The groaning noise behind me is coming from shelves that have recently started to buckle from the almost daily addition to them of new music books, the majority of them typified by their common bulk, a shared enormity of pages, as if no band’s career can be documented in less pages than might otherwise be devoted to the history of mankind itself, from the beginning, with footnotes, anecdotal asides and a brief biography of everyone who’s ever lived.
Bruce Springsteen's onstage collaboration with Arcade Fire and Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello at this year's SXSW has been posted online – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to watch.
As guitarist Lee Ranaldo is in Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes in this month's new issue (April 2012, Take 179), we thought we'd share a Sonic Youth piece from our archive. In this feature, published in 2009, Marc Spitz finds the band (who've just finished what we now know could be their final album, The Eternal) ageing with more dignity than most, but still finding time to lash out at Oasis, Madonna and U2, and order a baby pig with a donut in its mouth… Picture by Pieter M Van Hattem.
Thanks for all your kind words over the past couple of weeks about the relaunched mag. I know this will undoubtedly read like self-justifying hype on our part, but we have been genuinely thrilled and overwhelmed by how positive the response has been.
Dexys Midnight Runners have posted the first track from their forthcoming new album 'One Day I'm Going To Soar' online – scroll down to the bottom of the page and click to listen to 'Nowhere Is Home'.
The new April issue of Uncut, out now, features David Bowie peering from the cover in his guise as sleazy space-star Ziggy Stardust. To celebrate this look at Bowie’s greatest creation 40 years on, here’s a fantastic piece from Uncut’s 18th issue, in November 1998, in which Chris Roberts looks back at the glammed-up, transgressive superstars who changed his adolescent world.
Jack White celebrated Third Man Records' third birthday last night (March 8) by showcasing tracks from his forthcoming debut album 'Blunderbuss' along with tracks by The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather.
A lot on today, so I’ll have to be swift. But as you can see, a lot of exciting new things on the playlist this week, especially near the start. The Hans Chew track, incidentally, is a free download, and is hugely recommended.