One bright Sunday morning, MC Taylor is driving through his patch of North Carolina, past New Hope Creek and the Eno River, over the Chatham County Line and the James Taylor Bridge in Chapel Hill, near the Haw River and the valley that he has meditated upon in song these past few years. Through apparently endless forests, Taylor's destination is Saralyn, a kind of hippy settlement just outside of Pittsboro.
Iggy Pop will deliver this year's John Peel lecture, it has been announced.
The singer, who hosts a Sunday afternoon show on BBC Radio 6 Music, will deliver a speech titled 'Free Music in a Capitalist Society' which will be broadcast on 6Music live on Monday, October 13 and will later be shown on BBC Four on October 19.
When Sinéad O’Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992, she brought into focus her gifts for music, controversy and self-publicity in one fairly explosive package.
As The Felice Brothers tour the UK and perform at End Of The Road festival this weekend, it seems a good time to battle through the Uncut archives and see how the group were doing back in August 2009 (Take 147). Marc Spitz heads out to upstate New York to see how these self-mythologising drifters created a glorious new take on roots rock from the comfort of a chicken coop. Just don’t, whatever you do, mention Bob Dylan and The Band...
“Thank you, Boston,” deadpans Thurston Moore as the audience at tonight’s gig show their appreciation for “Speak To The Wild”. Of course, we’re in east London – Dalston to be precise, at Café Oto, which has become a regular hang out for Moore since he moved up the road to Stoke Newington.
Gruff Rhys has been shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize for his book American Interior.
Rhys has been nominated alongside five other writers for a £5,000 award for his writings, part of a multimedia project which included an album and a film.
The prize, now in its second year, will be judged by comedian, actor and musician Julian Barratt, poet John Burnside, artist Sarah Lucas and novelist Benjamin Myers, who won the award last year for his book, Pig Iron.