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An Audience With… Ozzy Osbourne

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An Audience With… Ozzy Osbourne
Black Sabbath’s new album, 13, is reviewed in the new issue of Uncut (dated July 2013 and out now) – in this archive piece from Uncut’s May 2010 issue (Take 156), Ozzy Osbourne answers your questions, shedding light on his reality-TV renaissance, dressing up as a Nazi and the drug that left hi...

Black Sabbath’s new album, 13, is reviewed in the new issue of Uncut (dated July 2013 and out now) – in this archive piece from Uncut’s May 2010 issue (Take 156), Ozzy Osbourne answers your questions, shedding light on his reality-TV renaissance, dressing up as a Nazi and the drug that left him “totally paralysed”… Words: John Lewis

_____________________

There’s something to be said for a lifetime of substance abuse. Like so many sixtysomething rock legends who’ve put their bodies through the blender and gobbled a whole customs haul of Class As, Ozzy Osbourne looks in pretty good shape. Dressed in black jeans and a white long-sleeved T-shirt emblazoned with a pirate insignia, his raven-haired locks make him look at least 10 years younger, and the pudginess that was apparent around the Osbourne midriff in the ’80s has disappeared. “It’s exercise,” he says. “It’s addictive. When I got off the old booze, I got on the exercise bike. Endorphins are like crack cocaine!”

In a swanky Mayfair hotel on a crisp winter morning, he greets me warmly and invites me to sit down. But when I take the sofa opposite, he insists that I sit on the chair directly in front of him. For the course of the interview, he’s barely three feet away from me, staring attentively at my face for every question. “My hearing isn’t all that,” he confides. “I have to stand very, very close to you and watch your lips. Otherwise I’m fucked…”

_____________________

Who was your musical hero growing up, and what are you getting me for my birthday?

Duff McKagan, Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver

What am I getting you for your birthday? Same as you got me, you cunt, which is fuck all. Ha ha! My musical heroes? Well, it’s The Beatles, obviously. That’s why I did those Lennon covers. A few people have said they’re the worst songs ever made, but they come from the heart. I fucking mean them! I can still remember first hearing The Beatles. I was walking down the street in Birmingham with this battery-operated radio, and “Please Please Me” came blaring out. It was one of those moments where the world seems to shift a bit. Nothing was the same again. I used to fantasise about meeting McCartney. Now I’ve met him several times, and every time I still can’t believe I’m talking to him. Me and bloody Paul McCartney! Bloody hell!

Sharon’s recent autobiography talks about her being terrible at gambling, but says you’re a lucky gambler, especially on the slot machines. What’s the most you’ve won or lost?

Simon, Middlesbrough

I never got the gambling bug, really. You go into a casino and you get these silly bastards taking notes, making mathematical equations, like they can guess what’s going to happen. Oh, fuck off. My one and only experience of getting hooked was in Vegas. Everyone else was going to the blackjack tables and roulette wheels. I saw the flashing lights of the fruit machines and thought, oh, I like that. I remember putting in a few dollars and the machine started belching out all these chips. I thought, hello. Then I put in all my winnings and I won even more. It was fuckloads. Tens of thousands of dollars. And I actually thought, this is good. Instead of pumping all the chips back into the machine, I decided to cash them in, have a few drinks, and keep the rest of the money. It was the most sensible decision I’ve made in years.

If you could watch any two celebrities having sex, who would it be?

Frank Skinner

Fucking hell. What kind of question is that, Frank? Two celebrities? I suppose it’d have to be Frank Skinner and… Dawn French. There you go, Frank. You happy with that?

Has it really taken you 35 years to pass your driving test?

Nicky Reid, Brisbane

Seriously, it fucking has. I took it in California, which was a fucking joke. You barely have to reverse a few yards and they pass you. You also have to do this written test, which is piss easy. But I never managed to pass one in England. There was one time when I passed out during the test, slumped over the steering wheel. I woke up and the instructor had left a note on the dashboard saying: “You have failed your test. Do not attempt to move this car. Please contact someone to pick you up.” I get very nervous. I needed a drink. Mind you, Sharon’s not much better. She pranged some car in Beaconsfield the other day. We’re a disaster when it comes to cars.

What made you want to wear a tap round your neck as an item of jewellery?

Shaun Turner, Cardiff

I was a fucking idiot, that’s why. It was just the top of a hot tap, you know, the cross shape, with an “H” in the middle, and the four hands coming out. I tied a chain around one of the arms and wore it around my neck like a crucifix. Ha ha! I used to wear all sorts of rubbish. I wore a blue-and-white striped pyjama top as a shirt. I walked around Birmingham barefoot for years.

Sabbath played Hamburg’s Star-Club more times than The Beatles. What do you recall most about those days?

Glenn Pratt, Hackney

This would have been about 1969, not long after we’d formed. We thought it would be exotic, but it was worse than fucking Birmingham. We’d be in these clubs playing for hours, in front of crowds of squaddies, all pissed off their heads, just shouting abuse. And we stayed in some right fucking dumps. You’d try and pull a bird just to get a bed for the night. We weren’t fussy what they looked like, as long as they had somewhere to stay. There was one bird I spent the night with, we called her The Witch. Big old hooter. Anyway, one morning she tells me she’s off to work and that I can stay around if I want, but she adds, “Just don’t go through me stuff, OK?” Now that’s like a red rag to a bull, isn’t it? So the minute she’s out, I’m going through her cupboards and, fuck me, there’s a Nazi uniform at the back, probably her dad’s. So I put it on, start goose-stepping around the flat. Of course, she comes back that afternoon and finds me barking out orders in a cod-German accent and going through her drinks cabinet. The relationship didn’t last long after that…

Both Ron and I are getting antsy: would you recommend solo careers, as you’ve done? PS from Ron: Do you need a keyboard player? Have own equipment, nice van, and no bad habits?

Russell and Ron Mael, Sparks

Sparks, eh? They’re nice fellas. I’ve met them a few times. You’re all right with the keyboards, Ron, I think I’m all right there. Going solo – well, it worked for me, I guess. I was up shit creek when Black Sabbath sacked me. I was angry about it. Still am, sometimes. But I was lucky. I had Sharon, who took care of everything. Without her, I’d be sitting in a pool of me own piss, smoking a joint. If it wasn’t for Sharon, who got me in touch with guys like Randy Rhoads, going solo would have been a very, very bad idea.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

Ian Gough, Newcastle Upon Tyne

I had lots of shit ones back in Birmingham. There was the car factory, the loudest place I’ve ever been in – noisier than the loudest metal gig you’ve ever heard. There was this old fella next to me, driven deaf by spending nearly 20 years in the factory. He said if he stayed there another few months he’d get his gold watch. I said, if you want a gold watch that much you should put a fucking brick through a jeweller’s window. If he got caught, he’d get less than 20 years. Looking back on it, working in an abattoir was pretty awful, although I grew to enjoy that. I had to slice open the cow carcasses and get all the gunk out of their stomachs. I used to vomit every day; the smell was something else. It didn’t put me off meat, though, but I do think every meat eater should spend a few days in an abattoir. Meat doesn’t come in little sealed packets, cut into dinosaur-shaped nuggets. It’s fucking brutal work.

How come you mumble words in interviews, but at shows and on record you speak clearly?

Stephen Gwynne, London

I fucked myself up pretty badly when I had that accident on me quad bike [in December 2003]. What did I break? What didn’t I break? A collarbone, a bunch of ribs and one of the vertebrae in my neck. Still, it did mean that I missed Christmas, which was a fucking relief. But that injury has affected lots of things. I can’t remember things so well, I can’t talk so quickly. And my hearing’s not so good. And I was diagnosed with another thing not long before that, a bit like Parkinson’s. So I’m fucked. Ha ha! Thing is, when I get on stage and sing, it must use a different part of the brain. I’m much more confident. Well, I’m terrified before I go on stage, but once I’m there it’s fine. No mumbling, no hesitation, nothing.

Why did you agree to invite cameras into your house to follow your every move? Are you mad?

Smokey Robinson

Well, the whole thing started after we did this one-off show for Channel Five. That won an award and got repeated every bloody week. Then MTV did an episode of Cribs at our house in Beverley Hills, which went down better than any other episode they’d made. They thought it would be good to turn it into a series. It hadn’t really been done at that point. I said yes because I didn’t think it would ever happen. Maybe I was fucking mad. But then it did bloody happen. Thing is, I genuinely didn’t notice the cameras being there. But when the show was broadcast and became a hit, I suddenly became more famous than I’d ever been. Was it scripted? No! If you film anyone’s home for long enough, you will come across lots of crazy shit. You have five cameras following you around all day; soon enough they’ll catch you slipping on dogshit, or falling off a chair, or getting confused with a remote control. You realise that it’s all in the editing. With those reality TV shows, I watch how it’s been edited and I think, ‘Hmm, I can see what you’ve done there…’

What was your scariest drug-related experience?

Marcus Mendes, Brazil

Jesus, there’s been a few. Heroin was fucking horrible. I only did it a few times – too much vomiting. But the worst was Rohypnol. I was offered it as a sleeping pill. I’d heard about it as a date-rape drug, but I thought it was all bollocks. So I took it – I wasn’t likely to rape myself. So I tried it with a bit of brandy, waited a while, thought, ‘What a load of crap’, and then suddenly it kicked in. Fucking hell – I was totally paralysed. All my muscles seized up, and I ended up rolling off the bed and banging my head on the bedside table. It hurt like fucking hell. You can still feel everything, it’s just that you’re paralysed. It was like being dead and haunting yourself, some hellish out-of-body experience. I was trapped there for four or five hours before it wore off. Never again.

What is the most memorable game or experience you’ve had at Villa Park?

Gordon Cowans, Aston Villa FC legend

Me and my mates used to hang around Villa Park on match days. We’d look after cars for a few bob, make sure no-one nicked or scratched them. I remember standing on the Holte End a few times. It was always fucking great fun. I had some favourite players – Peter McParland, Jimmy MacEwan, Alan Deakin – I had posters of them on me wall as a kid. But I was never as big a fan as [Black Sabbath bassist] Geezer Butler. Whenever Villa lost, he’d lock himself in his fucking room for a day, turn out the lights and draw down the blinds. He’d be in a depression for ages. I never got that carried away about it.

Man Of Steel

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Man Of Steel

"Release the World Engine!" You can tell the filmmakers are taking Man Of Steel seriously when they start throwing the M-word around. Introducing the film on stage at the European premiere in London, director Zack Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan talk solemnly about myths and mythologies – the sheer, weighty mythicnessness of Superman. This is a film we are to take seriously, because nothing says serious more than watching men in capes hitting each other with cars. You can tell Man Of Steel is serious because it has Russell Crowe – a cinematic Titan of seriousness – intoning narrative exposition in a plummy English accent. Man Of Steel is also being taken very seriously behind the scenes, too, by a studio who know that since Nolan won't be making any more Batman films for them they are in need of an A-list superhero franchise from their DC Comics stable to combat Marvel's near-total dominance of the genre. Marvel have successfully delivered on their ambitious, forward thinking strategy to crossover plots, cast and concepts in what they call the Marvel Cinematic Universe. DC, on the other hand, have struggled to find success beyond Nolan’s Batman films. Their last Superman reboot in 2006, Superman Returns? Green Lantern? Their long-delayed Wonder Woman project? Hush now. The problem for DC is that Marvel drank the Kool Aid and lightened up. Their films are light, loose and bright; pop art fun. DC, meanwhile, are still struggling to shake off the impact Alan Moore and Frank Miller had on their comics in the late Eighties with their vision for grown-up comics (as much an oxymoron as “a serious superhero movie”). Moore and Miller’s proposition of superheroes as psychologically complex, Nietzschean Übermensch battling both themselves and their own inner demons in dystopian cityscapes trickled down to first Tim Burton and then Nolan’s Batman films. It plateaued with Nolan’s last Batman film – the pretentious, po-faced and deeply boring The Dark Knight Rises. Man Of Steel can’t help but be overshadowed by Nolan’s films: as well as his producing duties, Nolan is also co-writer. It’s a shame for Snyder, who you’d assume doesn't simply want to be remembered as Nolan’s amanuensis. Great chunks of it are shot in Nolan-lite sombre greys and blues, Christian iconography abounds, Hans Zimmer’s portentous score is trowelled on. I wish they wouldn’t take it all so seriously, especially when the dialogue is a ridiculous mix of platitudes (“Sometimes in life you’ve got to take a leap of faith”) and exposition (“If you destroy this ship, you will destroy Krypton”). My favourite line in the film is “Release the World Engine!”, which is as stupid/serious as it gets. The characters here rarely talk to each other in the traditional sense – there is little attempt at conversation, or exchanges of thoughts, ideas and feelings. It’s mostly one character telling another – very seriously – what he has done, is doing now or is about to do. Fans of the first two 70s Superman movies – and the comics – will be familiar with the broadest strokes of the plot. Scientist Jor-El (Crowe) sends his only son, Kal-El, into space to escape the destruction of their native Krypton; he lands on Earth, becomes Clark Kent and as a young adult faces down renegade Kryptonian, General Zod (Michael Shannon). In the original 70s films, Krypton was white and icy: here, with the full box of cutting edge CGI tricks at his disposal, Zack Snyder conjures a planet that looks a little like Pandora from Avatar with a style palette reminiscent of David Lynch’s Dune. There are underwater breeding farms, multi-winged flying creatures and the kind of lazy fag-packet logic that comes with blockbuster culture. The early scenes on Earth are the best thing in the film. We meet Kal-El – now Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) – as an introspective, thirtysomething drifter, working hand-to-mouth on jobs in trawler boats, in bars, scuffing round the remotest fringes of America. It reminds me a little of The Incredible Hulk TV series, where David Banner would similarly drift from one dead-end job to another until he found himself in situations where he helped others despite risking his secret. There’s a nice intimacy here, helped in flashback by some good work from Kevin Costner as Clark’s adoptive father, who counsels him to keep his powers hidden in case he spooks humankind. After that, when Zod turns up, it becomes a big fight – and some more exposition, much of it shouted this time – to the final, exhausting end. As discussed, we are meant to accept that Nolan and Snyder are basically unveiling a grand new vision for Superman – but this is still a film that confirms to a rigid narrative structure, which can find no other way to resolve itself without a massive scrap. Buildings are trashed, trucks are thrown, a city is almost leveled. Snyder spends the best part of an hour on this section, buffeted along by Zimmer’s increasingly bombastic score and an increasingly unhinged barrage of CGI devastation. So, what to make of our new Superman – and the latest British actor to play an A-list superhero? Henry Cavill certainly looks the part – man, that is some dimple – but there’s something of the estate agent about him. He has little chemistry with Amy Adams, given an underwritten role as Lois Lane, and nowhere near as freewheeling as Margot Kidder’s version. Kevin Costner is arguably the best actor in the film, bringing humanity and lightness of touch to his part that is sorely needed elsewhere. Crowe, bless him, does some quite nice work when Jor-El is revived as a less dogmatic and more felicitous computer programme. Michael Shannon – whose work in Boardwalk Empire and, most recently, in The Iceman is terrific – throws the regulation baddie shapes here. We learn that all Kryptonians are genetically bred to fulfil certain roles and Zod was designed to be the prime defender of Krypton. The intriguing idea of a man who is driven to obey a pre-conditioned directive is intrinsically morally interesting, but virtually discarded by the filmmakers: it might have given Zod something a little more than just baddie in a skin-tight nylon-mesh suit who can shoot light beams out of his eyes. This is a big film, but one in desperate need of some lightness. “Release the World Engine!” Indeed. Michael Bonner Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

“Release the World Engine!”

You can tell the filmmakers are taking Man Of Steel seriously when they start throwing the M-word around. Introducing the film on stage at the European premiere in London, director Zack Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan talk solemnly about myths and mythologies – the sheer, weighty mythicnessness of Superman. This is a film we are to take seriously, because nothing says serious more than watching men in capes hitting each other with cars. You can tell Man Of Steel is serious because it has Russell Crowe – a cinematic Titan of seriousness – intoning narrative exposition in a plummy English accent.

Man Of Steel is also being taken very seriously behind the scenes, too, by a studio who know that since Nolan won’t be making any more Batman films for them they are in need of an A-list superhero franchise from their DC Comics stable to combat Marvel’s near-total dominance of the genre. Marvel have successfully delivered on their ambitious, forward thinking strategy to crossover plots, cast and concepts in what they call the Marvel Cinematic Universe. DC, on the other hand, have struggled to find success beyond Nolan’s Batman films. Their last Superman reboot in 2006, Superman Returns? Green Lantern? Their long-delayed Wonder Woman project? Hush now.

The problem for DC is that Marvel drank the Kool Aid and lightened up. Their films are light, loose and bright; pop art fun. DC, meanwhile, are still struggling to shake off the impact Alan Moore and Frank Miller had on their comics in the late Eighties with their vision for grown-up comics (as much an oxymoron as “a serious superhero movie”). Moore and Miller’s proposition of superheroes as psychologically complex, Nietzschean Übermensch battling both themselves and their own inner demons in dystopian cityscapes trickled down to first Tim Burton and then Nolan’s Batman films. It plateaued with Nolan’s last Batman film – the pretentious, po-faced and deeply boring The Dark Knight Rises.

Man Of Steel can’t help but be overshadowed by Nolan’s films: as well as his producing duties, Nolan is also co-writer. It’s a shame for Snyder, who you’d assume doesn’t simply want to be remembered as Nolan’s amanuensis. Great chunks of it are shot in Nolan-lite sombre greys and blues, Christian iconography abounds, Hans Zimmer’s portentous score is trowelled on. I wish they wouldn’t take it all so seriously, especially when the dialogue is a ridiculous mix of platitudes (“Sometimes in life you’ve got to take a leap of faith”) and exposition (“If you destroy this ship, you will destroy Krypton”). My favourite line in the film is “Release the World Engine!”, which is as stupid/serious as it gets. The characters here rarely talk to each other in the traditional sense – there is little attempt at conversation, or exchanges of thoughts, ideas and feelings. It’s mostly one character telling another – very seriously – what he has done, is doing now or is about to do.

Fans of the first two 70s Superman movies – and the comics – will be familiar with the broadest strokes of the plot. Scientist Jor-El (Crowe) sends his only son, Kal-El, into space to escape the destruction of their native Krypton; he lands on Earth, becomes Clark Kent and as a young adult faces down renegade Kryptonian, General Zod (Michael Shannon). In the original 70s films, Krypton was white and icy: here, with the full box of cutting edge CGI tricks at his disposal, Zack Snyder conjures a planet that looks a little like Pandora from Avatar with a style palette reminiscent of David Lynch’s Dune. There are underwater breeding farms, multi-winged flying creatures and the kind of lazy fag-packet logic that comes with blockbuster culture.

The early scenes on Earth are the best thing in the film. We meet Kal-El – now Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) – as an introspective, thirtysomething drifter, working hand-to-mouth on jobs in trawler boats, in bars, scuffing round the remotest fringes of America. It reminds me a little of The Incredible Hulk TV series, where David Banner would similarly drift from one dead-end job to another until he found himself in situations where he helped others despite risking his secret. There’s a nice intimacy here, helped in flashback by some good work from Kevin Costner as Clark’s adoptive father, who counsels him to keep his powers hidden in case he spooks humankind. After that, when Zod turns up, it becomes a big fight – and some more exposition, much of it shouted this time – to the final, exhausting end.

As discussed, we are meant to accept that Nolan and Snyder are basically unveiling a grand new vision for Superman – but this is still a film that confirms to a rigid narrative structure, which can find no other way to resolve itself without a massive scrap. Buildings are trashed, trucks are thrown, a city is almost leveled. Snyder spends the best part of an hour on this section, buffeted along by Zimmer’s increasingly bombastic score and an increasingly unhinged barrage of CGI devastation.

So, what to make of our new Superman – and the latest British actor to play an A-list superhero? Henry Cavill certainly looks the part – man, that is some dimple – but there’s something of the estate agent about him. He has little chemistry with Amy Adams, given an underwritten role as Lois Lane, and nowhere near as freewheeling as Margot Kidder’s version. Kevin Costner is arguably the best actor in the film, bringing humanity and lightness of touch to his part that is sorely needed elsewhere. Crowe, bless him, does some quite nice work when Jor-El is revived as a less dogmatic and more felicitous computer programme. Michael Shannon – whose work in Boardwalk Empire and, most recently, in The Iceman is terrific – throws the regulation baddie shapes here. We learn that all Kryptonians are genetically bred to fulfil certain roles and Zod was designed to be the prime defender of Krypton. The intriguing idea of a man who is driven to obey a pre-conditioned directive is intrinsically morally interesting, but virtually discarded by the filmmakers: it might have given Zod something a little more than just baddie in a skin-tight nylon-mesh suit who can shoot light beams out of his eyes.

This is a big film, but one in desperate need of some lightness. “Release the World Engine!” Indeed.

Michael Bonner

Follow me on Twitter @MichaelBonner

Prince unveils new six-minute song

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Prince unveils new six-minute song
Prince has premiered his latest new track "Ain’t Gonna Miss U When U’re Gone". The song, which you can hear via Prince's official website, sees the singer working alongside singer/songwriter Ledisi. The six minute long song is the latest new song to come from Prince following the release of "F...

Prince has premiered his latest new track “Ain’t Gonna Miss U When U’re Gone“.

The song, which you can hear via Prince’s official website, sees the singer working alongside singer/songwriter Ledisi. The six minute long song is the latest new song to come from Prince following the release of “FIXURLIFEUP” in May.

Prince has released a slew of new music online in recent months via his 3rdeyegirl website. In December 2012 he released the track “Rock And Roll Love Affair” and followed it up with “Screwdriver” and another new song, “Breakfast Can Wait”, in February.

Earlier this year, Prince and 3rdEyeGirl embarked on a theatre tour of North America, with gigs in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Las Vegas, San Diego, Anaheim and Denver. They played two shows a night at most venues.

Meanwhile, Prince will also feature on Janelle Monáe‘s forthcoming new album, The Electric Lady.

Bob Dylan announces UK tour dates

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Bob Dylan announces UK tour dates
Bob Dylan has confirmed a run of UK dates, including three nights at London's Royal Albert Hall. Dylan and his band will play: Glasgow Clyde Auditorum - November 18, 19, 20 Blackpool Opera House - November 22, 23, 24 Royal Albert Hall - November 26, 27, 28 Tickets go on sale on Friday, June 14 ...

Bob Dylan has confirmed a run of UK dates, including three nights at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Dylan and his band will play:

Glasgow Clyde Auditorum – November 18, 19, 20

Blackpool Opera House – November 22, 23, 24

Royal Albert Hall – November 26, 27, 28

Tickets go on sale on Friday, June 14 at 9am GMT. They are available online from bobdylan.com.

Dylan is about to take part in the AmericanaramA Festival of Music across North America with Wilco and My Morning Jacket.

Later this month, the hand-typed lyrics to a song Dylan never recorded called “Go Away Bomb” are expected to sell for £35,000 when they go up for auction.

The Replacements announce first live dates in 22 years

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The Replacements announce first live dates in 22 years
The Replacements have announced three shows - their first dates in 22 years. The band have confirmed headlining slots at three Riot Fests in Toronto (August 24 - 25), Chicago (September 13 - 15), and Denver (September 21 - 22). Last year, Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson reunited to record a four...

The Replacements have announced three shows – their first dates in 22 years.

The band have confirmed headlining slots at three Riot Fests in Toronto (August 24 – 25), Chicago (September 13 – 15), and Denver (September 21 – 22).

Last year, Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson reunited to record a four-song EP, Songs For Slim, to raise money for former Replacements guitarist Slim Dunlap, who had suffered a stroke.

Westerberg and Stinson are also confirmed for the line-up scheduled to play Riot Fest. Their last show was on July 4, 1991 in Chicago.

Other bands scheduled to play Riot Fest include Iggy & the Stooges, Public Enemy, Flag and Rocket From The Crypt.

You can find more information, including ticket details, here.

Eric Clapton cancels shows due to injury

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Eric Clapton cancels shows due to injury
Eric Clapton has been forced to cancel two European shows at short notice, citing back problems. Clapton was due to play Vienna today (June 11) and Stuttgart tomorrow (June 12). A statement on Clapton's website reads: "Unfortunately Eric Clapton has had to cancel his concerts in Vienna, Austria a...

Eric Clapton has been forced to cancel two European shows at short notice, citing back problems.

Clapton was due to play Vienna today (June 11) and Stuttgart tomorrow (June 12).

A statement on Clapton’s website reads:

“Unfortunately Eric Clapton has had to cancel his concerts in Vienna, Austria and Stuttgart, Germany on his current tour due to severe back pain.

“He is currently with specialists who will be able to better determine the course of treatment.

“He was looking forward to these concerts and regrets that he is not to be able to perform for the fans.

“He would like to apologize for any inconveniences these cancellations may cause and would like to thank the fans for their understanding.

“All tickets can be returned to the Box Offices for refund.”

Clapton is next due to play Koenig-Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen, Germany on June 14.

Björk announces one-off gig

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Björk announces one-off gig
Björk has announced a one-off gig at London's Alexandra Palace on September 3. This will be the first time the Icelandic singer has brought her long-running Biophilia Tour to the British capital and a post on her official site branded it "an emotionally significant show for Björk herself, who cal...

Björk has announced a one-off gig at London’s Alexandra Palace on September 3.

This will be the first time the Icelandic singer has brought her long-running Biophilia Tour to the British capital and a post on her official site branded it “an emotionally significant show for Björk herself, who called the city home in her youth”.

Björk’s Biophilia performance will be the first ever “in the round” show at Alexandra Palace and the singer’s final “in the round” performance in Europe. Tickets will be available from 9am tomorrow (June 12) and prices start at £65 each.

The singer kicked off the Biophilia Tour with a seven-date residency at Manchester’s Campfield Market Hall in June 2011 as part of the Manchester International Festival. The tour’s only other UK show to date was at Bestival that September.

Watch Elvis Costello cover Bruce Springsteen

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Watch Elvis Costello cover Bruce Springsteen
Elvis Costello has teamed up with Mumford & Songs to cover Bruce Springsteen's "The Ghost Of Tom Joad". Scroll down to watch the video. The cover was recorded for agit8, an "urgent call to action against extreme poverty" launched by Bono's One Campaign in advance of the G8 Summit in Belfast, No...

Elvis Costello has teamed up with Mumford & Songs to cover Bruce Springsteen’s “The Ghost Of Tom Joad”. Scroll down to watch the video.

The cover was recorded for agit8, an “urgent call to action against extreme poverty” launched by Bono’s One Campaign in advance of the G8 Summit in Belfast, Northern Ireland next week.

Springsteen’s original “The Ghost Of Tom Joad” was the title track to his 11th studio album, which came out in 1995.

The Costello/Mumfords version slips in a few bars from “Do Re Mi”, a classic American folk song by Woody Guthrie. “We wouldn’t know what to say, so it’s quite helpful to have music that says things for you,” Marcus Mumford said, talking to Rolling Stone.

Other artists who’ve covered classic protest songs for the agit8 initiative include William, Ed Sheeran, Sting, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Kid Rock. More information and videos of all the songs can be found at One.org/protestsongs.

Beck announces live dates

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Beck announces live dates
Beck has announced details of two solo UK shows set to take place in July. The singer will perform dates in Cambridge and London on July 6 and 7 respectively, following his Song Reader performance at the Barbican on July 4. The line-up for the Barbican show will include Beck himself, alongside Pul...

Beck has announced details of two solo UK shows set to take place in July.

The singer will perform dates in Cambridge and London on July 6 and 7 respectively, following his Song Reader performance at the Barbican on July 4.

The line-up for the Barbican show will include Beck himself, alongside Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, Franz Ferdinand and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

It is not know what form the Cambridge and London shows will take but the recently released song “Defriended” suggests the US singer is on course to release new material for the first time since 2008.

Speaking to NME late last year, Beck hinted that he would release two new albums in 2013. “There is music and it’s coming!” he said. “I have this one record I started in 2008. It got put to the side for a long time but recently I’ve been mixing some of the songs. I’m not sure if they’ll be singles or EPs or an album but it’ll come out in some way and it sounds… sonically adventurous. I also have a record that I recorded last year in Nashville, which I may or may not finish.”

Beck will play:

Cambridge Corn Exchange (July 6)

London Union Chapel (7)

Beatles song to be adapted into a children’s book

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Beatles song to be adapted into a children’s book
The Beatles' 1968 song "Octopus's Garden", written by Ringo Starr, is set to be turned into a children's book. Starr has given publishing house Simon & Schuster permission to turn the song into a picture book, with illustrations by Ben Cort, who is currently behind the kids series Alien's Love ...

The Beatles‘ 1968 song “Octopus’s Garden”, written by Ringo Starr, is set to be turned into a children’s book.

Starr has given publishing house Simon & Schuster permission to turn the song into a picture book, with illustrations by Ben Cort, who is currently behind the kids series Alien’s Love Underpants, reports The Guardian.

Starr said: “It gives me great pleasure to collaborate with Ben Cort and Simon & Schuster for the further adventures of Octopus’s Garden. Peace and love.” The book will be published on October 24 and will come with a CD featuring unheard music from Starr.

The world’s first major exhibition about the life of Ringo Starr will open tomorrow (June 12) at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Ringo: Peace & Love will close in November 2013, before touring cities across the world in 2014.

On display will be never-been-seen photographs as well as letters, documents and original artefacts, including the drum kit Ringo played at Shea Stadium and on The Ed Sullivan Show as well as his Sgt Pepper suit, Help! cape and jacket worn during The Beatles’ famous London rooftop concert. For more information visit: grammymuseum.org.

The 22nd Uncut Playlist Of 2013

John Mulvey
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The 22nd Uncut Playlist Of 2013

One of our longer playlists this week and, I think, the one with more embedded music than I’ve ever posted before: you can listen to 12 out of 25 entries here, if I’ve counted right… As you’ll see, too, a good haul of new stuff, with special emphasis on Dawn Of Midi and Hans Chew, and that tantalising Omar Souleyman/Four Tet clip. In other news, the forthcoming “Tropicalia” documentary is excellent (I am researching/reviewing, hence the appearance of one of my favourite Veloso albums below); Julian Cope has joined Twitter (@HeadHeritage); Comets On Fire have reformed; I’ve posted a list of my 67 favourite albums of 2013 thus far (add your own, please!); we listened to ALL FIVE CDs of the “Scared To Get Happy” Indie Pop compilation and discovered that it probably doesn’t get worse than “Dry The Rain” by The Rain; and we also learned that Rick Wakeman is managed by Roger DeCourcey. Interesting week. Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey 1 Dawn Of Midi – Dysnomia (Thirsty Ear) 2 Hans Chew – Life & Love (sampler) 3 Boards Of Canada – Tomorrow’s Harvest (Warp) (click to read my review) 4 Omar Souleyman & Four Tet – Unknown Track http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt2uc-dFae4 5 White Rainbow – Sand Quality And Every Answer (bandcamp.com) 6 The Shouting Matches – Grownass Man (Middle West) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6C0y2LyG1g 7 Cian Nugent & The Cosmos – Hire Purchase (Matador Singles Club) 8 Forest Swords – Thor’s Stone 9 Various Artists – Scared To Get Happy: A Story Of Indie Pop 1980-1989 (Cherry Red) 10 Julian Cope – Revolutionary Suicide (Head Heritage) 11 Caetano Veloso – Caetano Veloso (1969) (Phillips) 12 Pantaleimon – The Butterfly Ate The Pearl (Grass Girl) 13 The Julie Ruin – Oh Come On (TJR) 14 Fyah Flames - What Would You Say About Me (Duppy Gun) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1rckzC7Sfw 15 Mark Kozelek & Desertshore – Mariette/Katowice Or Cologne (Caldo Verde) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM45pcQaafE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW5jC8YE1Q0 16 Luke Haines – Rock And Roll Animals (Cherry Red) 17 Wild Billy Childish And The Musicians Of The British Empire – Thatcher’s Children (Damaged Goods) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKlehYTvqeY 18 Julianna Barwick – Nepenthe (Dead Oceans) 19 Neko Case – Man (Anti-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unNa-9qGkfI 20 Medicine – To The Happy Few (Captured Tracks) 21 Elton John – The Diving Board (Capitol) 22 Welfare Heroine – Where Do You Go To, My Lovely? (NME) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lB6xW-CWKg 23 Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt – The Raw And The Cooked (Palilalia) 24 Gabor Szabo – Dreams (Skye) 25 Charlie Jones – Love Form (Stranger)

One of our longer playlists this week and, I think, the one with more embedded music than I’ve ever posted before: you can listen to 12 out of 25 entries here, if I’ve counted right…

As you’ll see, too, a good haul of new stuff, with special emphasis on Dawn Of Midi and Hans Chew, and that tantalising Omar Souleyman/Four Tet clip.

In other news, the forthcoming “Tropicalia” documentary is excellent (I am researching/reviewing, hence the appearance of one of my favourite Veloso albums below); Julian Cope has joined Twitter (@HeadHeritage); Comets On Fire have reformed; I’ve posted a list of my 67 favourite albums of 2013 thus far (add your own, please!); we listened to ALL FIVE CDs of the “Scared To Get Happy” Indie Pop compilation and discovered that it probably doesn’t get worse than “Dry The Rain” by The Rain; and we also learned that Rick Wakeman is managed by Roger DeCourcey. Interesting week.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnRMulvey

1 Dawn Of Midi – Dysnomia (Thirsty Ear)

2 Hans Chew – Life & Love (sampler)

3 Boards Of Canada – Tomorrow’s Harvest (Warp) (click to read my review)

4 Omar Souleyman & Four Tet – Unknown Track

5 White Rainbow – Sand Quality And Every Answer (bandcamp.com)

6 The Shouting Matches – Grownass Man (Middle West)

7 Cian Nugent & The Cosmos – Hire Purchase (Matador Singles Club)

8 Forest Swords – Thor’s Stone

9 Various Artists – Scared To Get Happy: A Story Of Indie Pop 1980-1989 (Cherry Red)

10 Julian Cope – Revolutionary Suicide (Head Heritage)

11 Caetano Veloso – Caetano Veloso (1969) (Phillips)

12 Pantaleimon – The Butterfly Ate The Pearl (Grass Girl)

13 The Julie Ruin – Oh Come On (TJR)

14 Fyah Flames – What Would You Say About Me (Duppy Gun)

15 Mark Kozelek & Desertshore – Mariette/Katowice Or Cologne (Caldo Verde)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW5jC8YE1Q0

16 Luke Haines – Rock And Roll Animals (Cherry Red)

17 Wild Billy Childish And The Musicians Of The British Empire – Thatcher’s Children (Damaged Goods)

18 Julianna Barwick – Nepenthe (Dead Oceans)

19 Neko Case – Man (Anti-)

20 Medicine – To The Happy Few (Captured Tracks)

21 Elton John – The Diving Board (Capitol)

22 Welfare Heroine – Where Do You Go To, My Lovely? (NME)

23 Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt – The Raw And The Cooked (Palilalia)

24 Gabor Szabo – Dreams (Skye)

25 Charlie Jones – Love Form (Stranger)

‘Even worse than Lou Reed. . .’

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‘Even worse than Lou Reed. . .’

Lou Reed was back in the news last week and for reasons other than his recent life-saving liver transplant. It turned out that some boorish actor, a self-styled hell-raiser, Rhys Ifans, by name, had thrown a bit of a strop during a newspaper interview and so one of the Saturday broadsheets, presumably stuck for anything else to fill its pages, canvassed some notable journalists about their most difficult celebrity interview. Two of the first three writers they spoke to nominated Lou, one of them describing him as ‘vile and bullying’, not to mention ‘fantastically hostile and contemptuous’. The same sensitive soul, previously a fan, was left bereft by Lou’s behaviour. “We were meant to see him play that night, but I just went back to my hotel room and wept,” he recalled, lip doubtless quavering at the memory, which probably would have made Lou laugh out loud if he’d known. Lou could definitely be touchy and a conversation with him was a little like putting your hand in a fire. But by some great good fortune I was never exposed to his full withering wrath and where others may have felt chewed up by him I seem to have escaped serial encounters relatively unscathed. I was more than once reduced to tears by things he said, but usually of laughter. Anyway, the article I’m talking about made me think about people I’ve interviewed over the years who turned out to be in one way or another ‘difficult’. I have spent perhaps more time than is reasonable with an assortment of cantankerous souls, but none worse than, you may be surprised to learn, the Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot (pictured above), in whose inhospitable company I spent an uncomfortable hour or so in October 1975. He was staying at London’s Westbury Hotel and barrels into his suite like someone looking for trouble who won’t be happy until he finds it, an unexpectedly burly man in a leather flying jacket, with a face that’s clearly seen hard times and worse weather. “Man flies all the way from Frankfurt,” he’s shouting over his shoulder as he comes through the door, “the least he expects of his record company is that they get him a goddamn beer.” Gordon throws a case across the room, follows it with a shoulder bag he flings with some force against a wall. “Someone,” he booms, “get me a drink,” and you’d have to say straight off that the first impression Gordon makes is that he’s a bit of a bully, someone used to having his own way in pretty much every circumstance, and very much in love with the sound of his own voice. As are, of course, at the time of which I’m writing, many hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, Gordon the author of mawkish MOR hits like the folkie “Early Morning Rain” and “If You Could Read My Mind”, songs that have or will be covered by Dylan, Cash and Presley, among others. Anyway, here’s Gordon storming around the room, banging doors, ill-tempered. I presume he’s looking for the mini-bar, which I have myself only located with some difficulty during a search of the premises during a long wait for Gordon, whose flight from Frankfurt has been considerably delayed. “It’s built into the cabinet over there,” I pipe up now, clearly startling the Canadian songsmith. “Who the fuck,” Gordon wants to know, noticing me for the first time, “are you?” I tell him I’m from what used to be Melody Maker, and he looks at me suspiciously, like he thinks I might suddenly leap on him and nail his head to the door frame. “And what are you doing here?” It’s a good question. Why I am here to talk to this grizzled old cur, I have even after all these years absolutely no fucking idea. I suspect, however, it has much to do with my nemesis at Melody Maker, quiche-nibbling, cravat-sporting, Chablis-sipping assistant editor Michael Watts, who with impish regularity sends me out to interview people he knows I won’t get on with, clearly in the hope that at least one of them will end up taking a swing at me. Anyway, back at the Westbury, I’m engaged in what passes for conversation with grumpy Gordon, the morose Canadian telling me now with no great animation about his early career in Canada, where he played the same small club circuit as Joni Mitchell, or Joni Anderson as Gordon knew her back then, the mists of time just parting, the way he tells it. “This is going way back,” he says, like he’s remembering the world’s first dawn. “We were just callow youths. You were probably kicking the slats out of your cradle.” These days, he only tours maybe once every 18 months, the rest of his time spent sailing on the Great Lakes, he tells me, mistakenly thinking I’m interested. “There comes a point, though,” he adds with a manly shrug, “when a man has to get out and be active. It’s my job. A man,” he says with suitably masculine sagacity, “needs his work.” How we come to be talking about it, I can’t remember, but the next thing you know, Gordon’s lambasting the young American draft dodgers who made lives for themselves in exile in Canada rather than get shipped off to Vietnam. As far as he’s concerned, Canada should have booted them all out, sent them packing back to the States or banged them up in prison. A man, he says, is nothing without a sense of duty. If he’d been an American, he would have volunteered to fight in Southeast Asia. “Only Americans know the anguish of that war, but what kind of leniency can you extend to a guy who skips out of his country when 50,000 men get killed in a war?” I may in some circumstances have let this pass. But during the long wait for Gordon, I appear to have grown somewhat cantankerous. So I launch into a patently ridiculous speech about America and Vietnam and the peace movement, generally coming on here like a veteran of the Weather Underground or the SLA, a history of random bombings on an FBI rap sheet, guns stashed in every cupboard of a South Compton safe-house, Patty Hearst trussed up in a closet close-by, peeing on the carpet and going out of her mind. “Why didn’t I write about the war?” he says, in answer to that very question. “It was none of my goddamn business,” he says. “The United States at that time was a target for every loose tongue around. I didn’t think it was my place to say anything. I have,” he goes on, “a lot of sympathy for America. I also make a lot of money there. And if you don’t mind me saying so, some of the nicest people on earth are Americans and I wish you wouldn’t dwell on this particular subject. I suggest we talk about something else.” We do. His songs. I have come across in one of them the following lyrics: “In the name of love she came, this foolish winsome girl/She was all decked out like a rainbow trout. . .” I fail to stop myself laughing out loud when I read this to Gordon from my notebook, where I have dutifully jotted it down, alongside adjectives like “sentimental” and words like “schmaltz”. “Schmaltz?” Gordon seethes through grimly gritted teeth, almost coming at me out of his chair. “You’re calling my songs sentimental?” In a word, yes. Gordon, taking deep breaths, says then: “Well, I guess I’ve been accused of that before. Just not to my face. But I’d defend myself against an accusation like that. We all know the world isn’t exactly in a placid state right now, but I don’t think we have to dwell on it.” Your songs, generally, though, are pretty wet, aren’t they? “Wet?” Like I say, they have a tendency towards sentimentality, weepiness, that sort of thing. “One or two, maybe,” he grudgingly consents. “But people love ‘em. So I sing ‘em. I’m not going to apologise if you have a problem with that.” It must be embarrassing, though, being lumped in with the kind of tepid troubadours whose serial confessional outpourings are often sentimental to the point of complete banality. “Sentimental to the point of complete banality?” Gordon splutters. “Whose work are we talking about?” I reel off a list of singer-songwriters, most of whom turn out to be friends of his and mention of whom in such a disparaging context is turning his face puce. “Interview’s over, son,” he snaps. I tell him I have one more question, and he leans over the table between us, close enough for me to feel his breath on my face. “Listen,” he says, “beat it now. That’s my advice,” Gordon sounding like he means business in a big way. I’m out the door before he unclenches his fist.

Lou Reed was back in the news last week and for reasons other than his recent life-saving liver transplant. It turned out that some boorish actor, a self-styled hell-raiser, Rhys Ifans, by name, had thrown a bit of a strop during a newspaper interview and so one of the Saturday broadsheets, presumably stuck for anything else to fill its pages, canvassed some notable journalists about their most difficult celebrity interview.

Two of the first three writers they spoke to nominated Lou, one of them describing him as ‘vile and bullying’, not to mention ‘fantastically hostile and contemptuous’. The same sensitive soul, previously a fan, was left bereft by Lou’s behaviour. “We were meant to see him play that night, but I just went back to my hotel room and wept,” he recalled, lip doubtless quavering at the memory, which probably would have made Lou laugh out loud if he’d known.

Lou could definitely be touchy and a conversation with him was a little like putting your hand in a fire. But by some great good fortune I was never exposed to his full withering wrath and where others may have felt chewed up by him I seem to have escaped serial encounters relatively unscathed. I was more than once reduced to tears by things he said, but usually of laughter.

Anyway, the article I’m talking about made me think about people I’ve interviewed over the years who turned out to be in one way or another ‘difficult’. I have spent perhaps more time than is reasonable with an assortment of cantankerous souls, but none worse than, you may be surprised to learn, the Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot (pictured above), in whose inhospitable company I spent an uncomfortable hour or so in October 1975.

He was staying at London’s Westbury Hotel and barrels into his suite like someone looking for trouble who won’t be happy until he finds it, an unexpectedly burly man in a leather flying jacket, with a face that’s clearly seen hard times and worse weather.

“Man flies all the way from Frankfurt,” he’s shouting over his shoulder as he comes through the door, “the least he expects of his record company is that they get him a goddamn beer.”

Gordon throws a case across the room, follows it with a shoulder bag he flings with some force against a wall.

“Someone,” he booms, “get me a drink,” and you’d have to say straight off that the first impression Gordon makes is that he’s a bit of a bully, someone used to having his own way in pretty much every circumstance, and very much in love with the sound of his own voice.

As are, of course, at the time of which I’m writing, many hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, Gordon the author of mawkish MOR hits like the folkie “Early Morning Rain” and “If You Could Read My Mind”, songs that have or will be covered by Dylan, Cash and Presley, among others.

Anyway, here’s Gordon storming around the room, banging doors, ill-tempered. I presume he’s looking for the mini-bar, which I have myself only located with some difficulty during a search of the premises during a long wait for Gordon, whose flight from Frankfurt has been considerably delayed.

“It’s built into the cabinet over there,” I pipe up now, clearly startling the Canadian songsmith.

“Who the fuck,” Gordon wants to know, noticing me for the first time, “are you?”

I tell him I’m from what used to be Melody Maker, and he looks at me suspiciously, like he thinks I might suddenly leap on him and nail his head to the door frame.

“And what are you doing here?”

It’s a good question. Why I am here to talk to this grizzled old cur, I have even after all these years absolutely no fucking idea. I suspect, however, it has much to do with my nemesis at Melody Maker, quiche-nibbling, cravat-sporting, Chablis-sipping assistant editor Michael Watts, who with impish regularity sends me out to interview people he knows I won’t get on with, clearly in the hope that at least one of them will end up taking a swing at me.

Anyway, back at the Westbury, I’m engaged in what passes for conversation with grumpy Gordon, the morose Canadian telling me now with no great animation about his early career in Canada, where he played the same small club circuit as Joni Mitchell, or Joni Anderson as Gordon knew her back then, the mists of time just parting, the way he tells it.

“This is going way back,” he says, like he’s remembering the world’s first dawn. “We were just callow youths. You were probably kicking the slats out of your cradle.”

These days, he only tours maybe once every 18 months, the rest of his time spent sailing on the Great Lakes, he tells me, mistakenly thinking I’m interested.

“There comes a point, though,” he adds with a manly shrug, “when a man has to get out and be active. It’s my job. A man,” he says with suitably masculine sagacity, “needs his work.”

How we come to be talking about it, I can’t remember, but the next thing you know, Gordon’s lambasting the young American draft dodgers who made lives for themselves in exile in Canada rather than get shipped off to Vietnam. As far as he’s concerned, Canada should have booted them all out, sent them packing back to the States or banged them up in prison.

A man, he says, is nothing without a sense of duty. If he’d been an American, he would have volunteered to fight in Southeast Asia.

“Only Americans know the anguish of that war, but what kind of leniency can you extend to a guy who skips out of his country when 50,000 men get killed in a war?”

I may in some circumstances have let this pass. But during the long wait for Gordon, I appear to have grown somewhat cantankerous. So I launch into a patently ridiculous speech about America and Vietnam and the peace movement, generally coming on here like a veteran of the Weather Underground or the SLA, a history of random bombings on an FBI rap sheet, guns stashed in every cupboard of a South Compton safe-house, Patty Hearst trussed up in a closet close-by, peeing on the carpet and going out of her mind.

“Why didn’t I write about the war?” he says, in answer to that very question. “It was none of my goddamn business,” he says. “The United States at that time was a target for every loose tongue around. I didn’t think it was my place to say anything. I have,” he goes on, “a lot of sympathy for America. I also make a lot of money there. And if you don’t mind me saying so, some of the nicest people on earth are Americans and I wish you wouldn’t dwell on this particular subject. I suggest we talk about something else.”

We do. His songs. I have come across in one of them the following lyrics: “In the name of love she came, this foolish winsome girl/She was all decked out like a rainbow trout. . .” I fail to stop myself laughing out loud when I read this to Gordon from my notebook, where I have dutifully jotted it down, alongside adjectives like “sentimental” and words like “schmaltz”.

“Schmaltz?” Gordon seethes through grimly gritted teeth, almost coming at me out of his chair. “You’re calling my songs sentimental?”

In a word, yes.

Gordon, taking deep breaths, says then: “Well, I guess I’ve been accused of that before. Just not to my face. But I’d defend myself against an accusation like that. We all know the world isn’t exactly in a placid state right now, but I don’t think we have to dwell on it.”

Your songs, generally, though, are pretty wet, aren’t they?

“Wet?”

Like I say, they have a tendency towards sentimentality, weepiness, that sort of thing.

“One or two, maybe,” he grudgingly consents. “But people love ‘em. So I sing ‘em. I’m not going to apologise if you have a problem with that.”

It must be embarrassing, though, being lumped in with the kind of tepid troubadours whose serial confessional outpourings are often sentimental to the point of complete banality.

“Sentimental to the point of complete banality?” Gordon splutters. “Whose work are we talking about?”

I reel off a list of singer-songwriters, most of whom turn out to be friends of his and mention of whom in such a disparaging context is turning his face puce.

“Interview’s over, son,” he snaps.

I tell him I have one more question, and he leans over the table between us, close enough for me to feel his breath on my face.

“Listen,” he says, “beat it now. That’s my advice,” Gordon sounding like he means business in a big way.

I’m out the door before he unclenches his fist.

David Crosby: “I have maybe 10 more years, if I’m lucky.”

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David Crosby: “I have maybe 10 more years, if I’m lucky.”
David Crosby has spoken candidly about the current state of his health. In an interview for The Wall Street Journal about his passion for sailing, Crosby explains, "Look, I have maybe 10 more years, if I'm lucky. I have hepatitis C, diabetes and heart disease. I'm managing them. I'm going to the gy...

David Crosby has spoken candidly about the current state of his health.

In an interview for The Wall Street Journal about his passion for sailing, Crosby explains, “Look, I have maybe 10 more years, if I’m lucky. I have hepatitis C, diabetes and heart disease. I’m managing them. I’m going to the gym three days a week, I’m feeling strong and I can still make audiences feel great.”

Crosby goes on to say that his “dream” before he dies would be “One more tour with Crosby, Stills and Nash and my friend Neil [Young]. From there, I’d be fine. I’d be able to sail. I’d live. And I’d be happy.”

Crosby is currently working a new album. On May 30, he asked his followers on Twitter to suggest potential names for the record.

Crosby will play the UK with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash in October, including three nights at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Meanwhile, the forthcoming live album of CSNY’s 1974 tour has been delayed until next year.

The National announce one-off gig

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The National announce one-off gig
The National have announced a one-off London show later this month. The band broke the news on their Facebook page yesterday (June 10), posting: "Hi London! We thought it would be fun to play at the Roundhouse on June 26th. Our friends Local Natives will be there too. Tickets go on sale at 9am loca...

The National have announced a one-off London show later this month.

The band broke the news on their Facebook page yesterday (June 10), posting: “Hi London! We thought it would be fun to play at the Roundhouse on June 26th. Our friends Local Natives will be there too. Tickets go on sale at 9am local time on June 12th. Hope to see you there!”

Tickets cost £27.50 each and will be “strictly limited to 2 per person”, the Roundhouse website has confirmed.

The National recently released their sixth album

Trouble Will Find Me, which debuted at Number Three in both the UK and the US. The band have numerous European festival appearances lined up this summer but at present, the Roundhouse show is their only confirmed UK date until November, when they will play shows in Belfast, Manchester and London as well as Dublin in Ireland.

The National will play this November:

Belfast Odyssey Arena (9)

Dublin O2 Arena (10)

Manchester O2 Apollo (11, 12)

London Alexandra Palace (13, 14)

Photo credit: Chris McAndrew

John Paul Jones rules out 2014 Led Zeppelin reunion

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John Paul Jones rules out 2014 Led Zeppelin reunion
John Paul Jones has ruled out the possibility of a Led Zeppelin reunion next year - because he is too busy writing an opera. Speaking in February (2013), Robert Plant hinted that he is open to the idea of Zeppelin reuniting next year, saying: "I've got nothing to do in 2014." However, Jones has no...

John Paul Jones has ruled out the possibility of a Led Zeppelin reunion next year – because he is too busy writing an opera.

Speaking in February (2013), Robert Plant hinted that he is open to the idea of Zeppelin reuniting next year, saying: “I’ve got nothing to do in 2014.”

However, Jones has now revealed that he is too busy with another musical project to contemplate reforming the band. When asked about a 2014 Led Zeppelin reunion by Red Carpet TV News, he replied: “2014 is full of opera for me at the moment.”

Jones also revealed he is “halfway through the first act” of his opera, which is based on Spöksonaten (The Ghost Sonata), a 1907 play by Swedish writer August Strindberg. He described opera as being “unlike anything else”, adding: “It’s the emotion, the passion, and I’m writing an opera myself so I have to say that.”

Led Zeppelin’s last proper show was at London’s O2 Arena in December 2007, where they were joined by Jason Bonham on drums. A film of the concert called Celebration Daywas released on DVD last November (2012) following a brief run in cinemas.

Ask Richard Hell!

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Ask Richard Hell!

Ahead of the release of his memoir I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp, Richard Hell - the pioneer of New York punk - is set to answer your questions in Uncut as part of our regular Audience With… feature.
 So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask him? What are his memories of playing CBGBs in its heyday? What was it like touring the UK with The Clash in 1977? Does he regret not touring with the Dim Stars, his band with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley? Send up your questions by 5pm GMT, Wednesday, June 12 to uncutaudiencewith@ipcmedia.com. The best questions, and Richard's answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine. Please include your name and location with your question.

Ahead of the release of his memoir I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp, Richard Hell – the pioneer of New York punk – is set to answer your questions in Uncut as part of our regular Audience With… feature.


So is there anything you’ve always wanted to ask him?

What are his memories of playing CBGBs in its heyday?

What was it like touring the UK with The Clash in 1977?

Does he regret not touring with the Dim Stars, his band with Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley?

Send up your questions by 5pm GMT, Wednesday, June 12 to uncutaudiencewith@ipcmedia.com.

The best questions, and Richard’s answers, will be published in a future edition of Uncut magazine.

Please include your name and location with your question.

Tom Petty show shut down by fire marshals

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Tom Petty show shut down by fire marshals
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers had their show on Saturday (June 8) at Los Angeles' Fonda Theatre shut down by fire marshals. The concert was the fourth of a six-date residency at the 1,300 capacity venue. The setlist had included a mix of A-list Petty songs like "Here Comes My Girl" alongside r...

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers had their show on Saturday (June 8) at Los Angeles’ Fonda Theatre shut down by fire marshals.

The concert was the fourth of a six-date residency at the 1,300 capacity venue.

The setlist had included a mix of A-list Petty songs like “Here Comes My Girl” alongside rarities including “Angel Dream (No. 2)”, the Traveling Wilburys “Tweeter And The Monkey Man” and covers including Paul Revere & The Raiders’ “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone”.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tom-petty-show-cut-short-by-fire-marshal-20130609#ixzz2Vo6dV3JE

Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

The band had played a cover of the Grateful Dead‘s “Friend Of The Devil”, when Petty was warned by officials at 10.30pm that the venue was over capacity by 100 people.

Petty told the crowd that hundred people had to voluntarily head to a balcony upstairs or leave; no one did.

The band played one more song, “Melinda“, before Petty was summoned to the wings, only to return to his microphone to announce “We’re being told we have to go.”

The band left the stage immediately.

The following day, Sunday (June 9), Petty and the Heartbreakers issued the following statement, reprinted in full below:

“Statement From Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers Regarding Last Night’s Early Conclusion To The Concert At The Fonda Theatre In Los Angeles

“First and foremost, the safety of our fans is our primary concern and the most important consideration.

“To those fans who attended last night’s show at the Fonda Theatre, we are as frustrated as you are!

“While we are still investigating exactly what happened we do know the following as of right now:

“1) The number of tickets sold was NOT above the legal capacity of the building. The venue and Ticketmaster documentation confirms this.

“2) The Fire Marshal decided that the number of people on the floor (as opposed to on the upstairs balcony or terrace) was unsafe.

“Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers and our representatives rely on the concert promoter and venue representatives to give us an accurate breakdown of the legal capacity for every part of the building and to provide security and other staff to enforce this.

“We are still investigating all details of last night’s situation and will keep you informed.

“The shows at the Fonda tonight and Tuesday will go ahead as planned and we are working with the venue, the promoter and the Fire Marshal to ensure that this problem will not repeat itself.

“We thank you for your support.

“Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers”

Top Petty & The Heartbreakers played:

“Rock & Roll Star”

“Love Is A Long Road”

“Here Comes My Girl”

“Cabin Down Below”

“Something Big”

“Best Of Everything”

“(‘m Not Your) Stepping Stone”

“Woman In Love”

“Billy The Kid”

“I’d Like To Love You”

“Tweeter And The Monkey Man”

“Rebels”

“Angel Dream (No 2)”

“Two Gunslingers”

“Friends Of The Devil”

“Melinda”

Atoms For Peace unveil new track plus more rehearsal footage

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Atoms For Peace unveil new track plus more rehearsal footage
Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich shared unheard song 'Honey Pot' in a DJ set broadcast earlier today on American radio station KCRW. You can listen to the track on Soundcloud by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking play. The pair, who are currently out in America promoting Atoms For P...

Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich shared unheard song ‘Honey Pot’ in a DJ set broadcast earlier today on American radio station KCRW. You can listen to the track on Soundcloud by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking play.

The pair, who are currently out in America promoting Atoms For Peace‘s first full-length record, Amok, also played music by Charles Mingus, Joe Jackson, James Holden and the Beastie Boys as they joined the Morning Becomes Eclectic show. Introducing their takeover, Yorke described their set as having a “slow and peculiar start”.

As “Honey Pot” began, Yorke asked his co-host “I’m not supposed to say what it is, right?” Godrich replied: “Well no, I’m just saying don’t talk over it.” As the song came to a close, Yorke then revealed “This is a remix of [In Rainbows track] ‘All I Need’ that turned into a new song that we didn’t know what to do with.”

Discussing some of their choices, Yorke said Holden was “a bit of an idol of mine” and revealed they were hoping to get the electronic musician to support them at the Hollywood Bowl date of Atoms For Peace’s US tour in October.

The duo also discussed how DJing affects how they think about music. Godrich explained: “It definitely changes the way you listen to music, I think, when you start thinking about the way people listen to music and what you like, why you would play something. If you had a gun at your head, what is the tune you would play to get out of this situation.”

You can listen to the whole hour takeover on KCRW’s website. Atoms For Peace play a number of dates across Europe and the US this year, including three at London’s Roundhouse (July 24, 25 and 26).

Atoms For Peace have also released two new rehearsal clips via Youtube, of “Atoms For Peace” and “The Clock” – both of which you can watch below.

Watch Arcade Fire’s Win Butler perform with the Rolling Stones

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Watch Arcade Fire’s Win Butler perform with the Rolling Stones

Arcade Fire's Win Butler performed with The Rolling Stones on stage in Montreal last night. Montreal resident Butler joined the band to sing "The Last Time" alongside Mick Jagger. Video footage of the performance from the band's 50 & Counting tour at Montreal's Bell Centre can be seen below. Butler joins a growing list of musicians who have appeared on stage with the Stones on this tour, including cameos from Tom Waits, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and Gwen Stefani. The band recently denied that Adele is set to join them when they play two shows at London's Hyde Park. Arcade Fire are currently working on their fourth album, the follow-up to 2010’s The Suburbs, and have been recording with James Murphy and long-time collaborator Markus Dravs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYvoumfbn2c

Arcade Fire’s Win Butler performed with The Rolling Stones on stage in Montreal last night.

Montreal resident Butler joined the band to sing “The Last Time” alongside Mick Jagger. Video footage of the performance from the band’s 50 & Counting tour at Montreal’s Bell Centre can be seen below.

Butler joins a growing list of musicians who have appeared on stage with the Stones on this tour, including cameos from Tom Waits, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and Gwen Stefani. The band recently denied that Adele is set to join them when they play two shows at London’s Hyde Park.

Arcade Fire are currently working on their fourth album, the follow-up to 2010’s The Suburbs, and have been recording with James Murphy and long-time collaborator Markus Dravs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYvoumfbn2c

Legends of The Canyon

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Legends of The Canyon

Laurel Canyon’s summer of Crosby, Stills, and Nash remembered.... As eyewitnesses go, they don’t get much closer than Henry Diltz, a founder member of the Modern Folk Quartet who accidentally found a second career in photography when he snapped a picture of a group of snazzily-dressed young men who turned out to be the Buffalo Springfield. Diltz is now a proprietor of the Morrison Hotel gallery, selling fine art rock photography, but in the late 1960s, he was a fixture of the Los Angeles music scene centred round clubs such as the Troubadour and the Whisky A Go Go, where the revivalist sounds of the folk revival were turning into something less traditional. His proximity to the action is captured in the DVD extras, which include footage of the Byrds playing the Troubadour, and Stephen Stills acting the country squire at his Surrey mansion. Joni Mitchell can also be observed administering emergency surgery to Graham Nash’s ripped backside, somewhere near Big Bear. And there’s something terribly poignant about his footage of the construction of the Woodstock stage in an alfalfa field in upstate New York (he was the official photographer). Alas, the 8mm footage is silent, so the bulk of this documentary is peopled with talking heads. Mama Cass and Joni Mitchell are talked up (Diltz has beautiful stills of Joni), but the broader story of Laurel Canyon gives way to a familiar retelling of the early careers of Crosby, Stills, Nash and – in the periphery, not interviewed – Young. Prefaced by the assassination of JFK, an event that is said to have prompted a generation to turn to the Beatles (who agent John Hartman characterises fondly as “long-haired dirty bugs from England”), the film settles into a tale of competing personalities and wasted talent. David Crosby, whose reputation was sealed by his smart green cape, notes, of the way the Byrds dismissed Gene Clark, “we had a lot of money, big egos, no brains.” Crosby, Stills and Nash don’t always agree on the order of events, but they are well-schooled in telling their own story. More telling interventions are made by less central figures. Van Dyke Parks makes an unusually ill-tempered claim to have named the Buffalo Springfield, while (sacked) CSN drummer Dallas Taylor is amusingly acerbic about the “total hippie shit” he witnessed. There’s a show-stealing cameo, too, from club boss Mario Maglieri, who lives up to his nickname, “The Godfather of Sunset Strip”. In the end, Diltz’s argument seems to be that the legends of the strip were Crosby, Stills, and Nash, an analysis that the group are in no rush to disprove. There’s very little music in the film, so only true believers are likely to be convinced. Still, it’s worth it just to observe Stills’ reaction when informed of Dallas Taylor’s suggestion that George Harrison, and not Neil Young, might have joined as the fourth voice of CSN. Mirth is only the half of it. EXTRAS: 8mm silent footage, photo library, extended interviews, booklet. 5/10 Alastair McKay Photo: Henry Diltz

Laurel Canyon’s summer of Crosby, Stills, and Nash remembered….

As eyewitnesses go, they don’t get much closer than Henry Diltz, a founder member of the Modern Folk Quartet who accidentally found a second career in photography when he snapped a picture of a group of snazzily-dressed young men who turned out to be the Buffalo Springfield.

Diltz is now a proprietor of the Morrison Hotel gallery, selling fine art rock photography, but in the late 1960s, he was a fixture of the Los Angeles music scene centred round clubs such as the Troubadour and the Whisky A Go Go, where the revivalist sounds of the folk revival were turning into something less traditional. His proximity to the action is captured in the DVD extras, which include footage of the Byrds playing the Troubadour, and Stephen Stills acting the country squire at his Surrey mansion. Joni Mitchell can also be observed administering emergency surgery to Graham Nash’s ripped backside, somewhere near Big Bear. And there’s something terribly poignant about his footage of the construction of the Woodstock stage in an alfalfa field in upstate New York (he was the official photographer).

Alas, the 8mm footage is silent, so the bulk of this documentary is peopled with talking heads. Mama Cass and Joni Mitchell are talked up (Diltz has beautiful stills of Joni), but the broader story of Laurel Canyon gives way to a familiar retelling of the early careers of Crosby, Stills, Nash and – in the periphery, not interviewed – Young. Prefaced by the assassination of JFK, an event that is said to have prompted a generation to turn to the Beatles (who agent John Hartman characterises fondly as “long-haired dirty bugs from England”), the film settles into a tale of competing personalities and wasted talent. David Crosby, whose reputation was sealed by his smart green cape, notes, of the way the Byrds dismissed Gene Clark, “we had a lot of money, big egos, no brains.”

Crosby, Stills and Nash don’t always agree on the order of events, but they are well-schooled in telling their own story. More telling interventions are made by less central figures. Van Dyke Parks makes an unusually ill-tempered claim to have named the Buffalo Springfield, while (sacked) CSN drummer Dallas Taylor is amusingly acerbic about the “total hippie shit” he witnessed. There’s a show-stealing cameo, too, from club boss Mario Maglieri, who lives up to his nickname, “The Godfather of Sunset Strip”.

In the end, Diltz’s argument seems to be that the legends of the strip were Crosby, Stills, and Nash, an analysis that the group are in no rush to disprove. There’s very little music in the film, so only true believers are likely to be convinced. Still, it’s worth it just to observe Stills’ reaction when informed of Dallas Taylor’s suggestion that George Harrison, and not Neil Young, might have joined as the fourth voice of CSN. Mirth is only the half of it.

EXTRAS: 8mm silent footage, photo library, extended interviews, booklet. 5/10

Alastair McKay

Photo: Henry Diltz

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