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 “A POWERFUL INTRODUCTION
TO THIS GREAT BAND’S PLEASURES…” HHHH MOJO

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TRIPLE VINYL • CD • DOWNLOAD/STREAM • 16TH JUNE

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 “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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SEPTEMBER

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O • NEIL YOUN

W
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

4 Instant Karma! 60 Dennis Wilson 94 OMD

Sly Stone, FJ McMahon, KD Lang, Oz A look behind the wildman persona to The making of “Electricity”
magazine, Angelo De Augustine find out how the Beach Boy created his
masterpiece, Pacific Ocean Blue 98 Live U2, Kraftwerk
14 Iron & Wine
An audience with Sam Bean 66 Neil Young 111 Books
We celebrate the imminent arrival New York rock’n’roll, The Damned
18 New Albums of Hitchhiker – 41 years late! – with a
Including: Grizzly Bear, Randy Newman, revelatory trip inside Shakey’s archives 112 Films
The War On Drugs, Queens Of The Morrissey biopic, A Ghost Story and more
Stone Age, Arcade Fire 78 Nick Lowe
Pub-rock pioneer, punk auteur, songwriter 114 DVD & Blu-ray
40 The Archive of repute - Basher invites Uncut over to his Al Green, American Gods
Including: Lal & Mike Waterson, pad for a wander through a fine career
The Beach Boys, Brian Eno, Prince 117 Not Fade Away
84 Elvis Presley This month’s obituaries
54 Mark E Smith What does he still mean to us today?
A quiet drink or three with The Fall We check out how the King’s 120 Letters… Plus the crossword
frontman in his favourite Machester charisma is holding up in 2017
boozer. “Are you really that horrible?” 122 My Life In Music
asks Uncut’s Tom Pinnock 90 Sigur Rós Album by album Steven Wilson

summer sale! suBsCrIBe

special TODaY FrOm JusT £19.99*
offer Subscribe online at www.uncutsubs.co.uk/12ZJ
Or call 0330 333 1113 and quote code 12ZJ
For more information, visit page 97

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 3

 This MONTh’s revelaTiONs frOM The wOrld Of UncUt
feaTuriNg... fJ McMahon | K d lang | Oz | angelo de augustine
SOMEBODY’S
WATCHING YOU!
a filmmaker’s epic pursuit of Sly Stone. “fame attracts
wonderful people. fame also attracts guns and dogs…”
I
n August 2005, Michael Rubenstone,
an aspiring filmmaker, received a call
from Sly Stone’s sister, Vaetta Stewart.
“Vaetta – Vet – was in a Sly & The
Family Stone tribute band, Phunk
Phamily Affair,” explains Rubenstone. “She
called me out of the blue one day and said,
‘I need you to book us a gig in LA.’ She said,
‘Trust me. It’s going to be worth it.’”
Rubenstone had been working on a
documentary about Vet’s elder brother. It
was proving to be a frustrating experience.
Michael Ochs archives/Getty iMaGes
Stone had barely been seen in public since
1993, when he and the Family Stone were
inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of
Fame, and Rubenstone’s own attempts to
locate him had been met with obstruction
and obfuscation. Suddenly, Vet’s phone call
made contact with the elusive musician a
very real possibility.
“Sly lives in LA, so maybe the prospect of
seeing his sister and his niece Lisa and
sly stone, about
to take the
world higher
with the release
of Stand!,
photographed
on March 9, 1969
4 • uNCuT • sePTeMBer 2017
Cynthia [Robinson] playing his music could
draw him out,” says Rubenstone. “I felt like
this was my best shot to get him. And sure
enough, he pulls in driving a custom Harley
three-wheel trike.”
The scene takes place at Hollywood’s
Knitting Factory club and is one of several
agonising near-misses and tantalising brief
encounters that play out in Rubenstone’s
documentary, On The Sly: In Search Of The
Family Stone. The film is partly a shaggy dog
yarn about Rubenstone’s decade-long quest
to find the reclusive musician, but it also
functions as a straight-up documentary on
the Family Stone. For this, Rubenstone has
assembled an impressive pool of contributors
including erstwhile bandmates Cynthia
Robinson, Jerry Martini and Greg Ericco,
along with industry associates, school
friends, contemporaries including Bobby
Womack and even Stone’s ex-music teacher,
David Froehlich – then in his eighties.
Rubenstone, a jobbing actor, began
filming in 2004, shooting the bulk of
the film over the next three years.
“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 basketball game who said, ‘I know
this guy who played keyboard with
him in Seattle. You should go meet
him.’ That was Gordon DeWitty, the
blind keyboardist. Turns out he did not play
with Sly – he was more of a groupie – but he
understood Sly better than I did.”
Eventually – “after about a year and
change,” reckons Rubenstone – the
filmmaker connected with Vet, who in turn
introduced him to her elder brother Freddie,
the band’s former guitarist, now a pastor in
the family’s hometown of Vallejo, California.
The hunt for Stone himself, however, was
problematic from the very beginning. During
his first few weeks of shooting, Rubenstone
received a tip-off directing him to an address
in napa Valley, California. At the property,
Rubenstone was given the brush-off; in the
film it seems harmless enough, but
foreshadows several subsequent incidents
where Rubenstone is hustled, including one
astonishing shakedown in a parking lot.
Rubenstone interviewed 25 people for his
film, many of who advised caution when
dealing with Stone and his entourage. “It’s
“Dealing with
Stone is like The
Wizard Of Oz…
No-one wants to
meet The Wizard
Of Oz” eriC Palley

sePTeMBer 2017 • uNCuT • 5

like The Wizard Of Oz,” says
eric Palley, Stone’s former A&R
at epic. “No-one wants to meet
The Wizard Of Oz.”
Using archival footage drawn
from interviews and live
performances, a persuasive
picture emerges of Stone’s rise
from house producer at
Autumn Records and Bay Area
radio DJ to psychedelic soul
superstar. “Fame attracts
wonderful people,” notes the
band’s original saxophonist
Jerry Martini. “Fame also
attracts guns and dogs.” The
decline from Woodstock-era
utopianism into darkness,
drugs and isolation is
mourned, too, particularly by
close friend Bobby Womack,
featured here in one of his last
interviews. “Bobby Womack
was a straight-shooter, he
didn’t hide anything,” says
Rubenstone. “After we’d done,
he’d start frying up pork chops
in his kitchen, shirt off.”
It would be unfair to reveal
too much about Rubenstone’s
encounters with Stone, though
the filmmaker experiences a
satisfying pay-off after his
decade-long search. Although
Stone hasn’t seen the finished
film, his children have. “They
got it,” laughs Rubenstone.
“They totally understood,
they know their dad.”
Among his interviews,
Rubenstone is keen to flag up
the contribution of 82-year old
former manager of the band,
David Kapralik – who is filmed
at home in Maui, working out
on his exercise bike. “What he
was hoping to accomplish with
that band, socially, politically,
during a very turbulent time,
still resonates. We’re everyday
people, we’re all in it together.
We’ve come a long way, but we
still have a hell of a way to go.”
micHael bonneR
For more information on the film
visit www.ontheslymovie.com
6 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
FJ McMahon in
the late ’60s,
charting a nation
in spiritual crisis
“The country I knew had
almost disappeared”
FJ McMahon, cult
singer-songwriter
and Vietnam vet,
returns to action...
T
he morning after, FJ
McMahon is still savouring
the night before. Backed by
dream-psych band Quilt, the
veteran singer-songwriter chose
LA’s The Sanctuary for his first ever
live performance of Spirit Of The
Golden Juice. The only album of
McMahon’s career passed virtually
unnoticed in 1969, but a series of
reissues (the latest on Anthology)
have elevated it to the status of
cult classic.
“I knew there was interest in
the album, but didn’t realise
how much until last night,” says
McMahon, down the line from his
Californian home. “It was a sell-out
crowd and we ended up getting
two standing ovations. It was
completely overwhelming.”
Spirit Of The Golden Juice was the
product of his experiences during
the ’60s. Over spare psych-folk
arrangements, his measured,
authoritative voice lays out an
existential document of a nation in
spiritual crisis. And McMahon was
better qualified than most in taking
the temperature of the era. he
enlisted in the US Air Force in 1965
and, two years later, was called up
to serve in Vietnam. “I’d been
stationed up near San Francisco and
would guard nuclear weapons by
night, then party in haight-Ashbury
and Golden Gate Park in the
daytime,” he recalls. “I left the US in
the Summer Of Love, came back a
year later and the country I knew
had almost disappeared. I felt total
alienation. If you were a returning
Vietnam vet, the first thing you’d do
was take your uniform off and
throw it away, because you’d be
attacked. The party was over.”
McMahon fed this sense of
uncertainty and disquiet into Spirit
Of The Golden Juice (named after the
IW harper bourbon that “fuelled
the times”) and joined the anti-war
“I’d guard nuclear
weapons by night
then party at
Haight-Ashbury
in the daytime”
FJ McMahoN
movement. Issued on the tiny
Accent label, the album failed to
find its audience. “They promoted it
in the way that they would a Patti
Page reissue, because that’s all they
knew,” McMahon says of the record
company. “It just sank like a stone.”
he continued to gig with covers
bands on the West Coast bar scene,
before finally moving to hawaii. The
tipping point came in 1974. “To
make a living, you had to go down to
Waikiki Boulevard, put on the white
pants and Aloha shirt and play Don
ho songs for grandmothers,” he
recalls. “Onstage one night,
listening to the ice cubes clinking
and the old women talking, I had an
epiphany. I finished the gig, put my
guitar away and got a job overseas.”
McMahon became a systems expert
in the navy, then spent 25 years as
a computer field engineer, playing
in “rockabilly/psych jam bands” in
his spare time.
Now, though, nearly half a
century after first unloading Spirit
Of The Golden Juice, the 71-year-
old’s time may finally have come.
“If you close your eyes and listen
to the lyrics, nothing’s really
changed,” he figures, adding that
he’s already been contacted about
playing more live shows. “People
seem to identify with that record.
The way this is going, who the heck
knows what’s going to happen
next?” Rob HugHes
Spirit Of The Golden Juice is
available again on August 11
via the Anthology label

Born-again
Ingénue
KD Lang revisits her “post-nuclear cabaret”
breakthrough, on its 25th anniversary
R
eCeNTLy, KD Lang listened
to Ingénue for the first time
since finishing work on it
early in 1992, as preparation for its
25th-anniversary reissue. It was,
to put it mildly, an uncomfortable
41 minutes. “The first listen was
skin-crawling,” she says. “Ugh!
It contained a lot of complex
ingredients: the time of the initial
writing and touring; the success it
brought; thinking it would be better
than it was. It was just a flood of stuff.
On the second and third listen,
thankfully, I began to hear the music,
beyond personal memories.”
Ingénue changed Lang’s life. Ten
tracks of unclassifiable “post-nuclear
cabaret”, on her fifth album she left
behind her Canadian country roots
for more cosmopolitan destinations,
and in the process became a pop star.
“It was raw!”:
KD Lang on her
confessional
fifth album
Written and recorded with her long-
time collaborator Ben Mink, the
album “was an official shift from
country. That was a conscious
decision Ben and I talked about.
We were a little fearful for what the
reaction would be, but we knew for
self-preservation’s sake we had to
move our music in that direction.”
A timeless blend of torch and twang,
of cocktail gloss and introspection,
orchestral sophistication and
chanteuse chutzpah, Ingénue is a
loosely conceptual affair, tracking an
unrequited love affair. “I poured my
heart and soul into it,” she recalls
down the line from Banff, Alberta.
“Great records are about the ability to
narrate the truth, and that record was
definitely as close to the bone as I’ve
gotten. It was raw! Writing the lyrics
was very arduous, it took six or seven
months, and the vocals also
proved difficult. I shifted my
vocal style from the country
thing, which was super-
extroverted, to a more
introspective style. Listening
back, it sounds very
meditative and very still. I
consciously made the effort
to be anti-ornamented.”
The album’s breakthrough
was incremental. On its
release in March 1992, Lang
recalls, “there was a bit of a
backlash. It was a slow push
uphill.” Backed by her record
company, and bolstered by
the publicity generated by
her coming out in The
Advocate and appearing
with Cindy Crawford on the
cover of Vanity Fair, Ingénue
began to stick, though she
emphasises that her coming
out “really wasn’t to promote
my album; it was to clear the
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.
The album has since sold
three million copies. Lang
has gone to make many more
terrific records, among them 2004’s
Hymns Of The 49th Parallel, her
interpretations of the songs of fellow
Canadians such as Leonard Cohen
and Neil young, and her recent
collaboration with Neko Case and
Laura Veirs, but she concedes that
Ingénue is “the pinnacle of my singer-
songwriting. It’s a standout, yet I still
don’t know how to characterise it. It’s
impossible! We talked a lot about
early Joni Mitchell influences, early
jazz influences and classical, but we
also wanted to retain the country
thing.” She laughs. “Basically, we
brought our favourite tools and, boy,
we used them.” gRaeme THomson
Ingénue: 25th Anniversary Edition
(Nonesuch) is out now. Her
Ingénue Redux Tour begins in
Canada on August 12
a quicK one
This month’s new
entry in our ultimate
Music Guide series is
a volume dedicated
to the legendary Bob
Marley. The usual
format: in-depth new
reviews of every Marley
and Wailers album,
plus a load of incredible
interviews from the
NME and Melody Maker
archives. On sale now!
The latest band to
receive the high culture
treatment will be aBBa,
when an “immersive”
exhibition called ‘ABBA:
Super Troupers’ opens
at London’s Southbank
Centre from December
14 to April 29. Promised
highlights include a
recreation of the Polar
recording studio in
Stockholm, which will
be filled with the band’s
original instruments and
handwritten lyrics.
For fans disappointed
by merch at the recent
UK Kraftwerk shows,
consolation is at hand.
Canyon have launched
a limited-edition
bicycle, the Ultimate
CF SLX Kraftwerk. The
21 bikes feature the
band’s unique pattern,
originated by Ralf Hütter.
Yours for £8,999.
alan Vega’s last LP will
be out this month. Vega
worked on IT with wife
Liz Lamere from 2010
until his death in 2016.
The tracklist looks very
on-point for Suicide
fans, with song-titles like
“Screamin Jesus” and
“Motorcycle Explodes”.
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 7

1970: (l-r)
Richard Neville,
Felix Dennis and
Jim Anderson
in their rented
convict outfits
God Save Oz!
felix dennis’ counterculture archives
are preserved for the nation
W
hen curators at the
Victoria & Albert Museum
began to sift through the
60 boxes of subversive material the
museum recently acquired as part
of Felix Dennis’ Oz archive, one
item stood out. It related to the 1971
obscenity trial, when Oz, the ’60s
counterculture’s most colourful and
controversial magazine, got into
trouble for publishing, among other
things, a pornographic parody of
Rupert The Bear. Dennis and fellow
editors Jim Anderson and Richard
neville were charged with
This month: All that jazz – taken from Melody Maker, July 1, 1961
EvEning Standard/gEtty imagES; joE StEvEnS
8 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
obscenity. While Yoko Ono and John
Lennon recorded a benefit single,
“God Save Oz”, and supporters
paraded round the Old Bailey with
a papier-mâché model of a naked
schoolgirl, the editorial trio decided
to make a showpiece of the occasion
by dressing in costumes, which they
promptly forgot to pay for.
“We have the costumier’s invoice
for the hire of three arrowed convict
outfits which they hired but then
didn’t pay the bill, so there are these
reminders about the payment,” says
Simon Sladen, V&A Senior Curator
the classifieds
Of Modern And
Contemporary
Performance.
“There’s something
about this idea of
dressing up as
convicts and then
getting convicted
and not paying the
bill, like they are
really assuming the
role. There’s a meta-
theatricality there
that I loved.”
Felix Dennis,
mischievous
publisher, poet and
hippy philanthropist, died in 2014.
he left behind a rich archive of
memorabilia covering art, politics,
protest and music. It includes
Dennis’ personal correspondence,
diaries and cuttings, artworks by
hapshash And The Coloured Coat,
Martin Sharp and David hockney,
and a typescript of Lennon’s lyrics
for “God Save Oz”. “It was such a
creative outburst,” says Sladen.
“It brings together many of the
curatorial teams at the museum due
to its contents, as well as the people
it inspired or were involved in it.”
Oz covered rock music as well as
politics, using psychedelic design
to cause maximum impact. “It’s
a real treat to see the original
Lennon joins
marchers in
London on
the day of
the Oz trial
pasteboards, to see how those
glorious magazines were put
together,” says Sladen. “The designs
and layers of colour, it’s exquisite
seeing that up close, and every snip
of the scissors. The margin notes
capture the practice of creating a
magazine. It excavates that whole
process behind the making of
things, which is what the V&A was
originally set up to explore.”
Artefacts relating to the obscenity
trial will go on view next summer for
a display on the history of British
censorship, and the V&A plan to
digitise the collection and use
individual items in future ’60s
exhibitions. Sladen feels the archive
captures the personality of one of
the era’s most distinctive figures
through items such as Dennis’ diary,
in which the mundane – calls to his
mother – sit alongside recordings of
the latest police raid. “his character
really comes out,” says Sladen.
“When we went to visit the house to
see the archive, locals would tell us
wonderful stories about him. That
desire to subvert authority through
art really comes out. The magazine
is a reflection of the people involved
in it, just as any great piece of art is,
and it’s a wonderful fit for so many
parts of the museum. he’d have
enjoyed having his contribution to
culture recognised.” PETER WATTS
 Remastered and reissued on 4th August 2017
Bright Phoebus, Lal and Mike Waterson’s 1972 folk-noir
masterpiece, has long been recognised as one of
British music’s legendary lost records.
Featuring Lal, Mike and Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy,
Richard Thompson, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Tim Hart
and Maddy Prior, amongst others, the album is now recognised
as a forward-thinking benchmark for the genre.
Reissued under the supervision of David Suff (Topic/Fledg’ling)
and Marry Waterson (daughter of Lal).
Remastered from the original master tapes, Bright Phoebus
sounds as good today as it did the day it was recorded.

Deluxe 2xLP / Deluxe 2xCD / LP / CD / DL

Deluxe editions include a second disc of 12 newly remastered demos.
Plus extensive new sleeve notes by Pete Paphides.

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

songs. It was like magic, I didn’t really music is quiet,

Killer jazz, funk and
already know in this industry that’s
proto-rap comp tied in
know what I was doing. Fast forward a sheltered, very rare.” Graeme Thomson
JESS COLLINS;

with a major new exhibition at the

few years, and I was working with simple, and Tate Modern in London. Major discoveries
other people, producers who were restrained.” Swim Inside The Moon is released include Horace Tapscott’s “Desert
interested in my music, but I wasn’t Sufjan Stevens August 18 on Asthmatic Kitty Fairy Princess”.

10 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

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 Art Of Gold
15 tracks of the month’s best new music
randy
Newman
1 rANDY NeWmAN putin
There are, it seems, limits for even
the greatest satirists. “I did write [a
song about Trump], but it was just too
vulgar,” Randy Newman tells us
on p22. The mind boggles at how
vulgar it must have been, given
this grandiose farce about Russia’s
bare-chested supremo. A 70-piece
orchestra, turning on the old
Broadway ritz, makes “Putin” one
of Uncut’s most dramatic opening
tracks to date.
2 IrON & WINe
Call It Dreaming
The maximalism of “Putin” is a
striking contrast to this sneak
preview of Sam Beam’s sixth solo
album. “Call It Dreaming” heralds
a return to the simpler, folkier
textures of Iron & Wine’s earlier
records, albeit delivered now with
a confidence reminiscent of James
Taylor. An Audience With Sam Beam
can be found on p14.
3 DOWNTOWN bOYs
A Wall
If Randy Newman won’t go there,
Providence’s Downtown Boys will.
A blaring punk anthem pitched
somewhere between X-Ray Spex and
Rocket From The Crypt, “A Wall”
vigorously points out that, for all
Trump’s grandiose talk, physical
barriers already exist between
the States and their southern
neighbour – as do less tangible,
but just as pertinent, battle lines.
4 psYCHIC TempLe
pamela springsteen; DaviD Kaptein
Dream Dictionary
A good month for elder statesmen,
as the heroic tones of Terry Reid
make a welcome guest appearance
on this gem from Psychic Temple.
Lovely, sun-dappled West Coast pop
vibes for the late summer and
beyond: you can find out much more
about this fine LA band on p36.
12 • UNCUT • sepTember 2017
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
songs, none better than this tense,
virtuosic version of The Old Kit Bag’s
opener. A master at work.
6 THe seXUAL ObJeCTs
sometimes
In case you missed their debut a
couple of years back, The Sexual
Objects are the latest vehicle of
Davy Henderson, vet of the Fire
Engines and The Nectarine No 9,
and a man whose taste for tuneful
provocation remains undiminished.
“Sometimes” (from an LP originally
released in an edition of one) recalls
yet another glorious Henderson
project – ’80s pop subversives Win.
richard
Thompson
7 sUsANNe sUNDFØr
Undercover
Perhaps not quite a match for Randy
Newman’s “Putin” in scale, the
latest from the fêted Norwegian
singer-songwriter nevertheless
builds up quite a dramatic head of
steam from its simple piano and
pedal-steel opening. By the end,
“Undercover” is something akin
to the 1980s power ballad as
reimagined by Joanna Newsom.
8 NICK LOWe my Heart Hurts
Lowe didn’t seem to realise his
’80s catalogue was being reissued
until Uncut informed him of the fact
(see p78). Nevertheless, the return
of great songs like “My Heart Hurts”
– co-written with Carlene Carter –
show how valuable it is to have them
back in proper circulation. From
1982’s Nick The Knife.
9 KATIe VON sCHLeICHer
Life’s A Lie
Last seen in the UK supporting
kindred spirit Aldous Harding,
“Life’s A Lie” comes from Von
Schleicher’s first formal album –
a follow-up to her Bleaksploitation
cassette that won hipster plaudits
in 2015. Rich, ornate songcraft
proliferates, belying its lo-fi
gestation in Von Schleicher’s
Maryland childhood home.
10 THe CHrIs rObINsON
brOTHerHOOD
Good To Know
The latest CRB album takes a slightly
folksy, acoustic turn, but there’s still
room for Robinson & co’s woozy take
on a kind of Laurel Canyon acid-
funk. Watch out for Neal Casal
dusting down his best Ernie Isley
chops for the guitar break.
11 ANGeLO De
AUGUsTINe Truly Gone
“In our age of exhibitionism and
over-sharing, his music is quiet,
sheltered, simple and restrained,”
says Sufjan Stevens of Angelo De
Augustine, an auspicious newcomer
from LA. Stevens could also have
pointed out De Augustine’s affinity
with his own quietest music: “Truly
Gone” wouldn’t have sounded out of
place on Stevens’ Seven Swans, or
indeed Elliott Smith’s Roman Candle.
12 FJ mcmAHON
Five Year Kansas blues
McMahon’s sole LP from 1969, Spirit
Of The Golden Juice (reviewed p49)
has been in and out of print these
past few years: a post-Vietnam duty
classic that conjures up the image of
a hippy Townes Van Zandt. Here’s a
highlight from its latest incarnation,
as McMahon (interviewed on p6) is
back onstage after 40-odd years.
13 OH sees The static God
What Uncut CD would be complete
without a boggle-eyed ramalam
from John Dwyer’s irrepressible
garage-rock mavens? A big change
this time out – they’ve dropped
the “Thee” from their name – but
otherwise “The Static God” is as
full-on and inspired as usual. A true
institution, even if they’d doubtless
quail at such august recognition.
14 LAL & mIKe WATersON
bright phoebus
Not a song we ever dreamed of
including on an Uncut CD: the
Watersons’ magnificent “Bright
Phoebus”, and its folk-art parent LP
of the same name, has languished
in copyright hell for decades.
Great thanks, then, to Domino for
bringing back one of the British folk
revival’s greatest and strangest
masterpieces. Bright Phoebus is our
Archive Album Of The Month, p40.
Chris Forsyth
15 CHrIs FOrsYTH &
THe sOLAr mOTeL bAND
Dreaming In The Non-Dream
Finally this time out, a hefty extract
from one of 2017’s most spectacular
guitar anthems, as Philly’s
quicksilver Solar Motel Band lock
into pulsating motorik-psych-funk:
Jerry Garcia jamming with Neu!,
maybe? Yes please!
 carGo collective

curanderos (Bardo Pond) Graham reynolds inGer lorre Paul haslinGer

curanderos
Fire records lP / cd
Formed by the improvised journeys of Bardo
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Fire soundtracks / lakeshore lP / cd
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Fake lauGh
headcount records lP / cd
Fake laugh’s debut album arrives this summer
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Fire records lP / cd
harking back to the earlier donnie darko-like
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Long-term beard
grower Sam Beam,
aka Iron & Wine,
in 2017

14 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

 I don’t have
time for sealing
things in amber
AN AUdIENCE WITH IRON & WINE
I
T’S early morning at Myrtle Beach,
South Carolina, where Iron & Wine’s
Sam Beam has taken time out from
the July 4 holiday celebrations
to speak to Uncut. “I’ve brought
the kids to visit my folks,” he says. It
transpires that Beam has five daughters.
“Most of the day is pretty free now that
they’re in school,” he explains. “I used
to have to carve out time to work, now I
can treat the time a little more frivolously.
I’m always working. I used to be more
focused, now it’s notebooks all over the
place. I don’t push it any more. There’s a
lot of hours in the day to do other things.”
Over the past 15 years since Iron &
Wine’s debut, The Creek Drank The Cradle,
Beam has refined his brand of hushed,
hesitant Americana to incorporate
folk balladry, funereal elegies
and lustrous blue-eyed soul. His
latest, Beast Epic, offers a further
upgrade on his sound. “This is
my sixth collection of new Iron
& Wine material and I’m happy
to say that it’s my fourth for Sub
Pop Records,” he says. “It’s a
warm and serendipitous time
to be reuniting with my Seattle
friends, because I feel there’s a
certain kinship between this new
collection of songs and my earliest
material, which Sub Pop was kind
enough to release.”
Meanwhile, Beam is enjoying
a bit of downtime before he heads
out on a run of dates in North
America: “This is the quiet before the
storm,” he says with a laugh. “I’m trying
to soak up my kids’ faces!”
What makes a good album title?
Bryn Hughes, Cardiff
That’s like, “What makes a good
recipe?” It’s different for everybody.
“All my friends have beards
and all musicians I know
have beards… we’re just a
lazy bunch of bums! I was
worried my facial hair was
more interesting than the
music I was making!”
Interview by michael bonner
Twilight’s Kristen I like words, so if the words resonate in
Stewart let The a fun way, it doesn’t really matter how it
Shepherd’s Dog
loose on set… relates to the body of music it’s titling.
I usually go through and pick up some
lyric from one of the songs that I feel
relates to the body of work. But it’s really
just out of laziness. I’ve always liked
Rubber Soul – it relates to the music, but
in a better way than any of the lyrics.
Beast Epic is a literary term for a story
like The Tortoise And The Hare, where
there are animals talking and acting
like humans. I thought it was a fun way
to describe our more base nature. It can
be a Trump reference, if you like – you
can apply it to whatever you like.
That song in
Twilight. How did
that come about?
Chris Nicolas,
Weybridge
Lots of luck! The story
that I’ve heard is that the
album [The Shepherd’s
Dog] had just come out
and Kristen Stewart
was listening to it on her
headphones when the
filmmakers were blocking the prom scene.
As the song “Flightless Bird, American
Mouth” was working in her head, she
suggested they use it to block the scene.
So they did, intending on switching it
later to something that other people might
really want to hear. But you know how it
is, you hear it too many times and it sticks
– so that’s what happened. Am I fan of
Young Adult vampire fiction? Sure, it’s very
inspiring for making music!
You’ve written many songs over
the years – are there any particular
ones that you don’t enjoy playing
any more?
Zach Ladd, via email
It’s always a challenge to play a song a
million times, when what you really enjoy
about music is what’s lying undiscovered
around the corner. But at the same time,
it’s a challenge that’s fun to take up. I’ve
always found that if you’re willing to look
at your work as a capsule of what you were
doing at that moment – instead of a eulogy
that has to walk with you for the rest of
your life and describe you in completeness
– it’s fun. You can breathe a new energy
into a song that might have been lying
dead on the table. It depends on how
precious you want to be! I don’t have time
for sealing things in amber.
Iron & Wine have covered Stereolab,
Josh Wool; Moviestore/reX/shutterstock
Spiritualized and New Order. Are
there any ’80s/’90s UK indie bands
you’d deem too difficult to cover?
Neal Reeves, Manchester
No. I have such affection for that music – it
had a lot to do with my sonic upbringing. It
was around; if I could find it, anyone could
find it! I was a Cure fanatic. I loved Robert
Smith and a lot of bands along those lines.
But that’s what was in the water at the time.
I feel like from the beginning, Iron &
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 15

Blue mood: Sam Beam
live in The Netherlands,
September 10, 2016
Wine has had a persona and a lot of times I
like to play against the persona. So any of
those English indie bands fit the bill nicely!
What were your early record shop
experiences like?
Adam Podmore, Grantchester
We had a wonderful record shop, Manifest
Records. We were in the middle of South
Carolina, Chapin. The nearest town was
Columbia, the state capital, where the
University Of South Carolina is. The store
was really involved, the selection was
great – much more so than some tightly
curated record stores I’ve been to, which
are wonderful for understanding the
owner’s tastes but not great in exploring
music you can’t get elsewhere. I was too
shy to talk to staff, but I would go in and
linger around to hear what records they
were talking about. There was also a used-
record store called Papa Jazz down near the
university. Good times and great oldies!
Your music has appeared in ads,
films and TV shows; under what
circumstances would you turn down
a request to use your music?
Nicole Baker, Newcastle
If I felt like it was going to directly hurt
people or be used to message something
Jordi Vidal/redferns
I was uncomfortable with. The avenues
we have of making money off our art are
getting fewer, especially if you’re not a
jingle man writing songs. But if they want
to borrow it to align themselves with
16 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
something I’ve made,
it’s one thing. I take
them on a case-by-case
basis. Trump hasn’t
called. What would I
say if he did? “No! No!”
As a long-term beard
grower, how did you
feel about the hipster
trend for facial hair?
Ivy Rodger, Charlton
To be honest, I was
always taken aback that
people would mention
it when talking about
me – all my friends have beards
and all musicians I know have
beards. We’re just a lazy bunch of
bums! At the same time, I thought
I was getting credit for bringing
the beard back for some reason.
Then I thought, “Why are people
talking about this and not the
music?” I felt it was a failure on
my part, in a way. My facial hair
“I’ve been on a search for
15 years to see what Iron &
Wine can contain musically”
SAM BEAM
was more interesting than the
music I was making!
You had a religious
upbringing. How did
that affect you?
Beverley Ecclestone, Mortlake
In lots of ways! Religion was a
huge part of how I understood
the world, and when I left that, it
all came crashing down. I’m still
dealing with it. Grand shifts in
perspective are really disturbing
for people, especially young people
who are still carving out their idea
of how the world works. But I feel like
that’s the rite of passage everyone goes
through, especially in their late teens and
early twenties. Mine was no exception,
it was just a bit more violent in its move
from a religious idea to a secular idea. It
changed the way I trusted information
a lot. But that’s a healthy thing, right!
Will you please release
“Waves Of Galveston” as a
single? Sam Dalton, via email
We did record it in this session.
That was definitely the oldest
one of the bunch we recorded and
it felt its age – it didn’t feel like
part of the piece. These things are
subjective, obviously. There was
no algorithm that decided what
songs were included. The song
was about something different
from what these other songs are
about. Sonically, it was in there –
but dramatically it wasn’t part of
the group. “Waves Of Galveston”
had an omniscient narrator, where the
narrators of these songs are directly
experiencing what’s happening.
How do you keep it fresh?
Daniel Piper, Glasgow
I’ve got a new band and we’re trying to
see what we do that other bands don’t
do. Some of the people I’ve toured with
before… I love the idea of
changing the lineup. Some
days I think, ‘Why do I do
this? Keep the same band,
so you don’t have to do all
this rehearsing.’ But at the
same time, I like things to be
changing – it’s what life is
really like, best to just embrace
it! I’ve been on a search for the
past 15 years for what Iron &
Wine can contain musically,
what it can hold. I’ve learned it
can hold a lot. My definition of
Iron & Wine is that it is whatever
I’m interested in, because it’s
my musical project. At the same
time, I am aware that Iron & Wine has
a persona in people’s minds, and so it’s
always about the play against that and
poking it as hard as you can.
Beast Epic is released on August 25
via Sub Pop
 vinyl is back?
it never
went away.
#gettofopp
fopp stores
bristol college green // cambridge sidney st
edinburgh rose st // glasgow union st & byres rd
london covent garden // manchester brown st
nottingham broadmarsh shopping centre
oxford gloucester green
 “Chaos, but it works”

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)

the uncut guIde to thIs month’s key releases

grizzly bear
painted ruins
rca

Beauty and darkness merge on Brooklynites’

fifth full-length. By Rob Mitchum

I
f recent history has taught us
nothing else, it’s that democracy
is messy business. Despite its high-
minded ideals of representation
and accountability, it can be slow
and cumbersome, inhibiting good
ideas while letting unfortunate ones
occasionally slip through. Even its vaunted
robustness can be undercut by a few bad actors, as
we’re reminded almost hourly of late.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised about those
political realities, given the poor performance of
democracy in the microcosm of music. In the band
structure, totalitarianism oftren rules, with groups
organised around an undisputed leader typically
showing the greatest longevity. Egalitarianism, on
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.
Grizzly Bear stand as the
exception to this rule, a band
that, despite all odds, have
only grown more democratic
over their existence. from their
genesis as Edward Droste’s
solo project, the group has
gradually decentralised,
adding a second singer and
songwriter in Daniel Rossen,
the multi-instrumentalist and
in-house producer Chris Taylor,
TOM HINES
Since 2006’s Yellow House, every Grizzly
album Bear track has credited all four members as
OF THE songwriters. The lines between “Ed songs”
mONTH and “Dan songs” gradually blurred as they
increasingly traded lead vocals within songs,
9/10 while collective harmonies became their
most distinctive voice. Even their onstage set-up
reflects this equal footing, with all four primary
members organised in a line at the front of the stage.
But that remarkable commitment to democracy
comes with its disadvantages, too. It’s been five years
– an eternity in internet time – since the group’s last
record, 2012’s Shields. Like many groups of friends in
their thirties, they’ve drifted apart geographically,
spreading out across both US coasts. And a healthy
amount of individual side projects – solo records,
As a result, there was a lack
of urgency in producing what
would become Painted Ruins.
for months, the foursome
shared scraps of music online,
paired off on songwriting
excursions, and forbade the
use of the word “album”,
keeping the pressure as low as
possible. Even the recording
process was bi-coastal,
with separate sessions in
Hollywood and the rural

and the assertive drumming of New York studio where they

Christopher Bear. recorded 2009’s Veckatimest.

18 • uncut • september 2017

 grizzly bear: (l-r)
edward droste,
daniel rossen,
christopher bear
and chris taylor

september 2017 • uncut • 19

 new albums

Given its fragmented creation story, the

cohesiveness of Painted Ruins is a wonder.
Expertly blending the band’s four strong
perspectives and patiently expanding
on their previous work, it’s a confident
effort that belies its halting construction.
As Rossen sings on “Four Cypresses”, the
band’s process is “chaos, but it works”.
Consider the many moving parts of
“Losing All Sense”, which moves from
itchy post-punk to dreamier environs
(complete with harp) to an electro fantasia,
relays lead vocals from Droste to Rossen
for a haunting bridge, then circles back to
its wind-up-toy beginning. If it develops
like four songs in one, that’s because
it probably is – but woven together so
skilfully you can’t see the sutures.
Other songs fluidly move through several
sections without ever feeling cumbersome.
“Cut-Out” journeys from a sparkling
Droste verse (with a great opening
line for a love song – “You are like an
invading spore”) to a loud Rossen section
over reverbed guitar fireworks. “Three
Rings” keeps a steady rhythmic floor but
progressively applies multiple vocal and
instrumental ideas on top, from Droste’s
gentle croon and the band’s airtight
harmonising to stretches of woodwind
buzzes and sing-song arpeggios.
Throughout, Painted Ruins is sonically
brighter compared with their occasionally
drowsy back catalogue. Opener “Wasted
Acres” is probably the first Grizzly Bear
track you could convincingly rap over,
with a loping drum loop, strings in full
glissando and lyrics about a four-wheeler
off-road vehicle. “Losing All Sense”
shares DNA with their former Brooklyn
neighbours Yeasayer, a syncopated groove
gilded with electronic interludes. Even
“Glass Hillside”, which head fakes as
a folky dirge for its first minute, mood-
shifts to a bouncy electric piano part that
dominates the rest of the track.
While not fully triggering the narrative
of the “post-guitar” record, songs such as
“Mourning Sound” do a lot of work without
the instrument, deploying it only for the
Sleeve noteS
1 Wasted Acres
2 Mourning Sound
3 Four Cypresses
4 Three Rings
5 Losing All Sense
6 Aquarian
7 Cut-Out
8 Glass Hillside
9 Neighbors
10 Systole
11 Sky Took Hold
Produced by:
Chris Taylor
Recorded at:
occasional acoustic texture or brief lead disquieting fashion. In fact, it’s tempting Allaire, Shokan,
melody. Where Rossen and Droste’s guitar to draw deeper thematic parallels with NY; Vox Recording
interplay does appear, it’s just as strong Radiohead, who enlisted Grizzly Bear as Studios, LA,
as their vocal blend, as on the chugging opening act in 2008. Though the lyrics here CA; Terrible
acoustic choruses of “Neighbors”. are as opaque as ever, repeated themes of Recording Studios
The other half of Grizzly Bear also hold distressing sounds, great disasters and in LA and Big
their own. Taylor’s production talents, environmental decay butt up against the Sur, CA; Daniel
responsible for defining much of Grizzly tranquil imagery of songs conceived in Big Rossen’s garage
Personnel
Bear’s hazy, calmly psychedelic sound, Sur and rural upstate New York. As a band
includes:
continue to mature, placing subtle horn known for its sedate moods and crystal Ed Droste,
or string drones in the corners to unsettle harmonies, the slow-build panic attack Christopher Bear,
songs such as “Sky Took Hold” and “Four in the middle third of “Four Cypresses” Chris Taylor,
Cypresses”, while keeping arrangements creates an ambush of contrast with its Daniel Rossen
deeply layered without spilling into suddenly sharpened intensity.
clutter. Painted Ruins also includes Indeed, if Painted Ruins fits the current
Taylor’s first turn on lead vocals, the political mood, it’s as an album of songs
ethereal “Systole”, a producer’s producer beautiful on the surface, but with darkness
track loaded with studio shimmer and nibbling on all sides; hope and despair
crystalline fingerpicking. on an endless see-saw. It’s also a record
Meanwhile, Bear’s drums are frequently of thirtysomething friends, estranged
staged as a lead instrument, whether by both geography and navigating the
embellishing around simple loops adult territory of marriage, divorce and
throughout “Three Rings” or “Losing All parenthood, fighting through frustration
Sense” or leading the charge through and separation to find the common ground
the proggy snags of “Aquarian”. Often, that once and still exists. It’s political and
his percussion skitters anxiously with personal – democracy functioning at its
sporadic 16th notes, in the style of Phil messiest yet most idealistic, buttressed by
Selway’s most paranoiac patterns, the simple but ever-elusive act of listening
knocking any pastoral vibes off-centre in and trusting each other.

how to buy...

the road to… painted ruins

Horn Of Plenty
KaNiNE, 2004
Starting out as
Edward Droste’s
home recording
project, Grizzly
Bear’s debut is aeons away from
the lush group sound they’d later
develop. Raw and demo-like,
layers of vocals compete with
hisses, clicks and occasional
distant drums overdubbed by
Christopher Bear. Compare
TOM HINES
Grizzly Bear’s album history to date
Yellow House
WaRP, 2006
The now four-
piece Grizzly Bear
huddled in the
Cape Cod house
of Droste’s mother and drafted the
blueprint for their mature sound.
It’s saturated with domestic
warmth – hymnal singing, dusty
patches of piano, banjo and
woodwinds, nocturnal “don’t wake
the neighbours” percussion.
Veckatimest
WaRP, 2009
The band’s next
big step stretched
their sound to
widescreen ratios,
with baroque song structures,
weaponised full-band harmonies
and arrangements for strings
and chorus by composer Nico
Muhly. Indeed, there’s something
symphonic about how the songs
use loud/soft dynamics here,
Shields
WaRP, 2012
Grizzly Bear’s
fourth record split
the difference
between the last
two, returning to the “Yellow
House” to record and streamlining
the rich aesthetic they’d mined on
Veckatimest. As it sacrificed some
of the grandeur and chose a more
measured pace, Shields put more
of the focus on the maturing voices

“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

20 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

 new albums

Q&a
edward Droste and
Christopher bear
on Grizzly Bear’s
collaborative method
Why did this record take so long
to come together?
DROSTE: I think it was partially in
response to the stop-start thing that
happened on the last record, where we
were kind of pushing ourselves to do it,
and as a result, most of the songs that
we did during that period ended up
being B-sides or not making the cut. We
really learned from that experience and
said, ‘Let’s wait until everyone’s all on
the same page and everyone’s feeling
recharged and ready,’ and it just ended
up taking a little longer this time.
BEaR: At that point, we still kept it pretty
loose and just started passing demo
ideas and small little snippets back and
forth in a pretty casual way.
Since the four of you were
spread out around the country,
you spent some time sharing
ideas as files over a shared
internet folder; how did that
influence the process?
DROSTE: I think it was just a really good
way to get the ball rolling. Even when we
were all in the same city, we would go off
on these two- or three-person retreats
and we’d email things over to each other,
way to be like, there are
ideas happening, let’s
put it out there.
How did you
get from those
scraps of ideas to
the songs on the
album? When do
you know a song
is ready?
DROSTE: Most of the
songs on the record
did have moments
where we didn’t really
know whether it would
actually make it.
Usually what happens
is one person comes
up with some sort of
reinvention of it, or a
new flavour to it, or a
new ending outro, and
then suddenly everyone
really gets it. So you sort
of slowly see the songs
get to that point one by
one. The more of those
that come, it shows that
everyone’s jumping
into a track and giving
it their all. When people
come in and give it their
Bear necessity:
“We’d email
own flavour and put it on its head in a
way that you didn’t quite expect it to in
things over to
each other” the beginning, that’s when we know the
song’s really going to go somewhere.
it sounds like there are more
loops and samples on this
record, like on “Three Rings”
– was that the result of the
original idea sharing?
BEaR: Generally, we’re trying to push
and try new things that we haven’t been
able to do before, or use new sounds, and
I think that’s always exciting for us. On
“Three Rings”, that was just a percussion
idea that I had done and it got looped
and Ed and Chris sort of used that as a
jumping-off point for a song. That was
one of those things that was a very, very
small thread of an idea meant to be sort
of used as a tool; we ended up using
some things like that all around.
Most of the band has relocated
to California since the last
“There’s a lot of ideas
and perspective, and
we all have different
tastes and vibes”
record – how did that affect the
writing and recording?
BEaR: We all spent a good, large chunk
of our lives living in New York, and felt
for various reasons like it was the time
for all of us to try something different.
Out here I feel less of a grind – I’m just
still exploring and amazed by this place
that feels very different to me. We’ve
talked about that sense of adventure and
excitement about living in a new place,
and maybe subconsciously some of that
comes through in the music. Though we
certainly didn’t set out to make a record
with a California sound [laughs].
DROSTE: It’s sort of like when people ask
how did the political atmosphere affect
the album. We’re not usually a band
to, in the lyrics at least, overtly discuss
topical matters and write very literal
lyrics about them. It’s like how you can
find pieces of politics within the lyrics –
you can maybe find pieces of a California
feel that seep their way in, but we weren’t
necessarily consciously thinking to
ourselves, let’s make this sound sunny
or something like that.
What’s good and bad about
having such a democratic band?
DROSTE: We’re constantly challenging
each other and pushing each other to be
the best we can be. There’s just a lot of
ideas and perspective, and we all have
different tastes and vibes, so it sounds
like us, but I think we’re always pushing
each other to do new things.
The disadvantage is that if it’s a
democracy, sometimes things you really
love fall to the wayside, or it can be a little
slower. But it’s worth it in the long run to
have everyone excited and contributing,
it makes playing live much more fun
because everyone’s into it, and it also
makes for better albums, because you’ve
got four very strong opinions. We are all
very critical, in a nice way, of what we’re
making, so a lot of stuff hits the chopping
block for good reason.
There’s a lot of attention on the
early-2000s New York indie-
rock scene right now, including
the oral history Meet Me In The
Bathroom, where you all appear.
What does it feel like to look
back on those days now?
DROSTE: It was a really fun time to
be there and to be making music
surrounded by tons of people. I
remember going to early Yeah Yeah
Yeahs and Liars shows in Brooklyn
and feeling this really cool energy. It
felt great to be there and have so many
amazing musicians around; it felt really
supportive in the people we worked with
and collaborated with. Now I go back and
no-one’s there, a lot of them are here [in
California]; it’s funny bumping into Dave
Longstreth at the supermarket. But I’m so
TOM HINES

so it was almost the same as when we all

lived in New York. But this was a good
CHRiSTOPHER BEaR glad to have been there at that time.
INTERVIEW: ROB MITCHUM

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 21

 new albumS
Randy Newman:
“Mr trump, my
dick’s bigger
than your dick”
RANDY NEWMAN
Dark Matter
NONESUCH
8/10
Uniting sardonic gospel songs with
complex orchestral scores. By John Lewis
S
ince the early 1980s, Randy
newman’s day job has been
writing orchestral scores
for big Hollywood movies.
Some might feature the
occasional knockabout song
– like “You’ve Got A Friend
in Me” from Toy Story or “if i Didn’t Have
You” from Monsters Inc – but newman’s
primary role is to provide detailed, time-
coded, instrumental underscores that
bring the visuals to life.
These soundtracks have always been
PAMeLA SPRINGSTeeN
kept quite separate from newman’s
increasingly rare, once-a-decade studio
albums, where his croaky, sardonic
vignettes are usually backed by an ornery
barroom band, but Dark Matter finally sees
22 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
him uniting those two professions. Here
each satirical sketch is lavishly arranged
like a miniature film score, with multiple
characters, shifting points of view and
dramatic lurches in musical style. earlier
newman tracks – like the Brechtian “A
Piece Of The Pie” (on 2008’s Harps And
Angels) or the episodic paean to Karl Marx
“The World isn’t Fair” (on 1999’s Bad Love)
– have attempted this, but none were as
ambitious as anything on this album.
The opener, “The Great Debate”, is an
eight-minute comic opera that imagines
a latterday Scopes Monkey Trial between
a panel of scientists and representatives
from every
christian
denomination.
it’s filled with
sly musical and
rhetorical gags:
when a physicist
is asked to explain
“dark matter”,
the underscore
is replaced by a
series of spooky,
discordant sci-fi
flourishes. “Just a
moment, sir,” says
the judge to the hapless scientist. “Do
yourself a favour and use our music/Your
music is making people sick.” After each
scientific argument is ridiculed by gospel-
singing believers, the characters in the
song turn on “Randy Newman” himself
(“A self-described atheist and communist”)
for creating a strawman argument.
Throughout the album, the melodies
stop and start like film scores: they change
key, tempo, time signature and even
musical genre to suit the flow of the story.
“Brothers” imagines a conversation in the
White House between John F Kennedy and
his brother Bobby in 1961, lurching from a
discussion of the Washington Redskins’
notorious refusal to sign black players
to the imminent Bay Of Pigs invasion
(a hawkish Bobby is overruled by Jack,
whose only interest in cuba is his love for
the singer celia cruz). “Putin” is a broader
satire, a bombastic, cossack-themed
stomp in praise of the Russian chief (“He
can power a nuclear reactor/From the left
side of his brain”).
The elaborate arrangements continue
even on the more orthodox songs. “Sonny
Boy” is a jaunty ragtime number where
the veteran Tennessee bluesman Sonny
Boy Williamson (1914-1948) narrates
 new albumS

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

closer without 7 She Chose Me

8 On The Beach
P26
P28
THE fAll
DAVID RAWlINGS
P30 NICK HEYWARD
choking up 9 Wandering Boy

the true story of how his name, identity
and songs were stolen by a Mississippi
bluesman (1912-1965). “He’s the one who
went to England/Tried to teach those
English boys the blues,” howls the original
Sonny, lamenting that he’s now the “only
bluesman in heaven”. “On The Beach” is a
piece of Hawaiian-tinged exotica, with a
nod to Van Dyke Parks, about a well-to-do
high-school dropout who elects to spend
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
father searching for his missing son. After on Morrissey’s glum seaside postcard
a middle-eight where he remembers the “every Day is Like Sunday” strikes a
five-year-old boy “laughing like a maniac/ bum note between worthy reworkings
Shining in the sun like gold/He was afraid of Bob Dylan, PJ Harvey, Portishead
of nothin’ then”, the song drops two and more. Stephen DaLton
semitones for a hymnal ending. “I hope
he’s warm and I hope he’s dry/And that a AVEY TARE
stranger’s eye is a friendly eye.” You’d need
Eucalyptus
DOMINO
a heart of stone to sit through all three
minutes without choking up. 5/10
Undercooked meditations from

Q&A animal Collective alumnus

Randy Newman: “I don’t
think I’ve got any better as
a songwriter in 50 years”
Do you see this as your first
full fusion of songs and film
scores? Well, all these songs soak
up an orchestra pretty well. It was
what they needed. But in some ways,
it’s similar to my first LP from 1968.
At the time it seemed like there was
just me, Van Dyke Parks, and maybe
Ry Cooder, who made music like
we’d never heard The Rolling Stones.
We were the only guys not using a
fucking drum! And part of me still
thinks using a drum is cheating. There
are other ways of making pop music.
Do the film scores and the
songs come from different
parts of the brain? Definitely.
I don’t think I’ve got any better as
a songwriter in 50 years, but I am
much better at the orchestral stuff.
But they do inform each other. The
arrangements creep into the songs,
and help me manipulate audiences,
particularly with the tearjerkers.
With film scores, I like a tune. A lot of
soundtracks just about do the job
without one, but I need a line, a thread.
You give yourself a hard time
in “The Great Debate”… Haha.
I’m giving away what I do, which is
to create strawman arguments.
That’s a real career-ender! But yeah,
I definitely do what I’m accused of
doing in that song. I create characters
as objects of ridicule: “He doesn’t
believe anything he has you say,
nor does he want us to believe
anything you say.” Yup.
Some people might have
expected a song about Trump
here… I did write one, just for the hell
of it, but it was just too vulgar. It was
all “my dick’s bigger than your dick”.
My way into it was to come at it from
a female point of view – like it was
Ivanka having a dig at Daddy. But
the subject is too sore to get into.
INTERVIEW: JOHN LEWIS
The Animal
collective man’s
second album is
described as “an
electroacoustic
movement through
leaves, rocks and dust”, but feels
stuck in a mud pit. The new age
sprinkles of opener “Season High”
sets a tone for an album that, across
15 tracks, would feel like a slog for a
B-sides collection. There are grenade-
flash moments of intrigue, as on the
hypnotic “Ms Secret”, but the bulk
of it is loaded with sketches of ideas.
even as meditative exploration it
feels too busy to sink into; the result
is a disjointed, jarring mix of washy
atmospherics, bleary electronics and
half-baked songs. DanIeL DYLan WRaY

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 23

 new albums
DaviD BaRBE
10th Of Seas
ORaNgE TwiN
8/10
Georgia producer and former
Sugar bassist steps up to the mic
with his third solo album
A fixture on the
Athens, Georgia,
music scene since
the 1980s, David
Barbe is best known
as a producer for
the Drive-By Truckers, Deerhunter
and other local and national acts.
10th Of Seas is only his third solo
album, yet it’s a confidently varied
and vivid effort: “Why You Gotta
Make It So Hard?” recalls the weirdo
pop of the Elephant 6 collective,
while “We’re All Here” revives the
distressed college rock of the city’s
defining documentary, 1987’s Inside/
Out. Drawing from every corner of
Athens lore, Barbe crafts a ragged
strain of Southern rock that is
both idiosyncratic and deeply
civic-minded. STEPHEN DEUSNER
BORiS
Dear
SaRgENT HOUSE
8/10
Japanese doom-rock institution
celebrate 25 years of existence
Alongside Sunn O)))
and Earth, Boris are
leading lights of a
small subgenre of
metal groups taking
Black Sabbath’s slow
and sludgy template and distilling it
into new concentrations of heaviness.
After LPs like Pink and Attention
Please, which intermingled Boris’
churning guitars with aspects of
shoegaze and J-pop, Dear feels like a
refresh to their core sound – you can
almost see the amplifiers tremble as
“Deadsong” and “Kagero” deploy their
depth-charge riffs. But Boris’ trump
card is their unlikely gracefulness.
“Beyond”, featuring vocals from
guitarist Wata, achieves a drifting,
beautiful desolation that many of
their peers lack.
LOUIS PATTISON
DECOSTa BOyCE
Electrick Soul
viNTEDgE
6/10
Stevenage soul boy serves up
retro-schooled R&B
Following some “poor
managerial choices”
in the past, behold
the debut proper from
this respected London
session-scener, who
has supported the likes of Mica Paris,
Beverley Knight, Texas and Roachford.
That CV will give you a decent idea
MASAYOSHI SUKITA
of what’s on offer here: poppish soul,
with a classic vibe. Boyce’s voice is a
fluid, flexible instrument, defined by
its warm highs, and he’s buttressed
by sharp musicianship and squelchy,
24 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
DaviD BaRBE
Songwriter, producer, teacher,
multi-instrumentalist…
D
avid Barbe is always
writing songs, but he’s
usually too busy to actually
record them. It took him seven
years to make his latest solo
album, 10th Of Seas, a set of
beautifully abrasive, sharply
inventive, occasionally humorous
Southern pop songs that nod to
nearly every phase of Athens,
Georgia, music lore.
For 30 years he’s been a key figure
in that scene, playing in numerous
bands (including the BBQ Killers),
producing nearly every Drive-By
Truckers album, and teaching
classes at the University Of
post-hip-hop production moments.
The spirits of Stevie, the Isleys and
Sly Stone are invoked repeatedly:
“No Holding Back” and “Good Music”
typify a set of generous grooves,
tailor-made for summer.
MARk BENTLEy
aLEX CaMERON
Forced witness
SECRETLy CaNaDiaN
8/10
Australian songwriter’s lounge
act gets serious
It’s never clear quite
how straight to take
Alex Cameron, who
released his debut,
Jumping The Shark,
in character as a
washed-up lounge singer and now
claims to be a former legal investigator.
Ignoring the relationship between
tongue and cheek, Forced Witness
is a lovely album of ’80s-ish pop,
using synth and sax to find the
space between Springsteen and
the Bunnymen. “Strangers Kiss” is
a sublime duet with Angel Olsen,
the witty “True Lies” updates “Lola”
for the internet age, while “Marlon
Brando” even gets away with the
extensive use of bongos.
PETER WATTS
I’m
new
here
Georgia Music Business Program.
“Even though I would think
about making a new album
during that seven years,” he
says, “I couldn’t create the
headspace while devoting my
creative energy to making dozens
of other ones, which I love as much
as my own albums.”
When he finally set aside time at
his Chase Park Transduction studio,
he played every instrument himself.
“The harder I drove the gear, the
better it sounded to me. And not
just distorting guitars. Drums, piano,
vocals – pretty much everything on
there is being pushed in some way.
My associate producer heard it and
said it sounded like I had just ‘dialled
a lot more personality into it’. That
phrase became our mantra.”
INTERVIEW: STEPHEN DEUSNER
CORNELiUS
MELLOw wavES
ROSTRUM
7/10
Tokyo production virtuoso
returns after 11 years
Though 2006’s
Sensuous suggested
Keigo Oyamada was
already softening
with age, he has, as
his sixth album’s
title suggests, truly mellowed for this
comeback. Sadly, that means there’s
little of the playful invention of 1997’s
astonishing Fantasma, but imaginative
details abound, even at these slower
tempos. “If You’re Here” provides a
Keigo
Oyamada,
aka
Cornelius
brittle mix of electronica and jazz,
while “Helix/Spiral” offers similarly
convoluted rhythms. The synth drone
of “Surfing On Mind Wave Pt 2” is
more abstract, but the closing brace of
acoustic guitar tunes, “The Rain Song”
and “Crépescule”, emphasise his
growing restraint. WyNDHAM WALLACE
COTTON MaTHER
wild Kingdom
STaR aPPLE KiNgDOM
8/10
Austin powerpoppers at full throttle
Since reforming
Cotton Mather,
Robert Harrison has
pursued the oblique
strategy of writing a
song based on each
of the I Ching’s 64 hexagrams. Second
instalment Wild Kingdom opens
pointedly with “The Cotton Mather
Pledge”, a wry slice of autobiography
containing the admission “I don’t
know how to quit… I only want a hit”
amid a power-chord tornado. The
LP hurtles along with a calibrated
thrum, intricately arranged, cerebral
rockers like “Better Than A Hit” and
“I Volunteer” calling to mind the
Attractions backing John Lennon.
Addictive stuff – and Harrison isn’t
even halfway through the hexagrams.
BUD SCOPPA
DaPHNi
Fabriclive 93
FaBRiC
8/10
De facto second album from
Caribou’s techno alter ego
As a tribute to the
London nightclub
that helped lure him
onto the dancefloor,
Dan Snaith has used
the occasion of his
debut Fabric mix CD to premiere a set of
brand-new Daphni material. The move
nods to one of his DJ heroes, Ricardo
Villalobos, who did the same thing
with his Fabric mix in 2007, although
Snaith’s take on minimalist dance
music is brighter and more immediate.
Where he does indulge his love of
weird noises and world music samples,
they’re always housed within a crisp
rhythmic structure. Caribou-esque
melodic fragments abound, bathed
in the joy that radiates from pumping,
disco-driven anthems “Vs” and the
climactic “Fly Away”. SAM RICHARDS

THE waR ON DRUgS
a Deeper Understanding
aTLaNTiC
8/10
Granduciel admits a little more light. By Jason Anderson
IN the songs of Adam
Granduciel, it can feel
like it’s always 3am.
His lyrics contain just
as many references to
darkness – both literal
and figurative – as
they do to his desires to find a way out or
maybe just get a little rest. But clearly The
War On Drugs’ main man is used to the
state of mind that typically accompanies
the wee hours, which is not so surprising
given his reputation for painstaking
perfectionism. Among his other enemies
of sleep are the feelings of anxiety and
isolation that he expressed so starkly in
the most dimly lit passages of Lost In The
Dream, the Philadelphia band’s moving,
mesmerising and much-lauded third
album that hogged the top spot in best-
of-year lists (including Uncut’s) in 2014.
Whichever inner demon deserves
the credit, it puts a long stretch of highway
in between him and the dawn’s early light.
Sure enough, A Deeper Understanding
opens with the first of several new tracks
that situate Granduciel back in the time and
place he knows so well. In “Up All Night”,
new albums
his band’s continuing rise in fortunes
(including a new deal with Atlantic) and
his own romance with actress Krysten
SLEEVE NOTES Ritter of Jessica Jones and Breaking Bad
fame. Plus there’s all the sunshine he
1 Up All Night encountered after decamping to Los
2 Pain Angeles to record most of A Deeper
3 Holding On
Understanding, even if Granduciel
4 Strangest Thing
5 Knocked Down
recently admitted his reference points
6 Nothing To Find for quintessential LA records are Warren
7 Thinking Of A Zevon and Tonight’s The Night rather than
Place anything that sounds like it has a great tan.
8 In Chains So even though much of the album may
9 Clean Living guide us through more long, dark nights
10 You Don’t Have of the soul, there’s a new brightness at the
To Go edges here, and more warmth, too. While
the sound is as obsessively layered and
Produced by:
Adam Granduciel
textured as ever, it benefits from a beefier
Recorded low end, The War On Drugs having shifted
at: Sonora out of the trebly tendencies that were part
Recorders, and parcel with the shoegazer and psych
LA; Boulevard inspirations more prevalent on Lost In The
Recording, Dream and 2008’s Wagonwheel Blues.
LA; East West, New songs like “Holding On” – more
Hollywood; United proof of Granduciel’s genius at building
Recorders, LA;
a Springsteenian heartland rocker out of
Shawn Everett’s
studio, LA; Electric
such unlikely components as a motorik
Lady, New York; groove and his arsenal of vintage synths
Thump Recording, – benefit from a greater emphasis on band
Brooklyn performances, too. Hunkering down in a
Personnel includes: series of studios in LA and New York with
Adam Granduciel Alabama Shakes engineer Shawn Everett,
(vocals, electric, Granduciel modified his often solitary
acoustic and working methods to create more room
Nashville guitars,
for drummer Charlie Hall, bassist Dave
bass, Mellotron,
PolyKorg, Yamaha
Hartley and keyboardist Robbie Bennett,
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
Arp Solina, Korg
Trident, Prophet
operation. The two multi-instrumentalists
who fill out the band’s regular live lineup,
5, Hammond Jon Natchez and Anthony LaMarca, make
organ, Wurlitzer,
samplers, celeste,
similarly valuable appearances.
The result is some of the richest, most
piano, tape loops,
vibes, harmonica,
compelling and least lonely-sounding
Linn drum, perc), music of Granduciel’s career. And that’s
his agitation has him “spinnin’ round on Dave Hartley true even of songs as beautifully forlorn
the floor”, as he sings in a raspy murmur. (bass, fretless as “Clean Living”, on which Granduciel
A gorgeous exercise in yearning that finds bass, acoustic weathers a troubled time by providing
Granduciel at his most Dylanesque, “Pain” gtr, bk vocals), himself with a pep talk (“I know my way
begins with the instruction to “go to bed Robbie Bennett around it/I’ve been doing alright”) and
now” – alas, there’s more brooding to do. (Prophet 12, a deftly arranged musical setting that
Rhodes, celeste,
In the equally winsome “Clean Living”, he foregrounds Bennett’s Rhodes, Natchez’
Hammond organ,
admits that “Sometimes I’ll lay in the dark/ Baldwin organ,
baritone sax and the singer’s own
Just to see if I can feel a spark.” piano, bk vocals), contributions on piano and harmonica.
At other times, he seems to have a new Anthony LaMarca “Knocked Down” is another expression of
reason to be awake. As he puts it in “Up (electric, slide vulnerability and feeling “beaten up and
All Night”, it’s “some feeling I can’t break”, and acoustic weak” that exudes strength and resilience.
something that’s “glowing” and that he gtr, bk vocals, Elsewhere, The War On Drugs shed
can’t understand. In “Thinking Of A Place” drums), Charlie the more lugubrious tendencies that
– the album’s 14-minute centrepiece, a Hall (drums, sometimes dog them, reaching maximum
percussion, vibes),
haunting, gently shifting reverie of a love cruising speed when the programmed
Jon Natchez
that got lost somewhere near the banks (baritone sax),
beats kick in halfway through “Up All
of the Missouri river – there’s more talk Michael Johnson Night”, a swirl of fuzz and rhythm of a kind
of light creeping in, of “movin’ with the (Arp Odyssey), rarely heard since Andrew Weatherall
moon” and morning arriving to help bust Darren Jesse remixed My Bloody Valentine. Granduciel
up the old ways of feeling and thinking. (drums, perc), sounds just as free of his demons when
He doesn’t necessarily know what to call Michael Bloch he croons a few “woo-hoos” over the
“all these changes I don’t understand”, as (electric rhythm cascading synths of “Nothing To Find”,
he puts it in “Nothing To Find”, one of the gtr), Carter which is to Springsteen’s “Glory Days”
Tanton (acoustic
most immediately engaging new songs. what Lost In The Dream’s “Burning” was
gtr), Meg Duffy
But maybe a guy with his disposition is (slide gtr)
to “Dancing In The Dark”. At times like
too wary to cop to feeling happier, which these, the night that once seemed endless
he has every right to these days given isn’t so long at all.
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 25
 new albums
ANGELO DE AUGUSTINE
Swim Inside The Moon
ASTHMATIC KITTY
8/10
Homemade folk-pop from
Sufjan Stevens protégé
A 24-year-old
suburban Los
Angeleno, De
Augustine makes
lo-fi artisanal folk
with a summer-pop
sharpness. Home-recorded, flooded
with natural reverb, his second
album, after 2014’s Spirals Of Silence,
consists primarily of intricately
constructed acoustic guitar lines
and De Augustine’s soft, high whisper
of a voice. Signed to Sufjan Stevens’
label, it’s possible to discern a gentle
affinity, alongside echoes of José
González, Devendra Banhart and
Sun Kil Moon. A sickly organ creeps
into “More Than You Thought To
Use”, reminiscent of The Beach
Boys, unplugged and at their most
God-struck, while the glorious
“Haze” suggests Nick Drake backing
Jeff Buckley.
Graeme THomSon
DOWNTOWN BOYS
Cost Of Living
SUB POP
7/10
Providence six-piece mix horns
with slogans on powerful third LP
With songs in
Spanish, a female
singer and chaotic
horn section,
Downtown Boys
are no typical
punk band. Locked into the radical
underground – their last album was
called Full Communism – the band dive
into pithy opener “A Wall”, a raging
rejection of physical division, and
get better the longer the album goes
on. Like a cross between X-Ray Spex
and Rage Against The Machine as
reinterpreted via US hardcore, there’s
plentiful anger, but also a hopefulness
on tracks such as “Lips That Bite” or
the sinister “Because You”, one of three
songs part sung in Spanish.
PeTer WaTTS
26 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
Art
Feynman:
outward-
bound
grooves
PAUL DRAPER
Spooky Action
KSCOPE
8/10
Long-delayed debut from former
mansun frontman
Paul Draper started
working on Spooky
Action in 2003 when
Mansun folded.
A decade later, he
revisited old demos
and began pulling together this
growling electro-rock odyssey with
a misanthropic undertone (“Jealousy
Is A Powerful Emotion”; “You Don’t
Really Know Someone Until You Fall
Out With Them”), built on a grand
scale. There are occasional moments
of poppy levity, like the energetic “Feel
Like I Wanna Stay”, but otherwise
this has an impressive heft: “Friends
Make The Worst Enemies” shares the
epic qualities of a Bond theme, while
“Who’s Wearing The Trousers” has a
Krautrock-meets-Pet Shop Boys vibe.
PeTer WaTTS
JUDY DYBLE &
ANDY LEWIS
Summer Dancing
ACID JAzz
8/10
Winsome cross-generational
psych-folk
Dyble’s re-
engagement with
the music business
after decades of
silence continues
in conquering style
here. Teamed with producer and
Weller bassist Lewis, the ex-Fairport
singer dishes up avant-folk with a thin
glaze of psychedelia and gurgles of
electronica on songs that draw their
charm from the contrast between
Dyble’s crisp enunciation and vaguely
experimental settings. “A Net Of
Memories” and “Night Of A Thousand
Hours” are typical of their approach,
pitting folk purity against samples of
radio announcements, ticking clocks
and sleepy synthetic fuzz. Or “No
Words”, a semi-symphonic beauty
that sounds like a softer, more
accessible Nico. rob HuGHeS
EMA
Exile In The Outer Ring
REPUBLIC OF MUSIC
7/10
Grunge-noir snapshots of
darkness on the edge of town
After the vaguely
conceptual digital-
dystopian angst
of her 2014 album
The Future’s Void,
avant-rock singer-
songwriter Erika “EMA” Anderson
drifts further into The Twilight Zone
on Exile…, a techno-grungy journey
through the dysfunctional white
male psyche of suburban America.
Tweaking her voice from fragile ache
on the languid ambient drone ballad
“7 Years” to heavily filtered sexy-sleazy
sneer on buzzsaw blues-punk howlers
such as “Breathalyzer” and “I Wanna
Destroy”, Anderson proves a versatile
gender-fluid mimic. A couple of thin
tracks aside, Exile… is a richly layered
sonic feast slathered in alluringly
discordant noises. It culminates in
“Where The Darkness Begins”, a
cinematic spoken-word audioscape
that is pure David Lynch.
STePHen DaLTon
EVERYTHING
EVERYTHING
A Fever Dream
RCA
6/10
mixed blessings from manchester
maximalists
Aiming for more
cohesion than they
managed on their
three previous
genre-mashing
albums, Everything
Everything still cannot quite contain
their ungainly maximalist overload on
A Fever Dream. Working with producer
James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Depeche
Mode), the Manchester-based quartet
muster more rock muscle than usual
here, hitting agreeable heights of
soul-stirring melancholy on the
Coldplay-esque electro-rock lament
“Put Me Together” and the shimmering
“Good Shot, Good Soldier”. But
singer Jonathan Higgs is sometimes
more liability than asset, piling up
arch Alex Turner-ish wordplay in a
strained falsetto over densely packed
but graceless patchworks of rock,
alt.pop and glitchy electronica.
Commendable ambitions, uneven
results. STePHen DaLTon
Everything
Everything
THE FALL
NEW FACTS EMERGE
CHERRY RED
8/10
mark e Smith and co get heavy (and
weird) on their 32nd studio album
Musicians usually
mellow by the time
they reach 60; but, of
course, Mark E Smith
has always denied
being one of those.
Here, on his 32nd studio album with
The Fall, he’s louder and stranger than
ever, growling his way through 11
songs that mix stomping glam rackets
with lumbering, Rage Against The
Machine grooves. Lighter moments,
such as “Gibbus Gibson”, show Smith
can still ‘sing’ à la vintage Fall, but
the most striking cut is “Couples Vs
Jobless Mid-30s”, a multi-part suite
of madness. “Says we need more
sackings!” Smith seems to sneer. Some
things never change. Tom PInnoCK
ART FEYNMAN
Blast Off Through
The Wicker
WESTERN VINYL
8/10
Sun-soaked afro-psych from
cosmic Californian
Fans of Ariel Pink,
Sinkane and mild
hallucinogens would
do well to seek out
this eye-opening,
vibes-heavy debut
by shamanic newcomer Feynman. At
times, it is like opening a time capsule
from 1982 to find a tape of Arthur
Russell zoning out in Addis Ababa:
with the powerful opening trio of
“Eternity In Pictures”, “Slow Down”
and “Can’t Stand It”, Feynman joins
the dots between kosmische and King
Tubby, expressing his anxiety over
outward-bound grooves and lilting,
twisting melody, delivered with
casual grace. PIerS marTIn
THE FOCUS GROOP
Stop Motion Happening
With The Focus Groop
GHOST BOX
7/10
Quixotic musical collage from
Ghost box co-founder
Graphic designer
Julian House’s
artwork has graced
sleeves by the likes of
Broadcast, Oasis and
Primal Scream. His
music as The Focus Group – or Groop,
as here – feels a lot like his design work:
a collage of blurry textures and unusual
sonic ephemera, chewed-up library
music, snatches of percussion and
snippets of speech. Atmospheric and
apparently structureless, “Village Of
Numbers” and “The Hazy Whom” are
drifting Sgt Pepper dreamscapes that
long to be accompanied by the swirl of
a liquid light show. For all their warm
fuzziness, these gentle fantasias are
strangely compelling. LouIS PaTTISon
newmusic
childhood
universal high
album of the month
arcade fire
everything now dizzee rascal
28/07/2017 raskit
21/07/2017 21/07/2017

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
americana
Album Of The Month
DAVID RAWLINGS
Poor David’s Almanack
ACONY
8/10
Gillian Welch’s other half puts the load right on him
For all their charms, the arrival of
each new David Rawlings album
inevitably poses an awkward
question: why does it exist, when
a new Gillian Welch album does
not? Since 2011’s extraordinary
The Harrow & The Harvest, six years have passed
in which Welch’s studio energies seem to have
been concentrated on reversing the polarities
of her partnership with Rawlings.
In democratic terms it makes sense, given the
collaborative nature of all their work. Welch co-
writes five of the ten songs here and contributes
harmonies, at the very least, to all of them. Welch
makes for a brilliant backing singer, but it’s hard
not to speculate what the terrifically plaintive
“Airplane” might have sounded like if she’d
taken the lead, especially given its affinities with
The Harrow & The Harvest’s “The Way It Will Be”.
Perhaps the answer lies in something Rawlings
told Uncut in 2015. “Gillian’s voice has such a
great quality that the more you strip away around
it the better it sounds, which is why we’ve always
made very sparse records,” he said. “But when
americana round-up
Texan maverick micah p
Hinson returns in September
with …Presents The Holy
Strangers, out on Full Time
Hobby. A self-styled “modern
folk opera”, it examines
themes of love, betrayal and
death as it charts the tale of
a family during wartime.
Also due in September is
Spokeswoman Of The
Bright Sun, the latest from
ex-Jayhawks man mark olson. In tandem
with his Norwegian wife, ingunn ringvold,
and joined by a small group of players,
Olson taps into folk-rock tradition while
recalling the bluegrass of his youth. And
HENRY DILTZ
look out for two distinct releases that
month from John McCauley’s mercurial
deer Tick. The Rhode Island quartet explore
28 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
I’m singing, it’s back to, ‘OK, how do we present
this strange instrument?’” Consequently, Poor
David’s Almanack betrays a keenness to flesh out
their aesthetic: Bowie vet Ken Scott engineers,
and a more elaborate sound design incorporates
strings on the aforementioned “Airplane”.
In that context, Rawlings is a fine frontman,
an amiable convenor of sessions where Brittany
Haas’ fiddle takes the spotlight as often as his
own discreet virtuosity on the guitar, where
Dawes and the Old Crow Medicine Show drop
in, and where Welch can add “hands and feet”
percussion as well as drums. That old-time,
good-time vibe can occasionally dip into
hokeyness, as the album title signals, but slower
numbers like “Lindsey Button” and “Put ’Em Up
Solid” are where the group excels. As Rawlings
and Welch’s vocals intertwine with those of
Willie Watson, there’s a hymnal quality to the
sound and a communitarian warmth; a desire,
explicit or otherwise, to pay homage to The
Band, another act who understood the enduring
possibilities of a collective approach to roots
music. JOHN MULVEY
rootsy folk on Deer Tick Vol 1,
contrasted with a set of
punky garage-rockers on,
yep, Deer Tick Vol 2. There’s
still time to grab tickets for
the Southern Fried Festival in
Perth, Scotland, which salutes
Micah P its 10th anniversary on July
Hinson
27–30 with a bill that includes
nick lowe, rodney crowell,
chuck prophet, angaleena
presley and loudon
wainwright. The only downside is that it
coincides with Mekonville in Suffolk, where
Jon langford and co celebrate The mekons’
40th birthday with a series of gigs over three
days, with old and new lineups. Highlight of
the weekend is likely to be a performance of
last year’s Chivalrous Amoekons songs with
special guest will oldham. ROb HUGHES
CHRIS FORSYTH & THE
SOLAR MOTEL BAND
Dreaming In The Non-Dream
NO QUARTER
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
furious forward momentum of the title track
– a needlepoint funk joust with keyboardist
Shawn E Hansen that ranks as one of
Forsyth’s best jams. JOHN MULVEY
FOSTER THE PEOPLE
Sacred Hearts Club
COLUMBIA
6/10
Glossy, bricolage pop on LA Grammy
winners’ third
It’s not the kink in the
tail of FTP’s impeccably
groomed pop that makes
them so intriguing (chart
queens Lorde and Halsey
beat them at “odd”), but
rather their unembarrassed, first-level
readability, which is such that you begin to
suspect fiendish subversion – especially
on the teen-friendly “Sit Next To Me”. That
thought, though, is dispelled as they embark
on a rampage through synth/psychedelic
pop and electronic R&B, swiping right at
Phoenix, MGMT, The Weeknd, Tame Impala
and Hudson Mohawke. It’s “Loyal Like Sid
& Nancy” that takes the composite biscuit,
mixing Prince-ly falsetto with trap beats and
synthetic brass. SHARON O’CONNELL
GHOSTPOET
Dark Days And Canapés
PIAS
7/10
Fourth album from rap realist
Obaro Ejimiwe
distinguished himself
early on with a lyrical
approach different from
the braggadocio of most
hip-hop; colloquial and
with an introspection that matched his
homespun beats. Dark Days And Canapés
feels both bleaker and more robust than
that early work, Eno collaborator Leo
Abrahams assembling improvised strings
and malevolent clouds of guitar. “Immigrant
Boogie” addresses the refugee crisis from the
perspective of a stormy crossing, while “End
Times” gropes around in a fog of depression.
But Ejimiwe is sure to balance gloominess
with a sly humour: “Ain’t left the city in
months,” he sings on “Freakshow”, “guess
Westfield knows what I want.” LOUIS PATTISON
newmusic
lana del rey
lust for life
paul heaton
& jacqui abbott the fall
21/07/2017 crooked calypso new facts emerge
21/07/2017 28/07/2017

alice cooper
paranormal
28/07/2017

david rawlings
poor david’s almanack
11/08/2017

oneohtrix point never

good time: soundtrack
paul draper (mansun) 11/08/2017
spooky action
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
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valerian and thets: soundtrack george thorogoo
thousand plane party of one
d
04/08/2017 04/08/2017

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 neW AlbumS
SCOTT GILMORE
Subtle Vertigo
INTERNATIONAL FEEL
7/10
Retro synth-funk meets
high-class chillout
Mark Barrott’s
excellent recent
albums Sketches
From A Small Island
(Vols 1 & 2) were an
attempt to reclaim
Balearic chillout music from the
gurning hordes. That mission
continues here, with a new signing to
his International Feel label. Not that
Scott Gilmore, a resident of LA’s San
Fernando Valley, has ever been to
Ibiza, nor strolled down many of the
European boulevards and forest trails
he attempts to evoke on this imaginary
travelogue. It means that his mellow
homages to pastoral Krautrock and
’60s exotica sound faintly, intriguingly
off, Gilmore’s use of primitive synths
and reel-to-reel tape lending them
a woozy sheen that recalls fellow
California dreamer Mild High Club.
SAM RICHARDS”
HARALD GROSSKOPF &
EBERHARD KRANEMANN
Krautwerk
BUREAU B
7/10
Heady cosmic vibrations from cult
Krautronica veterans
Given their shared
lineage in the original
Krautrock scene, it
seems strange that
Harald Grosskopf
and Eberhard
Kranemann only met for the first
time last year. Kranemann’s musical
CV includes brief spells in both the
embryonic Kraftwerk and Neu!, while
Grosskopf drummed with numerous
left-field German icons including
Klaus Schulze. Parts of their pleasingly
varied debut collaboration sound like
Kraftwerk might have done had they
maintained their early long-haired
stoner ethos into the era of Eno-ish,
ambient-dub soundscapes. But there
are shades of Yello too in wry spoken-
WAYNE KENNAN
word electro-throbbers like “Midnight
In Dusseldorf Berlin” and the punchy,
bustling, rhythmically muscular
“Be Cool”. STEPHEN DAlToN
Kranemann
and Grosskopf:
united at last
I’m
neW
Here
SCOTT
GILMORE
A Valley boy’s Euro vision
t can be tempting to
I draw parallels
between a piece of
music and the environment
in which it was created. But
Scott Gilmore, prisoner of LA’s
endless suburban sprawl,
suggests that approach can
be misleading.
“I do not find this
environment to be inspiring,”
he states unequivocally, of his
San Fernando Valley home.
“Many days I’d like to go into
the city and be stimulated by
something unexpected, or
go into nature to relax, but
the sheer distance keeps me
in the studio.”
There, he employs vintage
synthesisers and gently
twanged guitars to embark on
JAMES HEATHER
Stories From Far Away
On Piano
AHEAD OF OUR TIME
7/10
Fragrant debut from publicist
turned pianist
James Heather is best
known to hacks as the
genial head of press
at Ninja Tune. Taught
to compose as a child
by his grandparents,
for this first collection Heather draws
on news stories for inspiration, yet
regardless of the nature of the event
– “MHope” muses on the missing
Malaysian Airlines plane, “Teardrop
Tattoo” stems from a serious case of
mistaken identity – each bittersweet
piece is rendered with tasteful
simplicity, as if he’s scoring a sad
French film.
PIERS MARTIN
voyages of the imagination.
A key track on his debut album
Subtle Vertigo is “Europe”,
written before he’d ever
visited that continent. “While
recording it, my mind was
filled with daydreams of rolling
hills, rivers and a cabin off in
the woods with electronic
musical instruments.”
Naturally, Cluster are a big
influence, along with Eno,
Kraftwerk, Stereolab and
“Bach’s use of polyphony”.
Gilmore has since travelled
to Iceland, Germany and
Romania, although he’s
returned to the Valley
– a place he finds, if not
inspirational, then at least
motivational. “The title of the
album refers to this sense of
unease that I experience living
in a vast suburb, and it is this
experience that pushes me
back to the studio where I find
joy in the act of creation.”
SAM RICHARDS
PAUL HEATON &
JACqUI ABBOT
Crooked Calypso
VIRGIN EMI
7/10
Smart, subversive MoR
No-one writes with
such wince-inducing
accuracy about their
target audience
as this former
Beautiful South
pairing. These are songs addressed
to middle-aged alcoholics on their
second or third marriages, be they
lovelorn romantics, adulterers or
“The Fat Man” whose faceless body
features on news footage about
obesity. The Philly disco of “He Wants
To” is an amusing warning about
predatory men, while “Blackwater
Banks” is a hymn to Ireland to rival
“Fairytale Of New York”.
JoHN lEWIS
GABy HERNANDEz
Spirit Reflection
MR BONGO
8/10
Delirious samba-electronica
from los Angeles
This is a holiday
fling of a record.
Chilled and tempting
as a beachside
mojito – and just
as potent – Gaby
Hernandez’s third solo effort blends
folk, jazz, Cubano beats, on-the-
breeze melodies and the swaying
pulse of late-night electronica. Spirit
Reflection’s featured musicians
include Kamasi Washington, Dexter
Story and Ninja Tune artist Carlos
Niño, and this multi-textured album
demands consumption in one long,
uninterrupted session. “Entranced”
entrances, “Messy Love” drifts
seductively, while “My Baobab Tree”
is a sun-baked ear-worm. MARK BENTlEy
NICK HEywARD
woodland Echoes
GLADSOME HAwK
8/10
Former Haircut 100 heartthrob
in pastoral pop mode
Even when fronting
Haircut 100, Nick
Heyward’s blue-eyed
funk always seemed
to turn away from the
big city and instead
relish the semi-rural suburbia of south
London. Here, on his first solo album
since 2001, he’s gone full pastoral, the
birdsong and countryside imagery
matching the dreamy, sunny major-
sevenths. “Baby Blue Sky” and the
idyllic “Perfect Sunday Sun” invoke
Teenage Fanclub; the ragtime guitar
of “Who” and the jazz waltz “Love Is
The Key By The Sea” recall Beck. But
it’s Paul McCartney whom Heyward
most resembles throughout – both his
cooing tenor voice and his impressive
way with a smart chord change.
JoHN lEWIS
THE ISLEy BROTHERS &
CARLOS SANTANA
Power Of Peace
LEGACy RECORDINGS
7/10
Santana joins the Isleys for a heavy
funk-rock summit
Santana and his
drumming missus,
Cindy Blackman,
head up this 12-track
collection of R&B
covers (Marvin, Stevie,
Bacharach, etc), but this is an album
dominated by the two remaining Isley
Brothers. Ronald Isley’s distinctive
tenor groan sounds particularly good
on slowies such as “Mercy Mercy Me”
and Leon Thomas’ “Let The Rain Fall
On Me”. Ernie Isley shares axe duties
with Carlos: the pair unite effectively to
transform Willie Dixon’s “I Just Wanna
Make Love To You” into a Led Zep-sized
banger. JoHN lEWIS

qUEENS OF
THE STONE AGE
Villains
MATADOR
8/10
Josh Homme and Mark Ronson make
dance-rock theatre. By Peter Watts
JOSH Homme has
always enjoyed
tweaking the nose
of genre and gender.
It’s why he called his
band Queens Of The
Stone Age, a theatrical
attempt to subvert the macho tendencies
of the hard-rock world. His latest wheeze
is to ask pop heavyweight Mark Ronson to
produce Villains, QOTSA’s seventh album.
It’s similar to the mad logic that resulted in
Elton John (“The only thing missing from
your band is an actual queen,” he told
Homme) appearing on …Like Clockwork,
but the results are far more enjoyable.
Villains is all swinging dance-rock and
atmospheric vulnerability, with Ronson
locking a serious groove to the Queens’
Grimm Brothers gothic architecture. For
much of the propulsive first half of the
album, QOTSA find a surprisingly welcome
balance between Black Sabbath and disco.
Of course, the Queens have always
known how to swing. Even in their
rockiest era there was the swagger of
Rated R’s “Monsters In The Parasol” and
the robot-rock groove of “No One Knows”,
with Homme gradually increasing that
aspect of his band’s sound through
fluctuating lineups and a growing
fondness for synths. With Dean Fertita
joining Homme and Troy Van Leeuwen
around the time of Era Vulgaris, QOTSA
gave us “Battery Acid” and “Turning On
The Screw”, while 2013’s otherwise gloomy
…Like Clockwork featured a couple of
Homme’s danciest numbers yet, a pair of
Bowie-indebted glam-funk floormashers
neW AlbumS
versatile – the only time they stay within
their comfort zone is on “The Evil Is
Landed”, a song that could feature on
almost any album the band has recorded.
Ronson is the only collaborator, and he
emphasises Homme’s more flamboyant
tendencies while embellishing the
sonic palate. He’s there on the synthetic
handclaps of lead single “The Way We
Used To Do” and the English accent
affected by Homme on “Domesticated
Animals”, but most notably through a
shared fondness for disco, glam, bass
and Bowie. Key track is the sleazy, slinky
“Un-Reborn Again”, which uncoils a
chorus that leans on “Heroes” but pinches
its central conceit from “Telegram Sam”
while always remaining true to the QOTSA
vision. Homme’s tongue-in-cheek lyrics
play against a backdrop of synth that
slashes, crawls and basks, while Homme
in the shape of “Smooth Sailing” and the and Troy Van Leeuwen smear guitar
deliciously pervy “If I Had A Tail”.
Homme is a showman, and with Ronson
everywhere like glitter and sand. It’s
quite a ride.
that’s been dialled up to the max. “I like to
dance, man,” he said to explain Ronson’s
presence – the pair met while working on
Among the theatre sit two more
vulnerable moments, when Homme
allows the darkness to hit the foreground.
Lady Gaga’s sweaty “John Wayne” – and
to Homme’s usual lyrical fascinations
“Fortress”, with droning intro weaved from
Moorish rhythms, bridges back to
of sex, drugs and death you can now …Like Clockwork’s downbeat mood
add dancing itself. It forms the theme of but also takes on some of the grungier
party-hard opening track “Feet Don’t Fail elements of old. It requires those QOTSA
Me Now”, all glammy flange and pumping rarities – delicacy and subtlety – with
disco bass, and more obliquely on the Homme making an abrupt shift from
spacey “Domesticated Animals”, a sly smirk to sincerity. It’s a love song, with
SLEEVE NOTES stomper that sees Homme singing, “Get Homme offering support – “If ever your
right up, sit back down, the revolution is fortress caves, you’re always safe in
1 Feet Don’t
Fail Me
one spin round.” Sex is everywhere – “all mine”, he croons. Almost in apology, it’s
dressed up, no-one left to blow”, he winks followed by a polar opposite, the skronky
2 The Way You
from behind a feather boa on the Roxy-like punk of “Head Like A Haunted House”, a
Used To Do
3 Domesticated “Hideaway”, while the electro-funk “The song that’s been sitting round since Era
Animals Way You Used To Do”, an ode to youthful Vulgaris, which sees QOTSA do a great
4 Fortress exertions, is loucheness exemplified. imitation of Weezer and Supergrass via
5 Head Like A While …Like Clockwork sometimes the Oh Sees. The album’s final song,
Haunted House felt a little leaden, Villains flies by. That “Villains Of Circumstance” is cut from
6 Un-Reborn
might be because this is very much a band similar cloth as “Fortress”. It begins with a
Again
7 Hideaway
record – that’s Homme, Van Leeuwen and tunnel of acoustic gloom cutting through
Fertita with Michael Shuman on bass and the ambient sounds, before opening into
8 The Evil Has
Jon Theodore on drums – with no guest a pop-rock anthem. Homme has put aside
Landed
9 Villains Of appearances to dilute the experience. In his dancing shoes to pledge undying love,
Circumstances fact, this is the first QOTSA album since but even here – in the extravagance of the
the debut that doesn’t feature any of Mark lyric and the showtune sensibility – he’s
Produced by: Mark Lanegan, Dave Grohl or Nick Oliveri. very much onstage, pursuing rock theatre
Ronson This version of the band is exceptionally with a wink and a leer.
Recorded at:
United Studios, LA;
Pink Duck Studio,
Burbank, CA
Q&A
Personnel Troy Van Leeuwen: One thing we wanted to
includes: Josh “Musically we can do do as a response to …Like
Homme (voice, anything we want” Clockwork is have more
guitar), Troy of an upbeat record. We
Van Leeuwen When did you start always want the audience to
(guitar, synths, work on Villains? Around get up and dance, and that’s
percussion, August last year we decided another reason we wanted
backing we were just going to be a to work with Mark.
vocals), Dean band, sort it out old school what that means. But he was
Fertita (synths, in the rehearsal room. Mark very respectful to our history What about the two
guitar), Michael [Ronson] came in near the and knows a lot about music slower songs? It’s really
Shuman (bass end as a fresh set of ears. in general. Guitar-wise he delicate for us to venture into
guitar, backing He’s always intrigued me. He had some really interesting that territory; they need to
vocals), Jon also has great hair. techniques. He helped us have the right lyrics or it turns
Theodore (drums, visualise our sonic future. a bit sappy. We’re not usually
percussion) Did he know about a ballad band, but musically
QOTSA? We heard he was How did he help with we can do anything we want.
a fan, but you never know the groove element? INTERVIEW: PETER WATTS
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 31
 new
e album
albums
m
JABU
Sleep Heavy
BLACKEST EVER BLACK
8/10
Sound-system soulboys mint
a minor Bristol classic
Jabu do a lot with a
little. A trio formed
from the ranks of
Bristol’s Young Echo
collective, their music
is a ghostly, minimal
take on R&B and soul informed by
sound-system culture and the muted
crackle of Burial. It would be remiss not
to mention fellow Bristolians Tricky
and Portishead – with the former, Jabu
share an intoxicating sensuality, with
the latter a romantic devastation that
borders on the existential. But there’s
no sense of throwback here. Alex
Rendall’s gasping falsetto runs the
gamut from the pure to the damned,
while “Ona” and “Fool If” wind
together vintage drum machines and
cloudy synths into something wispy
like weed smoke, but heavy as lead.
LOUIS PATTISON
PAUL KELLY
Life Is Fine
CooKINg VINYL
8/10
A Paul Kelly album like Paul Kelly
used to make
For Australians of
a certain age, Paul
Kelly’s albums of
the mid-’80s to early
’90s – specifically,
from 1985’s Post to
1991’s Comedy – possess something
Zen SekiZawa, Steve young
of the Proustian potency that Bruce
Springsteen’s ’70s peak does for
Americans. These are not, however,
the only people who should welcome
Life Is Fine, Kelly’s first orthodox rock
album for a decade (recent diversions
have included a soul rave-up, a
collection of funeral laments and
32 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
Liars’ Angus
Andrew:
wedded to
adventurism
Shakespeare sonnets set to music).
It’s an(other) understated triumph:
“Finally Something Good” and
“Letter In The Rain” are especially
emphatic demonstrations that Kelly
has lost none of his facility for wry
lyricism or deadpan melody.
ANDREW MUELLER
KINg JAMES &
THE SPECIAL MEN
Act Like You Know
SPECIAL MAN INDUSTRIES
6/10
Ace N’awlins dance band
applies fresh coat of paint
to city’s rich legacy
King James & The
Special Men are
among NOLA’s
busiest R&B
neotraditionalists,
ripping through
the classics in various local watering
holes while the horn players moonlight
as in-demand session musicians.
On debut album Act Like You Know,
the nine-piece combo applies its
members’ vast knowledge and
deep feels to a half-dozen originals
penned by singer/guitarist Jim Horn
(a Utah native) in the spirit of his
idols. Unexpected touches such as
the surf-guitar riffs in “Special Man
Paul Kelly:
rock and
wry lyricism
Boogie”, the free-jazz
freakout that climaxes
“The End Is Near” and the
blistering Memphis-style
coda on “Tell Me (What
You Want Me To Do)”
keep the performances
from becoming overly
predictable.
BUD SCOPPA
KoMMoDE
ANALog DANCE
MUSIC
BRILLIANCE
8/10
Fey disco from the other
King Of Convenience
While
musical
partner
Erlend Øye
formed
The
Whitest Boy Alive, released
solo records, DJ mixes and
an Italian single during his
day job’s lengthy hiatuses,
the more reticent Eirik Bøe’s focused
on “architectural psychology”,
waiting 10 years before unveiling his
solo project’s first album. Surprises
are few, but its gentle grooves and
Bøe’s subdued vocals make for an
appealing debut, especially on the
sun-kissed “Fight Or Flight Or Dance
All Night”, with its muted trumpets
and joyful guitar riff. Opener “Shoes”
and “Houses For Sale” are meanwhile
suggestive of a shyer, more thoughtful
Phoenix. WYNDHAM WALLACE
LIARS
TFCF
MUTE
7/10
Album No 8: and then there was one
Angus Andrew
claims his aim with
TFCF was to make
creative decisions
that kept him awake
at night, but it seems
the upset was as much emotional
as artistic. Recorded at home in the
remote Australian bush, it became
a solo effort when other Liars
mainstay Aaron Hemphill withdrew,
and there’s a sadness here seldom
heard before. Acoustic guitar (often
treated) features, alongside synths,
samples and field recordings, but for
all their adventurism, these songs
have structure. Still, diversity rules.
“Ripe Ripe Rot” is tender like The
National and “Cred Woes” suggests a
glam-rock Kraftwerk, while with the
crafty “Cliché Suite”, Andrew has his
deranged, ’70s-prog cake and eats it.
SHARON O’CONNELL
SHELBY LYNNE &
ALLISoN MooRER
Not Dark Yet
SILVER CRoSS/THIRTY TIgERS
7/10
Country siblings finally make
an album together
On their first record
together, Lynne and
Moorer – by now
veterans of both the
country mainstream
and its margins –
cover nine songs ranging from the
usual suspects (the Louvin Brothers,
Merle Haggard) to the unusual (The
Killers, Nick Cave). Their voices blend
beautifully, especially on Dylan’s title
track and Jason Isbell’s “The Color Of
A Cloudy Day”, but they caterwaul
awkwardly on an unintentionally silly
version of Nirvana’s “Lithium”. Their
lone co-write, “Is It Too Much”, points
toward a solid set of originals on the
horizon. STEPHEN DEUSNER
MAMMÚT
Kinder Versions
BELLA UNIoN
7/10
Brooding Icelanders channel
their most famous forebears
Icelandic bands need
not necessarily elicit
comparisons with
The Sugarcubes,
and that’s true even
of acts that include
the grown children of the band’s
members (see: Fufanu, Sindri Eldon
And The Ways). Nevertheless, it’s hard
not to hear traces of Life’s Too Good in
Mammút’s expansive and occasionally
skronky rock songs. Then there’s
the breathy, elastic vocal style of
frontwoman Katrína Mogensen, who
has her own connection to Iceland’s
foremost musical export since her
father played with Björk and Einar
Örn in the post-punk band Kukl. With
Mogensen singing entirely in English
for the first time, Kinder Versions offers
up a stormy swell of sound that’s
intermittently compelling even if
Mammút’s wilder instincts can seem
tethered down by plodding rhythms.
JASON ANDERSON
MAN DUo
orbit
KAYA KAYA
7/10
Exotic electronic pop collaboration,
from Finland
The two men of Man
Duo are Jaakko Eino
Kalevi and Long-Sam,
a pair of musician-
producers from
Helsinki who have
individually impressed with their solo
takes on dreamy, synthetic pop. Orbit
sees their shared musical predilections
slide further into focus, “Ile’s Dream”
and “Tanyan Teema” drawing on funk,
electronic Krautrock and the soulful
end of yacht rock to create vistas of
romantic yearning and beautiful
melancholy. It’s never better than
“The Middle”, a glittering soul strut
with a smouldering vocal from guest
star Sean Nicholas Savage that recalls
’80s Prince – although “The Boss”, a
languid closer with Jaakko Eino Kalevi
adding wails of burnished saxophone,
comes close. LOUIS PATTISON
 BLU-RAY
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 neW
e albums
s
ARCADE FIRE
Everything Now
COLUMBIA
8/10
Canadians’ fifth parties on the edge of the abyss. By Graeme Thomson
The bulk of Arcade
Fire’s fifth album
was recorded in New
Orleans, and mixed in
the city at the precise
moment when the
libidinous festivities
of Mardi Gras collided with the dawning of
an era of unprecedented political cynicism
in the US. Little wonder, then, that
Everything Now bristles with the humid,
slightly hysterical energy of a party thrown
at the edge of the abyss. It’s a record that
makes maximum yield from competing
tensions: old world traditions and new
world technology; limitless leisure and
endless angst; despair and hope; simple
tunes and complex emotions.
Created in the band’s own Boombox
Studios in the Crescent City, with
further recording in Paris and Montreal,
Everything Now feels like an urgent rebirth.
The deliberately sprawling Reflektor was
heavily influenced by haitian rara, racine
and Caribbean rhythms. Something of
that flavour is retained here – “Peter Pan”
is skeletal, dub-inflected post-punk;
“Chemistry” breezy, faux-naïf ska,
punctuated by terrific Dexys horns – but
these elements form only a small part of
a wider fabric that encompasses disco,
electro-pop, new wave, funk and African
rhythm, with smatterings of country,
gospel and Baptist hymns.
The surprise is how cohesive it all is, the
disparate influences expertly corralled by
the band and a creative team headed by
Pulp’s Steve Mackey, Thomas Bangalter
of Daft Punk, Portishead’s Geoff Barrow,
GUY AROCH
and the band’s long-time co-producer,
Markus Dravs. In contrast to Reflektor,
Everything Now is tight and punchy.
34 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
The LP is bookended by two slow, brief
alternate versions of “everything Now”,
the supple, groove-based, Talking heads-
heavy single that gives the album its title
and extends its core theme of the dangers
and intoxicating pleasures of perpetual
over-stimulation. “Every single room in my
house is full of shit I couldn’t live without,”
sings Butler, as the gospel vocals soar
and the propulsive bassline pushes him
on. This age of excessive choice is crudely
atomised on “Infinite Content” – “infinitely
content!” – which appears in two radically
different versions midway through the
album. One is punky and urgent, a rage
against consumerism. The other is sweet
and dreamy, borne on a drifting summer
breeze, as though all involved have been
narcoticised by sensory overload.
While “Signs Of Life” portrays hedonism
as a search for existential meaning,
elsewhere the quest leads to even greater
extremes. On “Creature Comforts”, the
protagonist “dreams about dying all the
time/Told me she came so close/Filled up
the bathtub and put on our first record.”
The same disquieting scene is explicitly
revisited later, on “Good God Damn”. “Put
your favourite record on, baby, and fill the
bathtub up/You want to say goodbye to your
oldest friends.” By the second telling, it
feels disturbingly like real life.
SLEEVE NOTES The tunes come tumbling one after the
other, and the sonic blend is frequently
And still the music glistens and gleams,
which is, presumably, partly the point.
1 Everything_Now thrilling. “Good God Damn” is essentially Arcade Fire save the most downbeat
(continued) Television’s “Marquee Moon” arranged by musical moments on Everything Now
2 Everything Now Allen Toussaint, and easily as good as that for exploring intimate terrain. “Put Your
3 Signs Of Life sounds. The relentless, spiralling groove Money On Me” possesses the melancholic
4 Creature
of “Signs Of Life” is gumbo-disco. While grandeur of late-period Abba, though the
Comfort
5 Peter Pan
the bass and horns are pure Bourbon lyrics are closer to Rumours-era Fleetwood
Street bump, the laser synth line and Win Mac in their uncomfortably high-def
6 Chemistry
Butler’s half-rapped vocals are indebted to account of one party’s undying devotion in
7 Infinite Content
8 Infinite_Content “Rapture”-era Blondie and Studio 54. the teeth of a disintegrating relationship.
9 Electric Blue “Creature Comforts”, meanwhile, is The closing “We Don’t Deserve Love”,
10 Good God sparkling ’80s electronic pop that recalls meanwhile, is a warped hyper-ballad.
Damn The human League and OMD at their most The singer drives home from a time
11 Put Your Money grandiose. With its Oberheim Two Voice spent “hiding my scars in broad daylight
On Me
synth sweeps, crisp beats and Régine bars/Behind laugh tracks on TV”, in the
12 We Don’t
Deserve Love
Chassagne’s helium backing vocals, knowledge that everything has changed.
it’s a deceptively danceable anthem “Keep both eyes on the road tonight,” Butler
13 Everything
for the death-fixated, fame-hungry counsels, wearily. It’s the place where
Now (continued)
a iGeneration, and a totem of the LP’s ability all the epic melancholy and confusion of
Produced by: to successfully fuse euphoric sounds and Everything Now comes home to roost, the
Arcade Fire, downbeat words. last lap of an intoxicating ride.
Markus Dravs,
Geoff Barrow,
Steve Mackey,
Thomas Bangalter
Q&A
Recorded at: Win Butler: “We tried It felt like a similar soup to
Boombox Studios, to find our own musical early punk and new wave
New Orleans; language for this movements in London and
Sonovox Studios, modern moment” New York in the late ’70s,
Montreal; Gang where punk kids were going
Recording Studio, Reflektor was to discos in Manhattan and
Paris influenced by Haiti; hanging at dance halls in
Personnel includes: what places made their London. In Montreal, there’s
Win Butler, Will mark this time? New a fascinating mix of French,
Butler, Régine Orleans has a huge influence African and Haitian cultures,
Chassagne, on the overall atmosphere and in New Orleans it’s
Jeremy Gara, Tim the record was created in. It can feel all the trauma the hip-hop, brass music and
Kingsbury, Richard was mixed in the middle of city has survived, and it made jazz. We tried to find our own
Reed Parry carnival season, with Mardi it feel like the current crisis we musical language for this
Gras raging around us. Things face is possible to overcome. very modern moment, where
were so crazy in the US all genre and sense of clique
politically, but New Orleans What were the primary has been evaporated.
seems to exist out of time. You musical inspirations? INTERVIEW: GRAEME THOMSON

BRIANA MARELA
Call It Love
JAGJAGUWAR
7/10
Seattle native’s gleaming,
avant-pop third
If there’s a structural
boldness and
conceptual wholeness
to Briana Marela’s
work, it’s not so
surprising given she’s
an audio production graduate. But
where her previous two LPs suggested
someone testing their skills, now her
artistic expression has settled. Yet she
switches between electronic-pop styles
– plush and dreamily (melo)dramatic,
and bright, buoyant and percussive –
variously recalling Grimes, Jenny hval
and Pixx. “Give Me Your Love” and
“Last Time” may articulate different
relationship stages, but are euphoric
in their own ways, while “Quit” is the
set’s gloomily glittering centrepiece,
steered by Marela’s sweet, pure voice,
even as clattering beats try to push it
off course. SHARON O’CONNELL
Oh Sees:
raging,
then
restful
OH SEES
Orc
CASTLE FACE
8/10
Dwyer’s skronk overlords mix
moments of foot-tapping calm
with facemelting magic
Oh Sees (the Thee
has been retired) are
now so good at what
they do best – warped
psychy funk groovers
and fuzzbox-busting
goblin thumpers – that the interest
with each new album is how John
Dwyer will add to their prodigious
armoury. Last year’s fantastic A Weird
Exits featured a couple of unexpectedly
proggy ballads, while Orc has the
drifting instrumental calm of “Keys
To The Castle”, the dancey ripple
of “Paranoise” and the drawn-out
jazzy shuffle of “Raw Optics”. For
shredheads, there’s urgent opener
“The Static God”, while the superb
“Animated Violence” alternates
between the album’s twin moods
of sustained guitar menace and
reflective percussive ambience.
PETER WATTS
BILL ORCUTT
Bill Orcutt
PALILALIA
8/10
Thrilling gutbucket guitar takes
on American standards
For some time now,
American guitarist
Bill Orcutt has been
exploring the detritus
of American popular
culture – previous
solo albums have him taking on the
core building blocks of popular idioms
and reinvigorating them through an
idiosyncratic take on the acoustic
guitar that’s spiky, clipped and full of
distracted energy. here, though, he’s
on electric, and he pulls a few originals
out of the bag. But it is the sideways
eviscerations of “Ol’ Man River” and
“Over The Rainbow” that resonate
the longest. JON DALE
MONK PARKER
Crown Of Sparrows
GRAND JURY MUSIC
8/10
Seductive foray into weird America
Texan fortysomething
Monk Parker has a
curious voice, half
Shakespearean
ham (think Tom
hardy in Taboo),
half backwoods mystic. It suits the
intense melancholia of Crown Of
Sparrows, which consists of full-
hearted forays into woozy country
darkness, cross-stitched with ghostly
shimmers of feedback, Salvation
Army horns and decaying piano notes.
The title track is an epic gothic-folk
waltz, both beautiful and cacophonic;
“Night Market” steps slowly at first
before evolving into a roaring march,
its climax both disturbing and
exhilarating. The mood of late-night,
post-Lynchian weirdness is unvarying,
but seductive. GRAEME THOMSON
RON POPE
Work
BROOKLYN BASEMENT
7/10
Seventh studio album from
Atlanta’s answer to The Boss
Masquerading under
the sort of John Doe
title that Pope’s
spiritual godfather
Bruce Springsteen
really ought to have
given to an album long before now,
Work finds Pope more in thrall to the
e Street Band than ever on vivacious
blue-collar anthems such as “Can’t
Stay here” and “Let’s Get Stoned”.
Yet he’s at his best when the swagger
is set aside on the banjo-laden
“Someday We’re All Going To Die”,
the gentle lilt of “The Weather” and
the plaintive title track, which filters
its obvious Nebraska influence via
the 21st-century troubadourisms of
Ryan Adams or Josh Ritter. heart-on-
its-sleeve, everyman rock at its most
universally appealing. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
We’re
neW
Here
CHRIS PRICE
An old soul who found his
voice through music made
before he was born
don’t know if I’d go so
“I far as to say I was
groomed for a certain
life”, Chis Price reflects, “but I’d
be shocked if I found anything
else that feels as natural to
me as making music in a
recording studio.” Born Kristian
Price Pérez, the 32-year-old
artist explains that his “messy,
lonely childhood” in Miami led
him to hole up – and hone his
chops – in the home studio of
his father, a writer/producer
of Latin music, while
experiencing life through
songs and movies. “I became
a rabid record collector in high
school,” he recalls, adding that
CHRIS PRICE
Stop Talking
OMNIVORE
8/10
A breathtaking aerial ballet from
a gifted young artist/producer
Miami-born, LA-
based polymath
Chris Price worked
semi-anonymously
in various power-
pop bands before
drawing accolades for his strikingly
simpático production on albums for
Linda Perhacs and emitt Rhodes,
both coaxed out of retirement by this
kindred spirit four decades younger.
Those projects led seamlessly to Stop
Talking, whose ornate arrangements,
elegant melodies and beguiling
vocals uncannily recall Nilsson circa
1970–71. There’s substance amid
the sophistication: gripping songs
such as “Sigh”, “Man Down”, “Once
Was True”, “hi Lo”, “One Of Them”,
“Pulling Teeth” and “Father To The
Man” insightfully explore existential
neW albums
his sensibility was shaped by
artists like Nilsson, The Kinks,
Nick Drake, Antônio Carlos
Jobim, Randy Newman and
Lennon/McCartney/Harrison.
“I can only strive to make
music as carefully considered
and true as the stuff made
between 1965 and ’74,” he
says. “I try to be careful to
point at my influences rather
than simply imitating them.”
Producing Linda Perhacs
and Emitt Rhodes deepened
Price’s understanding.
“With Linda, it’s all visceral,
and working in that setting
allowed me to become more
adventurous on my own
recordings. Emitt taught me
about the power of a direct,
emotionally honest lyric. That
definitely carried over into a lot
of the songs on this album.”
BUD SCOPPA
crises, pinpointing the narrators’ flaws
and blind spots with a Newman-esque
blend of empathy and wit. BUD SCOPPA
ASHLEY RAINES &
THE NEW WEST REVUE
It Could Be Worse
IDIOM
5/10
Middling Midwest manoeuvres
Tapping into the dark
root of American rural
music, Kansas-born
singer, songwriter and
multi-instrumentalist
Raines specialises
in songs of fateful retribution, manly
suffering and fleeting redemption.
his rich baritone fits the bluesy
confessional bill, but these solid,
sombre songs lean too readily towards
the predictable. Amid clichéd fare like
“Peace In The Valley” and “Old Time
Religion”, the choppy, three-legged
KYLE SAFIEH
rhythm of “Desperate Man” stands out.
The set is capable enough, but yields
little light. GRAEME THOMSON
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 35
 new albums
discovered
PSYCHIC TEMPLE
Psychic Temple IV
JOYFUL NOISE
8/10
Your new favourite californian cult.
By John Mulvey
What would
an La band
sound like
whose ranks
have included
terry Reid,
Mike Watt,
Spooner Oldham and David
hood, a clutch of minor indie-rock
luminaries led by avi Buffalo,
a drummer who’s figured in
Pharoah Sanders’ band, a member
of Philip Glass’ ensemble, and a
bassist, Max Bennett, whose CV
includes Joni Mitchell’s stellar run
of mid-’70s albums?
Confusing, would be the most
sensible answer. On paper, Psychic
temple suggest a record store nerd
has gone crazy with a vintage
a&R Rolodex. In practice, their
low-key run of LPs these past
few years have been remarkably
cohesive, even as their frontman
and networking maestro, Chris
Schlarb, dips into as many
genres as he has contacts. Jazz,
country-rock, folk-soul, improv
and ambient all play key parts on
Psychic Temple IV, but what binds
DEvIn O’BRIEn
them together is a certain beatific
take on SoCal pop. It’s the sound
of a fantasy La made flesh; one
36 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
Searching out the best albums new to Uncut
of those rare LPs where its maker
can cite Brian Wilson’s “teenage
symphonies to God” ambition
and be more or less justified in
his presumption. the heaviest
Beach Boys reference comes at
the end of Psychic Temple IV, as
the instrumental “Isabella Ocean
Blue” takes a similar measured
path into the sunset as “Pet
Sounds”, down to the sighing horn
charts and a persistent twitch
of Latin percussion deep in the
mix. For all the formal grandeur,
though, there’s also a sense of free
spirits being allowed the space to
manoeuvre, most notably when
Schlarb himself lets rip a 12-string
guitar solo, a splattery action
painting of notes that’s closer to
Sonny Sharrock than Jerry Cole,
but which still doesn’t undermine
the prevailing calm.
It’s an indication of how
Schlarb’s vision for his band
has evolved from relatively
avant-garde beginnings into the
nuanced, classical songforms
that grace …IV and last year’s
Psychic Temple III, without losing
that experimental imperative.
a Long Beach studio owner and
composer for video games, Schlarb
Chris Schlarb
(left) with Terry
‘Superlungs’ Reid
embarked on the first Psychic
temple project wanting “to hear
an ambient record with two jazz
drummers on it”. Gradually, the
songs came into focus, via covers
(the Beach Boys’ “’til I Die”, Joe
Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out” on 2013’s
Psychic Temple II), sessions at
FaME in Muscle Shoals, and those
auspicious guest players.
Psychic Temple IV was born
in the same 2016 sessions that
produced another terrific album,
Psychic Temple Plays Music For
Airports, in which Eno’s ambient
meditation was reimagined by
a large band of jazz improvisers,
and came out sounding akin to
In A Silent Way. that same air
of concentrated nonchalance
provides the backdrop for the 10
lovely songs on …IV; a cool space
Q&A
Chris Schlarb: “Bands and
cults are very similar…”
Psychic Temple seems from
the outside to be a kind
of sprawling collective in
constant flux: is that how you
envisage it? At a certain point I
just started calling it a cult, because
of the way any band works under a
leader with a vision. Bands and cults
are very similar. When you go on
tour, you’re driving from city to city
proselytising and trying to gain a
fanbase… followers, if you will. Most
bands are serving one vision at a
time. Psychic Temple is definitely my
vision, my aesthetic. However, all I
care about is the music and serving
the song, not my ego. I’m not trying to
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
the gentler, unassuming tones of
Schlarb. Such small tensions add
shade to the mellowness.
Even Reid is upstaged on “turn
Off the Lights”, as Dave Easley
coaxes an uncanny sitar effect
out of his pedal steel, a rare
example of Pt living up to the
psychedelic exoticism of their
name. Inevitably with musicians
so historically aware, comparisons
keep presenting themselves – a
minimalist Steely Dan, perhaps,
on “SOS” and its ravishing
sequence of micro-solos; the
jazz-club sadcore of early sides by
another undervalued La band,
Spain. But the dexterity with which
Schlarb conducts his affairs, and
the craftsmanship and spontaneity
underpinning all these
bewitchingly hazy progressions,
make Psychic temple a lot more
than the sum of their considerable
parts. Better than the average cult
band, for sure.
play every instrument on the record.
I’m trying to find the best musicians I
can to draw the best out in the music.
You have the great bassist
max bennett on the album.
what’s his playing like at 89?
I had Carol Kaye in mind. I took lessons
from her years back and reached
out to her on a previous record but
she declined. When I started writing
this new batch of songs, I sent Max an
email and he called me an hour later.
He said he enjoyed the music. He was
87 at the time! I mean, Max played on
some of my favourite ever albums:
Zappa’s Hot Rats, Joni’s mid-’70s
albums… He came down to the studio,
wrote his charts out, brought a bag of
almonds and played his ass off.

CHRIS ROBINSON
BROTHERHOOD
Barefoot In The Head
SILVER ARROW
8/10
Cosmic American maestros
dabble in acid folk
Rich Robinson’s
return to the fray, with
the recent Magpie
Salute album of covers
and old songs, is a
further reminder of
how productive his brother Chris has
been since the demise of their former
band, the Black Crowes. Barefoot In
The Head is the fifth CRB album in
five years (seven if you count a couple
of live sets), and further evidence of
Robinson’s easy-going profligacy. this
time out, there’s a greater emphasis on
acoustic guitars and folksiness, with
adam MacDougall’s squelchier Moog
settings kept to a minimum: “Blonde
Light Of Day” is a gorgeous stab at CSN
soul; “high Is Not the top” a deftly
fingerpicked country-rock anthem. as
ever, you wish they’d stretch out and
jam a bit more in the studio, but this
might just be the most satisfying CRB
set since 2012’s Big Moon Ritual.
JOHN MULVEY
EMMA RUSSACK
Permanent Vacation
SPUNK!
7/10
Sharp-witted, affecting alt.pop
from down under
Last year’s album
conclusively proved
her compositional
chops, but with her
fourth, Melbourne-
based singer-
songwriter and guitarist Emma
Russack strikes the perfect balance
between astute observation and
unguarded emotion. her songs suggest
kinship with Courtney Barnett and
Cat Power, but are distinguished by an
airiness and laidback minimalism that
makes her lyrics all the more piquant.
On the bossa-driven title track, she
challenges whoever’s questioned
her lifestyle: “What’s it to you?/Don’t
you have shit to do?” Every track hits
its target, but the wyrd folk of “Body
Goals” and poignant piano piece “Free
things” stand out.
SHARON O’CONNELL
THE SEXUAL OBJECTS
Marshmallow
TRIASSIC TUSK
8/10
Impish return by Fire Engines honcho
the second full
album from Davy
henderson under
the Sexual Objects’
banner was originally
pressed as a single
copy, auctioned on eBay – a potentially
futile act of defiance against the harsh
economics of the music business. as
ever with henderson, it deserves a
wider audience. With the exception
of the 16-minute noodle, “Squash”,
Marshmallow finds him distorting
his lushest pop instincts, from the
insistent loveliness of “Sometimes”
to the almost pastoral plasticity of the
title track, which sounds like Prince
and Marc Bolan making eyes at each
other while henderson dissects sweet
nothings. ALASTAIR McKAY
JOSEPH SHABASON
Aytche
WESTERN VINYL
8/10
Saxophonist’s contemplative,
ambient-jazz delight
Independent
debuts by ensemble
players are seldom
as ravishing as this.
Joseph Shabason has
form, as saxophonist
with DIaNa and Destroyer and
go-to guy for acts including the War
On Drugs, but Aytche smudges the
boundaries between ambient, “nu
jazz” and minimalism. With recurrent
motifs to ensure the tracks play as a
set piece, it shifts from warm, gaseous
exhalations (ecstatic opener, “Looking
Forward to Something, Dude”) to
liquid symphonics (“Long Swim”)
and noisy, saw-toothed eruptions
(“Smokestack”). Coltrane, Eno
and Metheny are touchstones, but
Shabason’s abstraction is sensual, his
language emotional: “Westmeath”,
which concerns the suicide of a
holocaust survivor, is particularly
lethal in its softness. SHARON O’CONNELL
NADINE SHAH
Holiday Destinations
1965
8/10
Smart and bitter laments on
excellent third
Shah casts a
beleaguered eye
over the state of the
world, but always
draws things back to
her experiences as
a very English singer with a Muslim
background. the electro-folk “Evil” is
the key text here, a weathered lament
on how others consider the other,
picked out in measured Geordie tones.
Musically, a sort of gothy folktronica
dominates songs like “Yes Men” and
“Out the Way”, with shades of PJ
harvey on the acerbic title track about
refugees, while the crawling jitter of
“2016” captures the dislocating agony
of experiencing personal anxiety while
“there’s a fascist in the White House”.
PETER WATTS
Nadine
Shah
revelations
EMMA RUSSACK
“One must have a sense of purpose in this crazy life…”
he title of Emma
T Russack’s new album,
Permanent Vacation,
describes a state that’s not
always as enviable as it
sounds, but during her recent
three-month university break,
it suggested a potential future.
“I was making some good
money through music for the
first time in my life,” explains
the second-year law student.
“If I could play one or two
shows a week, plus write
songs and record an album
here and there for the rest of
my life – and not have to work
a day job – yes, I think I would
be ‘happy’. But one must have
a sense of purpose in this
crazy life. For me, a permanent
vacation means checking out
JOHN SINCLAIR
Beatnik Youth IRON MAN
7/10
Veteran poet teams up with
producer Youth, uniting free jazz,
rock’n’roll and ambient
Sounding a lot like
his old friend Iggy
Pop, Detroit’s iconic
“White Panther”
introduces himself
as “a beatnik, dope
fiend, poet, provocateur, race traitor
and renegade”, reciting his beat poetry
in a sub-baritone growl that lurches
from the bored to the psychotic. he
waxes lyrical about Monk, Kerouac
and Ginsberg (on the ambient
“Brilliant Corners”), lusts after black
women (on the swinging “Red Dress”),
issues a libertarian’s charter (on the
MC5-ish “ain’t Nobody’s Business”)
and – on “War On Drugs” – teams up
with the late howard Marks to suggest
that dopeheads and dealers start an
aggressive counter-offensive. Best of
luck with that one. JOHN LEWIS
new albums
of reality – searching for
purpose and meaning. I’m
trying to be upbeat about it,
though! I’m whistling as I walk.”
Russack’s songs are
compellingly varied in their
expression. Quizzed about her
intent, she says, “Intent is a
funny thing. Would I be taken
seriously if I said I didn’t have
one? All I can say is that this
album is the closest thing to
a ‘diary’ that I have.
“I just wrote exactly what
I felt at a particular time; I
wasn’t restrained by anything
or anyone. That’s freeing. So,
I could write about a guy
making me the best sandwich
ever, or… Kendall Jenner.
Perhaps that was my intent.
To be free.” SHARON O’CONNELL
SOCCER MOMMY
Collection
FAT POSSUM
7/10
Auspicious indie debut from
NYC-based songstress
this debut offering
from 19-year-old
Sophie allison is a
breezy, relaxed and
pop-kissed eight
tracks that recalls
the summer-tinged melodies of
Real Estate. there’s an undeniable
knack for melody and songcraft that
permeates through the record, as
on the woozy “Benadryl Dreams”
and the quietly anthemic “Death By
Chocolate”. Largely it falls into the line
of numerous contemporary bands,
from Mac DeMarco to Girlpool,
that still operate within a distinctly
’90s indie template, but it largely
manages to avoid vapid repetition
and provides plenty of charm and
promise for the future.
DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 37
 new
e albums
SONGDOG
Joy Street
JUNKYARD SONGS
7/10
Literate seventh album from Welsh
playwright turned songsmith
Under his Songdog
guise, Lyndon
Morgans has built
a cultish reputation
as a deliciously
dark peddler of
melancholic folk-noir. Joy Street’s
upbeat title doesn’t mean he’s
suddenly turned into a happy-clappy
cheerleader of all things bright and
breezy. But the stoicism is exquisitely
nuanced by epicurean pleasure on
songs such as “Raise Your Glass In
Praise”, which surges on a riff vaguely
reminiscent of “Brown Eyed Girl” and
not only mourns “lost opportunities”
and “overcast April days”, but
also hymns the possibility of “the
backroads to heaven” and “long days
of plenty”. Dylan Thomas meets Ray
Davies backed by The Waterboys?
Believe it. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
SUSANNE SUNDFØR
Music For People In Trouble
BELLA UNION
6/10
Chart-topping Norwegian gets
the jitters
Inspired by a global
trip of self-discovery,
and modestly
fashioned to address
the world’s growing
anxiety, Sundfør’s
first for Bella Union suffers from an
occasional excess of affectations, her
melismatic vocal style an acquired
taste. Fortunately, she’s best at her
most intimate, this sixth collection’s
dominant quality. Distant choral
harmonies and pedal steel decorate
Chris Baker, DaviD kaptein
the acoustic “Reincarnation” and
surging “Undercover”, while there are
hints of Joni Mitchell in the clarinet-
embellished “Bedtime Story”. But
both the title track’s musique concrète
and “Mountaineers”, which wafts
from introductory drones to navigate
38 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
Richard
Thompson,
unplugged
again
an unlikely path between Anna
Von Hausswolff and Enya, test the
patience. WYNDHAM WALLACE
CHIP TAYLOR
A Song I Can Live With
TRAIN WRECK
8/10
Another compelling product
of Taylor’s quietly prolific
eighth decade
Taylor sub-bills
himself James Wesley
Voight on the cover.
It’s his real name – he
is Jon Voight’s brother,
therefore Angelina
Jolie’s uncle – but the album itself
offers pleasingly little hint of any and-
this-is-me valedictory intent. Taylor’s
timeworn voice is now a husky,
semi-spoken croon, but he remains
recognisably the songwriter whose
flawless early-’70s cosmic-country
albums have lost none of their power
to amaze. Here, “Until It Hurts” reflects
wryly on the passing of Bowie and
Reed, and “New York In Between” and
“Young Brooks Flow Forever” have
both arrived just too late to be turned
into chart-toppers by Glen Campbell.
ANDREW MUELLER
RICHARD THOMPSON
Acoustic Classics Vol II
BEESWING
8/10
Second phase of stripped-down
reinterpretations
Following 2014’s
opening volume,
Thompson again
offers up a fireside
seat as he takes his
acoustic guitar,
endlessly dextrous fingers and
peerless back catalogue for a spin.
It’s an unalloyed treat. For all the
thrill of his extended excursions on
a Fender Strat, there’s something
fundamentally satisfying about
Thompson unplugged. His voice gets
more expressive with age, while his
song choices – from Fairport staples
(“Genesis Hall”, “Crazy Man Michael”)
to mid-period classics (a heart-
breaking “A Heart Needs A Home”
and tender “Why Must I Plead”) and
relative obscurities (brooding takes
on “Pharaoh” and “Gethsemane”)
– throw fresh light and cast new
shadows. GRAEME THOMSON
UNKLE
The Road: Part One
SONGS FOR THE DEF
5/10
First in seven years from James
Lavelle’s trip-hop supergroup
A curator before
the term became
ubiquituous, James
Lavelle’s projects
tend to live or die
on the combined
talents of his collaborators. Sadly,
the fifth album by the Mo Wax
founder’s creative collective doesn’t
quite cut the mustard. “Looking
For The Rain” glances greatness
thanks to Mark Lanegan’s weathered
croon and strings from Massive
Attack arranger Will Malone, while
newcomer Elliott Power brings a
Tricky-esque introspection to the folk
gospel of “Cowboys Or Indians”. But
appearances from Dhani Harrison
and The Duke Spirit’s Liela Moss go
nowhere in particular, and elsewhere,
flat and watery arrangements suggest
Lavelle needs a new DJ Shadow to give
his productions a dramatic lift.
LOUIS PATTISON
VARIOUS ARTISTS
American Epic: The Sessions
SONY
8/10
Modern rock aristocracy embrace
antique recording equipment
American Epic is also
a four-part PBS series,
produced by T Bone
Burnett, Jack White
and Robert Redford,
exploring the genesis
of recorded American popular song.
It features distinguished current
musicians working with primordial
technology; the fruits of their labours
are collected here. A guileless, big-
hearted spirit underpins all of it, with
highlights provided by Bettye LaVette,
Nas, Willie Nelson duetting with the
late Merle Haggard, and Elton John
and Jack White performing a new
blues song, “Two Fingers Of Whiskey”.
The 5CD boxset, adding the original
recordings which inspired the
project, is also worth having.
ANDREW MUELLER
Katie Von
Schleicher
KATIE VON SCHLEICHER
Shitty Hits
FULL TIME HOBBY/BA DA BING!
8/10
Brilliant debut from wry US writer
For her first
full-length, Von
Schleicher’s
harnessed the
potential of 2015’s
Bleaksploitation and
essayed a set of coolly droll songs that
drag the artisan songcraft of the 1970s
into the present. She’s a subtle writer,
with an ear for seductive arrangement,
the better to bring her pop melodies
to the fore. Often, she comes across
as heir to songwriters such as Todd
Rundgren and Randy Newman –
raising a jaded, critical eye to the
world, Von Schleicher’s dissections
of the way humans treat each other
and then justify their behaviours to
themselves, are as compelling as they
are unforgiving. JON DALE
WARM DIGITS
Wireless World
MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES
7/10
Newcastle’s premier Kraut-funk-
rock duo enlists some vocal assists
from Field Music and Saint Etienne
Much as the Geordie
duo’s hero Klaus
Dinger once adopted
a poppier guise as La
Düsseldorf, Warm
Digits have opted to
enhance their shoegaze-motorik-disco
thing with a few guest vocalists for
their engaging third album. While
Sarah Cracknell’s appearance in the
burbling, Stereolab-like “Growth
Of Raindrops” is not so surprising,
Wireless World features some more
unexpected pleasures, like Field
Music’s Peter Brewis getting the
chance to imagine he’s in Heaven 17 in
1983 on “End Times”. JASON ANDERSON
STEVEN WILSON
To The Bone
CAROLINE INTERNATIONAL
7/10
Glossy pop-prog mystery from
Porcupine Tree mainstay – and
mixer for King Crimson, XTC et al
Wilson’s fifth solo
LP is a lush and
ambitious piece of
progressive pop
music. Hitting
on some heavy
influences, including Peter Gabriel,
Depeche Mode, Bends-era Radiohead,
and Todd Rundgren’s electronic
ballads, this insistently melodic,
11-song set is an old-school, sum-
of-its-parts experience. A concept
album, perhaps – lyrically hung on
the paranoia, injustice and political
uncertainty of 2017 – To The Bone
deliberately strains under the ideas
and production sounds of the late ’80s
and ’90s. “Blank Tapes” and “People
Who Eat Darkness” are eerie, jittery
highlights. MARK BENTLEY
 KRONOS QUARTET
FOLK SONGS

When Nonesuch Records celebrated its

50 anniversary, Kronos Quartet joined forces
th

with labelmates Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney,

Rhiannon Giddens, and Natalie Merchant to
perform a concert entitled Folk Songs, which
the group recorded for this acclaimed album.

25th anniversary edition

SAM AMIDON
THE FOLLOWING MOUNTAIN
Featuring 10 original album
tracks, newly remastered, along with
8 previously unreleased songs from lang’s
1993 MTV Unplugged performance

‘Few singers command such perfection

of pitch. Her voice, at once beautiful and
unadorned and softened with a veil
of smoke, invariably hits the middle of
a note and remains there.’
– New York Times

‘Ingénue positioned lang, with expertly

‘Deeply rewarding. Gritty, personal crafted torch songs, as the new queen of
new paths in folk.’’ adult contemporary pop. Fans knew a vocal
Guardian ★★★★ tour de force when they heard one.’
– Sunday Times
‘Captivating arrangements and elegiac charm.’
Evening Standard ★★★★
OUT NOW
‘Breathtaking. A fascinating signpost to the future.’
Irish Times ★★★★

IN STORES NOW NONESUCH.COM

NONESUCH.COM
 “Sing for the love of weeping and burning…”

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)

rEissuEs | comps | boxsEts | lost rEcordings

LaL & MikE WaTERSoN

Bright Phoebus DoMiNo

East Yorks siblings’ folk-art fireball burns afresh.

By Jim Wirth

F
inding some groundless,
fleeting joy at the end of a
very soggy rainbow, Mike
Waterson concludes Bright
Phoebus – the giddy 1972
ensemble piece he fronted with
his younger sister, Lal – with
a little rapture. “No more clouds, no more rain,”
he burbles wistfully, accent broad and vowels flat as
the Humber Estuary. The sun is shining. despite all
evidence to the contrary, there is hope.
The long, troubled saga of Mike and Lal’s slow-
burning tour de force perhaps vindicates that naïve
belief. neither Lal (who died in 1998) nor Mike (2011)
have lived to see Bright Phoebus receive the honour
of a dignified official reissue, but this crystal-clear,
remastered version – complemented by the siblings’
weird and wobbly home demos – does belated justice
to a record regarded by many on release as a disgrace
to the Waterson name.
Orphaned young – their
father killed by a series of
strokes not long after their
mother died following an
asthma attack – the three
Waterson siblings (norma,
Mike and Lal) were raised in
Hull on a diet of hymns, party
pieces and folk songs by their
grandmother, Eliza Ward.
inspired by the folk revival,
they took their sandblaster-
strength strain of harmonising
south, their repertoire of
traditional songs from their native Yorkshire
reissue proving to be quite the hit in rooms above
OF THe pubs. However, life as professional singers
MONTH soon became a drag, and in 1968 they called it
a day, norma heading abroad with her fiancé
9/10 to Montserrat.
Back on Humberside and somewhat bereft, the
younger Watersons felt something musical stirring,
young mother Lal’s regular lunchtime visits from
painter and decorator Mike taking on a new intensity
when they realised they were both writing songs –
something neither would have countenanced in their
days on the folk circuit. Mike’s were an idiosyncratic
mix of rockabilly and music hall; Lal’s a vinegary,
jagged-edged acoustic gothic. When future Mr norma
Waterson, Martin Carthy, first heard them, he was
blown away. When his Steeleye Span bandmate
Ashley Hutchings got to listen, he swiftly gathered
together a basic ensemble to help fashion them into a
record, roping in Carthy as well
as fellow Fairport Convention
alumni Richard Thompson and
dave Mattacks. Recorded over
a week in a basement room at
Cecil Sharp House, home of
the trad-dads of the English
Folk dance And Song Society,
it represented an abrupt shift
away from anything the
Watersons had done.
Mike’s punning opener,
“Rubber Band” (“Just like
margarine our fame is
spreading,” he chortles),

40 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 41
 ARCHIVE
RCHIVE

Lal Waterson: startling self-portrait, drunk and “flat on

gives scant indication of the raw strangeness
of what follows. First, Lal’s “The Scarecrow”,
sung tremulously by Mike over a mildly
Astrud Gilberto strum. Its plea for acceptance
in a cold world is abruptly overtaken by a
pagan death rite: “And to a stake they tied a
child new born,” he sings, mildly overawed.
“And the songs were sung/The bells were rung,
and they sowed the corn.” It is not the only
innocent life to be lost on Bright Phoebus, Lal
apparently still working through her grief
following the stillbirth of her son’s twin sister.
The extraordinary “Child Among The Weeds”
is her cubist response to that personal tragedy.
Recorded in one cathartic take, the seagull-
voiced Lal obliquely documents her warring
feelings of love and grief, the song taking
a violent metaphysical turn when Geordie
folkie Bob Davenport takes over the narrative.
His siren call “fly bird fly on your raven wing”
feels like the stirring of something primal and
huge. The relief is overpowering: “Sing for
the love of weeping and burning,” Lal bellows.
“And sing for the love of wheeling and turning,”
Davenport responds.
“To Make You Stay”, a nebulous love song
accompanied deftly by Thompson and Carthy
on acoustic guitar, feels like an echo of that
same emotional thunderclap. The “pretty
little starling” that “flew away in the night time
from under my right arm” was a profound
loss indeed. Fate is no less cruel to Lal’s own
Eleanor Rigby, “Winnifer Odd”. Seemingly
jagged-edge
gothic
accompanied by Django Reinhardt after a
tough day at the fish market, Lal recounts
a life of dead ends, destiny conspiring to
deprive her stoic heroine of an education and
a partner, before allowing her to be squished
by a passing car while leaning over to “pick
up a glittering thing”. A Rimbaud obsessive,
she must have allowed herself a quiet twinkle
of satisfaction at her pay-off line: “And she
waited for death to come and wrap her up
warm, but he never came.”
The Reaper misses another appointment on
“Never The Same”, Lal’s rain-sodden take on
nuclear apocalypse capturing her luckless
survivors wearily lamenting; Norma, newly
returned from abroad, steps in to sing, more
resignation than anger in the words, “Sunny,
sunny days, changed over to filthy weather.”
Coldness, though, may have been
something Lal yearned for; her unusual
romantic hero on “Fine Horseman” – as
covered by Anne Briggs on 1971’s The Time
Has Come – has a hard, chill cast, and her
my back in the rainbow rain” on “Red Wine
Promises” is defiant in its abjection. “Don’t
need no bugger’s arms around me,” she snarls.
Lal’s songs are Bright Phoebus’ most
compelling features, and – in addition to a
larval “The Scarecrow” with her vocals – the
demo disc includes another less-documented
one, “Song For Thirza”. Her emotional
apology to the lady her grandmother took
from the workhouse to raise the children,
she possibly considered it a little too direct
for public consumption at this stage, Norma
taking it out of mothballs to record it decades
later. By contrast, Mike’s “One Of Those Days”
and the moody “Jack Frost” may have been
regarded as a little too intense. He provides
necessary light relief on the finished record
with Play School interlude “The Magical Man”,
rockabilly death trip “Danny Rose”, and –
most crucially – the leavening optimism of the
title track. “Today Bright Phoebus she smiled
down on me for the very first time,” he repeats,
guileless, grateful, as his sisters, Carthy and
visiting Steeleye Spanners Tim Hart and
Maddy Prior chorus in behind him.
Reviews were positive, but much of the
Watersons’ core trad-orthodox audience hated
Bright Phoebus, and its songs were set aside
once the three siblings returned to the stage.
Lal eventually retired owing to ill health,
the former art student spending her final
years painting and sneaking out two albums
recorded with her son, Oliver Knight, before
succumbing to cancer at 55.
Her brother lived long enough to receive
belated acclaim for Bright Phoebus, but while
there was a tribute album in 2002 and a series
of commemorative concerts from 2013, the
original album remained largely off catalogue.
Until now. Watersons unknown having
kept the original master tape stashed away
for decades, this new version has a heft that
the original vinyl pressings lacked, wavering
notes that seemed like spiderish scribbles
transformed into determined scratches.
Powerful, strange, and brighter than ever.

How to buy…

ROGUE TRADDERS
More straight folkies who went electric

SHIRLEY ANNE DRANSFIELD

COLLINS & BRIGGS The Fiddler’s
THE ALBION Sing A Song Dream
COUNTRY For You TRANSATLANTIC, 1976
BAND FLEDG’LING, 1997 Trad-folk Poldark
No Roses Pregnant with her hunk Barry
PEGASUS, 1971 second child, the Bardot of the folk Dransfield and brother Robin made
Fairport alumnus Ashley Hutchings revival showed her enthusiasm for two exceptional acoustic albums
Shirley lined up 27 moderately heavy this mildly electrified solo LP by at the turn of the 1970s, plugging in
Collins
friends for his new wife’s entry into disappearing to the Hebrides in belatedly for this 1976 concept LP.
the world of folk rock, but Collins 1973 before it could even be A faux Roger Dean sleeve failed to
altered her MO not a jot, “Banks Of released. Her backing band, tap into the Yes market, but lead
The Bann” and “Poor Murdered Ragged Robin, get credit for gently track “Up To Now” is equal to
Woman” killer fusions of chalk-cliff rocking up “Summer’s In” and a anything on fiddler Barry’s
dynamics and Liege & Lief heft. moody remake of “Sullivan’s John”. fearsomely dear 1972 solo LP.

42 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017


Q&A
Martin Carthy and
Ashley Hutchings:
The ‘executive
producers’ discuss
the making of Bright
Phoebus
W
hat were Mike and
Lal like?
HUTCHINGS: Mike is one of
my very, very favourite male singers. I
love the character and the depth in his
singing. He’s unlike any singer I’ve ever
known, and without any pretensions
whatsoever – salt of the earth. I hardly
got to know Lal, but respected her
enormously, and loved her writing.
CARTHY: She was lovely. Very reflective,
very inward looking. When she wrote
a song, she wasn’t satisfied until the
words sounded right. I don’t know
much about poetry, but Gerard Manley
Hopkins used to write like that. She
was a really unique voice. Unorthodox
doesn’t begin to describe the way
she played the guitar. It was so complex.
It was more sophisticated than you
can imagine.
How did you hear the songs?
CARTHY: I used to go and sing in Hull
quite a lot; with Steeleye, solo, and when
I was still singing with Dave Swarbrick.
One day I was staying at her place and
Lal just said, “I’ve got these songs”, and
she sang me some, and I was absolutely
knocked over. I told Ashley Hutchings
and he heard a tape and thought it was
wonderful. Ashley is the kind of person
who immediately wanted to make a
record of it and he set the whole thing
in train, and got Richard Thompson
involved, and Dave Mattacks.
HUTCHINGS: Martin and I were the
executive producers; the people who
put the music together, but everyone
Above: chairmen
of the fretboard, enjoyed doing it for the Watersons.
Martin Carthy
(left) and Ashley Everyone loved the songs. Everyone
Hutchings pitched in.
It seems quite bold to have
made such a genre-blurring
record in Cecil Sharp House –
the home of trad orthodoxy?
HUTCHINGS: Maybe there was a glint in
the eye when they agreed to do it there.
It was basically a room in the basement
– I think it was the Trefusis Hall – and
we turned it into a recording studio.
CARTHY: Norma came home from
Montserrat, and almost immediately
we all went to the studio to make Bright
Phoebus. It was an extraordinary week.
Bob Davenport was always going to
sing that little bit in “Child Among
The Weeds”. It was a single take, and
it was absolutely astounding. It was
like we’d lassoed something very
special. That sort of thing happened
all the time.
Do you think it is a folk record?
HUTCHINGS: I don’t know. It could
be. It’s an album of music. I think it’s
impossible to categorise. My favourite
tracks tend to be the strange, gentle
ones: “To Make You Stay” – I love that
“That’s what folk is.
Everyone does it their
own way… You just
sing the fucking thing”
MARTIN CARTHY
ARCHIVE
one – and “Never The Same”. It’s very
rich. They’re not like anything else.
Except for Berthold Brecht, Kurt Weill.
CARTHY: It was the Watersons. We never
gave that too much thought. When I first
heard them sing, the beginning of ’64,
it was like nothing else anybody had
ever heard. Straight away people were
saying: “That’s not traditional music.”
But what they didn’t get, all the people
whose chips were being pissed on by
what the Watersons were doing, was
that it was unique, and that was what
folk music is. Everyone does it their own
way. You just sing the fucking thing.
Things got a bit complicated
after the album was released…
CARTHY: Everything was done on the
cheap: the first 1,000 were printed
with the hole off-centre, and with some
of the first ones I got the feeling the
cutting was done with a knife and fork,
but we were really quite startled at its
reception, because people were
horrified. “The Watersons sing
traditional stuff.” People didn’t realise
just how cosmopolitan the Watersons
were. They were brought up with
music… their dad would play a bit
of jazz, their mother sang show tunes,
Uncle Ronnie played the cornet and he
was absolutely mad on opera.
HUTCHINGS: At that time, with
Fairport, Steeleye, we had a lot of
barriers we had to clamber over,
built by a certain section of the folk
scene. We almost went through the
Dylan thing when he went electric. With
Bright Phoebus, the media was on our
side but the music scene was completely
split, for and against. It was not like
anything the Watersons had done at this
point. The more you tried to break the
barriers down, the more people dug
their heels in.
JOSePH BRANSTON/GUITARIST MAGAzINe vIA GeTTY IMAGeS, STeve THORNe/ReDFeRNS vIA GeTTY IMAGeS
Do you think Mike and Lal were
discouraged by that response?
CARTHY: They are basically the kind of
people who just shrug and walk away.
Lal carried on with some of her writing
and Mike would carry on with some of
his, but he rarely sang many, because it
had all been rejected out of hand. I’m so
happy that it’s coming out again. It was
just wonderful that week – that Monday
to Friday – the whole thing was a total
delight. And when it was just sitting in
an archive somewhere it was heart-
breaking. It’s a masterwork.
HUTCHINGS: I think this story is very
much like Nick Drake’s – at the time, not
really successful, but as the years go by
just building and building, and now this
album is a legend. They were ahead of
their time. It’s very uneasy. Maybe it was
just too difficult to get to grips with. It’s
very much Mike and Lal. They were very
different personalities, and it comes
over on this album. But there’s
something there for everyone.
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 43
 arCHive
THE BEACH BOYS
1967 – Sunshine Tomorrow
CAPITOL
8/10
Includes Smiley Smile outtakes and
a new stereo mix of Wild Honey.
By David Cavanagh
I
n 1967, as the sun shone down
on Southern California, the roof
fell in on The Beach Boys. In
April, 20-year-old Carl Wilson,
who’d been drafted to fight in
Vietnam, was arrested by the FBI
for failing to report for military
duty. In May, his brother Brian formally
abandoned work on Smile, the avant-
garde masterpiece that was supposed to
leave Lennon and McCartney for dust.
When, a month later, an under-rehearsed
Beach Boys pulled out of a headlining
slot at the Monterey Festival, citing
a lack of material, it was the cue for
America’s rock cognoscenti to howl
with laughter. Only eight months
after stunning the world with “Good
Vibrations”, The Beach Boys were now
dismissed as cultural lightweights.
44 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
Their ability to take the blows and
regroup in the face of adversity is the
consistent subtext of 1967 – Sunshine
Tomorrow, a 2CD and digital collection
featuring more than 50 previously
unreleased tracks recorded between
June and november. Crucially, a line had
been drawn under Smile, so these are not
sophisticated pieces of music assembled
painstakingly with the Wrecking Crew in
expensive Hollywood studios. Instead,
like a Michelin-starred chef relearning
how to boil an egg, The Beach Boys went
back to basics, picking up guitars and
basses, rearranging themselves into the
beat group they’d once been, and building
a cocoon-like reality for themselves in
the living room
of Brian’s Bel Air
home. Whatever the
dilemmas facing
them, nobody
could accuse
them of being
unproductive. They
made two albums
in five months
(Smiley Smile and
Wild Honey) and
even attempted a
third – a live LP,
Lei’d In Hawaii –
before deciding that
their all-too-candid performances, like
the unsolved riddles of Smile, belonged on
the shelf.
Though it contains some 18 minutes of
outtakes from Smiley Smile, the key selling
point of 1967 – Sunshine Tomorrow is its
new stereo mix of Wild Honey, an album
originally delivered to Capitol Records
in mono. Wild Honey was more uptempo
than the haunted Smiley Smile, reflecting
the soul and R&B tastes of Brian and Carl
Wilson, and it launched the Top 20 hit
“Darlin’”, sung by Carl with irrepressible
abandon at the upper limit of his range.
In what must have been one of the
scariest years of his life, his screaming,
sock-it-to-me vocal sounds like righteous
catharsis. Always a bit murky in mono,
“Darlin’” bursts into bloom in stereo – as
do other songs such as “Aren’t You Glad”,
“Country Air” and “I’d Love Just Once
To See You” – to reveal all sorts of secret
passages and underground tunnels.
Hearing Wild Honey in its full splendour,
indeed, it may strike you that this modest
little 24-minute album, far from being a
half-baked throwaway (as critics at the
time complained), is a rocking, rolling,
fully-realised statement that heralds the
sounds that lay around the corner for rock
in 1968-’9. The Beach Boys, you could say,
were pioneering a post-psychedelic music
while the Summer Of Love was still in full

The band were pioneering a
post-psychedelic music while
the Summer Of Love was still
in full swing
swing. And wouldn’t you know it, The
Beatles’ “Lady Madonna” would get
the credit.
Whereas history tends to tell us that
Brian, having lost his race to let the
world hear Smile before Sgt Pepper,
was reduced to a traumatised shell
as a result, the outtakes and session
highlights of Wild Honey – about 40
minutes of them – simply shatter that
falsehood to smithereens. He sounds
every bit his usual self: alert, good-
humoured and completely in control.
He wants the music to sound rustic; it’s
not going in a minimalist direction due
to any deficiencies in his production
skills. The warm interaction between
Brian and his bandmates on these
recordings really does cast a much-
misunderstood period of The Beach
Boys’ career in a new light. Brian even
hopped on a plane to Hawaii in August
and joined them onstage for two
concerts in Honolulu, his first with the
band since 1964 Sadly, the gigs they
recorded in Hawaii weren’t impressive
at all, and it’s a surprise that the
SLEEVE NOTES
CD 1 24 Darlin’ (Session Highlights)
WilD Honey (Stereo) 25 Let The Wind Blow (Session
1 Wild Honey Highlights)
2 Aren’t You Glad
3 I Was Made To Love Her WilD Honey live: 1967 – 1970
4 Country Air 26 Wild Honey (Live)
5 A Thing Or Two 27 Country Air (Live)
6 Darlin’ 28 Darlin’ (Live)
7 I’d Love Just Once To See You 29 How She Boogalooed It (Live)
8 Here Comes The Night 30 Aren’t You Glad (Live)
9 Let The Wind Blow 31 Mama Says (Session Highlights)
10 How She Boogalooed It
11 Mama Says * CD 2
(Original Mono Mix) Smiley Smile SeSSionS:
June – July 1967
WilD Honey SeSSionS 1 Heroes And Villains
12 Lonely Days (Alternate Version) (Single Version Backing Track)
13 Cool Cool Water 2 Vegetables (Long Version)
(Alternate Early Version) 3 Fall Breaks And Back To Winter
14 Time To Get Alone (Alternate Mix)
(Alternate Early Version) 4 Wind Chimes
15 Can’t Wait Too Long (Alternate Tag Section)
(Alternate Early Version) 5 Wonderful (Backing Track)
16 I’d Love Just Once To See You 6 With Me Tonight (Alternate
(Alternate Version) Version With Session Intro)
17 I Was Made To Love Her 7 Little Pad (Backing Track)
(Vocal Insert Session) 8 All Day All Night (Whistle In)
18 I Was Made To Love Her (Alternate Version 1)
(Long Version) 9 All Day All Night (Whistle In)
19 Hide Go Seek (Alternate Version 2)
20 Honey Get Home 10 Untitled (Redwood)
21 Wild Honey (Session Highlights)
22 Aren’t You Glad (Session lei’D in HaWaii “live” album:
Highlights) September 1967
23 A Thing Or Two 11 Fred Vail Intro
(Track And Backing Vocals) 12 The Letter
surviving bandmembers have green-
lighted the official release of some of
the Lei’d In Hawaii tapes five decades
later. With Bruce Johnston on bass and
a general air of uncertainty prevailing,
The Beach Boys sound like a garage
band that formed in Hawthorne three
weeks earlier. Dennis’ drumming is
wobbly, and Carl’s guitar solos – in an
era of Hendrix and Garcia – are a ham-
fisted embarrassment. “Thank you
very much for your sympathy,” quips
Mike Love, the driest of emcees. The
Beach Boys were right. Exposing this
paper-thin act at Monterey would have
been catastrophic.
Back in Bel Air, though, they found
their feet once again at Brian’s place,
singing infectious tunes about honey
bees and the joys of fresh air (note:
all three Wilson brothers lived in a
constant fug of hashish) and distilling
the essence of those golden voices,
even at a time of great paranoia, into
sweet soul music. Thus do young men,
who appear to be going mad, do their
utmost to stay sane.
13 You’re So Good To Me
14 Help Me, Rhonda
15 California Girls
16 Surfer Girl
17 Sloop John B
18 With A Little Help From My
Friends (Recorded at Brian Wilson’s
house, September 23, 1967)
19 Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring
(Recorded during rehearsal, August
26, 1967, Honolulu, Hawaii)
20 God Only Knows
21 Good Vibrations
22 Game Of Love
23 The Letter (Alternate Take)
24 With A Little Help From My
Friends (Stereo Mix)
live in HaWaii: auguSt 1967
25 Hawthorne Boulevard
26 Surfin’
27 Gettin’ Hungry
28 Hawaii (Rehearsal Take)
29 Heroes And Villains (Rehearsal)
tHankSgiving tour 1967: live
in WaSHington, D.C. & boSton
30 California Girls (Live)
31 Graduation Day (Live)
32 I Get Around (Live)
aDDitional 1967 StuDio
reCorDingS
33 Surf’s Up (1967 Version)
34 Surfer Girl
(1967 A Capella Mix)
arCHive
AtoZ
10cc
Before, During, After
UNIvERSAL
7/10
Four-disc set ventures deeper into the
other careers of the ’70s pop eccentrics
Surely this is the first
collection that connects dots
as diverse as British Invasion
also-rans the Mindbenders,
US bubblegum-popsters
Ohio Express, The Art Of
noise, neil Sedaka and the mercifully brief
recording career of Manchester City FC. Then
again, little about 10cc ever made much sense.
These four discs are divvied up between a
single-disc best-of, with another covering
pre-10cc endeavours, and two more for solo
works and collaborations. Underneath their
shimmering surfaces, 10cc’s songs benefited
from a tension born from the sometimes
clashing commercial and artistic imperatives
of the Gouldman/Stewart and Godley/Creme
teams, respectively. With the members free
to indulge their tendencies, the music on
either side of 10cc’s imperial phase can be
excessively saccharine or wilfully obtuse.
Even so, the highlights here are as startling
(the rare mix of “Pretty Little Head”, a mutant-
disco curio that Eric Stewart concocted with
Paul McCartney for Press To Play) as they
are baffling (Tristar Airbus’ “Willie Morgan”
being the set’s other footie-related oddity).
Extras: 7/10 Paul Lester’s liner notes
in the Godley-designed 40-page booklet
chart 10cc’s many winding roads via
new interviews. JASON ANDERSON
ARTHUR ALEXANDER
Arthur Alexander
OMNIvORE
8/10
Bittersweet country-soul by underrated
Alabama songwriter
An undersung legend of the
Muscle Shoals set, Arthur
Alexander recorded only
three albums, two in the
early 1970s (including this
self-titled set) and 1993’s
Lonely Just Like Me, which was released
just before his passing from heart failure.
In many ways, though, Alexander is best
known for his songwriting, with his material
covered by The Beatles (“Anna (Go To Him)”),
The Rolling Stones (“You Better Move On”)
and Bob Dylan (“Sally Sue Brown”), among
others. This tends to overshadow Alexander’s
own recordings, however, which indulge
in the gritty minimalism of the best Muscle
Shoals productions, where a rhythm section
that understands the power of reduction
and swing meets guitars and keyboards
that fill in the gaps with the simplest of
filigree. There’s a clutch of self-penned
gems, “In The Middle Of It All”’s momentous
heartache, and some superlative country-
soul interpretations, the pinnacle being Dan
Penn and Donnie Fritts’ “Rainbow Road”.
Extras: 7/10 Six extra tracks, two previously
unreleased, and liner notes from Barry
Hansen aka Dr Demento. JON DALE
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 45
 ARCHIVE
BRIAN ENO
Here Come The Warm Jets, Taking Tiger
Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World,
Before And After Science
UMC/VIRGIN EMI
8/10, 8/10, 10/10, 8/10
Eno’s first four vocal albums remastered on vinyl. By Michael Bonner
After leaving roxy
Music in July 1973, Brian
eno hatched a number
of audacious schemes to
launch his new career.
there was – he revealed to
NME’s Nick Kent – Luala
And the Lizard Girls, who
would perform live in
launderettes and massage
parlours, and the Plastic
eno Band, dedicated to
creating music from an
assortment of plastic
musical instruments.
Among other supposed
works-in-progress were
‘the Magic Wurlitzer
Synthesizer Of Brian
eno Plays “Winchester
Cathedral” And 14 Other
evergreens’, a collaboration
with Lynsey De Paul and
even a rapprochement with
estranged former bandmate
Bryan ferry as a duo called the Singing Brians.
But of all the many fabrications eno proposed
to Kent, one of them actually turned out to
be true: a collaborative album with robert
fripp. released in November 1973, fripp &
WARING ABBOTT/GETTY IMAGES
eno’s (No Pussyfooting) was the first record to
carry eno’s name post-roxy. It established a
pattern for the next 40-plus years – eno as the
inveterate collaborator. Between 1974 and 1977
alone – from Here Come The Warm Jets to Before
And After Science – eno’s assiduous creative
networking led to assignations with, among
others, John Cale, Cluster, Genesis, Nico, robert
46 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
Wyatt, television, Hawkwind’s robert Calvert,
Gavin Bryars, Ultravox! and David Bowie.
Given this, it’s hard to believe eno had time for
his own career. Yet his first four ‘vocal’ albums
are significant; not just in establishing eno as
a solo artist but also for the way they bridge
musical worlds, bringing together the electronic
and the organic, rock and drone, truffling out
unexpected connections between incongruent
styles. eno’s catalogue was remastered for CD
in 2004, but these are the first new vinyl cuts of
these four LPs since the mid-1980s – with each
album now spread over two discs – and have
now been mastered at half-speed, a process
designed to enhance the depth of field for vinyl
reissues. the LP that benefits most obviously
from this improved treatment is Another Green
World, which enjoys a heightened immersive
experience. the others sound fuller, richer;
they’re louder, the volume has been raised, but
there’s no compression or unnecessary eQing.
for January 1974’s Here Come The Warm Jets,
eno surrounded himself with old associates,
including Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera.
the album covers plenty of ground – art pop,
doo-wop pastiche, drones and surreal exotica
– sometimes, like “Cindy tells Me”, all within
the space of one song. But eno makes a virtue of
these disparate qualities, stacking the absurd
next to the sinister. eno’s voice, previously
glimpsed during harmonies on roxy records,
was now presented as another stylistic
component, deployed in exaggerated fashion to
suit each song: a sinister whine on “Baby’s On
fire”, a droll croon on “Dead finks Don’t talk”,
multi-tracked into soothing symphony on
“Some Of them Are Old”. the wistful “On Some
faraway Beach”, meanwhile, offered
an emotional counterpoint to his arch,
self-aware creations.
eno refined his working practices further
for November 1974’s Taking Tiger Mountain
(By Strategy), working with a smaller core
band, including Manzanera and Wyatt. the
emphasis was still on creative spontaneity;
the newly devised Oblique Strategies
instruction cards encouraged additional
lateral thinking. Very loosely inspired
by a series of postcards from a Chinese
revolutionary opera, Taking Tiger Mountain…
foregrounds unusual instruments in its
pursuit of fresh perspectives. Manzanera’s
guitar is still prominent – especially on the
frenetic “third Uncle” – but keen listeners
might spot the typewriter solo on “China
My China”, the Portsmouth Sinfonia’s string
section on “Put A Straw Under Baby” or the
noise like robot crickets stridulating at the end
of “the Great Pretender”.
1975 proved to be an auspicious year for
eno. An accident in January led – fortuitously
– to his inaugural ambient work, Discreet
Music, whose textural drift seeped into the
gentle rhythms of September’s Another
Green World. Only five of the 14 songs have
vocals and these tend to be delivered in soft,
hymnal tones – like the multi-tracked choir
of enos (eni?) on “Golden Hours”. there are
few sharp edges on the album; for the most
part, it glides along on Percy Jones’ supple
basslines. What friction there is comes from
John Cale’s agitated viola lines on “Sky Saw”
or fripp’s dazzling guitar solo on “St elmo’s
fire”. Occasionally, conventional songs
emerge from these sonic landscapes – “I’ll
Come running” is a sweet pop moment
– but eno’s interests lie elsewhere. the
album closed with “Spirits Drifting”, whose
foreboding minor chords sounded like a dry
run for “Warszawa” from Bowie’s Low. Bowie
occupied much of eno’s 1977 – the year of
Low and “Heroes” – though he still found
time to tinker on December’s Before And
After Science. In fact, …Science suffered from
a lengthy gestation, with sessions swelling
to two years and utilising a shifting retinue
of returning players including Manzanera,
Wyatt, fripp, Jones and Phil Collins, Jaki
Liebezeit and Dave Mattacks.
Considering eno’s ongoing experiments
with mood compositions, the first half of
Before And After Science is a surprisingly
lively record. the clipped funk rhythms of
“No One receiving” foreshadow his later
work with talking Heads while “King’s
Lead Hat” (an anagram of talking Heads),
references the tight, angular sound of New
Wave. After the burnished pop of “Here He
Comes”, the album drifts into a deepening
state of tranquil repose. the final sequence of
“By the river”, “through Hollow Lands (for
Harold Budd)” and “Spider And I” – delicate
piano motifs, understated guitar lines, warm
choral harmonies – anticipate the next
stage of eno’s career: the ‘ambient’ series.
from art rock to African polyrhythms and
atmospheric sound textures, eno travelled
at tremendous speed during four short years.
rarely, if ever, did he look backwards. It was
as if he had taken counsel from one of his
own marvellous Oblique Strategies cards:
‘trust in the you of now.’

Boston new-wavers in prime, mega-star and reunion models
The Cars
ELEKTRA, 1978
The Cars may
have seemed
shiny when Elektra
launched its new-
wave flagship act, but years of
toiling on the East Coast club
circuit made the members ready
to capitalise with a perfect set of
honed powerpop that added
synth-laden modernism to songs
that might’ve been staples of sock
hops 20 years before.
WILL BEELEY
Gallivantin’/Passing Dream
(reissues, 1971, 1979)
TOMPKINS SQUARE
7/10, 7/10
Two sides of lost Texas songwriter
Obscurity doesn’t
quite capture the
fare of Will Beeley, a
texas songwriter who
released two albums
– Gallivantin’ in 1971
and Passing Dream in 1979 –before
becoming a DJ and talent booker for
the Midnight rodeo in Albuquerque.
for the past 14 years he has been
a long-haul truck driver, hauling
cryogenic liquids across the US. All the
while, the reputation of Gallivantin’
was thawing, helped by its scarcity.
Only 200 copies were pressed, and
Beeley sold them from the back of his
car, before attracting the attention
of the Mississippi label Malaco,
which released his second album,
Passing Dream in 1979. It made little
impact, but develops the Dylan/tim
Hardin folk stylings of his debut into
something approaching New Country.
Gallivantin’ explored the stark
territory between its first and
last tracks – Dylan’s “You Ain’t
Going Nowhere” and a spiralling,
psychedelic reworking of Buffy Saint-
Marie’s “Little Wheel Spin And Spin/
Co’dine”. Passing
Dream – recorded
in a week with a
five-piece studio
band, including
Dylan/Levon Helm
guitarist Larry
Campbell – is a
warmer record.
“rainy Sundays” is
beautifully mellow,
but is surpassed
by “I Saw Jesus
Peekin’ thru A
Hole In the Sky”,
which sounds like
Sturgill Simpson
in growling gospel
prototype.
Extras: None.
ALASTAIR McKAY
How to buy...
THE CARS
Heartbeat City
ELEKTRA, 1984
MTV peers like
Duran Duran
might’ve been
prettier, but the
Cars still made out well during the
music video’s golden age thanks
to the gimmicky clip for Ocasek’s
bubblegum-y “You Might Think”
and a more haunting one for Orr’s
exquisite “Drive”. Their ubiquity
ensured multi-platinum sales for
Heartbeat City.
BLANCMANGE
Happy Families/Mange
Tout/Believe You Me
(Deluxe Editions)
EDSEL
7/10, 7/10, 7/10
Underrated synth-pop surrealists
finally get their just desserts
Part of a bumper
cohort of synth-pop
duos that emerged
in the early ’80s, Neil
Arthur and Stephen
Luscombe remain one
of the most lyrically
surreal, sonically
adventurous and unfairly overlooked.
Spanning 1982 to 1985, their first three
albums confirmed Blancmange as
an agreeably incongruous hybrid
of talking Heads and erasure on
infectiously neurotic new-wave
electro-funk tracks such as “I Can’t
explain”, “Don’t tell Me” and the sitar-
powered, wibbly-wobbly chart smash
“Living On the Ceiling”. But they also
did stately autumnal melancholy,
notably on the sumptuous orchestral
ballad “Waves” and “the Day Before
You Came”, an Abba-approved
cover version featuring a sly musical
homage to Coronation Street. the
mountain of bonus archive material
reveals a restlessly versatile band
who emerged from the doomy noir-
Mange two:
(l-r) Stephen
Luscombe and
Neil Arthur of
Blancmange
Move Like This
HEAR MUSIC/CONCORz, 2011
Though Orr’s
death in 2000
sadly deprived the
band of its most
mellifluous voice, The Cars’ first
studio LP since their 1988 split is a
strong emulation of the late-‘70s
model so beloved by The Strokes.
Tight, terse, tuneful, “Keep On
Knocking”, “Sad Song” and “Free”
all might have made the cut for the
first album. 7/10 JASon AnDeRSon
rock shadowlands of Joy Division to
embrace a broad spectrum of leftfield
electronica, from pre-Aphex ambient
gleamscapes like “Business Steps” and
“Black Bell” to the Indian-influenced
audio collage “Vishnu”, which could
almost be an offcut from Byrne and
eno’s My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.
Unexpected riches galore.
Extras: 7/10. In total these reissues
feature six extra discs of remixes,
demos, alternate versions, radio
sessions and live tracks. STephen DALTon
THE CARS
Candy-O & Panorama:
Expanded Editions
(reissues, 1979, 1980)
RHINO/WARNER
6/10, 6/10
American new-wavers hit a rockier
patch and a road not taken
What with the three
hits, platinum sales
and Best New Artist
Grammy they earned
off their self-titled
debut in 1978,
the Cars’ first lap around the track
for elektra went about as well as it
possibly could. Inevitably, the next few
were a little less smooth, even if the
commercial success of 1979’s Candy-O
solidified the Boston band’s place as
American rock’s pre-eminent skinny-
tie-wearers. Newly expanded and
remastered by ric Ocasek along with
1980’s ill-fated Panorama, the Cars’
sophomore outing makes a strong start
with “Let’s Go”, the sleekest example
of the machine-tooled power-pop
they made with producer roy thomas
Baker. Yet the rawer early incarnations
of the title track and “Dangerous type”
included here suggest that Baker’s
tightly controlled production aesthetic
was already becoming a straitjacket.
Initially slagged off by the previously
adoring rock press, Panorama sees
them push out of their comfort zone
with songs that assume a darker,
tenser mood. “You Wear those eyes”
sounds like Suicide making a bid for
AM radio play. Outtakes “Shooting
for You” and “Be My Baby” suggest
the intriguing potential of the Cars’
ARCHIVE
The Cars
new penchant for doomy synth-rock.
Instead, Panorama’s rough ride
prompted a return to the slick pop of
Shake It Up and Heartbeat City, albums
that better served the bottom line,
but now feel more like dead ends.
Extras: 7/10 the CD and gatefold
double-vinyl editions come with
new liner notes by David Wild and
interviews with elliot easton and
Greg Hawkes. JASon AnDeRSon
ALEX CHILTON
A Man Called Destruction
(reissue, 1995)
OMNIVORE
7/10
Big Star leader’s mid-’90s
reinvention
Alex Chilton’s
career after Big Star
was inconsistent –
perhaps wilfully – but
deserves reappraisal.
Chilton had a perverse
side, and his solo work was loose to
the point of dishevelment – almost
as if he was attempting to undermine
arguments about his own artistic
significance. this album, augmented
here with seven (even) looser tracks,
dates from 1995, when Chilton had
reformed Big Star. A singer-songwriter
tour with Guy Clark and townes Van
Zandt led to the jazzy covers album,
Clichés, which then took him back to Big
Star’s home studio, Ardent in Memphis,
for a more studied rock’n’roll album
on which Chilton’s bar-band instincts
were augmented by a horn section,
anchored by Jim Spake on tenor sax
and Stax session man Nokie taylor
on trumpet. tightness, for Chilton, is
a relative concept, but the band adds
depth to Chilton’s sketchy vocals, while
leaving room for some fiery guitar. the
highlight is the swinging “Don’t Stop”,
run close by the astrologically playful
“What’s Your Sign Girl?” and the surf
rush of the Jan & Dean hit “New Girl
In School”. Also worth noting, the
backing chant of “Satan rules” on the
playful “Devil Girl”.
Extras: 7/10 Seven unissued tracks,
liner notes by Bob Mehr, initial vinyl
is translucent blue. ALASTAIR McKAY
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 47
 ARChIVE
rediscoVered
Uncovering the underrated and overlooked
DINO VALENTI
Dino Valente
RETROWORLD
9/10
A hallucinogenic hidden treasure
He only ever released one
solo album and the record
company spelt his name wrong
on the cover. The sessions
were chaotic, even by the
freewheeling standards of
stoned late-1960s hippy laissez faire. When
Valenti didn’t feel like singing, he spent two
days making paper aeroplanes and throwing
them around the studio. Bass player Carol Kaye,
who was hired and then fired, claimed it was
the most “hellish” session she ever played and
was exasperated by Valenti’s tendency to start a
song and still be improvising the same number
an hour later. “It was a lot of drugs in there,
turning the lights totally off, lighting candles,”
she reported. He also had a substantial personal
harem in tow. “There was like anywhere from 10
to 30 little girls,” producer Bob Johnston recalled.
Epic concluded the record was unsellable. They
refused to promote it – it’s almost impossible to
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIvES/GETTy IMAGES
find an original copy of the vinyl album without
a tell-tale notch in the cover, as it hit the cut-out
bins in record-breaking time – and wrote off the
recording costs against his advance. It was the
end of his solo career and a chastened Valenti
rejoined Quicksilver Messenger Service, the
band he had helped to found in San Francisco
before a year in jail for marijuana possession had
forced his departure.
Yet inside the unassuming sepia-tinted sleeve
was a record of esoteric psych-folk beauty that
48 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
visited places only Tim Buckley was accessing
among the troubadours of the time.
Born Chester Powers in 1937, he had pitched up
in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, played
with Fred Neil and written The Youngbloods’
quintessential peace-and-love anthem “Get
Together”. Epic had been expecting an album
of similarly commercial folk-pop. Instead,
Valenti delivered 10 elliptical, lysergically laced
songs, almost entirely bereft of conventional
verses, choruses, hooks and bridges. The
lyrics consisted of stream-of-consciousness
hippy philosophising. There were layers of
shimmering reverb, and the open-tuned chords
were the weirdest you’d ever heard outside jazz
skronking. The opener, “Time”, sets the ambient
mood, the shimmering guitars trailing visions
of hallucinogenic glory as Valenti’s echoing but
languid voice sings, “Time slipping away, new
dreams born every day.” A tinkling harpsichord
joins the acid-folk jangle and the spell is cast.
“My Friend” adds flute, piano and trumpets
and “Listen To Me” floats on the same vibe as
Blue Afternoon-era Buckley. “Children Of The
Sun” is a baroque-trance trip and the howling
weirdness of “Test” sounds like Skip Spence
jamming with Roland Kirk on acid. Valenti died
in 1994 at the age of 51, leaving a legacy that is as
lost and stoned and classic as it gets.
Extras: 6/10 Two tracks not on the original LP,
although both have been released elsewhere.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
COLOSSEUM
Those Who Are About To Die
Salute You/Valentyne Suite
(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’
“In The Heat Of The Night”, whereas
Valentyne Suite’s bonus CD features “Tell Me
Now” along with 1970 US-only album The
Grass Is Greener, which marks the band’s
slide towards muso tedium.
SAM RICHARDS
JOHN FOxx, HAROLD BUDD
& RUBEN GARCIA
Translucence/Drift Music/
Nighthawks (reissues, 2003, 2011)
DEMON
7/10, 8/10, 7/10
Instrumental abstractions from
Anglo-America
Initially released in 2003,
Translucence/Drift Music
was the product of sessions
between Foxx and Budd
seven years earlier, the
pair drawn together by a
shared passion for minimalism. Cue stately
echoes of Budd’s work with Brian Eno in
the ’80s (namely Ambient 2: The Plateaux
Of Mirror and The Pearl), his trademark
‘soft pedal’ piano subject to subtle reverb
and Foxx’s discreet synth moods. These
formless compositions take on delicate
inflections and shifts in tone, from sombre
to soothing, made all the more affecting
by their sheer simplicity. Meanwhile, the
song titles – “Spoken Roses”, “Curtains
Blowing”, “Raindust” – offer visual prompts
for the imagination. Drift Music is the
more synth-centric of the two, though the
transition is seamless. Both men hooked up
with New York composer Ruben Garcia for
2011’s Nighthawks, which follows a similarly
ethereal pattern. The ghostly undertow
of “Fugitive Desire” and “The Shadow Of
Her Former Self”, the latter ending with

a brief series of low rattles, brings
an added sense of foreboding to the
suite, juxtaposed by the almost breezy
“When The City Stops For Snow”. All
three make their debut here on vinyl,
serving as a lasting tribute to Garcia,
who has since passed away.
Extras: None. ROb HuGHES
RUBÉN GONZáLEZ
Introducing Rubén
González… (reissue, 1997)
WORLD CIRCUIT
8/10
20th-anniversary reissue of solo
debut by buena Vista pianist
extraordinaire
When Ry Cooder and
Cuba’s finest had
finished recording
Buena Vista Social
Club in Havana in
1996, a spontaneous
decision was taken to use the two
remaining days of pre-booked studio
time to record the first solo album of
the 76-year-old González’s career. His
sparkling piano playing had been one
of the unexpected highlights of the
BVSC sessions, and so it was a felicitous
decision to allow him to stretch out on
nine extended tracks recorded ‘live’
sans overdubs and which showcased
his extraordinary improvisational
abilities. Cooder described him as the
greatest solo pianist he’d heard in his
life and likened his mix of classical
tropes, jazz-based extemporisation
and thrilling Afro-Cuban syncopation
to “a cross between Thelonious Monk
and Felix the Cat”. His playing is by
turn light and playful and deep and
dynamic. Having spent more than
half a century as an accompanist, his
belated solo debut turned out to be one
of the most wondrous piano albums
ever recorded.
Extras: 6/10 An additional 11 minutes
of music, including a previously
unreleased six-minute jam of
breathtaking fluidity, and extended
versions of two other tracks that
formerly appeared in edited form.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
First lady:
Omara
Portuondo
KD LANG
Ingénue (reissue, 1992)
NONESUCH
9/10
Canadian’s “post-nuclear cabaret”
set revisited
Anyone for whom
Ingénue was an
introduction to KD
Lang might well
have been surprised
to discover that she
launched her career with a Patsy Cline
tribute band and sang in country
and western bars. But if the heavily
garlanded Canadian’s work has
become progressively more about the
torch and less about the twang, then
pinning it down precisely has seldom
been easy – one of the very reasons
Ingénue still dazzles, 25 years on.
Luminous, languid and seductive to
the point of intoxication, the Grammy-
winning breakthrough tracks the path
of unrequited love, in an alchemical
mix of jazz, pop, torch song, cabaret
and the Great American Songbook,
with a light, honeyed sheen applied
to balance its blue smokiness. This
remastered reissue, which follows
last year’s excellent case/lang/veirs
album, proves its status as a modern
classic – not only with its Big Pop
Hit, “Constant Craving”, but also
via the sinuous, klezmer-threaded
“Still Thrives This Love” and an
elegantly dramatic “Outside Myself”,
with piano and pedal steel. Perfectly
pitched, in pretty much every way;
that Lang’s voice is a knockout goes
without saying.
Extras: 7/10 Disc of eight previously
unreleased songs from 1993’s
MTV Unplugged set, with fine
arrangements. “Wash Me Clean”
– drenched equally in desire and
abandonment – is a highlight.
SHARON O’CONNELL
NICK LOWE
Nick The Knife/The
Abominable Showman
(reissues, 1982, 1983)
YEP ROC
Buena Vista social cluB
Solo albums by Cuba’s finest
ORLANDO
CACHAITO
LOPEZ
Cachaito
WORLD CIRCUIT, 2001
The most
experimental album in the series
found double bass-player
Cachaito López thrillingly fusing
dub, reggae, jazz improv and DJ
culture with Afro-Cuban rhythms.
Flute, sax and muted trumpet
weave through the spacious
mambo grooves. Guests include
Hugh Masekela, Pee Wee Ellis,
turntablist Dee Nasty and Aswad
keyboardist Bigga Morrison. 9/10
7/10, 5/10
Fittingly patchy entrée to
basher’s ’80s
Nick Lowe’s ’80s were,
by his own admission,
hit and miss, and
the reissues of his
third and fourth solo
albums tell the tale
in microcosm. Recorded following
the demise of Rockpile – though Billy
Bremner and Terry Williams pitch
in – Nick The Knife (1982) barrels along
with simple, good-rocking charm.
Highlights include the easy skank
of “Heart”, the pulsing Peter Gunn
twang of “Stick It Where The Sun
Don’t Shine”, and the crisp, strutting
“Too Many Teardrops”, written and
sung with Lowe’s then-wife, Carlene
Carter. Though not nearly as bad as its
title, The Abominable Showman (1983)
bears less fruit. It finds Lowe hedging
his bets, one foot in espadrilles, the
other in cowboy boots, while the slick
production hampers fine songs such
as “Raging Eyes” and “Mess Around
With Love”. Other near misses include
“Wish You Were Here”, a sleek soul
duet with Paul Carrack, while “How
Do You Talk To An Angel” signals
his later reinvention as an urbane
crooner. Spearheading the digital
release of Lowe’s entire ’80s output,
this pair alone are also available
on CD and vinyl.
Extras: 5/10 A handful of demos and
live recordings.
GRAEME THOMSON
FJ McMAHON
Spirit Of The Golden Juice
ANTHOLOGY
8/10
Now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t
rarity returns to circulation
In 1968, Californian
folkie Fred McMahon
returned home from
a tour of duty in
Vietnam “depressed,
disgusted, shattered”.
He began supporting anti-war causes
how to buy...
IBRAHIM
FERRER
Buenos
Hermanos
WORLD CIRCUIT, 2003
Ry Cooder
co-produced the second solo
album by the sweet-voiced
septuagenarian bolero singer and
declared, “I don’t think anybody
other than Ibrahim could make a
record like this. It has every kind of
nuance and subtlety, as well as
muscle.” The guitars of Cooder and
Manuel Galbán combine sinuously
and a team of BVSC veterans lend
immaculate support. 8/10
ARChIVE
FJ McMahon,
back from
’Nam
and a year later recorded nine songs for
a tiny and obscure label, which pressed
only a few hundred copies for regional
sale. By the mid-1970s McMahon
had disappeared again to become
an engineer on naval aircraft. Four
decades after its release, his solitary
album – named for his favourite brand
of bourbon – was reissued on Rev-Ola.
Almost immediately it went out of
print again and so this latest Haley’s
Comet-like sighting is hugely welcome.
Accompanied by minimalist bass and
drums with added lysergic lacings of
West Coast acid guitar, McMahon’s
lush baritone voice and earthy acoustic
guitar evoke the spirit of Fred Neil and
Tim Hardin on a set of songs that are
nakedly autobiographical and full of
typical 1960s nostrums such as “I never
knew what they meant by duty,” which
sound anything but platitudinous
when sung by a Vietnam vet. The lo-fi
demo quality simply serves to enhance
the sepia-tinted period feel.
Extras: None.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
OMARA
PORTUONDO
Buena Vista Social
Club presents
Omara Portuondo
MARIA LAuRA ANTONELLI/REX/SHuTTERSTOCk
WORLD CIRCUIT, 2000
The first lady of BVSC’s sole
lead vocal on the original album
generated a demand for more.
Three years later, the ensemble
reunited to back her romantically
nostalgic voice on this set of classic
ballads, big-band jazz and slinky
Latin standards. She was 70 at the
time, but her sensual elegance
remained incomparable. 8/10
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 49
 ARCHIVE
YOKO ONO
Fly/Approximately Infinite
Universe/Feeling The Space
(reissues, 1971, 1973, 1973)
SECRETLY CANADIAN
9/10, 8/10, 7/10
Perfecting the voice-as-weapon
Yoko Ono’s career
has taken in many
turns – avant-garde
artist, filmmaker,
conceptualist –
but her lasting
discovery is her utterly unique vocal
scream, which she found almost by
accident. Recording and replaying her
invocation of a childhood memory,
where Ono overheard servants re-
enacting the sounds of childbirth,
she accidentally spooled the tape in
reverse and, spooked by the uncanny
outcome, trained herself to reproduce
the backwards groans. By the time
of 1970’s Plastic Ono Band, Yoko had
perfected this voice-as-weapon,
and was directing some of the most
furiously disciplined rock music of
her time: “Why”, its opener, was as
mantric and manic as Krautrock at its
most unrelenting.
1971’s double album Fly is just as
revelatory. the first two sides have
her group – husband John Lennon,
regular bass foil Klaus Voormann
and Jim Keltner on drums – locked
in and tightly guiding a shamanic,
hypnotic rock music, the 17-minute
“Mindtrain” as higher-minded as Can’s
“Halleluwah”, while “Don’t Worry
PL GOULD/IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
Kyoko” draws wild playing from
Ringo starr and Eric Clapton as Ono
calls down the Furies. And if one of
the miracles of Fly is Ono’s capacity
to unlock players more traditionally
hemmed in by genre and cliché,
on side two she liberates herself
from song entirely, Fluxus artist Joe
Jones’ clangorous, clamorous music
50 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
machines duelling with Ono’s
vocal incantations.
the side-long title track is Ono
solo, soundtracking one of her most
audacious feats – the film of the
same name, with the titular insect
crawling over a naked woman, tracing
an alternate geography of the body.
Ono would extend and amplify the
feminist politic of the film through
1973’s Approximately Infinite Universe,
where songs such as “What A Bastard
the World Is” and “What A Mess” trace
the gender contours of both intimate
relationships and the socio-political
with fierce honesty, the latter’s “If you
keep hammering anti-abortion/We’ll
tell you no more masturbation for men”
eerily echoed, earlier this year, by
American politician Jessica Farrar’s
Man’s Right to Know Act.
Musically, on both Approximately
Infinite Universe and Feeling The
Space, Ono nudged her songs closer
to mainstream pop/rock, aided on
the former by New Yorkers Elephant’s
Memory: the playing is limber and
joyous, stretching out blues-rock
motifs here, teasing out piano-led
pop charmers there. By Feeling
The Space the music skirted the
lugubrious, but the songs are often
strong, and Ono’s not yielded one jot
on her politics – after all, this is the
album with the unflinching liner,
“this album is dedicated to the sisters
who died in pain and sorrow and those
who are now in prisons and in mental
hospitals for being unable to survive
in the male society.”
Extras: 7/10. Bonus tracks with each
album. JON DALE
PET ShOP BOYS
Nightlife: Further Listening
(1996-2000)
PARLOPhONE
7/10
Yoko Ono:
utterly
unique
Pet Shop Boys
Kicking off a PSB reissue
programme of treasure-filled
multi-disc packages
this eclectic 1999
collaboration with
Craig Armstrong and
Rollo from Faithless
came as the big
hits were drying up
and Neil tennant’s Noël Coward-ish
fondness for “the potency of cheap
music” was becoming supplanted
by flirtations with high art (Kabuki-
themed stage shows designed by
Zaha Hadid, orchestral hook-ups,
Rachmaninov samples and so on).
Highlights include the country-tinged
“You Only tell Me You Love Me When
You’re Drunk”, the Morrissey-esque
“Boy strange”, the Kylie duet “In
Denial” and the dark Philly disco
of “New York City Boy”. Also part
of the first wave of this mammoth
reissue programme is the rockier
Release (2002), where guest guitarist
Johnny Marr helps to literalise
tennant’s old suggestion that PsB
were “the smiths you can dance
to”; while 2006’s Fundamental is a
return to Kraftwerkian electronica
featuring some wonderfully theatrical
touches on “the sodom And
Gomorrah show” and the amusingly
dark “Casanova In Hell”.
Extras: 8/10 two extra discs provide a
treasure trove of contemporary tracks
and demos, including a heart-tugging
version of Noël Coward’s “sail Away”,
a hook up with Elton John, and several
songs from their 2001 West End
musical Closer To Heaven (including
the hilarious sondheim parody
“tall thin Men” and the defiantly
anti-rockist “Friendly Fire”).
JOhN LEwiS
ELvIS PRESLEY
A Boy From Tupelo: The
Complete 1953-1955
Recordings
RCA/LEgACY
8/10
Elvis before he was the King
When Elvis Presley
first walked into sun
Records in Memphis,
the tupelo-born
teenager fancied
himself a ballad
singer specialising in safe, sentimental
numbers like “Harbor Lights” and
“that’s When Your Heartache Begins”.
It was only when he and his band
were jamming between sessions
on the Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup
tune “that’s All Right” that sam
Phillips saw something marketable
and Presley escaped that narrow
category he had defined for himself.
As a result, his earliest material can
be fairly anonymous, showcasing a
fine singer with pedestrian tastes,
but hearing Presley find his voice
makes for a compelling coming-of-
age story. A Boy From Tupelo tells the
tale in great detail, gathering every
known surviving sun recording,
every false start, every lo-fi radio
performance and on-air interview.
All those outtakes and alternate
takes, including nine takes of “Blue
Moon”, might overwhelm a casual
fan, who are advised to seek out
2004’s Elvis At Sun for a more easily
digestible introduction to this period
in his career. But A Boy From Tupelo is
ultimately a necessary and revealing
addition to Presley’s vast catalogue,
one that spins a fascinating yarn about
a pimply kid who transformed into
something unprecedented: a rock star.
STEPhEN DEUSNER
PSYChIC Tv
Pagan Day/Allegory And Self
(reissues, 1984, 1988)
SACRED BONES/DAIS
6/10, 7/10
Two post-Gristle outings from
Genesis P-Orridge and friends
After the dissolution
of formative industrial
group throbbing
Gristle, Genesis
P-Orridge channelled
his creativity into
Psychic tV – a morphing, open-ended
collective encompassing occult
mysticism and multimedia creativity,
experimental improvisation and
glossy pop. two releases, issued on
vinyl for the first time since the ’80s,
show off different sides of the group’s
oeuvre. Released in 1988, Allegory And
Self – the final album with Alternative
tV’s Alex Fergusson in the fold – finds
the group approaching something
polished and commercial. In truth it’s
a bit all over the shop, and in particular
“Godstar” – a cloying tribute to fallen
stones guitarist Brian Jones – has
dated poorly. But doleful folk number
“We Kiss” strikes a note of unlikely
romance, while “she Was surprised”
experiments with jacking hi-NRG
rhythms, a glimpse of the group’s
future forays in acid house. More
consistent is Pagan Day, a collection of
song sketches and demos first released
in 1984. stripped right back to guitar,
organ and occasional drum machine,
it explores Velvets malingering
(“Opium”), florid orchestral folk (“Cold
steel”), and naïve minimal synth
(“New sexuality”), with a neat cover
of ’60s psych folk group Pearls Before
swine’s “translucent Carriages”
among the highlights.
Extras: None. LOUiS PATTiSON
 ARCHIVE

Purple Rain was Prince’s
most pivotal album,
establishing him as the
most visionary pop auteur
of the 1980s. It remains
the most personally
revealing record Prince
ever made, sharing a
semi-autobiographical
approach with the film
of the same title and
sounding gloriously
cocksure even as it
lays bare its creator’s
insecurities about – in
no particular order – love,
God, sex, family, sanity
and celebrity. these songs
depict Prince dealing
with the immense
celebrity that 1999
afforded him, embracing
the pleasure of the
spotlight while steeling
himself against the
daunting expectations.
“Baby I’m a star!” he
declares. “Take a picture,
sweetie!/I ain’t got time
to waste.” While these
tunes didn’t really need
to be remastered for this
deluxe reissue, the new
versions highlight the
intricate details of Prince’s
production as well as
of old hits and raiding the archives
for quickie reissues. Instead, he was
writing new chapters to his story right
up until the day he died.
It’s a bitter irony that it took his death
in April 2016 for that vault to be opened.
the first stray treasures are included on
this deluxe reissue of Purple Rain, which
is, for myriad reasons, the first Prince
album to get any kind of reissue treatment.
In addition to a live DVD and a disc of
previously released single edits and B-sides
(most of which are fairly redundant and
contain awkward fades), the set includes
11 new old songs from the vault, most of
which have never been heard. that alone
makes it as momentous as the album’s
original release, exposing new aspects
of an impossibly complex artist.
Rare for any kind of reissue, these
new old songs actually coalesce into
something like an album, teasing out
new sonic motifs and some of Prince’s
favourite lyrical themes. “the Dance
Electric” and “Love And sex” are monster
jams showcasing the dynamism of the
Revolution, Prince’s legendary backing
band. “Electric Intercourse” and a
12-minute version of “Computer Blue”
prove extremely prescient, envisioning in
1984 a future where digital bodies replace
physical ones, although the brilliantly
titled “Velvet Kitty Cat” and the bluntly
titled “We Can Fuck” imply that sex can
always be experienced musically.
that second disc also works as an

PRINCE & ThE

the cleverness of his backing band the artefact of a period of intense creativity
Revolution’s arrangements. Purple Rain and seemingly boundless energy, blurring
sounds incrementally more alive. the lines between the synth seductions

REvOLUTION the matter of the bonus tracks is the real

question with this reissue. For decades
Prince’s vaults have been rock’n’roll’s
Purple Rain very own El Dorado, a mythical place
WARNER filled with untold treasures. During his
life he added to it every day, but guarded
9/10 the contents closely, which might have
The first posthumous release: “We are frustrated fans but turned out to be a
sound strategy: even as he revived and
gathered here today to get through this reinvented old songs onstage, Prince never
thing called life…” By Stephen Deusner became a nostalgia act squeezing cash out
of 1999, the world-conquering sound
of Purple Rain and the paisley pop of
his derided follow-up, Around the World
In A Day. We may think of these albums
as individual works, each with its
own identity and sensibility, but this
long-awaited reissue portrays Prince as
an artist who made no such distinctions
in the studio, who got through this thing
called life by indulging every sound that
came into his head.

It’s an electric word,

life, and it makes for
SLEEVE NOTES
Produced by: Prince
an electric opening to
Recorded at: First
Prince’s sixth album: Avenue, Minneapolis; The
His Royal Badness Warehouse, St Louis Park,
as preacher and Minnesota; Record Plant,
Los Angeles; Sunset Sound,
pop star, gathering
Hollywood
his flock around him for a sermon about Personnel: Prince
the hardships of life and the lure of the (everything and
afterworld beyond. “Let’s look for the everybody), Lisa Coleman
(keyboards, vocals),
purple banana ’til they put us in the truck!”
Wendy Melvoin (guitars,
the excitement of that invitation – or is it vocals), Bobby Z (drums),
an invocation? – has not diminished in Dr Fink (keyboards, vocals),
the 33 years since Prince Rogers Nelson Brownmark (bass, vocals)
released his magnum opus, and Purple
Rain overflows with rousing hooks and DISC 1: ThE COMPLETE
musical ideas that remain thrilling even ALBUM (2015 REMASTER)
6 When Doves Cry
7 I Would Die 4 U
8 Baby I’m A Star
9 Purple Rain
DISC 2: FROM ThE vAULT AND
PREvIOUSLY UNRELEASED
1 The Dance Electric
2 Love And Sex
3 Computer Blue
(“Hallway Speech” Version)
4 Electric Intercourse
(Studio Version)
5 Our Destiny/
Roadhouse Garden
6 Possessed
7 Wonderful Ass
8 Velvet Kitty Cat
9 Katrina’s Paper Dolls
1 When Doves Cry (7” Edit) DvD: LIvE AT ThE
CARRIER DOME
2 17 Days (B-Side Edit)
3 Let’s Go Crazy (7” Edit) (MARCh 30, 1985)
4 Let’s Go Crazy 1 Let’s Go Crazy
(Special Dance Mix) 2 Delirious
5 Erotic City (7” B-Side Edit) 3 1999
6. Erotic City (“Make 4 Little Red Corvette
Love Not War Erotic City 5 Take Me With U
Come Alive”) 6 Do Me, Baby
7 Purple Rain (7” Edit) 7 Irresistible Bitch
8 God (7” B-Side Edit) 8 Possessed
9 God (Love Theme from 9 How Come U Don’t
Purple Rain) (Instrumental Call Me Anymore
UK 12” B-Side) 10 Let’s Pretend
10 Another Lonely We’re Married
Christmas (7” B-Side Edit) 11 International Lover
11 Another Lonely 12 God
Christmas (Extended) 13 Computer Blue
12 I Would Die 4 U (7” Edit) 14 Darling Nikki
LARRY WILLIAMS

in their familiarity, from the unabashed 1 Let’s Go Crazy
2 Take Me With U
arena rock of “Let’s Go Crazy” to the
3 The Beautiful Ones
breezy chamber pop of “take Me With U” 4 Computer Blue
to the gothic sexpunk of “Darling Nikki”. 5 Darling Nikki
10 We Can Fuck
11 Father’s Song
DISC 3: SINgLE EDITS
AND B-SIDES
13 I Would Die 4 U
(Extended Version)
14 Baby I’m A Star
(7” B-Side Edit)
15 Take Me With U (7” Edit)
15 The Beautiful Ones
16 When Doves Cry
17 I Would Die 4 U
18 Baby I’m A Star
19 Purple Rain

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 51

 ARCHIVE
the specialist
VINTAGE ELECTRONICA
Noise Reduction System: Formative European Electronica/
Closed Circuits: Australian Alternative Electronic Music
Of The ’70s & ’80s, Volume 1
CHERRY RED, FESTIVAL RECORDS/WARNER MUSIC AUSTRALIA
8/10, 9/10
Two compilations explore the strange, exciting world
of early electronic music in Europe and Australia
As synthesisers became
increasingly affordable
towards the middle of the 1970s,
they were utilised by a new
generation of musicians.
Some of these saw electronic
instruments as a linear
continuation of rock’n’roll,
while others thought they
presented an opportunity for
departure. Revolution or
evolution? These different
approaches are represented by two compilations
of electronica drawn from overlapping eras but
on different sides of the world. Noise Reduction
System, a four-disc volume from Cherry Red,
collects experimental European electronica,
while Closed Circuit features Australian acts who
used synths and drum machines to create new
but easily recognisable forms of pop.
Noise Reduction System is the sister volume
to last year’s Close To The Noise Floor, which
celebrated pioneering British electro. It begins
with the jarring “Die Gesunden Kommen”,
which sounds like somebody has dropped a
hippopotamus on Kraftwerk, and remains firmly
wedded to the avant-garde thereafter. Although
there are big names – Cluster, Vangelis, Yello –
the focus is on the underground, with musicians
drawn from right across Europe. Here you’ll find
the French cool of Ruth’s “Polaroid/Roman/
Photo”, the glacial “Romantic” by Sweden’s
Cosmic Overdose as well as the gorgeous
minimalism of “NY NY” by Dutch musician
Truus De Groot, recorded in an apartment in
Hoboken with a Tampax box for the bass drum.
There’s a unifying fascination with the future
52 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
– best heard on “Speak & Spell” by Germany’s
Christina Kubisch, which uses a vocal from a
handheld educational computer, and also a
wilful eagerness to unsettle, whether on the
wickedly hopscotching electro-psych of “Lux”
by Switzerland’s Schaltkreis Wassermann or
the Throbbing Gristle-inspired “Paeodophile
Information Exchange” (yes, seriously) by
Spain’s Esplendor Geometrico.
Over in Australia, Closed Circuits presents
a different angle. This collection compiles
20 songs recorded between 1979 and 1989
(the vinyl version has four additional tracks)
by underground bands who had recently
discovered drum machines and synths. As David
Nichols remarks in his sleevenotes, few were
“hoping to wipe out old rock music”, instead
choosing to apply new technology to classic
ideas. Within that, there’s room for glorious
variety, with the only shared sensibility being
the sense of possibility – a spark of invention that
unites the groovy “On” by Models, a poppy belter
that provides a bridge between past and future,
with the cacophonous experimentation of Bring
Philip’s “Firetruck”, clanking found music from
another planet, let alone continent. The other
consolidating factor is the more pronounced
humour. There’s a cover of “I Feel Love” as
played by Suicide-loving metal-heads Distant
Locust, the novelty pop “Talking To Cleopatra”
by Anne Cessna and Essendon Airport, and
The Metronomes’ brilliant ode to machinery,
“A Circuit Like Me”, which is a neat mash-up of
The Normal and Kraftwerk. It’s this Australian
cheekiness that presents the most intriguing
counterpoint to the studied Euro cool of Noise
Reduction System. Peter Watts
RAMONES
Leave Home: 40th Anniversary
Deluxe Edition
RHINO
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
featuring a 1977 show from CBGB. The 2017
anniversary mix from producer Ed Stasium
focuses on the band’s power, placing Joey’s
vocals slightly behind the instruments, giving
Johnny’s thundering guitar more of the lead.
The out-takes offer insight into process – a
“psychedelic” mix of “Pinhead”; a “sane” mix
of “What’s Your Game”; an even more doo-
woppy “You’re Gonna Kill That Girl” – while
the live album is frantic and sweaty.
Extras: 8/10 Available as limited numbered
edition with hardback book featuring
interviews with Danny Fields and Ed
Stasium. Peter Watts
ROSEBUD
Rosebud (reissue, 1971)
OMNIVORE
6/10
surprisingly conventional relic from the
archives of Zappa’s leftfield label
In 1969, Frank Zappa
released an arcane but
magical psych-folk record
on his Straight label by Judy
Henske and Jerry Yester
called Farewell Aldebaran.
It sold few copies, but has since developed
a cult following and was an Uncut reissue
of the month last year. Even more obscure
is the follow-up the duo recorded two years
later under the name Rosebud, expanded
to a quintet by ex-Turtles drummer John
Seite, bassist David Vaught and keyboardist
Craig Doerge, best known as a James
Taylor/Jackson Browne sideman and who
succeeded Yester as Henske’s husband. The
augmented lineup resulted in a muting of
Farewell Aldebaran’s outré tendencies in
favour of a fashionable countryish soft-rock
shtick. It works pleasingly enough in places,
notably on the cowboy-synth hybrid of
“Reno”, the bubblegum country of “The Yum
Yum Man” and the baroque chamber-pop
harmonies of “Le Soleil”. But what’s missing
is the sense of wide-eyed mystery that
made Farewell Aldebaran so singular and
special. Although it’s hardly mainstream,
it’s probably the most conventional record
Zappa’s label ever released – and therein lies
the disappointment.

Extras: 6/10 Ten additional
recordings, most of which are
previously unheard songs rather
than the usual motley collection
of demos and alternative versions.
NIGeL WILLIaMsON
SUPER FURRY ANIMALS
RADIATOR (reissue, 1997)
BMG
9/10
“they’re super, they’re furry,
they’re animals…” the Welsh
quintet’s finest LP (probably) and
associated extras
While SFA’s debut,
Fuzzy Logic, was
guitar rock with
eccentric frostings, its
follow-up, Radiator,
was where it all came
together for the Furries. Rhodes piano,
acoustic and fuzz guitars, sub-bass,
samplers, filters, analogue synths and
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
most satisfying album. Stylistically,
it’s a veritable trip through the radio
waves, taking in ornate, Zombies-
esque ballads (“Down A Different
River”), warped West Coast pop (“Play
It Cool”, “She’s Got Spies”), garage-
punk (“Chupacabras”) and everything
else (the all-genres-in-a-blender
approach of first single “Hermann ♥s
Pauline”). If one Furries song sums up
their lunacy and genius, however, then
Radiator’s closer “Mountain People”
would probably be it: beginning as
stately acoustic pop, it blossoms into
Morricone-esque grandeur before
ending in acid techno madness.
Extras: 9/10 1998’s “Ice Hockey Hair”
EP, included here, contains three
of the group’s most inspired tracks.
Meanwhile, CD2 features a wealth of
B-sides, including the tender post-rock
balladry of “Carry The Can” and the
glammy “Wrap It Up”, and a previously
unreleased 1996 Cardiff demo session,
with Radiator songs intriguing in
their half-formed states. Unheard
songs “B Side” and “The Boy With The
Thorn In His Side” (a ravey Smiths
cover) are worth hearing (once). All
newly remastered.
tOM PINNOCK
MaRcOs Valle
Getting into Brazil’s ever-eccentric master of the groove
Samba ’68
UNIVERSAL/VERVE, 1968
The culmination
of Verve’s efforts
to serve up Valle
as a Brazilian singer that
American listeners could love,
Samba ’68 presents the
young singer and songwriter
as a suave, somewhat
traditional-minded purveyor
of bossa-flavoured, pan-
American pop. Though he’d
soon take off in more radical
directions, there’s still much
to savour in his smooth and
swanky English-language
renditions of many of his early
hits in Brazil. 8/10
MARCOS VALLE
Marcos Valle
PRESERVATION
8/10
First vinyl reissue of funky
’83 outing by Brazilian smoothie
As pictured on the
cover of the album
that bears his name
(also known as
Estrelar after its
biggest hit), Marcos
Valle looks oddly glum for a man
with so many gaily coloured drinks.
At least his eyes convey something
brighter, perhaps because they match
the shade of the blue concoction he
uses to toast listeners of one of the
Brazilian great’s most consistently
pleasurable long-players. Marcos
Valle was the singer and composer’s
first album after returning from Los
Angeles to Brazil, having left in 1975
owing to his weariness of coping with
censorship and other complications
of life under the military dictatorship.
Largely written during his exile, the
music here seamlessly combines the
samba, bossa nova, funk and rock
elements that made his 1970s albums
so sublime with the contemporary
SummER
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FFor more information, visit page 97
ARCHIVE
How to buy...
Marcos Valle Ecstática
ODEON/LIGHT IN FAR OUT, 2010
THE ATTIC, 1970
Having secured
Enlisting Som godlike status
Imaginaro, Valle among rare-
earned himself a place in groove aficionados, Valle
Tropicália’s vanguard with could have phoned it in for
the first in a series of daring his latterday teamings
fusions of bossa, rock, jazz with London’s Far Out.
and psych soul. Intoxicating Instead, his albums for
and David Axelrod-sized on label head Joe Davis
this self-titled outing, his and a series of younger
music would grow even more producers are full of
fabulously baroque on 1971’s freshly cut gems and
Garra and irresistibly groovy return visits to the
on 1973’s Previsão Do Tempo, back catalogue.
two more essentials in the A masterful set.
Valle reissues that Light In The 9/10
Attic launched in 2013. 9/10 JASON ANDERSON
American sounds he gravitated pop of Cath Carroll’s Miaow. The
towards while in LA. While “Samba collection starts with Buzzcocks, as
De Verão” and “Dia D” indicated his it should, and moves chronologically,
affinities for the nimble, brass-centric from punk into post-punk (The Fall,
R&B of Earth, Wind & Fire and Leon Tiller Boys), tracking the Haçienda’s
Ware (Valle’s co-writer on several dancefloor dominance, and ending
tracks here), the honey-sweet balladry with Oasis’ first demo. Often, the
of “Fogo Do Sol” and other yacht-pop more oblique voices speak loudest,
flavours reflect the friendships he’d from Manchester Mekons’ pop-prog-
forged with members of Chicago punk collectivism, through Durutti
and players he shared with fellow Column’s moist-eyed melancholy,
émigré Sergio Mendes. A monster World Of Twist’s epic pop oddness, to
hit in Brazil, “Estrelar” is where it all classic British hip-hop from Ruthless
comes together in one effervescent Rap Assassins.
boogie wonderland. Extras: 7/10 Notes from Mick Middles
Extras: 7/10 The first official LP and Mark Radcliffe. JON DaLe
reissue, Preservation’s edition comes
with an eight-page booklet by Allen
Thayer based on a new interview
with Valle. JasON aNDersON
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Manchester North Of
England: A Story Of
Independent Music – Greater
Manchester 1977–1993
CHERRY RED
7/10
Panoramic overview of music out
of the north’s avant-pop heart
There are many tales to
ComIng nExt
tell about Manchester, montH...
and the risk taken he national return with
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
Records centrism
of the contemporary music press,
reunion corner, James Murphy
releases the fourth LCD
encouraged by label idée Tony Wilson.
It’s to the great credit of Manchester:
Soundsystem album American
Dream, while the Dream
North Of England compiler John Reed,
then, that this seven-disc set allows
Syndicate unveil How Did I Find
Myself Here?, their first LP in 29
for a far more inclusive Manchester
to emerge, while still rightly paying
years. In the world of reissues,
Frank Zappa’s Absolutely Free
respect to the achievements of Wilson gets an expanded vinyl release,
the Doors’ A- and B-sides
are compiled and the Style
Council’s six LPs have been
as X-O-Dus’ brilliant, spaced-out remastered for coloured vinyl.
“English Black Boys” and the jangle- TOM.PINNOCK@TIMEINC.COM
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 53
MARK E SMITH

“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

54 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

ON…”

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 55


HeRe are some fucking weird people
around, aren’t there?” says Mark e Smith,
taking a sip of his double Jameson’s in
Manchester’s Crown & Kettle public
house. He’s talking about musicians, a
group of people he famously detests. “I
suppose you meet a lot of ’em. I’m not one
to talk, but a lot of them can’t give it up,
can they?”
As he admits, few artists have doggedly
pursued such a singular, and lengthy,
mission as that of the only constant
member of The Fall. With the departure
of synth player – and former Mrs Smith – elena Poulou, The Fall have
been reduced to their core of guitarist Pete Greenway, drummer
Kieron Melling and bassist Dave Spurr; they’ve been with Smith for
over a decade, and, in the world of The Fall, that’s a lifetime.
“The group are very well, actually,” insists Smith. “Never been
better. That’s why I wanna crack on a bit [with another new album].
They’re really fucking excellent. The great thing about my
lads is the rhythm section, Dave and Kieron, they were
brought up from 15, 16, playing ’70s and ’80s hits as a duo.
So they can play. They can play ‘Paranoid’. They can play
‘In The Year 2525’. No, really!” “My dad
On one hand, Mark e Smith in 2017 is surprisingly
mellow and friendly – during Uncut’s afternoon in the thought I
Crown & Kettle, he drinks less than his reputation might
suggest (he chooses a Welsh IPA to go with his double
whiskey, before moving on to Duvel), and is often
was fucking
strikingly funny, whether discussing artist Wyndham
Lewis or Jools Holland. After the interview, Smith even
mentally ill
takes Uncut out to another pub for a few more rounds. Like
the Lancashire weather, however, Smith’s mood can turn
when I formed
suddenly: he’ll talk about the past, but only on his own
terms, and will happily lambast all manner of subjects,
The Fall”
from the BBC and the destruction of Victorian latticework
to today’s young groups.
MaRk E SMiTh
“My dad thought I was fucking mentally ill,” he says,
remembering when he first formed The Fall in Prestwich in 1976. “[But
now] they’ve been to rock college, and you can see it in the way they
play. You used to send your son into the army or the clergy, now you
send them into a rock group. If I go and see bands now, there’s more
members of the group than there is audience. It’s all their aunties and
56 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
When there were
five: The Fall with
former Mrs Smith,
Elena Poulou
their sisters, who’ve asked me to come down. You wish them well, but
it’s quite weird.”
As the band’s 60-odd former members would likely attest, Smith
remains a man it would be wise not to cross, with his memory as
sharp as his tongue, and his deepest wrath reserved for ex-Fall
musicians and their ‘tell-all’ memoirs.
“If you get my curse, man, it doesn’t fucking come back,” he
mutters, finishing his whiskey. “There’s summat about The Fall,
it just destroys…”
T
HIS month, 41 years into a career of sublime turmoil, Smith’s
group release their 32nd studio album, New Facts Emerge, a
storming set of heavy grooves, with their leader growling
impressionistically over a barrage of guitar. Uncut tells Smith that it’s
perhaps the strongest Fall record since 2010’s Your Future Our Clutter.
“Do you like it? Ah, I’m glad,” he says. “I haven’t heard it complete
yet, I got a bit fed up with it. I had so many arguments with the cutting
engineer and all that. But I know when it’s right, I’ve had it in my head
for so long. I’ve got ideas for another half an LP now.”
The centrepiece of New Facts… is the nine-minute
“Couples Vs Jobless Mid-30s”, an unhinged multi-part
suite that veers from lumbering rock grooves complete
with manic laughter to sections of chanting and
detuned Mellotron. “We went to a studio in Castleford,
Yorkshire,” says Smith, explaining the song’s
creation, “which funnily enough is where we did Your
Future Our Clutter. It’s a big, fuck-off heavy metal
studio. I left them in there for a week or so.”
You just left the group there and went away?
No, not off on holiday! Stuff like “Couples…”, that’s
them having fun. So we got about seven songs out of
it [at Castleford]. “Couples…” is like three or four of
their tunes savaged! They were trying to do
something about eagles Of Death Metal, and about
heavy metal groups. I said, “That’s not on”, because
they were the group in Paris, weren’t they? So I
changed it to all this. I enjoy it. It fucks your head up.
The more annoyed the engineers get, I tend to carry on. especially
with all this technology now, engineers always fiddle about with the
filters and that, make it a bit tamer. But with something like [closer]
“Nine Out Of Ten”, the fucking best version is obviously the most
earache one.
 MARK E SMITH
The version I’ve heard is pretty earachey. Good, good. It’s the
right one, then! I love shit like that, when it’s a bit painful.

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
bombing. Was it like “Powder Keg”, a kind we start an album, we’ll all
of precog thing? [MES claims “Powder come in with fully formed
songs and we spend the first day
Keg”, released on June 10, 1996, was about
getting them out of our systems
the Arndale Centre bombing, which took place five days later]. – they never work. Then the next
Probably, I don’t know. I’m actually very fond of the architecture of day we’ll start to do our proper
Victoria Station, but it’s all been trashed to fuck, and that’s what the work, which is very collaborative.
song’s about. You know all that beautiful Victorian latticework, like Maybe Dave’ll have a bassline
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
Because the students coming to Manchester wanted to have access to
we work best.
north Manchester [pauses]. We don’t want ’em here [laughs]! So they
put this big canvas canopy up, and about six months ago it fell on all kieron MeLLing: We’ll give
the passengers in the rush hour. There’s summat wrong with Mark the demos of what we’ve
Manchester, they can’t leave anything fucking alone. been doing, he’ll take them away
for a listen, and advise us what
route to go down.
I see The Fall are off to America in September, for a New York
residency. I’m looking forward to it. We’ve got a massive fanbase greenwAY: “Couples Vs Jobless
there, but we haven’t been for a bit. It’s more fanatical than it ever Mid-30s” was conceived in a
was, the fanbase – those New York shows sold out, 10 dates. They’re hotel room. Mark came up with
loyal, American fans. It’s a long time since we’ve been, last time was the idea to do this long, operatic
with the Dudes, the American group for [2007 album] Reformation thing with chanting, and we took
him at his word and did it. A very
Post TLC.
odd song.
Are you still in touch with the Dudes? Yeah. Tim [Presley]’s lost in MeLLing: I think we’re all on
Wales, int’he? I warned him. I bet they fuckin’ ate him or summat. I the same page – you’re there
saw him at the Green Man festival and he says, “I’m tto work, and then
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
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.
not messing about, I think that’s
it. Everybody knows their place,
Mark’s the boss and that’s that.
It’s interesting, we don’t know
100 per cent what’s on the LP ’til
we hear the master – which I’ve
just heard! So we’re hearing it at
the same time as everybody else,
really.
greenwAY: We’re going
through a really nice stage at the
moment, where we’re all good
pals. It feels like a nice time at the
moment. I think Mark genuinely
likes us, which is good.
MeLLing: It’s the myth of this
being a revolving door of musi-
cians – we’ve been doing it for
11 years now, we’ve got a good
working relationship down. Plus,
he’s a mate, I get on with Mark
really well. I wanted to do “Totally
Wired” when I got in the band,
’cos I like the song. I think we did
it once in Glasgow – I’d been
going on about it, and Mark said,
‘Fuck it, just do it,’ but he just
won’t entertain doing any of the
I don’t think he likes it – he prefers

I bet your American fans are younger than the

ones over here? Yeah, they’re all from this century.
They’re all from Reformation time, it’s very strange.
That album does feel like a watershed, in some
ways. Well, thank God, yeah. I’d like to think that. I
was playing it a bit back and it sounds fucking great.
There are bits where it gets divisive, even for me.
[Julian Cope’s Sunspots plays] I went past Tamworth
on
o the way up here, and I thought about Julian. You
two
t were close, weren’t you? Around Live At The Witch
Trials
T – it’s been that long. Sad, isn’t it? For him…
What
W h was he like back then? A fucking nobody [laughs]. He
was our roadie, with Ian out of the Bunnymen. I haven’t seen
GAbor SCoTT/rEDFErnS, ChrIS LEVEr/rEX/ShuTTErSToCk

Julian since… My sister bought me an Uncut yesterday to

Do you listen to other Fall records? Not at all, check you out. She says, “He’s interviewed Jah
no. But I played Live At The Witch Trials recently, the Wobble in there.”
American version, I haven’t played it before. They took
all the good stuff off it, made it into a rock album. It Wobble mentioned The Fall, actually. He said
sounded fucking awful. They got rid of most of the first “Kicker Conspiracy” reminded him of the
side and put a long version of “Various Times” on. If you Kickers that studio engineers used to wear
fucking hear that, you’ll never wanna hear it again. So I in the ’70s. Is that right? It can be read like
got the original out, and it didn’t sound too bad at all. that, yeah. But it’s also a big Dusseldorf/Cologne
hooligans’ magazine, Kicker. I’ve always liked
A song I’ve been into recently is “Gross Chapel/ Jah Wobble. We were doing this Peel Session [in
British Grenadiers” [from 1986’s Bend Sinister]. 2004] and he was next door. He walked in
Fucking hell, you’re going weird with The Fall, and said, “Why don’t I get a job with The Fall?
aren’t you? I can do better than that cunt over there.”

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 57

And he pointed at our fucking bass player. And you
know what, he was right, ’cos six months later that
fucking cunt left me in Arizona. But [Wobble]
spotted it straight away – he was a cunt. Fucking
Steve trafford.

Wobble also told me he mugged John Leckie

back in his more violent days. He mugged John
Leckie?! they are funny, aren’t they… it’s not the
hardest thing in the world to mug John Leckie,
though, is it?

Have you got any plans after America?

i’m doing this Wyndham Lewis thing with the
imperial War Museum. there’s an exhibition, this
collection they’ve discovered. i’ve been asked to do a
speech. Captain Beefheart was a big Lewis fan, can
you believe that? then there was David Bowie, who
said he liked everything. But of course, [now] nobody
likes Lewis, ’cos he was a fascist, apparently. So
[starting] from a big collection of people doing this
exhibition on Lewis and the rebel art of the Vorticists in London and
Manchester, there’s no fucker left, they’ve all dropped out [laughs]. So
i got the Manchester imperial War Museum. it’s old Dockland, i used
to work there when i was doing …Witch Trials. i’m gonna try and make
a fucking hour and a half out of it, ’cos i do like Wyndham Lewis.
That’s my favourite era of art: people like Max Ernst or Paul
Nash. Me, too. this is all these Lewis World War i paintings, no-one’s
ever fucking seen them. And some of ’em knock the shit out of that
World War i crap that was pushed as art. i’m a bit fucking fascinated
by the First World War. What i didn’t like was the anniversary a few
years back. i thought it was handled very poorly. the parks near me,
they had fucking choirs singing about the dead, and they don’t know
anything about it! then you have all these BBC programmes and it’s
all about the Salford lads, and it’s all these actors, these big, healthy
fucking fellas. And they’re all laughing and joking, and then they get
in the trenches and they’re all shitting themselves – with music from
pJ Harvey over it, by the fucking way! i found that grossly insulting.
i don’t think it was like that at all: if you look at the old film, those
fucking lads were glad to get out of the factories in Salford – in the
trenches, they’re like [grinning], with no arms. they were brave men.
then you have these fucking programmes, ‘Who Are Ya?’ [Who Do
You Think You Are?], and it’s some fucking actor whose fucking great-
great-grandfather fought for the fucking iRA. You just have to hold
your tongue. So when i saw this Wyndham Lewis thing, i thought it’d
be good. picasso was a devout Communist, he supported Stalin who
murdered millions, and no-one says, “Don’t fucking show him.”
Lewis was just winding people up, that’s fucking obvious to me.
The Fall So the group now… it’s turning into an Uncut interview this, isn’t it?
with Brix the past… working through to the present.
Smith in
the era
of This Well, it doesn’t have to be… i know, i’m only kidding.
Nation’s
Saving
Grace, We can talk more about the Vorticists, if you like. Yeah.
1985
We share another passion – The World At War. the tV programme?
I heard you’re into it. i’d use it to get rid of people who came round to
my house, especially stoners. i have a video set of it. it’s good. it is mad,
if you compare it to that BBC shit. it’s all free trips. it’s a training school
for idiots. And they have these documentaries, like Country At The BBC,
and it’s fucking criminal, really. i’m fucking quite into my country, and
[that programme] has like the worst country.
I guess it’s the only footage they have access to.
if they show the Fall, it’s always just Michael Clark with the bare
bottoms [from a one-off performance of “Lay Of The Land”]. that
…Jools Holland show, i watched it the other week, and it was appalling.
it was like the shit you see in a wine bar, some old boy from South
America, and these fellas pretending to be African, and they’re not! it’s
obvious they’re not. the white ones are even worse. What are those
ones, with the little fella who goes,
[high-pitched] “Ooh-wee/I am
creepy”? And this tall guy with
glasses who goes, [deep] “creepy
creepy”? He looks like the guy off

unholy mes

Green Eyed Loco Sounds

How to buy the 21st-century Fall

THE REAL NEW FALL HEADS REFORMATION YOUR FUTURE

FALL LP (FORMERLY ROLL POST TLC OUR CLUTTER
COUNTRY ON THE SLOgAN, 2005 SLOgAN, 2007 DOMINO, 2010 NEW
W FACTS
CLICK) Although the After being A hard- EMERgE
ACTION, 2003 cover paid abandoned hitting set CHERRY RED, 2017
Rejigged after tribute to Van in Arizona of stomping Powerful yet oblique,
an early mix Der Graaf by the titular glam-garage, the group’s 32nd studio
appeared Generator, “traitors, the group’s album relies on rock-hard
online, MES Fall Heads Roll saw a liars and cunts”, Smith only Domino full-length riffs and hammering
returns with a heavier rock sound, with recruits American musi- remains their most drums. Yet there’s also
strong offering after a few the powerful Krautrock cians ‘The Dudes’ for acclaimed 21st-century a winning experimental
uneven albums. “Theme chug of “Blindness” one this grooving return to album. Contains the streak, with “Couples Vs
From Sparta FC” still fea- of the group’s all-time form, a particular epic “Bury Pts 1 & 3”, Jobless Mid-30s” and
tures in some of their sets, peaks. favourite of MES. presumably too popular “Nine Out Of Ten” equally
and “Green Eyed Loco- 7/10 8/10 for Smith to bother funny and strange.
Man” deserves to. 7/10 performing live. 9/10 8/10

58 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017


Pointless. i wanna go and see them. We used to look at
groups that were bad and fucking go and see ’em, just to
heckle them. there are no groups crap enough to go and
watch now.
They’re all too proficient these days. Who wants to
see that?
I wanted to ask about Brix & The Extricated. It
must be annoying for you that they’re playing old
Fall stuff. i’m still on the case with it. But they’ve been Novelist, painter
and critic Percy
doing their new material lately. it annoyed me about a Wyndham Lewis
year ago, but not anymore. i’m glad you asked, ’cos (1882-1957)
people keep saying, ‘Give it up,’ but there was a
genuine conspiracy there which nobody would
believe. i knew it.
What kind of conspiracy? they were delusional. it can
only be proved by the fucking… it’s what i was saying,
there are people who retire for 20 years and think they can
just come back into it. the best bit was when paul Hanley
was on The Chase.
With Bradley Walsh? [smiles] Bradley Walsh… He said,
“What do you do, paul?” He goes, “i used to drum for the
Fall, but i’ve been an it operator for 25 years. i’m doing an
english Lit degree with another ex-member of the Fall.”
And Bradley Walsh goes, “they’re still going, aren’t they?” [pauses] He
went out the first fucking round. Who does an english degree with
another ex-member of the Fall?! For a fella who was in the group for
two years, it is very weird. Now they’re doing all whats-her-face’s
material. i don’t gloat, ’cos it was serious at one point.
Does it make you think about playing more from
older Fall albums? Haha! [A man comes over, shakes
Smith’s hand and offers him a drink. MES firmly but
“We’d go see
politely turns it down, then turns to Uncut wide-eyed]
He’s another one. He’s the roadie for the extricated.
bad bands
That’s a bit weird. He used to have really long hair. He just to laugh
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
that’s how sad they are. Go on.
are no bands
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
them. My side of the story is so fucking truthful. the
thing about me is i can remember everything. everything
to see now”
in them books… when Brix was going on about the flat in
prestwich [in her 2016 book The Rise, The Fall, And The Rise], how it had
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
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
memoirs of a psychopath. i can’t read it, it’s so funny. His new
girlfriend who’s the co-writer, she’s met him at a Foxes gig, in the
dressing room…
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,
MARK E SMITH
seeing as the next ferry isn’t for hours,’ Smith said,
red-faced. So we went to the canteen.”
D
eSpite the dissenting voices of former Fall
members, Mark e Smith’s versions of events
certainly seem plausible when he’s explained
them in person. After all, the most prominent
ex-members of the band can sometimes seem
strangely preoccupied with a man they often portray as
beastly. But perhaps Uncut’s willingness to believe
Smith is just down to his still-powerful charisma; as the
Fall’s cult leader, he remains seemingly all-seeing, all-
knowing and all-remembering. So come on, Mark, are
you really that horrible?
“We’re talking about six strapping 20-year-old lads
with muscles there,” he laughs, suggesting they
wouldn’t need to ask his permission to eat. “Where do these
w
tthings come from?! And [Hanley writes] about how i made his
cchild bring speed to ireland. Nobody’s got that far in the book,
nobody! We played ireland, and his 11-year-old wanted to go to
n
Dublin, so i said he could only come – [laughs] it’s like Mansfield
D
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
penguin wouldn’t pass that nonsense!”
p
One more apocryphal tale to file alongside the others,
perhaps: of verbal and physical violence, of Smith sacking a
p
soundman for eating a salad (“the final straw,” he once explained),
pouring a pint of beer over the head of a tourbus driver mid-journey,
and generally controlling his band as firmly as some tyrannical despot.
Whether it’s true or not, does all this stuff not add to the myth?
“Not particularly, no,” says Smith. “i know what you’re saying. You
can’t rewrite history, my group have been with me longer
and are fucking 18 times better than any of that crap
were. they weren’t very good. it’s all right saying ‘Gross
Chapel’ [was good], but it was hard work pulling them
through that. What they also don’t know is the amount
GEORGE C BERESFORD/GETTY IMAGES, RIChARD MARTIN-ROBERTS/REDFERNS
of hours i spent cleaning up their music with John Leckie
and people like that. they actually think they played
like that on the records. the amount of times John Leckie
would get another musician in… i would never hurt
them like that at the time, to say.”
As he’s been discussing the Fall’s many ex-members,
Smith has been gradually shuffling along the long
bench in the pub’s back room. He ends up practically at
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
they had to keep it up…
“they do seriously believe it! it is,” he concludes,
with somethi ng uncharacteristically akin to
understatement, “interesting.”
New Facts Emerge is released on July 28 on Cherry Red
The Fall (l-r:
Pete greenway,
Smith, Keiron
Melling and
Dave Spurr) live
at the Arts Club,
Liverpool, January
21, 2017
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 59
60 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
 dennis wilson
Trouble man:
Dennis Wilson,
New York, 1977

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

MiChaEl PUTlaND/GETTY iMaGES

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 61

 dennis wilson

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
album, these were among the first songs Dennis
Wilson wrote and recorded. Until then, the blondest,
handsomest Wilson brother had been the band’s
pin-up and, almost as an afterthought, their drummer.
In the studio, he was replaced by session men, notable
among them Hal Blaine.
“Dennis was not really a drummer, he was more a
piano player,” says Blaine. “He played pretty damn
heart of Dennis Wilson.”
surpassed his Kalinich was a more productive influence. “We
would go up in his tree hut,” he says. “For ‘Little Bird’, I
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
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
gREgg jakoBSoN Brentwood Motor Hotel in his Corniche Rolls-Royce
and played me the song. The chords and the notes he

62 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

 dennis wilson
with a melody line and a little rhythm thing, or he would take
something I’d say and turn it into a musical line, and we’d go from
there. Most of the time it would take about 10 minutes. It would be the
simplest thing, almost child-like. It was not at an intellectual level,
they were words that could connote or convey a feeling. I remember
one day we were walking by a school, and kids were getting out for
lunch, yelling and laughing. He stopped, grabbed my arm, and said,
‘Listen. That’s my favourite sound.’ That was Dennis. He truly was a
soulful dude.”
As well as Wilson’s chief co-writer, Jakobson was hired as
co-producer. In reality, studio engineers Earle Mankey, John Hanlon
Surfin’ USa, and Steve Moffit handled the technicalities; Jakobson’s role was
La,august
1962: (l-r) more pastoral. “It meant I could take Dennis, in all
Dennis Wilson, his wildness and whimsicalness, and say, ‘OK,
David Marks,
Mike Love, we’re going to go into the studio at five o’clock this
Carl Wilson, evening. What musicians do we need? Do we need
Brian Wilson
instruments delivered?’ He liked that. He would
probably not have done that on his own so much.”
“It was a very simpático relationship,” says
got were so wonderful. He wasn’t the greatest keyboard Hanlon. “Gregg facilitated the creative process by
player, but he had an instinctive feel. He embraced letting Dennis focus on the music.”
lyrics like nobody else could. That was the beginning of The bulk of the album was recorded at Brother
Dennis as a songwriter. Trees grows from seeds. These Studios between March 1976 and early 1977 using
are the seeds of Pacific Ocean Blue.” the cream of LA sessionmen, many of whom had
In the ’70s, Wilson continued contributing to Beach worked with The Beach Boys, including Blaine,
Boys records, but the band was in a creative trough. In Hinsche, James Jamerson, Ricky Fataar and
1976, they returned from a three-year hiatus with 15 Big Figueroa. “With each song, there was a different
Ones, an album of rock’n’roll standards and a handful group of people, and they kind of dictated the
of originals. “It was quite casual,” says Billy Hinsche, vibe,” says Figueroa. “He never presented a
who played on 15 Big Ones and Pacific Ocean Blue, and
whose sister was married to Carl Wilson. “It was the Missing in action

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
Now living in Malibu, during this period Wilson conducted solo time the Beach Boys’
sessions at The Beach Boys’ Brother Studios in Santa Monica, without spent with Maharishi
Mahesh yogi in 1968. “i have the
any specific agenda. “I’d get a call from Dennis, ‘Hey, can you come
original words, when it was called
down?’” says Bobby Figueroa, who drummed with The Beach Boys ‘O holy Man’,” says stephen
and played on Pacific Ocean Blue. “He would get ideas and invite you Kalinich. “it wasn’t just about
in without talk of any serious project. It was just, ‘Get your butt down Maharishi, it was about a place
here, I wanna do something.’ You never knew what was going to you could go for sanctuary.” the
happen. Sometimes it was nothing, sometimes it was the greatest song was attempted first with
the Beach Boys, in 1974, then
thing you could imagine. On the road [with The Beach Boys] we’d play
by Wilson alone. “it had a life of
around with different ideas at sound check. He was always working its own,” says Gregg Jakobson.
on songs. Before you know it, he was talking about a solo record.” “We cut an incredible track in the
The idea of a solo album was pushed by Jim Guercio, former Beach studio and it became legendary,
Boys session man, and briefly their manager. Guercio owned Caribou as we couldn’t come up with a
half-remembered lines. With
Wilson long dead, he turned to
Foo Fighters drummer taylor
hawkins to finally record a
vocal. “he sounds like Dennis, the
same gravelly, whisky voice, and
Dennis was one of his idols. he
did a beautiful version.”
Both the original instrumental
and hawkins’ version of “holy
Man” were added to the 2008
POB reissue, but there remains
a third version. “taylor sent the
track to Brian May, and he and
roger taylor fell in love with
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

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 63

 dennis wilson
formal structure of anything. He just said, ‘Here’s an
idea, let’s play,’ and it ended up where it ended up. He
let you spread your wings, gave you the freedom to
express yourself.”
“He flew a little by the seat of his pants on those
sessions,” says Hinsche. “We weren’t locked into a
music chart, there was some interpretative leeway,
though of course the structure had to be right. As in life,
he was very associative and free, very spontaneous
with his music. Some of it he was making up as he
went along!”
“We wrote a lot in the studio, and there were things we
had prior to that that we elaborated on, building from
the chorus line,” says Jakobson. “Dennis had that thing
[Brian] had. They could hear it all in their head. He just
said, ‘Here’s what I want to do,’ and explain it. He’d hum
it, whistle it, hand clap on your hip. When he was in the
studio and head-to-head with the musicians, there was
magic there.”
Mostly, Wilson led the musicians from behind his
“phenomenal” Steinway piano or Fender Rhodes organ.
The studio had an impressive range of keyboards,
from a plexiglass encased harpsichord to several
harmoniums. The funkier, more expansive songs like
“Dreamer”, “What’s Wrong”, “Pacific Ocean Blues” and
“River Song” were cut as an ensemble. “The sessions I
did were live recordings with the group,” says Hinsche.
“I remember that particularly with ‘River Song’. It was,
‘Take one, take two, take three. OK, we got it.’”
A soaring hymn to the High Sierra, “River Song”,
was written with his younger brother, Carl. Like much
of Pacific Ocean Blue, it seeks spiritual solace in a
retreat into nature. Performed occasionally by The
Beach Boys – a recording was abandoned in 1974 – the
version that opens the album is a gospel-rock
gargantuan, lifted by Alexander Hamilton’s Double
Rock Baptist choir. The idea to use a choir had
originally been intended for an album outtake called
“Holy Man” [see panel]. “Then ‘River Song’ came along
and the choir was also a natural for that,” says
Jakobson. “It was a great session, but without the choir, Wild horses:
Wilson with karen
I don’t know if it would be so great. It took a good song lamm, New York,
and made it into an awesome recording.” September 6, 1977
As well as co-writing “River Song” and “The
Rainbow”, Carl Wilson performed on the album. Wilson took a cassette home, and often returned to
Mike Love shares a credit on the title track, but th studio later that night with new ideas. “We both
the
wasn’t present at the sessions. The attitude of The lived in Malibu, so he would call me when he
li
Beach Boys to Wilson’s solo endeavour appeared wanted to record,” says Hanlon. “I’d drive down
w
somewhat cool. “Dennis was always the bad boy in tthe coast, unlock the studio and be ready for him
the band,” says Jakobson. “At first, they didn’t take aat a moment’s notice. Oftentimes it was just him.
him very seriously. Finally, they had to.” He liked to record at night. That was when he was
H
“Carl was the most present and supportive,” says most prolific and most creative. Sometimes the
m
Hinsche. “I didn’t see Mike or Al at any sessions, or ttracks had been laid down with a rhythm section,
even Brian.” “Brian came and listened and said a few tthen I came in at night to do overdubs. Sometimes he
words,” says Jakobson. “I think he knew his little was starting from scratch.”
w
brother had something going that was special.” “He spent so much time in the studio, he practically
There were many moments of innovation. “They put lived there,” says Figueroa. “He played a lot of the
a bed sheet over my drums for ‘Dreamer’,” says instruments on his own when no one was around, in
Figueroa. “I left to do something and when I came back
there was a sheet over my drums, to make it more “He felt we the wee hours of the morning. Once-in a while he’d go
off to get some tapioca pudding.”
staccato on the fills. It sounded great.” “Dennis would
play a track back at double speed and lay down a bass were channels Often, Pacific Ocean Blue sounds exactly like the
work of a man negotiating the darkest hours of the
synth line on Mini Moog,” says Hanlon. “Then he night. Wilson wrote the tender “Farewell To A Friend”
of God, but he
MIChAEL PuTLAND/gETTy IMAgES

would slow it back down to normal speed, and the bass
line would be extremely low frequency. He did really
cool creative things like that.”
At the end of each session they would load the day’s
work on to a quarter-inch rough mix reel and listen
back. “I remember going in and them playing me
tracks, and the hair would stand up on the top of
Dennis’s head,” says Kalinich. “He was really excited.”
for Otto Hinsche, the father of Billy Hinsche, and Carl
Wilson’s father-in-law, who had recently passed away.
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
destructive” powerful, the first time I heard it. Sensitive is a good
word to describe Dennis, for sure. Every now and again
STEPhEN kaliNiCh you’d see that soft, reflective side [in real life], but music
was the best vehicle for him to express that more.”

64 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017


His acute sensitivity is all over Pacific Ocean Blue.
Several lyrics feel like an intrusion into private grief:
“i wanna cry, wanna cry, got to run away”; “Do you
wonder where you are?”; “No more lonely nights”.
“Time” consists almost entirely of the phrase “hold
on”. The heartsore “Thoughts Of You” was written
one lonely evening as the ocean breeze blew through
his home at 32184 Broad Beach Road, Malibu.
“He was going through heartache,” says John
Hanlon. “Dennis was in his bedroom on the second
floor. It was evening, the sliding doors were open,
cool sea air was blowing in, and these long, gauzy
white curtains were billowing. He was writing
‘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
strongly I could visualise it. Dennis always wore his
heart right out there. That whole album was incredibly
brave in terms of where he went.”
Ravaged by hard-living and the effects of a bar fight
which damaged his throat, his voice is often little more
than a raw scrape. “He’d been through a lot of stuff,”
says Kalinich. “It gave him that wounded soul quality,
almost broken. For me, it touched my soul.” “The
important thing was to capture the feeling,” says
Hanlon. “He didn’t second guess himself, he just put it
out there. He had no fear. Or if he did, he didn’t show it.”
“Time” was one of two tracks written with Karen
Lamm-Wilson, the ex-wife of Chicago keyboardist
Bobby Lamm. Her relationship with Wilson – they
married and divorced twice in six years – was
explosive. Wilson “used to pick up every type of woman
in the world because they loved him,” says Hal Blaine.
“I certainly can’t imagine being married to Dennis
Wilson!” Then again, Lamm could give as good as she
got. One night during recording, she threw a brick
through the front window of Brother Studio. “It was
chaotic to say the least,” says Jakobson. “Boy, she was a
handful to deal with, for anybody and everybody. There
was no taming that wild horse.”
Attempts were made to prevent Wilson’s intrinsically
messy life from disrupting the sessions. The label
instructed Jakobson and the engineers to stick to a
day-time schedule. The policy enjoyed limited success.
Sessions would typically begin mid-afternoon, and “by
10 or 11 we would have accomplished something,” says
Jakobson. “At midnight, I’d go home. I knew that as
soon as I walked out of the studio, those guys would get
on the phone and call the girls, and call someone else to
Dennis and
Carl Wilson
backstage,
1975
Bambu
B mbbu
& beyond
T
hough Pacific Ocean
Blue was the only album
Dennis Wilson released in
his lifetime, he conceived and
created lots more music. Work
began on a second solo album,
titled Bambu, before POB was
even released. “he just kept right
on recording, there wasn’t a
delineation,” says John hanlon.
“Dennis loved being in the studio.
It was a safe space.” “Sony
wanted another album, but by
then Dennis wasn’t doing well
in his life,” says Jakobson. “he
wasn’t in the same head space,
or together enough to make it
happen. A lot of Bambu is helter-
skelter, hit-or-miss stuff.” In 1979,
two Bambu recordings – “Baby
Blue” and “Love Surrounds Me”
– appeared on The Beach Boys’
LA (Light Album). The sessions
for Wilson’s second album were
officially released in 2008, on an
expanded CD edition of Pacific
Ocean Blue. Earlier this year, a
limited-edition vinyl version of
Bambu was issued for Record
Store Day. With Kalinich, Wilson
hatched plans for a multi-media
project called ‘Life Symphony’,
and an album of “45 one-minute
songs, designed to inspire and
touch people”. Neither came
to fruition.
dennis wilson
bring in God-knows-what recreational drugs. The next
day I’d come in and hear that they’d been there until
three or four in the morning.”
Yet despite domestic chaos, chemical misadventures
and the melancholic, often desperate longing in the
songs, Wilson was “in a good place”, according to
Jakobson. “He was having a great time, being creative
and watching it manifest in the studio. It came at a good
time in his life. When I handed the album in, the
controller for Caribou said, ‘Gregg, I never thought that
we would see this day!’ We brought it in on time and in
budget. Nobody thought Dennis would ever do that.”
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
testing ground for going on to New York and
te
London. We did a half-hour set before the main
L
sshow. All I had to do was go backstage and change
my Hawaiian shirt to a different one!”
m
Plans for a full headlining tour later in the year
never came to fruition. Those involved offer differing
n
reasons. “The Beach Boys didn’t want Dennis to go
re
out by himself,” says Jakobson. “That probably came
o
from Mike Love. To Dennis’s way of thinking, he
fr
wasn’t going to be a Beach Boy any longer if he went
w
out [on tour] on his own – and more than anything
o
Dennis was a Beach Boy, and wanted to be a Beach
D
Boy. That was sacred to him. Those were his brothers.
B
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
should go off in a corner and leave The Beach Boys to
them,” Wilson told Rolling Stone two weeks after the LP
came out. “The album really bothers them.” “It was
hard for him, and he dealt with it in the usual ways, by
trying to anaesthetise his pain,” says Jakobson.
“We were set to do some pretty large dates,” says
Figueroa. “But Dennis was having a hard time, and
everybody knew it. He was succumbing to a lot of
demons, and it made it impossible to carry on. The label
saw this and pulled their tour support, which was a big
let-down for all of us who believed in this project. It
could have gone a lot further had he gone out and
promoted it. The public lost interest at that point.”
Wilson recorded numerous tracks for a planned
second album [see panel], but suffered a sharp
decline. He drowned on December 28, 1983, at Marina
Del Rey, Los Angeles, after diving into the ocean from
his yacht and getting into difficulties. It was a careless
end to a reckless, contradictory life. “Dennis felt that
we are channels of God,” says Kalinich, “Except he
wouldn’t call it God, so let’s call it Grace. But he was so
self-destructive. He’s an example of how divine
inspiration can come through people who have
complications of consciousness.”
MIChAEL oChS ARChIvES/gETTy IMAgES
In the years since his death, Wilson’s gifts have
become more widely recognised as Pacific Ocean
Blue has grown in stature.
“There were no excuses to be made for it,” says
Jakobson. “Even at the time, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh,
we could have done better.’ Everyone who
worked on it knew it was a really good album,
and now everyone else seems to agree! It’s a classic.
It’s timeless.”
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 65
66 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
 NEIL YOUNG

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

HENRy DilTz/CoRBiS via GETTy iMaGES

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 67

Mellow his mind:
young relaxing
at a hotel in
Copenhagen,
Denmark,
March 16, 1976
S early as 1978, the rumour mill was already churning in
regards to Neil Young’s unprecedented stash of unreleased
material. Before an intimate solo show at San Francisco’s
Boarding House, some of the era’s leading rock critics –
Paul Nelson, John Rockwell and Cameron Crowe – traded
breathless tales about 175 songs that Young had discarded,
entire albums cast aside, hours upon hours of incandescent
live tapes resting in the vaults. Almost 40 years later, Young’s
stash has only grown.
“There’s quite a few albums,” Young admitted to Uncut in
2012. “Sometimes I finish things and I go, ‘I don’t want to put
this out. I don’t want to put it out now.’ But that’s a different
thing from playing it. Making it.”
Young continued by updating Uncut on the status of
Toast, an album he’d recorded with Crazy Horse more
than a decade earlier that remains unreleased to this
day. “Toast is a good record, it’s a very dark record,”
he said. “Some people are not going to like it, some
people are going to really like it. We’ve
mastered it. It’s ready to go. It’s not a perfect
record, but it’s really an essential record. But
I don’t want to get in the way of what I’m doing right now.
There’ll be a time for it.”
Toast fell on and off the schedules, a victim of Young’s
unpredictable and hyper-productive creative energies,
68 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
meaning that barely one project can be finished before he is
already off to the next one. It’s resurgence in 2012 seemed
implicitly connected to Young’s return to active service with
Crazy Horse for Americana and Psychedelic Pill; but once
Young had moved back to solo projects, Toast was no longer
germane. But Toast was not the first example of such creative
restlessness. Young has a tendency to announce archival
releases and then put it on hold – in some cases indefinitely
– for new material. One such album is Hitchhiker. A
previously unreleased record from 1976, Hitchhiker was
rumoured to be finally on the schedules for summer 2017;
instead, Young released “Children Of Destiny”, his latest
collaboration with Promise Of The Real. Hitchhiker is
rumoured to be out later this year; but still remains one
of many lost albums that remain unheard in full.
Clearing away the cobwebs that have gathered around
these records is no mean feat. But clues are there to be found,
Gijsbert Hanekroot/redferns
and following them gives us an alternate timeline – a
tantalising secret history of Neil Young’s life and work, no
less, stretching through lost albums like Homegrown,
Odeon-Budokan, Hitchhiker, Chrome Dreams, Oceanside-
Countryside, Island In The Sun, Old Ways 1, Meadow-Dusk,
Times Square and Toast. “I’m sure he values those songs
and how well he sang,” says Elliot Mazer, who produced
Homegrown and Old Ways 1. “He just loves what he knows.”

A man needs…
Carrie
Snodgress,
october 1970
“Quite often I’ll record things that don’t fit
with what I’m doing, so I just hold onto them
for a while,” Young explained to Uncut.
“Some of them are so strong that they destroy
what I’m doing, and I really don’t want that to
happen. It’s like if you have a bunch of kids
and one of them weighs 200 pounds and the
other ones are 75 pounds, you’ve got to keep
things in order so they don’t hurt each other.
That’s why I hold certain things back.”
A
LTHOUGH the span of these unreleased albums
reaches into the Noughties, it is no surprise that
the bulk of them originated during Young’s
fecund ’70s. Since it was first mentioned in 1975,
Homegrown has become legendary among diehard
fans as the ultimate unreleased album in Young’s
canon. To some collaborators, writers and close
friends, it’s one of Young’s finest, most nuanced works.
“I think that to Neil, Homegrown was Harvest part
two,” says Mazer, who produced both albums. “But it
wasn’t Harvest. It was something else.”
Homegrown was teased as part of a forthcoming Neil
Young Archives Special Release Series back in 2010.
Though it remains unreleased, Young continues to
NEIL YOUNG
remain optimistic that it will eventually see the light
of day. “I really think Homegrown is one of my best
albums,” he wrote in his memoir, Special Deluxe. “And
I hope it gets out there in its original form someday.”
The roots of Homegrown are knotted into his
relationship with the actress Carrie Snodgress. She
inspired Harvest’s “A Man Needs A Maid” as well as
some of Young’s most lovestruck ballads, including “Love
In Mind” and “The Bridge”. Domestic bliss was not
forthcoming for the pair, however. After the deaths of
Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and CSNY roadie
Bruce Berry, Young spent the bulk of 1973 in a Jose Cuervo-
induced haze.
“Danny was a singer, songwriter and played guitar,”
Crazy Horse bassist Billy Talbot told Uncut. “So did Neil.
And both had deep feelings and intelligence. They were
both very passionate people.”
When he wasn’t careening wildly through tours in
America and the UK, Young was in the studio recording the
introspective Tonight’s The Night and On The Beach. “I’m
deep inside myself, but I’ll get out somehow,” he promised
on “Motion Pictures”, from On The Beach, a song subtitled
with a dedication to Snodgress.
In early, 1974, however, Snodgress left Young. He was
shattered – but inspired. On “Star Of Bethlehem”, the
feelings of betrayal and bitterness are writ large, in spite of
the easygoing nature of the music. “All your dreams and
lovers won’t protect you/They’re only passing through you in
the end/They’ll leave you stripped of all that they can get to/And wait
for you to come back again.”
The dirge-like “Separate Ways” is still unreleased but was
performed live occasionally in the 1990s and 2000s with both Booker
T & The MG’s and Crazy Horse.
“That one is him and Carrie splitting up, no question,” confirms
Mazer. Certainly, the lyrics are unashamedly autobiographical.
“Though we go our separate ways/Lookin’ for better days/Sharin’ our
little boy/Who grew from joy back then.”
A rendition of the lullaby “Barefoot Floors” by
Young has never surfaced, but a cover by Nicolette
Larson gives us a glimpse into its author’s haunted,
sleepless state: “Love, baby, love/Has got me
walking on these barefoot floors.” The piano-led
“Try”, meanwhile, has a rollicking feel that’s belied
by the nature of its subject matter: Carrie Snodgress’
mother, who had recently committed suicide.
There was room for a vein of dark, self-loathing
humour as well. “Love/Art Blues” paints a sardonic
portrait of Young’s inability to reconcile the two
main draws of his life, while the narrator of
“Homefires” finds his mind drifting from one lover
to another: “I’m free to give my love/But you’re not the
one I’m thinking of.”
I
N May 1974, Young showed up at New York City’s
Bottom Line for an unannounced solo set. It has
become an all-time favourite among aficionados,
thanks to an audience tape that’s been bootlegged
endlessly over the years. Though the bulk of the songs
“Toast is ready came from the just-released On The Beach, Young also
debuted “Pardon My Heart”, an ambiguous,
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
in a fragile voice over delicate fingerpicked guitar.
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
with rewritten lyrics that seems aimed directly at
Snodgress: “Alas, my love, you do me wrong/By treating
essential one” me so curiously.” Another brand-new song, “Pushed It
Over The End”, fell further into darkness. Ostensibly
NEil yoUNg based on the Patty Hearst saga, then grabbing
headlines across the country, the words still seemed
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 69
 NEIL YOUNG
to return to the twisted saga of Snodgress and
Young. “And although no one hears a sound, there’s
another poor man falling down,” Young sings,
sounding as desolate as can be.
Onstage at the Bottom Line, even Neil seemed a
little taken aback by relentlessly downbeat nature
of the songs. “Here’s another bummer for you,” he
joked by way of an intro. “Hey, that’s my trip, man.”
Evidently, Young had more than enough strong
material to go into the studio by the time summer rolled
around – but those months were already booked solid.
He’d agreed to join forces again with David Crosby,
Stephen Stills and Graham Nash for a blown-out/sold-
out trek through the States that became infamously
excessive even by mid-’70s standards.
“At that point The Beatles were gone and there was
only really us and the Stones doing that level of work,”
David Crosby told Uncut. “We were as different as
chicken and cheese, but in terms of singer-songwriters
we were as good as anybody. We were peaking.”
In contrast to his compatriots, who were happy to
relive past glories, Young challenged stadium
audiences with unfamiliar new material, including
such intimate numbers as “Pardon My Heart”, “The
Old Homestead”, “Love/Art Blues” and “Homefires”,
as well as an extended, electrified reimagining of
“Pushed It Over The End”. For anyone among the tens
of thousands who cared to listen, Young was baring his
soul on the largest stage imaginable.
CSNY splintered again after tour’s end, leaving
Young adrift – he wouldn’t play a full show again for
GIJSBERT HAnEkROOT/REDFERnS
more than a year. For a while, he rambled aimlessly
around Europe in a Rolls-Royce with a few friends,
still brooding, still writing. In Amsterdam, local
music writer Constant Meijers found Young
enthusiastic about his latest material, but unsure how
best to proceed. “I’ve got too many new songs, 37,
what am I supposed to do with them?” Young
70 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
w
wondered. “Even if I put seven on each side, I’ve still
got 23 left.” He considered recording in Ibiza, with
g
tthe idea of flying Don Henley and Glenn Frey of the
EEagles out to serve as his backing band. “These
ssongs all have to do with water, so the best thing to
do is cut them near the sea,” he said.
d
Instead, during November 1974, Young began
ssessions at Nashville’s Quadrafonic Studio, the same
sspot where Harvest’s “Heart Of Gold” and “Old Man”
had been cut a few years earlier. But while the making of
h
Harvest was relaxed and joyful, the Homegrown
sessions were markedly different. “It was a different
feeling – there was more stress,” Elliot Mazer recalls.
“Believe me, “I didn’t think the songs were as good. He didn’t have
‘Heart Of Gold’. But believe me, you do not tell Neil
you do not tell Young that song A is not as good as song B.”
Mazer and Young had brought several of the Harvest
musicians – loosely known as the Stray Gators – back
Neil that song into the fold: pedal-steel guitarist Ben Keith, session
drummer Kenny Buttrey and bassist Tim Drummond.
A is as good “Those guys lived off their ability to play well,” Mazer
says today. “The Nashville guys listen to the song. They
as song B” hear a song and they communicate, saying, ‘You take
the verses, I’ll take the choruses.’ There was always a
EllioT MazER meeting of the band. With Harvest, Neil just sat down
with the songs, the guys played great, and he went
‘‘WOW’. But Homegrown wasn’t quite like that, as far
as I could tell.”
a
The first song that Young, Keith, Drummond and
Buttrey cut was the (unreleased and unheard to this
B
day) “Frozen Man”, written during an extended lost
d
weekend in Amsterdam after the CSNY tour finished.
w
““Who will ever know what’s inside this frozen man?”
one line asks, speaking volumes about Young’s frame
o
of mind. This was some distance away from the
o
accessible vibe of “Heart Of Gold”.
a
Buttrey had other engagements, but Mazer and Young
had a ringer available to fill the drum seat: The Band’s
h
Crosby, Stills, Nash
& Young carry on to
excess at oakland
Coliseum, California,
July 13, 1974
 NEIL YOUNG
hidden treasures

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.”
In December and January, Young and Ben
Keith recorded a few more songs at Los
Angeles’ Village Recorders, including the
surreal spoken-word piece, “Florida”, before
Mazer began mixing. Designer Gary Burden,
who had also handled Harvest’s artwork,
was drafted to create a cover (“Me with a
corncob pipe,” Young described it vaguely).
To unveil his latest LP, Young gathered a select group of
friends and musicians in a suite at Hollywood’s Chateau
levon Helm and
Emmylou Harris,
contributors to
Young’s shelved
Homegrown lP
the dustbin. Mazer, meanwhile, has another insight into why
Homegrown wasn’t released. “I didn’t think it was a commercial
record,” he says. “Warners heard the record and they said, ‘This is
nice.’ Whereas with Harvest they were jumping out of their chairs,
they couldn’t believe it.”
“People want to know why you don’t make your most famous record
over and over,” Young told Uncut. “Because it’s death,
that’s why. The longer you can go on and do things people
don’t like and then give them something they like just ’cos
that’s just the way it happened, the better off you are.”

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,

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 71

 NEIL YOUNG
unflinching journeys into the past and more. When
he wasn’t on the road, he was in the studio, recording
multiple albums’ worth of high-quality material.
Ironically, the only record he actually released in
1976 is one of his least gripping: The stills-Young
Band’s Long May You Run. Two brilliant albums he
could have put out that year – Odeon-Budokan and
Chrome Dreams – remain unreleased, while a third,
Hitchhiker, may soon finally see the light of day.
In spring 1976, Young headed out on the road with
a reconstituted Crazy Horse. The tours – with Frank
“Poncho” sampedro replacing Whitten – took in
Japan, the UK and europe. The Japanese shows in
particular found Young and the Horse in an
invigorated state.
“I have this tape from Japan,” Billy Talbot told
Cameron Crowe. “Compared to this tape, Zuma sounds
like a bunch of guys sleeping in big, fat armchairs,
KOH HaSeBe/SHiNKO MUSiC/GeTTY iMaGeS
smoking pipes. When I get down, I listen to that tape.”
even in their lo-fi state, the circulating audience
recordings of Young and Crazy Horse in Japan bear out
Talbot’s assessment. After a crowd-pleasing solo
acoustic set, Crazy Horse plugged in and took flight.
Opening most sets with the clarion call riff of “Country
Home”, Young treated his Japanese fans to an hour’s
worth of guitar nirvana, featuring some of the wildest
six-string explorations of his career. The piercing leads
on extended versions of “Down By The River”, “Cortez
72 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
T
The Killer” and “southern Man” saw Young stretching
h
his wings as a soloist and climbing to astonishing new
h
heights. He saved his most abandoned playing for the
th
then-unreleased “Like A Hurricane”, during which he
fearlessly led Crazy Horse to the eye of a howling storm.
fe
High-wire spontaneity was always a part of the
Horse’s magic. “We could crash any second!”
H
sampedro says. “We know when we’re up there
s
playing, if someone makes a mistake it runs through
p
th
the
h whole band like cancer. It’s like bang – boom, boom,
b
boom – and the next thing, we’re struggling. Oh, man.
It’s intense. And that adds to the intensity.”
It
At Tokyo’s Budokan Hall on March 11, the tapes (both
audio and video) were rolling to capture that intensity.
There were a few complications, however. sampedro
“Neil is and Talbot had chosen the Budokan show as an ideal
time to drop acid. Young, however, was thrilled by the
intense, but results. “Man, we’re psychedelic tonight!” sampedro
remembered him raving.
“I’m tapped into the source when we’re altogether,”
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
intensity with connect on this emotional thing. A soul level.”
Later that year, Young instructed producer David
dark edges ” Briggs and engineer Tim Mulligan to put together a live
LP made up of performances from the Budokan show
dEaN SToCkwEll and a three-night stand a few weeks later at London’s
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
Quack squad: Young
with (l–r) Bob Mosley,
Johnny Craviotto and
Jeff Blackburn, aka the
ducks, backstage at the
Catalyst Club in Santa
Cruz, California, 1977

cocaine before drifting into a fever dream vision of Incas in Peru. fowl play

Meet the Ducks!

The song’s brutal lyrics took one of Young’s songwriting peers by
surprise. “One night, Dylan came by and I played him a couple of new
songs, ‘Hitchhiker’ and ‘Cortez the Killer’,” Young recalled in Special
Deluxe. “When he heard ‘Hitchhiker’, a confessional about the
history of drugs I had taken through my life, he told me, ‘That’s
You’ve had the lost albums –
honest.’ That moment still crosses my mind.” now here’s Neil’s great lost band…

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,
especially when it came
songs a week for months and was backlogged,” Young wrote in
to playing live. But he
Special Deluxe. “I was recording anywhere I could and moving quite bobbed to the surface briefly that
fast, finishing my records very quickly. For me, it was not as important summer with the Ducks. Gigging
to create a technically perfect recording as it was to get the original almost entirely within the city
performances and feelings of new songs on tape… Let someone else limits of Santa Cruz, California,
make the perfect record. I had to take care of my own songs.” the band was made up of former
Moby Grape bassist Bob Mosley,
Passage” that saw Young jumping
from guitar to his Stringman
analogue synth, a stormy,
electrified “little Wing” worthy
of inclusion on Zuma and spirited
renditions of the Springfield’s “Mr
Soul” and Harvest’s “Get Back To
The Country”. Young was psyched
enough about the group that he

D
singer-songwriter Jeff Blackburn
esPITe this imperfect approach, Young did put together an (co-writer with Young on “My My,
almost-perfect record around this time. Typically, he’s never Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)”), and
released it. Chrome Dreams was compiled from a grab bag of drummer Johnny Craviotto, who
sessions from late ’75 to autumn ’76, but it hung together marvellously. had previously played with Ry
Unlike many of Young’s other lost albums, fans have had access to it Cooder and Buffy Sainte-Marie.
The Ducks weren’t just Young
for years now, thanks to a stray acetate that was subsequently
and a backing band, however;
bootlegged. The eclectic 12-song LP shows the myriad directions not unlike Buffalo Springfield,
Neil’s imagination was taking him, from the hallucinatory spaceways band members traded off on
of “sedan Delivery” to the hazy, morning-after folk of “Too Far Gone”. lead vocals and Mosley and
The spectral piano balladry of “stringman” exists comfortably Blackburn both contributed
alongside the ultimate Crazy Horse rave-up, “Like a Hurricane”. originals to the repertoire. They
even lived communally for a time.
Much of the material for Chrome Dreams was cut during haphazard
Predictably, it’s Neil’s showcases
sessions at Young’s Broken Arrow ranch. “We’d stay there for a that stand out the most on
had custom-made bellbottoms
with the word “DUCKS” boldly
emblazoned on them. The band’s
shows rarely cost more than $2.50
at the door, and as the summer
wore on, word got out that you
could see Neil Young in a cosy
beach bar at a bargain price.
Spooked by the growing crowds
(and perhaps the increasing
number of duck callers in the
crowd), he parted ways with the
group before they could make it
into the studio. But judging from
live tapes that circulate among
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

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 73

 NEIL YOUNG
upstream – “through nets, by hooks, and hungry bears”. Weird, but it
works. Along with several other Chrome Dreams tracks, “Will To
Love” eventually appeared on Young’s 1977 album, American Stars ’n
Bars. But for many fans who have tracked it down via vinyl, cassette,
CD or MP3 files, Chrome Dreams remains the superior listening
experience. Young may have been moving a bit too fast in 1976,
hitchhiking from musical plateau to plateau, with little regard for
what he left behind. Though, in 2007, he released Chrome Dreams II
– a sort of spiritual sequel that featured a number of old, unreleased
songs re-recorded alongside a batch of new material.
“I remember when I was living on the beach in Malibu,” Young told
Uncut, discussing his memories of recording the first Chrome Dreams
album. “Carole King lived up the beach. I said, ‘Carole, why don’t you
Onstage
Gijsbert Hanekroot/redferns
During 1977, Young began spending more and more time on the
coast of Florida, usually aboard his boat, the WN Ragland. He
couldn’t ignore his muse for long, however. Soon he was booking
time at Triad Studios in Fort Lauderdale and began work on an
album, Oceanside-Countryside. The approach was a more refined
extension of the overdub-happy “Will To Love” sessions.
The album has never been bootlegged, but “Lost In Space” from the
Triad sessions – which later appeared on Hawks & Doves – is probably
our best glimpse of Oceanside-Countryside’s overall vibe, with its
folksy melody and gorgeous guitars that are strangely interrupted by
a chorus of gurgling underwater voices. Other songs cut at Triad
included “Goin’ Back” and two tracks that would show up on Rust
Never Sleeps’ acoustic side, “Pocahontas” and “Sail Away”.

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

“Why didn’t I finish this?”

Tracklistings for several of the albums mentioned in this article remain unavailable.
What follows is the result of research, speculation and pure guesswork…
Homegrown (unreleased) 2 Don’t Cry No Tears 8 Cortez The Killer 7 Hitchhiker (Le Noise)
1 Homegrown 7 Give Me Strength (Zuma) (Zuma) 8 Campaigner (Decade)
(appeared on (unreleased) 3 Down By The River 9 Human Highway
American Stars 8 Deep Forbidden Lake (Everybody Knows HitcHHiker (Comes A Time)
’n Bars) (Decade) This Is Nowhere) 1 Pocahontas (Rust 10 The Old Country Waltz
2 Star Of Bethlehem 9 Try (unreleased) 4 The Losing End Never Sleeps) (American Stars ‘n
(American Stars 10 Pardon My Heart (Everybody Knows 2 Powderfinger (Rust Bars)
’n Bars) (Zuma) This Is Nowhere) Never Sleeps)
3 The Old Homestead 11 Kansas (unreleased) 5 Like A Hurricane 3 Captain Kennedy cHrome dreams
(Hawks & Doves) 12 White Line (Ragged (American Stars (Hawks & Doves) 1 Pocahontas (Rust
4 Love Is A Rose Glory) ‘n Bars) 4 Hawaii (unreleased) Never Sleeps)
(Decade) 6 Drive Back (Zuma) 5 Give Me Strength 2 Will To Love (American
5 Love Art Blues odeon-Budokan 7 Cinnamon Girl (unreleased) Stars ‘n Bars)
(CSNY 1974) 1 Country Home (Everybody Knows 6 Ride My Llama (Rust 3 Star Of Bethlehem
6 Homefires (Ragged Glory) This Is Nowhere) Never Sleeps) (American Stars

74 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017


percussionist Joe Lala from the Stills-Young Band.
But judging from the circulating outtakes and the
handful of songs that later made their way onto 1982’s
Trans, the band – dubiously dubbed the Royal
Pineapples – didn’t generate many sparks in the
studio. The band’s mellow sound on “Little Thing
Called Love” and “Raining in Paradise” is positively
yacht rock, with Lala’s bongos giving the proceedings
an undercooked, generic flavour. “If You Got Love” is
burdened by uninspired lyrics (“If you got love, you
know you got it/If you got love, can’t live without it.”)
and a groove that leans towards watered-down Santana.
A few intriguing songs from the Island In The Sun sessions remain
unheard, including the Hawaiian ballad “Big Pearl” and even an
attempt at Homegrown’s “Bad News” (later given the big band
treatment by the Bluenotes). The Royal Pineapples’
finest hour was on “Like An Inca”, which built up an
appropriate head of steam behind Young’s surreal
ecology-minded narrative.
Young slotted three songs from Island In The Sun onto
“Less focus
Trans, his vocoder-heavy Geffen debut, a decision he
later regretted. “I should have put out Island In The Sun was put on
in its original form and then I should have done Trans,
with more room for the Trans songs to establish the songs,
themselves as a complete cohesive atmosphere,” he
wrote. “I had betrayed myself by not staying true to my more on
art and following the muse.”
Even so, when Young has talked about releasing
his various lost albums, he hasn’t mentioned Island
technology”
In The Sun. ELLIOT MAzER
Many songs on Trans were born out of a fascination
with cutting-edge technology – personal computers,
artificial intelligence, even some form of online dating on “Sample
And Hold”. But contrarily, it wasn’t until Young attempted to “get
back to the country” in 1983 that he made an ill-advised dive into
state-of-the-art recording techniques.
Young and Mazer reunited for the original Old
Ways, gathering an ensemble of familiar session
players from Harvest and Comes A Time in Nashville
and LA. But Young’s new toys complicated the
sessions. According to Mazer, Young spent hundreds
of thousands of dollars on two of Sony’s first pair of
digital 24-track machines. Twenty-four tracks opened
up new possibilities, but they also resulted in a
number of headaches. “It wasn’t quite a technical
nightmare, but less focus was put on the songs, more
on technology,” Mazer says.
Still, the songs – the closest Young has ever come to
mainstream country music – were solid. “Silver And
NEIL YOUNG
Gold” (which eventually appeared in 2000) boasted
one of Neil’s catchiest melodies and simple-but-
heartfelt lyrics. The breezy “Wonderin’” dated back
to the Danny Whitten-era of Crazy Horse, while the
contemporary “Depression Blues” found Young
surveying the economic condition of Reagan-era
America. Meanwhile, “California Sunset” was a
fitting tribute to Young’s adopted home state. Young
was excited. Geffen were not.
“I was so stoked about that record,” Young told
Rolling Stone. “I sent them a tape of it that had
eight songs on it. I called them up a week later,
because I hadn’t heard anything, and they said, ‘Well, frankly, Neil,
this record scares us a lot. We don’t think this is the right direction for
you to be going in.’”
The right direction, Geffen suggested, was
something with a little more rock’n’roll feel – a
suggestion that Young took quite literally. Greasing
his hair back in a parody of rockabilly style, he ruefully
cooked up the throwback Everybody’s Rockin’. The
original Old Ways was cast aside – and the Old Ways
that was released in 1985 bears little resemblance to
its predecessor.
By the time he released Life with Crazy Horse in 1987,
Young was counting the days until his obligations to
Geffen Records were complete – the cover art of that
album depicted Young behind bars, the number of
records he’d made for the label chiselled into the
prison wall.
For his final Geffen LP, Young defiantly considered
one last staunchly anti-commercial experiment – a
collaboration with producer/engineer/musician Bryan
Bell, whose résumé includes Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin and
Carlos Santana. “It was gonna be a strong record, I’m tellin’ ya, but it
was going to be really out,” he explained in Jimmy McDonough’s
biography, Shakey. “Synthesiser and acoustic New Age
instrumentals. The beat would come and go, sounds
would come and go.”
Meadow Dusk reportedly featured field recordings of
natural environments, a tactic Young employed on
2016’s Earth. The music he made with Bell may have
represented a radically new approach for Young, but
he was still concerned with feeling overall. “He would
walk into the studio and say, ‘Is it wires and knobs?’”
Bell told Harvey Kubernik, author of Neil Young:
Heart Of Gold. “When the tech was done and we were
making music, Neil would say, ‘Is it art yet? Are we
doing art or are we doing wires and knobs?’”
Young even conceptualised Meadow Dusk’s

‘n Bars) countryside (Trans) 5 Mystery Train 7 Wrecking Ball

4 Like A Hurricane 1 Human Highway 2 Hold On To Your Love (Everybody’s Rockin’) (Freedom)
(American Stars (Comes A Time) (Trans) 6 Wonderin’ 8 Cocaine Eyes
‘n Bars) 2 Goin’ Back (Comes 3 Bad News (Bluenote (Everybody’s Rockin’) (Eldorado)
5 Too Far Gone A Time) Café) 7 California Sunset 9 On Broadway
(Freedom) 3 Sail Away (Rust Never 4 If You Got Love (Old Ways) (Freedom)
6 Hold Back The Tears Sleeps) (unreleased) 8 My Boy (Old Ways)
(American Stars 4 Pocahontas (Rust 5 Raining In Paradise 9 Are There Any toast
‘n Bars) Never Sleeps) (unreleased) More Real Cowboys? 1 Quit (Don’t Say You
7 Homegrown (American 5 Lost In Space (Hawks 6 Soul Of A Woman (Old Ways) Love Me) (Are You
Stars ‘n Bars) & Doves) (A Treasure) 10 Silver And Gold (Silver Passionate?)
8 Captain Kennedy 6 Little Wing (Hawks 7 Big Pearl (unreleased) And Gold) 2 Goin’ Home (Are You
(Hawks & Doves) & Doves) 8 Like An Inca (Trans) Passionate?)
9 Stringman (Unplugged) 7 Already One (Comes times square 3 When I Hold You In
10 Sedan Delivery (Rust A Time) old ways 1 1 Eldorado (Freedom) My Arms (Are You
Never Sleeps) 8 Peace Of Mind (Comes 1 Old Ways (Old Ways) 2 Someday (Freedom) Passionate?)
11 Powderfinger (Rust A Time) 2 Depression Blues 3 Crime In The City 4 Standing In The Light Of
Never Sleeps) 9 Comes A Time (Comes (Lucky 13) (Freedom) Love (unreleased)
12 Look Out For My Love A Time 3 That’s Alright Mama 4 Box Car (Chrome 5 Mr Disappoint0ment
(Comes A Time) (unreleased) Dreams II) (Are You Passionate?)
island in tHe sun 4 Cry Cry Cry 5 Don’t Cry (Freedom) 6 The Gateway Of Love
oceanside- 1 Little Thing Called Love (Everybody’s Rockin’) 6 Heavy Love (Eldorado) (unreleased)

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 75

 NEIL YOUNG
indulging a
taste for big-
band blues with
The Bluenotes
in late 1987
cover art, an image of him standing in a meadow with a
Ford Aerostar – not too far off from the photo that graces
1992’s Harvest Moon (an album that happens to feature
the lyrics “In the meadow dusk/I park my Aerostar”).
Geffen Records dropped Young in October 1987,
however, and Meadow Dusk was put permanently on
hold. Young returned to the Warner/Reprise fold in
1988, and got one more genre exercise out of his system
– the bluesy, big band album, This Note’s For You. But
Young had other plans for his next record, Times Square
– a return to a denser, harder sound. During late ’88
sessions at NYC’s Power Station with bassist Rick
Rosas and drummer Chad Cromwell, Young seemed
to channel some kind of malevolent energy. “There
was nothing but abrasiveness from beginning to
end,” he told Rolling Stone’s Sheila Rogers.
On “Cocaine Eyes”, Young’s guitar is a mass of
nasty fuzz, as he howls lyrics to match: “Cocaine eyes
can’t hide your face/It’s no surprise you’ve lost the race
once again.” On “Heavy Love”, Young pushes this
wild and adversarial electric music to its limit. Even
a putative ballad, “Don’t Cry”, is interrupted by
blasts of corrosive feedback. Elsewhere, the cover of
The Drifters’ “On Broadway” finds Young wrestling
tempestuous chords from Old Black.
Times Square would’ve been quite a statement –
even after Young tempered its intensity with a handful
of more sedate numbers left over from the Bluenotes
period, such as the majestic “Someday” and the
AAron rApoport/Corbis viA Getty imAGes
chilling “Crime In The City (Sixty To Zero)”. But even
after radio stations had begun to receive promo copies,
Young had a last-minute change of mind and pulled
the record. The noisier tracks from the Power Station
sessions were relegated to the Japan-only EP “El
Dorado”, while others emerged on 1990’s Freedom.
Unlike other unreleased records of his from the
1980s, however, the decision to ditch Times Square was
Young’s alone. “I kept juggling it around until I got
something that I thought was more like an album than
76 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
an assault,” he told Rolling Stone. “It’s the first time I’ve
felt like doing an album like this in years.”
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
live from time to time in subsequent years), “Mr
Disappointment” and “Quit”, which were both
re-recorded with Booker T & The MG’s for 2003’s Are
You Passionate?. The pounding “Goin’ Home”,
meanwhile, was a classic Crazy Horse jam.
“Eventually, I gave up and abandoned the album,”
Young wrote. “Like my personal life, where I was
having some serious problems with my marriage,
there was just something missing. I was not happy
with it, or maybe I was just generally unhappy.”
But evidently Young has since come to appreciate
Toast’s singular qualities. Much like his complex,
spiritual connection to Crazy Horse, it seems that
Young will revisit Toast when his muse deems the time
is right. “There’s a world that you can walk in and they
get me there,” Young told Uncut. “We go together. We
don’t go individually. We don’t go without each other.”
For an artist who has stubbornly and inscrutably
followed his own idiosyncratic path, albums like Toast –
fo
indeed
in n the entire Archives project – pose a considerable
cchallenge to Young. “My best work is ahead of me,” he
ssaid. “It’s always in front. It can’t be behind you. It’s just
a question of getting to it.” Which makes the reflective,
recalibratory process at the heart of Archives all the more
re
rremarkable. With Hitchhiker tantalisingly close to release,
one wonders just how many of Young’s legion of lost
o
albums will finally emerge, blinking into the light.
a
“I think the most profound thing I realised while
working in the Archives is that I’m not careful,” Young
said, reflecting on his working practices to Uncut. “I’ve
been too concerned with moving on, I’m always
“I’m careless moving on. So I leave a lot of unfinished and
unreleased stuff, because it doesn’t fit with where my
because I’m head is then. I forget about all the work that went into
it. And I just forget about it. But they’re still there. And I
say, ‘Well, gee, maybe I should put that out.’ Or, ‘Why
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-
interested in quarters of the way?’ Stuff like that.
“I just found that I’m careless because I’m always
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
NEil yoUNg happening, I’ll abandon the old thing. Because I don’t
want to lose the new thing.”
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The least comfortable
of rock stars: Nick
Lowe in 1981

78 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

 NICK LOWE

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

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 79


ICK LOWe has always had an awkward
relationship with success. “Me and Huey
Lewis used to knock around together when he
was with Clover,” recalls Lowe. “I sometimes
used to meet Huey in the ’80s at the height of
his fame. You’d walk down the street with
him, people would come up to him
or shout out of their car windows.
He loved it. I said to him, ‘Huey,
this is a fucking nightmare.’ He’d
say, ‘Oh, man. It doesn’t harm
anyone, I just write them an autograph.’ Fair dos. But
that’s never been for me. I’ve always felt like an outsider.
And rather enjoyed being an outsider.”
The least comfortable of rock stars, Lowe never thrived
in the spotlight, preferring instead a career along the
periphery of mainstream success. Such a position allowed
him youthful freedom in his first band, Brinsley Schwarz,
and then as the in-house producer for Stiff Records before,
briefly, actually being a pop star got in the way. Since then,
Lowe has re-emerged as a kind of meditative nostalgist,
crafting bittersweet songs that have brought him a
satisfyingly modest public profile. “I’ve become very
skilled at not completely disappearing,” he says dryly.
Today, Lowe is at home in Brentford, the leafy west
London suburb where he has lived for 30 years. Initially,
Lowe moved here because his then manager, Jake Riviera,
also had offices in the neighbourhood. Coincidentally,
The Damned’s Rat Scabies – another figure from Lowe’s
past – lives close by; he and Lowe often bump into one
another in the local Morrisons. In fact, Lowe owns two
properties – one for family, one for work – and he greets
us at the door of the former, dapperly dressed in a crisp
DAN BURN-foRti
short-sleeved white shirt and v-neck tanktop. Like Lowe
himself, the house is stylish and well maintained. One
wall of the living room is neatly stacked with books and
vintage board games, including Cluedo and Connect 4.
80 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
A miniature figurine of Lowe – a gift from a Japanese
fan – sits on a shelf, while Lowe’s old bass rests on a
stand by an armchair. Lowe sits at the dining table,
beneath a full-sized pub sign for the Duke Of
Wellington, salvaged from a junk shop. Tomorrow,
he flies to New York to receive the Independent
Icon Award bestowed upon him by the American
Association of Independent Music. “Although I’m
extremely grateful and flattered, my overwhelming
instinct is embarrassment,” he says. “I’ve written a
handful of good songs and been associated with some
good records. But I think most of what I’ve done is
pretty ho-hum. I suppose I’m getting to the age now
when I think it’s time to give the old boy a bunch of
flowers for all his service.”
Lowe does a neat line in witty self-deprecation.
He seems mildly baffled about why he’s doing an
interview at all. “I didn’t know they were coming out,”
he says when told that a reissue of albums from his
’80s era begins in July. Later, he reveals that his goal is
to get his songs covered. Most famously, Curtis Stigers’
version of “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love And
Understanding” on the soundtrack to The Bodyguard
earned Lowe a million in royalties, but Lowe’s desire to
outsource his songs to other artists is further evidence
of a deeper aversion to fame.
“He’s a perfect example of an Aries,” laughs Dave
Robinson, Stiff Records co-founder. “Aries like power
Nick lowe: “i’m without responsibility, they’re very creative. I call it
getting to the age panicking in the face of success. But I think he realised
when it’s time to
give the old boy a when fame might come it could fall on him to do a large
bunch of flowers amount of work. He didn’t want to do that. Nick would
for all his service”
always slope off before success.”
A
CONveRSATION with Nick Lowe takes the form of a series
of lengthy, often digressive anecdotes. There’s the one about
his only real proper job, as a journalist for the Uxbridge
Advertiser: “You had to do a few late-duty chemists and what was on
at the local Gaumont, then they’d shove you out to interview the local
vicar.” Or that time in the late ’60s when his first band, Kippington
Lodge, had a month-long residency at the PN Hit House in
Munich: “Half an hour on, 15 minutes off, pretty much all
night. And at weekends, you play all day and all night,
“I think starting at lunchtime.” How about Brinsley Schwarz’ ill-
fated gig at the Fillmore east, where their manager charted
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
what I’ve fiasco. But in retrospect, it was great!”
What links all these colourful yarns is Lowe’s deep-seated
done is love for American music. In childhood, that was his
mother’s record collection – “Nat Cole, Sinatra. Peggy Lee,
Doris Day, Dinah Washington. A lot of show tunes” – or the
pretty blues courtesy of American Forces Radio. Later, Lowe
acquired a taste for a rootsy form of folk rock.
ho-hum” “The Brinsleys were against the high-heeled David Bowie
mob; they had a check-shirt attitude,” says Dave Robinson,
NiCk lowE their manager. “The songs were very marijuana-led. Long
jams. very Crosby, Stills & Nash.”
“We loved The Band,” says Lowe. “After the fateful
trip to New York, the Brinsleys embraced communal
living at this funky old farm in Beaconsfield. We got
a call one morning saying, ‘The Band are supporting
CSNY at Wembley. They haven’t done a show for
a while and need to brush up. They don’t want
somewhere in London, can they come out and use
your place?’ They brought in Garth’s Lowry organ but
used all our amps. We sat on the flight cases outside
and listened to them run through these tunes we
loved so much. Then off they went. They barely spoke
to us, but that didn’t matter. They’d used our amps,
but we couldn’t believe as much as we tried, when we
 NICK LOWE
Rose” and Neat Neat Neat album. “The main thing I remember about
Nick was the constant cigarette between his knuckles and the bottle of
cider on the side of the desk,” says Rat Scabies. “Pathway Studios was
incredible small. The control room was about the size of the average
shower. You could only fit Nick and the engineer in and my abiding
memory is seeing them from behind this plume of smoke and the
occasional raising of a Bulmers cider.”
“Nick was a great producer at Stiff,” says Dave Robinson. “He was
very quick, very throwaway – Bash It Down And Tart It Up, as they
Brin’ the noise: say. But he was very clever at picking out the key bits of a song
(l-r) Billy Rankin,
lowe, Brinsley that really made sense.”
Schwarz, Bob “The real strength with Nick is his taste and his choice,”
Andrews and
ian Gomm continues Scabies. “When I spoke to him a little while ago, he

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
Paul McCartney with a bottle of credit line on a stack of
dusty, gold waxings, then it
Scotch. ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ might be easier for people to see
They have a drink and a toke and they start playing ‘She Loves You’. him as a songwriter who walks in
There’s an embarrassing moment as word had gone out McCartney the rare company of Charlie Rich,
didn’t want to have Beatles contact of any kind. But Nick and Dan Penn, hank Cochran or even
everyone starting singing harmony and McCartney joined in. They Kris Kristofferson. his geniality
were there until four in the morning singing Beatles songs. The may have been at the cost of his
legend. Perhaps that’s the way
following day, McCartney put a Beatles song into the set and by the he wanted it. then i think Nick
end of the tour he was doing about three or four.” was originally writing a musical
satire when he penned ‘(What’s
‘When i Write the Book’ with a
little Rodgers & hart thrown in.
“Nick was also in two of my
favourite ever rock’n’roll bands;
Brinsley schwarz, to whom the
word ‘pub’ is always attached,
diminishing the fact they could
play at a proximity that inferior
bands couldn’t risk, and the
ferocious and, at times, unnerving
Rockpile, our touring partners
during one particularly chaotic
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.”

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 81

 NICK LOWE
said, ‘I just sat there, you guys did all the work.’ Yeah, but he was the
one who said, ‘This is the take we’re going to use.’ I suppose you’d call
it a pop sensibility. That’s why I think he did a great job. He steered the
ship and he choose the best material.”
Lowe also struck up with elvis Costello, going on to work on his first
six albums. “elvis used to come and see the Brinsleys whenever we
played in the North West,” says Lowe. “I first met him in the pub across
the road from the Cavern, The Grapes. The next time I saw him was on
the platform at Royal Oak tube station. I was going to Stiff and he had
with The
just come from Stiff. He’d bought a copy of [Lowe’s debut single] ‘So It Damned’s
Goes’. He said, ‘I’ve got all these songs. I’ve sent demos to people and Rat Scabies
in 1977
I never hear back. So I’ve started making appointments, going to the
offices, getting my guitar out and playing. either they get embarrassed
and chuck me out, or they like it but don’t come back with anything.’
I got up to Stiff and Jake was playing his tape. ‘Man, this guy is fantastic!’ Rockpile. “On a good night, we were good. But quite often we were
Originally, they thought about signing him as a writer. He had a song, terrible. We used to do very well in Scandinavia, too. There’s a band
‘Mystery Girl’, they thought would be good for edmunds.” in Sweden who specialise in Rockpile, with the Nick Lowe element
“edmunds”, in this instance, is Dave edmunds, Lowe’s chief mischief- surgically removed. It’s Dave’s act, really, but they sound like Rockpile.
making accomplice and sparring partner in Rockpile Rather better, actually.”
among other projects. “We used to go down to

“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

walked past the studio, you’d hear in deafening

volume whatever he was working on – alone. Then
he’d leave at eight the next morning when you were
having breakfast. Get in his Jag, and off he’d go.
I thought, ‘He’s the bloke we should be hanging out
with. He should be doing our records.’ Later, we used
to get thoroughly hammered in the Churchill on
Kensington Church Street, plotting, ‘Oh, but what if
we did this… what if we did that…’ Night after night,
catch a produced four albums released during 1980,
with credits on two more. Meanwhile, Lowe’s first
groove with three solo albums – Jesus Of Cool (1978), Labour Of
Lust (1979), Nick The Knife (1982) – suggested a rosy
Nick” future lay ahead. He had married into American
royalty, too – Carlene Carter. Although his father-in-
law’s condition – then in the service of a lifestyle
Ry Cooder pays tribute
to his friend of wildly varying quality – may have struck a
cautionary note with Lowe. “I knew Johnny Cash

“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.

82 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

 a funny stoRy

“I’ve got a recording of it done by

some Tahitian fisherman…”
nick Lowe on the legacy of “(what’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, love And Understanding”

“‘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.”

So if it’s all got to end now,

I haven’t done too badly. But why is it I feel that I haven’t
even started yet?’ Then I remembered Cash saying to me,
‘What you got to do, Nick, is be yourself.’ I thought, ‘Fuck
me, is that the best you can do?’ Don’t hand me that. If I go “I thought
to see someone I don’t want them to be themselves, I want
them to be magnificent. But Cash was right. Life is a lot people who
easier if you don’t put on much of an act. It’s less tiring.”
When we meet, Lowe is processing some recent wrote songs
bad news – the sudden death of co-producer Neil
Brockbank. It is the second close friend Lowe has lost in were from
as many years, after long-time drummer Bobby Irwin
died in 2015. “I’m lucky to have always had people like
that around me, who actually told me what they thought,”
outer space”
he says in a moment of uncharacteristic solemnity. NiCk lowE
“Nick always was a bit of a wild boy,” says the singer-
songwriter Geraint Watkins, who has played keyboards
with Lowe for the past 20 years. “But there comes a time when you
can’t do that sort of thing any more. He likes the fact we’re all mates.
When Bob died, it’s not like he was going to hire a drummer to play on
That said, Lowe has not released an album of original
studio material since 2011’s That Old Magic. “I’m doing
a couple of new songs in my show that are pretty good
tunes,” he says. “But a new album? For the moment, I’m
done with it. It’s so expensive to make the kind of records
I know how to make, which are tried and tested, with real
musicians in a studio. Nobody makes records like that
any more unless they’re Springsteen or U2, huge acts.
“When I was young,” he says, circling back to the start
of our conversation, “I thought that people who wrote the
songs were sent down from outer space somehow. My first
band, Kippington Lodge, was a pop group. They were
doing quite nicely before I arrived. They didn’t play on
their own records, but the records they made with session
men sounded great. As soon as I persuaded everybody we
had to play on our own records, that’s when it all took a
serious dip. But if you wanted to have any kind of lengthy career, you
had to get on and write your own tunes. You get your idea and you
slam down whatever comes up to get the job done. Because you’re a

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.’”

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 83

ELVIS PRESLEY

“Tell me, tell

me that your
sweet love
hasn’t died…” What does ELVIS PRESLEY mean in 2017? Forty years
after his death, STEPHEN DEUSNER investigates
the current cultural status of the man who was King.
Does that charisma translate 60 years after his rise?
Why do new generations worship The Beatles, but rarely
Elvis? How’s business for the World’s Greatest Elvis
Impersonator? And why are those treasured old
records diminishing in value?
photograph by Michael Ochs archives

84 • UNCUt • september 2017

 “His charisma
clings to
everything he
touched”: elvis
presley poses
for a publicity
shot in 1956

september 2017 • UNCUt • 85

ELVIS PRESLEY
HEN Shawn Klush was in LA filming
episodes of Martin Scorsese’s HBO series
Vinyl, he made a pilgrimage to 1174 Hillcrest
Drive in Beverly Hills, where Elvis Presley once
lived. It’s a sprawling, L-shaped house, a mash-
up of modern and French Regency styles, built in
1957 and set low on the hill for privacy, with a
geometrically complex swimming pool in the
backyard and a clear view of the city below. Among
the three houses he owned in California – another in
Beverly Hills and one in Palm Springs – it was Elvis’
favourite, and he would often greet fans at the gate, shaking hands
and signing autographs, occasionally even practising karate moves.
For Klush, it was both a personal and a professional journey. In
addition to being an enormous fan of Elvis, he is the world’s most
Impersonator accomplished impersonator – not merely a tribute act, but an artist in
Shawn klush
wins The his own right. Originally from Pittston in north-west Pennsylvania,
Ultimate Elvis he can’t exactly remember how he got into the business, but says he
Tribute artist
Contest, in just woke up one day in front of a crowd, clad in a rhinestone-crusted
Memphis, jumpsuit and belting “Burning Love”. Since then he has toured with
august 2007
some of Elvis’ original backing band, including members of the
86 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
Elvis with
backing trio
The Blue Moon
Boys: (l–r)
Scotty Moore,
DJ Fontana
and Bill Black
Stamps and the Inspirations. In 2013, he was voted World’s Greatest
Elvis by BBC viewers and was named the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist
by Elvis Presley Enterprises in Memphis. He has channelled the
King’s spirit and sung his songs all over the world, including sold-out
shows at the 15,000-seat Movistar Arena in Santiago, Chile.
And yet, as close to Presley as Klush may be, visiting that Hillcrest
home was overwhelming. He did not go into the house; like every
other fan, he just stood at the gates looking into the property and
imaging the man himself coming out to greet him. And then he went
back downtown to play Elvis for HBO, a performance that earned him
rave reviews. “When you go through Graceland, it’s the weirdest vibe
you’re ever going to feel in your life,” says Klush. “It’s almost like
touching royalty. When I drove up to his house on Hillcrest, I got the
exact feeling as I did when I was in Graceland. That told me right there
something about his charisma. It could be the bubblegummiest
music ever or it could be one of the dumbest movies, but you’ll listen
to it again and again because he recorded it. There’s something
mesmerising about it.”
That’s why we’re still talking about Elvis on the 40th anniversary of
his death. His charisma lingers, not only in songs like “Good Rockin’
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
sported a pink-and-black suit when he performed on The Today
Show, a knowing homage to one of his formative influences. The
former One Direction star says that Presley’s 1960 version of
“The Girl Of My Best Friend” was the first song he ever learned.
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is even touring an Elvis show,
based on a pair of albums featuring new symphonic arrangements
over archival Elvis vocals; 2016’s The Wonder of You debuted at
No 1 in the UK. More recently, Michael Eavis (born the same year as
Elvis) kicked off this year’s Glastonbury by leading the crowd in a
spirited karaoke singalong of “Always On My Mind”. In addition to
that bit part on Vinyl, Elvis has been a recurring role on CMT’s Sun
Records, played by 18-year-old tribute artist Drake Milligan.
Especially at Graceland, Elvis is still big business. Welcoming
hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, his home remains
largely how he left it, complete with shag carpet and Jungle Room
décor. Across Elvis Presley Boulevard, however, Elvis Presley
Enterprises Inc recently completed a $45 million renovation that
includes a 450-room hotel. A new, 200,000-square-foot
entertainment complex houses a museum devoted to his life,
another featuring his extensive fleet of cars, and space for
rotating exhibitions. Elvis, it seems, is everywhere.
Or is he? Does that star quality translate 60 years
after his rise? Fifty years after his comeback? Forty Jerry lee lewis,
Carl Perkins, Elvis,
years after his death? Reports of his waning Johnny Cash and
popularity are nothing new, but have grown more showgirl Marilyn
Evans at Sun,
intense as the anniversary of his death affords a December 4, 1956
fresh opportunity to assess his legacy. A recent
YouGov poll, admittedly not the most scientific a seminal
semin
nal session
undertaking, had alarming news for Elvis fans.
Of the 2,000 Britons questioned, 29 per cent of
listeners aged 18–24 had never listened to an Elvis
song. Only 12 per cent said they actually liked Elvis.
WS Holland
That puts him far below The Beatles, David Bowie and
Michael Jackson. Similarly, recent reports by The Guardian and
remembers the
The Observer have pondered the King’s fading popularity, citing
millennial indifference and shuttered memorabilia shops to support
their claims of diminished relevance. He’s a singles artist in a market
million dollar quartet
How the stars aligned one day at Sun Studios
ruled by albums, a figure so close to black blues, R’n’B and gospel

A
that he’s routinely accused of cultural appropriation. The kid from Saltillo, Tennessee,
controversies surrounding him – the hip swivels and pelvic thrusts, with no musical ambitions
in particular – are so far in the past that they seem quaint. It can be whatsoever, WS “Fluke”
difficult to gauge his popularity. Does the charisma still cling? Holland was roped into playing
the drums by his friend Carl
“Are you kidding me?” says Klush. “I just did 10 cities in England, Perkins. in 1956, he borrowed
sold out five-, six-, seven-thousand seats a night. I don’t know where a drum set from a friend, piled
they’re getting their information, as that’s not what I’m seeing every Perkins and his band into his huge
night.” Klush has become, for Cadillac, and headed to Sun
many fans, both a surrogate Records in Memphis, where the
and a celebrity in his own band cut “Blue Suede Shoes”. A
“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-
all started singing and having a
jam session.
“Jack Clement was the
engineer, and he didn’t think
anything about it when those
boys dropped in. He decided
he was going to go next door
to the Taylor Café and get him
a sandwich, and he left the big
reel-to-reel machines running. if
he hadn’t done that, you would
never have heard those sessions.
We’d have jammed for a bit and

through all and outsize sideburns.

“When you’re in front of the
kins, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis,
and Johnny Cash – now known
as the Million dollar Quartet.
then said, ‘Hey, good to see you,’
and that would have been it.
“We all thought it was just an-
this, what public eye, you don’t have a
private life. When we were in
“After ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ was
such a big hit,” Holland recalls,
other session for Carl Perkins and
his brothers. There was no million

did Elvis go London, I went to see Big Ben

and I don’t even remember
through?” seeing it. Everybody knew we
were there.” He is as close to
Elvis as you can get in 2017
SHawN klUSH without a Ouija board or
holograms. He’s actual flesh
and blood, rhinestones and
sweat. “If I’m going through all this, what did Elvis go through?”
“Sam Phillips had us back in de-
cember of 1956 for us to record
a new song. That was ‘Matchbox’
Sam had hired Jerry Lee Lewis
to play piano with us. But we
didn’t have any idea that Johnny
Cash and Elvis were going to be
in town recording. They dropped
by Sun, and everything
just stopped. They
ju
dollars, nothing, no big stars. Sam
did think to have a photographer
come out and take their picture,
and i told him one day, ‘Sam, if
you’d have been half as smart as
people think you are, you’d have
had that photographer pan over
about three feet. Then i would
have been in the picture and it
would have been multi-million!’”

O
NE thing Elvis did go through was grappling with
an intense fear of being forgotten, of not leaving
a deep enough mark on the world – a worry that
has roots in the earliest stages of his career. It may have
driven him to Sun Records in the first place, where he
paid to cut a song for his mother called “My Happiness”.
The desire to preserve something of himself compelled
him back to Sun to audition repeatedly for Sam Phillips,
who not only recorded the boy, but helped make him
a star. Almost immediately, Elvis began touring
throughout the mid-South, along with the
friendly competition of Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee
booking agent Bob Neal and said, ‘Bob, don’t ever
book me on another show with those Perkins
boys!’ He was just kidding, but it’s funny how it
worked out. He became such a big star after that,
that we never did work another show together.”
Elvis’ success became too unwieldy for an
independent label like Sun, and in 1955 Phillips
sold Presley’s contract to RCA Victor for what
many now view as a shockingly low sum. Hits like
“Heartbreak Hotel” and “Hound Dog” eclipsed his Sun
singles, and Elvis eventually broke into the movies, first as
GETTy iMAGES/ MiCHAEL OCHS ARCHivES

Lewis, Johnny Cash and others in the Sun stable.
“We all toured together,” recalls WS “Fluke”
Holland, who played drums for Perkins and later
for Cash. “I have a poster from a show we played
in 1956 at the National Guard Armory in Amory,
Mississippi, and I remember that show. Carl would
do an old song by The Platters, ‘Only You’, and the
people would have a fit. As we were walking out the
door, we walked by Elvis, and he looked up at Sun’s
a doomed cowboy in 1956’s Love Me Tender. His performance
might have drawn pans from critics, but he quickly became
as big at the box office as he was on the pop charts. Yet, like
so many reasonable young men his age, Elvis dreaded the
draft. America was not at war, but Cold War tensions were
escalating. Enlisting would involve basic training and most
likely an overseas assignment, along with an even worse
fate: while he may already have felt suffocated by celebrity,
he was not prepared to trade the glamour in from the

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 87

 on record

F
From Memphis to Vegas
how to buy Elvis presley
King CrEoLE
osT 1958
HHH
Presley’s
ELvis
s prEsLEy 1956 soundtracks are
HHHHH as hit-or-miss as the films
Many people at RCA victor they accompany, but this one,
thought Elvis would flop, but his recorded as he was enlisting
first album for the label estab- in the US Army, is his best, with
lished him as more than just a fad, a Dixieland jazz band adding
thanks to his excitable cover of flavour to many of the songs.
“Blue Suede Shoes” and his atom-
bomb vocals on “Heartbreak 50,000,000
Hotel”. Twenty years later, The ELvis FAns
Clash would pay homage to that CAn’T bE
album cover on London Calling. wrong 1959
HHHH
ELvis’ Also known as Elvis’ Golden
ChrisTmAs Records Vol 2, this set antholo-
ALbum 1957 gises some of Presley’s lesser-
HHHH known hits, including the break-
Elvis didn’t want to neck “A Big Hunk O’ Love”.
record a holiday album, but it
turned out to be one of his best how grEAT
sellers, thanks to an endearingly Thou ArT 1967
odd “Blue Christmas” and a ver- HHHH
sion of “White Christmas” that Elvis’ second gos-
earned scoffs from Bing Crosby. pel album proved
he could master nearly any ALohA From
genre, and the rollicking side hAwAii 1973
two proves his repeated HHHHH
assertion that rock’n’roll This double album
actually started in the Church. is Jumpsuit Elvis in
all his ragged glory, beamed live
From via satellite to billions of fans.
ELvis in
mEmphis ThE miLLion
1969 doLLAr
HHHHH QuArTET 1980
After the end of his film HHHH
contract, Presley worked with A document of
R’n’B producer Chips Moman a casual recording session
on this glorious return to form, between Sun Records’ biggest
which includes the so-wrong- stars: Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry
it’s-right “In The Ghetto”. Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.
ELvis ELvis 75: good
CounTry 1971 roCKin’
HHHH TonighT 2009
Like Ray Charles, HHHH
Elvis didn’t go A 4CD set that tells
country so much as he brought the Presley story in
country to him, showcasing his full detail, from his
considerable vocal range by first recording to the haphazard
belting out hits by Willie Nelson, attempt to market him to a new
Bob Wills and Ernest Tubb. generation with a JXL remix.

army greens, to sacrifice his pompadour to the military barber, to take
such a hefty pay cut from $200,000 a month to $78 a week.
But a deeper fear churned within Elvis, and he fought not to show
his concern in public. Elvis did not want to be forgotten. He confided
to his coterie of friends and hangers-on that his career was surely
finished; his fans would forget him, and he would be displaced from
radio playlists and pop charts by younger, hipper artists who could
tour, record, give interviews to teenybopper magazines, and stay on
top of the latest trends and fashions. Elvis had no idea how or if he
would be remembered, and he
feared he would go back to
driving a truck. To make matters
inset below: dependent on amphetamines, which he insisted had no side effects.
all signed up – He met a 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, whom he would groom to be
Elvis in the us
Army after his wife. Back in the US, his popularity barely dimmed. King Creole
enlistment was a huge box office hit, and “A Fool Such As I” and “A Big Hunk O’
on march
24, 1958 love”, both recorded after basic training, had sold well and helped
keep his name in the papers.
He returned a hero. However, as Ray Connolly recalls in his new
biography, Being Elvis: A Lonely Life, “After two years in the army, his
ambition burned as brightly as ever, but now some of the wonder and
romance of youth was gone. There was a more brittle, impatient, even
arrogant edge to him.”
John lennon once declared that Elvis really died when he joined

As a rock worse, Colonel Tom Parker, who

never achieved any military
the army, but presumably the former Beatle hadn’t yet heard
“Suspicious Minds”. It wasn’t a death, but the first in an endless

star, Elvis rank and who saw enough of

a marketing opportunity that he
series of rebirths. He would return a box office draw, declawed and
dull in countless cinema cheapies; by the end of the ’60s he had

was a sold Elvis dog tags, banned

him from performing, even
re-reinvented himself as a commanding live performer, prowling
the stage during his ’68 Comeback Special on NBC. Ten years later,

malleable in army talent shows.

After receiving an
a new version of Elvis would emerge: the rock’n’roll casualty,
bloated, unhealthy, his body distorted, but his voice intact

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

88 • unCuT • sEpTEmbEr 2017

 ELVIS PRESLEY
visitors pay artefacts: concerts posters, tour books, teddy bears,
tribute to
Elvis at his library cards, magazines. The eighth edition is out in
grave in August, and it points to some interesting developments
graceland,
August, 2007 in the market for Elvis memorabilia. “In the last five
years, original first and second pressings that would
have come out in the ’50s and ’60s have dropped
considerably,” says Osborne. “But reissues and
repressings that were done in the ’70s and ’80s are now
in some cases worth more than the originals. That flies
in the face of all we’ve ever thought about collectables.”
The reason for that strange trend, he says, may be less
musical than mathematical. “First of all, the
reissues were done in much smaller quantities, and
they were purchased by far fewer people. The
reprints don’t sell very well, so by virtue of how
many were pressed, they have become much rarer
than the originals, which sold millions of copies.
How rare is an album from 1956 or ’57? Not very,
because they sold so many.” Mint copies – pristine,
feel like they owned a piece of the King. Elvis became endlessly virtually unplayed – can still fetch thousands of
reproducible and repackagable, to the extent that we dollars, but even slightly used copies are so common
understand him today primarily through stuff. as to be uncollectable. That trend cannot continue,
Some of that stuff has become all too easy to ridicule, says John Tefteller, a rare-record dealer based in
especially later in his career, when Elvis sported big Oregon and a contributor the Presleyana series.
sunglasses, wore elaborate jumpsuits, drove fancier cars, and “There are people who are completists on artists like
maintained an unhealthy diet. As a tribute act, Klush Elvis and The Beatles, and they buy every single
rejects the easy jokes made at Elvis’ expense, which reissue, no matter what it is, because they want to
means watching his wardrobe as well as his mouth. have every single release by that artist,” he explains.
“I’m not going to walk around saying “That kind of thinking didn’t start until the ’70s, so they
‘Thankyouverymuch’. That always bothered me. had to go back and pick up reissues from the ’60s. So it’s a
The man said ‘Thank you very much’ because he completely artificial market. The future is what the young
sincerely believed in expressing his gratitude. people will be buying, not the older, hardcore collectors.
And he ate peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches The young people are going to revert back to the normal
because he grew up poor. The only thing Gladys had marketplace. They’re going to want the originals.”
in the house was peanut butter and a couple of pieces As older collectors die off and the market contorts to
of bread and butter. So she did what any mother would accommodate a new generation, those prices may go down,
do to feed her child. She made him a sandwich. But that’s but there is still interest in these collectables and relics. People
become such a joke, such a cliché.” still want some piece of Elvis, if only as a talisman of
remembrance. Elvis didn’t want to be forgotten, and his

N
O other rock star has that kind of material footprint, but
that makes Elvis a cumbersome figure, hard to pin
down and therefore potentially difficult to sell to new
generations of listeners. It also means the market for all that
stuff can be extremely volatile, and few know that as much as
Jerry Osborne, who has made Elvis ephemera his business
since the 1970s. A former radio DJ and a long-time newspaper
columnist, he runs a publishing company that specialises in
memorabilia catalogues, including the popular Presleyana series,
updated every five years with prices for thousands of pieces of Presley
fans don’t want his memory to diminish either. Some
collect items he touched; others re-create the music
and the attitude onstage. Says Klush, “It’s all because
of this man who left the world too early, who still had
more to give, who would still be giving more and more
if he were alive today. I’m hell-bent on people
remembering who this man was.”
Elvis Presley – A Boy From Tupelo: The Complete 1953–
1955 Recordings is released by RCA/Legacy on July 28

mementos

FIVE WEIRD PRESLEYANA RELICS

From dental work to underpants, fans have paid top dollar for a piece of the King

ThE King’s by the infamous Dr Nick

A LibrAry CArd
In 1948, the teenaged Elvis
checked out a biography of
Andrew Jackson from the
Humes High School Library.
In 2013, the card bearing his
earliest known autograph sold
(aka George Nichopoulos),
Crown sold for $6,500 in 2015.
In 1975 Presley broke a crown
on his molar, which his girlfriend
saved for posterity. Thirty years ELvis’ dirTy
later, the dental work went up LAundry
for auction on eBay, although Reportedly worn
STAN HONDA/AFP/GETTy IMAGES

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.

sEpTEmbEr 2017 • unCuT • 89

 Sigur Rós
The Icelandic ambient rockers’ journey
from “positivity” to “a darker place”

“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

VON completely buried in the mix. most famous studio

SMEKKLEYSA, 1997
Encouraged by the Smekkleysa
[Bad Taste] collective, which
includes former members of
the Sugarcubes, Sigur Rós piece
together their long, ambitious,
somewhat embryonic debut.
GEORG HÓLM:
We recorded
Von over the
year of 1995.
The guy who
owned the
studio became
a good friend of ours; we were
always hanging around. He loved
the band, so he wasn’t counting the
hours. He needed to paint his house,
so [payment] was a crate of beer here
and a couple of days painting there!
We worked in the evenings, and
we’d just mess around in a fun,
creative way, exploring sounds.
Sometimes we just destroyed
everything with effects. “Hafssól”
doesn’t sound anything like what
we played, or how we’ve played it
since. We put this reverb effect over
the whole song.
JÓNSI BIRGISSON: When we
thought we’d mostly finished the
record we discovered a particular
Kristinn ingvarsson
We didn’t know what we were
doing, really. The bands we liked
at the time were mainly British
– My Bloody Valentine, Ride,
Spiritualized – as well as US bands
like Smashing Pumpkins, with
a smattering of metal. But when
we attempted to make our own
music it just came out different
– like, really different. Von is like
a time capsule of us then.
HÓLM: We sold about 40 copies.
I remember going to our local café
and asking the guys there if they’d
put the record on, and with every
song we got more depressed,
because we thought it basically
sounded like shit. We hated it! The
lyrics to the song “Ágætis Byrjun”
are actually about that day.
JÓNSI: It was pretty demoralising.
We took it off and walked round
town, promising that next time we
would do better.
ÁGÆTIS BYRJUN
SMEKKLEYSA, 1999
A quantum leap, their second album
heralds a global breakthrough, a
tour supporting Radiohead and
three songs on the Vanilla Sky
soundtrack. Regularly cited as one
in Iceland, with great
gear. We bought out the
cheapest hours, 9pm
until 9am, and worked
through the night. At the
time I had a day job, so
I hardly slept for the
whole recording.
JÓNSI: We learned a lot
from making Von and
knew we had to do
unCuT
better. Kjartan was in CLASSIC
the band by then. He’s a enough, this needs remixing.
driven perfectionist and that We need more money!” It was
brought a work ethic and focus a bit of a struggle. We had
to proceedings – and a lot of to push a lot of buttons with
beauty. We started to take Bad Taste.
things seriously like young men JÓNSI: We delivered the album
do, and think beyond emulating to Asi at [Bad Taste] and then told
other people. him to wait while we reconsidered
KJARTAN SVEINSSON: I played what we were doing. There’s a
with them a lot before Von, mainly version of the record somewhere
songs that weren’t on that album. without many of the signature
I told the guys, “I can’t keep helping finishes and touches that make
you out for nothing. I don’t really the difference. Although it was
have time for it, unless I’m in the annoying at the time, I think it
band.” So I joined in 1997. We did was the right thing to do.
the album quite fast. We recorded HÓLM: I remember very distinctly
all the basics in a weekend – drums, the feeling of listening to the
bass, guitars and some of the record and thinking, “Holy shit,
keyboards. Most of the songs were this is amazing.” In our own minds,
improvised. They’d play the same we had something spectacular

reverb that we poured over the
entire album, which gives it its own
peculiar feel. I was very uncertain
about my voice, and that’s reflected
in the fact that the vocal is
of the albums of the decade.
HÓLM: We thought we had really,
really great songs this time. We got
a budget, we got a great producer,
Ken Thomas, and we went to the
riff for one hour, and improvise.
It was great.
HÓLM: We went back in to the
studio, because we felt it needed
to be perfect. “This one isn’t good
in our hands.
JÓNSI: Excitement was high on
our list of emotions. There’s a
positivity to the music that stands
apart from many of the bands we

90 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

House in the country:
recording Með Suð in
Snæfellsnes, Iceland,
2008. Left: (l-r) Jónsi
Birgisson, Georg Hólm
and Kjartan Sveinsson
were identified with at the time.
There’s always a lot of alternative
music that deals with how bad
things are, and at the time that
wasn’t something we wanted to say.
That embedded sense of hope was
suitable for the new century.
()
FAT CAT, 2002
Aka ‘the
brackets
album’,
recorded at
their home-
made studio,
Sundlaugin,
located by the Álafoss waterfall
in the town of Mosfellsbær. An
intense mood piece, featuring string
quartet amiina, new drummer Orri,
and several songs in Hopelandic.
HÓLM: We signed a record deal
and spent all the money buying
a cheap building and second-hand
equipment, and building our
own studio.
JÓNSI: Having a studio went hand
in hand with being separate from
the music industry and standing on
our own. The attention we’d got
[after Ágætis Byrjun] was sudden
and unexpected, and made us
protective of one another. It helped
solidify a sense of us against the
world – no bad thing in a band in
its early stages. In practice it was
difficult, because we had to make a
studio in a swimming pool, with all
the technical challenges that poses.
HÓLM: It was one of the hardest
records we’ve ever done. We were
touring all over the world, and
during soundcheck we’d start
writing new songs. In some ways,
we were already touring the
brackets album before it was
recorded. When we finally got to the
studio, we wanted to do it as live as
possible, but we were never happy
with the results. We probably
recorded that album three times
over. It never felt right.
SVEINSSON: Hopelandic wasn’t
actually a made-up language. It
was just laziness, really!
HÓLM: Jónsi had been singing these
songs for a couple of years, and we’d
never written lyrics for them. He
was just babbling. We tried to write
lyrics, and then we thought, why
are we trying to add something
and trying to change it? It sounded
great as it was.
JÓNSI: It was never the idea of
singing this gobbledygook language
to acquire any special significance.
It was really just a way of avoiding
being pinned down to having to
write words and then having those
words tied to meaning. There was
no concept to the album as a whole.
The brackets signify nothing, just a
void on which to project your own
meaning. We play a bunch of songs
from the record still.
TAKK…
EMI, 2005
One of their
most joyful
albums,
featuring
signature song
“Hoppípolla”,
the exemplar
of the band’s anthemic mix of
melancholy and euphoria. The title
translates as “Thanks”.
JÓNSI: We’re always grateful!
I think because some people saw
darkness within the brackets
album, we wanted to make explicit
that we were projecting a message
of positivity.
HÓLM: We thought it might be fun
to do something a little more upbeat
and uptempo. Not all the record is
like that, but there are definitely
shiny parts. We were relaxed and
in a very good place.
SVEINSSON: I remember us writing
“Hoppípolla”. We were always
mucking about with the computer
and made a backwards string loop
from “Flugufrelsarinn”, from
Ágætis Byrjun, and built on it. Jónsi
wrote the piano part.
HÓLM: Basically, we just started
jamming to this soundbite, and
“Hoppípolla” got born. It just
happened; it didn’t take much
effort. Even with the soundbite,
we were saying, “This is going
to be a hit song!” We had this gut
feeling that there was something
beautiful there.
SVEINSSON: We had loads of
arguments about that song,
actually. We never argued so much
about any song. I wasn’t happy with
the length of the loop; the other boys
wanted it a couple of beats longer
than I did. In the end, I won! We
were never very diplomatic. With
other people, yes, but with each
other, it would just depend on how
passionate you were.
JÓNSI: We go through phases with
that song. We haven’t been playing
it on this tour, but no doubt we will
do again at some point in the future.
HVARF/HEIM
EMI / XL, 2007
A companion
album to
the Heima
documentary,
comprising
five unreleased
studio songs
(Hvarf) and six acoustic reworkings
of early songs (Heim) featured
in the film.
JÓNSI: There were always explosive
emotions in the band and it
occurred to us we could break
up without there being a decent
representation of us on film.
We’d long resisted the common
assumption that our sound was
formed by our being Icelandic.
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 91
With Heima we decided to flip
that on its head and go with it.
I think it was the first time people
understood there were humans
behind the music, something
we’d been at pains not to
reveal previously.
HÓLM: We were doing some
acoustic stuff on the film, which
we’d never done before. We thought
it was really interesting, and should
be out there.
JÓNSI: The songs from Von had
changed so much since the studio
versions that we wanted to go on
record with examples of how they’d
developed through playing live.
The other songs were just ideas that
had never made it through for one
reason or another, but were deemed
good enough not to die.
SVEINSSON: It’s an album I don’t
really take that seriously. An album
must be something that works
as a whole. This doesn’t fit into
that category.
JÓNSI: No, it’s not a proper Sigur
Rós album, but it’s still a pretty
good listen – not that I listen to it!
MEð SUð Í EYRUM VIð
SPILUM ENDALAUST
EMI/XL, 2008
Working
quickly with
producer Flood
(U2, Nick Cave,
New Order),
Sigur Rós use
more varied
instrumentation and snappier song
structures to make their most
immediate and playful record.
HÓLM: I remember deciding that
we wanted to do it fast: just write
the music, go in and record it.
Sometimes I think that might have
been a mistake, but it’s interesting
to do experiments like that. We
rented this house in Snæfellsnes,
near Reykjavík, for 10 days. We
brought a lot of equipment, and in
the evening we’d cook dinner and
just play music.
SVEINSSON: We went to this house
in the countryside and wrote most
of it in a week or so. It was always
really easy to write songs for Sigur
Rós. Other things have been
difficult, but writing was never a
problem. We wanted to challenge
ourselves, change the sound, get
rid of the big reverbs – which we
didn’t, of course! The initial thought
was to strip it down, maybe focus
more on the songwriting rather
than the soundscape.
JÓNSI: We wrote, recorded,
released and toured this record all
within 2008. November 2008 was
the last time Kjartan played live
with the band, and knowing that
was coming was behind the timing.
92 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
Darkness visible:
Sigur Rós today
We went to New York and recorded
all the songs in 12 days. Flood was
great, especially working under
such time constraints. We’re terrible
tinkerers and as with all our
previous albums we’d never have
finished it on schedule without him.
That said, I think we wore him out
with our lack of trust, somewhat.
HÓLM: It has really good songs, but
I always think of the album as being
just a little too rushed.
INNI
XL, 2011
A concert film,
directed by
Vincent
Morisset,
with an
accompanying
double live
album. Recorded over two nights
at Alexandra Palace in November
2008, it marks the end of Sigur Rós
as a four-piece live band.
SVEINSSON: It was a good time to
do a concert film. I was going to
leave the band – it was all out in
the open – and do something new.
I’d been playing with them for
15, 16 years. That’s half my life.
JÓNSI: Kjartan never saw himself
defined for life by a decision he
made as a teenager. I think he found
many aspects of being in a band,
with a bunch of unpredictable other
people, challenging, although from
where we stood it often seemed like
a crazy decision to throw this all
over. We filmed that tour because
we knew it was the last time he was
going to play with the band, and as
good as Heima was in telling our
story and how we related to Iceland,
it wasn’t a very accurate record of
what we actually did onstage.
HÓLM: We wanted to document
what we were doing, because we
“We had a public
image as the band
from the nature
documentaries”
JÓNSI BIRgISSON
thought we probably wouldn’t
do a show like this again.
JÓNSI: We filmed two nights
and the first night was a write-off,
because the camera crew were
finding their feet. It was all pretty
flat. We ended up re-projecting
the footage on a wall and re-filming
it on 16mm to give it a more
organic look.
HÓLM: We weren’t happy with the
first result. We hated it; it nearly got
scrapped. Months passed, and then
Morisset sent us another edit with
new ideas. In the end he made a
fantastic, unusual film. The album
just came with it. It was the film that
we focused on.
SVEINSSON: I mixed the album
with our old studio manager.
In retrospect, it was fun to capture
that time and the end of that era.
I’m happy we managed to
document that.
VALTARI
PARLOPHONE, 2012
After Inni, the
band announce
a period of
“indefinite
hiatus”. Jónsi
makes a solo
record, Go,
and forms Riceboy Sleeps with
boyfriend Alex Somers. The band
return to create their most
unhurried work, using recordings
dating back to 2003.
JÓNSI: The phrase “indefinite
hiatus” was something our
management came up with. We
didn’t even know what it meant!
Being in the band had been
stressful. It was in everyone’s
interest to take a breather.
HÓLM: We’d basically been touring
since 2000. We needed a break, and
Jónsi was doing his solo stuff, which
we were all happy about
JÓNSI: I always made music outside
the band. Because Sigur Rós always
write as a band, there hasn’t
traditionally been any outlet for
anything you write on your own.
Valtari was a way of pulling together
all the strands of things we’d started
with Kjartan. We’d done these
sessions with the Sixteen Choir in
the mid-Noughties for an idea to
make a choral record. That hadn’t
gone anywhere, but was really
beautiful. Then we’d made “Varúð”
for the US remake of [Swedish horror
film] Let The Right One In, which
ended up not getting used. We
started to conceptualise an idea
about making an ambient album
and realised it was a potent idea we
could pull together. It started out as
almost a compilation of stuff from
the cutting-room floor and ended up
as something much more cohesive.
SVEINSSON: I was a bit
disappointed that it was released
as a studio album. It was a bit
of a deal breaker, actually, with
management. I never pictured it
as, “Hey, here’s the new Sigur Rós
album!” But it turned out quite nice.
JÓNSI: It was an ending, but also a
beginning. Oddly, I think it stands
up as a really good album.
KVEIKUR
XL, 2013
If Valtari
showcased
Sigur Rós at
their most
becalmed,
their most
recent album
is a more muscular proposition.
A trio again after the departure of
Sveinsson, the sound shifts from
glacial to granite.
JÓNSI: From “Hoppípolla” onwards
we’d had a public image as the band
from the nature documentaries.
This was a conscious decision to
go to a darker place, such as we
might have inhabited around the
time of the brackets record. We
also had lost a player and needed
perhaps to become more
fundamental in our approach.
HÓLM: When we went into the
rehearsal space with just the three
of us, it was really interesting how
things were different, sonically.
We liked it, it was refreshing. This
album is way more aggressive,
heavily drums-and-bass-driven,
with Jónsi’s beauty on top. We
were also messing around with
computers in a completely different
way than we had before. We were
sampling things and then playing
them as instruments, almost
creating our own instruments from
scratch. In part, that has continued
with the new material. We’re
playing at least three new songs,
sometimes four, in the current live
show. The new record will probably
prove to be the longest in creation
– and the hardest to create!
Sigur Ros’ European tour begins
on September 16 at the 02 Apollo,
Manchester
ULTIMATE MUSIC GUIDES
ESSENTIAL GUIDES TO THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL ARTISTS OF OUR TIME

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
kids,” explains Paul
Humphreys, “we
wanted to be Kraftwerk.
They were our idols.”
Peter Noble/redferNs; david M. beNett/
There was one obstacle: Humphreys and
Getty iMaGes for GaP; Mark McNulty
Andy McCluskey were working-class
Liverpudlians with limited musical
experience and even more limited
equipment. “Kraftwerk had all these
incredible machines and we had next to
nothing. We couldn’t sound like them, so
we ended up sounding like OMD!”
“It was a complete pile of junk,” laughs
McCluskey, recalling their gear. “All the
Formerly of eight-
piece band The Id,
OMD duo Andy
McCluskey (left)
and Paul Humphreys
in October 1981
94 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
instruments we owned, aside from a Korg
synth, had cost us less than £100.”
After their first gig at Eric’s club – also
intended to be OMD’s last – the duo,
almost named Margaret Thatcher’s
Afterbirth, were tapped up to play Tony
Wilson’s Factory night in Manchester.
The enthusiasm of Wilson’s wife Lindsay
Reade, and Factory designer Peter saville,
then secured them a one-single deal for
the Kraftwerk-like “Electricity”, and they
were shipped off to the studio with a very
stoned Martin Hannett.
“When we heard the finished mixes of
the single, I didn’t like either of them,”
remembers McCluskey. “It took
me some time to like what he’d
done, because it wasn’t our
original vision.”
Their partnership with
Peter saville was a little more
successful, however. “OMD are
the test case of what the Factory
principle had been intended to
be,” says saville. “Helping to
give exposure to a band who we
thought were good, then through
that exposure that might then
help secure a long-term and
proper recording deal. And that’s
exactly what happened.”
“A lot of our friends thought
the sounds we were making were
shit,” laughs Paul Humphreys.
“And so we didn’t have a great
amount of confidence, we were
just experimenting in my
mum’s backroom. But we totally
landed on our feet. We still
believed we were no-hopers,
though, even after we’d just
signed a seven-album deal.”
TOM PINNOCK
key players PAUL HUMPHREYS: Up until 1976, we
didn’t really have any equipment. Andy
and I were working-class boys; we wanted
to be musicians, but we couldn’t afford any
equipment to make music on! My hobby
was electronics, so I built a lot of our noise-
making machines, as we called them,
because they really weren’t instruments.
ANDY McCLUSKEY: “Electricity” was the
andy McCluskey
first thing we wrote when Paul bought the
bass, synth,
percussion, vocals selmer Pianotron – that’s the main plinky-
plonk melody in the song. It morphed
from another song called “Pulsar Energy”
that had the bass part that became the
breakdown sections in “Electricity”. We
played it live with our band, The Id. It had
guitar on it, and an acoustic drumkit!
HUMPHREYS: We’d had enough of The Id,
paul Humphreys which was an inflated eight-piece band,
keyboards, synth, so we got rid of all the members until we
percussion, vocals became a two-piece, because we really
wanted to be an electro band. We had
Winston, our tape machine, who was our
drummer, basically. I was playing organ
and electric piano. We managed to buy
a synth from Andy’s mum’s mail-order
catalogue, a Korg Micro Preset. Along with
Andy’s bass, that was all we had, which is
peter saville why a lot of our songs were very simplistic.
sleeve designer McCLUSKEY: The selmer and the Vox
Jaguar organ cost a grand total of £60. The
Korg cost £7.76 a week for 36 weeks, that’s
all we could afford out of our dole money.
HUMPHREYS: “Electricity” was definitely
inspired by Kraftwerk’s “Radioactivity”.
McCLUSKEY: In the mid-’90s, I ended up
working with Karl Bartos. I was having
lindsay reade dinner at Wolfgang Flür’s flat, and
factory there was Wolfgang and Karl and Emil
co-founder schult, who did Kraftwerk’s artwork. In
the hallway, there was a gold record for
“Radioactivity”. so I started waxing lyrical
about the Radioactivity album, and I said,
“I’ll let you into a secret – our first
single, ‘Electricity’, is just a faster,
punk version of ‘Radioactivity’.” To
which they all in unison said, “Ja, we
know!” Oh God, it was that obvious?!
HUMPHREYS: Our first gig was in
October 1978, supporting Joy Division
at Eric’s in Liverpool [the poster in
fact suggests they supported John
Dowie]. The guy from Eric’s heard
we were doing some electro stuff, so
he contacted us and said, “Do you
wanna try your electro experiments
onstage?” We thought, “should we?
Dare we? Oh, go on!”
McCLUSKEY: Eric’s was an
incredible, catalytic place. Everyone
in the audience was in a band. People
like ourselves, the Teardrops, the
Bunnymen, Big In Japan, Wah!,
the guys from Frankie Goes To
Hollywood… They had a wonderful
open-door policy for local artists –
you got to play on Thursday night
when it was free for members to get in.
HUMPHREYS: Roger from Eric’s said,
“I need to advertise it. Are you called
The Id?” “No no…” so we only had a
few hours to decide. We went back to
Andy’s house, where he used to write
potential song titles on his wall, and
there was ‘Orchestral Manoeuvres
In The Dark’. It’s a silly name, but
we wanted to stand out from all the
“I told Karl Bartos, ‘“Electricity”
is just a faster, punk version of
‘Radioactivity’... ‘Ja, we know!’
he said” ANDY McCLUSKEY
other things at the time. But it could
have been worse, because below it
on the wall was ‘Margaret Thatcher’s
Afterbirth’ – we could have been
called that! MTA! I don’t think we
would have got very far with that
name – I mean, we struggled with
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.
McCLUSKEY: I think there were less
than 30 people in the audience.
HUMPHREYS: It was just gonna be
one gig, it was a dare to ourselves. But
the owner of Eric’s said they had this
reciprocal thing with the Factory club
in Manchester, and wondered if we
wanted to play there.
McCLUSKEY: A few weeks later we
went to Manchester and supported
Cabaret Voltaire, and that’s where
we first met Tony Wilson and Alan
Erasmus. Of course, we knew Tony
from the telly ’cos he presented the
Granada Reports news programme.
HUMPHREYS: We asked him if he’d
put us on his show, and he said, “send
me your cassette.” We did a rough
version of “Electricity”, but didn’t
hear back for a while. We recorded in
Paul Collister’s garage. He became
our manager because he had a tape
machine and a van!
McCLUSKEY: He had a four-track
Teac and a two-track Revox, so we
put the kick drum and the snare
and the white noise on four-track,
then bounced them onto the Revox,
then back onto the Teac, and then
we recorded the bass and organ and
keyboards separately, bounced them
onto the Revox, then back onto the
Teac, then we did the vocals. I can’t
believe there isn’t more tape hiss. We
played the kick, snare and white noise
all by hand – we thought we were
gonna get arthritis from hammering
away on these keyboards.
LINDSAY READE: Factory Records
hadn’t really got going, but Tony had
a show on Granada. He used to put
bands on there, so he got loads of
demo tapes sent to him anyway. My
memory is we were in the car and he
was trying to get through a backlog of
tapes. “Electricity” was one that went
in the cassette player, and he was
about to chuck it out, and I said, “No,
hold on a minute, there’s something
there.” so we played it again, and I
said, “It’s pop, this could be in the
charts.” I had a feeling about it. To
be honest, he was rather patronising
because he saw himself as the whole
leader of the record side, but he had
cloth ears if you ask me – his offering
was A Certain Ratio, who I thought
were rubbish! so he said, “All right
darling, we’ll release it, then.”
McCLUSKEY: I think Lindsay got him
to listen again, and then he played it to
Peter saville and Alan Erasmus.
PETER SAVILLE: I distinctly remember
turning up at [Factory HQ] 86 Palatine
Road one day, and Tony handing me
a cassette: “Have a listen to this. I
don’t really like it, but Lindsay does.”
she was very integral and involved
with what was going on. I said, “Who
is it?” And he said, “A couple of boys
from Liverpool calling themselves
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The
Dark.” As soon as he said “Orchestral
Manoeuvres”, I wanted to like it
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 95

“We owe a lot to [Tony
Wilson’s first wife]
Lindsay Reade”:
McCluskey at
Hammersmith Odeon
on November 20, 1981
straight away – I got distinctly electronic,
avant-garde music vibes, I got Kraftwerk,
just from the name. I listened to it and
I liked it straight away.
READE: Tony was carried away
with the whole punk thing, but
I’ve always quite liked a tune!
I thought it was poppy, but I
also thought it was good.
SAVILLE: It was not to Tony’s
taste. He never had any
leanings towards the electronic
dimension of pop culture.
McCLUSKEY: By the time we met
Tony again, he’d invented this news
story, which was: “Oh, you guys are
gonna be the future of pop music.” This is
the guy who’d wanted to eject the cassette
a week earlier!
READE: For years, we used to have this
disagreement about where we were in the
car when it happened. He thought it was
Didsbury, I thought it was near Chorlton!
HUMPHREYS: We owe a lot to Lindsay. Tony
contacted us and said, “Do you wanna do
a single? I’m gonna put you in the studio
with Martin Zero.”
McCLUSKEY: We went to Cargo Studios
[in Rochdale] and recorded with John
Brierley, then Martin mixed “Almost” and
“Electricity” at Strawberry Studios.
HUMPHREYS: We’d never been in a
professional studio before. It was also, to
save money, the night session, so that was
kind of weird. Martin was such a character,
though. He smoked huge amounts of pot,
and there was a point where we came back
in and Martin was asleep under the desk.
McCLUSKEY: Paul and I looked at each
other, and we were like, “You wake him
up.” “No, you wake him up!” “No, you!”
HUMPHREYS: So we let him sleep for a
while, then started making noise around
the studio, dropping things and seeing if he
would wake up… He finally did.
DAviD CORiO/REDFERNS
1976 Humphreys and October 12, 1978
McCluskey write The group play
“Electricity” on their their first concert
new Selmer Pianotron at Eric’s, performing
96 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
McCLUSKEY: We didn’t have a bass drum
on “Electricity”, we’d used a detuned
bass sound on our crappy Korg.
And Martin thought it sounded
horrible, so he put it through
this 32-band parametric EQ
and we thought, ‘That’s
overkill, isn’t it…’
HUMPHREYS: Martin’s
approach was an eye-opener,
how he took a sound and put
it through a rack of modules.
McCLUSKEY: Tony was
adamant that “Almost” was an
improvement, so we thought, ‘All
right’, but we said, “We’re not using
your version of ‘Electricity’…” Again,
fact file Martin had made it too wet. So we used our
demo that we’d recorded in the garage.
Written by: Andy SAVILLE: I went to meet them in a pub when
McCluskey and
they were recording at Cargo. They had
Paul Humphreys
Performers: Andy some rural visuals of some fencing, and
McCluskey (bass, Andy said, “Do you like this?” And I said,
synth, percussion, “Kind of, but it’s not what I had in mind.
vocals), Paul I’ve been discovering avant-garde scores.”
Humphreys The name chimed with the typographic
(keyboards, culture I was learning about, people like
synth, percussion, Swiss typographer Jan Tschichold. And I’d
vocals) become interested in this abstract way of
Recorded/mixed
rendering music scores, where the normal
by: John Brierley,
OMD, Martin stanza formula for writing wasn’t even
Hannett, Paul appropriate. I said, “Andy, do you write
Collister (various your music down yourself?”
versions) McCLUSKEY: We couldn’t read or write
Recorded at: music, but we had this way of noting the
Henry’s Studio, kick and the snare. Kind of a hieroglyphic
Liverpool; Cargo to give us a rhythm pattern – we had to
Studios, Rochdale commit the notes and chords to memory.
Released:
SAVILLE: I said, “Could you sketch that
May 21, 1979
UK/US chart out for me for these A- and B-sides?” So
positions: DNC he did, and then I sat down one evening
with a sheet of Letraset symbols and
emulated their marks into something that
looked like a new form of score-writing.
I had already decided because of the ‘In
time line
at Manchester’s record “Electricity”
Factory club night at Henry’s Studio,
later in the month actually Paul Collister’s
Winter 1978 The duo home garage
The Dark’ part of the name that I wanted
to explore thermography, where a certain
chemical was put in the ink, and when the
ink was still wet, it was exposed to heat to
make the ink expand. I had this idea that if
you were to thermograph black ink on matte
black paper, then you’d get this shiny raised
surface that would be readable and feel-
able, in a pseudo-Braille way. The printer
was reluctant at first. He agreed, but he
regretted it: the shape of the flat sleeves was
on the limit for the conveyor belt that took
the printed item through the heat tunnel, so
every so often one of these got stuck. “Your
job has worked,” he said, “but my print room
has been on fire three times today.”
HUMPHREYS: I remember a day around
Alan Erasmus’ house. “Right, there’s 5,000
sleeves, and there’s 5,000 records over
there. You need to put those records into
those sleeves.” It was character-building!
In the end, Tony said this ridiculous line –
“Guys, you are the future of pop music, and
this label will not be big enough for you.”
Typical Tony Wilson! We were insulted
really – [laughs] “Fuck off, Tony, this isn’t
pop music, this is art!” But he said, “No,
you’re gonna get a big deal. I’m gonna send
these records out to all the record labels.”
We ended up signing with Dindisc.
READE: I wanted them to be my band on
Factory. But I made the mistake of not
demanding to be a director, just playing the
role of wife, and then Tony came home one
day and told me he’d sold them. I was so
disappointed. Our whole marriage fell apart
because he didn’t consult me – he came
home one day and said he’d bought
a house. I refused to live in it!
McCLUSKEY: Then we got hold of the
Hannett multi-track, and remixed that in
our own studio for Dindisc. We took away all
the lush effects Martin had put on there.
HUMPHREYS: We’ve never done a gig
without playing “Electricity”, never. It’s
often the last encore. When we’re doing our
own tours, no song goes down better.
McCLUSKEY: In the late ’80s, we did a comp
and we asked Tom Lord-Alge to do a remix
of it – we always thought it could be better,
as the timing was dreadful. So he tightened
it all up, triggered a new kick and snare
drum, but when he got the sound crisp, all it
did was accentuate just how out of time our
playing was! So we said, “Ah, you’ll have to
muddy it all up, mate, and cover it in reverb,
’cos it just sounds really shit now!” I’d only
been playing bass for two years, and Paul
had only been playing keyboards for six
months, so we weren’t that good! But that
early recording has an energy and a naïvety
to it. We were a bunch of teenagers in our
mate’s garage, and that’s part of its charm.
OMD’s new LP The Punishment Of Luxury
is out Sept 1 on White Noise Records
may 21, 1979
“Electricity” is released
on Factory as FAC 6,
backed by “Almost”
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 thirty years on, U2
revisit The Joshua Tree’s
widescreen portrayal
of a mythic America
U2
twickenham stadium, London, July 8, 2017
Looking back, not in anger… The Joshua Tree
enters a new period of growth
S
INCE announcing
their intention to
revisit The Joshua Tree
in its entirety for its
30th anniversary, U2
have been at pains to
make plain this is no
exercise in nostalgia. No heritage
rock band, they. At the start of this
year, The Edge insisted that it was an
album that spoke to current times.
“That record was written in the
mid-’80s,” he told Rolling Stone.
“It was a period when there was a
lot of unrest… It feels like we’re right
back there in a way. I don’t think
Brian rasic/Wireimage
any of our work has ever come full
circle to that extent. It just felt like,
‘Wow, these songs have a new
meaning and a new resonance
today that they didn’t have three
years ago, four years ago.’”
98 • UNCUt • september 2017
more mental real estate than the
power and meaning of rock’n’roll,
which becomes a diversion rather
than a guiding force – and it seemed
worth asking: what are U2 actually
for? If a band forges its reputation
by placing itself front-and-centre
in the culture, what is its purpose
when time has shifted it away from
that position?
Then, the day before the first of intervening years, though, they have This tour seems like U2’s attempt to
their two shows at Twickenham, done little to justify his bullishness. confront that question. After drifting
Bono made a rather unexpected Couple that with the ageing of their for so long, they appear to have
intervention, popping up as a caller fanbase – as kids and mortgages decided to try to reconnect with their
on Simon Mayo’s All Request Friday and redundancies and prescriptions essential U2-ness. These shows seem
on Radio 2, where in the process of and the rest of real life start to occupy much more like therapy sessions in
drumming up some customers for
the few unsold tickets, he insisted:
“We play the album as if it had just
been released last week. It’s not a
nostalgia thing, really.” He paused.
“That’s at least our stance.” The last
two words were in audible italics.
Whether or not guitarist and
singer disagree privately about
the purpose of their current tour,
it had been clear U2 needed to do
something. Ten years ago, playing
a secret gig at the Astoria in London,
Bono announced that they had come
to reclaim their title as the greatest
rock’n’roll band in the world. In the

front of giant audiences than shameless
attempts to take U2 back to the stadiums,
though one wouldn’t bet against the
second part of the equation having been
a more than welcome side effect. It helps,
naturally, that the show is breathtaking,
intoxicating, thrilling and moving.
The single-album format suits U2 down
to the ground. With 11 tracks occupied by
The Joshua Tree – an album everyone here
adores – there is no room for extraneous
flab. What filler there is (and there is very
little) comes in The Joshua Tree itself,
whose second side doesn’t have the
mythic power of its first. But given the
55,000 people in the stadium have signed
up to hear The Joshua Tree, the flab is
accepted. There’s no point complaining
that you don’t much want to hear, say,
“Trip Through Your Wires”, any more
than complaining that every time you
order a Big Mac it comes with two slices of
pickle. That’s just the way it is.
The show starts with unnerving
directness. As The Waterboys’ “The Whole
Of The Moon” fades, Larry Mullen Jr walks
from the wings, down a long runway into
a joshua tree-shaped platform within the
crowd. As he starts the martial pattern that
opens “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, The Edge
enters, picking out the guitar line. Adam
Clayton follows, then Bono. Inverting
L i VE
SETLIST
1 sunday Bloody
sunday
2 new Year’s Day
3 Bad
4 Pride (in The
the normal chronology of the stadium than Coldplay or the other groups who name Of Love)
gig, they begin in the centre of the crowd, heard The Joshua Tree and realised that 5 Where The
streets Have
offering themselves up to their audience. songs made up of building blocks rather no name
They follow with “New Year’s Day”, then than riffs were the way to reach millions 6 i still Haven’t
“Bad”, then an utterly electrifying “Pride of disparate people with different tastes. Found What i’m
(In The Name Of Love)”. It’s shameless In the book that accompanied the 2007 Looking For
crowdpleasing, but it’s also a statement: reissue of the album, Bono wrote how 7 With Or Without
You
This is who we are; this is what we do. he wished he had written better words 8 Bullet The Blue
The production is, as one would for the music, but he ended up with the sky
expect, tremendous, both simple and perfect lyric set for this album: emotive, 9 running To
overwhelming. A 200ft-wide screen direct, and just nuanced enough to offer stand still
stretches from one side of the rugby whatever meaning the listener wanted. 10 red Hill mining
Town
pitch to the other, images changing for The encores – eight of them! – are a
11 in god’s country
each song of The Joshua Tree – the view little more ragged, but in a good way. A 12 Trip Through
from the windscreen of a car speeding new song, “The Little Things That Give Your Wires
down an empty desert highway for You Away”, has featured on many of the 13 One Tree Hill
“Where The Streets Have No Name”, tour setlists and holds its own. Finally, 14 exit
timelapse photography of Death Valley Bono brings out Noel Gallagher – whose 15 mothers Of The
for “With Or Without You”, building up support slot had seemed fine at the Disappeared
EncorE
to a blinding conflagration of white light time, but in retrospect was like having
16 miss syria
and stage footage for “Exit”. Never have a cheese sandwich at home before going (sarajevo)
so many people at a gig taken so many to a Michelin-starred restaurant – to sing 17 Beautiful Day
photographs of the staging. And yet it a stripped-back “Don’t Look Back In 18 elevation
never overwhelms the songs, serving to Anger” with U2. It’s a magnificent gesture, 19 Vertigo
illuminate them rather than obscure them. generous to both superfan Gallagher and 20 Ultra Violet
The music has aged well. If The Joshua to the crowd, who sing along with gusto, (Light my Way)
21 One
Tree’s reputation is as a calculated effort aware they’ve seen something unique to
22 Little Things
at the album to break America, it doesn’t top a remarkable evening. 23 Don’t Look Back
sound that way. The ghosts of post-punk Where next? Who knows where the map in anger (with
haunt it, even if the sharp edges have will take them. But at least U2 can be sure noel gallagher)
been sanded down: “Bullet The Blue they’ve got enough gas in the tank to get
Sky” still sounds more like the Bad Seeds there. MICHAEL HANN
september 2017 • UNCUt • 99
 A streamlined
touring machine:
ralf Hütter (left)
and Kraftwerk
KrAFTWerK
Colston Hall, bristol, June 17, 2017
Do androids dream of electric blankets?
O
NCE rare as comets,
Kraftwerk tours have
become increasingly
regular over the
past decade. More
accessible and yet
more mysterious than
ever, the band’s third run of British shows
in five years is the latest iteration of their
ever-evolving 3D spectacle. Disillusioned
old-school fans may deride the Dad’s
Army of technopop as a creatively sterile
heritage act, but there are screaming
millennials in Bristol who were not even
born during their late-’70s peak. Their
mesmerising brand of sublime banality
clearly has pan-generational appeal.
Judged by pop norms, of course,
Kraftwerk can be easily faulted for their
Betamax futurism, their thin latterday
output and their endless reworking of
ancient source material. But judge them as
a living, breathing, constantly self-refining
artwork and they are peerless. Decades in
development, this immersive live show is
the richest Kraftwerkian experience yet,
a ravishing sensory feast that combines
painstakingly sculpted sound design,
RMV/REX/ShuttERStock
exquisite visuals, absurdist comedy and a
potent undercurrent of human emotion.
And still, it appears, a work in progress.
As Ralf Hütter and his faceless cyborg
minions line up behind their computer
consoles, minor tweaks in their audio-
100 • UNCUT • sepTember 2017
visual arsenal are evident even since 2013.
Pleasingly, the 3D imagery is becoming
less literal, less baldly illustrative. The
boxy lyrical slogans of “Computer World”
and “Computer Love” still appear to
vault from the screen and dance through
the air, but nowadays they hover over
lustrous shape-shifting patchworks of
vivid colour. “Airwaves” is especially
striking, its lubricated electro-disco throb
accompanied by monochrome acoustic
wave patterns that loop and twist and
intertwine, like funky cousins of Joy
Division’s Unknown Pleasures sleeve.
Simple and beautiful.
Maybe it’s the post-Brexit mood, but
“Trans-Europe Express” no longer
feels like a Utopian paean to borderless
continental unity. Instead it assumes a
more noir-ish shade to match its stark new
visual backdrop of ghostly night trains
criss-crossing an endless black void. This
seminal metal-bashing track always had a
hard industrial edge, but tonight it borders
on gothic as Hütter vamps on those
haunted-house organ chords over eerie
Doppler effect sighs. There are agreeably
unlikely echoes of Black Sabbath here.
Strikingly, the more recent material
feels the most dated. While “Autobahn”
and “The Man-Machine” have the
monumental robustness of modern design
classics, post-rave compositions like
“Aerodynamik” now feel as outmoded
as the band’s Matrix-era LED suits.
SETLIST
1 Numbers
2 computer
Innovators should never be imitators.
That said, Kraftwerk also deploy
kitschy nostalgia with deliberate,
World
3 It’s More Fun
self-conscious irony. The trancey
to compute cosmic synth undulations of “Spacelab”,
4 computer Love a thrilling reminder of the band’s
5 the Man- Krautrock roots, is framed by an antique
Machine spaceship interior and a crudely rendered
6 Spacelab cartoon flying saucer that touches down
7 the Model
outside Colston Hall itself – self-spoofing
8 Neon Lights
Kraftwerk humour, customised for each
9 Autobahn
10 Airwaves venue on the tour.
11 Geiger counter/ Some insiders have hinted this could be
Radioactivity Kraftwerk’s last British visit. Which seems
12 Intermission/ unlikely considering the streamlined,
News lucrative, ecstatically reviewed touring
13 Electric cafe
machine they have become in recent
14 tour De France/
Prologue/Etape years. But Hütter turns 71 in August. Does
1 /chrono/ he never consider cosy retirement? Do
Etape 2 androids dream of electric blankets? Will
15 trans-Europe he send the band’s robotic replicants out
Express/Metal
on the road instead, as he half-joked in the
on Metal/Abzug
EncorE 1 past? Given the riotous reception that “The
16 the Robots Robots” receives in Bristol, its whooshing
EncorE 2 rave-era remix accompanied by twirling
17 Aerodynamik dummies, that sci-fi fantasy no longer
18 Planet of Visions seems too fanciful. Fully automated luxury
19 Boing Boom communism with a disco beat? Yes please.
tschak/techno
Normally tight-lipped and poker-faced,
Pop/Music
Non-Stop Hütter proves unusually chatty in Bristol,
dropping several deadpan quips into the
set. “Are there any clubs in Bristol?” he
muses during the now-traditional finale
of “Music Non-Stop”, when he remains
onstage alone, stabbing at his keyboard as
if to show doubters that Kraftwerk’s serene
machine symphonies are not entirely pre-
programmed. He ends with hearty thanks,
hand on heart, bowing to an enraptured
crowd. He looks exhausted but elated.
Human after all. STEPHEN DALTON
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READING HEXAGON

SIMPLY DYLAN
MON 23 OCT
TUE 24 OCT SOUTHEND CLIFFS PAVILION
THU 26 OCT SHEFFIELD CITY HALL
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
MON 06 NOV LONDON ROYAL ALBERT HALL TICKETMASTER.CO.UK
SIMPLYDYLAN.COM f /SIMPLYDYLANOFFICIAL
GIGSANDTOURS.COM | TICKETMASTER.CO.UK T @SIMPLYDYLANBAND /SIMPLYDYLANBAND
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

FRI 20 OCT - DORKING, DORKING HALLS

SAT 21 OCT - CAMBRIDGE, THE JUNCTION
SAT 28 OCT - SALISBURY, CITY HALL
FRI 03 NOV - OXFORD, O2 ACADEMY
SAT 04 NOV - NORTHAMPTON, ROADMENDERS
FRI 10 NOV - PORTSMOUTH, PYRAMIDS
SAT 11 NOV - NOTTINGHAM, ROCK CITY
SAT 18 NOV - MANCHESTER, THE RITZ
SUN 19 NOV - BIRMINGHAM, O2 INSTITUTE 2
FRI 24 NOV - LONDON, THE GRAND

THE GIFT… FRI 01 DEC - LEEDS, UNIVERSITY STYLUS

SAT 02 DEC - SHEFFIELD, THE LEADMILL
35th Anniversary Tour 1982-2017 FRI 14 DEC - BOURNEMOUTH, THE OLD FIRE STATION
 CROSSTOWW
N
W CONCERTS
P R E S E N T S

SEPTEMBER 2017
24 BOURNEMOUTH BIC SOLD OUT
25 MANCHESTER ARENA
27 GLASGOW THE SSE HYDRO
28 NOTTINGHAM MOTORPOINT ARENA
30 LONDON THE O2 SOLD OUT
SONGKICK.COM | GIGANTIC.COM | SEETICKETS.COM
TICKETMASTER.CO.UK | ALTTICKETS.COM | DICE.FM

A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS, METROPOLIS MUSIC,

DHP & REGULAR MUSIC PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH X-RAY NICKCAVE.COM

T
SOLD OU
EXTRA DATE ADDED

TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM TICKETMASTER.CO.UK - SONGKICK.COM

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BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL

NEW ALBUM ‘TI AMO’ OUT NOW

PLUS
SPECIAL
GUESTS

TUESDAY 08 AUGUST 2017 SATURDAY 12 AUGUST 2017 THURSDAY 17 AUGUST 2017

LEEDS BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB LEAMINGTON SPA THE ASSEMBLY BRISTOL TRINITY CENTRE
WEDNESDAY 09 AUGUST 2017 SUNDAY 13 AUGUST 2017 FRIDAY 18 AUGUST 2017
GLASGOW ST LUKES NOTTINGHAM RESCUE ROOMS BEXHILL ON SEA DE LA WARR PAVILION
THURSDAY 10 AUGUST 2017 MONDAY 14 AUGUST 2017 SATURDAY 19 AUGUST 2017
NEWCASTLE RIVERSIDE NORWICH WATERFRONT GREENMAN FESTIVAL BRECON BEACONS
FRIDAY 11 AUGUST 2017 WEDNESDAY 16 AUGUST 2017 SUNDAY 20 AUGUST 2017
MANCHESTER GORILLA EXETER PHOENIX LONDON ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL
SEETICKETS.COM | SONGKICK.COM
SEETICKETS.COM SONGKICK.COM | GIGANTIC.COM
GIGANTIC.COM THE
THE ALBUM
ALBUM FLOTUS
FLOTUS OUT
OUT NOW
NOW
A
A MJR
MJR &
& CROSSTOWN
CROSSTOWN CONCERTS
CONCERTS PRESENTATION
PRESENTATION BY
BY ARRANGEMENT
ARRANGEMENT WITH
WITH ASGARD
ASGARD LAMBCHOP.NET
LAMBCHOP.NET

F O R T H C O M I N G F E S T I V A L S

02 SEPTEMBER 2017 09 - 10 SEPTEMBER2017

THE DOWNS * BRISTOL ONBLACKHEATH - LONDON
In association with TEAM LOVE In partnership with John Lewis

@CROSSTOWN_LIVE - /CROSSTOWNCONCERTS - @CROSSTOWNCONCERTS

 APPEARING LIVE

* EXTRA DATES ADDED DUE TO DEMAND *

THURSDAY 23 NOVEMBER
MANCHESTER O2 APOLLO
FRIDAY 24 NOVEMBER
WOLVERHAMPTON CIVIC HALL
S U N D A Y S2O L6D O UNTO V E M B E R
MONDAY 27 NOVEMBER
LONDON O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON
WEDNESDAY 29 NOVEMBER
SOUTHAMPTON O2 GUILDHALL
GOLDENVOICE.CO.UK | AXS.COM | GIGSANDTOURS.COM
A GOLDENVOICE, SJM CONCERTS AND PVC PRESENTATION

BILLY BRAGG

UK TOUR NOVEMBER 2017

05 Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion 14 Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
SOLD 06O U T London Islington Assembly Hall 15 Edinburgh The Queen’s Hall
S O L D07 London Islington Assembly Hall S O L D16 Newcastle Wylam Brewery
OUT OUT

08 Cambridge Junction 18 Nottingham Rock City

10 Oxford 02 Academy 19 Cardiff Tramshed
S O L D11 Birmingham Town Hall S O L D21 Southampton The Brook
OUT OUT

12 Sheffield The Leadmill S O L D22 London Clapham Grand

OUT

AXS.COM B I L LY B R A G G . C O . U K
W W W . M U S I C G L U E . C O M / B I L LY - B R A G G
A G O L D E N V O I C E P R E S E N TATI O N I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H C O D A A G E N C Y
 Academy Events present

IT’S ON! OCTOBER ACADEMY EVENTS BY ARRANGEMENT WITH TRANSCEND MUSIC PRESENTS

11 MANCHESTER O2 Ritz
12 BRISTOL O2 Academy
13 LEICESTER O2 Academy
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*

FIREBA *APPEARING
ANTI-FLAG WILL NOT BE
ON THESE DATES
HOTTESLL’S
BAND 20 T
17 LOCAL COMPETITION
WINNER An ACADEMY EVENTS
TICKE and FIREBALL presentation
TS
£10
by arrangement with
UNITED TALENT AGENCY
21st December 2017
O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN · LONDON
OVER 18s ONLY
FIREBALL.COM FIREBALLUK FIELDS-OF-THE-NEPHILIM.COM

THU 10 TH AUGUST
Academy Events by arrangement with Xray Touring presents ACADEMY EVENTS by arrangement with UTA present

MANCHESTER
O2 RITZ
FRI 11TH AUGUST
LONDON
O2 SHEPHERDS
BUSH EMPIRE
PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS
GENERAL ROOTS | STICK FIGURE SAT 12TH AUGUST
MATT STOCKS DJ BRISTOL
SUBLIMEWITHROME.COM O2 ACADEMY
2017 European Tour
AND HIS BAND
Fri 1st December
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
Liverpool O2 Academy
FRI 18 AUG LONDON O2 SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE
MON 21 AUG LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY
Sat 9th December
TUE 22 AUG GLASGOW O2 ABC
Oxford O2 Academy
TICKETMASTER.CO.UK | CONOROBERST.COM Ticketmaster.co.uk | MarkLanegan.com

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,
MANCHESTER
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,
02/10 Bilston, The Robin 2 07/10 London, Boston Music Rooms PERRANPORTH
03/10 Nottingham, Rescue Rooms 08/10 Manchester, Club Academy KIOKO 15 DEC CLUB 85, HITCHIN
05/10 Sheffield, Local Authority 09/10 Newcastle, The Cluny PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS 16 DEC HARE AND HOUNDS,
At The Corporation 10/10 Glasgow, O2 ABC2 BIRMINGHAM
NEW ALBUM ‘CRAZY DIAMONDS’
06/10 Norwich, The Waterfront OUT AUTUMN 2017 DUBPISTOLSMUSIC.CO.UK

TICKETMASTER.CO.UK & ALL USUAL AGENTS

 Academy Events present
presents
MANIAC SQUAT RECORDS & presents
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH NEIL O’BRIEN ENTERTAINMENT PRESENT

BOWIE’S PIANIST The definitive tribute to

MIKE GARSON
PERFORMS BOWIE’S
MASTERPIECE ALBUM A classic Oasis
IN ITS ENTIRETY - PLUS A SECOND set of their
SET OF BOWIE FAVOURITES biggest hits PLUS SPECIAL GUEST DAVE SHARP
& best known
recordings
SEPTEMBER
SAT 09 GLASGOW O2 ABC2
FRI 22 LEEDS O2 Academy
SATURDAY 25 NOVEMBER SAT 23 LIVERPOOL O2 Academy2
BIRMINGHAM O2 INSTITUTE OCTOBER
SAT 07 BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy3
SUNDAY 26 NOVEMBER NOVEMBER
GLASGOW O2 ABC FRI 17 BOURNEMOUTH Old Fire Station
WEDNESDAY 29 NOVEMBER SAT 18 OXFORD O2 Academy2 O C TO B E R 2 0 1 7
SHEFFIELD O2 ACADEMY FRI 24 LEICESTER The Scholar @ O2 Academy 04 NOTTINGHAM RESCUE ROOMS 13 BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY2
SAT 25 LONDON O2 Academy Islington 05 NEWCASTLE BOILER SHOP 14 LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY2
THURSDAY 30 NOVEMBER DECEMBER
LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY 06 ABERDEEN ASSEMBLY 18 NORWICH WATERFRONT
FRI 15 MANCHESTER O2 Ritz 07 EDINBURGH LIQUID ROOMS 19 SHEFFIELD O2 ACADEMY2
GABY MORENO - SPECIAL GUEST SINGER SAT 16 SHEFFIELD O2 Academy2 11 BRISTOL THEKLA 20 OXFORD O2 ACADEMY2
(LATIN GRAMMY WINNER, GRAMMY NOMINEE) SAT 23 NEWCASTLE O2 Academy
12 WAKEFIELD WAREHOUSE 23
KEVIN ARMSTRONG - GUITAR (DAVID BOWIE/IGGY POP)
TERRY EDWARDS - SAXOPHONE/GUITAR
GREATEST HITS TOUR 2017 THEALARM.COM
(PJ HARVEY/GALLON DRUNK)

JAKECLEMONS
presents presents
BEN ELLIS - BASS (IGGY POP)

THE
MAT HECTOR - DRUMS (IGGY POP)

PLUS SPECIAL GUEST GILLIAN GLOVER

SMYTHS
ALADDINSANETOUR.COM
aladdinsanetour aladdinsanetour @aladdinsanetour

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

Th 3St AUGUST TUE 24 OCT
LoDo GLASGOW O2 ABC2 “ More Songs That
O2 AcDeY IsInTo WED 25 OCT
Fr 1St SEPTEMBER LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY2 Saved Your Life”
HoMfRt PiTuEdOm THU 26 OCT
Su 1Th SEPTEMBER BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY3 Fri 1st Dec GLASGOW O2 ABC2
PoTyRiD FRI 27 OCT Sat 2nd Dec LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY2
StRrNg MuI ArS CeTr LONDON O2 ACADEMY2 ISLINGTON Fri 8th Dec SHEFFIELD O2 ACADEMY2

DaE WaElNg Fr 1Th SEPTEMBER

BiMiGhM O2 AcDeY2
SUN 29 OCT
BRISTOL THEKLA
Sat 9th Dec
Thu 21st Dec
BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY2
NEWCASTLE O2 ACADEMY

presents by arrangement with SELECTIVE AGENCY presents presents

SATURDAY
“THE WORLD’S GREATEST PEARL JAM TRIBUTE” THE CLONE 25 NOVEMBER
NEWCASTLE

ROSES PLUS GUESTS

O2 ACADEMY
SATURDAY
02 DECEMBER
trueOrder BIRMINGHAM
(NEW ORDER TRIBUTE) O2 ACADEMY2
NATIONAL TOUR 2017 O CTO B E R 11 GLASGOW Oran Mor thecloneroses.co.uk · facebook.com/cloneroses · twitter.com/thecloneroses

OCTOBER 13 SOUTHPORT Atkinson Theatre 12 ABERDEEN The Assembly

Fri 13th SWANSEA SIN CITY 14 LEICESTER Musician 17 HULL Fruit presents

Sat 14th CARDIFF GLOBE 20 BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy3 18 NORWICH Waterfront Studio

Fri 20th NOTTINGHAM RESCUE ROOMS 21 SHEFFIELD O2 Academy2 19 LEWES Con Club
NOVEMBER 27 SOUTHAMPTON The Brook 24 FARNCOMBE St. John’s Church
Fri 10th OXFORD O2 ACADEMY2 28 SEATON Gateway Theatre 25 LONDON O2 Academy Islington
Sat 11th LONDON O2 ACADEMY2 ISLINGTON 29 CARDIFF Acapela 28 MILTON KEYNES The Stables
Fri 17th BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY3 N OV E M B E R DECEMBER
Fri 24th SHEFFIELD O2 ACADEMY2 02 CHESTER Live Rooms 01 MANCHESTER Academy 3
“Rockin” Sat 25th LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY2 03 DARWEN Library Theatre
04 SELBY The Venue
02 BEDFORD Esquires
07 ISLE OF MAN
PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS
Dave Krusen DECEMBER SAT 21 OCTOBER
(Pearl Jam) Fri 1st NEWCASTLE O2 ACADEMY2 10 NEWCASTLE O2 Academy2 Villa Marina
Sat 2nd GLASGOW O2 ABC2
LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY2
pearljamuk.com Fri 8th LEICESTER O2 ACADEMY @ THE SCHOLAR ROACHFORD.CO.UK
THU 26 OCTOBER
presents
LONDON O2 ACADEMY ISLINGTON

JAGGED LITTLE PILL

presents
PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

THU 9 NOVEMBER
SHEFFIELD O2 ACADEMY2
A RECREATION OF ALANIS MORISSETTE’S CLASSIC ALBUM THU 16 NOVEMBER
BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY3
INCLUDING
THE ICONIC HITS
IRONIC by arrangement with The Sounds That History Saved Agency presents
HAND IN MY
POCKET THE “THE BEST
ALL I REALLY UK’S TRIBUTE
WANT #1 BAND
YOU OUGHTA DOORS I HAVE
KNOW
AND ALL THE OTHER TRIBUTE SEEN” Celebrating 50 years of the
CLASSIC SONGS
OF JAGGED
BAND Clint Boon VELVET UNDERGROUND
LITTLE PILL Performing classic songs from 1967 - 1970
Sat 9th Sept Sat 16th Sept
N A T I O N A L T O U R 2 0 1 7 NEWCASTLE BIRMINGHAM
NOVEMBER 2017 SUN 26 LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY2
NOVEMBER O2 ACADEMY2 O2 ACADEMY3
THU 09 SOUTHAMPTON THE BROOK THU 30 MANCHESTER CLUB ACADEMY FRI 10 NEWCASTLE O2 ACADEMY
SAT 11 NEWCASTLE O2 ACADEMY2 DECEMBER 2017 SAT 11 SHEFFIELD O2 ACADEMY2 Fri 15th Sept Sat 30th Sept
SUN 12 GLASGOW O2 ABC2 FRI 01 OXFORD O2 ACADEMY2 SAT 18 BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY3 BRISTOL LONDON
FRI 24 BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY2 SAT 02 LONDON O2 ACADEMY2 ISLINGTON FRI 24 LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY2 O2 ACADEMY O2 ACADEMY2 ISLINGTON
SAT 25 SHEFFIELD O2 ACADEMY2 SUN 03 CARDIFF THE GLOBE DECEMBER Sat 11th Nov
JAGGEDLITTLEPILL.CO.UK
SAT 02 LONDON O2 ACADEMY ISLINGTON GLASGOW O2 ABC2

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V I S I TA U S T I N . O R G

A
t the beginning of Meet Me
In The Bathroom, Lizzy
Goodman’s exhaustive and
entertainingly gossipy oral
history of the scene that
coalesced around the Strokes’ brief blaze
of notoriety, premillennial New York is
portrayed as a rock’n’roll graveyard. In
Rudy Giuliani’s sanitised dot.com town,
“You couldn’t even buy drugs on the
street anymore,” laments Galaxie 500’s
Dean Wareham. this sorry state of affairs
is altered by 9/11, which begets a kind of
desperate hedonism, and the return to the
fundamental principles that energised
the Lower East Side in the mid-to-late
’70s. For a spell, the combination lit a
fuse under the city and beyond, resulting
in some enjoyably urgent music, and
the industry’s last great signing splurge
before the internet swept in.
For those who’d argue that you had to
be there, Goodman interviews pretty
much everyone who was, creating a vast,
overlapping narrative with the Strokes,
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol and James
Murphy at the centre, and dozens of
associated artists (from the White Stripes
to Franz Ferdinand and Kings Of Leon)
orbiting around them. By and large they’re
a hopelessly self-infatuated bunch,
entirely in love with their own mythology
and a romanticised notion of New York
City. “Blondie, Patti Smith, the Ramones,
television…,” intones Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Karen O. You’re struck by the orthodoxy of
the inspirations and aspirations: guitars,
suits, black leather jackets, art rock,
cocaine and fame.
Playground beefs are laid out in
hilarious detail, notably between Murphy
and tim Goldsworthy – “I literally could
have stabbed him in the throat quite
easily,” says Goldsworthy – and Ryan
Adams and the Strokes. Adams, it’s fair to
say, doesn’t come out of the book looking
REvIEWED terribly clever. One memorable chapter
THIS MONTH finds him being confronted by the Strokes
at a High Noon summit in a downtown
bar, where they accuse him of turning
Albert Hammond Jr onto heroin. “It was
very much in the style of The Godfather,”
Adams recalls. “Where the family
business is being attended to… I was given
a lecture, a hypocritical lecture, and then
they told me that I was not going to be part
of their scene anymore.”
You can trace the arc of boom and bust
through the drugs. It starts with weed
MEET ME IN THE
BATHROOM: and ecstasy, accelerates to cocaine, and
REBIRTH AND
ROCK AND ROLL IN
NEW YORK CITY,
2001-2011
LIZZY GOODmAN
FAber, £20
Ryan Adams…
8/10
hypocritically
lectured by
The Strokes!
ends in heroin. the main players crash
and burn relatively quickly, leaving a
few pretty vapour trails, their potential
never quite alchemising into sustained
SMASHING IT UP: greatness. In their wake comes the second
A DECADE OF wave of tamer, saner talents – Grizzly
CHAOS WITH Bear, the National, Vampire Weekend –
THE DAMNED whose rise is mirrored by that of Brooklyn,
KIerON tYLer
OmNIbUs press, £20 and the hipster aesthetic of Williamsburg
7/10 becoming NY’s “No 1 export to the world”.
the cleverly constructed text captures
the excitement of it all exploding. It’s a
sprawling testament, hilariously self-
important, amusingly contradictory, a
slice of music history that encompasses
a punchy précis of the debauchery on tap
at London’s Columbia Hotel, the impact
of the smoking ban, and the victory
of advertising, licensing and illegal
downloads over radio, stores and labels.
the strokes backstage at the
Fillmore, san Francisco, October
2001: (l-r) Fabrizio moretti, Albert
Hammond Jr, Nick Valensi, Julian
Casablancas and Nikolai Fraiture
“WE just make a noise and that’s it,
no politics, no nothing,” says Captain
Sensible in Smashing It Up, Kieron
tyler’s solid history of the Damned’s first
decade (there’s a frantic coda on their
tangled history since 1986). the unlovely
runts of the litter, the Damned refused to
buy into the punk aesthetic, yet the music
was often great. From the still-potent rush
of “New Rose” – “like jet fighters”, says Rat
Scabies – to the souped-up garage rock of
“Smash It Up” and hilariously grandiose
“Eloise”, they were rarely predictable –
Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason produced their
messy second album, after Syd Barrett
proved unavailable – and often thrilling.
the first punk band to release a
single, they’re the last to get a thorough
biographical study. Smashing It
Up rectifies that, though the rather
overwrought style takes the band more
seriously than they ever took themselves.
A gang of suburban misfits, they
find themselves united by a “slightly
brutal” bluntness in their attitude to the
outside world. this, it becomes clear,
is something of an understatement,
as they set fire to Elvis Costello’s shoes
and stick fag butts in his mouth while
he sleeps, piss on people, and scare the
Flamin’ Groovies into quitting a tour. the
author recalls a week’s rehearsal on a
narrowboat on the Kennet & Avon Canal:
“All that had been brought on board was
an air rifle and beer.”
Little wonder they struggle to hold
it together. Stiffed by Stiff – “I wished
I’d signed with someone bigger,” says
Sensible, “they might have paid me” –
Anthony PIdgeon/RedfeRns
they fall apart on an annual basis, but
keep resurfacing in slightly altered form,
eking out a hand-to-mouth existence
flitting from prog to psychedelia, goth to
’50s rock’n’roll. It’s a ragged, disjointed
tale, and tyler provides a decent service
in telling it. graeme thomson
september 2017 • UNCUt • 111
 This month: Moz gets
the biopic treatment,
plus ghost, a ghoul and

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.

reviewed this MONth

eNGLANd A GhOst the GhOUL the BiG siCK QUest
is MiNe stOrY directed by: directed by: directed by:
directed by: directed by: Gareth tunley Michael Jonathan
Mark Gill david lowery starring: Showalter olshefski
starring: starring: tom Meeten, starring: starring:
Jack lowden, casey Affleck, Geoffrey kumail christopher
Jessica Brown Rooney Mara McGivern Nanjiani, Rainey,
ESSoldo PictuRES 2016

Findlay Opens: Opens: Zoe kazan christine

Opens: August 11 August 4 Opens: July 28 Rainey
August 4 Cert: 12A Cert: 15 Cert: 15 Opens: Aug 18
Cert: 15 8/10 8/10 8/10 Cert: 12A
7/ 10 9/10

112 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017


Morrissey is
a passive
presence;
the women
push him on
The Ghoul is Tunley’s first film and stars Tom
Meeten – yet another Ealing Live! veteran
– as Chris, a police officer investigating an
unusual murder case in which two bodies
continued to move after being fatally shot
in the head. Chris identifies a main suspect,
who it transpires is obsessed with crime
scenes, but “it means he’s a ghoul, it doesn’t
mean he’s got anything to do with this.”
But what is ‘this’, exactly? A murder
mystery with supernatural undertones? A
psychological thriller? Or something darker
– closer in spirit, perhaps, to the earlier films
of The Ghoul’s producer, Ben Wheatley?
Indeed, the way The Ghoul shifts from genre
to genre recalls Wheatley’s earlier films, in
particular Kill List, especially with talk of
“magic, the occult, weird science”. Gradually,
the edges of the film begin to unravel.
Tunley introduces a cheerfully sinister
psychotherapist, Alex Moreland (played
by Geoffrey McGivern, who some may
remember as the voice of Ford Prefect in the
original radio series of The Hitchiker’s Guide
To The Galaxy). “You’ll find I’m quite open
to woolly ideas,” he says, before referencing
witch bottles, John Dee’s Enochian magic
and William Blake’s Book Of Thel.
Like Wheatley, Tunley’s strength lies in his
ability to summon dread in the everyday; to
imply that there is something unholy lurking
just beneath the surface. With his gaunt,
beaten-down looks, Meeten looks very much
like he is wrestling with knowledge of some
darker truth. “We’re all in hell,” Chris says.
“We just can’t remember how we got here.”
the BiG siCK In June, the Pakistani-born
comedian Kumail Nanjiani took to Twitter to
outline his love for Richard Curtis’ film Four
Weddings And A Funeral. “I started stand-up
’cos of Hugh Grant’s best-man speech in the
beginning,” he gushed. It transpires that a
chance meeting with Curtis snowballed to the
extent that Curtis sent Nanjiani four frames
from his personal reel of Four Weddings.
Such a big-hearted gesture is worthy of one of
Curtis’ films; but it is also true of The Big Sick,
an autobiographical meta-comedy charting
Nanjiani’s courtship of his future wife, Emily
V Gordon, starring Nanjiani and co-written
by Nanjiani and Gordon.
“The Big Sick” is a mysterious illness that
suddenly strikes Emily (played by Zoe Kazan)
after she and Nanjiani have split up. Their
courtship had been smooth and exciting,
but Nanjiani develops commitment issues:
marrying a woman of his choosing from
outside his religion and community would
be an unforgivable slight. “I can’t lose my
family,” he tells Emily. Now she is seriously
ill and Nanjiani finds himself waiting around
intensive care in the company of Emily’s
bemused parents, Beth (Holly Hunter) and
Terry (Ray Romano).
Working with director Michael Showalter
and producer Judd Apatow, Nanjiani and
Gordon have crafted a deft, appealing film
that addresses subjects ranging from cultural
change to the unhappy lot of the Uber driver.
Nanjiani is likably geekish, while Kazan is
smartly understated. Hunter and Romano,
meanwhile, bring dramatic heft to what
could otherwise be generic supporting roles.
QUest In 2006, Jonathan Olshefski was
teaching a photography class to adults
in North Philadelphia when one of his
students told him about a collective of local
hip-hop artists clustered around a small
recording studio owned by Christopher
‘Quest’ Rainey. Over the course of the next
10 years, Olshefski filmed Rainey, his family
and their neighbourhood. We learn that
Quest supports his studio by working odd
jobs while his wife, Christine – ‘Ma Quest’
– is employed at a local homeless shelter.
They live with their daughter, Patricia –
‘PJ’ – though both have older children from
previous relationships. Through the Raineys
perspective, Olshefski strives to illuminate
the dynamics of an extended community in
an American inner city. Quest is a wonderful
film, deeply human and compassionate as it
follows the Rainey family going about their
daily business, articulating their hopes and
fears to Olshefski’s ever-present camera.
But Olshefski is also not afraid to tackle
bigger issues – particularly gun crime and
poverty. PJ is shot in the eye by a stray bullet.
It is a horrible accident that the family bears
with astonishing stoicism. There are other
testing times. Christine’s eldest boy, William,
himself a new father, has a brain tumour, but
in a moment typical of the film’s enduring
optimism, he hopes that when he has
recovered he will become a fireman or nurse.
For the most part, the film is content to
linger on intimate passages – the tenderness
of Christina braiding PJ’s hair on the stoop or
later phoning William to check whether he’d
voted. It is moments like these that give Quest
its quiet triumph. Michael Bonner
ALsO OUt...
vALeriAN ANd the CitY
OF A thOUsANd PLANets
OPENS AUGUST 2
luc Besson’s galaxy-spanning romp
set in the 28th century. dane dehaan
and cara delevingne co-star as the
sci-fi police.
MAUdie OPENS AUGUST 4
Biographical drama with Sally hawkins
as canadian folk singer Maud lewis
and Ethan hawke as her beau.
PriCK UP YOUr eArs
OPENS AUGUST 4
Stephen Frears’ biopic of Joe orton,
reissued to mark the 50th anniversary
of the playwright’s death. Alfred Molina
and Gary oldman co-star.
Jean-Paul
Belmondo
in le Doulos
Le dOULOs OPENS AUGUST 11
A chance to see Jean-Pierre Melville’s
1963 crime thriller with Jean-Paul
Belmondo as an enigmatic gangster.
tOM OF FiNLANd OPENS AUGUST 11
Filmmaker dome karukoski brings to
screen the life and work of touko Valio
laaksonen, doyen of homoerotic art.
AN iNCONveNieNt seQUeL
OPENS AUGUST 18
Al Gore is back, fighting more
environmental hazards on the road to
the 2016 Paris climate Agreement.
the dArK tOwer
OPENS AUGUST 18
idris Elba and Matthew Mcconaughey
co-star in this Stephen king adaptation,
a sci-fi western fantasy epic.
FiNAL POrtrAit OPENS AUGUST 18
Stanley tucci writes and directs the
story of Swiss painter and sculptor
Alberto Giacometti, with Geoffrey
Rush and Armie hammer.
the hitMAN’s BOdYGUArd
OPENS AUGUST 18
the world’s top bodyguard is hired
to protect a hitman ahead of his
testimony. Ryan Reynolds and
Samuel l Jackson are those guys.
REX/ShuttERStock
AMeriCAN MAde OPENS AUGUST 25
tom cruise is Barry Seal, a former pilot
who became a drug smuggler during
the ’80s, later recruited by the dEA.
SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 113
AL GREEN
Gospel According To Al Green
MVD Visual
9/10
The Southern soul legend gets good with God and then some
in restored edition of sublime 1984 doc. By Jason Anderson
BeSIDeS being one of the
most joyful and powerful
film profiles of a major
musical artist ever made,
Gospel According To Al
Green adheres awfully
well to Willie Mitchell’s
description of a great song.
Al Green’s closest collaborator during the
first secular phase of his career, Mitchell
explains that a song shouldn’t stay in one
place. Instead, it should be like “climbing a
mountain”. When you “don’t have any more
elevation”, it’s time to fade it out or cut it off.
The real magic, Mitchell implies, is figuring
out how high you can climb.
evidently, director Robert Mugge was
listening carefully to Mitchell’s advice,
judging by the film’s ecstatic finale – a
glorious 30-minute sequence featuring Green
in full flight, singing and preaching to his
congregation. It is rich reward for Mugge’s
persistence; the US director chased Green for
13 months for permission to interview and
film him in action. The documentary – newly
restored for this DVD and Blu-ray edition –
was Mugge’s second project for Channel 4
after Black Wax, his 1982 film on Gil Scott-
Heron. Though he was initially asked to
profile gospel star Andraé Crouch, Mugge
believed Green made for a more compelling
114 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
Full of fire: subject, the singer having turned away from
Al Green soul in the late ’70s to help spread the gospel
preaching
and singing as the minister of his own Baptist church in
at his Full Memphis. After getting Green’s approval,
Gospel
Tabernacle Mugge hastily arranged to shoot the church’s
Church in seventh-anniversary celebration in 1983 with
Memphis,
Tennessee, three 16mm cameras and a 24-track recording
December truck. It was the first (and apparently still
18, 1983 the only) service by Green to be extensively
filmed. A few months later, Mugge shot Green
and his band performing at an American Air
Force base in Washington, DC. As presented
here in the original film’s 4K restoration,
the results of both shoots are stunning.
Indeed, it’s another testament to Mugge’s
talent and fortitude that he’s able to keep a
camera steady on his exuberant subject as he
bounces on his heels before his lectern in his
tan-coloured suit, or bounds through the DC
crowd to shake hands and share love.
Despite his initial reticence, Green made
for a remarkably warm and candid subject
during the film’s central interview, shot
during rehearsals for the service. Though
Green’s more jubilant when reflecting on
his hard-won breakthrough with “Tired Of
Being Alone” and the “charge of electricity”
that prompted his conversion in 1973, he’s
still plenty forthcoming on the topic of “the
incident”. That was the night in 1974 when
then-girlfriend Mary Woodson scalded him
with hot grits before fatally shooting herself
in his home. Speaking about it publicly
for the first time, he relates the sad and
grisly details like a man who can scarcely
believe the story himself. “Did that actually
happen?” he wonders. “I’m asking you – I’m
not playing it for the movie.” He’s similarly
frank about the complications caused by
his newfound faith as he wrestled with his
decision to change course: “I mean, I got
a million-dollar career going here and I’m
telling people they got to talk to Jesus?”
Perhaps what’s most surprising about
Mugge’s film is how much it complicates
any presumptions about the lines Green
drew between the secular and the spiritual
when he cast his thoughts heavenward. For
instance, he has no apparent misgivings
about leading his musicians and singers
through a rendition of “Let’s Stay Together”
in the rehearsal studio. What’s more,
he freely and enthusiastically admits to
applying the lessons he learned as a soul
performer to his role as a man of God. “I took
what I learned from the rock’n’roll,” he says.
“The ingenuity, the class, the charisma, the
steps, the movement, the hesitation, the wait,
the way to be curious. You take all of this that
you learn in pop and rhythm-and-blues and
you use it to your best advantage.”
The additional ingredient, of course, is
the “spiritual fire”. That’s what we witness
in Gospel According To Al Green’s sublime
finale, along with the astonishing prowess
of a rare performer who’s able to surrender to
the moment yet remain utterly in command.
Extras: 8/10. Along with overseeing the
original film’s 4K remaster, Mugge also
created a new seven-minute Making Of doc.
The set includes the complete audio of the
interview and the whole anniversary church
service, an extended sequence for one song,
and a phone message by Green for Mugge.
EAGLES oF DEATh METAL
I Love You All The Time –
Live At The olympia In Paris
EaglE Vision

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
bio-doc of high-living lensman
Celebratory film of 2012 london concert That’s “Rock” as in “Mick”,
When Simon of course – the man whose
performed photos of Bowie, Queen,
Graceland in Blondie et al redefined
London in 1987, music’s visuals. Barnaby
the concert Clay’s moodily shot
was picketed and artfully scripted
by Dammers/ feature film portrays the
Weller/Bragg et photographer not just as
al protesting at a a right-place-right-time snapper, but as a
breach of the UN’s cultural boycott. Freed vampiric, aura-hungry “big-game hunter”,
from such apartheid-era controversies, his a vessel for some greater cultural purpose.
Hyde Park reunion with the same black Mick Rock’s a kinetic presence, leading
South African musicians 25 years later finally you candidly through his ’70s highs, ’80s
allowed their collaboration to be enjoyed as lows and unmatched archive – including
the life-affirming celebration it was intended cassette interviews with Bowie and Lou
to be. Beautifully shot with multi-camera Reed, and negatives of Syd Barrett’s Madcap
angles, Simon presents an hour’s worth of sessions, which he memorably describes as
other career highlights, and Jimmy Cliff “technically fucked”. Mark Bentley
also guests, but it’s the extended Graceland Extras: None.
homage that steals the show.
Extras: 7/10. Two audio discs. LAIBACh
nIGel WIllIaMSOn Liberation Day
itunEs/Dogwoof
ThE MEMBRANES 8/10
Into The Eye!
sCrEEn EDgE landmark concert makes for
an engrossing culture clash
6/10
In August 2015, Slovenian
Disjointed overview of post-punk outliers provocateurs Laibach
There’s probably a decent became the first foreign
story to tell about The rock band to play North
Membranes, but this isn’t Korea. “I’m setting up
makes DVD debut
“I don’t care if they don’t have a fucking clue.
I want one. Give me a fucking clue!” There’s
a scene in episode 2 of this arch adaptation of
Neil Gaiman’s 200,000-word fantasy novel
where the penny – or should that be gold
coin? – drops. enigmatic ex-con Shadow
Moon (Ricky Whittle) confronts the wolfish
Mr Wednesday (Ian McShane) in a motel
car park. McShane, smile in his eyes, still
intimidating in a white towelling dressing gown, is absolutely
loving this. Shadow Moon wants a clue, and so do we. What’s the
plan? Who are “they”. And what the actual fuck is happening?
After its record-breaking run on Amazon Prime, Gaiman’s
series arrives on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download, presenting
the opportunity to chew over these questions at leisure. At the
headline level, the story is a meditation on American myth-
making, as ancient deities from immigrant cultures move
through a world defined by technology. In the words of Game Of
Thrones, which this adaptation references, and maybe mocks a
little, it’s a fantastical fight between “the old gods and the new”.
One of episode 1’s central set pieces, which feels like a pastiche
of the HBO saga – is one of the most pornographically violent
pieces of television you will ever witness. That the same episode
contains the Twitter-breaking moment where Bilquis, the
famed Queen Of Sheba, swallows a man with her vagina seems
like showing off. As it progresses, American Gods will break
further from its source material. In a case of “anything George
RR Martin can do”, subsequent seasons of American Gods will
reportedly have new, non-novel content from Gaiman.
Creators/developers Bryan (Hannibal) Fuller and Michael
(Heroes) Green are the drivers behind this insanely ambitious,
visually sumptuous TV. each scene feels gravid with meaning,
a cross-reference, a half-clue – from the logo on Shadow Moon’s
T-shirt, to a widescreen tracking shot through the constellations.
jan thijs/© 2017 Fremantlemedia north america

it. The director cobbles
together a narrative from
murky live footage of the
band in the early ’80s and
recent film from a gig in
Preston, alongside fuzzily
lit new interviews with John Robb, ex-partner-
in-chief Mark Tilton and current guitarist
Nick Brown. Saving grace is the music itself
– tight, economical and uncompromising,
for the most part. Or, as Brown interprets it:
“Space, power, malevolence.”
Extras: None.
rOB HuGHeS
the blindest of blind
dates,” ponders director
Morten Traavik, whose
tact and inordinate
patience help fix a path through a ridiculous
amount of state officialdom and suspicion.
The group finally make it to Pyongyang,
where they serenade a politely bemused
crowd with “The Final Countdown”, “Live
Is Life” and selections from The Sound Of
Music, a North Korean favourite. Strange
and hugely compelling.
Extras: None.
rOB HuGHeS
The cast is powerful: McShane excels, naturally, and if you only
know the pectorally perfect Whittle from Hollyoaks or Strictly…,
you’ll be impressed. Add to that Crispin Glover (Mr World),
Gillian Anderson (Media, making her bow as a high-def Lucille
Ball on multiple TV screens), Peter Stormare, Orlando Jones
(Anansi) and the brilliantly weird Bruce Langley as Technical
Boy. The music is crafted to your taste, too: it’s scored by Brian
Reitzell, and supplemented by The Band, Creedence, Dylan
and more Bowie references than are probably necessary.
Shows this self-consciously epic often take time to get going.
American Gods has many directions of travel. If nothing else, it’s
a vivid experience. Just watch it on the biggest screen you have.
Extras: 8/10. Ten bonus shorts, including cast and crew
interviews and documentary analysis. Mark Bentley

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 115

 Vinyl
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Not Fade Away
Fondly remembered this month…

AnitA The “hypnotic and

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
Afghan Whigs guitarist
(1966-2017)
Guitarist Dave Rosser, who has died
from colon cancer, was a longtime
friend of Greg Dulli’s and his
bandmate for more than 10 years.
Prior to joining a revived lineup
of Afghan Whigs for 2014’s Do To
The Beast, Rosser had played
alongside Dulli in The Gutter
Twins and The Twilight Singers.
Mark Lanegan, Josh Homme, Duff
McKagan and Moby. Aside from
his work with Dulli, Rosser also
featured on albums by Lanegan,
Ani DiFranco, Joseph Arthur, Tim
Heidecker and Marc Broussard.
PHIL COHRAN
Trumpeter, Arkestra player
(1927-2017)
Fellow musician John Gilmore
was responsible for introducing
relocated to New York via Montreal
in 1961, Cohran elected to stay in
Chicago, where, four years later,
he co-founded the Association
For The Advancement Of Creative
Musicians. He also set up the Artistic
Heritage Ensemble, alongside
future Miles Davis guitarist, Pete
Cosey, and started the local Afro-
Arts Theatre. One of his students
was Maurice White, who adopted
Cohran’s invented frankiphone (an
electrified kalimba) in his later role
of talent – Ornette Coleman, Ravi
Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Laurie
Anderson and McCoy Tyner
included – but she was equally well
known as a leading educator. She
taught at the University Of Michigan
for 10 years and, most recently,
had been Director Of Jazz Studies
at the University Of Pittsburgh in
Pennsylvania. Allen’s solo career
began with 1985’s The Printmakers,
before moving on to Blue Note and
recording a series of collaborative,
Larry ELLis/ExprEss/GEtty imaGEs

The Missouri native returned to
the Whigs for this year’s In Spades,
though his illness prevented him
from touring. Last December,
Dulli and the band organised two
benefit gigs in LA and New Orleans,
Rosser’s adopted home, to help
pay his medical bills. Those who
joined them onstage included
trumpeter Phil Cohran to Sun Ra in
1959. Cohran joined the Arkestra
soon after, staying put for the next
two years and contributing to
such experimental jazz albums as
Holiday For Soul Dance (featuring
Cohran’s own “Dorothy’s Dance”),
Angels And Demons At Play and Fate
In A Pleasant Mood. When Sun Ra
with Earth, Wind & Fire.
GERI ALLEN
Composer, jazz pianist
(1957-2017)
Jazz pianist Geri Allen recorded
around 20 albums under her own
name and played with a vast array
mostly improvisational albums
during the ’90s. She was also part
of the ACS Trio, with Terri Lyne
Carrington and Esperanza Spalding.
“Geri was a divine prism of pure
heart and artistry,” said Spalding
in tribute, “beaming new colour
spectrums out of plain black-and-
white keys.”

SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 117

 PRODIGY Prodigy’s release from a three-year
jail sentence for criminal possession
of a firearm.
East Coast
hip-hop hard
man Prodigy
Mobb Deep rapper All of this notoriety tended to
in NYC,July
16, 2013
(1974-2017)

A
lbert Johnson rarely
backed down from a
confrontation. better
known as Prodigy in
his role as one half of
New York hip-hoppers Mobb Deep,
alongside Havoc, Johnson was at
the centre of the east Coast-West
Coast feud of the mid-’90s. “lA, lA”,
recorded with Capone-N-Noreaga,
was a bitter riposte to Snoop Dogg
and tha Dogg Pound’s big Apple-
bashing “New York, New York”.
Meanwhile, 1996’s “Drop A Gem
On ’em”, a gun-happy response
to tupac Shakur’s “Hit ’em Up”,
gained darker significance after
2Pac was murdered shortly before it
was released.
there were run-ins with other
rappers, too (Saigon, Def Squad,
Crooked I), as well as a fallout
with Havoc in 2012, not long after
detract from his accomplishments
as an artist. Hailing from a musical
family (his mother had been in girl
group the Crystals; his grandfather
played sax for Dizzy Gillespie),
Prodigy formed Mobb Deep in 1992.
Second lP The Infamous went
gold three years later, propelled
by the success of US hits “Shook
Ones (Part II)” and “Survival Of
the Fittest”. 1996’s Hell On Earth,
another big seller, compounded
the pair’s reputation as raw diarists
of New York street life, their songs
jumping with hardcore beats and
punishing rhymes.
their popularity peaked in
1999 with the platinum-shifting
Murda Muzik, featuring fan
favourite “Quiet Storm”. Prodigy,
who has died of complications
from sickle-cell anaemia, published
an autobiography in 2001 titled
My Infamous Life.

NORRO WILSON GARY DECARLO ROSALIE SORRELS SKIPP PEARSON

C&W singer-songwriter
(1938-2017)
the commercial success of
Charlie rich owed much to singer-
songwriter Norro Wilson. together
with rory bourke and producer
billy Sherrill, Wilson wrote 1973’s
“the Most beautiful Girl”, the single
that made rich an international
country star. A year later, he and
Sherrill teamed up again for rich’s
Grammy-winning “A Very Special
love Song”. Wilson also co-wrote for
George Jones and tammy Wynette,
as well as producing albums for
Shania twain, Kenny Chesney,
reba Mcentire, Charley Pride, Keith
Whitley and more.
NIGEL GRAINGE
Ensign Records founder
(1947-2017)
Nigel Grainge’s main reason for
becoming an accounting clerk at
the Phonogram record label in 1970
was the promise of free records.
His obsession with music led to
him joining the A&r department,
where he signed thin lizzy, 10cc,
Steve Miller and eddy Grant, before
Matthew eisMan/Getty iMaGes
“Na Na…” songwriter
(1942-2017)
In need of a b-side for solo single
“Sweet laura lee”, singer Gary
DeCarlo and producer Paul leka
resurrected a tune from their
previous band, the Glenwoods.
“Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye”,
co-written with Dale Frashuer, duly
became a huge hit in 1969, recorded
under the auspices of Steam. It
topped the billboard charts and
was the lead-off track for Steam’s
self-titled debut lP the following
year. the song was later covered
by the Supremes, the belmonts
and bananarama.
HEATHCOTE
WILLIAMS
Writer and polemicist
(1941-2017)
Poet, playwright and actor
Heathcote Williams initially
conceived “Why D’Ya Do It”
as a lyric for tina turner to
record, before Marianne Faithfull
convinced him to let her have
it instead. Set to a churning
rhythm, the song became the
US folk singer-songwriter
(1933-2017)
In the liner notes to 1972’s Travelin’
Lady, Hunter S thompson wrote
that rosalie Sorrels’ songs “are
so close to the bone that I get
nervous listening to them”. Sorrels
recorded nearly two-dozen folk
albums during her decades-long
career, armed with a songbook
that ranged from the deeply
personal (marital problems,
divorce, her son’s suicide) to the
political (women’s rights, prison
reform, social care). Her festival
appearances included Newport
Folk in 1966 and, four years later,
the Isle Of Wight.
BERN NIX
Jazz guitarist
(1947-2017)
berklee College Of Music graduate
bern Nix was one half of a dual-
guitar set-up in Ornette Coleman’s
Prime time band, his cool tones
contrasting with the rugged
rhythms of Charles ellerbee.
beginning in 1975, Nix played
with Coleman for 13 years,
Jazz saxophonist, educator
(1937-2017)
the CV of jazz saxophonist Skipp
Pearson was littered with illustrious
names, from Otis redding and
Sam Cooke to Miles Davis and
Dizzy Gillespie, but his greatest
achievement was the creation of
various outreach initiatives in his
home state of South Carolina. His
work as founder of one of the public
school system’s longest-standing
music programmes led to the
South Carolina Senate voting him
their official ambassador of jazz,
alongside being honoured at the
Kennedy Centre and performing at
barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration.
VIN GARBUTT
Folk singer and songwriter
(1947-2017)
Vin Garbutt’s wandering
troubadour life began in 1969,
when the 21-year-old folk singer
left his native North east for Spain.
Debut lP The Valley Of Tees landed
three years later, showcasing a
talent for earthy narratives that
tapped into his working-class

leaving to form ensign records
in 1977. During his 18-year stint as
label head, Grainge discovered
key acts such as the boomtown
rats, the Waterboys, World Party
and Sinéad O’Connor. He later
ran his own publishing company,
Dizzy Heights.
controversial mini-epic that
closed her 1979 comeback,
Broken English. Faithfull herself
called it her own Frankenstein,
a bitter, expletive-ridden rant at
an adulterous lover: “Why’d you let
that trash/Get a hold of your cock,
get stoned on my hash.”
appearing on free-jazz landmarks
such as Of Human Feelings and In
All Languages. He also recorded
with James Chance, led his own
trio from 1985 onwards and, in 2006,
issued a steel-stringed solo effort,
Low Barometer, on the tompkins
Square label.
roots and, by referencing the
troubles in Northern Ireland
with “Mr Gunman”, a penchant
for protest songs. An inveterate
storyteller, Garbutt travelled far
and wide over the decades, issuing
the last of his 17 albums, Synthetic
Hues, in 2014. ROB HUGHES

118 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

 feedBack
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110 Southwark Street, london SE1 0SU. Or tweet us at twitter.com/uncutmagazine

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.

120 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017

 CROSSWORD
One of three copies of Grizzly Bear’s Painted Ruins on CD

I never saw it, but even if I had, I
know it would not affect one iota my
imaginings (or not) of the song.
And it’s not just those of us who
were old enough to have the records
when they first came out. I’m sure
that most people who first heard
“Tiny Dancer” in 1981 or 1991 do not
only think about the Crowe film
when they hear the song. It’s
especially ridiculous as you wrote
this for a British magazine. I’ll bet
that only a very small percentage of
Brits ever saw Almost Famous at all,
and certainly nowhere near as many
as saw it in the States.
I’m sorry, but you cannot
legitimately say that the majority
of people always think of that film
when hearing “Tiny Dancer”, and
remember that includes a large part
of the non-English-speaking world
where the film was possibly never
released, but still knew and know
“Tiny Dancer” as a great song that
needs no film to be “integral”.
David Bly, USA
PETER PERRETT –
BUIlDERS’
RECEPTIONIST?
It was great to see Peter Perrett get
such a wonderful write-up in last
month’s Uncut magazine [August,
2017]. I have How The West Was Won
on pre-order from Amazon and I
really enjoyed listening to “An Epic
Story”, which shows that Peter
Perrett has lost none of his
idiosyncratic brilliance. Back on June
2, 1978, my father, the late Leonard
Elf, brought home The Only Ones’
debut album, inscribed by Peter to
my brother Jonathan and myself.
In Nina Antonia’s updated
biography, Homme Fatale, Peter
states that his father and uncle both
initiated a building contractors
called Elf’s. As such a minor point in
Peter’s life story, I feel almost guilty
in gently reminding Peter that
whilst his father Albert did indeed
work for A Elf & Sons building
contractors of 44 Balls Pond Road,
Dalston, London, and he became
a director over time, the company
chairman was Alf Elf and it was
managed by two of his sons,
Leonard and Cyril.
In fact I have a vague recollection
that my father told me Peter once
worked for A Elf & Sons, presumably
during some school holiday, and he
was at one point given the job of
answering the phones. I would love
to hear Peter’s side of that story, if he
even remembers it! Albert was
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proud of Peter, and I am sure that
Peter will be glad to know that my
dad, Alf and Cyril held Albert in
great esteem.
Lawrence Elf, via email
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SEPTEMBER 2017 • UNCUT • 121

 Steven Wilson
The modern prog maestro’s favourite records:
“To be pompous is important!”
KaTE BUSh
hounds Of Love 1985
I’ve always looked up to Kate Bush. She’s
been so inspirational in the way she’s
gone about her career and created her own
sound. A lot of these records I’ve chosen
are simultaneously accessible, but also
ambitious, there’s no sense of dumbing
down to achieve accessibility. Hounds Of
Love fits into that category – it’s about the only category it does fit into!
“Running Up That Hill” had a very exciting sound, I’d never heard a pop
record like that. So I was down my local Our Price on the day of release.
PETER GaBRiEL
So 1986
Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel are associated
in many respects – there’s a famous duet on
So called “Don’t Give Up”. In a sense, what’s
even more interesting about Gabriel is here’s
an artist who made his name in the ’70s, but
who reinvented himself in the ’80s – never
underestimate how hard it is to confront the
expectations of your fanbase. And some people do that on an album-by-
album basis – you think of people like Bowie, for example. So is Gabriel’s
big crossover record, but he did it without losing any of his uniqueness.
TaLK TaLK
The Colour Of Spring 1986
They only made five records, but each one
is different from the others. The Colour Of
Spring is the moment where the balance is
right – between the pop group they were,
and [what they became], almost post-rock.
The Colour Of Spring is on the cusp, they’re
still writing quite accessible pop songs, but
there’s a degree of sophistication in the production, which wasn’t there
on the first couple of pop records. If you want to engage with the lyrics of
something like “Life’s What You Make It”, it can be quite deep and soulful.
aBBa
abba Gold 1992
As a rule, I don’t like compilations, but
it’s hard for me to pick one Abba album
– all eight of their albums form a body of
interview: tom pinnock. photo: camila Jurado
work. I always say to people, if you want
to understand anything about how to
construct great pop, there’s three things
you need to listen to: The Beatles, The Beach
Boys and Abba. There isn’t anyone better in terms of crafting, producing
and writing pure pop. To me, the Abba catalogue is peerless in terms of the
quality of songwriting, the crafting of pop melodies and pop production.
Steven Wilson’s To The Bone is out on August 18 on Caroline International
iN NExT MONTh’S UNCUT: “The top floor was haunted… There were a lot of strange, odd substances flying around in those days”
122 • UNCUT • SEPTEMBER 2017
SLOwdivE
Souvlaki 1993
I could pick one of maybe four or five
so-called shoegaze albums – the shoegaze
sound is a big influence on me. I could
pick My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, but
Slowdive for me epitomise shoegaze better
even than the Valentines. There were some
factions of the media that treated Slowdive
as a bit of joke – I remember them having a rough ride – but that idea of
not being afraid to be pretentious, to be pompous, is important. I was the
perfect age to be checking this stuff out, and still it means a lot to me.
TEaRS FOR FEaRS
The Seeds Of Love 1989
Tears For Fears are at the opposite end of the
hipster spectrum to a band like Slowdive.
They made an LP at the end of the ’80s called
The Seeds Of Love, which is so beautifully
produced and so ambitious, that they had
a bit of a rough time with it. But history has
proved it to be one of the great pop records
of the ’80s. It’s pretentious, it’s over the top, it’s pompous, and I adore it!
It’s a brilliant, brilliant pop record that was very soon so completely out of
fashion, with grunge around the corner, but time has been very kind to it.
PRiNCE
Parade 1986
Prince fascinated me more than anyone
else as I was growing up in the ’80s. For me,
he was the Bowie of the ’80s, a guy who
was one of the biggest pop stars out there,
but who confronted the expectations of his
audience on an album-to-album basis. He
wrote great pop songs, but with a peculiar
musical vocabulary and approach to production. He was just shitting out
pure music. Parade is a strange record, it has a parched production which
you hear on a song like “Kiss”. Very upfront, but it still sounds amazing.
dEPEChE MOdE
violator 1990
From Violator onwards, they got this perfect
balance. It has some of their great singles on
it, but what’s great about DM is they tap into
that industrial sound – another big thing for
me as a kid, things like Throbbing Gristle
and Cabaret Voltaire – but with a strong
pop sensibility. Somewhere between what
U2 and Cabaret Voltaire were doing. “Song Of I” on my new record is very
influenced by that ‘sexy sinister’ sound you hear on things like “Personal
Jesus” or “I Feel You”. Very dark, but still great pop songs.
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