The first set of Zappa’s mammoth series of reissues is reviewed in the new issue of Uncut, dated October 2012, and in shops now. To accompany David Cavanagh’s in-depth, three-page examination of the dozen re-releases, here’s a feature from November 2010’s Uncut (Take 162), in which members of the guitarist and composer’s various bands recall the madness and precision that went into some of his most important works. Interviews: John Lewis
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This is one film that's stuck with me since I first saw it a month or so back. Principally, it's a spin on low-rent 70s Italian horror movies; a film that both celebrates and mimics the tropes of murky gialli from filmmakers like Dario Argento.
From the beginning the Kinks’ career was intimately entwined with the BBC. In the year following the August 1964 success of “You Really Got Me” the band were called in to record eight radio sessions, broadcast to the nation and around the world. When the BBC commissioned Ray Davies to write topical tunes for shows like The 11th Hour and Where Was Spring?, we got the first inkling of the Kinks’ future direction, somewhere between Dennis Potter and Lionel Bart.
How many fans were aghast over the weekend to hear via the American broadcaster NBC that Neil Young had just died and unknown to many of them had also been the first man to set foot on the moon? Neil has been many things down the years, of course, but his secret history as an astronaut would have been news to everyone, including him.
The first time Melody Maker feels confident enough to send me abroad without fearing an international incident as a consequence, I'm dispatched to interview Frank Zappa in Paris, where The Mothers Of Invention are celebrating their 10th anniversary.
David Gray has angered residents in London's Crouch Hill after he announced that he is planning to turn historic recording studio The Church Studios into a block of flats and offices.
The studio, which has hosted sessions by the likes of Bob Dylan, My Bloody Valentine, Radiohead, Kaiser Chiefs and Bombay Bicycle Club, is a converted church and was originally owned by Eurythmics' Dave Stewart before he sold it to Gray in 2003.
Interesting news this morning, as you might have seen here: Poncho Sampedro has claimed that the forthcoming Neil Young & Crazy Horse album will be called “Psychedelic Pill”.
