Boxing Day, 1967, and The Beatles’ new film, something called Magical Mystery Tour, is about to be shown for the first time, broadcast by the BBC, fans looking forward to what surely will be a highlight of the Christmas television schedules, a welcome respite to those of a certain age from the usual seasonal fare of old movies and light entertainment, all that stuff that they usually show to keep the old folks happy over the holidays.
Bob Dylan is now second favourite to win the Nobel prize for literature this autumn, thanks to a wave of bets on the singer.
Dylan is now 10/1 to win the prestigious award, with Japanese writer Haruki Murakami topping the bookies poll with odds of 7/1, The Guardian reports.
According to a spokesperson for bookmakers Ladbrokes, Dylan has been "backed from 33/1 into 10/1 thanks to some decent £100-plus bets… One of the big bets comes from Norway, the others are UK-based". The average stake on Dylan to bag the Nobel is around £40, they said.
It's now seven years since Damage, the last Blues Explosion album, a hiatus during which Jon Spencer got to indulge his psychotic rockabilly side with three albums with Heavy Trash, and also pursue a few other alternative musical endeavours with the likes of Andre Williams, Solex and Cristina Martinez. It was also a period during which the original punk-blues pioneers saw their influence put to more remunerative use not just by The White Stripes but by The Black Keys as well, as stripped-back roots riffage unaccountably became one of rock's more commercially potent modes.
Calexico’s new album, Algiers, is reviewed in the current issue of Uncut (October 2012, Take 185) – so we thought we’d take a trip back to April 2003 (Take 71), when Uncut’s John Mulvey flew out to Tucson, Arizona to discover more about the duo’s redrawing of the alt.country map.
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A New York judge has rejected part of a lawsuit brought by the The Velvet Underground against the the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts over the use of the iconic banana symbol from their 1967 album The Velvet Underground And Nico.
In January this year, the defunct 1960s band filed a lawsuit seeking to block its iconic Andy Warhol-designed banana being used on covers for iPads and iPhones after reports that they had agreed to license the design for a series of cases, sleeves and bags.
A long-lost demo of the Sex Pistols' controversial track "Belsen Was a Gas" has emerged online - watch it above.
The track, about the Nazi concentration camp, was written by Sid Vicious prior to him joining the band. With added input from Johnny Rotten, it became part of the band's live set from 1977. However, only live versions and a post-Rotten 1978 recording with Ronnie Biggs on vocal had previously existed.
The first set of Zappa’s mammoth series of reissues is reviewed in the new issue of Uncut, dated October 2012, and in shops now. To accompany David Cavanagh’s in-depth, three-page examination of the dozen re-releases, here’s a feature from November 2010’s Uncut (Take 162), in which members of the guitarist and composer’s various bands recall the madness and precision that went into some of his most important works. Interviews: John Lewis
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This is one film that's stuck with me since I first saw it a month or so back. Principally, it's a spin on low-rent 70s Italian horror movies; a film that both celebrates and mimics the tropes of murky gialli from filmmakers like Dario Argento.
