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arcade fire of
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COMPLETE YOUR CAN COLLECTION,THE CATALOGUE ON SPECIAL OFFER FOR A LIMITED TIME
mute.com
“I thought I was an Aztec/Or a runner in Peru/I could build such beautiful buildings/To house the chosen few”
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O • NEIL YOUN
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hat’s left to hear? It’s now over 25 years since Bob Dylan – that have been the subject of so much intense speculation for decades. as
and his manager ushered in the modern era of archive- with Giles Martin discussing the Beatles’ “Carnival Of Light” in these pages
digging with the first volumes of The Bootleg Series. a couple of months back, it’s a tale full of revelation and promise: a reminder
after all that time, and all those deluxe expanded that the stories of our greatest heroes – perhaps even that of Elvis Presley, as
reissues, surely the record company cupboards must you’ll find out on page 84 – remain far from complete.
have been emptied of all their old tapes? Elsewhere this month, we have eventful meetings with Mark E smith and
Mercifully, that doesn’t appear to be anything like the case. this month, Nick Lowe; discover the secrets of sigur Rós, Iron & Wine and OMD; grapple
Uncut goes looking for two of the most fabled repositories of unreleased with a bumper month of new albums that includes releases from the War On
music. One proves easy to access – at least partially – as stephen Deusner Drugs, Grizzly Bear, arcade Fire and Queens Of the stone age; witness U2
reviews the deluxe edition of Purple Rain, and the first cache of lost songs and Kraftwerk live; and hear of a particularly obsessive pursuit of sly stone.
from the presumably vast Prince archive. “For decades Prince’s vaults have Now there’s another man whose vaults might hold the odd surprise or two…
been rock’n’roll’s very own El Dorado, a mythical place filled with untold Dive in!
treasures,” writes stephen. “During his life he added to it every day but
guarded the contents closely… It’s a bitter irony that it took his tragic death
in april 2016 for that vault to be opened.”
the second is a trickier challenge. For this issue’s cover story, tyler Wilcox
has tried to work out what still languishes in Neil Young’s archives. tyler’s
research and interviews give a shape and substance to the sequence of
legendary albums – including Chrome Dreams, Homegrown and Hitchhiker John Mulvey, Editor. Follow me on twitter @JohnRMulvey
contents
SOMEBODY’S
Rubenstone, a jobbing actor, began
filming in 2004, shooting the bulk of
the film over the next three years.
WATCHING YOU!
“A lot of people were resistant at
first,” he explains, “but eventually
people began to open themselves up.
Everybody had his or her own very
specific memory of Sly. I met a guy at
a filmmaker’s epic pursuit of Sly Stone. “fame attracts a basketball game who said, ‘I know
this guy who played keyboard with
wonderful people. fame also attracts guns and dogs…” him in Seattle. You should go meet
I
him.’ That was Gordon DeWitty, the
n August 2005, Michael Rubenstone, Cynthia [Robinson] playing his music could blind keyboardist. Turns out he did not play
an aspiring filmmaker, received a call draw him out,” says Rubenstone. “I felt like with Sly – he was more of a groupie – but he
from Sly Stone’s sister, Vaetta Stewart. this was my best shot to get him. And sure understood Sly better than I did.”
“Vaetta – Vet – was in a Sly & The enough, he pulls in driving a custom Harley Eventually – “after about a year and
Family Stone tribute band, Phunk three-wheel trike.” change,” reckons Rubenstone – the
Phamily Affair,” explains Rubenstone. “She The scene takes place at Hollywood’s filmmaker connected with Vet, who in turn
called me out of the blue one day and said, Knitting Factory club and is one of several introduced him to her elder brother Freddie,
‘I need you to book us a gig in LA.’ She said, agonising near-misses and tantalising brief the band’s former guitarist, now a pastor in
‘Trust me. It’s going to be worth it.’” encounters that play out in Rubenstone’s the family’s hometown of Vallejo, California.
Rubenstone had been working on a documentary, On The Sly: In Search Of The The hunt for Stone himself, however, was
documentary about Vet’s elder brother. It Family Stone. The film is partly a shaggy dog problematic from the very beginning. During
was proving to be a frustrating experience. yarn about Rubenstone’s decade-long quest his first few weeks of shooting, Rubenstone
Michael Ochs archives/Getty iMaGes
Stone had barely been seen in public since to find the reclusive musician, but it also received a tip-off directing him to an address
1993, when he and the Family Stone were functions as a straight-up documentary on in napa Valley, California. At the property,
inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of the Family Stone. For this, Rubenstone has Rubenstone was given the brush-off; in the
Fame, and Rubenstone’s own attempts to assembled an impressive pool of contributors film it seems harmless enough, but
locate him had been met with obstruction including erstwhile bandmates Cynthia foreshadows several subsequent incidents
and obfuscation. Suddenly, Vet’s phone call Robinson, Jerry Martini and Greg Ericco, where Rubenstone is hustled, including one
made contact with the elusive musician a along with industry associates, school astonishing shakedown in a parking lot.
very real possibility. friends, contemporaries including Bobby Rubenstone interviewed 25 people for his
“Sly lives in LA, so maybe the prospect of Womack and even Stone’s ex-music teacher, film, many of who advised caution when
seeing his sister and his niece Lisa and David Froehlich – then in his eighties. dealing with Stone and his entourage. “It’s
T
interviews. “Bobby Womack he morning after, FJ Vietnam vet, the first thing you’d do he continued to gig with covers
was a straight-shooter, he McMahon is still savouring was take your uniform off and bands on the West Coast bar scene,
didn’t hide anything,” says the night before. Backed by throw it away, because you’d be before finally moving to hawaii. The
Rubenstone. “After we’d done, dream-psych band Quilt, the attacked. The party was over.” tipping point came in 1974. “To
he’d start frying up pork chops veteran singer-songwriter chose McMahon fed this sense of make a living, you had to go down to
in his kitchen, shirt off.” LA’s The Sanctuary for his first ever uncertainty and disquiet into Spirit Waikiki Boulevard, put on the white
It would be unfair to reveal live performance of Spirit Of The Of The Golden Juice (named after the pants and Aloha shirt and play Don
too much about Rubenstone’s Golden Juice. The only album of IW harper bourbon that “fuelled ho songs for grandmothers,” he
encounters with Stone, though McMahon’s career passed virtually the times”) and joined the anti-war recalls. “Onstage one night,
the filmmaker experiences a unnoticed in 1969, but a series of listening to the ice cubes clinking
satisfying pay-off after his reissues (the latest on Anthology) and the old women talking, I had an
decade-long search. Although have elevated it to the status of epiphany. I finished the gig, put my
Stone hasn’t seen the finished cult classic. guitar away and got a job overseas.”
film, his children have. “They “I knew there was interest in McMahon became a systems expert
got it,” laughs Rubenstone. the album, but didn’t realise in the navy, then spent 25 years as
“They totally understood, how much until last night,” says a computer field engineer, playing
they know their dad.” McMahon, down the line from his in “rockabilly/psych jam bands” in
Among his interviews, Californian home. “It was a sell-out his spare time.
Rubenstone is keen to flag up crowd and we ended up getting Now, though, nearly half a
the contribution of 82-year old two standing ovations. It was century after first unloading Spirit
former manager of the band, completely overwhelming.” Of The Golden Juice, the 71-year-
David Kapralik – who is filmed Spirit Of The Golden Juice was the old’s time may finally have come.
at home in Maui, working out product of his experiences during “If you close your eyes and listen
on his exercise bike. “What he the ’60s. Over spare psych-folk to the lyrics, nothing’s really
was hoping to accomplish with arrangements, his measured, changed,” he figures, adding that
that band, socially, politically, authoritative voice lays out an he’s already been contacted about
during a very turbulent time, existential document of a nation in “I’d guard nuclear playing more live shows. “People
still resonates. We’re everyday spiritual crisis. And McMahon was seem to identify with that record.
people, we’re all in it together. better qualified than most in taking
weapons by night The way this is going, who the heck
We’ve come a long way, but we the temperature of the era. he then party at knows what’s going to happen
still have a hell of a way to go.” enlisted in the US Air Force in 1965 next?” Rob HugHes
micHael bonneR and, two years later, was called up
Haight-Ashbury
to serve in Vietnam. “I’d been in the daytime” Spirit Of The Golden Juice is
For more information on the film stationed up near San Francisco and available again on August 11
visit www.ontheslymovie.com would guard nuclear weapons by
FJ McMahoN via the Anthology label
Born-again
cover of Vanity Fair, Ingénue recreation of the Polar
began to stick, though she recording studio in
emphasises that her coming Stockholm, which will
out “really wasn’t to promote be filled with the band’s
my album; it was to clear the original instruments and
Ingénue
KD Lang revisits her “post-nuclear cabaret”
air and take responsibility
for a cultural statement.”
Its success was sealed by
“Constant Craving”, a Top 40
hit on the US pop charts and
a Top 20 single in the UK.
handwritten lyrics.
R
For fans disappointed
eCeNTLy, KD Lang listened Written and recorded with her long- terrific records, among them 2004’s
by merch at the recent
to Ingénue for the first time time collaborator Ben Mink, the Hymns Of The 49th Parallel, her
UK Kraftwerk shows,
since finishing work on it album “was an official shift from interpretations of the songs of fellow
consolation is at hand.
early in 1992, as preparation for its country. That was a conscious Canadians such as Leonard Cohen
Canyon have launched
25th-anniversary reissue. It was, decision Ben and I talked about. and Neil young, and her recent
a limited-edition
to put it mildly, an uncomfortable We were a little fearful for what the collaboration with Neko Case and
bicycle, the Ultimate
41 minutes. “The first listen was reaction would be, but we knew for Laura Veirs, but she concedes that
CF SLX Kraftwerk. The
skin-crawling,” she says. “Ugh! self-preservation’s sake we had to Ingénue is “the pinnacle of my singer-
21 bikes feature the
It contained a lot of complex move our music in that direction.” songwriting. It’s a standout, yet I still
band’s unique pattern,
ingredients: the time of the initial A timeless blend of torch and twang, don’t know how to characterise it. It’s
originated by Ralf Hütter.
writing and touring; the success it of cocktail gloss and introspection, impossible! We talked a lot about
Yours for £8,999.
brought; thinking it would be better orchestral sophistication and early Joni Mitchell influences, early
than it was. It was just a flood of stuff. chanteuse chutzpah, Ingénue is a jazz influences and classical, but we alan Vega’s last LP will
On the second and third listen, loosely conceptual affair, tracking an also wanted to retain the country be out this month. Vega
thankfully, I began to hear the music, unrequited love affair. “I poured my thing.” She laughs. “Basically, we worked on IT with wife
beyond personal memories.” heart and soul into it,” she recalls brought our favourite tools and, boy, Liz Lamere from 2010
Ingénue changed Lang’s life. Ten down the line from Banff, Alberta. we used them.” gRaeme THomson until his death in 2016.
tracks of unclassifiable “post-nuclear “Great records are about the ability to The tracklist looks very
cabaret”, on her fifth album she left narrate the truth, and that record was Ingénue: 25th Anniversary Edition on-point for Suicide
behind her Canadian country roots definitely as close to the bone as I’ve (Nonesuch) is out now. Her fans, with song-titles like
for more cosmopolitan destinations, gotten. It was raw! Writing the lyrics Ingénue Redux Tour begins in “Screamin Jesus” and
and in the process became a pop star. was very arduous, it took six or seven Canada on August 12 “Motorcycle Explodes”.
W
hen curators at the obscenity. While Yoko Ono and John Dennis’ personal correspondence, in which the mundane – calls to his
Victoria & Albert Museum Lennon recorded a benefit single, diaries and cuttings, artworks by mother – sit alongside recordings of
began to sift through the “God Save Oz”, and supporters hapshash And The Coloured Coat, the latest police raid. “his character
60 boxes of subversive material the paraded round the Old Bailey with Martin Sharp and David hockney, really comes out,” says Sladen.
museum recently acquired as part a papier-mâché model of a naked and a typescript of Lennon’s lyrics “When we went to visit the house to
of Felix Dennis’ Oz archive, one schoolgirl, the editorial trio decided for “God Save Oz”. “It was such a see the archive, locals would tell us
item stood out. It related to the 1971 to make a showpiece of the occasion creative outburst,” says Sladen. wonderful stories about him. That
obscenity trial, when Oz, the ’60s by dressing in costumes, which they “It brings together many of the desire to subvert authority through
counterculture’s most colourful and promptly forgot to pay for. curatorial teams at the museum due art really comes out. The magazine
controversial magazine, got into “We have the costumier’s invoice to its contents, as well as the people is a reflection of the people involved
trouble for publishing, among other for the hire of three arrowed convict it inspired or were involved in it.” in it, just as any great piece of art is,
things, a pornographic parody of outfits which they hired but then Oz covered rock music as well as and it’s a wonderful fit for so many
Rupert The Bear. Dennis and fellow didn’t pay the bill, so there are these politics, using psychedelic design parts of the museum. he’d have
editors Jim Anderson and Richard reminders about the payment,” says to cause maximum impact. “It’s enjoyed having his contribution to
neville were charged with Simon Sladen, V&A Senior Curator a real treat to see the original culture recognised.” PETER WATTS
the classifieds
This month: All that jazz – taken from Melody Maker, July 1, 1961
EvEning Standard/gEtty imagES; joE StEvEnS
AVAILABLE NOW ON LP / CD / DL
UNCUT PLAYLIST
On the stereo this month...
WAND
Plum DrAG CITY
The Ty Segall associates
spread their wings – away
from garage rock and
towards an ornate and
thrilling new take on psych.
FILTHY FRIENDS
Invitation KILL rOCK STArS
An REM/Sleater Kinney/King Crimson
supergroup? Unlikely but true, as Corin
Tucker, Bill Rieflin and others join Peter
Buck in the best post-REM project yet.
VINCE STAPLES
Big Fish Theory DeF JAM
Excited enough by Kendrick Lamar to
investigate more latterday rap? Try
Staples’ bright, freaky and compelling
second LP. Bon Iver and Damon Albarn
we’re guest, discreetly.
New MICHAEL HEAD & THE RED
Here ELASTIC BAND Josephine VIOLeTTe
A first taste of the Shack/Pale Fountains
legend’s first album in 11 years. The
Angelo De Augustine
sensationally titled Adiós, Señor
Pussycat is due, apparently, this autumn.
FOUR TET
happy with how that turned out. It was a couple of
Two Thousand And
Recommended this month: a things. I don’t like people to be around when I’m
Seventeen BANDCAMP
The inventive technocrat
new Sufjan Stevens, live and recording, unless it’s someone I trust. Also, I hitches a laidback break
wasn’t ready with material I really believed in.
direct from an LA bathtub! It takes a while to develop as an artist.”
to the most beatific of harp
lines for this year’s essential
A
ngelo De Augustine’s earliest memories After those false starts, his creative summer breeze soundtrack.
involve accompanying his parents to breakthrough came at 21, when he started making
work, which in practice meant hanging home recordings on an old reel-to-reel tape ZARA McFARLANE
out in recording studios. His father, Tony, is a machine. The results became his first album, Arise BrOwNSwOOD
An auspicious UK jazz album, as the
session drummer; his mother, Wendy Fraser, a Spirals Of Silence, released in 2014. The follow-up, London singer feeds reggae and
singer. They split when De Augustine was four, Swim Inside The Moon, is another quietly Congolese influences into a brew that’s
at which point Fraser became her son’s primary bewitching collection of sweetly skewed pop- at once rootsy and forward-thinking.
source of musical education. folk, dominated by De Augustine’s intricate
“She was a big influence for me,” says the soft- acoustic guitar figures and whispered vocals. THE IMPOSTER
spoken 24-year-old from his home in lA. “She “I recorded this record in the bath tub,” he says. American Tune LUPe-O-TONe
mostly sang back up for lots of artists, but she also “I thought that sound was really interesting. You Elvis Costello resurrects his most
sang ‘She’s like The Wind’, with Patrick Swayze, can experiment with more sounds in a house, seditious alter-ego for this funky revamp
for the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. You because it’s not a perfect room, there’s of the Paul Simon song.
can hear her at the end, and she’s in I’M YOUr FAN lots of eccentricities. Also, I have so VARIOUS ARTISTS
the video. That was her 15 minutes of much more time, I’m not on the studio The SydArthur Festival 2 HeAD HerITAGe
fame, I guess, but she wrote her own clock. And it’s nice. I don’t like to leave Julian Cope and family commemorate
songs pretty much my whole life. That my house that much!” their second celebration of Syd Barrett,
was the main music I heard.” He’d already recorded Swim Inside Arthur Lee and sundry other heads, with
The impact of ’80s power ballads on The Moon when he encountered a wild comp of 1967 hits, linked by the
De Augustine’s own music is, as yet, Stevens. “I met him when I was Archdrude in avant-fab DJ mode.
hard to discern. His folkish sound working at a recording studio in new
more closely resembles the likes of York. We all listened to the record JAY-Z 4:44 rOC NATION
“Angelo’s music in its entirety, and he alluded to the An odd, understated mix of penitence,
elliott Smith, José gonzález and Nina Simone samples and investment
his friend, Sufjan Stevens, whose feels timeless possibility of it having a home with tips, somehow coalescing into Jay-Z’s
Asthmatic Kitty label are releasing and whole, Asthmatic Kitty. A few months later I best since The Black Album.
De Augustine's second album, Swim unhindered and received an email saying they’d love to
Inside The Moon. pure. In our age put it out. I trust him. He’s given me a VARIOUS ARTISTS
As a kid, De Augustine was of exhibitionism lot of encouragement and support, Soul Of A Nation:
“addicted to soccer. Then, when I was and I can’t say enough good things Afro-Centric Visions In
and over- The Age Of Black Power
14, I got a guitar from one of mum’s about Asthmatic Kitty. They give me
friends, and I just started writing
sharing, his complete creative freedom, and I SOUL JAZZ
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Art Of Gold
15 tracks of the month’s best new music
5 rICHArD THOmpsON
Gethsemane
A good few reconfigured Fairports
classics figure on Thompson’s latest
solo acoustic set, but there’s also
room for new takes on less heralded
randy songs, none better than this tense,
Newman virtuosic version of The Old Kit Bag’s
opener. A master at work.
Dream Dictionary of great songs like “My Heart Hurts” McMahon’s sole LP from 1969, Spirit THe sOLAr mOTeL bAND
A good month for elder statesmen, – co-written with Carlene Carter – Of The Golden Juice (reviewed p49) Dreaming In The Non-Dream
as the heroic tones of Terry Reid show how valuable it is to have them has been in and out of print these Finally this time out, a hefty extract
make a welcome guest appearance back in proper circulation. From past few years: a post-Vietnam duty from one of 2017’s most spectacular
on this gem from Psychic Temple. 1982’s Nick The Knife. classic that conjures up the image of guitar anthems, as Philly’s
Lovely, sun-dappled West Coast pop a hippy Townes Van Zandt. Here’s a quicksilver Solar Motel Band lock
vibes for the late summer and 9 KATIe VON sCHLeICHer highlight from its latest incarnation, into pulsating motorik-psych-funk:
beyond: you can find out much more Life’s A Lie as McMahon (interviewed on p6) is Jerry Garcia jamming with Neu!,
about this fine LA band on p36. Last seen in the UK supporting back onstage after 40-odd years. maybe? Yes please!
carGo collective: an amalGamation oF record shoPs and laBels dedicated to BrinGinG you neW music
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Long-term beard
grower Sam Beam,
aka Iron & Wine,
in 2017
I
T’S early morning at Myrtle Beach, filmmakers were blocking the prom scene.
South Carolina, where Iron & Wine’s “All my friends have beards As the song “Flightless Bird, American
Sam Beam has taken time out from
the July 4 holiday celebrations
and all musicians I know Mouth” was working in her head, she
suggested they use it to block the scene.
to speak to Uncut. “I’ve brought
the kids to visit my folks,” he says. It
have beards… we’re just a So they did, intending on switching it
later to something that other people might
transpires that Beam has five daughters.
“Most of the day is pretty free now that
lazy bunch of bums! I was really want to hear. But you know how it
is, you hear it too many times and it sticks
they’re in school,” he explains. “I used worried my facial hair was – so that’s what happened. Am I fan of
to have to carve out time to work, now I Young Adult vampire fiction? Sure, it’s very
can treat the time a little more frivolously. more interesting than the inspiring for making music!
I’m always working. I used to be more
focused, now it’s notebooks all over the
music I was making!” You’ve written many songs over
place. I don’t push it any more. There’s a the years – are there any particular
lot of hours in the day to do other things.” Interview by michael bonner ones that you don’t enjoy playing
Over the past 15 years since Iron & any more?
Wine’s debut, The Creek Drank The Cradle, Twilight’s Kristen I like words, so if the words resonate in Zach Ladd, via email
Beam has refined his brand of hushed, Stewart let The a fun way, it doesn’t really matter how it It’s always a challenge to play a song a
Shepherd’s Dog
hesitant Americana to incorporate loose on set… relates to the body of music it’s titling. million times, when what you really enjoy
folk balladry, funereal elegies I usually go through and pick up some about music is what’s lying undiscovered
and lustrous blue-eyed soul. His lyric from one of the songs that I feel around the corner. But at the same time,
latest, Beast Epic, offers a further relates to the body of work. But it’s really it’s a challenge that’s fun to take up. I’ve
upgrade on his sound. “This is just out of laziness. I’ve always liked always found that if you’re willing to look
my sixth collection of new Iron Rubber Soul – it relates to the music, but at your work as a capsule of what you were
& Wine material and I’m happy in a better way than any of the lyrics. doing at that moment – instead of a eulogy
to say that it’s my fourth for Sub Beast Epic is a literary term for a story that has to walk with you for the rest of
Pop Records,” he says. “It’s a like The Tortoise And The Hare, where your life and describe you in completeness
warm and serendipitous time there are animals talking and acting – it’s fun. You can breathe a new energy
to be reuniting with my Seattle like humans. I thought it was a fun way into a song that might have been lying
friends, because I feel there’s a to describe our more base nature. It can dead on the table. It depends on how
certain kinship between this new be a Trump reference, if you like – you precious you want to be! I don’t have time
collection of songs and my earliest can apply it to whatever you like. for sealing things in amber.
material, which Sub Pop was kind
enough to release.” That song in Iron & Wine have covered Stereolab,
Josh Wool; Moviestore/reX/shutterstock
Meanwhile, Beam is enjoying Twilight. How did Spiritualized and New Order. Are
a bit of downtime before he heads that come about? there any ’80s/’90s UK indie bands
out on a run of dates in North Chris Nicolas, you’d deem too difficult to cover?
America: “This is the quiet before the Weybridge Neal Reeves, Manchester
storm,” he says with a laugh. “I’m trying Lots of luck! The story No. I have such affection for that music – it
to soak up my kids’ faces!” that I’ve heard is that the had a lot to do with my sonic upbringing. It
album [The Shepherd’s was around; if I could find it, anyone could
What makes a good album title? Dog] had just come out find it! I was a Cure fanatic. I loved Robert
Bryn Hughes, Cardiff and Kristen Stewart Smith and a lot of bands along those lines.
That’s like, “What makes a good was listening to it on her But that’s what was in the water at the time.
recipe?” It’s different for everybody. headphones when the I feel like from the beginning, Iron &
I was uncomfortable with. The avenues always about the play against that and
we have of making money off our art are
getting fewer, especially if you’re not a Wine can contain musically” poking it as hard as you can.
jingle man writing songs. But if they want Beast Epic is released on August 25
to borrow it to align themselves with
SAM BEAM via Sub Pop
NEW
WAALBUMS
B
september 2017
take 244
1 randy newman (p22)
2 the war on drugs (p24)
3 queens of the stone age (p31)
4 arcade fire (p34)
grizzly bear
painted ruins
rca
I
f recent history has taught us Since 2006’s Yellow House, every Grizzly
nothing else, it’s that democracy album Bear track has credited all four members as
is messy business. Despite its high- OF THE songwriters. The lines between “Ed songs”
minded ideals of representation mONTH and “Dan songs” gradually blurred as they
and accountability, it can be slow increasingly traded lead vocals within songs,
and cumbersome, inhibiting good
9/10 while collective harmonies became their
ideas while letting unfortunate ones most distinctive voice. Even their onstage set-up
occasionally slip through. Even its vaunted reflects this equal footing, with all four primary
robustness can be undercut by a few bad actors, as members organised in a line at the front of the stage.
we’re reminded almost hourly of late. But that remarkable commitment to democracy
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised about those comes with its disadvantages, too. It’s been five years
political realities, given the poor performance of – an eternity in internet time – since the group’s last
democracy in the microcosm of music. In the band record, 2012’s Shields. Like many groups of friends in
structure, totalitarianism oftren rules, with groups their thirties, they’ve drifted apart geographically,
organised around an undisputed leader typically spreading out across both US coasts. And a healthy
showing the greatest longevity. Egalitarianism, on amount of individual side projects – solo records,
the other hand, can be band poison, as attested by the television scoring, production work – have conspired
tombstones of many acts whose secondary songwriter to keep Grizzly Bear on the backburner.
sought greater authority. As a result, there was a lack
Grizzly Bear stand as the of urgency in producing what
exception to this rule, a band would become Painted Ruins.
that, despite all odds, have for months, the foursome
only grown more democratic shared scraps of music online,
over their existence. from their paired off on songwriting
genesis as Edward Droste’s excursions, and forbade the
solo project, the group has use of the word “album”,
gradually decentralised, keeping the pressure as low as
adding a second singer and possible. Even the recording
songwriter in Daniel Rossen, process was bi-coastal,
the multi-instrumentalist and with separate sessions in
in-house producer Chris Taylor, Hollywood and the rural
TOM HINES
how to buy...
“Alligator” with the remake on Standout track “Knife” captured yet scaled down to the intimate of Droste and Rossen, developing
2007’s “Friend” EP for a time-lapse the early magic mixture of Droste sonics of folk, beachy pop and their own tones within the band’s
of the band’s early evolution. 8/10 and Rossen’s voices. 8/10 pastoral psych. 9/10 collective boundaries. 9/10
way to be like, there are record – how did that affect the
ideas happening, let’s writing and recording?
put it out there. BEaR: We all spent a good, large chunk
of our lives living in New York, and felt
How did you for various reasons like it was the time
get from those for all of us to try something different.
scraps of ideas to Out here I feel less of a grind – I’m just
the songs on the still exploring and amazed by this place
album? When do that feels very different to me. We’ve
you know a song talked about that sense of adventure and
is ready? excitement about living in a new place,
DROSTE: Most of the and maybe subconsciously some of that
songs on the record comes through in the music. Though we
did have moments certainly didn’t set out to make a record
where we didn’t really with a California sound [laughs].
know whether it would DROSTE: It’s sort of like when people ask
actually make it. how did the political atmosphere affect
Usually what happens the album. We’re not usually a band
is one person comes to, in the lyrics at least, overtly discuss
up with some sort of topical matters and write very literal
reinvention of it, or a lyrics about them. It’s like how you can
new flavour to it, or a find pieces of politics within the lyrics –
new ending outro, and you can maybe find pieces of a California
then suddenly everyone feel that seep their way in, but we weren’t
really gets it. So you sort necessarily consciously thinking to
of slowly see the songs ourselves, let’s make this sound sunny
get to that point one by or something like that.
Q&a one. The more of those
that come, it shows that What’s good and bad about
everyone’s jumping having such a democratic band?
into a track and giving DROSTE: We’re constantly challenging
it their all. When people each other and pushing each other to be
come in and give it their the best we can be. There’s just a lot of
edward Droste and Bear necessity:
“We’d email
own flavour and put it on its head in a ideas and perspective, and we all have
way that you didn’t quite expect it to in different tastes and vibes, so it sounds
Christopher bear things over to
each other” the beginning, that’s when we know the like us, but I think we’re always pushing
on Grizzly Bear’s song’s really going to go somewhere. each other to do new things.
collaborative method The disadvantage is that if it’s a
it sounds like there are more democracy, sometimes things you really
loops and samples on this love fall to the wayside, or it can be a little
Why did this record take so long record, like on “Three Rings” slower. But it’s worth it in the long run to
to come together? – was that the result of the have everyone excited and contributing,
DROSTE: I think it was partially in original idea sharing? it makes playing live much more fun
response to the stop-start thing that BEaR: Generally, we’re trying to push because everyone’s into it, and it also
happened on the last record, where we and try new things that we haven’t been makes for better albums, because you’ve
were kind of pushing ourselves to do it, able to do before, or use new sounds, and got four very strong opinions. We are all
and as a result, most of the songs that I think that’s always exciting for us. On very critical, in a nice way, of what we’re
we did during that period ended up “Three Rings”, that was just a percussion making, so a lot of stuff hits the chopping
being B-sides or not making the cut. We idea that I had done and it got looped block for good reason.
really learned from that experience and and Ed and Chris sort of used that as a
said, ‘Let’s wait until everyone’s all on jumping-off point for a song. That was There’s a lot of attention on the
the same page and everyone’s feeling one of those things that was a very, very early-2000s New York indie-
recharged and ready,’ and it just ended small thread of an idea meant to be sort rock scene right now, including
up taking a little longer this time. of used as a tool; we ended up using the oral history Meet Me In The
BEaR: At that point, we still kept it pretty some things like that all around. Bathroom, where you all appear.
loose and just started passing demo What does it feel like to look
ideas and small little snippets back and Most of the band has relocated back on those days now?
forth in a pretty casual way. to California since the last DROSTE: It was a really fun time to
be there and to be making music
Since the four of you were surrounded by tons of people. I
spread out around the country, remember going to early Yeah Yeah
you spent some time sharing
ideas as files over a shared “There’s a lot of ideas Yeahs and Liars shows in Brooklyn
and feeling this really cool energy. It
internet folder; how did that
influence the process?
DROSTE: I think it was just a really good
and perspective, and felt great to be there and have so many
amazing musicians around; it felt really
supportive in the people we worked with
way to get the ball rolling. Even when we
were all in the same city, we would go off
we all have different and collaborated with. Now I go back and
no-one’s there, a lot of them are here [in
on these two- or three-person retreats
and we’d email things over to each other,
tastes and vibes” California]; it’s funny bumping into Dave
Longstreth at the supermarket. But I’m so
TOM HINES
Randy Newman:
“Mr trump, my
dick’s bigger
than your dick”
RANDY NEWMAN
him uniting those two professions. Here the judge to the hapless scientist. “Do
each satirical sketch is lavishly arranged yourself a favour and use our music/Your
like a miniature film score, with multiple music is making people sick.” After each
Dark Matter characters, shifting points of view and
dramatic lurches in musical style. earlier
scientific argument is ridiculed by gospel-
singing believers, the characters in the
NONESUCH
newman tracks – like the Brechtian “A song turn on “Randy Newman” himself
8/10 Piece Of The Pie” (on 2008’s Harps And
Angels) or the episodic paean to Karl Marx
(“A self-described atheist and communist”)
for creating a strawman argument.
Uniting sardonic gospel songs with “The World isn’t Fair” (on 1999’s Bad Love) Throughout the album, the melodies
complex orchestral scores. By John Lewis – have attempted this, but none were as stop and start like film scores: they change
ambitious as anything on this album. key, tempo, time signature and even
The opener, “The Great Debate”, is an musical genre to suit the flow of the story.
S
ince the early 1980s, Randy eight-minute comic opera that imagines “Brothers” imagines a conversation in the
newman’s day job has been a latterday Scopes Monkey Trial between White House between John F Kennedy and
writing orchestral scores a panel of scientists and representatives his brother Bobby in 1961, lurching from a
for big Hollywood movies. from every discussion of the Washington Redskins’
Some might feature the christian notorious refusal to sign black players
occasional knockabout song denomination. to the imminent Bay Of Pigs invasion
– like “You’ve Got A Friend it’s filled with (a hawkish Bobby is overruled by Jack,
in Me” from Toy Story or “if i Didn’t Have sly musical and whose only interest in cuba is his love for
You” from Monsters Inc – but newman’s rhetorical gags: the singer celia cruz). “Putin” is a broader
primary role is to provide detailed, time- when a physicist satire, a bombastic, cossack-themed
coded, instrumental underscores that is asked to explain stomp in praise of the Russian chief (“He
bring the visuals to life. “dark matter”, can power a nuclear reactor/From the left
These soundtracks have always been the underscore side of his brain”).
PAMeLA SPRINGSTeeN
kept quite separate from newman’s is replaced by a The elaborate arrangements continue
increasingly rare, once-a-decade studio series of spooky, even on the more orthodox songs. “Sonny
albums, where his croaky, sardonic discordant sci-fi Boy” is a jaunty ragtime number where
vignettes are usually backed by an ornery flourishes. “Just a the veteran Tennessee bluesman Sonny
barroom band, but Dark Matter finally sees moment, sir,” says Boy Williamson (1914-1948) narrates
You’d need a
heart of stone
SLEEVE NOTES
1 The Great
Debate
2 Brothers
3 Putin
4 Lost Without You
AtoZ
This month…
to listen to the 5 Sonny Boy
6 It’s A Jungle Out
There (V2)
P25 THE WAR ON DRUGS
Produced by:
P31
P32
QOTSA
lIARS
Mitchell Froom, P34 ARCADE fIRE
Lenny Waronker P35 OH SEES
his life as a surf-obsessed beach bum. and David P36 PSYCHIC TEMPlE
“it’s A Jungle” – the theme to the TV series Boucher P37 EMMA RUSSACK
Monk – is a stomping showtune told from Recorded at:
P38 RICHARD THOMPSON
the POV of a paranoid conspiracy theorist. University High,
“I’m not the one who’s crazy,” says the Los Angeles; Sony
nervy narrator. “I’m not afraid of them/ Scoring Stage,
They’re afraid of you and me.” Culver City, STEVE ADEY
newman has long specialised in heart- California; Sunset Do Me A Kindness
Sound Studios, GRAND HARMONIUM
tugging lyrics, be it the brutal meditation
Hollywood
on death “Old Man” (from 1972’s Sail Away) 7/10
Personnel
or the sob-inducing “When She Loved includes: Randy Left-field chamber-pop
Me” (from 1999’s Toy Story 2). Dark Matter Newman (piano, arrangements of Dylan, Bowie,
has several such weepy moments. “Lost vocals), and Cave and more
With You” marshals newman’s Disney a 70-piece edinburgh-based
nous – with a backing that shifts from orchestra, post-rocker Steve
Stephen Foster to Stephen Sondheim – to arranged and Adey is not exactly
conducted by a fast worker. This
tell the story of a man who is left broken by
Newman collection of lightly
the death of his wife. The tears are more experimental
uplifting in “She chose Me”, a bleakly chamber-pop covers is only his third
beautiful piano ballad where the narrator full album since 2006. But there is
is a lonely man who can’t believe that he classy craftsmanship and wry wit at
has found a partner. play here, when Adey interweaves
Just when you think the dark matters “An Unsigned Painting” by Rickie
have lifted, the album’s closing track, Lee Jones into the descending doom
“Wandering Boy”, comes as a body blow. chords of Bowie’s “Sense Of Doubt”,
or undercuts the arch sarcasm in
it sees newman junk the orchestral
nick cave’s “God is in The House” by
bombast and accompany himself on the amplifying the song’s torrid religious
piano, narrating the tale of a heartbroken fervour. Only a plodding choral take
the true story of how his name, identity father searching for his missing son. After on Morrissey’s glum seaside postcard
and songs were stolen by a Mississippi a middle-eight where he remembers the “every Day is Like Sunday” strikes a
bluesman (1912-1965). “He’s the one who five-year-old boy “laughing like a maniac/ bum note between worthy reworkings
went to England/Tried to teach those Shining in the sun like gold/He was afraid of Bob Dylan, PJ Harvey, Portishead
English boys the blues,” howls the original of nothin’ then”, the song drops two and more. Stephen DaLton
Sonny, lamenting that he’s now the “only semitones for a hymnal ending. “I hope
bluesman in heaven”. “On The Beach” is a he’s warm and I hope he’s dry/And that a AVEY TARE
piece of Hawaiian-tinged exotica, with a stranger’s eye is a friendly eye.” You’d need
Eucalyptus
DOMINO
nod to Van Dyke Parks, about a well-to-do a heart of stone to sit through all three
high-school dropout who elects to spend minutes without choking up. 5/10
Undercooked meditations from
here
10th Of Seas is only his third solo Cotton Mather,
album, yet it’s a confidently varied Robert Harrison has
and vivid effort: “Why You Gotta pursued the oblique
Make It So Hard?” recalls the weirdo strategy of writing a
pop of the Elephant 6 collective, song based on each
while “We’re All Here” revives the
distressed college rock of the city’s
DaviD BaRBE Georgia Music Business Program.
“Even though I would think
of the I Ching’s 64 hexagrams. Second
instalment Wild Kingdom opens
about making a new album
defining documentary, 1987’s Inside/ Songwriter, producer, teacher, pointedly with “The Cotton Mather
during that seven years,” he
Out. Drawing from every corner of multi-instrumentalist… Pledge”, a wry slice of autobiography
says, “I couldn’t create the
Athens lore, Barbe crafts a ragged containing the admission “I don’t
D
avid Barbe is always headspace while devoting my
strain of Southern rock that is know how to quit… I only want a hit”
writing songs, but he’s creative energy to making dozens
both idiosyncratic and deeply amid a power-chord tornado. The
usually too busy to actually of other ones, which I love as much
civic-minded. STEPHEN DEUSNER LP hurtles along with a calibrated
record them. It took him seven as my own albums.”
thrum, intricately arranged, cerebral
years to make his latest solo When he finally set aside time at
BORiS album, 10th Of Seas, a set of his Chase Park Transduction studio,
rockers like “Better Than A Hit” and
Dear beautifully abrasive, sharply he played every instrument himself.
“I Volunteer” calling to mind the
SaRgENT HOUSE Attractions backing John Lennon.
inventive, occasionally humorous “The harder I drove the gear, the
Addictive stuff – and Harrison isn’t
8/10 Southern pop songs that nod to better it sounded to me. And not
even halfway through the hexagrams.
Japanese doom-rock institution nearly every phase of Athens, just distorting guitars. Drums, piano,
BUD SCOPPA
celebrate 25 years of existence Georgia, music lore. vocals – pretty much everything on
For 30 years he’s been a key figure there is being pushed in some way.
Alongside Sunn O)))
in that scene, playing in numerous My associate producer heard it and
DaPHNi
and Earth, Boris are
bands (including the BBQ Killers), said it sounded like I had just ‘dialled
Fabriclive 93
leading lights of a FaBRiC
producing nearly every Drive-By a lot more personality into it’. That
small subgenre of
Truckers album, and teaching phrase became our mantra.” 8/10
metal groups taking
classes at the University Of INTERVIEW: STEPHEN DEUSNER De facto second album from
Black Sabbath’s slow
and sludgy template and distilling it Caribou’s techno alter ego
into new concentrations of heaviness. As a tribute to the
After LPs like Pink and Attention London nightclub
Please, which intermingled Boris’ post-hip-hop production moments. CORNELiUS that helped lure him
churning guitars with aspects of The spirits of Stevie, the Isleys and MELLOw wavES onto the dancefloor,
shoegaze and J-pop, Dear feels like a Sly Stone are invoked repeatedly: ROSTRUM Dan Snaith has used
refresh to their core sound – you can “No Holding Back” and “Good Music” the occasion of his
7/10
almost see the amplifiers tremble as typify a set of generous grooves, debut Fabric mix CD to premiere a set of
“Deadsong” and “Kagero” deploy their tailor-made for summer. Tokyo production virtuoso brand-new Daphni material. The move
depth-charge riffs. But Boris’ trump MARk BENTLEy returns after 11 years nods to one of his DJ heroes, Ricardo
card is their unlikely gracefulness. Though 2006’s Villalobos, who did the same thing
“Beyond”, featuring vocals from aLEX CaMERON Sensuous suggested with his Fabric mix in 2007, although
guitarist Wata, achieves a drifting, Forced witness Keigo Oyamada was Snaith’s take on minimalist dance
beautiful desolation that many of SECRETLy CaNaDiaN already softening music is brighter and more immediate.
their peers lack. with age, he has, as Where he does indulge his love of
8/10
LOUIS PATTISON his sixth album’s weird noises and world music samples,
Australian songwriter’s lounge title suggests, truly mellowed for this they’re always housed within a crisp
DECOSTa BOyCE act gets serious comeback. Sadly, that means there’s rhythmic structure. Caribou-esque
Electrick Soul It’s never clear quite little of the playful invention of 1997’s melodic fragments abound, bathed
viNTEDgE how straight to take astonishing Fantasma, but imaginative in the joy that radiates from pumping,
Alex Cameron, who details abound, even at these slower disco-driven anthems “Vs” and the
6/10
released his debut, tempos. “If You’re Here” provides a climactic “Fly Away”. SAM RICHARDS
Stevenage soul boy serves up Jumping The Shark,
retro-schooled R&B in character as a
Following some “poor washed-up lounge singer and now Keigo
managerial choices” claims to be a former legal investigator. Oyamada,
aka
in the past, behold Ignoring the relationship between Cornelius
the debut proper from tongue and cheek, Forced Witness
this respected London is a lovely album of ’80s-ish pop,
session-scener, who using synth and sax to find the
has supported the likes of Mica Paris, space between Springsteen and
Beverley Knight, Texas and Roachford. the Bunnymen. “Strangers Kiss” is
That CV will give you a decent idea a sublime duet with Angel Olsen,
MASAYOSHI SUKITA
of what’s on offer here: poppish soul, the witty “True Lies” updates “Lola”
with a classic vibe. Boyce’s voice is a for the internet age, while “Marlon
fluid, flexible instrument, defined by Brando” even gets away with the
its warm highs, and he’s buttressed extensive use of bongos.
by sharp musicianship and squelchy, PETER WATTS
THE waR ON DRUgS CS-5, Juno organ, his most loyal collaborators since The War
Juno 60 and On Drugs evolved from a loose assemblage
106, Vox Jaguar, of Philly pals to a more professional
a Deeper Understanding Arp Solina, Korg
Trident, Prophet
operation. The two multi-instrumentalists
who fill out the band’s regular live lineup,
aTLaNTiC
5, Hammond Jon Natchez and Anthony LaMarca, make
organ, Wurlitzer,
8/10 samplers, celeste,
similarly valuable appearances.
The result is some of the richest, most
piano, tape loops,
Granduciel admits a little more light. By Jason Anderson vibes, harmonica,
compelling and least lonely-sounding
Linn drum, perc), music of Granduciel’s career. And that’s
IN the songs of Adam his agitation has him “spinnin’ round on Dave Hartley true even of songs as beautifully forlorn
Granduciel, it can feel the floor”, as he sings in a raspy murmur. (bass, fretless as “Clean Living”, on which Granduciel
like it’s always 3am. A gorgeous exercise in yearning that finds bass, acoustic weathers a troubled time by providing
His lyrics contain just Granduciel at his most Dylanesque, “Pain” gtr, bk vocals), himself with a pep talk (“I know my way
as many references to begins with the instruction to “go to bed Robbie Bennett around it/I’ve been doing alright”) and
darkness – both literal now” – alas, there’s more brooding to do. (Prophet 12, a deftly arranged musical setting that
Rhodes, celeste,
and figurative – as In the equally winsome “Clean Living”, he foregrounds Bennett’s Rhodes, Natchez’
Hammond organ,
they do to his desires to find a way out or admits that “Sometimes I’ll lay in the dark/ Baldwin organ,
baritone sax and the singer’s own
maybe just get a little rest. But clearly The Just to see if I can feel a spark.” piano, bk vocals), contributions on piano and harmonica.
War On Drugs’ main man is used to the At other times, he seems to have a new Anthony LaMarca “Knocked Down” is another expression of
state of mind that typically accompanies reason to be awake. As he puts it in “Up (electric, slide vulnerability and feeling “beaten up and
the wee hours, which is not so surprising All Night”, it’s “some feeling I can’t break”, and acoustic weak” that exudes strength and resilience.
given his reputation for painstaking something that’s “glowing” and that he gtr, bk vocals, Elsewhere, The War On Drugs shed
perfectionism. Among his other enemies can’t understand. In “Thinking Of A Place” drums), Charlie the more lugubrious tendencies that
of sleep are the feelings of anxiety and – the album’s 14-minute centrepiece, a Hall (drums, sometimes dog them, reaching maximum
percussion, vibes),
isolation that he expressed so starkly in haunting, gently shifting reverie of a love cruising speed when the programmed
Jon Natchez
the most dimly lit passages of Lost In The that got lost somewhere near the banks (baritone sax),
beats kick in halfway through “Up All
Dream, the Philadelphia band’s moving, of the Missouri river – there’s more talk Michael Johnson Night”, a swirl of fuzz and rhythm of a kind
mesmerising and much-lauded third of light creeping in, of “movin’ with the (Arp Odyssey), rarely heard since Andrew Weatherall
album that hogged the top spot in best- moon” and morning arriving to help bust Darren Jesse remixed My Bloody Valentine. Granduciel
of-year lists (including Uncut’s) in 2014. up the old ways of feeling and thinking. (drums, perc), sounds just as free of his demons when
Whichever inner demon deserves He doesn’t necessarily know what to call Michael Bloch he croons a few “woo-hoos” over the
the credit, it puts a long stretch of highway “all these changes I don’t understand”, as (electric rhythm cascading synths of “Nothing To Find”,
in between him and the dawn’s early light. he puts it in “Nothing To Find”, one of the gtr), Carter which is to Springsteen’s “Glory Days”
Tanton (acoustic
Sure enough, A Deeper Understanding most immediately engaging new songs. what Lost In The Dream’s “Burning” was
gtr), Meg Duffy
opens with the first of several new tracks But maybe a guy with his disposition is (slide gtr)
to “Dancing In The Dark”. At times like
that situate Granduciel back in the time and too wary to cop to feeling happier, which these, the night that once seemed endless
place he knows so well. In “Up All Night”, he has every right to these days given isn’t so long at all.
people
foster the ts club
sacred hear
21/07/2017
coldplay
kaleidoscope ep
04/08/2017
girl ray
badbadnotgood earl grey
late night tales 04/08/2017
28/07/2017
frankie rose
cage tropical
11/08/2017
ratboy
scum
11/08/2017
warm digits
wireless world
manchester 04/08/2017
orchestra ben lukas boysen
a black mile & sebastian plano
to the surface everything
28/07/2017 28/07/2017
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new albums
8/10
Highly charged workouts from
a 21st-century guitar hero
Over the past few years,
culminating in 2016’s
double album, The
Rarity Of Experience, the
Philadelphia-based Forsyth
has emerged as standard-
bearer of a febrile electric guitar tradition,
one that incorporates Richard Thompson
and Jerry Garcia, Television and Sonic Youth.
This year’s outing is a more streamlined
creation, clocking in at 36 minutes and
with the second guitarist culled from the
Solar Motel studio lineup. Still, Forsyth’s
imperative to find new possibilities from a
classic format shines through. Horns shade
the lyricism of “History & Science Fiction”,
while political indignation is implicit in the
6/10
For all their charms, the arrival of I’m singing, it’s back to, ‘OK, how do we present
Glossy, bricolage pop on LA Grammy
each new David Rawlings album this strange instrument?’” Consequently, Poor
winners’ third
inevitably poses an awkward David’s Almanack betrays a keenness to flesh out
question: why does it exist, when their aesthetic: Bowie vet Ken Scott engineers, It’s not the kink in the
a new Gillian Welch album does and a more elaborate sound design incorporates tail of FTP’s impeccably
not? Since 2011’s extraordinary strings on the aforementioned “Airplane”. groomed pop that makes
The Harrow & The Harvest, six years have passed In that context, Rawlings is a fine frontman, them so intriguing (chart
in which Welch’s studio energies seem to have an amiable convenor of sessions where Brittany queens Lorde and Halsey
been concentrated on reversing the polarities Haas’ fiddle takes the spotlight as often as his beat them at “odd”), but
of her partnership with Rawlings. own discreet virtuosity on the guitar, where rather their unembarrassed, first-level
In democratic terms it makes sense, given the Dawes and the Old Crow Medicine Show drop readability, which is such that you begin to
collaborative nature of all their work. Welch co- in, and where Welch can add “hands and feet” suspect fiendish subversion – especially
writes five of the ten songs here and contributes percussion as well as drums. That old-time, on the teen-friendly “Sit Next To Me”. That
harmonies, at the very least, to all of them. Welch good-time vibe can occasionally dip into thought, though, is dispelled as they embark
makes for a brilliant backing singer, but it’s hard hokeyness, as the album title signals, but slower on a rampage through synth/psychedelic
not to speculate what the terrifically plaintive numbers like “Lindsey Button” and “Put ’Em Up pop and electronic R&B, swiping right at
“Airplane” might have sounded like if she’d Solid” are where the group excels. As Rawlings Phoenix, MGMT, The Weeknd, Tame Impala
taken the lead, especially given its affinities with and Welch’s vocals intertwine with those of and Hudson Mohawke. It’s “Loyal Like Sid
The Harrow & The Harvest’s “The Way It Will Be”. Willie Watson, there’s a hymnal quality to the & Nancy” that takes the composite biscuit,
Perhaps the answer lies in something Rawlings sound and a communitarian warmth; a desire, mixing Prince-ly falsetto with trap beats and
told Uncut in 2015. “Gillian’s voice has such a explicit or otherwise, to pay homage to The synthetic brass. SHARON O’CONNELL
great quality that the more you strip away around Band, another act who understood the enduring
it the better it sounds, which is why we’ve always possibilities of a collective approach to roots GHOSTPOET
made very sparse records,” he said. “But when music. JOHN MULVEY Dark Days And Canapés
PIAS
look out for two distinct releases that the weekend is likely to be a performance of with a sly humour: “Ain’t left the city in
month from John McCauley’s mercurial last year’s Chivalrous Amoekons songs with months,” he sings on “Freakshow”, “guess
deer Tick. The Rhode Island quartet explore special guest will oldham. ROb HUGHES Westfield knows what I want.” LOUIS PATTISON
alice cooper
paranormal
28/07/2017
david rawlings
poor david’s almanack
11/08/2017
nicole atkins
goodnight rhonda lee
21/07/2017
lucky soul
hard lines
11/08/2017
the districts
popular manipulations
various artists y of a 11/08/2017
cit
valerian and thets: soundtrack george thorogoo
thousand plane party of one
d
04/08/2017 04/08/2017
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neW AlbumS
of the Proustian potency that Bruce melancholy. It’s never better than
Springsteen’s ’70s peak does for ALLISoN MooRER “The Middle”, a glittering soul strut
Americans. These are not, however, Not Dark Yet with a smouldering vocal from guest
the only people who should welcome SILVER CRoSS/THIRTY TIgERS star Sean Nicholas Savage that recalls
Life Is Fine, Kelly’s first orthodox rock ’80s Prince – although “The Boss”, a
album for a decade (recent diversions 7/10 languid closer with Jaakko Eino Kalevi
have included a soul rave-up, a Country siblings finally make adding wails of burnished saxophone,
collection of funeral laments and an album together comes close. LOUIS PATTISON
and the band’s long-time co-producer, were so crazy in the US all genre and sense of clique
Markus Dravs. In contrast to Reflektor, politically, but New Orleans What were the primary has been evaporated.
Everything Now is tight and punchy. seems to exist out of time. You musical inspirations? INTERVIEW: GRAEME THOMSON
8/10 RON POPE CHRIS PRICE crises, pinpointing the narrators’ flaws
Work Stop Talking and blind spots with a Newman-esque
Dwyer’s skronk overlords mix BROOKLYN BASEMENT OMNIVORE blend of empathy and wit. BUD SCOPPA
moments of foot-tapping calm
with facemelting magic 7/10 8/10 ASHLEY RAINES &
Oh Sees (the Thee Seventh studio album from A breathtaking aerial ballet from THE NEW WEST REVUE
has been retired) are Atlanta’s answer to The Boss a gifted young artist/producer It Could Be Worse
now so good at what Masquerading under Miami-born, LA- IDIOM
they do best – warped the sort of John Doe based polymath
5/10
psychy funk groovers title that Pope’s Chris Price worked
and fuzzbox-busting spiritual godfather semi-anonymously Middling Midwest manoeuvres
goblin thumpers – that the interest Bruce Springsteen in various power- Tapping into the dark
with each new album is how John really ought to have pop bands before root of American rural
Dwyer will add to their prodigious given to an album long before now, drawing accolades for his strikingly music, Kansas-born
armoury. Last year’s fantastic A Weird Work finds Pope more in thrall to the simpático production on albums for singer, songwriter and
Exits featured a couple of unexpectedly e Street Band than ever on vivacious Linda Perhacs and emitt Rhodes, multi-instrumentalist
proggy ballads, while Orc has the blue-collar anthems such as “Can’t both coaxed out of retirement by this Raines specialises
drifting instrumental calm of “Keys Stay here” and “Let’s Get Stoned”. kindred spirit four decades younger. in songs of fateful retribution, manly
To The Castle”, the dancey ripple Yet he’s at his best when the swagger Those projects led seamlessly to Stop suffering and fleeting redemption.
of “Paranoise” and the drawn-out is set aside on the banjo-laden Talking, whose ornate arrangements, his rich baritone fits the bluesy
jazzy shuffle of “Raw Optics”. For “Someday We’re All Going To Die”, elegant melodies and beguiling confessional bill, but these solid,
shredheads, there’s urgent opener the gentle lilt of “The Weather” and vocals uncannily recall Nilsson circa sombre songs lean too readily towards
“The Static God”, while the superb the plaintive title track, which filters 1970–71. There’s substance amid the predictable. Amid clichéd fare like
“Animated Violence” alternates its obvious Nebraska influence via the sophistication: gripping songs “Peace In The Valley” and “Old Time
between the album’s twin moods the 21st-century troubadourisms of such as “Sigh”, “Man Down”, “Once Religion”, the choppy, three-legged
KYLE SAFIEH
of sustained guitar menace and Ryan Adams or Josh Ritter. heart-on- Was True”, “hi Lo”, “One Of Them”, rhythm of “Desperate Man” stands out.
reflective percussive ambience. its-sleeve, everyman rock at its most “Pulling Teeth” and “Father To The The set is capable enough, but yields
PETER WATTS universally appealing. NIGEL WILLIAMSON Man” insightfully explore existential little light. GRAEME THOMSON
discovered
Searching out the best albums new to Uncut
in which Schlarb can display his
increasingly finessed songwriting.
again, it’s hard to pay full
attention to Schlarb’s skill when
one is constantly distracted by the
discreet virtuosity he encourages
from his guests. Most notably,
terry Reid (who Schlarb met when
recording one of Superlungs’
live shows) drops by to add
wavering harmonies to “Dream
Dictionary”, “turn Off the Lights”
and “If I Don’t Leave, they’ll
take Me away”. Reid is a little
more ragged than in his youth,
but there are some tantalising
moments, especially in “Dream
Dictionary”, when he jousts with
and seems about to soar away from
Chris Schlarb the gentler, unassuming tones of
(left) with Terry
‘Superlungs’ Reid Schlarb. Such small tensions add
shade to the mellowness.
Even Reid is upstaged on “turn
embarked on the first Psychic Off the Lights”, as Dave Easley
CHRIS ROBINSON
BROTHERHOOD
Barefoot In The Head
of the 16-minute noodle, “Squash”,
Marshmallow finds him distorting
his lushest pop instincts, from the
revelations
SILVER ARROW insistent loveliness of “Sometimes”
to the almost pastoral plasticity of the
8/10
title track, which sounds like Prince
Cosmic American maestros and Marc Bolan making eyes at each
dabble in acid folk other while henderson dissects sweet
Rich Robinson’s nothings. ALASTAIR McKAY
return to the fray, with
the recent Magpie JOSEPH SHABASON
Salute album of covers Aytche
and old songs, is a WESTERN VINYL
further reminder of
8/10
how productive his brother Chris has
been since the demise of their former Saxophonist’s contemplative,
band, the Black Crowes. Barefoot In ambient-jazz delight
The Head is the fifth CRB album in Independent
five years (seven if you count a couple debuts by ensemble
of live sets), and further evidence of players are seldom
Robinson’s easy-going profligacy. this as ravishing as this.
time out, there’s a greater emphasis on Joseph Shabason has
acoustic guitars and folksiness, with form, as saxophonist
adam MacDougall’s squelchier Moog with DIaNa and Destroyer and
settings kept to a minimum: “Blonde
Light Of Day” is a gorgeous stab at CSN
go-to guy for acts including the War
On Drugs, but Aytche smudges the
EMMA RUSSACK
soul; “high Is Not the top” a deftly boundaries between ambient, “nu “One must have a sense of purpose in this crazy life…”
fingerpicked country-rock anthem. as jazz” and minimalism. With recurrent
ever, you wish they’d stretch out and motifs to ensure the tracks play as a he title of Emma of reality – searching for
jam a bit more in the studio, but this
might just be the most satisfying CRB
set piece, it shifts from warm, gaseous
exhalations (ecstatic opener, “Looking
T Russack’s new album,
Permanent Vacation,
purpose and meaning. I’m
trying to be upbeat about it,
set since 2012’s Big Moon Ritual. Forward to Something, Dude”) to describes a state that’s not though! I’m whistling as I walk.”
JOHN MULVEY liquid symphonics (“Long Swim”) always as enviable as it Russack’s songs are
and noisy, saw-toothed eruptions sounds, but during her recent compellingly varied in their
EMMA RUSSACK (“Smokestack”). Coltrane, Eno three-month university break, expression. Quizzed about her
Permanent Vacation and Metheny are touchstones, but it suggested a potential future. intent, she says, “Intent is a
SPUNK! Shabason’s abstraction is sensual, his “I was making some good funny thing. Would I be taken
language emotional: “Westmeath”, money through music for the seriously if I said I didn’t have
7/10 first time in my life,” explains one? All I can say is that this
which concerns the suicide of a
Sharp-witted, affecting alt.pop holocaust survivor, is particularly the second-year law student. album is the closest thing to
from down under lethal in its softness. SHARON O’CONNELL “If I could play one or two a ‘diary’ that I have.
Last year’s album shows a week, plus write “I just wrote exactly what
conclusively proved NADINE SHAH songs and record an album I felt at a particular time; I
her compositional Holiday Destinations here and there for the rest of wasn’t restrained by anything
chops, but with her 1965
my life – and not have to work or anyone. That’s freeing. So,
fourth, Melbourne- a day job – yes, I think I would I could write about a guy
8/10 be ‘happy’. But one must have making me the best sandwich
based singer-
songwriter and guitarist Emma Smart and bitter laments on a sense of purpose in this ever, or… Kendall Jenner.
Russack strikes the perfect balance excellent third crazy life. For me, a permanent Perhaps that was my intent.
between astute observation and Shah casts a vacation means checking out To be free.” SHARON O’CONNELL
unguarded emotion. her songs suggest beleaguered eye
kinship with Courtney Barnett and over the state of the
Cat Power, but are distinguished by an world, but always
airiness and laidback minimalism that draws things back to JOHN SINCLAIR SOCCER MOMMY
makes her lyrics all the more piquant. her experiences as Beatnik Youth IRON MAN Collection
On the bossa-driven title track, she a very English singer with a Muslim FAT POSSUM
7/10
challenges whoever’s questioned background. the electro-folk “Evil” is
Veteran poet teams up with 7/10
her lifestyle: “What’s it to you?/Don’t the key text here, a weathered lament
you have shit to do?” Every track hits on how others consider the other, producer Youth, uniting free jazz, Auspicious indie debut from
its target, but the wyrd folk of “Body picked out in measured Geordie tones. rock’n’roll and ambient NYC-based songstress
Goals” and poignant piano piece “Free Musically, a sort of gothy folktronica Sounding a lot like this debut offering
things” stand out. dominates songs like “Yes Men” and his old friend Iggy from 19-year-old
SHARON O’CONNELL “Out the Way”, with shades of PJ Pop, Detroit’s iconic Sophie allison is a
harvey on the acerbic title track about “White Panther” breezy, relaxed and
THE SEXUAL OBJECTS refugees, while the crawling jitter of introduces himself pop-kissed eight
Marshmallow “2016” captures the dislocating agony as “a beatnik, dope tracks that recalls
TRIASSIC TUSK of experiencing personal anxiety while fiend, poet, provocateur, race traitor the summer-tinged melodies of
“there’s a fascist in the White House”. and renegade”, reciting his beat poetry Real Estate. there’s an undeniable
8/10
PETER WATTS in a sub-baritone growl that lurches knack for melody and songcraft that
Impish return by Fire Engines honcho from the bored to the psychotic. he permeates through the record, as
the second full waxes lyrical about Monk, Kerouac on the woozy “Benadryl Dreams”
album from Davy Nadine and Ginsberg (on the ambient and the quietly anthemic “Death By
Shah
henderson under “Brilliant Corners”), lusts after black Chocolate”. Largely it falls into the line
the Sexual Objects’ women (on the swinging “Red Dress”), of numerous contemporary bands,
banner was originally issues a libertarian’s charter (on the from Mac DeMarco to Girlpool,
pressed as a single MC5-ish “ain’t Nobody’s Business”) that still operate within a distinctly
copy, auctioned on eBay – a potentially and – on “War On Drugs” – teams up ’90s indie template, but it largely
futile act of defiance against the harsh with the late howard Marks to suggest manages to avoid vapid repetition
economics of the music business. as that dopeheads and dealers start an and provides plenty of charm and
ever with henderson, it deserves a aggressive counter-offensive. Best of promise for the future.
wider audience. With the exception luck with that one. JOHN LEWIS DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
the acoustic “Reincarnation” and thrill of his extended excursions on the paranoia, injustice and political
surging “Undercover”, while there are a Fender Strat, there’s something uncertainty of 2017 – To The Bone
hints of Joni Mitchell in the clarinet- fundamentally satisfying about deliberately strains under the ideas
embellished “Bedtime Story”. But Thompson unplugged. His voice gets and production sounds of the late ’80s
both the title track’s musique concrète more expressive with age, while his and ’90s. “Blank Tapes” and “People
and “Mountaineers”, which wafts song choices – from Fairport staples Who Eat Darkness” are eerie, jittery
from introductory drones to navigate (“Genesis Hall”, “Crazy Man Michael”) highlights. MARK BENTLEY
SEPTEMBER
TE
E R22017
TakE
kE 243
2
1 ThE BEaCh BoyS (p44)
2 BRiaN ENo (p46)
3 yoko oNo (p50)
4 PRiNCE (p51)
5 RaMoNES (p52)
F
inding some groundless, traditional songs from their native Yorkshire
fleeting joy at the end of a reissue proving to be quite the hit in rooms above
very soggy rainbow, Mike OF THe pubs. However, life as professional singers
Waterson concludes Bright MONTH soon became a drag, and in 1968 they called it
Phoebus – the giddy 1972 a day, norma heading abroad with her fiancé
ensemble piece he fronted with
9/10 to Montserrat.
his younger sister, Lal – with Back on Humberside and somewhat bereft, the
a little rapture. “No more clouds, no more rain,” younger Watersons felt something musical stirring,
he burbles wistfully, accent broad and vowels flat as young mother Lal’s regular lunchtime visits from
the Humber Estuary. The sun is shining. despite all painter and decorator Mike taking on a new intensity
evidence to the contrary, there is hope. when they realised they were both writing songs –
The long, troubled saga of Mike and Lal’s slow- something neither would have countenanced in their
burning tour de force perhaps vindicates that naïve days on the folk circuit. Mike’s were an idiosyncratic
belief. neither Lal (who died in 1998) nor Mike (2011) mix of rockabilly and music hall; Lal’s a vinegary,
have lived to see Bright Phoebus receive the honour jagged-edged acoustic gothic. When future Mr norma
of a dignified official reissue, but this crystal-clear, Waterson, Martin Carthy, first heard them, he was
remastered version – complemented by the siblings’ blown away. When his Steeleye Span bandmate
weird and wobbly home demos – does belated justice Ashley Hutchings got to listen, he swiftly gathered
to a record regarded by many on release as a disgrace together a basic ensemble to help fashion them into a
to the Waterson name. record, roping in Carthy as well
Orphaned young – their as fellow Fairport Convention
father killed by a series of alumni Richard Thompson and
strokes not long after their dave Mattacks. Recorded over
mother died following an a week in a basement room at
asthma attack – the three Cecil Sharp House, home of
Waterson siblings (norma, the trad-dads of the English
Mike and Lal) were raised in Folk dance And Song Society,
Hull on a diet of hymns, party it represented an abrupt shift
pieces and folk songs by their away from anything the
grandmother, Eliza Ward. Watersons had done.
inspired by the folk revival, Mike’s punning opener,
they took their sandblaster- “Rubber Band” (“Just like
strength strain of harmonising margarine our fame is
south, their repertoire of spreading,” he chortles),
How to buy…
ROGUE TRADDERS
More straight folkies who went electric
W
hat were Mike and the eye when they agreed to do it there. built by a certain section of the folk
Lal like? It was basically a room in the basement scene. We almost went through the
HUTCHINGS: Mike is one of – I think it was the Trefusis Hall – and Dylan thing when he went electric. With
my very, very favourite male singers. I we turned it into a recording studio. Bright Phoebus, the media was on our
love the character and the depth in his CARTHY: Norma came home from side but the music scene was completely
singing. He’s unlike any singer I’ve ever Montserrat, and almost immediately split, for and against. It was not like
known, and without any pretensions we all went to the studio to make Bright anything the Watersons had done at this
whatsoever – salt of the earth. I hardly Phoebus. It was an extraordinary week. point. The more you tried to break the
got to know Lal, but respected her Bob Davenport was always going to barriers down, the more people dug
enormously, and loved her writing. sing that little bit in “Child Among their heels in.
CARTHY: She was lovely. Very reflective, The Weeds”. It was a single take, and
JOSePH BRANSTON/GUITARIST MAGAzINe vIA GeTTY IMAGeS, STeve THORNe/ReDFeRNS vIA GeTTY IMAGeS
very inward looking. When she wrote it was absolutely astounding. It was Do you think Mike and Lal were
a song, she wasn’t satisfied until the like we’d lassoed something very discouraged by that response?
words sounded right. I don’t know special. That sort of thing happened CARTHY: They are basically the kind of
much about poetry, but Gerard Manley all the time. people who just shrug and walk away.
Hopkins used to write like that. She Lal carried on with some of her writing
was a really unique voice. Unorthodox Do you think it is a folk record? and Mike would carry on with some of
doesn’t begin to describe the way HUTCHINGS: I don’t know. It could his, but he rarely sang many, because it
she played the guitar. It was so complex. be. It’s an album of music. I think it’s had all been rejected out of hand. I’m so
It was more sophisticated than you impossible to categorise. My favourite happy that it’s coming out again. It was
can imagine. tracks tend to be the strange, gentle just wonderful that week – that Monday
ones: “To Make You Stay” – I love that to Friday – the whole thing was a total
How did you hear the songs? delight. And when it was just sitting in
CARTHY: I used to go and sing in Hull an archive somewhere it was heart-
quite a lot; with Steeleye, solo, and when breaking. It’s a masterwork.
I was still singing with Dave Swarbrick.
One day I was staying at her place and “That’s what folk is. HUTCHINGS: I think this story is very
much like Nick Drake’s – at the time, not
Lal just said, “I’ve got these songs”, and
she sang me some, and I was absolutely
knocked over. I told Ashley Hutchings
Everyone does it their really successful, but as the years go by
just building and building, and now this
album is a legend. They were ahead of
and he heard a tape and thought it was
wonderful. Ashley is the kind of person
own way… You just their time. It’s very uneasy. Maybe it was
just too difficult to get to grips with. It’s
who immediately wanted to make a
record of it and he set the whole thing
sing the fucking thing” very much Mike and Lal. They were very
different personalities, and it comes
in train, and got Richard Thompson
involved, and Dave Mattacks.
MARTIN CARTHY over on this album. But there’s
something there for everyone.
Their ability to take the blows and their all-too-candid performances, like
THE BEACH BOYS regroup in the face of adversity is the
consistent subtext of 1967 – Sunshine
the unsolved riddles of Smile, belonged on
the shelf.
1967 – Sunshine Tomorrow Tomorrow, a 2CD and digital collection
featuring more than 50 previously
Though it contains some 18 minutes of
outtakes from Smiley Smile, the key selling
CAPITOL
unreleased tracks recorded between point of 1967 – Sunshine Tomorrow is its
8/10 June and november. Crucially, a line had
been drawn under Smile, so these are not
new stereo mix of Wild Honey, an album
originally delivered to Capitol Records
Includes Smiley Smile outtakes and sophisticated pieces of music assembled in mono. Wild Honey was more uptempo
a new stereo mix of Wild Honey. painstakingly with the Wrecking Crew in than the haunted Smiley Smile, reflecting
expensive Hollywood studios. Instead, the soul and R&B tastes of Brian and Carl
By David Cavanagh like a Michelin-starred chef relearning Wilson, and it launched the Top 20 hit
how to boil an egg, The Beach Boys went “Darlin’”, sung by Carl with irrepressible
I
n 1967, as the sun shone down back to basics, picking up guitars and abandon at the upper limit of his range.
on Southern California, the roof basses, rearranging themselves into the In what must have been one of the
fell in on The Beach Boys. In beat group they’d once been, and building scariest years of his life, his screaming,
April, 20-year-old Carl Wilson, a cocoon-like reality for themselves in sock-it-to-me vocal sounds like righteous
who’d been drafted to fight in the living room catharsis. Always a bit murky in mono,
Vietnam, was arrested by the FBI of Brian’s Bel Air “Darlin’” bursts into bloom in stereo – as
for failing to report for military home. Whatever the do other songs such as “Aren’t You Glad”,
duty. In May, his brother Brian formally dilemmas facing “Country Air” and “I’d Love Just Once
abandoned work on Smile, the avant- them, nobody To See You” – to reveal all sorts of secret
garde masterpiece that was supposed to could accuse passages and underground tunnels.
leave Lennon and McCartney for dust. them of being Hearing Wild Honey in its full splendour,
When, a month later, an under-rehearsed unproductive. They indeed, it may strike you that this modest
Beach Boys pulled out of a headlining made two albums little 24-minute album, far from being a
slot at the Monterey Festival, citing in five months half-baked throwaway (as critics at the
a lack of material, it was the cue for (Smiley Smile and time complained), is a rocking, rolling,
America’s rock cognoscenti to howl Wild Honey) and fully-realised statement that heralds the
with laughter. Only eight months even attempted a sounds that lay around the corner for rock
after stunning the world with “Good third – a live LP, in 1968-’9. The Beach Boys, you could say,
Vibrations”, The Beach Boys were now Lei’d In Hawaii – were pioneering a post-psychedelic music
dismissed as cultural lightweights. before deciding that while the Summer Of Love was still in full
Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World, vocals and these tend to be delivered in soft,
hymnal tones – like the multi-tracked choir
Before And After Science of enos (eni?) on “Golden Hours”. there are
few sharp edges on the album; for the most
UMC/VIRGIN EMI
part, it glides along on Percy Jones’ supple
8/10, 8/10, 10/10, 8/10 basslines. What friction there is comes from
John Cale’s agitated viola lines on “Sky Saw”
Eno’s first four vocal albums remastered on vinyl. By Michael Bonner or fripp’s dazzling guitar solo on “St elmo’s
fire”. Occasionally, conventional songs
After leaving roxy Wyatt, television, Hawkwind’s robert Calvert, emerge from these sonic landscapes – “I’ll
Music in July 1973, Brian Gavin Bryars, Ultravox! and David Bowie. Come running” is a sweet pop moment
eno hatched a number Given this, it’s hard to believe eno had time for – but eno’s interests lie elsewhere. the
of audacious schemes to his own career. Yet his first four ‘vocal’ albums album closed with “Spirits Drifting”, whose
launch his new career. are significant; not just in establishing eno as foreboding minor chords sounded like a dry
there was – he revealed to a solo artist but also for the way they bridge run for “Warszawa” from Bowie’s Low. Bowie
NME’s Nick Kent – Luala musical worlds, bringing together the electronic occupied much of eno’s 1977 – the year of
And the Lizard Girls, who and the organic, rock and drone, truffling out Low and “Heroes” – though he still found
would perform live in unexpected connections between incongruent time to tinker on December’s Before And
launderettes and massage styles. eno’s catalogue was remastered for CD After Science. In fact, …Science suffered from
parlours, and the Plastic in 2004, but these are the first new vinyl cuts of a lengthy gestation, with sessions swelling
eno Band, dedicated to these four LPs since the mid-1980s – with each to two years and utilising a shifting retinue
creating music from an album now spread over two discs – and have of returning players including Manzanera,
assortment of plastic now been mastered at half-speed, a process Wyatt, fripp, Jones and Phil Collins, Jaki
musical instruments. designed to enhance the depth of field for vinyl Liebezeit and Dave Mattacks.
Among other supposed reissues. the LP that benefits most obviously Considering eno’s ongoing experiments
works-in-progress were from this improved treatment is Another Green with mood compositions, the first half of
‘the Magic Wurlitzer World, which enjoys a heightened immersive Before And After Science is a surprisingly
Synthesizer Of Brian experience. the others sound fuller, richer; lively record. the clipped funk rhythms of
eno Plays “Winchester they’re louder, the volume has been raised, but “No One receiving” foreshadow his later
Cathedral” And 14 Other there’s no compression or unnecessary eQing. work with talking Heads while “King’s
evergreens’, a collaboration for January 1974’s Here Come The Warm Jets, Lead Hat” (an anagram of talking Heads),
with Lynsey De Paul and eno surrounded himself with old associates, references the tight, angular sound of New
even a rapprochement with including Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera. Wave. After the burnished pop of “Here He
estranged former bandmate the album covers plenty of ground – art pop, Comes”, the album drifts into a deepening
Bryan ferry as a duo called the Singing Brians. doo-wop pastiche, drones and surreal exotica state of tranquil repose. the final sequence of
But of all the many fabrications eno proposed – sometimes, like “Cindy tells Me”, all within “By the river”, “through Hollow Lands (for
to Kent, one of them actually turned out to the space of one song. But eno makes a virtue of Harold Budd)” and “Spider And I” – delicate
be true: a collaborative album with robert these disparate qualities, stacking the absurd piano motifs, understated guitar lines, warm
fripp. released in November 1973, fripp & next to the sinister. eno’s voice, previously choral harmonies – anticipate the next
WARING ABBOTT/GETTY IMAGES
eno’s (No Pussyfooting) was the first record to glimpsed during harmonies on roxy records, stage of eno’s career: the ‘ambient’ series.
carry eno’s name post-roxy. It established a was now presented as another stylistic from art rock to African polyrhythms and
pattern for the next 40-plus years – eno as the component, deployed in exaggerated fashion to atmospheric sound textures, eno travelled
inveterate collaborator. Between 1974 and 1977 suit each song: a sinister whine on “Baby’s On at tremendous speed during four short years.
alone – from Here Come The Warm Jets to Before fire”, a droll croon on “Dead finks Don’t talk”, rarely, if ever, did he look backwards. It was
And After Science – eno’s assiduous creative multi-tracked into soothing symphony on as if he had taken counsel from one of his
networking led to assignations with, among “Some Of them Are Old”. the wistful “On Some own marvellous Oblique Strategies cards:
others, John Cale, Cluster, Genesis, Nico, robert faraway Beach”, meanwhile, offered ‘trust in the you of now.’
THE CARS
Boston new-wavers in prime, mega-star and reunion models
The Cars Heartbeat City Move Like This
ELEKTRA, 1978 ELEKTRA, 1984 HEAR MUSIC/CONCORz, 2011
The Cars may MTV peers like Though Orr’s
have seemed Duran Duran death in 2000
shiny when Elektra might’ve been sadly deprived the
launched its new- prettier, but the band of its most
wave flagship act, but years of Cars still made out well during the mellifluous voice, The Cars’ first
toiling on the East Coast club music video’s golden age thanks studio LP since their 1988 split is a
circuit made the members ready to the gimmicky clip for Ocasek’s strong emulation of the late-‘70s
to capitalise with a perfect set of bubblegum-y “You Might Think” model so beloved by The Strokes.
honed powerpop that added and a more haunting one for Orr’s Tight, terse, tuneful, “Keep On
synth-laden modernism to songs exquisite “Drive”. Their ubiquity Knocking”, “Sad Song” and “Free”
that might’ve been staples of sock ensured multi-platinum sales for all might have made the cut for the
hops 20 years before. Heartbeat City. first album. 7/10 JASon AnDeRSon
The Cars
WILL BEELEY BLANCMANGE rock shadowlands of Joy Division to new penchant for doomy synth-rock.
Gallivantin’/Passing Dream Happy Families/Mange embrace a broad spectrum of leftfield Instead, Panorama’s rough ride
(reissues, 1971, 1979) Tout/Believe You Me electronica, from pre-Aphex ambient prompted a return to the slick pop of
TOMPKINS SQUARE (Deluxe Editions) gleamscapes like “Business Steps” and Shake It Up and Heartbeat City, albums
EDSEL “Black Bell” to the Indian-influenced that better served the bottom line,
7/10, 7/10
audio collage “Vishnu”, which could but now feel more like dead ends.
Two sides of lost Texas songwriter 7/10, 7/10, 7/10
almost be an offcut from Byrne and Extras: 7/10 the CD and gatefold
Obscurity doesn’t Underrated synth-pop surrealists eno’s My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. double-vinyl editions come with
quite capture the finally get their just desserts Unexpected riches galore. new liner notes by David Wild and
fare of Will Beeley, a Part of a bumper Extras: 7/10. In total these reissues interviews with elliot easton and
texas songwriter who cohort of synth-pop feature six extra discs of remixes, Greg Hawkes. JASon AnDeRSon
released two albums duos that emerged demos, alternate versions, radio
– Gallivantin’ in 1971 in the early ’80s, Neil sessions and live tracks. STephen DALTon ALEX CHILTON
and Passing Dream in 1979 –before Arthur and Stephen A Man Called Destruction
becoming a DJ and talent booker for Luscombe remain one THE CARS (reissue, 1995)
the Midnight rodeo in Albuquerque. of the most lyrically Candy-O & Panorama: OMNIVORE
for the past 14 years he has been surreal, sonically Expanded Editions 7/10
a long-haul truck driver, hauling adventurous and unfairly overlooked. (reissues, 1979, 1980)
cryogenic liquids across the US. All the Spanning 1982 to 1985, their first three RHINO/WARNER Big Star leader’s mid-’90s
while, the reputation of Gallivantin’ albums confirmed Blancmange as reinvention
6/10, 6/10
was thawing, helped by its scarcity. an agreeably incongruous hybrid Alex Chilton’s
Only 200 copies were pressed, and of talking Heads and erasure on American new-wavers hit a rockier career after Big Star
Beeley sold them from the back of his infectiously neurotic new-wave patch and a road not taken was inconsistent –
car, before attracting the attention electro-funk tracks such as “I Can’t What with the three perhaps wilfully – but
of the Mississippi label Malaco, explain”, “Don’t tell Me” and the sitar- hits, platinum sales deserves reappraisal.
which released his second album, powered, wibbly-wobbly chart smash and Best New Artist Chilton had a perverse
Passing Dream in 1979. It made little “Living On the Ceiling”. But they also Grammy they earned side, and his solo work was loose to
impact, but develops the Dylan/tim did stately autumnal melancholy, off their self-titled the point of dishevelment – almost
Hardin folk stylings of his debut into notably on the sumptuous orchestral debut in 1978, as if he was attempting to undermine
something approaching New Country. ballad “Waves” and “the Day Before the Cars’ first lap around the track arguments about his own artistic
Gallivantin’ explored the stark You Came”, an Abba-approved for elektra went about as well as it significance. this album, augmented
territory between its first and cover version featuring a sly musical possibly could. Inevitably, the next few here with seven (even) looser tracks,
last tracks – Dylan’s “You Ain’t homage to Coronation Street. the were a little less smooth, even if the dates from 1995, when Chilton had
Going Nowhere” and a spiralling, mountain of bonus archive material commercial success of 1979’s Candy-O reformed Big Star. A singer-songwriter
psychedelic reworking of Buffy Saint- reveals a restlessly versatile band solidified the Boston band’s place as tour with Guy Clark and townes Van
Marie’s “Little Wheel Spin And Spin/ who emerged from the doomy noir- American rock’s pre-eminent skinny- Zandt led to the jazzy covers album,
Co’dine”. Passing tie-wearers. Newly expanded and Clichés, which then took him back to Big
Dream – recorded remastered by ric Ocasek along with Star’s home studio, Ardent in Memphis,
in a week with a 1980’s ill-fated Panorama, the Cars’ for a more studied rock’n’roll album
Mange two:
five-piece studio (l-r) Stephen sophomore outing makes a strong start on which Chilton’s bar-band instincts
band, including Luscombe and with “Let’s Go”, the sleekest example were augmented by a horn section,
Dylan/Levon Helm Neil Arthur of of the machine-tooled power-pop anchored by Jim Spake on tenor sax
guitarist Larry Blancmange they made with producer roy thomas and Stax session man Nokie taylor
Campbell – is a Baker. Yet the rawer early incarnations on trumpet. tightness, for Chilton, is
warmer record. of the title track and “Dangerous type” a relative concept, but the band adds
“rainy Sundays” is included here suggest that Baker’s depth to Chilton’s sketchy vocals, while
beautifully mellow, tightly controlled production aesthetic leaving room for some fiery guitar. the
but is surpassed was already becoming a straitjacket. highlight is the swinging “Don’t Stop”,
by “I Saw Jesus Initially slagged off by the previously run close by the astrologically playful
Peekin’ thru A adoring rock press, Panorama sees “What’s Your Sign Girl?” and the surf
Hole In the Sky”, them push out of their comfort zone rush of the Jan & Dean hit “New Girl
which sounds like with songs that assume a darker, In School”. Also worth noting, the
Sturgill Simpson tenser mood. “You Wear those eyes” backing chant of “Satan rules” on the
in growling gospel sounds like Suicide making a bid for playful “Devil Girl”.
prototype. AM radio play. Outtakes “Shooting Extras: 7/10 Seven unissued tracks,
Extras: None. for You” and “Be My Baby” suggest liner notes by Bob Mehr, initial vinyl
ALASTAIR McKAY the intriguing potential of the Cars’ is translucent blue. ALASTAIR McKAY
rediscoVered COLOSSEUM
Those Who Are About To Die
Salute You/Valentyne Suite
Uncovering the underrated and overlooked (reissues, both 1969)
ESOTERIC
6/10, 7/10
First two albums from jazzy
proto-prog heavyweights
1969 was the year prog
broke, and Colosseum were
right there at the vanguard
of complicated rock. Having
played together on the
Bluesbreakers’ Bare Wires,
drummer Jon Hiseman, bassist Tony Reeves
and saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith
recruited Dave Greenslade (organ) and James
Litherland (guitar/vocals) in order to realise
their virtuosic fusion of jazz and blues-rock,
blasted out with psychedelic intensity.
Those Who Are About To Die… is not a subtle
record, yet despite the frenzied approach
its song structures remain stubbornly
trad. Still, a crafty Bach homage and the
ever-present threat of a bass solo hint at
the shape of prog to come. Released just six
months later, Valentyne Suite is comfortably
Colosseum’s best album: darker and more
focused, it trades flashiness for fire, from
the scorching groove of opener “The Kettle”
via sinister tales of “blood red feathers”
(courtesy of Cream lyricist Pete Brown) to
the obligatory three-part epic that comprises
Side Two. A heady trip.
Extras: 6/10 Bonus tracks are slightly
different to the 2004 Sanctuary reissues.
Instead of BBC sessions, Those Who Are
About To Die… offers a cover of Ray Charles’
find an original copy of the vinyl album without “My Friend” adds flute, piano and trumpets by their sheer simplicity. Meanwhile, the
a tell-tale notch in the cover, as it hit the cut-out and “Listen To Me” floats on the same vibe as song titles – “Spoken Roses”, “Curtains
bins in record-breaking time – and wrote off the Blue Afternoon-era Buckley. “Children Of The Blowing”, “Raindust” – offer visual prompts
recording costs against his advance. It was the Sun” is a baroque-trance trip and the howling for the imagination. Drift Music is the
end of his solo career and a chastened Valenti weirdness of “Test” sounds like Skip Spence more synth-centric of the two, though the
rejoined Quicksilver Messenger Service, the jamming with Roland Kirk on acid. Valenti died transition is seamless. Both men hooked up
band he had helped to found in San Francisco in 1994 at the age of 51, leaving a legacy that is as with New York composer Ruben Garcia for
before a year in jail for marijuana possession had lost and stoned and classic as it gets. 2011’s Nighthawks, which follows a similarly
forced his departure. Extras: 6/10 Two tracks not on the original LP, ethereal pattern. The ghostly undertow
Yet inside the unassuming sepia-tinted sleeve although both have been released elsewhere. of “Fugitive Desire” and “The Shadow Of
was a record of esoteric psych-folk beauty that NIGEL WILLIAMSON Her Former Self”, the latter ending with
how to buy...
YOKO ONO machines duelling with Ono’s singer specialising in safe, sentimental
Fly/Approximately Infinite vocal incantations. numbers like “Harbor Lights” and
Universe/Feeling The Space the side-long title track is Ono “that’s When Your Heartache Begins”.
(reissues, 1971, 1973, 1973) solo, soundtracking one of her most It was only when he and his band
SECRETLY CANADIAN audacious feats – the film of the were jamming between sessions
same name, with the titular insect on the Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup
9/10, 8/10, 7/10
crawling over a naked woman, tracing tune “that’s All Right” that sam
Perfecting the voice-as-weapon an alternate geography of the body. Phillips saw something marketable
Yoko Ono’s career Ono would extend and amplify the and Presley escaped that narrow
has taken in many feminist politic of the film through category he had defined for himself.
turns – avant-garde 1973’s Approximately Infinite Universe, As a result, his earliest material can
artist, filmmaker, where songs such as “What A Bastard be fairly anonymous, showcasing a
conceptualist – the World Is” and “What A Mess” trace fine singer with pedestrian tastes,
but her lasting the gender contours of both intimate but hearing Presley find his voice
discovery is her utterly unique vocal relationships and the socio-political makes for a compelling coming-of-
scream, which she found almost by with fierce honesty, the latter’s “If you age story. A Boy From Tupelo tells the
accident. Recording and replaying her keep hammering anti-abortion/We’ll tale in great detail, gathering every
invocation of a childhood memory, tell you no more masturbation for men” known surviving sun recording,
where Ono overheard servants re- eerily echoed, earlier this year, by Pet Shop Boys every false start, every lo-fi radio
enacting the sounds of childbirth, American politician Jessica Farrar’s performance and on-air interview.
she accidentally spooled the tape in Man’s Right to Know Act. All those outtakes and alternate
reverse and, spooked by the uncanny Musically, on both Approximately Kicking off a PSB reissue takes, including nine takes of “Blue
outcome, trained herself to reproduce Infinite Universe and Feeling The programme of treasure-filled Moon”, might overwhelm a casual
the backwards groans. By the time Space, Ono nudged her songs closer multi-disc packages fan, who are advised to seek out
of 1970’s Plastic Ono Band, Yoko had to mainstream pop/rock, aided on this eclectic 1999 2004’s Elvis At Sun for a more easily
perfected this voice-as-weapon, the former by New Yorkers Elephant’s collaboration with digestible introduction to this period
and was directing some of the most Memory: the playing is limber and Craig Armstrong and in his career. But A Boy From Tupelo is
furiously disciplined rock music of joyous, stretching out blues-rock Rollo from Faithless ultimately a necessary and revealing
her time: “Why”, its opener, was as motifs here, teasing out piano-led came as the big addition to Presley’s vast catalogue,
mantric and manic as Krautrock at its pop charmers there. By Feeling hits were drying up one that spins a fascinating yarn about
most unrelenting. The Space the music skirted the and Neil tennant’s Noël Coward-ish a pimply kid who transformed into
1971’s double album Fly is just as lugubrious, but the songs are often fondness for “the potency of cheap something unprecedented: a rock star.
revelatory. the first two sides have strong, and Ono’s not yielded one jot music” was becoming supplanted STEPhEN DEUSNER
her group – husband John Lennon, on her politics – after all, this is the by flirtations with high art (Kabuki-
regular bass foil Klaus Voormann album with the unflinching liner, themed stage shows designed by PSYChIC Tv
and Jim Keltner on drums – locked “this album is dedicated to the sisters Zaha Hadid, orchestral hook-ups, Pagan Day/Allegory And Self
in and tightly guiding a shamanic, who died in pain and sorrow and those Rachmaninov samples and so on). (reissues, 1984, 1988)
hypnotic rock music, the 17-minute who are now in prisons and in mental Highlights include the country-tinged SACRED BONES/DAIS
“Mindtrain” as higher-minded as Can’s hospitals for being unable to survive “You Only tell Me You Love Me When
6/10, 7/10
“Halleluwah”, while “Don’t Worry in the male society.” You’re Drunk”, the Morrissey-esque
PL GOULD/IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
Kyoko” draws wild playing from Extras: 7/10. Bonus tracks with each “Boy strange”, the Kylie duet “In Two post-Gristle outings from
Ringo starr and Eric Clapton as Ono album. JON DALE Denial” and the dark Philly disco Genesis P-Orridge and friends
calls down the Furies. And if one of of “New York City Boy”. Also part After the dissolution
the miracles of Fly is Ono’s capacity PET ShOP BOYS of the first wave of this mammoth of formative industrial
to unlock players more traditionally Nightlife: Further Listening reissue programme is the rockier group throbbing
hemmed in by genre and cliché, (1996-2000) Release (2002), where guest guitarist Gristle, Genesis
on side two she liberates herself PARLOPhONE Johnny Marr helps to literalise P-Orridge channelled
from song entirely, Fluxus artist Joe tennant’s old suggestion that PsB his creativity into
7/10
Jones’ clangorous, clamorous music were “the smiths you can dance Psychic tV – a morphing, open-ended
to”; while 2006’s Fundamental is a collective encompassing occult
return to Kraftwerkian electronica mysticism and multimedia creativity,
Yoko Ono: featuring some wonderfully theatrical experimental improvisation and
utterly touches on “the sodom And glossy pop. two releases, issued on
unique Gomorrah show” and the amusingly vinyl for the first time since the ’80s,
dark “Casanova In Hell”. show off different sides of the group’s
Extras: 8/10 two extra discs provide a oeuvre. Released in 1988, Allegory And
treasure trove of contemporary tracks Self – the final album with Alternative
and demos, including a heart-tugging tV’s Alex Fergusson in the fold – finds
version of Noël Coward’s “sail Away”, the group approaching something
a hook up with Elton John, and several polished and commercial. In truth it’s
songs from their 2001 West End a bit all over the shop, and in particular
musical Closer To Heaven (including “Godstar” – a cloying tribute to fallen
the hilarious sondheim parody stones guitarist Brian Jones – has
“tall thin Men” and the defiantly dated poorly. But doleful folk number
anti-rockist “Friendly Fire”). “We Kiss” strikes a note of unlikely
JOhN LEwiS romance, while “she Was surprised”
experiments with jacking hi-NRG
ELvIS PRESLEY rhythms, a glimpse of the group’s
A Boy From Tupelo: The future forays in acid house. More
Complete 1953-1955 consistent is Pagan Day, a collection of
Recordings song sketches and demos first released
RCA/LEgACY in 1984. stripped right back to guitar,
organ and occasional drum machine,
8/10
it explores Velvets malingering
Elvis before he was the King (“Opium”), florid orchestral folk (“Cold
When Elvis Presley steel”), and naïve minimal synth
first walked into sun (“New sexuality”), with a neat cover
Records in Memphis, of ’60s psych folk group Pearls Before
the tupelo-born swine’s “translucent Carriages”
teenager fancied among the highlights.
himself a ballad Extras: None. LOUiS PATTiSON
Purple Rain was Prince’s of old hits and raiding the archives
most pivotal album, for quickie reissues. Instead, he was
establishing him as the writing new chapters to his story right
most visionary pop auteur up until the day he died.
of the 1980s. It remains It’s a bitter irony that it took his death
the most personally in April 2016 for that vault to be opened.
revealing record Prince the first stray treasures are included on
ever made, sharing a this deluxe reissue of Purple Rain, which
semi-autobiographical is, for myriad reasons, the first Prince
approach with the film album to get any kind of reissue treatment.
of the same title and In addition to a live DVD and a disc of
sounding gloriously previously released single edits and B-sides
cocksure even as it (most of which are fairly redundant and
lays bare its creator’s contain awkward fades), the set includes
insecurities about – in 11 new old songs from the vault, most of
no particular order – love, which have never been heard. that alone
God, sex, family, sanity makes it as momentous as the album’s
and celebrity. these songs original release, exposing new aspects
depict Prince dealing of an impossibly complex artist.
with the immense Rare for any kind of reissue, these
celebrity that 1999 new old songs actually coalesce into
afforded him, embracing something like an album, teasing out
the pleasure of the new sonic motifs and some of Prince’s
spotlight while steeling favourite lyrical themes. “the Dance
himself against the Electric” and “Love And sex” are monster
daunting expectations. jams showcasing the dynamism of the
“Baby I’m a star!” he Revolution, Prince’s legendary backing
declares. “Take a picture, band. “Electric Intercourse” and a
sweetie!/I ain’t got time 12-minute version of “Computer Blue”
to waste.” While these prove extremely prescient, envisioning in
tunes didn’t really need 1984 a future where digital bodies replace
to be remastered for this physical ones, although the brilliantly
deluxe reissue, the new titled “Velvet Kitty Cat” and the bluntly
versions highlight the titled “We Can Fuck” imply that sex can
intricate details of Prince’s always be experienced musically.
production as well as that second disc also works as an
in their familiarity, from the unabashed 1 Let’s Go Crazy 10 We Can Fuck 13 I Would Die 4 U 15 The Beautiful Ones
2 Take Me With U 11 Father’s Song (Extended Version) 16 When Doves Cry
arena rock of “Let’s Go Crazy” to the
3 The Beautiful Ones 14 Baby I’m A Star 17 I Would Die 4 U
breezy chamber pop of “take Me With U” 4 Computer Blue DISC 3: SINgLE EDITS (7” B-Side Edit) 18 Baby I’m A Star
to the gothic sexpunk of “Darling Nikki”. 5 Darling Nikki AND B-SIDES 15 Take Me With U (7” Edit) 19 Purple Rain
9/10
Da Brudders’ gorgeous second album
beefed up for 40th anniversary
For their follow-up to
Ramones, the Ramones
offered a repeat
performance, just with a
more pronounced sense
of humour and romance.
Leave Home has short, catchy songs about
mental illness, war, horror films and glue,
but with more of Joey’s glorious puppy-dog
love songs throw in – the album highlights
are arguably “What’s Your Game” and “Oh
Oh I Love Her So”. The Ramones always
believed in their formula, and on Leave
Home added a few vital elements – the chant
of “gabba gabba hey” that opens “Pinhead”;
the first appearance of their logo on the back
cover. This three-disc, 40th-anniversary
celebration from Rhino features two versions
of the album – a remastered version of
the original and a fresh anniversary mix
– a second album of outtakes, and a third
VINTAGE ELECTRONICA featuring a 1977 show from CBGB. The 2017
anniversary mix from producer Ed Stasium
Noise Reduction System: Formative European Electronica/ focuses on the band’s power, placing Joey’s
vocals slightly behind the instruments, giving
Closed Circuits: Australian Alternative Electronic Music Johnny’s thundering guitar more of the lead.
Of The ’70s & ’80s, Volume 1 The out-takes offer insight into process – a
CHERRY RED, FESTIVAL RECORDS/WARNER MUSIC AUSTRALIA “psychedelic” mix of “Pinhead”; a “sane” mix
of “What’s Your Game”; an even more doo-
8/10, 9/10 woppy “You’re Gonna Kill That Girl” – while
the live album is frantic and sweaty.
Two compilations explore the strange, exciting world Extras: 8/10 Available as limited numbered
of early electronic music in Europe and Australia edition with hardback book featuring
interviews with Danny Fields and Ed
As synthesisers became – best heard on “Speak & Spell” by Germany’s Stasium. Peter Watts
increasingly affordable Christina Kubisch, which uses a vocal from a
towards the middle of the 1970s, handheld educational computer, and also a ROSEBUD
they were utilised by a new wilful eagerness to unsettle, whether on the Rosebud (reissue, 1971)
generation of musicians. wickedly hopscotching electro-psych of “Lux” OMNIVORE
Some of these saw electronic by Switzerland’s Schaltkreis Wassermann or 6/10
instruments as a linear the Throbbing Gristle-inspired “Paeodophile
continuation of rock’n’roll, Information Exchange” (yes, seriously) by surprisingly conventional relic from the
while others thought they Spain’s Esplendor Geometrico. archives of Zappa’s leftfield label
presented an opportunity for Over in Australia, Closed Circuits presents In 1969, Frank Zappa
departure. Revolution or a different angle. This collection compiles released an arcane but
evolution? These different 20 songs recorded between 1979 and 1989 magical psych-folk record
approaches are represented by two compilations (the vinyl version has four additional tracks) on his Straight label by Judy
of electronica drawn from overlapping eras but by underground bands who had recently Henske and Jerry Yester
on different sides of the world. Noise Reduction discovered drum machines and synths. As David called Farewell Aldebaran.
System, a four-disc volume from Cherry Red, Nichols remarks in his sleevenotes, few were It sold few copies, but has since developed
collects experimental European electronica, “hoping to wipe out old rock music”, instead a cult following and was an Uncut reissue
while Closed Circuit features Australian acts who choosing to apply new technology to classic of the month last year. Even more obscure
used synths and drum machines to create new ideas. Within that, there’s room for glorious is the follow-up the duo recorded two years
but easily recognisable forms of pop. variety, with the only shared sensibility being later under the name Rosebud, expanded
Noise Reduction System is the sister volume the sense of possibility – a spark of invention that to a quintet by ex-Turtles drummer John
to last year’s Close To The Noise Floor, which unites the groovy “On” by Models, a poppy belter Seite, bassist David Vaught and keyboardist
celebrated pioneering British electro. It begins that provides a bridge between past and future, Craig Doerge, best known as a James
with the jarring “Die Gesunden Kommen”, with the cacophonous experimentation of Bring Taylor/Jackson Browne sideman and who
which sounds like somebody has dropped a Philip’s “Firetruck”, clanking found music from succeeded Yester as Henske’s husband. The
hippopotamus on Kraftwerk, and remains firmly another planet, let alone continent. The other augmented lineup resulted in a muting of
wedded to the avant-garde thereafter. Although consolidating factor is the more pronounced Farewell Aldebaran’s outré tendencies in
there are big names – Cluster, Vangelis, Yello – humour. There’s a cover of “I Feel Love” as favour of a fashionable countryish soft-rock
the focus is on the underground, with musicians played by Suicide-loving metal-heads Distant shtick. It works pleasingly enough in places,
drawn from right across Europe. Here you’ll find Locust, the novelty pop “Talking To Cleopatra” notably on the cowboy-synth hybrid of
the French cool of Ruth’s “Polaroid/Roman/ by Anne Cessna and Essendon Airport, and “Reno”, the bubblegum country of “The Yum
Photo”, the glacial “Romantic” by Sweden’s The Metronomes’ brilliant ode to machinery, Yum Man” and the baroque chamber-pop
Cosmic Overdose as well as the gorgeous “A Circuit Like Me”, which is a neat mash-up of harmonies of “Le Soleil”. But what’s missing
minimalism of “NY NY” by Dutch musician The Normal and Kraftwerk. It’s this Australian is the sense of wide-eyed mystery that
Truus De Groot, recorded in an apartment in cheekiness that presents the most intriguing made Farewell Aldebaran so singular and
Hoboken with a Tampax box for the bass drum. counterpoint to the studied Euro cool of Noise special. Although it’s hardly mainstream,
There’s a unifying fascination with the future Reduction System. Peter Watts it’s probably the most conventional record
Zappa’s label ever released – and therein lies
the disappointment.
MaRcOs Valle
Extras: 6/10 Ten additional
recordings, most of which are
previously unheard songs rather
than the usual motley collection
of demos and alternative versions. Getting into Brazil’s ever-eccentric master of the groove
NIGeL WILLIaMsON
Samba ’68 Marcos Valle Ecstática
SUPER FURRY ANIMALS UNIVERSAL/VERVE, 1968 ODEON/LIGHT IN FAR OUT, 2010
RADIATOR (reissue, 1997) The culmination THE ATTIC, 1970
Having secured
BMG of Verve’s efforts Enlisting Som godlike status
9/10 to serve up Valle Imaginaro, Valle among rare-
as a Brazilian singer that earned himself a place in groove aficionados, Valle
“they’re super, they’re furry, American listeners could love, Tropicália’s vanguard with could have phoned it in for
they’re animals…” the Welsh Samba ’68 presents the the first in a series of daring his latterday teamings
quintet’s finest LP (probably) and young singer and songwriter fusions of bossa, rock, jazz with London’s Far Out.
associated extras as a suave, somewhat and psych soul. Intoxicating Instead, his albums for
While SFA’s debut, traditional-minded purveyor and David Axelrod-sized on label head Joe Davis
Fuzzy Logic, was of bossa-flavoured, pan- this self-titled outing, his and a series of younger
guitar rock with American pop. Though he’d music would grow even more producers are full of
eccentric frostings, its soon take off in more radical fabulously baroque on 1971’s freshly cut gems and
follow-up, Radiator, directions, there’s still much Garra and irresistibly groovy return visits to the
was where it all came to savour in his smooth and on 1973’s Previsão Do Tempo, back catalogue.
together for the Furries. Rhodes piano, swanky English-language two more essentials in the A masterful set.
acoustic and fuzz guitars, sub-bass, renditions of many of his early Valle reissues that Light In The 9/10
samplers, filters, analogue synths and hits in Brazil. 8/10 Attic launched in 2013. 9/10 JASON ANDERSON
more were utilised by the band and
producer Gorwel Owen during three
months of isolation in Anglesey, with
the result being perhaps the quintet’s MARCOS VALLE American sounds he gravitated pop of Cath Carroll’s Miaow. The
most satisfying album. Stylistically, Marcos Valle towards while in LA. While “Samba collection starts with Buzzcocks, as
it’s a veritable trip through the radio PRESERVATION De Verão” and “Dia D” indicated his it should, and moves chronologically,
waves, taking in ornate, Zombies- affinities for the nimble, brass-centric from punk into post-punk (The Fall,
8/10
esque ballads (“Down A Different R&B of Earth, Wind & Fire and Leon Tiller Boys), tracking the Haçienda’s
River”), warped West Coast pop (“Play First vinyl reissue of funky Ware (Valle’s co-writer on several dancefloor dominance, and ending
It Cool”, “She’s Got Spies”), garage- ’83 outing by Brazilian smoothie tracks here), the honey-sweet balladry with Oasis’ first demo. Often, the
punk (“Chupacabras”) and everything As pictured on the of “Fogo Do Sol” and other yacht-pop more oblique voices speak loudest,
else (the all-genres-in-a-blender cover of the album flavours reflect the friendships he’d from Manchester Mekons’ pop-prog-
approach of first single “Hermann ♥s that bears his name forged with members of Chicago punk collectivism, through Durutti
Pauline”). If one Furries song sums up (also known as and players he shared with fellow Column’s moist-eyed melancholy,
their lunacy and genius, however, then Estrelar after its émigré Sergio Mendes. A monster World Of Twist’s epic pop oddness, to
Radiator’s closer “Mountain People” biggest hit), Marcos hit in Brazil, “Estrelar” is where it all classic British hip-hop from Ruthless
would probably be it: beginning as Valle looks oddly glum for a man comes together in one effervescent Rap Assassins.
stately acoustic pop, it blossoms into with so many gaily coloured drinks. boogie wonderland. Extras: 7/10 Notes from Mick Middles
Morricone-esque grandeur before At least his eyes convey something Extras: 7/10 The first official LP and Mark Radcliffe. JON DaLe
ending in acid techno madness. brighter, perhaps because they match reissue, Preservation’s edition comes
Extras: 9/10 1998’s “Ice Hockey Hair” the shade of the blue concoction he with an eight-page booklet by Allen
EP, included here, contains three uses to toast listeners of one of the Thayer based on a new interview
of the group’s most inspired tracks. Brazilian great’s most consistently with Valle. JasON aNDersON
Meanwhile, CD2 features a wealth of pleasurable long-players. Marcos
B-sides, including the tender post-rock Valle was the singer and composer’s VARIOUS ARTISTS
balladry of “Carry The Can” and the first album after returning from Los Manchester North Of
glammy “Wrap It Up”, and a previously Angeles to Brazil, having left in 1975 England: A Story Of
unreleased 1996 Cardiff demo session, owing to his weariness of coping with Independent Music – Greater
with Radiator songs intriguing in censorship and other complications Manchester 1977–1993
their half-formed states. Unheard of life under the military dictatorship. CHERRY RED
songs “B Side” and “The Boy With The Largely written during his exile, the
7/10
Thorn In His Side” (a ravey Smiths music here seamlessly combines the
cover) are worth hearing (once). All samba, bossa nova, funk and rock Panoramic overview of music out
newly remastered. elements that made his 1970s albums
so sublime with the contemporary
of the north’s avant-pop heart
There are many tales to
ComIng nExt
tOM PINNOCK
tell about Manchester, montH...
and the risk taken he national return with
SummER
SALE!
by any compilation
based on music from
t their seventh album, the
reflective Sleep Well
the city is retelling the Beast, next month, while Sparks
same old narrative, unleash their 25th record, the
reinscribing the Factory epic Hippopotamus. In the
“THE
FALL IS
LIKE A
NAZI
ORGANISATI A quiet drink with MARK E SMITH
in his favourite Manchester pub.
There are lengthy ruminations on
the current Fall lineup’s excellence,
and even lengthier ones on the
incompetence of their predecessors.
Also: the Vorticists, the BBC, Jane
Austen, and the problems with
Welsh people… “Come on, Mark,”
asks a tenacious TOM PINNOCK,
“are you really that horrible?”
Photo by ALAMY
HeRe are some fucking weird people their sisters, who’ve asked me to come down. You wish them well, but
around, aren’t there?” says Mark e Smith, it’s quite weird.”
taking a sip of his double Jameson’s in As the band’s 60-odd former members would likely attest, Smith
Manchester’s Crown & Kettle public remains a man it would be wise not to cross, with his memory as
house. He’s talking about musicians, a sharp as his tongue, and his deepest wrath reserved for ex-Fall
group of people he famously detests. “I musicians and their ‘tell-all’ memoirs.
suppose you meet a lot of ’em. I’m not one “If you get my curse, man, it doesn’t fucking come back,” he
to talk, but a lot of them can’t give it up, mutters, finishing his whiskey. “There’s summat about The Fall,
can they?” it just destroys…”
As he admits, few artists have doggedly
T
pursued such a singular, and lengthy, HIS month, 41 years into a career of sublime turmoil, Smith’s
mission as that of the only constant group release their 32nd studio album, New Facts Emerge, a
member of The Fall. With the departure storming set of heavy grooves, with their leader growling
of synth player – and former Mrs Smith – elena Poulou, The Fall have impressionistically over a barrage of guitar. Uncut tells Smith that it’s
been reduced to their core of guitarist Pete Greenway, drummer perhaps the strongest Fall record since 2010’s Your Future Our Clutter.
Kieron Melling and bassist Dave Spurr; they’ve been with Smith for “Do you like it? Ah, I’m glad,” he says. “I haven’t heard it complete
over a decade, and, in the world of The Fall, that’s a lifetime. yet, I got a bit fed up with it. I had so many arguments with the cutting
“The group are very well, actually,” insists Smith. “Never been engineer and all that. But I know when it’s right, I’ve had it in my head
better. That’s why I wanna crack on a bit [with another new album]. for so long. I’ve got ideas for another half an LP now.”
They’re really fucking excellent. The great thing about my The centrepiece of New Facts… is the nine-minute
lads is the rhythm section, Dave and Kieron, they were “Couples Vs Jobless Mid-30s”, an unhinged multi-part
brought up from 15, 16, playing ’70s and ’80s hits as a duo. suite that veers from lumbering rock grooves complete
So they can play. They can play ‘Paranoid’. They can play
‘In The Year 2525’. No, really!” “My dad with manic laughter to sections of chanting and
detuned Mellotron. “We went to a studio in Castleford,
On one hand, Mark e Smith in 2017 is surprisingly
mellow and friendly – during Uncut’s afternoon in the thought I Yorkshire,” says Smith, explaining the song’s
creation, “which funnily enough is where we did Your
Crown & Kettle, he drinks less than his reputation might Future Our Clutter. It’s a big, fuck-off heavy metal
suggest (he chooses a Welsh IPA to go with his double
whiskey, before moving on to Duvel), and is often
was fucking studio. I left them in there for a week or so.”
Are Cherry Red good to work with? Yeah, they’re all right, if
you’re not dead [laughs].
What was that “Masquerade” single they put out for Record
Store Day? Fucking yeah, it was weird – and
don’t think they didn’t get told about that.
The fucking horrible Fall net – this bunch of
old fucking fellas who harp on about the old
working for the boss
GROUP SPEAK
days – they got a test pressing of it, and I
didn’t even know it was coming out! So I had a
fucking word with them about that.
Pete Greenway and kieron Melling reveal what it’s like
The title of [New Facts’] “Victoria Train being in the modern-day Fall
Station Massacre” has proved quite
P
controversial after the Manchester ete greenwAY: When not messing about, I think that’s
bombing. Was it like “Powder Keg”, a kind we start an album, we’ll all it. Everybody knows their place,
of precog thing? [MES claims “Powder come in with fully formed Mark’s the boss and that’s that.
songs and we spend the first day It’s interesting, we don’t know
Keg”, released on June 10, 1996, was about
getting them out of our systems 100 per cent what’s on the LP ’til
the Arndale Centre bombing, which took place five days later]. – they never work. Then the next we hear the master – which I’ve
Probably, I don’t know. I’m actually very fond of the architecture of day we’ll start to do our proper just heard! So we’re hearing it at
Victoria Station, but it’s all been trashed to fuck, and that’s what the work, which is very collaborative. the same time as everybody else,
song’s about. You know all that beautiful Victorian latticework, like Maybe Dave’ll have a bassline really.
they have at Paddington? They ripped it all off. And you know why? and I’ll have a guitar line and we’ll
put the two together. That’s how greenwAY: We’re going
Because the students coming to Manchester wanted to have access to
we work best. through a really nice stage at the
north Manchester [pauses]. We don’t want ’em here [laughs]! So they moment, where we’re all good
put this big canvas canopy up, and about six months ago it fell on all kieron MeLLing: We’ll give pals. It feels like a nice time at the
the passengers in the rush hour. There’s summat wrong with Mark the demos of what we’ve moment. I think Mark genuinely
Manchester, they can’t leave anything fucking alone. been doing, he’ll take them away likes us, which is good.
for a listen, and advise us what
route to go down. MeLLing: It’s the myth of this
I see The Fall are off to America in September, for a New York
being a revolving door of musi-
residency. I’m looking forward to it. We’ve got a massive fanbase greenwAY: “Couples Vs Jobless cians – we’ve been doing it for
there, but we haven’t been for a bit. It’s more fanatical than it ever Mid-30s” was conceived in a 11 years now, we’ve got a good
was, the fanbase – those New York shows sold out, 10 dates. They’re hotel room. Mark came up with working relationship down. Plus,
loyal, American fans. It’s a long time since we’ve been, last time was the idea to do this long, operatic he’s a mate, I get on with Mark
with the Dudes, the American group for [2007 album] Reformation thing with chanting, and we took really well. I wanted to do “Totally
him at his word and did it. A very Wired” when I got in the band,
Post TLC.
odd song. ’cos I like the song. I think we did
it once in Glasgow – I’d been
Are you still in touch with the Dudes? Yeah. Tim [Presley]’s lost in MeLLing: I think we’re all on going on about it, and Mark said,
Wales, int’he? I warned him. I bet they fuckin’ ate him or summat. I the same page – you’re there ‘Fuck it, just do it,’ but he just
saw him at the Green Man festival and he says, “I’m tto work, and then won’t entertain doing any of the
off to Cardiff for two weeks.” I said, “Don’t fucking when it’s downtime
w bigger stuff. Anything that were
you can have a
y popular, he just won’t do it. It’s
go. The women are like fucking demons.” And he
good laugh. As
g the giving somebody praise thing,
was like, “Oh, Mark…” ’Cos I’m always filling them long as you get on
lo I don’t think he likes it – he prefers
with these horror stories about Britain, but they with it, and you’re
w to be unliked.
never believe me. You can’t warn guitarists, though.
unholy mes
D
watch now. eSpite the dissenting voices of former Fall
members, Mark e Smith’s versions of events
They’re all too proficient these days. Who wants to certainly seem plausible when he’s explained
see that? them in person. After all, the most prominent
ex-members of the band can sometimes seem
I wanted to ask about Brix & The Extricated. It strangely preoccupied with a man they often portray as
must be annoying for you that they’re playing old beastly. But perhaps Uncut’s willingness to believe
Fall stuff. i’m still on the case with it. But they’ve been Novelist, painter Smith is just down to his still-powerful charisma; as the
and critic Percy
doing their new material lately. it annoyed me about a Wyndham Lewis Fall’s cult leader, he remains seemingly all-seeing, all-
year ago, but not anymore. i’m glad you asked, ’cos (1882-1957) knowing and all-remembering. So come on, Mark, are
people keep saying, ‘Give it up,’ but there was a you really that horrible?
genuine conspiracy there which nobody would “We’re talking about six strapping 20-year-old lads
believe. i knew it. with muscles there,” he laughs, suggesting they
wouldn’t need to ask his permission to eat. “Where do these
w
What kind of conspiracy? they were delusional. it can tthings come from?! And [Hanley writes] about how i made his
only be proved by the fucking… it’s what i was saying, cchild bring speed to ireland. Nobody’s got that far in the book,
there are people who retire for 20 years and think they can nobody! We played ireland, and his 11-year-old wanted to go to
n
just come back into it. the best bit was when paul Hanley Dublin, so i said he could only come – [laughs] it’s like Mansfield
D
was on The Chase. Park! – he could only come if he loaded his pockets with speed
P
and got on the plane on his own from Manchester. i mean,
a
With Bradley Walsh? [smiles] Bradley Walsh… He said, penguin wouldn’t pass that nonsense!”
p
“What do you do, paul?” He goes, “i used to drum for the One more apocryphal tale to file alongside the others,
Fall, but i’ve been an it operator for 25 years. i’m doing an perhaps: of verbal and physical violence, of Smith sacking a
p
english Lit degree with another ex-member of the Fall.” soundman for eating a salad (“the final straw,” he once explained),
And Bradley Walsh goes, “they’re still going, aren’t they?” [pauses] He pouring a pint of beer over the head of a tourbus driver mid-journey,
went out the first fucking round. Who does an english degree with and generally controlling his band as firmly as some tyrannical despot.
another ex-member of the Fall?! For a fella who was in the group for Whether it’s true or not, does all this stuff not add to the myth?
two years, it is very weird. Now they’re doing all whats-her-face’s “Not particularly, no,” says Smith. “i know what you’re saying. You
material. i don’t gloat, ’cos it was serious at one point. can’t rewrite history, my group have been with me longer
and are fucking 18 times better than any of that crap
Does it make you think about playing more from were. they weren’t very good. it’s all right saying ‘Gross
older Fall albums? Haha! [A man comes over, shakes
Smith’s hand and offers him a drink. MES firmly but
“We’d go see Chapel’ [was good], but it was hard work pulling them
through that. What they also don’t know is the amount
That’s a bit weird. He used to have really long hair. He just to laugh like that on the records. the amount of times John Leckie
would get another musician in… i would never hurt
was a roadie for the Fall about fucking 1999. i knew we
should have moved on [to another pub]. Word’s got out, at ’em. There them like that at the time, to say.”
As he’s been discussing the Fall’s many ex-members,
that’s how sad they are. Go on.
are no bands Smith has been gradually shuffling along the long
bench in the pub’s back room. He ends up practically at
I guess it’s a compliment that the Extricated are
playing old Fall… [sharply] No, it’s not a fucking
compliment. i would have gladly fucking exterminated
crap enough the next table. “in their own heads,” he says, “Mark’s
just the drunken singer who didn’t know what he was
doing – he just walked in, in some drunken shit, and
them. My side of the story is so fucking truthful. the
thing about me is i can remember everything. everything
to see now” they had to keep it up…
“they do seriously believe it! it is,” he concludes,
in them books… when Brix was going on about the flat in with somethi ng uncharacteristically akin to
prestwich [in her 2016 book The Rise, The Fall, And The Rise], how it had understatement, “interesting.”
no shower – people in Manchester do read that and think it’s hilarious,
they don’t side with her. Who in Manchester, in any fucking flat of a New Facts Emerge is released on July 28 on Cherry Red
23-year-old person in the ’80s, had a shower? i mean, that fucking
Steve Hanley’s book [2014’s The Big Midweek], it’s like the fucking The Fall (l-r:
Pete greenway,
memoirs of a psychopath. i can’t read it, it’s so funny. His new Smith, Keiron
girlfriend who’s the co-writer, she’s met him at a Foxes gig, in the Melling and
Dave Spurr) live
dressing room… at the Arts Club,
Liverpool, January
21, 2017
Foxes? [The pair met at a Fleet Foxes show] the Fall is like
a Nazi organisation, i’ve got my working-class people, they tell me
everything. So i know it all. i knew by reading his book that her
favourite book is Jane Austen, Mansfield Park… He’s fucking
describing how we did a tour in France, and we’re at the fucking port
Of Calais – [Hanley says] we’ve booked the ferry, and we ran out of
petrol a mile from the port. He said that i got out and got a fucking bus
to the port Of Calais – that’s impossible! And then they pushed the
van, all five of ’em, from nowhere to the port Of Calais. it’s straight out
of Jane Austen! And i was waiting for them “red-faced” on the dock.
“there we met Smith, shouting…” i mean, who would write that? So
they said, “Can we have something to eat?” “‘You might as well,
The
ssound of
free
Forty years ago this month, Dennis Wilson’s
Pacific Ocean Blue was released. Graeme
Thomson goes beyond the wild boy legend
to uncover how a tentative creative force
constructed his masterpiece. “His depths
were hidden by the playboy,” says one key
collaborator. “He truly was,” adds another,
“a soulful dude.”
Photo by michael putland
D
The soul of
ENNIS Wilson’s Pacific The Beach Boys:
Ocean Blue has several Wilson at the
controls, circa
colourful origin stories. One 1977
begins in the early ’70s, in
the backyard of Wilson’s
funky log cabin house in
Pacific Palisades. There, in
the presence of an exotic
bird, a hippy poet and a rock
superstar, a song arrives unbidden.
“‘Rainbows’ was written before the album was
really thought of, we didn’t know if he’d do it with
The Beach Boys or solo,” says Wilson’s friend and
“Rainbows” co-writer, the poet, Stephen Kalinich.
“We were in Dennis’ yard. Stephen Stills had been
busted for pot, and he was in the house. It was
midday, sunny, and a peacock ran across the yard. I
started saying, ‘Rainbow shining on my shoulder…’
Dennis said, ‘That’s the song!’ You could recite a
poem or some words, and Dennis could sing it back
instantly as a melody, word for word. He could write
songs from one hearing, and bring them straight to
the piano. That’s a gift that I don’t think people
know about.”
The sole Beach Boy truly worthy of the name,
Wilson was a surfing, sailing, motor-cycling
good- time guy who befriended Charles Manson,
married five times, and was dead at 39. Yet he
was also a deeply thoughtful singer and songwriter,
and a preternaturally gifted musician. “He was the
soul of The Beach Boys,” says Kalinich. “People
talk about the girls and the craziness, but
his depths were hidden by the playboy. I felt
he was like a Beethoven or a Bach who was
largely undiscovered.”
“Rainbows” turned out to be one of the few
unambiguously upbeat moments on Pacific Ocean
Blue, Wilson’s only solo album, released in August
1977. Much of the rest – steeped in blues-rock, R&B,
soul and torch songs – evokes a world of spiritual
lack and longing, taking The Beach Boys’
idealised vision of sun, sea and sand and giving
it a dose of night terrors. “We live on the edge of a
body of water,” Wilson rasps on the title track.
“Warmed by the blood of cold-hearted slaughter.”
Over 40 years, the album’s fortunes have
ebbed and flowed. Though acclaimed on its
release, it sold few copies. Within a decade of good piano, but they needed drums, to keep it in the
Wilson’s death in 1983, Pacific Ocean Blue had family. We were friends. He loved the fact that I was
fallen out of print. Yet with time, its reputation as making the records while he was out motorbiking or on
a work of depth and substance, pointing to future his boat, enjoying all the money he was making. It
glories sadly left unfulfilled, has steadily grown. didn’t bother him.”
“If you want to know who Dennis is, listen to In time, and with a growing cultural consciousness,
the music,” says Gregg Jakobson, Wilson’s friend, Wilson expanded his creative ambitions. He wrote
co-writer and Pacific Ocean Blue producer. “I “Little Bird” and “Be Still” with Kalinich, a poet
think he would have surpassed his brother Brian, signed by Brother Records in 1967. They hung out at
mainly because Dennis didn’t have all the head Wilson’s palatial log cabin house at 14400 Sunset
boundaries that Brian had. Dennis was much Blvd, just prior to the period when Charles Manson and
freer. He would have gone much further had he lived.”
“Dennis his acolytes moved in. “Dennis loved everybody, he
wanted to help the world,” says Blaine. “He used to
T would have
HE source of Pacific Ocean Blue can be traced pick up homeless people, and he was the one who
back to the late ’60s, and The Beach Boys’ “Be picked up Charlie Manson. That was strictly the big
Michael Ochs archives/Getty iMaGes
Still” and “Little Bird”. Released on the Friends heart of Dennis Wilson.”
album, these were among the first songs Dennis
Wilson wrote and recorded. Until then, the blondest,
surpassed his Kalinich was a more productive influence. “We
would go up in his tree hut,” he says. “For ‘Little Bird’, I
handsomest Wilson brother had been the band’s
pin-up and, almost as an afterthought, their drummer.
brother Brian was sitting at the window and I saw a little bird on the
branch of a tree, and almost word for word I put [the
In the studio, he was replaced by session men, notable
among them Hal Blaine.
had he lived” poem] on his piano. He called me that night. ‘Stevie,
you’ve got to come over.’ He picked me up from the
“Dennis was not really a drummer, he was more a gREgg jakoBSoN Brentwood Motor Hotel in his Corniche Rolls-Royce
piano player,” says Blaine. “He played pretty damn and played me the song. The chords and the notes he
Holy Man
kind of album that fulfils a contractual obligation.”
Though the record was promoted with the tagline, ‘Brian’s Back!’,
for Brian Wilson it was a time of sustained drug and alcohol abuse,
seclusion, and a dubious association with the therapist Eugene
Landy. “As Brian became more reclusive, Dennis became more
From the Maharishi to the Foo Fighters,
comfortable with the expression of his creative side,” says Jakobson.
how one of Pacific Ocean Blue’s greatest
“He literally started a relationship with it. For a long time, I think tracks never made the album
ÒH
Dennis felt unworthy. Finally, he felt worthy.” Oly Man” dates to the half-remembered lines. With
Now living in Malibu, during this period Wilson conducted solo time the Beach Boys’ Wilson long dead, he turned to
sessions at The Beach Boys’ Brother Studios in Santa Monica, without spent with Maharishi Foo Fighters drummer taylor
Mahesh yogi in 1968. “i have the hawkins to finally record a
any specific agenda. “I’d get a call from Dennis, ‘Hey, can you come
original words, when it was called vocal. “he sounds like Dennis, the
down?’” says Bobby Figueroa, who drummed with The Beach Boys ‘O holy Man’,” says stephen same gravelly, whisky voice, and
and played on Pacific Ocean Blue. “He would get ideas and invite you Kalinich. “it wasn’t just about Dennis was one of his idols. he
in without talk of any serious project. It was just, ‘Get your butt down Maharishi, it was about a place did a beautiful version.”
here, I wanna do something.’ You never knew what was going to you could go for sanctuary.” the Both the original instrumental
happen. Sometimes it was nothing, sometimes it was the greatest song was attempted first with and hawkins’ version of “holy
the Beach Boys, in 1974, then Man” were added to the 2008
thing you could imagine. On the road [with The Beach Boys] we’d play
by Wilson alone. “it had a life of POB reissue, but there remains
around with different ideas at sound check. He was always working its own,” says Gregg Jakobson. a third version. “taylor sent the
on songs. Before you know it, he was talking about a solo record.” “We cut an incredible track in the track to Brian May, and he and
The idea of a solo album was pushed by Jim Guercio, former Beach studio and it became legendary, roger taylor fell in love with
Boys session man, and briefly their manager. Guercio owned Caribou as we couldn’t come up with a it,” says Jakobson. “they spent
Michael Ochs archives/Getty iMaGes; rOlls Press/POPPerFOtO/Getty iMaGes
Ranch studio and Caribou Records, a CBS imprint which distributed lyric. everything we did was trite weeks fooling around with it,
and clichéd. eventually Dennis putting on vocals and some
Brother Records releases.
said, ‘ah, don’t worry, sooner or incredible percussive things. so,
“Jim had an eye for talent and always encouraged Dennis,” says later we’ll get it.’” there’s a version of ‘holy Man’
Jakobson. “Dennis played him one of the songs, and Jimmy really John hanlon heard “holy Man” featuring the Beach Boys, the
liked it. He said, ‘Are there more?’ ‘Sure!’ Writing more songs was early in the Pacific Ocean Foo Fighters and Queen.
never a problem, so Jimmy said, ‘Let’s make an album.’ At one point Blue sessions. “the We call it the london
Dennis called me and said, ‘We have a PO [Purchase Order] number.’ melody blew my mind. version. it’s over six
it didn’t have a lyric or minutes long and it’s
That means someone is writing cheques, and you can go into the
lead vocal. it got put a masterpiece, but
studio and hire musicians. It meant we could get going and on the shelf and i we’ve never been
everybody could get paid. It became a reality.” never heard it again able to release it,
Stephen Kalinich claims that Wilson initially approached him to for 31 years, but i because we can’t
produce the album together. “I turned him down because The Beach remembered it in get the legalities
Boys weren’t the greatest on royalties and paying people,” he says. In my head.” in 2008, worked out. such
the track emerged a shame. People
the end, Kalinich’s contribution was limited to co-writing the rolling,
from the vaults. hear it and,
good-natured “Rainbows”. “Carl Wilson later added some musical Jakobson honest to God,
touches to it,” he says. “That’s how he got to be a co-writer.” listened and it brings tears
Like much of the album, the initial spark of creativity was jotted down to their eyes.”
spontaneous. “Dennis always had a tune in his head,” says Jakobson,
who co-wrote half of the album’s 12 songs. “He could always come up
would slow it back down to normal speed, and the bass for Otto Hinsche, the father of Billy Hinsche, and Carl
line would be extremely low frequency. He did really Wilson’s father-in-law, who had recently passed away.
cool creative things like that.”
At the end of each session they would load the day’s
was so self- “They were very close,” says Hinsche. “I wasn’t aware
he’d written a song for Pop, or recorded it. It was pretty
work on to a quarter-inch rough mix reel and listen
back. “I remember going in and them playing me
destructive” powerful, the first time I heard it. Sensitive is a good
word to describe Dennis, for sure. Every now and again
tracks, and the hair would stand up on the top of STEPhEN kaliNiCh you’d see that soft, reflective side [in real life], but music
Dennis’s head,” says Kalinich. “He was really excited.” was the best vehicle for him to express that more.”
P
acific Ocean Blue was released on August 22,
1977. Reviews were positive, sales less so. It
scraped into the Billboard 100, but vanished
without trace in the UK. At the time of its release, Wilson
was on tour with The Beach Boys, and at some shows
performed as the support act. “We played selected
songs from the album,” says Figueroa, who was
ttouring with the band. “He played places like Pine
Knob, Michigan [on august 25, 1977], which was a
K
His acute sensitivity is all over Pacific Ocean Blue. testing ground for going on to New York and
te
Several lyrics feel like an intrusion into private grief: London. We did a half-hour set before the main
L
“i wanna cry, wanna cry, got to run away”; “Do you sshow. All I had to do was go backstage and change
wonder where you are?”; “No more lonely nights”. my Hawaiian shirt to a different one!”
m
“Time” consists almost entirely of the phrase “hold Plans for a full headlining tour later in the year
on”. The heartsore “Thoughts Of You” was written never came to fruition. Those involved offer differing
n
one lonely evening as the ocean breeze blew through reasons. “The Beach Boys didn’t want Dennis to go
re
his home at 32184 Broad Beach Road, Malibu. out by himself,” says Jakobson. “That probably came
o
“He was going through heartache,” says John from Mike Love. To Dennis’s way of thinking, he
fr
Hanlon. “Dennis was in his bedroom on the second wasn’t going to be a Beach Boy any longer if he went
w
floor. It was evening, the sliding doors were open, out [on tour] on his own – and more than anything
o
cool sea air was blowing in, and these long, gauzy Dennis was a Beach Boy, and wanted to be a Beach
D
white curtains were billowing. He was writing Boy. That was sacred to him. Those were his brothers.
B
‘Thoughts Of You’ about his wife, Karen. When he
put it down in the studio a week later, that whole feeling
of ‘the sea air flowing through my room’ came through so
Bambu
B mbbu No matter how screwed up he was, he always showed
N
up at the stage door before a show.”
“They kept telling me I had my solo album now, like I
strongly I could visualise it. Dennis always wore his
heart right out there. That whole album was incredibly
& beyond should go off in a corner and leave The Beach Boys to
them,” Wilson told Rolling Stone two weeks after the LP
T
brave in terms of where he went.” hough Pacific Ocean came out. “The album really bothers them.” “It was
Ravaged by hard-living and the effects of a bar fight Blue was the only album hard for him, and he dealt with it in the usual ways, by
which damaged his throat, his voice is often little more Dennis Wilson released in trying to anaesthetise his pain,” says Jakobson.
his lifetime, he conceived and
than a raw scrape. “He’d been through a lot of stuff,” “We were set to do some pretty large dates,” says
created lots more music. Work
says Kalinich. “It gave him that wounded soul quality, began on a second solo album, Figueroa. “But Dennis was having a hard time, and
almost broken. For me, it touched my soul.” “The titled Bambu, before POB was everybody knew it. He was succumbing to a lot of
important thing was to capture the feeling,” says even released. “he just kept right demons, and it made it impossible to carry on. The label
Hanlon. “He didn’t second guess himself, he just put it on recording, there wasn’t a saw this and pulled their tour support, which was a big
out there. He had no fear. Or if he did, he didn’t show it.” delineation,” says John hanlon. let-down for all of us who believed in this project. It
“Dennis loved being in the studio.
“Time” was one of two tracks written with Karen could have gone a lot further had he gone out and
It was a safe space.” “Sony
Lamm-Wilson, the ex-wife of Chicago keyboardist wanted another album, but by promoted it. The public lost interest at that point.”
Bobby Lamm. Her relationship with Wilson – they then Dennis wasn’t doing well Wilson recorded numerous tracks for a planned
married and divorced twice in six years – was in his life,” says Jakobson. “he second album [see panel], but suffered a sharp
explosive. Wilson “used to pick up every type of woman wasn’t in the same head space, decline. He drowned on December 28, 1983, at Marina
in the world because they loved him,” says Hal Blaine. or together enough to make it Del Rey, Los Angeles, after diving into the ocean from
happen. A lot of Bambu is helter-
“I certainly can’t imagine being married to Dennis his yacht and getting into difficulties. It was a careless
skelter, hit-or-miss stuff.” In 1979,
Wilson!” Then again, Lamm could give as good as she two Bambu recordings – “Baby end to a reckless, contradictory life. “Dennis felt that
got. One night during recording, she threw a brick Blue” and “Love Surrounds Me” we are channels of God,” says Kalinich, “Except he
through the front window of Brother Studio. “It was – appeared on The Beach Boys’ wouldn’t call it God, so let’s call it Grace. But he was so
chaotic to say the least,” says Jakobson. “Boy, she was a LA (Light Album). The sessions self-destructive. He’s an example of how divine
handful to deal with, for anybody and everybody. There for Wilson’s second album were inspiration can come through people who have
officially released in 2008, on an
was no taming that wild horse.” complications of consciousness.”
MIChAEL oChS ARChIvES/gETTy IMAgES
GIVE ME
STRENGTH!
To celebrate the imminent arrival of Hitchhiker – 41 years late! – Uncut
takes a revelatory trip inside the archives of Neil Young. Our mission?
To piece together some of rock’s most legendary lost albums:
Homegrown, Chrome Dreams, Oceanside-Countryside, Island In
The Sun, Meadow Dusk, Times Square, Toast and more. Tyler Wilcox
forensically pieces together the alternate discography all Neil fans have
dreamed of for decades. “Quite often I’ll record things that don’t fit with
what I’m doing,” as Young said, “so I just hold onto them for a while…”
Photo by henry diltz
S early as 1978, the rumour mill was already churning in meaning that barely one project can be finished before he is
regards to Neil Young’s unprecedented stash of unreleased already off to the next one. It’s resurgence in 2012 seemed
material. Before an intimate solo show at San Francisco’s implicitly connected to Young’s return to active service with
Boarding House, some of the era’s leading rock critics – Crazy Horse for Americana and Psychedelic Pill; but once
Paul Nelson, John Rockwell and Cameron Crowe – traded Young had moved back to solo projects, Toast was no longer
breathless tales about 175 songs that Young had discarded, germane. But Toast was not the first example of such creative
entire albums cast aside, hours upon hours of incandescent restlessness. Young has a tendency to announce archival
live tapes resting in the vaults. Almost 40 years later, Young’s releases and then put it on hold – in some cases indefinitely
stash has only grown. – for new material. One such album is Hitchhiker. A
“There’s quite a few albums,” Young admitted to Uncut in previously unreleased record from 1976, Hitchhiker was
2012. “Sometimes I finish things and I go, ‘I don’t want to put rumoured to be finally on the schedules for summer 2017;
this out. I don’t want to put it out now.’ But that’s a different instead, Young released “Children Of Destiny”, his latest
thing from playing it. Making it.” collaboration with Promise Of The Real. Hitchhiker is
Young continued by updating Uncut on the status of rumoured to be out later this year; but still remains one
Toast, an album he’d recorded with Crazy Horse more of many lost albums that remain unheard in full.
than a decade earlier that remains unreleased to this Clearing away the cobwebs that have gathered around
day. “Toast is a good record, it’s a very dark record,” these records is no mean feat. But clues are there to be found,
he said. “Some people are not going to like it, some
Gijsbert Hanekroot/redferns
I
other ones are 75 pounds, you’ve got to keep N May 1974, Young showed up at New York City’s
things in order so they don’t hurt each other. Bottom Line for an unannounced solo set. It has
That’s why I hold certain things back.” become an all-time favourite among aficionados,
thanks to an audience tape that’s been bootlegged
A
LTHOUGH the span of these unreleased albums endlessly over the years. Though the bulk of the songs
reaches into the Noughties, it is no surprise that
the bulk of them originated during Young’s “Toast is ready came from the just-released On The Beach, Young also
debuted “Pardon My Heart”, an ambiguous,
fecund ’70s. Since it was first mentioned in 1975,
Homegrown has become legendary among diehard to go. It’s not a meditative ballad that showed up on 1975’s Zuma. “It’s
a fallen situation, when all eyes are turned in,” he sang
fans as the ultimate unreleased album in Young’s in a fragile voice over delicate fingerpicked guitar.
canon. To some collaborators, writers and close
friends, it’s one of Young’s finest, most nuanced works.
perfect record, “And a love isn’t flowing, the way it could have been.”
More pointed was Young’s version of “Greensleeves”,
but it’s an
bettmann/Getty imaGes
“I think that to Neil, Homegrown was Harvest part with rewritten lyrics that seems aimed directly at
two,” says Mazer, who produced both albums. “But it Snodgress: “Alas, my love, you do me wrong/By treating
wasn’t Harvest. It was something else.”
Homegrown was teased as part of a forthcoming Neil
essential one” me so curiously.” Another brand-new song, “Pushed It
Over The End”, fell further into darkness. Ostensibly
Young Archives Special Release Series back in 2010. NEil yoUNg based on the Patty Hearst saga, then grabbing
Though it remains unreleased, Young continues to headlines across the country, the words still seemed
Status report!
Where are we with archives Volume 2?
I
n 2016, Young unveiled his
latest plans for Archives
Volume 2. “It’ll be my entire
archives on a website,” he told
us. “You can listen to music,
in amsterdam with and you’ll see where albums
the Rolls-Royce in are that are pencilled in, not
which Neil and finished. From throughout a
friends will tour
Europe, 1974 40- or 50-year span, you’ll see
unfinished records behind
you, in front of you, right now,
way in the future.”
Levon Helm. “I always thought Levon would be a really good According to Young’s
drummer for Neil,” Mazer says. “An incredible musician and one of manager Elliot Roberts, this
my favourite people. He played slightly behind the beat, which Neil latest, much-anticipated
volume should “surface in
loves. Neil loves what he would define as a laid-back beat.”
2017”. So far, this has yet
Young was captivated by Helm’s contributions, especially on the to transpire – although the
enigmatic “The Old Homestead”. “After one of the takes, Levon rumoured release of Hitchhiker which appeared at the
looked at me and asked, ‘What’s happening with the groove there?’” suggests he is at least closing in on Toronto International Film Festival
he wrote in Special Deluxe. “He had noticed that I was holding back it. In fact, over the last few years, before arriving on Blu-ray in 2016,
while he was pushing me on, and it was creating a rub. I said, ‘I think Young has steadily released music accompanied by Young’s 1979
thought to feature in the period concert film, Rust Never Sleeps.
we’re going too fast, so I was holding us back.’ He looked at me with
covered by Archives Volume 2. Of course, Young’s fans have
that look, those two eyes of his, and drawled, ‘Don’t do that. Don’t These included a long-sought- grown accustomed to waiting.
fight the groove.’ I’ll never forget that. Those are the moments when after reissue, Time Fades Away, But Archives Volume 2 promises
you learn. You never know when they are coming.” which formed part of Young’s something of a motherlode
Helm was playing a kit borrowed from Karl T Himmel, who’d played Official Release Series. Following from his perceived “golden era”.
with JJ Cale, Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley. “Levon had to leave to go a familiar pattern, this was due neil and his associates have
initially for release on Record dropped mouthwatering hints
back to NYC at some point, and they asked me if I wanted to take over
Store Day in April 2014, before about an alternate version of
since my drums were already there,” says Himmel. “So we were in the getting bumped back to RSD’s Time Fades Away, outtakes from
studio playing this song and Neil says, ‘Uh, drummer?’ The engineer Black Friday in november, with the Tonight’s The Night session
went, ‘Karl!’ Neil says, ‘Karl, I think you’re a little bit on top.’ Like I’m the delay cited as being “due (perhaps featuring a guest
on top of him or something, pushing him. I looked at him, you know, to several other projects Young appearance from Joni Mitchell),
‘OK.’ We started playing again and then I stopped and asked, ‘Uh, has in the works that he wishes Dume, a compilation made up
to focus on”. Chief among these, of tracks from the Zuma era –
guitar player?’ Ben looked at me like, ‘Oh shit.’ I said, ‘I think you’re
presumably, were Storytone – as and, yes, complete versions of
a little out of tune.’ [Laughs] It got really quiet. I think Elliot was well as a new director’s cut of the lost 1970s albums discussed
probably pulling his hair out. But then you heard Neil going ding ding his 1982 film, Human Highway, in this article.
ding, gettin’ in tune. And we went ahead and cut the track.”
Adding sweetness to the heaviness in Nashville was Emmylou
Harris, who contributed harmonies to “Try”
and “Star Of Bethlehem”, the latter conjuring “Danko was an incredible bass player, but Rick did more drugs than
up the ghost of Harris’ recently departed duet Neil, which is hard to imagine,” Mazer says. “Neil got opinions from
partner, Gram Parsons. Young and his band the guys in The Band. He loved those guys. They were held in high
also cut Homegrown’s title track, which – in esteem because they had played in Toronto for years and they were all
contrast to the reflective nature of the other really good musicians. But tremendous drug abusers at the time.
tunes – was a bouncy paean to growing your Maybe except for Robbie, I don’t think he was too into drugs.”
own weed. “I think Neil liked Homegrown Taking Danko’s advice, Young shelved Homegrown in favour of
because it was more raw,” Mazer says. “He Tonight’s The Night, parcelling out some of Homegrown’s songs on
liked Harvest probably because he got about subsequent albums and compilations, and consigning others to
GIJSBERT HAnEkROOT/REDFERnS; RB/REDFERnS; MICHAEl PuTlAnD/GETTY IMAGES
$10 million from it.” the dustbin. Mazer, meanwhile, has another insight into why
In December and January, Young and Ben Homegrown wasn’t released. “I didn’t think it was a commercial
Keith recorded a few more songs at Los levon Helm and record,” he says. “Warners heard the record and they said, ‘This is
Angeles’ Village Recorders, including the Emmylou Harris, nice.’ Whereas with Harvest they were jumping out of their chairs,
contributors to
surreal spoken-word piece, “Florida”, before Young’s shelved they couldn’t believe it.”
Mazer began mixing. Designer Gary Burden, Homegrown lP “People want to know why you don’t make your most famous record
who had also handled Harvest’s artwork, over and over,” Young told Uncut. “Because it’s death,
was drafted to create a cover (“Me with a that’s why. The longer you can go on and do things people
corncob pipe,” Young described it vaguely). don’t like and then give them something they like just ’cos
To unveil his latest LP, Young gathered a select group of that’s just the way it happened, the better off you are.”
friends and musicians in a suite at Hollywood’s Chateau
E
Marmont – the same suite where, a few years later, John VEN by the high standards he set during the
Belushi died. Amid the revelry, Homegrown was played. decade, Neil Young enjoyed a prolific 1975/’76.
“We all listened to the album and Tonight’s The Night “I used to write all the time,” he recalled to Uncut.
happened to be on the same reel,” Young recalled. “So we “I kept working at it and every day I wrote a different
listened to that, too, just for laughs. No comparison.” song. I had all those feelings and I wrote all those songs.”
One of the evening’s guests, The Band’s Rick Danko, During this period, Young’s scope was widening
was particularly taken with the rawness and feeling of beyond relationship drama and into uncharted territory:
Tonight’s The Night. mytho-historic narratives, stoner science fiction,
smoking pipes. When I get down, I listen to that tape.” remembered him raving.
even in their lo-fi state, the circulating audience “I’m tapped into the source when we’re altogether,”
recordings of Young and Crazy Horse in Japan bear out
Talbot’s assessment. After a crowd-pleasing solo
it wasn’t an Young told Uncut. “It’s not like a technical thing. The
expertise is not that great. We don’t have to be, we just
acoustic set, Crazy Horse plugged in and took flight.
Opening most sets with the clarion call riff of “Country
intensity with connect on this emotional thing. A soul level.”
Later that year, Young instructed producer David
Home”, Young treated his Japanese fans to an hour’s
worth of guitar nirvana, featuring some of the wildest
dark edges ” Briggs and engineer Tim Mulligan to put together a live
LP made up of performances from the Budokan show
six-string explorations of his career. The piercing leads dEaN SToCkwEll and a three-night stand a few weeks later at London’s
on extended versions of “Down By The River”, “Cortez Hammersmith Odeon. Young and Crazy Horse are
well-served by live albums, running from Live At The
Fillmore East, recorded during 1970, to 1991’s Weld; but Odeon-
In Tokyo, March Budokan offers the enticing prospect of capturing Young and his
1976, where the long-serving lieutenants during their mid-’70s heyday. A potential
stinging, but as
yet unreleased, release for Odeon-Budokan has been teased since the late 1990s,
Odeon-Budokan when Young’s manager elliot Roberts mentioned it as part of Young’s
live album was
partly recorded long-rumoured archival anthology, then referred to as Decade II.
Its existence, meanwhile, is yet another bizarre, compelling false
lead in a career that’s been full of such capricious swerves from its
very beginning.
E
veN though Crazy Horse was reaching the peak of its powers by
spring 1976, Young ditched them for an album and summer tour
with stephen stills. But the stills-Young Band tour came to a
halt in July when Young jumped ship about halfway through. A few
weeks later, Young holed up at Indigo Ranch studios in the company
of producer David Briggs. The results of this stunning 10-song solo
acoustic session were dubbed Hitchhiker.
Briggs and Young had been working together off and on since 1968,
and the partnership had produced some of Young’s most powerful
records, including Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After The Gold
Rush, Tonight’s The Night and Zuma.
“David used to get me jacked up,” Young told Uncut. “He would get
me prepared to deliver. He would say key things to me to inspire me or
piss me off, or whatever, just at the right time. I knew I was being
played like a fiddle, but he was my brother.”
Accompanied by Briggs and actor Dean stockwell that August night
at Indigo, Young (“pausing only for weed, beer, or cocaine,” Neil
wrote in Special Deluxe) played his latest and greatest in unadorned
but undeniably brilliant style. It’s a recital for the ages. “Neil is
intense,” stockwell says. “But it wasn’t an intensity with any dark
edges to it. He is meticulous as a musician. Whatever was required, he
seemed to come up with. He was extremely mentally organised.”
The material laid down for Hitchhiker included embryonic versions
of tunes that would become classics, such as “Pocahontas”,
“Powderfinger” and “Human Highway”. Young also cut two songs
that have remained unreleased until now: the mysterious “Hawaii”
and the lovelorn “Give Me strength”, left over from the end of the
Homegrown period. Then there’s the harrowing “Hitchhiker” itself,
a song that Young incorporated parts of into Trans’ “Like An Inca”
and finally released with a few added verses on 2010’s Le Noise. But
the original is a thing to behold, a litany of drug abuse, paranoia and
debauchery that rolls on through hash, amphetamines, valium and
cocaine before drifting into a fever dream vision of Incas in Peru. fowl play
N
Hitchhiker was fantastic. But Hitchhiker was shelved.
“I was in a hurry in 1976, as I had been in the habit of writing several eil Young laid low in 1977, Passage” that saw Young jumping
especially when it came from guitar to his Stringman
songs a week for months and was backlogged,” Young wrote in
to playing live. But he analogue synth, a stormy,
Special Deluxe. “I was recording anywhere I could and moving quite bobbed to the surface briefly that electrified “little Wing” worthy
fast, finishing my records very quickly. For me, it was not as important summer with the Ducks. Gigging of inclusion on Zuma and spirited
to create a technically perfect recording as it was to get the original almost entirely within the city renditions of the Springfield’s “Mr
performances and feelings of new songs on tape… Let someone else limits of Santa Cruz, California, Soul” and Harvest’s “Get Back To
make the perfect record. I had to take care of my own songs.” the band was made up of former The Country”. Young was psyched
Moby Grape bassist Bob Mosley, enough about the group that he
D
singer-songwriter Jeff Blackburn had custom-made bellbottoms
esPITe this imperfect approach, Young did put together an (co-writer with Young on “My My, with the word “DUCKS” boldly
almost-perfect record around this time. Typically, he’s never Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)”), and emblazoned on them. The band’s
released it. Chrome Dreams was compiled from a grab bag of drummer Johnny Craviotto, who shows rarely cost more than $2.50
sessions from late ’75 to autumn ’76, but it hung together marvellously. had previously played with Ry at the door, and as the summer
Unlike many of Young’s other lost albums, fans have had access to it Cooder and Buffy Sainte-Marie. wore on, word got out that you
The Ducks weren’t just Young could see Neil Young in a cosy
for years now, thanks to a stray acetate that was subsequently
and a backing band, however; beach bar at a bargain price.
bootlegged. The eclectic 12-song LP shows the myriad directions not unlike Buffalo Springfield, Spooked by the growing crowds
Neil’s imagination was taking him, from the hallucinatory spaceways band members traded off on (and perhaps the increasing
of “sedan Delivery” to the hazy, morning-after folk of “Too Far Gone”. lead vocals and Mosley and number of duck callers in the
The spectral piano balladry of “stringman” exists comfortably Blackburn both contributed crowd), he parted ways with the
alongside the ultimate Crazy Horse rave-up, “Like a Hurricane”. originals to the repertoire. They group before they could make it
even lived communally for a time. into the studio. But judging from
Much of the material for Chrome Dreams was cut during haphazard
Predictably, it’s Neil’s showcases live tapes that circulate among
sessions at Young’s Broken Arrow ranch. “We’d stay there for a that stand out the most on collectors, an official Ducks
RiCHaRD MCCaffReY/ MiCHael OCHS aRCHive/ GeTTY iMaGeS
summer, maybe even nine months, just recording, recording, coming Ducks bootlegs – a ricocheting Performance Series release
up with songs and partying,” remembers sampedro. “Then Neil instrumental called “Windward would be more than welcome.
would come in and go, ‘Oh shit, you guys. You’re not
going to believe it, Warners called, we got to turn in a
record. What do you think we should put on it?’ We
never had the concept that we were making a record.” a
anything to say, you shouldn’t play just noodle. People
Again, Briggs was a vital part of the proceedings. don’t come to listen to you just to hear you noodle
d
“He was such a big influence with this band and Neil,” around.’ That really kept our edge.”
a
sampedro says of the producer, who passed away in Chrome Dreams’ centrepiece was to be the beguiling,
1995. “You had to really put it out there, your intensity unclassifiable “Will To Love”, which Young recorded
u
has to be there all the time. You can’t play around. He during another session at Indigo Ranch with Briggs.
d
would go up to Neil, get right in Neil’s face and say, ‘It With woozy overdubs creating a murky atmosphere
W
seems to me like you’re just noodling around. Don’t you over his acoustic guitar and disembodied vocals, Young
o
have anything to say when you solo? If you don’t have ssings from the point of view of a salmon swimming
come over and let me play you my new album.’ About halfway with Crazy Young played the complete Oceanside-Countryside for the execs
through she went, ‘Neil, this isn’t an album. It’s not a real album. Horse – at Warner Bros, who suggested adding rhythm tracks to the solo
(l–r) Billy
I mean, there’s nobody playing, and half the songs you’re just doing Talbot, recordings – a suggestion that the songwriter surprisingly agreed to.
by yourself.’ She was just laughing at me. Because she crafts albums. Frank He duly added an armada of Nashville session players (and even an
Sampedro
I was out there, you know, using all these different techniques, and I and Ralph orchestra) to portions of the Triad tapes, worked up some new
recorded ‘Will To Love’ on a cassette player in front of my fireplace Molina – in material and added a few choice cuts from the archives. The result
Denmark,
and then overdubbed a bunch of instruments on it in one night. March 16 was the lush, mainstream-leaning Comes A Time, a far cry from its
That’s the way I like to make records.” 1976 sparse Fort Lauderdale origins. As of 2017, Oceanside-Countryside,
one last lost 1970s album, still languishes in the vault.
I
N the early ’80s, Young
left Warner Bros/Reprise
– his home since his first
solo record in 1968 – for
Geffen Records. From the
beginning, the relationship
was rocky. “I made a record
called Island In The Sun
about the planet Earth and
invited David [Geffen] over to
hear it at the house I had
rented in Hawaii,” Young
wrote in Waging Heavy Peace.
“He was not impressed with
it and asked me to do
something else. That was
the first time that had ever
happened to me.”
For the Island In The Sun
sessions in Hawaii, Young
assembled an all-star team
of collaborators: Buffalo
Springfield bassist Bruce
Palmer, Crazy Horse drummer
Billy Talbot, guitarists Nils
Lofgren and Ben Keith and
reconstructive survey
I
N 2008, an article appeared without fanfare on
Young’s website revealing the existence of a previously
unknown album. “Toast is coming, a dark Crazy Horse
classic for the ages.” The news was met with
bewilderment. Toast? What the hell is Toast?
It transpires that in early 2000, Young, Crazy Horse and
co-producer John Hanlon took up residence in a San
Francisco studio called Toast. The vibe was described as
“bluesy” and “jazz-tinged”, “kind of like a down-played
Tonight’s The Night, except these songs deal directly with
love and loss, not drugs”. In addition to the core Crazy
Horse trio, some songs featured Tommy Brea on muted
trumpet, as well as backing vocals from Nancy Hall and
Young’s then-wife Pegi.
Young dropped some further cryptic hints about
Toast’s troubled gestation in Special Deluxe. “Everything
seemed temporary, even Crazy Horse,” he wrote. “We
were not doing well in the studio. Although we had some
great moments and the music was soulful, it wasn’t happy
or settled.”
The band took a break and headed to South America
for a handful of festival gigs, returning to the Bay Area
refreshed. According to Young, they recorded a lengthy,
brooding number called “Gateway Of Love” (performed
indulging a live from time to time in subsequent years), “Mr
taste for big- Disappointment” and “Quit”, which were both
band blues with
The Bluenotes re-recorded with Booker T & The MG’s for 2003’s Are
in late 1987 You Passionate?. The pounding “Goin’ Home”,
meanwhile, was a classic Crazy Horse jam.
cover art, an image of him standing in a meadow with a “Eventually, I gave up and abandoned the album,”
Ford Aerostar – not too far off from the photo that graces Young wrote. “Like my personal life, where I was
1992’s Harvest Moon (an album that happens to feature having some serious problems with my marriage,
the lyrics “In the meadow dusk/I park my Aerostar”). there was just something missing. I was not happy
Geffen Records dropped Young in October 1987, with it, or maybe I was just generally unhappy.”
however, and Meadow Dusk was put permanently on But evidently Young has since come to appreciate
hold. Young returned to the Warner/Reprise fold in Toast’s singular qualities. Much like his complex,
1988, and got one more genre exercise out of his system spiritual connection to Crazy Horse, it seems that
– the bluesy, big band album, This Note’s For You. But Young will revisit Toast when his muse deems the time
Young had other plans for his next record, Times Square is right. “There’s a world that you can walk in and they
– a return to a denser, harder sound. During late ’88 get me there,” Young told Uncut. “We go together. We
sessions at NYC’s Power Station with bassist Rick don’t go individually. We don’t go without each other.”
Rosas and drummer Chad Cromwell, Young seemed For an artist who has stubbornly and inscrutably
to channel some kind of malevolent energy. “There followed his own idiosyncratic path, albums like Toast –
fo
was nothing but abrasiveness from beginning to indeed
in n the entire Archives project – pose a considerable
end,” he told Rolling Stone’s Sheila Rogers. cchallenge to Young. “My best work is ahead of me,” he
On “Cocaine Eyes”, Young’s guitar is a mass of ssaid. “It’s always in front. It can’t be behind you. It’s just
nasty fuzz, as he howls lyrics to match: “Cocaine eyes a question of getting to it.” Which makes the reflective,
can’t hide your face/It’s no surprise you’ve lost the race recalibratory process at the heart of Archives all the more
re
once again.” On “Heavy Love”, Young pushes this rremarkable. With Hitchhiker tantalisingly close to release,
wild and adversarial electric music to its limit. Even one wonders just how many of Young’s legion of lost
o
a putative ballad, “Don’t Cry”, is interrupted by albums will finally emerge, blinking into the light.
a
blasts of corrosive feedback. Elsewhere, the cover of “I think the most profound thing I realised while
The Drifters’ “On Broadway” finds Young wrestling working in the Archives is that I’m not careful,” Young
tempestuous chords from Old Black. said, reflecting on his working practices to Uncut. “I’ve
Times Square would’ve been quite a statement – been too concerned with moving on, I’m always
even after Young tempered its intensity with a handful
of more sedate numbers left over from the Bluenotes “I’m careless moving on. So I leave a lot of unfinished and
unreleased stuff, because it doesn’t fit with where my
period, such as the majestic “Someday” and the
because I’m head is then. I forget about all the work that went into
AAron rApoport/Corbis viA Getty imAGes
chilling “Crime In The City (Sixty To Zero)”. But even it. And I just forget about it. But they’re still there. And I
after radio stations had begun to receive promo copies, say, ‘Well, gee, maybe I should put that out.’ Or, ‘Why
Young had a last-minute change of mind and pulled
the record. The noisier tracks from the Power Station
always only didn’t I finish this?’ Or, ‘That was real good, why didn’t
I do that all the way? Why did I only do it three-
sessions were relegated to the Japan-only EP “El
Dorado”, while others emerged on 1990’s Freedom.
interested in quarters of the way?’ Stuff like that.
“I just found that I’m careless because I’m always
Unlike other unreleased records of his from the
1980s, however, the decision to ditch Times Square was
the new thing” only interested in the new thing. If it’s taking too long
to finish the old thing, and I have something new
Young’s alone. “I kept juggling it around until I got NEil yoUNg happening, I’ll abandon the old thing. Because I don’t
something that I thought was more like an album than want to lose the new thing.”
STONES
The Times ★★★★
Million
Dollar
Basher
Pub-rock prototype. Punk auteur. Loyal friend.
Inveterate raconteur. Gentleman songwriter
of some repute – that’s NICK LOWE, who invites
MICHAEL BONNER over to his Brentford pad
for a leisurely wander through a discreet but
exceptional career. Plus RY COODER and
ELVIS COSTELLO pay homage: “His geniality
may have has been at the cost of his legend.”
Photograph by EstatE Of KEith MOrris/rEdfErns
A
ICK LOWe has always had an awkward CONveRSATION with Nick Lowe takes the form of a series
relationship with success. “Me and Huey of lengthy, often digressive anecdotes. There’s the one about
Lewis used to knock around together when he his only real proper job, as a journalist for the Uxbridge
was with Clover,” recalls Lowe. “I sometimes Advertiser: “You had to do a few late-duty chemists and what was on
used to meet Huey in the ’80s at the height of at the local Gaumont, then they’d shove you out to interview the local
his fame. You’d walk down the street with vicar.” Or that time in the late ’60s when his first band, Kippington
him, people would come up to him Lodge, had a month-long residency at the PN Hit House in
or shout out of their car windows. Munich: “Half an hour on, 15 minutes off, pretty much all
He loved it. I said to him, ‘Huey, night. And at weekends, you play all day and all night,
this is a fucking nightmare.’ He’d
say, ‘Oh, man. It doesn’t harm “I think starting at lunchtime.” How about Brinsley Schwarz’ ill-
fated gig at the Fillmore east, where their manager charted
anyone, I just write them an autograph.’ Fair dos. But
that’s never been for me. I’ve always felt like an outsider. most of an Aer Lingus jet to fly out dozens of journalists, only for it
to go disastrously wrong? “The whole thing was a fucking
And rather enjoyed being an outsider.”
The least comfortable of rock stars, Lowe never thrived what I’ve fiasco. But in retrospect, it was great!”
What links all these colourful yarns is Lowe’s deep-seated
in the spotlight, preferring instead a career along the
periphery of mainstream success. Such a position allowed done is love for American music. In childhood, that was his
mother’s record collection – “Nat Cole, Sinatra. Peggy Lee,
him youthful freedom in his first band, Brinsley Schwarz, Doris Day, Dinah Washington. A lot of show tunes” – or the
and then as the in-house producer for Stiff Records before,
briefly, actually being a pop star got in the way. Since then,
pretty blues courtesy of American Forces Radio. Later, Lowe
acquired a taste for a rootsy form of folk rock.
Lowe has re-emerged as a kind of meditative nostalgist,
crafting bittersweet songs that have brought him a
ho-hum” “The Brinsleys were against the high-heeled David Bowie
mob; they had a check-shirt attitude,” says Dave Robinson,
satisfyingly modest public profile. “I’ve become very NiCk lowE their manager. “The songs were very marijuana-led. Long
skilled at not completely disappearing,” he says dryly. jams. very Crosby, Stills & Nash.”
Today, Lowe is at home in Brentford, the leafy west “We loved The Band,” says Lowe. “After the fateful
London suburb where he has lived for 30 years. Initially, trip to New York, the Brinsleys embraced communal
Lowe moved here because his then manager, Jake Riviera, living at this funky old farm in Beaconsfield. We got
also had offices in the neighbourhood. Coincidentally, a call one morning saying, ‘The Band are supporting
The Damned’s Rat Scabies – another figure from Lowe’s CSNY at Wembley. They haven’t done a show for
past – lives close by; he and Lowe often bump into one a while and need to brush up. They don’t want
another in the local Morrisons. In fact, Lowe owns two somewhere in London, can they come out and use
properties – one for family, one for work – and he greets your place?’ They brought in Garth’s Lowry organ but
us at the door of the former, dapperly dressed in a crisp used all our amps. We sat on the flight cases outside
DAN BURN-foRti
short-sleeved white shirt and v-neck tanktop. Like Lowe and listened to them run through these tunes we
himself, the house is stylish and well maintained. One loved so much. Then off they went. They barely spoke
wall of the living room is neatly stacked with books and to us, but that didn’t matter. They’d used our amps,
vintage board games, including Cluedo and Connect 4. but we couldn’t believe as much as we tried, when we
EC on nL
plugged back in
we still couldn’t “Since I was 17, I’ve
sound like The Band.”
More promisingly, the wanted to write songs
Brinsleys landed a support slot on
a UK tour supporting Wings. “The
band were all in one hotel room late
as good as Nick Lowe…”
at night, playing acoustic guitars, ElViS CoSTEllo celebrates Basher’s brilliance
having a smoke,” says Robinson.
“i
“There’s a tap on the door and it’s f ‘Nick Lowe’ was just a ‘When i Write the Book’ with a
Paul McCartney with a bottle of credit line on a stack of little Rodgers & hart thrown in.
dusty, gold waxings, then it “Nick was also in two of my
Scotch. ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ might be easier for people to see favourite ever rock’n’roll bands;
They have a drink and a toke and they start playing ‘She Loves You’. him as a songwriter who walks in Brinsley schwarz, to whom the
There’s an embarrassing moment as word had gone out McCartney the rare company of Charlie Rich, word ‘pub’ is always attached,
didn’t want to have Beatles contact of any kind. But Nick and Dan Penn, hank Cochran or even diminishing the fact they could
everyone starting singing harmony and McCartney joined in. They Kris Kristofferson. his geniality play at a proximity that inferior
were there until four in the morning singing Beatles songs. The may have been at the cost of his bands couldn’t risk, and the
legend. Perhaps that’s the way ferocious and, at times, unnerving
following day, McCartney put a Beatles song into the set and by the he wanted it. then i think Nick Rockpile, our touring partners
end of the tour he was doing about three or four.” was originally writing a musical during one particularly chaotic
satire when he penned ‘(What’s American jaunt.
o
veR coffee, while Larry the whippet sniffs hopefully round so funny ’Bout) Peace, Love And “over those first 10 years,
the chocolate biscuits, Lowe shares his thoughts on rock Understanding’. it is time and during which he produced six
biogs. “I’m only interested in a band’s early days,” he says. events that have lent the song its of our albums, Nick let me go
power and melancholy. from being an utter novice to
“As soon as they get famous, I couldn’t care less. When they’re having
“since i was 17, i’ve wanted someone capable of wilful but
a terrible old time, I enjoy that as well. The rest of it, when life’s a lark to write songs as good as Nick occasionally inspired mistakes. it
and everything’s going great in the studio? Yeah, well…” Lowe. ‘Alison’ was the result of the would be an error to think of Nick
In which case, this would be the point where Nick Lowe loses chemistry experiment involving as a traditionalist just because he
interest in his own story. In the early ’70s, a visiting American band, Nick’s ‘Don’t Lose Your Grip on didn’t have a fashionable alibi.
eggs Over easy, took up residence in the Tally Ho, Kentish Town, Love’ and a song by the Detroit “to me he will always be a
spinners. ‘everyday i Write the swinging modernist; just listen
playing crisp, three-minute songs; they became the unlikely patient
Book’ is a knock-off of Nick’s to his bass part on ‘Radio
zero for pub rock. “They were stars in this very small world,” says sweetheart’ (my first
Lowe. “At one point, we went and found our own place in Holloway – professional recording),
an Irish pub with a sunken dancefloor in the middle of the room and a ‘Clown strike’ or, for that
little stage at one end. We thought, ‘Man, this is absolutely perfect. We matter, ‘hurry Down
can fit 200 people in here, no problem.’ We went to see the governor. Doomsday (the Bugs
Are taking over)’.
He was very dismissive – ‘I’ve never heard of you fellas.’ So we said,
“You mostly see
‘Look, give us your worse night. Tell you what, you don’t even have to Nick these days in
pay us. See if you like it. After that, we’ll come to a deal.’ The place got the guise of the
totally rammed. There were people hanging off the ceiling. But the Gentleman Balladeer,
manager freaked out. He said, ‘I can’t have this! This is way too much but attending
work. Pack your stuff up and fuck off!’” to the private
voice of the
The circuit opened up after that with the Brinsleys, Dr Feelgood, dark and
Kilburn & The High Roads, Ducks Deluxe and more taking up rowdy lonely hours
residence in a nexus of London pubs – the Hope & Anchor, the Red within the
Cow, the Dublin Castle, Lord Nelson, Newlands Tavern among them. following
With such power came little responsibility – a situation to Lowe’s songs –
liking. “It was a hoot,” he says. “We were a little band of renegades.” ‘Basing
street’,
The frolics continued when Lowe became involved with Jake ‘Lover Don’t
Riviera and Dave Robinson’s Stiff Records, working as the label’s Go’, ‘i’m A
in-house producer. “Their definition of success was very strange,” Mess’ and
ChRis GABRiN/ReDfeRNs
explains Lowe. “It didn’t necessarily mean having a hit, just as long ‘the Beast
as it entertained in some shape or form. Stiff had a few hits, but they in Me’ – is to
were modest. We were more interested in mucking about at the back.” know why
Costello we are all still
Such disruptive tendencies aside, Lowe nevertheless managed to and lowe
running to
in 1978
oversee a number of key releases, including The Damned’s “New catch up.”
“You always
L
Rockfield,” says Lowe. “edmunds would arrive OWe exited the ’70s cushioned by good fortune
at 10 o’clock at night, just as we were leaving. If you and modest success. Much in demand, he
Lynn GoLdsmith/Corbis/VCG Via Getty imaGes, VinCent mCeVoy/redferns
“P
like sad old gits.” eopLe often ask, ‘What at a very peculiar time. He was struggling, not doing
about nick Lowe, anyway?’
edmunds signed to Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label good work and he shamefully got fired from CBS. He
if i’m pressed for time, i
and, in 1976, Rockpile – billed as ‘Dave edmunds’ – simply say, ‘born to play bass.’ was running a very big show with a big band. Lots of
went on their first major American tour, supporting Uncomprehending looks from the people with their hands out, lots of mouths to feed.
Bad Company. “We completely tore it up,” remembers folks. ‘What i mean is, nick is a He was playing worse and worse places. He was also
Lowe. “The crowd went nuts, causing the displeasure natural musical man, unobstructed in a lot of pain, drinking and taking quite a lot of
of Bad Company – or, at least, their people. We’d play by methods, tablatures, rules and prescription drugs.”
regulations.’ Ladies sometimes ask,
25 minutes, but they kept cutting us back. even Lowe is quick to underscore the kindness and
‘but is he a nice man?’ i say, ‘Lady,
better! We’d play our four best tunes and then go off. one of the absolute nicest, i should grace of Cash – a man who made the transatlantic
The crowd would go crazy. We’d look at our judge.’ Which comes through his crossing to stay with Lowe dressed in full Man In
watches, shrug and mouth, ‘Sorry!’ musical writings, his lyrics. things Black regalia. But his father-in-law’s humbling
T
Then we were in the Comanche Inn we all can understand. the common condition prefigured Lowe’s own decline during the
out near the airport having a
o touch, they used to call it, but ’80s. “I was in quite a bad way,” he confirms. “I was
distinctive and original. oK? ‘and one
fantastic time with the third-
fa taking quite a lot of drugs and drinking a lot. My
thing’s for certain, you always catch a
di
division groupies. So why groove with nick.’ Uncomprehending schtick had run its course. I was getting too old to be
w
would anybody want to looks from the folks.” a pop star who couldn’t come up with another pop.”
become a big act? We had a
be Nevertheless, Lowe is sanguine about the records
ball. But we never worked
ba he made during this period – “There’s moments on
at it. We played the same set for three years. all of them,” he says. “Party Of One, Pinker And Prouder Tha Previous. I
We had it in our hand, but the only people who was anti this huge production sound in the ’80s. I wanted to make records
didn’t want us to succeed was us.”
did that were small. Make a statement. A small sound, but a big statement!”
Lowe explains that the reason he continues to
L There were also agreeable musical collaborations to be had – including
enjoy a following in America is largely down to
en a loose creative partnership with Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner and John Hiatt
that prefigured Lowe’s own creative rehabilitation. “Hiatt called me up,
he said, ‘Look, I want you to come and play bass on this record [Bring The
Family]. I’ve got Ry and Jim Keltner to do it. We’ve only got four days to do
the whole record and Ry had made it clear that he isn’t necessarily going
to be there for the whole thing. He’ll come for the first day, and if he likes
it he’ll stay!’” Despite such unpromising circumstances, it proved such
a satisfactory experience that they reconvened in 1992 for a standalone
project, Little Village. “We were supposed to write, I suppose, a bit like
the Wilburys, all contributing songs,” Lowe explains. “Warner Bros let
us spend thousands of dollars in the studio, which was the worst thing!
But we did a lot of fantastic touring behind the Little Village album. I’ve
got a lot of bootlegs that are way better than the record.”
Over the subsequent decade, Lowe refashioned himself as a torchy
lowe live:
with Dave balladeer, beginning with 1994’s The Impossible Bird. “I had time to
Edmunds reflect,” he admits. “I thought, ‘I haven’t done too badly here. I’ve
and Terry
williams in produced a few good records, I’ve had a couple of hits myself and written
Rockpile a few things that were pretty good, I’ve got my drug habit out of the way.
“‘P
eaCe, Love and Understanding’ you’re hip now and you think i’m a washed- a song in
was the first original idea i had. up idealist. but when it comes down to it, those terms.
prior to that, i’d nicked bits and what is so funny about peace, love and how to convey
pieces from all over the understanding?’ i thought
u a feeling, an idea.
place. initially, it was a iitt was a bit of a mouthful, Keep it simple, let the
funny song. the times but it was also quite
b title do the talking. it was
were a-changing. a lot magnificent! i remember
m a good tune, as well. When the brinsleys
of people who’d been tthinking, ‘don’t fuck this broke up, it should have gone in the bin with
hippies had seen through up. don’t make it too
u all our other tunes. but for elvis [Costello]
the hippy dream and were sspecific and jokey.’ then, coming along. he used to see us doing it. i’ve
going back to their former ‘As I walk through this
‘A heard it done so many ways. it feels like it’s
interests. the song was wicked world’ could be
w a standard. i’ve got a recording of it done by
from the point of view of pretentious or it could be
p tahitian fisherman. and Curtis stigers [who
an old hippy having a go at deep. it works both ways.
d covered the track for the soundtrack to 1992
people who were leaving “i remember thinking film The Bodyguard]! that was a fantastic
the faith. ‘Well, you think ffor the first time about payday. Good old Curtis.”
Jordi VidaL/redferns
the songs. He wants Bob to play on the songs.” kid, you don’t wait for it. I take it a lot more seriously, I suppose, now.
Rightly or wrongly.”
Basher in
G
eNTLeMAN songwriter. Inveterate raconteur. Loyal friend. Barcelona,
Lately, though, Lowe has found a new string to his bow: elder December Yep Roc reissue Lowe’s 1980s albums beginning with Nick The
12, 2016
statesman. Via associations with acts like Wilco – with whom Knife and The Abominable Showman on July 14
Lowe toured in 2012 – Lowe has found himself with new, younger
fans. “I’ve tried my best to make that happen,” he nods. “They’re all
welcome, all the people who’ve stuck with me down the years. But
if I had to go on tour and just play to those people, a sea of old folks,
and behave like I did when they first heard of me, 30 years ago
– some people have to do that, to put corn on the table – that would
be frightful. I’ve worked quite hard to avoid being in that situation.
“But now you can’t move for people in their sixties and seventies
doing fantastic stuff,” he smiles. “Bob Dylan, Paul Simon. Leonard
Cohen, until recently. Now I’ve used the fact that I am getting older as
a real advantage, so people will say, ‘Man, I wish I was as old as that
guy. I can’t wait to be as old as that guy.’”
Lowe enjoys his frequent visits to America, “doing leisurely tours,
decent places, staying in reasonable hotels”. More often than not, he’s
booked to play theatres, wineries, taverns and ballrooms. They seem
appropriately bucolic settings for Lowe as he enjoys the fruits of his
vintage years. “It suits him,” says Rat Scabies. “I don’t think he’s one
of these people who wants to be ultra-famous, but I think he likes to
be recognised for what he does. His whole method is that he quietly
gets on with it in the background and no-one notices ’til somebody
happens to ask, ‘Who did that?’ ‘Oh, it’s that Nick Lowe fella.’”
Elvis with
backing trio
The Blue Moon
Boys: (l–r)
Scotty Moore,
DJ Fontana
and Bill Black
HEN Shawn Klush was in LA filming Stamps and the Inspirations. In 2013, he was voted World’s Greatest
episodes of Martin Scorsese’s HBO series Elvis by BBC viewers and was named the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist
Vinyl, he made a pilgrimage to 1174 Hillcrest by Elvis Presley Enterprises in Memphis. He has channelled the
Drive in Beverly Hills, where Elvis Presley once King’s spirit and sung his songs all over the world, including sold-out
lived. It’s a sprawling, L-shaped house, a mash- shows at the 15,000-seat Movistar Arena in Santiago, Chile.
up of modern and French Regency styles, built in And yet, as close to Presley as Klush may be, visiting that Hillcrest
1957 and set low on the hill for privacy, with a home was overwhelming. He did not go into the house; like every
geometrically complex swimming pool in the other fan, he just stood at the gates looking into the property and
backyard and a clear view of the city below. Among imaging the man himself coming out to greet him. And then he went
the three houses he owned in California – another in back downtown to play Elvis for HBO, a performance that earned him
Beverly Hills and one in Palm Springs – it was Elvis’ rave reviews. “When you go through Graceland, it’s the weirdest vibe
favourite, and he would often greet fans at the gate, shaking hands you’re ever going to feel in your life,” says Klush. “It’s almost like
and signing autographs, occasionally even practising karate moves. touching royalty. When I drove up to his house on Hillcrest, I got the
For Klush, it was both a personal and a professional journey. In exact feeling as I did when I was in Graceland. That told me right there
addition to being an enormous fan of Elvis, he is the world’s most something about his charisma. It could be the bubblegummiest
Impersonator accomplished impersonator – not merely a tribute act, but an artist in music ever or it could be one of the dumbest movies, but you’ll listen
Shawn klush
wins The his own right. Originally from Pittston in north-west Pennsylvania, to it again and again because he recorded it. There’s something
Ultimate Elvis he can’t exactly remember how he got into the business, but says he mesmerising about it.”
Tribute artist
Contest, in just woke up one day in front of a crowd, clad in a rhinestone-crusted That’s why we’re still talking about Elvis on the 40th anniversary of
Memphis, jumpsuit and belting “Burning Love”. Since then he has toured with his death. His charisma lingers, not only in songs like “Good Rockin’
august 2007
some of Elvis’ original backing band, including members of the Tonight” and “Suspicious Minds”, but also in the assembly-line films
he made, disposable fare that nevertheless feature Presley giving
loose, comfortable, often comic performances, with a magnetism
so natural many critics took it for not acting at all. He’s become an
oddball figure in contemporary pop culture. In May, Harry Styles
STAN HONdA/AFP/GETTy iMAGES, BETTMANN/GETTy iMAGES
A
that he’s routinely accused of cultural appropriation. The kid from Saltillo, Tennessee, all started singing and having a
controversies surrounding him – the hip swivels and pelvic thrusts, with no musical ambitions jam session.
in particular – are so far in the past that they seem quaint. It can be whatsoever, WS “Fluke” “Jack Clement was the
difficult to gauge his popularity. Does the charisma still cling? Holland was roped into playing engineer, and he didn’t think
the drums by his friend Carl anything about it when those
“Are you kidding me?” says Klush. “I just did 10 cities in England, Perkins. in 1956, he borrowed boys dropped in. He decided
sold out five-, six-, seven-thousand seats a night. I don’t know where a drum set from a friend, piled he was going to go next door
they’re getting their information, as that’s not what I’m seeing every Perkins and his band into his huge to the Taylor Café and get him
night.” Klush has become, for Cadillac, and headed to Sun a sandwich, and he left the big
many fans, both a surrogate Records in Memphis, where the reel-to-reel machines running. if
and a celebrity in his own band cut “Blue Suede Shoes”. A he hadn’t done that, you would
“If I’m going right, a stand-in for Elvis
thanks to his jet-black hair
few months on, he played drums
for a jam session between Per-
never have heard those sessions.
We’d have jammed for a bit and
O
NE thing Elvis did go through was grappling with
an intense fear of being forgotten, of not leaving booking agent Bob Neal and said, ‘Bob, don’t ever
a deep enough mark on the world – a worry that book me on another show with those Perkins
has roots in the earliest stages of his career. It may have boys!’ He was just kidding, but it’s funny how it
driven him to Sun Records in the first place, where he worked out. He became such a big star after that,
paid to cut a song for his mother called “My Happiness”. that we never did work another show together.”
The desire to preserve something of himself compelled Elvis’ success became too unwieldy for an
him back to Sun to audition repeatedly for Sam Phillips, independent label like Sun, and in 1955 Phillips
who not only recorded the boy, but helped make him sold Presley’s contract to RCA Victor for what
a star. Almost immediately, Elvis began touring many now view as a shockingly low sum. Hits like
throughout the mid-South, along with the “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Hound Dog” eclipsed his Sun
friendly competition of Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee singles, and Elvis eventually broke into the movies, first as
GETTy iMAGES/ MiCHAEL OCHS ARCHivES
Lewis, Johnny Cash and others in the Sun stable. a doomed cowboy in 1956’s Love Me Tender. His performance
“We all toured together,” recalls WS “Fluke” might have drawn pans from critics, but he quickly became
Holland, who played drums for Perkins and later as big at the box office as he was on the pop charts. Yet, like
for Cash. “I have a poster from a show we played so many reasonable young men his age, Elvis dreaded the
in 1956 at the National Guard Armory in Amory, draft. America was not at war, but Cold War tensions were
Mississippi, and I remember that show. Carl would escalating. Enlisting would involve basic training and most
do an old song by The Platters, ‘Only You’, and the likely an overseas assignment, along with an even worse
people would have a fit. As we were walking out the fate: while he may already have felt suffocated by celebrity,
door, we walked by Elvis, and he looked up at Sun’s he was not prepared to trade the glamour in from the
F
From Memphis to Vegas
how to buy Elvis presley
King CrEoLE he could master nearly any ALohA From
osT 1958 genre, and the rollicking side hAwAii 1973
HHH two proves his repeated HHHHH
Presley’s assertion that rock’n’roll This double album
ELvis
s prEsLEy 1956 soundtracks are actually started in the Church. is Jumpsuit Elvis in
HHHHH as hit-or-miss as the films all his ragged glory, beamed live
Many people at RCA victor they accompany, but this one, From via satellite to billions of fans.
thought Elvis would flop, but his recorded as he was enlisting ELvis in
first album for the label estab- in the US Army, is his best, with mEmphis ThE miLLion
lished him as more than just a fad, a Dixieland jazz band adding 1969 doLLAr
thanks to his excitable cover of flavour to many of the songs. HHHHH QuArTET 1980
“Blue Suede Shoes” and his atom- After the end of his film HHHH
bomb vocals on “Heartbreak 50,000,000 contract, Presley worked with A document of
Hotel”. Twenty years later, The ELvis FAns R’n’B producer Chips Moman a casual recording session
Clash would pay homage to that CAn’T bE on this glorious return to form, between Sun Records’ biggest
album cover on London Calling. wrong 1959 which includes the so-wrong- stars: Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry
HHHH it’s-right “In The Ghetto”. Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.
ELvis’ Also known as Elvis’ Golden
ChrisTmAs Records Vol 2, this set antholo- ELvis ELvis 75: good
ALbum 1957 gises some of Presley’s lesser- CounTry 1971 roCKin’
HHHH known hits, including the break- HHHH TonighT 2009
Elvis didn’t want to neck “A Big Hunk O’ Love”. Like Ray Charles, HHHH
record a holiday album, but it Elvis didn’t go A 4CD set that tells
turned out to be one of his best how grEAT country so much as he brought the Presley story in
sellers, thanks to an endearingly Thou ArT 1967 country to him, showcasing his full detail, from his
odd “Blue Christmas” and a ver- HHHH considerable vocal range by first recording to the haphazard
sion of “White Christmas” that Elvis’ second gos- belting out hits by Willie Nelson, attempt to market him to a new
earned scoffs from Bing Crosby. pel album proved Bob Wills and Ernest Tubb. generation with a JXL remix.
army greens, to sacrifice his pompadour to the military barber, to take inset below: dependent on amphetamines, which he insisted had no side effects.
such a hefty pay cut from $200,000 a month to $78 a week. all signed up – He met a 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, whom he would groom to be
Elvis in the us
But a deeper fear churned within Elvis, and he fought not to show Army after his wife. Back in the US, his popularity barely dimmed. King Creole
his concern in public. Elvis did not want to be forgotten. He confided enlistment was a huge box office hit, and “A Fool Such As I” and “A Big Hunk O’
on march
to his coterie of friends and hangers-on that his career was surely 24, 1958 love”, both recorded after basic training, had sold well and helped
finished; his fans would forget him, and he would be displaced from keep his name in the papers.
radio playlists and pop charts by younger, hipper artists who could He returned a hero. However, as Ray Connolly recalls in his new
tour, record, give interviews to teenybopper magazines, and stay on biography, Being Elvis: A Lonely Life, “After two years in the army, his
top of the latest trends and fashions. Elvis had no idea how or if he ambition burned as brightly as ever, but now some of the wonder and
would be remembered, and he romance of youth was gone. There was a more brittle, impatient, even
feared he would go back to arrogant edge to him.”
driving a truck. To make matters John lennon once declared that Elvis really died when he joined
entityÉ
extension to film one until he died in August 1977. Death did nothing to settle such
more movie, King Creole, transformations, as Mondo Elvis replicated itself endlessly into
Elvis enlisted on March 24, an army of impersonators, each exaggerating the man in
1958, dubbed “Black Monday” different ways. He inspired a cult-like fervour, the faithful
by fans. Private Presley US53310761 reported to basic training at Fort making pilgrimages to Graceland to celebrate his birth
Hood, Texas, where he learnt, among other things, to drive a tank. or commemorate his death. Tabloids claimed he
Before accepting an assignment to the 3rd Armored Division in had risen from the grave or maybe had never
Friedberg, Germany, two important things happened. First, he actually died.
did one more recording session, still dressed in his army As a rock star Elvis Presley was a malleable
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIvES/GETTy IMAGES
greens, laying down a handful of tracks to be released as entity, one that could change and adapt to new
singles during his absence. Second, his beloved mother trends and teen movements. Along the way
died of heart failure brought on by hepatitis and he shed relics like a secular saint: not just
cirrhosis of the liver. The dutiful son was crushed. singles and lPs, but concert posters, tour
books, teddy bears, sunglasses, locks of
E
lvIS didn’t need to worry about being hair, vials of sweat, soiled underwear,
forgotten – at least not yet. During his even the Cadillacs he gave away to
two years in the army, he never saw friends and strangers – each of which
combat, but he did grow increasingly allowed fans in the pre-digital world to
N
O other rock star has that kind of material footprint, but fans don’t want his memory to diminish either. Some
that makes Elvis a cumbersome figure, hard to pin collect items he touched; others re-create the music
down and therefore potentially difficult to sell to new and the attitude onstage. Says Klush, “It’s all because
generations of listeners. It also means the market for all that of this man who left the world too early, who still had
stuff can be extremely volatile, and few know that as much as more to give, who would still be giving more and more
Jerry Osborne, who has made Elvis ephemera his business if he were alive today. I’m hell-bent on people
since the 1970s. A former radio DJ and a long-time newspaper remembering who this man was.”
columnist, he runs a publishing company that specialises in
memorabilia catalogues, including the popular Presleyana series, Elvis Presley – A Boy From Tupelo: The Complete 1953–
updated every five years with prices for thousands of pieces of Presley 1955 Recordings is released by RCA/Legacy on July 28
mementos
at auction for $7,500. it was quickly taken down for by Elvis during
violating the site’s policy of not a show in 1977,
ELvis’ bibLE selling human teeth. shortly before he
Given to him for his first died, this pair of
Christmas at Graceland in An EmpTy baby-blue briefs,
1957, this Bible may be worn vALium boTTLE still stained and
and frayed, but it still managed This grim totem of Presley’s sweaty, went up
to fetch nearly $100,000 at addiction to over-the-counter for auction in 2012,
auction in 2012. medication, mostly prescribed but did not sell.
“T
here’s no ‘right way’ to be this band,” says Jónsi Birgisson,
the singer and guitarist in Sigur Rós. “For our own sanity,
we like to change things up, and you go through different
stages of how you feel about things you’ve done.
Sometimes you can’t face certain elements of your music,
then you’ll hear them in a new context and realise that maybe it was OK.”
Formed in Reykjavik in 1994 and named in honour of Jónsi’s little sister,
Sigurros, for two decades Sigur Rós have been making big, beautiful,
unashamedly elemental music. Their catalogue encompasses relatively
conventional rock songs, celestial choral pieces, art-house concert films and
ambient soundscapes, rendered by Jónsi in a crystalline falsetto that mixes
Icelandic, English and his own “gobbledygook” vocalese, Hopelandic.
A trio since the departure of keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson in 2008
– “I think the boys are doing quite well!” he tells Uncut – they made their
last record, Kveikur, four years ago, a situation they’re hoping to remedy in
the coming year. “We’re some way through making new music,” says Jónsi.
“But where that’s going isn’t yet clear.”
“Every record has its own way of working,” adds bassist Georg Hólm.
“It’s a continuation, all of this, but always different, too.”
GRAEME THOMSOn
reverb that we poured over the of the albums of the decade. riff for one hour, and improvise. in our hands.
entire album, which gives it its own HÓLM: We thought we had really, It was great. JÓNSI: Excitement was high on
peculiar feel. I was very uncertain really great songs this time. We got HÓLM: We went back in to the our list of emotions. There’s a
about my voice, and that’s reflected a budget, we got a great producer, studio, because we felt it needed positivity to the music that stands
in the fact that the vocal is Ken Thomas, and we went to the to be perfect. “This one isn’t good apart from many of the bands we
were identified with at the time. studio in a swimming pool, with all TAKK… feeling that there was something
There’s always a lot of alternative the technical challenges that poses. EMI, 2005 beautiful there.
music that deals with how bad HÓLM: It was one of the hardest One of their SVEINSSON: We had loads of
things are, and at the time that records we’ve ever done. We were most joyful arguments about that song,
wasn’t something we wanted to say. touring all over the world, and albums, actually. We never argued so much
That embedded sense of hope was during soundcheck we’d start featuring about any song. I wasn’t happy with
suitable for the new century. writing new songs. In some ways, signature song the length of the loop; the other boys
we were already touring the “Hoppípolla”, wanted it a couple of beats longer
() brackets album before it was the exemplar than I did. In the end, I won! We
FAT CAT, 2002 recorded. When we finally got to the of the band’s anthemic mix of were never very diplomatic. With
Aka ‘the studio, we wanted to do it as live as melancholy and euphoria. The title other people, yes, but with each
brackets possible, but we were never happy translates as “Thanks”. other, it would just depend on how
album’, with the results. We probably JÓNSI: We’re always grateful! passionate you were.
recorded at recorded that album three times I think because some people saw JÓNSI: We go through phases with
their home- over. It never felt right. darkness within the brackets that song. We haven’t been playing
made studio, SVEINSSON: Hopelandic wasn’t album, we wanted to make explicit it on this tour, but no doubt we will
Sundlaugin, actually a made-up language. It that we were projecting a message do again at some point in the future.
located by the Álafoss waterfall was just laziness, really! of positivity.
in the town of Mosfellsbær. An HÓLM: Jónsi had been singing these HÓLM: We thought it might be fun HVARF/HEIM
intense mood piece, featuring string songs for a couple of years, and we’d to do something a little more upbeat EMI / XL, 2007
quartet amiina, new drummer Orri, never written lyrics for them. He and uptempo. Not all the record is A companion
and several songs in Hopelandic. was just babbling. We tried to write like that, but there are definitely album to
HÓLM: We signed a record deal lyrics, and then we thought, why shiny parts. We were relaxed and the Heima
and spent all the money buying are we trying to add something in a very good place. documentary,
a cheap building and second-hand and trying to change it? It sounded SVEINSSON: I remember us writing comprising
equipment, and building our great as it was. “Hoppípolla”. We were always five unreleased
own studio. JÓNSI: It was never the idea of mucking about with the computer studio songs
JÓNSI: Having a studio went hand singing this gobbledygook language and made a backwards string loop (Hvarf) and six acoustic reworkings
in hand with being separate from to acquire any special significance. from “Flugufrelsarinn”, from of early songs (Heim) featured
the music industry and standing on It was really just a way of avoiding Ágætis Byrjun, and built on it. Jónsi in the film.
our own. The attention we’d got being pinned down to having to wrote the piano part. JÓNSI: There were always explosive
[after Ágætis Byrjun] was sudden write words and then having those HÓLM: Basically, we just started emotions in the band and it
and unexpected, and made us words tied to meaning. There was jamming to this soundbite, and occurred to us we could break
protective of one another. It helped no concept to the album as a whole. “Hoppípolla” got born. It just up without there being a decent
solidify a sense of us against the The brackets signify nothing, just a happened; it didn’t take much representation of us on film.
world – no bad thing in a band in void on which to project your own effort. Even with the soundbite, We’d long resisted the common
its early stages. In practice it was meaning. We play a bunch of songs we were saying, “This is going assumption that our sound was
difficult, because we had to make a from the record still. to be a hit song!” We had this gut formed by our being Icelandic.
Availabletoorderonlineatwww.uncut.co.uk/store
ordownloaddigitallyatwww.uncut.co.uk/digital-edition
Electricity by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
How two young Kraftwerk fans from Liverpool bought a Korg synth
from a mail-order catalogue and created an electro-pop classic
“A
s two teenage instruments we owned, aside from a Korg key players PAUL HUMPHREYS: Up until 1976, we
kids,” explains Paul synth, had cost us less than £100.” didn’t really have any equipment. Andy
Humphreys, “we After their first gig at Eric’s club – also and I were working-class boys; we wanted
wanted to be Kraftwerk. intended to be OMD’s last – the duo, to be musicians, but we couldn’t afford any
They were our idols.” almost named Margaret Thatcher’s equipment to make music on! My hobby
Peter Noble/redferNs; david M. beNett/
There was one obstacle: Humphreys and Afterbirth, were tapped up to play Tony was electronics, so I built a lot of our noise-
Getty iMaGes for GaP; Mark McNulty
Andy McCluskey were working-class Wilson’s Factory night in Manchester. making machines, as we called them,
Liverpudlians with limited musical The enthusiasm of Wilson’s wife Lindsay because they really weren’t instruments.
experience and even more limited Reade, and Factory designer Peter saville, ANDY McCLUSKEY: “Electricity” was the
andy McCluskey
equipment. “Kraftwerk had all these then secured them a one-single deal for first thing we wrote when Paul bought the
bass, synth,
incredible machines and we had next to the Kraftwerk-like “Electricity”, and they percussion, vocals selmer Pianotron – that’s the main plinky-
nothing. We couldn’t sound like them, so were shipped off to the studio with a very plonk melody in the song. It morphed
we ended up sounding like OMD!” stoned Martin Hannett. from another song called “Pulsar Energy”
“It was a complete pile of junk,” laughs “When we heard the finished mixes of that had the bass part that became the
McCluskey, recalling their gear. “All the the single, I didn’t like either of them,” breakdown sections in “Electricity”. We
remembers McCluskey. “It took played it live with our band, The Id. It had
me some time to like what he’d guitar on it, and an acoustic drumkit!
done, because it wasn’t our HUMPHREYS: We’d had enough of The Id,
original vision.” paul Humphreys which was an inflated eight-piece band,
Their partnership with keyboards, synth, so we got rid of all the members until we
Peter saville was a little more percussion, vocals became a two-piece, because we really
successful, however. “OMD are wanted to be an electro band. We had
the test case of what the Factory Winston, our tape machine, who was our
principle had been intended to drummer, basically. I was playing organ
be,” says saville. “Helping to and electric piano. We managed to buy
give exposure to a band who we a synth from Andy’s mum’s mail-order
thought were good, then through catalogue, a Korg Micro Preset. Along with
that exposure that might then Andy’s bass, that was all we had, which is
help secure a long-term and peter saville why a lot of our songs were very simplistic.
proper recording deal. And that’s sleeve designer McCLUSKEY: The selmer and the Vox
exactly what happened.” Jaguar organ cost a grand total of £60. The
“A lot of our friends thought Korg cost £7.76 a week for 36 weeks, that’s
the sounds we were making were all we could afford out of our dole money.
shit,” laughs Paul Humphreys. HUMPHREYS: “Electricity” was definitely
“And so we didn’t have a great inspired by Kraftwerk’s “Radioactivity”.
amount of confidence, we were McCLUSKEY: In the mid-’90s, I ended up
just experimenting in my working with Karl Bartos. I was having
mum’s backroom. But we totally lindsay reade dinner at Wolfgang Flür’s flat, and
Formerly of eight-
landed on our feet. We still factory there was Wolfgang and Karl and Emil
piece band The Id, believed we were no-hopers, co-founder schult, who did Kraftwerk’s artwork. In
OMD duo Andy though, even after we’d just the hallway, there was a gold record for
McCluskey (left)
and Paul Humphreys signed a seven-album deal.” “Radioactivity”. so I started waxing lyrical
in October 1981 TOM PINNOCK about the Radioactivity album, and I said,
time line
1976 Humphreys and October 12, 1978 at Manchester’s record “Electricity” may 21, 1979
McCluskey write The group play Factory club night at Henry’s Studio, “Electricity” is released
“Electricity” on their their first concert later in the month actually Paul Collister’s on Factory as FAC 6,
new Selmer Pianotron at Eric’s, performing Winter 1978 The duo home garage backed by “Almost”
Subscribe online at
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thirty years on, U2
revisit The Joshua Tree’s
widescreen portrayal
of a mythic America
S
when time has shifted it away from
that position?
INCE announcing Then, the day before the first of intervening years, though, they have This tour seems like U2’s attempt to
their intention to their two shows at Twickenham, done little to justify his bullishness. confront that question. After drifting
revisit The Joshua Tree Bono made a rather unexpected Couple that with the ageing of their for so long, they appear to have
in its entirety for its intervention, popping up as a caller fanbase – as kids and mortgages decided to try to reconnect with their
30th anniversary, U2 on Simon Mayo’s All Request Friday and redundancies and prescriptions essential U2-ness. These shows seem
have been at pains to on Radio 2, where in the process of and the rest of real life start to occupy much more like therapy sessions in
make plain this is no drumming up some customers for
exercise in nostalgia. No heritage the few unsold tickets, he insisted:
rock band, they. At the start of this “We play the album as if it had just
year, The Edge insisted that it was an been released last week. It’s not a
album that spoke to current times. nostalgia thing, really.” He paused.
“That record was written in the “That’s at least our stance.” The last
mid-’80s,” he told Rolling Stone. two words were in audible italics.
“It was a period when there was a Whether or not guitarist and
lot of unrest… It feels like we’re right singer disagree privately about
back there in a way. I don’t think the purpose of their current tour,
Brian rasic/Wireimage
any of our work has ever come full it had been clear U2 needed to do
circle to that extent. It just felt like, something. Ten years ago, playing
‘Wow, these songs have a new a secret gig at the Astoria in London,
meaning and a new resonance Bono announced that they had come
today that they didn’t have three to reclaim their title as the greatest
years ago, four years ago.’” rock’n’roll band in the world. In the
SETLIST
1 sunday Bloody
sunday
2 new Year’s Day
3 Bad
4 Pride (in The
front of giant audiences than shameless the normal chronology of the stadium than Coldplay or the other groups who name Of Love)
attempts to take U2 back to the stadiums, gig, they begin in the centre of the crowd, heard The Joshua Tree and realised that 5 Where The
streets Have
though one wouldn’t bet against the offering themselves up to their audience. songs made up of building blocks rather no name
second part of the equation having been They follow with “New Year’s Day”, then than riffs were the way to reach millions 6 i still Haven’t
a more than welcome side effect. It helps, “Bad”, then an utterly electrifying “Pride of disparate people with different tastes. Found What i’m
naturally, that the show is breathtaking, (In The Name Of Love)”. It’s shameless In the book that accompanied the 2007 Looking For
intoxicating, thrilling and moving. crowdpleasing, but it’s also a statement: reissue of the album, Bono wrote how 7 With Or Without
You
The single-album format suits U2 down This is who we are; this is what we do. he wished he had written better words 8 Bullet The Blue
to the ground. With 11 tracks occupied by The production is, as one would for the music, but he ended up with the sky
The Joshua Tree – an album everyone here expect, tremendous, both simple and perfect lyric set for this album: emotive, 9 running To
adores – there is no room for extraneous overwhelming. A 200ft-wide screen direct, and just nuanced enough to offer stand still
flab. What filler there is (and there is very stretches from one side of the rugby whatever meaning the listener wanted. 10 red Hill mining
Town
little) comes in The Joshua Tree itself, pitch to the other, images changing for The encores – eight of them! – are a
11 in god’s country
whose second side doesn’t have the each song of The Joshua Tree – the view little more ragged, but in a good way. A 12 Trip Through
mythic power of its first. But given the from the windscreen of a car speeding new song, “The Little Things That Give Your Wires
55,000 people in the stadium have signed down an empty desert highway for You Away”, has featured on many of the 13 One Tree Hill
up to hear The Joshua Tree, the flab is “Where The Streets Have No Name”, tour setlists and holds its own. Finally, 14 exit
accepted. There’s no point complaining timelapse photography of Death Valley Bono brings out Noel Gallagher – whose 15 mothers Of The
that you don’t much want to hear, say, for “With Or Without You”, building up support slot had seemed fine at the Disappeared
EncorE
“Trip Through Your Wires”, any more to a blinding conflagration of white light time, but in retrospect was like having
16 miss syria
than complaining that every time you and stage footage for “Exit”. Never have a cheese sandwich at home before going (sarajevo)
order a Big Mac it comes with two slices of so many people at a gig taken so many to a Michelin-starred restaurant – to sing 17 Beautiful Day
pickle. That’s just the way it is. photographs of the staging. And yet it a stripped-back “Don’t Look Back In 18 elevation
The show starts with unnerving never overwhelms the songs, serving to Anger” with U2. It’s a magnificent gesture, 19 Vertigo
directness. As The Waterboys’ “The Whole illuminate them rather than obscure them. generous to both superfan Gallagher and 20 Ultra Violet
Of The Moon” fades, Larry Mullen Jr walks The music has aged well. If The Joshua to the crowd, who sing along with gusto, (Light my Way)
21 One
from the wings, down a long runway into Tree’s reputation is as a calculated effort aware they’ve seen something unique to
22 Little Things
a joshua tree-shaped platform within the at the album to break America, it doesn’t top a remarkable evening. 23 Don’t Look Back
crowd. As he starts the martial pattern that sound that way. The ghosts of post-punk Where next? Who knows where the map in anger (with
opens “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, The Edge haunt it, even if the sharp edges have will take them. But at least U2 can be sure noel gallagher)
enters, picking out the guitar line. Adam been sanded down: “Bullet The Blue they’ve got enough gas in the tank to get
Clayton follows, then Bono. Inverting Sky” still sounds more like the Bad Seeds there. MICHAEL HANN
O
4 computer Love a thrilling reminder of the band’s
5 the Man- Krautrock roots, is framed by an antique
NCE rare as comets, visual arsenal are evident even since 2013. Machine spaceship interior and a crudely rendered
Kraftwerk tours have Pleasingly, the 3D imagery is becoming 6 Spacelab cartoon flying saucer that touches down
become increasingly less literal, less baldly illustrative. The 7 the Model
outside Colston Hall itself – self-spoofing
8 Neon Lights
regular over the boxy lyrical slogans of “Computer World” Kraftwerk humour, customised for each
9 Autobahn
past decade. More and “Computer Love” still appear to 10 Airwaves venue on the tour.
accessible and yet vault from the screen and dance through 11 Geiger counter/ Some insiders have hinted this could be
more mysterious than the air, but nowadays they hover over Radioactivity Kraftwerk’s last British visit. Which seems
ever, the band’s third run of British shows lustrous shape-shifting patchworks of 12 Intermission/ unlikely considering the streamlined,
in five years is the latest iteration of their vivid colour. “Airwaves” is especially News lucrative, ecstatically reviewed touring
ever-evolving 3D spectacle. Disillusioned striking, its lubricated electro-disco throb 13 Electric cafe
machine they have become in recent
14 tour De France/
old-school fans may deride the Dad’s accompanied by monochrome acoustic Prologue/Etape years. But Hütter turns 71 in August. Does
Army of technopop as a creatively sterile wave patterns that loop and twist and 1 /chrono/ he never consider cosy retirement? Do
heritage act, but there are screaming intertwine, like funky cousins of Joy Etape 2 androids dream of electric blankets? Will
millennials in Bristol who were not even Division’s Unknown Pleasures sleeve. 15 trans-Europe he send the band’s robotic replicants out
born during their late-’70s peak. Their Simple and beautiful. Express/Metal
on the road instead, as he half-joked in the
on Metal/Abzug
mesmerising brand of sublime banality Maybe it’s the post-Brexit mood, but EncorE 1 past? Given the riotous reception that “The
clearly has pan-generational appeal. “Trans-Europe Express” no longer 16 the Robots Robots” receives in Bristol, its whooshing
Judged by pop norms, of course, feels like a Utopian paean to borderless EncorE 2 rave-era remix accompanied by twirling
Kraftwerk can be easily faulted for their continental unity. Instead it assumes a 17 Aerodynamik dummies, that sci-fi fantasy no longer
Betamax futurism, their thin latterday more noir-ish shade to match its stark new 18 Planet of Visions seems too fanciful. Fully automated luxury
output and their endless reworking of visual backdrop of ghostly night trains 19 Boing Boom communism with a disco beat? Yes please.
ancient source material. But judge them as criss-crossing an endless black void. This tschak/techno
Normally tight-lipped and poker-faced,
Pop/Music
a living, breathing, constantly self-refining seminal metal-bashing track always had a Non-Stop Hütter proves unusually chatty in Bristol,
artwork and they are peerless. Decades in hard industrial edge, but tonight it borders dropping several deadpan quips into the
development, this immersive live show is on gothic as Hütter vamps on those set. “Are there any clubs in Bristol?” he
the richest Kraftwerkian experience yet, haunted-house organ chords over eerie muses during the now-traditional finale
a ravishing sensory feast that combines Doppler effect sighs. There are agreeably of “Music Non-Stop”, when he remains
painstakingly sculpted sound design, unlikely echoes of Black Sabbath here. onstage alone, stabbing at his keyboard as
RMV/REX/ShuttERStock
exquisite visuals, absurdist comedy and a Strikingly, the more recent material if to show doubters that Kraftwerk’s serene
potent undercurrent of human emotion. feels the most dated. While “Autobahn” machine symphonies are not entirely pre-
And still, it appears, a work in progress. and “The Man-Machine” have the programmed. He ends with hearty thanks,
As Ralf Hütter and his faceless cyborg monumental robustness of modern design hand on heart, bowing to an enraptured
minions line up behind their computer classics, post-rave compositions like crowd. He looks exhausted but elated.
consoles, minor tweaks in their audio- “Aerodynamik” now feel as outmoded Human after all. STEPHEN DALTON
2017 UK TOUR
FRI 29 SEPT SUN 08 OCT FRI 20 OCT
CARDIFF MILTON KEYNES THEATRE SOUTHEND
MOTORPOINT ARENA TUE 10 OCT CLIFFS PAVILION
SAT 30 SEPT SHEFFIELD CITY HALL SAT 21 OCT
BIRMINGHAM WED 11 OCT BOURNEMOUTH
BARCLAYCARD ARENA NOTTINGHAM INT. CENTRE
MON 02 OCT ROYAL CONCERT HALL
MON 23 OCT
BRISTOL THU 12 OCT LEICESTER
COLSTON HALL LEEDS FIRST DIRECT ARENA DE MONTFORT HALL
TUE 03 OCT SAT 14 OCT TUE 24 OCT
PLYMOUTH PAVILIONS GLASGOW PORTSMOUTH
THE SSE HYDRO
WED 04 OCT GUILDHALL
CAMBRIDGE SUN 15 OCT
CORN EXCHANGE LIVERPOOL ECHO ARENA THU 26 OCT
GUILDFORD G LIVE
FRI 06 OCT MON 16 OCT
NEWCASTLE GRIMSBY AUDITORIUM FRI 27 OCT
CITY HALL WED 18 OCT BRIGHTON CENTRE
SAT 07 OCT IPSWICH REGENT SAT 28 OCT
MANCHESTER THU 19 OCT LONDON
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FRI 27 OCT CAMBRIDGE CORN EXCHANGE FEATURING
SAT 28 OCT HARROGATE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE B A N K HOL I D AY W E E K E N D !
JOHN O’CONNELL
MON 30 OCT MANCHESTER BRIDGEWATER HALL FORMERLY OF GROUNDPIG
S U N D AY 2 7 AU G U S T
TUE 31 OCT EDINBURGH USHER HALL
THU 02 NOV GATESHEAD SAGE LIVERPOOL
FRI UT
S O L D03 O NOV GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL PHILHARMONIC HALL
UT
S O L D04 O NOV
SAT LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL LIVERPOOLPHIL.COM GIGSANDTOURS.COM
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An S.J.M. Concerts presentation by arrangement with United Talent Agency AN SJM CONCERTS & JOHN O’CONNELL PRESENTATION
THU 28 SEPT . Brighton, Concorde 2 FRI 06 OCT . Manchester, Gorilla
SAT 30 SEPT . Norwich, Arts Centre THU 12 OCT . Leeds, The Wardrobe
WED 04 OCT . London, Koko SUN 15 OCT . Newcastle, Academy 2
THU 05 OCT . Bristol, The Fleece
SEPTEMBER 2017
24 BOURNEMOUTH BIC SOLD OUT
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27 GLASGOW THE SSE HYDRO
28 NOTTINGHAM MOTORPOINT ARENA
30 LONDON THE O2 SOLD OUT
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FUELLING THE FIRE TOUR 2017 15 LEEDS O2 Academy
16 LONDON O2 Forum
Kentish Town
17 LONDON O2 Forum
Kentish Town
18 NEWCASTLE O2 Academy
19 GLASGOW O2 Academy
20 LIVERPOOL O2 Academy*
21 SHEFFIELD O2 Academy*
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FRI 11TH AUGUST
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2017 European Tour
AND HIS BAND
Fri 1st December
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
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FRI 18 AUG LONDON O2 SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE
MON 21 AUG LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY
Sat 9th December
TUE 22 AUG GLASGOW O2 ABC
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Academy Events, DHP, VMS Live & Friends, By Arrangement With The Fresh Start Agency Presents ACADEMY EVENTS by arrangement with PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL presents 14 OCT MR KYPS, POOLE
03 NOV SOUND CONTROL,
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04 NOV THE SHED, LEICESTER
10 NOV BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB,
LEEDS
17 NOV THE BOILEROOM,
GUILDFORD
18 NOV THE 1865, SOUTHAMPTON
23 NOV CONCORDE, BRIGHTON
24 NOV NEST, BATH
25 NOV LEVEL 3, SWINDON
01 DEC THE HUB, PLYMOUTH
02 DEC THE FACTORY, BARNSTAPLE
07 DEC O2 ACADEMY ISLINGTON,
With Very Special Guests LONDON
TOUR 09 DEC THE WATERING HOLE,
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MIKE GARSON
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IN ITS ENTIRETY - PLUS A SECOND set of their
SET OF BOWIE FAVOURITES biggest hits PLUS SPECIAL GUEST DAVE SHARP
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SEPTEMBER
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V I S I TA U S T I N . O R G
the strokes backstage at the
Fillmore, san Francisco, October
2001: (l-r) Fabrizio moretti, Albert
Hammond Jr, Nick Valensi, Julian
Casablancas and Nikolai Fraiture
A
t the beginning of Meet Me REvIEWED terribly clever. One memorable chapter “WE just make a noise and that’s it,
In The Bathroom, Lizzy THIS MONTH finds him being confronted by the Strokes no politics, no nothing,” says Captain
Goodman’s exhaustive and at a High Noon summit in a downtown Sensible in Smashing It Up, Kieron
entertainingly gossipy oral bar, where they accuse him of turning tyler’s solid history of the Damned’s first
history of the scene that Albert Hammond Jr onto heroin. “It was decade (there’s a frantic coda on their
coalesced around the Strokes’ brief blaze very much in the style of The Godfather,” tangled history since 1986). the unlovely
of notoriety, premillennial New York is Adams recalls. “Where the family runts of the litter, the Damned refused to
portrayed as a rock’n’roll graveyard. In business is being attended to… I was given buy into the punk aesthetic, yet the music
Rudy Giuliani’s sanitised dot.com town, a lecture, a hypocritical lecture, and then was often great. From the still-potent rush
“You couldn’t even buy drugs on the they told me that I was not going to be part of “New Rose” – “like jet fighters”, says Rat
street anymore,” laments Galaxie 500’s of their scene anymore.” Scabies – to the souped-up garage rock of
Dean Wareham. this sorry state of affairs You can trace the arc of boom and bust “Smash It Up” and hilariously grandiose
is altered by 9/11, which begets a kind of through the drugs. It starts with weed “Eloise”, they were rarely predictable –
MEET ME IN THE
desperate hedonism, and the return to the BATHROOM: and ecstasy, accelerates to cocaine, and Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason produced their
fundamental principles that energised REBIRTH AND messy second album, after Syd Barrett
the Lower East Side in the mid-to-late ROCK AND ROLL IN proved unavailable – and often thrilling.
’70s. For a spell, the combination lit a NEW YORK CITY, the first punk band to release a
fuse under the city and beyond, resulting
in some enjoyably urgent music, and
2001-2011
LIZZY GOODmAN
FAber, £20
Ryan Adams… single, they’re the last to get a thorough
biographical study. Smashing It
the industry’s last great signing splurge
before the internet swept in.
8/10
hypocritically Up rectifies that, though the rather
overwrought style takes the band more
For those who’d argue that you had to
be there, Goodman interviews pretty
lectured by seriously than they ever took themselves.
A gang of suburban misfits, they
much everyone who was, creating a vast,
overlapping narrative with the Strokes, The Strokes! find themselves united by a “slightly
brutal” bluntness in their attitude to the
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol and James outside world. this, it becomes clear,
Murphy at the centre, and dozens of ends in heroin. the main players crash is something of an understatement,
associated artists (from the White Stripes and burn relatively quickly, leaving a as they set fire to Elvis Costello’s shoes
to Franz Ferdinand and Kings Of Leon) few pretty vapour trails, their potential and stick fag butts in his mouth while
orbiting around them. By and large they’re never quite alchemising into sustained he sleeps, piss on people, and scare the
a hopelessly self-infatuated bunch, SMASHING IT UP: greatness. In their wake comes the second Flamin’ Groovies into quitting a tour. the
entirely in love with their own mythology A DECADE OF wave of tamer, saner talents – Grizzly author recalls a week’s rehearsal on a
and a romanticised notion of New York CHAOS WITH Bear, the National, Vampire Weekend – narrowboat on the Kennet & Avon Canal:
City. “Blondie, Patti Smith, the Ramones, THE DAMNED whose rise is mirrored by that of Brooklyn, “All that had been brought on board was
KIerON tYLer
television…,” intones Yeah Yeah Yeahs OmNIbUs press, £20 and the hipster aesthetic of Williamsburg an air rifle and beer.”
Karen O. You’re struck by the orthodoxy of 7/10 becoming NY’s “No 1 export to the world”. Little wonder they struggle to hold
the inspirations and aspirations: guitars, the cleverly constructed text captures it together. Stiffed by Stiff – “I wished
suits, black leather jackets, art rock, the excitement of it all exploding. It’s a I’d signed with someone bigger,” says
cocaine and fame. sprawling testament, hilariously self- Sensible, “they might have paid me” –
Anthony PIdgeon/RedfeRns
Playground beefs are laid out in important, amusingly contradictory, a they fall apart on an annual basis, but
hilarious detail, notably between Murphy slice of music history that encompasses keep resurfacing in slightly altered form,
and tim Goldsworthy – “I literally could a punchy précis of the debauchery on tap eking out a hand-to-mouth existence
have stabbed him in the throat quite at London’s Columbia Hotel, the impact flitting from prog to psychedelia, goth to
easily,” says Goldsworthy – and Ryan of the smoking ban, and the victory ’50s rock’n’roll. It’s a ragged, disjointed
Adams and the Strokes. Adams, it’s fair to of advertising, licensing and illegal tale, and tyler provides a decent service
say, doesn’t come out of the book looking downloads over radio, stores and labels. in telling it. graeme thomson
E
a real-life romcom
NGLANd is MiNe Early
on in England Is Mine – an
unauthorised biopic of
Morrissey’s pre-Smiths
years – the hopeful singer
places an advert in his
local record shop asking
for potential collaborators. Among his list
of ‘must like’ artists, Morrissey includes
Kenneth Williams. The year is 1976, when,
incidentally, Williams was starring in Carry
On Behind – a late entry in a series bent on
recapturing a bygone sort of Englishness. In
his own way, director and co-writer Mark Gill
is trying to evoke another peculiarly English
cultural landscape: that of the music scene of
the industrial North-West.
We meet Steven Patrick Morrissey as
a socially awkward, waspish teenager
fumbling through his parents break-up,
writing pithy letters to the NME and enduring
futile attempts to find gainful employment.
It is here that Gill’s film comes closest to
Carry On Morrissey. Working for the Inland Jack Control and Nowhere Boy, England Is Mine kitchen floor grief-eating an entire pie in one
Revenue, Morrissey finds himself surrounded Lowden struggles to bring its subject clearly into focus. static, five-minute take). It is the kind of film
(left) as
by sitcom staples: the exasperated boss, the Morrissey where a character might look pensively out
alluring secretary, the boorish co-workers. and Laurie A GhOst stOrY In 2013, director David of a window, where the only sounds are the
Kynaston as
The gags are plentiful: “Do you like audit Johnny Marr Lowery made his debut feature, Ain’t Them rain falling outside and the mournful wheeze
work?” “I have a long list of people I hate.” in england Bodies Saints, a Texan melodrama set in the of violins on the soundtrack. It is, essentially,
But Morrissey is a passive presence; the is Mine 1970s, with Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara an arthouse take on Ghost. Affleck does an
women push him on. Initially, his mother; as a young couple on the run. Following his amazing job, managing to be hangdog while
then Anji Hardy (Katherine Pearce), a lesser- remake of Pete’s Dragon, Lowery reteams buried under a bedsheet for most of the film.
known figure in the Morrissey creation myth, with Affleck and Mara for A Ghost Story, How different would the film be if he just
who encourages him to meet Billy Duffy another lyrical piece that discretely tackles hung around moping, without the linen?
and kickstart his musical career. When not questions of a cosmic, spiritual nature played Mara meanwhile gives a powerful turn,
bantering Wilde quotes with Morrissey on out on an intimate level. internalising her grief, conveying deep loss
a cemetery bench (yes, yes), Jessica Brown Affleck and Mara, a couple identified only while remaining outwardly inscrutable. As
Findlay’s Linder Sterling helps him embrace as C and M, are in the process of moving in time loops back on itself, Lowery reaches
life and its myriad potential. to a new house. One night, there are odd, for something profound and moving. “We
It’s a likeable enough film – well paced and unexplained noises; the next morning, C is build our legacy piece by piece,” explains
warmly disposed towards its idiosyncratic killed in a car accident. In the morgue, his a cameoing Will Oldham. “And maybe the
subject. Findlay and Pearce are both strong body is draped in a white sheet; in one of the whole world will remember you, or just a
actors (even if Findlay is playing a Manic Pixie film’s make-or-break moments, the sheet sits couple of people. But you do what you can to
Dream Girl archetype); but as Morrissey, Jack up. Lowery frames C in a beautiful wide shot ensure you’re still around after you’re gone.”
Lowden is essentially called upon to do an as he heads across a field at sunrise, a forlorn
impression, all surface tics and mannerisms, little phantom trailing the hem of his sheet, the GhOUL Director Gareth Tunley is
so Gill, despite his undoubted fondness heading home. There, he silently watches an alumni from Ealing Live!, a character
for the subject, never quite shows us why over his bereaved partner (in the film’s comedy lab that also hothoused Alice Lowe,
Morrissey is Morrissey. Unlike recent biopics second make-or-break moment, M sits on the Steve Oram, Simon Farnaby and Katy Brand.
“We just can’t remember how we got here.” linger on intimate passages – the tenderness
of Christina braiding PJ’s hair on the stoop or AMeriCAN MAde OPENS AUGUST 25
the BiG siCK In June, the Pakistani-born later phoning William to check whether he’d tom cruise is Barry Seal, a former pilot
comedian Kumail Nanjiani took to Twitter to voted. It is moments like these that give Quest who became a drug smuggler during
outline his love for Richard Curtis’ film Four its quiet triumph. Michael Bonner the ’80s, later recruited by the dEA.
7/10
Heads-down rock’n’rolling: emotional
post-Bataclan homecoming
How do you react to the
murder of 89 people at
one of your gigs? For
Jesse Hughes’ eagles, the
answer was very publicly
to “complete the show”,
returning to the French
capital in February 2016
for a sweaty, intense,
swaggering set. This well-shot film works as
both emotional remembrance and scuzzy
celebration, as somehow 19 songs of low-
slung, dirty boogie – including “Cherry Cola”
“What deity is
this?”: (l-r) Ian
McShane, Corbin
Bernsen and
AMERICAN
and the horny “Whorehoppin’” are forged
into a fitting tribute.
Extras: 8/10. Cuts from a pre-Bataclan set
Ricky Whittle in
american Gods
GoDS
at LA’s Teragram Ballroom, October 2015. stuDioCanal
Mark Bentley ShoT! – ThE PSYCho-
SPIRITUAL MANTRA oF RoCk 8/10
PAUL SIMoN KalEiDosCopE HoME EntErtainMEnt
The Concert In hyde Park 8/10 Amazon’s sumptuous fantasy
sonY lEgaCY
8/10
entertaining, imaginatively filmed makes DVD debut
bio-doc of high-living lensman “I don’t care if they don’t have a fucking clue.
Celebratory film of 2012 london concert That’s “Rock” as in “Mick”, I want one. Give me a fucking clue!” There’s
When Simon of course – the man whose a scene in episode 2 of this arch adaptation of
performed photos of Bowie, Queen, Neil Gaiman’s 200,000-word fantasy novel
Graceland in Blondie et al redefined where the penny – or should that be gold
London in 1987, music’s visuals. Barnaby coin? – drops. enigmatic ex-con Shadow
the concert Clay’s moodily shot Moon (Ricky Whittle) confronts the wolfish
was picketed and artfully scripted Mr Wednesday (Ian McShane) in a motel
by Dammers/ feature film portrays the car park. McShane, smile in his eyes, still
Weller/Bragg et photographer not just as intimidating in a white towelling dressing gown, is absolutely
al protesting at a a right-place-right-time snapper, but as a loving this. Shadow Moon wants a clue, and so do we. What’s the
breach of the UN’s cultural boycott. Freed vampiric, aura-hungry “big-game hunter”, plan? Who are “they”. And what the actual fuck is happening?
from such apartheid-era controversies, his a vessel for some greater cultural purpose. After its record-breaking run on Amazon Prime, Gaiman’s
Hyde Park reunion with the same black Mick Rock’s a kinetic presence, leading series arrives on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download, presenting
South African musicians 25 years later finally you candidly through his ’70s highs, ’80s the opportunity to chew over these questions at leisure. At the
allowed their collaboration to be enjoyed as lows and unmatched archive – including headline level, the story is a meditation on American myth-
the life-affirming celebration it was intended cassette interviews with Bowie and Lou making, as ancient deities from immigrant cultures move
to be. Beautifully shot with multi-camera Reed, and negatives of Syd Barrett’s Madcap through a world defined by technology. In the words of Game Of
angles, Simon presents an hour’s worth of sessions, which he memorably describes as Thrones, which this adaptation references, and maybe mocks a
other career highlights, and Jimmy Cliff “technically fucked”. Mark Bentley little, it’s a fantastical fight between “the old gods and the new”.
also guests, but it’s the extended Graceland Extras: None. One of episode 1’s central set pieces, which feels like a pastiche
homage that steals the show. of the HBO saga – is one of the most pornographically violent
Extras: 7/10. Two audio discs. LAIBACh pieces of television you will ever witness. That the same episode
nIGel WIllIaMSOn Liberation Day contains the Twitter-breaking moment where Bilquis, the
itunEs/Dogwoof famed Queen Of Sheba, swallows a man with her vagina seems
ThE MEMBRANES 8/10 like showing off. As it progresses, American Gods will break
Into The Eye! further from its source material. In a case of “anything George
sCrEEn EDgE landmark concert makes for RR Martin can do”, subsequent seasons of American Gods will
an engrossing culture clash reportedly have new, non-novel content from Gaiman.
6/10
In August 2015, Slovenian Creators/developers Bryan (Hannibal) Fuller and Michael
Disjointed overview of post-punk outliers provocateurs Laibach (Heroes) Green are the drivers behind this insanely ambitious,
There’s probably a decent became the first foreign visually sumptuous TV. each scene feels gravid with meaning,
story to tell about The rock band to play North a cross-reference, a half-clue – from the logo on Shadow Moon’s
Membranes, but this isn’t Korea. “I’m setting up T-shirt, to a widescreen tracking shot through the constellations.
jan thijs/© 2017 Fremantlemedia north america
it. The director cobbles the blindest of blind The cast is powerful: McShane excels, naturally, and if you only
together a narrative from dates,” ponders director know the pectorally perfect Whittle from Hollyoaks or Strictly…,
murky live footage of the Morten Traavik, whose you’ll be impressed. Add to that Crispin Glover (Mr World),
band in the early ’80s and tact and inordinate Gillian Anderson (Media, making her bow as a high-def Lucille
recent film from a gig in patience help fix a path through a ridiculous Ball on multiple TV screens), Peter Stormare, Orlando Jones
Preston, alongside fuzzily amount of state officialdom and suspicion. (Anansi) and the brilliantly weird Bruce Langley as Technical
lit new interviews with John Robb, ex-partner- The group finally make it to Pyongyang, Boy. The music is crafted to your taste, too: it’s scored by Brian
in-chief Mark Tilton and current guitarist where they serenade a politely bemused Reitzell, and supplemented by The Band, Creedence, Dylan
Nick Brown. Saving grace is the music itself crowd with “The Final Countdown”, “Live and more Bowie references than are probably necessary.
– tight, economical and uncompromising, Is Life” and selections from The Sound Of Shows this self-consciously epic often take time to get going.
for the most part. Or, as Brown interprets it: Music, a North Korean favourite. Strange American Gods has many directions of travel. If nothing else, it’s
“Space, power, malevolence.” and hugely compelling. a vivid experience. Just watch it on the biggest screen you have.
Extras: None. Extras: None. Extras: 8/10. Ten bonus shorts, including cast and crew
rOB HuGHeS rOB HuGHeS interviews and documentary analysis. Mark Bentley
FIND YOURSELF IN
OXFAM’S ONLINE SHOP
oxfam.org.uk/shop
Not Fade Away
Fondly remembered this month…
PAllenberg
unsettling” Anita
Pallenberg in
London, October
24, 1968
Actress and Stones inspiration
(1942-2017)
M
arianne Faithfull’s first
impression of her great
friend Anita Pallenberg was
unforgettable. “She was the
most incredible woman I’d
met in my life,” wrote Faithfull in her 1994
memoir. “Dazzling, beautiful, hypnotic and
unsettling… Other women evaporated next
to her.” More than just a muse, Pallenberg
was an integral part of The Rolling Stones’
entourage during the ’60s, helping shape
their transition from blues-loving London
naïfs to cosmopolitan superstars. Born to
Italian-German parents in Rome, she’d been
expelled from a Munich boarding school aged
16, after which she returned home, signed up
at art school and became a model. Pallenberg
hung out with filmmakers and the Roman
intelligentsia, then left for New York, where
she met Andy Warhol and the Factory crowd.
Fluent in several languages, she represented
something otherworldly and exotic to the
Stones, opening up their world to a new strata
of bohemian society. “The Stones came away
with a patina of aristocratic decadence that served as a perfect counterfoil struggles with heroin addiction, Pallenberg continued the acting career that
to the raw roots blues of their music,” Faithfull explained; a move that had started with 1967’s A Degree Of Murder, for which Jones devised the score.
“transformed the Stones from pop stars into cultural icons”. She menaced Jane Fonda as The Great Tyrant in Barbarella, played Nurse
Pallenberg had first met the Stones backstage at a gig in Munich in 1965. Bullock in sci-fi sex farce Candy and, in 1970, starred opposite Mick Jagger in
Having followed them to their next show in Berlin, she embarked on a the controversial crime drama Performance. She and Jagger were rumoured
sometimes violent relationship with Brian Jones, whom she left two years to have had an affair during filming.
later for Keith Richards. She and Richards set up home in London and In 1994, Pallenberg earned a degree in fashion and textiles at Central Saint
remained together until 1980, a union that produced three children, one of Martins and, four years later, resumed her movie career with the Francis
whom died in infancy. During their time together, which included lengthy Bacon biopic, Love Is The Devil.
DAVE ROSSER Mark Lanegan, Josh Homme, Duff relocated to New York via Montreal of talent – Ornette Coleman, Ravi
Afghan Whigs guitarist McKagan and Moby. Aside from in 1961, Cohran elected to stay in Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Laurie
(1966-2017) his work with Dulli, Rosser also Chicago, where, four years later, Anderson and McCoy Tyner
featured on albums by Lanegan, he co-founded the Association included – but she was equally well
Guitarist Dave Rosser, who has died Ani DiFranco, Joseph Arthur, Tim For The Advancement Of Creative known as a leading educator. She
from colon cancer, was a longtime Heidecker and Marc Broussard. Musicians. He also set up the Artistic taught at the University Of Michigan
friend of Greg Dulli’s and his Heritage Ensemble, alongside for 10 years and, most recently,
bandmate for more than 10 years. PHIL COHRAN future Miles Davis guitarist, Pete had been Director Of Jazz Studies
Prior to joining a revived lineup Trumpeter, Arkestra player Cosey, and started the local Afro- at the University Of Pittsburgh in
of Afghan Whigs for 2014’s Do To (1927-2017) Arts Theatre. One of his students Pennsylvania. Allen’s solo career
The Beast, Rosser had played was Maurice White, who adopted began with 1985’s The Printmakers,
alongside Dulli in The Gutter Fellow musician John Gilmore Cohran’s invented frankiphone (an before moving on to Blue Note and
Twins and The Twilight Singers. was responsible for introducing electrified kalimba) in his later role recording a series of collaborative,
Larry ELLis/ExprEss/GEtty imaGEs
The Missouri native returned to trumpeter Phil Cohran to Sun Ra in with Earth, Wind & Fire. mostly improvisational albums
the Whigs for this year’s In Spades, 1959. Cohran joined the Arkestra during the ’90s. She was also part
though his illness prevented him soon after, staying put for the next GERI ALLEN of the ACS Trio, with Terri Lyne
from touring. Last December, two years and contributing to Composer, jazz pianist Carrington and Esperanza Spalding.
Dulli and the band organised two such experimental jazz albums as (1957-2017) “Geri was a divine prism of pure
benefit gigs in LA and New Orleans, Holiday For Soul Dance (featuring heart and artistry,” said Spalding
Rosser’s adopted home, to help Cohran’s own “Dorothy’s Dance”), Jazz pianist Geri Allen recorded in tribute, “beaming new colour
pay his medical bills. Those who Angels And Demons At Play and Fate around 20 albums under her own spectrums out of plain black-and-
joined them onstage included In A Pleasant Mood. When Sun Ra name and played with a vast array white keys.”
A
detract from his accomplishments
lbert Johnson rarely as an artist. Hailing from a musical
backed down from a family (his mother had been in girl
confrontation. better group the Crystals; his grandfather
known as Prodigy in played sax for Dizzy Gillespie),
his role as one half of Prodigy formed Mobb Deep in 1992.
New York hip-hoppers Mobb Deep, Second lP The Infamous went
alongside Havoc, Johnson was at gold three years later, propelled
the centre of the east Coast-West by the success of US hits “Shook
Coast feud of the mid-’90s. “lA, lA”, Ones (Part II)” and “Survival Of
recorded with Capone-N-Noreaga, the Fittest”. 1996’s Hell On Earth,
was a bitter riposte to Snoop Dogg another big seller, compounded
and tha Dogg Pound’s big Apple- the pair’s reputation as raw diarists
bashing “New York, New York”. of New York street life, their songs
Meanwhile, 1996’s “Drop A Gem jumping with hardcore beats and
On ’em”, a gun-happy response punishing rhymes.
to tupac Shakur’s “Hit ’em Up”, their popularity peaked in
gained darker significance after 1999 with the platinum-shifting
2Pac was murdered shortly before it Murda Muzik, featuring fan
was released. favourite “Quiet Storm”. Prodigy,
there were run-ins with other who has died of complications
rappers, too (Saigon, Def Squad, from sickle-cell anaemia, published
Crooked I), as well as a fallout an autobiography in 2001 titled
with Havoc in 2012, not long after My Infamous Life.
leaving to form ensign records controversial mini-epic that appearing on free-jazz landmarks roots and, by referencing the
in 1977. During his 18-year stint as closed her 1979 comeback, such as Of Human Feelings and In troubles in Northern Ireland
label head, Grainge discovered Broken English. Faithfull herself All Languages. He also recorded with “Mr Gunman”, a penchant
key acts such as the boomtown called it her own Frankenstein, with James Chance, led his own for protest songs. An inveterate
rats, the Waterboys, World Party a bitter, expletive-ridden rant at trio from 1985 onwards and, in 2006, storyteller, Garbutt travelled far
and Sinéad O’Connor. He later an adulterous lover: “Why’d you let issued a steel-stringed solo effort, and wide over the decades, issuing
ran his own publishing company, that trash/Get a hold of your cock, Low Barometer, on the tompkins the last of his 17 albums, Synthetic
Dizzy Heights. get stoned on my hash.” Square label. Hues, in 2014. ROB HUGHES
ROGER WATERS:
MAKING UNCUT Roger Waters:
politically naïve?
GREAT AGAIN?
The July 2017 issue of Uncut will not
go down as one of my favourites.
Between the extra-large, obnoxious
pull-quote leading off the Jason Isbell
Q&A [“Trump’s a bad guy. You can’t
root for the bad guy”], and all the
nonsense of the Roger Waters
feature, it was quite the progressive,
anti-Trump edition of my favourite
music magazine. If only the editors
could have somehow found space for
Bruce Springsteen to carry on about
the state of US politics, it would have
been the cherry on top.
It doesn’t bother me to read that
some artist doesn’t like this or that
political leader. What annoys me is
this anti-Trump sentiment that is
threaded across one issue to the
next – little jabs sprinkled in album
reviews, articles, etc. However! In a
recent issue [Uncut, May 2017], Mike
Love’s low-key, supportive
comments regarding
Trump did make it
past the editors’
red pen, so that
was nice to see.
Jeff Hyatt, Florida definitely the highlight, see. The Nashville Sound is a
having introduced me to tremendous blend of classic folk
…I read the interview umpteen bands over many and heavier rock tunes that
with Roger Waters in years and hopefully more to showcase just how tight the band is
the July ’17 Uncut. I come. Also, loved the Gregg playing. I highly recommend you
think he proved again Allman piece, lovely tribute venture out to see them when they
that, when it comes to to a remarkable talent come across the pond in the fall.
politics, musicians Stephen Donnelly, Dublin Chris Kingston, Boston
can be very naïve –
even in old age. I agree FOR WHOM THE FAMOUS BEFORE
with some of his views, ISBEll TOIlS ALMOST FAMOUS
but not on Brexit. He calls it difference between American Many thanks for your awesome Having read Bud Scoppa’s articles
a disaster. Time will tell. interference in the politics of a few interview with Jason Isbell in a recent and knowing of his work for decades,
The reason people voted to leave banana republics in the ’80s and issue [Uncut, July 2017]. I’ve been a I am very disappointed in something
the EU, and why the likes of Nigel the swaying of the leadership of the huge fan of his since first discovering he wrote in the June 2017 Uncut, in his
Farage came into being, is because most powerful country on Earth, his abilities on the Drive-By Truckers overview of Cameron Crowe film
the EU administration has been and the global ripples that ensue? album The Dirty South. When he soundtracks. In his review of the
allowed to become the very thing it Stephen Conn, Las Cruces, decided to go solo, I was lucky Almost Famous soundtrack, Scoppa
was set up to stop happening again; New Mexico enough to catch an early show with wrote, “It’s now impossible to
a dictatorship in Europe! It may the 400 Unit at a tiny room in separate Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’
appear more benign, but it’s a THE CD REVIVAl Northampton, Massachusetts. Now, from the memorable scene in which
dictatorship all the same. Listen to STARTS HERE! with the release of The Nashville it’s featured.” “Tiny Dancer” was
the threatening language they’ve In reply to Tog’s mail in last month’s Sound, I’m really hoping the world released in 1971, first on the album
used since we voted leave. Who are Uncut regarding the suitability of the will discover what we already Madman Across The Water and as
these people? monthly free CD [Uncut, August], I know… the man is a songwriting a single in 1972. The film of Almost
Vince Leonard, Elstow, have to respectfully disagree. From genius! This current tour promoting Famous was released in 2000. Many
Bedfordshire the moment I see the tweet from John the new record just passed through people, like myself, had 28 or 27 years
Mulvey announcing the imminent my city last week, and even though it of hearing the song before the film
…While I appreciate Roger Waters’ arrival of the latest issue, excitement was a larger venue than I’d seen came out. Long before that film we
continued political vigilance, I must levels rise while I zoom in on the them play before, Isbell and the band either had our ideas in our minds
take issue with his “so fucking small pic of the new cover to see completely destroyed the room (or in about ‘visuals’ that accompanied
what?” attitude to the recent who’s included on the new disc! I this case, tent!). They sound better it, or had none. Either way, its
sean evans
Russian hacking of the US drive to work daily, so the new music than ever and look like they are appearance in a film in 2000 in no
presidential election. Surely a man CD is always in my disc player, and genuinely enjoying themselves way could make it “impossible” to
of his intelligence can see the while I adore the magazine, the CD is onstage, which is so nice for fans to separate the song from that film.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
I never saw it, but even if I had, I
know it would not affect one iota my TAKE 244 | SEPTEMBER 2017
imaginings (or not) of the song. Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, Basement 2, Blue Fin Building,
9 10 11 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU.
And it’s not just those of us who
Tel: 020 3148 6982 www.uncut.co.uk
were old enough to have the records 12
when they first came out. I’m sure Editor John Mulvey
Associate Editor Michael Bonner
that most people who first heard 13 Associate Editor John Robinson
Art Editor Marc Jones
“Tiny Dancer” in 1981 or 1991 do not Senior Designer Michael Chapman
14 15 16 17 18
only think about the Crowe film Production Editor Mick Meikleham
Acting Album Reviews Editor Tom Pinnock
when they hear the song. It’s 19 20 21 Picture Researcher Phil King
especially ridiculous as you wrote Editor At large Allan Jones
this for a British magazine. I’ll bet 22
Contributors Jason Anderson, Mark Bentley,
that only a very small percentage of 23 24 25
David Cavanagh, Tom Charity, Leonie Cooper,
Jon Dale, Stephen Dalton, Stephen Deusner, Andy
Brits ever saw Almost Famous at all, Gill, Nick Hasted, Mick Houghton, Rob Hughes,
and certainly nowhere near as many 26 27 Trevor Hungerford, John Lewis, Damien Love,
Alastair McKay, Geoffrey Macnab, Gavin Martin,
as saw it in the States. Piers Martin, Rob Mitchum, Andrew Mueller,
28 29 30 Sharon O’Connell, Louis Pattison, Sam Richards,
I’m sorry, but you cannot
Jonathan Romney, Bud Scoppa, Peter Shapiro,
legitimately say that the majority 31 32 33 34 Neil Spencer, Terry Staunton, Fiona Sturges,
of people always think of that film Graeme Thomson, Luke Torn, Stephen Troussé,
Jaan Uhelszki, Wyndham Wallace, Peter Watts,
when hearing “Tiny Dancer”, and 35 Richard Williams, Nigel Williamson, Jim Wirth,
Damon Wise, Rob Young
remember that includes a large part
36
of the non-English-speaking world Cover photograph: Henry Diltz/Corbis via Getty
Images
where the film was possibly never 37 38 Photographers: Joe Stevens, Jess Collins, Pamela
released, but still knew and know Springsteen, Josh Wool, Tom Hines, Michael Putland,
Gijsbert Hanekroot, Richard McCaffrey, Aaron
“Tiny Dancer” as a great song that Rapoport, Keith Morris, Chris Gabrin, Lynn Goldsmith,
HOW TO ENTER
needs no film to be “integral”. Kristinn Ingvarsson, Virginia Turbett, David Corio
Thanks this issue: Kevin Grant, Mike Johnson (subbing)
David Bly, USA The letters in the shaded squares form an anagram of a song by Neil Young. When
you’ve worked out what it is, send your answer to: Uncut September 2017 Xword Comp, DISPlAy ADVERTISING
Basement 2, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Steet, London SE1 0SU. The first correct Regional Sales Oliver Scull 0161 872 2152
PETER PERRETT – entry picked at random will win a prize. Closing date: Wednesday, August 16, 2017. Ad Production Barry Skinner 020 3148 2538
BUIlDERS’ This competition is only open to European residents.
Email all ad copy to barry.skinner@timeinc.com
Digital Business Directors Andrew Sanders,
RECEPTIONIST? Chris Dicker 020 3148 6709
It was great to see Peter Perrett get ClUES ACROSS ClUES DOWN Innovator – Insert Sales Emma Young
020 3148 3704
such a wonderful write-up in last 1 Easy-going attitude results in not much of 1 “Someone like you makes it hard to live
an effort from Alt-J (7) without somebody else,” 1965 (6-2-7) CREATIVE MEDIA
month’s Uncut magazine [August, Head of Market, Music Titles
5 “She stole my karma, oh no/Sold it to the 2 A bit of spare time to listen to Blur (7)
2017]. I have How The West Was Won Andrew Minnis 020 3148 4252
farmer, oh no,” 2007 (7) 3+30D The Germfree Adolescents of the Brand Manager
on pre-order from Amazon and I Matthew Chalkley 020 3148 6722
9 Album that includes track “Pigs (Three punk era (1-3-4)
really enjoyed listening to “An Epic 4+5D Gary’s cute arrangement of a
live & Creative Media
Different Ones)” (7) Steven Woollett 020 3148 2670
Story”, which shows that Peter Soundgarden number (5-4) Head of Project Management
10+23A Compilation album from The Ruts –
Perrett has lost none of his 6 Jimi Hendrix album ____ : Bold As Love Elisabeth Hempshall 020 3148 6726
a band retiring, perhaps (4-3-4-2)
idiosyncratic brilliance. Back on June (4) Head of Marketing Nashitha Suren
12 The Memory Of _____ was a 1995 album
2, 1978, my father, the late Leonard 7+33A Elvis Costello’s debut album had Circulation Manager Alan Edwards
release from 37 across (5) Subscriptions Marketing Executive
Elf, brought home The Only Ones’ direction… honest! (2-3-2-4)
13 Musical work of Austrian band includes 8 Beady Eye’s Andy Bell was originally with
Rachel Wallace
debut album, inscribed by Peter to Syndication Manager
“Live Is Life” (4) this Creation label band (4) Lucy Cox 020 3148 5483
my brother Jonathan and myself. 16+28A Elsie’s Diner concocts something Group Production Manager Steve Twort
11 A door entry confusing for The Fugees Production Manager Lisa Clay
In Nina Antonia’s updated for Camera Obscura (6-5) (5-2-3) Head of Finance Riccardo Balzi
biography, Homme Fatale, Peter 19 Catfish And The Bottlemen’s output 14 Girl group who started out as “Typical
Printed by Wyndeham Bicester
states that his father and uncle both might somehow only be chat (3-7) Girls” (5)
initiated a building contractors 21 King Crimson album only partly usable 15 Lover of a Basement Jaxx single (5) General Manager Jo Smalley
Group Managing Director Paul Cheal
called Elf’s. As such a minor point in (3) 17 New Order number depicting just part of
Peter’s life story, I feel almost guilty 22 Their debut album took us on Adventures the lifestyle (3-7) Subscription rates: One year (12 issues) including p&p:
in gently reminding Peter that Beyond The Ultraworld (3) 18 The Smiths had a certain high class while UK £63.70; Europe €131.10; USA and Canada $134.10;
Rest of World £122.14. We regret that the free cover-
whilst his father Albert did indeed 23 (See 10 across) also being vulgar (4) mounted CD is not available to EU subscribers outside
24 The man with The Sunshine Band (2) 20 Noel _____, replaced Ian McCulloch in the UK. For enquiries from the UK please call: 0330 333
work for A Elf & Sons building 1113, for overseas please call: +44 330 333 1113 (Lines are
26 A medicinal measure served up by Echo And The Bunnymen during early ’90s
contractors of 44 Balls Pond Road, (5)
open Monday-Friday GMT, 8:30am- 5:30pm exc. Bank
Howlin’ Wolf (8) Holidays) or email: help@magazinesdirect.com.
Dalston, London, and he became 25 Comedian begins with some music from New Orders line: UK: 0330 333 1113 (lines are open
a director over time, the company 28 (See 16 across) 7 days a week, 8am-9pm.) Back Issues enquiries:
Prince (4)
31 Jesus Lizard’s attempt at an album (4) Tel: 01733 688 964.Back Orders email: www.mags-uk.
chairman was Alf Elf and it was 27 Gene Vincent single “______ Packin’ com/timeinc
33 (See 7 down)
managed by two of his sons, Mama” (6)
35 The Cure’s music coming from the city 29+36A Dandy treat arranged for Bob
© 2017 Time Inc. (UK) Ltd. No Part Of This Magazine
Leonard and Cyril. May Be Reproduced, Stored In A Retrieval System Or
centre, Athens (7) Marley (5-5) Transmitted In Any Form Without The Prior Permission
In fact I have a vague recollection
36 (See 29 down) 30 (See 3 down) Of The Publisher. Repro by Rhapsody (nowemagine.
that my father told me Peter once 37 Her albums include Dark Sky Island and
co.uk). Printed by the Wyndeham Group. Uncut, 1368-
32 Discovery that included a Portishead 0722, is published monthly by Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, Blue
worked for A Elf & Sons, presumably 12 across (4) Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London, SE1 0SU,
record (4)
during some school holiday, and he 38 Alt.rockers who blasted us with “68 34 Electronic group ____ Saints who came
England. Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent
named Air Business Ltd, c/o Worldnet Shipping Inc,
was at one point given the job of Guns” (5) up with “Something Good” (4) 156-15, 146th Ave, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA.
answering the phones. I would love Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. US
Postmaster: send address changes to Uncut Air
to hear Peter’s side of that story, if he ANSWERS: TAKE 242 31+32A No Exit, 33 Get Here. 22 Eye, 24 Exile, 25 Flux, Business Ltd, c/o Worldnet Shipping Inc, 156-15, 146th
even remembers it! Albert was ACROSS DOWN 27 Rust, 28+7D Live It Ave, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY11434, USA. Subscription
proud of Peter, and I am sure that 1 A Kind Revolution, 9+10A 1+3D Amboy Dukes, 2 Ice Up, 29 Man. records are maintained at Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, Blue Fin
Building, 110 Southwark St, London, SE1 0SU, UK. Air
Break On Through, 11 Your Cube, 4 Eno, 6 Uprising, 8 No
Peter will be glad to know that my HIDDEN ANSWER Business Ltd is acting as our mailing agent.
Song, 15 Free Range, 18 Hope, 12+13A Nina Simone,
dad, Alf and Cyril held Albert in August, 19 Vulgar, 21 Pete 14 Oasis, 15 Fever, 16+23A
“Each Small Candle”
great esteem. Best, 26 PIL, 27 Relax, Road Rage, 17 Earthling, XWORD COMPIlED By:
Lawrence Elf, via email 29 Matilda, 30 Run, 20+5D Lights Out, 21 Pop Art, Trevor Hungerford
work. I always say to people, if you want that industrial sound – another big thing for
to understand anything about how to me as a kid, things like Throbbing Gristle
construct great pop, there’s three things and Cabaret Voltaire – but with a strong
you need to listen to: The Beatles, The Beach pop sensibility. Somewhere between what
Boys and Abba. There isn’t anyone better in terms of crafting, producing U2 and Cabaret Voltaire were doing. “Song Of I” on my new record is very
and writing pure pop. To me, the Abba catalogue is peerless in terms of the influenced by that ‘sexy sinister’ sound you hear on things like “Personal
quality of songwriting, the crafting of pop melodies and pop production. Jesus” or “I Feel You”. Very dark, but still great pop songs.
iN NExT MONTh’S UNCUT: “The top floor was haunted… There were a lot of strange, odd substances flying around in those days”
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