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Lee Ranaldo – Between The Times And The Tides

Michael Bonner
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0
Lee Ranaldo – Between The Times And The Tides

Sonic Youth guitarist makes his 'proper song' debut... Solo Sonic Youth albums often act like a colour filter that reveals hidden patterns in a picture by blocking out certain aspects of the spectrum. Separated from the host group, individual elements of the maelstrom can be heard with less interference. Sadly, following the recent breakup of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore’s marriage, individual albums may be the only way we’ll be hearing from from the group from now on. Still, on guitarist Lee Ranaldo’s opening salvo of this year – his ninth solo LP proper, not counting scores of collaborative works – there are plenty of continuities. Sonic Youth partner Steve Shelley is principal drummer, and Bob Bert, briefly the band’s skinsman in the early 80s, crops up on percussion. There are contributions from old friend Alan Licht and Ranaldo’s wife Leah Singer, plus surprising addition of Jim Medeski on keyboards. Unlikely as it seems, his spit-roasted organ sounds so right in this company, providing a gurgling underlay for the songs to bed down upon. Even former SY alumnus Jim O’Rourke comes out of hiding in Tokyo to punch in some bass pulses on “Tomorrow Never Comes”. But the instrumental man of this match has to be Nels Cline, the avant guitarist (currently a regular member of Wilco), who takes the majority of the LP’s stunning solos. Lee Ranaldo’s authorship was always recognisable amid Sonic Youth’s copious songbook– his contributions were usually in a rapturous register that confirmed his immersion in Beat writing, hipster poetics and a range of literary references transcendental and apocalyptic. (Salt Press are due to release his colected writings later this year.) Where Thurston Moore frequently injected pop art trash or goof-off humour, Ranaldo came across as the dark horse, whose songs – “Eric’s Trip”, “Wish Fulfillment”, “NYC Ghosts And Flowers”, to name three – were the ones that sounded genuinely angry, mournful and engaged with the tactile, visible world. A couple of tracks here – “Waiting On A Dream”, “Off The Wall” – cold have been minted in the same forge as recent rocky SY albums like Rather Ripped or The Eternal. But the rest has the recognisable Ranaldo imprint. The notable set pieces on Between The Times… are “Xtina As I Knew Her”, which sets its oblique story of a cosmopolitan lost soul, “shaky in these times uncertain”, among primal tom-tom drum patterns cushioned in the acid bath of Ranaldo’s guitar. Ranaldo and Cline’s dual solo is configured at the tipping point between Verlaine-chime and “Dark Star” meandering overload. The multi-part “Fire Island (Phases)” – personalised enough to namecheck his son Sage – dips into Byrdsian country rock mode and ends with a short section of upbeat sunshine-pop. Voices from Occupy Wall Street – taped at Zucotti Park, round the corner from Ranaldo’s apartment – illustrate “Shouts”, while Bob Mould could have written “Lost”, a straightahead power-pop cut whose edges are a shade too smooth. He gears down to an open-tuned acoustic on “Stranded” and “Hammer Blows”, which includes a vocal impersonation of a wah-wah and fateful knocks on the hollow-body. Closer “Tomorrow Never Comes” does seem to be as much of a distant cousin to “Tomorrow Never Knows” as its title suggests – same drum riff and drone, but containing its own innate melodic skylights and airshafts. Ranaldo, who already enjoys a prolific parallel career in experimental and improvised music as well as numerous art and film projects, has easily earned the right to produce an album such as this, so perfectly pitched at the watershed of alternative and mainstream rock. In Ranaldo’s hands, though, he steers clear of any dampening compromise; in some ways this must be the best the US underground can offer in this moment: a mature album that’s abrasive but not ‘freaky’ or ‘weird’, that enjoys its moments of harmony when it finds them, and is as serious-minded as the times demand. Rob Young Q&A Lee Ranaldo Your previous solo LPs have often been more abstract/experimental. Why a song album, now? At the moment, I'm much more invested in song-form exploration than I've been in quite a while. With Sonic Youth working less over the last few years, I found I missed having a ‘song forum’, and songs started coming out and haven't stopped. I want to tie this record into the whole history of my music-listening and what it meant to me as I grew up, even if those standards and forms/formats don't really exist anymore. Hence I've got ‘side one’ and ‘side two’, even on the CD. “Shouts” is clearly motivated by the Occupy protests… The song was finished before all that started in the USA, and inspiration came from one actual event in Vancouver – the ‘riot/kiss’ picture – and from all the 'Arab Spring' hopefulness and defiance. The rising tide of protest and defiance that began in Tahrir Square has been deeply inspiring on many levels. It feels like the first real flowering of 'the left' since I was so much younger, in the 60s/70s. What’s the current assessment of Sonic Youth’s future at this point? We are ‘on hiatus’. I prefer to leave it at that. Sonic Youth was not working much over the last few years, by our choice – we were just simply in a relaxed and slow period, and I found I was missing an outlet for song-based work. No matter what happens from here, 30 years has been a pretty good run. INTERVIEW: ROB YOUNG

Sonic Youth guitarist makes his ‘proper song’ debut…

Solo Sonic Youth albums often act like a colour filter that reveals hidden patterns in a picture by blocking out certain aspects of the spectrum. Separated from the host group, individual elements of the maelstrom can be heard with less interference. Sadly, following the recent breakup of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore’s marriage, individual albums may be the only way we’ll be hearing from from the group from now on.

Still, on guitarist Lee Ranaldo’s opening salvo of this year – his ninth solo LP proper, not counting scores of collaborative works – there are plenty of continuities. Sonic Youth partner Steve Shelley is principal drummer, and Bob Bert, briefly the band’s skinsman in the early 80s, crops up on percussion. There are contributions from old friend Alan Licht and Ranaldo’s wife Leah Singer, plus surprising addition of Jim Medeski on keyboards. Unlikely as it seems, his spit-roasted organ sounds so right in this company, providing a gurgling underlay for the songs to bed down upon. Even former SY alumnus Jim O’Rourke comes out of hiding in Tokyo to punch in some bass pulses on “Tomorrow Never Comes”. But the instrumental man of this match has to be Nels Cline, the avant guitarist (currently a regular member of Wilco), who takes the majority of the LP’s stunning solos.

Lee Ranaldo’s authorship was always recognisable amid Sonic Youth’s copious songbook– his contributions were usually in a rapturous register that confirmed his immersion in Beat writing, hipster poetics and a range of literary references transcendental and apocalyptic. (Salt Press are due to release his colected writings later this year.) Where Thurston Moore frequently injected pop art trash or goof-off humour, Ranaldo came across as the dark horse, whose songs – “Eric’s Trip”, “Wish Fulfillment”, “NYC Ghosts And Flowers”, to name three – were the ones that sounded genuinely angry, mournful and engaged with the tactile, visible world.

A couple of tracks here – “Waiting On A Dream”, “Off The Wall” – cold have been minted in the same forge as recent rocky SY albums like Rather Ripped or The Eternal. But the rest has the recognisable Ranaldo imprint. The notable set pieces on Between The Times… are “Xtina As I Knew Her”, which sets its oblique story of a cosmopolitan lost soul, “shaky in these times uncertain”, among primal tom-tom drum patterns cushioned in the acid bath of Ranaldo’s guitar. Ranaldo and Cline’s dual solo is configured at the tipping point between Verlaine-chime and “Dark Star” meandering overload. The multi-part “Fire Island (Phases)” – personalised enough to namecheck his son Sage – dips into Byrdsian country rock mode and ends with a short section of upbeat sunshine-pop.

Voices from Occupy Wall Street – taped at Zucotti Park, round the corner from Ranaldo’s apartment – illustrate “Shouts”, while Bob Mould could have written “Lost”, a straightahead power-pop cut whose edges are a shade too smooth. He gears down to an open-tuned acoustic on “Stranded” and “Hammer Blows”, which includes a vocal impersonation of a wah-wah and fateful knocks on the hollow-body. Closer “Tomorrow Never Comes” does seem to be as much of a distant cousin to “Tomorrow Never Knows” as its title suggests – same drum riff and drone, but containing its own innate melodic skylights and airshafts.

Ranaldo, who already enjoys a prolific parallel career in experimental and improvised music as well as numerous art and film projects, has easily earned the right to produce an album such as this, so perfectly pitched at the watershed of alternative and mainstream rock. In Ranaldo’s hands, though, he steers clear of any dampening compromise; in some ways this must be the best the US underground can offer in this moment: a mature album that’s abrasive but not ‘freaky’ or ‘weird’, that enjoys its moments of harmony when it finds them, and is as serious-minded as the times demand.

Rob Young

Q&A

Lee Ranaldo

Your previous solo LPs have often been more abstract/experimental. Why a song album, now?

At the moment, I’m much more invested in song-form exploration than I’ve been in quite a while. With Sonic Youth working less over the last few years, I found I missed having a ‘song forum’, and songs started coming out and haven’t stopped. I want to tie this record into the whole history of my music-listening and what it meant to me as I grew up, even if those standards and forms/formats don’t really exist anymore. Hence I’ve got ‘side one’ and ‘side two’, even on the CD.

“Shouts” is clearly motivated by the Occupy protests…

The song was finished before all that started in the USA, and inspiration came from one actual event in Vancouver – the ‘riot/kiss’ picture – and from all the ‘Arab Spring’ hopefulness and defiance. The rising tide of protest and defiance that began in Tahrir Square has been deeply inspiring on many levels. It feels like the first real flowering of ‘the left’ since I was so much younger, in the 60s/70s.

What’s the current assessment of Sonic Youth’s future at this point?

We are ‘on hiatus’. I prefer to leave it at that. Sonic Youth was not working much over the last few years, by our choice – we were just simply in a relaxed and slow period, and I found I was missing an outlet for song-based work. No matter what happens from here, 30 years has been a pretty good run.

INTERVIEW: ROB YOUNG

This month in Uncut!

Tom Pinnock
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0
This month in Uncut!

The new issue of Uncut, which hits shelves on March 29, features Jack White, The Rolling Stones, Alex Chilton, Bruce Springsteen and more. White is on the cover, talking about his solo debut Blunderbuss, notions of authenticity in rock and The White Stripes’ split. Elsewhere in the issue, The Rolling Stones’ infamous night at Altamont is recalled in an excerpt from a new edition of Stanley Booth’s book The True Adventures Of The Rolling Stones, and Alex Chilton’s strange life after Big Star is examined. New pictures from the shoot for Springsteen’s Born To Run feature in our Instant Karma section, and Pete Townshend talks about The Who, Lifehouse and his own solo albums in this month’s Album By Album. Gregg Allman features in An Audience With… and new albums and reissues from Dr John, Spiritualized, Graham Coxon, T.Rex and Jerry Lee Lewis are reviewed – alongside the latest movies and DVDs. The new issue is available in shops from March 29.

The new issue of Uncut, which hits shelves on March 29, features Jack White, The Rolling Stones, Alex Chilton, Bruce Springsteen and more.

White is on the cover, talking about his solo debut Blunderbuss, notions of authenticity in rock and The White Stripes’ split.

Elsewhere in the issue, The Rolling Stones’ infamous night at Altamont is recalled in an excerpt from a new edition of Stanley Booth’s book The True Adventures Of The Rolling Stones, and Alex Chilton’s strange life after Big Star is examined.

New pictures from the shoot for Springsteen’s Born To Run feature in our Instant Karma section, and Pete Townshend talks about The Who, Lifehouse and his own solo albums in this month’s Album By Album.

Gregg Allman features in An Audience With… and new albums and reissues from Dr John, Spiritualized, Graham Coxon, T.Rex and Jerry Lee Lewis are reviewed – alongside the latest movies and DVDs.

The new issue is available in shops from March 29.

May 2012

Ipclee
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0
May 2012
"It was madness," is how Gregg Allman describes his brief but spectacularly stormy marriage to Cher in this month's issue, sounding similarly horrified by what he remembers of the album he recorded with her, 1977's pretty lamentable Allman And Woman: Two The Hard Way. I interviewed the pair when th...

“It was madness,” is how Gregg Allman describes his brief but spectacularly stormy marriage to Cher in this month’s issue, sounding similarly horrified by what he remembers of the album he recorded with her, 1977’s pretty lamentable Allman And Woman: Two The Hard Way.

I interviewed the pair when they were in London that November to promote the record. I was shown into a lavish suite at the Inn On The Park with spectacular views of Hyde Park. Across the room, Gregg was slouched on a couch. His head was sunk between his shoulders, the rest of him hair, buckskin and denim. I wasn’t sure if he was awake.

Anyway, about now Cher stalked into the room, looking like something you might find carved on the prow of a pirate ship, imperious and menacing. She gave Gregg a slap on the shoulder and he hauled himself over on the couch to make room for her. I asked Gregg why the LP had taken a year to make, a question followed by a long silence. “Gregg,” Cher said eventually, “answer the question, why dontcha?”

About now there was a rumble in the room. Something unspecific but seismic, the kind of noise that in some parts of the world would be indicative of an earthquake or something similar, involving tremors, collapsing buildings, giant waves to follow.

It was Gregg, talking about how he and Cher had split up two, three, maybe four times during the recording. His voice was deep and furry, muffled, like someone trapped in a car, talking to rescue workers through an air bag. He was also at the time trying to get off drugs, he added, multiple addictions to heroin, cocaine and anything you could pour out of a bottle into a glass, apparently the hardest thing he’d had to do in his life.

It must’ve been tough for Cher, too, I offered gallantly, getting a plucky little smile from her.
“No, it wasn’t,” Gregg said, surprisingly sharply. “I don’t think it was as painful for her as it was for me. No sir.”
Was it Cher’s idea for you to get treatment for your addictions?
“No…uh-uh,” Greg said, fumbling for a Marlboro.
“Yes, actually,” Cher said snappily. “It was.” She sounded pretty clear about this. Gregg heaved, as they say, a somewhat heavy sigh.
“In the beginning, maybe,” Gregg said, sucking so hard on his cigarette his head disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
“I prefer him when he’s not on drugs,” Cher added. “He’s a different person.”
“We have to go through this now?” Gregg said, getting cranky.
“I was just saying…” Cher said, sounding stern.
“Well, don’t…!”

Enjoy the issue and any thoughts you have on it, let me know, as ever, at: allan_jones@ipcmedia.com

Get Uncut on your iPad, laptop or home computer

Cosmopolis trailer revealed

Michael Bonner
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0
Cosmopolis trailer revealed

Movie news feeds have been preoccupied over the last couple of weeks with news of two of the year’s bigger films – Prometheus and The Hunger Games. Meanwhile, the trailer for what looks to be one of the year’s more interesting films has snuck out almost unnoticed. This is Cosmopolis, based on Don DeLillo’s novel, which has been adapted by David Cronenberg and stars Robert Pattinson, in what will be one of his post-Twilight roles. DeLillo, Cronenberg and Pattinson seems a pretty intriguing combination to me. I read the book when it came out – it’s very slim, but as you’d expect from a writer like Don DeLillo, it felt like every word counted. It’s set over one day, and most of the action takes place in the back of a limo as a billionaire asset-manager heads across Manhattan to get a haircut. Of course, it’s not quite as simple as it sounds. I’ll be fascinated to see what Croneberg makes of it. I didn’t mind A Dangerous Method – it was fun to see Cronenberg play around with the tropes of costume dramas – but I’m very vibed at the idea of the director doing what from the trailer looks to be a pretty slick, unsettling contemporary drama. And there's cars, right? Remember the last time Cronenberg did stuff with cars… It’s going to be interesting, too, to see how Pattinson fares, outside his Twilight comfort zone. He wasn’t really pushed in Bel Ami, and I’ve yet to really see whether or not he’s got the chops for a lasting career. You'd think, one way or another, Cronenberg would be the making of him. Anyway, I suspect it'll be in this year's Cannes Film Festival - it's scheduled to open in France at the end of May - so let's hope it gets over to UK cinemas soon after.

Movie news feeds have been preoccupied over the last couple of weeks with news of two of the year’s bigger films – Prometheus and The Hunger Games.

Meanwhile, the trailer for what looks to be one of the year’s more interesting films has snuck out almost unnoticed. This is Cosmopolis, based on Don DeLillo’s novel, which has been adapted by David Cronenberg and stars Robert Pattinson, in what will be one of his post-Twilight roles.

DeLillo, Cronenberg and Pattinson seems a pretty intriguing combination to me. I read the book when it came out – it’s very slim, but as you’d expect from a writer like Don DeLillo, it felt like every word counted. It’s set over one day, and most of the action takes place in the back of a limo as a billionaire asset-manager heads across Manhattan to get a haircut.

Of course, it’s not quite as simple as it sounds. I’ll be fascinated to see what Croneberg makes of it. I didn’t mind A Dangerous Method – it was fun to see Cronenberg play around with the tropes of costume dramas – but I’m very vibed at the idea of the director doing what from the trailer looks to be a pretty slick, unsettling contemporary drama. And there’s cars, right? Remember the last time Cronenberg did stuff with cars…

It’s going to be interesting, too, to see how Pattinson fares, outside his Twilight comfort zone. He wasn’t really pushed in Bel Ami, and I’ve yet to really see whether or not he’s got the chops for a lasting career. You’d think, one way or another, Cronenberg would be the making of him.

Anyway, I suspect it’ll be in this year’s Cannes Film Festival – it’s scheduled to open in France at the end of May – so let’s hope it gets over to UK cinemas soon after.

Bob Dylan, Suede, Peter Gabriel to headline Hop Farm Festival 2012 – ticket details

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Bob Dylan, Suede, Peter Gabriel to headline Hop Farm Festival 2012 – ticket details
Bob Dylan, Suede and Peter Gabriel will headline this year's Hop Farm Festival. The show will be Bob Dylan's only UK appearance of the year, while Suede and Peter Gabriel will make their only UK festival appearances of 2012 at the Kent event. The festival, which takes place in Paddock Wood in ...

Bob Dylan, Suede and Peter Gabriel will headline this year’s Hop Farm Festival.

The show will be Bob Dylan’s only UK appearance of the year, while Suede and Peter Gabriel will make their only UK festival appearances of 2012 at the Kent event.

The festival, which takes place in Paddock Wood in Kent from June 29 – July 1, has also confirmed over 30 acts in its first announcement.

Also confirmed are Primal Scream, Damien Rice, My Morning Jacket, Maximo Park, Patti Smith And Her Band, The Stranglers, Slow Club, Frightened Rabbit, Tom Vek and a host of others.

For more information go to Hop Farm Festival. More acts will be confirmed in the coming weeks.

The line-up for year’s Hop Farm Festival so far is as follows:

Bob Dylan

Peter Gabriel And The New Blood Orchestra

Suede

Damien Rice

Primal Scream

My Morning Jacket

Maximo Park

Patti Smith And Her Band

The Stranglers

Dr John And The Lower 911

Joan Armatrading

Billy Ocean

The Psychedelic Furs

Lianne La Havas

The Jezabels

Slow Club

Benjamin Francis Leftwich

Frightened Rabbit

Tom Vek

White Denim

Ben Kweller

Lucy Rose

Fin

Dog Is Dead

Race Horses

Steve Smyth

Sian Sanderson

Ligers

Leonard Cohen announces 2012 tour dates

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Leonard Cohen announces 2012 tour dates
Leonard Cohen has revealed that he will be touring his latest album, 'Old Ideas', later in the year. Cohen will play shows in Europe and then North America in the autumn, but so far only the European dates have been revealed, reports Rolling Stone. As yet, no plans for UK shows have been announce...

Leonard Cohen has revealed that he will be touring his latest album, ‘Old Ideas’, later in the year.

Cohen will play shows in Europe and then North America in the autumn, but so far only the European dates have been revealed, reports Rolling Stone. As yet, no plans for UK shows have been announced.

The European leg of the tour kicks off on August 12 in Ghent, Belgium before shows in Ireland, France, Italy, Denmark and Spain, finishing up on October 7 in Lisbon, Portugal. The tour includes two shows at Dublin’s Imma on September 11 and 12.

Leonard Cohen released ‘Old Ideas’ in January of this year. It followed 2004’s ‘Dear Heather’, and is his 12th studio album since 1967.

Leonard Cohen will play:

Ghent St. Peter’s Square (August 12, 14)

Copenhagen Rosenborg Castle (25)

Aalborg Molleparken (26)

Bergen Bergenhus Festning-Koengen (28)

Gothenberg Tradgardsforeningen (31)

Helsinki Sonera Stadium (September 2)

Berlin Wuhlheide (5)

Monchengladbach Hockey Field (6)

Dublin Imma (11, 12)

Verona Arena (25)

Paris Olympia (28, 29, 30)

Barcelona St. Jordi (October 3)

Madrid Palais Desportes (5)

Lisbon Pavilhao Atlantico (7)

Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi: ‘We’ve written some great new tracks’

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi: ‘We’ve written some great new tracks’
Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has revealed that despite his ongoing cancer treatment, the band have continued to work on their new album and have written "some great new tracks". Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma earlier this year and, as a result, the reunited metal legends moved the writin...

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has revealed that despite his ongoing cancer treatment, the band have continued to work on their new album and have written “some great new tracks”.

Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma earlier this year and, as a result, the reunited metal legends moved the writing and recording of their new album from the US over to the UK so the guitarist could receive treatment and continue to work on new music.

The guitarist posted an update on his official website Iommi.com, which reads as follows: “I’ve had the last dose of chemotherapy so hopefully my body will start to get back to normal soon, the steroids were the worse. I’ve now got three weeks of radiotherapy coming up which I’m told can be very tiring, so we’ll see.”

He continued: “A big thanks to Ozzy and Geezer for coming over to England, it was a big incentive for me, we managed to work most days and have some great new tracks. And, importantly thanks again for your kind messages, hope to be seeing you soon.”

Earlier this year, Black Sabbath were forced to rework their summer reunion gig schedule to cope with Iommi’s treatment. The metal legends will still headline Download festival on June 10, but have replaced many of their previously announced European festival dates with Ozzy & Friends gigs.

The shows will see frontman Ozzy Osbourne joined by special guests including former Guns ‘N Roses guitarist Slash, Geezer Butler and Zakk Wylde.

The band’s estranged drummer Bill Ward is missing from Iommi’s update, indicating that he has not reconciled with his former bandmates as yet.

The drummer had previously revealed he was unhappy with the contract for the band’s new album and world tour and claimed he would not take part in the new album sessions and shows if a ‘fair agreement’ was not met. As a result of this, the remaining members of the band vowed to carry on without him.

The new Uncut, Jack White, the Stones, Pete Townshend

Uncut
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0
The new Uncut, Jack White, the Stones, Pete Townshend

The new Uncut isn't on sale until Thursday, which is March 29. But here’s a quick run-down on what’s in it, which is a lot, so you may want to pull up a chair. Jack White’s on the cover, to coincide with the release of his first solo album, Blunderbuss, which is a good thing to call an album that finds Jack firing, as they say, on all cylinders, on the kind of record fans of The White Stripes will be thrilled to hear following the diversionary turns his career since Icky Thump has taken with The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather. Our interview took place in New York, a few weeks ago, when White was in town to debut his two new bands – one all-male, the other all-female – on Saturday Night Live. It was, as you’ll see come Thursday, a lively encounter, Uncut’s John Mulvey, an early champion of The White Stripes in a former incarnation as a writer on NME, meeting White for the first time in quite a few years. The pair squared up for a couple of what John’s described as “a couple of pretty intense one-on-ones, the first of which became a fairly epic grapple of sorts”. John’s previewed Blunderbuss in his Wild Mercury Sound blog on www.uncut.co.uk, which you can read here. In 1969, the Rolling Stones made their live comeback in America with a tour that ended notoriously at Altamont, when a free festival intended to celebrate their return and also everything that was supposed to be so wonderful about the 60s counter-culture and the hippy utopianism of that far away era turned into a bloody tragedy, far removed from the largely blissful vibes of Woodstock, which had been held only four months earlier. The young American writer Stanley Booth was with the Stones on that eventful tour and wrote about it in his brilliant book, The True Adventures Of the Rolling Stones. It’s been out of print, scandalously, for over a decade, but is being re-published in a new edition next month. Booth’s truly scary description of the violent chaos of Altamont and the havoc wrought there by the Hell’s Angels, is the dramatic centre-piece of his book and we have a major extract from it in the new issue. You can remind yourself of the seething pandemonium that attended the event in this clip of the band struggling through “Sympathy For The Devil” which you can see here. Elsewhere in the issue, we have an Album By Album special with Pete Townshend, David Cavanagh looks at the post-Big Star career of Alex Chilton, Graeme Thomson recalls the seismic impact of Public Enemy’s debut UK tour. There’s also An Audience With Gregg Allman, unpublished pictures of Bruce Springsteen from the Born To Run album cover shoot, Brian Fallon introduces the new Gaslight Anthem album, the return of fabled folk singer Nic Jones and plenty more. In our new expanded reviews section, meanwhile, we look at new releases from Dr John, Graham Coxon, Jack White, M Ward, Alabama Shakes, Spiritualized and Simone Felice. There’s also a great new Dr Feelgood box set, a deluxe edition of T Rex’s Electric Warrior, a reissue of Morrissey’s solo debut, Viva Hate, and a handsome four-disc Jerry Lee Lewis collection. And if that isn’t enough reading for one month, you may also want to get hold of a copy of our latest Ultimate Music Guide, this one dedicated to REM, which is on sale now and also available online from www.uncut.co.uk/store. Look out too for the iPad edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to David Bowie, which will shortly be joined by an equally nifty iPad edition of our Bruce Springsteen Ultimate Music Guide, which is coming soon to iTunes. Have a good week. Allan

The new Uncut isn’t on sale until Thursday, which is March 29. But here’s a quick run-down on what’s in it, which is a lot, so you may want to pull up a chair.

Jack White’s on the cover, to coincide with the release of his first solo album, Blunderbuss, which is a good thing to call an album that finds Jack firing, as they say, on all cylinders, on the kind of record fans of The White Stripes will be thrilled to hear following the diversionary turns his career since Icky Thump has taken with The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather.

Our interview took place in New York, a few weeks ago, when White was in town to debut his two new bands – one all-male, the other all-female – on Saturday Night Live. It was, as you’ll see come Thursday, a lively encounter, Uncut’s John Mulvey, an early champion of The White Stripes in a former incarnation as a writer on NME, meeting White for the first time in quite a few years. The pair squared up for a couple of what John’s described as “a couple of pretty intense one-on-ones, the first of which became a fairly epic grapple of sorts”.

John’s previewed Blunderbuss in his Wild Mercury Sound blog on www.uncut.co.uk, which you can read here.

In 1969, the Rolling Stones made their live comeback in America with a tour that ended notoriously at Altamont, when a free festival intended to celebrate their return and also everything that was supposed to be so wonderful about the 60s counter-culture and the hippy utopianism of that far away era turned into a bloody tragedy, far removed from the largely blissful vibes of Woodstock, which had been held only four months earlier.

The young American writer Stanley Booth was with the Stones on that eventful tour and wrote about it in his brilliant book, The True Adventures Of the Rolling Stones. It’s been out of print, scandalously, for over a decade, but is being re-published in a new edition next month. Booth’s truly scary description of the violent chaos of Altamont and the havoc wrought there by the Hell’s Angels, is the dramatic centre-piece of his book and we have a major extract from it in the new issue. You can remind yourself of the seething pandemonium that attended the event in this clip of the band struggling through “Sympathy For The Devil” which you can see here.

Elsewhere in the issue, we have an Album By Album special with Pete Townshend, David Cavanagh looks at the post-Big Star career of Alex Chilton, Graeme Thomson recalls the seismic impact of Public Enemy’s debut UK tour. There’s also An Audience With Gregg Allman, unpublished pictures of Bruce Springsteen from the Born To Run album cover shoot, Brian Fallon introduces the new Gaslight Anthem album, the return of fabled folk singer Nic Jones and plenty more.

In our new expanded reviews section, meanwhile, we look at new releases from Dr John, Graham Coxon, Jack White, M Ward, Alabama Shakes, Spiritualized and Simone Felice. There’s also a great new Dr Feelgood box set, a deluxe edition of T Rex’s Electric Warrior, a reissue of Morrissey’s solo debut, Viva Hate, and a handsome four-disc Jerry Lee Lewis collection.

And if that isn’t enough reading for one month, you may also want to get hold of a copy of our latest Ultimate Music Guide, this one dedicated to REM, which is on sale now and also available online from www.uncut.co.uk/store. Look out too for the iPad edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to David Bowie, which will shortly be joined by an equally nifty iPad edition of our Bruce Springsteen Ultimate Music Guide, which is coming soon to iTunes.

Have a good week.

Allan

Blur’s Damon Albarn reveals he almost recorded an album with David Bowie and Ray Davies

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Blur’s Damon Albarn reveals he almost recorded an album with David Bowie and Ray Davies
Blur frontman Damon Albarn has revealed that he almost recorded an album with David Bowie and The Kinks' mainman Ray Davies. The singer, who is currently preparing for the release of the studio album version of his opera Doctor Dee, revealed that for precisely 24 hours he was set to make a record...

Blur frontman Damon Albarn has revealed that he almost recorded an album with David Bowie and The Kinks‘ mainman Ray Davies.

The singer, who is currently preparing for the release of the studio album version of his opera Doctor Dee, revealed that for precisely 24 hours he was set to make a record with the Thin White Duke and The Kinks man.

Asked how much he enjoyed collaborating with other musicians, Albarn said: “I do genuinely like working with people but at the same time I don’t expect it to work, and there have been a lot of people who a lot of things don’t happen. I mean, for about 24 hours, many years ago, I was making a record with David Bowie and Ray Davies. But that only lasted 24 hours.”

Albarn also spoke about ‘Under The Westway’, a new song he has written for Blur, which the band premiered earlier this year during a gig at London’s O2 Shepherds Bush Empire and which bassist Alex James has heavily hinted that they will be performing at their Hyde Park show this summer.

Speaking about ‘Under The Westway’, he said: “I’ve done a new tune for Blur, it’s really traditional. It’s something I’ve had knocking about for years and didn’t know what to do with it. Initially I wrote it as a slightly wistful national anthem for my house, I had this idea of getting it made into an old 78 record and making a flag and then just playing it – just being really silly. But I had these chords and I ended up writing this tune around it.”

He then went on to say that he feels it might be the last song he ever writes for Blur. He told The Quietus: “I don’t really do anything with Blur any more – there’s this concert this year but its not a full-time thing at all. Maybe this tune’s a last little coda to the whole story.”

Blur announced last month that they will return to Hyde Park, the scene of two of their reunion shows of 2009, for a gig which will also feature The Specials and New Order. The show will take place on August 12 to mark the end of the 2012 Olympics.

Along with playing at Hyde Park, Blur are also scheduled to headline Sweden’s Way Out West festival in August.

Queen’s Brian May: ‘I would have liked to have been in AC/DC’

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Queen’s Brian May: ‘I would have liked to have been in AC/DC’
Queen's Brian May has revealed that he would have liked to have joined AC/DC. Speaking to the Independent, the guitarist said that he would have fancied a stint with the Australian rockers if it hadn't been for his business with Freddie Mercury and co, but also said he wouldn't have fitted in wit...

Queen‘s Brian May has revealed that he would have liked to have joined AC/DC.

Speaking to the Independent, the guitarist said that he would have fancied a stint with the Australian rockers if it hadn’t been for his business with Freddie Mercury and co, but also said he wouldn’t have fitted in with the band as he was the “wrong sort of size and shape”.

He said: “I’d have probably liked to be in AC/DC [if Queen hadn’t existed]. But I’m the wrong sort of size and shape, unfortunately.”

He went on to add: “Because it’s different from Queen. Queen were very eclectic – that’s the word isn’t it? – and we just trampled over every boundary that there was. But AC/DC are in a sense the opposite. They know their style and it’s incredibly pure and I have a great respect for that. And every single note they play is AC/DC completely.”

Brian May is set to have his time filled with Queen this summer, with the iconic rock band set to play live with American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert taking Mercury’s place as the band’s frontman.

With the band confirmed as headliners for this summer’s Sonisphere festival, topping a bill that includes Kiss, Faith No More, Evanescence, Incubus, The Darkness, Mastodon and Refused, May claimed that Mercury would have approved of their plans with Lambert.

Lambert himself, meanwhile, has insisted that he is unfazed at any potential backlash he may face when he hooks up with the band this summer. Asked about comparisons with Mercury, he told NME: “The way I look at it is I’m not trying to imitate or outdo him or compete in any way, that’s not even in my mind at all, I think it’s really an honour to be asked to sing the music that he and the band wrote and get up there and put on a good show. If people are too busy trying to compare, they’re not going to enjoy the music.”

See Sonispherefestivals.com for more information about the event.

The Shins – Port Of Morrow

Michael Bonner
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The Shins – Port Of Morrow

Career. Commitment. Can this really be The Shins? It surely can... The US indie renaissance of the early noughties had its roots in Georgia’s mid-90s Elephant 6 scene. That collective laid the template for a certain kind of small-town college-rock idealism, collaboration and co-operation. But it also defined a defiant, fundamentalist indie against the MTV alt.rock mainstream of the time. On one wing you can trace the consequences of Neutral Milk Hotel’s In An Aeroplane Over The Sea - its orchestral, earnest hysteria - through Arcade Fire’s first two albums. On the other you can see how the skewed psych-pop of Apples In Stereo and even Olivia Tremor Control were instrumental to the Shins’ 2001 debut Oh! Inverted World. Now that these bands escape the indie bars for the ampitheatres, move beyond the campus, into marriage, mid-life and mid-career, you get the sense that a different template has been adopted, a new role model for entering the mainstream with integrity. If Neil Young was the 90s indie-rocker’s ancestral affinity of choice, then in the 21st century he’s gradually been replaced by Bruce Springsteen. You could hear an adaptation of Bruce’s widescreen small-town romanticism all over the Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, of course. And you can hear something of his way with a powerchord and unabashed sentiment on the Shins’ sterling comeback single “Simple Song”. “I know things can really get rough when you go it alone,” sings James Mercer acknowledging that, following the departure of founder members Jesse Sandoval and Marty Crandall in 2009, the Shins is once again, as it started out back in Albequerque in 1996, essentially his solo project. For this first album in five years, mindful of how productive his collaboration with Danger Mouse on 2010’s Broken Bells was, he’s hooked up with Greg Kurstin - soft-pop sophistcate of The Bird and The Bee, but also commercial engineer of albums by Lily Allen and Foster the People. Apparently the pair initially bonded through a shared fandom for the anglo-kosmische sounds of Clinic and Broadcast, and you can hear a little of this initial spark in the ambient clang and longwave whine that wash the shore of songs like opener “The Rifle Spiral”. However, the pair’s pop instincts ultimately prevail over more esoteric ambitions. Most successfully on “No Way Down”, a heavenly pop hit which marries radiant, sun-spangled guitars to a lyric which addresses the global plutocracy of the One Per Cent. The combination is reminiscent of the Go Betweens’ “Streets Of Your Town”. Or, on the other side of the fine line of hipness, the Crowded House of “Distant Sun”. Indeed Neil Finn circa Woodface and Together Alone might be the most accurate comparison for James Mercer’s songs on Port Of Morrow. Tracks like “It’s Only Life”, “September” and “For A Fool” are slow strummed, bittersweet explorations of domesticity, family and memory. They’re well-turned, touching, replete with crafty couplets and plangent middle-eights... and a little well behaved. Tunes you can imagine accompanying some hard-earned moment of emotional revelation on an ITV domestic drama, the weepy money shot in a movie. Crucially their more earnest emotional undertow means that Mercer’s real gifts, the melodies that zinged through his early albums, are comparatively subdued. The title track, however, is more suggestive, bearing the same emotional weight but drifting out into more mysterious territory. It’s a snapshot collage of twentieth-century terror, as dreamy and unsettling as Radiohead’s “Street Spirit”, which captures something of the dawning dread of parenthood: the realisation that you’re stitched into the fabric of history, suddenly profoundly invested in the precariousness of the future. Despite Natalie Portman’s exhortations, the Shins were never likely to change your life. But at moments like this, Port Of Morrow suggests that they might turn out to be exactly the kind of the band that ends up successfully soundtracking it. Stephen Troussé Q&A James Mercer It’s been five years since Wincing the Night Away - did you ever think you might not make another Shins record? There was definitely a period when I wasn’t sure, when Wincing... was done. The weight of the relationships with these old friends, of recording, producing and touring - all those responsibilties. I felt I needed to figure something new out. So Broken Bells was a great new outlet for me. You said early on that domestic happiness meant the new album would be less slow and sad, more upbeat. That doesn’t seem to have quite panned out... The thing I didn’t realise was that having kids makes all the sadness of the world much more poignant. I found having children kind of pulls the veil away from the dark side of life, not the positive happy side. It is positive and enjoyable and you love them, of course, but it’s their fragility that becomes powerful. Port Of Morrow is an industrial port in Oregon - why name the album after it? It’s a very boring place. But it sounds awesome! Sounds like it might be a really mystical place Iike a departure point you know? Into another world. So then I think about the River Styx. And then about... death! That’s just where my head goes. INTERVIEW: STEPHEN TROUSSE

Career. Commitment. Can this really be The Shins? It surely can…

The US indie renaissance of the early noughties had its roots in Georgia’s mid-90s Elephant 6 scene. That collective laid the template for a certain kind of small-town college-rock idealism, collaboration and co-operation. But it also defined a defiant, fundamentalist indie against the MTV alt.rock mainstream of the time. On one wing you can trace the consequences of Neutral Milk Hotel’s In An Aeroplane Over The Sea – its orchestral, earnest hysteria – through Arcade Fire’s first two albums. On the other you can see how the skewed psych-pop of Apples In Stereo and even Olivia Tremor Control were instrumental to the Shins’ 2001 debut Oh! Inverted World.

Now that these bands escape the indie bars for the ampitheatres, move beyond the campus, into marriage, mid-life and mid-career, you get the sense that a different template has been adopted, a new role model for entering the mainstream with integrity. If Neil Young was the 90s indie-rocker’s ancestral affinity of choice, then in the 21st century he’s gradually been replaced by Bruce Springsteen. You could hear an adaptation of Bruce’s widescreen small-town romanticism all over the Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, of course. And you can hear something of his way with a powerchord and unabashed sentiment on the Shins’ sterling comeback single “Simple Song”.

“I know things can really get rough when you go it alone,” sings James Mercer acknowledging that, following the departure of founder members Jesse Sandoval and Marty Crandall in 2009, the Shins is once again, as it started out back in Albequerque in 1996, essentially his solo project. For this first album in five years, mindful of how productive his collaboration with Danger Mouse on 2010’s Broken Bells was, he’s hooked up with Greg Kurstin – soft-pop sophistcate of The Bird and The Bee, but also commercial engineer of albums by Lily Allen and Foster the People.

Apparently the pair initially bonded through a shared fandom for the anglo-kosmische sounds of Clinic and Broadcast, and you can hear a little of this initial spark in the ambient clang and longwave whine that wash the shore of songs like opener “The Rifle Spiral”. However, the pair’s pop instincts ultimately prevail over more esoteric ambitions. Most successfully on “No Way Down”, a heavenly pop hit which marries radiant, sun-spangled guitars to a lyric which addresses the global plutocracy of the One Per Cent. The combination is reminiscent of the Go Betweens’ “Streets Of Your Town”. Or, on the other side of the fine line of hipness, the Crowded House of “Distant Sun”.

Indeed Neil Finn circa Woodface and Together Alone might be the most accurate comparison for James Mercer’s songs on Port Of Morrow. Tracks like “It’s Only Life”, “September” and “For A Fool” are slow strummed, bittersweet explorations of domesticity, family and memory. They’re well-turned, touching, replete with crafty couplets and plangent middle-eights… and a little well behaved. Tunes you can imagine accompanying some hard-earned moment of emotional revelation on an ITV domestic drama, the weepy money shot in a movie. Crucially their more earnest emotional undertow means that Mercer’s real gifts, the melodies that zinged through his early albums, are comparatively subdued.

The title track, however, is more suggestive, bearing the same emotional weight but drifting out into more mysterious territory. It’s a snapshot collage of twentieth-century terror, as dreamy and unsettling as Radiohead’s “Street Spirit”, which captures something of the dawning dread of parenthood: the realisation that you’re stitched into the fabric of history, suddenly profoundly invested in the precariousness of the future. Despite Natalie Portman’s exhortations, the Shins were never likely to change your life. But at moments like this, Port Of Morrow suggests that they might turn out to be exactly the kind of the band that ends up successfully soundtracking it.

Stephen Troussé

Q&A

James Mercer

It’s been five years since Wincing the Night Away – did you ever think you might not make another Shins record?

There was definitely a period when I wasn’t sure, when Wincing… was done. The weight of the relationships with these old friends, of recording, producing and touring – all those responsibilties. I felt I needed to figure something new out. So Broken Bells was a great new outlet for me.

You said early on that domestic happiness meant the new album would be less slow and sad, more upbeat. That doesn’t seem to have quite panned out…

The thing I didn’t realise was that having kids makes all the sadness of the world much more poignant. I found having children kind of pulls the veil away from the dark side of life, not the positive happy side. It is positive and enjoyable and you love them, of course, but it’s their fragility that becomes powerful.

Port Of Morrow is an industrial port in Oregon – why name the album after it?

It’s a very boring place. But it sounds awesome! Sounds like it might be a really mystical place Iike a departure point you know? Into another world. So then I think about the River Styx. And then about… death! That’s just where my head goes.

INTERVIEW: STEPHEN TROUSSE

Rod Stewart to rejoin The Faces for one-off show

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Rod Stewart to rejoin The Faces for one-off show
Rod Stewart will rejoin The Faces for a one-off performance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 14, when the band are being inducted. Stewart will sing live with the band for the first time in 19 years next month at the event in Cleveland, Ohio according to The Faces' drummer Kenney Jones. I...

Rod Stewart will rejoin The Faces for a one-off performance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 14, when the band are being inducted.

Stewart will sing live with the band for the first time in 19 years next month at the event in Cleveland, Ohio according to The Faces’ drummer Kenney Jones. It is the first time the surviving members have played live in public since Stewart was awarded the Lifetime Achievement honour at the Brit awards in 1993.

Speaking to Music Radar, Jones confirmed that Stewart would return to perform with the band. He said: “Contrary to what people might think we’re all still great mates and we’ve never said we wouldn’t play together again.”

He added: “We all had dinner about a month ago and decided that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame would be the perfect time and place.”

The band reunited to headline the Vintage at Goodwood festival in 2010, but with Mick Hucknall taking over vocal duties. Jones also revealed that Stewart had rehearsed with the band around the festival date, but rehearsals ran flat due to Stewart suffering voice problems.

Rod Stewart was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 1994, but was unable to attend the ceremony in Cleveland because an earthquake hit Los Angeles and the singer wanted to stay close to his family.

Guns ‘N’ Roses, Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers will also be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame on April 14.

Bobby Womack diagnosed with colon cancer, close friend Bootsy Collins reports

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Bobby Womack diagnosed with colon cancer, close friend Bootsy Collins reports

Soul singer Bobby Womack has been diagnosed with cancer of the colon, according to his close friend Bootsy Collins. Collins, who played bass for both James Brown and Parliament, tweeted yesterday (March 25) that he had spoken to Womack and that the singer had told him he was undergoing treatment for the illness. He wrote on Twitter.com/Bootsy_Collins: "I just spoke to our friend Bobby Womack. He wanted you all to know that he loves you and thanks for the prayers. Doctor says he is in the first stage of colon cancer, he is very upbeat about his future, we laughed & joked before we hung up. Thanks funkateers, we will get him back on the one!" Collins had previously tweeted that Womack had initially been hospitalised with pneumonia and was then diagnosed with cancer of the colon. Bobby Womack's brand new album, 'The Bravest Man In The Universe', is set for release on June 11. Co-produced by Blur's Damon Albarn and XL Recordings' Richard Russell, the album was recorded late last year in Albarn's own Studio 13 in West London and also in New York. The album is soul singer Womack's first LP of original material in 18 years, following 1994's 'Resurrection'. The album will be released on the XL label, also home to Adele and The xx.

Soul singer Bobby Womack has been diagnosed with cancer of the colon, according to his close friend Bootsy Collins.

Collins, who played bass for both James Brown and Parliament, tweeted yesterday (March 25) that he had spoken to Womack and that the singer had told him he was undergoing treatment for the illness.

He wrote on Twitter.com/Bootsy_Collins: “I just spoke to our friend Bobby Womack. He wanted you all to know that he loves you and thanks for the prayers. Doctor says he is in the first stage of colon cancer, he is very upbeat about his future, we laughed & joked before we hung up. Thanks funkateers, we will get him back on the one!”

Collins had previously tweeted that Womack had initially been hospitalised with pneumonia and was then diagnosed with cancer of the colon.

Bobby Womack’s brand new album, ‘The Bravest Man In The Universe’, is set for release on June 11.

Co-produced by Blur‘s Damon Albarn and XL Recordings’ Richard Russell, the album was recorded late last year in Albarn’s own Studio 13 in West London and also in New York.

The album is soul singer Womack’s first LP of original material in 18 years, following 1994’s ‘Resurrection’. The album will be released on the XL label, also home to Adele and The xx.

Paul Weller: ‘My new album is cutting edge’

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Paul Weller: ‘My new album is cutting edge’
Paul Weller has said that his new album is "cutting edge" and says there's no music out there that sounds similar. Speaking in an interview with Billboard, Weller said his new album 'Sonik Kicks' has a "spirit of adventure" that's been brought on by him entering the "twilight years" of his career...

Paul Weller has said that his new album is “cutting edge” and says there’s no music out there that sounds similar.

Speaking in an interview with Billboard, Weller said his new album ‘Sonik Kicks’ has a “spirit of adventure” that’s been brought on by him entering the “twilight years” of his career.

He added: “I think the new record is really cutting edge, really modern, and I don’t think there is anything around that sounds like it, regardless of age or status or whatever.”

The Modfather notched up his fourth solo Number One album with ‘Sonik Kicks’ yesterday (March 25), after knocking Military Wives’ ‘In My Dreams’ off the top spot of the Official UK Albums Chart.

Weller entered straight in at the peak of the charts with his eleventh studio album – one better than 2010’s ‘Wake Up The Nation’, which could only manage Number Two.

The album’s high debut knocks Military Wives down to Number Three. Incredibly, Weller managed to hold off a late surge by David Guetta’s ‘Nothing But The Beat’, which jumped 7 places, by just 250 copies, reports Official Charts Company.

Elsewhere in the albums chart, The Shins managed the second highest new entry, landing in Number Eleven with ‘Port Of Morrow’.

Sigur Ros to release new album ‘Valtari’ in May

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Sigur Ros to release new album ‘Valtari’ in May
Sigur Ros have announced full details of their new studio album 'Valtari', which will be released in May. The Icelandic band, who have now returned from an ''indefinite hiatus'', will release the follow-up to 2008's 'Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust' on May 28. The record contains a tot...

Sigur Ros have announced full details of their new studio album ‘Valtari’, which will be released in May.

The Icelandic band, who have now returned from an ”indefinite hiatus”, will release the follow-up to 2008’s ‘Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust’ on May 28.

The record contains a total of seven tracks, with the band yet to state whether they will be releasing any songs ahead of the album’s full release.

Sigur Ros will play their first UK show for four years at this summer’s Bestival in September. They are also booked for festivals in Canada, France, Japan and Ireland.

Bestival will take place from September 6–9 at Robin Hill Park on the Isle Of Wight. For more information about the event, see Bestival.net. New Order and Stevie Wonder will headline the festival.

Sigur Ros‘ last release was ‘Inni’, a concert film and live album, which came out in November. It documented the group’s final two shows of their last world at London’s Alexandra Palace.

The tracklisting for ‘Valtari’ is as follows:

‘Ég Anda’

‘Ekki Múkk’

‘Varúð’

‘Rembihnútur’

‘Dauðalogn’

‘Varðeldur’

‘Valtari’

Gregg Allman: ‘I’m glad I chose rock’n’roll rather than dentistry!’

Tom Pinnock
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0
Gregg Allman: ‘I’m glad I chose rock’n’roll rather than dentistry!’

Gregg Allman has admitted he’s glad he chose the life of a musician over a career in dentistry. Speaking in the new issue of Uncut, out Thursday, March 29, the Allman Brothers Band singer and multi-instrumentalist explains: “I was going to be an oral surgeon. But there’s a lot of crap to remember. “And I don’t think I’d like to get up every morning at seven o’clock, get into the office and look into someone’s nasty mouth. I’m glad I chose rock’n’roll!” Allman also answered questions from fans and famous friends, discussing jamming with Muddy Waters, hanging out in the White House and his late brother Duane. Read more in the new issue of Uncut, featuring Jack White on the cover, on newsstands from March 29.

Gregg Allman has admitted he’s glad he chose the life of a musician over a career in dentistry.

Speaking in the new issue of Uncut, out Thursday, March 29, the Allman Brothers Band singer and multi-instrumentalist explains: “I was going to be an oral surgeon. But there’s a lot of crap to remember.

“And I don’t think I’d like to get up every morning at seven o’clock, get into the office and look into someone’s nasty mouth. I’m glad I chose rock’n’roll!”

Allman also answered questions from fans and famous friends, discussing jamming with Muddy Waters, hanging out in the White House and his late brother Duane.

Read more in the new issue of Uncut, featuring Jack White on the cover, on newsstands from March 29.

The Chemical Brothers – Don’t Think

Michael Bonner
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0
The Chemical Brothers – Don’t Think

Brothers gonna work it out live in Japan... Don’t Think captures The Chemical Brothers in their element: roasting thousands of saucer-eyed Japanese halfway up a mountain with their blistering live show. If Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons’ music has sometimes struggled to fully convey their psychedelic inclinations, this remarkable concert film – shot on 20 cameras over the course of their headline set at last summer’s Fuji Rock Festival – goes some way to correcting that. Director Adam Smith, the duo’s longtime visual designer (and director of the occasional Doctor Who episode), avoids the pitfalls of every clunking concert film by furiously editing and tweaking footage of the crowd, the Chems and their eye-popping graphics to produce an innovative portrait of mega-rave euphoria that, regardless of your feelings towards the material, is never dull. The lads themselves, Simons forever stage right arms aloft, Rowlands sliding faders, are mere bit-players in their own epic adventure. EXTRAS: Available in three different formats. Both the DVD and Blu-ray editions come with a live audio CD and booklet, while a Limited Edition DVD release comes in a 10" book format. Piers Martin

Brothers gonna work it out live in Japan…

Don’t Think captures The Chemical Brothers in their element: roasting thousands of saucer-eyed Japanese halfway up a mountain with their blistering live show.

If Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons’ music has sometimes struggled to fully convey their psychedelic inclinations, this remarkable concert film – shot on 20 cameras over the course of their headline set at last summer’s Fuji Rock Festival – goes some way to correcting that.

Director Adam Smith, the duo’s longtime visual designer (and director of the occasional Doctor Who episode), avoids the pitfalls of every clunking concert film by furiously editing and tweaking footage of the crowd, the Chems and their eye-popping graphics to produce an innovative portrait of mega-rave euphoria that, regardless of your feelings towards the material, is never dull.

The lads themselves, Simons forever stage right arms aloft, Rowlands sliding faders, are mere bit-players in their own epic adventure.

EXTRAS: Available in three different formats. Both the DVD and Blu-ray editions come with a live audio CD and booklet, while a Limited Edition DVD release comes in a 10″ book format.

Piers Martin

Wild Bill

Michael Bonner
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0
Wild Bill

Gritty comedy-drama set in the mean streets of sarf-east London... Director Dexter Fletcher is probably best known as one of the four main leads in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. Fortunately, Mockney gorbliminess is in short supply here. Set in the scruffy council estates and pubs of Newham, one of the five London boroughs hosting the Olympics, this finds Bill Hayward (Charlie Creed-Miles) returning home after eight years in prison to discover his two sons, 15 year-old Dean (Will Poulter) and 11 year-old Jimmy (Sammy Williams), fending for themselves after being abandoned by their mother. Bill, a former drug dealer with a legendarily violent temper, finds himself having to decide whether to assume responsibility for his sons or settle back in with his old crowd. It’s a well-worn tale, but Fletcher – who co-wrote the script – focuses on the domestic fall-out caused by Bill’s absence. Despite some tasty business involving local drug dealer Leo Gregory and a proper punch up in a boozer, Wild Bill is a small, rather quiet story about two boys forced to grow up before their time. Dean’s resourcefulness when staying one step ahead of social services and providing for Jimmy might be admirable, but it’s also heartbreaking: he’s 12, he should be at school, chasing girls, not working illegally on a building site. Charlie Creed-Miles – memorable as Ray Winstone’s junkie brother-in-law in Nil By Mouth – plays Bill as a wiry, nerdy man, struggling to keep his violent tendencies in check while feeling his way clumsily into parenthood. Michael Bonner

Gritty comedy-drama set in the mean streets of sarf-east London…

Director Dexter Fletcher is probably best known as one of the four main leads in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. Fortunately, Mockney gorbliminess is in short supply here. Set in the scruffy council estates and pubs of Newham, one of the five London boroughs hosting the Olympics, this finds Bill Hayward (Charlie Creed-Miles) returning home after eight years in prison to discover his two sons, 15 year-old Dean (Will Poulter) and 11 year-old Jimmy (Sammy Williams), fending for themselves after being abandoned by their mother. Bill, a former drug dealer with a legendarily violent temper, finds himself having to decide whether to assume responsibility for his sons or settle back in with his old crowd.

It’s a well-worn tale, but Fletcher – who co-wrote the script – focuses on the domestic fall-out caused by Bill’s absence. Despite some tasty business involving local drug dealer Leo Gregory and a proper punch up in a boozer, Wild Bill is a small, rather quiet story about two boys forced to grow up before their time. Dean’s resourcefulness when staying one step ahead of social services and providing for Jimmy might be admirable, but it’s also heartbreaking: he’s 12, he should be at school, chasing girls, not working illegally on a building site. Charlie Creed-Miles – memorable as Ray Winstone’s junkie brother-in-law in Nil By Mouth – plays Bill as a wiry, nerdy man, struggling to keep his violent tendencies in check while feeling his way clumsily into parenthood.

Michael Bonner

Alex Chilton “never did anything he didn’t want to do…”

Tom Pinnock
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0
Alex Chilton “never did anything he didn’t want to do…”

Alex Chilton’s career after the dissolution of his most iconic band, Big Star, has been described as “a cautionary tale” by REM bassist Mike Mills in the new issue of Uncut, out on Thursday (March 29). But his old Big Star bandmate Jody Stephens told Uncut, "Alex, to my knowledge, never did anything that he didn't want to do." The piece examines the late songwriter’s life as a solo artist, his time in Tav Falco’s Panther Burns and his subsequent move to New Orleans and the reformation of Big Star – as well as his interest in astrology and 19th-century park design. A host of Chilton’s friends and associates remember him in the piece, including girlfriend Lesa Aldridge, latter-day Big Star member Ken Stringfellow, long-time collaborator Richard Rosebrough as well as Jody Stephens. Read more in the new issue of Uncut, in shops from Thursday, March 29.

Alex Chilton’s career after the dissolution of his most iconic band, Big Star, has been described as “a cautionary tale” by REM bassist Mike Mills in the new issue of Uncut, out on Thursday (March 29).

But his old Big Star bandmate Jody Stephens told Uncut, “Alex, to my knowledge, never did anything that he didn’t want to do.”

The piece examines the late songwriter’s life as a solo artist, his time in Tav Falco’s Panther Burns and his subsequent move to New Orleans and the reformation of Big Star – as well as his interest in astrology and 19th-century park design.

A host of Chilton’s friends and associates remember him in the piece, including girlfriend Lesa Aldridge, latter-day Big Star member Ken Stringfellow, long-time collaborator Richard Rosebrough as well as Jody Stephens.

Read more in the new issue of Uncut, in shops from Thursday, March 29.

Bruce Springsteen: ‘I’m not a phony patriot’

Tom Goodwyn
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0
Bruce Springsteen: ‘I’m not a phony patriot’
Bruce Springsteen has hit out at the people who have branded him a "phony patriot". In an interview with The Daily Show's Jon Stewart for Rolling Stone, Springsteen spoke out against critics who persist on putting labels on his music. The singer, who recently celebrated his ninth Number One al...

Bruce Springsteen has hit out at the people who have branded him a “phony patriot”.

In an interview with The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart for

Rolling Stone, Springsteen spoke out against critics who persist on putting labels on his music.

The singer, who recently celebrated his ninth Number One album with ‘Wrecking Ball’, said he wouldn’t conform or baulk under the pressure from others to change what he writes about or tone down his political views.

Springsteen told Jon Stewart: “Lately, it seems as if the polarisation of the country has gotten so extreme that people want to force you into being either a phony ‘patriot’ or an ‘apologist’.”

He added: “Nuanced political dialogue or creative expression seems like it’s been hamstrung by the decay of political speech and it’s infantilised our national discourse. I can’t go for that and I won’t write that way.”

Speaking about ‘We Take Care Of Our Own’, the first single to be taken off Wrecking Ball’, Springsteen said it was written to “challenge and ask questions”. He also admitted his new album was a continuation of the themes and philosophy’s he’s advanced over the last 30 years.

Last week Bruce Springsteen gave the keynote speech at SXSW, where he told the crowd that he first picked up a guitar after being inspired by “the passion in Elvis’ pants”.

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