Subscribe
Home Blog Page 503

Jackie Lomax dies aged 69

Uncut
-
0
Jackie Lomax dies aged 69
Jackie Lomax has died aged 69 during a trip to a family wedding in the UK. Lomax started out as a member of the Undertakers, a Merseybeat group who followed The Beatles to Hamburg and released four singles on Pye, only one of which - "Just A Little Bit" - made the charts. Lomax' next band, The Lom...

Jackie Lomax has died aged 69 during a trip to a family wedding in the UK.

Lomax started out as a member of the Undertakers, a Merseybeat group who followed The Beatles to Hamburg and released four singles on Pye, only one of which – “Just A Little Bit” – made the charts.

Lomax’ next band, The Lomax Alliance, were managed by Brian Epstein; after Epstein’s death, he signed to Apple Records.

His first single for Apple was the George Harrison-penned “Sour Milk Sea”; his 1969 solo album, Is This What You Want?, was produced by Harrison and featured contributions by Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, although the record failed commercially.

Lomax remained an active musician, although his last album for a major label was Did You Ever Have That Feeling? in 1977.

In 1978, Lomax relocated to America, where he played in touring bands including the Drifters and the Coasters. In 2001, he recorded his first solo album in 24 years, The Ballad Of Liverpool Slim. He returned to play live in Liverpool every August Bank Holiday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5XY1FIcOZg

Sly & The Family Stone – Higher

Uncut
-
0
Sly & The Family Stone – Higher

Lovingly presented 4CD box honouring a brightly-burning, revolutionary talent... Show business is never short of tragic tales, but few come as poignant as the fall of Sylvester Stewart, aka Sly Stone. A flamboyant musical revolutionary, the very embodiment of 1960s optimism, the man who took everyone ‘higher’ at Woodstock in 1969, Sly tumbled into the 1970s a drug-addled shadow of his former self, beginning a long decline into addiction and creative sterility. The 21st century found him living in a camper van. This 77 track box set lends a fresh perspective to the tale, gathering most things of worth that Sly produced between 1966 and 1974, salting the well-played greatest hits with rarities, unheard demos and live cuts, and providing a detailed commentary via liner notes in a richly illustrated 104 page book. It’s the complete package, though, of course, Sly’s four later, flat albums for Warners are excluded. Foregrounded are half a dozen singles cut for San Francisco’s Autumn Records in 1964-65, when ‘Sly Stewart’ held down a job as A&R and producer with the label, handling rock acts like the Beau Brummels, while ‘Sly Stone’ was a DJ for the city’s KSOL station, where he perfected his patter and mixed up soul sides with Beatles and Stones tracks. Both gigs were a prequel for what came when Sly formed the Family Stone in early 1967 – transgressed boundaries, blurred distinctions between black and white pop, social message songs with sneaky humour. The Autumn singles like “Buttermilk” remain derivative curios (check the Beach Boys vocals on “I Just learned How To Swim”). By contrast The Family Stone – the line-up included brother Freddie, cousin Larry Graham and, later, sister Rosie – arrived almost fully formed. At their debut A Brand New Thing and first hit “Higher”, (reworked into their signature tune a couple of years later), their trademark sound is already in place; a crisp horn section, Graham’s pulsing ‘slap’ bass, male and female voices in elaborate interplay and harmony, led by Sly’s keyboards and quicksilver vocals that turned from croon to cackle in an instant. The musical fusion was mirrored by an equal opportunities line-up of black and white, male and female – a radical statement in itself. They were garbed in the finest excesses of the hippie era and fronted by Sly, sporting the world’s largest Afro. Sly’s ethos came into full focus a couple of albums down the line, with “Everyday People”, a wondrous piece of gospel pop with a Beatlesque ring to its lyrics (“there is a blue one who doesn’t like a green one”) and a catchphrase, “different strokes for different folks”, that passed into the vernacular, but early songs like “Don’t Burn Baby” and “Color Me True” also address race issues. At a time when the USA was convulsed by the slaying of Martin Luther King and by riots in Watts, Detroit and elsewhere, the Family Stone represented nothing less than a new incarnation of the nation. Nor was Sly’s vision pie-eyed utopia; “Don’t Call me Nigger, Whitey (Don’t Call me Whitey, Nigger)” is an aware, confrontational song, written as Sly came under pressure from black militants to drop white band members. In the two years it took for the Family Stone to become that important in the culturesphere, Sly worked at a furious rate, delivering four albums inside 24 months. As discs two and three of Higher shows, there was endless experimentation; one minute Sly was crooning deep soul on the unissued “I Know What You Came To Say”, the next pushing the band into psych-outs like “Danse A la Musique”, a hilarious, fuzzy heavy remake of their hit, “Dance To The Music”, replete with stylophone. Higher! Is also littered with unissued funk instrumentals like “Undercat” and “Feathers” that most bands would have died for. With 1968’s “Stand” Sly hit the motherlode. “Higher”, “Everybody Is A Star” and “Stand” caught a mood of delirious liberation – “You are free, at least in your mind if you want to be” – while onstage the Family Stone were a force. Four tracks from 1970’s Isle of Wight festival show the band’sWoodstock performance a year previously was no fluke. But the group could only deliver if they showed up. That of 80 scheduled gigs in 1970, 25 were no-shows was a symptom of the havoc wreaked by a pharmaceutical intake that included PCP. Increasingly, Sly retreated to the loft of his rented Bel Air mansion to record on his own, with visitations by kindred spirits like Bobby Womack and Billy Preston. The resultant There’s A Riot Going On (1971) crowned the charts, helped by its single, “Family Affair”, the best of a record sunk in torpor and pessimism. Its murky production and gloom crystallised the come-down from the 1960s, just as Plastic Ono Band and What’s Going On had done, but the album, while self-contained, remains a brilliant mess. Time has done it few favours; the drum machines of “Spaced Cowboy” now sound as novel as a clockwork toy. Glaringly, there are no out-takes from Riot, just a barely listenable live cut, “You’re The One”. By comparison, 1973’s Fresh and 1974’s Small Talk have been under-rated. Higher! fillets them nicely – the stalking bass (played by Sly) for “If You Want Me To Stay” a with its oblique relationship narrative (“for me to stay here I got to be me”) is seductive, still modern. “If It Were Left Up To Me” and “Time For Livin’” show a similar determination to blend recent experience and former optimism. That both albums promised more than they delivered was on their covers. Fresh’s lithe, leaping Sly was captured by him lying on a glass table. The idyllic young couple of Small Talk was followed by the bride suing for divorce six months later. The closing track here – an unissured 1975 “High”– is a desperate attempt to capture a long-gone mojo. Still, by then Sly had helped invent funk – Clinton, Isleys, Kravitz, Prince and more all owe him – and, with the most gracious and fun-loving of smiles, transformed American pop. Salute! Neil Spencer Q&A CYNTHIA ROBINSON When did you first meet Sly and what was the impression he made? I was at high school and at a junior choir in Sacramento. He came up to Sacramento for a boys’ car club. He liked my girlfriend. He drew up at the kerb and there was a guitar in the back of the car, so we ended up playing a little, I was playing mellophone at the time. I was entranced, because he was so confident, kind and intelligent. You knew him as a DJ first? I had been listening to KSOL but only for Sly Stone – “Hey all you cats and kitties and hippies and squares” – I thought he was so cool, but I didn’t know that was Sylvester Stewart. When I found out I got my boyfriend to take me up there, we were in a group, The Chromatics. We went up there and took our record up there. Sly had a sock hop for the teenagers, which I thought was great, and he did dedications. He played things you never heard elsewhere, he did his own commercials. One time the equipment failed and so he played piano and sang until it was fixed. His show was free form, spontaneous. I loved it. How come you were a lady trumpeter, because there weren’t any. Still aren’t!. You’re right. I have seen a female hold a trumpet in her hand in a Beyonce video but she didn’t actually play it! The Family Stone were different, racial and gender mix-up. That was a first! Yes, but I didn’t think that was anything special at the time. It was right up my alley because we rehearsed so much. That helped me to grasp things. I didn’t have a good ear, all I could do was read music. The fact that we reheasersed until my lips ere raw was good for me, I was able to build chops and get down the songs. Sly was a taskmaster? People might say that today but not me. When you’re doing what you love it’s not work. Even today if I get an invite to a show without rehearsal it bothers me if we don’t rehearse. I like to know what I’m doing. We would play gigs and right after we would stay and rehearse new stuff for three hours,ready for the next show. I would get home and fall acrosss the bed fully clothed with my shoes on.I was happy to do that because we were getting better. We just enjoyed playing together. We weren’t thinking of becoming stars. Four albums in two years is quite a pace… What you have to understand is that Sly had a plan, a vision. Every time we convened he had worked out everybody’s part and he always ready willing and able. He was driving us towards something that we couldn’t see. Then everyone started doing what families do, develop their own clique of friends. He was the father figure? Sly looked after us and we were acting like a bunch of kids, and after a while that drained him because he was dealing with the powers-that-be and us. He looked out for us, made sure we got a shake because they only wanted to deal with him. How were your dealings with the record company? The label signed us up and gave us crappy advances, 3-400 bucks apiece – but then they realised that Sly was the one writing all the music, the lyrics, the arrangements, so they only wanted to sign Sly. He had to fight to get us a decent paycheck, then he had to fight to get us to show up on time. Epic Records at that time was something of a throwaway label, we were a tax loss, they gave people tiny advances and didn’t expect them to sell. They didn’t promote us until Dance To The Music when they started wondering, Who are these people? It started going wrong in 1970… Sly is just flesh, blood and bones so he started kicking back and enjoying the things that came to him monetarily. He’s just a human being doing extraordinary things in music. All of us are guilty of things going downhill, not just him. He always too responsibility as the leader, even when it wasn’t his fault, he never told on us. I don’t think he was disappointed in the music. He was disappointed in the admin, the upper echelons. Things happened that have to stay off the record. What are your enduring thoughts about Sly? I will say that Sly told everyone to respect women, he looked after the girls in the group, and I don’t see that happening today. If you are a girl you are on your own. Sly doesn’t take credit for everything he did. If you want to know who Hemingway is, read his books, that’ll tell you who the man is. If you want to know who Sly is, listen to his songs. INTERVIEW: NEIL SPENCER

Lovingly presented 4CD box honouring a brightly-burning, revolutionary talent…

Show business is never short of tragic tales, but few come as poignant as the fall of Sylvester Stewart, aka Sly Stone. A flamboyant musical revolutionary, the very embodiment of 1960s optimism, the man who took everyone ‘higher’ at Woodstock in 1969, Sly tumbled into the 1970s a drug-addled shadow of his former self, beginning a long decline into addiction and creative sterility. The 21st century found him living in a camper van.

This 77 track box set lends a fresh perspective to the tale, gathering most things of worth that Sly produced between 1966 and 1974, salting the well-played greatest hits with rarities, unheard demos and live cuts, and providing a detailed commentary via liner notes in a richly illustrated 104 page book. It’s the complete package, though, of course, Sly’s four later, flat albums for Warners are excluded.

Foregrounded are half a dozen singles cut for San Francisco’s Autumn Records in 1964-65, when ‘Sly Stewart’ held down a job as A&R and producer with the label, handling rock acts like the Beau Brummels, while ‘Sly Stone’ was a DJ for the city’s KSOL station, where he perfected his patter and mixed up soul sides with Beatles and Stones tracks. Both gigs were a prequel for what came when Sly formed the Family Stone in early 1967 – transgressed boundaries, blurred distinctions between black and white pop, social message songs with sneaky humour.

The Autumn singles like “Buttermilk” remain derivative curios (check the Beach Boys vocals on “I Just learned How To Swim”). By contrast The Family Stone – the line-up included brother Freddie, cousin Larry Graham and, later, sister Rosie – arrived almost fully formed. At their debut A Brand New Thing and first hit “Higher”, (reworked into their signature tune a couple of years later), their trademark sound is already in place; a crisp horn section, Graham’s pulsing ‘slap’ bass, male and female voices in elaborate interplay and harmony, led by Sly’s keyboards and quicksilver vocals that turned from croon to cackle in an instant.

The musical fusion was mirrored by an equal opportunities line-up of black and white, male and female – a radical statement in itself. They were garbed in the finest excesses of the hippie era and fronted by Sly, sporting the world’s largest Afro. Sly’s ethos came into full focus a couple of albums down the line, with “Everyday People”, a wondrous piece of gospel pop with a Beatlesque ring to its lyrics (“there is a blue one who doesn’t like a green one”) and a catchphrase, “different strokes for different folks”, that passed into the vernacular, but early songs like “Don’t Burn Baby” and “Color Me True” also address race issues.

At a time when the USA was convulsed by the slaying of Martin Luther King and by riots in Watts, Detroit and elsewhere, the Family Stone represented nothing less than a new incarnation of the nation. Nor was Sly’s vision pie-eyed utopia; “Don’t Call me Nigger, Whitey (Don’t Call me Whitey, Nigger)” is an aware, confrontational song, written as Sly came under pressure from black militants to drop white band members.

In the two years it took for the Family Stone to become that important in the culturesphere, Sly worked at a furious rate, delivering four albums inside 24 months. As discs two and three of Higher shows, there was endless experimentation; one minute Sly was crooning deep soul on the unissued “I Know What You Came To Say”, the next pushing the band into psych-outs like “Danse A la Musique”, a hilarious, fuzzy heavy remake of their hit, “Dance To The Music”, replete with stylophone. Higher! Is also littered with unissued funk instrumentals like “Undercat” and “Feathers” that most bands would have died for.

With 1968’s “Stand” Sly hit the motherlode. “Higher”, “Everybody Is A Star” and “Stand” caught a mood of delirious liberation – “You are free, at least in your mind if you want to be” – while onstage the Family Stone were a force. Four tracks from 1970’s Isle of Wight festival show the band’sWoodstock performance a year previously was no fluke.

But the group could only deliver if they showed up. That of 80 scheduled gigs in 1970, 25 were no-shows was a symptom of the havoc wreaked by a pharmaceutical intake that included PCP. Increasingly, Sly retreated to the loft of his rented Bel Air mansion to record on his own, with visitations by kindred spirits like Bobby Womack and Billy Preston. The resultant There’s A Riot Going On (1971) crowned the charts, helped by its single, “Family Affair”, the best of a record sunk in torpor and pessimism. Its murky production and gloom crystallised the come-down from the 1960s, just as Plastic Ono Band and What’s Going On had done, but the album, while self-contained, remains a brilliant mess. Time has done it few favours; the drum machines of “Spaced Cowboy” now sound as novel as a clockwork toy. Glaringly, there are no out-takes from Riot, just a barely listenable live cut, “You’re The One”.

By comparison, 1973’s Fresh and 1974’s Small Talk have been under-rated. Higher! fillets them nicely – the stalking bass (played by Sly) for “If You Want Me To Stay” a with its oblique relationship narrative (“for me to stay here I got to be me”) is seductive, still modern. “If It Were Left Up To Me” and “Time For Livin’” show a similar determination to blend recent experience and former optimism.

That both albums promised more than they delivered was on their covers. Fresh’s lithe, leaping Sly was captured by him lying on a glass table. The idyllic young couple of Small Talk was followed by the bride suing for divorce six months later. The closing track here – an unissured 1975 “High”– is a desperate attempt to capture a long-gone mojo. Still, by then Sly had helped invent funk – Clinton, Isleys, Kravitz, Prince and more all owe him – and, with the most gracious and fun-loving of smiles, transformed American pop. Salute!

Neil Spencer

Q&A

CYNTHIA ROBINSON

When did you first meet Sly and what was the impression he made?

I was at high school and at a junior choir in Sacramento. He came up to Sacramento for a boys’ car club. He liked my girlfriend. He drew up at the kerb and there was a guitar in the back of the car, so we ended up playing a little, I was playing mellophone at the time. I was entranced, because he was so confident, kind and intelligent.

You knew him as a DJ first?

I had been listening to KSOL but only for Sly Stone – “Hey all you cats and kitties and hippies and squares” – I thought he was so cool, but I didn’t know that was Sylvester Stewart. When I found out I got my boyfriend to take me up there, we were in a group, The Chromatics. We went up there and took our record up there. Sly had a sock hop for the teenagers, which I thought was great, and he did dedications. He played things you never heard elsewhere, he did his own commercials. One time the equipment failed and so he played piano and sang until it was fixed. His show was free form, spontaneous. I loved it.

How come you were a lady trumpeter, because there weren’t any. Still aren’t!.

You’re right. I have seen a female hold a trumpet in her hand in a Beyonce video but she didn’t actually play it!

The Family Stone were different, racial and gender mix-up. That was a first!

Yes, but I didn’t think that was anything special at the time. It was right up my alley because we rehearsed so much. That helped me to grasp things. I didn’t have a good ear, all I could do was read music. The fact that we reheasersed until my lips ere raw was good for me, I was able to build chops and get down the songs.

Sly was a taskmaster?

People might say that today but not me. When you’re doing what you love it’s not work. Even today if I get an invite to a show without rehearsal it bothers me if we don’t rehearse. I like to know what I’m doing. We would play gigs and right after we would stay and rehearse new stuff for three hours,ready for the next show. I would get home and fall acrosss the bed fully clothed with my shoes on.I was happy to do that because we were getting better. We just enjoyed playing together. We weren’t thinking of becoming stars.

Four albums in two years is quite a pace…

What you have to understand is that Sly had a plan, a vision. Every time we convened he had worked out everybody’s part and he always ready willing and able. He was driving us towards something that we couldn’t see. Then everyone started doing what families do, develop their own clique of friends.

He was the father figure?

Sly looked after us and we were acting like a bunch of kids, and after a while that drained him because he was dealing with the powers-that-be and us. He looked out for us, made sure we got a shake because they only wanted to deal with him.

How were your dealings with the record company?

The label signed us up and gave us crappy advances, 3-400 bucks apiece – but then they realised that Sly was the one writing all the music, the lyrics, the arrangements, so they only wanted to sign Sly. He had to fight to get us a decent paycheck, then he had to fight to get us to show up on time. Epic Records at that time was something of a throwaway label, we were a tax loss, they gave people tiny advances and didn’t expect them to sell. They didn’t promote us until Dance To The Music when they started wondering, Who are these people?

It started going wrong in 1970…

Sly is just flesh, blood and bones so he started kicking back and enjoying the things that came to him monetarily. He’s just a human being doing extraordinary things in music. All of us are guilty of things going downhill, not just him. He always too responsibility as the leader, even when it wasn’t his fault, he never told on us. I don’t think he was disappointed in the music. He was disappointed in the admin, the upper echelons. Things happened that have to stay off the record.

What are your enduring thoughts about Sly?

I will say that Sly told everyone to respect women, he looked after the girls in the group, and I don’t see that happening today. If you are a girl you are on your own. Sly doesn’t take credit for everything he did. If you want to know who Hemingway is, read his books, that’ll tell you who the man is. If you want to know who Sly is, listen to his songs.

INTERVIEW: NEIL SPENCER

Arctic Monkeys make chart history with AM

Uncut
-
0
Arctic Monkeys make chart history with AM
Arctic Monkeys have made Official UK Albums Chart history, as AM enters the chart at Number One. The band's new album, AM, released by Domino Records, is the band's fifth consecutive Number One, making them the first indie-released act to achieve such a feat, reports the Official Charts Company. A...

Arctic Monkeys have made Official UK Albums Chart history, as AM enters the chart at Number One.

The band’s new album, AM, released by Domino Records, is the band’s fifth consecutive Number One, making them the first indie-released act to achieve such a feat, reports the Official Charts Company.

According to the latest sales data, AM has sold more than 157,000 copies in the UK last week. The tally makes AM the second fastest selling album of 2013 so far behind Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, which sold 165,000 on its release back in May.

Christine McVie to rejoin Fleetwood Mac for upcoming gigs

Uncut
-
0
Christine McVie to rejoin Fleetwood Mac for upcoming gigs
Stevie Nicks has confirmed that Christine McVie will be joining Fleetwood Mac for a couple of dates on their forthcoming UK tour. Former band member McVie, who retired from the music industry in 1998, will likely be appearing with the band on Rumours track "Don't Stop", a song she wrote. Nicks told...

Stevie Nicks has confirmed that Christine McVie will be joining Fleetwood Mac for a couple of dates on their forthcoming UK tour.

Former band member McVie, who retired from the music industry in 1998, will likely be appearing with the band on Rumours track “Don’t Stop”, a song she wrote. Nicks told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Friday, September 13: “She is going to come and do a song on the second two shows. I think it will probably be ‘Don’t Stop’. I don’t know, but she’s coming to Ireland to rehearse with us.” The full interview will be broadcast today (September 16).

While Nicks did not specify which two shows she was referring to, although the second two shows of the tour take place at London’s O2 Arena on September 24 and 25.

Fleetwood Mac will play:

Dublin O2 (September 20)

London O2 Arena (24, 25, 27)

Birmingham LG Arena (29)

Manchester Arena (October 1)

Glasgow The Hydro (3)

Watch Leonard Cohen debut new song

Uncut
-
0
Watch Leonard Cohen debut new song
Leonard Cohen debuted a new song during his Dublin concert on Friday, September 12. Called "I've Got A Little Secret", the song has been a work in progress for the past few years; some of the lyrics were also used in the song “Feels So Good” that he debuted during his 2009 tour and has since ap...

Leonard Cohen debuted a new song during his Dublin concert on Friday, September 12.

Called “I’ve Got A Little Secret“, the song has been a work in progress for the past few years; some of the lyrics were also used in the song “Feels So Good” that he debuted during his 2009 tour and has since appeared in his set list over the previous few years.

Cohen wraps up the current European leg of his tour on September 18 in Rotterdam, then begins a series of shows in Australia and New Zealand in November.

You can watch Cohen perform the song below.

Paul McCartney reveals New album tracklisting

Uncut
-
0
Paul McCartney reveals New album tracklisting
Paul McCartney has revealed the full tracklisting to his new album, detailing which songs the different producers on the album have worked on. Titled New, the album features production from Mark Ronson, Paul Epworth and Ethan Johns, who has previously worked with Kings Of Leon and Laura Marling. L...

Paul McCartney has revealed the full tracklisting to his new album, detailing which songs the different producers on the album have worked on.

Titled New, the album features production from Mark Ronson, Paul Epworth and Ethan Johns, who has previously worked with Kings Of Leon and Laura Marling. Long-term McCartney collaborator Giles Martin also features on the album’s production credits. Scroll down to see the full details now.

New has been announced for an October 14 release date.

‘Save Us’ (produced by Paul Epworth)

‘Alligator’ (produced by Mark Ronson)

‘On My Way to Work’ (produced by Giles Martin)

‘Queenie Eye’ (produced by Paul Epworth)

‘Early Days’ (produced by Ethan Johns)

‘New’ (produced by Mark Ronson)

‘Appreciate’ (produced by Giles Martin)

‘Everybody Out There’ (produced by Giles Martin)

‘Hosanna’ (produced by Ethan Johns)

‘I Can Bet’ (produced by Giles Martin)

‘Looking At Her’ (produced by Giles Martin)

‘Road’ (produced by Giles Martin)

Fabio Frizzi and Italian giallo soundtracks: an alternative sound of cinema

Michael Bonner
-
0
Fabio Frizzi and Italian giallo soundtracks: an alternative sound of cinema

Yesterday, ahead of the start of the BBC series, The Sound Of Cinema: The Music That Made The Movies, The Telegraph asked their film critics – and then their Twitter followers – to come up with their favourite film soundtracks. It seems over half chose Ennio Morricone’s deathless score for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly; I went for Taxi Driver, The Mission and The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, then, on the bus going home, remembered a pile of John Carpenter scores, Popol Vuh’s brilliant work for Werner Herzog, Jonny Greenwood’s contributions to Paul Thomas Anderson’s films and a slew of Tangerine Dream scores. As an afterthought, I wondered whether I could include Broadcast’s spot-on Italian prog pastiche – credited to Hymenoptera – over the credits of Berberian Sound Studio… And on it goes. I’m sure you’ve got your own favourites. But I think there’s a lot of interesting and largely overlooked work on European film scores – particularly the Italian giallo movies of the 1960s and Seventies. Italian prog group Goblin – who worked a lot with Dario Argento – have enjoyed a minor renaissance lately, and Fabio Frizzi – Lucio Fulci’s composer of choice – is due to make his UK concert debut with a seven piece band at the Union Chapel on (of course) October 31. It was nice to see Boards Of Canada namechecking Frizzi (along with Carpenter, John Harrison and ) in a recent Guardian piece. You can hear some clips of Frizzi’s best work – progressive, dark, electronic – below, and tickets for the Union Chapel event are available here. Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncRIPid1kQk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUxIEl1tqnY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaYUrUgnHFc

Yesterday, ahead of the start of the BBC series, The Sound Of Cinema: The Music That Made The Movies, The Telegraph asked their film critics – and then their Twitter followers – to come up with their favourite film soundtracks.

It seems over half chose Ennio Morricone’s deathless score for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly; I went for Taxi Driver, The Mission and The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, then, on the bus going home, remembered a pile of John Carpenter scores, Popol Vuh’s brilliant work for Werner Herzog, Jonny Greenwood’s contributions to Paul Thomas Anderson’s films and a slew of Tangerine Dream scores. As an afterthought, I wondered whether I could include Broadcast’s spot-on Italian prog pastiche – credited to Hymenoptera – over the credits of Berberian Sound Studio…

And on it goes. I’m sure you’ve got your own favourites. But I think there’s a lot of interesting and largely overlooked work on European film scores – particularly the Italian giallo movies of the 1960s and Seventies. Italian prog group Goblin – who worked a lot with Dario Argento – have enjoyed a minor renaissance lately, and Fabio Frizzi – Lucio Fulci’s composer of choice – is due to make his UK concert debut with a seven piece band at the Union Chapel on (of course) October 31. It was nice to see Boards Of Canada namechecking Frizzi (along with Carpenter, John Harrison and ) in a recent Guardian piece.

You can hear some clips of Frizzi’s best work – progressive, dark, electronic – below, and tickets for the Union Chapel event are available here.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncRIPid1kQk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUxIEl1tqnY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaYUrUgnHFc

Morrissey’s autobiography reportedly pulled from publication

Uncut
-
0
Morrissey’s autobiography reportedly pulled from publication
Morrissey's forthcoming autobiography has reportedly been pulled days before publication. According to a post on Morrissey fansite, True To You, the book - titled Autobiography - was due for publication in the UK this coming Monday [September 16]. However, the post continues, "a last-minute conten...

Morrissey‘s forthcoming autobiography has reportedly been pulled days before publication.

According to a post on Morrissey fansite, True To You, the book – titled Autobiography – was due for publication in the UK this coming Monday [September 16].

However, the post continues, “a last-minute content disagreement between Penguin Books and Morrissey has caused the venture to collapse. No review copies were printed, and Morrissey is now in search of a new publisher.”

An extract from the book – an essay, entitled ‘The Bleak Moor Lies’ – appeared in The Dark Monarch: Magic And Modernity In British Art, published to coincide with an exhibition at Tate St Ives in 2009/2010. Edited by Michael Bracewell, Martin Clark and Alun Rowlands, the book also includes contributions from Jon Savage and Damien Hirst. You can read the essay here.

There has been no official word from either Morrissey or Penguin Books.

UPDATE: according to new reports, Morrissey’s autobiography is now due for publication. Read more here.

Rush

Uncut
-
0
Rush

It's Hunt vs Lauda... Rush arrives in the slipstream of Senna, the 2010 documentary about Brazilian Formula 1 champion, Ayrton Senna. Senna did solid business at the box office – $11 million – and now director Ron Howard has taken on an earlier chapter in motor racing history that offers its own share of manly, high-speed thrills: the on-track rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda. Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan previously collaborated on Frost/Nixon – another dramatic recreation, focussing on the public duel between two high-profile figures of very different temperaments. There’s something of that going on here: the pivotal events in Rush take place during the 1976 Formula 1 season, one year before David Frost’s television interviews with Richard Nixon. Much as Frost was an affable showman with plenty of hustle, so James Hunt is a charming ladies man with lashings of derring-do. His rival, Niki Lauda is as unlikable as Nixon; although he lacks the former President’s menace and presence, he is small and flinty-eyed with ratty front teeth. As Hunt, Chris Hemsworth – Thor to you and me – gets to swagger around in a donkey jacket, being charming and having sex with airhostesses – “he’s a good driver, but an immortal fuck” – while Daniel Brühl is presented as the more serious of the two men, a professional who wants to win races, not make friends. All of this opens in England in 1973, when the two men first meet in Formula 3. The narrative exposition is high: the first 45 minutes is basically people telegraphing data about who they are and what they’re going to do to the audience. “You’re just a rookie! The only reason we took you on is because you paid us!” And so on. Thankfully, at no point does Lauda turn to Hunt and say, “You know, James, maybe we are not so different after all…”, although on occasion Peter Morgan’s script teeters close. Howard shoots the race scenes brilliantly – they a little Tony Scott in terms of over-saturated colour and jump cuts, but it’s an effective treatment, especially on the climactic Japanese Grand Prix, in the shadow of Mount Fuji in lethal weather conditions. Michael Bonner Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

It’s Hunt vs Lauda…

Rush arrives in the slipstream of Senna, the 2010 documentary about Brazilian Formula 1 champion, Ayrton Senna. Senna did solid business at the box office – $11 million – and now director Ron Howard has taken on an earlier chapter in motor racing history that offers its own share of manly, high-speed thrills: the on-track rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda.

Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan previously collaborated on Frost/Nixon – another dramatic recreation, focussing on the public duel between two high-profile figures of very different temperaments. There’s something of that going on here: the pivotal events in Rush take place during the 1976 Formula 1 season, one year before David Frost’s television interviews with Richard Nixon. Much as Frost was an affable showman with plenty of hustle, so James Hunt is a charming ladies man with lashings of derring-do. His rival, Niki Lauda is as unlikable as Nixon; although he lacks the former President’s menace and presence, he is small and flinty-eyed with ratty front teeth.

As Hunt, Chris Hemsworth – Thor to you and me – gets to swagger around in a donkey jacket, being charming and having sex with airhostesses – “he’s a good driver, but an immortal fuck” – while Daniel Brühl is presented as the more serious of the two men, a professional who wants to win races, not make friends. All of this opens in England in 1973, when the two men first meet in Formula 3. The narrative exposition is high: the first 45 minutes is basically people telegraphing data about who they are and what they’re going to do to the audience. “You’re just a rookie! The only reason we took you on is because you paid us!” And so on. Thankfully, at no point does Lauda turn to Hunt and say, “You know, James, maybe we are not so different after all…”, although on occasion Peter Morgan’s script teeters close.

Howard shoots the race scenes brilliantly – they a little Tony Scott in terms of over-saturated colour and jump cuts, but it’s an effective treatment, especially on the climactic Japanese Grand Prix, in the shadow of Mount Fuji in lethal weather conditions.

Michael Bonner

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

Arcade Fire’s Win Butler addresses criticism over ‘Reflektor’ graffiti

Uncut
-
0
Arcade Fire’s Win Butler addresses criticism over ‘Reflektor’ graffiti
Win Butler had addressed criticism over the band's Reflektor graffiti marketing campaign in a handwritten letter. In the run-up to the announcement of their new single, which was released on Monday (September 9), a mysterious 'Reflektor' logo decorated buildings, pavements, food stalls and monumen...

Win Butler had addressed criticism over the band’s Reflektor graffiti marketing campaign in a handwritten letter.

In the run-up to the announcement of their new single, which was released on Monday (September 9), a mysterious ‘Reflektor‘ logo decorated buildings, pavements, food stalls and monuments around the world. The band were later revealed to be behind the campaign.

In an article for Slate, writer Ian Dille explains that he wife works at a print framing shop in Austin, Texas, where the graffiti randomly appeared one day. This week it was replaced with posters promoting the single, which was when Dille said he felt “used” that the graffiti art was nothing more than a marketing stunt for the band.

“I’m not just saying that because my wife’s boss spent hours cleaning the posters and paste off the wall,” he writes. “As Arcade Fire has achieved mainstream success, they’ve also struggled to maintain their indie appeal. How does a band preserve its counter-culture ethos when it’s on stage with industry stars accepting a Grammy for best album? Many bands have struggled with this problem, and Arcade Fire has generally handled it fairly well.”

He continues: “But the band’s vandalism – er, “guerrilla marketing” –seems, in contrast, decidedly immature, or at the very least socially irresponsible.”

In response to the article, Win Butler sent Dille a handwritten note to apologise. “The chalk campaign was supposed to echo with Haitan veve drawings that are done in chalk or in the dirt. It is sometimes hard to control all these tiny details when you are doing something on such a large scale,” he writes. Read the letter in full here.

Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson denies manufacturing drones for US military

Uncut
-
0
Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson denies manufacturing drones for US military
Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson has denied receiving a $500 million (£316 million) contract from the US military to manufacture drones. The claim had been made on the blog Dorset Eye in a post titled: 'Bruce Dickinson: Rock'n'Roll Warmonger', which took as its source an announcement on a South ...

Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson has denied receiving a $500 million (£316 million) contract from the US military to manufacture drones.

The claim had been made on the blog Dorset Eye in a post titled: ‘Bruce Dickinson: Rock’n’Roll Warmonger’, which took as its source an announcement on a South African conference speakers’ website.

In a written statement to NME, a spokesperson for the band described the article as “spurious” and said: “This is a totally inaccurate and malicious piece of writing that seems to have stemmed from an unfortunate mistake in terminology on a South African website that the writer of said blog has since used as a starting point and catalyst to go off on a flight of sheer fantasy.”

They clarified: “Both Bruce Dickinson and Iron Maiden’s manager Rod Smallwood were early investors in, and remain great supporters of, Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), a company that has nothing whatsoever to do with drones, ‘lighter than air’ or otherwise!”

The company’s website outlines potential uses of the air vehicles. The spokesperson said: “The future implementation of HAVs is a likely global trend which has massive positive implications in many areas of life and both Bruce and Rod are proud to be involved with a British company at the cutting edge of this technology.”

The statement continues: “As with many far-sighted technological advances, early adopters and financial supporters tend to be military-based as they have the resources to invest and develop, be that everything from space-travel to medicine. Possible military use of HAVs in future could be for heavy-lifting, transportation or high altitude detection of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), or similar, thus saving lives, both military and civilian.”

It concludes: “Rather than being involved in attacks in the Third World, as this writer has claimed in such an erroneously dramatic and defamatory manner, HAVs are designed to offer much needed assistance to civilians, businesses and governments that would be unavailable otherwise, due to the unique nature of these incredible vehicles.”

Kings Of Leon: “We never even considered being rock stars”

Uncut
-
0
Kings Of Leon: “We never even considered being rock stars”
With Kings Of Leon’s sixth album, Mechanical Bull, set for release on September 23, we thought it would be time to take a trip through the archives into November 2010 (Take 162), when we joined the Followill clan on the road in America – we hear of uncanny robberies, an army of Kings lookalikes,...

With Kings Of Leon’s sixth album, Mechanical Bull, set for release on September 23, we thought it would be time to take a trip through the archives into November 2010 (Take 162), when we joined the Followill clan on the road in America – we hear of uncanny robberies, an army of Kings lookalikes, whiskey-fuelled anxieties and a new power struggle within this most volatile of bands. Do they want to be rootsy outlaws or modern rock superstars? Words: Jaan Uhelszki

_________________

Caleb Followill is perched on a barstool at the Rock Bottom bar, an upscale brew pub in Indianapolis, Indiana. To either side of him are The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, who have supported Kings Of Leon earlier in the evening. The show, at the Verizon Music Center in nearby Noblesville, has been a triumphant one. In front of 24,000 people, the Kings have tried out a bunch of new songs from their yet-to-be released fifth album, Come Around Sundown, and the crowd haven’t headed out for beers during any of them.

Caleb, reasonably, deems this a cause for celebration, and orders shots of Patrón Silver tequila for himself and his two companions. Every so often glasses are raised, and he throws a brown leather-jacketed arm around one of his pals, his eyes getting a deeper blue – and a little blurrier – with each round of drinks. The relief is obvious, not least because the singer has been so anxious about Come Around Sundown that, for a good while, he wouldn’t listen to it himself, or even let his girlfriend hear it. Come Around Sundown is an album that is calculated, on one level, to confirm Kings Of Leon as one of the very biggest bands in the word. But on another, it sees Caleb Followill leading his brothers Nathan (31, drums) and Jared (23, bass), and their cousin Matthew (26, guitar) into distinctly rootsier territory; towards a sound, perhaps, that not all of them will be entirely comfortable with.

“I fought more with myself on this album than I ever have,” says the 28-year-old, settling down for the night in the Indianapolis bar. “I just didn’t have the confidence in it. I could tell my favourite songs on the album were not Jared and Matt’s favourite songs, and their favourite songs were not mine.

“I didn’t write lyrics. I went in and ad-libbed, I free-floated everything. The closer it got to the end, I felt like, ‘Man, you didn’t do your job.’ I kept thinking, ‘When I go back and redo the lyrics, then I’ll get it. Then I’ll feel confident.’ But when I went back to try to do that, everyone was like, ‘What are you doing? You can’t change those lyrics. Those are the lyrics.’

“I still wasn’t convinced. I mean, I never even played the music for my girlfriend [lingerie model Lily Aldridge]. I had a big fear about it. Then one night we were sitting there and I’d been listening to some Townes Van Zandt and drinking a little bit of whiskey. I was nervous, and I try not to drink too much whiskey because it brings out the rooster. But I was sitting there frustrated, listening and listening to Townes. Lily came over and set a bottle of Jameson’s in front of me, and walked in the other room. And I opened it up and I started drinking it, and I said, ‘Hey, you want to hear something?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ I played her one song and when I did, she looked at me and went, ‘What the fuck? Why haven’t you played me this? What are you scared of?’ Before you know it, we had listened to every song, and she just loved it. That gave me the confidence to say all right, well, maybe I’m in my head too much.”

Three weeks earlier, Kings Of Leon are headlining the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco’s storied Golden Gate Park. It’s easier to envisage this place as the sylvan spot Robert Plant was rambling on about in Led Zeppelin’s “Misty Mountain Hop” than as an urban park a mere mile west of the vertiginous towers and tumbling hills of downtown ’Frisco.

Tonight, the crowd numbers 30,000 – one of the band’s biggest American shows thus far. When the quartet, in their scuffed Dior Homme boots, step onto the park’s Speedway Stage, they’re treading the same boards once walked on by The Grateful Dead; indeed, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, with Furthur, headlined Outside Lands the night before. These former polo fields saw Janis Joplin worrying her love beads and taking a healthy swig of Jack before leaping into her own fabled history. And this is where the beautiful, acid-caustic Grace Slick keened and wailed about finding someone to love. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Spirit and the mighty Moby Grape filled these same fog-shrouded lowlands with the sound of the coming future.

But today, the future belongs to this band of brothers (and cousin Matthew, of course), who audaciously christened themselves Kings Of Leon after the middle names of their father and grandfather. Not Sons Of Leon, but something grander and further-reaching.

“We thought of calling ourselves Sons Of Leon, but Matt wasn’t a son of Leon,” Caleb says dryly. “Then we thought of just Leon. The record company wanted us to be The Followills, but we figured if there’s a Queens Of The Stone Age, we could certainly be the Kings.”

Sons Of Leon, it’s true, couldn’t possibly reflect or encompass the band’s lofty ambitions. As the October 18 UK release date of Come Around Sundown approaches, they’ve already racked up more than 11 million in CD sales worldwide. Following fan-club pre-sales, 40,000 tickets for their London Hyde Park concert on June 30 this year reputedly sold out in one second. Maybe the Kings keep annexing new territories because they connect with people in somewhat the same way their forefathers, those ’60s pilgrims in Golden Gate Park, did – with a mixture of sedition, innocence and a belief that music really can change the world.

“Well, music changed us,” Caleb Followill says quietly. “That’s the thing, years ago music changed the world. We weren’t listening to that music years ago, and so now that we’ve experienced it, it did change us. It made us, it defined us. It still to this day is defining us.”

When they toured as support to U2 in 2005, the Kings measured their drawing power against the Irish band not by ticket sales or Marshall stacks, but by the girth of their security guards. “They definitely had some bigger security guards,” Caleb says. “I think we got ’em now, though.” At the end of each show on their current tour, they speed away from the show in four individual black Chevy SUVs with dark-tinted windows.

“Each one is outfitted with what we drink and our own towels,” notes Jared, who clearly likes the rock star treatment. “It helps so much being secluded from each other, ’cos then when we see each other, it’s like, OK, we’re working now, and when we’re home we can be brothers. If you’re brothers on the road, that’s when shit gets crazy. At one point we all four had girlfriends: who’s going to be the couple that sits in the fucking bucket seats in the back?”

“Truthfully, I think [the SUV caravan] came from them wanting to go to other places after the show, and then me pretty much always wanting to leave and go back to the hotel room,” explains cousin-guitarist Matthew Followill, fidgeting with the toe of a spit-polished black Beatle boot. “The rest of them would be like, ‘Jared’s got to ride with you.’ But Jared would want to stay.

“It’s funny,” Matthew chuckles softly. “The bus follows, so everybody thinks we’re in the bus, and then they think, like, did the President come to the Kings Of Leon show tonight?”

_________________

The Followills all but invented rock music for themselves. Growing up the sons of an itinerant preacher innocent of Chuck Berry, The Beatles and the Stones, they scarcely even heard rock music apart for one or two Tom Petty cassettes that their father allowed when the family barrelled from church to church down rural Southern backroads.

In 1997, though, everything changed. The Followills’ father Ivan Leon, an alcoholic, was defrocked and stripped of his living. He divorced his wife, and the boys were sent to live with their mother, first in Oklahoma City, then in Tennessee. It is an origin story that’s well on the way to becoming as well-worn as that of Robert Johnson at the crossroads.

“But thanks to a couple pigeons in St Louis, I think the family story will be put to rest and we’ll be answering bird questions for the rest of our career,” laughs Nathan Followill. The drummer is referring to the defecating pigeons who famously forced the abandonment of a July 23 show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights, Missouri. An infestation of birds in the rafters bombarded the musicians with dirty bombs during the first two songs, seeming to take particular aim at Jared.

“In the end, [the incident] helped us more than it hurt us. It’s just one of those things, and looking back on it, it’s a lot funnier now than it was when it happened,” Nathan explains, taking off his glasses and putting them back on. Before the Golden Gate Park show, Nathan posted a photo of local pigeons to his Twitter account. “Uh oh. Say it ain’t so San Fran,” said his sub-140-character communiqué. “I’m wearing a big hat just in case.”

“You know you’ve made it,” he says now, “when you read the ticker on CNN or MSNBC and it’s ‘Kings Of Leon cancel show due to pigeon faeces aerial assault.’ Like, honestly, who gives a shit about pigeon shit? Apparently a lot of people.”

“Like Rush’s singer,” Caleb chimes in. Playing the same venue a few nights later, Geddy Lee pointed at guitarist Alex Lifeson and told the crowd, “Well, I don’t care how much those pigeons shit, he’s not leaving!” “The guy from Oasis, too,” Caleb adds. “But even if you get tired of us, it’s pretty neat people are that interested they want to know what’s going on.”

We wouldn’t be talking about any of this today if Nathan, Caleb and their cousin Nacho hadn’t been painting houses in suburban Oklahoma City in 1999. They were sniffing the fumes, in pursuit of a cheap altered state, when something snapped inside Caleb. “I thought, ‘This is too much like my dad,’” he says. “I couldn’t go on this way and waste my life. I heard a voice in my head say, ‘Write music.’ Maybe it was the fumes.”

The idea came out of nowhere, since the brothers hadn’t even had youthful aspirations to be in a band and, aside from playing drums in church, had no instrumental experience. “We never even considered being in a band,” says Nathan Followill. “Basketball star, maybe, but never a rock star.”

Once Caleb heard that disembodied voice, he was unstoppable, relocating to Jackson, Tennessee. Nathan didn’t follow right away, but instead attended a nearby college on his way to getting a degree in sports rehabilitation. But a few months later the two brothers were staying at their grandmother’s place.

“Nathan says to me, ‘Hey, man, let’s go write a song.’” Caleb remembers. “And I was like, ‘What do you mean, let’s write a song? We don’t play instruments.’ He said, ‘That’s all right. Let’s just go write a song.’ And we went in there and the first song we wrote was terrible – the first thousand were terrible. But after we wrote that song, it was kind of good.”

If Caleb had any doubt he was called to make a joyful sound unto the Lord – and unto millions across the world – it was dispelled one Easter Sunday, when his mother pressured the two brothers to attend church with her.

“We didn’t have to work, so we said all right,” he says. “We got all gussied up and we went to church. And at the end of the service, everyone went down to the front just to shake hands with the preacher. I recall just sitting there because I was always nervous in church: I knew God was going to be, like, ‘What are you doing? You’re supposed to be here doing this.’ Anyways, the preacher’s thanking everyone for coming, and when he gets to me he stopped and said, ‘You are going to be in front of multitudes. God just told me that.’”

“I thought he meant I was going to be a preacher,” Caleb says. “Anyways, I fought with it and fought with it and lost sleep over it, thinking, ‘Man, don’t do music. This isn’t right.’ Skip ahead to a couple years ago, we walked onstage to headline Glastonbury and I was nervous as could be, and I walked out there. The crowd was loud, and then it all just went dead quiet. And as God is my witness, I heard [that preacher’s] voice say, ‘You’re going to be in front of multitudes.’ And chills went all down my spine. I said to myself, ‘This is what he meant.’ He might not have known it, but this is what he meant.’

“You know,” Caleb says, playing with the collar of his faded blue workshirt, “when it comes to singing, all I wanted to be was the preacher. And that’s how Mick Jagger used to do it. Even Iggy. I’ve accepted I’m just going to be a preacher with a guitar.”

Bono once said, “The music that turns me on is either running toward God or away from God.” In the Kings Of Leon, it’s a little of both.

_________________

Sunday, August 15. The sun goes down behind a ring of tall cypress trees, turning the San Francisco night into a massive black canvas. At precisely nine o’clock, Mos Def’s “Quiet Dog” booms out over the Outside Lands crowd. The recording not only galvanises the Followills, but functions as the band’s “two-minute” warning. It’s a rather confrontational rap – a chest-beating avowal to not cave in, give up, or compromise – which mirrors where the Kings are right now. “God gave it to me, nobody is takin’ it!” Def bellows over the PA, as the Followills make their way to the stage. The Kings’ road crew ignite huge flashpots (the kind Kiss use) filling the stage with a murky red haze. “When you see red smoke, the next thing you expect to see is Satan,” someone in the crowd drawls.

The demonic mood is barely lightened by Mozart’s “Lacrimosa (Requiem in D Minor)”, the composition Mozart was working on before his highly suspect death. As sacred music goes, this Mass For The Dead is dark and ominous, the sound of restless spirits caught between this world and the next. Which leads one to wonder who selected this number for pre-stage music, and to what purpose? Is the Mozart meant to reflect something of the Kings’ own anguished souls? Or as a sign of their growing musical scholarship – something that continues to escape many.

“When we first came out, we looked like we’d walked out of the woods, and our story was, basically, ‘We walked out of the woods,’” says Nathan Followill, shaking his head in bemusement. “Some people still think we’re like that – not too much more than the Beverly Hillbillies.”

In fact, each Kings Of Leon LP has become more sophisticated than its predecessor, the sonics becoming progressively more advanced as they craft their own Wall Of Sound, albeit one which has more in common with Pink Floyd than it does Phil Spector. The Followills’ songwriting prowess has kept pace with their ability to play their instruments, and while not virtuosos by any stretch of the imagination, they have become more skilled and daring. Until recently, the only thing missing was a lack of stage presence.

But by the September show in Noblesville, Caleb Followill seems to have found his inner rock star, pitching water bottles into the front rows after he’s taken a swig, pointing a crooked finger out into the audience during “Charmer”, even tugging at the crotch of his pants during the band’s “Four Kicks” – something that would have been implausible only a year ago.

“I heard people from the cornfields were crazy, but I didn’t know how crazy,” he tells the crowd. “I hope you guys are having as good a time as I am,” he continues, wiping his strong, symmetrical face with a Turkish towel, then tossing it, Elvis-like, into the crowd. “Sometimes I say that from the stage because I think that’s what people want to hear. But tonight I really am.”

After the show, I bring up the onstage changes with Caleb in the Rock Bottom bar. You seem so much comfortable onstage than you used to. Did you really mean that when you told the crowd you were having a good time?

“I was,” nods Caleb, sandwiched between The Black Keys. “But then, of course, it was just the drugs.”

Self-effacing, and a little shy for a world-straddling frontman, Caleb’s stage presence has come a long way from the days when he hid behind a full beard and a swatch of knotted scarves, singing with this eyes tight-shut. Brother Jared, meanwhile, now holds his bass low and dangerous, much like Johnny Ramone used to clutch his favourite Mosrite. “Of course I do that on purpose,” he says. “It’s much easier to hold the bass up high. But I didn’t want to be obvious. I lowered my strap one inch at a time. I mean, it would have looked a little stupid if one show I was holding it up here, and the next show it was really, really low.”

Jared is anything but stupid, and among the four, he is the one who seems most comfortable in his role as a rock star. He struts and frets and pouts, and is not above aiming the long neck of his bass out towards the crowd, gunning the audience down. The youngest Followill has even been known to steal leads from his cousin Matthew, becoming a more assertive and aggressive player than the average bassist. “I practise guitar and drums at home. I don’t practise bass.” A stealth guitar player? “Absolutely, I’m a guitarist with big strings.”

In the band since he was 14, Jared looks rather like a rock version of Twilight vampire Rob Pattinson, right down to the tousled pompadour. It was he who pulled the Kings Of Leon into the future, or at least into the 1980s, introducing his brothers and cousin Matthew to the Pixies, New Order, and The Cure.

Unlike his siblings, who were mostly home-schooled, Jared went to a proper high school in Mt Juliet, Tennessee, and was exposed to things the others never dreamed of. Jared’s influence has never been more apparent than on the stadium rock parts of Come Around Sundown. It’s his enthusiasms which drive many of the big contemporary rock songs on the album: the anxious bass part that kicks off “Pony Up”, with its atonal chiming guitar, arrhythmic club beats and morning-after regrets; or “Beach Side”, which initially seems breezy, but on closer listen captures the sound of claustrophobic rooms, empty glasses and desperation.

“This album was definitely one of the most push-and-pull records we’ve done,” confirms Caleb. “Jared would come in with a bassline. And unless we all really hated it, we’d see where it took us. Jared is definitely different than us. I mean he goes to clubs – he’s young, hell. When it comes to the songs for the album, in the back of his mind he’s thinking, ‘Oh, I want this song to be able to be played at the bars or the clubs that I go to.’ Me, I’m the opposite. My favourite bar is Losers in Nashville. And if I ever heard my song on the radio or the jukebox there, I’d be, ‘Drinks for the whole house!’”

“That is a dickhead thing to say,” counters Jared an hour later, ignoring a shrimp cocktail, as he seethes about his brother’s comment behind black glasses. “He doesn’t go to dive bars, he goes to the closest bar to his house. Doesn’t matter what the fuck it is, it could be an ultra-lounge, if it’s within stumbling distance to his apartment, he’ll go there.”

While longtime associate and co-producer Angelo Petraglia insists that things have simmered down between the famously battling brothers, it quickly becomes clear that isn’t the case. It’s just that the polarities have altered a bit. It’s not Nathan and Caleb who seem to be at odds now, but Caleb and younger brother Jared. “Compared to the last record, there weren’t any dogfights or anything this time,” Petraglia says. “Last time we were nose-to-nose a lot and the tension was pretty high.”

To follow up 2008’s Only By The Night – eight times platinum, with more than 2.5 million sold in the UK alone – Petraglia and the band abandoned their Nashville comfort zone, choosing instead to record at New York’s fabled Power Station studio. “They wanted to give the album more of an edge so they went to New York,” continues Petraglia. “Instead I think it put them more in touch with who they really are. They could see what was better from afar.”

“The goal was to just make a record that represented all the records,” says Jacquire King, the man behind the boards for Tom Waits’ Mule Variations and the last Norah Jones album, and who co-produced, with Petraglia, the Kings’ last two albums. “To show all the growth and all the places they’d been, and also demonstrate some other places that they want to go. It’s a refinement of what they’ve done best on each album.

“I think the biggest misconception about them is that they’re dickheads and totally cocky assholes,” he adds. “If you’re going to be successful and get up onstage, everybody has to have a bit of bravado. You have to have solid confidence on one level, even though you have self-doubt. They’re pretty funny guys and they cut up a lot and they give each other a lot of crap. They give everybody a lot of crap. They make fun of themselves as much as they make fun of anything else, really. They’re fun guys and I think that just gets taken the wrong way.”

_________________

Around the time Only By The Night achieved platinum sales status in America, Caleb Followill popped out of his Nashville home to run a few errands. He was only gone a short time, but when he returned there were four playing cards – all Kings, each inscribed with a bandmember’s name – stuck in his front door. Soon afterwards, his home was burgled three times.

“They broke in my house and stole all my shit. I knew I was going to have to move because people knew who I was,” remembers Caleb, as the implications of American superstardom dawned on him. “That night we had a show, and we got onstage for soundcheck, and I just started playing, ‘This could be the end. I ain’t got a home. I’ll forever roam.’”

The song turned out to be “The End”, Come Around Sundown’s opening track. “I loved the way it sounded. But when you started adding certain guitar tones and stuff it began to feel very modern to me. Because of that, I kind of shied away from that a little bit. But going in to record, it was Jared and Matthew’s favourite song. They both tend to like the songs that sound a little more polished. So me and Nathan would sit back at times and go with the flow. Jared and Matt would sit back at times and go with the flow. But the end result was almost like a mash-up, and I don’t think the record would have been as good without both halves.”

Instead of a four-headed monster, the group now seems to be split down the middle by age, with Caleb and Nathan on one flank, and Jared and Matthew on the other. “That’s pretty much true,” Jared agrees. “Nathan could go either way, but Nathan seems to go with Caleb more often than not. But I think that may just be to avoid conflict. Matthew and I pretty much always agree on stuff.”

Caleb has been saying that he wants to make a country album.

“That would be a really interesting dissection of the band,” says Jared. “I know as soon as he does that Matt and I will make a record, and people will see exactly, like, what we contribute to this band.”

“If I was a Kings Of Leon fan, I would want to hear a rock record eventually,” Matthew says, “where there’s just a bunch of songs that are uptempo, faster, rock’n’roll songs. Some of ’em fun, some serious. A long time ago we had talked about having one. I’d just like to maybe return to that one day.”

He catches me watching him play footsie with himself, and looks away, a little embarrassed. “I’ve got a broken toe right now,” he says, a little sheepishly. “I ran into a chair. Like, I didn’t walk into it, I ran into it. There was, like, a beer falling off of a table and I ran to grab it and, like, just went to get it, and when I did, I ran over and two toes went this way and the other ones went… shit. I’ll show you a picture.”

Pulling out his iPhone, he shows me a photo of a horribly bruised, slightly fleshy foot. “I painted the toenail green just to be funny, because it was so heinous.”

“Matthew’s a very tender guy,” says Angelo Petraglia later. “He has a lot of heart, and he’s also the quiet one, like George in The Beatles.” Hesitating a little before going on, Petraglia continues. “I mean of course he’s the outsider, in the sense of, he’s in the family, but he’s the cousin.”

One suspects Matthew likes it that way. “I know this is going to sound bad,” he continues, “but I’m not really a people person. I don’t feel like I need to talk to anyone.”

“When the rest of them start going at it, he chainsmokes and sits back, just watching it going on,” says Andy Hull, an Atlanta guitarist whose band, The Manchester Orchestra, have been on tour with the Kings on and off since 2008. “That’s not to say Matthew isn’t a big part of the band. I think the reason they’ll continue to make relevant records has to do with the progression of Matthew and Jared. On their new album, the guitar work is just steps above where it’s ever been. Matthew is growing into his own as a guitar player.”

“I definitely don’t feel like me or we have done our best work yet,” says Caleb, raking a nervous hand through his hair. “I think it’s in front of us, and it might be next year, it might be 20 years from now. That’s the thing that wakes me up in the morning and gets me out the bed, thinking today might be the day that I do something that no-one will forget. And it may never happen, but if I’m laying on my deathbed and I’m still thinking, ‘Man, tomorrow you’re going to do something great,’ that’d be amazing.

“We all have different roles in the band, and there’s a massive push and pull. And the push and pull is both stylistic and also me fearing the obvious. Me fearing that someone will listen to a song one time and say, ‘That’s a hit.’ That is the worst thing in the world to me. It’s like if you don’t have to listen to it more than once before you know it’s a hit, then I’ve done something wrong.

“It’s funny, we just had a two-week break, and I was so nervous last night for the show after two weeks off that I threw up four times – before we went on and after the encore. It’s just my nerves. So I obviously don’t at all see us as the biggest band in the world, or like even one of the biggest bands in the world.”

“I had more anxiety about this LP because I was nervous that Caleb was going to maybe try to sabotage it somehow,” admits Jared. “Just to make it not big. And to make a song not big, you have to make it kind of bad. You know, because of his strange relationship with fame.

“It’s Caleb who doesn’t like the whole fame thing. But I know that he loves the perks of it. He loves going to restaurants and definitely doesn’t mind getting reservations to hard-to-get-into places. I think that if we weren’t famous he would take it the hardest out of everybody. I almost feel like he’s trying to be humble and he doesn’t want anybody to know that he enjoys the fame. I don’t think that he really dislikes it. I know that none of us dislike the fame. I think if this record bombed and everything bombed, we may not say it, but we would all be deeply saddened by it and be depressed and hurt by the whole thing.”

“Caleb’s more of the tormented artist and I’m happy with what I got, happy where we’re at, and happy where we’re going.” Nathan says.

“I think Caleb likes the struggle,” adds Jared. “When we weren’t famous, he was struggling that we didn’t get the respect that we deserved. That there were other bands who were blowing up that he thought didn’t work as hard as us and didn’t write as good songs. I mean, that’s obviously subjective, but, now that we are big, it’s like the struggle is gone, so he’s gone for a different kind of struggle.”

Later, Caleb points at his brother, whose right arm is in a sling due to a shoulder injury he suffered from a recent boating mishap during the band’s week off. “That’s the pain pills and weed talking over there,” he says dismissively.

_________________

As affable and as polite as the Kings are, their management are notoriously protective of their charges. “They were like that even before they got so massive. Even when they started out. Now they’ve obviously had to step it up,” said Angelo Petraglia.

Kings Of Leon are represented by Vector Management, a Nashville-based company part owned, since 2008, by Irving Azoff’s Front Line organisation. Azoff, an industry heavyweight whose clients have included the Eagles, Van Halen and Guns N’Roses, is notoriously protective of his acts.

Photographers are carefully screened, and even some that have been promised photo passes are denied them at the eleventh hour. Those that are allowed to take pictures of the band are made to sign contracts agreeing to waive certain rights – a relatively common policy admittedly, also favoured by the likes of QOTSA, Coldplay and Foo Fighters.

The backstage area is rigorously patrolled. Their crew is as efficient as a SWAT team, sniffing out intruders. “They’re anal about the hallways,” says one insider who asked not to be named. “Everyone has to be out of them when the Kings come through.”

But perhaps such scrupulousness shouldn’t come as a surprise. Everyone wants to be close to the band. And, apparently, everyone wants to look like them, too. “I knew we’d reached some sort of pinnacle when after a couple of tours of England, we came back and everyone seemed to look like me,” recalls Caleb. “I got onstage and looked down, and it was like I was singing to 10 rows of myself.”

Last year, while they were in the UK, Caleb was at a bar when a stranger came up to him and said, “‘What are you, some Kings Of Leon wannabe?’ I told him, ‘Yep.’”

Because of the number of lookalike fans out there, their security crew posts a mandate at every show showing photos of each of the Followills. At tonight’s show there’s a poster put up by the King’s management with four photos of the band members with the instructions: “THESE ARE THE MEMBERS OF THE KINGS OF LEON. THEY ARE TO BE GRANTED ACCESS AND ESCORTING PRIVILEGES TO ALL AREAS AT ALL TIMES. PLEASE DON’T RESTRICT ANY ACCESS. THEY WILL NOT BE WEARING PASSES.”

In fact, the only way to tell the Kings backstage is that they’re the only ones not wearing passes.

Behind the security cordon, however, the Followills are surprisingly unaffected, adjusting and learning to be more than almost famous. “We were at a party in LA at Beck’s house early on,” Caleb says, searching his mind for the date. “Maybe 2004. I’ll never forget – we walked in, and Jack White was standing on the porch smoking a cigarette. He took a drag and he said, ‘Why, if it isn’t Leon, Leon, Leon and Leon.’ That’s all he said. I’ll never forget it,” Caleb laughs. “Then we went inside and there were all these Scientologists. I saw Renée Zellweger. This was before I knew how to talk to celebrities. And I went up to her and said, ‘Hi, I’m a big fan.’ She literally did this…” He sighs deeply and rolls his eyes. “I know better now.”

Last time Uncut interviewed the band in 2007, Kings were fresh from touring the States with Bob Dylan. Sheepishly, they recounted a story of an end-of-tour meet-and-greet with the headliner, where they stumblingly broke protocol and attempted, one by one, to hug him, only for Matthew to accidentally knock Dylan’s hat off in the process. The tour partners who had the biggest impact, though, were The Strokes. The New York band took the nascent Kings – at the time habitually described as a Southern Strokes – out with them, inducting them into a certain pattern of rock star behaviour.

At Outside Lands in San Francisco, Caleb is drinking Michelob in the fenced-in backstage area, just off to the side of a massive white circus tent. Nearby, The Strokes are hanging out, having played the festival the day before.

“If we hadn’t gone on tour with The Strokes, we wouldn’t be here today,” says Caleb. The Kings are footing the bill for The Strokes’ dressing room today, kitting it out with everything Julian Casablancas and co’s rider demanded, even though The Strokes aren’t on the bill for this second day.

“They’d say it all the time, that The Strokes fucked them up – and they were going to do the same thing to us,” Andy Hull recalls, remembering when the Kings first took Manchester Orchestra on tour with them. “The Strokes hazed ’em, and so they just hazed us. Got us stupid drunk. We’d never smoked weed before and they’re smoking Afghan Kush. We had no idea what to think, and they loved it. They just kept laughing. No two ways about it, they stole our virginity.

“Then there was the time they had Segways on a tour we did with them through Britain,” Hull says. “During our soundcheck, they’d be riding them, flipping us off and saying, ‘Shut your emo bullshit. We don’t want to hear it.’ We’d laugh so hard we couldn’t soundcheck.”

Eddie Vedder became so enamoured of the second Kings album, 2005’s Aha Shake Heartbreak, that when he found out Kings Of Leon were opening two U2 shows in Seattle, he went both nights to see them. By the second show, Vedder was sitting in on the band’s “Slow Night, So Long”. By the time it was over, he was helping them with their guitar tuning and giving them advice about their career.

“Caleb was the only other musician besides Ben Harper who told me how much Pearl Jam’s music meant to him,” Vedder says on the phone from Seattle. “He was shy and humble about it, and it really touched me. I thought how grateful I would have been at that stage of my career if someone had told me the truth about how life is going to be, so I decided to take them under my wing. I told them if they ever have any questions, I would answer them, and not just about performing. There was an honesty and a momentum in the music that is undeniable. And they’ve grown very quickly, and found their voice. It isn’t Southern rock, it’s like if the Pixies had grown up in Tennessee. I’m really proud of them, and I hope at this point they’ve got enough attention in the States where they can stop talking about how they’re more popular in Europe.”

This, then, is the level the Kings have reached: one where they teach young bands how to lose their heads, and are counselled in how to handle fame by older generations of stars who, increasingly, are looking like their peers.

“My wife’s from Jersey. Her parents were in town to see Bruce Springsteen,” says Nathan Followill. “After the show, I hung out with him. I was expecting this larger-than-life kind of guy, but he was just so chilled out and so quiet. And he said something that I’ll never forget.

“‘Man, you guys,’ he says. ‘I’m so proud you all are doing good. You seem like level-headed guys. Keep your heads on straight. And never forget who you are. For two-and-a-half hours a night I’m The Boss. The other 21-and-a-half, my wife is the boss. Never forget who you are.’

“So what I got was, basically, when you’re onstage you’re the shit, you’re the King, but soon as you step off, you’re just a normal guy just like everybody else. That was your job. You just got off work.”

Mike Love: “I would like to write songs with my cousin Brian Wilson”

Uncut
-
0
Mike Love: “I would like to write songs with my cousin Brian Wilson”
The Beach Boys’ Mike Love, speaking in the new issue of Uncut, has revealed he is keen to write more songs with his cousin Brian Wilson. Love is currently touring with Bruce Johnston as The Beach Boys, using a different band to the one that backed Love, Johnston, Wilson, Al Jardine and David Ma...

The Beach Boys’ Mike Love, speaking in the new issue of Uncut, has revealed he is keen to write more songs with his cousin Brian Wilson.

Love is currently touring with Bruce Johnston as The Beach Boys, using a different band to the one that backed Love, Johnston, Wilson, Al Jardine and David Marks on last year’s worldwide 50th anniversary tour.

Asked whether a live or studio reunion with the surviving original members could happen again, Love says: “I don’t know. I know they’ve announced Brian is working on a solo album. He may have two or three projects he’s working on, so he’s pretty busy.

“As far as getting together again, it remains to be seen. I would like to write songs with my cousin Brian. I’d be up for doing that. I’ll leave it there.”

The reunited Beach Boys released a new album, That’s Why God Made The Radio, in June 2012.

The new issue of Uncut, dated October 2013, is out now.

Watch Neil Young debut new song live

Uncut
-
0
Watch Neil Young debut new song live
Neil Young debuted a new song live last night [September 11]. Young made a guest appearance with his wife's band, Pegi Young & The Survivors, at Johnny D's in Somerville, Massachusetts. According to one report online, "Neil played back up guitar for most of the night, but broke out on a couple...

Neil Young debuted a new song live last night [September 11].

Young made a guest appearance with his wife’s band, Pegi Young & The Survivors, at Johnny D’s in Somerville, Massachusetts.

According to one report online, “Neil played back up guitar for most of the night, but broke out on a couple of tunes with some great guitar work.”

During the set, Young debuted a new, as yet untitled song – scroll down to watch.

Young and the band also played “Doghouse”, an unreleased song which dates from approximately 1988 and which Young first played with The Bluenotes.

Meanwhile, Young is apparently readying the next release in his Archives series, Live At the Cellar Door 1970, recorded at The Cellar Door, Washington, DC on November 30, and December 1 and 2, 1970.

In other Neil Young news, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young have been officially confirmed as playing at this year’s Bridge School benefit alongside Queens Of The Stone Age, Elvis Costello and My Morning Jacket.

Brian May: unreleased Freddie material may lead to new Queen album

Uncut
-
0
Brian May: unreleased Freddie material may lead to new Queen album

A number of duets recorded by Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson could now become part of a new Queen album, Brian May has claimed. Earlier this year it was reported that around three tracks Mercury and Jackson recorded in 1983 will be made available to fans. Speaking in July, Brian May said there will be, "something for folks to hear" in two months time. However, in an interview recorded earlier this month (September) with iHeart Radio, May revealed that an album in the style of the 1995 Queen album Made In Heaven, pieced together after Mercury's death in 1991, could be in the pipeline "We thought we'd exhausted everything that was around and could be worked on, but since then a number of things have come to light from various sources that we'd just plain forgotten about, including the stuff with Freddie and Michael Jackson," said May. "Just a couple of weeks ago, we thought: Maybe we shouldn't be just working on bits and pieces? Maybe we should be heading towards an album? It just might be." Mercury and Jackson worked together 30 years ago in California but failed to release anything substantial as they could not secure time to record further tracks.

A number of duets recorded by Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson could now become part of a new Queen album, Brian May has claimed.

Earlier this year it was reported that around three tracks Mercury and Jackson recorded in 1983 will be made available to fans. Speaking in July, Brian May said there will be, “something for folks to hear” in two months time.

However, in an interview recorded earlier this month (September) with iHeart Radio, May revealed that an album in the style of the 1995 Queen album Made In Heaven, pieced together after Mercury’s death in 1991, could be in the pipeline

“We thought we’d exhausted everything that was around and could be worked on, but since then a number of things have come to light from various sources that we’d just plain forgotten about, including the stuff with Freddie and Michael Jackson,” said May. “Just a couple of weeks ago, we thought: Maybe we shouldn’t be just working on bits and pieces? Maybe we should be heading towards an album? It just might be.”

Mercury and Jackson worked together 30 years ago in California but failed to release anything substantial as they could not secure time to record further tracks.

The Beatles confirm tracklisting for On Air – Live At The BBC Volume 2

Uncut
-
0
The Beatles confirm tracklisting for On Air – Live At The BBC Volume 2
The Beatles have confirmed details of their anticipated On Air – Live At The BBC Volume 2 collection. The album will be released Monday, November 11 in 2CD and 180-gram vinyl packages with a 48-page booklet. On Air’s 63 tracks include 37 previously unreleased performances and 23 previously unre...

The Beatles have confirmed details of their anticipated On Air – Live At The BBC Volume 2 collection.

The album will be released Monday, November 11 in 2CD and 180-gram vinyl packages with a 48-page booklet. On Air’s 63 tracks include 37 previously unreleased performances and 23 previously unreleased recordings of in-studio banter and conversation between the band’s members and their BBC radio hosts.

Paul McCartney said, “There’s a lot of energy and spirit. We are going for it, not holding back at all, trying to put in the best performance of our lifetimes.”

The full tracklisting for On Air – Live At The BBC Volume 2 is:

CD ONE

And Here We Are Again (Speech)

WORDS OF LOVE

How About It, Gorgeous? (Speech)

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW A SECRET

LUCILLE

Hey, Paul… (Speech)

ANNA (GO TO HIM)

Hello! (Speech)

PLEASE PLEASE ME

MISERY

I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU

A Real Treat (Speech)

BOYS

Absolutely Fab (Speech)

CHAINS

ASK ME WHY

TILL THERE WAS YOU

LEND ME YOUR COMB

Lower 5E (Speech)

THE HIPPY HIPPY SHAKE

ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN

THERE’S A PLACE

Bumper Bundle (Speech)

P.S. I LOVE YOU

BEAUTIFUL DREAMER

DEVIL IN HER HEART

The 49 Weeks (Speech)

SURE TO FALL (IN LOVE WITH YOU)

Never Mind, Eh? (Speech)

TWIST AND SHOUT

Bye, Bye (speech)

John – Pop Profile (Speech)

George – Pop Profile (Speech)

CD TWO

I SAW HER STANDING THERE

GLAD ALL OVER

Lift Lid Again (Speech)

I’LL GET YOU

SHE LOVES YOU

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR SATURDAY CLUB

Now Hush, Hush (Speech)

FROM ME TO YOU

MONEY (THAT’S WHAT I WANT)

I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND

Brian Bathtubes (Speech)

THIS BOY

If I Wasn’t In America (Speech)

I GOT A WOMAN

LONG TALL SALLY

IF I FELL

A Hard Job Writing Them (Speech)

AND I LOVE HER

Oh, Can’t We? Yes We Can (Speech)

YOU CAN’T DO THAT

HONEY DON’T

I’LL FOLLOW THE SUN

Green With Black Shutters (Speech)

KANSAS CITY/HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY!

That’s What We’re Here For (Speech)

I FEEL FINE (STUDIO OUTTAKE)

Paul – Pop Profile (Speech)

Ringo – Pop Profile (Speech)

Click here to read the Uncut review of The Beatles Live At The BBC Volume 2

Nicolas Roeg – The World Is Ever Changing

Michael Bonner
-
0
Nicolas Roeg – The World Is Ever Changing
Nicolas Roeg is most widely known for the superlative run of films he made during the 1970s – including Performance, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell To Earth and Bad Timing – but as his memoir, The World Is Ever Changing reveals, his interests are many and wide-ranging. In fact, the tendri...

Nicolas Roeg is most widely known for the superlative run of films he made during the 1970s – including Performance, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell To Earth and Bad Timing – but as his memoir, The World Is Ever Changing reveals, his interests are many and wide-ranging.

In fact, the tendrils of Roeg’s career stretch in both directions: back to his first job in 1950 through into the 21st century. His most recent film was 2007’s Puffball. Arguably, there are few directors who are better placed, then, to consider the tremendous sea changes that have occurred in British cinema over the last six decades. The World Is Ever Changing is part autobiography, but also a means for Roeg to pass down his accumulated knowledge and experience.

At this point, it’s worth mentioning that readers expecting fruity yarns about, say, David Bowie will be disappointed. The World Is Ever Changing – which takes its name from a line of dialogue in The Man Who Fell To Earth – comes without an index. This is not the kind of book where you can casually look up “Jagger, Mick” in the hope of finding some salacious gossip about his antics with Anita Pallenberg on the set of Performance: Roeg is a very much a gentleman of the old school, and the dishing of dirt is not on his agenda. But nor is it especially scholarly. In its tone, The World Is Ever Changing is conversational and leisurely – a bit like a wonderfully digressive fireside chat with a kindly uncle – with Roeg referencing a myriad of sources, from Abel Gance’s Napoleon to the poetry of Auden, Poe and Housman and the paintings of Bruegel and Velázquez, as he explains the thought processes and inspiration behind his own works. Meanwhile, very much in keeping with Roeg’s films, The World Is Ever Changing doesn’t have a chronologically structured narrative; instead, it’s divided into chapters according to themes – “Image”, “Sound”, “Script”, “Directing”, “Actors” and so on.

Roeg’s career began in the early 1950s, where his first job was at Marylebone Studios, making the tea and running errands, before progressing to a French dubbing studio run by Major De Lane Lea, a former British intelligence officer. Roeg’s early credits – as an assistant camera operator or focus puller – consist of long-forgotten films like Cosh Boy, Passport To Shame and the brilliantly titled Jazz Boat. There are some smart, funny tales about encounters with Clark Gable and Jacob Epstein, and Roeg is sharp on the awkward transition from black and white to colour filming. Early in the book, he recounts a story about a little boy and his mother who, while watching a location shoot in London, asked Roeg if they could look through the camera. When the mother took her turn, she said to Roeg, “Oh, it’s in colour is it?” Continues Roeg, “She was expecting the image to be in black and white. Se hadn’t associated the camera with seeing the world as she saw it with her own eyes. Black and white was what was most natural in films.”

Roeg’s big break came in 1962, when he was hired to work on Lawrence Of Arabia for David Lean. In Roeg’s book, Lean cuts a marvellous, if rather distant, figure, smoking “rather elegant, long cigarettes”, and who “didn’t take kindly to any sort of structural or production suggestions”. Roeg is witness as the film’s second unit cinematographer André de Toth is dismissed from the shoot for proposing an alternative way to shoot the Tafas massacre; Roeg took on his duties (Roeg was later fired from Doctor Zhivago after similarly making creative suggestions to Lean).

After Lawrence, Roeg worked as director of photography for Roger Corman, François Truffaut, Richard Lester and John Schlesinger, before Performance in 1970. There is very little here about Jagger – or indeed the film itself – thought Walkabout and particularly Don’t Look Now feature prominently in the book. Roeg keeps coming back to Don’t Look Now, one of his greatest films, gradually unpeeling its layers. In one of the most informative chapters – “Mirrors” – Roeg sets out to explore the use of mirrors in his own films, but manages to take in Orson Welles’ The Lady From Shanghai and The Rokeby Venus by Velázquez. Most of all, Roeg’s book feels like a collection of ideas – some of which he can tease into a thread, but at other times he ascribes to a kind of curious coincidence. He ponders on whether or not it’s important that the wife of sculptor Antony Gormley is the daughter of the couple whose farmhouse features in the early scenes in Don’t Look Now. “I don’t know why I connect these odd stories to magical thought,” he admits. But cumulatively, the impression here is of a restless and keen intellect, a man who – even in his 85th year – is willing to embrace new ideas. After all, why else would you call your autobiography The World Is Ever Changing? A chapter towards the end of the book, “Disjecta Membra”, manages to weave together a curious meeting with a medium, who arrives unannounced on Roeg’s doorstep looking for a “Reggie Nicholls”, some thoughts on reincarnation, neuroscience, and “the mysteries of the present day world.”

Roeg’s book ends with a coda set in Venice, during the shoot for Don’t Look Now. In the background of one shot, Roeg notices a poster for an old Charlie Chaplin movie – the title in Italian, Uno Contro Tutti. One Against All. “How true that turned out to be,” he writes.

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner.

David Bowie and Arctic Monkeys joint favourite to win Barclaycard Mercury Prize

Uncut
-
0
David Bowie and Arctic Monkeys joint favourite to win Barclaycard Mercury Prize
David Bowie and the Arctic Monkeys are currently William Hill's favourites to win the 2013 Barclaycard Mercury Prize, after the nominations were announced yesterday evening [September 11]. Arctic Monkeys' fifth album AM and David Bowie's The Next Day both have odds of 4/1, according to the event's ...

David Bowie and the Arctic Monkeys are currently William Hill’s favourites to win the 2013 Barclaycard Mercury Prize, after the nominations were announced yesterday evening [September 11].

Arctic Monkeys‘ fifth album AM and David Bowie’s The Next Day both have odds of 4/1, according to the event’s official bookies. Rupert Adams of William Hill commented: “There are 12 strong albums here – representing a diverse range of styles from UK artists – all of which stand a good chance of winning. This quality is reflected in the closeness of the odds we’ve given to the 2013 Barclaycard Mercury Prize Albums of the Year.”

Albums by Foals, James Blake and Laura Marling are also on the shortlist for the 12 Albums Of The Year, which was chosen by an independent judging panel and announced today at London’s Hospital Club. London Grammar were previously named as the favourite for the 2013 prize by bookmakers, but their album If You Wait was not nominated. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in London’s Roundhouse on October 30.

For the full list of odds, see below:

4/1 David Bowie ‘The Next Day’

4/1 Arctic Monkeys ‘AM’

5/1 Laura Marling ‘Once I Was An Eagle’

5/1 Foals ‘Holy Fire’

7/1 Disclosure ‘Settle’

7/1 James Blake ‘Overgrown’

8/1 Rudimental ‘Home’

8/1 Jake Bugg ‘Jake Bugg’

8/1 Laura Mvula ‘Sing to the Moon’

10/1 Villagers ‘{Awayland}’

10/1 Jon Hopkins ‘Immunity’

10/1 Savages ‘Silence Yourself’

Portishead’s Beth Gibbons donates ‘glacial roar’ to Greenpeace

Uncut
-
0
Portishead’s Beth Gibbons donates ‘glacial roar’ to Greenpeace
Portishead's Beth Gibbons has recorded a "glacial roar" for a giant polar bear that Greenpeace will use to lead a street protest in London next Sunday. The singer recorded a roar for the double-decker bus sized polar bear puppet called Aurora, which will feature a giant sound system in its head to...

Portishead‘s Beth Gibbons has recorded a “glacial roar” for a giant polar bear that Greenpeace will use to lead a street protest in London next Sunday.

The singer recorded a roar for the double-decker bus sized polar bear puppet called Aurora, which will feature a giant sound system in its head to play the sounds of ice cracking, Arctic wildlife, and other roars donated by members of the public.

The march will be part of a global day of action to demand that the Arctic be protected from oil companies planning to drill in its waters.

“The Arctic is an incredible place, home to polar bears like Aurora as well as millions of people,” said Beth Gibbons said in a statement. “What does it take to make large corporations, financially driven like Shell, to stop and consider their responsibility? The irreversible damage they cause knowingly is morally wrong. Aurora’s parade will be an amazing expression and one I am pleased to have lent my voice.”

Jarvis Cocker previously lent his weight to the charity’s Save The arctic campaign, which demands that oil drilling and unsustainable fishing are banned in Arctic waters.

Win Butler: new Arcade Fire album is “a mash up of Studio 54 and Haitian voodoo”

Uncut
-
0
Win Butler: new Arcade Fire album is “a mash up of Studio 54 and Haitian voodoo”

Arcade Fire's Win Butler has described the band's new album Reflektor as a "mash up of Studio 54 and Haitian voodoo." The frontman shed further light on the band's forthcoming album, due for release in October, during an interview with Zane Lowe on Radio 1 that aired last night (September 11). In the interview, Butler discussed the sound of the double album and also revealed some new touring members of the band who will join Arcade Fire on the road when they come to tour Reflektor. Discussing how the band had Arcade Fire had the first ideas for Reflektor when playing a gig in rural Haiti, to "People who had never heard The Beatles before," and were therefore "stripped of context". This, Butler said, has led the group to making a more rhythmic album, with the frontman noting the "voodoo rhythms" of their new music. A similar trip to Jamaica with producer Markus Dravs was also mentioned in the interview. Describing the band's new songs as a "mash up of Studio 54 and Haitian voodoo," Butler also discussed his joy at the music landscape in 2013 being less tied to genre boundaries. "To me the joy of making music in 2013 is you're allowed to like Sex Pistols and ABBA and that's fine," he said. "It's such an explosion, anything that's good rises to the top, and we want music that respects that." Butler later confirmed that two Haitian percussionists will be touring with the band when they come to play shows around Reflektor. "It does something really magical to the rhythm section," Butler said of the percussionists, "[these] deep African voodoo rhythms are the language in Haiti, [they're] basically how people communicate." Details of the Montreal group's fourth album and world tour were revealed on Monday night (September 9) in a series of posts on the band's website. The same night, the band "launched their "Reflektor" single with a surprise show in Montreal, playing the small Salsatheque venue under the alias The Reflektors. Pre-orders for the Reflektor double album have opened up at Arcadefire.com, with the website stating that early orders will come with first access to ticket sales for special shows as well as the band's forthcoming world tour.

Arcade Fire’s Win Butler has described the band’s new album Reflektor as a “mash up of Studio 54 and Haitian voodoo.”

The frontman shed further light on the band’s forthcoming album, due for release in October, during an interview with Zane Lowe on Radio 1 that aired last night (September 11). In the interview, Butler discussed the sound of the double album and also revealed some new touring members of the band who will join Arcade Fire on the road when they come to tour Reflektor.

Discussing how the band had Arcade Fire had the first ideas for Reflektor when playing a gig in rural Haiti, to “People who had never heard The Beatles before,” and were therefore “stripped of context”. This, Butler said, has led the group to making a more rhythmic album, with the frontman noting the “voodoo rhythms” of their new music. A similar trip to Jamaica with producer Markus Dravs was also mentioned in the interview.

Describing the band’s new songs as a “mash up of Studio 54 and Haitian voodoo,” Butler also discussed his joy at the music landscape in 2013 being less tied to genre boundaries. “To me the joy of making music in 2013 is you’re allowed to like Sex Pistols and ABBA and that’s fine,” he said. “It’s such an explosion, anything that’s good rises to the top, and we want music that respects that.”

Butler later confirmed that two Haitian percussionists will be touring with the band when they come to play shows around Reflektor. “It does something really magical to the rhythm section,” Butler said of the percussionists, “[these] deep African voodoo rhythms are the language in Haiti, [they’re] basically how people communicate.”

Details of the Montreal group’s fourth album and world tour were revealed on Monday night (September 9) in a series of posts on the band’s website. The same night, the band “launched their “Reflektor” single with a surprise show in Montreal, playing the small Salsatheque venue under the alias The Reflektors.

Pre-orders for the Reflektor double album have opened up at Arcadefire.com, with the website stating that early orders will come with first access to ticket sales for special shows as well as the band’s forthcoming world tour.

1...502503504...1,269Page 503 of 1,269

SHOP UNCUT