Onyeabor died at his home in Enugu, Nigeria on January 16, following a short illness.
The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews
Terry Dolan – Terry Dolan
When Terry Dolan died in 2012, he was still awaiting the release of his debut album, recorded 40 years earlier. A folk singer who’d gravitated west from his Connecticut birthplace to arrive, aged 21, in San Francisco, he’d spent six years performing in the Bay Area when Warner Bros signed him in 1971 on the back of a demo, “Inlaws And Outlaws”. Already a local radio favourite, this shuffling, slow-paced but impassioned – and commercially unavailable – number recalled David Crosby’s “Cowboy Movie” from the same year’s If I Could Only Remember My Name. It merged Dolan’s hippy roots with a more muscular sound he’d developed while substituting his 12-string acoustic with an electric guitar for opening slots with local live heroes, Country Weather.
Warners’ catalyst was producer Nicky Hopkins, an ex-pat Brit whose dazzling keyboard skills had earned him work in The Rolling Stones’ touring band. His departure, one month into recording, to focus on Exile On Main Street was most likely the reason Warners shelved the project. The label’s callous, unjustified choice was crueller still given that Dolan overcame this catastrophic development, bringing in another English producer, Pete Sears, Rod Stewart’s bassist and keyboard player. Together, they cut a further four tracks, perfectly matching – albeit with greater emphasis on piano – the sound of Hopkins’ work.
Dolan, Hopkins and friend Greg Douglass, Country Weather’s guitarist, had originally amassed some of the region’s finest players, including John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service) on lead guitar, Lonnie Turner (The Steve Miller Band) on bass, and The Tubes’ Prairie Prince on drums). “Inlaws…” was now brim-full of bottleneck guitar solos and Hopkins’ wild piano lines, while its rousing chorus – “Living my life, free!” – was additionally vitalised by the unknown Pointer Sisters, who added a devotional, gospel dimension. They also elevated the riotous Aquarian anthem, “Rainbows”, and enhanced the sweet sentiment behind “Angie”, written for Dolan’s wife and delivered with a laidback serenity Tim Buckley would mine on 1974’s Look At The Fool.
Six months later, Dolan and Douglass reconvened with Sears and a second stellar lineup to complete the ill-fated collection. Neal Schon, later to co-found Journey, contributes vital, bluesy guitar on “Purple An Blonde” – though Dolan’s robust vocals nonetheless dominate – while Tower Of Power’s Mic Gillette provides sublimely muted French horn on a heartfelt cover of JJ Cale’s “Magnolia”. “Burgundy Blues” may feel desultory in comparison, but even closer “To Be For You”’s 75 seconds ache with a transcendent, wistful longing redolent of Neil Young’s After The Gold Rush.
Tragically, Dolan was crushed by Warner’s actions, and rarely made it beyond America with his subsequent band, Terry & The Pirates. Four decades on, however, his neglected folk-rock classic serves as a long overdue, stirring eulogy. As Dolan himself sings, “See what your love can do?”
Extras 7/10: Detailed 28-page booklet, including exhaustive interviews; six outtakes.
March 2017
The 101 Weirdest Albums, Ryan Adams, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Grandaddy all feature in the issue of Uncut, dated March 2017, and out on January 19.
Uncut‘s list of the 101 Weirdest Albums Of All Time is on the cover, and inside we uncover the strangest albums ever created, from Lucifer, The Shaggs and Magma to Sonic Youth, Pink Floyd and The Beatles.
“Chaos is the operative word,” writes Rob Mitchum of our Number One spot, “as the rapid-fire songs follow dream logic and pull ears in opposing directions: whimsical and depraved, polished and crude, lush and abrasive, hard rock and showtunes…”
Elsewhere in the issue, Ryan Adams reflects on the latest chapter of his extraordinary career, and his new album, Prisoner. ““I should’ve been having a really horrible time,” he tells Uncut of this most unusual divorce album, “but instead I was having the best time!”
In one of his last ever interviews, the late Greg Lake, along with Carl Palmer and manager Stewart Young tells Uncut the full story of Emerson Lake & Palmer‘s “Fanfare For The Common Man”, from jamming around one microphone in Switzerland to touring – and then having to dismiss – an entire orchestra.
Grandaddy mainman Jason Lytle also takes us through his finest recorded works, explaining how he wrote and recorded albums such as The Sophtware Slump, Under The Western Freeway, Sumday and the band’s new record, Last Place. “I wanted to avoid being the manager of a McDonald’s more than anything else,” he says.
Four decades after the “Spiral Scratch” EP, the Buzzcocks recall their punk-rock revolution, while John Waters looks back on an eventful life: “I guess I’m the Bob Hope of punk,” he says. “I always felt more comfortable in the punk world even than in the gay world – the punk world was always downright gay, anyway.”
Uncut also heads up to the wilds of Northumberland to hear all about Michael Chapman‘s 50 years as a professional musician. The restless maverick’s story takes in everything from a rock’n’roll band dressed as teddy bears to the Black Panthers, with walk-on parts for Mick Ronson, John Martyn, Nick Drake and ELP. “I have,” he admits, “a very low boredom threshold…”
Also in the issue, Uncut pays tribute to Status Quo‘s Rick Parfitt, alongside George Michael, Greg Lake and The Beatles’ first manager Allan Williams, while St Paul & The Broken Bones reveal their music that has shaped their lives.
Our mammoth reviews section looks at new albums from Tinariwen, Dirty Projectors, Strand Of Oaks, Son Volt and Rhiannon Giddens, and archive releases from the likes of Lift To Experience, Cream and New Order, while we also check out DVDs and films on Ray Davies and Arcade Fire, and the latest books. In our live section, we check out Paul Weller and Robert Wyatt, out of retirement for a benefit show.
This issue’s free CD, Tune In!, includes great new tracks from Six Organs Of Admittance, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Duke Garwood, Tim Darcy, The Necks, Strand Of Oaks, Tinariwen and Jens Lekman.
The new Uncut is out on January 19.
George Harrison’s albums to be released in a vinyl boxset
George Harrison‘s entire solo career is to be collected in a new vinyl boxset.
Comprising all 12 of the Beatle’s solo albums, George Harrison: The Vinyl Collection also includes 1992’s Live In Japan and 12″ picture discs of singles “When We Was Fab” and “Got My Mind Set On You”.
All Things Must Pass (1970) is present in its original 3LP format, alongside the first solo album to be released by a Beatle, 1968’s Wonderwall Music, also the first Apple Records release. The boxset ends with 2002’s posthumously released Brainwashed.
The Vinyl Collection is released on February 21, the same day as a new edition of Harrison’s autobiography, I Me Mine.
The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews
Rick Wakeman reveals he played piano on David Bowie’s “Oh! You Pretty Things”
Rick Wakeman has claimed that he played some of the piano on David Bowie‘s “Oh! You Pretty Things”.
Although it’s known that the keyboardist played on other Hunky Dory cuts such as “Life On Mars”, “Quicksand” and “Changes”, it was always believed that Bowie himself played on the album’s second track.
Speaking to Danny Baker on BBC Radio 5 Live, Wakeman said: “That is me [playing]. David wanted it to be very simple but, if I remember rightly, he kept cocking up the little riff. He did a few bits of it and I did the rest. He did the beginning.”
Hunky Dory, Bowie’s fourth album, was released in December 1971, and featured the singles “Changes” and “Life On Mars”. “Oh! You Pretty Things” was written by Bowie, but originally performed by Peter Noone, whose version charted in the UK Top 20 in mid-1971.
This month in Uncut
The 101 Weirdest Albums, Ryan Adams, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Grandaddy all feature in the issue of Uncut, dated March 2017, and out now.
Uncut‘s list of the 101 Weirdest Albums Of All Time is on the cover, and inside we uncover the strangest albums ever created, from Lucifer, The Shaggs and Magma to Sonic Youth, Pink Floyd and The Beatles.
“Chaos is the operative word,” writes Rob Mitchum of our Number One spot, “as the rapid-fire songs follow dream logic and pull ears in opposing directions: whimsical and depraved, polished and crude, lush and abrasive, hard rock and showtunes…”
Elsewhere in the issue, Ryan Adams reflects on the latest chapter of his extraordinary career, and his new album, Prisoner. ““I should’ve been having a really horrible time,” he tells Uncut of this most unusual divorce album, “but instead I was having the best time!”
In one of his last ever interviews, the late Greg Lake, along with Carl Palmer and manager Stewart Young tells Uncut the full story of Emerson Lake & Palmer‘s “Fanfare For The Common Man”, from jamming around one microphone in Switzerland to touring – and then having to dismiss – an entire orchestra.
Grandaddy mainman Jason Lytle also takes us through his finest recorded works, explaining how he wrote and recorded albums such as The Sophtware Slump, Under The Western Freeway, Sumday and the band’s new record, Last Place. “I wanted to avoid being the manager of a McDonald’s more than anything else,” he says.
Four decades after the “Spiral Scratch” EP, the Buzzcocks recall their punk-rock revolution, while John Waters looks back on an eventful life: “I guess I’m the Bob Hope of punk,” he says. “I always felt more comfortable in the punk world even than in the gay world – the punk world was always downright gay, anyway.”
Uncut also heads up to the wilds of Northumberland to hear all about Michael Chapman‘s 50 years as a professional musician. The restless maverick’s story takes in everything from a rock’n’roll band dressed as teddy bears to the Black Panthers, with walk-on parts for Mick Ronson, John Martyn, Nick Drake and ELP. “I have,” he admits, “a very low boredom threshold…”
Also in the issue, Uncut pays tribute to Status Quo‘s Rick Parfitt, alongside George Michael, Greg Lake and The Beatles’ first manager Allan Williams, while St Paul & The Broken Bones reveal their music that has shaped their lives.
Our mammoth reviews section looks at new albums from Tinariwen, Dirty Projectors, Strand Of Oaks, Son Volt and Rhiannon Giddens, and archive releases from the likes of Lift To Experience, Cream and New Order, while we also check out DVDs and films on Ray Davies and Arcade Fire, and the latest books. In our live section, we check out Paul Weller and Robert Wyatt, out of retirement for a benefit show.
This issue’s free CD, Tune In!, includes great new tracks from Six Organs Of Admittance, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Duke Garwood, Tim Darcy, The Necks, Strand Of Oaks, Tinariwen and Jens Lekman.
The new Uncut is out now.
Revealed! Uncut’s 101 Weirdest Records
The new issue of Uncut is out this Thursday, and features our capricious but hopefully mind-expanding list of 101 truly weird records. You’ll easily spot the cover – it’s the psychedelic rendering of Captain Beefheart, very much the patron saint of this sort of thing.
What, though, was the first weird record you owned? For me, it was probably Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman”, an uncanny avant-garde performance piece that somehow landed at Number Two in the British charts of October 1981, only kept off the top spot by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin’s version of “It’s My Party”. 1981, it transpires, was an unusual year for hit singles, with a proliferation of creepy, sometimes racist novelty records – “Shaddap You Face”, “Japanese Boy”, “The Birdie Song” – stealing at least some of the limelight from the insurgent forces of new romantics and post-punkers. Even in this quixotic climate, though, it may have been a mistake to take “O Superman” to the school disco.
Thirty-six years on, better schooled in the ways of minimalism and the downtown New York firmament, owner of a few Robert Ashley records, Anderson’s hit doesn’t sound nearly as odd to me. When trying to comprehend weirdness, context counts for a lot: how mindbending must Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band have sounded on June 1, 1967, compared with how it sounds today, part of the very fabric of our culture?
In this special issue of Uncut, our writers have dug deep into their collections to come up with a list of 101 albums that sound enduringly weird – that have the capacity to surprise, subvert and freak out in most any context. There is Trout Mask Replica, of course, alongside albums recorded clandestinely inside the Taj Majal, ones by the reincarnation of Pope Adrian, a Chilean with a singing nose, and a wide range of North American frogs, as well as many of Uncut’s more prominent artists at their most unhinged. The Beatles make an appearance, but not with an album that you might automatically think of…
Elsewhere, we have one of Greg Lake’s last interviews (as part of an Emerson, Lake & Palmer feature), chats with Ryan Adams, John Waters (no stranger to weirdness himself, of course), the reconstituted Grandaddy, and the Buzzcocks. There’s an extensive report on Paul Weller, Robert Wyatt and Danny Thompson’s supergroup, and Rhiannon Giddens, Son Volt, Strand Of Oaks, Dirty Projectors, New Order and Cream in the reviews section. On this month’s CD, we have Tinariwen, Lift To Experience (remixed!), The Feelies, Jens Lekman, Six Organs Of Admittance, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and, a proud moment for me, The Necks among the 15 key new tracks.
Finally, and maybe best of all, Tom Pinnock headed north, to within striking distance of Hadrian’s Wall, to visit Michael Chapman at home. The resulting piece includes some of the ripest yarns I’ve heard in a while: I’ll not spoil the John Martyn story here, but there’s a good bit where Chapman retires for three days, then finds himself, implausibly, supporting ELP. “There was nothing bigger,” he tells Tom. “Still didn’t get any fucking money. And every night they’d ask me, ‘Can you play five minutes less?’”
The Beatles’ technology “wizard” Magic Alex dies aged 74
The Beatles‘ technology “wizard” Yanni ‘John’ Alexis Mardas – better known as Magic Alex – has died at the age of 74.
Athens-born Mardas was appointed head of the group’s Apple Electronics division in 1968, appeared in the Magical Mystery Tour film, and accompanied the band to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram at Rishikesh in India.
Originally taken on after John Lennon‘s appreciation of the light machines he’d constructed for The Rolling Stones in 1967, Mardas was later asked to construct a 72-track studio for The Beatles in the basement of the Apple HQ on Savile Row. It was designed but never completed after the group’s new manager Allen Klein shut down much of the Apple Corps venture.
Mardas claimed to have invented items such as an electronic camera, and ‘the composing typewriter’, a voice recognition device.
After Apple Corps, he founded a number of companies that specialised in bulletproof vests, armoured cars and night vision equipment, selling some of these to figures such as King Hussein of Jordan.
Mardas died at home in Athens’ Kolonaki district.
Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie to release “really amazing” duets album
Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie are to release their first album as a duo, reportedly titled Buckingham McVie, in May.
The Fleetwood Mac pair have collaborated on all the album’s songs, while the recordings feature contributions from their bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.
Speaking to the LA Times, Christine McVie shed light on the creation of the album, saying: “We’ve always written well together, Lindsey and I, and this has just spiralled into something really amazing that we’ve done between us.”
Guitarist Buckingham provided demos of the music, before keyboardist McVie turned them into finished songs. “It was just pieces with no wording,” she explains, “so I put melody and lyrics on some of his material.”
“That was a first,” says Buckingham. “She would write lyrics and maybe paraphrase the melody – and come up with something far better than what I would have done if I’d taken it down the road myself.
“All these years we’ve had this rapport, but we’d never really thought about doing a duet album before.”
The Human League – A Very British Synthesizer Group
Despite a career spanning almost 40 years, The Human League will always be defined by their radiant first decade, a journey from Bowie-endorsed synth-punk outsiders to multi-million-selling electro-pop superstars. This sumptuously repackaged and remastered anthology, spreading 47 tracks across triple CDs or vinyl discs, is inevitably stronger on the early years. But each chapter contains hidden gems and bizarre plot twists that defy the kind of cosy, reductive narrative seen in BBC Four retro-pop documentaries.
Taken in totality, A Very British Synthesizer Group chronicles the remarkable saga of a band who have endured despite their self-confessed limitations as musicians, despite multiple lineup changes, despite breakups and breakdowns and career slumps. They scored worldwide hits, including UK and US Number Ones, but remain firmly rooted in Sheffield. Even today, after selling 20 million albums, there is something of the blunt-talking, emphatically northern, working-class autodidact about Philip Oakey, Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley. This attractive quality has propelled them to sublime peaks of bloody-minded pop genius and extreme nadirs of naffness. Sometimes within the same song.
When computer operators Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh formed Britain’s first all-electronic band in 1977, initially under the achingly apt name The Future, they recruited Oakey as singer more for his striking looks than his vocal abilities. The nascent League forged a vivid post-industrial sound that distilled Kraftwerk and Kubrick, Bowie and Ballard into brilliantly weird dystopian electro-glam singles like “Being Boiled” and “Empire State Human”. They also paid skewed homage to their cult rock heroes with starkly rebooted synth versions of Mick Ronson’s post-glam classic “Only After Dark” and Iggy Pop’s zombie-punk prowler “Nightclubbing”. All are included here.
When internal tensions split the band in 1980, Oakey was left without main songwriters Ware and Marsh. In the face of critical hostility and mounting debts, the singer hastily recruited teenage schoolfriends Sulley and Catherall from the dancefloor of Sheffield’s Crazy Daisy nightclub and a new multi-vocalist incarnation of the Human League was born. Working with techno-savvy producer Martin Rushent, the band finally realised Oakey’s populist electric dreams with their 1981 album Dare, a hit-packed triple-platinum smash and still a beloved high-water mark of British synthpop.
From the scowling, totalitarian hedonism of “The Sound Of The Crowd” to the cat-meowing synths of “Love Action”, the hits of Dare still sound both instantly accessible and gloriously eccentric. Initially opposed as a single release by Oakey, the blockbuster “Don’t You Want Me” is now enshrined as one of Britain’s unofficial national anthems, and one of the most rousingly bitter songs ever to top the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
The League followed Dare with a run of mainstream hits, reaching Number Two with both the silky synthetic Motown of “Mirror Man” and the stern but catchy “(Keep Feeling) Fascination”. Next came an audacious detour to Minneapolis to work with platinum-plated R&B producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Famous for their collaborations with Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson and Prince, the duo’s hands-on perfectionist methods created studio tension and uneven music. But while the boxy mid-Atlantic synth-funk of “I Need Your Love” now sound bloodless and dated, the sumptuous love ballad “Human” remains a left-field League classic, earning the band their second US Number One.
The League scored their last Top Ten single to date, the lightweight but agreeably effusive “Tell Me When”, in 1995. Sidelined by Britpop and major-label politics in the late 1990s, the band have spent most of the last 20 years as an indie act, chiefly surviving as live performers. Even so, their most recent album Credo, released in 2011, was a partial return to their Yorkshire futurist roots. Produced by Sheffield retro-synth fetishists I, Monster, disco-tronic tracks like “Night People” and “Sky” marry vintage analogue noises with contemporary electro signifiers. Brash but fun.
The deluxe boxset of A Very British Synthesizer Group comes with a hardcover book, photos, memorabilia and an extra DVD featuring all the band’s videos and BBC appearances. Oakey’s ever-changing, asymmetrical hairstyles provide much amusement here. But of course, the serious fan-bait in this package lies with the 25 previously unreleased tracks, mostly demos and remixes.
Inevitably, the early electronic material holds the most interest, unadorned analogue sketches that often have more warmth and texture than their official versions. A case in point is a dry run for “The Path Of Least Resistance”, where Oakey’s soulful crooning sounds more grainy and emotive than the deadpan foghorn bellow that later became his signature. “No Time”, a prototype for the 1979 track “The World Before Last”, is a spine-tingling experiment in spoken-word sci-fi storytelling, while an embryonic version of the 1984 single “Louise”, conceived as a “sequel” story for the doomed lovers in “Don’t You Want Me”, also has a relaxed, rueful tenderness lacking in its anodyne studio sister.
Sprawled across 40 years of highs and lows, A Very British Synthesizer Group is inevitably bumpy in quality, but still rich in pleasant surprises, and shot through with the bloody-minded punk genius that defines so much music from the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire. Buried treasures from a national treasure.
Q&A
PHILIP OAKEY
At the start, were The Human League an experimental band or a pop group?
We certainly were at least half an experimental band. We were a bit split because, really, we were a prog band. We loved Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator, but we always liked pop music too. When Martyn Ware told me at school that he liked Slade, it was like slapping me in the face! You didn’t admit you liked chart bands if you liked prog. But we did like pop. At the same time as hoping we would be like Can or Neu!, we also sneakily wanted to have hits.
You rarely repeated yourself musically. Was that deliberate?
We had a policy that as soon as we’d done Dare, we wanted to do something different. Right from the start, we used The Beatles as a model, and The Beatles never came out with a single where you went: ‘oh yeah, they’ve done Hey Jude again’. We wanted every single to not look like we were trying to emulate the last big hit.
You still live in Sheffield. Did you never consider moving to London?
No. We weren’t really tempted by London. We weren’t particularly impressed with what a lot of people think is enjoyment there. They think you can only be happy in a place where Kate Moss turns up or something. We didn’t ever really believe that. We almost thought it was a bit shallow to want to be in that gang.
Do you still consider yourself a punk? A futurist? A pop star?
More than anything, I considered myself a democrat until recently. But I’ve been a bit shaken by the Brexit stuff. I’m a TV news fiend, but I’ve more or less stopped watching now because we seem to be in some strange Pol Pot era where people want to do punk voting.
INTERVIEW: STEPHEN DALTON
Ty Segall: “My new album is a refresher moment – there’s no spin”
Ty Segall discusses his new, self-titled album in the current issue of Uncut (dated February 2017), describing it as a “refresher moment”.
The Californian guitarist, singer and drummer also takes us through his finest albums to date, including 2010’s Melted, 2012’s Twins and 2014’s Manipulator.
“It felt good to do another self-titled album as a refresher moment,” Segall explains, “especially after [2016’s] Emotional Mugger. This record doesn’t have a spin – Mugger was a super-sketchy concept record thing, Manipulator was like ‘I wanna do the cleanest, shiniest glam rock record’… They all have a thing, and the thing for this record was that I recorded it live with a band.
“There’s a couple of overdubs, but that’s a band playing. It’s the same idea as [2012’s Ty Segall Band album] Slaughterhouse, but with my songs. Emmett Kelly’s on guitar, we got [Mikal] Cronin on bass, Charles is on the drums now, and my friend Ben Boye is playing piano and Wurlitzer, and I’m on guitar and singing. That’s gonna be the band for the indefinite future, as well.
“As for the jam on [epic album track] ‘Warm Hands’, I love the Grateful Dead. I know a lot of people don’t like them, but everyone in the band now is a heavy Deadhead.”
Roger Waters previews new album with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich
Roger Waters has treated fans a look inside the recording of his upcoming album.
Waters has posted a video of himself playing guitar in the studio with producer Nigel Godrich, as well as a photo of the pair together. See below.
Waters last rock album was 1992’s Amused To Death, though in 2005 he released Ça Ira, a three-act opera.
The album is due in May, ahead of a new tour, Us + Them, which is scheduled to begin on May 26 in St. Louis and wrap up October 28 in Vancouver, covering more than 40 dates in 36 cities.
“We are going to take a new show on the road, the content is very secret,” said Waters. “It’ll be a mixture of stuff from my long career, stuff from my years with Pink Floyd, some new things. Probably 75% of it will be old material and 25% will be new, but it will be all connected by a general theme. It will be a cool show, I promise you. It’ll be spectacular like all my shows have been.”