Subscribe
Home Blog Page 3

MJ Lenderman, The Garage, London, November 18

Peter Watts
-
0
MJ Lenderman, The Garage, London, November 18

This might be Jake Lenderman’s first show in London as a solo artist, but there’s a laconic ease in the way he commands the stage. Lenderman has played the city before with his band Wednesday, but 2024 has seen him break through as a solo artist thanks to his acclaimed fourth LP Manning Fireworks, and this is the first of two sold-out dates at The Garage (when he returns to London in June, it’ll be at the bigger Electric Ballroom).

This might be Jake Lenderman’s first show in London as a solo artist, but there’s a laconic ease in the way he commands the stage. Lenderman has played the city before with his band Wednesday, but 2024 has seen him break through as a solo artist thanks to his acclaimed fourth LP Manning Fireworks, and this is the first of two sold-out dates at The Garage (when he returns to London in June, it’ll be at the bigger Electric Ballroom).

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

Lenderman’s voice commands a crowd who sing along to every word of songs about male fecklessness and millennial discord. “We’re having a moment!” enthuse a couple of twentysomething fans, disregarding the incongruity as they belt out the words to “She’s Leaving You”, a barbed assault on a deadbeat dad whose ass has just been soundly dumped.

Lenderman writes brilliantly about unhappiness, and he skewers pretension, displaying a caustic, side-eyed cynicism that fits neatly alongside the ’90s vibe of his music: a fusion of slacker indie-rock and alt.country that draws on the likes of Pavement, Silver Jews, Drive-By Truckers and Sparklehorse. That throwback element is reinforced by smart lyrics that are rammed with pop culture references from his youth – Rip Torn, Lucky Charms, Guitar Hero and “Travolta’s bald head”.

Michael Jordan has a starring role in one of the set’s landmark moments, “Hangover Game”, in which Lenderman playfully connects with the basketball legend over the refrain, “Yeah, I love drinking too”. Basketball crops up again on a rendition of “Basketball #2”, while references to Lenderman’s Catholic upbringing crop up throughout the set. Perhaps it’s a sign of his growing sense of ambition that on 2021’s Ghost Of Your Guitar Solo he muses only of becoming a “Catholic Priest”, whereas by Manning Fireworks’ “Joker’s Lips” he’s singing that “every Catholic knows he could’ve been Pope”.

Lenderman’s backing band The Wind includes multi-instrumentalist Xandy Chelmis from Wednesday, who plays pedal steel, violin and the most aggressive tambourine you’ve ever heard. Second guitarist Jon Samuels struts around his section of the stage like a caged cockfighter, while bassist Landon George breaks into a jig at every opportunity.

Lenderman himself might maintain a graceful poise in the centre of the stage but all the signs around him are of a band itching to cut loose, which they occasionally get the chance to do – initially in the fierce transition from “Rudolph” into a fragment of “Inappropriate”, and later with the punky blast of “SUV”. But Lenderman, for all his prowess on guitar, elects for restraint until “No Mercy”, when the band really get the chance to let rip as they plunge into a bass-heavy, proggy morass of sound on an epic bummer of a break-up song.

It sounds like something from the Ditch trilogy, although when Lenderman does cover Neil Young for the encore he goes deep and light with “Lotta Love” from Comes A Time, presented as a reaction to the US election. The band then launches into cathartic closer “Tastes Just Like It Costs”, a typically sly sketch about a bickering couple that showcases Lenderman’s superb short-story handling of domestic disputes as well as acting as a release for the band’s pent-up desire for musical mayhem. They swig from bottles of liquor and charge round the stage barging into each other while Lenderman remains stock still and central, absorbing the drama around him and channelling it into gold.

SET LIST
Manning Fireworks
Joker Lips
Wristwatch
Rudolph
Inappropriate
Catholic Priest
You Have Bought Yourself A Boat
TLC Death Match
Basketball #2
Pianos
You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In
On My Knees
She’s Leaving You
Rip Torn
SUV
Bark At The Moon
No Mercy
Hangover Game
Knockin’
ENCORE
Lotta Love
Tastes Just Like It Costs

The Pogues announce Rum Sodomy & The Lash anniversary tour

Michael Bonner
-
0
The Pogues announce Rum Sodomy & The Lash anniversary tour

The Pogues will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their Rum Sodomy & the Lash album with a run of shows in May 2025.

The Pogues will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their Rum Sodomy & the Lash album with a run of shows in May 2025.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

Say original members James Fearnley, Jem Finer and Spider Stacy, “After the uproarious bash which was the 40th anniversary of our first record, Red Roses for Me, in 2024, we wanted to do it again, but with Rum Sodomy & the Lash.”

A ticket pre-sale will be available on Wednesday, November 20 for fans who sign up here by 5pm, November 19.  A general ticket sale will commence on Friday, November 22 at 9:30am local time. Click here for tickets. You can see the full list of tour dates below.

May 1 – O2 Academy, Leeds
May 2 – O2 Academy, Birmingham
May 3 – O2 Academy, Brixton, London
May 6 – Barrowland, Glasgow
May 7 – O2 Apollo, Manchester
May 8 – O2 City Hall, Newcastle

Send us your questions for Gary Kemp!

Sam Richards
-
0
Send us your questions for Gary Kemp!

For many years, Gary Kemp was known primarily as the guitarist and chief songwriter for Spandau Ballet, architect of ubiquitous '80s hits such as "True" and "Gold". Possibly you also knew him as Ronnie Kray, or Sy Spector from The Bodyguard.

Pre-order Gary Kemp’s This Destination here

For many years, Gary Kemp was known primarily as the guitarist and chief songwriter for Spandau Ballet, architect of ubiquitous ’80s hits such as “True” and “Gold”. Possibly you also knew him as Ronnie Kray, or Sy Spector from The Bodyguard.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

Recently, though, you’re more likely to have seen Kemp fronting Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets, garnering acclaim for his sensitive interpretations of early Pink Floyd material. His popular Rockonteurs podcast – hosted alongside Saucerful bandmate Guy Pratt – has underlined the depth of his musical knowledge.

Pratt also appears on Kemp’s new solo album This Destination, due out on January 31 via East West.

Ahead of its release, Kemp has kindly agreed to undergo a gentle grilling from you, the Uncut readers. So what would you like to ask this pop craftsman and all-round rockonteur? Send your questions to audiencewith@uncut.co.uk by Tuesday (November 26) and Gary will answer the best ones in a future issue of Uncut.

Michael Kiwanuka – Small Changes

Jason Anderson
-
0
Michael Kiwanuka – Small Changes

During his first decade as a recording artist, Michael Kiwanuka did so much to expand his musical parameters and upend expectations of what he ought to do and ought to be, that he most definitely earned the right to be a little more measured about his moves. In other words, smaller steps and gestures can reap as many dividends as the grander ones.

Buy Small Changes here

During his first decade as a recording artist, Michael Kiwanuka did so much to expand his musical parameters and upend expectations of what he ought to do and ought to be, that he most definitely earned the right to be a little more measured about his moves. In other words, smaller steps and gestures can reap as many dividends as the grander ones.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

That’s not to suggest the man’s ambitions have grown too modest or that the songs on his fourth album are any less rich, moving and inventive. Yet Small Changes is clearly the work of an artist who finds himself at a different stage in his life, looking at his work with a keener focus. Whereas the album’s celebrated predecessors – 2016’s Love & Hate and his 2019 Mercury Music Prize winner Kiwanuka – each brandished a sense of boldness and scope that could almost feel overwhelming, Small Changes is defined more by its nuances. As befits its title, it’s more about the necessary increments, about the careful honing of ideas and emotions in hopes of capturing an essence before it has the chance to dissipate into the ether.

Thankfully, some results still achieve a remarkable degree of scale and fullness. With their abundance of strings and choral-style vocal harmonies, new songs like “Follow Your Dreams” are satisfyingly steeped in both the psych-pop swirl of Kiwanuka’s “Living In Denial” and the spiritual-jazz sumptuousness of “Hard To Say Goodbye”. Yet more characteristic is the haunting “Rebel Soul”, a song full of fear and yearning built around an insistent, cyclical piano figure, and “The Rest Of Me”, an endearingly sincere expression of gratitude and loyalty whose creamy yet crystalline ’70s soul sound evokes Shuggie Otis at his sunniest. Here and elsewhere, there’s a palpable shift away from the more maximalist approach that often predominated in the past, as single elements come more starkly to the fore, like the guitar solo he uses to pierce the melancholy haze of Small Changes’ title track.

The music’s more intimate scale, gentler pace and prevailing warmth all reflect some not-so-small changes in Kiwanuka’s personal life, including fatherhood and a pre-pandemic move from London to Southampton. What with the considerable demands of new parenthood, it’s understandable the songs here – many of which boast a more hopeful attitude toward matters of love and connection than what’s largely come before – developed gradually over several years before he reunited with producers Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton and Inflo in London, Los Angeles and Burton’s studio in Connecticut. Kiwanuka and Inflo perform the majority of the music on the album, which also features appearances by guests as The Time keyboardist turned Janet Jackson producer Jimmy Jam, D’Angelo bassist Pino Palladino and former Bill Withers sideman James Gadson on drums.

The singer discovered a new lodestone when Burton introduced him to No Other, Gene Clark’s 1974 masterpiece of gorgeously forlorn folk-rock. The album’s influence is palpable in Small Changes’ use of strings, which may sometimes add a quality of opulence but more often serve a more supportive role. Along with Sade’s Diamond Life – a childhood favourite of Kiwanuka’s that became another reference point during Small Changes’ creation – the Clark inspiration fed his drive to reduce the songs down to their most essential components. As he recently told Uncut, “Everything was getting stripped away and built back up again.”

Perhaps as a result, even the seemingly airiest songs on Small Changes brandish a surprising muscularity. In the opening “Floating Parade”, that quality’s provided by a sinuous yet adamant groove like the kind that powered so many of Curtis Mayfield’s greatest songs. Similarly, the stinging solo in “Small Changes” – stunning proof of just how much Kiwanuka has adapted the languid vocabulary of his guitar hero David Gilmour to his own purposes – emerges from the sturdy scaffolding created by Inflo’s plaintive keys and syncopated drum beat and the church-choir vocal arrangement. Kiwanuka’s languid wisps of guitar, the pillowy strings and a lovers-rock rhythm all give shimmer and form to “Live For Your Love”, one of several songs that express a deep gratitude for love amid other feelings of unworthiness and pain (“You saw the warning signs/And didn’t pay no mind”).

The emphasis on concision – which Kiwanuka describes as a newfound drive “to get to the point and shave off the fat” – inevitably means less room for the grander stylistic flourishes that distinguish Kiwanuka’s centrepiece “Hard To Say Goodbye” or further elevate the most ecstatic sequences of his live sets. But any worries that Kiwanuka’s grown cautious about pursuing more adventurous avenues will disappear upon contact with the two-part “Lowdown”, a wholly successful effort to combine the sun-kissed languor of the Velvet Underground’s Loaded, the scrappier energy of Lagos’ Ofege and the psych-baroque splendour of David Axelrod. The heady space-funk finale for “The Rest Of Me” opens up another tantalizing new pathway, too.

Either way, whatever reductions Kinawuka and his producers may have made in regards to the music’s breadth, the songs on Small Changes more than compensate for that when it comes to depth. Nor is there anything small about the emotions they contain or the pleasures they evoke.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Robin Pecknold, Levon Helm Studios, Woodstock, New York, November 14, 2024

Will Hermes
-
0
Robin Pecknold, Levon Helm Studios, Woodstock, New York, November 14, 2024

Robin Pecknold confesses a case of nerves after taking the stage — or the rug, to be more accurate — in Levon Helm Studios, a rustic space in the woods of Woodstock. He blames his mood on the moment: this is the first full-length, fully solo show he’s ever done, the start of a nine-date solo mini-tour crossing North America. Yes, there had been A Very Lonely Solstice, the 2020 pandemic livestream-turned-LP, in which his solo arrangements were abetted by a white-robed, socially-distanced choir. But tonight he is on his own, with five acoustic guitars and a pedal board, though conceivably less lonely, among roughly 200 fans who’d managed to snag tickets, which sold out within minutes of going on sale.

Robin Pecknold confesses a case of nerves after taking the stage — or the rug, to be more accurate — in Levon Helm Studios, a rustic space in the woods of Woodstock. He blames his mood on the moment: this is the first full-length, fully solo show he’s ever done, the start of a nine-date solo mini-tour crossing North America. Yes, there had been A Very Lonely Solstice, the 2020 pandemic livestream-turned-LP, in which his solo arrangements were abetted by a white-robed, socially-distanced choir. But tonight he is on his own, with five acoustic guitars and a pedal board, though conceivably less lonely, among roughly 200 fans who’d managed to snag tickets, which sold out within minutes of going on sale.

Another similarity with the 2020 pandemic show was the ambient sense of crisis, now stemming from the previous week’s presidential election. But Pecknold makes no mention of it, beyond an empathetic nod to collective grief. Instead, after a brief and beguiling opening set by New York singer-songwriter Allegra Kreiger, with light from the full moon brightening trees outside the windows, he creates a sanctuary for 90-some minutes, making the pine-and-bluestone barn feel as sacred as the Brooklyn church that staged …Lonely Solstice.  

The room — where Helm held court in his final years, hosting shows with many great musicians — is full of ghosts and history, so it is fitting that Pecknold packs his set with covers. The recent Judee Sill documentary opens with Pecknold singing the late singer-songwriter’s signature “The Kiss”. Tonight we get another of her forgotten gems, “Loping Along Thru The Cosmos”, Pecknold’s remarkable high tenor riding the curlicues of its rambler’s benediction with warm precision.

He does the same on two Joni Mitchell songs, illuminated by a story of finding himself in the unlikely position of her rhythm guitarist, at her star-studded Hollywood Bowl comeback concerts last month in Los Angeles. Tonight, he streamlines “Amelia” from its mercurial Hejira version, yet delivers it fully-formed with a 12-string Stella acoustic guitar, distilling ‘60s and ‘70s Joni into a single shimmering sound. During “The Silky Veils Of Ardor”, from Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, he marvels aloud at Mitchell’s “wild” chords and tunings (the setlist/ cheat sheet at his feet notes specifics of the latter). Pecknold nails it, making clear why he was drafted by Mitchell — gorgeous voice and unerring feel for harmonies aside, he’s a super-nerd for details, one reason his covers are so satisfying.

There are others — “Morning Of My Life” (aka: “In The Morning”), an early Bee Gees nugget Pecknold has made his own in recent years. He plays the traditional “Silver Dagger” a la Joan Baez’s 1960 debut LP. There is also Arthur Russell’s “Close My Eyes”. And for the finale: Elliot Smith’s “Pitseleh”, preceded by a story about it was the first song he ever played in front of a proper audience (as a precocious schoolboy at a talent show), and how a teacher had thought it was an original. As if, Pecknold chuckles.

Yet what was most remarkable about all these covers is how comfortably his own Fleet Foxes songs nestled alongside them, shining no less bright. “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”, “Oliver James”, “Young Man’s Game”, “Third Of May/ Odaigahara”. He delivers “Mykonos” minus the CSNY-style harmonies of the version from the Sun Giant EP, but it lacked for nothing in musical richness. 

And then there is “Sunblind”, from 2020’s Shore. Pecknold plays it near the start of this set — a song that celebrates swimming “in warm American water with dear friends” (a reference, he noted, to nearby Lake Minnewaska), and the pantheon of passed singer/songwriters he holds dear, among them Richard Swift,  “Judee and Smith”, Arthur Russell, and more, for whom he imagines a “great coronation.” It proved to be a statement of purpose for the evening’s performance — and indeed, for Robin Pecknold’s entire musical journey to date. 

Robin Pecknold played

I Should See Memphis

Sunblind

Tiger Mountain Peasant Song

Loping Along Thru The Cosmos

Close My Eyes (Arthur Russell cover)

Kept Woman

Third Of May / Odaigahara

Young Man’s Game

Isles

I Let You

Silver Dagger (traditional)

Someone You’d Admire

Amelia (Joni Mitchell cover)

Maestranza / Katie Cruel (traditional)

Montezuma

Blue Spotted Tail

Mykonos

The Silky Veils Of Ardor (Joni Mitchell cover)

In The Morning (Bee Gees cover) > Meadowlarks > Oliver James 

Pitseleh (Elliott Smith cover)

George Harrison – Living In The Material World 50th anniversary edition

Tom Pinnock
-
0
George Harrison – Living In The Material World 50th anniversary edition

The rebirth of Richard Alpert is one you can imagine George Harrison being more than a little envious of. Born in Boston, Alpert was an associate of Timothy Leary and deeply entrenched in the American psychedelic counterculture of the ’60s, until he returned after a protracted stay in India reinvented as Ram Dass, a spiritual guru set on popularising eastern teachings in the west.

Buy Living In The Material World here

The rebirth of Richard Alpert is one you can imagine George Harrison being more than a little envious of. Born in Boston, Alpert was an associate of Timothy Leary and deeply entrenched in the American psychedelic counterculture of the ’60s, until he returned after a protracted stay in India reinvented as Ram Dass, a spiritual guru set on popularising eastern teachings in the west.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

Harrison, however, was a Beatle and a star, and no-one was going to let him forget it. Around the time he wrote and recorded his second proper solo album, 1973’s Living In The Material World, he was being pulled between two poles; on one hand, he was deeply exploring spirituality and continuing the inner journey that had begun in his early twenties, but on the other, having to deal with that material world of Beatles-related lawsuits, the first wave of the “My Sweet Lord” copyright infringement case and interminable struggles to get the funds from his pioneering Concert For Bangladesh to the people who needed them.

Consisting almost entirely of brand new tracks, in contrast to 1970’s anthological All Things Must Pass, Living In The Material World perfectly reflects the duality of Harrison’s life at the time. There is devotional material, such as the power-pop delight of “Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long” and the lilting “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)”, sometimes disguised as songs of love to a partner rather than to God. There are songs set purely in the secular world, most notably the exotic R&B of “Sue Me, Sue You Blues”, a bitterly hilarious chronicle of the Fabs’ legal machinations, very much a descendant of “Taxman”.

Many of the other songs are a mix of the two, with Harrison’s trudge towards salvation slowed by petty annoyances – if the material world would only go away and leave him alone, as he pleaded in “Don’t Bother Me”, all those lifetimes ago, then he could reach nirvana. So the grand, baroque “The Light That Has Lighted The World” – the musical essence of “Isn’t It A Pity?” condensed and concentrated – calls out those “hateful” people who misunderstand him and his beliefs, while “The Day The World Gets ’Round” laments “such foolishness in man” and praises the “few who bow before you/In silence, they pray…”

Po-faced? Pretentious? Looking at “this sad world and all the hate” in 2024, you might be stirred to say that Harrison was indeed correct about the paltry grievances that are still causing wars, and wise about the greed and ignorance that continue to poison. If a little enlightenment still wouldn’t go amiss, then two of the album’s finest songs might provide a guide. “Be Here Now”, named after Ram Dass’s first book, is a spectral, droning dirge with some of Harrison’s greatest, sourest chord changes, entreating us to “remember/Be here now… the past was/Be here now”, while “That Is All” ends the record on a hopeful note, Harrison hymning his love to the world over a beautiful, amorphous ballad, like “Something” dissolving in mountain mist.

With strings and the odd choir, this is still an epic-sounding album, but it’s far more stripped-back than All Things Must Pass, and recorded primarily at Harrison’s own Friar Park home studio with a small core of musicians. Harrison takes on all the guitar duties himself this time, including some stunning slide guitar solos and chiming 12-string acoustic work, while there are prominent keys from Nicky Hopkins, and occasional, slightly glam double drumming from Ringo and Jim Keltner. In Phil Spector’s ethanolic absence, Harrison produced himself, and this new 2024 remix by Paul Hicks and Dhani Harrison brings the album into greater relief when compared to previous releases: the orchestral arrangements are brought out of the murk, Harrison’s vocals are clearer and sharper, and the album’s peculiar air of dry, ascetic starkness is increased. The loudest moments, from the wry boogie of the title track to the soulful, rootsy “The Lord Loves The One (Who Loves The Lord)”, are funkier and more present, as if a veil has been lifted.

As well as a book and copious notes, depending on the edition, this 50th anniversary set comes with an album of alternate versions, not as revelatory as the extra tracks on the 50th box of All Things Must Pass but still with insights to impart. The complex rhythms of “Sue Me…” were pretty much sorted from the start, it seems, but it’s thrilling to hear early takes of “The Light…” and “The Lord Loves The One…”. “Be Here Now”, seemingly a later take than the final chosen one, shows just how much Harrison and his musicians changed their parts on the fly in the studio. Alongside B-side “Miss O’Dell”, there’s also an unearthed, fleet-footed version of the joyful “Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond)”, recorded with Harrison’s heroes The Band (the song appeared with Starr’s vocals on November ’73’s Ringo).

Watch the video for “Sunshine Life For Me (Sail Away Raymond)”

When stripped of their orchestral and choral sweetening, Living In The Material World’s big ballads feel even more soul-baring. Rather than being driven by a holier-than-thou smugness, this is an album whose wracked, painful honesty and sense of deep disappointment rivals that of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Harrison had attained the wealth, power and adoration that billions dream of and found it lacking, yet he’d glimpsed an alternative. “Got a lot of work to do/Try to get a message through,” he sang on the title track, a man desperately reaching for a chink of light in the gloom of The Beatles’ shadow.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

City To City: Introducing Laurence Jones

Peter Watts
-
0
City To City: Introducing Laurence Jones

In partnership with Marshall

In partnership with Marshall

Laurence Jones was thrilled when he was sent his first Marshall amp after turning professional at 17, but soon realised he needed to send it back. “It was too loud for the size of venues I was playing,” he grins. “I asked Marshall if they could hold on to it until I’d made it into bigger venues. A few years later, I got in touch with the same guy at Marshall and said I was ready to have it back.”

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

Now signed to the Marshall record label, Jones picked up his first guitar as a kid, determined to become better than his dad at playing “House Of The Rising Sun”. He was inspired by the blues clubs of Liverpool where his dad – a music lover – would take Jones as a child. His dad introduced him to acts like Jimi Hendrix, The Groundhogs and Cream, while Jones discovered The Cure for himself, falling in love with Robert Smith’s gift for songwriting.

Trained in classical guitar but a rocker and bluesman at heart, Jones was a prodigy, playing his first gigs as a 14-year-old wedding singer and forming a band to play local pubs and clubs. “We called ourselves Free Beer so we could put that on the posters – Free Beer here tonight,” he says. It was surprisingly effective.

Jones hasn’t stopped working since. He has released eight albums – most recently Bad Luck & The Blues – and won numerous awards. He’s also toured with the likes of Ringo Starr – a huge thrill for a Liverpudlian – as well as Buddy Guy and Status Quo. He’s enjoyed success in the Netherlands, where he developed a loyal fanbase and it’s here that he experienced a memorable jam with Buddy Guy.

“Buddy is like the Liam Gallagher of the blues,” says Jones. “He was so rock’n’roll. He was throwing plectrums into the audience while I was playing and loving the fact he didn’t have to do any work because I was there. We did ‘Strange Brew’ because he knew I liked Clapton, then went into ‘Miss You’. While we were playing, he walked off stage and got into his limo. He waved goodbye and drove off. He was back at the hotel before I ended the set. Later, I looked at the plectrum he’d given me and he’d written, ‘Buddy Guy, thank you, go fuck yourself.’ I loved it!”

Since signing with Marshall for his 2022 album Destination Unknown, Jones has revelled in the freedom the label has provided, allowing him to self-produce and forge his own direction. For Bad Luck & The Blues he pared his group back to a trio and recorded them live at the Marshall Studio in Milton Keynes, eager to capture some of the prowling energy of those classic power trios. “I love the look and sound of a power trio,” he says. “There’s nowhere to hide. When we had the keyboard, I was always having to play around it but now I have so much space and freedom. The sound is so big. How do you do that? You need a couple of Marshall stacks and you need to turn them up loud but it’s also about the style of the songs, with the writing driven by guitar rather than piano or vocal. That makes a huge difference.”

Jones had previously recorded most of his albums abroad so loved having the opportunity to record in the UK in a studio that he says was “a real step up” thanks to Marshall’s sourcing of vintage equipment, from the mics and amps to the Neve console. His dream was to capture his live sound in the studio, which means his natural desire to combine classic pop melodies with improvised solos. And his love of The Cure hasn’t gone away either – during one song, “In Too Deep”, he will drop in a little reference to “A Forest”, much to the delight of knowing fans. It’s a reminder that for all the focus on genres, music should never be put in a box. 

“I grew up with the blues and my playing is very bluesy, but my themes are more contemporary and my songwriting is very diverse,” he says. “I’m trying to bring a younger audience into the blues because it can be very purist, but for me, it’s all about the songwriting, the solos and playing my guitar. That’s what excites me.”

City To City: Liverpool

Laurence Jones takes us on a musical history tour of his hometown haunts

Photo: Jeff Pitcher

Gazing out over the Mersey from Liverpool docks towards distant Birkenhead, Laurence Jones is thrilled to be back in his home city. His family moved to Warwickshire before he reached double figures, but Jones was moulded by Liverpool and still considers himself a Scouser at heart. Even after leaving the city, he returned throughout his youth to visit grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and this is where he made some of his first live appearances, playing the city’s network of Labour clubs, performing the blues on guitar between the meat raffle and a stand-up comedian. 

“That’s one thing I really like about Liverpool, it provides a natural progression so you can start in the bars and Labour clubs, and then move up to bigger venues like The Cavern,” he says. “Then you can keep going. There’s the Epstein Theatre, where we supported King King, and the Philharmonic Hall, which has two rooms and is where I played with Status Quo. You can keep going up to the Arena, all the way to Anfield. That’s what made it great to grow up around here. But you have to be tough. It’s hard growing up in the shadow of The Beatles as it means the audiences have very high expectations. It’s a hard fanbase but one of the best as it can be very rowdy and very loyal.”

Images of The Beatles are everywhere in Liverpool. After posing by a statue of the Fab Four at the dock we head towards Mathew Street, home of The Cavern. This alleyway could be the closest thing England has to Memphis’s Beale Street or New Orleans’ French Quarter, a charismatic strip of clubs and bars, with neon lights and live music pounding from every doorway to attract tourists. There are more statues – of Cilla Black as well as John Lennon – plus a wall of bricks with the names of every act that played The Cavern. 

Photo: Jeff Pitcher

The original Cavern Club was demolished in the 1970s before being excavated and reopened in 1984 on a location that covered 70 per cent of its original site. That is authentic enough to attract legions of tourists down the dark stairs into The Cavern’s musty interior for regular gigs. Facing it across Mathew Street is the latest iteration of Eric’s, the legendary punk venue that hosted The Clash, the Ramones, the Pistols and Talking Heads, as well as providing a crucible for Liverpool’s fertile post-punk scene. Mathew Street is also home to the Beatles Museum, which Jones remembers visiting with a
much-missed uncle.

Mathew Street’s reinvention as one of the country’s premier music destinations is typical of Liverpool’s resilience. Jones recently played a show at the Salt And Tar in Bootle, a new 3,000-capacity outdoor venue that occupies the unpromising site of an old car park overlooked by high-rise flats. “I love that about Liverpool,” he says. “They can make something good out of any situation, even an old car park.”

It was at this show that Jones played many of the rockers from his recent album Bad Luck & The Blues. He’d written these at home and then played the demos through his Marshall Bluetooth Middleton speaker. “I love the Bluetooth speaker because they’re portable and easy to use, and that’s important because I’m not very techy,” he says, while his wife and manager Amy nods in agreement. “I really love the fact they look like an amp – you can even stack them, like
a proper Marshall! I use them when I’ve recorded my demos on the phone, because I can really blast it through the speakers and it’s very good at picking up the bass.”

From Mathew Street, we wander down to the tiny record shop,
Probe, which prides itself on being “the home of the underground”. As a child, Jones accompanied his music-loving father to The Musical Box, which was opened in 1947 and is one of the oldest record shops in the world. Customers included John Lennon and Pete Best, already local legends. Jones is a vinyl fan and vividly recalls the first time he heard “Just Like Heaven” on his dad’s stereo. “It’s my favourite song and on vinyl it can’t be beaten,” he says.

Probe hasn’t been around quite as long, having opened in 1971. Later that decade it became the centrepiece of Liverpool’s independent renaissance: shop assistants included Julian Cope, Courtney Love, Pete Burns and Pete Wylie. Founder Geoff Davies died in 2023, but the shop continues, with walls stacked with seven inches from independent bands new and old. While Jones flips through the racks, the shop’s manager quietly disappears into a back room and re-emerges with his pride and joy, a 1963 Jaguar. He hands it to Jones for a play, and soon the two of them are lost in the world of guitars. When Jones finally leaves Probe, he’s practically flying: it’s been another memorable day in the musical life of Liverpool.  

Photo: Jeff Pitcher

Introducing the Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide to King Crimson

John Robinson
-
0
Introducing the Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide to King Crimson

Neurosurgeons scream for more...

Neurosurgeons scream for more…

As you’ll discover in this deluxe and expanded Ultimate Music Guide, when we speak of King Crimson, we’re really speaking of Robert Fripp, the guitarist and sole member to have lasted the 50 years of the band’s lifetime. So warm is his greeting, so insistent his use of one’s first name, you could come to think you and Robert Fripp were pretty well acquainted even though you have only met on a video call a few times.

He can be wonderfully candid. He will speak very movingly about fallen band members like John Wetton, who fronted the group at the time of Red (which celebrates its 50th anniversary round about now), or Bill Rieflin, the American drummer/polymath who was a key part of the last three drummer line-up of the group, until his untimely death from cancer. 

More cheerily, he might allow himself to digress into discussing the shortcomings of former members. With a twinkle of the eye, he might tell you with devastating dismissiveness about the former member who is “A good man. A very good man. A century ago who would have commanded a colonial outpost somewhere…” On one occasion he spent maybe 10 minutes patiently waiting as he guided me in trying to articulate a musician’s character flaws – “You’re very close…” – presumably so he might have the satisfaction of knowing his feelings weren’t held in isolation. He took a toilet break while I gathered my thoughts.

His is an unknowable combination of candour and reserve, control and release, spirituality and fun. The churn of Crimson members down the band’s history suggest that it’s not been a combination to work for everyone, but it has produced an impressively powerful musical legacy, which evolved in influence down the decades as the band took on new shapes.

If Fripp was present it was always King Crimson, though, and that’s the story, along with coverage of solo work and collaborations, which is told here. Much as Fripp has defined the course of the group through its life, so now, after five years which have found the band reconfiguring, negotiating the pandemic, touring with several of its members in their mid-70s, and revivifying their older material in new arrangements, that the band’s work is now finished.  

“I’ll bring you up on that if I may,” Fripp told me a couple of years ago. “There are three forms of ending: a conclusion, a completion and a finish. When you finish a process, something is lost, like King Crimson in 2008 really was finished. A conclusion is where nothing is lost but nothing particularly is gained. And a completion is a new beginning.”

King Crimson, he went on to say, had reached a completion. But he acknowledged that the sound of a new beginning would always be tantalising. 

“I don’t have to worry about it,” he said, retreating into a rather more mysterious space. “Whatever seeks to come next in my life will tell me.”

Enjoy the magazine. You can get one in the shops now – or here.

Jack White has shared a new track, “You Got Me Searching”

Michael Bonner
-
0
Jack White has shared a new track, “You Got Me Searching”

Jack White has shared a new track, "You Got Me Searching", which is being released as the B-side to his next single, "That's How I'm Feeling". You can hear the track below.

Jack White has shared a new track, “You Got Me Searching“, which is being released as the B-side to his next single, “That’s How I’m Feeling“. You can hear the track below.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

White has also announced a slew of tour dates:

NOVEMBER14 – Austin, TX – Mohawk*15 – San Antonio, TX – Paper Tiger*17 – Mexico City, MX – Corona Capital*  DECEMBER1 – Hong Kong – Clockenflap Music & Arts Festival *2 – Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam – Capital Theatre *5 – Brisbane, Australia – Fortitude Music Hall6 – Ballarat, Australia – Civic Hall *7 – Melbourne, Australia – Corner Hotel *9 – Melbourne, Australia – Forum Melbourne11 – Hobart, Australia – Odeon Theatre13 – Sydney, Australia – Enmore Theatre17 – Auckland, New Zealand – Auckland Town Hall FEBRUARY 20256 – Toronto, ON – HISTORY7 – Toronto, ON – Massey Hall8 – Toronto, ON – Massey Hall11 – Brooklyn, NY – Kings Theatre12 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount17 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner18 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner MARCH 202510 – Hiroshima, Japan – Blue Live Hiroshima12 – Osaka, Japan – Gorilla Hall13 – Nagoya, Japan – Diamond Hall15 – Tokyo, Japan – Toyosu PIT17 – Tokyo, Japan – Toyosu PIT APRIL 20253 – St. Louis, MO – The Factory4 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater5 – Omaha, NE – Steelhouse Omaha7 – Saint Paul, MN – Palace Theatre8 – Saint Paul, MN – Palace Theatre10 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed (Indoors)11 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed (Indoors)12 – Detroit, MI – Masonic Temple Theatre13 – Detroit, MI – Masonic Temple Theatre15 – Grand Rapids, MI – GLC Live at 20 Monroe16 – Cleveland, OH – Agora Theatre18 – Nashville, TN – The Pinnacle19 – Nashville, TN – The Pinnacle MAY 20254 – Austin, TX – ACL Live at the Moody Theater5 – Austin, TX – ACL Live at the Moody Theater6 – Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom8 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom9 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom10 – Salt Lake City, UT – Union Event Center12 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium13 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium15 – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Bowl16 – Oakland, CA – Fox Theater17 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic19 – Seattle, WA – Paramount Theatre20 – Seattle, WA – Paramount Theatre22 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom23 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom24 – Troutdale, OR – Edgefield Concerts on the Lawn * PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED

Introducing The 500 Greatest Albums of the 2010s-Now…Ranked!

John Robinson
-
0
Introducing The 500 Greatest Albums of the 2010s-Now…Ranked!

You want it darker?

You want it darker?

In our introductions to other decades in this series, we’ve often spoken about bold innovations, and how the key recordings made in the period reflected wider cultural change. Since they’re so close at hand, it seems reasonable that it may take a while for the years we’ve covered in this new magazine, from 2010 to the present, to fully reveal themselves. Right now, though, the records that have reached the top of this list have got there because of – maybe in spite of – their weightiness.

Quite simply, the big hitters here are often making very serious music. Rightly, and heavily represented is Nick Cave, whose most recent albums cluster in the upper reaches of the chart. Of course, there’s Push The Sky Away, his breakthrough album of 2013 (in which he and Warren Ellis conspire to melt the traditional structures of popular song). But there are also two records born from personal calamity, the tragic death of his son Arthur. In 2016’s Skeleton Tree, recorded in the immediate aftermath, Cave’s continued experiments in sound and composition gave rise to a spartan, humming menace. Ghosteen, which arrived during the pandemic, was born from a more sustained and mystical meditation on these terrible events. 

Although these and other records in this list are often deeply personal, something in them speaks to our collective times. It might mean Kendrick Lamar placing his ascent to hip hop royalty in a wider context of political extremism and negative social change. Or it might mean Leonard Cohen creating profound work, painted in sombre colours. Cohen had already wryly tipped a hat to his audience when he called himself “Leonard…A sportsman and a shepherd” on an album called Old Ideas. Impressively, he had the resource to do so again, and conflate the personal and the political in an even more serious fashion. It should almost go without saying that he would call it You Want It Darker?. 

Most impressively, Cohen’s was a record which advanced the position taken by Johnny Cash’s American Recordings series nearly 20 years previously. Namely, how might an artist confront and transform their late life experience into something universal. 2016, the year in which Cohen (and Merle Haggard, and Prince) died also marked the passing of David Bowie. Blackstar, his final album, was more than a gravitas record, though. Instead, leaving life as he had lived it, Bowie made his passing his latest reinvention, a strangely moving and uplifting experience.

Older than most of his contemporaries, it was Bob Dylan who showed how it was done. You wanted it darker? Death was all around Rough And Rowdy Ways, but Dylan made himself its master: rollicking through the political horror of the past 100 years if only to show that what doesn’t kill you might make you stronger, and funnier, and cleverer than everyone else.

Of course Blackstar was released only eight years ago; the Dylan album a mere four. It may be that decades in the future a publication like this shines a light on far different parts of the musical decade. It may decide that times weren’t quite so serious that they warranted all this gravitas, and go on to praise different greats. It certainly may be so. Or, of course, it may not. 

Enjoy the magazine. It’s in shops Friday. Or you can get one here.

Watch the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s documentary, Beatles ’64

Michael Bonner
-
0
Watch the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s documentary, Beatles ’64

The first trailer for Martin Scorsese's upcoming documentary, Beatles '64 has been released. You can watch it below.

The first trailer for Martin Scorsese‘s upcoming documentary, Beatles ’64 has been released. You can watch it below.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

The documentary airs on Disney+ from November 29.

The documentary uses footage originally shot by David and Albert Maysles during the band’s first visit to America, alongside new interview footage with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and other eyewitnesses.

You can buy Uncut’s deep dive into The Beatles’ first US visit from our online store by clicking here

Bob Dylan, Royal Albert Hall, London, November 13, 2024

Nick Hasted
-
0
Bob Dylan, Royal Albert Hall, London, November 13, 2024

The waiting gear has hardly changed since 1966. Jim Keltner’s drumkit looks Ringo-minimal behind the piano, guitars and upright bass scattered beneath Old Hollywood Klieg lights, the basic materiel of a mid-20th century roadhouse touring band – the Hawks, say. And when those lights go up, a gold-jacketed electric guitarist sits in the band’s half-circle with his straight back enigmatically to us, as if cooking up tunes in an after-hours joint, not the Albert Hall. Then Bob Dylan turns to the piano, Keltner’s bass-drum whomps, and “All Along The Watchtower” gradually coalesces.

The waiting gear has hardly changed since 1966. Jim Keltner’s drumkit looks Ringo-minimal behind the piano, guitars and upright bass scattered beneath Old Hollywood Klieg lights, the basic materiel of a mid-20th century roadhouse touring band – the Hawks, say. And when those lights go up, a gold-jacketed electric guitarist sits in the band’s half-circle with his straight back enigmatically to us, as if cooking up tunes in an after-hours joint, not the Albert Hall. Then Bob Dylan turns to the piano, Keltner’s bass-drum whomps, and “All Along The Watchtower” gradually coalesces.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

Dylan’s casual return to guitar to open the first few songs tonight – his precise contribution hard to extract from Doug Lancio and Bob Britt’s interweaving – is one of several rebuttals to the passing of time. When I saw the second European night of the now epic Rough And Rowdy Ways tour in a gloomy Stockholm arena in 2022, Dylan, then 81, stood only occasionally and, it seemed, shakily. The three-year tour he’d announced to showcase his new songs seemed quixotically optimistic then. Yet tonight he starts most songs standing among his compadres before leaning conspiratorially on the piano, apparently stronger now than when he started, rejuvenated even.

READ OUR REVIEW OF BOB DYLAN LIVE AT USHER HALL, EDINBURGH, NOVEMBER 5, 2024

Many other things have changed at the venue where Dylan first, famously, appeared in ’65 before returning in 2013 with the reborn voice and stable setlists which have radically transformed the last decade’s iteration of the Never-Ending Tour. Alongside Rough And Rowdy Ways songs which have evolved far beyond the album, the breezy, minor back-catalogue which studded his 2022 UK visit has been replaced by heavy ‘60s hitters, in a powerfully rebalanced set.

“It Ain’t Me, Babe” follows “Watchtower”. “It sure ain’t me, babe,” Dylan sings, words ringing out over a minimalist piano jangle which veers into avant-garde pathways, till Keltner steers back to firm ground. “I play Beethoven… and Chopin,” Bob adds on “I Contain Multitudes”, but his sometimes discordant piano strays closer to jazz, where Keltner follows him with delicate attentiveness, running the ship between them.

This is also often the closest Dylan has been to rock for many years. His piano shoots “False Prophet” somewhere tumultuous, Keltner essays stormy rolls,and Britt’s lightning-bolt guitar recalls the sound made by Robbie Robertson here a lifetime ago. There’s an Elvis shiver to his vocal on “When I Paint My Masterpiece”, Dylan’s harmonica solo echoing in from Oh Mercy’s swamps and followed by dark, slow stride piano. Britt’s fuzzed chords drop like controlled explosions into the heavy blues of “Crossing The Rubicon”, as Dylan considers heroes of his youth from Martin Luther King to Montgomery. The vigorous sound he’s plugged back into hilariously climaxes with “Desolation Row”. Students of his hide-and-seek chorus from “Like A Rolling Stone” circa 2019 will surely place this still higher among his iconoclastic rearrangements. Verses are hurled overboard to permit rocketing Rawhide rockabilly, Keltner’s rumbling toms maintaining the relentless pace, till Dylan’s final piano solo pulls the sound still tighter in this wild new place.

Dylan moves directly from this legendary address to “Key West”, a Rough And Rowdy Ways song of equal majesty. It’s an example of tonight’s other dominant mode, with Dylan’s voice and words front and centre, and the band in barely perceptible support. The song hangs suspended outside time, adjacent to its mystical Florida “horizon line”, as Dylan lays out lines with quiet inevitability. He swallowed words early in the show, but now every phrase, and his pride in them, is clear.

A little earlier, “My Own Version Of You” was revealed as another of his great epics in similar Bob-centric fashion. “I say to hell with all things that used to be,” he snarls during this Frankenstein tale like no song he or anyone has written before. “I can see the whole history of the human race…on your face,” he adds with relish, and you believe him. “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” begins with a dramatic, stark vocal flourish and clarion power, as Dylan plays sad cantina piano. His consistency of purpose and achievement across his whole career is set in relief by these past and present songs.

Along with pride in his songs and performance, there’s a modesty to Dylan and his band, heard in the way they vanish into the jump-blues drive of “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”, as infinitely timeless in its own way as “Key West”. Teenage Bob’s ambition was to join Little Richard’s band. Here for a few minutes, he has.

Dylan stands to preach “Every Grain Of Sand”, a Blakean prayer written by a Bob hitting 40 and hovering between faith and doubt, when “sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me.” He hits mighty gospel chords, then plays a harmonica solo whose giant, reverberating notes fill the hall. It might be the last time for all this one day. But not yet.

Bob Dylan and his band setlist Royal Albert Hall, November 13, 2024:

All Along The Watchtower

It Ain’t Me Babe

I Contain Multitudes

False Prophet

When I Paint My Masterpiece

Black Rider

My Own Version Of You

Crossing The Rubicon

Desolation Row

Key West (Philosopher Pirate)

Watching The River Flow

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You

Mother Of Muses

Goodbye Jimmy Reed

Every Grain Of Sand           

Jerry Garcia’s voice recreated by AI for books, articles and more

Michael Bonner
-
0
Jerry Garcia’s voice recreated by AI for books, articles and more

The voice of the late Grateful Dead's frontman and guitarist Jerry Garcia has been recreated by AI, reports Billboard.

The voice of the late Grateful Dead‘s frontman and guitarist Jerry Garcia has been recreated by AI, reports Billboard.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

The Garcia estate has partnered with AI voice company ElevenLabs to bring his voice to its Iconic Listening Experience on the ElevenReader app.

Garcia’s voice model adds to a list of other artifically generated voices by the company, including Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and John Wayne.

Garcia’s voice has been used to read out audiobooks, e-books, articles, poetry, PDFs and more in 32 different languages on the app.

Additionally, Garcia’s voice model will also be used in various upcoming projects associated with the Jerry Garcia Foundation, which could include documentaries, audio art exhibits and more.

“My father was a pioneering artist, who embraced innovative audio and visual technologies,” Garcia’s daughter Keelin said.

Sunny War announces new album, Armageddon In A Summer Dress

Michael Bonner
-
0
Sunny War announces new album, Armageddon In A Summer Dress

Sunny War returns with a new album, Armageddon In A Summer Dress, which is due on February 21 from New West Records.

Pre-order Armageddon In A Summer Dress here

Sunny War returns with a new album, Armageddon In A Summer Dress, which is due on February 21 from New West Records.

You can hear the first track from the album below: “Walking Contradiction” featuring Steve Ignorant from Crass.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

Armageddon In A Summer Dress follows on from 2023’s Anarchist Gospel and was produced by Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff) and features guest appearances by Valerie June, X‘s John Doe of X, Tré Burt, the Raconteurs‘ Jack Lawrence, Kyshona Armstrong and John James Tourville of the Deslondes as well as Ignorant.

The tracklsting for Armageddon In A Summer Dress is:

One Way Train

Bad Times

Rise

Ghosts

Walking Contradiction (feat. Steve Ignorant)

Cry Baby (feat. Valerie June)

No One Calls Me Baby

Scornful Heart (feat. Tré Burt)

Gone Again (feat. John Doe)

Lay Your Body

Debbie Downer

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Throwing Muses share new single, “Drugstore Drastic”

Michael Bonner
-
0
Throwing Muses share new single, “Drugstore Drastic”

Throwing Muses return with new single "Drugstore Drastic", out today on Fire Records, with an extensive 2025 UK and EU Spring/Summer tour on sale now.

Throwing Muses return with new single “Drugstore Drastic“, out today on Fire Records, with an extensive 2025 UK and EU Spring/Summer tour on sale now.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

“Drugstore Drastic” follows the Muses 2020 album Sun Racket and is the first salvo from a batch of new material due to come next year.

Meanwhile, Throwing Muses tour:

May 12: Blå, Oslo, Norway 
May 13: Vega Hall, Copenhagen, Denmark 
May 14: Lido, Berlin, Germany 
May 15: Gebaude 9, Cologne, Germany 
May 17: Waterfront, Norwich, UK 
May 18: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, UK 
May 19: The Cluny, Newcastle, UK 
May 20: The Garage, Glasgow, UK 
May 21: Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Ireland 
May 22: Roisin Dubh, Galway, Ireland 
May 23: Whelan’s, Dublin, Ireland 
May 24: Academy 2, Manchester, UK 
May 25: Bearded Theory, Derbyshire, UK 
May 26: The Fleece, Bristol, UK 
May 27: Electric Ballroom, London 
May 28: White Rock Studio, Hastings, UK 
May 29: Chalk, Brighton, UK 
May 30: Cactus Club, Bruges, Belgium 
May 31: La Marberie, Paris, France 
June 2: The Chelsea, Vienna, Austria 
June 3: Strom, Munich, Germany 
June 4: Santeria Toscana 31, Milan, Italy 
June 5: Molotov, Marseille, France 

Bobby Gillespie: “I’m trying to work out what you do with a band that’s been going as long as we have”

Nick Hasted
-
0
Bobby Gillespie: “I’m trying to work out what you do with a band that’s been going as long as we have”

Primal Scream’s twelfth album Come Ahead marks a distinctive break with recent records. In this extended version of the interview in this month’s Uncut, Bobby Gillespie talks us through the radical changes in the Scream’s music-making from the ‘80s through Screamadelica to the present, social justice, his deep bonds with Andrew Innes and his late dad, and writing age-appropriate songs as a sixty-something rocker.

Buy Come Ahead here

Primal Scream’s twelfth album Come Ahead marks a distinctive break with recent records. In this extended version of the interview in this month’s Uncut, Bobby Gillespie talks us through the radical changes in the Scream’s music-making from the ‘80s through Screamadelica to the present, social justice, his deep bonds with Andrew Innes and his late dad, and writing age-appropriate songs as a sixty-something rocker.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

UNCUT: It seems like the lyrics on Come Ahead follow on from some of the breakthroughs you made on Utopian Ashes, the album you made with Jehnny Beth.

BOBBY GILLESPIE: Definitely. I wrote the lyrics for Utopian Ashes just before I wrote my book Tenement Kid, and between those two releases something was unlocked and made free.

Had you become more confident that you could stand up and make art outside of Primal Scream?

With the book, definitely. We could actually have released Utopian Ashes as a Primal Scream album because I wrote 90% of the lyrics and about 90% of the melodies, and Andrew [Innes] and myself did all of the chords. But also with that record my writing process was different. Since Vanishing Point in ’96, it would be Andrew and myself in the studio, and Andrew would build up textures and atmospheres and rhythms, then I’d write lyrics that I felt would go with that particular soundscape. And we did away with chords. I’m not putting us up with these guys, but with let’s say James Brown or Fela Kuti or Miles Davis, everything’s just on the one chord, and there was influence from that stuff. We would go to the studio five days a week, Andrew would play synths and sequencers, and we’d build tracks from the bottom up, making albums as studio creations. We started Utopian Ashes like that, but thenI started adding chords with an acoustic guitar here at home and shaping the songs in a more traditional way. I was doing it on my own, and that gave me courage. And when it came to Come Ahead I found that I’d written all the lyrics before the record. They were poems. Whole sets of lyrics would come to me, and then I’d pick up the acoustic guitar.

It’s quite a psychological shift in your role in the band. Now it all starts with you.

That’s true, the collaboration comes later. We had this really good thing going for years. But I’d been writing lyrics to try and fit the music, and that was very constricting. I felt that I had more to say, and I found myself writing these long-forms songs. I thought, is this gonna be a folky kind of record? Is it gonna be singer-songwriter? You’ve gotta understand that we grew up in the ‘70s, and the blueprint for commercial rock and roll was two verses and two choruses. It takes a lot of skill to say a lot in two verses, and a lot of the times what I was saying was quite fractured, but I was writing to fit into a structure that would make an exciting pop or rock and roll record. With the original guitarist Jim [Beattie]’s beautiful elegiac 12-string then Robert Young and Andrew Innes, I was always thinking about hooks and guitar riffs. That busted open with Screamadelica when we started writing on keyboards and collaborating with Weatherall – I think the only guitar song on Screamadelica was originally “Shine Like Stars” and “Damaged”, and that changed everything as well. But being brought up on the pop song is kinda in your blood, we didn’t do the long-form song with loads of lyrics. And now I wanna write, I don’t wanna be hemmed in by having to make a three-minute song.“Settler’s Blues” on Come Ahead has 16 verses!

And along with your expansive lyrics, Andrew’s playing Floydian solos.

Before, me and him coproduced the records as well, we had so much work to do, and I think he concentrated less on guitar. This time he’s really had to think hard because there was limited space for guitar, and what he’s come up with is incredible.

You’ve both gone back to your essential talents.

I hope so. When I sing and he plays guitar, we’ve got a groove and an understanding and we know where each other’s going. And that’s Primal Scream. There’s a connection that goes all the way back to being 16.

With all that history, you’ve been quoted as saying you thought there might not be another Scream album.

That’s been overstated. In 2021, Utopian Ashes and Tenement Kid came out, I had so much work to do. David Holmes caught me up that year and said, ‘Let’s do a record.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, man, I’m not right, I don’t wanna do another record’ – at that point. At the beginning of 2020, I sat down and wrote a list of things that I wanted to do, and things I didn’t. And one of the things I didn’t wanna do was start a new Primal Scream record, and I knew that there had to be a different approach to making music. Because every year Andrew and I would make the album in the studio, it would be presented to whichever record company we were signed to, and a few months later they would release it. We would have to rehearse the band with the songs that we’d written, tour for a year ending in December, and then in the first week of January, Andrew and I would be back in the studio, feeling around in the dark to see if we could find something that sounded good.

So it became like clocking on, more than being creative?

We wanted to be creative, and also we’re workers. We didn’t wanna be lazy people. There was a period where that really did work, from ‘96 to maybe 2002, and after that, I’m not so sure. We both started having kids and families, and I guess it was just keeping ourselves busy. It would’ve been maybe better to take a couple of years off, but we wanted to keep working because it was the way we were brought up. You know, our parents worked.

Effectively, you did take a couple of years off from Primal Scream, and it seems you’ve refreshed the band and your place in it.

One-hundred percent. I’m trying to work out what you do with a band that’s been going as long as we have. I just wanna make records and write songs that reflect how I feel at the age I’m now and the world in which I find myself living, and I’m very curious about the world. It’s not like you’re trying to be better than anyone else. I just wanna make a contribution to music.

Thinking about Come Ahead’s themes, are the soldier from the closed-down mining town in “False Flags”, the cycles of colonial violence in “Settlers Blues” and the oppression and division of the working-class on other songs all sides of the same story?

“False Flags” is about someone like my father, a typical young man who joined the Army at 17. He had next to no education, my dad. He grew up during the war, his father wasn’t around. His mother was working very hard in the uranium factory. She may have got cancer working there, and he was brought up by his sister who left a home at 16. He ended up on the streets. My dad had malnutrition, he was put in homes, he was shunted from relative to relative. And he was clearly not a stupid man. He was self-educated, but he joined the Army as a way to get outta Glasgow. And he said the Army made a man of him, right? There’s a little bit of that story in there, but also about deindustrialization, and how the Army’s recruited from the poorest, most ill-educated people in society, the lower ranks. And my dad was one of them. So it’s that soldier’s tale, and how I think they were used, abused and discarded. And “Settlers Blues” is about the religion of the flag, just like the army is, and it goes through a few different centuries, and shows how the victim historically becomes the victimizer, like what’s happening just now in Gaza.

If there’s a dominant sound to Come Ahead, it’s funk or even disco. How did that come about?

The initial rhythmic tracks were breakbeats that David Holmes sent over to me, and then I would do a very lo-fi acoustic guitar sketch on my phone. It began when I got a text from David, who goes, ‘Check your email.’ I checked and heard these breakbeat drums, and “Ready To Go Home” sounded really good with it, if I modified it to fit the new, funky rhythm, and the chords moved faster. He went, ‘Brilliant. You ready for another one?’, and it was a disco rhythm. I tried the lyrics to “Innocent Money” over that, edited, because it was a long-form poem. He emailed back and said, ‘Congratulations, you’ve just started the new Primal Scream album.’ Holmes is instrumental in this record. I wanted to be produced, that was the thing. I remember calling up Andrew and saying, ‘I’m gonna make a record with David Holmes. I’d love you to play guitar.’ And he goes, ‘I’m in.’ And so Holmes has gotta get equal credit, because his ideas have been fantastic. I went over to Belfast and recorded my vocals with him, and then Andrew went over separately and did his guitars.

Come Ahead’s cover photo is of your late dad. Is this record for him?

Well, I’ll tell you. When we were researching album titles, I had a few that were a bit serious – we might have called it Manichean Times. But I thought Come Ahead works on a variety of levels. If somebody challenges you they say, ‘Come ahead’. And also, I’m not Miles Davis – far from it – but Miles had Miles Ahead, and it’s quite a cheeky title. And when I was looking for photographs for Tenement Kid, my mum had these photographs of her and my dad the year before I was born, 1960. My dad looked half Teddy Boy, half Mod, and I thought, ‘Man, that’s a really powerful image.’ Also a lot of the things I sing about on the record and my attitudes and feelings about things come from my upbringing with my dad. He was all for social justice. Some of those themes were in the record, and it all came together. I just thought it was a great rock and roll picture for the cover – Morrissey would die for that! – and a good rock’n’roll title. We’re saying, we’re still here and we’re still rocking. The Scream are rolling on and we’ve made a record we’re very proud of. It’s the kind of songs and music we should be making at this point in our career. I think I’m getting better and Andrew’s getting better. We’re doing our best.

Come Ahead is out now on BMG

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, O2 Arena, London, November 9, 2024

Sam Richards
-
0
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, O2 Arena, London, November 9, 2024

“Fucking London!” bellows Nick Cave with affectionate gusto, surveying the vast crowd who have come to pay homage in the city where he first made his name. “It seems like we’ve been on tour forever, but now we’re here.” Cave is a pretty good showman these days, so it’s possible he says this kind of thing wherever he plays. But there must be a part of him that thinks back to those famously confrontational Birthday Party shows at West Hampstead’s Moonlight Club almost 45 years ago and wonders exactly how he ended up headlining two nights at the O2.

“Fucking London!” bellows Nick Cave with affectionate gusto, surveying the vast crowd who have come to pay homage in the city where he first made his name. “It seems like we’ve been on tour forever, but now we’re here.” Cave is a pretty good showman these days, so it’s possible he says this kind of thing wherever he plays. But there must be a part of him that thinks back to those famously confrontational Birthday Party shows at West Hampstead’s Moonlight Club almost 45 years ago and wonders exactly how he ended up headlining two nights at the O2.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

It’s been a long and sometimes troubled journey, but Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are defiantly an arena band now. 2024’s Wild God is the first album they’ve written specifically to fill venues of this magnitude, and an awesome opening one-two punch of “Frogs” and “Wild God” demonstrates how well they’ve judged the situation.

With a bank of four gospel singers offering an omnipotent wall of sound, Cave immediately assumes the mantle of a crazed TV evangelist, lyrics from the new songs flashing up on the big screen like subliminal messages imploring us to submit to the power of whatever religion this might be: “Bring your spirit down!”

It’s an undeniably stunning spectacle, though potentially for seasoned Bad Seeds watchers it lacks a little bite. For the first few numbers it could be anyone up there playing those songs, the band deliberately hanging back to allow Cave to seize the stage. But gradually their individual personalities begin to affect proceedings.

There’s the irrepressible Warren Ellis with a jaw-dropping violin solo on “O Children”, not to mention his haunting falsetto refrain on a devastating “Bright Horses”. Guitarist George Vjestica is a glowering presence stage-left, while Big Jim Sclavunos stands directly behind Cave, silhouetted by the gospel singers’ glittering robes, bashing away at his tubular bells like bones against a rock. And then there’s stand-in bassist Colin Greenwood, grinning nervously while Cave gleefully insults a fan in the front row for wearing a Radiohead T-shirt. 

“Jubilee Street”, from the transitional 2013 album Push The Sky Away, is a great showcase for this band of Bad Seeds old and new. It retains a pleasingly raw and combustible edge, exploding into life on the all-consuming coda (“I’m transforming! I’m vibrating!”), when the stage glows orange as if it’s on fire.

How to successfully incorporate elements of the old, belligerent Nick Cave has clearly been a conundrum. There’s understandably no sign of former live staple “Stagger Lee”, its morally ambivalent tale of a psychotic rampage proving hard to square with the hard-won euphoria of a new song like “Joy”.

However, “Red Right Hand” survives and thrives in this new context. It’s always been a little bit cabaret, and here Cave amplifies those elements, turning its organ motif into a terrace chant to be sung by the “balcony people” all the way up in the second tier. “The Mercy Seat” is a harder sell, though “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry” proves to be an invigorating encore stomp. Most impressively, the band somehow turn the carnage of “White Elephant” – key lyric: “I’ll shoot you in the fucking face” – into a wildly celebratory set-closer, with the gospel singers leaving their perch to jive with Cave at the lip of the stage.

Even amid the old fire and brimstone, his piano ballads always offered solace, and here they slot seamlessly into Cave’s new era of emotional availability. “I Need You”, from the grief-wracked Skeleton Key, is a moment of heart-stopping vulnerability in the midst of a grand spectacle. And finally, after an unfeasibly rousing rendition of “The Weeping Song”, Cave heartily thanks each individual Bad Seed before returning alone to the piano for his evergreen love song “Into Your Arms”.

With the big screen camera now trained intently on his face, it looks like Cave’s eyes are moistening along with ours. After all, these are songs in which to weep. But we won’t be weeping long – catharsis has been triumphantly achieved.

SETLIST
Frogs
Wild God
Song Of The Lake
O Children
Jubilee Street
From Her To Eternity
Long Dark Night
Cinnamon Horses
Tupelo
Conversion
Bright Horses
Joy
I Need You
Carnage
Final Rescue Attempt
Red Right Hand
The Mercy Seat
White Elephant
ENCORE
O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)
Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry
The Weeping Song
Into My Arms

Read much more about Nick Cave in the new issue of Uncut, on sale now – order your copy by clicking here

Inside this month’s free Uncut CD – the Best Of 2024

Uncut Staff
-
0
Inside this month’s free Uncut CD – the Best Of 2024

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Jack White, Beth Gibbons, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings and more appear on our latest free CD compilation.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Jack White, Beth Gibbons, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings and more appear on our latest free CD compilation.

All copies of the Review Of The Year 2024 issue of Uncut come with a free, 15-track CD – Best Of 2024 – that showcases many of the albums that appear in our Albums Of The Year.

See below for the full tracklisting…

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

1 NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS

Wild God

[Taken from the Bad Seed Ltd album Wild God]

2 FONTAINES DC

Death Kink

[Taken from the XL album Romance]

3 GILLIAN WELCH & DAVID RAWLINGS

Empty Trainload Of Sky

[Taken from the Acony album Woodland]

4 JACK WHITE

That’s How I’m Feeling

[Taken from the Third Man album No Name]

5 MABE FRATTI

Kravitz

[Taken from the Unheard of Hope album Sentir Que No Sabes]

6 RICHARD THOMPSON

Freeze

[Taken from the New West album Ship To Shore]

7 BETH GIBBONS

Reaching Out

[Taken from the Domino album Lives Outgrown]

8 THE SMILE

Read The Room

[Taken from the XL album Wall Of Eyes]

9 CHRISTOPHER OWENS

Beautiful Horses

[Taken from the True Panther album I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair]

10 GRANDADDY

Nothin’ To Lose

[Taken from the Dangerbird album Blu Wav]

11 BASIC

New Auspicious

[Taken from the No Quarter album This Is BASIC]

12 BILL RYDER-JONES

If Tomorrow Starts Without Me

[Taken from the Domino album Iechyd Da]

13 STILL HOUSE PLANTS

M M M

[Taken from the Bison album If I Don’t Make It, I Love U]

14 BEAK>

Hungry Are We

[Taken from the Invada album >>>>]

15 SARAH DAVACHI

Night Horns (edit)

[Taken from the Late Music album The Head As Form’d In The Crier’s Choir]

“…a 1960s alternative reality where Dusty Springfield, Françoise Hardy and Brenda Lee worked in the same warehouse and smoked hash together on breaks…”

Uncut Staff
-
0
“…a 1960s alternative reality where Dusty Springfield, Françoise Hardy and Brenda Lee worked in the same warehouse and smoked hash together on breaks…”

Since we introduced My Life In Music back in 2006, in Take 108*, it’s become an essential component of Uncut, an opportunity for the artists we most admire to reveal all about the albums that have inspired them.

Since we introduced My Life In Music back in 2006, in Take 108*, it’s become an essential component of Uncut, an opportunity for the artists we most admire to reveal all about the albums that have inspired them.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

As this is our Review Of The Year issue, we thought it might be fun to tweak the My Life In Music format accordingly. So we asked the stars of 2024 to tell us about the musical discoveries that have blown them away this year, from new albums and reissues to music books, documentaries and gigs. The result is a 32-page A5 book given away free with our Review Of The Year issue.

As with the very best examples of My Life In Music, the 23 entries in this My Year In Music book are full of revelations and surprises. As a consequence, we hope you’ll find some exciting treasures of your own – much as you would, really, in a regular issue of Uncut.

Notebooks at the ready, then, for some precious recommendations direct form rock’s top table – including deep steers from Thurston Moore, Richard Thompson, Bill Callahan, Yasmin Williams, Bill Ryder-Jones, Nubya Garcia.

Find out about…

“…a beautiful record of drone electronics…”

“…moving, grown-ass music…”

“…a modern wonky disco classic… ”

“…very cool, riffy chamber jazz…”

“…a 1960s alternative reality where Dusty Springfield, Françoise Hardy and Brenda Lee worked in the same warehouse and smoked hash together on breaks…”

* In case you were wondering, the first artist in the MLIM hotseat was Siouxsie Sioux

LCD Soundsystem share new track, “X-Ray Eyes”

Michael Bonner
-
0
LCD Soundsystem share new track, “X-Ray Eyes”

LCD Soundsystem have released a new track, “X-Ray Eyes”. You can hear it below.

LCD Soundsystem have released a new track, “X-Ray Eyes”. You can hear it below.

THE REVIEW OF 2024, NICK CAVE, ALICE COLTRANE, ELVIS COSTELLO, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, CASSANDRA JENKINS AND MORE STAR IN THE NEW UNCUT – ORDER A COPY HERE!

The band debuted the track on NTS Radio in October.

The band’s James Murphy has also shared a statement that acted. as an update on the band’s mooted fifth album. Their last was American Dream in 2017.

so there’s a new lcd song now called x ray eyes.

it’s the first single of what’s shaping up to be a new album. don’t ask me when that is, because we’re still working on it. but it feels very good to be putting out new music. we made a small run of silkscreened 12❞s that will sell at the upcoming LA and NYC shows, and DFA will have a limited grip of them, but don’t freak out if you don’t get one because there will be a more readily available commercial release of the same record when we can get it together. we just made a pile of white labels and are screening 100 at a time for each gig. it’s a short lead time thing. and it’s fun.

but, no, there’s no finished LP yet. but when we’re not playing shows, it’s getting closer and closer to completion. so that’s the news. anything else you hear is bullshit speculation.

go vote.

j

1234...1,260Page 3 of 1,260

SHOP UNCUT