Lou Reed at 70 arrives onstage at the Festival Hall to do his bit for Antony Hegarty’s Meltdown programme dressed like a stroppy teenager in a baggy black basketball vest, gold medallions around his neck and what looks like a pair of tracksuit bottoms. He looks frail these days, though tonight slightly less so than last year at the Hammersmith Apollo, and perhaps no wonder when you consider what he’s put his body through over the years before he embraced his current sobriety.
The Velvet Underground's classic debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, is set to be re-released as a six disc package on October 1.
The 1967 album will be re-released in order to celebrate its 45th anniversary. The six discs will include the original stereo and mono versions of the album, as well as Nico's Chelsea Girl album and two live discs taken from a show at the Valleydale Ballroom in Columbus, Ohio.
Another issue in the bag, and these are the records that have got us through the last couple of days of production. Mostly very good, with a few probably glaring exceptions.
The White Stripes have released recordings of their first ever live performances.
The vinyl releases are only available through The Vault, a quarterly subscription series from Jack White's Third Man Records/ The latest Vault package includes the 'Live At The Gold Dollar' 7" single, a recording from an open mic night on July 14, 1997 that was the duo's first ever performance.
Sun Kil Moon’s excellent Among The Leaves is Uncut’s lead review in the new August 2012 issue, out now. In this feature from September 2010 (Take 160), Mark Kozelek looks back over the highlights of his recording career, from Red House Painters to his current wrestling-indebted incarnation. Words: Graeme Thomson
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The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are set to release their first new album in eight years.
The 12 track Meat And Bone will be released on September 17 and follows 2004's Damage – which was released under the shortened name of Blues Explosion. It features 12 tracks, and will be the band's ninth LP. Scroll down to listen to the album's opening track "Black Mold".