STONES
THROUGH THE AGES
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STONES THROUGH THE AGES
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STONES THROUGH THE AGES II
Measuring 62 x 44cm in an edition of 1,962 prints each individually hand numbered and signed by Ronnie.
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TOAST: INSIDE NEIL YOUNG’S LOST CLASSIC
CRAZY HORSE SPEAK!
1 2 4 R EV IE W
S!
KENDRICK LAMAR GRATEFUL DEAD TY SEGALL
You know we love you!
+ MORE!
THE BEATLES GET BACK TO 1962 GEORGE CLINTON
ALL ABOARD THE MOTHERSHIP!
ELVIS COSTELLO RETURNS TO HIS ROOTS
OSEES
FOUL PLAY!
CHRISTINE McVIE SONGBIRD’S LAST FLIGHT?
BIKINI KILL
THERE’S A RIOT GOIN' ON! AND...
ELVIS! THE MOVIE FAMILY SESSA PRIMAL SCREAM CHRIS BLACKWELL THE BEACH BOYS
“It’s been a long lonely time/And it’s funny, funny to see that I’m about to lose my mind mind mind”
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AUGUST 2022
OF •R
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O NIN L•W A NAS TASIA • TY SEGAL
N NTO cVIE •GEORGE CLI
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KI S N D• I KIL L •TH DEA FU L E OSEES • THE GRATE
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On the cover: The Beatles by Harry Hammond/ V&A Images/ Getty Images
TAKE 303
ORDON • THE BEATLES •
AVING spent quite a lot of time at the end of last year poring over Peter Jackson’s Get Back films, it felt as though revelatory light had been shed on the final stages of The Beatles’ creative life. For this issue, meanwhile, Peter Watts has assembled the most detailed and revealing exploration of the other end of The Beatles’ career in this excellent deep dive into the Fabs’ 1962. Without spoilers, I should note that it’s remarkable how different things could have been if, say, George Martin had prevailed and The Beatles had recorded “How Do You Do It” as their debut single, or if John Lennon hadn’t pulled out a harmonica on stage at Stroud’s Subscription Rooms. Reading Peter’s impeccably researched piece, I’m struck by the amazing amount of luck and happenstance that occurred during this pivotal year in Beatle lore. History turned on small moments like a chance meeting in the bar of the Green Park Hotel or an impromptu drink at the New Colony Club. As the year progressed, the team around The Beatles began to gather – familiar faces like George Martin, Neil Aspinall, Tony Barrow and Tony Bramwell assemble. Later, of course, The Beatles are masters of their own destiny – but as 1962 unfolds they are still coming into focus in their own story. It’s a tale full of revelation and promise: a reminder that the stories of our greatest heroes must start somewhere.
NE
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Inset:NeilYoung by AJ Barratt/ Avalon/Getty Images
There’s a lot more besides The Beatles in this splendid issue of Uncut. Not least the arrival – 22 years late! – of Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s mythic lost album, Toast. Young is on a formidable run at the moment – who knew we needed another round of live recordings from 1971? – and the arrival of Toast, teased for so long, not least by Young himself, feels like yet another essential release from one of music’s richest vaults. Young’s doughty lieutenants Crazy Horse are on hand too, to take us inside the sessions at Toast Studios. Elsewhere Nick Hasted ascends to the Mothership in pursuit of George Clinton, Sam Richards gets loud with John Dwyer and the Osees, Graeme Thomson gets mellow with Chris Blackwell, Christine McVie considers the past, present and future games of Fleetwood Mac, while Allison Hussey hears colourful Tropicália tales from Sessa. There’s also Family, BikiniKill, Nina Nastasia and a long, strange trip back to Europe 1972 for the Grateful Dead. As ever, let us know what you think.
Michael Bonner, Editor. Follow me on Twitter @michaelbonner
CONTENTS
4 Instant Karma!
58 Osees
90 The Beatles
Elvis Costello,Revelators Sound System, Richie Furay,World Of Twist,Naima Bock
High-octane explorers take a “scum-punk” turn with their intense new album
A year in the life:from disaster to triumph in the transformative year of 1962
14 Roger Chapman
64 George Clinton
102 Lives
An audience with the Family man
18 New Albums
Including:Ty Segall,Gwenno,Kendrick Lamar,Andrew Tuttle,Lera Lynn,Martin Courtney,Black Midi,MJ Lenderman
38 The Archive
Including:NeilYoung & Crazy Horse, The Walkmen,Grateful Dead, CheriKnight,Liars
52 Christine McVie
The Fleetwood Mac singer and songwriter recounts her long journey from the Birmingham blues scene to world arenas
Hitch a ride on the Mothership as the latest ‘farewell’ tour rolls into town;key players bear witness to the joyous legacy of P-Funk
70 Sessa
History,music and politics with the Brazilian master of stripped-down Tropicália
76 Nina Nastasia Album By Album 80 Chris Blackwell
The Island Records visionary looks back on a long and colourful career
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86 Bikini Kill
The Making Of “Rebel Girl”
Wide Awake festival,Kim Gordon
106 Films
Elvis,Il Buco,Earwig,Pleasure,Nitram
108 DVD, Blu-ray and TV
Round Midnight,Get Carter,The Beatles
109 Books
Peter Doherty,Brian Wilson,Dave Davies
110 Not Fade Away Obituaries 112 Letters… Plus the Uncut crossword 114 My Life In Music Al Jardine
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AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •3
Their aim was true: Costello (centre,striped jumper) and Allan Mayes entertain as Rusty,at a poetry evening at Formby Library,1972
AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •5
Second right, with Buffalo Springfield, Hollywood, 1966
A QUICK ONE
Also still on sale is our Ultimate Companion to Pink Floyd Live – a backstage pass to the live creation of the band's greatest works…
Bob Dylan has recorded a new version of “Blowin’ In The Wind”. It’s been pressed onto an Ionic Original disc – a new hi-fidelity analogue format touted by producer T Bone Burnett – in a limited edition of one, to be auctioned by Christie’s on July 7 with an estimate of £600k to £1m.“Exclusive in-person listening experiences” will take place as part of the presale exhibition in London on July 2-7… Bruce Springsteen has announced that his 2023 European tour with The E Street Band will kick off in Barcelona’s Estadi Olímpic on April28, swinging through Dublin’s RDS Arena on May 5 and 7.UK dates will be confirmed in due course…
Front, right, with Poco, Amsterdam, 1973
Influence OfRichie Furay, right? Yeah, it’s coming out next year. Cameron Crowe is narrating it. We hadn't spoken in probably 40 years, then he came to see me play the Saban Theatre in LA [in December 2017] and we reconnected.
Furay in 2022: “My contribution was significant”
“There isn’t a thing I’d change” Birthday boy Richie Furay talks Buffalo Springfield, Poco and his new country covers album
H
APPY birthday, Richie! You’re 78 today, I believe… Yeah, but these numbers don’t really compute much any more. I’ll celebrate tonight with my family, but it’s not going to be a big production! The other cause for celebration is In The Country, your new album of covers. How did that come about? The idea was presented to me by [producer] Val Garay. I’ve known Val since just before the Buffalo Springfield days, back in 1965, then we recorded together in 1979 on I Still Have Dreams. I knew it was a challenge, because these songs are all so familiar to country music fans and I wanted to make them my own. After what everybody has been through in the last couple of years, I think the record has an uplifting message.
One of the bonus tracks is a new version of Poco’s “Pickin’Up The Pieces”. Is that a case of you claiming your own legacy? Well, Buffalo Springfield was over and Jimmy Messina and I wanted to put together a group that had a country sound to it, but crossing that line from the rock’n’roll side. So we started Poco and “Pickin’ Up The Pieces” was just kind of reflective of that. As far as the Springfield goes, that was Stephen [Stills]’s band. He was the heart and soul of Buffalo Springfield, so when it got to the point where he was done, I decided to move on too. Are you still in touch with Stephen and Neil Young? Stephen and I just did an interview together with Cameron Crowe, for the documentary that I have in the works. Neil was going to be a part of it too, but when the whole situation came down over in Ukraine, he decided that was taking up his focus. So we’re going to catch up with him later on. This is Through It All: The Life And
Has making the film given you a different perspective on your life? In some ways. My life has been very interesting and a lot of it wasn’t even planned. I first went to New York to be a folk singer and that’s where I met Stephen, but after that things just really unfolded – meeting my wife at the Whisky A Go Go, Buffalo Springfield, Poco. I dropped out of music shortly after Souther-HillmanFuray got together and I became the pastor of a church for 35 years. Then I started doing music again. Has it ever bothered you that you never quite reached the same level of success as some of your ex-bandmates? Looking back, sometimes I wonder what might’ve happened if I’d have gone in one direction or the other. When Stephen and Neil and I did our reunion – I can't even believe it’s over 10 years ago now – it helped me settle in my own heart that I didn’t ride into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame on their coattails. I contributed. And my contribution was significant. So there isn’t a thing in my life that I would change or trade for anything that they have. I’m very happy. I’ve been married now for 55 years, with four daughters and 13 grandchildren. Honestly, I’ve got more here than I can even stay thankful for. ROB HUGHES
In The Country is released by Renew Records/BMG on July 8 AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •7
AARON RAPPAPORT;MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; GIJSBERT HANEKROOT/REDFERNS;ROWLAND SCHERMAN/GETTY IMAGES
We celebrate The Beach Boys’ 60-year career with a Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide, featuring revealing archive interviews and in-depth writing about every album – plus a new introduction by Al Jardine, rare pictures from the Smile sessions and a special afterword by Bruce Johnston.Our 148-page guide to an American institution is in shops now or available online at Uncut.co.uk/ single…
World Of Twist (Gordon King on guitar) making the “Sons Of The Stage” video
Round the Twist Rainbows,volcanoes and Leonard Rossiter on dope – the brief but brilliant conceptual pop crusade of World Of Twist
W
from Manchester eager to rub ORLD Of Twist once built shoulders with The Human League a volcano stage prop so and Clock DVA. Their secret weapon vast it needed its own was singer Tony Ogden, who first truck, only for it to be refused entry materialises in King’s book in a fug to London’s Astoria before of dope smoke. “I was terrified of disintegrating on the pavement. him! He was manic and looked like Such Spinal Tap farce was never far Leonard Rossiter crossed with Alan away for a self-destructive band Rickman and Bryan Ferry.” Both who ambitiously reached for the King and Ogden were influenced by stars. Best remembered for 1991’s the “Chelsea boot in face” theory trippy, dance-rock cover of the Stones’ “She’s A Rainbow”, World Of expounded by co-founder Jim Fry’s brother Martin, a violent smashing Twist were Madchester’s last gasp, of audience expectations which his idiosyncratically mixing ’60s band ABC enacted Bowie, Northern after Lexicon Of Soul beats and prog Love. World Of theatricality, adored Twist’s version by fans including would be “more Jeremy Deller and brutal, destructive, the Gallagher stupid”, King recalls. brothers. Their “Ticking away, you tragicomedy is always want to foul wryly recalled in GORDON KING things up and their guitarist disrupt them.” Gordon King’s new Back in Manchester and signed in memoir, When Does The Mindthe post-Roses goldrush, stardom Bending Start? “It was all far greater seemed inevitable. “Nobody looked in our heads than it was in reality,” or sounded like us, and everyone he sighs when Uncut visits him at who heard songs like ‘The Storm’ home in Hove. loved them, so we were superWorld Of Twist actually formed in confident.” Advances were splashed Sheffield in 1983, having relocated
JAMIE FRY
“It was all far greater in our heads than it was in reality”
8 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
on that volcano and giant, spinning band heads. A framed photo of Stockport’s Strawberry Studio in King’s study commemorates the “She’s A Rainbow” sessions there with producer Martin Hannett, months before his death. But World Of Twist’s sole album, Quality Street, was a costly disappointment, with underpowered production – “the smallest bollocks in pop history”, Ogden grumbled. Alan McGee was still keen to sign them to Creation, but got the Chelsea boot. “We thought, let’s ask for 250 grand! We weren’t a band by then anyway.” King regrouped with Jim Fry and drummer Nick Sanderson as anarchic glam-thugs Earl Brutus, who ended in similar disarray. “We were getting wasted every night, then recuperating with dog Valium. And it wasn’t the dream. I’d lost my muse: Tony drove me to do what I did.” Ogden died in 2006, after years of reclusiveness and dope-fuelled psychosis – King compares him to Syd Barrett – while Sanderson died of cancer in 2008. King works as a film and
Tony Ogden in a shoot for the Quality Street album sleeve
TV archivist these days, but he and Jim Fry have recently reunited in Quatermass III, with two albums awaiting release. Asked if he believes that World Of Twist’s records will be rediscovered, he settles for something more ephemeral. “I take myself back to how awestruck I was seeing Hawkwind at 14, and how I always liked to see things that were unsettling, even scary. And in that respect, we’re still up there.” He points to a rare, swirling live tape of “She’s A Rainbow”, which almost captures the fading magic he remembers. “If anyone’s talking about bands of the ’90s who had edge and excitement,” he hopes, “people would remember us.” NICK HASTED
When Does The MindBending Start? The Life And Times Of World Of Twist is published by Nine Eight Books on July 21
UNCUT PLAYLIST On the stereo this month...
RICH RUTH
I Survived,It’s Over THIRD MAN
A Nashville album with a difference:sounds like Revelators already have company on their healing mission to meld ambient, jazz and Americana…
LOU REED
“I’m Waiting For The Man (May 1965 demo)” LIGHT IN THE ATTIC
From the mythical ‘copyright tape’, a barely believable find:VU’s sleaze-rock touchstone in nascent form as bluesy folk strum, with John Cale on harmonies.
BETH ORTON
I’M NEW HERE
Naima Bock Fretfulfolk-rock with a Brazilian twist from former Goat Girlbassist
Bock:finding “some kind of emotional release”
Burton, Bock was persuaded to take up the offer of free studio time in Streatham during the 2020 lockdown, the pair enlisting a cast of musicians to weave her gnomic songs into little moonlit marvels. Taking inspiration from two Brazilian classics – Chico Buarque’s wordy 1971 LP TRESSED out as she put the final touches to Construção and Nara Leão’s chic 1964 debut – they her debut LP, Naima Bock imagined herself whipped up an idiosyncratic set that persuaded being lifted away from earthly misery by a Sub Pop to sign Bock sight-unseen, even though colossal hand. The result was the title track of the luminous, strange Giant Palm, a swirling two-note she had never really sung solo in public. However, if Giant Palm owes something to trundle with distinct sun-drunk Kevin Ayers vibes. “For a while I forget that I cannot fly/And I float high, happenstance and good fortune, Bock didn’t feel lucky when she was making it. Spaced-out shanty high above it all”, sings the 25-year-old Londoner. “Every Morning” and the weary “Working” “A giant palm felt like the place I needed to be,” (sample lyric: “It’s all been a waste of time, a big she tells Uncut. “It’s warm and it lifts you up.” fat waste of time”) express her fear that – at 23 – Quiet, melancholy and occasionally divinely she had somehow managed to ruin her life. “The uplifting, the burbling horns, sawing violins and overall internal atmosphere I had when I was soaring melodies of Giant Palm nod awkwardly recording that album was that I was cutting toward the metaphysical marvels of Van myself open and spilling my guts out,” she says Morrison’s Astral Weeks, Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom, The Raincoats’ Odyshape, and Cassandra with a slight shudder. “I felt vulnerable and very exposed. It was painful; weirdly horrible.” Jenkins’ An Overview On Phenomenal Nature. A However, if Giant Palm had an unhappy handfast marriage of the classic British folk-rock and Brazilian samba records she grew up listening genesis, it has opened up new horizons for Bock. Having taken a year out from university ahead to, and modern auteurs like Big Thief and Aldous of its long-awaited release, she’s already got a Harding, it is also a substantial leap away from second album sketched out. “I’ve her previous life as bassist in Goat Girl. been listening to a horrible amount A member of the band since she I’M YOUR FAN of country music,” she confides. was 15, ‘Naima Jelly’ quit the South “John Prine, Gillian Welch, Townes London squall merchants in 2019 and Van Zandt, Sturgill Simpson…” went off to her father’s native Brazil To her surprise she is also enjoying to brood. “I was feeling quite lost,” performing live, the songs on Giant she says. “I had this kind of void of Palm giving her more of a lift every blackness ahead.” When she returned time she plays them. “I wanted to be to London, she set up her own able to have some kind of emotional gardening firm and started a degree in “Thank goodness release that, playing bass in a band, archaeology. “I was determined to for the humanity I couldn’t quite do,” she says. “Every follow a different career path. I just and strength single show feels like a therapy wrote songs because it was a release to be found in session.” JIM WIRTH and because it was what I needed to her music” carry on doing for my own sanity.” Kate Stables, Fate, however, intervened. After a Giant Palm is released by Sub Pop friend introduced her to producer Joel This Is The Kit on July 1
S
EL HARDWICK;PHILIPPE LEBRUMAN
“Weather Alive” PARTISAN
1 0 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Shimmering seven-minute sighter for Orton’s upcoming album of the same name, graced by featherlight contributions from the likes of Alabaster dePlume and Shahzad Ismaily.
SZUN WAVES
Earth Patterns THE LEAF LABEL
Set the controls for a third blast of elemental synth-jazz, courtesy of Luke Abbott, Jack Wylie and Laurence Pike.
SLANG
Cockroach In A Ghost Town KILL ROCK STARS
Not only are Quasidue to return, Janet Weiss has formed another great duo – this time with singer/guitarist Drew Grow. Expect crunchy powerpop, plus a neat Mark Lanegan tribute.
SIMON JOYNER
Songs From A Stolen Guitar BB*ISLAND
“There’s a barred owl by my window/ Who asks the same question every night…” Omaha singer-songwriter homes in on the little details with the acuity of latterday Bill Callahan.
THE ORCHIDS Dreaming Kind SKEPWAX The Sarah Records revival continues, with the return to form of one of their flagship bands:tremulous yet sophisticated jangle-pop, with the lightest dusting of post-rave bliss.
PARTY DOZEN
The RealWork TEMPORARY RESIDENCE
Pummelling sax sleaze from Aussie drums’n’distortion duo.Includes a brief but memorable cameo from Nick Cave, ranting menacingly about his dog.
PYE CORNER AUDIO
Let’s Emerge! SONIC CATHEDRAL
Former hauntologist surges towards the light, assisted by Ride’s Andy Bell – and artwork by Uncut’s own Marc Jones!
SASAMI
“Tried To Understand (feat J Mascis)” DOMINO
If there’s a sweet indie-pop tune that couldn’t be improved by having the Dino mainman shred wildly over the top, we’re yet to hear it.
From Us To You
15 tracks of the month’s best new music 1
MARTIN COURTNEY
Sailboat
Courtney’s second solo album sits squarely in the same world as his work with Real Estate, but it’s no step down: indeed, the rush of this track or the pedalsteel-brushed opener “Corncob” mark out Magic Sign as one of the New Jersey songwriter’s finest efforts to date. Reviewed at length on page 32.
2
NINA NASTASIA
Afterwards
Riderless Horse is a rare record, so wracked with emotion that you can’t listen to it casually. As its final full track, however, “Afterwards” marks Nastasia’s moment of rebirth, as hopeful as it is damaged. Check out our Album By Album with the singer-songwriter on page 76.
Gwenno
3
GWENNO
Anima
Gwenno Saunders’ third solo album, Tresor, finds her embracing new age synth textures and folkhorror vibes as she journeys, radically, deep into her Cornish roots. Here’s a bitesize introduction to her mission.
4
ANDREW TUTTLE
CLAIRE MARIE BAILEY; SHELBY BRAKKEN; CHRIS FRISINA
New Breakfast Habit
In our lead review on page 27, Tyler Wilcox skilfully captures the unique atmosphere of Tuttle’s fifth album, Fleeting Adventure. This track, featuring Luke Schneider on pedal steel, is a perfect encapsulation of Tuttle’s vintage/futuristic marriage of banjo and electronics.
5
MJ LENDERMAN
SUV
North Carolina’s MJ Lenderman is still only 23, but he’s certainly found his stride on his latest solo album. Coming on at times like a 1 2 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
smart-ass, 21st-century take on Crazy Horse, Boat Songs is reviewed on page 37, also featuring an interview with the songwriter.
NOORI & HIS DORPA BAND 6
Wondeeb
Beja Power! Electric Soul & Brass From Sudan’s Red Sea Coast is apparently the first international release of music from the Beja people, an ethnic group residing in the Eastern Desert of Sudan, Egypt and Eritrea. The Dorpa Band hail from Port Sudan, and play a blend of styles so electrifying that it’s amazing it’s taken so long for wider attention to come.
7
Laura Veirs
TY SEGALL
Saturday Pt 2
On Segall’s first album in almost a year (that’s slow for Ty, anyway), he returns to the acoustic psychedelia of 2013’s Sleeper, or the more reflective moments of 2018’s Freedom’s Goblin. “Saturday Pt 2” is one of the record’s strongest cuts, an ominous ballad with surprisingly wild saxophone from Mikal Cronin.
8
BLACK MIDI
2 7 Questions (recorded at Electrical Audio with Steve Albini)
Here’s a special version of “Questions” – the original appears on their new album Hellfire, reviewed at length on page 34 – tracked in Chicago with Albini. The result is even more punishing than usual, with the trio’s mix of Van Der Graaf Generator squawk and This Heat awkwardness utterly intoxicating.
9
NAIMA BOCK
Campervan
Giant Palm introduces us to Naima Iliana Redina-Bock, half-Brazilian, half-Greek, but brought up primarily in London. She co-founded and played bass in Goat Girl, but her debut LP, as this track shows, is folkier, quieter and more international – though no less transportive. She’s interviewed on page 10.
10
LAURA VEIRS
Eucalyptus
Recording with Shahzad Ismaily – an intriguing left-turn after so many records produced by her now ex-husband Tucker Martine – seems to have given Veirs a new lease of creative life on 12th album Found Light. She’s freer, more idiosyncratic, here adding propulsive electronic beats to her storytelling.
11
13
JOHN MORELAND
Cheap Idols Dressed In Expensive Garbage
Birds In The Ceiling finds the Tulsa musician experimenting with electronic and pop textures, without sacrificing his artfully distressed songwriting. Here he casts his eye over America today, seeing meaningless celebrity, deceitful politicians and hollowed-out cities.
14
NIGHTLANDS
No Kiss For The Lonely
Dave Hartley spends much of his time as The War On Drugs’ loyal bassist, but he also makes spectral, hallucinatory dreampop as Nightlands. His bandmates contribute to his fourth album, Moonshine, its shimmering, synthy surfaces disguising a folky heart.
CATERINA BARBIERI
Terminal Clock
Stuck in lockdown in Milan, the Italian electronic experimentalist conjured up her third album, Spirit Exit. It’s a serious record, unafraid to take the wilder path or summon up bursts of savage noise amid the synths, but as this track demonstrates, there’s a thrill to Barbieri’s unpredictable explorations.
12
TUMI MOGOROSI
Walk With Me
Mogorosiis best known on these shores as the drummer in Shabaka & The Ancestors, but his new LP Group Theory: Black Music, featuring a heavenly, wordless choir mingling with heady jazz grooves, suggests that may change. Kamasi Washington is one touchstone.
Revelators Sound System
1 5 REVELATORS SOUND SYSTEM Collected Water
Hiss Golden Messenger’s MC Taylor and the Spacebomb house band’s Cameron Ralston have put together a fine album under their new moniker. Anything goes here, from dub to spiritual jazz; in the case of this track, the duo and their collaborators weave an ambient web of droning double-bass, winding sax and chattering piano. Find out more on page 6.
GRAHAM TROTT
“I’d love to go on stage again”:Roger Chapman, May 2021
“I could sing my arse off when I was a kid” 14 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
AN AUDIENCE WITH...
Roger Chapman
Your new album sounds pretty fired up, especially on “Green As Guacamole”.Is that kind of anger at ‘the state of things’a good spur for making music? Malcolm Taylor, Kettering
Yeah. If I sit down and think about these arseholes on the news, I do get pretty
Chapeau to Chappo! The former Family frontman looks back on a long career spent dodging spivs, scallywags and hypnocrats to hobnob with Jimi, Elton and the Stones Interview by SAM RICHARDS
fucking twisted. To be honest I’ve never really written songs like this, not for many years anyway. And I’m really pleased I did, because it gets it out your system. And maybe it’ll pull somebody else around to seeing what a phoney bunch we’ve got. There can’t be many left out there believing in ’em, can there? Jesus Christ. I’m off already, you see! I don’t want to preach too much, but basically they’re my Ex-Family man: Chapman in 1973, the year he formed Streetwalkers with Charlie Whitney
thoughts. A lot of the delivery [of the songs] depends on how angry I am. Or how not angry I am. If I want to, I can make any kind of melody sound aggressive, but I hope I’ve also got the know-how to make a track sound gentle.
“Collar turned up, hat pulled down/I didn’t get it then but I get it now” – what were you referring to with that lyric? Al Pembroke, Skipton
Have you ever seen the St Trinian’s movies? There’s a character called Flash Harry who hangs around the school, selling the girls off to Arab princes or whatever. He’s got his overcoat on and his trilby pulled down like a British gangster from the ’50s, sneaking around doing bits and pieces. And that’s what it’s about: those seedy people on the other side of life. When you first get stiffed by these people, you don’t get it. But if you’ve been stiffed as many times as I fuckin’ have – as have many people in the music business – then you become aware of how they did it. Where there’s money there’s fuckin’ villains! And it’s easy to make kids believe in things.
Did you ever feellike you had to overcome a class barrier on the psychedelic scene, given that most of the bands were quite posh? Paul Jennings, Norwich
Hahaha! What’s he saying, the cheeky fuck! No, I had no self-consciousness about feeling not posh. I suppose he means that some of them maybe went to a better school than I did, but I never felt undervalued. I could sing my arse off when I was a kid, so they were pleased to have me on board, I have to assume. I used to love it down at Middle Earth, the freedom of it all. Not really in a utopian sense, it just felt like you were a kid in a toy shop. AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •15
MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES
“I
’M just moving inside,” says Roger Chapman, as a sudden thunderstorm batters the conservatory of his home in Southwest London. “I don’t wanna get sparked out, I’m too young!” Chappo may be 80 now, but he still has plenty to give. Last year’s invigorating Life In The Pond set, created with the help of his old Family bandmate John ‘Poli’ Palmer, found him snarling colourful warnings about “two-faced hypnocrats”, “loudmouths craving limelight” and a “devil on your shoulder”. He’d love to play the album live but needs to overcome a couple of health issues first. “Since the album was released I’ve had two or three operations,” he reveals. “I had Covid twice! And I need another op before I can think about going out on stage. Things need to be tidied up, so to speak. Spinal problems, neuro stuff, so it gets to be quite difficult at times. But I’d love to go on stage again, for sure. I can still sing!” Indeed, he got together with Polijust last week to workshop some new material. Despite not having any kind of set songwriting routine – “I never have,” he admits – the lyrics are still flowing, with the hypnocrats certainly giving him plenty to rail against. “Sometimes it gets too stroppy, so I have to be careful!”
people told me! A good lineup too: Crimson were on, I think all bands that the Stones liked. So it was quite a proud moment.
Did you really throw a mic stand at promoter BillGraham,leading to Family being blacklisted in the US? Sid Latham, Catford, London
No, I didn’t. I was just frustrated – the band were playing crap, we were in a terrible mood, getting booed from the audience. And this was Family, we were a fantastic band. But we lost the plot completely through one reason or another. Anyway, no, I didn’t try to hit Bill Graham. I threw one – a wobbler, and a mic stand – and he happened to be at the side of the stage and I think it just missed him. But it freaked him out enough for him to say, “Piss off and never darken my doorknob again.” He let us finish the shows, as long as I had my hands behind my back – I didn’t move or anything. So that was a waste of time. It’s not a good memory, to be honest. Did it affect our progress in America? Very much so, yeah.
Family on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1971:(l–r) John Wetton,Charlie Whitney,Roger Chapman, Rob Townsend,PoliPalmer
Apparently Tubby Hayes played an uncredited solo on Music In A Doll’s House.Do you remember him coming by the studio? Geoff Copthorne, via email
Yes, and I’ve always been embarrassed that he never got the credit. We were just five young men being pressured into certain ways. The management we had [at the beginning], they kind of ran the show. We’d write the songs, but then they would say which way the songs went and how they were produced. We didn’t come up with the title of the album – they did. We didn’t design the cover – they did. We were like five puppets, really. I wish he had’ve [got credit] because I’d have been pleased as fuck if anybody thought I’d been on an album with Tubby Hayes! But he did play with us at the Albert Hall. I think we supported Tim Hardin – he was on his own with a guitar and we came on with Tubby Hayes and a brass band!
MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY; DAVID REDFERN/REDFERNS/GETTY
What was it like hanging out with the JimiHendrix Experience? Joseph Lamb, Dorset
They liked our band very much, which is how we got to meet them. And yeah, they were good pals. Mitch I worked with quite a bit, one way and the other. Noel I knew very well; I worked with him at Olympic when he was making a solo album. Jimi was just one of the guys, really. I don’t think he put the star bit on at all, he was a very, very nice bloke. But what pissed me off was these people clinging to him – hangers-on, creeps. I had an argument with his bird in Blaises! Probably lots of drugs, lots of drinks… and I just decided to go up and tell ’em what I thought of ’em! There was no argument between me and him, we met as musos or friends. I went to see him in New York when he was recording and sang some backing vocals [on a 1969 version of “Stone Free”]. 16 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
How accurate was Family’s portrayal as ‘Relation’in Jenny Fabian’s [1969 novel/ memoir] Groupie? Steve Hart, Rayleigh, Essex
Did you enjoy touring the US with Elton John in 1972? Donny, via email
A different story! Yes to that one. He’s a wonderful man, Elton, and still one of my favourite stage acts. We had a lovely time and we probably picked up more fans that time because we were happier. Giant party in the Fontainebleau in Miami, everybody gets a pressie at the end of tour – nice touches like that. Elton was the biggest music freak, he’d fill suitcases full of 45s.
Very accurate. I mean, Jenny lived in the house with our thenmanager [Tony Gourvish]. The whole band and crew lived in this three-storey house [in Chelsea]. We had a room each. I’m trying to remember what we did for a bathroom – God, it must’ve stunk in there! It was all going on, of course. We’d go off to UFO and come back home with various scallywags. Partying all day and night, it was really good fun: girls, drinks, drugs, the business! You couldn’t ask for more when you were a kid.
Have you had any recent conversations with Charlie Whitney or coaxed him into any recordings? John Harrison, New York No, not since Streetwalkers. I’ve had the odd connection with him over the past 30–40 years. A couple of them were sort of genial, but that would have been by post. I know he went to Greece; he still lives on one of the Greek islands. When we did the reform of Family in 2013, I asked him then and he didn’t wanna do it, so I felt like I’d done my bit. Is there any lingering sadness about that? Not at all. I heard too many bad rumours that took away any feeling I ever had for Charlie.
What is your abiding memory of supporting the Stones in Hyde Park in 1969? Maggie James, via email
Nice day, busy, Mick in a white suit… I felt sorry for all the butterflies – most of them dropped dead, but he meant well. It was scary in the sense that it was a huge gig and you’re on with The Rolling Stones, but I know we played well because
“We met as musos or friends”:Jimi Hendrix with the Experience at the RoyalAlbert Hall, February 24,1969
“Jimi was a very, very nice bloke. But what pissed me off was these people clinging to him”
If you could give any advice to your younger self about life and music, what would you tellhim? Merlina Waterworth, Swindon
Watch out for the hat pulled down! But enjoy it while it’s there. Take what you can, without taking it from somebody else. Life In The Pond is out now on Ruf Records; also out now are the expanded and remastered editions of Family’s A Song For Me and Chapman’s solo compilation Moth To A Flame: The Recordings 1 9 7 9 –1 9 8 1 , both on Esoteric
DENÉE SEGALL
B
and this is no exception. A black and white ARELY has the dust settled ALBUM photo taken by Ty’s wife Denée on a hiking on his last escapade, and Ty OF THE trail near their Topanga Canyon home, it Segall, Californian dreamer MONTH pictures him balanced impishly on a tree and one of the most prolific branch, holding his guitar out in front of him creators in all of rock’n’roll, 9/10 like a talisman. Think a freaky flower child, or sidles by once more. Just for perhaps a mischievous forest spirit, spinning out context, Segall’s 2021 saw not riddles in exchange for safe passage. one but two new collections of music. The first This isn’t an all-new mode for Segall. Written and was Harmonizer, a ripping rock album that dropped recorded at Ty’s own home studio, Harmonizer, in without warning or fanfare in August 2021. The 2020, it clocks in at a relatively lean 10 songs and 34 second expanded Ty’s brief yet further – a film score minutes, making it of a piece with albums like Goodbye for director Matt Yoka’s Whirlybird, a documentary following the Los Angeles News Service, whose roving Bread and Sleeper: song-focused affairs that advance a consistent sound and style, as opposed to the pinball helicopter tracked wrongdoings across LA’s urban eclecticism of Freedom’s Goblin or Manipulator. sprawl throughout the 1980s and ’90s. Time for a “Hello, Hi” brings a couple of Ty’s prime influences pause? Of course not. to the fore. His catalogue features a rich seam of songs Seasoned Ty watchers will know that he tends that channel Marc Bolan – think Manipulator’s “Don’t to follow a zig with a zag, and so it is with “Hello, You Want To Know (Sue)”, or Hi”. It does, broadly, what Sleeper’s “Sweet CC”. Bolan’s Harmonizer did not. Where influence – specifically the that album was electric, psychedelically inclined folk synthetic and raw, “Hello, Hi” of his early Tyrannosaurus Rex is largely acoustic, rusticincarnation – is writ all over sounding and steeped in a “Hello, Hi”. Another touchstone sort of fey, offbeat prettiness. might be Donovan – “Blue” Where Harmonizer felt like seems to channel his whimsical the work of a full live band, delivery and a taste for surreal “Hello, Hi” bears the mark lyrical flights of fancy. Yet as of a record made alone in ever, Ty wears his influences in isolation, or something close a relaxed manner: tried on like to it. Ty’s album covers always a paisley shirt or feather boa, do a good job of obliquely then discarded. communicating their contents,
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Endless trail:Segall photographed near his home in Topanga Canyon
AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •19
NEW ALBUMS Is this, perhaps, Ty’s lockdown album? Certainly, there are moments that seem to capture something of the pandemic experience – a life spent between four walls, the stir-crazy effects of isolation, the days charted by the rhythm of morning passing into night. Some songs evoke home as a place of safety and comfort. “Good Morning” opens the album in a mood of dazed romantic bliss. “Good morning, lady/We can stay inside/The world is where we both lay/On the pillows we are fine”, Ty sings in a sleepy falsetto before layering his multi-tracked voice in a sort of dawn chorus. Elsewhere, the mood is more curdled and strange. “Saturday Pt 2” commences with a dismal scene: “In a room we are waiting/ Living life behind closed doors/Only singing about the flat and painted drywall/And concrete floors…”. But then suddenly the guitars begin to bite, the drums kick in, and around the song’s midpoint, a saxophone solo from long-time collaborator Mikal Cronin lifts the song onto a higher plane. In moments like this, you can visualise Ty sat at home, using music to blast himself out of boredom and into a new reality. A pervasive mood of isolation makes this one of Ty’s most introspective albums. Within, there are intimate love lullabies; songs that go down rabbit holes of ruthless self-doubt and self-examination; lyrics that reflect on the idea of changing yourself
to make life easier, or to please another. “I want to start over, but who would I be?/All the mistakes I’ve made are why I am me”, he sings on “Over”. But Segall is not one to play things completely straight, so these sorts of ruminations are pockmarked with twists of artifice and sudden impositions of surreal imagery. “Don’t you feel better/ When you’re wearing my cement sweater?” sings Ty on “Cement”, a track that somehow feels stranger each time you listen to it. The vocal is precisely enunciated and full of curious, arch mannerisms; the chord changes have a prickly, unresolved quality that ensures any genuine comfort dangles just out of reach; and the track ends with Ty’s voice layered into cascading harmonies, la-la-la-ing himself silly. Even where “Hello, Hi” grapples with difficult feelings, there’s a craft and prettiness to the music that transcends any bummer vibes. Ty handles most of the drumming himself in his characteristically swinging, Ringo-ish style. “Over” and “Distraction” have
Country rocker: a decidedly un-locked down Ty Segall
a limber, freewheeling sense of momentum that nudges them towards the folk-jazz nexus currently occupied by figures like Ryley Walker. And there’s an album highlight in the shape of “Don’t Lie”, a deep cut by the Oakland-based lo-fi group The Mantles. Ty has some past form in delivering cover versions that tear the original a new one, but here he takes the opposite route. The original’s breezy paisley-shaded SLEEVE NOTES garage is transformed into a delicate 1 Good Morning acoustic hymn that accentuates the 2 Cement lyric about overcoming bad and sad 3 Over times. It’s a gem. 4 Hello,Hi And while it’s hardly the album’s 5 Blue set style, here and there “Hello, 6 Looking At You Hi” rocks out. The title track is the 7 Don’t Lie record’s one real barnstormer – three 8 Saturday Pt 1 swift minutes of glammy chorusing, 9 Saturday Pt 2 1 0 Distraction churning riffs and thundering caveman drums that’s enjoyable, and Produced by: not just for its explosive incongruity. Ty Segall,Cooper “Looking At You”, meanwhile, is Crain (“Looking a hangover from the Harmonizer At You”) sessions. A band effort that sees Ty Recorded at: assisted by Charles Moothart on Harmonizer drums and Ben Boye on Rhodes, its Studios, folk-rocky strum sports a scorching Topanga,CA Personnel: Ty fuzz guitar solo, but also a beautiful Segall (acoustic “Dear Prudence”-style coda that and electric revolves round and round like a guitar,drums, ballerina in a music box. bass,electric So yes, “Hello, Hi” is one of Ty’s piano,vocals), most lean and focused albums to Charles Moothart date. But the closer you get, the more (drums),Ben you spot its idiosyncrasies. Heartfelt Boye (Rhodes), and playful, homespun and surreal, Mikal Cronin (saxophone) down in the dumps and head-overheels in love: here is Ty Segall in all his wonderful contradictions. After nine tracks in which the walls sometimes seem to be closing in, on the closing “Distraction” the door swings open. “So sing me a distraction/I want to know what happens/We’ll take a walk outside”, he sings. And with a sweet goodbye, the record ends, and Ty is gone – off to find his next adventure. Where will we find him next? Who knows, but past evidence suggests we won’t be waiting long.
HOW TO BUY...
KEEP IT TY
Three varied staging posts on Segall’s eclectic journey
TY SEGALL
TY SEGALL BAND
TY SEGALL
DRAG CITY, 2011
IN THE RED, 2012
DRAG CITY, 2018
DENÉE SEGALL
Goodbye Bread A sun-dappled satire on West Coast living,Goodbye Bread marked the moment when Ty’s artful songwriting first slid into tight focus.It was recorded in a friend’s garage,but tracks like “I Can’t Feel It” and “California Commercial” transcend such humble genesis,skilfully drawing lines between Lennon,Syd Barrett and Nuggets.8/10 2 0 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse captures Segall at his most ripping and raging,a live and direct blast through ’60s beat group choruses and ramalama psychedelia with the odd desecrated cover version (rest in pieces,Fred Neil’s “The Bag I’m In”).Ty memorably described it as “evil,evilspace-rock… put a little Satan in space and you got the sound”.8/10
Freedom’s Goblin A sprawling double album in the spirit of the ‘White Album’, Freedom’s Goblin deals out wild card after wild card – country rock weepies, hardcore ragers,gothic whimsy,a cover of Hot Chocolate’s “Everyone’s A Winner” – as if daring you to keep pace.Driving it home,some smart horns played and arranged by Mikal Cronin. 9/10
NEW ALBUMS You’ve always recorded at home, but has having a home studio changed the process of music-making for you?
That’s been a complete joy. Especially during the pandemic, when we could be really selfsufficient in that respect. You know, have people come over here and have skeleton sessions. The home studio, it’s kind of the dream thing, you know? Just get in there and throw paint at the walls, that’s the process now. I do have to set myself rules to not go in the studio, because I’ll go in there too much. I’ve turned into an old man, though. I used to record and write really late at night but now I record and write in the morning, right when I wake up. I feel like there are no distractions. I feel more lucid and fresh. Now I turn into a pumpkin at, like, 10 o’clock. But that’s cool.
Q&A
What was the starting point of “Hello, Hi”?
Recording this record is kind of about getting back into playing acoustic guitar. I hadn’t played acoustic guitar, really written on it, in quite some time. Probably since Freedom’s Goblin. That would probably be three years or something. I was pretty disinterested in writing on the guitar – at least, how I had been writing on the guitar up to that point. But it just felt right to pick up the acoustic again, in my living room. Drink some coffee and just get there.
Freedom’s Goblin had a lot of different styles in there.This feels more focused. The point of Freedom’s Goblin was to explore every type of musical space that I could get to at that time. But this is very much of a one kind of sound, space, place kind of a record.
Was it recorded before or after Harmonizer?
It was recorded before and after. It definitely wasn’t a record that happened all at once. Different periods of writing created this record. Which is kind of different from my usual style, because I like to be in one mindset when I’m making a record. This album was not like that. It was kind of a bit spaced out.
2020 was the year of the pandemic, of course.Listening back, it feels like “Hello, Hi” is born out of a kind of isolation… I don’t like to tie records too much to any one thing. As a fan of records, I feel it’s not really a good way to talk about a
record. The songs have to do with issues and ideas that I’ve been dealing with my whole adult life – growth, coming to terms with who you are. Dealing with yourself, really and what that means. All of these ideas and topics have always kind of been in what I write. So obviously, yes, it was influenced by that time. But I didn’t want to make the record about that.
There’s a fantastic cover of “Don’t Lie” by The Mantles…
I love that song. They were like one of the classic San Francisco bands when I was living there, and that song just always stuck with me. It’s kind of unsung. It should have been bigger. I think it’s a testament to a good song that you can rearrange it and do it any way you want to. Push it into different places, and it’ll still translate because the song is the song, you know? Also, that song is nostalgic to me. I feel like there’s a bit of nostalgia on the record. A song like that puts me in a headspace, and it felt good to get in that headspace.
It feels like an album that’s uncomfortable with its own thoughts in places.
Yeah. It’s very much a “you’re staring at yourself, trying to figure yourself out” kind of a record. No matter what you try to do – distract yourself, make yourself feel better about certain things about yourself – you’re gonna have to just come to terms with who you are. How you feel about yourself and what you have inside of your own mind. I’ve written a lot of songs about that. But I think this is far more focused on that kind of thing. It’s a heavy topic, for sure.
“Hello, Hi” was recorded a couple of years ago now.How is it to listen back to? You know, I didn’t know how I felt about the record. When I recorded it. I was pretty confused by it. I didn’t know how I felt about it. There’s a kind of rawness or closeness to it that makes me a bit uncomfortable. So I sat on it for a little while, gave myself space. And the more space I have from it, the more I like it.
The record is nicely bookended It starts with a good morning and ends with a good night.
Yeah. I love albums with nods to certain things, those little winks. It feels like a sleepy inside-on-a-foggy-day kind of record. There are love songs on it. It’s very much about being indoors, alone, or with your partner.
Ty Segall:“I’ve turned into an old man”
“It just felt right to pick up the acoustic again. Drink some coffee and just get there”
The lyric about the “cement sweater” speaks to that feeling – it has connotations of comfort and cosiness, but it’s kind of abrasive and uncomfortable at the same time. If I could point to one lyric, it’s that feeling… [laughs] well, yeah, it’s one of them. It’s the heaviness of feeling comfortable. I like the image of putting on a sweater and going, ugh, it’s so heavy. And then just laying down and sinking into the floor. INTERVIEW: LOUIS PATTISON AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •21
DENÉE SEGALL
Ty Segall “It feels like a sleepy, insideon-a-foggy-day kind of record”
GWENNO Tresor HEAVENLY
9/10 Welsh surrealist journeys via Cornwall towards selfdiscovery. By Emily Mackay
CLAIRE MARIE BAILEY
“I
F we opened people up, we’d find landscapes,” said the French director Agnes Varda in 2009. Varda is one of many artists, musicians and
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filmmakers from around the world who inspired Tresor, the third album by the Cornish-speaking Welsh psychonaut Gwenno Saunders – and that quote is particularly beloved to a musician dedicated to mapping out the intersection of land, heritage, identity and potential. Like Gwenno’s last album, Le Kov, Tresor is written mostly in Cornish – a language she learned as an infant from her father, the
Cornish poet Tim Saunders; her socialistchoir-singing mother made sure she was equally fluent in Welsh. Le Kov imagined a cosmopolitan city of modern-day myth, raised from beneath the waves like the revived Cornish tongue itself; Tresor now journeys inward, into an inner life lived through Cornish. To Gwenno, Cornish is not some exotic linguistic treasure, but the language of her childhood, of family, of imagination. She’s now teaching it to her son, and the songs on Tresor explore instinct, the unconscious and belonging. It’s a dreamier, gentler album than Le Kov or her Welsh-language debut, Y Dydd Olaf, leaning further into spectral electronic textures on tracks like “Keltek” and “Kan Me”.
NEW ALBUMS
Tresor’ s inner landscape asks us where we might find ourselves The softer sounds are animated by the fresh creative energy Gwenno has found in the feminine on the likes of “Anima”, fuzzy psych-rock with medieval leanings and a sinuous melody. Surrealist imagery hangs in the hazy air: a black horse, a shell, a woman’s torso, a ball of fire. “Duwes po Eva/Ow sevel a’th rag”, Saunders sings: “Is it a Goddess or Eve stood in front of you?” Sometimes the mystical archetypes of womanhood – the mother, the womb, the instinctual, the nurturing – can be limiting, but on this exploratory, visionary record, co-produced by Saunders and her partner and collaborator Rhys Edwards, it doesn’t feel that way. On the languid title track – a musical fairy mound piled with layers of vocals, synth, piano and marimba – Gwenno asks (in Cornish): “Do you want a crown upon your head and a woman at your feet?/Do I want to fill a room with all of my will and feel ashamed?” She wonders at the power of ineluctable instinct amid the drifting ghost’s dream that is “Men An Toll” – named for a set of holed, round, Freudian-field-day standing stones near Penzance – yet on opener “An Stevel Nowydh”, with a backbone of chiming indie, she’s less instinctual, more analytical as she airily interrogates existence: “Is the total lack of meaning an inevitable part of being?” If Cornish is the language of internal philosophical enquiry, then the language of politics, for Gwenno, is Welsh; a supporter of independence, she tackles
hypocrisy and individualism dressed in nationalism’s clothing in “NYCAW” (whose title refers to an old anti-holidayhome slogan, “Nid Yr Cymru Ar Werth”, or “Wales is not for sale”). Sardonic, taunting post-punk with lovely, liquid gothic guitar flourishing under the thrum, it bemoans the commercialisation of Welsh identity. When it comes to community, she asserts, “the only thing that matters is love”. Wales, Cornwall and lands beyond are concretely present in the found sounds that add a richness of detail throughout, from the eldritch creak of a gate leading to an iron-age settlement on Anglesey to the strings of a hotel-room piano in Vienna. And while this is the first album Gwenno has written while actually in Cornwall – in St Ives, paid tribute to by the closing track, “Porth Ia” (its Cornish name) – it maintains a polyglot conversation with global influences from Swedish artist Monica Sjöö to American hippie adventurer Eden Ahbez, never giving in to easy authenticity or essentialism. On the driving, sultry “Ardamm”, she addresses critics of her new position as a Welsh-born figurehead of the Cornish language (record numbers signed up to Cornish courses after the release of Le Kov). How long, she asks, will they wait to take the lead themselves? “Ple ‘ma dha vammyeth?” (“Where is your mother tongue?”) Yet the medium is no longer the message here; though the meaning of Tresor can’t really be divorced from the language in which it is written, it is not about Cornish, but in it. Tresor’s inner landscape, both local and global, invites us to consider what vistas and future paths we might form from our own jumbled heritages and where it is we might find ourselves. Among the last sounds heard on “Porth Ia” are the bells of Santa Maria Della Salute in Venice during the 2019 floods. “I want you to know”, Gwenno sings, “that when you arrive I will be here”.
SLEEVE NOTES 1 An Stevel Nowydh 2 Anima 3 Tresor 4 NYCAW 5 Men an Toll 6 Ardamm 7 Kan Me 8 Keltek 9 Tonnow 10 Porth Ia Produced by: Rhys Edwards, Gwenno Saunders Recorded at: Saunders’ home in Cardiff (on one of Martin Hannett’s Eaton Bray desks) Personnel includes:Gwenno Saunders (vocals, Moog,lyre harp, celtic harp,flute), Rhys Edwards (drums,bass, guitar,piano, vibraphone, melodica,string arrangements, found sounds, vocals),Angharad Davies (violin), Nico Rhys (hand claps)
Q&A Gwenno Saunders:“Rhys and I made it in our
living room and it doesn’t sound like it”
What is the treasure (“Tresor”) of the title?
I wanted to celebrate music and art for its own sake. I’ve always between two mindsets:this with-a-small-a activist emotion,and the feeling that music is life and doesn’t need a reason to exist.Le Kov was an overview of my upbringing and the history;Tresor is about exploring desire and other emotions.That’s what makes the language whole and alive.
What are you most proud of on this album?
I am really proud of the fact that Rhys [Edwards] and I made it in our living room,and it doesn’t sound like it.We aspired to make something more ambitious than our circumstances;something about beauty being important,as much as I love aggression.
You made a short film to go with the album. It’s all
on 8mm,shot by an amazing cinematographer from Anglesey, Clare Marie Bailey.We filmed a collage in Cornwall and Wales,then I did the soundtrack on a Memotron with two pedals.All of the songs are scenes,so they translated well.I love the freedom of a new medium and that film is all this effort in reality,to make another reality.It’s perfect,as that’s the way I live in my head.EMILY MACKAY
AtoZ This month… P24 P27 P28 P31 P32 P34 P36 P37
KENDRICK LAMAR ANDREW TUTTLE LERA LYNN KATY J PEARSON MARTIN COURTNEY BLACK MIDI KATHRYN WILLIAMS MJ LENDERMAN
…AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD XI:Bleed Here Now INSIDE OUT
7/10
Austin vets max out all four channels on 11th album It’s been a good while since any band proudly put the word “quadrophonic” in big capital letters on an album cover. But bold moves have remained a specialty of …Trail Of Dead, even after their explosive late-’90s releases gave way to the proggier likes of 2011’s Tao Of The Dead. On their 11th LP, the band strive for an Animals-sized scope with the help of producer KamranV and guests such as Britt Daniel and Amanda Palmer. Though their drive to fill all available space causes some songs to grow diffuse, their vision coheres on “Taken By The Hand”, a suitably audacious fusion of ferocious post-hardcore and anthemic Southern rock. JASON ANDERSON
ARP
New Pleasures MEXICAN SUMMER
6/10
Fussy fifth from LA synth aficionado Alexis Georgopoulos’s linen-suited voyage around the Fourth World continues with New Pleasures, his fifth Arp album and one that really explores the synthetic textures produced by his array of vintage keyboards. Where earlier material flowed freely, here his fiddly funk and plastic grooves contrive a kind of new-age electro that at times is suave and smooth but rarely settles into anything satisfying; as much as they exude a sense of wellness, “Eniko” and “Sponge (For Miyake)” have a slightly queasy quality. Tethered to gated drums and loping bass, “Le Palace” and “Traitor (Dub)” at least take the scenic route to the dancefloor. PIERS MARTIN
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SLEEVE NOTES 1 United In Grief 2 N95 3 Worldwide Steppers 4 Die Hard 5 Father Time 6 Rich (Interlude) 7 Rich Spirit 8 We Cry Together 9 Purple Hearts 10 Count Me Out 11 Crown 12 Silent Hill 13 Savior (Interlude) 14 Savior 15 Auntie Diaries 16 Mr Morale 17 Mother I Sober 18 Mirror
KENDRICK LAMAR Mr Morale & The Big Steppers PGLANG/TOP DAWG ENTERTAINMENT/AFTERMATH/INTERSCOPE
8/10
Kendrick battles an army of selves on his new double album. By Stephen Deusner KENDRICK LAMAR is one of the finest instrumentalists of his era, although his instrument happens to be his own voice. On previous albums but especially on his latest, Mr Morale & The Big Steppers, he raps in many modes, varying his pitching and flow on nearly every song, switching up his cadence as though changing his identity. He sounds impossibly nimble and declarative on opener “United In Grief”, even as he warns the listener, “I’ve been goin’through something/Be afraid”. He goes low and legato on “Crown”, then spry and playful on “N95”. He uses short, choppy lines on “Count Me Out” to unsettle the listener, then delivers “Auntie Diaries” in a near whisper, as though drawing you closer to tell you a secret. The album is a remarkable series of disruptive transformations. Lamar isn’t the only rapper who bends his flow into so many different shapes, but few others pull it off so dramatically or so eloquently, and almost no-one achieves the same emotional payoff. It heightened the tension of his 2012 breakthrough, good kid,M.A.A.D. City, and made 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly one of the best albums of the decade, a bursting-at-the-seams concept album that positioned Lamar as an heir to Marvin Gaye, Chuck D and George 24 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Clinton, among others. He synthesises a startling range of sounds and styles, but it’s all in service to his vocals. Because he often sounds like he’s rapping to himself, externalising his internal monologue, these different deliveries reveal an artist wrestling with his demons in real time. He unleashes them (or they unleash themselves) to tell deeply intricate stories of black experiences in America and to further complicate narratives that might have become too pat, too predictable. Mr Morale & The Big Steppers is a sprawling double album. How sprawling? The excellent, Marvin Gaye-sampling first single, “The Heart Pt 5”, doesn’t even appear on the tracklist, crowded out by a storyline with multiple framing devices, intersecting subplot and a full choir of collaborators. That means there are more Kendricks speaking to us and few of them have very many fucks to give. There is the Kendrick who has become a cultural institution, who became the only rapper and the rare pop artist to win a Pulitzer Prize, and who has already inspired several books and academic studies. He bobs and weaves with supreme vocal agility and uses Duval Timothy’s avant-garde piano chords as a foil on “Crown”. On “United In Grief”, he questions everything – sexism, commercialism and even hip-hop as a vehicle for examining those issues –
Produced by: Kendrick Lamar, Sounwave,J Lbs, DJ Dahi,Bekon Personnel includes:Kendrick Lamar (vocals), Sampha (vocals), Beth Gibbons (vocals),Taylor Paige (vocals), Duval Timothy (piano),Whitney Alford (narration), Eckhart Tolle (narration), Blxst (vocals), Amanda Reifer (vocals),Summer Walker (vocals), Ghostface Killah (vocals),Kodak Black (vocals), Sam Dew (vocals), Tanna Leone (vocals),Baby Keem (drums, vocals),Bekon (bass,keyboards, strings,vocals, percussion), Daniel Krieger (guitar),Danny McKinnon (guitar, bass),DJ Dahi (programming, bass,percussion, drums,vocals), Frano (keyboards, programming), Grandmaster Vic (strings), Homer Steinweiss (drums), J Lbs (bass), Mike Larsen (programming), Sounwave (drums, programming), Stuart Johnson (percussion), Thundercat (bass)
over a pulsating drum line that pushes the song along at a reckless pace. It’s a bracing introduction to a thorny album. And then there is the Kendrick who is suspicious of that kind of recognition and applause. These sections are often caustic in their antagonism. “I am not for the faint of heart”, he declares on “Worldwide Steppers”, and on “Savior” he admonishes the listener: “Kendrick made you think about it,but he is not your savior”. It can be incredibly compelling, but it can also be tiresome: Kendrick’s biggest moment comes on “We Cry Together”, as he and Zola actor Taylour Paige argue violently over a sample from Florence + The Machine’s “June”. It’s ugly, but self-consciously ugly, theatrically ugly – a humourless take on Otis Redding and Carla Thomas’s “Tramp” – and its points about toxic masculinity and black feminism parrot rather than question received wisdom. By far the most compelling persona on Mr Morale & The Big Steppers is the Kendrick who is trying to make sense of the horrors of his own family, who raps about incest and recrimination in a sober flow. On “Auntie Diaries” he recounts the stories of two transgendered family members, and while he deadnames them and gratuitously repeats a certain homophobic slur, he does so in order to examine his relationship with them and to trace the evolution of his own thinking – from dumb schoolyard taunts to acceptance and admiration. The heart of this dense album, however, is “Mother I Sober”, about false accusations of sexual abuse that divided his family for generation. It hinges on a lovely, deeply sympathetic chorus sung by Portishead’s Beth Gibbons, as Lamar tells the story with forensic focus. He tries to forgive those who once refused to believe him, even as he chastises himself for profiting off his own trauma (“traded in my tears for a Range Rover”). It’s a tour de force, almost but not quite as revelatory as “DUCKWORTH”, a similar family saga off 2017’s DAMN. And the best moment is when the strings swell and Lamar’s voice changes. As his careful, stoical flow morphs into a more emphatic, even triumphant exultation, one Kendrick gives way to another Kendrick: “As I set free all you abusers, this is transformation!” There are so many more Kendricks on Mr Morale & The Big Steppers: some oddball versions of himself that pop up only for two lines or resist any easy understanding of their motives. And they all converge on closer “Mirror”, with its cinematic strings and stuttering beat. “My demons is off the leash for a moshpit”, he exclaims, noting the irony of working through private issues in a public form. He raps to figure it all out, to impose order on a chaotic world: “Sorry I didn’t save the world,my friend”, he raps with a hard-won clarity and perspective. “I was too busy buildin’ mine again”.
NEW ALBUMS Spirit Exit
Expo Botanica HISSTOLOGY
LIGHT-YEARS
7/10
8/10
Third album from high-minded Italian synth maven Caterina Barbieri is a cut above your average modularsynth tweaker, an alumnus of the Conservatory of Bologna whose voluminous electronic compositions draw on cosmology, mysticism and the nature of consciousness. Recorded in hermetic isolation in Milan during lockdown, Spirit Exit finds Barbieriaugmenting her precise electronic arpeggios with processed vocals, strings and guitar. “Canticle Of Cryo” and “Broken Melody” tip back and forth between melancholy and euphoria, Barbieri’s voice cresting and dipping through carefully sculpted waveforms. A mood of high seriousness pervades, but Spirit Exit’s blend of spirituality and futurism is often transfixing. LOUIS PATTISON
MARCO BENEVENTO Benevento
ROYAL POTATO FAMILY
7/10
Eccentric keyboard jams with a little help from his family The New York-based composer (and Royal Potato Family co-founder) recorded his ninth solo album at his home studio in Woodstock, a small space crammed floor to ceiling with vintage synths and drum machines. Every single one of them makes an appearance on Benevento, which mixes old-school instruments with flourishes of African percussion and ’70s rock songwriting. The rippling “Marco & Mimo” and the chugging “Do You Want Some Magic” suggest the anarchic inventiveness of Garth Hudson as well as the anythinggoes sensibility of very early Moog records, but it’s the exuberant vocals by his wife and kids that add warmth and vivacity to the proceedings. STEPHEN DEUSNER
NAIMA BOCK Giant Palm
SUB POP/MEMORIALS OF DISTINCTION
8/10
São Paolo-raised Londoner rewards repeated listens Naima Bock’s solo debut is a spiritual record, in the most ecumenical sense of the word: its through-lines are nature, muted earth tones and grace. A founding member of post-punk band Goat Girl, where she played bass under the alias Naima Jelly, Bock’s solo work takes a subtler but no less arresting approach, weaving in melodic passages for strings, organ
Caterina Barbieri: spiritual quest
and woodwind and rhythmic calls to her Brazilian heritage in ways that only fully reveal themselves with repeated listens. Bock’s vocal tone is sombre, almost hymnal, leaving plenty of space for musical transformation from main collaborator Joel Burton and others – from choral benediction “Every Morning”, with its barely-there instrumentation, to the sambaand sax-led call-and-response of “Working”. LISA-MARIE FERLA
THE BURNING HELL Garbage Island BB*ISLAND 7/10
Canadian trio party at the end of the world Five years after 2017’s similarly themed Revival Beach, The Burning Hell’s apocalyptic vision has been distilled into a floating raft of cultural flotsam, a great Pacific garbage patch of seabirds, wistful nostalgia and romantic flight. Mathias Kom’s busy songs, mostly co-written with Ariel Sharratt and Jake Nicoll, remain super-literate and fantastically droll, over backings that range from bubbling synthpop and acoustic folk to rattly punk and even a spot of semi-calypso. Silver Jews and Jeffrey Lewis spring to mind on the terrific “Birdwatching”; “Bird Queen Of Garbage Island” sounds like a glorious revival of Tom Tom Club. ROB HUGHES
NENEH CHERRY The Versions EMI 5/10
Cherry-picked hits reworked by a new generation of artists Cherry scored a mighty run of singles in the 1980s and 1990s, but they were firmly rooted in the box-fresh post-club aesthetic of their era. Hence this new collection of Cherry-endorsed covers, remixes and duets by mostly younger artists works best when it diverts furthest from the originals, like Anohni’s hauntingly soulful torchsong take on “Woman”, or Seinabo Sey’s dynamic Afro-jazz reworking of “Kisses On The Wind”. By contrast, Robyn’s “Buffalo Stance” and Sia’s “Manchild” feel like superfluous, reverential, sanitised homages. That said, hearing Jamila Woods cooing “you’re like maggots in my brain” in her smoochy R&B reboot of “Kootchi” is a rare joy. STEPHEN DALTON
Experimental exotica from Beirut’s one-man music factory Lebanese multiinstrumentalist/ producer Charif Megarbane has released over 100 DIY albums over the past decade. His latest, Expo Botanica, is the ideal entry point to a novelty, cut’n’paste world of ’60s Italian soundtracks, ’70s soft-porn percussion, and hovering Arabic harmonics. Any record that starts with a 90-second precis called “Executive Summary” is going to be playful, and the following 16 short-form instrumentals – each one the theme for the imagined life of a plant – showcase an experimental, wide-eared talent. Alongside the Umilianireferences, “Le Droit A L’Oubli” drifts on Sébastien Tellier’s Mediterranean zephyrs, while “Parachute Jellyfish” peels Zappa’s “Peaches En Regalia”. MARK BENTLEY
ALISON COTTON
The Portrait You Painted Of Me ROCKET 8/10
Spaced-out, entrancing folk drones While Alison Cotton may be best known as a member of outsider folk duo The Left Outsides, this singular artist has been making gorgeous, crystalline solo music for some time now. On her third solo album, Cotton levitates her compositions for viola and harmonium via extended duration and the eternal now of the drone. Her exquisite voice calls to mind both the chill of the best British folk – there’s something in Cotton’s tone, particularly on the denuded, austere “Violet May”, that reminds of June Tabor – and the psychedelic detail of Occitanian traditional song. JON DALE
THE DESLONDES
Ways & Means NEW WEST 8/10
Big Easy country quintet return after a lengthy hiatus On their first album in five years, The Deslondes remain determined to find all-new ways of mixing dusty country music, rhythmic New Orleans R&B, and whatever else strikes their fancy. Ways & Means adds some new sounds to their palette, including dollops of California psychedelica, bursts of Brill Building pop, some melancholy cowboy-trail harmonies and some truly weird jazz on “Standing Still”. Sam Doores and Riley Downing both released fine solo albums during the band’s hiatus, but their voices play off each other dynamically, as though each is the other’s missing puzzle piece. It makes for an exciting comeback, almost reckless in its inventiveness. STEPHEN DEUSNER
ELF POWER
ArtificialCountrysides YEP ROC
7/10
Elephant 6 lifers get heavy, emotionally speaking Not that they’ve ever sounded light and carefree, but there’s a new weight to Elf Power’s 14th album in 28 years. Andrew Reiger has long used ’60s folk and pop to map out the boundary between the real world and the world of the mind, but age and experience add new colours to these songs. Opener “Clean Clothes” uses surrealist imagery to evoke what might be a depressed mind: “Clean clothes”, he observes, “are worn inside your filthy brain”. There’s a palpable sense of world-weariness in his vocals and in the band’s fuzzy hooks, which makes everything sound both precarious and oddly poignant. STEPHEN DEUSNER
Alison Cotton: chilled psych drone
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AL OVERDRIVE, JIM C NEDD
COSMIC ANALOGUE ENSEMBLE
CATERINA BARBIERI
NEW ALBUMS FANTASTIC NEGRITO
White Jesus Black Problems STOREFRONT
8/10
Autobiographical, slave-era psychedelic soul blues In 1750s, pre-USA Virginia, white Scottish indentured servant Elizabeth Gallimore loved an unknown black African slave, siring eventually free children. Seven generations later, Fantastic Negrito’s recent discovery of his head-spinning heritage has sparked this wild psychedelic soul suite, mixing his ancestors’ impossibly defiant love with America’s enduring slavers’ mentality. White Jesus Black Problems fizzes with indignation and exults in contradictions. “Venomous Dogma” begins as woozy, falsetto gospel-soul, before a stomping chaingang blues plunges into the slave-ship hold, vicious displacement still felt in the bilious “You Don’t Belong Here”. The accompanying visual album adds to the lush, capering anarchy, showcasing the spectacle of Negrito himself, an indomitable, black freak-power pioneer who would have made his still-braver ancestors proud and wonderingly hopeful. NICK HASTED
FRIENDSHIP
Love The Stranger TRAVIS SHINN, LAURA SCHNEIDER
MERGE
7/10
Third album from Philly-based Americana outfit Think early Wilco with a touch of Lambchop, and you’ve pretty much got Dan Wriggins’ band, all pedal
steel, synth strings and chiming, airy folk guitars. What makes Friendship different, though, are Wriggins’ striking songs, minted in the sort of conversational poetry at which Lucinda Williams excels. His lyrics – which he intones rather than sings – can reference anything from grape jelly residue (“Ramekin”) to a demolished cathedral (“St Bonaventure”) and TV’s King Of The Hill (“Smooth Pursuit”), but all are there merely as props to his ultimate subject matter of the inner soul, in darkness and light and the complex spaces in between. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
RICHIE FURAY In The Country BMG
6/10
Back to country basics for Springfield and Poco man Furay’s first album in seven years reverts to first principles, in a somewhat old-fashioned mainstream country album covering favourite songs in the genre, heavy on steel guitars and garnished with countrypolitan strings. Garth Brook’s “The River” is typically sentimental and earnest, the sort of thing Elvis might now be singing. When Furay honours one of his earliest sources, Rick Nelson’s “Lonesome Town”, though, his intimately miked voice sinks into the song’s Gothic shadowland of “broken dreams”. Digital versions add Poco’s “Pickin’ Up The Pieces”, hokey and heart-warming in its hippie country-rock vision of happy hillbillies “sitting pickin’and a-grinnin’”. Former Poco bandmate Timothy B Schmit harmonises, in this brief acknowledgement of Furay’s importance. NICK HASTED Fantastic Negrito: wild psych soul
Mary Gauthier: on safer ground
MARY GAUTHIER
Dark Enough To See The Stars THIRTY TIGERS
8/10
Peace at last for a troubled troubadour After all the gruelling, purging, razoredged confessions of addiction and abuse that made her name, the opening brace here finds Gauthier luxuriating in love over warm, woody, Band-inspired music, the Hammond rising up like smoke, and happiness making her voice soar and spread like the sun. “Thank God For You” recalls her youthful Greyhound ride out of New Orleans, bearing “a 20-year ticket to a tortured mind”, but even here gorgeous gospel harmonies denote safe arrival at her destination. Gauthier’s singing also blooms, holding on to syllables as if they’re the late beloved in the elegy “How Could You Be Gone”, or sensually stretching words that miss her lover’s touch. Dylan in 1970 comes to mind, comforted and satisfied. NICK HASTED
SG GOODMAN Teeth Marks VERVE FORECAST
9/10
Stirring sophomore effort by Jim James-approved singer-songwriter The Kentucky singer and guitarist’s 2020 debut Old Time Feeling painted her as a promising purveyor of both the cosmic Americana beloved by co-producer Jim James and the gentler alt.country preferred by sometime tourmate Jason Isbell. Yet Teeth Marks reveals a performer with a scrappier disposition. That’s very much to the good on “All My Love Is Coming Back To Me” and “Work Until I Die”, songs whose punkinfused fervour make the vulnerability of the more delicate “Heart Swell” and “When You Say It” all the more affecting. With its combination of Goodman’s ache-filled vocals and Crazy Horse clamour, “Keeper Of The Time” is an even more striking demonstration of what she can do. JASON ANDERSON
GUIDED BY VOICES
Tremblers And Goggles By Rank GBV INC
8/10
Prog, punk and power-pop from underground perennials 2 6 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
God only knows how Robert Pollard keeps doing it, but GBV’s second of 2022 is another LP packed full of charm, imagination and winning tunes. One touchstone this time around are The Who – on the rave-up “Goggles By Rank” but especially “Alex Bell”, and “Puzzle Two”, which have sudden lurches in direction like one of Townshend’s pop suites. There’s also a touch of David Bowie about Pollard’s vocals on ballads like “Roosevelt’s Marching Band” and “Boomerang”, but the sense of adventure is summarised by closing track “Who Wants To Go Home”, a six-minute arms-in-the-air rocker that covers multiple genres and time signatures like an indie King Crimson. PETER WATTS
MARY HALVORSON
Amaryllis/Belladonna NONESUCH 6/10, 8/10
Ambitious double release by one of America’s finest jazz guitarists Building an enviable career as an avantjazz guitarist while guesting with Xiu Xiu and members of Deerhoof, Mary Halvorson’s musicianship is openminded, demanding and richly engaging. On Amaryllis compositions like “Hoodwink”, her guitar balances the lyrical with the showy; elsewhere the fusion-prog aspects clutter the mise-en-scène, and you’re left wishing these jazz quintet pieces breathed more. But Belladonna is bolder, richer; Halvorson’s string arrangements admit complexity without overwhelming, and the Mivos String Quartet play gracefully and authoritatively. Both albums have their charms, though you’re left hoping Halvorson pursues working with strings, as that’s where the magic really happens. JON DALE
RANDY HOLDEN
Population III RIDINGEASY 6/10
Belated sequel to 1970’s proto-metal guitarfest Holden had already passed through heavy psych outfits The Sons Of Adam, The Other Half and Blue Cheer prior to recording cultish doom-metal harbinger Population II. Over half a century on, Holden has returned – alongside Cactus bassist Randy Pratt and drummer Bobby Rondinelli – with a similarly hefty successor. His thin voice is a wavery texture over which he conducts intense, stoner-riff experiments in volume and sustain. And while there are moments of inspiration (particularly the trippy, vaguely sinister “Sands Of Time”), 21-minute blowout “Land Of The Sun” is emblematic of Holden’s more selfindulgent tendencies. ROB HUGHES
NEW ALBUMS
Fleeting Adventure BASIN ROCK
8/10 Banjo-wielding Aussie experimentalist broadens his soundscape. By Tyler Wilcox ANDREW TUTTLE’S fifth album begins with a sense of being untethered and adrift, washes of abstract sound floating through the mix, a feeling of disorientation dominating. You might be reminded of the famed opening sequence of Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, The Wrath Of God, with Popol Vuh’s uncanny soundtrack accompanying the misty visuals of 16thcentury conquistadors trudging through a treacherous Amazon rainforest. Where are we? How did we get here? Tuttle isn’t one to let his listeners drown in a whirlpool of confusion, however. After a minute or so, his resonant, reassuring five-string banjo appears like a beacon in the night, grounding us, guiding us safely down to earth. For this particular adventure, we can rest easy. We’re in good hands. The banjo is a tricky instrument, one so associated with specific strains of folk, bluegrass and country music that it can come across as a cliché – an alltoo-familiar signifier of rootsy flavours and faux-downhome vibes. But some musicians have risen to the challenge of finding fresh new possibilities, from stars like Béla Fleck and Rhiannon Giddens to somewhat more obscure iconoclasts like George Stavis (whose 1969 solo deconstruction of “My Favorite Things” has to be heard to be believed) and Nathan Bowles, who has spent several recent LPs exploring the instrument’s outer limits. There’s a lot of music to be found in the banjo, you just have to know where to look. Andrew Tuttle definitely knows where to look. Over the course of his four previous albums, the Brisbane-based musician has carved out a comfortable niche for
SLEEVE NOTES 1 Overnight’s A Weekend 2 Next Week, Pending 3 Correlation 4 Freeway Flex 5 New Breakfast Habit 6 Filtering 7 There’s Always A Crow Produced by: Andrew Tuttle Personnel: Andrew Tuttle (banjo,acoustic guitar,signal processing), Aurélie Ferrière (violin),Chuck Johnson (pedal steel ),Claire Deak (harp, piano),Conrado Isasa (acoustic guitar),Darren Cross (acoustic guitar),Flora Wong (violin), Joe Saxby (saxophone) Josh Kimbrough (acoustic guitar), Luke Cuerel (saxophone), Luke Schneider (pedal steel), Michael A Muller (guitar),Spencer Grady (banjo), Stephen Lewis (dobro),Steve Gunn (guitar), Tony Dupe (piano)
Andrew Tuttle
“There’s a sense of ‘letting go’” How did the banjo come to be your primary instrument?
While I’d listened to and loved a lot of folk music previously,a couple of shows in early 2011 supporting Charlie Parr were revelatory. Charlie’s banjo playing is so resonant,beautiful and spacious;opening my ears up to a sound that I wanted to envelop myself in.I absolutely love the challenge of making sonorous music on an instrument that’s got a short decay!
Q&A
You’ve got a host of great musicians playing on Fleeting Adventure – what do you look for in a collaborator?
Honestly,the main things I look for are someone whose music I like and also someone who I enjoy chatting with – either in person and/or online. There’s a sense of “letting go” with these collaborations that’s almost conversational in its fluidity.
How do you deal with the long-distance aspect? By thinking of file-sharing as a nice creative treat! It’s a thrill to share music back and forward with friends – to hear
what they make of my music, to send what I create from theirs;and to approach the back-and-forth as something special and a world away from the transactional and/ or performative nature of so much else that we all share.
What are you hoping listeners get out of this record?
One of the things I love about sharing music with the world is letting go of my own narrative.But if listeners treat the album as a little holiday and reflect on what’s happening and what could be next,that’d be lovely. INTERVIEW: TYLER WILCOX
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NAOMI LEE BEVERIDGE
ANDREW TUTTLE
himself, one where trad-based soulfulness peacefully coexists with ambient, experimental and new age leanings. He’s an essentially melodic player – not too many sharp edges here – but with an inquisitiveness and imagination that keeps things from being too cosy. While his chosen instrument will always carry with it folk connotations, Tuttle seems dedicated to uncovering its cosmic qualities. His spacious and captivating 2020 LP Alexandra felt like a breakthrough in this respect; Fleeting Adventure is even better. This is not a solo banjo affair, however. Far from it. On Fleeting Adventure, Tuttle has gathered an all-star cast of characters to help bring his ambitious visions to life. Back to that opening track, the glorious, seven-minute “Overnight’s A Weekend”. Here, Tuttle’s plaintive banjo is encircled by an array of majestic sounds: serpentine electric guitar via Steve Gunn, enveloping electronics courtesy of Balmorhea’s Michael A Muller, violin swirls from Aurélie Ferrière, and the gentle saxophone of Joe Saxby. The result is a lush and unabashedly beautiful sonic landscape, but Tuttle is painting more than just a pretty picture. The musicians spread across the album’s seven tracks are separated by vast distances, from Stockholm to San Francisco, from Brooklyn to
Texas. More than anything, Fleeting Adventure celebrates the feeling of global connectivity that this kind of far-flung collaboration can foster, digital files sent across oceans that alchemize into moments of genuine magic. We hear Tuttle broadcasting signals through the ether and his friends answering back, a marvelous and heartening call-and-response. Made in the thick of a global pandemic, with the players often locked down in their respective locations, the results aren’t simply a wonder of modern technology. They’re downright miraculous. One of Tuttle’s collaborators, Chuck Johnson, deserves a special call-out. Not only did he mix Fleeting Adventure (alongside Lawrence English), giving the entire record an uncluttered, widescreen sheen to even its most intricate passages, but he also contributed as an instrumentalist to one of the album’s highlights. One of the leading lights of the burgeoning cosmic pedal-steel scene, Johnson adds his slo-mo tones to “Correlation”, an ideal complement to Tuttle’s shimmering banjo plucks, conjuring up a hopeful sunrise, delivering a ready-made meditative state of mind to the listener. More pedal-steel goodness wafts in from Nashville, thanks to Luke Schneider (whose brilliant 2020 solo LP Altar Of Harmony is well worth seeking out), who sends luminous smoke rings of sound curlicueing through “Next Week, Pending” and “New Breakfast Habit”. Fleeting Adventure’s closer, “There’s Always A Crow”, finds Tuttle on his own, or at least without any human company. Here, he communes with the natural world, with various feathered friends (including, yes, a crow) duetting with his rippling playing. There’s nothing wildly innovative about using field recordings in this type of music, but Tuttle makes it feel impressively fresh, the song’s momentum steadily building until things begin to break down in lovely, atmospheric fashion, that crow continuing to squawk in the distance. Perfect harmony? Not quite. But close enough.
NEW ALBUMS
AMERICANA Album Of The Month
LERA LYNN
Something More Than Love ICONS CREATING EVIL ART
8/10
Texas-born Nashville songwriter expands her reach on consummate sixth LERA LYNN isn’t prone to repeating herself. Having moved further away from her countryish beginnings with 2018’s duets album, Plays Well With Others, she followed up with the self-made, and self-explanatory, On My Own. Now she’s shifted into an entirely different dimension with Something More Than Love. Coproduced with her partner Todd Lombardo, it’s an often moving, sometimes troubled, meditation on the joys and trials of new parenthood. Lynn gave birth to their first son at the start of the pandemic. Adjusting to being a mother while processing the internal and external changes in her life, she began suffering from postnatal depression. All of this played into the songs that took shape at the couple’s home in Nashville. As its title suggests, Something More Than Love pulls deep from her emotional self. Both “Illusion” and “Black River” deal with the euphoria of finding meaningful connection, the latter’s acceptance of fate finding a metaphor in the ceaseless roll of the current it describes. Lynn
ponders sharing her body with a new presence on “Conflict Of Interest” (“Can we both exist/ Inside of this new skin/What is your name?”), before declaring her utter devotion on the self-sacrificial title track, her protective genes kicking in: “How could I deny you?/Formula of stardust/You’re a perfect figure”. The full weight and terror of responsibility threatens to drag her under on “Eye In The Sky”, but, ultimately, there’s renewed strength on “Golden Sun” and “I’m Your Kamikaze”. On a musical level, Lynn imparts these songs with an unhurried grace. And while there’s an agreeable twang to “Black River” and folkcountry steel on “In A Moment”, synths form the album’s bedrock. “Illusion” carries echoes of Kacey Musgraves’ transition to propulsive pop (Lombardo is a recent contributor of hers, as are fellow band members Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian), while the exquisite “What Is This Body?” and “Cog In The Machine” present a more abstract and experimental side of Lynn, crowned by her cool, effortlessly agile vocals.
ROB HUGHES
ALYSSE GAFKJEN
AMERICANA ROUND-UP ON the back of this month’s Oh Boy Records tour of the UK and Europe,Kelsey Waldon returns in August with No Regular Dog,her second album for the label co-founded by her late mentor,John Prine.Shooter Jennings takes on production duties (and joins the studio band) for a bunch of songs that draw power from postwar bluegrass,’60s soul and ’70s country-rock.Prine himself receives a heartfelt salute with “Season’s Ending”. Staying in Nashville,Teddy And The Rough Riders issue their self-titled debut on Appalachia Record Co.The trio,augmented by steel wizard Luke Schneider, have been causing a stir around town these past few years.“Given the chance, they will unite the hippies and the cowboys,the bikers 28• UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
and the stoners with their groovy country songs,” offers Margo Price,who produces the album.Price doubles up as backing vocalist,while partner Jeremy Ivey is among the hired help.Esteemed singer-songwriter John Anderson has been plying his trade around Nashville for over 45 years now, though remains something of a cult figure. All the more reason to welcome Something Borrowed, Something New: A Tribute To John Anderson (EASY EYE SOUND),overseen by David Ferguson and The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach.Top-drawer names covering his songs include John Prine,Sturgill Simpson,Del McCoury,Brent Cobb and Gillian Welch & David Rawlings.“It feels like an amazing mix tape,” enthuses Auerbach.ROB HUGHES
INTERLOPERS
Interlopers BLUE RAINCOAT/CHRYSALIS 7/10
Third time’s the charm for veteran Scottish singer-songwriter When fame eluded Steven Lindsay’s mid-’80s band The Big Dish, the Glasgow School of Art dropout turned to painting, where in recent years he’s gained notoriety for his neoclassic figurative canvases. But while he painted, Lindsay continued writing songs, and Interlopers, his third album following a pair of little-heard solo LPs in the aughts, is an assured work that emphasizes his luminous melodies and satiny voice. Lindsay’s pursuit of unadulterated beauty sometimes takes him over the top, as with his melodramatic rendition of the Associates’ unfinished “Twins Of Gemini”. But crystalline tracks like poignant opener “Move On”, the noirish ballad “Something Got Lost Along The Way” and the gorgeous widescreen opus “Rainbow’s End” rival the work of fellow Glaswegians The Blue Nile. BUD SCOPPA
INTERPOL
The Other Side Of Make-Believe MATADOR
7/10
Seventh album of moody NYC rock Interpol’s sonic palette is a familiar one – a dense, brooding, atmospheric take on rock that, while occasionally producing a killer melodic single, usually favours slow-build tracks heavy on layers and mood. Here, producers Flood and Alan Moulder give them even more room to stretch out and explore. The spacious “Into The Night” touches on Radiohead territory with glorious snaking guitars, a tender vocal delivery from Paul Banks, and a seamless melodic hook that all combines potently. There are no giant leaps here, it’s very much Interpol as you know them, but there’s plenty of micro evolutions, impressive production and subtle tweaks to make this a welcome addition to their catalogue. DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
JACK JOHNSON
Meet The Moonlight BRUSHFIRE 6/10
First album in five years from laidback surfer dude It’s been suggested many times that the success of Johnson’s 2001 debut Brushfire Fairytales has been responsible for two decades of over-promoted, acoustic and unchallenging buskers who have trailed in his wake. Harsh, perhaps, but listening to his generic eighth album you can see the point. However, a spell is certainly cast by the pristine production, courtesy of Blake Mills, the lush acoustic guitars and the sensitive soul-searching songs here. There’s a touch of Hawaii(“Calm Down”) and a Sheeran-like ballad (“One Step Ahead”), while songs such as the title track and “I Tend To Digress” are undeniably gorgeous. But if you like a little rough with your smooth you will search in vain. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
Reggae Film Star MARAQOPA
8/10
Seattle songwriter gets episodic Starting his own label has given Jurado free rein to release work at an accelerated pace. The second of seven albums recorded during the pandemic, Reggae Film Star is a luminous beauty, themed like a TV show or B-movie, its characters coming and going amid warm arrangements and softly luxuriant grooves. “Meeting Eddie Smith” concerns a TV extra and stuntman from the ’60s; “Taped In Front Of A Live Studio Audience” blurs lines between sitcom and reality; the AM radio-friendly “Day Of The Robot” is a cold lesson in dispensability: “If you’re unwilling, we have your replacement”. ROB HUGHES
IAN DANIEL KEHOE Yes Very So TIN ANGEL
7/10
Toronto polymath tries his hand at synths Having tackled electro, soft rock and Lennon-esque balladry across three albums released simultaneously in 2020, Toronto’s Ian Daniel Kehoe takes a stab at minimalist synthpop on this single nine-track collection. Fingerclicks and ’80s licks guide “J’taime Amen” to a glittery conclusion, and “Sweet And Sour”’s muted trumpets can’t help but recall Pet Shop Boys’ “King’s Cross”, while the title track’s deadpan, Tennantesque vocals suit the spartan setting. “IMO”, meanwhile, appears to be an oblique tribute to Japan’s Yellow Magic Orchestra, and elsewhere Kehoe reins things in even more with “Structured Silk”’s rippling formality and the staccato “Butterfly”. WYNDHAM WALLACE
LYKKE LI
Eyeye PIAS/CRUSH 7/10
Nordic Noir diva wraps Lynchian torch songs in artfully lo-fi acoustics After dabbling in shiny dance-pop, Lykke Lireconnects with long-time producer Björn Yttling for her fifth Lykke Li: last word on love lost
album. Billed as a final definitive statement on the LA-based Swedish torch singer’s perennial obsession with doomed love, Eyeye also has an alluringly experimental feel, from its palindromic title to its immersive lo-fi soundworld of ambient buzz, tape hiss and analogue throb. Languorous, eroticised county-noir weepies like “No Hotel” and “Carousel” sound like Lana Del Rey directed by David Lynch, while “ü&I” is a delicious confection of intertwined vocals and reverb-drenched melancholia. Behind their heavily stylised surface, these are fairly standard heartbreak ballads, but Li’s voluptuous gothic gloom is still intoxicating. STEPHEN DALTON
CORB LUND
Songs My Friends Wrote NEW WEST
8/10
Canadian country crooner’s cracking covers collection Lund’s covers album is, as he tells it, a sort of salute to the people he missed while Covid kept him and his band – the Hurtin’ Albertans – from their usual touring schedule. The songs Lund chose are written by long-standing kindred spirits, collaborators and/or compadres, including Hayes Carll, Todd Snider, Ian Tyson and Tom Russell. All are writers who share Lund’s love of droll wordplay, and all their works are illuminated by Lund’s signature laconic twinkle, and the Hurtin’ Albertans’ deadpan virtuosity. Snider’s “Age Like Wine”, Tyson’s “Montana Waltz” and Fred Eaglesmith’s “Spookin’ The Horses” are particular beneficiaries of the experiment. ANDREW MUELLER
THE MAGHREBAN Connection ZOOT
7/10
Guildford house guv’nor’s off-kilter second Twenty-odd years in the game and Ayman Rostom is still an outsider – selffulfilled, you sense – whose recent output as The Maghreban for a number of respectable labels has veered between lysergic techno and smoky jazz. Rooted in hip-hop – he started as beat-maker Dr Zygote – and enchanted by Detroit spinners Theo Parrish and Moodymann, Rostom draws on his Egyptian and Saudi heritage for Connection, pairing primitive jack tracks with Nah Eeto’s rapping (“Got Your Number”) and the sax of Idris Rahman (“Celebratory Relapse”). Even when he plays it straight with late-night house prowlers “Waiting” and “Baby”, his waywardness gives him an edge. PIERS MARTIN
Stephen Mallinder: robo-funk and lush ambience
STEPHEN MALLINDER Tick Tick Tick DIAS 7/10
Cabs veteran keeps the punk-funk party rocking with his recently rebooted solo sideline Sheffield electro godfather Stephen Mallinder has amassed a prolific discography since his Cabaret Voltaire days with Hey Rube, Wrangler, Creep Show and more. But his return to solo material is relatively recent, releasing Um Dada in 2019 after a 35-year break. Produced by fellow Wrangler member and analogue synth connoisseur Ben “Benge” Edwards, this sequel is vintage Mal, a non-stop neurotic cabaret of alluringly wonky robo-funk bangers like “Ringdropp” and “Shock To The Body”, with digressions into lush ambient narcotica, cerebral disco-noir and Massive Attack-style cinematic rumbling. The basic formula may be familiar, but Mallinder’s ear for fresh noises and slippery grooves remains as sharp as ever. STEPHEN DALTON
MAPACHE
Roscoe’s Dream INNOVATIVE LEISURE 7/10
LA duo’s fourth long-player overflows with mellow The good vibes are nonstop on Roscoe’s Dream, named after Sam Blasucciand Clay Finch’s beloved Boston Terrier. Paeans to “Diana” (a Bo Diddley cover), “Nicolette” (one of three songs with lyrics en Español) and Roscoe himself (“I Love My Dog”) alternate with odes to escapism – Gabby Pahinui’s “Kaua’i Beauty” is crooned in Hawaiian, while a barking seal makes a cameo in “They Don’t Know At The Beach”. The album’s languid flow emanates from the longtime partners’ second-nature acoustic picking and strumming, bolstered now and then by a loping rhythm section. The record is so monochromatically laidback that each touch – like the “ooh-wah-ooh” harmonies on “…Beach” and Farmer Dave Scher’s lap steel on “Love Can’t Hold Me” – stings like a butterfly. BUD SCOPPA
MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA
Dancing Under The Moon GLITTERBEAT
7/10
Mystical Moroccan magic, pure and unadorned Since Brian Jones recorded them in Morocco in 1968, western musicians from Ornette Coleman to Debbie Harry have flocked to incorporate the trance-like Sufi sounds of the pipers of Jajouka into their oeuvre. Jones rather ruined his recordings by cutting them up into spaced-out montages, but here Bachir Attar’s troupe are heard in unmediated and timeless fashion from a session in the Rif mountains in 2019 when they spent a week recording their entire repertoire. The nine lengthy pieces selected for this double album showcase a plethora of styles from religious anthems to haunting flute pieces and percussive fiddle songs. The results are intense, hypnotic and healing. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
ARLO McKINLEY This Mess We’re In OH BOY
8/10
Tremendous set by emerging Americana star It’s appropriate that McKinley is signed to Oh Boy, the label originally founded by John Prine, as he’s a fitting heir: a writer whose instinctive terseness grits profitably against an expansive honesty, and a singer as comfortable in a Steve Earle-ish drawl as a Sturgill Simpson-like roar. This Mess We’re In, McKinley’s second album for Oh Boy, is a thing of sombre grandeur. It starts with the modest, acoustic “I Don’t Mind”, ends with the monumental ballad “Here’s To The Dying”, while what lies between is something of a tourde-force, most notably a title track that Glen Campbell should have lived long enough to sing. ANDREW MUELLER
AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •29
THEO LINDQUIST
DAMIEN JURADO
X” slowly leaves New Age leanings behind for subdued rhythms, and “heart – power of a soft heart” is dominated by bass drums and ghostly wails, but only the indulgently noisy prog-jazz on “mania – resting in the fire” truly spoils the mood. WYNDHAM WALLACE
capture the dreamy guitar jangle of early REM and Love Tractor on “Penny Pick It Up” and “Takin’ U 4 A Ride”, providing the perfect backdrop for Braden’s eccentric Southern drawl. She conveys immense hurt and great joy in equal measure, especially on the showstopper “Felt”. STEPHEN DEUSNER
MUSH
NIGHTLANDS
7/10
7/10
Down Tools MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES
Mush:still totally wired
METRIC
JOHN MORELAND
METRIC MUSIC INTERNATIONAL
OLD OMENS/THIRTY TIGERS
6/10
8/10
Formentera Unpredictable genre-hopping from Canadian outfit on mixed eighth “Doomscroller”, the opening 10-minute track on Metric’s latest, is a multiheaded beast. Starting as a gently building slab of pulsating electro-pop, it erupts into a euphoric club-ready section, before dropping down into quiet piano-led introspection and then into an indie-rock finale. This scattergun approach, which feels like four songs in one, is perhaps mirroring the erratic spectrum of emotions that one encounters when endlessly scrolling the internet. However, it also captures the spirit of Formentera, full of hits and misses as it sways back and forth between indie and electro, never quite finding its feet. DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
TUMI MOGOROSI Group Theory: Black Music
MUSHROOM HOUR X NEW SOIL
SOPHIE JOUVENAAR, JANTO DJASSI
9/10
Shabaka & The Ancestors drummer leads the SA jazz revival Drawing together leading lights from South Africa’s jazz scene, Tumi Mogorosi’s second album as a leader is a piece of spiritual hard bop that’s almost overwhelming in scale. The Johannesburg-based drummer rumbles inventively throughout, and guitarist Reza Khota adds a punky bite, but the USP is the choir that underscores these improvisations, one that takes its cue from Donald Byrd’s “Cristo Redentor”. Two very different versions of “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child” serve as the emotional core, but this is music that rarely hides its passion, intensity and fervour. JOHN LEWIS 30 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Birds In The Ceiling
Electronic experiments don’t distract from a lyrical jeremiad at Trump’s America This is a quietly accusing protest album, sorrowfully searching out hope and reconciliation in America, while reckoning the damage done by rampant self-deception. Programmed beats interweave with Moreland’s guitars, continuing the mildly electronic direction begun with LP5. It isn’t the expansive pop move he might have hoped for, the relentless, sequenced shuffles instead suiting his lyrics’ remorseless dissection of his nation. “A strip-mall under sunburnt sky” describes his native Oklahoman landscape in “Ugly Faces”, and he can’t help but understand his neighbours, whose “fear and anger, waves and waves of tragic grief” leave them clinging to Trump’s lies in “Claim Your Prize”. His humanely grained, evenly accepting voice even honeys words that sound like they’ve been written after a civil war. NICK HASTED
ALANIS MORISSETTE
The Storm Before The Calm RCA
7/10
Jagged little pills exchanged for meditation Also available on mental health app Calm, Alanis Morissette’s 10th – a double – turns left into ambient territory with 11 lengthy tracks of dreamlike reflection. No stranger to depression, she rewards serious contemplation, even recalling Julianna Barwick’s The Magic Place on the eerie “space – pause on violence”, while “explore – the other side of stillness” adds wind instruments and gongs to wispy vocals. “restore – calling Generation
Leeds art-punkers maintain customary state of agitation On their third album in as many years, Mush maintain an enviable degree of productivity when it comes to churning out art-punk bangers that are all sharp corners and no smooth edges. When at their most exuberant on “Northern Safari” and “Groundswell”, the band channel Wire, Television and The Fall via Pavement and the Elephant 6 catalogue with all due vigour. Meanwhile, Dan Hyndman supplies a reliably cryptic stream of absurdist prattle, though his decision to stick with largely adlibbed lyrics robs Down Tools of some of the force and focus of last year’s excellent Lines Redacted. JASON ANDERSON
NINA NASTASIA Riderless Horse TEMPORARY RESIDENCE
8/10
Her first in 12 years;Steve Albini mans the desk News of Nastasia’s return came as a bolt from the blue. Or rather, the black. Born out of the end of a mutually abusive relationship and grief/guilt following her partner’s suicide, this set of lean, characteristically nuanced, folk-edged songs also signals the start of her recovery, including a renewed love of music making. Nastasia never flinches, and “This Is Love” (“Is this love?/It feels so bad, drawing blood until we both see black”) and “Nature” are particularly tough listens, all the more so for their framing by her sparse guitar work and supple, sweetly earthy voice. Riderless in one sense, perhaps, but with a clear path ahead. SHARON O’CONNELL
Moonshine WESTERN VINYL War On Drugs bassist’s sweetly seductive fourth The title of Dave Hartley’s new solo set is misleading – it’s more connected with luminescence than illicit liquor, though sensual stupefaction is a listening sideeffect. With guests including four of his TWOD bandmates and Cass McCombs sideman Frank Locastro, Hartley has conjured a pastoral dreamscape that’s pillowy and sweet, yet touched by melancholy. Processed keyboards and endlessly layered vocals with multispeed overdubs do the woozy lifting, suggesting a slo-mo Beach Boys, an atomised Fleet Foxes or an exoticaleaning Jim James. Moonshine is a set piece, but “Greenway”, a nudge at The Beatles’ “Because” with rippling keys and cicadas, and the baffled starburst that is “With You” stand out. SHARON O’CONNELL
NOORI AND HIS DORPA BAND
Beja Power! Electric Soul& Brass From Sudan’s Red Sea Coast OSTINATO 8/10
For The Birds PARK THE VAN
Mutant tambo-guitar rock from a repressed area of Sudan In the early 1990s, Sudanese teenager Noorifound the neck of a guitar in a scrapyard and decided to weld it to a vintage tanbur to create what he calls a “tambo-guitar”. It creates a distinctive, distorted twang that often plays in unison with tenor saxophonist Nejiover a cat’s cradle of interlocking rhythms (played on congas and tabla). “Qwal” sounds like Hank Marvin playing desert rock in 5/4; “Wondeeb” recalls a wonderfully wonky piece of country & western; best of all is “Daleb”, a drifty, dreamy, drumless reverie in the disorientating time signature of 7/4.
Twangy country-rock from Georgia Four years after she released her debut EP as Neighbor Lady, Emily Braden has expanded the project from a solo act into a quartet on For The Birds. Her take on underground Southern rock remains as skewed as ever, with a humid vibe saturating songs like the dark “Feel It All The Time”. The band
NooriAnd His Dorpa Band
NEIGHBOR LADY 8/10
JOHN LEWIS
NEW ALBUMS KATY J PEARSON
Sound Of The Morning HEAVENLY
8/10
Versatile songwriter embraces folk and pop on infectious second LP After 2020’s breakthrough Return, Katy J Pearson continues to occupy a neat middle ground between folksy songwriter and melodic pop singer. Her deeply unique voice – a sort of Gillian Welch/Kate Bush hybrid – is an immediately captivating presence on the opening “Sound Of The Morning”. The track marries deft fingerpicking with gently fluttering woodwind to land on something almost Nick Drake-esque. Pearson’s clear knack for melodic songcraft is plentiful, across the breezy “Talk Over Town” or the sugary indie-pop of “Alligator”, resulting in an album that nails introspective songwriting just as seamlessly as it does infectious pop. DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
OLIVER RAY
Out Passed Nowhere ROYAL OAKIE
8/10
Patti Smith guests on former guitarist’s brooding bohemian debut Oliver Ray was working in the Chelsea Hotel when he first connected with PattiSmith; a poet playing MBV-inspired noise, he became her guitarist and partner for a decade from 1995. This is a beautifully recorded debut, resonantly filled with droning and ringing guitars, and steeped in old bohemian dreams. Pattisweetly harmonises on “Best Game In Town”, and feedback darkly shivers on “Wise Blood”, where Ray “wrote you a note on the mirror in the dust”. The closing “Edge City” is Blakean Americana, sparely backed by piano in a reverie sympathising with a bejewelled Lucifer. Adoration of post-Beat poetic ideals is matched by a slow-burning sound looking back to the oldest country songs, with a VU-honed, sardonic edge. NICK HASTED
REVELATORS SOUND SYSTEM Revelators 37D03D
9/10
Ambient-jazz oddity from Hiss Golden Messenger man and pals MC Taylor is best known as the singersongwriter in Hiss Golden Messenger, but Revelators – a collective he formed with bassist Cameron Ralston – paint from a very different sonic palette. After a dub album last year, this is the product of numerous sessions recorded with jazz musicians under
REVELATIONS
lockdown. “Bury The Bells”, a piece of ambient Americana swathed in slurring Bollywood strings, is sublime, but throughout Taylor and Ralston draw from astral jazz, Alice Coltrane’s meditation music and the expansive orchestral funk of David Axelrod to create something uniquely emotive over four lengthy and very different tracks. JOHN LEWIS
JAMES RIGHTON
Jim, I’m StillHere DEEWEE 6/10
Former Klaxon’s conceptual, synthy second studio LP After 2020’s The Performer found him in slinky ’70s singersongwriter mode, this album finds the erstwhile Klaxon, with the aid of label bosses Soulwax, letting a punchier electronic feel creep back in. The overarching concept – the division between his domestic dadself, James, and Jim, the Livestream Superstar, as the opener has it – might not fascinate the listener as it does Righton, but the music offers plenty of interest, from the Princely punkfunkiness of “Pause” to “Lover Boy”, a Japan-influenced tribute to his former bandmate Simon Taylor-Davis. Plus, a coup: a synclavier solo from Abba’s Benny Andersson that elevates the darkly rippling sci-fi disco of “Empty Rooms”. EMILY MACKAY
RUBBER OH
Strange Craft ROCKET 8/10
Eclectic,imaginative solo debut from Pigsx7 axeman Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs have established themselves as a fantastic alternative rock band, exploring metal, stoner rock and psych on epic extended tracks, but guitarist Sam Grant’s solo debut is a conscious departure from that formula. Instead, he’s gone for a droney ’70s sludge/ space-rock approach across these 10 tracks, with sprinkles of synth, a lot of bottom end from two bass guitars and barely any lead guitar. That doesn’t stop him finding some memorable riffs – “Little Demon” is one of the best, while the melody line for “Hyperdrive Fantasy” is a real earworm – but it’s all in a very different, rather unsettling key to Pigsx7. Very much worth your time. PETER WATTS
THE SADIES
Colder Streams YEP ROC 8/10
Eleventh (and final?) effort from celebrated Canadian quartet The sudden death of singer, guitarist and founding member Dallas Good earlier this year means that Colder
KATY J PEARSON
Melodic Bristolian retains “that bittersweet feeling”
“I
wanted to create something with a bit more edge,” says Katy J Pearson of her second album, Sound Of The Morning. “Emotionally,it’s a journey of an album that goes through some happy,joyous moments, but it’s also reflective of genuine hard times and bad memories.It feels darker in places,but still has that bittersweet feeling to it.” This mixture of light and dark finds Pearson reflecting on an album that conjures up memories ranging “from a beautiful morning in Devon to a rowdy pub in London with
Streams will most likely serve as an unwanted epitaph for a band that’s been making superlative records for nearly 30 years. A wondrous send-off this is too, produced by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, with a guestlist that includes Jon Spencer and Good’s musician parents. Dallas and brother Travis are front and centre, though, as The Sadies’ nebulous country-rock moves through glistening psychedelia (“Message To Belial”), gorgeous string ballads (“All The Good”) and fierce garage fuzz (“Ginger Moon”). ROB HUGHES
WILL SAMSON
Active Imagination HUMAN CHORUS 7/10
Absorbing electro-folk Samson’s meditative mix of folk and electronica has an almost spiritual dimension on Active Imagination. That comes from a combination of Samson’s falsetto vocals, which on several occasions sound as if they have beamed in from the choir of York Minster, as well as the subject matter drawn from Samson’s experiments with lucid dreaming. Spiritualized are one reference point, most notably on tracks like “Always Meant” and “Hostage”,
assholes in it.” Influences were vast - from Cate Le Bon to The Byrds and from The Wicker Man to the words of Angela Carter - and collaborators included Morgan Simpson (Black Midi),Campbell Baum (Sorry),Orlando Weeks and H Hawkline.Ultimately,though, it’s Pearson’s own journey that has most firmly shaped the record. “Personal change in my life was a big one,” she says.“The new songs feel very reflective of the present-day me.Writing the songs definitely healed some things for me.”
DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
which both use strings to underline the building momentum. Further deviation comes from the use of percussion, most strikingly on “Juvenita”, which adds a bedrock of urgency to an album that otherwise floats past, sweet and delicate. PETER WATTS
SEAN NICHOLAS SAVAGE Shine ARBUTUS 7/10
Canuck cool kid turns it down a notch with delicate guitar ballads There’s a hold-yourbreath fragility to this latest record by Canada’s prolific adventurer-beyondcool. Where his last, Life Is Crazy, leaned on the skills of Owen Pallett on strings and Marcin Maseckion piano to rush into musicalinspired grandeur, Shine is gentler, themed around rebirth and built about a new love: the guitar ballad. With Mac DeMarco on production, its Spanish-style, rolling fingerpicking buoys Savage’s delicate, almost frail vocals; the title track pushes to the brink of schmaltz, a lo-fi memory of gaseous, glossy ’90s FM soul ballads. Most arresting of all, though, is the closing track, “Harmony”, which treads feather-light on clouds of Twin Peaks synths. EMILY MACKAY AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •3 1
SLEEVE NOTES 1 Corncob 2 Outcome 3 Sailboat 4 Shoes 5 Time To Go 6 Merlin 7 Living Rooms 8 Mulch 9 Terrestrial 10 Exit Music
MARTIN COURTNEY Magic Sign DOMINO
8/10
SINNA NASSERI
Lovely, wistful indie-pop by Real Estate co-founder. By Jon Dale IT’S been seven years since Martin Courtney’s first solo album, the subtle delight of 2015’s Many Moons. Since then, he’s shepherded his group, Real Estate, through two more albums – In Mind (2017) and The Main Thing (2020) – and last year’s “Half A Human” EP. Change is incremental with a group like Real Estate, and the coordinates for the songs Courtney writes haven’t changed hugely over the 15-or-so years he’s been making music: while the production might be tighter, more robust, his melodies still sit as gently within the landscape of sound he sculpts as they did on the first, self-titled Real Estate album, back in 2009. That’s not to understate the art of Martin Courtney’s songwriting, though there is something understated about this most artful of songwriters. He’s what we might call a “chiseller” – someone who quietly, determinedly works away at the same area with similar tools but unearths gems at a surprising rate. Not exactly one to hide his influences, on Magic Sign, you can still hear trace elements of the listening Courtney might have done in his teens and twenties – you could hazard a guess at Felt, The Feelies, The Clientele, The Byrds – and the influence of the groups that Real Estate came up with, like his friends in Woods. What makes Magic Sign such unceasingly pleasant company, then, is the way it weaves this constellation of influence and artfulness into 10 songs 3 2 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
that are lighter than air, deceptively simple, yet cumulatively, surprisingly moving. This might be, in part, down to its genesis story, with Courtney caught in lockdown, the early stages of the Covid pandemic, writing towards potential futures: “In my mind, I had this idea that I was making an album that would hopefully come out in a more optimistic, post-pandemic world,” he reflects. That this ended up not quite being the case doesn’t diminish its powers, though it does suggest why, on occasion, the pacific wisdom of Magic Sign’s surfaces can feel slightly out of place. That sense of temporal displacement – and of writing towards times-to-come – could well be why, paradoxically, much of Magic Sign peddles in nostalgia and wistfulness, as though the only way Courtney can process a less claustrophobic future is to flick through the pages of his past. On “Corncob”, he’s
Martin Courtney “I let my first thoughts dictate”
Some of Magic Sign is embedded in a specific time of life – that ambiguous phase of the late teens, early twenties…
I think it’s really just that one song, “Corncob”,that is specifically about that time.A lot of the making of this album for me was about escapism, trying to live somewhere other than the weird,confusing present that was the early pandemic… I wanted to make
Produced by: Martin Courtney, with Matt Barrick and Rob Schnapf Recorded in: Philadelphia,PA; Beacon,NY;Los Angeles,CA Personnel: Martin Courtney (guitars,bass, keys,vocals),Matt Barrick (drums, percussion), Oliver Hill (strings,string arrangements), Kacey Johansing (vocals),Tim Ramsey (pedal steel,lap steel, synth,Mellotron)
driving around the suburbs in his late teens with friends, finding the unexpected deep under the mulch of the everyday: “Twenty minutes from your house, there are places you don’t know”; “Merlin” slips back in time a few decades, with Courtney caught up in reverie, “in the basement of my mind… on a bike in 1999.” Courtney specialises in documenting the detritus of daily life, the moments glimpsed and somehow stored in personal memory; caught in autumn light, preserved in amber, these are recollections of “fleeting hours”, shifting weather systems, the play of the sun’s rays. Sensitive to the sensuousness of language, his lyrics seem to revel in the simple beauty of passing observation, from the revolving cellar door of “Merlin” to the pinecone held by the protagonist, sat in the back seat of the car, of “Time To Go”. They fit his melodies neatly, too, and he seems particularly attenuated to the way the sound of words sits just so within his songs. Some of the loveliest songs on Magic Sign inhabit a strange space, where Courtney’s roots in indie-pop are elevated by surprising interjections – see, for example, the pedal and lap steel that lend “Living Rooms” and “Terrestrial” a country-flecked air. You can also hear touches of country-rock in the descending melody that opens “Exit Music”, though it quickly spins on its heels and resolves to something closer to ’80s major-label powerpop. Jangling guitars are ever-present across Magic Sign, as befits Courtney’s pedigree, but the glistening production allows them to glint and speckle, webs of melody fractalised by sunshine. Listening through Magic Sign, though, it’s striking how often the songs hint at stasis and absence; the characters that populate the songs are paused in reflection or drifting just out of our line of sight. Architectures are bare, like the “vacant house by the sea” in “Outcome”; the next song, “Sailboat”, plays out “in a silent house”, where “ghosts are in the walls”; on “Shoes”, “we throw our sighs in vacant shoes”; “every other house is empty” in the daytime drift of “Time To Go”. It’s a situation, and a state of mind, that Courtney is particularly adept at exploring: lost to the moment, sliding in and out of focus, uncertain and vacated.
Q&A music that felt fun,and what’s more fun than driving around the suburbs stoned with your friends?
often completed on the fly.
How did you translate that into the sound of the album?
I think it’s the whole reason I make music.I can sometimes go months without writing a song because for whatever reason the mood won’t strike me,or it won’t feel right,and sometimes I will think,“I’m done,I’ll never write another song.” But then all of a sudden,I’m back in my little studio conjuring some tune.
I wanted it to sound loose,fun,not laboured over,so in order to achieve that I just let my first thought dictate every decision,especially in terms of the arrangements.Almost all the guitar solos and synth lines on the album are improvised,and even the song structures themselves were
How important is a sense of wonder to your music?
INTERVIEW: JON DALE
ALBUMS Spring SOFT ABUSE
8/10
Folksy instrumental driftworks, both intimate and expansive Whether he’s making music under his own name, or via one of his various projects – Ulaan Janthina, Ulaan Passerine, Ulaan Khol or Ulaan Markhor – Steven R Smith’s vision is remarkably consistent. An earlier interest in Eastern European folk music, as heard on his Hala Strana albums, has transmuted into a curious poetics of non-place; his compositions, leaning heavily on down-strummed guitars, minor chords and whistling, whispering wind instruments, inhabit a similar imagined landscape to the likes of Scott Tuma, Andrew Chalk and the Tren Brothers. Spring feels consummate, somehow: elemental, charged with the electricity of the spheres, beautiful. JON DALE
SO SNER Reime TAL
7/10
Beautiful, shape-shifting tonedreaming from electronics/ clarinet duo On their debut album, So Sner explore the possibilities of a shared language between electronics and clarinet. Stefan Schneider is on the former, and his history with Kreidler, To Rococo Rot and September Collective, along with solo recordings as Mapstation, gifts him a lexicon of sound, and a logic in performance, that makes his playing immediately identifiable but infinitely malleable. He curls around Susanna Gartmayer’s bass clarinet in unexpected ways, leaving open spaces for her to explore rich melody and purring texture, or grounding her extemporisations in shifting, flickering passages of rich tonality (see the glorious “Tiny Winnetou”). JON DALE
SOCCER MOMMY Sometimes,Forever LOMA VISTA
8/10
Nashville prodigy contemplates adulthood on captivating third studio album Sophie Allison’s ascent from teenage bedroom-pop savant to incisive chronicler of Gen Z angst hits a crescendo on Sometimes, Forever, an improbable but rewarding collaboration with Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Lopatin. Apart from the industrial sludge of “Unholy Affliction” and the
battering heaviness of “Darkness Forever”, the record exhibits the pair’s shared fascination with ’90s alternative’s collision of grunge and power pop, notably the Soundgardenlike quiet/loud eruptions of “With U”, the lowdown propulsiveness of “Shotgun” and the ecstatic crunch of “Don’t Ask Me”. These dynamic rockers also signal a shift in Allison’s psyche from existential torment to cautious optimism arising from the redemptive possibilities of a healthy conjugal relationship, as if she’d realised that art needn’t necessarily be rooted in pain.
Eloquently unfussy: Laura Veirs
BUD SCOPPA
SOUND OF CERES Emerald Sea JOYFUL NOISE
8/10
Ambitious concept album goes where no man has gone before With performance artist Marina Abramovic providing the stern voice of ‘The Universe’ amid this New York quartet’s extravagantly orchestrated space-age pop, Emerald Sea isn’t your average third album. An otherworldly mix of Gustav Holst’s drama, The Flaming Lips’ psychedelia and Broadcast’s retro-futurist exotica, with hints of the band’s earlier Beach House dream-pop, it breaks a fourth wall of sound with “The Glare”’s saturated reverberations, while “Deeper Surround” offers a chimerical carousel ride of synths. “Handlion’s Palace”’s heavy-handed timpani contrasts with Karen Hover’s pixie-ish vocals, while “Silent Singer” signs off with a waltz for an unmade Kubrick sci-fi spectacle. WYNDHAM WALLACE
TELLA
Up And Away SUB POP
7/10
Intoxicating Greek pop by indie songwriter Athens-based songwriter and painter Etella combines traditional Greek instruments – the bouzouki and kanun are both present – with a ’70s/’80s-inspired disco-pop feel, creating a Eurovision-like mood that you probably wouldn’t expect to find on a Sub Pop release. The lack of top-line sheen, though, ensures this album retains a rough edge without sacrificing any intrinsic appeal. The poppy title track ensures the album gets off to a memorable start, and Etella soon finds an intoxicating groove on “Maneros” before bringing some indie jangle to “Another Nation”. The highlight is the catchy summer charmer “Titanic”, which floats on an effortless whistling melody. PETER WATTS
COLIN STETSON, BILLY MARTIN,ELLIOTT SHARP & PAYTON MACDONALD Void PatrolINFREQUENT SEAMS 7/10
Lockdown collaboration by four experimental heavyweights The pandemic put the brakes on touring, but the enforced pause also brought some new projects into being. Void Patrol is the first fruit of a new quartet convened by the American percussionist Payton MacDonald. The main draw here is Colin Stetson, whose pneumatic way with a saxophone has made him collaborator of choice with everyone from Arcade Fire to Tom Waits. But here he’s just part of a whole: “Rigel” and “Sirius” set his ululating sax lines against shimmering marimba, spiky shards of guitar and drums locked in tight, metallic grooves. In its own belligerent, avant-garde way, it rocks. LOUIS PATTISON
SUPERORGANISM World Wide Pop DOMINO 8/10
Idiosyncratic Space Age sugar-pop Having grown up in chatrooms and sounding something like if Bis had had unfettered access to the internet in the ’90s, Superorganism might just be the Platonic ideal of a Gen Z pop band. World Wide Pop sounds like a Tumblr feed brought to life, drawing inspiration from everything from Scott Walker (whose sampled vocals open “It’s Raining”, juxtaposed with a rapped verse delivered by a very-much-IRL Stephen Malkmus) to the Rainbow Road levels of Super Mario Kart. Narcissistic (“Black Hole Baby”, a montage of radio praise and day-inthe-life mission statement), earnest (“crushed.zip”, an anxiety-fuelled showcase for singer Orono’s sugarysad voice) and deeply weird. LISA-MARIE FERLA
LAURA VEIRS Found Light BELLA UNION
7/10
A fresh chapter opens;Shahzad Ismaily assists “I make a list of ways to be free and ways to let go”, claims Veirs in her pure, dulcet voice, in the opener of this 14-song set, which saw her facing a ton of selfdoubt in the run-up. Chiefly, that she could see a record through from top to tail without her long-term producer (and now ex-husband). Its eloquent yet unfussy nature and thoughtful arrangements are clear affirmation: Veirs variously taps VashtiBunyan’s pastoral sweetness (on the woodwindabstracted “Naked Hymn”), references her running regime with an electronic beat pattern (the divinely airy “Eucalyptus”) and shakes up a lonesome lament with buzzing guitar (“Seaside Haiku”), sure-footed at every turn. SHARON O’CONNELL
CAETANO VELOSO Meu Coco SONY MUSIC
9/10
Excellent self-penned collection by Brazil’s Tropicalista legend On Meu Coco, Caetano Veloso still charts new territory – it’s his first entirely self-written album. Admittedly, when you’re part of a community of songwriters like Milton Nascimento and Chico Buarque, there’s rich bounty of material to draw from, but Meu Coco benefits from Veloso’s focus. Recorded during lockdown with Lucas Nunes, a member of Dônica with Veloso’s son Tom, it’s an album that carries history lightly; there’s a gorgeous samba here, and a lovely vocaland-percussion mantra, “GilGal”, but also minimal, dislocated post-rock (“Anjos Tronchos”) that recalls Veloso’s late-2000s albums like Cê and Zil E Zie. A triumph. JON DALE
AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •3 3
SHELBY BRAKKEN
STEVEN R SMITH
NEW
MS Black Midi:(l-r) Morgan Simpson, Cameron Picton, Geordie Greep
BLACK MIDI Hellfire ROUGH TRADE
8/10
ATIBA JEFFERSON
Unique London outfit wrestle with chaos on explosive third. By DanielDylan Wray FOR three young men in their early twenties, Black Midi have already covered a lot of musical ground. Their 2019 debut, Schlagenheim, embraced a twisted mutation of mathrock, jazz and post-punk, recalling Battles at their most discordant or a mutilated King Crimson. 2021’s Cavalcade was a more all-encompassing tonal affair; alongside the frenzied assaults was a softer, more melodic and often poignant side that showed they could veer into avant-folk territory as easily as they could pulverising noise-rock. They continue on this unpredictable route here, on their third album, seemingly on a crusade to sound like all genres yet also none. On the opening “Hellfire” they combine an almost rap-esque spitfire delivery of words – “a headache, a sore limb, an itchy gash, a mirage, a tumour, a scar” – over the top of a composition that encompasses theatrical piano, military drums, stirring strings and wailing saxophone. It is a wild start to an album made by a band who have chosen to wholeheartedly embrace chaos. However, they also possess such clear talent as musicians, delivering each note with sharp clarity and exactness, that they manage to create a dichotomous form of precise mayhem. Marta Salogni, who previously worked on Cavalcade’s opener “John L”, produces here, and does a deft yet dynamic job of bringing the band to life. The record is often intensely busy – with tracks like 3 4 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
SLEEVE NOTES 1 Hellfire 2 Sugar/Tzu 3 Eat Men Eat 4 Welcome To Hell 5 Still 6 Half Time 7 The Race Is About To Begin 8 Dangerous Liaisons 9 The Defence 10 27 Questions Produced by: Marta Salogni Recorded at:Hoxa HQ,London Personnel: Geordie Greep (vocals,guitar), Cameron Picton (bass, vocals),Morgan Simpson (drums), KaidiAkinnibi (saxophone),Seth Evans (piano, keyboards)
“Sugar/Tzu” veering from tender and gentle restraint to volatile and discordant bursts of squealing guitar and drums – yet it never sounds cluttered or messy. She’s able to extract, and highlight, the disorder while also emphasising space, allowing the record to swing from breakdown to explosion and back again with grace. Some moments of the record are so overblown, bombastic, theatrical, confounding and nonsensical – take the brilliant “The Race is About To Begin”, with characters that include Mrs Gonorrhoea, and which sounds like someone has accidentally played three different songs at once – that it can feel like the band are taking the piss. And in many senses, they are; ideas, lyrics and musical directions that many groups may toss off for fun in the studio but quickly discard as being too absurd are seen through to the bitter end here. The band themselves have said as much: “Black Mididon’t expect,
Geordie Greep
“How do we make this joke as good as possible?” Was there an aim or mission statement for this record? It came together quite naturally.The most successful endeavours from the second album we’ve pursued,so you could say these are just better versions of songs from the last album but executed on a much stronger level.
It sounds like you’re having a lot of fun here?
A lot of songs are ridiculous
or want, you to take themselves or their music too seriously. Black Midi’s music can be exuberant, cathartic, theatrical, comic, absurdist, over-abundant, intense, cinematic, brutal.” Black Midi’s creative restlessness is reflected in the vast shifts that take place within the album. At times it ricochets around so such – from the metal-esque riffage of “Welcome To Hell” to the acoustic skip of “Still” – that it feels whiplash-inducing. Similarly, the lyrics and stories on the album lean more towards vignettes than they do a neatly packaged conceptual whole, even if hell in various forms is something of a recurring theme. Often what we have are character monologues, with singer Geordie Greep stating “almost everyone depicted is a kind of scumbag”; the narrative of the album glides from boxing-match drama to a fictional radio host introducing the band to confessions of a grisly murder. It’s a little like channel-hopping through a TV station programmed by someone who has amalgamated the strangest corners of the world into one place. There’s no performative politics here, no social commentary, no earnest personal overspill, just a series of odd stories that capture what a genuinely eccentric band, and lyricist Greep, are. His vocal delivery matches this wild ride too, from idiosyncratic spoken word, to frenzied screams, to a genuinely tender, soft and beautiful delivery that even veers towards a croon from time to time, as on the sweeping “The Defence”. Ultimately, the unique thing about Black Midiis that despite the shock of their sound – an all-things-at-once postgenre party – Hellfire manages to retain a strange and hypnotic cohesion. They’ve managed to make tonal inconsistencies feel like an actual consistency, rather than being a jarring and detracting experience. They’ve wrangled chaos into submission, and currently sound like no other band out there.
Q&A at source,so to get rid of that or sanitise it or pretend that it isn’t in some way comedic would be absolutely stupid.We were thinking:how do we make this joke as good as possible? How do we lean into this aspect?
I get the sense you like to create and move on. Are you quite restless, musically? Yes,definitely.Every time we do an album there is a feeling of yes,this is great,we are going to like this forever.As soon as it is released that quickly dissipates but at the moment I still think this is great.
Are you already planning what’s next? We’ve got about 50 songs between us,it’s just a case of working out what’s actually worth doing.I reckon it’ll be a similar pattern: once this album is out,time permitting, we’ll look to just record another one straight away. INTERVIEW: DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
John Murry
'The Graceless Age' 10th anniversary gold-coloured double vinyl, new half-speed remaster in a gatefold sleeve with insert.
Rodrigo y Gabriela 'Rodrigo y Gabriela'
Rodrigo y Gabriela & C.U.B.A.
Moving Hearts 'Live In Dublin'
First released in 2006, the
'Area 52'
worldwide bestseller is back in stock as a double vinyl set with
10th anniversary remaster for Rodrigo y Gabriela's Cuban album,
concert recording from the seminal Irish folk - Celtic rock band.
'Live at The Olympia Theatre, Dublin' included.
on red/blue splattered double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve with insert.
Freshly remastered and pressed on red/yellow double vinyl
First time on vinyl for this 2007
in a gatefold sleeve.
Funeral Suits
Little Roy
David Keenan
Ryan Sheridan
10th anniversary remaster for this Irish alternative rock cult classic, on pinky-milky blue vinyl. 20 million views on YouTube.
10th anniversary edition pressing on red, green and yellow vinyl. The only roots-rock-reggae album of Nirvana songs you'll ever need.
New album on yellow vinyl from this highly-rated Irish singer-storyteller. On tour with Counting Crows this autumn.
Irish singer / guitar-slinger presents a contemporary American songbook of covers, including high-octane takes on tracks by Chris Stapleton, The Black Keys and John Hiatt.
Hudson Taylor
Wyvern Lingo
Wyvern Lingo
The Minutes
Irish siblings Harry and Alfie Hudson Taylor with their third studio album, close-harmony folk-pop at its finest.
Stunning vocal harmony debut from three young Irish women. Features 'Used', as heard in 'Conversations With Friends' on BBC3 / Hulu / RTE.
Recorded in Berlin, the second Wyvern Lingo album sees them expanding their range into sun-dappled pop, luminous post-rock and epic guitar solos.
Out now on electric pink vinyl. First time on wax for this fiery Irish garage rock album.
'Lily Of The Valley'
'Searching For The Answers'
'Battle For Seattle'
'Wyvern Lingo'
'WHAT THEN?'
'Awake You Lie'
'Americana'
'Marcata'
Available at all good independent record stores and at rubyworks.com - use offer code RUBYSUMMER2022
NEW ALBUMS
REVELATIONS
VERO
Unsoothing Interior PNKSLM 6/10
Grunge-inducing debut from Swedish trio Sounding very much like a three-woman tribute to Sonic Youth around the Dirty era, Vero combine urgent vocal melodies with fuzzy guitars and occasionally peculiar rhythms. The band were formed in Stockholm but sing in English of generational concerns, such as the guilt of binge-watching telly rather than changing the world (“Sex, Me And TV Shows”), anxiety (“She’s Scared Of Everything”), latenight loneliness (“22:12”) and songs about lust and control (“Beluga”, “BEG!”). Vero do not make being young in 2022 sound a whole lot of fun but musically the vibe is great – like a fusion of Kim Gordon, Smashing Pumpkins and The Breeders. PETER WATTS
SNOWY WHITE
Driving On The 44 SOULFOOD 6/10
Classy solo set from well-travelled veteran guitarist With a CV that includes gigs with Peter Green, Thin Lizzy and Pink Floyd, White has been around the block. And since his 1983 solo hit “Bird Of Paradise”, he’s also recorded more than 20 albums as a bandleader. The latest is a characteristically classy set of mellow jazz-rock (“Freshwater”), traditional Chicago blues (“Blues 22”), swing (“Slinky Too”), soaring Floyd-isms (“Keep on Flying”) and smart songs such as the title track, sung in an appealingly minimalist half-spoken voice. There’s nothing minimalist about his stellar guitar playing, though, which combines Jeff Beck’s attack, Mark Knopfler’s mellifluousness and Dave Gilmour’s cosmic glide in one dynamic package. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
WILD UP
Julius Eastman Vol2:Joy Boy NEW AMSTERDAM
8/10
Californian collective performs compositions by late NY composer Defiantly black, defiantly queer, Julius Eastman was a bold young star of the New York downtown scene. But he died overlooked, in penury, in 1990; a disservice only being rectified now. Joy Boy, the follow-up to last year’s Femenine, finds new music group Wild Up interpreting a fresh selection of his pieces. Some of this music is mournful, discordant, full of pain. But two tracks capture Eastman at his most ecstatic: the title track’s zig-zagging 3 6 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
KATHRYN WILLIAMS
The Newcastle singer-songwriter on working with Ed Harcourt
K
athryn Williams has dabbled increasingly in collaborations, whether with Laura Barnett on 2017’s Songs From The Novel ‘Greatest Hits’, last year’s Midnight Chorus with poet Carol Ann Duffy, or on 2015’s Hypoxia, a celebration of The Bell Jar, though, she laughs, “I don’t know if you can count that, as Sylvia Plath couldn’t chip in.” On Night Drives, she worked with producer Ed Harcourt, who co-wrote two songs on 2013’s Crown Electric and considers her “a true and pure poet”.The feeling’s mutual. “I’m a huge fan,” she says. “He’s the magic ingredient that
minimalism, full of vocal glossolia; and “Stay On It”, a piece for woodwind, strings and voice with the fulsome energy of classic disco. LOUIS PATTISON
KATHRYN WILLIAMS
Night Drives ONE LITTLE INDEPENDENT 8/10
Fourteenth album expands Renaissance Woman’s horizons “I want this song for you to ride on the airwaves”, Kathryn Williams sings in her crystal-clear voice on the sombre, stuttering “Radioactive”. It’s hardly playlist material, but like other songs here – the Julee Cruise-esque “Human”, the majestic “Answer In The Dark”, the string-drenched “Moon Karaoke” – it is, thanks partially to producer Ed Harcourt, as extravagantly arranged as anything she’s done. Nonetheless, her intimacy remains intact. “Chime Like A Bell”’s folk boasts an arrangement worthy of Nick Drake, while “Night Drive To The Lake” couldn’t be better titled. WYNDHAM WALLACE
makes this album so special. He’s crazy and cat-like in the best sense:unpredictable, wild, curious, but diligent, kind, full of ideas.He has these mad moments where you’re sitting quietly, then, all of a sudden he’s next to you playing a saxophone or a trumpet really loud and you get the fright of your life.Watching him go from piano to drums to guitar to the desk, I was in awe, looking at him the way Ringo looks at Paul in Get Back!” Inevitably, it’s a role Harcourt relished:“Kathryn lets me run riot.She’s a one off.By the end we couldn’t believe what we’d created.” WYNDHAM WALLACE
WILMA VRITRA Grotto BAD TASTE
7/10
Seductive second from the transatlantic team-up Three years on from their debut, UK composer, multiinstrumentalist and producer Will Archer and American rapper Hal Donell Williams Jr deliver another abstract hip-hop set, using a different palette. Rather than grainy beatscapes veined with soft rock and ’80s R&B, Wilma’s focus is on sumptuous orchestrations that nod to Elmer Bernstein and Jean-Claude Vannier, while giving Vritra’s subdued yet precise flows room to breathe. There’s not a whole lot of the rapper on show, but “Clean Me Clean” is a standout – his quietly urgent, emotionally honest bars offset with watery jazzfunk for clarinet, woodblocks and fretless bass, intercut with gushing synth passages. SHARON O’CONNELL
WORKING MEN’S CLUB Fear Fear HEAVENLY 8/10
Once hotly tipped indie youngster evolves into pulsing acid electro Working Men’s Club have evolved significantly since the man behind the name, Syd Minsky-Sargeant, knocked out some promising indie as a 16-year-old. There were flashes of electronics across the debut, a clear love of New Order everpresent, but here it is fully embraced. The first track journeys through three brooding, pulsing minutes – almost Cabaret Voltaire-like – before the vocal even arrives. This push-pull between melody and twisting beats, veering back and forth between dark and joyous moments, is the crux of this excellent album, one that glides snappily between acid electro, synthwashed indie, crunchy pop and dancefloor rippers. DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
XAM DUO
XAM Duo II SONIC CATHEDRAL 8/10
Yorkshire pair explore the outer limits, carefully XAM Duo’s slender but satisfying second clocks in at half an hour and finds Matthew Benn and Christopher Duffin sidelining the krautrock in favour of a more rarefied approach to composition, looking to 1980s Japanese minimalism to achieve a sense of balance. This plays out across the central suite of songs in an elegant swirl of MIDI exotica, digital wind chimes and health-spa tones – par for the course if you’re Iasos, less so for an ex-member of Hookworms. It all builds to release in “Cold Stones”, the gorgeous final track that threads saxophone through a slice of Boards Of Canada funk. PIERS MARTIN
NICK ZINNER 41 Strings CHAIKIN 6/10
Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist goes all out for the environment Commissioned for the 41st Earth Day in 2011, 41 Strings consists of – no prizes here – 41 stringed instruments performing four movements, one for each season. The results aren’t much more inventive – Glenn Branca and Mono, for starters, might want a word – but they’re effective, with “Fall” layering an insistent two-note riff with martial snares and strings until the massed ranks of guitars arrive, and “Spring”’s storm of guitars blossoming with synths and drums before flurries of strings add colour. But though “Winter” starts sedately, its repetition’s more trying, and by “Summer” Zimmer’s overplayed his hand. WYNDHAM WALLACE
NEW ALBUMS a downtrodden loner ripe for a tear-in-your1 Hangover Game beer scorcher. 2 You Have Lenderman is Bought Yourself a product of the A Boat underground, but he 3 TLC Cagematch doesn’t dwell in wilful 4 Toontown obscurity. He is of a 5 SUV distinctly regional, 6 Under Control working-class realm 7 Dan Marino 8 You Are Every where boat ownership Girl to Me is a complicated symbol 9 Tastes Just Like of prosperity, and sport It Costs is the dominant thread 10 Six Flags in the social fabric. He pairs these external Produced by: symbols with a distinct MJ Lenderman, interior depth, and with help from his version of countryAlex Farrar and Colin Miller rock music, with its Recorded at: noisy, explosive bent, Drop Of Sun, is compelling enough Asheville,NC as a capsule of modern Personnel:Colin youth. But it also Miller (bass, signals an important keys,trumpet, postmodern antidote backing vocals), Alex Farrar,Lewis to the ’90s culture it Southern accent, opens Dahm (guitars on often references, when alternate teens and “You Are Every on a wrestling match, Girl To Me”), college indie heads then circles around Karly Hartzman were forced to choose to self-medicating as (backing vocals), a lane for fear of being a means of survival. MJ Lenderman called a poser. “It’s hard to see you fall (all other With Lenderman, so flat/From so high up instruments) high and low, hard down on the mat”, underground and he sings with resolve, mainstream, are his rhythmic delivery bedfellows. It’s a refreshing falling somewhere between and thoroughly unpretentious concerned and weary. “Tastes perspective that signals the Just Like It Costs” is filled with arrival of a new entrant to the the staccato guitar attacks of Neil pantheon inhabited by the likes Young & Crazy Horse, and recalls of Prine, Molina, Mark Linkous, Magnolia Electric Co’s “The Dark Don’t Hide It” with a leaner profile. Patterson Hood, Vic Chesnutt and others, those who sang In the song, he ties together two proudly from and for their Middle short anecdotes to a spin on a American corners. Lenderman is familiar adage, the title and final certainly a student of this pack, line a reminder that we get what but after five years of releasing we pay for. “Under Control” finds original music, he’s found his Lenderman’s character stuck in own voice within the lineage. a literal and metaphorical ditch,
SLEEVE NOTES
the best albums new to Uncut
MJ LENDERMAN Boat Songs DEAR LIFE
8/10 Youthful auteur finds his voice within a clutch of compelling indie-rock vignettes. By Eri n Osmon ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, native MJ Lenderman inhabits a crucial nexus of the Southern underground. The singer, songwriter and multiinstrumentalist is a graduate of the local house-show scene, and of an important bygone venue called the Mothlight. He’s been releasing his own music since 2017, and is also a guitarist in the country-soaked alternative-rock band Wednesday, lead by his partner Karly Hartzman. While still only 23, Lenderman comes off more like a timeworn indie veteran than an eager newcomer. When a certain music website bestowed its coveted “Best New Music” designation on his latest album, Lenderman didn’t even acknowledge the coverage on his social media. He’s too busy, it seems, creating his own take on a classic sound, and enthusing about the artists he loves, from The Dead C and Les Rallizes Dénudés to Jason Molina and Drive-By Truckers. “All I wanted to do was make songs that were as long as
possible, and as slow as possible, with as few chords as possible,” he says, referring to the latter. Yet, with the excellent Boat Songs, Lenderman clears his own path, blending sentimental and stirring everyman observations with guitar distortion, the results mostly three-minute bursts that at once embrace and skewer American life. Here, Lenderman takes listeners to theme parks, grocery stores and Michael Jordan’s sneaker deal with Nike. But his work also crystallises life’s tender moments: the crushing loneliness after a tense car ride with a partner on “Six Flags”; the emotional hollowing that occurs when childhood heroes die. “Your laundry looks so pretty/Soft threads hanging and relaxing in the wind/ You’ll feel so much better/When you wear these clothes again”, he sings with John Prine-style clarity on “You Have Bought Yourself A Boat”, connecting the dots between generations of regular guys with guitars who transform their everyday observations into gratifying poetic morsels. “TLC Cagematch”, threaded with silken steel guitar and feathers of Lenderman’s ultra-light
Q&A
MJ Lenderman “Funny and sad can be the same thing”
What were you like as a kid?
I was raised in a Catholic family with three sisters,and went to Catholic school.I got into music really early, and started playing guitar when I was seven.I also played basketball for a long time,but in high school I eventually quit when I realised all I wanted to do was play music.
So that’s where all the sports imagery comes from?
I just started coming back around to that,and it’s been really good for my writing.When I first quit playing basketball,I felt like I wasn’t allowed to like it.But now I watch it on TV,and go shoot some.It’s nice.
How much of your music is you, and how much of it is a character you’re embodying?
It’s definitely a little of both,especially my newer songs.Once I realised I could make a character that has a lot to do with me,that fiction gave me some grace.It’s more fun.The stories can be silly and funny.He’s a little more destructive,a little more clumsy.He’s often the butt of the joke.
So it’s become important to you to inject humour into your work?
Definitely.One emotion kind of heightens the other.I also like to play around with the idea that funny and sad are the same thing a lot of the time. INTERVIEW: ERIN OSMON
AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •3 7
CHARLIE BOSS
DISCOVERED Searching out
NEIL YOUNG WITH CRAZY HORSE Toast REPRISE
At last! Twenty-two years late… the Horse’s mythic ‘lost’album arrives. But has it been worth the wait? asks MichaelBonner
AJ BARRATT/AVALON/GETTY IMAGES
I
know. It was a very desolate album, very sad N 2000, Neil Young and Crazy REISSUE and unanswered.” Horse took up residence at Toast – a OF THE Instead, Young convened with Crazy Horse recording studio on San Francisco’s MONTH guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro and Mission Street. Awaiting overdue Booker T & The MGs to record a new album, renovation, the district itself was in poor 9/10 Are You Passionate?, that included a handful of condition. The back door at Toast opened songs leftover from Toast. Meanwhile, Toast itself onto a view of derelict buildings; aside from disappeared from sight, its existence never officially a doughnut shop on the corner, their only neighbours revealed until 2008. Since then, it has become part were rats and the squatters. Inside Toast, the vibe was of a tantalising parallel history of Young’s activities undetermined. As Young wrote in his memoir Special stretching back through decades, alongside Chrome Deluxe, there were “some serious problems with my Dreams, Oceanside/Countryside, Island In The Sun and marriage” (to his then-wife Pegi). Instead of arriving at the sessions as usual with a handful of songs ready to go, Times Square. Young’s interest in releasing these ‘lost’ albums as part of his ongoing Archives series seems to Young apparently spent much of his time at Toast sitting rise and fall depending on a series of complex internal on the studio floor, scribbling onto yellow pads, while algorithms. Toast fell on and off the schedules, until the Horse watched TV and struggled to comprehend he started talking seriously about it – notably to Uncut Toast’s lack of essential kitchenware. “Everything – when he reactivated Crazy Horse for Americana and seemed temporary, even Crazy Horse,” Young wrote Psychedelic Pill in 2012. Whatever in Special Deluxe. “Although we we might think about Young’s had some great moments [in the capricious career swerves, he studio] and the music was soulful, tends to work methodically it wasn’t happy or settled.” within the fixed parameters of Taking a break, the band each project; so once his focus headed to South America for shifted away from Crazy Horse at shows in Brazil and Argentina the end of the Alchemy Tour, his before returning to San Francisco, interest in Toast waned. With the reinvigorated. This renewed latest incarnation of Crazy Horse spirit did not endure, however. currently active, Toast has “Eventually I gave up and finally arrived. And what a abandoned the album,” magnificent album it is. Young wrote. “I was not happy Considering Young ditched with it, or maybe I was just Toast because its “down and generally unhappy. I don’t
3 8 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
NeilYoung in 1993:“Maybe I was just generally unhappy”
AUGUST 2022• UNCUT •39
The Horse in LA, November 1990: (l-r) Young, Sampedro, Talbot,Molina
almost out” vibes were too intense, it might seem strange that he chose to revisit three of its saddest songs almost immediately on Are You Passionate?. “Quit”, “How Ya Doin’?” (rechristened “Mr Disappointment”) and “Boom Boom Boom” (“She’s A Healer”) all share what Young described as the “foggy, blue and desolate” mood indicative of the Toast sessions. But evidently there was something about this murky emotional territory that resonated. Re-recording them without Crazy Horse, away from San Francisco and in the company of some new musicians might have brought Young some distance. But irrespective of location or personnel, these are bleak songs. “I know I treated you bad/But I’ m doin’the best I can”, he sings on “Quit”, continuing with the self-recrimination on “How Ya Doin’?”: “I’ m taking the blame myself/For livin’my life in a shell”. Seasoned Neil watchers may conclude that this emotional turbulence eventually peaks with “Ramada Inn” – Psychedelic Pill’s uncharacteristically nuanced and coherent narrative about a long-term relationship on its last legs. The good news is, the Toast versions are superior to the …Passionate? recordings. Among the most conspicuous changes is Young’s decision to sing “How Ya Doin’?”, a move more suited to the song’s wistful temperament than the semi-spoken growl on “Mr Disappointment”. It’s funny, comparing the Toast and Are You Passionate? versions side by side, because for all their peerless credentials as a soul band, Booker T & The MGs don’t go anywhere near as deep with Neil as Crazy Horse. On Toast, the Horse give Young plenty of space – “a big fat sad sound” – which allows him to move freely through the songs, one minute ringing a suitably lachrymose solo out of Old Back on “How Ya
Based around a Deep Purple-ish riff and cranky delivery from Young, its mood is one of vigorous defiance – “I don’twant to get personal/Or have you put me on the spot”. “Gateway Of Love” features several hairy and expansive from Young as well as an SLEEVE NOTES solos unexpected bossa nova beat evidently 1 Quit inspired by their South American trip. 2 Standing In The The song offers up a telling insight: “If I Light Of Love could just live my life/As easy as a song 3 Goin’ Home /I’ d wake up someday/And the pain will 4 Timberline all be gone”. For someone often given to 5 Gateway Of Love cryptic pronouncements and everyday 6 How Ya Doin’? 7 Boom Boom Boom surrealism, this is Young, disarmingly direct. But for every one flash of Doin’?” the next locking into a subdued Produced by: candour, there’s a “Timberline” not but funky experimental groove on NeilYoung and far behind. Writing on Archives, “Boom Boom Boom”. At 13 minutes, John Hanlon Young explains that the song is about “Boom Boom Boom” is the longest song Recorded at: “a religious guy who just lost his job. on Toast – although less immediately Toast Studios, He’s turning on Jesus. He can’t cut any expansive than a classic Horse jam, San Francisco more trees. He’s a logger.” Here, the it’s nevertheless equally compelling. Personnel: Neil Horse deliver Toast’s liveliest number, Backed by a cyclical rhythm laid down Young (guitar, by Ralph Molina’s drums and Billy piano,squeezebox, driven by crunching chords and a wild, joyous backbeat from Ralph. A Talbot’s bass, instruments appear and vocals),Frank “Poncho” pump organ adds nuance. The chorus disappear – there’s a cluster of piano Sampedro (guitars, consists of Young and Crazy Horse notes here, a guitar solo there, a lone vocals),Billy Talbot yelling “Timberline!” repeatedly. For trumpet, what might even be a gong at (bass,vocals), all the apparent bad fog of loneliness, one point. Young sings an octave higher, Ralph Molina it sounds like some fun took place on too, rising to meet Pegiand Astrid (drums,percussion, Mission Street, after all. Young’s backing vocals as the three of vocals),PegiYoung Viewed as part of Young and Crazy them circle around the song’s haunting (backing vocals), Horse’s run of albums that began refrain, “There ain’tno way I’ m gonna let Astrid Young with 1990’s Ragged Glory, Toast the good times go”. (backing vocals), Tom Bray (trumpet) feels conceptually closer to Sleeps A more vigorous reminder of the With Angels and Broken Arrow – Horse’s core strengths arrives with albums that dealt squarely with “Goin’ Home”, with Young howling loss. Musically, however, Toast inhabits a space heroically into the void, buffeted by somewhere between all three. There are rowdy Ralph’s pounding drums and Poncho’s barn-raisers, but also melodic, meditative powerchords. Another of Young’s fabled grooves and strange, insidious songs. It’s an historical epics, it moves back and forth from album of almost fragile beauty, intense loneliness Custer’s Last Stand to the present day until time and raging storms. Not for the last time, Crazy telescopes in on itself and “Battle drums were Horse took Neil Young somewhere he wasn’t pounding/All around her car”. I’m pretty sure it’s expecting. It’s just a shame it’s taken us so long the same take as on …Passionate?, but it seems to get there too. sharper here. Of Toast’s three unreleased songs, “Standing In The Light Of Love” and “Gateway Of Love” debuted on the 2001 EuroTour, while “Timberline” remains unheard. “Standing In The Light Of Love” finds Young and the Horse in stomping head-to-head communion, playing in tight proximity to one another.
HOW TO BUY...
GETTING BURNED
The road to Toast:Neil’s ’90s studio albums with Crazy Horse Ragged Glory BOB GALBRAITH/AP PHOTO/SHUTTERSTOCK
REPRISE,1990
Reunited after a period of mutual separation following 1987’s Life tour,Ragged Glory brought into focus Crazy Horse’s gifts for thrilling distortion and heavy jams.For every moment of reflection (“Mansion On The Hill”,“Days That Used To Be”) there are songs like “Over And Over” and “Love To Burn”, possessed with a kind of intuitive elemental heft. Released as grunge broke,Ragged Glory’s rough-hewn catharsis sparked Young’s ’90s renaissance.10/10 4 0 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Sleeps With Angels REPRISE,1994
After stepping back into acoustic mode for Harvest Moon,Young recalled Poncho, Ralph and Billy for a grunge requiem from the scene’s reluctant godfather. The brief here involves sustaining a lengthy and disturbing mood.Regular followers of Young’s career will have noted that his darkest moments are invariably among the best,so its little surprise that this meditation on America in decline and the wreckage of the grunge movement makes for rewarding,if intense,listening.9/10
Broken Arrow REPRISE,1996
Young further explored his kinship with a younger generation of musicians in Mirror Ball,recorded with Pearl Jam,before reconvening the Horse to mark the passing of long-standing producer David Briggs.A lo-fitrip,Broken Arrow is often undervalued.But its looseness and adventurousness – particularly in the opening sequence of three longish songs – are great qualities here,if you lean into them. A bedraggled,uncompromising end to Young’s fecund run of ’90s albums.9/10
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Former Crazy Horse guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro on the Toast sessions,huge rats and reinventing the Horse... What took you to San Francisco in the first place?
It was logistics. Neil and Pegihad taken a penthouse apartment in downtown San Francisco, as their daughter Amber was going to high school there. It was more sensible than travelling in from where they lived out in the woods [at Broken Arrow Ranch], so Amber could be around her friends.
What was Toast like?
There were derelict buildings and squatters. I remember there was a doughnut shop on the corner and that was it. In the studio, we found a backdoor we could open, so we’d go out the back to smoke a cigarette and watch the rats run around. I mean, they were huge. There’s no place to even get dinner, so we would order out and one of the roadies would go pick up all the food. But at Toast, they didn’t have enough forks for everybody. You would think someone might go out and buy a couple of forks. Anyway, they never did.
What kind of place was Neil in at the time? He never said a word about his relationship with Pegi. All Neil did was sit on the floor in the middle of the studio with a couple of yellow pads and some pencils
Sampedro (left) with Crazy Horse in 2012
and pens around them. While he was writing, the rest of us was supposed to just be cool and not bother him. Before that, Neil would always call and just overwhelm us with anywhere from 10 to 20 new songs. He’d start playing them all on their own, so we’d have a game of catch up. But that’s the way it was. It was fun. But at Toast, I can’t even tell you how many weeks – months – we stayed there.
… and then you went to South America.
We were on fire, man! The people loved us. Playing to 200,000 people in Rio de Janeiro was insane. When we started “Like A Hurricane”, the crowd sang the melody back to us, like a soccer chant. The more intense the solo got, the louder they got. I looked over at Neil, he had his head thrown back with his eyes closed, wailing away on his guitar. It was such a high magical moment, man. Wow. We came back to Toast with this new energy. We were all into Latin. Every song, we tried to turn it into Latin. But it quickly got back into the same thing, then it just ended.
Then what happened?
Neil called me, like, two weeks later, He said, “Hey, I want to redo
some of the songs. Got a couple other ones. I’m gonna get together with Booker T. I think you and I, we should go for a new studio. That’d be good.” So I flew out to this new studio up north over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a 2,000 per cent turnaround from Toast. The next day, Booker and Duck [Dunn] showed up. We hit it off right away and we started recording. It was all good. Duck would sit in a chair to play bass, then all of a sudden he’d stand up – and whenever he did that, we knew that was the take. But that’s what made the difference – Neil had the songs this time.
What do you think about Toast now?
I’m amazed at this record. I can’t believe some of the stuff we played. It seems so natural when you listen it. We played all genres and we touched on a lot of different aspects of who the Horse could have been or could be. Neil’s lyrics are really touching. The way he used his vocals were so creative, It’s just unbelievably beautiful. Really.
What do you think of the versions of “Quit”,“How Ya Doin’?” and “Boom Boom Boom”? They hit me emotionally. When I
“This is totally unique for Crazy Horse, it has so many different layers” FRANK SAMPEDRO
Aside from the seven songs on Toast,did you record anything else while you were in San Francisco?
We recorded “Two Old Friends” [later re-recorded for Are You Passionate?] I remember I played it while everybody was taking a break. I was sitting in this little acoustic guitar booth that they built for me and I played the whole song. I just practising. The song was going through the speakers into the studio. When I came out, Neil looked at me and said, “Wow, that’s beautiful.” But we didn’t get it there, for some reason.
It’s strange,though,that after allthat Neilwrites about Toast: “Crazy Horse shows a depth never seen or heard before.This is a pinnacle.Where they let me go,where they took me, was unbelievable.”
But he wasn’t saying it to us! But I guess he was having a hard time expressing himself. That’s like the best compliment we could ever get. It’s crazy, isn’t it? Way Down In The Rust Bucket blew my mind – but that was material we did well, already. We played it all really good that night live. So that was cool. But this is totally unique for Crazy Horse, it has so many different layers. It’s part of jazz, part of blues and it’s just spooky as hell. It’s going to surprise a lot of people, I think.
Turn the page for more Horse! AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •41
THEO WARGO/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE GLOBAL CITIZEN FESTIVAL
Q&A
heard “Boom Boom Boom” and “How Ya Doin’?”, I cried. It was so sad, and so good at the same time. “Boom Boom Boom” is equal to “Down By The River”, it takes you to so many different places. Tommy Brae’s trumpet solo makes you cry. Pegiand Astrid’s vocals are so eerie. The chorus – “Ain’t no way I’m gonna let the good times go” – it sounds like Neil is trying to end the song, then he’ll play a little more and sing that chorus again. It’s so bluesy. But we never stopped. Then we broke into our old selves and started getting crazy and psychedelic at the end. Wow! What a ride. “How Ya Doin’?” is so eerie. I put that right up there with “Don’t Let It Bring You Down”. When Neil sings, “Let’s say I got a habit”, that goes right through you – but it’s about all those things, all the crazy insanity that get into in our lives, from drugs to drinking to love and all the things that hook us. How do we control them? We don’t, we have no control over those things.
he’s a nice guy and he likes having fun, enjoying life. At the same time, he was the creator of this music, along with the Horse in a way. But he wrote these various pieces, that we got into, in the way that they are. We got into it that way. And anyway, it’s good to hear.
How do you think Toast fits in with that run of ‘90s Horse albums – Ragged Glory, Sleeps With Angels and Broken Arrow?
Q&A Horse bassist Billy Talbot on a "creative, peacefultime" When did you hear Toast was finally coming out?
About a year ago. That’s when Neil listened to it and, as far as I know, the reason it’s coming out is because he really thinks it’s great. He was a little surprised by it, but probably secretly really knew [how great it was].
And what do you think about it?
I think that it’s kind of understandable it was never released; it might have been misunderstood. It has a certain loneliness to it. It’s kind of spooky. It has a vibe to it, a heavy vibe to it. It speaks of something that happened back in that time in a beautiful, beautiful way. I think Neil really rocked with the Horse.
GIE KNAEPS/GETTY IMAGES
What are your memories of the studio?
I liked it there. As I remember, the room was big enough. The control room was nice. There had good speakers in there, I guess. I don’t know how we came upon that place. But it was good. It was a good place to record. I remember being able to slip out the back door and go and listen to something in the car, or slip out the back door, a bunch of us and walk to someplace that we eat at or get in a car and drive a few blocks away to someplace and eat something and then come back and do some more music. 42• UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Singing himself Horse: Talbot with Young in Belgium, June 18,2001
What do you remember about the sessions?
It went down easily and slowly. The air was pretty clean, as far as all of it was concerned. We were into the moment really nicely,. It went on after this in another form, I understand. Another record came out. When we were there doing this, it was a beautifully creative, peaceful time.
You went on tour to South America halfway through the sessions…
That was great. Yeah. We went and played, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, in Brazil for one thing. We have some video of that. We were playing great. The Toast recordings don’t reflect that. They’re great in a whole other way. We might even have done a Toast song, “Goin’ Home”, there in Brazil. That show was pretty good. But Toast recordings were a whole ’nother feeling.
What do you mean by that? There are some songs that don’t sound like Crazy Horse particularly. I’m really partial to “Boom Boom Boom”. “Quit” has a good beginning, the way it glides in. All the songs are unusual.
There’s another flavour to them that it’s hard to describe.
Neilsaid,“Crazy Horse shows a depth never seen or heard before.This is a pinnacle.Where they let me go,where they took me,was unbelievable.”
It’s another dimension. It was really different, the way that other things have been really different and this isn’t the same as those other things. This is another different. I like it because of that. I can understand how it just sat there, in time. Now it’s coming to light. For some reason, it makes sense to me.
Can you explain how?
No! I don’t even want to think about it! Sometimes, some things are not meant to be thought about. They’re meant to just be absorbed. Toast comes from the past. I’m just trying to come to terms with it, then maybe I’ll think about it, or there’ll be some things to think about. The words in the songs – that’s always interesting with Neil.
Tellme a bit about what Neil was like during this session. He’s always a bit secretive. He doesn’t just run at the mouth. But
“All the songs are unusual. There’s a flavour to them that’s hard to describe” BILLY TALBOT
I’m just grateful, to be able to go through those years all these years, and still be able to do something – like Colorado and Barn. I liked those records a lot. Through the years we’ve been recorded, and that’s really something to have in your life, to look back on, to see yourself in those times and these times, because we’re always different. We’re people, growing; or maybe not growing but you think you are. In any case, as the years go by, you get to see yourself through these different times with music. And that’s a good thing, for sure.
The Horse have just finished recording with Rick Rubin... Yeah, we did. We had a lot of fun.
Any plans to tour? It’llbe difficult with Nils off playing with Springsteen next year.
Yeah, he’s going to be occupied. Maybe he’ll slip over and play with us once in a while. We don’t do a lot of stuff. We need everybody to miss us. So when they see us, they’ll just love us. If you miss somebody enough, it’s good to see them.
Is it allthe same Horse – from Danny up through Poncho to Nils? From my perspective, it is. Ralph and I and Neil are always in it. Therefore with Danny or with Poncho or with Nils, all of this is just part of it. That’s what Crazy Horse is. All of this and all of that. Nils likes to think of himself as being part of Crazy Horse all along, as he was with us years ago. Neil is an incredible songwriter. People are still interested in what he does and consequently, what we do. And we realise that, but we still play together and we still do this and it still happens because we don’t think too much about all of that stuff.
Then you get people like me ringing you up and asking you to explain it… It’s OK. I understand that. But we’re just really moving along on this planet, trying to get through another day. INTERVIEWS: MICHAEL BONNER
The Walkmen: (l–r) Peter Bauer, Matt Barrick,Paul Maroon,Walter Martin,Hamilton Leithauser
THE WALKMEN You & Me:The Sun Studio Edition MARCATA RECORDING
8/10
NY-based quintet’ s magnum opus, now with added Memphis. By Rob Hughes
O
F all the bands that burst from New York in the early ’00s, The Walkmen were the least defined by locale. The city’s nervy post-punk heritage fed directly into the kind of music popularised by The Strokes, Interpol and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, just as its dynamic club culture motored LCD Soundsystem and The Rapture. The Walkmen, by contrast, seemed aligned to another place and time. This may be partly due to pure geography. All five members – Hamilton Leithauser, Paul Maroon, Walter Martin, Matt Barrick and Peter Bauer – had initially met at school and played in bands
44 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
around Washington DC, 200-odd miles away. More pertinently though, there was a shared predilection for vintage gear and studio dynamics patented during the first flush of rock’n’roll. Once in New York, having formed from the remnants of Jonathan Fire*Eater and The Recoys, The Walkmen offered a riveting (if sometimes wayward) mix of ’60s minimalism and voluminous art rock, at its most potent on 2004’s killer single “The Rat”. By 2006, however, after deciding to cut an ad hoc version of Harry Nilsson and John Lennon’s 1974 album Pussy Cats, the band appeared to have lost their way. Their label subsequently dropped them. Against a perilous backdrop – no record company, studio or manager – The Walkmen started work on what became You & Me. Adversity had a profound effect. Written over two years, with band members split between New York and Philadelphia, The Walkmen tapped into the
spirit of their favourite records from the late ’50s and early ’60s for inspiration: Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly. The new songs left space between the grooves, allowing for echoey ambience and a moody sense of abstraction. There was fresh adventurism too, with guitarist Paul Maroon adding judicious brass and strings. You & Me feels like a grand statement. The Walkmen prove themselves still capable of a fierce racket, but Leithauser comes into his own as an anguished balladeer, heightened by Maroon’s cavernous guitar and drummer Matt Barrick’s extraordinary percussion. Indeed, Barrick is the album’s secret weapon, creating syncopated rhythms and textures that steer these songs towards something more expressionist in tone. “Dónde Está La Playa” emerges from a murky start into a series of clattery peaks and ominous lulls, Leithauser’s flailing confessional mapping out an emotional world of booze, partying and doomed romance: “I know that you’re married, rings on your hand/So I didn’t stay ’til the end”. The commanding “On The Water” is similarly locked in despair, the narrator heading home, probably drunk, beneath a swinging skyline, branches bending
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low. Leithauser sounds like a wounded Dylan, the music gathering around him in a busy storm. He’s still dreaming of home as “Red Moon” looms into view. Leithauser yearns to be beside his loved one, his baleful tones mirrored by Maroon’s lonely trumpet, echoing across an empty night. The lyrics are hopeful, yet undercut by warning metaphors: riptides, darkness, light glinting from a steel knife. Even Leithauser’s optimism (and there’s a
fair deal of it) appears misplaced. The booming avant-rock of “In The New Year” – set to squealing organ and flashing guitars – looks forward to a fresh start but its protagonist’s words ring hollow. “I know that it’s true/It’s gonna be a good year”, yelps Leithauser at his most impassioned. “Out of the darkness/ And into the fire”. And by the time of penultimate track “I Lost You” (a Motownish wonder with Barrick in imperious form), the river’s overflowing, the house is burning down and Leithauser is pleading for a lifeline. In the spring of 2009, nearly a year after You & Me’s release, The Walkmen decamped to Memphis to film a session at Sun Studios for PBS. The hitherto unreleased tracks finally appear on this edition. The key difference, aside from the surroundings, is the addition of a fivepiece horn section, led by ex-Bar-Kays trumpeter Ben Cauley, the sole survivor of the plane crash that wiped out Otis Redding and his bandmates in 1967. There are variations on tracks from You & Me (including an admirably funky “Canadian Girl”), though the highlight is a slightly older Walkmen tune, “Louisiana”. It’s a wonderful moment, like The VU’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror” reimagined as humid Stax soul, rising into an immense finale. And while the sessions would directly inspire their next effort, 2010’s Lisbon, The Walkmen have You & Me to thank for ushering in the superior second phase of their career. They may no longer be around, but this album proves they still matter.
1 Dónde Está La Playa 2 Flamingos (For Colbert) 3 On The Water 4 In The New Year 5 Seven Years Of Holidays (For Stretch) 6 Postcards From Tiny Islands 7 Red Moon 8 Canadian Girl 9 Four Provinces 10 Long Time Ahead Of Us 11 The Blue Route 12 New Country 13 I Lost You 14 If Only It Were True Produced by: The Walkmen, Chris Zane,John Agnello Recorded at: Sweet Tea Studios,Oxford, Mississippi;Water Music,Hoboken; Gigantic Studios, New York City; Sun Studios, Memphis Personnel: Hamilton Leithauser (vocals,guitar), Paul Maroon (guitar,piano, trumpet,viola), Walter Martin (organ,bass), Peter Bauer (bass,organ), Matt Barrick (drums).Horn section (Sun Studios tracks): Ben Cauley,Jason Yasinsky,Jeremy Shrader,Sean Murphy,Paul Brandenburg
Q&A Guitarist/pianist PaulMaroon on exploring new vocalstyles, strings and Sun Studios… Was there something specific you were going for on You & Me? It was our first experiment with
strings and horns.We tried to make those elements fit into our sound as seamlessly as possible,because the way we played as a straightforward rock band was kind of idiosyncratic.It turns out that those things worked wonderfully with Ham’s voice,even though his voice was great with full-throated rock as well.So I think there was a moment where we were like,“This is great,Ham can do both of these types of singing! We’re gonna conquer the world!”
How was the Sun Studio experience? It’s funny,because I
think we all got a little fixated on the Sun sound after we went there.I adore those records,but visiting the studio was more of a jumping-off point than a destination.The room is special sounding,the horn section as well.I’ll never forget it.It kind of pushed us in the direction we went on Lisbon:more dry and to the point than You & Me.
Am I right in saying that the Bar-Kays’ Ben Cauley replied to a classified ad you’d placed? We would roll into town to perform and
put up a Craigslist ad for horn players.And certain towns have the horn pedigree:Memphis and, obviously,New Orleans.All the people who responded to the ad were awesome.Ben was a lovely man.He had an incredible long brown car.It was basically the same size as the nightclub we played. INTERVIEW:ROB HUGHES
AtoZ This month… P46 P47 P48 P50 P50 P51 P51
RAY CHARLES GRATEFUL DEAD DAVID MICHAEL MOORE LIARS PATTY GRIFFIN THE ROLLING STONES WIRE
JOHN ADAMS
Collected Works NONESUCH 9/10
40 discs from Americana composer Growing up in New England, John Adams was fascinated by marching bands, smalltown orchestras, and his grandfather’s dancehall – anything that presented music as a communal pursuit. That obsession would inform his operas and classical pieces, making him one of the most significant composers of the last 50 years. Chronicling his long tenure on Nonesuch, Collected Works shows the breadth of his work, which incorporates jazz, folk and the kaleidoscopic repetitions of minimalists like Philip Glass and Steve Reich. More intriguing, though, is Adams’ abiding interest in music as a means of interrogating US history and culture: his first opera, 1987’s Nixon In China, was controversial for its political subject matter, while Shaker Loops, completed in 1983, takes inspiration from the Shaker sect and uses winds and strings to explore the idea of spiritual ecstasy. Extras:8/10: New essays and liners, plus unreleased track “Scratchband”. STEPHEN DEUSNER
DAVID M ALLEN
The DNA Of DMA THEMSAY 7/10
Fabled synthpop set from Cure producer unearthed David M Allen made his name producing Cure albums between 1984–1992, but in 1980 he found himself working at Martin Rushent’s Genetic Studios during preparations for The Human League’s Dare. Left alone for a fortnight, Allen taught himself to use the brand-new Roland gear Rushent had been sent from Japan, composing half-a-dozen new wave nuggets on one of the first digitally controlled modular synths in the UK. There’s a touch of early League in “The Sound Of Muzak”, while the naïve pop of “You And I” might have come out on Mute. “Drowning On The Wave Of Dublife” nods to the solo experiments of Pete Shelley. A promising debut, then – what else is in the vault? Extras:None. PIERS MARTIN AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •4 5
DANA NALBANDIAN/WIREIMAGE)
The new songs allowed for ambience and a sense of abstraction
SLEEVE NOTES
ARCHIVE PAUL BUCHANAN Mid Air (reissue,2012) NEWSROOM
8/10
Blue Nile vocalist’s solo debut gets an extended double-vinyl reissue Though fans continue to wait for new material, this 10thanniversary reissue of Paul Buchanan’s only solo album compensates by putting the original deluxe CD’s dozen bonus tracks on vinyl for the first time. Not that these stray far from a template which, with little more than piano, made his band’s refined minimalism sound positively extravagant. A piano version of “My True Country” merely lacks whispers of synth, while only rapturous applause on a live “Half The World” sets it apart, though three further instrumentals underline the bleak beauty of his vocal versions. Nonetheless, “God Is Laughing” turns to acoustic guitar and organ and the “Elegance Mix” of “Buy A Car”’s expanded arrangement could pass for a Blue Nile demo, while “Lost, Duty” offers two minutes of magical twilit ambience. With the album already invaluable for “Cars Are In The Garden”’s exquisite fragility, Mid Air now towers twice as high. Extras:None.WYNDHAM WALLACE
RAY CHARLES
A Message From The People/ Live In Stockholm 1972 TANGERINE
7/10,6/10
Mild protests masterfully delivered, and a rediscovered concert Aged 41 in 1972, Charles’s R&B currency was fading. As protest, the Quincy Jones- produced A Message From The People was more akin to Elvis’s contemporary efforts than Curtis Mayfield’s. Still, despite oversweet Raelettes harmonies and strings, his power remained: “Hey Mister” tells home truths to Congress over
funk guitar and scorching Hammond, while on “What Have They Done To My Ferry Djimmy: Song, Ma” Ray afro-funk find is mockingly indignant, improvising and scatting, switching modes and running lines. Dion’s “Abraham, Martin And John” is a mournful private murmur, personal and exposed at Martin Luther King’s loss. There’s contrasting, sensual raunch and healing gospel patriotism in “America The Beautiful”. Live In Stockholm 1972, disinterred for the True Genius boxset, reaches vinyl with a typical, potent live show the same year, “What’d I Say” propulsive, and “I’ve Had My Fun” a resigned yet defiant blues. Extras:None. NICK HASTED
FERRY DJIMMY
Rhythm Revolution ACID JAZZ
8/10
Long-lost afro-funk gem rescued from obscurity Born in Benin where he had an early career as a boxer, by the 1960s Djimmy was a policeman and bodyguard to Jacques Chirac in Paris, where he recorded a couple of singles. On his return to Africa in 1974, Benin’s Marxist-Leninist president funded him to start a record company called Revolution. The result was this explosive album, a kind of raw, garage-tinged afro-funk drawing on Fela Kuti(“Carry Me Black”), James Brown (“When I Come In The Road”), George Clinton (“A Were We Coco”) and Hendrix (“Be Free”) with Ferry playing most of the instruments, including guitar, saxophone, drums and keyboards. The album sold minimally and was soon forgotten after Ferry moved to Lagos, where he lived for two decades until his death in 1996. It must have taken some serious cratedigging to unearth this record, one
of the toughest and funkiest ever to come out of West Africa. Extras:None.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
STEVE ELLIS
Finchley Boy EDSEL 7/10
10CD complete works of lost mod star hailed by Weller and Daltrey A pint-sized mod with a big, sensitive soul voice, Steve Ellis became a teen idol with Love Affair’s 1968 No 1 “Everlasting Love”, with its Supremes-style tune and showbiz strings. But clothes-ripping teenage riots dismayed Ellis, who quit the band in 1969 before a Small Facesstyle legacy could be built. Living on pal Roger Daltrey’s estate let him get it together in the country for the Daltreyproduced Riding On The Crest Of A Slump (1972), featuring the existentially questing ballad “El Doomo” with its watery shimmers of acoustic guitar. Crippling injury working as a docker contributed to a lengthy career exile, until a Weller-assisted resurgence led to Ten Commitments (2012), where “Please Please Me” is transmuted into Southern soul gold. On 2018’s Wellerproduced career high Boom! Bang! Twang! and the pair’s new, mellow duet “Just To Simplify”, they sound agelessly simpático as this mod’s story is redeemed. Extras:7/10:Booklet, signed prints. NICK HASTED
EPIC SOUNDTRACKS
Sleeping Star (reissue,1994) TROUBADOUR
9/10
Second set from post-punker turned romantic melodicist, carrying a heart full of song It took Epic Soundtracks a while to come into his own as a songwriter – across the ’70s and ’80s, he spent most
of his time drumming for Swell Maps, The Red Krayola, Crime & The City Solution and These Immortal Souls. That all changed on his debut album, 1992’s Rise Above, where he revealed a rare knack for distilling the writing moves of some of his heroes – Brian Wilson, Laura Nyro, Alex Chilton in his ‘troubadour’ phase – into emotionally resonant, affecting songs. Sleeping Star was his second LP, and it’s as moving as ever, whether he’s cheekily borrowing riffs from John Cale (“Something New Under The Sun”) or singing out from the bottom of a well (“Baby I Love You”). One of our lost greats. Extras:8/10:A second disc of demos, studio outtakes and instrumentals as compelling as the album itself. JON DALE
FERKAT AL ARD
Oghneya (reissue,1979) HABIBI FUNK 9/10
Arabic bossa nova blues from Lebanon’s civil war The drummer in Issam Hajali’s previous band was shot dead by a sniper, and his solo debut, Mouasalat Ila Jacad Al Ard (a revelatory set reissued in 2019), was taped in Paris exile as cosmopolitan Beirut was crushed by civil war. His trio Ferkat Al Ard made this extraordinary debut back home in exhausting, febrile times, but its unique sound arose from happier Beirut nights, ecstatically imbibing bossa nova. Ziad Rahbani’s arrangements are worthy of Motown master Paul Riser, as flowing funk strings and off-kilter accordion create a restless sound-world on “Entazerni”. The title track’s a nocturnal confession, plaintive oud cushioned by symphonic soul strings, and on “Matar Naem” Issam’s yearning voice is suspended in orchestral waves. This is soft-edged music for hard times, lush, complex and politically engaged. Its forgotten freshness is like hearing Ethiopiques’ Ethio-jazz trove for the first time, exotic but earthily grounded in a place and time. Extras:7/10:Booklet with extensive Issam interview. NICK HASTED
HOW TO BUY...
PAUL BUCHANAN The Glaswegian sophisti-popper’s peaks
THE BLUE NILE
A Walk Across The Rooftops
PAUL BERGEN/REDFERNS
LINN,1984
“The whole’s greater than the sum of the parts,” Buchanan once said of The Blue Nile’s debut, and rarely was a truer word spoken.A masterpiece of magical lyrical details – like “Tinseltown In The Rain”’s “There’s a red car in the fountain” – it conjures up a shadowy, neon-lit twilight world, and if its arrangements are spartan, its heart is huge.9/10 4 6 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
THE BLUE NILE
PETER GABRIEL
LINN,1989
REAL WORLD,2000
Hats
Though more extravagant and polished, its synths lusher and its guitars softly strummed, Hats maintained its predecessor’s air of melancholy.Buchanan’s vocals displayed an almost soulful compassion, lifting “The Downtown Lights” into euphoric realms, while there are few more understated tales of heartbreak than “From A Late Night Train”.10/10
Ovo
Gabriel’s Millennium Dome Show soundtrack provoked two Buchanan guest spots.On “Downside-Up” he trades verses with Elizabeth Fraser before their voices coilaround one another in its choruses, while on the 10-minute “Make Tomorrow” his yearning is palpable, murmuring early on and wailing passionately later.8/10 WYNDHAM WALLACE
Heartbreak and euphoria: Buchanan in June 2012
ARCHIVE
Europe ’72:50th Anniversary Edition/ Lyceum Theatre: May 26, 1972 10/10, 10/10
RHINO
The Dead’s definitive statement, 50 years on. By NigelWilliamson WHEN the Grateful Dead departed California for their first European tour on April Fools’ Day 1972, they did so with an entourage almost 50 strong. As the tour programme proudly told us, they were not just a rock’n’roll band but an entire “community”, rooted in a freewheeling hippie idealism that for band and fans alike was a core part of the Dead’s raison d’être. Yet among the hipsters, flipsters, lovers and others along for the ride, central to the travelling circus was the recording crew under Betty Cantor, who captured every one of the shows in 16-track glory for the live album that was intended to offset the trip’s huge expenses. The tour found the Dead at a pivotal moment. It was the last with Pigpen, whose gritty, soulful vocals and R&B leanings balanced the cosmic visions of Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, and the first with keyboardist Keith Godchaux and his wife and backing vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux, the joint addition of whom made the music “warmer and more organic”, as Lesh put it. Before the year was out, 17 tracks distilling peak moments from shows in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Copenhagen had been released as the triple LP Europe ’72. But that was only the start. On the 30th anniversary of the trip, Steppin’ Out With The Grateful Dead: England ’72 presented a further 39 tracks from seven of the UK shows. In 2011 came Europe ’72 Volume 2, with 20 tracks not included on the first volume, prominent among them a legendary hour-long jam around “Dark
BillKreutzmann:“It was like a new world…”
When a European tour finally happened in ’7 2 , did it feel like a special adventure?
Well, five years is very short in Grateful Dead time, but we were truly excited.It was like a new world, a new playground where we could do our magic.It was far-out playing for audiences that hadn’t seen us before and we took along all our friends so we could have a party.
Are there particular memories of the tour that stand out? I’ll give you a couple
of non-musical stories.We played
the latter transformed from horn-assisted blues to something earthier and more desperate, plus covers that had not previously been committed to record. They included Pigpen singing Elmore James’ “It Hurts Me Too”, Hank Williams’ “You Win Again”, Chuck Berry’s “The Promised Land” and Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home”, although the word ‘covers’ hardly begins to describe the Dead’s alchemical transmutation of them. In the end, there was very little that was familiar. From Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, Europe ’72 features only the opening tear-up “Cumberland Blues”, the gospel-y “Sugar Magnolia” and a 13-minute “Truckin’” plus a similarly extended, beautifully pacific take on “Morning Dew”. The Lyceum set adds a few more, including the scorching boogie of “Dire Wolf” from Workingman’s Dead and a poised, hypnotic “China Cat Sunflower”, first heard on 1969’s Aoxomoxoa. The term wasn’t in use at the time, but both Europe ’72 and the Lyceum set sound today like quintessential contemporary Americana given a cosmic, countercultural twist, as past and future fuse into a soundtrack for a brave new US frontier. There’s country (“You Win Again”), blues (“It Hurts Me Too”), trad folk (“I Know You Rider”), songs about drifters (the shuffle of “Tennessee Jed”) and outlaws (the wondrous, Stones-y ballad, “Jack Straw”), melodic, psych-pop rapture (“Sugar Magnolia”) and the Dead’s own unique mythmaking (“Truckin’”), all fed into some of the most organic and freewheeling rock’n’roll ever made. Alongside the songs came the epic lysergic improvisations, of which the crystalline “Dark Star” was the mothership; on other nights, the protean, shape-shifting mystery took other forms as Garcia’s serpentine guitar led them into interstellar overdrive on “Playing In The Band”’s jazzy, minor-toned excursions. The result was that Europe ’72 was a live album like no other. While other acts were locked into a cycle of recording and touring in which the principal aim was the promotion of their current release, for the Dead the live performance rather than the studio take was always the definitive statement – although nothing was ever truly definitive, for every night the songs, moods and modes were different, and each show was a new adventure. If you had to pick a point on the Dead’s long strange trip that marked the zenith of their kinetic luminosity, these recordings lay a strong claim to being that lightning-in-a-bottle moment. Extras:6/10:Sleevenotes.
Q&A in Lille and we had tickets for the Monaco Grand Prix and had to get to Orly airport fast.So me and Lesh took a rental car with me driving, still hot from playing and doing 80mph round the Arc de Triomphe in Paris with a bag of cocaine and hashish under my seat.We made it in record time. Then in Germany the guys bought some giant switchblades and thought it was a great idea to snort
cocaine off these razor-sharp knives.I feared they were going to slice their noses off!
A lot of fans say the band were at their peak in ’7 2 . Did it seem that way to you? It’s waves on the ocean, and it ebbs and flows, but it was one of the peaks. I always felt that jazz was more accepted in Europe than in America and that gave us the freedom to play real loose while high on acid. INTERVIEW: NIGEL WILLIAMSON
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MARY ANN MAYER, JEROD HARRIS/GETTY IMAGES FOR SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
GRATEFUL DEAD
Star” and “The Other One” from the rain-soaked Bickershaw Festival. Then came Europe ’72: The Complete Recordings, a mammoth 73CD boxset containing every one of the 22 shows in full. Now, three reissues to mark the 50th anniversary keep it relatively simple, with the original Europe ’72 Dead reckoning: Ron ‘Pigpen’ remastered as a McKernan and Jerry Garcia, 1972 double CD and triple LP, and the final show of the tour at London’s Lyceum Theatre captured in its entirety as a 4CD set. The overlap, however, is considerable, for almost half of Europe ’72 comes from that Lyceum show. There’s also a limited-edition, 24LP boxset presenting all four shows the Dead played over consecutive nights at the Lyceum, each with a slightly different setlist and its own vibe. At the time, the Dead were in the middle of a three-year hiatus from the studio, but it was a golden period for new material, with both Garcia and Weir writing prolifically. This meant that the shows were full of new songs that had never appeared on an album. As a result, on its release, the Europe ’72 album was the first time anyone not at the shows got to hear songs such as “Tennessee Jed”, “Brown Eyed Women”, “Ramble On Rose”, “He’s Gone”, “Mr Charlie” and “Jack Straw” – songs that loosely brought together the traditions of country, folk and blues with the Dead’s mercurial, sparkling improvisations. After some polishing, especially a few vocal overdubs (the tapes showed Garcia had been singing sharp for much of the tour), the takes heard on Europe ’72 became the landmark iterations of some of the Dead’s best-loved songs. What didn’t make the 17 tracks chosen for Europe ’72 can be heard in the Lyceum set, including the swinging “Chinatown Shuffle” and “The Stranger”, which both showcased the ailing Pigpen’s soulful, ragged croon. In addition, there were songs from solo releases, such as Garcia’s “Sugaree” and Weir’s “Black-Throated Wind”,
ARCHIVE
REDISCOVERED
FRABJOY AND RUNCIBLE SPOON
Uncovering the underrated and overlooked Heady: Moore with his 200-yearold human skull
DAVID MICHAEL MOORE Flatboat River Witch ULYSSA
9/10
SARAH PULEO
“Traditional but perverted” folk-jazz played on home-made instruments by the banks of the Mississippi YOU probably haven’t heard of the schizoid zither. Or the buzzstick. Or the boing box. These are all names that semi-reclusive musician David Michael Moore has given to his homemade instrument, a wooden box with strings and keys that he describes as “a simple hybrid stringed instrument that combines experimental percussion and melody on the same soundboard. It can be plucked like a harp, played with sticks like a santur, set up to bend strings like a koto, or played with a slide and finger picks. It is basically an ornamental soundboard that one can set up and play in different ways.” Moore is an American original, a carpenter and artist who lives in a rundown house in rural Mississippiwith his dog Bobo, lots of books, a 200-year-old human skull, homemade furniture and, of course, his musical instruments. As well as the schizoid zither, he plays drums, piano, keyboards, accordion plus chainsaw, dog bones and witches’ pot. Moore has been making music since the 1970s, and since the mid-’90s began issuing CDs under the monikers Dayday Moemoe, David Michael Moore and David Moore. The best of these recordings have now been collected by Indiana-based record label Ulyssa on Flatboat River Witch 1994–2015, which is available to purchase digitally or on cassette. The label has plans to follow up with re-releases of some of these original albums. Moore might be unusual but he’s an excellent 48 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
musician, and the songs on Flatboat River Witch are well recorded and beautifully played, essentially semi-improvised folk-jazz that combines the extraordinary sound of the boing box – a sort of all-in-one guitar, drum and keyboard that sounds simultaneously wooden and metallic – with more conventional instruments. He borrows rhythms and textures from folk and world music, peppers these with found sounds and occasionally sings, a little hoarse but warm and melodic enough. He calls his music “traditional but perverted”, but the rippling percussion of “Jungle Pie” or piano-led meditations like “Orion’s In The Bucket” and “Cottonwood Night Coming Down” are moving and accessible pieces of music. Many feel semiimprovised, like the 11-minute “Johnny Quixote”, but the funny ode to the posterior, “Butt Deluxe”, shows he can keep things short and sweet when he needs to. His songs often speak of local people and places he has known – “No names have been changed to protect anyone. They could care less anyway,” he says in the sleevenotes to one CD – but are equally inspired by the landscape and cadence of the mighty river that flows nearby. This is music infused with mystery, humour and humanity. There’s something of Tom Waits or Dan Reeder about all this, and traces of the Southern Gothic of Jim White and Johnny Dowd, but it seems daft to look for comparisons with an artist so unforced, naturalistic and unique. Delve in: the weirdness is waiting.
PETER WATTS
Frabjous Days:The Secret World Of Godley And Creme 1967-1969 GRAPEFRUIT 7/10
‘Lost album’from pre-10cc duo reconstructed with rarities Even Kevin Godley and Lol Creme struggle to chronicle their early musical endeavours, but one thing’s certain: when Marmalade Records’ Giorgio Gomelsky heard Godley’s falsetto, then learned he wrote songs with Creme, he gave them a Lewis Carroll-inspired name and stuck them in a studio. Like their name, 1969’s debut 7”, the jangly “I’m Beside Myself” and autumnal “Animal Song”, nods to Simon & Garfunkel, and the A-side was re-recorded for an album, but Gomelsky’s dubious bookkeeping thwarted its release. Of seven surviving tracks, the charming character portrait “Chaplin House” and Nilsson-esque “Take Me Back” have endured best, while the noisier, heavily harmonised “Cowboys And Indians” is indebted to America’s West Coast. Other unreleased tracks include “One And One Make Love”, which exploits Godley’s falsetto perfectly, while 1968’s “Seeing Things Green”, a single as The Yellow Bellow Room Boom – pitched as a northern quintet – is quaintly bucolic. Extras:6/10 Extensive liner notes by Grapefruit Records’ David Wells. WYNDHAM WALLACE
VALENTINA GONCHAROVA
Ocean (reissue,1989) HIDDEN HARMONY
8/10
Soviet experimental drone from Ukrainian violinist The subtitle ‘symphony for electric violin and other instruments in 10+ parts’ is no sign of pretentiousness; in fact, this Kyiv-born instrumentalist was a master of classical violin, but left the conservatoire behind after witnessing a free-jazz concert in ’70s St Petersburg. Equipped with a unique electric violin, tape recorder and Soviet reverb unit, she moved to the Estonian coast and set out on her own journey. Ocean is perhaps her most ambitious work, a multi-tracked opus inspired by Fripp and Eno, but far more out-there: “This music is a stream of consciousness in its purest form,” Goncharova writes. Highlights range from the tectonic tones and thumps of the title piece and the disorienting, Ligetti-esque “Sirens” to the tribal, Popol Vuh-ish “The Way”. Other pieces are less successful, but that’s understandable when the boundaries of an instrument, equipment and – at times – the concept of music itself are being pushed. Extras:9/10 Mastered from the original tapes, and featuring a new, surprisingly melodic composition. TOM PINNOCK
The New Album
Out 24th June Featuring ‘Becoming All Alone’ & ‘Up The Mountain’ CD • Digital
reginaspektor.com
ARCHIVE
THE SPECIALIST
Nothing out of place: Knight in 1983
CHERI KNIGHT American Rituals
8/10
FREEDOM TO SPEND
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LESLIE STAUB, TONI HOLM
Tape PGM/THIRTY TIGERS 8/10
Griffin’s studio-floor sweepings yield a handful of diamonds The title is no lie: Tape actually will be available on cassette. These 10 tracks are drawn from Griffin’s trove of home recordings, and while it would be tough to argue that the collection justifies the purchase of vintage stereo equipment specifically to listen to it – it will be available in more newfangled forms – Tape is nevertheless compelling. The power of these lo-fi noodlings lies in their unvarnished intimacy. While Griffin often trowels on the high-sheen production a little too enthusiastically in the studio, Tape reminds of the power and vulnerability of her extraordinary voice. It also prompts an amount of bewilderment that some of this material was left lying around. “Don’t Mind” is a big-hearted bluesy duet with Robert Plant, “Sundown” a singularly pretty piano ballad, and “Strip Of Light” a hungover classic whose obscurity to this point seems vaguely scandalous. Extras:None.ANDREW MUELLER
LIARS
They Threw Us AllIn A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top (reissue,2001) MUTE
8/10
First-time survey of US folk-singer-turnedfarmer’s elemental minimalism FISH around for a minute or two googling “CheriKnight” and you’ll soon come across a song of hers on YouTube called “Dar Glasgow”. It’s the opening track on her second solo album, 1998’s The Northeast Kingdom. The cover is a painting of Knight in a dress of green leaves holding a guitar in a vegetable field, alluding to her two passions, music and farming. The song is a rural gothic folk tale, spun out over the drone of a harmonium, which slowly pulls the listener in. That harmonium is played by Steve Earle, whose label E-Squared released the album, and the song also features additional vocals by Emmylou Harris. In some respects, this is the pinnacle of Knight’s patchy career as a semi-professional musician, though she enjoyed modest attention in the early 1990s as the vocalist and bassist in roots-rockers Blood Oranges. After Northeast Kingdom, she withdrew from music and carried on tending the land where she lived in Western Massachusetts. She hadn’t been heard of since – until now. American Rituals rewinds two decades to the late ’70s and early ’80s to focus on Knight’s early DIY recordings, when she studied music composition at the freethinking Evergreen State College outside Olympia, Washington, long before the city became an indie hotbed. Raised in a musical household and schooled in philosophy and architecture, she was familiar with the likes of John Cage before entering Evergreen, but there, with access to new
PATTY GRIFFIN
ideas, instruments and studios, she was able to channel her interests into creating quite a pure kind of music from voice samples and audio collages; pared-back, elemental pieces where the act of construction – the ritual – is intrinsic to the finished work. She’s direct in her technique, nothing is out of place. “Hear/Say” primarily loops and layers those two words – we hear what she is saying – for five minutes until they become either meaningful or meaningless; “Primary Colours” coalesces into a melody comprised of her repetition of the names of various colours. For “Prime Numbers”, she assembles a basic groove from handclaps, bass and polyvocal chants. Others, like “Tips On Filmmaking” and “Water Project #2261”, share a joyous exoticism with Steve Reich’s rich minimalism and seem less concerned with process. Knight worked closely with the composer Pauline Oliveros while at college and her wisdom, her approach to listening, seems to have informed Knight’s thoughtful music. At the time, the seven pieces here came out on various compilations celebrating the local DIY scene, released on vinyl by Evergreen College or Kerry Leimer’s Palace Of Lights imprint. Knight was also part of Olympia’s Lost Music Network Joyous alongside fellow musician exoticism: Bruce Pavitt, who’d go on to Cheri start Sub Pop. Remarkably, Knight for such a casually pioneering composer, this is the first time Knight’s foundational music has appeared in one place. Now she’ll surely get some of the recognition she deserves. Extras:8/10 Very good liner notes by Steve Peters. PIERS MARTIN
Untruth hurts:Angus Andrew and co’s confrontational debut back on vinyl While much of the early’00s ‘new rock revolution’ neutered the post-punk it drew inspiration from, Brooklyn’s Liars were one of the few groups who continued the radical drive of their predecessors. So their debut album – in fact the only record this lineup produced – mixed fevered disco-funk beats, an ESG sample, cacophonous guitar, primitive electronics and absurd chants into an intoxicating, violent stew. Bravest of all, the closing dirge of “This Dust Makes That Mud” lasts for 30 minutes on CD, but here gets stuck in a locked groove after eight minutes and grinds on – if you so desire – forever. Extras:None. TOM PINNOCK
LINDA HOOVER
I Mean To Shine OMNIVORE 7/10
Long-lost debut featuring Steely Dan Struggling songwriters Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were touring with Jay & The Americans in 1970 when their friend Gary Katz introduced them to a teenage singer named Linda Hoover. The pair wrote five songs for her debut, which Katz produced with session players who’d eventually form the backbone for Steely Dan. The result is a loose album that falls somewhere between the urbane pop of Carole King and the exquisite melancholia of The Carpenters. While she can’t quite convey the gravity of The Band’s “In A Station”, Hoover fares surprisingly well on Becker and Fagen’s songs. In fact, her wide-eyed take on the title track might have become her artistic mission statement, but her label unceremoniously shelved the album.
CHRISTINE McVIE
Heartbreak and
harmonies From the Birmingham blues scene to Hamburg’s Star-Club, communal living and the world’s arenas, CHRISTINE McVIE brought elegance and propriety – as well as considerable songwriting expertise – to FLEETWOOD MAC. But will a new compilation showcasing her solo work provide a suitably graceful cap to her storied career? “This may be my swansong,” she confides to Michael Bonner
I
Photo by RANDEE ST NICHOLAS
T’S raining in London and Christine McVie is at home, enjoying a cup of afternoon tea. Home these days is an apartment in Belgravia – she pronounces it “Bel-gray-veeyah”, giving it the requisite posh spin – complete with a roof garden well decorated with big pots and tubs. Since her last stage appearance, on February 25, 2020 at the Peter Green tribute concert, McVie has spent more time at home than perhaps she anticipated. There has been Covid, of course, but more recently she’s been at the mercy of a minor back ailment, which has curtailed her activities. Not that this has dampened her spirit, mind. “You get the cortisone in your back and all of a sudden you feel like a spring chicken again,” she laughs, her warm, unhurried delivery undercut with a faint Brummie burr, a gentle reminder of her West Midlands childhood. Today, though, we are here to discuss Songbird, a collection of material drawn from two albums in her lesser-spotted solo career. Unlike her fellow songwriters in Fleetwood Mac, McVie has always preferred to serve as part of collective rather than manage a parallel enterprise with her name above the door. Part of that comes from a dislike of fuss and unnecessary attention, but she thrives in collaborative situations – even during the early days, playing the Midlands pub circuit as part of a duo with Spencer Davis, or in Brumbeat bands like Sounds Of Blue and Chicken Shack, she found creative equanimity in the company of like-minded players. When she finally recorded a solo album, 1970’s Christine Perfect – her maiden name – it was well received (she won a second Melody Maker award for Best Female Vocalist), but she’s dismissive about it today: “There’s maybe a
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couple of good songs on it.” She didn’t release a follow-up for another 14 years. Whatever she may think of her solo work – some of it later recorded in a studio-cum-pub in her converted garage – her early songs for Fleetwood Mac were critical in helping the band find a way forward following the departure of founder Peter Green. Getting it together in the country during the early ’70s – first at Kiln House and then Benifold, both in Hampshire – McVie and the band’s other songwriters from this period, Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch, took the blues to surprising new places. The albums they made at this time – including Future Games and Bare Trees – capture the band in transition. The arrival of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, meanwhile, pulled the band in yet another direction entirely. Fleetwood Mac? While the band’s past is never entirely far away from a conversation with McVie – she even makes a genuinely surprising revelation about Rumours – its future often comes into focus. She is happy to discuss current relations with her bandmates, what might happen if, and when, the call to reconvene comes, and how live dates might pan out. But until the phone rings, she is prepared to consider Songbird as her “swansong” – perhaps. From that perspective, she is happy to reflect and consider what connects Christine Perfect, as she was in the mid-’60s starting out as a musician, and the person she is now. “Mentally, I’m still 16,” she says. “Looking back at the young Christine, I admire her sense of humour. I hope I’ve never lost it. The ability to laugh, especially at oneself, to be self-deprecating, is super precious, a real quality to
Christine McVie in 2018: “The ability to laugh, especially at oneself, is super precious”
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Chicken Shack, 1968:(l–r) Stan Webb,Andy Silvester,Dave Bidwelland Christine McVie
Winning the first of two Melody Maker awards in London, September 17,1969
MICHAEL WEBB/KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES; PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES
have. Because you can join in with everyone and see the funny side of yourself.” Songbird is a rare but welcome sighting of you as a solo artist – is it exciting to be centre stage? No. I don’t like being centre stage, I never have. A solo album, that’s different. But performing solo, that’s not my bag at all. I like to be part of a group. I was invited to make a selection of my own favourite songs outside of Fleetwood Mac – but “Songbird” was the exception, I was allowed to do that. When I met Glyn Johns at the Peter Green tribute concert, I asked him, “Maybe there’d be a chance you’d like to take a look at re-producing some of my old songs?” He agreed, so we went in and revamped them, adding a few instruments here and there. I think it sounds great. I love it.
the songs were good, though. Dan, my nephew, produced it in my garage on ProTools. He did a pretty good job, but I got Glyn to revamp them. I’m pleased they’re getting another airing. You mentioned your garage. Tell us a bit about it… Swallows, my little bar-pub in Canterbury? It started off as a garage I converted into a lounge, with a bar attached. I put in some sofas, then a drumkit and an electric piano and we started knocking out the stuff. But it was mainly, to start with, just a party room.
“Once you’ve got the blues in your veins, you can’t really get rid of it ”
Are you good at letting go of songs? Oh, it’s like a painting or something. You’ve got to put the brush down at some point. But then other band members add their guitars, vocals, whatever and the song builds as the recording goes on. But yeah, I’m pretty good at letting go. I’m not a recording studio nazi, or anything like that. I sit back and listen. If I have faith in the guys – and I usually do with people that I work with – I’m happy to let them do their thing. There are five tracks here from 2004’s In The Meantime. Is that an album you were especially keen to bring back into the daylight? Yeah. At the time, I didn’t go on the road, I wasn’t keen. So because I didn’t tour it, it didn’t sell so many copies. I always thought 54 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
It sounds very convivial. It was, yes!
I saw you perform at the Peter Green tribute concert. You played “Stop Messin’Round”, which was one of the first songs you recorded with Fleetwood Mac – before you joined them. Did the tribute concert feel like you were coming full circle? The whole concert was a bit like that, truth be told. When I was in Chicken Shack, if Fleetwood Mac were playing when we weren’t, we’d always trail around after them. We were huge fans. It was a very moving night. It felt like Peter was there, in a sense. The warmth coming from the audience was wonderful.
Were you close to Peter? Mick and Peter were the really close friends. I knew Peter, but not quite so well. During those early Fleetwood Mac shows, you couldn’t take your eyes off them. The whole room throbbed. To me, they were like a bluesy Beatles. Each one had amazing charisma, but Peter stood out. He was a really commanding figure. There was a joke going around that Peter said to Mick one night: “I’ve got more swing in my left bollock than you do!” So that told Mick. Oh, Peter was definitely in charge. When did you first hear the blues? When I was about 14 or 15. I played classical piano, so I could read music. I found a book of Fats Domino in the music stool in a living room. I started playing it, sight reading. I learned how to play the basslines with the piano. It kicked off from there. I started to get really keen when I was at Chicken Shack. Andy Silvester, who was our bass player, used to give me all kinds of records, AfricanAmerican blues artists, and I got hooked. I ripped off a lot of licks from some of those records… Can you tell us a bit about the Birmingham scene in the mid-’60s? I was in art college. Spencer Davis was at Birmingham University. I was seeing him and we used to go around to all these clubs. That’s how I got to know Steve Winwood. There were lots of good people around like Black Sabbath, Savoy Brown... It was quite punchy, back in those days. A lot of kick-ass music. We were all very underground. People would get their pints and pay half a pound to watch these bands sweating it out in these big halls above pubs. It was an amazing time. Then we’d travel to places like Eel Pie Island. Peter Green, “a really commanding figure”,1969
I didn’t realise that Chicken Shack did a stint
at the Star-Club in Hamburg in 1967. What do you remember about that? Not very much! [laughs] The Star-Club, Hamburg. I was 19 or 20. I was pissed all the time. It was a rave! The nightlife was amazing, but to be honest, we had to do three or four sets a day on rotation, so the music got a bit stale after a while. It was an experience, though. You’re writing, as well. “It’s OK With Me Baby” and “When The Train Comes Back”… Oh, “When The Train Comes Back”. Mick loves that song. He used to say, “I wish you’d written that when you were with us.”
There’s the first solo album, Christine Perfect in 1970. What do you think of that album now? Oh, God. Do I have to say? [laughs] I think it’s pretty rum. When I listen to it now – which is very seldom – I don’t get what I was doing at all. I think I was inexperienced at songwriting and too inexperienced to be holding a whole solo album on my own. There are a couple of good songs on there, but most of them are pretty mediocre. But you’ve just to keep on
Fleetwood Mac circa 1971:(l–r) Bob Welch, Christine McVie,John McVie,Mick Fleetwood and Danny Kirwan
trying and you will eventually come out at some point with something you like, so if I’m feeling charitable about it, I could say at least it was part of the learning process. Was going to Kiln House a way for Fleetwood Mac to regroup after Peter left? Oh yeah. That was exactly what we were doing. After you left Kiln House, you collectively bought Benifold. What was communal living like? That was for financial reasons, mainly. If we wanted to have a big house with lots of garden area, we thought it was beneficial to share, because we weren’t making much money at that point. So we bought the house between the band and split it up into three, good-sized flats. That worked for a while. Everybody ended up in my kitchen because I cooked the best food. What would have been on the menu? Very hippy vegetarian. Nut rissoles. That kind of stuff. “Health food”. I’ll put that in quotes because we
On Top Of The Pops with Danny Kirwan as the Mac become “a different object”
were probably drinking gallons of wine at the same time. Looking back, was it inevitable that you’d get invited to join Fleetwood Mac after Peter left? I didn’t presume. I was quite happy being a housewife, actually. I had given up my music to be with John, because otherwise we would never have seen each other. But without Peter, they were struggling, for sure. They wanted to carry on as a four-piece and not replace him. But they realised they needed another band member. Then one day Mick came out, followed by John and the other guys, and we all sat around a table. They said, “I know it’s short notice, but how would you feel about joining?” I said, “You don’t have to ask me twice.” Ten days after that I was in New Orleans with them. It happened that quickly. Gosh, that was a moment, playing with my favourite band in New Orleans! What was the mood in the band like at that point? I think they were worried, obviously, because they’d lost their main guy. Peter’s style of writing, with things like “The Green Manalishi”, had become quite dark. They were brilliant as well, but they were left without that element. We turned into a bit of a mishmash of everything. That darkness of Peter’s was not there any more, so Fleetwood Mac became a different object. And you were in the thick of it! How conscious were you the need to change the band’s sound after Peter left? Yeah. Mick had a chat with me one day and said, “You know, you’re so gifted, you should launch out and do something a bit commercial.” So I came up with something that was not just the 12-bar blues, which had been my main diet up to that point. I co-wrote with Bob Welch a few times before Stevie and Lindsey joined. I’m sure there’s a thread following through from my early days. I’m aware that when I start to write a song, the left hand usually comes in first and it has some kind of a boogie element to it. Then the chords might change on the right hand. But I’m grounded in the blues. AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •55
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; RON HOWARD/REDFERNS
What is interesting is that already you’ve got down the key components of Christine McVie songs: melody and melancholy… It always comes back to the blues. I think it’s probably morphed into something a little more commercial over the years, but I can always slide back into that if I want to. Once you’ve got the blues in your veins, you can’t really get rid of it. You can’t sing the blues until you’re blue. Isn’t that true? How can you be depressing if you’re happy? You got to somehow make yourself be down. There are some happy blue songs as well. I’m not saying they’re all maudlin.
Fleetwood Mac, September 1973:with Bob Weston (left) and Bob Welch
A song like “Morning Rain” on Future Games is a perfect example of that. It’s the blues, but it’s stretching out. You, Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch became the song writers during that period. You all had different strengths as songwriters, but where did you meet in the middle? I think that’s always been the beauty of this band, because the songwriters are all so diverse – all the way up to present day with Neil [Finn]. Going back to Lindsey and prior to that, everyone had different talents. We all came together to sing the harmonies – which was so beautiful – and then we all branched out and did our own thing. It made for a lot of variety, for a start. Then there’s John and Mick, the solid rhythm section, that tied everything into a neat little bundle. Through the years, we’ve had some great configurations.
MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES; SILVER SCREEN COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES
Is there a song that reminds you of Danny? “Woman Of A 1000 Years” or “Tell Me”. He was a brilliant guitar player, really unique. He sang with a very English accent, which was very unusual. But he was a tough guitar player. Boy, he really belted those strings! He got the greatest sound. He was a very talented guy. But he was troubled. I remember he and Peter used to play duets together and echo each other in the most amazing way. Although Danny had his own style, he could work with Peter really well. It’s a pity, because it feels like all Fleetwood Mac guitarists fall by the wayside.
“We became a more commercial band”:Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham join the lineup,1975
“It was a good time for a while. Until we started killing each other”
And is there a song that reminds you of Bob Welch? There were quite a few! “The Ghost” was a good one. “Sentimental Lady” was a bit slushy for my personal taste, but it was a great song. “Future Games”. He did some more funky, Wes Montgomery stuff, which I used to love. All that kind of semi-jazz stuff. He had a really cool voice. You can have a good voice, but he had the perfect voice for the songs that he wrote. He was also very funny, Bob; he had a very good sense of humour. Do you think those transitional albums are underappreciated? It depends on the person’s tastes, really. During that period, we did our own thing. We didn’t really think about success. It 56 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
changed when Stevie and Lindsey joined, of course. I remember hearing the Buckingham Nicks album and thinking, ‘Right, I better pull something out of the bag here and write some songs.’ We became a more commercial band. It was a good time for a while. Until we started killing each other.
That’s all been so well documented, of course. Is there one thing you could tell us about Rumours that tends to get overlooked? How much we laughed. John and Mick or Lindsey, they’d always moan about what a tough time we had, blah, blah, blah. But I’d say, “Hang on. Don’t forget how much laughter we got in that studio!” We laughed a lot – in between the bouts of melancholy and suicide, of course. That’s something we’ve always had within all of the different versions of Fleetwood Mac, I must say, not just during the Rumours era. When songs like “Don’t Stop” or “Songbird” were pouring out of you, did you ever
consider siphoning off songs for more solo records? I always had Fleetwood Mac in my mind when I wrote. I could always hear John and Mick. There might have been the odd song, like “Songbird”, that didn’t require a rhythm section, but otherwise I always wrote with the band in mind. I just don’t consider myself to be a solo artist. I’ve always been happy in the confines of the five of us. People tend to scrutinise your songs – especially the Rumours-era songs – for autobiographical clues. But they’re not all about… If they were all about me personally, I’d have killed myself by now. I always write about unrequited love or love in some form or another. I don’t write about politics or the weather. I do include the sun and the sea quite a lot. They are songs from somebody else’s point of view sometimes. I find that refreshing to think along those lines. It gives me a different track to go down. But you can understand how people might want to read them as autobiographical? I think that’s certainly true with Rumours and I think people have come to look at the rest of our songs that way. I could be wrong. But… it’s true they all are intensely personal. But from my point of view, they’re not directly from me to somebody else per se. Sometimes they just evoke an emotion in somebody that they can relate to.
When were you happiest in Fleetwood Mac? I’ve always felt very fortunate. Always. Obviously, some of the work was hard and it was tough going. When Stevie joined it was a bit weird because I'd never worked with a girl before. We just wanted to have Lindsey, but he said, “If I join my girlfriend comes with me.” So that was a debate. But I instantly liked her. She and I aren’t what you’d call close buddies, but if one of us was in trouble, the other would be there like a shot. At the time, I struggled with her superstardom for a bit because I felt like somebody kicked me off the stage. I got used to that and I kind of dug it the end, because I could hide behind the keyboard where I feel perfectly at home.
But might you? I don’t know. I need to sort my back out, so I don’t feel like sitting at the piano right now. Who knows? I don’t… feel it at the moment. Do you miss it? To be honest with you? No. Every once in a great while, an idea might pop into my head – but by the time I have woken up the next morning, I’ve forgotten it. I haven’t thought about making another record. The Songbird album might be my swansong. I’m going to be 80 next year, so I gotta slow down a bit, you know? Are you still in contact with Mick and John? Yes. Not Stevie very much and not Lindsey, for sure. There are no hard feelings between he and I. But since he left, we haven’t really been in touch. If the call came for one last Fleetwood Mac tour, would you take it? Not right now! I can barely stand up, because of my back. But I really don’t know. It would have to be quite a special event. If one was offered six major stadiums – New York, LA, London, whatever – I could manage that. But a lengthy tour? No. Does it feel like semi-retirement? Yes, but things change. I honestly don’t know what might come up… I always say, “You never know.” So let’s leave it at that. Songbird (A Solo Collection) is released by Rhino on June 24
In over her head:McVie in New Haven, Connecticut, October 1975
PERFECT TEN
Forget “Everywhere”. Here’s a trove of other great McVie songs WHEN THE TRAIN COMES BACK
(FORTY BLUE FINGERS, FRESHLY PACKED AND READY TO SERVE, 1968) Wistful 12-bar blues from Chicken Shack’s debut album,superior to the 7” release.McVie calmly bids farewell to an errant lover – “You got 20 other women, you know another one won’t do” – over her descending piano chords and Stan Webb’s quivering guitar.
NO ROAD IS THE RIGHT ROAD
(CHRISTINE PERFECT, 1970) McVie wrote five originals for her solo debut,of which this is the best. Opening with woozy,R&B-inspired horns,before McVie’s electric piano and a shuffle rhythm kick in.More reportage from heartbreak’s frontline: “You’re walking up a one-way street when you only love one man”.
MORNING RAIN
(FUTURE GAMES, 1971) McVie’s contributions to Fleetwood Mac preceded her formal arrival into the band (she even painted the sleeve art for Kiln House).“Morning Rain” provides a glimpse of her developing pop nous, which she refined as the decade progressed. Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch provide dual guitar attack.
SPARE ME A LITTLE OF YOUR LOVE
(BARE TREES, 1972) Released six months after Future Games,Bare Trees finds the band’s future coming into focus.McVie’s strongest contribution to the album,this rises on upbeat piano melodies and glorious,stacked harmonies. As in life,so in group:“It gets stronger every day”. Buckingham’s last stand with the Mac, 60th Grammy Awards, NYC, Jan 26, 2018
COME A LITTLE BIT CLOSER
(HEROES ARE HARD TO FIND, 1974) From their final pre-Buckingham and Nicks album,McVie’s soaring
Beach Boys-y lament to lost love (“Why are you just a sweet memory?”) paves the way for FM glory,given country-ish pedal steel by Sneaky Pete Kleinow.
OVER MY HEAD
(FLEETWOOD MAC, 1975) Written about new bandmate Lindsey Buckingham – “You can take me to paradise/Then again you can be cold as ice” – who also contributes tightly wound guitar,adding an extra layer to McVie’s soft and hooky songwriting.
OVER AND OVER
(TUSK, 1979) In many ways a bridge from Rumours into the wild experiments of Tusk,this beautiful,languid ballad once again finds McVie pining for things to stay the same,despite the emotional shortsightedness of her lover:“Could you ever need me, and would you know how?”
ONLY OVER YOU
(MIRAGE, 1982) Recently split from Dennis Wilson, McVie mines personal upheaval for inspiration here.Her songwriting and delivery are restrained,displaying just enough underlying pain to counter Mirage’s air of languid passivity.
SWEET REVENGE
(IN THE MEANTIME, 2004) A co-write with her nephew Dan Perfect,McVie here contemplates ways to get back at her ex,while breezy melodies tumble in the background.The heartache and the harmony are right there.
CARNIVAL BEGIN
(LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM CHRISTINE MCVIE, 2017) The final track on the Buckingham/ McVie album finds,fittingly,McVie standing in the doorway,about to go through. New adventures beckon:“Travelling girl is moving north, west, east and south”. AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •5 7
FIN COSTELLO/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES;DIA DIPASUPIL/GETTY IMAGES
You mention Lindsey. It’s been five years since the Buckingham McVie album – the last release with your name on it. Are you still writing music? Me, personally? I haven’t written for a while, no.
THE OSE E S
Having spent the past 2 0 years boldly exploring the extremities of garage rock, psychedelic sludge and free-jazz meltdowns, OSEES have returned with a thrillingly intense new album, A Foul Form. Sam Richards discovers how the band's new “scum-punk” direction is providing catharsis at a troubled time. “I would never consider the Osees to be the conscience of humankind,” says their fearless leader JOHN DWYER, “but at the same time it’s never bad to hold a mirror up…” Photo by NICK SAYERS
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“Whatthe fuck is going on?/Human life is notthat long” (Osees, “Funeral Solution”) IVEN that he’s currently averaging four album releases a year, it’s probably no surprise to learn that John Dwyer barrels through life on a faster speed setting than everyone else. “Let’s get something to eat,” he declares, striding out into Brixton rush-hour traffic in search of a restaurant he doesn’t yet know exists. Dwyer walks and talks like he records: quickly, and with purpose. He doesn’t miss a beat when an over-eager young fan accosts him at the crossing to ask for musical recommendations (brilliantly, he tells them to go and listen to “The Kettle” by Colosseum). Deploying the highly tuned cultural antennae that have allowed him to surf – and often direct – the currents of 21st-century
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underground rock, within minutes he’s seated in a booth at one of South London’s hippest noodle joints, slurping on a hearty bowl of ramen while simultaneously attempting to shut down a threatened leak of Osees’ new album. Dwyer, of course, is not just the band’s frontman, bandleader, chief songwriter and garrulous spokesman – he’s also their manager and label boss. “Oh yeah, I’m a total control freak,” he grins, wiping the ramen broth from his moustache. “I like doing it and by a process of elimination I found out I was pretty good at it. I had no formal training in any of this shit – I’ve lied my way into every job I’ve ever had. Even the guitar I learned by falling ass-backwards into it.” Ass-backwards or not, Dwyer has spent the last couple of decades building Osees – and the excellent Castle Face label he co-founded, initially just to release their records – into a veritable psychedelic cottage industry. Back at the turn of the century, OCS (as they were styled on their first releases) were just a weird
Bin there, done that:John Dwyer backstage at Electric Brixton, May 18, 2022
NICK SAYERS; DIMITRI HAKKE/REDFERNS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Dwyer, running on “tiger’s blood or something”, at Electric Brixton, May 18, 2022
home-recording diversion for Dwyer from his main bands Coachwhips and Pink & Brown. But when their journeys both fizzled out, he realised that in order to continue making the type of music he wanted in the way he wanted, he’d have to assume total control. “Luckily, my guys, I think, realise the amount of work I do makes it a little bit easier on them. We have a good socialist system of payment going, but they don’t have to do things like pay for hotels or book the shows. I’m essentially managing everything because I like doing it. I’m good at it, but I also like controlling! So it’s a little win-win all round.” “John is generous and protective as a bandmate, and so fun to be around,” says Brigid Dawson, a key Osees contributor for more than 10 years and still a member of the Castle Face family. “He runs a tight ship and expects you to play to the best of your abilities, which makes the band tight and the music better. Getting to play in such a great band – I feel very lucky.” Lolling against the bike racks at the back of the Electric Brixton venue, 60 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Dwyer’s current Osees bandmates tell a similar story. When it comes to the music, Dwyer is “always open” and “pretty democratic”, encouraging them to contribute their own ideas and creating the conditions for them to outdo themselves on each subsequent release. As for the rest, they’re happy for him to take the reins. “How would I describe John?” ponders bassist Tim Hellman. “Just… a very driven man.”
“His work ethic is inspiring,” adds Paul Quattrone, one of the band’s famous duelling drummers. “It motivates me, it motivates all of us.” “It’s tireless, yeah,” continues Hellman. “Sometimes it motivates me to want to take a nap! But he’s got energy – way more energy than I do. I’m 39, he’s 47, and he runs laps around me. Tiger’s blood, or something.” “John just goes – he goes, goes, goes, goes, goes,” says Ty Segall, who came up alongside the Osees on the San Francisco garage-rock scene of the 2000s. “He’s like a nonstop force of nature, always working and making things. He makes more things than anybody I’ve ever known – and they’re all great. The influence of the Osees is ridiculous. Every West Coast psych-rock band that started in the past 10 years has a little bit of Dwyer in them.”
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“I feelvery lucky”: Brigid Dawson with Thee Oh Sees at the Metropolis Festival, Rotterdam, July 2012
IKE most of us, Dwyer had hoped that humanity would emerge from lockdown with a renewed sense of empathy and compassion. Instead, things seem to have got worse: more intolerance, more division, more war. Previously, Osees have shied away from directly confronting the issues of the day, with Dwyer preferring to register his dismay via impressionistic or absurd lyrics that draw on fantasy-horror imagery (he says that playing Dungeons & Dragons online for seven hours every Sunday during the pandemic was a
Osees (l–r):Dan Rincon,John Dwyer, Tim Hellman,Paul Quattrone (top) and Tomas Dolas
“lifesaver”). But this time around, he decided something more in-your-face was required. Seeking a suitable mode of expression, he thought back to his earliest musical epiphanies, attending all-ages punk shows in the late ’80s and early ’90s. “It was a really definitive moment in my life, never having heard things like this before and being genuinely excited. In particular the band Dropdead from near where I grew up in Providence. They played a show with a band called Phlegm – of course! – and it was amazing. “They terrorised the crowd, and that little bit of danger was really exciting. I remember looking around the room and all the terrifying skinheads in my town were there, but weirdly not killing anybody. So it was sort of this great neutraliser as well.” Did he feel like punk spoke to him? “Suburban white boy, are you kidding me? I always see these documentaries talking about how punk came out of class warfare, but a lot of it also came out of boredom.” Swapping tapes, Dwyer found his way back to Black Flag and Bad Brains, then eventually to Crass, Subhumans and the weirder outposts of their anarcho-punk milieu, like Rudimentary Peni(see panel). This, broadly, is the world revisited by Osees’ thrillingly terse new album A Foul Form, described in the advance publicity by Dwyer as “brain stem cracking scum-punk” that “represents some of our most savage and primal instincts” – and by guest rabble-rouser Henry Rollins as “a hyperconcentrated slightly less than 22 minute burst of meteor density”. In order to capture a sense of primitive thrust, Dwyer recorded the album in his own basement, forcing keyboardist Tomas Dolas – who’d never played guitar before – to help bludgeon out some cro-magnon riffs. “We just kept it simple. The trick with punk in my opinion is for it to be aggressive but also very hooky.” Crass, he contends, for all their radical politics and no-fiapproach, “were relatively poppy – they had hooks for days.” Simply by dint of its manic, confrontational style, A Foul Form sounds like the most urgent and topically engaged Osees album to date. But certain phrases also leap out: “You’ve left morality behind!” barks Dwyer on the title track. Is that aimed at anyone in particular? “I mean, it’s a
generalised statement. It’s obviously not all of us, it just feels that way a lot of the time. I always wonder what it’s going to take for people to treat each other with respect. It’s been a particularly fucking exhausting couple of years – it’s almost like Reagan-era America right now where shit’s
really tumultuous and the echo of it ripples through every facet of life. For the first time in my life, I was actually looking into what it would take for me to get citizenship in Holland… So yeah, it’s like, ‘Maybe make a bit of an effort to not be a shit!’ I would never consider the Osees to be the conscience of humankind, but at the same time it’s never bad to hold a mirror up to the way we are as a race. Animals don’t do these things!” Equally, Dwyer acknowledges that there’s something inherently comical about a 47-year-old music nerd attempting to harness the idealistic rage of the teenage punk misfit. Songs like “Fucking Kill Me” and “Too Late For Suicide” are not meant to be taken entirely seriously. “We’re also laughing at ourselves because it’s fucking ridiculous. There’s plenty to be pissed off about right now but it’s exhausting to only have that, so you have to have a bit of a sense of humour about yourself.” Nonetheless, a genuine sense of despair at world events, compounded by a kind of doom-scrolling psychosis, still allows the music to hit home. Although Osees teased this new hardcore direction with a couple of tracks on 2020’s low-key Metamorphosed, it’s certainly a far cry the from dense, proggy workouts of Face Stabber, Smote
“IT’S ALMOST LIKE REAGAN-ERA AMERICA RIGHT NOW” JOHN DWYER
“NOBODY SOUNDS LIKE THEM”
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How the Osees’new album was inspired by “extra-weird” Hertfordshire punks Rudimentary Peni
HE biggest single influence on A Foul Form is revealed by its closing track,a faithfully scuzzy cover of Rudimentary Peni’s 1982 song “Sacrifice”.The righteous 51-second blast is typical of the enigmatic trio’s curdled worldview,a brutal but necessary defrocking of organised religion (“In the eyes of the lord, everyone’s a servant”).It’s a timely tip of the hat given Rudimentary Peni’s unexpected return last year with The Great War,their first new music in 12 years. “I heard Rudimentary Peni’s Cacophony when I was 17 or 18,” reveals John Dwyer.“That
record is written around HP Lovecraft,and he’s from my hometown – we would take LSD and go to his grave all the time.So the fact that it was a homage to Lovecraft was really cool. “I realised early on that they were a bit unhinged and extra-weird for a punk band. [Frontman] Nick Blinko always seemed like a real raw nerve to me.Crass were odd,but they still used direct guitar tones; Rudimentary Peniwere the first band I heard that were just indescribably weird.Nobody sounds like them,still.They’re already perfect – there’s almost no point in covering them! That’s why we had to go
real early and pick out a song that’s a little bit more straight. I grew up Irish Catholic,so I can relate to the anti-Christian sentiment of ‘Sacrifice’.” Rudimentary Peniremain legendarily reclusive,but bassist Grant Matthews did reply to Uncut via emailto say that he enjoyed the Osees’ interpretation.“Motörhead were a big influence on Rudimentary Peniat the time that song was written,” he writes,“and I think I can still hear their influence in this version.” Sealed Records are reissuing the whole Rudimentary Peni catalogue; Cacophony is next, due out in October AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •6 1
OLIVER HALFIN
THE OSE E S
TITOUAN MASSÉ
THE OSE E S Reverser and Dwyer’s recent series of improv excursions (see panel). Before this latest tour, Dwyer was a little nervous about how fans would take the ultrabasic new stuff, but he needn’t have worried; it seems they were positively thirsting for it. At Electric Brixton, the feral one-chord thrash of new single “Funeral Solution” sends the crowd instantly berserk. Pretty soon they have formed a circle pit and start gleefully slamming full-pelt into each other, barely abating for the duration of the band’s ludicrously intense 95-minute set. “When we saw them for the first time in Dublin, I was immediately blown away,” says Zach Choy of support band Crack Cloud, who’s been taking notes from the side of the stage. “There’s a spiritual component to how they perform – the technicality and how they’re dialled in. It’s really primal and spontaneous, but it’s also something that very much feels like 26 years in the making.” It’s incredible to watch the Osees in 2021: a band that can “telekinetically link with each other on stage”
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Osees go at it so hard for so long, like an ancient pugilistic ritual – especially when the temperature is pushing 35 degrees on stage. “That’s why I didn’t want to do the interview after the show,” confides Dwyer. “My first thought after coming off stage is putting on dry underwear. Last night I was literally wringing out my socks! I was fucking exhausted, you know? But that’s the whole point: empty the tank. Every day you fill up with your stresses and your worries and anxieties, and this should be an outlet.”
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T’S hard to believe now, but there was a time not so long ago when Dwyer didn’t have everything quite so under control. During their early years in San Francisco, the Osees had a reputation for drug-fuelled mayhem, and while
Dwyer looks back with fondness on his speedfreak period – “I have nothing bad to say about hard drugs! Just be careful, I guess” – the lifestyle inevitably began to exact its toll. “It whittles your health and your mental state down. The same with cocaine and heavy drinking – there came a day when I didn’t want to do it any more. I just wasn’t enjoying it and, as an addict, to be still doing it and not having fun is the worst feeling in the world. So the first step is realising you have this problem and wanting to stop. Fortunately, I had just enough willpower to actually make that happen.” Evidently, Dwyer is not the kind of person to do anything by halves – back in the dressing room, he tips close to an entire bag of ground coffee into the cafetiere – but he realised that he could replace obsessive drug-taking with obsessive music-making and painting. “Making art keeps me in a good place, it definitely keeps the wolf from the door.” Relocating to Los Angeles in 2014 also helped. “San Francisco is full of drugs,” he explains. “LA has this reputation, but it’s much easier to avoid because it’s fucking massive. San Francisco is like this little nucleus of fucked-up-ness, especially now that it’s been decimated by the tech industry. In LA, a lot of people have their hand up their own ass more, working on their own stuff. So it’s more self-centred, but it’s been really beneficial for my health to have space away from needing to be out every night. It’s definitely slightly more professional. But I managed to maintain a little bit of an experimental and noisy edge [to the music]. The whole trick to Osees is making it really
PSYCHIC
LIBERATION! During the course of the pandemic,John Dwyer made five albums of wild improv jams with a rotating cast of fellow heads… BENT ARCANA
fucked up while being completely accessible.” The move to LA meant that Dwyer was forced to recruit an entirely new band, but that turned out to be a blessing: in Hellman, Dolas, Quattrone and second drummer Dan Rincon, he’s found the dream band he was always looking for. “I surround myself with good people in order to facilitate the job. I couldn’t do this if I had a bunch of shitty players, or dickheads in the band or horrible alcoholics. I don’t have anybody that’s getting totally wasted any more, I’ve whittled it out of the system.” Osees are often defined as a band in constant flux, characterised by ever-shifting lineups and Dwyer’s periodic tinkering with their name (from OCS to Thee Oh Sees to the currently favoured Osees). But it’s hard for him to see how he could better what he’s got now. “Having a group of players that can telekinetically link with each other on stage? This is it. People are always like, what’s next? But I think this is it for a while.” That doesn’t mean, of course, that Dwyer is likely to stay in the same place musically. “We’re pretty capable now, so we can fake our way into a lot of different things. If we have an idea, if we want to make an improvisational record, we can do that and get away with it. Our fanbase is also very accommodating – we’re fortunate to have fans that are willing to put up with our jaunts and our bullshit!” Naturally, work on the next Osees album is already well underway. “Sometimes people look at prolificness like a detriment. But I’m like the mythical shark that has to keep moving, I’m always interested in what the next thing is. The next one’s a bit of another curveball, but it also has some of what we’ve been working on lately. It’s not as aggro, but it still has that motorik forward push. “It’s like a soup that you’re supposed to save a little bit of the last one to put in the next batch. We’re always doing that. So, technically, our latest record will still have a bit of the first fucking record from 22 years ago – there’s always some disgusting lump of fat that’s making its way to every studio.”
Onward but not necessarily outward: the Osees want to keep making synapse-tweaking tunes, to keep that moshpit fuelled, but they don’t have any ambitions to shift more units or play bigger venues. “I don’t think you have to do things a certain way, whatever the industry tells you,” says Hellman. “You’ve got to do whatever feels right for you. Should you be playing 2,000-cap venues at this point in the band’s timeline? You could, but you could also be playing clubs where everybody’s on top of each other, which I think creates a much more meaningful experience.” Dolas speaks for the whole band when he says he prefers those “more intimate, rambunctious shows rather than a bigger one-night show”. His heart sinks whenever he sees a crowd barrier. “I like it when it becomes like a big ocean and we’re trying to bridge that gap, to make the waters meet, like a typhoon.” “We don’t need to sell shit out,” confirms Dwyer, downing the last of his super-strength coffee and checking he has a clean pair of pants to hand for after the show. “We want to have relationships with clubs that we like; we want to have a good crew of people working with us, which we do. For me personally – and I’m getting better at it as I get older – it would be nice to learn how to relax! But I’m pretty content. I don’t need it to be bigger.” As a testament to the waves of good feeling the Osees have generated, and continue to generate, the most stirring summary of what they do is provided by someone who’s no longer even in the band. “I think the magic of the Osees has always been in giving folks an invitation to let go and get wild,” concludes Brigid Dawson. “For band and audience to be in it together, and not worry about our collective tomorrows for a moment. A joyous celebration. A release. A force for good. It’s powerful stuff and we need that now more than ever.”
“I’M LIKE THE MYTHICAL SHARK THAT HAS TO KEEP MOVING” JOHN DWYER
A Foul Form is released on August 1 2 by Castle Face Records
WITCH EGG
ROCK IS HELL, 2021 The most accessible of the five LPs, with Greg Coates’ stand-up bass twanging loosely against Dwyer’s freakbeat riffs and Brad Caulkin’s soprano saxclamations on “Greener Pools” and “City Maggot”.Perhaps in tribute to the hairy British prog-jazz of Nucleus et al, one track is named simply “Arse”.8/10
ENDLESS GARBAGE
CASTLE FACE, 2021 Features essentially the same musicians as Witch Egg, but all recorded separately, responding intuitively to the junkyard rattling and haywire percussion eruptions of free jazz drummer Ted Byrnes.Sometimes hits, sometimes flies way off target.But always worth a shot.6/10
MOONDRENCHED
CASTLE FACE, 2021 Second instalment of controlled freakouts from the Bent Arcana sessions, with more emphasis on squished sonics and eerie alien transmissions than the communeshaking grooves of its predecessor.Still, terrific 13-minute centrepiece “The War Clock” keeps the motorik running.7/10
GONG SPLAT
CASTLE FACE, 2021 “One final transmission from the core of the planet!” But which planet? Run The Jewels synth-man Wilder Zoby joins Dwyer, Sawyer, Coates and percussionist Andrés Rentería for a valedictory blowout that’s molten and intense, but also strangely optimistic and almost soulful, like a malfunctioning Funkadelic.7/10 AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •63
JIM BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES
Wild beats:Paul Quattrone (left) and Dan Rincon on stage in Seattle, September 2021
CASTLE FACE, 2020 Uncoupling his krautfunk and heavy jazz fusion urges from the Osees’ more traditional rock format, Dwyer makes hay with a crack 10-piece ensemble including Sunwatchers’ Peter Kerlin and Kyp Malone from TV On The Radio, plus Ryan Sawyer giving it his best JakiLiebezeit on drums.Formidable.8/10
GEORGE CLINTON
FREEYOUR MIND!
PAUL HAMPARTSOUMIAN/SHUTTERSTOCK
As GEORGE CLINTON’s latest ‘farewell’tour rolls into town, Uncut hitches a ride aboard the Mothership.There, veteran Funkateers and new recruits bear testimony to the joyous legacy of Parliament-Funkadelic. But where next for the collective’s visionary patriarch? “This particular cherub,” hears Nick Hasted, “may be here forever.”
M
AY 22, 2022. The Mothership has just moored in a North London car park. It’s five hours before showtime at the Kentish Town Forum. Inside the smaller of two purple tour buses, 81-year-old George Clinton – Uncle Jam himself – is resting up, not to be disturbed. Tonight’s show is part of a ‘farewell’tour – this may be P-Funk’s last ever spectacular in the capital – and Clinton is marshalling the strength to do it justice, one more time. It’s a blustery day, gusts of rain hitting the concrete expanse, as members of the latter-day P-Funk tribe stroll in and out of the soundcheck – where the funk is being fine-tuned. These include storied ’70s lifers – guitarist Michael 6 4 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
“Kidd Funkadelic” Hampton, for instance, no longer a kid now but a grizzled pensioner – as well as Clinton’s grandchildren, continuing the family funk business, all dressed in bright tie-dyed and polka-dotted tops. Uncut is here too, contemplating the remarkable saga which has brought George Clinton to this point – from a ’50s barbershop group in Plainfield, New Jersey, through radical, funk revolutions to the pinnacle of ambition and invention in the late ’70s, where a spaceship would land on stage during the band’s stadium shows. “It was like a twisted Wakanda, with the same power and pride,” says former Bride Of Funkenstein Satori Shakoor. “P-Funk was bigger than black. It was
a place where you thought, ‘Is this what it feels like to be truly free?’And now generations of people globally are sustaining this. It’s a legacy, an institution of funk.” “This band is sometimes as sweet as The Beatles, sometimes as sloppy as the Stones, sometimes as radical as Bowie,” says Clip Payne, the keyboardist-vocalist who joined in 1978. “It has its metal thing – but it’s ghetto metal. It’s the people’s band. George makes sure that his audience is completely served. His audience isn’t usually the people you’d look at. They’re not at Ticketmaster, at all. They’re Funkateers, they’re Maggots. That’s where it’s at.” Indeed, a clutch of fans from Belgium are also hovering around the tour bus this afternoon.
Still“tearing the roof off the mother”: George Clinton with the latest incarnation of ParliamentFunkadelic at the O2 Forum, Kentish Town, London, May 23, 2022 AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •65
GILLES PETARD/REDFERNS; MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
GEORGE CLINTON Hanna Affirecalls seeing his hero perform at Prince’s Paisley Park. “It was too funky,” he sighs. “There were around 30 people on stage, it was crazy. George was wearing a crown, like the King of Funk.” Meanwhile, Bart Hermans is happy to see Clinton at all. “He seems to be in the mood again for live shows. And he recently said that he’s stepping off the ‘farewell’ thing. He’s just going to see when it ends.’” “George has been on the scene since the fucking ’50s,” marvels Sidney Barnes, the ex-Rotary Connection singer who knew Clinton back then. “He’s still drawing a crowd. George is one of those guys who, no matter what, has to do a show.” Early P-Funk bassist Prakash John offers a reason for this longevity. “If you saw George in his youth with his shirt off, that guy could have been an NFL running back. He’s not treated his body with the greatest respect! But he’s blessed with genes, and really tough.” Trombonist Greg Boyer led the P-Funk Horns from 1977 to 1996. Leaning against a wall outside the Forum, he explains his decision to return to the Mothership in 2021: “There was a lot of talk of George’s retirement,” he recalls. “I thought, ‘I don’t want to miss this. This could be a tour of historical significance.’” These days, he finds life aboard the Mothership very different to the band’s ’70s heyday. “This was the first time I had seen George run a soundcheck! He was very engaged in making sure parts were in order. Live, he’s out there long enough to let you know that he’s George Clinton. With the band that’s up there now, he doesn’t feel the need to be hands-on every moment. He’s been doing this a long time. It’s good to see him be able to relax and still participate.” The purpose of this tour – Clinton’s second ‘farewell’ jaunt, following one in 2019 – has also changed. “It’s not a hard farewell,” Boyer believes. “George has got other ventures now – he exhibits artwork. So if he were to say farewell and really mean it, I wouldn’t be surprised. But he’s getting a second wind and he’s looking and feeling much better than I remember. The band now is the legacy that he’s leaving for his grandkids – many of which are on stage. So when he does say I’ve had enough, the band will more than likely continue.” It’s getting chilly as evening sets in. Showtime approaches. Clip Payne ushers Uncut up the Mothership’s steps and inside its warm cocoon. The light inside is soft and relaxing, the leather seats well cushioned. In the distance, a roach end glows atmospherically. Long-time bassist Lige Curry settles down Clinton (far to a pre-show kebab. Behind us, right) with dooa billowing fug of dope smoke wop group The Parliaments suggests a fourth, unseen figure. “Well, here it is on the farewell tour,” Payne says. “Are we saying farewell, and to whom are we saying it? I started this tour with a friend who, once we leave the UK, I’ll probably never see again. He’s going to pass within the next two months. It’s maybe his farewell tour. This particular cherub right here, though,” he says, pointing towards the smoke, “may be here forever.” Payne steps a couple of feet towards the source of this impressive cloud and ushers Uncut into George Clinton’s presence. He’s sitting on a bed, dressed in a 66 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
What’ sa Funkadelic?: Clinton on stage,1970
tie-dyed T-shirt and loose-fitting trousers. His hair and beard are grey and short – his famous funkateer peacock locks shorn a decade back. He’s a peaceable, mellow presence, a little tired but highly together, as he reaches up his big hand to shake mine. “Oh, is that Paul?” he asks, looking at the cover of our 300th issue; Clinton is a big Fabs fan. As he looks through the issue, I pass on a message from Sidney Barnes. His old friend advises Clinton to “tear the roof off the mother” when he steps on stage at the Forum later. “Oh, yeah,” he says with a smile. “Sidney lives near me now, in North Carolina. He’s doing that Northern Soul thing. I heard he may be going out on the road again himself. I might just go out with him…” And with that, the portal into the Mothership starts to close. George Clinton says farewell – for tonight at least. “I’ve got a show to do…”
T
HIRTY minutes later, Clinton is standing on the stage of the packed-out Forum, while around him P-Funk’s current collective of up to 17 musicians kick into “(Standing) On The Verge Of Getting It On”. He’s sporting a green shirt with a space emperor’s silver collar, patchwork trousers and a sailor’s cap emblazoned with an oracular eye. He never leaves the stage during the two-hour set,
GEORGE CLINTON
“IF OUR STUFF GOT GOOD, WHITE GUYS WOULD TAKE IT” SIDNEY BARNES
Sheet happens: on stage in 1969, New York
“THE CRAZIESTSHITYOU’VE EVER SEEN!”
“G
The Parliament-Funkadelic Mothership flies in
EORGE called me in Chicago in 1978,” Sidney Barnes laughs, “and said, ‘You’ve gotta come see this shit.I’ve got a spaceship.’I said, what? ‘Yeah, man.I’ve spent all my money on this spaceship and I’m broke.’ He reminded me of something we’d see standing on the corner in New York.Pimps would come into town where we knew they didn’t have any money.But the money that they did have, they’d spend on a Cadillac.The girls would gather round, and that’s how they’d succeed.George used the same philosophy.He said, ‘I used all the money I could beg, borrow or steal.And they made me a spaceship that lands on stage.It’s the craziest shit you’ve ever seen!
“By the time I got to see it in California, everybody was talking about George and his spaceship.By that time, George was a star, the stadium was packed, and he had Garry Shider and Bootsy, and they were just playing their ass off.And all of a sudden you look up, and you saw this damn spaceship coming! And they were just pounding with this fucking rhythm and the thing lands on stage, George gets out, and everybody went crazy! That shit blew my mind! I was so proud of my boy, because I realised he had finally made it! But the spaceship broke him, actually.Because the tour money wasn’t going to P-Funk, cocaine was flowing and they were crazy motherfuckers at that time.”
Close encounter of the P-Funk kind at the Coliseum in LA,June 4,1977
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
though he takes breaks on a throne-like chair. Mostly, he presides over the show’s infectious, barely controlled chaos; an impishly cajoling, supportive presence, exhorting crowd and music to new heights. Michael Hampton prowls across the stage, not trying to match the late Eddie Hazel who he replaced in 1974, but launching his own hard rock salvos. The trio of female singers recall the Brides Of Funkenstein in their diverse glamour; a riot of wigs, sequins and psychedelic patterns. But as a bare-chested male vocalist in a fur coat struts through “Flash Light”, today’s P-Funk seems a very modern beacon of freaky liberty. Every kind of music is in the P-Funk ambit – from acid rock to jazz, hip-hop and gorgeous gospel-soul. Clinton wordlessly conducts choruses, very much at the heart of the phenomenon he built so long ago. But tonight also foreshadows the passing of the P-Funk torch, to a younger generation. In a move worthy of a shapeshifting, time-travelling master like Clinton, the set both looks forward to the future but also spins back more than a half-century, to the barbershop where this story began. “When I met George in the mid-’50s, he already had some reel-to-reel demos,” Sidney Barnes recalls. “He was cunning, clever, ambitious. That’s why he became the leader that he was. He was always telling the other
guys in the barbershop what do. He was like the father of the neighbourhood. When he was fixing hair, he could sing a bit, and realised a couple of the others could, and that he could write. But we were just kids, singing in a hallway with enough echo to sound good. We had no idea where it would lead.” Barnes and his partner George Kerr seized their own chance in 1962, becoming producer-writers at Motown’s New York office. “We let George know the door was open. So we started working with him at Motown. George already had that clever songwriting thing. Now we could be in the studio and develop our skills.” By 1966, Clinton, Barnes and Funk Brother Mike Terry had a production company at Detroit’s rival Golden World Studios, where Clinton and Barnes wrote “I Bet You” – later a Jackson 5 hit. Rooming in a Detroit hotel, the friends dreamed big. “George wanted to Parliament-Funkadelic, stretch out in a new form of music,” says Barnes. “He Liverpool,May 1971: (l–r) Fuzzy Haskins,Tawl didn’t want to wear suits and look like The Temptations. Ross,Bernie Worrell,Tiki Fulwood,Grady Thomas, But being black, we had to stay in our place – and if our George Clinton,Ray stuff got good, white guys would take it.” Davis,Calvin Simon Barnes found crossover success by joining the white and (front ,seated) Billy Nelson and Eddie Hazel band Rotary Connection. Clinton, meanwhile, took the opposite route. Drawing inspiration from The Beatles’ psychedelic revolution, he remodelled The Parliaments, his barbershop group, accordingly. As he later asked, “Who Says A Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?!” “When black kids weren’t paying attention to what the white kids were wearing or doing, George was,” Barnes recalls. “Because George wasn’t that black. He was a universal kind of guy. But bell-bottoms weren’t enough for him. He called me one day when he’d had a Mohican haircut and wore a sheet with underwear. He said, ‘When I walked down the street in New Jersey and I didn’t get beat up or arrested, I knew I had something!’ They were laughing at him, but they followed him. Still nobody came to the shows, because they were doing scary shit. George was almost naked, being crazy.” “The next day, they were talking about it all through my Detroit junior high school,” laughs SatoriShakoor, then named Jeanette McGruder. “‘This guy, he lifts up his sheet, with nothing on…’ That’s not Motown!” The Parliaments had a 1967 Top 20 hit with “(I Wanna) Testify”. Bassist Prakash John joined them on the road. “George had one side of his head shaved short,” he recalls. “The other with a little shaved half-moon – which didn’t go down well when we pulled into a country gas station at dawn in Alabama. They see George and the lights go off. I thought we were going to be shot. George tells everybody to stay in the cars, goes up to the barred
GEORGE CLINTON windows and starts talking. After 15 minutes, the lights go back on. George has no chip on his shoulder about racists, and no fear. He’s not worried about what other people can do to him.” “George is a natural friend to people,” Clip Payne says. “So he doesn’t trip on where you come from, your complexion or your politics. He teaches how to live and let live.” When Parliament became mired in a contractual dispute, Clinton promoted their backing band, including Eddie Hazel and classically trained keyboardist-arranger Bernie Worrell, into an alternate outfit – Funkadelic. By then, as Barnes remembers, these black freaks weren’t alone. “Sly Stone came on the scene and the Chambers Brothers, then Norman Whitfield sees Rotary and Parliament and gets Motown in on it. So Westbound took a chance on Funkadelic.” Their second album, Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow (1970), was taped in a single, acid-fried weekend. Its sprawling title track set out Clinton’s core agenda almost at the start. The similarly epic title track of 1971’s Maggot Brain saw Hazel outHendrix Hendrix in a heartrending, screaming, 10-minute solo. America Eats Its Young (1972) then revealed a satirical edge to the sonic mayhem. Transferring across from James Brown’s backing band, Bootsy Collins became P-Funk’s talismanic bassist. “It was funk at first bite!” he laughs. “With George, anyone who walked in was invited to the party. That spirit fuelled everything. Just jam and see what worked. George was analysing all that stuff; we were just having a good time playing. Everything about George then was fun.”
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
P
ARLIAMENT was revived, as Clinton’s output became more prolific and he began to spread across band-names and labels. Their 1975 concept album Mothership Connection sent P-Funk’s underground success towards the stratosphere, reaching No 13 in the American charts and signalling a true funk revolution. “Oh shit, man!” laughs Sidney Barnes. “That was the big turning point. I was in the studio then. I had never known George to go that far. He wasn’t structuring his songs any 68 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Now with added Bootsy Collins (top left):the P-Funk crew circa 1977
more the way Berry Gordy had always taught us, where you gotta have an intro, verse and chorus. With Mothership Connection, they weren’t songs any more. They were rhythm changes. George would play a vamp for 10 minutes and make a song out of that. I said, ‘George, are you sure?’ He said, ‘Trust me!’ He had guys who’d come from James Brown’s band and they knew how black people liked it. But it was such a moving kind of thing, white kids liked it too. Everybody did. It was James Brown brought into the ’70s. It was an instant hit.” The title track mixed starchildren and funked-up alien visitations, helping Clinton construct his wild P-Funk mythology. “That came out of George and Bootsy seeing a UFO one night,” says Boyer. “We were in the Bermuda Triangle,” says Collins. “We were fishing and getting high and the Mothership concept came. Once Mothership… was out and people gravitated towards it, George locked into what he was doing. I’d never
seen him that focused. People got into what he was saying, how you could become a bigger and better Funkateer. It was like the Dead had the Deadheads. It was more than dancing and having a good time. Those were just perks!” In 1978, Clinton’s funk empire was at its height. One Nation Under A Groove hit the US Top 20, while its anthemic title track crashed the UK Top 10. The accompanying tour, complete with an actual, functioning Mothership, landed in stadiums. SatoriShakoor joined as a backing singer for Parliament-Funkadelic and their new offshoot, the Brides Of Funkenstein. “To be surrounded by that much energy and funk on stage was absolutely mesmerising,” she says. “The horns right next to me, and the guitars and the drums – it was like being inside a symphony. But for me, the show was the audience. It was full of free black people, who could be themselves, and dance their way out of their restrictions – free their mind and their ass followed, without this institution of whiteness directing anything. There was a celebratory feeling.” Shakoor learnt many lessons from George along the way. “We played the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, which holds 5,000, and only 500 showed up, because people didn’t believe he was coming. George said, ‘We’re going to play harder for them than if this was a packed house – because they showed up.’ Another time, there was this record, ‘Trans-Europe Express’ – oh, I hated it, it sounded so inhuman. George said, ‘Well, if you hate it that much, you might as well love it.’ That puzzle took years to understand…”
were several factors,” Shakoor recalls. “In New York, we were discoing. People still loved P-Funk, but a different rhythm was emerging. You can make a disco record without paying all these people. There were the drugs. George used to babysit every lyric and part and his ear would reach up to some note not in human range. Suddenly, a lot of time was spent down in the basement instead of the control room. Then they were hiding the equipment and sneaking out of cheap hotels. P-Funk never really stopped – George kept reviving them. But that was the end of my service in Uncle Jam’s army.” “George was not the most organised “We were wild and powerful”: businessman,” Prakash John says in (l–r) Sheila mitigation. “But he was the kindest Horne,Satori Shakoor and and grooviest bandleader.” Dawn Silva,1979 Releasing fifth Clinton’s personal decline in the ’80s solo album The was steep, though faced up to with Cinderella Theory in 1989 typical candour. “George got pulled over by a police officer,” says John. “The officer says, ‘Oh, hey, George, whatcha doin’?’ And he says, Clinton’s home life also had its surprises. “When ‘Oh, just a little bit of crack…’ He’s so honest! He told I was at his farm, he didn’t have any furniture,” me he’d been smoking weed since he was seven…” Shakoor laughs, “only stuffed animals, and books on ET here Clinton is in 2022, still taking it to the subjects like space and Cro-Magnon man. In his record stage, and not nearly done yet. As per Sidney collection, he only had one album that wasn’t P-Funk, Barnes’ instructions, he finishes with “Give Up and that was Stevie Wonder. You could get little clues ATORI Shakoor was still The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Mother)”. about the man from his artefacts. I really thought he Jeanette McGruder when she Smooth harmonies and steamy funk build over a was an alien for a couple of years. I wouldn’t go joined P-Funk’s female offshoot muscular beat, ’til at one point in this epic rendition, anywhere near him. If he spoke to me – whooh!” in 1978,first as a backing vocalist on Funk Or Walk (1978),then as a full Clinton’s right hand signals an Working as a lead vocalist on member on Never Buy Texas From element of the tumult to hush. the second Brides Of Funkenstein A Cowboy (1979),whose title track He’s still hearing what others album Never Buy Texas From A is a joyous high point of Clinton’s don’t, still conducting his Cowboy (1979), Shakoor also producing art.Today,she considers legendary band. enjoyed Clinton’s foibles as a the role of these P-Funk women: Back on the Mothership, Clip producer. “George had this golden“The Brides were beautiful,heavenly bodies floating in space,with spandex Payne considers how P-Funk has diamond-platinum earpiece. He’d and foxtails and gyrating bodies – like survived. “You know how they lift his ear up to the ceiling as if Beyoncé.We were wild and powerful, say that new robots will assess something was there he needed to and the stages were up high. themselves, and see what they’re grab. He would have a pipe in his “So we were appealing to women, missing? This band’s been like hand and an unlit match. He was and we were definitely appealing that too, with new members.” listening for something, and to men.We provided that feminine energy,that female side of P-Funk, The P-Funkers who’ve been lost when he heard it, you could feel that had an elegance and a also play their part. “These songs sometimes deal with the tension go out of his body. He heard what I would raunchiness all at the same time.It fears and passing on. It’s for the sake of some of the perceive as mistakes as creative opportunities. He was was a beautiful packaging.” people who have passed on that there’s still energy in the general and he had his team around him listening Being a Bride was addictive:“I was this. We’ve got to do it for them.” too – classical music represented by Bernie Worrell, supposed to be my sister’s maid of As for the secret of George Clinton’s endurance, even who’d studied at Juilliard, to the Georgia backwoods honour at her wedding - but I stayed with P-Funk.” Yet the band became he isn’t sure. “I was talking with George the other day,” gut-bucket of Garry Shider. What I remember of casualties of the organisation’s 1982 Sidney Barnes says. “We don’t know why we’re still George is this feeling that anything might happen.” collapse.“I lost my identity,” Satori alive. Because everyone around us has died – and Clinton pumped out a production line of albums as recalls.“If I wasn’t a Bride,who was we did more drugs than most of them. If he hadn’t the ’70s ended, assigning tracks to new outlets I? I couldn’t go back to being this married his wife Carlon [in 2010], including Bootsy’s Rubber Band, Jeanette McGruder person.I was an I think he would be dead. He was while somehow sustaining his alien,who’d seen things and been Farewell?: places.Everything seemed so tiny really close a few times.” freaky, steely standards. Clinton on outside of P-Funk.” Shakoor has since stage at For Boyer, P-Funk, at least, “George’s talkback mic in the the Forum succeeded will go on, because of the studio was so loud,” Collins as a generosity bestowed by its remembers of a Rubber Band stand-up composer. “We used to do shows session. “He’d be singing and comic and and have 50 or 60 guests on stage. hollering, he didn’t care how loud storyteller. “I thought George made records with lots of it was. He was having the time of I’d become background vocalists, because his life, and so was I.” someone he wanted it to sound like a big It couldn’t last. By 1982, the through party where everybody was P-Funk empire had imploded, P-Funk,” invited. The concept is still the battered by contractual disputes she reflects. same. This is for everybody.” and financial black holes. “There “And I did.”
S
“GEORGE IS A NATURAL FRIEND TO PEOPLE” CLIP PAYNE
AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •6 9
AARON RAPOPORT/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES;RICHARD E.AARON/REDFERNS; JIM DYSON/GETTY IMAGES
Y
I WAS A BRIDE OF FUNKENSTEIN!
SESSA
The
boy from
Brazil From São Paulo to New York, via a remote island off the southeast coast of Brazil, SESSA has taken his dreamy, strippeddown brand of Tropicália with him. But how does he contend with the movement’s history and tradition as well as Brazil’s turbulent political landscape? “I’m a musician, that’s where my heart is,” he tells Allison Hussey
W
Photo by HELENA WOLFENSON
HEN Sergio Sayeg showed up in Joel Stones’ Tropicália in Furs record shop around 2007, it seemed like a fluke. Stones had seen the angular young man with a big cloud of dark hair around Manhattan’s East Village for weeks. But the stranger’s interest in the Brazilian-specific vinyl haven quickly revealed itself as soon as he started speaking, his English rounded with the distinctive full-bodied lilt of a Brazilian accent. The teenage Sayeg became a regular in the store, absorbing its contents – songs, discographies, track lists, liner notes, credits – like a sponge. Stones’ record shop would turn out to be a gravitational force for Sayeg, who’s now on his second Tropicália-indebted album under the name Sessa. His time there as a clerk and a customer changed his relationship with music forever, giving him a portal that hurtled him into the rest of his life. “You soak in, like, what’s a song? When do the drums come in? How should they sound?” Sayeg recalls, pulling apart a sweet, puffy brioche croissant in the sunny front window of a small Portuguese café in Jersey City. On stage and off, Sayeg dresses himself in striking vintage clothes that vaguely recall the 1960s-era psychedelia that seeps into his music. Though Stones calls Sayeg “a little Bob Dylan”, the mysterious Minnesotan would never be seen in such bold attire. Bob’s loss, really. Fifteen years after he first stepped into Stones’ shop, Sayeg is nearing the end of a United States tour opening for the freewheeling Turkish psych-folk band Altin Gün. At the Music Hall of Williamsburg the night before we 70 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
meet – the second of two sold-out shows there – the 33-year-old sat hunched over his honey-coloured acoustic guitar on a late April evening. He introduced songs from his second album, Estrela Acesa, carrying a soothing, radiant energy. The project’s title, in Portuguese, means “burning star”. Sayeg made the record at the home studio of his São Paulo friend Biel Basile on Ilhabela – “beautiful island” – located about 200km southeast of São Paulo. There, the pair built the album’s rhythmic foundation from a beachside locale. But Sayeg’s journey toward being an ascendant steward of one of Brazil’s beloved musical exports began well before he ever stepped across the threshold of an enticingly named record store with a guitar in the window. Now 33, Sayeg doesn’t remember when or where he came by the nickname Sessa. He uses the title as a mononym for a full band, where he’s joined by singers and a drummer. Sayeg grew up in the very small enclave of São Paulo’s Sephardic Jewish community. “I don’t think people that attend synagogue would say, ‘Oh, this is a music place,’” Sayeg recalls. “It is very musical. But it’s just chance.” The music came through the liturgical programmes and amid holiday celebrations; in turn, Sayeg absorbed call-andresponse structures and winding Arabic melodies. Though the young Sayeg had access to plenty of music through his relatively comfortable upbringing – he participated in the rite of passage of being a 15-year-old in a scrappy rock band – he nonetheless came of age in another tumultuous political era for Brazil. In his teens, Sayeg first encountered Basile, who co-produced and contributed percussion to Estrela Acesa. Long before they worked on music together, though, they were both involved in teenage DIY bands in São
Artist mononymous : Sergio Sayeg, aka Sessa
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SESSA Paulo, meeting each other in a neighbourhood record store. “We were teenagers playing in jam sessions in the neighbourhood. Sessa had a band, Garotas Suecas, and I had another band in that time,” Basile remembers. “We played a lot together, and we began to be friends.” They bonded over 1960s psychedelia, classic rock like The Beatles and the Stones, and the Brazilian singer-songwriter Erasmo Carlos. They swapped CDs of pirated Brazilian rarities, and mutually obsessed over Tropicália icons like Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Jorge Mautner. By the time Sayeg had left Brazil for a spell in the United States, he and Basile remained kindred spirits. They’d gotten close enough that they could pick up their friendship again without a hiccup, no matter how long they’d been apart. “I was a fan of Sessa. I remember Sessa playing electric guitar when I was teenager, and it was amazing,” Basile says of their early days orbiting each other. “I love the first songs Sessa wrote when I was a teenager.”
DAVE SCHOLTEN; GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
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AYEG began hopping between São Paulo and New York Joel Stones in those teen years. Around 2005, he and his family moved to one of the deeper pockets of Brooklyn, New York. By the early 2000s, Brazil was still regaining its economic and political footing after a decade of postmilitary-regime attempts at democratic government. Sayeg’s parents thought to give it a shot somewhere else Jorge for a while. Mautner “It’s not that my family emigrated here out of starvation, but there was a desire for better conditions, because of a lot of the subsequent crisis in a very fragile democracy [that was] leaving the world’s worst revival chapter of dictatorship and authoritarianism,” Sayeg explains, summarising the economic turmoil of the time: “It’s fucked up.” Sayeg had an unusually intense Caetana Veloso education as a young person in New York, where a new maze of opportunities and overlapping cultures unfolded before him. Sayeg found more than a boss in Tropicália in Furs’ Joel Stones, whom Sayeg says also had a formative role in helping São Paulo have a scene for underground bands. Stones first encountered Sayeg after he’d relocated Tropicália In Furs a few blocks over on 15th Street in the East Village. Bonding over their mutual enthusiasm Gilberto Gil for music, they fell into an easy friendship, with Stones taking on something of an 72 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
uncle role. Or, as Sayeg calls him, an “older brother, trippy wizard father guy”. “He was at art school, or something, and he would leave school, come to the shop, then be at shop all the time,” Stones says. “One time, he knew more people [in the shop] than I knew already.” Sayeg’s enthusiasm and constant presence eventually earned him a job at the shop. On the occasions when the pace of business was a bit more casual in the niche shop – weekday afternoons, in particular – Sayeg occupied himself the way any self-respecting record clerk would: he listened to records, poring over the shop’s stacks and taking in liner notes as he kept its turntable constantly occupied. His time in the shop’s orbit occasionally sent him back to Brazil on trips to buy records, where he was entrusted with a chunk of shop funds to restock it with enticing titles. Sayeg says that on one such trip, he spent it exclusively on 45s. Sayeg’s time at Tropicália In Furs put him in touch with its distinguishing clientele, often DJs who could bring their own different strains of expertise into Sayeg’s life. “I got to hear a lot of free jazz – I remember seeing a Pharoah Sanders
record and saying, ‘Wow, this is really heavy, what is this?’” he says, pointing out Sanders’ 1967 album Tauhid as especially memorable. It was in this same period that Sayeg began sketching out the songs that would eventually become his first long player, Grandeza, though he didn’t yet have an album in mind. Stones’ record shop was a library and social hub for the young Sayeg, but it was also where he started turning his attention toward the guitar. He leaned into the Tropicália stylings of Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and more. The genre’s originators had reappropriated sounds that had earned their country the stereotype of a tropical paradise, transmitting their harsh lived realities and rejecting expectations of who all Brazilians were supposed to be. A young person split between home and away, Sayeg was likewise figuring out who he was supposed to be. Stones remembers that Sayeg had plucked a guitar out of the shop’s window display and more or less adopted it for himself. Stones watched Sayeg start to work out little songs at his shop, processing all of his newly acquired knowledge into original melodies in almost real time. With the band Garotas Suecas, Sayeg turned his attention toward hard-charging, ebullient funkrock, bringing groovy bass lines to the group. The band pulled him back to Brazil for a few years as they achieved moderate popularity, but Sayeg departed after their second album, 2013’s Feras Míticas. He soon found his way back into New York’s busy music scene, playing bass for the Israeli-born, New York-based electric guitar explorer Yonatan Gat. “I remember more than once, in rehearsals playing bass – people say, ‘Stop swinging,’ and I’m like, ‘Man, I’m playing as straight as I can, like, arms steep and hurting!’” he says, laughing. “Of course, it's not that I’m like Stevie Wonder,
Sayeg’s seleçao
With Yonatan Gat in 2017:“People would say, ‘Stop swinging!’”;(left) performing solo in 2020
Sessa’s guide to Tropicália ERASMO CARLOS
SONHOS & MEMÓRIAS (1972)
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AYEG released his first album as Sessa, Grandeza, in spring 2019. He’d recorded it on an eight-track Tascam console, giving the project a lightly fuzzy feel. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic
taking shape without any original intention to make one. For Basile, the relaxed environment gave the musicians room to stretch out in a way they hadn’t gotten previously. It was a place where they could let their creativity bloom at whatever pace felt right. They could get to work in the morning, take a break for a leisurely lunch of fresh fish caught from the surrounding sea, and pick up their work again when they felt so moved. Basile further helped shaped the sound of the record by recruiting his friend Marcelo Cabral, who recorded its sinuous bass lines. “He’s gotten his hands on a lot of what the music is,” Sayeg says of Cabral’s “profound” presence. “He's a jazz musician, he spent a lot of time playing samba clubs as a seven string guitar player. But also, he’s part of a lot of contemporary and experimental music in Brazil.” For string adornments, Sayeg brought on the Minsk-based Alex Chumak and New York-based Simon Hanes, both of whom contributed their parts from afar. Comparing Estrela Acesa with Grandeza, Sayeg describes the former as a sort of hangover album. Indeed, where he was often lighthearted and cheeky with Grandeza, Estrela Acesa is moodier and more pensive – not quite Noteworthy: downcast, but sometimes lingering Irma Thomas with bittersweet aftertaste. The easygoing songs on Estrela Acesa are bound to bubble up on plenty of “chill” playlists, but their easygoing ambience yields so much more than a relegation to the background. Far more than vibes though, the album conveys a hangover of life in the new millennium, elegantly capturing the disquieted fatigue of a generation left permanently disappointed by those in power.
“He doesn’t act like a Brazilian! He needs to know this!” JOEL STONES obliterated any major touring plans he might’ve set up for 2020 and beyond. Amid the upheaval, however, Sayeg and Basile had maintained their friendship. Though they’d appreciated each other for years, the pair formally made music for the first time together when they collaborated on a cover of David Bowie’s “Panic In Detroit” for a compilation by the label BBE Music. As the months of isolation stretched along, Sayeg took to writing again, trading loops and other musical snippets with Basile over e-mail. Eventually, when Sayeg made his way back to Brazil for a few months, the two decided to get together for real, fleshing out their ideas and seeing what they could do once they were finally in the same room. The pair convened in the spring of 2021 at Basile’s home on Ilhabela. Its relatively utilitarian name undersells its palate of jutting green palm fronds, wide cascading waterfalls, pale sandy beaches, and crisp cerulean water. There, Sayeg and Basile began a more focused exchange of sounds and ideas, an album soon
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ALF a century after Tropicália first planted its stake on the Brazilian cultural landscape, the country remains in a state of agitation. Sayeg is well aware of the authoritarian forces ensnaring everyday people; the Brazil he inherited continues to reckon with the ripple effect of multiple political destabilizations. The hard-right Jair Bolsonaro ascended to Brazil’s presidency at the beginning of 2019, and has since fumbled the Covid-19 pandemic at the peril of millions while fanning wild flames of misinformation. “Oh, we are fucked in Brazil right now,” as Basile puts it bluntly, speaking firsthand. For Basile, working on Estrela Acesa became a healing escape through multiple channels: from the grip of political authoritarianism, the ache of social turmoil and from the many layered restrictions imposed by pandemicpaused life. When he and Sayeg converged in Ilhabela, it was one of the first times that Basile had spent time around another person who wasn’t his
ALCYVANDO LUZ
BAHIA DE OXALÁ
(1993) He’s the writer of a song Joao Gilberto plays on his ’73 record called “É Preciso Perdoar”.He’s not famous, but he’s definitely a cultural character. This record is a good reference for freedom and crookedness, and believing the poetry.
LÔ BORGES LÔ BORGES
(1972) When you think about ambiguous harmonies, a lot of the Brazilian harmonies and chords are like that.Clashing with more rock aesthetics, that’s pretty special.
ANTÔNIO ADOLFO
ANTÔNIO ADOLFO (1972)
This record marked me.It also has bass and drums, piano, nylon-stringed guitar.It’s such a good sound.Even if I didn’t want, I would try to make that sound because it’s so ingrained in me.
GAL COSTA GAL COSTA
(1969) When I started to conceptualise this record, I would just sit with it and try to learn the melodies and the arrangements.I’m not sure I succeeded, but I try to make sense of it. Gal Costa, 1969
CAIO FERREIRA;GETTY IMAGES
swinging everywhere, but it’s what I can offer.” Between gigs, Sayeg lived among other artists in a Brooklyn apartment where he barely had space for himself, a mattress, and an upright bass. He loved it. Like the young thinkers at the fore of Tropicália, Sayeg found more musical inspirations well beyond the borders of his home country, citing JimiHendrix and Sly And The Family Stone as formative influences. He’s also found himself enthralled with the New Orleans rhythm and blues singer, Irma Thomas – “She should be on the hundred dollar bill,” he proclaims. There’s nothing on Estrela Acesa that screams “second line” or big Crescent City brass, but the holy spirit of music meant to move bodies is universal.
Maybe the most important musician for me.He has a string of psych records that are so profound.The lyrics are so economical, sort of the sweet tint of pain that I think sometimes comes across in my music.
SESSA partner. It was a mental health break as much as anything else. “I love to play the drums, but I love to play with other people. I’m not the guy who wants to play alone,” Basile says. Meanwhile, Sayeg has established legal residence in America, but he remains conscious of Brazil’s ongoing economic disparity and vicious political class – he still spends a significant amount of time in his home country, where many of his friends and family still live. Sayeg’s music is a natural descendant of Tropicália, born out of Sayeg’s deep devotion to the music that shaped his aesthetic awareness as a young man. He’s got a near encyclopaedic knowledge of (and attendant enthusiasm for) one of the Chasing the poetry:on stage country’s richest cultural at the Music Hall exports. But rather than of Williamsburg, April27, 2022 slamming into culture wars head-on, Sayeg’s lyrics tend to take a more slanted approach to politics. “I’m not a musician where the main point of entrance to my music is the sloganeering type of political work,” he says. “But at the same time, with all these elements of the music, this sort of discipline, attention to go where it takes you, the respect to this tradition and history – I think those things, in a way, are our political elements of my music.” They may not seem overtly political as Sayeg and his backing vocalists breeze over mellifluous vowels, but he channels through pain to reach for a world where conflict recedes and calm abounds. Rather than hedonistic, Sayeg seems to want everybody to enjoy the right to be free of their burdens and just relax. “Come, oh song of healing/ of crashed loves/of these wounded bodies”, he sings in “Canção da Cura”. “Music is not just ‘beat together’/but beating together with someone”, he intones on “Música”. Basile, meanwhile, sees their work as a crucial manifestation of the life that exists outside the bounds of getting from one day to the next. The brutality of life under an increasingly restrictive regime can make it easy to forget the fragile, beautiful things that make life worth living. “We have to find a way to survive, to get pleasure with art a little bit, to make people feel pleasure – I think this is important thing, to have our health,” he says.
BRYCESON CENTER
“We have to find a way to survive, to make people feel pleasure”
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ACK at the little café table in New Jersey, Sayeg is again reflecting on what awaits him in the forthcoming months. Once the tour wraps up in Philadelphia, he’ll head back to São Paulo for a stretch, where he has an even bigger commitment on his plate than touring or an album cycle: fatherhood. The Brazil that awaits him and his young family remains scarred by the climate around Bolsonaro’s regime. “We’ve gotten emptied out of a lot of possibility, kind of, like sensitivity and transcendence and connections. I think music is the liquid in which those things exist, you know – so in that sense, I’m a musician, that’s where my heart is,” Sayeg says. The investment reflects his atypical sense of calm, a quality that Stones saw in him early on and relays in a comical, loving jab. “He doesn’t act like a Brazilian! He needs to know this,” Stones announces, continuing, “He isn’t normal, because he’s so calm, always. He really knows how to cool down the place. Brazilians are so high-power, always a lot of talking on top of each other, you know? Sessa doesn’t have that, even when we’re always on his case.”
Estrela Acesa arrives on the American label Mexican Summer. Even now, the odds remain stacked against Brazilian artists who exist outside of major capital machinery: Bolsonaro quickly eliminated the country’s Ministry of Culture, one of his first acts upon assuming his office (which he’s set to keep through the end of 2022). The influx of support from a well-known independent record label, Basile says, went a long way in fostering the kind of free-flowing creative environment that give Estrela Acesa such a relaxed shine. Even without an indie label, it’s entirely possible that Sayeg would’ve ended up making Estrela Acesa anyway – such is his singular determination, as his record-store mentor Stones observes. He’s watched the singer-songwriter as he climbed toward a life of full-time musicianship, chasing the poetry and bewitching beauty that it affords. “To try to do music for real is such a big decision. You’d never see [Sayeg] talk about a Plan B. ‘If you have a Plan B, you shouldn’t have started the Plan A,’ is how he thinks,” Stones says. “He was always like, ‘That’s what I’m going to do.’ And it’s fantastic. I see it as it is happening. Maybe slow, but it’s getting there so right.” Even as Brazilian pop artist Anitta has established herself as one of the biggest superstars in the world over the last year, most other Brazilian artists are still straining against their country’s poor infrastructure for the arts – and just about everything else. But as the songs on Estrela Acesa convey, gentle and fleeting beauty survives, with a little bit of attentive care. Even shaded by the obstacles of life under late capitalism, Estrela Acesa nonetheless tries to bring a little bit of light to all it touches. Estrela Acesa is out June 2 4 , released by Mexican Summer
Nina Nastasia
Nina Nastasia: compellingly direct
As she releases her most nakedly personal album yet, the Californian songwriter walks us through her back catalogue
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HOUGH Nina Nastasia’s previous six albums quietly mastered the art of subtle devastation, they won’t have prepared listeners for her seventh. The Los Angeles-born singer-songwriter came to cult acclaim in her thirties with her 2000 self-released debut, Dogs, recorded by Steve Albini, who passed a copy on to John Peel. Both became champions of Nastasia’s powerful songwriting: compellingly direct, darkly skewed alt.country which evolved through storms of strings, saw, fiddle and accordion on The Blackened Air and Run To Ruin, via collaboration with the Dirty Three’s ingenious drummer Jim White on You Follow Me, to grand orchestral drama on Outlaster. In April, Nastasia revealed that her 25-year relationship with her partner and manager, Kennan Gudjonsson, had been marred for most of that time by emotional abuse and control. After she ended it in 2020, he killed himself. Her stark new album, Riderless Horse, unsparingly documents her grief and her survival; “I am ready to live”, she sings in the last moments of its final song. EMILY MACKAY
DOGS SOCIALIST RECORDS, 2 0 0 0 /TOUCH AND GO, 2 0 0 4
Songs of subtle and shifting moods that still haunt with their sense of hushed aftermath I’d been doing music organically, from having a shitty job and being desperate to escape in writing songs, to doing little open mics, then slowly, slowly doing shows in New York City. And then when I met Kennan, he ended up being a kind of producer for all the records after that. He was a real force; he was the one who said, “We need to record this with Steve Albini.” Walking into such a beautiful studio, and working with Steve, that was a super-lucky, great, great way to do the first record. He can make it sound like you’re in the room. And it could be fun. At the start of recording, we were having trouble getting “Nobody Knew Her” to sound great. And Steve said, “I have a suggestion. Everybody take your balls out.” So everybody did, and that was the take we used. I think that broke a lot of ice. The song that I’m most proud of is 7 6 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
“Stormy Weather”. I’d never really call myself a real guitar player and “Stormy Weather” doesn’t pay attention to any rules that, if I were to start learning the guitar, I’d maybe have to think about. So I was maybe going a bit more sophisticated than I was aware of, musically. And also, I’m happy with the lyric writing, how it gets across certain things that I grew up with – my mother, and her UNCUT illness [Nastasia’s mother CLASSIC died when she was 18]. She would go through cortisone Then for The Blackened Air we psychosis due to the steroid were with Touch And Go, and medications she took for her we really wanted to get a second lung condition. Some of those record out as quickly as we could. episodes were quite scary – there This was my favourite album in was a moment where she pulled terms of the experience – it was the me out of the shower and said, ultimate fun, fantastic, with a great “Oh, my God, the house is on fire,” group of people. At the very or she’d be talking on the phone beginning of discovering writing and nobody was there. songs I was kind of obsessive about it, I wrote so many. So the first three records, we were picking which THE BLACKENED AIR ones to record from a big pool. For TOUCH AND GO, 2 0 0 2 Dogs and The Blackened Air, it was Summoning a more elemental more about which songs worked power in its dynamic arrangements, together than having a definite Nastasia’s second set wrestles with theme. I have a lot of ocean and toxic love water songs – I’m starting to get We had put out Dogs ourselves.
kind of almost annoyed with myself like, “Jesus Christ, so I’m talking about the sea again?” Maybe it’s because I’m from Southern California and I went to the beach a lot. That’s where I feel most comfortable and happy, when I’m at the ocean. I feel a lot of peace when I’m swimming, so maybe that’s why I keep going to that. In “Ocean”, the lyrics talk about turning into a giant and causing destruction. At that point it was a couple of years into that dysfunction in my relationship. And there’s a lot in the lyrics about feeling… not empowered, but powerfully destructive, causing messes everywhere I go; this feeling of low self-esteem or that things are wrong with me. That’s certainly there in “Ugly Face”, which we recorded in the dark. It ended up sounding quite drunk… I think we were drunk. I was maybe trying to make something out of all those feelings of lack of self-worth and feeling controlled or feeling like I’m destroying things. Musically, we definitely wanted to hear a storminess in it. I wasn’t
particularly musical in that, like, speaking to musicians, I couldn’t say, you know, go to the fifth of the blah blah blah. So a lot of times, if, say, [saw player] Gonzalo Muñoz was playing a song, I might say, “Make it sound like a dog that’s hurt, in the rain, and maybe he’s a little lonely,” or “Imagine it’s thundering.”
RUN TO RUIN TOUCH & GO, 2 0 0 3
Cinematic songs exploring failed communication Run To Ruin had more of a theme than the first two; though we were still picking from a pool of songs, it definitely had a darker feel to it. It just so happened too that my dad had died, right before recording it. I said goodbye, and actually had to make the decision to turn his life support off. We were about to do All Tomorrow’s Parties and then go and record in France with Steve, at Black Box studio, an absolutely beautiful place in the countryside. It was one of those moments where it was
like, ‘Well, he wouldn’t want me to not keep going.’ So instead of cancelling things, I just continued. So that recording was particularly hard; I remember having moments of crying in between recording. But the recording times were good. We were really getting into our way of working with these incredible musicians and getting them to improvise these great arrangements. But we were trying to get a lot done in a very short period of time – we also were doing a pre-recorded Peel session, and the festival, and I think maybe we were doing a tour as well. I remember doing this one song for the Peel session solo, a very, very sad song called “Untitled”. And I couldn’t stop laughing. You know, sometimes you just get the giggles? We had so much to do, and everybody’s laughing with you until it’s like, “Jesus Christ, let’s get on with it!” So then I was just sitting there going “Dead Dad, dead Dad, dead Dad, dead Dad.” Like some mantra for me to get sad… which was even funnier, actually. I always wondered if Steve still had that recording: “OK, OK, stop laughing… dead Dad, dead Dad, dead Dad.”
ON LEAVING FATCAT, 2 0 0 6
A more musically direct album with more story-songs, focused on a sense of loss and regret I don’t remember a lot about being in the studio for this one. I remember we wanted it to have more piano in it, and we wanted it to be simpler. There’s this feeling in the songs: well... this is your life. And how sad, that you made this choice… It’s a repeated theme in the albums up to this new record, of feeling out of control, feeling regretful. I’ve
“I was just sitting there going ‘Dead Dad, dead Dad, dead Dad, dead Dad’”
always been very interested in things that are sad or ugly, even in films or things I like to listen to or read. I like trying to find beauty in the awful stuff, creating something beautiful out of the grim. I don’t know if I’m gonna start writing fun, happy things now, if I don’t need to write about those things any more... but when you’re happy, you can take it for granted, just be happy or whatever; I don’t really need to talk about it, I don’t really need to work anything out. I mean, I love happy things, but maybe I’ll always chase darker themes. “Bird Of Cuzco” was written after John Peel died, for a tribute album [2005’s John Peel: A Tribute]… John was a very, very special individual and the whole family are just lovely people, they’re like another family to me. I had to really pinch myself to have those experiences, doing sessions at their house. John was so good with me being so scared about messing up, he was just so gentle about everything and so sweet. I’m desperate to get to do shows in England again so I can go back to Suffolk and stay there and hang out with those guys. AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •7 7
“I felt completely solo”:Nastasia in 2021 after the death of her longtime partner Kennan Gudjonsson
was a great thing and I learned a lot. I can be pretty closed-minded about that stuff and I was afraid to go in the direction of some of those arrangements for some reason. I think Paul was saying something about a flute, and I was like: “No fucking way… I can’t have a flute.” But I developed from that session, I broadened my appreciation and my likes because of working with Paul. And in the end, I love how things happened with those arrangements – it was another nice growth spurt.
RIDERLESS HORSE TEMPORARY RESIDENCE, 2 0 2 2
YOU FOLLOW ME
ZUMA PRESS, INC./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
FATCAT, 2 0 0 7
A complicated, magnetic dance between Jim White’s restless, virtuosic drumming and Nastasia’s increasingly powerful vocals I learned so much about performing from working with Jim White. We worked on the songs before recording for longer than we’d ever done, in terms of working out parts and arrangements. This was also the first time I was writing a bunch of songs specifically for a record. I think we had a month in a studio in New York. It was really great, because playing with Jim is like playing with an orchestra, I don’t know how else to describe it. He’s just so dynamic. And he was quite free – I just learned a lot about listening to what he was doing. The You Follow Me thing, it’s because a lot of times I would find myself following his lead in performance. It felt really like another growth spurt, because before, I was very rigid performing, because I was so scared and felt so
“Riderless Horse talks a lot about suicide and abuse. I felt a need to be vocal about it” insecure about my playing, and my memory. So this album was the first time that I was able to develop a little bit of skill to be a little more present, to change in the moment, and adjust to how things were going, as opposed to just being this rigid leader. This just wasn’t that kind of a record. At times he led it and other times, maybe I did. It was interesting in that way and a very great learning experience. And I do think I might have been writing differently, having that in mind. Sometimes in the writing process I would imagine what other instruments were being played at the same time, while I was writing, and that informs the writing. “He’s just so dynamic”: with Jim White, 2007
And some of those songs to me sound like they’re written because I was imagining that there would be me and drums.
OUTLASTER FATCAT, 2 0 1 0
A small orchestra draws out the grand drama ever-present in Nastasia’s work, even to the extent of tango on “This Familiar Way” This record is a contrast to something like the improvisation on Road To Ruin. We worked with our really good friend Paul Bryan, who produces, records, arranges and performs as a bass player – he’s done most aspects of recording and playing in music. And so we asked him: would you write arrangements? That was the first time we ever thought to do that and I think it was Kennan’s idea, which was shocking, because there were very few people he would trust to run with something like that. Paul didn’t have a lot of time and he lives in California. So we’d send him a song, and then he would write down a bunch of arrangements for a small orchestra. I was talking to Paul recently and he remembered going back and forth with Kennan. There would be several notes from Kennan, tweaks, in the beginning, and then Kennan just said, “Yeah, go with it and do whatever.” Which was exciting, because Kennan was very controlled, and that was quite tough for me, because I like collaborating, I like being less controlled about it. I felt pretty caged, in terms of what I was allowed… what I let myself be allowed to do. So working with Paul
We’ve come full circle to just Nastasia, her guitar, Albini’s recording and knock-you-tothe-floor songwriting This record talks a lot about suicide and abuse and mental illness. I never really wanted to talk about anything really personal, but then I felt a real need to be vocal about what has happened; it should be talked about because it’s misunderstood… but the thing is, I don’t know anything, so I’m trying to figure it out at the same time. I was really feeling free musically, feeling free to share songs without going over and over them to make sure that they were “perfect”; it was more about vomiting out a bunch of things. And I started thinking this album should really be a totally solo thing; it made the most sense, because after Kennan died I felt completely solo and responsible. I felt like before, I had given up responsibility in a way… giving up doing things the way I would want to do them, just going with what I was told I was capable of doing. I didn’t feel like I could go into Electrical Audio [Albini’s studio] – it was just too hard to go through those songs in that environment where I always did stuff with Kennan. So we did it like a field recording in a little guest house in New York State; we recorded the sound of the creek and the wind chimes, to document where we were for this recording and also the cork and pour of the whisky bottle from when we recorded the last song. It’s the first time I’ve decided to work with Steve as a producer as well; the two of us work well together in terms of bouncing ideas about what the right take is and the order of songs. But ultimately, I was taking all those decisions on my own, which was important to me.
Riderless Horse is released digitally on July 2 2 and on vinyl on November 4
CHRIS BLACKWELL
ISLAND LIFE A gambler by nature, Island Records visionary CHRIS BLACKWELL has backed many winners in a long and colourfulcareer, from Free, Bob Marley and King Crimson to Roxy Music, Grace Jones and Tom Waits. Peter Tosh called him “Whiteworst!”, Lee Perry branded him an “energy pirate”, but the labelsupremo has been hugely respected, if not loved, by his artists. “I knew I wanted to spend my life close to music,” he tells Graeme Thomson Photo by DAVID CORIO
DAVID CORIO/REDFERNS
“B
ASICALLY, I’m a music fan,” says Chris Blackwell. “It’s really that simple.” And perhaps it is. As the founder and chief visionary of Island Records in its heyday between the late 1960s and mid-’80s, Blackwell certainly appeared to guide the label with a fan’s enthusiasm. A gambler by nature, and an acute and generous judge of character, under Blackwell’s auspices Island signed people rather than sure-things or cash cows. Steve Winwood, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, Bob Marley & The Wailers, Roxy Music, King Crimson, Free, Grace Jones, U2 and Tom Waits are just some of the exceptional acts that benefitted from his open mind and impeccable taste. A Harrow-educated public school dropout, born to a scion of the Crosse & Blackwell family, Blackwell formed Island Records having undergone an apprenticeship servicing jukeboxes throughout Jamaica in the late 1950s. He went from ‘selector’, hunting down the best and most obscure 45s from all over the United States, to tastemaker, forming his own imprint to produce original
records. The first Island album, Lance Haywood At The Half Moon Hotel, was released in 1959. Moving the Island operation to the UK shortly afterwards, Blackwell chipped away at the market until 1964, when “My Boy Lollipop” by Millie Small sold seven million copies, launching him as a major player. Over the ensuing 25 years Island flourished, becoming the ultimate album-orientated label. Habitually shod in Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops, Blackwell kept a relaxed but steady hand on the tiller: picking up innovative new acts, producing records by artists as diverse as John Martyn and The B-52s, growing the business while maintaining its stylishly bespoke aura. Even his handful of enemies have been high-calibre. Blackwell has been punched just once in his life, he says, and that was by Errol Flynn; inevitably, a woman was involved. Peter Tosh of The Wailers was wary – “he called me ‘Whiteworst’!” – and Lee Perry branded him an “energy pirate” and worse, but Blackwell has mostly been hugely respected, if not loved, by his artists. When Island finally became too much like a conventional record label, he sold the company to PolyGram. It’s now part of Universal Music Group.
From the playing fields of Harrow to the Blue Mountains in Jamaica:Chris Blackwell,1993
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CHRIS BLACKWELL
EXPRESS/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; DEREK PRESTON/PAUL POPPER/POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
Still active in the hospitality industry – hotels and rum are his two primary concerns – Blackwell has written The Islander with Paul Morley, an illuminating account of his life in and out of music. He talks to Uncut from Goldeneye, the Jamaican estate that once belonged to Ian Fleming, another close family friend, which he bought in the 1970s. Now and then, a dog barks enthusiastically in the background. Otherwise, all is peaceful. On the cusp of 85, he exudes a quiet and courteous charm throughout a conversation that reflects the fluid nature of Island, a label formed of several parallel narratives encompassing landmark records in reggae, folk, rock and post-punk. “One view was that Island’s golden age was between Traffic’s ‘Paper Sun’ in 1967 and U2’s The Joshua Tree in 1987,” he says. “But another version is that it went from John Martyn’s ‘Fairy Tale Lullaby’ in 1967 to Eric B & Rakim’s Paid In Full in 1987.” Not a bad legacy for a fan.
Blackwellat his recording studio in Kilburn, North London, May 1966
You say in The Islander that the success of “My Boy Lollipop” taught you something early on: “Hits would be a bonus, not the be-all and end-all.” The Island ethos was always about longevity, not the fleeting success of a pop Svengali. Well, that’s true. I loved jazz, and jazz wasn’t about short singles. Jazz had more length to the music. In general, Island hasn’t had a lot of hit singles over the years. Later on, once we’d evolved, U2 came in with a few, but it was always a bit more album orientated. Did you ever harbour musical aspirations? No! I played the drums for a brief period of time, in a nightclub in London, in the West End, when I was about 18. That was fun. They didn’t pay me, but they fed me. You write that “rhythm was always king”. From ska to reggae to rap, Steve Winwood to Grace Jones, it’s the thread that runs through Island. Why is that? It’s hard to say. My father loved classical music, particularly German music. Mostly Wagner, some Puccini. When I was five or six, he used to play 78s at deafening volume, in the big house we had at that time, and so I grew up with that. I enjoyed the music, but I discovered jazz at nine years old, and that became the music for 8 2 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
me. Whatever came out of New Orleans, that’s what started it for me. That’s how I knew I wanted to spend my life close to music.
Mostly one was dealing with females, these big strong Jamaican women, and I absolutely loved it.
In the early 1960s you came to try your luck in England. What prompted the move? The The early days of establishing yourself first three records I made in Jamaica all went on the Jamaican music scene to No 1. Why? Because it was Jamaican seemed both fun and pretty records. Before that, there weren’t precarious. I don’t know why, any popular attempts at making I just felt confident going into Jamaican records. When that all these different places, happened, other people particularly the rough areas came to see me. “How about where the roots of the music me, how about me? I have a were. I made a deal to song!” People thought that I manage 63 jukeboxes, could get their music on the and I only did that to radio. There was a huge make sure my own Jamaican population in CHRIS BLACKWELL records were played England and they started to on them! I travelled buy these records. In 1961 I all over Jamaica with decided to move there, partly as a guy who did the Jamaica was becoming independent in maintenance. It was hilarious. When I 1962. I wanted to take this music and see whether I arrived at the place, it would be filled could do something with it in England. I’d drive with people because they knew around to the little record shops on the periphery someone was coming to change the of London in my MiniCooper, with the records in records. I’d put in a new record and the back seat, and I started to do really well. I was a within four or five seconds one-man band. People bought the records and I everyone would say, “Tune! had a good feel for the music by that time. I could Tune!” Or “Take it off, take if never get into the West End, though. I was on off!” It was great fun. I loved the periphery in London, and in Bristol and Sweet all the different characters. Birmingham. I loved it, but I wasn’t for one minute success: One ti me I had to deal wi th a thinking, ‘Oh, I hope that one day I can get some Millie Small, May 1964 seven-year-old Chinese kid. big hit.’ It wasn’t that at all, I promise you.
“THE FIRST THREE RECORDS ALL WENT TO NO 1 ”
CHRIS BLACKWELL
In 1965 you stumbled upon Steve Winwood and the Spencer Davis Group. Musically, was that the real start of Island as we came to know it? Someone had called me and said I should come to Birmingham to see some band; I was actually coming up anyway with Millie to do a TV show. I didn’t take to them because they had uniforms. Being jazz rooted and street rooted, I did not like uniforms at all. So this guy took me to another place, a three-storey building, and as I was walking up the steps I was hearing this music, it sounded like Ray Charles on helium. And there was this kid, belting out songs, playing piano, then playing guitar, then sitting down and playing the organ. I couldn’t believe it. I said, “I’d love to record you guys, I could get you in the studio next week.” So that’s what we did. The first song was “Keep On Running”, which was written by Wilfred Edwards, known as Jackie Edwards, one of the Jamaican artists I’d signed right at the beginning, who I’d brought over to England to help me deliver the records. That was the first hit. After a long process of being involved just in Jamaican music, it was now something different. Island grew and evolved from there.
On tour with Steve Winwood and Traffic in Europe, March 1973
“SLOW DOWN, MAN!” Blackwellon his unlikely friendship with Miles Davis
“I
MET Miles Davis in 1958 through a friend, Syd Shaw, who was a songwriter. He took me to the club in New York, Café Bohemia, where Miles used to play all the time with his quintet. Then he took me to meet him. I was 19, 20, and I think Miles thought I was a funny character because I was so excited by the music. I was a devoted fan, whereas Miles was really special and cool. He was kind of distant, he didn’t really communicate much, but through him I really learned a lot about music, about jazz, about musicians and about that world. He took me to different clubs all over the place. I don’t know why. I guess I was kind of odd! I had just come up from Jamaica and I’d just started working with ska music. Maybe that’s what it was, he was amused by this excitable white kid who loved music. He’d say, ‘Slow down, man!’ I bumped into him a few years later and he didn’t remember me at all! That was at the Isle Of Wight concert in 1970.” GRAEME THOMSON
You depict Winwood as a “provisional” figure. He moved in and out of Traffic, briefly forming Blind Faith, a band you describe as “a season in hell”. [Laughs]. Blind Faith was put together as a kind of joint venture between myself and Robert Stigwood. He had Eric Clapton and I had Steve Winwood. They only did one tour, and I was on it. Unfortunately. Ginger Baker was in there, too, which was a problem. A volatile presence. Your relationship with Joe Boyd and his Witchseason stable, which included Island signings Fairport Convention and Nick Drake, was highly productive. Boyd seems to share your mix of passion and pragmatism. He’s probably the most creative guy I met in the music business. When I say creative, I mean somebody who can
recognise talent. I know him very well. I haven’t seen him for many years, but he’s a unique character. It didn’t always work. He once told me about a band that he thought I should go and see. I didn’t know their name or anything else about them. They were just starting. It was in a church off one of the squares in the Portobello Road area and they played without any lights. It was pitch black. I didn’t like it at all. I thought, ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ It didn’t make any sense. I came outside and Joe asked me what I thought, and I said, “That was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life!” That was Pink Floyd. At opposing ends of the acoustic music spectrum, personality wise, you had Nick Drake and John Martyn. How difficult were they to deal with? John and Nick were very close friends, and very different. John Martyn was wired, and Nick was very quiet all the time. Nick was chronically shy and incredibly talented. John Martyn was the other extreme. John was a masterpiece but really a wild man. I did a lot of records with him, and we were good friends. I produced One World, which is one of my favourite albums. It has one track, “Small Hours”, and if you listen you can hear a train running past in the background. We recorded it outside at my farm in Theale, and I loved that. I made a big mistake once: I had him and Lee Perry in the studio at
John Martyn – who made one of Blackwell’s favourite LPs – in Montreux, July 1975
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BRIAN COOKE/REDFERNS;ANDREW PUTLER/REDFERNS;MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
Yet you did have a big hit, a huge one, in 1964, with “My Boy Lollipop” by Millie Small. I had deals with the producers in Jamaica who would send me records. One came from Coxsone Dodd, he was king of Jamaica. It was called “We’ll Meet” by Roy & Millie, a boy-andgirl duo. Whenever the girl’s voice came in, it would just jump out. I thought, ‘How can I contact this girl? Because her voice is incredible.’ I went to Jamaica and I met with her mother; I asked if I could bring her over to England and her mother said yes. I eventually found a song I thought would work for her. She had a very high-pitched voice, and I wanted to make sure that the record wasn’t too long, because after a bit you’d really want to turn it off! But if we made it shorter, you’d really want to hear it again and again. I got my way. “My Boy Lollipop” was 1:58 and it sold seven million copies worldwide. Unbelievable! I made a deal with Fontana and they sold it worldwide. Suddenly I was backstage at TV studios with The Beatles and The Stones, The Who and The Kinks. I was projected into this area because my record was a huge hit. Those 118 seconds changed my life completely.
CHRIS BLACKWELL
Blackwellwith (l–r) Junior Marvin,Bob Marley and Jacob Miller en route to Brazil,March 1980
NATHALIE DELON/ISLAND TRADING ARCHIVE; EVENING STANDARD/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
Compass Point in Nassau at the same time. They went completely nuts. God knows what they were taking. Lee Perry filled his entire bath full of coal. Oh, it was unbelievable! Free guitarist Paul Kossoff was also close to Martyn, and another volatile personality. That band had so much promise but imploded quite quickly. Alexis Korner told me I should check out this band playing in the Marquee. I went and I thought they were absolutely incredible. They had attitude, and they were tiny. The leader of the band, Andy Fraser, was 15. The rest were 17, 18. I went backstage and invited them to come over to Island the next day to chat. I didn’t like their name. I thought, ‘If you put up Free, people are going to think it’s free!’ I didn’t like that. I had a guy working with me at the time, called Guy Stevens – a brilliant, brilliant guy. He came up with the idea of calling them The Heavy Metal Kids, which I thought was a good idea, because they were young, and they were strong. When the band came to see me, I told them I wasn’t crazy about the name Free. They turned to me and said, “Listen, if you want to sign us, our name is Free.” At 15 years old! Little fuckers! I loved them. They were the first band where I felt I was the adult and they were the kids. They were great, but Paul Kossoff got himself into a lot of problems. It was very sad that they didn’t last because they were really so great. Paul Rodgers is one of the best singers ever. What can you say about Bob Marley that you haven’t said before? Well, I can only tell you this: that when I first met Bob Marley, over the course of two or three meetings, I don’t know how to say it other than that I knew he was going to be something unbelievable. It’s extraordinary 84 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
because he’s known all over the world now. This is somebody who didn’t have a whole load of pop songs – he wasn’t Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley – it was more what he represented. I love a lot of his songs which aren’t even that well known: “Time Will Tell” is one of my favourites. “Running Away” is another. Songs which you think about, not songs to dance to. They affect you. He just had that gift. Do you have regrets over how those around him dealt with his illness? Yep. Well, anyone
“Little fuckers!”: Free’s PaulKossoff at Melody Maker’s Pop PollMusic Awards in London, September 1970
of us who were close to him were in a way equally guilty of that. But you could not have moved him. He loved playing football, and that was it. He was not going to have his toe amputated because [if he did] he was not going to be able to play soccer. You really couldn’t have moved him. You write that Legend, the hugely successful Marley compilation released posthumously in 1984, wasn’t “put together with love”. What do you mean? Dave Robinson at that time was running Island Records. He’s a talented guy. He put together the album in an order which he felt would be very popular, and he was right – it sold 27 million records! It’s not the record I personally would have done, but it was very successful. Later on, I compiled Rebel Music, which highlighted the militant side of his music. It’s just different ways of doing things. You had to be persuaded to sign U2 in 1980; you had your eye on Spandau Ballet instead. Is it fair to say you were convinced more by their character and self-belief than their music? Correct. U2 had been turned down by all the other labels. I saw them play the Half Moon in Herne Hill and signed them because I believed in their passion, but as well as that, it was the management. There was a guy standing next to them in a suit – something I’ve never had! – who was a proper human being, and a proper businessman. Paul McGuinness was an excellent manager. In rock’n’roll, there are a lot of dodgy managers: managers who like the band, are supportive and look after them, but who don’t
Shattering genres:Grace Jones in New York,1980
IN THE PINK
necessarily have the vision to get them to where they need to go. The relationship that existed between U2 and McGuinness was really tight. He did an incredible job. U2 could have sunk Island in 1986 because you owed them millions in royalties which you couldn’t pay. Yet they were very reasonable in coming to an arrangement. That was me overreaching. I fell in love with this music that was happening out of Washington DC. It was funk music, go-go. Just like The Harder They Come did for Jamaican music, I wanted to make a film out of this DC music. Unfortunately, the film [Good To Go] didn’t work out too well. We were chronically short of cash, in a bad situation. U2 could have bailed out. By then they were huge, any of the other big companies would have paid a fortune for them, but they stayed with Island, which was fantastic. You signed Tom Waits in 1983. In many ways he was the last quintessentially Island act: a unique artist who didn’t sell huge amounts of records but brought something special to the label. He had been on Elektra, and the guy running
“He’s his own work of art”: Tom Waits in Rotterdam, 1983
Elektra parted from him when he heard Swordfishtrombones. Madness! I jumped at the opportunity because he’s a unique character and a huge talent. He’s his own work of art, a master, with his own way of doing everything. At our initial meeting he didn’t say a word! It was a little café-bar in Los Feliz, near Hollywood. I was with Lionel Conway, who was running Island Music at the time. Lionel set up the meeting with Tom and Kathleen Brennan. Tom was always quite distant. I got to know him more, but he was always somewhat different. He’s in another world, really – his own world. I saw him just recently, there was an event in New York for Hal Willner, and he performed there, as did Bono and Edge. Tom did a number on piano and was fantastic. You once tried to put Waits together with Tricky, a typical piece of Island lateral thinking. How did that play out? It didn’t play out! I thought it was worth trying because they were both pretty wild characters and I thought something could work, but it didn’t happen. I didn’t get them in the same room, sadly. But you’ve got to try, right? You sold Island to PolyGram in 1989. By then, you say “the jazz had gone out of it” for you. It was harder to improvise and have fun like you used to. Part of the problem was that I had moved into the film business a bit, which is a scary business to be in. I drifted a little bit off track. That was my own fault, really. You’ve lived a life surrounded by extraordinary drama, yet you seem to want to live quietly. That is true. I’m not really out there in front. I think I’m a bit shy, perhaps. I feel more comfortable sitting behind or helping push something than pushing myself. With Bob Marley, in particular, I didn’t want me to be in the picture. Literally. I would actively avoid being photographed with him. I wanted to be not seen as the person who pushed it. And I didn’t push it. I always stayed out of the light. The Islander: My Life In Music And Beyond is published by Nine Eight
Blackwell picks his five favourite Island albums WRANGLIN’ ERNEST RANGLIN (ISLAND,1964)
“A versatile and melodic guitar player influenced by the early masters of electric guitar, Charlie Christian, Les Paul and Wes Montgomery.Also a skilful arranger.Ernest turned into my secret weapon, someone I could call upon to add virtuosity and Jamaican realness to any record.”
THE LOW SPARK OF HIGH-HEELED BOYS TRAFFIC (ISLAND,1971)
“Traffic’s story was wrapped inside Steve Winwood’s constantly provisional nature, which he shared with the other members. Dave Mason left soon after Mr Fantasy, leaving the basic Winwood-Wood-Capalditrio, where the real chemistry was, all three of them firing off each other’s current musical infatuations, whether it was Delta blues or classical.”
EXODUS
BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS (ISLAND,1977)
“The songs from Bob’s exile period became two albums:Exodus, a direct, militant response to the assassination attempt [in December 1 9 7 6 ] and Kaya, an album of love and dance.I decided to release revolutionary Bob first, even though romantic Bob was more commercial, because Exodus seemed to capture the mood of the moment and express how he was maintaining his righteousness after his near-death experience.”
BROKEN ENGLISH
MARIANNE FAITHFULL (ISLAND,1979)
“A bruising, punkish comeback album.Broken English is one of those records that don’t appear to belong anywhere, but often found a home at Island.It features the fierce, screaming guitar by Barry Reynolds, who had been in one of Island’s blues bands, Blodwyn Pig.Nervous rock playing, technically brilliant but also with a real nomadic-seeming edge.”
NIGHTCLUBBING
GRACE JONES (ISLAND,1981)
“These sessions worked so well. Song ideas and lyrics were coming from all over the place, and we got all the songs for the first two Compass Point albums, Warm Leatherette and its sequel, Nightclubbing, recorded in not much more than a week.Smooth and cool, ominous music played as if it were easy listening, it was like we’d shattered lots of genres to create a new one.” GRAEME THOMSON AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •8 5
L.COHEN/WIREIMAGE;ROB VERHORST/REDFERNS;DIANNA WHITLEY/GETTY IMAGES
With U2 and their “excellent” manager Paul McGuinness, September 1980
RebelGirl by Bikini Kill
A gutsy celebration of female identity and friendship is recorded in two different versions – before Joan Jett is invited to help create a third…
TAMMY RAE CARLAND;GETTY IMAGES
“T
HE power of ‘Rebel Girl’ is that it’s about being a feminist pirate, being an adventurer,” says BikiniKill singer Kathleen Hanna. “It’s not about standing at the back and not participating. It’s about loving and defending your friends and the confusion between friendship and sexuality.” When BikiniKill formed in 1990, sexism was rife. Hanna’s Riot Grrrl fanzine and the feminist-activist movement was one way to combat that; “Rebel Girl” was another. Over a glam drumbeat and three scuzzy chords, the song celebrated strong, defiant women. Written in late 1991, it quickly became a crowd-pleaser. When BikiniKill toured the UK with Huggy Bear in 1993, the audience screamed for the still-unreleased song, latching on to this defiant expression of female identity and friendship where “dudes aren’t even mentioned”, notes bassist KathiWilcox.
Three versions of “Rebel Girl” were released. The one that usually appears on radio, soundtracks and video games was produced by Joan Jett, who saw something of her younger self in BikiniKill. “They were unapologetic, doing what they wanted to do, and you didn’t see a lot of that, particularly with women,” she says. After hearing a cassette of BikiniKill, she suggested they record “Rebel Girl” together and the band jumped at the chance. This “definitive” version of “Rebel Girl” was recorded in the summer of 1993 in Seattle, with Jett on rhythm guitar and backing vocals. This single was released in September 1993, providing BikiniGirl – and the wider Riot Grrrl scene – with an anthem while giving the band a sense of vindication. Three-quarters of BikiniKill were women and even in the political DC punk scene, women were poorly treated, dismissed as “coathangers” whose role was to stand at the back holding the coats while their boyfriend was moshing.
KEY PLAYERS
Kathleen Hanna (vocals)
PETER WATTS
Kathi Wilcox (bass)
Tobi Vail (drums)
Joan Jett (guitar, backing vocals)
Looks could Kill: (l–r) KathiWilcox, Kathleen Hanna and TobiVail 8 6 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
BikiniKill reunited in 2019 and “Rebel Girl” is now sung proudly by women young and old. “Because the song is sung from the first person towards another first person, I have a lot of people I can direct that song to,” says Hanna. “It can be in a sexy way or just women I would totally throw down for. Sometimes I will see a seven-year-old girl in the front row and I am singing it to her. When my mum was in the audience, I dedicated to her. Not all the lyrics fit, of course. But singing about looking up to somebody and wanting to be like them – that is part of my relationship with my mum and so many other women.”
KATHLEEN HANNA:The Embassy practice space in DC was disgusting. It was a gross basement that smelled bad. It was very small, but we were very lucky to have it. Tim Green of Nation Of Ulysses built it. He did a lot of things for people in the scene that never were acknowledged. That’s where we wrote “Rebel Girl”. KATHI WILCOX:The way we wrote songs, we were all in the room together and it would bubble up from below. Tobi, Billy [Karren, guitarist] and I would start playing and Kathleen had a big book that she brought to rehearsal. When she felt something was happening she would step to the mic and start singing. I don’t recall exactly how “Rebel Girl” started but I think it was the drums. It wouldn’t have been me, as all I play is an ‘A’ chord. TOBI VAIL:We played it in Olympia but it wasn’t done until we went to the Embassy. When we wrote the song, we felt it needed a different part, a chorus or something, so weren’t going to play it live. Kathionly really plays one note the whole time so felt it wasn’t finished, but I thought it might be a song already. The first time we played it live we had literally run out of songs, but the kids were screaming for more so I said we should do “Rebel Girl”. Everybody
want crazy, so that’s when we knew it was a song. WILCOX:We were listening to MC5 and Stooges a lot. “TV Eye” is so close to “Rebel Girl” you can basically sing “Rebel Girl” over it. I find that kind of funny because although this wasn’t intentional, it’s almost like a response song because “TV Eye” is a dude leering at a girl who wants to fuck him, while “Rebel Girl” is about “See that girl, well she is the queen of the universe and I want to be her”. HANNA:We’d just moved to DC. Because of Fugazi, there was already a precedent for being in a political band, so I felt safe enough to write about anything I wanted. A lot of things we talked about back then went into that song. I still felt very affected by the sexism and violence I experienced as a teenage girl. I heard people talking about girlhood and sharing these great childhood memories, but I didn’t really have many of those. I was trying to explore what it would have been like if I had followed my desires and impulses at high school. I was coming out to myself as a bisexual and I had been in love with two of my best friends, Angie and Stacey. I had crushes on them and wanted
“TV Eye is so close to ‘Rebel Girl’ you can basically sing ‘Rebel Girl’ over it. It’s funny because it’s kind of a response song” KATHI WILCOX to make out with them and never did anything about it. WILCOX:Those themes were bubbling up when we moved to DC. It was the time of Riot Grrrl and we met lots of women who were really inspiring. Our earlier songs were a bit more “fuck you” about men, but this was the first unabashed love song in admiration of womanhood. It wasn’t really a Riot Grrrl song, as our band was so separate
historically from Riot Grrrl. It’s been written about so that the band and the movement become conflated, but in our minds they were entirely distinct entities. HANNA:Part of that song was me enacting my desire and that confusion of being best friends with a person but wanting more and not saying it. There’s a lot of sexual tension, but there’s a lot of praise for women
who other people call assholes, saying they are the coolest women in the room. The difficult women are the ones I want to be around and the ones I have the most fun with. To me the strong point of the song is that you can sing about politics and it be sexy and fun. VAIL:I do remember that there was a book called The Rebel Girl by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a labour activist, and it had this really cool red cover. I don’t know if Kathleen saw that book, but I’m pretty sure I had a copy. Joe Hill later wrote a song called “The Rebel Girl” about her. HANNA:I don’t remember how quickly fans picked up on it but we must have known people liked it because we kept recording it. The first time was at the Embassy for the album we put out when we toured with Huggy Bear, Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, then we did it again in Seattle for the Pussy Whipped version. The audience definitely reacted to it. It quickly became an end-of-set song. VAIL:A lot of our songs were very fast. That one has more of an uplifting pop beat, so the audience responded to it. It’s still the hit of the set. It’s pretty hard to play anything after it, because it lifts the crowd and everybody knows the words. AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •87
“We felt extremely hated”:Bikin Kill circa 1992
FACT FILE
“I was a fan. I looked at them as equals and maybe they felt that” JOAN JETT
HANNA:Kath and Tobiwent to a Fugazishow. Joan Jett was a big fan of Dischord, so she was there. They met backstage and they had a cassette of our demos. They wrote “For a good time call Kathleen” with my phone number and she called us. WILCOX:It wasn’t me who gave her the tape, I think it was Allison Wolfe, the singer from Bratmobile, at Joan’s concert at The Bayou in DC. It seemed absurd, a total longshot. JOAN JETT:Ian MacKaye gave me a cassette of all these bands. In it was a note from Kathleen asking if I would work with them. It was a great song, straight up, simple. Does it even have three chords? Lyrics and melody and she was singing about the kind of girl I wanted to be and fantasised that I was. They asked if I would produce it, and I was totally into that. HANNA:She had done the first Germs record, so we thought this was fucking amazing. We felt extremely hated by a lot of people. We were either too feminist or not feminist enough, or we
Written by: Kathleen Hanna,Billy Karren, TobiVailand Kathi Wilcox Personnel: Kathleen Hanna (vocals),Billy Karren (guitar),Kathi Wilcox (bass),Tobi Vail(drums).For “New Radio” single: Joan Jett (guitar, vocals) Produced by: Tim Green (Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah version); Joan Jett (“New Radio” single);Stuart Hallerman (Pussy Whipped version) Recorded at: The Embassy, Washington DC (Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah version);Avast! Studio,Seattle (“New Radio” single and Pussy Whipped versions) Released: March 1993 (Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah version); September 1993 (“New Radio” single); October 1993 (Pussy Whipped version) Highest chart position: UK – ;US –
were too pretty or too ugly. Everybody seemed to be saying that we needed to die, so having somebody like Joan Jett come along – that was amazing. There were many moments in our life when we were about to throw in the towel and then some crazy thing happened that kept us going. Joan entering our lives was one of those things. JETT:I liked everything about them. First of all, the music. It was punk, of course, but it all boils down to rock’n’roll. I was a fan. I looked at them as equals and maybe they felt that. It shows you how shitty they were treated previously and that’s something I could relate to. WILCOX:It was completely surreal. The recording was a blur because I was overwhelmed that I was sitting there with Joan. She was a superstar and we idolised her. I was completely nonverbal because I couldn’t really process what was happening. VAIL:Temple Of The Dog were in the studio and I used Matt Cameron’s drum kit. It sounds different; I usually used a Ludwig and this was a different kit. All I can remember is that it was red and in good shape. Billy played really well and the two guitars together on the Joan Jett version really work very well together. HANNA:She did a fucking great job and taught me so much about taking my time in the studio. It was the first time I realised I could go back and re-sing a line. She gave me a lot of coaching. I can’t tell you how awesome it was as a singer
to be taken seriously by Joan Jett with her fucking beautiful, incredible voice. I learnt so much on that session, it was like going to college. The other thing I learnt is that with our music, there’s a lot of emotion, fire and rawness, and if you put a pop sheen with that, it creates a really interesting tension. JETT:We got the basic tracks first, doubled some guitars, I played some rhythm and did some backing vocals. I thought it should be on the radio. It’s fantastic music. Those barriers are always mental and social. People wouldn’t give them a shot. It was so inspiring being around them. They made me feel that I could have been like them at their age. WILCOX:Over the years, different people have contacted us to use clips. For a long time we said no to everything. But then we began to think that it might be a good way of getting people to hear a song that might be meaningful to them as it seemed to resonate on a level we weren’t entirely aware of. HANNA:When they asked to use it for the video game Rock Band, we would typically have said “gross”, but then we imagined ourselves at a party where people were playing that game and every song was Red Hot ChiliPeppers or something. I wanted the girl at the party to be able to play “Rebel Girl”. If we kept saying no to everything then the next generation won’t have access to our work and the girl at the party will have to sing like Anthony Kiedis. WILCOX:I love playing it now. It’s even better as we don’t have to worry about dudes at the front with their arms crossed or throwing a pitcher of beer in our face. When you look at the audience they are all singing along. It’s incredibly moving to play that song and look out at all these women or non-binary or trans people. It’s obviously an important song to them. JETT:To me it’s a smash hit. It’s a song that gives young women a sense of strength. It’s very empowering. It’s good to know there are other woman and girls who hear “Rebel Girl” and want to express themselves, even if they don’t want to be musicians. Whatever they choose to do in life, the message is the same because you will get resistance in any career path you choose as a woman. A woman just trying to achieve her dreams is seen as a rebel.
LISA DARMS
TIME LINE 1 9 9 0 BikiniKill form in Olympia,Washington Late 1 9 9 1 They move to Washington DC and finish writing “Rebel Girl” at The Embassy,their basement rehearsal space.The first version is recorded there 8 8 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
in February 1992 and released just over a year later on the Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah album April 1 9 9 3 A second version of “Rebel Girl” is recorded in Seattle for the Pussy Whipped album.
Summer 1 9 9 3 BikiniKill meet Joan Jett, who agrees to produce a third version of “Rebel Girl” at Avast! Studio in Seattle September 1 9 9 3 The Joan Jett-produced version of “Rebel Girl” is released as
a single with “New Radio” and “DemiRep” October 1 9 9 3 The Pussy Whipped version of “Rebel Girl” is released 2 0 0 8 “Rebel Girl” is featured in the Rock Band 2 video game,starting a
revival of the song on film and TV shows including Sex Education and Orange Is The New Black April 2 5 , 2 0 1 9 BikiniKill play “Rebel Girl” at their first reunion show at the Hollywood Palladium
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THE BEATLES Suited for success: The Beatles at the BBC Paris Theatre, November 1962
‘‘Not a bad 12 months, 90 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Welcome to 1 9 6 2 : the first annus mirabilis of many in the extraordinary life of THE BEATLES. Over the next 1 2 pages we relive the key events in this fast-moving, transformative year – from disaster in Decca’s Studio 2 to triumph on the stage of the Empire Theatre. Familiar faces appear here for the first time, old friends depart, the tempo is set for the rest of their career – and by the end of the year, John, Paul, George and Ringo are poised to release their first No 1 single. The future, Peter Watts discovers, is born here Photo by HARRY HAMMOND AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •9 1
HARRY HAMMOND/V&A IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
was it?’ ’
THE BEATLES
Hellfor leather: playing the Cavern Club in February 1961
JANUARY
Wh at next from MerseyBeat’s Best Band Of 1961? “We were terrible…”
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
S
HORTLY after midnight on January 1, The Beatles took to their beds at the Royal Hotel on Woburn Place. It had been a long day; the first of many in a hectic, transitional year. They’d spent December 31, 1961 travelling from Liverpool to London in Neil Aspinall’s hired van – a gruelling 10-hour trip as Neil had yet to familiarise himself with the route. When they arrived, they found the capital gripped by the coldest winter since 1887 – a chilling minus 16 degrees celsius. But the end of one year came wrapped in a beginning: on January 1, at 11am, they were booked to audition for Decca Records. The setting for this auspicious event was Studio 2 at 165 Broadhurst Gardens in West Hampstead – the same room where Lonnie Donegan had invented skiffle with “Rock Island Line”. Those expecting similar magic on this occasion may have been disappointed. The Beatles recorded 15 songs – a representative mix of originals, rockers and standards. But the vibe? While Decca’s engineers were critical of Pete’s drumming, Paul 92 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
also suffered from nerves that affected his delivery. “We were terrible… we were terrified, nervous,” recalled Lennon later. Among the set were three McCartneyLennon originals – “Like Dreamers Do”, “Love Of The Loved” and “Hello Little Girl” – songs that would soon prove to be pivotal.
The Beatles returned to Liverpool in time for the January 4 edition of Mersey Beat, which named them the Best Band of 1961. Or were they? “I fiddled that,” admits Mersey Beat editor Bill Harry. “The group with the most votes was Rory Storm & The Hurricanes, with Ringo on drums. But it was obvious to me The Beatles were the best.” The following day brought the UK release of their debut single, “My Bonnie”. Although credited to Tony Sheridan and The Beatles, the group could now legitimately describe themselves as recording artists. Brian added the single and the Mersey Beat accolade to a growing list of accomplishments he liked to recite when booking gigs. This was all part of an increased professionalism he brought to the operation. The band were banned from smoking or swearing on stage, briefed on the importance of punctuality and politeness, and fitted for suits by tailor Walter Smith at Beno Dorn’s shop, 9a Grange Road West,
L ISTEN TOTHE BEATL ES: 1962 ANTHOLOGY 1
FEBRUARY
Decca passes, a ch ance meeting ina h otel bar prov es fortu itou s, “Bernard Epstein”, bad times at th e YMCA inHoy lak e…
D
ECCA said no. In the first week of February, Epstein rushed down to London to try and change their minds. But the label decided to go with a local group, Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, as the Sound of ’62. Instead, Decca’s Dick Rowe offered Epstein a compromise. If The Beatles paid to make their own records with producer Tony Meehan, Decca would release them. But Epstein officially declined on February 10. Decca, however, gave him the audition tape – two reels of professionally recorded music that Brian could take round to labels. The band were distraught by the Decca news. At least John, Paul and George were; nobody bothered telling Pete. Then, fortune struck. “Brian was wondering what to do because every label had turned them down,” recalls Bill Harry. “He was staying at the Green Park Hotel. Paul Murphy, who played in Liverpool bands Birkenhead. These were sold at a discounted fee of including Rory Storm, was singing at the Lyceum 23 guineas because, Brian assured the sceptical and his wife was staying at the same hotel as tailor, the group would soon be so famous that Brian. They happened to meet at the bar and everybody would want a Beatles suit. had a chat. Brian said he had these Decca tapes As the band performed lunchtime and evening but didn’t know what to do with them. Paul said shows at the Cavern, Epstein wrote to the BBC to he needed to put them on vinyl so took him to request a radio audition. He HMV, where he got his own also composed a press release, acetates cut.” complete with photos, for At HMV on Oxford Street, despatch to regional disc cutter Jim Foy noticed the newspapers ahead of shows. Lennon-McCartney originals. The band were moving beyond Sensing they had publishing Liverpool into the wider Northpotential, he called Sid West. Further afield, they were Colman, manager of EMI offered a more lucrative publisher Ardmore and residency in Hamburg for Beechwood. Colman liked BILL HARRY April. The band weren’t eager to what he heard and EMI’s A&R return to Germany, but at least team were informed – among they would see Stu again. Then, them George Martin, then on January 24, Brian met the band at Pete’s head of Parlophone. By this roundabout and parents’ house on Hayman’s Green brandishing somewhat serendipitous route, Martin’s diary an official management contract. It was not for February 13 included a meeting with one legally binding, though, since Paul, Pete and “Bernard Epstein”. They listened to the acetate, George were underage, while Brian himself didn’t chatted, and Martin said he might be in touch. sign it. This, he later explained, was because he It was something, but not much of something. wanted to give the band a way out if he couldn’t Harry says he later saw Epstein in tears, get them a record contract, an article of faith that pounding his desk, waiting for Martin to said so much. The pressure was on, for everybody. return his calls.
“EVERY LABEL HAD TURNED THEM DOWN”
“MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE” YOUTUBE None of The Beatles’ first three BBC sessions – all from 1962 – have been officially released on the various …At The BBC albums, meaning fans have to trust bootlegs or YouTube to hear these very early recordings.Pick of the lot is this rollicking version of “Memphis, Tennessee” from their very first BBC session in March, with the more positive side of Pete’s drumming much in evidence. BEATLES BOP – HAMBURG DAYS
BEAR FAMILY, 2001 The definitive collection of The Beatles’ Hamburg recordings for Bert Kaempfert, including the anaemic version of “Sweet Georgia Brown” recorded during the May 1962 session.Tony Sheridan overdubbed vocals two weeks later and it was released in Germany credited to Sheridan And The Beat Brothers. The recording of “Swanee River” from this session remains lost.
PAST MASTERS VOLUME ONE
PARLOPHONE/APPLE, 1988 Although the Ringo Starr version of “Love Me Do” was originally released as the Fabs’ debut single, it was the Andy White take that appeared on Please Please Me and then compiled on the red album, making it the much more widely heard of the two.Starr’s perfectly acceptable effort is available on Past Masters Volume One, however.Do you miss that tambourine?
LIVE! AT THE STAR-CLUB
LINGASONG/ BELLAPHON, 1977 Before The Beatles won a legal battle over ownership of these tapes in 1998, the StarClub album was given several releases, starting with this 1977 double album featuring 26 tracks.Although its sonic quality is as dubious as its legality, it’s worth a listen as a rare insight into what those famous Hamburg nights sounded like. AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •93
TRINITY MIRROR/MIRRORPIX/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Brian Epstein, or ‘Bernard’, according to George Martin’s diary
APPLE, 1995 After decades of rumour, several key cuts from 1962 finally surfaced on the first Anthology record.This included five of the stronger tracks from the Decca audition, the June ’62 Pete Best EMI recordings of “Besame Mucho” and “Love Me Do”, the September 4 attempt at “How Do You Do It” and the first recording of “Please Please Me” from September 11.The band’s improvement in the studio over nine months is staggering.
THE BEATLES
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
“Artists needed to be smart, professionaland accomplished”: The Silver Beatles with Pete Best, early ’62
Definitive progress was made elsewhere. The Beatles auditioned for the BBC in Manchester on February 12, playing four songs – including two originals, “Like Dreamers Do” and “Hello Little Girl”. Presenter Peter Philbeam described them as “an unusual group, not as ‘rocky’ as most, more C&W with a tendency to play music”. He invited them to a recording in March. On February 20, the group played their biggest engagement under Epstein so far – the grand, 1,200-capacity Floral Hall in Southport. It wasn’t all plain sailing, though. When the band played the YMCA in Hoylake at the end of the month for £30, they were booed off stage. Bruised, they returned to the smelly comfort of the Cavern to play an all-nighter. Epstein wanted to ensure situations like the YMCA snub wouldn’t happen again. A childhood friend of George and Paul, Tony Bramwell later worked for Epstein and Apple but in 1962 was lugging gear with Neil Aspinall for 10 bob a week and free entry to shows. “By 1962, they were pretty damned huge in Merseyside but nowhere else except Hamburg,” he says. “When Brian got involved, he looked at why they were playing shithole clubs and dodgy village halls. He talked to the people who booked places like the Majestic Ballroom in Birkenhead. They said artists needed to be professional, smart and accomplished. When he got the suits made, almost immediately you could see a difference. That wouldn’t haven’t happened without Brian. Those guys doing it before him, Alan Williams and Sam Leach, never looked further than the next pub. If Brian hadn’t come along, they’d have worn themselves out 94 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
THE BEATLES LOOK
T
HE dramatic change in The Beatles’ appearance through 1962 came as a consequence of Brian Epstein’s desire to clean up their look to appeal to better venues,the BBC and the sort of people who handed out record contracts. Starting at the top,The Beatles got trimmed every two weeks at Epstein’s barber,Jim Cannon,who worked at Horne Bros on Lord Street in central Liverpool. That meant their hair was long but neat and manageable.Later in November,the New Record Mirror’s journalist Norman Jopling would be the first to comment on the band’s “long flat hair”. The first national coverage of The Beatles in Dance News had singled out “un-English style clothes”,a nod to those mohair suits from Beno Dorn’s shop in Birkenhead.During the fitting,tailor Walter Smith couldn’t help but notice a pong emitting from The Beatles’ unfabulous feet thanks to the sweat absorbed by the lining of their boots – he had to spray air freshener around the shop after they left. These soon-to-be-famous shoes came from Anello & Davide on Charing Cross Road,and were a form of Spanish dancing shoe modified witha Cuban heel.George Harrison has said he first saw them on New Year’s Eve before the Decca session. With their hair,suits and boots all in place, it meant that by spring 1962 The Beatles were transformed in appearance from head to toe,exhibiting a style that would define the coming era of Beatlemania.
playing dives in Merseyside and just jacked it in. But Brian had vision. He said they’d play the Empire – the Palladium of the North – and before the end of 1962, they did.”
MARCH
New su its are mu ch admired, drink s at the New ColonyClu b prov e instru ctiv e, a harmonica mak es its debu t inStrou d…
A
GENUINE breakthrough. Wearing their fancy new suits for the first time, The Beatles recorded their first BBC radio session on March 7 in front of around 250 audience members. They played four songs and at 5pm the following day, three were broadcast – “Memphis, Tennessee”, Roy Orbison’s “Dream Baby” and “Please Mr Postman”. Among the three million listeners of Teenager’s Turn – Here We Go on the Light Programme were the boys themselves, huddled round the wireless at Pete’s parents. This performance of “Please Mr Postman” was the first time a Motown song was ever played on the BBC. But the first broadcast of a Lennon-McCartney original had to wait – “Hello Little Girl” was cut. All the same, it was a fabulous debut. The Beatles sounded assured and lively, Pete’s Atom Beat drum slammed on “Memphis, Tennessee”, while the audience even shouted for more at the close of “Please Mr Postman”. Which they would get: The Beatles eventually played 52 sessions for the BBC between 1962 and 1965. An ecstatic Pete jumped around the room with his bandmates: “…we were radio stars!” he wrote.
On Monday, March 26, Pete fell sick. Who to replace him? It happened that Ringo Starr was back in Liverpool and between bands following a stint in Hamburg. The Beatles had two shows that day, lunchtime at the Cavern and then the Kingsway Club in Southport, a pair of engagements that earned Ringo a princely Rising Starr:Ringo £9, well above the going rate. This was the (right) with Rory Storm & The second time that Ringo sat in – the first was Hurricanes at December 1961 – and on both occasions Butlins,Skegness, summer 1962 his musical and social compatibility with the others was evident. Drinking between shows at the New Colony Club, George in Hamburg. Indeed, it was the only part of the casually asked Ringo if he was interested, trip they were enthusiastic about, despite Brian theoretically, in joining the group. Theoretically, securing better wages – 425DM each a week after he said he was, casually. Brian’s 15 per cent was deducted – with free There were more firsts in this year of firsts. The accommodation and expenses. They were first time The Beatles wore their suits in Liverpool playing a new venue, the Star-Club, which – March 29 at the Old Spot – followed by their first sought to be the biggest venue in St Pauli. They date in the south under Epstein. Like all shows, even had a recording session booked for the end the band were carefully briefed about this gig in advance: Epstein gave the band a file showing their expenses for the previous week and engagements for the coming one, with notes on punctuality, presentation and whether a show was particularly important. On March 31, they played in front of almost 500 fans at Stroud’s Subscription Rooms. This new audience would not have been aware of one significant change in the band’s repertoire – KLAUS VOORMANN the introduction of the harmonica, with John adding a bluesy, woozy mouth organ to several tracks. It was a tactic the band borrowed from of May, producing backing tracks for Tony Bruce Channel’s recent hit “Hey! Baby” and had Sheridan. This was to fulfil an old contract great impact before the year was done. signed with Bert Kaempfert, which Brian, still failing to secure any interest in the UK, was keen Hello , Star-Clu b; farewell, Stu … to annul. The Beatles recorded tepid versions of TU Sutcliffe had made a flying visit to “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Swanee River” – Liverpool back in February. He’d the latter has since been lost. watched The Beatles at the Cavern, met Before they flew out, there was a big night at Brian Epstein and gone tenpin bowling. But he the Cavern, a farewell performance especially hadn’t seemed quite himself – perhaps because laid on for fan club members on April 5. Playing of a fit he’d suffered a few weeks before – so the the opening set wearing leathers, they changed band were looking forward to hooking up again into their suits for the first time in front of their
“WHEN STUART DIED, JOHN WAS OUT OF HIS MIND”
APRIL
S
Back-to-back performances:at the Star-Club with Roy Young on piano,May 1962
most devoted audience – a move that was much applauded by the home crowd. Soon after arriving in Hamburg, The Beatles learned that Stuart died of a brain haemorrhage on April 10. “It was devastating,” says Klaus Voormann, who had been friends with The Beatles since their first Hamburg trip. “John was struck hard because Stuart was his best friend. When he died, he was out of his mind, he freaked out.” Bill Harry says Lennon, particularly, struggled to come to terms with Stu’s death. “None of them dealt with it very well,” he says. “I told John off for not contacting Millie, Stu’s mum, so one day I took him round there. She let me and John choose one of Stu’s paintings. John told me he was pleased he went, but he found it very hard to deal with death.” Struggling to keep their spirits up, The Beatles fulfilled their obligations at the Star-Club. This was a bigger venue, holding around 2,000 and attracting headliners like Gene Vincent, which gave The Beatles the chance to learn about stage presence from a master. Voormann detected a change in their sound from previous Hamburg engagements. “The Star-Club, when they first played, was strange because before they had always played in small clubs, narrow little clubs with low ceilings,” he says. “Suddenly they were in this cinema with a big ceiling and a really awful yellow curtain. When they played in the Top Ten and Kaiserkeller they had this very basic bass, because Stuart couldn’t do anything else. That made them a very tight rock’n’roll band. As soon as Paul picked up the bass, it wasn’t that rock’n’roll feeling any more. He played much more melodically, and that changed the music.”
MAY
With Th e Beatles!…
F
OR The Beatles, their experiences in Hamburg and Liverpool couldn’t have been more different. Over in Hamburg,
“It was devastating”: the late Stuart Sutcliffe AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •95
KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES;K & K ULF KRUGER OHG/REDFERNS;BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES
THE BEATLES
GAB ARCHIVE/REDFERNS;DAILY EXPRESS/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
THE BEATLES The Beatles laboured away on stage every night at the Star-Club – their only day off was Good Friday. In fact, they only had two consecutive days off all year, in October, which Paul spent in London writing “I Saw Her Standing There”. Hamburg was gruelling and repetitive. The band played a couple of hours each night, adding new songs to their set thanks to records Brian was sending over from NEMS. Levity came from extracurricular activities, which on one occasion included John getting peed on mid-coitus by an enraged German minder, as well as the infamous incident when he may or may not have urinated on some nuns. But back in Liverpool, something was happening. On May 9, after three months of silence, Brian was invited to meet George Martin at 11.30am at EMI on Abbey Road. Throughout that time, publisher Sid Colman had kept nagging at EMI chairman Len Wood about those three Lennon-McCartney originals. Martin, who had just left his wife for assistant Judy Lockhart Smith, was in Wood’s bad books; he was effectively ordered to record the group to secure EMI the publishing rights. It was a done deal, before Brian and George even met. Afterwards, Brian rushed to the post office near St John’s Wood tube station and sent a telegram to Bill Harry’s Mersey Beat: “Have secured contract for Beatles to recorded [sic] for EMI on Parlaphone (sic) label. 1st recording date set for June 6th.” Harry put the news on the front cover with a photo of the most popular Beatle, Pete Best. Epstein’s telegram to the Star-Club was even briefer: “Congratulations boys EMI request recording sessions please rehearse new material.” On May 18, George Martin began the process of applying within EMI for a recording contract for a band he called the “Beattles”. The agreement was to record six sides, with the contact lasting a year and an option to extend for a further three years. Within a week, this was approved, signed by Martin and sent to Epstein. The paperwork was in place. Another telegram was despatched to Hamburg: “EMI contract signed sealed tremendous importance to all of us wonderful”. In preparation, The Beatles started writing new material. As well as composing “PS I Love You”, they went back to an old song written several years previously by Paul McCartney called “Love Me Do” that was at early attempt to do a Buddy Holly number. Approaching it as a more mature band, they tidied it up, slowed it down, added a bridge and then came the coup de grace – John added a harmonica line, giving the song a distinctive riff and emphasising the bluesy quality. Otherwise, it was back into the grind of Hamburg: sweaty nights on stage, uppers, alcohol, flirting with barmaids and writing letters home about their boredom.
JUNE
“I don’t lik e you r tie”…
T
HE intensity of Hamburg meant The Beatles were match fit for the EMI session. Flying back to England on June 2, they spent a couple of days rehearsing at the Cavern before compiling a list of their strongest numbers – 33 in all. They drove down to London on June 5, this time staying at the Royal Court Hotel on Sloane Square. The following evening on June 6, they drove to St John’s Wood in Neil’s van for
96 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
“It was a catchy tune”:Mitch Murray, writer of “How Do You Do It”, deemed surplus to Beatle requirements
Standoffish: George Martin
their first Abbey Road session. This time, they hoped, there would be no repeat of the Decca disappointment. Although George Martin was in charge, he remained a little standoffish about the band, more concerned with finding another song for Bernard Cribbins to follow his hit, “Hole In The Ground”. Martin’s assistant Ron Richards and engineer Norman Smith began the session. Impressed by what he heard, Richards soon sent for Martin. “George Martin’s part at the
YOUTH CL UBSAND DEPARTMENT STORES
W
HILE Brian Epstein was booking The Beatles into a series of larger and more prestigious venues throughout 1962, the group still ended up in some unlikely places.On February 24 they played a YMCA in Hoylake, while March 24 saw them at the Women’s Institute in Wirral.During the summer, the played a couple of gigs aboard the Royal Iris, a Mersey ferryboat booked by the Cavern.The July 6 show was headlined by Acker Bilk, who presented John, Paul, George and Pete with a black bowler hat. Later that month they played Liverpool’s Cabaret Club on Duke Street, an unsuccessful attempt to break into the cabaret circuit.They weren’t invited back. September 7 saw a show at the glamorous setting of Newton Dancing School at the Village Hall in Irby, while one of their final UK shows of the year took place on November 27 at the 527 Club on the top floor of Lewis’s department store on Ranelagh Street in Liverpool, organised as a knees-up for shop staff.These sort of oddball venues were still part of the circuit in 1962, but those days were coming to a close.
start was a bit overplayed,” confirms Bramwell. “It was Norman Smith and Ron Richards. George appreciated them, but he wasn’t going to dirty his hands for a while. He let other people do that.” They recorded four songs, including, thanks to the demands of the publishers, three originals: “Love Me Do”, “PS I Love You” and “Ask Me Why” alongside old favourite “Besame Mucho”. When Martin invited them to the control room for the playback, he gave extended feedback before asking if they had anything to say. There was a silence until George spoke up. “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t like your tie.” Martin, to his credit, got the joke. But despite his fondness for the band’s personalities and growing awareness of their musical strengths, he didn’t think the session produced a viable single. A second recording date was booked for later that year. Martin still hadn’t quite grasped what he had chanced upon. Other changes were afoot. Before the month was out, Brian wrote to his lawyers to ask how to drop a band member without breaking the contract. The end of the road was coming up fast. If EMI didn’t think there was a decent LennonMcCartney original, the BBC were more amenable. When The Beatles returned to Manchester on June 11 to record their second radio session for Teenager’s Turn – Here We Go, they included “Ask Me Why” alongside “Besame Mucho” and “A Picture Of You”. The June 15 broadcast of “Ask Me Why” on the Light Programme became the first Lennon-McCartney song ever played on the radio. Each song was once again greeted with enthusiastic screams from an audience including fan club members bussed in from Liverpool. But The Beatles were now attracting fans outside their home city. “The Manchester girls went berserk,” says Harry, who attended the session. In the crush to get back on the coach, Pete was left behind.
JULY
Swindon! Rhyl! Denmark Street!…
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HE band continued to ripple out from the NorthWest – Swindon beckoned as well as their first show in Wales at a dancehall above a Burton’s in Rhyl. And in Liverpool, Granada TV visited the Cavern after a flood of fan letters persuaded the producers to check out the noise coming from the cellar on Mathew Street.
Underground sensations:at the Cavern for a performance to be recorded by Granada TV, August 22, 1962
sacked. Brian, who did the my dad agreed to get a deed with no other band recording done,” says Stephen members present, promised to James. “George Martin had keep Pete on his current wage been my father’s recording and find him another group. manager when my father had Liverpool was shocked. The been a singer, so he took the “mean and moody” Pete may song to George and said, ‘Have have been adored by fans but you got a band who can record he never really gelled with his this?’ George said to leave it TONY BRAMWELL bandmates. “Pete was very with him. When Brian Epstein straight,” says Klaus brought The Beatles down to Voormann. “Not a very good London, George didn’t like drummer but he kept good timing. He had only what they played him, so he asked them to record one fill he could do. Ringo was very different, so ‘How Do You Do It’. The Beatles hated it.” loose and so lovely. It allowed the band to change a lot.” Following a couple of shows with Johnny A triptoBu tlins… Bru nofrom West Hutch from The Big Three on drums, Ringo made Derby is v ery u nh appy … sou p, his debut on August 18 at Hulme Hall, Port ch ick en, trifle… Sunlight. The Beatles became The Beatles. HE most frantic month of a frantic year. “It came as shock to everybody except The The key date was August 22, when Beatles, but you knew immediately it was the Granada TV were due to come to the right decision,” says Bramwell. “Ringo was a Cavern to film The Beatles for a show called Know better drummer and he was a good guy who The North. With a second recording date in London would socialise with them. Ringo was a Beatle. It coming a week or so later, it was necessary to make was that simple.” Not everybody agreed. George a tough decision to guarantee their future. Ringo’s Harrison ended up with a black eye after an continued interest in joining The Beatles had altercation at the Cavern with a Pete fan called been established by John and Paul during a brief Bruno from West Derby. But in good news for trip to Butlins in Skegness, where the drummer future Beatles, Pete’s best mate Neil Aspinall was playing with Rory Storm. On August 14, Brian agreed to remain their roadie. called the holiday camp; Ringo confirmed he’d be Still the month was not quite over. On August in Liverpool that coming weekend. 22, The Beatles were filmed for TV for the first The following day, The Beatles played two sets time, recorded by Granada playing two songs at the Cavern. On Thursday August 16, Pete was (“Some Other Guy” and “Kansas City/Hey-
“RINGO WAS A BEATLE, IT WAS THAT SIMPLE”
AUGUST
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MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
Down in London, things continued to percolate. What happened next is a good way of understanding the old songwriting system. Unimpressed by “Love Me Do” – and with no way of knowing that John had since written “Please Please Me” – George Martin was still looking for the ideal debut single for The Beatles. In those days, that meant doing the rounds of publishers’ offices in Denmark Street, asking if they had anything suitable. “How Do You Do It” was a perky Adam Faithinspired number written by young London songwriter Mitch Murray and demoed at Regent Sound, the tiny basement studio at 6 Denmark Street where the Stones later recorded their debut album. “It was a catchy tune and then the words just came together,” recalls Murray, who had only recently taken up songwriting. “Barry Mason did a version, I did a version and I chose to hawk Barry’s round. Barry was crucial with placing the song with Ron Richards at EMI, who played it to Dick James. In those days publishing companies did everything. They had the premises, they had the staff, they’d take your song, pay for the demo, find a singer, finance the recording, fix a record deal and then once it was out there, they would go and promote it. The Beatles changed all that.” George Martin first heard an acetate of “How Do You Do It” towards the end of July and selected it as a possible single for The Beatles. This provided the first connection – albeit indirect at this point – between The Beatles and their future publisher Dick James. “Mitch had ‘How Do You Do It’ and
After playbacks of “How Do You Do It” and “Love Me Do”, The Beatles put their collective feet down. They told George Martin they didn’t want Murray’s song to be their debut single. It wasn’t representative of their style, they argued, and they could do better themselves. In the end, the decision was made for them. Mitch Murray had smartly retained copyright and refused permission to release The Beatles’ version. “They messed about with it deliberately, they later admitted that,” he says. “I heard their recording a couple of days later. I didn’t sign a contract, because I hated what they did to it. I knew it was my best chance of a hit. Dick James and George Martin agreed with me. They said they’d rerecord it with The Beatles, but by that time they’d written ‘Please Please Me’ and things changed. Brian Epstein said it was perfect for his lovely group Gerry & The Pacemakers, who had a singer like a British Bobby Darin. Gerry recorded it and it went to No 1.” A week later, on September 11, The Beatles were back at EMI for their third – and surely final – attempt to record a debut single. But this time, George Martin was taking no chances and hired session drummer Andy White for £5, 15s. “I was devastated,” said Ringo, who feared his new band had “done a Pete Best” on him. “It blew my brains away.” The objective was to record a B-side for “Love Me Do”. “PS I Love You” was eventually selected, although they also considered “Please Please Me”. They took another pass at “Love Me Do”, this time with White on drums and Ringo relegated to tambourine, shaking it with all his might. Both versions of “Love Me Do” were eventually released. Ringo’s take from September 4 was pressed as the single before being replaced by Andy White’s – the version that was also released on Please
HARRY HAMMOND/V&A IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES;DOUGLAS MILLER/KEYSTONE/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; DONALDSON COLLECTION/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES;ITV/SHUTTERSTOCK
“Ringo was very different”:the new lineup,November 1962; (inset right) John and new bride Cynthia; Gerry Marsden,who would take “How Do You Do It” off their hands
Hey-Hey-Hey”) at a lunchtime Cavern performance. Framed by the Cavern’s arch, the band looked and sounded great, but while Brian pressed an acetate of “Some Other Guy” – a different live version to the one filmed by Granada – to help with promotion, the clip was shelved for poor quality. It wasn’t broadcast until November 6, 1963 and remains the only known film of the band performing at the Cavern. To compensate, Granada booked the band for the tea-time show People And Places in October. The day after filming, John, Paul and George had a very different engagement – Mount Pleasant Registry Office for John’s shotgun marriage to a pregnant Cynthia. Brian was best man and covered the 15 shilling cost of the wedding lunch from the set menu at Reece’s Cafeteria – soup, chicken, trifle. Afterwards, they met up with Ringo before John spent his wedding night on stage at the Riverpark Ballroom, Chester.
SEPTEMBER
“Theymessed abou t with it deliberately”…
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LTHOUGH now complete as the Four, their first EMI session with Ringo, on September 4, did not go as planned. In a long and frustrating session that overran by more than an hour, the band played their own version of “How Do You Do It” along with “Love Me Do”, “PS I Love You” and “Ask Me Why”. They also rehearsed new songs, “Please Please Me” and “Tip Of My Tongue”. George Martin wasn’t happy with the material nor the performance of the new drummer – who, racked with nerves, went wild in a desperate bid to impress, banging and shaking everything in sight “like some weird spastic leper”, as he later put it, rather indelicately. 98 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Filming People & Places for Granada, as the TV and radio schedule ramps up
Behind the scene: MalEvans keeps an eye on George, John and Ringo
BUIL DINGTHETEAM
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Master of ceremonies: George Martin oversees the boys In the studio
Please Me. But The Beatles had finally their first Parlophone single – a surprisingly gruelling procedure given how effortlessly they would soon adapt to the recording process. “Love Me Do”/“PS I Love You” was scheduled for October 5 release. With that confirmed, London-based Scouser Tony Barrow was given £20 to write a press release while moonlighting from his day job at… Decca. Everything was going swimmingly. That was until September 25 – when Brian Epstein received a letter from Fentons, a Liverpool solicitor. Pete Best was threatening to sue.
OCTOBER
The Tower Ballroom beck ons, L ittle Richard approv es, Billy Prestonarriv es…
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FTER signing a new Beatles contract to include Ringo, Brian put his legal concerns to one side so the band could focus on the impending release of “Love Me Do”. This was the month when the pace picked up, where those exciting one-off radio and TV performances gradually became part of daily life. “Nothing is inevitable but there were so many positive things happenings like the BBC and then Granada TV,” says Bramwell. “That was all
very exciting and it all happened quite quickly. There was lots going on, but the big thing was the release of ‘Love Me Do’. We got the acetate. That was so exciting.” The day after the single’s release, The Beatles had their first record signing at Dawson’s Music Shop in Widnes – ahead of a gig at Port Sunlight promoted by the local horticultural
The Beatles’ and Epstein’s October 1962 contract
society. On October 8 they recorded a slot for EMI’s show on Radio Luxembourg, The Friday Spectacular. A curious proposition, this involved the band being interviewed at a studio in Manchester Square while both sides of the single were played to a live audience of around 100. It was broadcast on October 12 as the single entered the chart at no 49. That night, the band had one of their biggest engagements to date, playing the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton in a show organised by NEMS and headlined by Little Richard. Another Brian masterstroke, putting The Beatles on the same bill as rock royalty. The band met Billy Preston and got on well with Little Richard, who became a fan. “Man, those Beatles are fabulous,” he said, telling the local press exactly what they wanted to hear. “If I hadn’t seen them, I’d never have dreamed they were white. They have a real authentic Negro sound.” Backstage at the Tower Ballroom there was an awkward encounter with Pete Best, there AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •99
KEYSTONE/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES;MARK AND COLLEEN HAYWARD/ GETTY IMAGES;JULES ANNAN / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
ROM the moment Brian Epstein signed the first Beatles contract in January 1962,the team that carried The Beatles to unimagined success began to form around them.Neil Aspinall was already on board,affirming his commitment to the band even after his best mate Pete Best was sacked (a situation further complicated by the fact that Neilwas in a relationship with Pete’s mum and was the father of Pete’s new brother). Slowly,more reluctantly,George Martin joined the crew in June 1962,and then Dick James signed on as publisher in November that year,quickly recognising that The Beatles were different and creating a bespoke contract that reflected that.Journalist Tony Barrow was handed the job of writing the press release for “Love Me Do” and became full-time press officer in May 1963. The most significant figure still to join the team was Mal Evans, who already knew the band through his occasional role as Cavern doorman,and who came on board in 1963. Tony Bramwell,who worked with NeilAspinall in 1962 and would later become CEO of Apple records,says Epstein understood the importance of having a solid,trustworthy team around The Beatles.Brian worked hard to make sure this was in place.“I was an apprentice at Ford but would bunk off at lunchtime to work at the Cavern,” he says.“Brian then started to pay me.I joined full time in around August/September 1962.Brian took my mum for tea and promised he’d look after me.He said I could work in one of his shops if it didn’t work out for The Beatles.He was already paying me twice what I got at Ford and my mum loved The Beatles but she needed that reassurance.He was a very decent man.”
THE BEATLES
ALPHA HISTORICA / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; S IEGFRIED LOCH - K & K/REDFERNS
Walking on airwaves: at the BBC Radio studios
with a new band, Lee Curtis And The All Stars. Fortuitously, his desire for legal satisfaction slowly petered out. On October 17, The Beatles appeared live on TV for the first time, performing “Some Other Guy” and “Love Me Do” on Granada. Bill Harry sensed the growing pull of Beatlemania as the band spent hours in the dressing room signing autographs. Just over a week later, on October 26, came their third Little Richard at the Star-Club, with Billy Preston back right
appearance on the BBC’s Here We Go – and first with Ringo – playing “Love Me Do”, “PS I Love You” and “A Taste Of Honey”. A recording of “Sheila” was not broadcast. The Beatles ended the month flying to Hamburg for another short engagement at the StarClub. But first there was time to play the Empire Theatre, the biggest venue in Liverpool, on October 28 – again headlined by Little Richard – before recording “Love Me Do” and “A Taste of Honey” for Granada’s People And Places. By the end of October, “Love Me Do” was No 27 in the NME chart, earning the band their first review in the paper. On the final day of the month, just after The Beatles left for Hamburg, the BBC played the “Love Me Do” single for the first time, broadcasting the hit sound of Liverpool to the five million listeners of Twelve O’Clock Spin.
NOVEMBER
“Gentlemen, y ou ’v e ju st made y ou r first No1 record”…
K
laus Voormann detected a different attitude with his old friends from their previous trip to April. The arrival of Ringo made them tighter and more flexible – but the growing success of “Love Me Do” was an even more significant factor. “They were still those Liverpool boys, but now they felt they had made
it,” he says. “I remember driving somewhere with Brian. ‘Love Me Do’ was in the hit parade. They were very up and Brian was talking about all the gigs they had coming up. The feeling was that they were only in Hamburg because they were committed, otherwise they wouldn’t have come. But when they were on the stage with an audience, then they were the old Beatles – still that cocky, fresh Liverpool band. Only because Ringo was a completely different drummer, it was even more exciting.” Another benefit of success was that Brian could ask for more money for the Star-Club residency – 510DM apiece after the manager’s cut. Headlining the Star-Club this time was Little Richard. Voormann went every night, on one occasion heading backstage to see Richard reading to The Beatles from the Bible. The Beatles left Hamburg after two weeks knowing there would be one more residency still to come, after which that period of their life would be done with forever. Back in the UK, The Beatles started spending more time in London. On November 16, they had a meeting with George Martin, the originally reticent producer having had a Damascene conversion – the continuing success of “Love Me Do” in the charts obviously helped. As well as discussing an upcoming recording session at Abbey Road, he wanted to record an LP at the Cavern – an idea that was eventually ditched when Martin actually visited Mathew Street and deemed it sonically unsuitable and hygienically unbearable. They were back in London on November 23 to audition for the BBC at St James’s Church Hall, Gloucester Terrace in Paddington. The invitation was prompted by Beatles fan David John Smith of Preston, who wrote to the BBC to tell them about the band. They don’t pass the audition but later that month record “Love Me Do”, “PS I Love You” and “Twist And Shout” for a BBC radio session at Paris Studio on Lower Regent Street. Letter-writing fans were well meaning but they didn’t always help – one reason “Love Me Do” didn’t get played much on BBC radio was because producers received so many requests they assumed it was a fit-up. On November 26, The Beatles returned to Abbey Road for their fourth EMI session of the year, this time intending to record a second single. This session was brisk and instantly successful, with the band cutting two sides – “Please Please Me” and “Ask Me Why” – before going home 15 minutes early. With no session drummer to get in the way, it was the first time The Beatles felt at home in the studio, something that comes through in the good-natured ease of the performance. Harmonica was dubbed over “Please Please Me” to provide a connection to “Love Me Do”, but the song’s infectious energy impressed George Martin. This time there was no mistaking it. “Gentlemen, you’ve just made your first No 1 record,” he told them. “Please Please Me” would be released on January 11, 1963. After the session, Brian Epstein met Dick James at his office on the corner of Charing Cross Road and
Denmark Street. Epstein wanted a publisher as he hadn’t been happy with the promotion of “Love Me Do”, and James got the gig by picking up the phone during the meeting to get The Beatles booked into Thank Your Lucky Stars in January. Sid Colman, who did so much behind the scenes, was consigned to history. At the end of the month, The Beatles got their first EMI royalty cheque for “Love Me Do”. The £130 11s 6d earned them £27 15s each after Brian had taken his 15 per cent.
swinging Discs A Gogo. Then it was down to Wembley to mime to “Love Me Do” and “PS I Love You” for Tuesday Rendezvous, appearing on telly in London for the first time in the illustrious company of Bert Weedon and glove puppets Fred Barker and Ollie Beak. There’d be another Granada TV engagement on People And Places before the month was out. All this was in service of “Love Me Do”, which continued its stuttering passage through the UK charts. The single broke the Top 20 on December 15, the same day The Beatles played the Mersey Beat pollwinners party, before peaking at No 17 just after Christmas. By then The Beatles were in Hamburg for their final two-week run at the Star-Club. This time, their sole day off was Christmas Day, which they spent at the British Mariner’s Mission enjoying a Christmas dinner of what they later found out was horse meat. They liked the mission because the food was cheap, keeping to old habits even though their Hamburg fee was now 750DM apiece each week before deductions – their overall income tripled over the course of 1962. On their final day in Hamburg, New Year’s Eve 1962, The Beatles’ performance was inadvertantly recorded. This was eventually released in 1977 on a label run by Paul Murphy – the man who Bill Harry says took Brian Epstein to HMV
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TV broadcasts, Brian Epstein was already looking ahead to 1963, when The Beatles would have a second single and first national tour. Arranged by Arthur Howes, this earned The Beatles £80 a week and put them fourth on a bill headlined by Helen Shapiro, travelling to hitherto unimaginable destinations in Yorkshire, the Midlands and the North-East. By way of an audition, Arthur Howes asked The Beatles to support of crooner Frank Ifield at the Embassy Cinema in Peterborough on December 2. They played for free. Ifield’s fans hated them, but Howes was impressed. This minor humiliation was quickly offset by another pair of live TV broadcasts. The first was in Bristol for ITV regional station TWW (Wales And West), where they mimed to “Love Me Do” for the
The band with George Martin some time after the “first No 1 record” he told them they had made
with the Decca masters back in February. Towards the end of 1962, a full-page advert appeared in Mersey Beat extolling what had been a transformative year for the biggest band in Liverpool. “Brian had me design this page called ‘1962 – The Beatles’ Year Of Achievement’, says Harry. “It was a list of everything they had done: BBC, Radio Luxembourg, TV appearances, ‘Love Me Do’, recording contracts, supporting Little Richard and Gene Vincent and a list of all the places they performed around the country. That was Brian’s assessment of 1962 and he could see it was so important.” A dynamic year that began with the disappointment of a failed audition on New Year’s Day ended with The Beatles – that’s John, Paul, George and Ringo to you – as a Top 20 band, with their first No 1 single ready for release. “Not a bad 12 months, was it?” grins Tony Bramwell.
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
THE YEAR ENDED WITH A DECEMBER FLURRY OF “1962 – Th e Beatles’ Year Of Ach iev ement”… CONCERTS s the year ended with a AND TV SHOWS flurry of concerts and
more like Suggs having a whinge. They rescue things at the last by inviting Katy J Pearson and Nuha Ruby Ra to join them for an entertaining romp through “Roadrunner”, though this also serves to point up a crucial shortcoming: Jonathan Richman was in love with rock’n’roll, Yard Act seem to be mocking it. For a display of genuine commitment, look no further than Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi. Naked save for a pair of flesh-coloured boxers, he dives straight into the crowd looking for a fight while his band begin mercilessly churning out a hellish din by letting their guitars feed back as they clobber beer kegs with drumsticks. Eventually some Bugged Out tent. No guest vocalists or actual songs emerge – “Feet” is almost gimmickry here, but they are highly anthemic – but this is largely an exercise skilled operators who know exactly in confrontation, thrillingly at odds with how to tweak the emotions of anyone the cosy vibe elsewhere. The Comet Is who’s ever lost – and found – themselves Coming, however, are not a band to be on a dancefloor. Bicep used to do overawed. They respond with a furious the same, but they seem to have lost hyper-jazz barrage of their own, debuting something vital in transitioning from a couple of songs from their imminent club staples to main-stage headliners. new album without any appreciable Their set is too self-consciously epic to drop-off in intensity. evoke the same euphoria. Ahead of Primal Scream’s set, the big Of course, you don’t have to prod screen behind the stage makes it look as buttons to make dance music. Early if Andrew Weatherall is providing the on Saturday afternoon, Fatoumata warm-up DJ set – a nice touch. It’s also a Diawara’s set is powered by the kind of reminder that the Scream Team are now slinky West African grooves that make it somewhat depleted. Innes and Duffy are still there, and Bobby Gillespie’s out front in a white suit, surrounded by a phalanx of gospel singers. But it’s a smaller ensemble than tackled Screamadelica live in 2011 and overall the sound is a little underfed. As with the Stones, a certain looseness is part of the deal, but “Movin’ On Up” slips briefly out of sync and “Come Together” doesn’t overwhelm like it should. Instead, “Slip Inside This House” emerges as a key track, a perfect blend of psychedelic sleaze and wide-eyed uplift. A quick dash to the opposite end of the impossible to stay still. At the climax of site finds Altin Gün staunchly upholding an exuberant set, she straps on a red SG the festival’s pluralistic party ethos. and starts shredding like Angus Young Their upcycled (and psyched-up) Turkish (she even makes the face). “Music is one, folk and pop songs convey a deep sense it’s like the planet,” she exclaims, fully of yearning while simultaneously on-message. “We’re all the same.” inciting minor delirium in the small Faye Webster ought to be breakaway crowd. the perfect mid-afternoon PRIMA L SCREA M Back down the hill for host. Her songs match Primal Scream’s encore, SETLIST millennial angst to an oldwhich actually sees them on 1 Movin’ On Up fashioned swoon, assisted safer ground with the non2 Slip Inside This by the festival’s only sighting Screamadelica material. If you House of a pedal steel, but their think about it for any length of 3 Don’t Fight It, Feel It nuances struggle to penetrate time, “Jailbird”, “Country Girl” 4 Inner Flight the crowd chatter. This is and “Rocks” are preposterous 5 Come Together never likely to be a problem songs for a middle-aged 6 Screamadelica for a band as unsubtle as Yard Scotsman to sing, but as long 7 Damaged Act, the logical endpoint as Gillespie believes in them, 8 I’m Comin’ Down of the current inexplicable he can still pull a whole field 9 Higher Than thirst for people talking of people with him. For all The Sun 10 Shine Like Stars archly over one-note postthe promise shown by bands ENCORE punk. Frontman James lower down the bill, there’s 11 Loaded Smith may fancy himself nobody remotely close to being 12 Jai lbi rd as a modern-day Ian Dury able to step up as headliners; 13 Country Girl but, stomping around the we’ll need the likes of Bobby G 14 Rocks main stage in a long mac to keep shaking those maracas and shades, he comes across for a while yet. SAM RICHARDS
WIDE AWAKE FESTIVAL
BrockwellPark,London,May 27–28
Primal Scream preside over an optimistic “post-everything” bash
LUKE DYSON; LORNE THOMSON/REDFERNS
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HIS is a beautiful day, it is a new day. We are together…” Back in 1991, Primal Scream captured the utopian spirit of the times with an album that magically dissolved genre boundaries to suggest that maybe we could all put aside our differences, get high and get along. It goes without saying that such utopianism is at a premium right now; even as the band take to the stage in Brockwell Park to play Screamadelica in its entirety, pictures are popping up on our phones of Liverpool football fans being tear-gassed by French police. At least Wide Awake is a festival that honours Screamadelica’s spirit of musical openness, showcasing the vitality and diversity of what organisers describe as the current “post-everything” scene. Ostensibly there’s a ‘dance day’ and an ‘indie day’, but most acts here would not seem out of place on either. Working Men’s Club, Unschooling and Regressive Left are among a whole tranche of bands partying like it’s 2002 – or 1982 – by combining scratchy guitars with fourto-the-floor beats and deadpan vocals. The Umlauts expand the formula by adding a violin and sing-talking in several different languages, but their joy still feels a tad restricted. Sofia Kourtesis approaches crossover territory from the opposite direction. Essentially a house DJ and producer, she performs here with a live bassist, periodically wandering across the stage in a billowing dress while singing along unguardedly to her blissful, Balearic reveries as if she’s hearing them for the first time. Caribou are old hands at this game, with recent songs like “Home” slotting seamlessly into a set of tried-and-tested festival bangers that still retain a slightly wonky, homemade quality. Dan Snaith’s grin, as he steps away from his keyboard to salute the crowd, could stop tanks. Overmono are your more traditional dance music duo, hunched over a table of gadgetry and barely flinching as their machine-tooled hybrid of techno thud and garage roll causes mayhem in the 1 0 2 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Gillespie’s out front with a phalanx of gospel singers
Lias Saoudiof Fat White Family; (below) Dan Snaith of Caribou
L IVE Their light shines on: Primal Scream at Wide Awake
Fatoumata Diawara
Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie James Smith of Yard Act
Sofia Kourtesis
KIM GORDON Koko, London, May 23
With Sonic Youth in the rear-view, Kim powers uncompromisingly forward
LORNE THOMSON/REDFERNS
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FTER three decades as a co-frontperson, Kim Gordon arrives at the newly refurbished Koko for her first UK headline show as a solo artist. Thanks to Covid, she finds herself touring an album – the stark industrial funk of her debut, No Home Record – that came out two-anda-half years ago. Yet such is her allure as art-rock royalty, any appointment with Gordon is well worth keeping. What makes her such a compelling figure is that she has no time for the past. Since Sonic Youth broke up in 2011 – when she and Thurston Moore separated after 27 years of marriage – Gordon has been astonishingly prolific, a truly multidisciplinary artist. With guitarist Bill Nace, she’s released three albums of freestyle noise as Body/Head; last year, they teamed up with the experimental composer Aaron Dilloway for a self-titled set. Her improv collaboration with surfer Alex Knost, Glitterbust, resulted in an LP of genre-bending fusion in 2016. Her most commercial release turned out to be her acclaimed memoir, Girl In A Band, which pulled no punches. And her visual art – paintings, video, installations – is exhibited around the world. Performing challenging indie-rock is what Gordon is known best for, though, and she and her band – drummer Madison Vogt, bassist Camilla Charlesworth and guitarist Sarah Register – have had plenty of time to refresh the songs on No Home Record. In the studio, Gordon and her producer Justin Raisen patched together a brutal, dank soundworld using elements of trap, footwork and dub to give her ideas a vivid intensity; played live, the likes of “Sketch Artist” and “Air BnB” become a heavy no-wave grind. Wearing black sequinned trousers, a slim white jacket and an air of detachment, Gordon sings lyrics from a lectern beneath which she tweaks effects units on the floor. On the screen behind the band is a film of a road trip in which an unseen vehicle negotiates US highways and ring roads, always out of town, never arriving at a destination, at one point passing a sign in the California desert for a place called Zzyzx. They charge through “Paprika Pony”,
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Stillsparkling: Kim Gordon live at London’s Koko, 2022
“Murdered Out” and “Don’t Play It”, Vogt and Charlesworth establishing a groove before Register, all in white, slashes at it. “Mistakes that I made today, do they ever go away?” Gordon sings. She straps on a guitar for the first time during “Cookie Butter” and strobes flash approvingly.
What makes her compelling is that she has no time for the past
SETLIST 1 Sketch Artist 2 Air BnB 3 Paprika Pony 4 Murdered Out 5 Don’t Play It 6 Cookie Butter 7 Get Yr Life Back 8 Earthquake 9 Hungry Baby ENCORE 10 Blonde Red Head 11 Grass Jeans
“Earthquake” dissolves into a noisy sprawl in the style of her old group but lacks the gravitas that made those excursions so enthralling. For the encore she introduces a cover of DNA’s no-wave classic “Blonde Red Head” and you realise how straight it sounds compared with the rest of the set. The final song is the newest, “Grass Jeans” – “inspired by the, what do you call it, the American democratic experiment” – a crepuscular chugger written with her band that ends drenched in feedback. Gordon hands her guitar to the crowd to play before reeling it in and standing on an amp with the axe held high. Whether she’s in the moment or going through the motions, it’s hard to tell. She’s done this numerous times before and, by the look of things, doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon. PIERS MARTIN
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A colourful, Colonel’seye view of the Elvis story;cave mapping in ’60s Italy;an eerie kind of carer;and more…
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COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES
LVIS Of all the filmmakers who could have made an Elvis biopic, it had to be one whose aesthetic is more Vegas bloat than Sun Studios leanness. Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis lives up to the swooning excess of his Moulin Rouge, even down to its digital diamanté-studded end credits. Less a narrative than a deluxe jukebox musical with touches of Douglas Sirk melodrama, Elvis is framed as a sort of Citizen Kane deathbed reverie from Colonel Tom Parker, Presley’s Dutch-born, Mephistophelean manager. He’s played by Tom Hanks with a bizarre, undefinable European accent, in makeup suggesting a cross between the Penguin and a papiermâché effigy of Rupert Murdoch. How Parker ‘created’, or rather enslaved Presley is the narrative drift, but the film’s real pleasure lies in its full-tilt comic-strip stylistics and a terrific performance by Austin Butler (a TV stalwart previously seen in Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time…). His Elvis is something of a coy innocent, less of a confident joker than the original, not quite aware of his powers, but rebellious when it comes to doing things his own way, as on the ’68 TV Comeback Special. Don’t expect the dark stuff – the decline isn’t touched on, nor his attempts to ingratiate himself with Richard Nixon (this film paints Elvis as a tender-hearted liberal). Priscilla, played by Olivia de Jonge, barely gets a look-in. The film is best experienced as a showbiz panto, with famous names flitting by – Kelvin Harrison Jr as BB King, Alton Mason show-stealing as Little Richard. The emphasis on Elvis’s debt to black music might have expressed itself more subtly than with tarted-up rap recreations of his work – Doja Cat, CeeLo Green and Eminem are among the soundtrack contributors – but then this is no more a film for purists than Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet was for Stratford-on-Avon regulars. Elvis is hyperbolic, onedimensional and ludicrous – but as highexcess cinematic myth-making, it’s a blast.
Your teddy bear:Austin Butler in Elvis
IL BUCO It’s a rare film that actually makes you reconsider your relation to the planet, but Il Buco is such a film. There’s nothing remotely mystical about it – it simply takes you down to the bowels of the earth, then gazes up at the mountains and sky, and leaves you dizzily refreshed and not a little awed. This Italian drama – literally meaning ‘The Hole’ – reconstructs a 1961 caving expedition, in which speleologists mapped out the hitherto unknown recesses of Calabria’s 700-metre deep ‘Bifurno Abyss’. Il Buco isn’t a conventional adventure film, but a poetic, sometimes comic musing on light, dark, landscape and modern Italy. It begins with villagers watching a TV report about Milan’s PirelliTower, which came to symbolise the post-war nation’s aspirations to aim high. By contrast, young cavers are determined to explore the earth’s depths. And up in the hills, a man tends his cattle, calling them with a strange language of shout-song (he’s played by a real-life cowherd, Nicola Lanza, in his early nineties when the film was made). Director Michelangelo Frammartino is known for
Le Quattro Volte, his idiosyncratic musing on trees, goats and natural cycles, and Il Buco is every bit as wonderful. It’s about as immersive as a film can be, with Renato Berta’s photography capturing torchlight on the cave walls as if limning some exquisitely textured sculpture. This is a film you should try and see on the big screen, as its sound mix of footsteps, water drops and the occasional distant cowbell is pure musique concrète. It’s quiet, low-key, but no less a masterpiece for that. EARWIG A devoted explorer of sexually oblique neo-surrealism, Lucile Hadzihalilovic is one of the elusive talents of French cinema – Earwig is only her third film this century, following the dreamlike Innocence and Lovecraftian sci-fi/gender fantasia Evolution. Her first Englishlanguage venture, Earwig otherwise doesn’t feel English at all, not in the sensibly prosaic way that might suggest. Set in an undefined place and time, something like a haunted version of mid-20th-century Belgium, it’s about a man named Scellinc (a nervy,
REVIEWED THIS MONTH ELVIS
Directed by Baz Luhrmann Starring Austin Butler, Tom Hanks Opens June 24 Cert 12A
7 /1 0
1 0 6 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
IL BUCO
Directed by Michelangelo Frammartino Starring Paolo Cossi Opened June 10 Cert U
1 0 /1 0
EARWIG
PLEASURE
NITRAM
7 /1 0
8 /1 0
7 /1 0
Directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic Starring Paul Hilton Opened June 10 Cert 15
Directed by Ninja Thyberg Starring Sofia Kappel, Revika Anne Reustle Opens June 18 Cert 18
Directed by Justin Kurzel Starring Caleb Landry Jones Opens July 1 Cert To be confirmed
Luhrmann’s Elvis is less a narrative than a deluxe jukebox musical as Bella undergoes various ordeals, then becomes a betrayer and abuser in her turn. Mainstream depictions of the porn world, like Boogie Nights, have tended to emphasise kitsch absurdity, but Pleasure takes a dispassionate look at how things actually work, from the money to the humdrum living arrangements. Thyberg has clearly researched this world inside out and casts her film with real industry figures, including performers Evelyn Claire (imperious) and Zelda Morrison (here credited as Revika Anne Reustle, and affectingly characterful as Bella’s no-nonsense flatmate). There are also figures who might seem like the product of a florid imagination, but who are 100 per cent real, notably the rebarbative impresario Mark Spiegler. Pleasure is photographed by Sophie Winqvist with an eye for queasy candy colours, and it’s given ferocious drive by the candour and fearless nerve of Kappel’s lead performance.
hunted-looking Paul Hilton) who scrupulously fulfils his duties as carer, or jailer, to a young girl (Romane Hemelaers) in a deserted old house. One of his tasks is to fit her with a dental prosthesis made of ice – and that only touches the surface of this exceptionally strange film based on a novella by cult writer Brian Catling (The Vorrh). Also obliquely involved are two enigmatic figures played by Alex Lawther and Romola Garai, whose character is the focus of the two moments of violence that unsettle the film’s otherwise darkly narcotised calm. This is a film less of events than of eerie, sometimes near-subliminal impressions, with Jonathan Ricquebourg’s photography capturing the flicker of light through glass in a delicate, almost musical way. Earwig is mesmerisingly beautiful, and also creepy as all hell: expect it to scratch away at your dreams for some time after watching. PLEASURE This drama by Swedish director Ninja Thyberg lifts the lid off the American porn industry and shows the anguish, the humiliation and the plain banality beneath the grinding, groaning and glitter. But Pleasure is executed with a sheened stylistic gloss, and a wry ironic detachment, that make it more incisive than a straight realist exposé, and there’s a lot to wonder about. For example, we never know exactly what motivates Swedish novice Linnea, aka ‘Bella Cherry’ (Sofia Kappel), when she sets out to become the next big adult star. Far from a passive object, she’s fearlessly determined in pushing the limits of what she’ll agree to in the pursuit of fame. But the further she goes, the bleaker it gets, and Pleasure resembles a nightmare version of Showgirls with buttplugs,
NITRAM Australian director Justin Kurzel made his name with The Snowtown Murders, a confrontationally grim account of a notorious murder case, and in Nitram he’s gone back to his roots with another homegrown crime story. It’s based on what became known as the Port Arthur Massacre of 1996, but it touches a nerve most effectively as a character portrait – the depiction of a disturbed young man called Martin, or as people call him, ‘Nitram’ – a name he hates with a vengeance. A misunderstood, volatile outsider with a penchant for fireworks, Martin lives a joyless home life with his parents (Judy Davis, Anthony La Paglia) but seems to find hope and meaning when he forms a bond with Helen, an eccentric heiress who lives in a crumbling mansion. Things, however, cannot go well. In fact, if you know from the outset that you’re watching the background to a killing, you’ll read the film quite differently. It’s actually an advantage not to know the wider story – in which case the film comes across as a tender but grim story of souls in torment. The film is beautifully cast. Nitram is played by Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards…, Antiviral), who has made a career out of wildly eccentric performances, but here he gives his most shaded, affecting performance yet as a child-like outcast desperately in need of love. As Helen, Essie Davis (brilliant in The Babadook, downright terrifying in Kurzel’s underrated True History Of The Kelly Gang) is magnificently odd, achieving a gentle, quasi-Harold And Maude vibe with Landry Jones. Another great Australian actress, the too rarely seen Judy Davis, is at her fearsome best as Nitram’s forbidding mother. Somehow, Nitram becomes a little more routine, even generic as it inexorably heads towards its true-crime outcome, but you can’t argue with history.
JONATHAN ROMNEY
ALSO OUT... LIGHTYEAR
OPENS JUNE 17 The current wave of prequelmania hits Toy Story’s astronaut hero Buzz Lightyear,with Chris Evans taking over as the voice of the Space Ranger in training.
GOOD LUCK TO YOU LEO GRANDE
OPENS JUNE 17 Emma Thompson stars in this Sundance hit as a retired widow who explores new avenues with a young sex worker,played by Daryl McCormack.
EVERYTHING WENT FINE
OPENS JUNE 17 Prolific French director François Ozon offers an uncharacteristically sober drama,with Sophie Marceau as a woman facing the prospect of assisted death for her ill father (doyen André Dussollier).
Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love And Thunder
MOON, 6 6 QUESTIONS
OPENS JUNE 24 Brittle,stylistically inventive drama about a woman’s difficult homecoming,from up-andcoming Greek director Jacqueline Lentzou.
THE BLACK PHONE
OPENS JUNE 24 Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson returns to his horror roots with the story of a serial killer called the Grabber,played by the always game-for-a-genre-laugh Ethan Hawke.
THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER
OPENS JULY 8 More Asgardian antics from Marvel,with both Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman getting to wield the enchanted hammer. Christian Bale is the villain,and Taika Waititidirects again,so expect high jinks and visuals in the hallowed Jack Kirby tradition. AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •1 0 7
THE BEATLES AND INDIA ABACUS MEDIA RIGHTS
8/10
The Fabs’subcontinental odyssey This long-overdue addition to Beatleology documents the Fab Four’s love affair with India – from a meeting with RaviShankar in Finchley to full immersion in Hindustaniclassical music, transcendental meditation and Eastern philosophy. There is a detailed account of events in Rishikesh, 1968 (sabotaged, apparently, by Magic Alex) and commentary from UK-based Beatle specialists, but the highlights are personal recollections from dozens of Indian musicians, journalists, actors and broadcasters about how The Beatles’ deference to India inverted colonial structures. JOHN LEWIS
Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock and François Cluzet in Round Midnight
GET CARTER BFI 10/10
ROUND MIDNIGHT CRITERION
8/10 Dexter Gordon excels in dreamlike Paris jazz-scene drama. By Jonathan Romney FRANCE has long had a particular way of processing American art. When it comes to jazz, the Gallic eye and ear for that music and culture has rarely been more acute than in Round Midnight. Bertrand Tavernier’s 1986 drama pays tribute to the post-war generation of expat musicians who made Paris their base – including Bud Powell, Lester Young, Miles Davis briefly (he created the score to Louis Malle’s Lift To The Scaffold there) and tenor sax titan Dexter Gordon, the star of Tavernier’s film. The film is dedicated to Powell and Young, and in a sense, it’s really about them. Gordon is essentially playing a composite, in a story inspired by the memoirs of Francis Paudras, who befriended both players in their Paris years. Gordon plays saxophonist Dale Turner, who arrives in Paris in the ’50s, struggling with alcohol problems. François Cluzet plays a version of Paudras, 1 0 8 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
jazz obsessive Francis, first seen listening at the window outside a Dale Turner set, so rapt that he barely notices the pouring rain. The film is a love story about Francis’s adoration of his idol, and the tender regard in which Dale holds this starry-eyed enthusiast who welcomes him into his life, and who might just save his. Tavernier – a director known for his scholarly historian’s regard for his subjects – gets to the heart of Paris jazz, and jazz overall, as few filmmakers have done. The music – including Dale’s sets at the city’s famed Blue Note club – is terrific, with musical director Herbie Hancock assembling an all-star lineup that includes Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, Freddie Hubbard and Tony Williams. Vibes maestro Bobby Hutcherson also has a droll speaking part as Dale’s culinary-fixated hotel neighbour Ace, while Lonette McKee channels Billie Holiday (the look, although her superb voice is very different) as Dale’s lost love Darcey, performing a fabulous “How Long Has This Been Going On?”. Martin Scorsese has a
gabby final-act cameo; Eddy Mitchell gets a superb sight gag; and fans of TV’s Call My Agent might recognise Liliane Rovère, who stepped out with both Gordon and Chet Baker back in the Latin Quarter’s glory years. The recreation of a bygone Paris feels authentic, with clubs, streets and the famous Hotel Louisiane recreated as sets by legendary production designer Alexandre Trauner. As a result, though, the film’s city has a slightly unreal quality, more like a dream or a memory rather than entirely a concrete place. The drama also drifts a little nebulously, but constantly circles back to the music – for which Hancock won an Oscar for Best Original Score – including the sublime Hancock/ Stevie Wonder composition “Chan’s Song”, which Dale plays for his estranged daughter. At once nodding to the romantic myths and demystifying them, Round Midnight has verve and a heartbreaking dignity, with its centre in Gordon’s extraordinary, affecting performance. Bringing his own experience to bear in his portrait of Dale, he looms large, a wry, tender monolith of melancholy with his strange, languid vocal inflections; the film won him an Oscar nomination as Best Actor, and it’s not least due to him that Round Midnight endures as a foremost exhibit in that too-small canon of great jazz movies.
Those “pissholes in the snow” never looked better Mike Hodges made the greatest ever British gangster movie with his 1971 debut, and it gets the restoration it deserves with this sumptuous Bluray (also available in a 4K edition). The landscape of red brick rows, brutalist car-parks and stark high-rises forms a hard, strange, shabby symphony of dishwater browns and concrete greys around Michael Caine’s relentless, style-conscious hoodlum, on a mission of revenge through his Newcastle hometown’s festering underworld. Extras:9/10. Lots of new and archive material, including Cain and Hodges commentary, Alex Cox’s Moviedrome intro, and Johnny Trunk on Roy Budd’s deathless score. DAMIEN LOVE
LAWRENCE OF BELGRAVIA BFI 8/10
Close up and personal with Felt hero Paul (Finisterre) Kelly’s sensitive study of Felt/ Go Kart Mozart frontman Lawrence is suitably understated, with no voiceover, no contextual talking heads. Insofar as there is a narrative it comes from interviews in which Lawrence and unfortunate journalists compete to look the more bewildered. Lawrence’s theme – apparently sincerely held – is one of continuing bafflement at his failure to achieve mainstream success. “Luckily, I’m insane,” he says, explaining his indefatigability. Extras:7/10. Commentary, Q&A, trailer, deleted scenes, poetry, booklet. ALASTAIR McKAY
Likely lad Pete Doherty backstage at The Libertines’ Coronet show, London, April 10, 2004
REVIEWED THIS MONTH
A LIKELY LAD
PETER DOHERTY CONSTABLE, £20
8/10
IN 1978, David Leaf was putting the finishing touches to his ur-text God Only
Knows: The Story Of Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys & The California Myth
when his hero unexpectedly crash-landed in his living room, a friend having found a confused Wilson wandering along Sunset Boulevard wearing just a bathrobe. A fan and a well-wisher at heart, Leaf recalls that he reheated two slices of pizza that he found in the fridge and gave them to Wilson, who ate them and promptly fell asleep on the couch, waking up after a doze to demand that Leaf drive him home. The troubled genius didn’t seem to be too sure where he lived, but to his credit, Leaf managed to get Wilson back in one piece. A victory-lap revision of a book Leaf started writing in his mid-twenties, this new edition scaffolds bonus material around the text of the 1985 version of God Only Knows, which tells the grisly story of the Wilson brothers’ violent upbringing, The Beach Boys’ rise to success and the mental health and family issues that
GOD ONLY KNOWS DAVID LEAF
OMNIBUS, £19
8/10
LIVING ON A THIN LINE DAVE DAVIES HEADLINE, £20
7/10
almost destroyed their main songwriter. As Wilson himself put it: “When ‘God Only Knows’ came out, Paul [McCartney] called it the greatest song ever written. If so, what was left for me to do?” The new material here shows how Leaf eventually inveigled himself into his hero’s life, weathering the years when Wilson was under the control of
Doherty was a smart kid pulled to the dark side psychiatrist Eugene Landy and his “surf nazi” retainers, and gently steering him toward such late-career triumphs as the Pet Sounds tour and the once-unthinkable ‘Brian Wilson Presents Smile’ project. “I was determined to tell Brian’s story and change his life,” writes Leaf of his laudable intentions. His dream, it seems, came true. WHEN it comes to bad family vibes, The Kinks run The Beach Boys close. Guitarist Dave Davies remembers with a sigh the
surprise 50th-birthday party brother Ray helped to organise for him in Muswell Hill in 1997. “When the time came for my birthday cake, Ray gave a speech that was about himself mainly. Then when people started taking photos, he jumped up on the table and trampled all over the cake.” In his new memoir Living On A Thin Line, Dave details his complicated relationship with his older brother but makes it clear that Ray was not the only maladjusted one in the band. A heavy drinker and drug user for a time, Dave remembers being called a “cynical, obnoxious bastard” by John Lennon (takes one to know one) and was hospitalised after an onstage fight at a 1965 show in Cardiff that erupted when he told bandmate Mick Avory that “his drums would sound better if he played them with his cock”. In his defence, he was very young; he recalls spending his first Kinks royalties on a Scalextric set. Davies’ mindset changed after he was dissuaded from throwing himself out the window of a New York hotel room in August 1972, bad habits giving way to an interest in mysticism. “I shed my old skin and started to grow a new one,” he explains. His esoteric revelations may be off-putting for some, but Davies gives a good account of how he managed to stay just about far enough away from Ray to survive. JIM WIRTH AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •109
JOHN POWELL/AVALON/GETTY IMAGES
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XASPERATED after being kicked out of The Libertines (again) for his drug use, Peter Doherty was arrested for breaking into bandmate Carl Barât’s Harley Street flat. Overcome by emotion, he recalls stealing a DVD player and a laptop, before rummaging around for something to eat. “There was some ham in the fridge,” writes Doherty in his predictably grubby memoir A Likely Lad. “It was out of date. I got my comeuppance there as well. I missed my first court appearance due to food poisoning.” Like Shane MacGowan, Doherty was a smart kid who found himself pulled to the dark side, the sweet army brat going from being a poetry nut with a penchant for QPR and Chas & Dave to a drugaddicted calamity. His painfully intense relationship with Barât produced some of the most exciting guitar music of the 2000s, but – like his sometime friend and fellow addict Amy Winehouse – Doherty’s bad habits proved too much for anyone to handle. Thrilled to meet the Specials’ Terry Hall at a gig in 2006, Doherty scored a typically spectacular own goal thanks to having taken a large dose of ketamine. “I thought I was in Aswad, and I tried to sing ‘Do Nothing’ but at the wrong speed,” he writes. “Terry tried to be as friendly as he could, but sort of backed away.” A Likely Lad ultimately finds something heroic in the way Doherty managed to sustain a career, an £800-a-day habit and a relationship with supermodel Kate Moss, before cleaning up his act more recently. “There was a part of me trying to prove you could remain a functioning member of society and be a crack and heroin addict,” he writes. In the best and worst senses, what a waster, what a fucking waster.
Not Fade Away Fondly remembered this month…
CATHAL COUGHLAN Microdisney and Fatima Mansions firebrand !1960"2022#
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ATHAL Coughlan formed Microdisney with Sean O’Hagan in Cork in 1980. The title of an early album, We Hate You South African Bastards!, indicated a lack of appetite for compromise – but there was nothing difficult about Microdisney’s music. Quite the opposite: the melodies were sweet and the arrangements sumptuous, but Coughlan’s distinctively Corkonian snarl and singular lyrical sensibility were deliberately jarring counterpoints. After 1985’s The Clock Comes Down The Stairs was hailed an indie classic, Microdisney were signed by Virgin. The resulting albums, 1987’s Crooked Mile and 1988’s 39 Minutes, were astounding, but yielded no hits. Coughlan’s next project dispensed with the niceties. The Fatima Mansions, named after a Dublin housing estate, made music as furious as Coughlan’s words. In the 1990s, The Fatima Mansions released a run of albums that almost elevated them to mainstream success – and won them an eventful support slot on U2’s Zoo TV tour. A side project, Bubonique, which also involved comedian Sean Hughes, bequeathed among other highlights a techno version of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”. After the demise of The Fatima Mansions, Coughlan assembled a sporadic solo canon: 2000’s Black River Falls and 2002’s The Sky’s Awful Blue in particular revealed a singing and writing voice growing richer as it grew older.
ALAN WHITE Yes drummer
MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES
!1949"2022#
Durham-born drummer Alan White was struggling to make ends meet when John Lennon and Yoko Ono entered his life in September 1969. “My band, Griffin, were playing the Rasputin club in London one night when John Lennon walked in,” White recalled to Uncut last year. “Shortly afterwards, he asked me to play with him. It was a huge step in my career, the biggest thing I ever did.” The 20-year-old duly appeared on the Plastic Ono Band’s Live Peace In Toronto 1969, followed by session work on Imagine and “Instant Karma!”, plus George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. But White ultimately became part of rock lore as a permanent member of Yes, replacing Bill Bruford for 110 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Intellect and humour: Coughlan with The Fatima Mansions, 1990
I came to Cathal Coughlan’s work as an instant fan, met him as a journalist, got to know him as a friend, and eventually became a collaborator. In 2011 to 2012, I worked with Cathal and Luke Haines on The North Sea Scrolls, a concept album and touring performance piece. It was a privilege and a joy to watch ideas generated over Vietnamese dinners in Shoreditch alchemised into chapters of a weird alternative history of Britain and Ireland by Cathal’s omnivorous intellect and mordant yet gleeful sense of humour, expressed in his altogether inimitable fashion: the
the Close To The Edge tour in the summer of 1972. He brought his percussive expertise to over 40 Yes albums, as well as being a frequent songwriting collaborator. White’s final contribution was 2021’s The Quest.
ANDY FLETCHER
Depeche Mode stalwart !1961"2022#
Keyboardist Andy Fletcher made no great claims when it came to his contributions to Depeche Mode, the synthpop pioneers he co-founded in Basildon in 1980. “I see my role as really gelling the whole band together,” he told modefan.com in 2011. “I don’t write songs and I’m not a great frontman, but you have to have people in the background to make the group work.” Informed by the likes of Kraftwerk, OMD
imagination of no other songwriter would have yielded an Australian IRA tribute act or a sketch of Tim Hardin’s parallel life as an MP elected on a platform of militant Cornish nationalism. Microdisney briefly reformed in 2018, playing to packed houses and standing ovations in London, Dublin and Cork. Coughlan’s last solo album, 2021’s Song Of Co-Aklan was widely praised, as was a 2022 collaboration with Jacknife Lee under the name Telefis. It had taken far too long, but he was beginning to accrue a fraction of the acclaim he had long deserved. ANDREW MUELLER
and The Human League, Fletcher had initially formed No Romance In China with schoolfriend Vince Clarke. They gradually morphed into Depeche Mode, with Fletcher on bass, though he switched to synthesiser soon afterwards. He, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore served as the band’s core trio through to their most recent album, 2017’s Spirit, during which time Fletcher augmented their sound with strings and samples, in addition to handling many of their business dealings.
RONNIE HAWKINS The Band’s mentor !1935"2022#
Frustrated by lack of success at home, Southern rockabilly rebel Ronnie Hawkins embarked on a Canadian tour in 1958. He quickly
forged a reputation as both a dynamic frontman and mentor to others in his adopted country, particularly his backing band, The Hawks. By December 1961, the lineup comprised all five members of what later became The Band. “It was like a bootcamp for musicians to go through,” Robbie Robertson told The Canadian Press. Others who benefited from Hawkins’ patronage included David ClaytonThomas (Blood, Sweat & Tears), Roy Buchanan and Pat Travers. Hawkins was invited to rejoin The Band for their 1976 send-off, The Last Waltz.
BOB NEUWIRTH Dylan associate and songwriter !1939"2022#
Painter, road manager, confidant and scenester, Bob Neuwirth
Cosmic rock visionary !1943"2022#
A
PHRODITE’S Child’s experimental third album 666 was the first true indicator of Vangelis’ musical ambition. Released in 1972 and based on the Book Of Revelation, it fused psychedelia, jazz, avant-rock and prog into a vast apocalyptic drama, with producer/ composer Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou – Vangelis for short – as its central figure. The band’s subsequent split cleared the ground for the rest of his career. Within a few years he’d set up his own London-based ‘laboratory’, Nemo Studios, from which he began creating conceptual works that occupied a fluid space between befriended Bob Dylan in his Greenwich Village days, appearing in DA Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back and later helping assemble 1975’s Rolling Thunder Revue. He co-wrote Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz”, collaborated with John Cale and cut a handful of solo albums, beginning with 1974’s Bob Neuwirth.
RICKY GARDINER Bowie/Iggy guitarist !1948"2022#
Ricky Gardiner had already made six albums with Scottish progrockers Beggars Opera prior to Tony Viscontienlisting him for the recording of David Bowie’s Low in 1976. Gardiner then appeared on Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life, co-writing “Neighborhood Threat”, “Success” and “The Passenger”, featuring his indelible riff.
RICK PRICE
The Move/Wizzard bassist !1944"2022#
As permanent replacement for Ace Kefford, bassist Rick Price joined The Move in 1969, helping record Shazam and sharing lead vocals on “The Last Thing On My Mind”. He quit in 1971, cutting solo effort Talking To The Flowers, before reuniting with Roy Wood a year later in Wizzard.
RAY LIOTTA GoodFellas star !1954"2022#
Ray Liotta first came to prominence for his Golden Globe-nominated turn in 1986’s Something Wild, though his major breakout role arrived four years later, when Martin Scorcese cast him as wiseguy
electronica, classical music and improvised noise, at its most imperious on 1975’s sweeping Heaven And Hell and 1979’s hymnal, electro-acoustic China. 1981’s rousing score for Chariots Of Fire brought Vangelis an Oscar, while the title theme landed him an international hit (later used at London’s 2012 Olympics medal ceremonies). He followed up with the extraordinary score for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, a synthetic masterpiece that perfectly captured the film’s sense of bleak futuristic noir. Further chart success beckoned via a four-album collaboration with Yes frontman Jon Anderson, but Vangelis spent most of his time immersed in diverse solo albums and film/documentary projects, echoing his beginnings as a young movie composer in his native Greece during the ’60s. Recent years Henry Hill in acclaimed mob drama GoodFellas. Other credits include Field Of Dreams, Hannibal and The Place Beyond The Pines.
BEN MOORE
The second Bobby Purify !1941"2022#
Singer-guitarist Ben Moore started out in gospel bands, before teaming with Spencer James as Ben & Spence. Introduced to James Purify in 1974, Moore adopted the stage name of the departed Bobby Purify for touring and recording as a duo. He joined The Blind Boys Of Alabama in 2006, staying for 16 years.
DENNIS WATERMAN TV actor and singer !1948"2022#
Best known for rough-and-ready roles in The Sweeney and Minder, Dennis Waterman also cut three solo LPs, beginning with 1976’s Down Wind Of Angels. The Minder theme tune “I Could Be So Good For You” landed him a major hit in 1980.
JEWELL
Death Row diva !1968"2022#
R&B singer Jewell Caples, aka “The First Lady of Death Row Records”, lent her voice to numerous label projects during the ’90s, most notably Dr Dre’s The Chronic, 2Pac’s All Eyez On Me and Snoop Dogg’s No Limit Top Dogg. Her biggest solo success was 1994’s “Woman To Woman”.
MICKEY GILLEY Urban cowboy !1936"2022#
Country singer Mickey Gilley
Gifted Greek: Vangelis in January 1976
yielded an explorative series of space mission pieces, among them the Grammy-nominated Rosetta and 2021’s NASA-inspired Juno To Jupiter. These albums chimed with
Vangelis’s own definition of his art. “I don’t consider myself a musician,” he once said, “rather a radar ready to pick up the symphonies coming from the sky.”
recorded for New Orleans producer Huey Meaux prior to a sustained run of success during the ’70s and ’80s. Among his biggest hits were “City Lights”, “Room Full Of Roses” and “Lonely Nights”. His Texan nightclub, Gilley’s, featured in 1980’s Urban Cowboy, with Gilley on the soundtrack.
Show (Cash signed off every episode with, “Goodnight, Bill Walker!”). Other credits include Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait.
HOWIE PYRO NY punk bassist !1960"2022#
Howie Pyro embraced the local punk scene by forming The Blessed in 1977, going on to co-found The Freaks and, in the early ’90s, D Generation (alongside Jesse Malin). The band split three albums later, after which Pyro relocated to LA and joined Danzig in 2000.
BERNARD WRIGHT Jazz-funk singer !1963"2022#
The godson of Roberta Flack, New York singer/keyboardist Bernard Wright debuted with 1981’s ’Nard, which was later sampled by Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube and Skee-Lo. His biggest R&B hit, co-written with Lenny White, was 1985’s infectious “Who Do You Love”, again liberally sampled by LL Cool J, Shinehead and others.
BILL WALKER
Musicaldirector for Johnny Cash !1927"2022#
Australian conductor Bill Walker first came to Nashville in 1964, striking up a successful working partnership with Eddy Arnold. From 1969–71 he was musical director of ABC’s The Johnny Cash
NORMAN DOLPH Early VU producer !1939"2022#
Norman Dolph first encountered The Velvet Underground while working as a sales executive for Columbia Records in 1966. He arranged and oversaw the recording sessions at Scepter Studios that yielded the majority of the songs for the band’s classic debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico. He later became a lyricist and painter.
SUSAN JACKS
Poppy Family singer !1948"2022#
Canadian singer-songwriter Susan Pesklevits began performing with future husband Terry Jacks in 1966. Alongside lead guitarist Craig McCaw and tabla player Satwant Singh, the Jacks formed the core of The Poppy Family, who scored a major international hit with the title track of 1969’s Which Way You Goin’Billy?
PAUL PLIMLEY
Canadian avant-jazzer !1953"2022#
Pianist and vibraphone player Paul Plimley was a leading figure in Canada’s free-jazz scene for over three decades. A onetime student of Cecil Taylor, he co-founded the New Orchestra Workshop Society (NOW) in 1977 and collaborated extensively with bassist Lisle Ellis. ROB HUGHES
AUGUST 2022 • UNCUT •111
MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES
VANGELIS
Emailletters@uncut.co.uk. Or tweet us at twitter.com/uncutmagazine MILES APART
I am not disposed to correspondence with publications, but I just wanted to compliment Tom Pinnock on his feature on Miles Davis in your June issue. It was a quite superb piece of journalism – one of Uncut’s best pieces ever. I thought I knew my way around Miles’ music, but Tom’s gift for integrating the changes in Miles’ musical avenues into a seamless timeline produced something extraordinarily insightful. It has made me revisit all of Miles’ output. Please thank Tom. Michael Green, via email Tom has been thanked! Cheers – Michael
DAVID REDFERN/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES
…Thank you so much for the Miles Davis cover feature in your June issue. I’ve been waiting for years to read something like this. The only (slight) disappointment was your list of Miles’ LPs from the era, which omitted Big Fun. This is possibly my favourite Miles album, replete with funk grooves, trippy, low-key interludes and lush fourth-world textures. And just listen to John McLaughlin’s fantastic jazz-Hendrix outbursts on “Go Ahead John”, which also has some of the freakiest stereo panning you're ever likely to hear. Listening to it on headphones should come with a health warning. Big Fun is a terrific listen and a great starting point for those keen to check out the electric Miles era, which showcases some of the most groundbreaking music of the past 60 years or so. Neil Hussey, via email …The last issue with Miles on the cover was so great. The whole presentation was confident, informative and cool. So to receive the very next one and find Freddie Mercury staring back at me was really a bummer. I mean, how do I explain this to my kids? I figured I had two options. One was just to hide the whole gruesome thing and the other, which is what I eventually did, tear off the cover and smuggle the goddamn picture into the recycling. Even with that gone I still had a month to wrestle with the contradiction in terms of Freddie’s 30 greatest songs (and the fact that “We Are The Champions” was not among them and pictures of fucking 112 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022
Blowing up a storm: Miles Davis at Ronnie Scott’s, London, November 2, 1969
Brian May gawping at me over my breakfast). Come on, are we among friends here or not? Has there been a coup in the office? Is this a guide to the future? Is nothing sacred? James Joughin, via email Thanks for the kind words about the Miles issue, everyone. We were very pleased with it. The cover is a front window that enables us to sell the magazine, which means we can put a ton of different and interesting stuff inside – like The Delines, Nancy Sinatra, Billy Childish, Norman Whitfield, The Clash, King Crimson, Joan Shelley... I realise Queen aren’t to everyone’s tastes – which is partly why we’ve not put them on the cover for 17 years. But the issue looks to be selling well, which is essentially good news because, in turn, that enables us to run more covers like Miles. And please be assured, there are more like that in the pipeline…
COMPACT DISSONANCE
I am moved to write. I never do this but the April issue CD, for me, is almost unlistenable. I haven’t missed an issue for about
14 years and while not always able to relate immediately to the tracks offered [on the CDs] I have tried to be open-minded and you have carried me along and I have pretty much enjoyed the trip. New artists, new music from established artists – I’ve been educated and entertained and rewarded with some exceptional CDs, but you are losing me. I can’t keep up. I have been thinking for a while now that Uncut seems to be leaning towards more inventive/dissonant music and it has taken some of the fun out of each month’s magazine. For me the CD is important, as I choose not to trawl the internet for
music. I enjoy the magazine but it is ultimately about the music I find on the disc. Richard Mead, via email Hi Richard. Thanks for writing. Looking back at the last few years, we’ve championed artists like Big Thief, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Joan Shelley, Frazey Ford, Brigid Mae Power, Courtney Marie Andrews, HC McEntire, The Weather Station, Jane Weaver and Margo Cilker, who all exist in a proud cultural tradition. The Blackwaterside: Sounds Of The New Weird Albion CD, meanwhile, wasn’t a conscious move towards more “dissonant” music, but an opportunity to showcase 15 artists working (broadly) within folk that we hoped would be of interest to readers. The response has largely been very good, so I’m sorry you didn’t otherwise enjoy it. Without giving too much away, I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy next month’s CD, though…
MARC-ING OUR CARD
As a major Bolan fan, I enjoyed your T.Rex 1972 boxset review though I’d like to make one brief correction:
CROSSWORD One vinylcopy of Ty Segall’s “Hello, Hi”
the American title change of “Get It On” to “Bang A Gong” had nothing to do with “blushing yanks”. The title was changed due a song on the American charts at the time, “Get It On” by Chicagobased band Chase. Aside from that, great article! Joe Braia, USA
FLOYD VOID
Many thanks for your special edition Pink Floyd Live. It’s fascinating how those young men turned musical performance into drama so creatively. There is one performance that really puzzles me. I met Nick Mason at a party in London sometime soon after they had returned from their attempt to write the soundtrack for Antonio’s Zabriskie Point. I was working in residential childcare – such a different world
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HOW TO ENTER The letters in the shaded squares form an anagram of a song by The Beatles. When you’ve worked out what it is, email your answer to: competitions@uncut.co.uk. The first correct entry picked at random will win a prize. Closing date: Wednesday, July 20, 2022. This competition is only open to European residents.
from his. Despite or perhaps because of that we had a slight friendship for a while and he was not only a very amusing storyteller but also so generous. I got tickets for some young people in care and staff to see Dark Side… at Earl’s Court and a drum set for a teenager who wanted to learn the instrument. Yes, so generous. The main reason for writing this letter is that the Floyd did Atom Heart Mother at the Roundhouse, with proceeds going to a children’s charity I was involved with. This must have been, I think, late 1970/early’71. I can, however, find no reference to it anywhere! I wonder, therefore, if this whole memory of a slight acquaintance with rock’n’roll stardom is an elaborate fabrication, rather like the stories my granddaughter is adept at… except she is eight and I should know better. Please, can someone enlighten me? Les Gallop, via email … over to you, readers!
CLUESACROSS
CLUESDOWN
1 Trying to find some room amongst your record collection for an album by Hawkwind (2-6-2-5) 9 “From Bombay to _____ __/Over hills and far away”, from Ian Dury’s “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick” (5-2) 10 Could somehow Cream be reforming into another band? (7) 11 Barclay James Harvest’s singer getting into John Cleese (4) 12 (See 13 down) 14 The xx are not working on this song just now (2-4) 16 Band from Motherwell whose albums included The Great Eastern (8) 19 Folk singer who wrote “Dirty Old Town” and “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” (4-7) 21+16D Trio from New York who were Raising Hell (3-3) 23 (See 31 across) 24 (See 1 down) 26 Monkees hit “__ Washburn” (1-1) 28 (See 34 across) 31+23A His debut single was a “Last Request” (5-6) 32+7D Heartbreaker who was into Demolition (4-5) 34+28A Bluesman known for “Manish Boy” and “Hoochie Coochie Man” (5-6) 35 Richard Thompson album which he kept in The ___ ___ Bag (3-3)
1+24D+24A “You must leave now/Take what you need/You think will last”, 1965 (3-3-4-3-4-4) 2 Lightning Seeds album with meaning (5) 3 (See 27 down) 4+30D UK indie record label with a fruity sound, including 8 down (6-3) 5 “I’m no dog, I’m a dolphin/I just don’tlive in the sea”, 1990 (3-4) 6 “Stop Your _______”, debut single from The Pretenders (7) 7 (See 32 across) 8 _______ In Gaza, indie band with same name as a novel by Aldous Huxley (7) 13+12A US band to “Shake Some Action” with (6-8) 15 Pet Shop Boys number with a beat (5) 16 (See 21 across) 17 ___ Crème, founder member of 10cc (3) 18 “Was a long and ____ December/From the rooftops I remember there was snow”, from Coldplay’s “Violet Hill” (4) 20 Canned Heat’s lead singer Alan Wilson was nicknamed ‘Blind ___’ (3) 22 The _______ Folk Festival in 1965 was where Bob Dylan first went electric (7) 24 (See 1 down) 25 Prog-rockers appearing in The Adelphi (3) 27+3D Avert your eyes! It’s Big Country (4-4) 29 “___, get your plane right on time”, from Simon And Garfunkel’s “The Only Living Boy In New York” (3) 30 (See 4 down) 32 Slide guitarist __ Cooder (2) 33 Just a bit of piano in the end for album by They Might Be Giants (2)
ANSWERS:TAKE 301 ACROSS
1 A New World Record, 9 Get Away, 10 Hoedown, 11 Laid, 13 Me, 16 Fraiture, 19 Adeline, 20 Tin Drum, 22 Low, 24+25A+12A We Are The Pigs, 27 Ryan, 29 Molly,
30+21D Arctic Monkeys, 31 Katy, 32 Storms, 33 Toy
DOWN
1 Angel Of Harlem, 2 Extricate, 3 Wow, 4 Ray Charles, 5 Da Hype, 6 Evergreen, 7 Ovo, 8 Dance On, 14+17A Stairway To
Heaven, 15 Everly, 18 Star, 23 Wilds, 26 Eat It, 27 Rocky, 28 Harm HIDDEN ANSWER
On The Corner
XWORD COMPILED BY:
TrevorHungerford
AUGUST 2022 EDITOR Michael Bonner EDITOR (ONE-SHOTS) John Robinson ART EDITOR Marc Jones REVIEWS EDITOR Tom Pinnock CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Sam Richards SENIOR DESIGNER Michael Chapman PRODUCTION EDITOR Mick Meikleham SENIOR SUB EDITOR Mike Johnson PICTURE EDITOR Phil King EDITOR AT LARGE Allan Jones CONTRIBUTORS Jason Anderson, Laura Barton, Mark Bentley, Greg Cochrane, Leonie Cooper, Jon Dale, Stephen Dalton, Stephen Deusner, Lisa-Marie Ferla, Michael Hann, Nick Hasted, Rob Hughes, Trevor Hungerford, John Lewis, April Long, Damien Love, Alastair McKay, Piers Martin, Rob Mitchum, Paul Moody, Andrew Mueller, Sharon O’Connell, Michael Odell, Erin Osmon, Pete Paphides, Louis Pattison, Jonathan Romney, Bud Scoppa, Johnny Sharp, Dave Simpson, Neil Spencer, Terry Staunton, Graeme Thomson, Luke Torn, Stephen Troussé, Jaan Uhelszki, Wyndham Wallace, Peter Watts, Richard Williams, Nigel Williamson, Tyler Wilcox, Jim Wirth, Damon Wise, Rob Young COVER PHOTOGRAPH:Harry Hammond/ V&A Images/Getty Images THANKS TO:Lora Findlay, Johnny Sharp TEXT AND COVERS PRINTED BY
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Al Jardine
The Beach Boys mainstay on the records that have him hoisting up the sails: “It just takes me back to a really innocent time” THE KINGSTON TRIO String Along CAPITOL,1960
I had already heard The Kingston Trio’s version of “The John B Sails” – the original title of “Sloop John B” – when String Along came out in 1960. It was their fifth album and the last one with original member Dave Guard. I just loved every song on it. At the time, nothing beat their folk sound and perfect harmonies. It’s still one of my all-time favourites and really takes me back to my early days when I was in my own folk trio called The Islanders. I liked their striped shirts too, ha-ha!
GEORGE GERSHWIN “Rhapsody In Blue”
VICTOR MACHINE TALKING CO,1924
This is probably my all-time favourite song, and it’s so amazing that a song that’s almost 100 years old is still so powerful – it literally knocks me out every time I hear it. I also enjoyed Brian’s Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin album that features all of our current Brian Wilson band members: Darian Sahanaja, Probyn Gregory, Paul Von Mertens, Mike D’Amico and Gary Griffin, plus the late Nicky Wonder – RIP – and also Jeffrey Foskett. If there’s a George Gershwin Music Hall Of Fame, Brian should be in it!
FRANKIE LYMON & THE TEENAGERS
Why Do Fools FallIn Love GEE,1956 I think Frankie Lymon was only 12 when he joined [the band that would become] The Teenagers and [not much older when] they released their big hit “Why Do Fools Fall In Love”. I loved that doo-wop sound in the late-’50s, but this song in particular really hit me with its catchy melody and expressive vocals. The Beach Boys recorded it in early 1964 and then we released it as the B-side to “Fun, Fun, Fun”. We still love playing it live – it just takes me back to a really innocent time in the early days of rock’n’roll and I still have the 45 in my own personal jukebox.
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band PARLOPHONE,1967 Of course it’s tough to pick just one Beatles album but this is definitely the one that had a big influence on me, in terms of sheer production, the unique and creative instrumentation and the songs themselves. Coming off the creative highs of Rubber Soul and Revolver, Sgt Pepper’s really took it to the next level and I’ve always loved the friendly competition we had with The Beatles, it was so inspiring. I’d like to add that “All You Need Is Love”, also released in 1967, is the one song I wish I had written!
BILL HALEY & HIS COMETS
“Rock Around The Clock” DECCA,1954
What can I say? Bill Haley literally invented rock’n’roll and “Rock Around The Clock” is the song that really started it all. I never got to see them live but I don’t think any other band rocked the joint like Bill Haley & His Comets. “Rock Around The Clock” has the best snare sound, the best bass and the best guitar solo. Plus who can hear this song and not immediately think of Mel’s Drive-In and the beginning of American Graffiti? It’s timeless… pun intended!
THE MOODY BLUES
Days Of Future Passed DERAM,1967 They are an incredible live band that have seriously stood the test of time. Their 1967 classic Days Of Future Passed is a psychedelic rock masterpiece! From sunrise to sunset, every track on this album is a gem and beautifully woven into the next one thanks to Peter Knight’s orchestration and Mike Pinder’s Mellotron. “Tuesday Afternoon” is still my favourite track from the album and Days Of Future Passed is the first album I recently played on my new turntable – it sounded just as epic now as it did in the late-’60s.
LEAD BELLY
ELVIS PRESLEY
FOLKWAYS,1953
RCA VICTOR,1956
Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song) INTERVIEW: SAM RICHARDS. PHOTO: MARY ANN JARDINE
THE BEATLES
Huddie Ledbetter (aka Lead Belly) first recorded “The Cotton Song” in 1940 and I first heard it in the mid-’50s. I loved Lead Belly’s vocals and of course his 12-string guitar sound but it was really his heartfelt emotional lyrics written during the Great Depression that affected me. I was determined to record a new version for The Beach Boys at a time when we were going off in quite a few different musical directions. We released “Cotton Fields” on our 20/20 album and it ended up being our last single released in mono and on Capitol at the time.
“Don’t Be Cruel”
There are so many great Elvis Presley songs but “Don’t Be Cruel” is the one that resonates with me the most, and seeing Elvis perform it on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 was a life-changing event. I’m really looking forward to seeing the new Elvis movie by Baz Luhrmann – our [Beach Boys’] manager Jerry Schilling just told me it’s pretty amazing after seeing an advance screening with Priscilla. Elvis might have left the building but he’ll never leave our lives.
An expanded version of Sounds Of Summer: The Very Best Of The Beach Boys is released by Capitol/UMe on June 17 Uncut’s Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide to The Beach Boys is in shops now or available from Uncut.co.uk/single 114 • UNCUT • AUGUST 2022