One of the highlights of Dave Alvin’s last solo album, 2011’s Eleven Eleven, was a track called “What’s Up With Your Brother?”, a droll blues about Dave’s famously fractious relationship with his brother, Phil, that ended hilariously with them having the kind of argument that put paid to The Blasters, the band they were in together before fraternal tensions drove them into a ditch. They split in 1985, after just five albums. While Dave became dedicated to life as a hard travelling road dog, Phil completed a master’s degree in mathematics and artificial intelligence.
Billy Talbot, bassist with Neil Young & Crazy Horse, has suffered a mild stroke, according to a report on Rolling Stone.
The story reports that Talbot will sit out the band's forthcoming European tour dates.
"Talbot's doctors expect him to make a full recovery," the group said in a statement. "They have advised Talbot to sit this tour out and recover his strength."
Talbot's place will be filled by Neil Young's longtime bassist Rick Rosas.
The Kinks have confirmed the tracklisting for the forthcoming deluxe reissue of their 1971 Muswell Hillbillies album.
The new 2-CD edition - which is released on October 7 through Universal - features five previously unreleased tracks, including "Lavender Lane" and early demo "Nobody’s Fool", as well as alternative song versions and BBC sessions. All have been re-mastered from original tapes.
Meanwhile, a new book by Ray Davies - Americana: The Kinks, The Road And The Perfect Riff - is published by Virgin Books this autumn.
The Columbia Albums Collection, the new 17-album boxset from Blue Öyster Cult, is reviewed in the new issue of Uncut, dated April 2013, and out now. The collection unsurprisingly includes the band’s signature hit, ‘(Don’t Fear) The Reaper’, and in this piece, originally published in Uncut’s November 2010 issue, the band discuss the writing and recording of their “trans-awesome” tune, perhaps the spookiest FM staple ever. “Nothing like The Byrds”, apparently… Words: Jaan Uhelszki
Magic Slim, the Chicago blues guitarist, has died aged 75.
A heavy smoker who suffered from emphysema and heart problems, Slim was forced by illness to cut short a tour with his band, the Teardrops, in late January, reports Reuters.
Born Morris Holt to Mississippi sharecroppers in August 1937, Slim started out playing the piano. But after losing a little finger in a cotton gin accident at 14, he switched to guitar.
On his first trip to Chicago to play for friend and mentor Magic Sam, Sam nicknamed his friend Slim on account of his physique.
Sometime in the summer of 2011, I spent a pretty amazing Saturday morning at a small recording studio in Green Lanes, North London. When I walked in, a hesitant but beautiful piano line was coming through the speakers, and one of the most emotionally compelling voices I’ve encountered in the past few years was singing a song which, it transpired, would be called “Never Ending Happening”.
It's now seven years since Damage, the last Blues Explosion album, a hiatus during which Jon Spencer got to indulge his psychotic rockabilly side with three albums with Heavy Trash, and also pursue a few other alternative musical endeavours with the likes of Andre Williams, Solex and Cristina Martinez. It was also a period during which the original punk-blues pioneers saw their influence put to more remunerative use not just by The White Stripes but by The Black Keys as well, as stripped-back roots riffage unaccountably became one of rock's more commercially potent modes.
