I missed Mikal Cronin’s UK debut by a few hours, having to leave the excellent No Direction Home festival before he played. From a muddy field in North Nottinghamshire, though, to a hipster pub in Dalston, and the first London show for this Californian early-20something and his terrific band.
To accompany this month’s Uncut (Take 181, June 2012), out now, which features the Bonnie “Prince” Billy/Palace icon fielding questions from fans and musicians, here’s an illuminating Album By Album piece with Will Oldham, talking to Andrew Mueller, from Uncut’s April 2009 issue. “I feel more confident about things now,” he says. “Which frees up space for me to feel insecure about a whole new range of stuff…”
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I don’t listen to music in headphones that often, but some kind of meeting nearby has meant the stereo has been switched off this morning, and I’ve been forced to listen to the high-end fuzz attack of Times New Viking up close.
I got a great email the other week from Jon Dale, Uncut’s man in Australia and one of our most diligent hunters of the esoteric. Our subsequent correspondence turned into a bit of a squabble about cassette tapes, of all things: Jon is a fan, as you can see from his excellent blog; I think there’s something rather elitist about disseminating new music on a virtually obsolete format. But I have to let that one go.
