I must confess that, until very recently, I hadn’t really heard of Mike Cooper; more evidence, I guess, of the apparently boundless reserves of records from the early ‘70s still to be reissued (the Bob Carpenter album, due to be released on No Quarter in the autumn, is another great example I should write about soon).
One of the things I wrote about in the new issue of Uncut is a review of the latest vinyl reissues from what was the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. For a panel to accompany the review, I had the good fortune to speak to composer Paddy Kingsland, one of the legendary studio boffins currently touring in the live iteration of the Workshop.
As Damon Albarn prepares to release his debut solo album, Everyday Robots, on Monday, and 20 years since the release of Parklife is celebrated, we delve back into the Uncut archive (July 2009, Take 146) and go behind the scenes of the sessions that produced Blur’s classic albums and reveal the conflicts that nearly destroyed the band… Interviews: Nick Hasted
Bruce Springsteen inducted the E Street Band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night [April 10].
The current line-up of the E Street Band was on hand for the induction, alongside original drummer Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez and keyboardist David Sancious. Danny Federici's widow Maya accepted on his behalf, and Victoria Clemons spoke for her late husband Clarence.
You can read Springsteen's entire induction speech below:
To be a fan of Gillian Welch, as many Uncut readers will appreciate, requires an uncommon degree of faithfulness and patience. In 18 years, she has released just five albums; given that the gap between the last one (2011’s The Harrow And The Harvest) and its predecessor (2003’s Soul Journey) ran to eight years, a follow-up may still be some way off.
The Take Off And Landing Of Everything, Elbow’s sixth album, is out on Monday (March 10) – in this archive piece from Uncut’s August 2011 issue (Take 171), Guy Garvey, Mark Potter and Craig Potter stroll through two decades’ worth of musical memories. “We’ve never had the word ‘can’t’ bandied around the room,” says Garvey. “It’s like a red rag to a bull.” Interview: Graeme Thomson
“I want to be mothered,” Mark Kozelek sang in 1993 on “Mother”, one of the more startling tracks on the second Red House Painters album. “I want you to give attention to my belly button/Mother, I want to have bobby pins stuck in my ears.”
I wrote a Throwing Muses feature for the November 2013 issue of Uncut, for which I spoke to all Muses past and present. The key interview, of course, was with Kristin Hersh, which ended up taking place over two lengthy sessions.
