Subscribe
Home Blog Page 844

Elbow Announce Biggest UK Show To Date

Uncut
-
0
Elbow Announce Biggest UK Show To Date
Elbow are set to play their biggest UK headline show ever, when they take to the stage at London's Wembley Arena next Spring. The band, led by Guy Garvey, who won this year's Mercury Music Prize for their fourth album 'The Seldom Seen Kid', will play Wembley on March 14, 2009. Elbow, this year pla...

Elbow are set to play their biggest UK headline show ever, when they take to the stage at London’s Wembley Arena next Spring.

The band, led by Guy Garvey, who won this year’s Mercury Music Prize for their fourth album ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, will play Wembley on March 14, 2009.

Elbow, this year played the mainstage at Glastonbury and Latitude Festivals, however, this will be the Mancunian group’s first ever UK Arena show.

Tickets for the show go on sale on September 30 and are available on line here.

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

Saxondale – Series 2

Uncut
-
0
Saxondale – Series 2

Though Alan Partridge will inevitably be the first line of Steve Coogan’s obituaries, Tommy Saxondale is a more subtle creation. A middle-aged, former heavy metal roadie now running a pest control business and enduring an ongoing mid-life crisis in Stevenage, Saxondale shares with Partridge a failure to fully accept the fact that his glory days are over. But, crucially, he deals with the diminishment of his dreams with a certain wistful warmth, as opposed to Partridge’s vindictive bitterness, which makes him a much more plausible character. We are implicitly instructed to laugh at Partridge. We are invited to laugh with Saxondale. The crucial, humanising – at moments, genuinely heartbreaking – difference is that Saxondale knows, at bottom, that he’s ridiculous. That it’s possible to end up contemplating a sitcom character as something like a real human being is testament to both Steve Coogan’s fathomless talents as a character actor – something about which it would be a shame to become complacent – and consistently sensational writing (credited to Coogan and Neil MacLennan). This second season doesn’t feature a duff episode, but the finest are extraordinarily good. The opening episode, where Saxondale reunites with a former colleague – played by Simon Greenall, previously best known as Partridge’s Geordie amanuensis Michael – who now runs a new media company, is exquisitely excruciating. The gulf between their material successes sees Saxondale lurching agonisingly between self-aggrandisement and self-loathing. The dynamic persists through the rest of the series, as Saxondale continually struggles to adjust to a world in which everyone but him has, for better and for worse, aged three decades since the mid-70s. In the third episode, when embodiments of his beloved rock’n’roll attitude – anarchist students – move into his street, Saxondale’s subsidence into suburban intolerance is brilliantly rendered, at once melancholy and sympathetic. The real highlights, as ever, are Saxondale’s tetchy interactions with the fellow members of his anger management self-help group. Who, ironically and inevitably, vex him far worse than any of the problems he’s seeking their counsel about. EXTRAS: 3* - Interviews, commentary, picture gallery. ANDREW MUELLER

Though Alan Partridge will inevitably be the first line of Steve Coogan’s obituaries, Tommy Saxondale is a more subtle creation. A middle-aged, former heavy metal roadie now running a pest control business and enduring an ongoing mid-life crisis in Stevenage, Saxondale shares with Partridge a failure to fully accept the fact that his glory days are over. But, crucially, he deals with the diminishment of his dreams with a certain wistful warmth, as opposed to Partridge’s vindictive bitterness, which makes him a much more plausible character. We are implicitly instructed to laugh at Partridge. We are invited to laugh with Saxondale. The crucial, humanising – at moments, genuinely heartbreaking – difference is that Saxondale knows, at bottom, that he’s ridiculous.

That it’s possible to end up contemplating a sitcom character as something like a real human being is testament to both Steve Coogan’s fathomless talents as a character actor – something about which it would be a shame to become complacent – and consistently sensational writing (credited to Coogan and Neil MacLennan). This second season doesn’t feature a duff episode, but the finest are extraordinarily good. The opening episode, where Saxondale reunites with a former colleague – played by Simon Greenall, previously best known as Partridge’s Geordie amanuensis Michael – who now runs a new media company, is exquisitely excruciating. The gulf between their material successes sees Saxondale lurching agonisingly between self-aggrandisement and self-loathing. The dynamic persists through the rest of the series, as Saxondale continually struggles to adjust to a world in which everyone but him has, for better and for worse, aged three decades since the mid-70s. In the third episode, when embodiments of his beloved rock’n’roll attitude – anarchist students – move into his street, Saxondale’s subsidence into suburban intolerance is brilliantly rendered, at once melancholy and sympathetic.

The real highlights, as ever, are Saxondale’s tetchy interactions with the fellow members of his anger management self-help group. Who, ironically and inevitably, vex him far worse than any of the problems he’s seeking their counsel about.

EXTRAS: 3* – Interviews, commentary, picture gallery.

ANDREW MUELLER

Chairlift: “Does You Inspire You”

John Mulvey
-
0

OK so I might get sick of this one after a while, but we’re not blogging for posterity here. Chairlift are yet another band from Brooklyn (though originally from Boulder), and their debut album, “Does You Inspire You”, is another record that’s making me rethink my long-nurtured antipathy towards ‘80s revivalism. Ostensibly, a lot of this enormously – perhaps transiently – beguiling album is fixated on a certain kind of glacial synthpop. There are some pretty obvious influences at the root of a good few Chairlift songs; “Planet Health”, for instance, has the nebulously oriental synth chimes and fretless bass that must surely have been inspired by Japan circa “Tin Drum”. As one of the relatively few ‘80s New Pop types I can stomach, the Japan comparison is fine by me, though some of the other names I’ve seen thrown about in relation to Chairlift are a bit alarming – Yazoo, even Berlin, amazingly. The thing is, though, they’re good enough – and discreetly arty enough, too – to suggest an entirely different set of reference points. So while, “Territory” is a borderline preposterous piece of synth bombast, it’s still engaging thanks to Caroline Polachek’s sternly ethereal vocals and a series of melodic shifts that may call to mind “TNT”-era Tortoise (like another superficially ‘80s band, The Week That Was). And plenty of the droll, precise musical settings remind me of a bunch of mid-‘90s German bands, like Tarwater and Kreidler, who were a satellite of the post-rock scene and who made cerebral pop music out of avant-electronica. The opening “Garbage” is especially terrific in this way, also recalling a synth rescoring of Sonic Youth’s “Experimental Jet Set”, with Polachek’s still, opulent croon a distinct relative of Kim Gordon. And the record ends with an odd and striking sequence that runs through arch country (“Don’t Give A Damn”) to dislocated ambience (“Chameleon Closet” and “Ceiling Wax”), the latter finding Polachek noting, “I will never return from that scary place”. I guess I should stress, though, that a good part of what Chairlift do is vigorously hip and catchy – so catchy, in fact, that I’m wary a few of these songs will become irritants once they become ubiquitous. “Evident Utensil” is actually irritating from the off, being a wryly bouncy cousin of “Barbie Girl” after a fashion. But “Bruises” is the one that’s going to make Chairlift, a mighty successful negotiation between poise and cuteness that’s an infallibly perfect successor to Feist as the iPod soundtrack. Let’s count how many weeks before it drives us mad. . .

OK so I might get sick of this one after a while, but we’re not blogging for posterity here. Chairlift are yet another band from Brooklyn (though originally from Boulder), and their debut album, “Does You Inspire You”, is another record that’s making me rethink my long-nurtured antipathy towards ‘80s revivalism.

Continue

Heavy Load

Uncut
-
0
Heavy Load

Dir: Jerry Rothwell Since Ondi Timoner's brilliant DiG! there have been heavy pressures on the rock documentarist. It's no longer enough to show and tell, something cataclysmic must happen. And while there’s plenty to admire in Jerry Rothwell’s film about Lewes’ self-styled “disabled punks”, you can’t help suspect that it occasionally tries too hard to make mountains of molehills, as the band squabble, argue about direction and threaten to leave. Sound familiar? Billed as a film “about happiness”, the Broomfield-esque Rothwell follows Heavy Load as they record their debut album, The Queen Mother’s Dead. The film’s star is the band's drummer Michael; pensive and soulful, he provides the film's backbone and conscience, memorably wincing as the band play back their new song “George Michael”, and its refrain, “We love George Michael, cos he's gay at weekends and gay all the week.” His lofty disdain is priceless. DAMON WISE

Dir: Jerry Rothwell

Since Ondi Timoner’s brilliant DiG! there have been heavy pressures on the rock documentarist. It’s no longer enough to show and tell, something cataclysmic must happen. And while there’s plenty to admire in Jerry Rothwell’s film about Lewes’ self-styled “disabled punks”, you can’t help suspect that it occasionally tries too hard to make mountains of molehills, as the band squabble, argue about direction and threaten to leave. Sound familiar?

Billed as a film “about happiness”, the Broomfield-esque Rothwell follows Heavy Load as they record their debut album, The Queen Mother’s Dead. The film’s star is the band’s drummer Michael; pensive and soulful, he provides the film’s backbone and conscience, memorably wincing as the band play back their new song “George Michael”, and its refrain, “We love George Michael, cos he’s gay at weekends and gay all the week.” His lofty disdain is priceless.

DAMON WISE

Oasis To Headline London Roundhouse With 50-strong Choir

Uncut
-
0
Oasis To Headline London Roundhouse With 50-strong Choir
Oasis have been confirmed as the closing act for this year's BBC Electric Proms, taking place next month. In a unique performance at London's Roundhouse venue on October 26, Oasis will be accompanied by the Crouch End Festival chorus choir for the final performance of the five day music event. Noe...

Oasis have been confirmed as the closing act for this year’s BBC Electric Proms, taking place next month.

In a unique performance at London’s Roundhouse venue on October 26, Oasis will be accompanied by the Crouch End Festival chorus choir for the final performance of the five day music event.

Noel Gallagher has commented on the show saying: “We are doing the Electric Proms, and we’re doing it with the Crouch End Choir as well… there’s 50 odd of them…because some of the songs on the album have got a 50 piece choir on them. So we’re gonna do a night at the Proms with that lot, it should be good actually… Ennio Morricone uses them for his spaghetti western stuff in England, so I’m already looking forward to that because I’ve never played the Roundhouse and I’ve never done the Proms.”

Glasvegas are confirmed to support, and tickets are on sale from tomorrow morning (September 30) at 8.15.

Click here for more info and tickets, www.bbc.co.uk/electricproms

Oasis’ Electric Proms show will be live broadcast on the night on Radio 1 from 9pm, and also shown on BBC 2 at 10.45pm on the night.

For more music and film news click here

Paul Newman: 1925 – 2008

Uncut
-
0
Paul Newman: 1925 – 2008

There’s a story about Steve McQueen being offered the role of architect Doug Roberts in The Towering Inferno. McQueen turned it down, asking instead to play fire chief Michael O’Hallorhan, claiming that there’s no way an audience would find him believable in any role other than a straight-ahead man of action. The part of Roberts, instead, went to Paul Newman. At that point, in 1974, Newman’s most successful roles had been as outlaws, con-men and rebels – characters arguably not that far removed from the kind of people who peppered McQueen’s own CV. But it says a lot, perhaps, about how cinema audiences were prepared to accept him, that despite the succession of outsiders and wild ones he’d played, there was something inherently likeable and appealing about Newman. It’s certainly true in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969). For a film made in the late Sixties – a time where it was all about sticking it to The Man – it’s maybe not surprising that audiences would be rooting for characters who, in an earlier, less complicated era would have been the bad guys. The easy charm of Newman and Robert Redford put Butch & Sundance in the Top 10 grossing movies for the decade. Newman had been a more dangerous kind of outlaw for Arthur Penn in The Left-Handed Gun (1958), based on a TV play written by Gore Vidal where he played a feral Billy the Kid with an unnerving hair-trigger temper. You wonder what he’d have been like for Peckinpah. Newman was a huge star in the Sixties – an era not exactly light on major Hollywood muscle. He shared the decade with Brando (with whom he'd studied at the Actors' Studio under Lee Strasberg), McQueen, Redford and later, Beatty and Hoffman. If you see the Sixties as the transitional period between the Golden Age of Hollywood and the modern era, then you can argue that Newman is the link between Clark Cable and George Clooney. His classic movie star looks would certainly have not been out of place in a previous time, while his willingness to build a CV around rebels and outsiders chimed with the decade's counter-culture leanings and was picked up by a later wave of actors. You can see the arc of his career, and how he successfully manoeuvred between the demands of different eras of filmmaking by the directors he worked with. There’s Preminger, Robert Wise, Michael Curtiz, Hitchcock and Huston; Altman and George Roy Hill; Scorsese, the Coens and Sam Mendes. Newman did his last on screen work for Mendes, playing a gangster in The Road To Perdition (2002). The film itself is often too sentimental, but Newman is towering as Irish Catholic Mob patriarch, John Mooney. It reminds me, to some degree, of the way Leone used Henry Fonda, similarly in the autumn of his career, as the sadistic killer in Once Upon A Time In The West. That was a brilliant piece of counter casting that subverted Fonda’s legacy of noble, finely chiselled heroes. So, too, here was Newman, wintry and sinister, telling Tom Hanks’ enforcer Michael Sullivan, “None of us will see Heaven.” Whatever we might have thought of Newman’s catalogue of jailbirds, cardsharps or pool hustlers, none of them were ever as vicious as this. MICHAEL BONNER Click here for some classic clips from Newman and for the Uncut film blog to let us what your know your thoughts and feelings about Paul Newman. What were his defining roles for you? How do you think he'll be best remembered..? For more music and film news click here

There’s a story about Steve McQueen being offered the role of architect Doug Roberts in The Towering Inferno. McQueen turned it down, asking instead to play fire chief Michael O’Hallorhan, claiming that there’s no way an audience would find him believable in any role other than a straight-ahead man of action. The part of Roberts, instead, went to Paul Newman. At that point, in 1974, Newman’s most successful roles had been as outlaws, con-men and rebels – characters arguably not that far removed from the kind of people who peppered McQueen’s own CV. But it says a lot, perhaps, about how cinema audiences were prepared to accept him, that despite the succession of outsiders and wild ones he’d played, there was something inherently likeable and appealing about Newman.

It’s certainly true in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969). For a film made in the late Sixties – a time where it was all about sticking it to The Man – it’s maybe not surprising that audiences would be rooting for characters who, in an earlier, less complicated era would have been the bad guys. The easy charm of Newman and Robert Redford put Butch & Sundance in the Top 10 grossing movies for the decade. Newman had been a more dangerous kind of outlaw for Arthur Penn in The Left-Handed Gun (1958), based on a TV play written by Gore Vidal where he played a feral Billy the Kid with an unnerving hair-trigger temper. You wonder what he’d have been like for Peckinpah.

Newman was a huge star in the Sixties – an era not exactly light on major Hollywood muscle. He shared the decade with Brando (with whom he’d studied at the Actors’ Studio under Lee Strasberg), McQueen, Redford and later, Beatty and Hoffman. If you see the Sixties as the transitional period between the Golden Age of Hollywood and the modern era, then you can argue that Newman is the link between Clark Cable and George Clooney. His classic movie star looks would certainly have not been out of place in a previous time, while his willingness to build a CV around rebels and outsiders chimed with the decade’s counter-culture leanings and was picked up by a later wave of actors. You can see the arc of his career, and how he successfully manoeuvred between the demands of different eras of filmmaking by the directors he worked with. There’s Preminger, Robert Wise, Michael Curtiz, Hitchcock and Huston; Altman and George Roy Hill; Scorsese, the Coens and Sam Mendes.

Newman did his last on screen work for Mendes, playing a gangster in The Road To Perdition (2002). The film itself is often too sentimental, but Newman is towering as Irish Catholic Mob patriarch, John Mooney. It reminds me, to some degree, of the way Leone used Henry Fonda, similarly in the autumn of his career, as the sadistic killer in Once Upon A Time In The West. That was a brilliant piece of counter casting that subverted Fonda’s legacy of noble, finely chiselled heroes. So, too, here was Newman, wintry and sinister, telling Tom Hanks’ enforcer Michael Sullivan, “None of us will see Heaven.” Whatever we might have thought of Newman’s catalogue of jailbirds, cardsharps or pool hustlers, none of them were ever as vicious as this.

MICHAEL BONNER

Click here for some classic clips from Newman and for the Uncut film blog to let us what your know your thoughts and feelings about Paul Newman. What were his defining roles for you? How do you think he’ll be best remembered..?

For more music and film news click here

Paul Newman: 1925 – 2008

Michael Bonner
-
0

There’s a story about Steve McQueen being offered the role of architect Doug Roberts in The Towering Inferno. McQueen turned it down, asking instead to play fire chief Michael O’Hallorhan, claiming that there’s no way an audience would find him believable in any role other than a straight-ahead man of action. The part of Roberts, instead, went to Paul Newman. At that point, in 1974, Newman’s most successful roles had been as outlaws, con-men and rebels – characters arguably not that far removed from the kind of people who peppered McQueen’s own CV. But it says a lot, perhaps, about how cinema audiences were prepared to accept him, that despite the succession of outsiders and wild ones he’d played, there was something inherently likeable and appealing about Newman. It’s certainly true in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969). For a film made in the late Sixties – a time where it was all about sticking it to The Man – it’s maybe not surprising that audiences would be rooting for characters who, in an earlier, less complicated era would have been the bad guys. The easy charm of Newman and Robert Redford put Butch & Sundance in the Top 10 grossing movies for the decade. Newman had been a more dangerous kind of outlaw for Arthur Penn in The Left-Handed Gun (1958), based on a TV play written by Gore Vidal where he played a feral Billy the Kid with an unnerving hair-trigger temper. You wonder what he’d have been like for Peckinpah. Newman was a huge star in the Sixties – an era not exactly light on major Hollywood muscle. He shared the decade with Brando (with whom he'd studied at the Actors' Studio under Lee Strasberg), McQueen, Redford and later, Beatty and Hoffman. If you see the Sixties as the transitional period between the Golden Age of Hollywood and the modern era, then you can argue that Newman is the link between Clark Cable and George Clooney. His classic movie star looks would certainly have not been out of place in a previous time, while his willingness to build a CV around rebels and outsiders chimed with the decade's counter-culture leanings and was picked up by a later wave of actors. You can see the arc of his career, and how he successfully manoeuvred between the demands of different eras of filmmaking by the directors he worked with. There’s Preminger, Robert Wise, Michael Curtiz, Hitchcock and Huston; Altman and George Roy Hill; Scorsese, the Coens and Sam Mendes. Newman did his last on screen work for Mendes, playing a gangster in The Road To Perdition (2002). The film itself is often too sentimental, but Newman is towering as Irish Catholic Mob patriarch, John Mooney. It reminds me, to some degree, of the way Leone used Henry Fonda, similarly in the autumn of his career, as the sadistic killer in Once Upon A Time In The West. That was a brilliant piece of counter casting that subverted Fonda’s legacy of noble, finely chiselled heroes. So, too, here was Newman, wintry and sinister, telling Tom Hanks’ enforcer Michael Sullivan, “None of us will see Heaven.” Whatever we might have thought of Newman’s catalogue of jailbirds, cardsharps or pool hustlers, none of them were ever as vicious as this. Here are some YouTube links to five of Newman’s greatest screen moments. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID: "For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble..." THE STING: "Your one thousand..? I'll raise you two thousand..." THE HUSTLER: "I came to play pool, Fats..." COOL HAND LUKE: "Nobody can eat 50 eggs..." ROAD TO PERDITION: "This is the life we chose, this is the life we lead..." Now we’d like you to tell us what your thoughts and feelings are about Paul Newman. What were his defining roles for you? How do you think he'll be best remembered..?

There’s a story about Steve McQueen being offered the role of architect Doug Roberts in The Towering Inferno. McQueen turned it down, asking instead to play fire chief Michael O’Hallorhan, claiming that there’s no way an audience would find him believable in any role other than a straight-ahead man of action. The part of Roberts, instead, went to Paul Newman. At that point, in 1974, Newman’s most successful roles had been as outlaws, con-men and rebels – characters arguably not that far removed from the kind of people who peppered McQueen’s own CV. But it says a lot, perhaps, about how cinema audiences were prepared to accept him, that despite the succession of outsiders and wild ones he’d played, there was something inherently likeable and appealing about Newman.

Continue

Razorlight Announce UK Tour

Uncut
-
0
Razorlight Announce UK Tour
Razorlight have confirmed a new UK tour, to support their new album this November. The shows, much smaller than in previous years, will be a showcase for their forthcoming third album 'Slipaway Fires' which is released on November 3. Tickets for the tour go on sale next Thursday (October 2) at 9am...

Razorlight have confirmed a new UK tour, to support their new album this November.

The shows, much smaller than in previous years, will be a showcase for their forthcoming third album ‘Slipaway Fires’ which is released on November 3.

Tickets for the tour go on sale next Thursday (October 2) at 9am.

Razorlight’s tour will call at:

Exeter University (November 10)

Bristol Academy (11)

London Brixton Academy (13)

Portsmouth Guildhall (14)

Edinburgh Corn Exchange (16)

Leeds Academy (17)

Glasgow Barrowlands (18)

Manchester Apollo (20)

Cambridge Corn Exchange (21)

Lincoln Engine Shed (23)

Wolverhampton Civic (24)

For more music and film news click here

Paul McCartney Defies Protests To Rock Israel

Uncut
-
0
Paul McCartney Defies Protests To Rock Israel
Sir Paul McCartney last night (September 25) played to 40, 000 concert goers in Tel Aviv, Israel, defying protests by Palestinians which have taken place throughout his visit to the country. The historic concert, coming 43 years after The Beatles were banned because of fears they would 'corrupt the...

Sir Paul McCartney last night (September 25) played to 40, 000 concert goers in Tel Aviv, Israel, defying protests by Palestinians which have taken place throughout his visit to the country.

The historic concert, coming 43 years after The Beatles were banned because of fears they would ‘corrupt the nation’s youth’ saw McCartney perform several Beatles classics including “Back In The The USSR”, “Hey Jude” and “Get Back”, prompting mass sing-alongs from the audience.

“Live and Let Die” was accompanied by fireworks at the outdoor venue, while “Give Peace A Chance”, dedicated to the song’s composer John Lennon, saw McCartney pause singing to let the crowd sing the chorus.

McCartney also played tracks from his Wings-era and solo material including last year’s release “Dance Tonight.”

Speaking to Associated Press prior to the concert, McCartney commented on the Palestinian activists who had requested he cancel the show because of the West Bank’s occupation, said he was not “a political animal [but] a humanitarian” and “thought it was a good time to come and take a look at the situation”.

McCartney billed last night’s concert as “Friendship First”

saying he is on a mission of peace for Isreal and the Palestinians.

Paul McCartney played:

‘Hello Goodbye’

‘Jet’

‘Drive My Car’

‘Only Mama Knows’

‘All My Loving’

‘Flaming Pie’

‘Let Me Roll It’

‘My Love’

‘Let Em In’

‘The Long And Winding Road’

‘Dance Tonight’

‘Blackbird’

‘Calico Skies’

‘I’ll Follow The Sun’

‘Mrs Vanderbilt’

‘Here, There and Everywhere’

‘Eleanor Rigby’

‘Something’

‘A Day In The Life/Give Peace A Chance’

‘Band On The Run’

‘Back In The USSR’

‘I’ve Got A Feeling’

‘Live And Let Die’

‘Let It Be’

‘Hey Jude’

‘Lady Madonna’

‘Get Back’

‘I Saw Her Standing There’

‘Yesterday’

‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

New Smiths Best of Compilation To Be Released

Uncut
-
0
New Smiths Best of Compilation To Be Released
A brand new Smiths collection 'The Sound of The Smiths' is to be released in the UK on November 10. With 45 remastered tracks across two discs, the Morrissey and Johnny Marr endorsed collection spans the legendary group's career from 1983 to 1987, with classic singles such as “How Soon Is Now”,...

A brand new Smiths collection ‘The Sound of The Smiths’ is to be released in the UK on November 10.

With 45 remastered tracks across two discs, the Morrissey and Johnny Marr endorsed collection spans the legendary group’s career from 1983 to 1987, with classic singles such as “How Soon Is Now”, “Panic” and “Girlfriend in A Coma”, as well as b-sides and live recordings.

The Sound of The Smiths will be available to buy as one disc or both, as well as digitally, making some of these tracks available as downloads for the first time.

The Sound of The Smiths full track listing is:
Disc One:
Hand in Glove
This Charming Man
What Difference Does It Make ? (Peel Session version)
Still Ill
Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now
William, It Was Really Nothing
How Soon Is Now? (12” version)
Nowhere Fast
Shakespeare’s Sister
Barbarism Begins At Home (7” version)
That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore
The Headmaster Ritual
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
Bigmouth Strikes Again
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Panic
Ask
You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby
Shoplifters of the World Unite
Sheila Take a Bow
Girlfriend in a Coma
I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

Disc Two:
Jeane
Handsome Devil (Live)
This Charming Man (New York Vocal)
Wonderful Woman
Back To The Old House
These Things Take Time
Girl Afraid
Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want
Stretch Out And Wait
Oscillate Wildly
Meat Is Murder (Live)
Asleep
Money Changes Everything
The Queen Is Dead
Vicar in a Tutu
Cemetery Gates
Half a Person
Sweet And Tender Hooligan
Pretty Girls Make Graves [Troy Tate Demo]
Stop me If you Think You’ve Heard This One Before
What’s The World? (Live)
London (Live)

For more music and film news click here

Abe Vigoda: “Skeleton”

John Mulvey
-
0

A long time ago, one of my old NME colleagues described a pretty rackety record – approvingly, I should say – as sounding like “a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs.” That phrase came back to me this morning when I put on the debut Abe Vigoda album for the first time in a while. I think “Skeleton” may have been out in the States for a few months, though it’s only getting a UK release in about a fortnight. Abe Vigoda are from LA, and are reputedly connected with that scene of bands clustered around The Smell club which has already birthed, among others, No Age. Abe Vigoda don’t sound much like No Age (the reverberant scrape of instrumental “Visi Rings” apart): their chaotic, exuberant noise is much cleaner and more sprung than that duo’s fuzzed-out sound. After some hard graft from the sort of critics who spent their time compartmentalising bands into neat new genres, it seems we’re meant to call Abe Vigoda’s sound “Tropical punk”. Which means, basically, that they play with a certain pseudo-unhinged velocity while having a rhythmic vigour and a delirious, ambulatory guitar sound that ties them in with the current vogue for Afro-influenced indie. If I can join in the genre hair-splitting, they actually sound more like a particularly frantic post-punk band to my ears, though one who have obviously taken on board (like No Age) the hurtling potency of ‘80s US hardcore, too. I think it was “Bear Face”, playing in the office a couple of months ago, which prompted a passing sub to compare them to “XTC playing soukous”, which isn’t bad. But that suggests a sort of whimsical self-consciousness which isn’t quite so apparent. Obviously, Abe Vigoda’s sound has come about via some presumably intensive plotting – for all the manic clatter of these 14 songs, there’s a real clarity and purpose to a lot of them that suggests algorhytmic complexity as much as hipster spontaneity. The ringing lead guitar that cuts through everything has a kind of detuned hi-life tone to it which is really engaging, especially on “Endless Sleeper”. Which drives us to the glib, but more or less accurate, 2008 contextualisation, placing Abe Vigoda as a deluxe gnarly hybrid of Vampire Weekend and Sonic Youth. Works for me. . .

A long time ago, one of my old NME colleagues described a pretty rackety record – approvingly, I should say – as sounding like “a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs.” That phrase came back to me this morning when I put on the debut Abe Vigoda album for the first time in a while.

Continue

Bill Wyman and Nick Mason To Teach Rock’n’Roll

Uncut
-
0
Bill Wyman and Nick Mason To Teach Rock’n’Roll

Former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman and Pink Floyd's Nick Mason are two of the musicians who will teach at this year's Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp in November. Taking place over six days (November 4 - 9) at Abbey Road Studios, a multitude of veteran rock musicians will teach 'students' with a series of master classes, jam sessions, with pupils eventually performing and recording their own music. Taking part in the rock school will also be Aerosmith songwriter Mark Hudson and AC/DC's Chris Slade. More information about the second London Rock'n'Roll Fantasy Camp are available here, www.rockcamp.com For more music and film news click here

Former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman and Pink Floyd‘s Nick Mason are two of the musicians who will teach at this year’s Rock’n’Roll Fantasy Camp in November.

Taking place over six days (November 4 – 9) at Abbey Road Studios, a multitude of veteran rock musicians will teach ‘students’ with a series of master classes, jam sessions, with pupils eventually performing and recording their own music.

Taking part in the rock school will also be Aerosmith songwriter Mark Hudson and AC/DC‘s Chris Slade.

More information about the second London Rock’n’Roll

Fantasy Camp are available here, www.rockcamp.com

For more music and film news click here

Hawkwind Members Get Together For Tribute Concert

Uncut
-
0
Hawkwind Members Get Together For Tribute Concert
Hawkwind founder and space rock legend Nik Turner is holding memorial concert for fellow 70s band member Robert Calvert who died of a heart attack in 1988. The 20 year memorial concert, taking place at Kings Hall in Herne Bay, Kent this Sunday (September 28), will see many past Hawkwind band member...

Hawkwind founder and space rock legend Nik Turner is holding memorial concert for fellow 70s band member Robert Calvert who died of a heart attack in 1988.

The 20 year memorial concert, taking place at Kings Hall in Herne Bay, Kent this Sunday (September 28), will see many past Hawkwind band members perform, including Adrian Shaw and Martin Griffin, Harvey Bainbridge, Steve Swindells, Alan Davey, Ron Tree and Jerry Richards.

Robert Calvert was best known for his part in co-writing Hawkwind’s biggest hit ‘Silver Machine’, which reached no.3 on the UK’s singles chart in 1972.

For more information about the tribute concert, and the fan convention which takes place the same day from 3pm, click here for: www.nikturner.com

For more music and film news click here

The 38th Uncut Playlist Of 2008

John Mulvey
-
0

First thing today: the arrival of our new issue means I can finally mention the Uncut Music Award business we’ve been plotting for the past few months. Please have a look at our new dedicated blog, and let us know what you like the look of on the longlist. Not sure if there are any contenders for next year’s award amidst this lot, on our weekly playlist. Some interesting new things for you to have a listen to, though: the Myspace of Sharon Van Etten, a really intriguing new American folksinger; and Amazing Baby. You can download their debut EP for free here. A lot of hype gathering on this lot in the wake of the moderately overrated MGMT, though they strike me as substantially better at this point, rather like a psychedelic Brooklyn Super Furry Animals, possibly. The validation of MGMT pales somewhat, though, compared with a recommendation from Mark Twain. “I think that Polk Miller, and his wonderful four, is about the only thing the country can furnish that is originally and utterly American,” reckons Twain on the cover of Tompkins Square’s Miller CD. Nostalgic revisits to the Old Weird America were happening over a century ago, it transpires. 1 Times New Viking – Stay Awake EP (Matador) 2 Jóhann Jóhannsson – Fordlandia (4AD) 3 Greg Weeks – The Hive (Wichita) 4 Nancy – Keep Cooler (Born Ruffians Remix) (rcrdlbl.com) 5 Prince Rama Of Ayodha – Threshold Dances (Cosmos) 6 Sharon Van Etten - Various Tracks (Myspace) 7 Polk Miller & His Old South Quartette - Polk Miller & His Old South Quartette (Tompkins Square) 8 Rosebud – Discoball: A Tribute To Pink Floyd (Collector’s Choice) 9 Oasis – Dig Out Your Soul (Big Brother) 10 Bohren & Der Club Of Gore – Dolores (PIAS) 11 Violens – Already Over (Static Recital/Cantora) 12 Blood Ceremony – Blood Ceremony (Rise Above) 13 Fotheringay – Fotheringay 2 (Fledg’ling) 14 Miles Davis – Deluxe Kind Of Blue (SonyBMG) 15 Amazing Baby – Infinite Fucking Cross EP (www.theamazingbaby.com) 16 Marnie Stern – This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That (Kill Rock Stars) 17 Antony & The Johnsons – Another World EP (Rough Trade)

First thing today: the arrival of our new issue means I can finally mention the Uncut Music Award business we’ve been plotting for the past few months. Please have a look at our new dedicated blog, and let us know what you like the look of on the longlist.

Continue

Introducing the Uncut Music Awards

John Mulvey
-
0

As you may have heard, we've just launched the Uncut Music Award, to find the most inspiring and richly rewarding album of the last 12 months. We'll be posting all the latest news about the award here, but first we should explain the details. Chosen from a longlist of 25 albums (see the full list below) released between September 1, 2007 and August 31, 2008, a ten-strong industry panel including Peter Hook and Edwyn Collins will choose the winner by ranking their five favourites from the year. Other industry luminaries on the Uncut Music Award panel are: BBC Radio 2’s Bob Harris, producer of Later With Jools Holland Alison Howe, radio presenter and former NME editor Danny Kelly, legendary promoter Vince Power, broadcaster and writer Mark Radcliffe, British folk artist Linda Thompson and chairman of the British Phonographic Industry and former EMI chairman Tony Wadsworth. Naturally, chairing the judges, will be legendary Uncut editor Allan Jones. Once the panel’s votes have been combined, a short list of eight albums will be generated. The panellists will then pick the very best to take the inaugural Uncut Music Award. The winner will be announced in early November. Editor Allan Jones says: “We are extremely excited about the launch of the Uncut Music Award and the panel of judges we are assembling, whose votes will decide the eventual winner. With so much brilliant music released over the last year to chose from, argue over and champion, I predict only that the judging process will be combative, to say the least.” The Uncut Music Award long list is as follows. Let us know what you think are the highs and lows of the 25 chosen albums, and to say which you think deserves our first annual prize. KEVIN AYERS – The Unfairground JAMES BLACKSHAW – Litany Of Echoes BON IVER – For Emma, Forever Ago ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN – Sunday At Devil Dirt NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS – Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark ELBOW – The Seldom-Seen Kid THE FELICE BROTHERS - The Felice Brothers FLEET FOXES – Fleet Foxes PJ HARVEY – White Chalk THE HOLD STEADY – Stay Positive HOWLIN RAIN – Magnificent Fiend JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN – To Survive STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS – Real Emotional Trash ROBERT PLANT & ALISON KRAUSS – Raising Sand PORTISHEAD – Third THE RACONTEURS – Consolers Of The Lonely RADIOHEAD - In Rainbows BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – Magic RACHEL UNTHANK & THE WINTERSET- The Bairns VAMPIRE WEEKEND – Vampire Weekend PAUL WELLER – 22 Dreams WHITE DENIM – Workout Holiday WILD BEASTS – Limbo, Panto ROBERT WYATT – Comicopera

As you may have heard, we’ve just launched the Uncut Music Award, to find the most inspiring and richly rewarding album of the last 12 months. We’ll be posting all the latest news about the award here, but first we should explain the details.

Continue

Uncut Announces New Music Award!

Uncut
-
0
Uncut Announces New Music Award!
Uncut magazine is proud to announce the launch of the Uncut Music Award, to find the most inspiring and richly rewarding album of the last 12 months. Chosen from a longlist of 25 albums (see the full list below) released between September 1, 2007 and August 31, 2008, a ten-strong industry panel in...

Uncut magazine is proud to announce the launch of the Uncut Music Award, to find the most inspiring and richly rewarding album of the last 12 months.

Chosen from a longlist of 25 albums (see the full list below) released between September 1, 2007 and August 31, 2008, a ten-strong industry panel including Peter Hook and Edwyn Collins will choose the winner by ranking their five favourites from the year.

Other industry luminaries on the Uncut Music Award panel are: BBC Radio 2’s Bob Harris, producer of Later With Jools Holland Alison Howe, radio presenter and former NME editor Danny Kelly, legendary promoter Vince Power, broadcaster and writer Mark Radcliffe, British folk artist Linda Thompson and chairman of the British Phonographic Industry and former EMI chairman Tony Wadsworth.

Naturally, chairing the judges, will be legendary Uncut editor Allan Jones.

Once the panel’s votes have been combined, a short list of eight albums will be generated. The panellists will then pick the very best to take the inaugural Uncut Music Award. The winner will be announced in early November.

Editor Allan Jones says: “We are extremely excited about the launch of the Uncut Music Award and the panel of judges we are assembling, whose votes will decide the eventual winner. With so much brilliant music released over the last year to chose from, argue over and champion, I predict only that the judging process will be combative, to say the least.”

The Uncut Music Award long list is as follows, join us at www.uncut.co.uk throughout the coming weeks to discuss what you think are the highs and lows of the 25 chosen albums, and to say which you think deserves our first annual prize.

KEVIN AYERS – The Unfairground

JAMES BLACKSHAW – Litany Of Echoes

BON IVER – For Emma, Forever Ago

ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN – Sunday At Devil Dirt

NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS – Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark

ELBOW – The Seldom-Seen Kid

THE FELICE BROTHERS – The Felice Brothers

FLEET FOXES – Fleet Foxes

PJ HARVEY – White Chalk

THE HOLD STEADY – Stay Positive

HOWLIN RAIN – Magnificent Fiend

JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN – To Survive

STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS – Real Emotional Trash

ROBERT PLANT & ALISON KRAUSS – Raising Sand

PORTISHEAD – Third

THE RACONTEURS – Consolers Of The Lonely

RADIOHEAD – In Rainbows

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – Magic

RACHEL UNTHANK & THE WINTERSET- The Bairns

VAMPIRE WEEKEND – Vampire Weekend

PAUL WELLER – 22 Dreams

WHITE DENIM – Workout Holiday

WILD BEASTS – Limbo, Panto

ROBERT WYATT – Comicopera

For more music and film news click here

Jarvis Cocker To Lecture On Lyrics At Music Conference

Uncut
-
0
Jarvis Cocker To Lecture On Lyrics At Music Conference

Former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker has been announced as a keynote speaker at this year's In The City music conference in Manchester. The songwriter will take part in a lecture entitled "Saying The Unsayable", examining popular songs lyrical function, using his favourite songs as a basis, as well as some of his own. The talk on October 7 at In The City's base of The Midland Hotel will use lyrics from Leonard Cohen, Pete Doherty, Hot Chocolate, Amy Winehouse, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Neil Sedaka, Dory Previn, Katerine, Rozalla, Arctic Monkeys and others to analyse whether the words matter at all. Subjects such as ‘Should Songs Rhyme?’, ‘Are Songs Poetry?’, ‘Is There Anything You Can't Write Songs About?’, ‘Which Phrases Should be Avoided at All Costs?’ and ‘Great First Lines’ will all be covered. Jarvis joins other announced keynote speakers including former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, Sire Records founder Seymour Stein and iconic NME photographer Kevin Cummins. In The City runs from October 5 to 7. Full details of all seminars and live gigs happening at In The City 2008 are available here: www.inthecity.co.uk For more music and film news click here Pic credit: Andy Willsher

Former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker has been announced as a keynote speaker at this year’s In The City music conference in Manchester.

The songwriter will take part in a lecture entitled “Saying The Unsayable”, examining popular songs lyrical function, using his favourite songs as a basis, as well as some of his own.

The talk on October 7 at In The City’s base of The Midland Hotel will use lyrics from Leonard Cohen, Pete Doherty, Hot Chocolate, Amy Winehouse, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Neil Sedaka, Dory Previn, Katerine, Rozalla, Arctic Monkeys and others to analyse whether the words matter at all.

Subjects such as ‘Should Songs Rhyme?’, ‘Are Songs Poetry?’, ‘Is There Anything You Can’t Write Songs About?’, ‘Which Phrases Should be Avoided at All Costs?’ and ‘Great First Lines’ will all be covered.

Jarvis joins other announced keynote speakers including former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, Sire Records founder Seymour Stein and iconic NME photographer Kevin Cummins.

In The City runs from October 5 to 7.

Full details of all seminars and live gigs happening at In The City 2008 are available here: www.inthecity.co.uk

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: Andy Willsher

Bruce Springsteen and Nick Cave To Cover Suicide

Uncut
-
0
Bruce Springsteen and Nick Cave To Cover Suicide
Bruce Springsteen is to cover 70s band Suicide's "Dream Baby's Dream" for a new EP series which starts early next month. Celebrating Suicide frontman Alan Vega's 70th birthday, a year long series of commemorative EPs, featuring cover versions by one established and one new act will be released thro...

Bruce Springsteen is to cover 70s band Suicide‘s “Dream Baby’s Dream” for a new EP series which starts early next month.

Celebrating Suicide frontman Alan Vega’s 70th birthday, a year long series of commemorative EPs, featuring cover versions by one established and one new act will be released through record label Blast First Petite.

Springsteen’s version will be available on October 6, backed with The Horrors performing track “Shadazz.”

Other artists who have signed up to appear on the Suicide EPs include Nick Cave‘s Grinderman, Julian Cope, Spiritualized, Sunn O))), Primal Scream and Peaches.

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

Seasick Steve’s New Album Reviewed!

Uncut
-
0
Seasick Steve’s New Album Reviewed!
Uncut.co.uk publishes a weekly selection of music album reviews; including new, reissued and compilation albums. Find out about the best albums here, by clicking on the album titles below. All of our album reviews feature a 'submit your own album review' function - we would love to hear your opinio...

Uncut.co.uk publishes a weekly selection of music album reviews; including new, reissued and compilation albums. Find out about the best albums here, by clicking on the album titles below.

All of our album reviews feature a ‘submit your own album review’ function – we would love to hear your opinions on the latest releases!

These albums are all set for release on September 29, 2008:

ALBUM REVIEW: SEASICK STEVE – SEASICK STEVE – 4* Hobo blues maverick tentatively ropes in guest musicians for his major label debut

ALBUM REVIEW: MERCURY REV – SNOWFLAKE MIDNIGHT – 3* Psych-pop faerie kings fire up the randomiser

ALBUM REVIEW: NEW ORDER – REISSUES – Movement 3*/ Power, Corruption & Lies 3*/ Low-Life 5*/ Brotherhood 4*/ Technique 4*: A startling, diverse legacy, augmented with bonus discs

ALBUM REVIEW: FOTHERINGAY – FOTHERINGAY 2 -5* Lovingly salvaged second album, with Sandy Denny and Trevor Lucas

Plus here are some of UNCUT’s recommended new releases from the past month – check out these albums if you haven’t already:

ALBUM REVIEW: KINGS OF LEON – ONLY BY THE NIGHT – 4* Slowing the tempos, the Followills speed their ascent to the rock pantheon. Currently riding high with their first UK Singles Chart number one with lead single “Crawl” – will their album follow suit and debut at the top spot?

ALBUM REVIEW: JENNY LEWIS – ACID TONGUE – 3* Rilo Kiley mainstay continues intriguing solo career. See the latest issue of Uncut for an interview with the ‘Lady of the Canyon.’

ALBUM REVIEW: TV ON THE RADIO – DEAR SCIENCE, -4* David Bowie’s pals Dave Sitek and Kyp Malone mix the pop and avant garde

ALBUM REVIEW: METALLICA – DEATH MAGNETIC – 4* Troubled Dark Knights of metal return to form – check out the review of the current UK Album Chart Number 1 here.

ALBUM REVIEW: CALEXICO – CARRIED TO DUST – 4* After a mystifying diversion, Arizona duo return (in part) to familiar, dusty territory

ALBUM REVIEW: QUEEN AND PAUL RODGERS – THE COSMOS ROCKS – 2* Freddie-less reunion debases Queen’s bonkers-rock legacy

ALBUM REVIEW: LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM – GIFT OF SCREWS – 4* Fleetwood Mac man’s punchy pop-rock manifesto

ALBUM REVIEW: GLASVEGAS – GLASVEGAS – 3* Scots rockers provide throwback to pop’s golden age

BRIAN WILSON – THAT LUCKY OLD SUN – 4* Brian’s back! Again! A Californian song-cycle – Van Dyke Parks contributes words

THE HOLD STEADY – STAY POSITIVE – 5* Elliptical, euphoric and “staggeringly good” says Allan Jones, plus a Q&A with Craig Finn

For more album reviews from the 3000+ UNCUT archive – check out: www.www.uncut.co.uk/music/reviews.

Patti Smith To Answer Your Questions!

Uncut
-
0
Patti Smith To Answer Your Questions!
Uncut magazine is interviewing Patti Smith soon for An Audience With…, and we’re after your questions. Maybe you want to ask her about those early days in New York, hanging out at CBGBS. Or perhaps you want to know what it was like living at the Chelsea Hotel? Or what it was like col...

Uncut magazine is interviewing Patti Smith soon for An Audience With…, and we’re after your questions.

Maybe you want to ask her about those early days in New York, hanging out at CBGBS.

Or perhaps you want to know what it was like living at the Chelsea Hotel?

Or what it was like collaborating with Kevin Shields on The Coral Sea project?

Send your questions to: uncutaudiencewith@ipcmedia.com by Thursday(September 25).

For more music and film news click here

1...843844845...1,269Page 844 of 1,269

SHOP UNCUT