In the current issue of Uncut, I spoke to Bryan Ferry for our An Audience With… feature. Among the reader questions was one from Rob Emery, who asked ‘Why do you think Roxy Music got through so many bass players?’
As you might expect of a book about Leonard Cohen, Sylvie Simmons spends a fair proportion of I’m Your Man writing about love, faith, depression, finance, and the demands and consolations of poetry and women. Mostly, though, the focus of this hefty and thorough book is Leonard Cohen’s charm: about how an exceptionally gifted artist has seduced most everyone who has come into contact with him, through the course of an uncommonly eventful life.
Paul Thomas Anderson begins and ends The Master with the same image: Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), lying on a beach in the South Pacific in the closing days of World War II, nestled up close to the figure of a woman carved in the sand. Bent out of shape by the war, he is alcoholic and possibly deranged. In a series of weird, unconnected images, we see Freddie siphoning petrol from the tank of an aircraft, masturbating into the Pacific surf, lying in a hammock on a warship.
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lee Daniels is in talks to direct a Janis Joplin biopic starring Amy Adams.
Adams became attached to the project, titled Get It While You Can, back in 2010. Before Adams, Renee Zellweger had been lined up to play Joplin.
Plan B and Richard Hawley have emerged as the favourites to win this year's Barclaycard Mercury Prize wth odds of 4-1 each.
The shortlist of the 12 'Albums Of The Year' chosen by an independent judging panel were announced yesterday afternoon (September 12) at London's Hospital Club. The final award for the £20,000 prize will be announced on November 1.
Alt-J were previously named as the odds-on favourite for the 2012 prize by bookmakers, but their odds have now slipped to 5-1.
This month’s issue of Uncut (September 2012, Take 184) features Joe Strummer on the cover – inside is an in-depth exploration of his secret history, after The Clash split up to his redemption in the late ’90s. To complement this, our archive feature this week finds Strummer looking at the demise of The Clash – from their epic Sandinista! album to their bitter disintegration. This excerpt is taken from a longer piece in the September 1999 (Take 28) issue of Uncut. Words: Gavin Martin
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