Uncut July 2015

8th JUNE 2015 CD/2LP/DL
OS
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HIP
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OSIS IAN DURY 13
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4 Instant Karma!
Ben E King RIP, Peter Zinovie,
Smokey, The Rezillos, Gill Landry
14 Ringo Starr
An audience with the Fab drummer
18 13th Floor Elevators

Roky Erickson and his mindbending
band are back! How on earth will
they cope afer 45 years?
24 Jim ORourke
At home in Japan, the Sonic Youth/Wilco
associate discusses Jimmy Page, neohippies and his long-awaited new album
32 Ian Dury
& The Blockheads
The making of jazz-funk mega-hit
Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick
36 The Rolling Stones

As Sticky Fingers gets the expansive
reissue, Mick Jagger and others reveal
the dirty secrets of a classic album
46 Sturgill Simpson
Uncut joins psych-countrys rising
star on tour in the States: The
military was not for me
52 James Taylor
The singer-songwriters greatest works
56 Hipgnosis
The legendary sleeve-design collective
remembered: The industry despised us!
40 PAGES OF REVIEWS!
65 New Albums
Including: Richard Thompson,
Sun Kil Moon, Graham Parker
87 The Archive
Including: Michael Head,
Robin Gibb, Little Richard
Are we rolling?
A
S HISTORY SPEEDING up, or am I just getting older?
I doubt Im the first man of a certain age to have a
minor existential crisis triggered by an album
reissues programme. Its been caused this month,
tthough,
hough, by reviewing a couple of albums that I wrote
about first time round and not, it seems, that long
ago. One is the debut by the Vancouver collective,
Black Mountain, whose Druganaut was a key part
of the first CD of new psychedelia I compiled for
Uncut; Comets, Ghosts And Sunburned Hands. Black
Uncut
Mountain, amazingly, came out in 2005, hence the
Mountain
10th- anniversary deluxe reissue.
The second is our Archive Album Of The Month, Michael Heads Magical
World Of The Strands, a kind of opiate folk record that relocates the spirits
of Arthur Lee and Tim Buckley to 1990s Liverpool. Heads story is a
spectacularly messy one, and various true believers have been trying to
make him famous with his first band, The Pale Fountains, then repeatedly
with Shack for three decades now, without much in the way of success.
The fate of Michael Head, elusive genius with few contemporary equals,
remains uncertain, I wrote in NME 18 years ago, when The Magical World
first came out. As this album once again so conclusively proves, he
deserves the world.
With the likes of Mick Head and, indeed, our cover stars The
Rolling Stones its tempting, as storytellers, to repeat the myths and
circumnavigate the actual music, not least because music is often
substantially harder to write about. I tried this time, though, to contextualise
Head as part of a deep and transporting musical tradition, rather than as a
chemically adjusted outrider of Britpop. And in a similar spirit, Mick Jagger,
not always the keenest to anatomise his own work, has given us a revealing
interview about the making of one of the Stones greatest albums, Sticky
Fingers. I have never listened to it, probably since it was recorded, since the
playback sessions I never listen to them again, says Jagger, in a more
characteristically detached moment. But over the past 44 years, we have,
hundreds and hundreds of times. Forty-four years: what happened there?
Back in the blink of an eye,
99 DVD & Film

Nina Simone, Paul McCartney,
The Who, The Wrecking Crew
104 Live
Super Furry Animals, Nick Cave
115 Books
Otis Redding, Brian Case
117 Not Fade Away

This months obituaries
120 Feedback
Your letters, plus the Uncut crossword
122 My Life In Music

Jah Wobble
John Mulvey, Editor

Follow me on Twitter @JohnRMulvey
COVER: PETER WEBB
RI
NG
E
ON
ST
RS
NG
J
AM
ES
TAY
LO
RS
FA J
JULY 2015
TAKE 218
i n sta n t k a r m a !
THIS MONTHS revelaTIONS frOM THe wOrld Of uNcuT
Featuring THe reTurN Of THe rezIllOS | GIll laNdry | SMOkey
No, I wont,
shed a tear
ben e king
1938-2015
eN e KiNg recorded a number of

enduring classics, both solo and with
The Drifters, but he will forever be
associated with Stand By Me, the 1961
hit that took on an equally successful
afterlife. At the turn of the millennium, BMi
declared it the fourth most-played song on
American radio in the 20th Century. The tune
triggered over 400 covers most prominently from
Otis Redding, John Lennon and U2 and, earlier
this year, was inducted into the National Recording
Registry by the US Library Of Congress.
King worked up the song during the same
sessions that produced another major hit, Spanish
Harlem, in late October 1960. Hed written Stand
By Me as a tribute to his wife,
Betty, with the intention of
recording it with The Drifters.
But it was only when he
hooked up with the
songwriting duo of Jerry
Leiber and Mike Stoller, five
months after he left the group,
that they finished it together.
A minimal acoustic bass
provides its distinctive
intro, though its Kings rich
baritone that brings the
emotional weight. i had tears
in my eyes when i sang it, he recalled later.
Kings tenure with The Drifters had served as a
prime example of quality over quantity. He sang on
just 13 songs, but a handful became cornerstones
of American R&B, starting in 1959 with his own
co-write, There goes My Baby. Other standouts
included This Magic Moment, Save The Last
Dance For Me and i Count The Tears.
Kings arresting vocal style, shaped in doo-wop
groups in New York, also made an impression on
a new generation of aspiring young singers. His
was the voice of my coming of age dramatic
imploring pained spectacular, Robert Plant
offered, on hearing of Kings death. i learned his
every nuance. i lived in grief and joy in his songs

[He was] a huge influence, loved and respected by
so many. The two men became friends when they
were both signed to Atlantic in the 70s, by which
time Led Zeppelin were already opening shows
with Kings groovin, recast as Were gonna
groove. Apparently earmarked for inclusion on
Led Zeppelin II, the song wasnt released until the
Jimmy Page-produced version on 1982s Coda.
Born in Henderson, North Carolina, Kings family
moved to Harlem when he was nine years old. His
teenage years were spent in vocal outfits like The
Four Bs and The Five Crowns, with whom he
played talent shows at the legendary Apollo
Theatre. in 1958, Drifters manager george
Treadwell fired the existing
band, kept the name and
installed The Five Crowns
in its place. it was a heavyhanded approach to business
that was to impact on King
two years later, when he
dared to ask for a fairer share
of royalties. Treadwells
refusal resulted in a contract
dispute that led to Kings
decision to go solo.
As the 60s progressed,
Kings commercial appeal
began to wane. it wasnt until 1975, when he issued
the disco-friendly Supernatural Thing, written by
gwen guthrie and Patrick grant, that he returned to
the US Top 10. Stand By Me, meanwhile, was
granted a new lease of life in 1986, when it was used
to soundtrack Rob Reiners coming-of-age film of
the same name. The reissue made No 1 in the UK.
Whats interesting to me is that a song i wrote as a
love song is being adopted by kids everywhere as a
song about friendship, King told the Chicago
Tribune that year, clearly thrilled by the lasting
reach of his finest creation. Two generations
listening to the same song are getting different, but
equally positive, meanings from it. ROB HUGHES
DAviD ReeD/ReDFeRNS
King sang on just

13 songs with
The Drifters, but
a handful became
cornerstones of
American R&B
4 | UNCUT | JULY 2015
Ben E King in
Harlem, New
York, 1973
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
I N STA N T KA R M A !
A QUICK ONE
This months
essential addition
to your Ultimate
Music Guide library
is a new volume on
the herculean
figure of Bob
Dylan. Out now,
it contains many
weird and revealing
interviews from the
NME and Melody
Maker vaults, plus
in-depth new
KEY REVOLUTIONARY
Forgive us
our synths
Meet PETER ZINOVIEFF, the mad
professor who invented keyboards for
Floyd, The Who, Macca and Kraftwerk
O
reviews of all 36
albums; from fresh
looks at the classics,
to redeeming
qualities found in
Down In The Groove!
Dylans Never
Ending Tour,
meanwhile, loops
back to the UK in
October, when Bob
and his road band
fetch up at London
Royal Albert Hall
(21, 22, 23),
Manchester O2
Apollo (27, 28) and
Cardiff Motorpoint
Arena (29).
UK Deadheads
have an unexpected
opportunity to see
the Grateful Dead
this summer, when
what is reported to
be the bands last
ever show in
Chicago will be
screened in 250
British cinemas on
July 6. The Fare
Thee Well gigs will
also be available to
watch in the States
on pay-per-view
and via online
streaming. And in
other Dead news,
the author George
RR Martin has
revealed that his
Game Of Thrones
novels are studded
with references to
the band: the
Weirwood trees,
for example, are
named after
Bob Weir.
For the latest
news, reviews,
longreads, playlists
and more, keep an
eye on uncut.co.uk
UTSIDE A SELECT number of electronic music

enthusiasts, few today will be acquainted with the
name Peter Zinovieff. But as the swinging 60s gave
way to the progressive 70s, Zinovieff was the go-to
man for a new instrument promising a universe of
possibilities: the synthesiser. Musicians including
Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney and Kraftwerk visited
his home in Putney, beneath which you would
find Zinovieffs workspace and research lab, an
Aladdins Cave of rudimentary computers, reel-toreels, and instruments such as the Synthi, an
analog synth the size and dimensions of a large
antique dresser. An amazing studio, chuckles
Zinovieff, now a spry 82 years old, down a line from
his Cambridge home. Im looking at a picture of it
now, and it strikes me as completely ludicrous.
The son of Russian aristocrats who met in London after fleeing
the revolution, Zinovieff graduated from Oxford and found work
at the Air Ministry. Very Dr Strangelove, he recalls. My main
job was calculating how many would die if nuclear weapons
fell. Horrified, he soon quit, but inspired by a brush with
recording technology, began experimenting with electronic
music and the possibilities of voltage control. In 1964, he
purchased a primitive computer, the PDP-8 the first ever
computer in a private house, he says and that same year
visited the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, meeting Delia
Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson. The three formed Unit Delta
Plus with the aim of making electronic music for commercial
use, but after making a jingle for Philips, decided they were on
different wavelengths. Delia and Peter never got the hang of
my studio, and moved back to their tape experiments,
explains Zinovieff. So he was working on a level beyond the
Radiophonic Workshop? Oh yes, another level altogether.
Zinovieffs early experiments with computer music could
be incomprehensible to the layman. In the book Analog
Days, Jon Lord of Deep Purple described Zinovieff as a mad
professor, recalling being ushered into his workshop and
he was in there talking to a computer, trying to get it to
answer back. But in 69, Zinovieff

joined forces with Tristram Cary
and David Cockerell to form the
company EMS, and released the
worlds first portable mass market
synth, the VCS3. Appearing on
records like Floyds On The Run
and The Whos Wont Get Fooled
Again, it sold thousands, and
Zinovieffs Putney pad became a rather hip location. Musicians
used to come round to gape at the studio, which was very smart
and glamorous, recalls Zinovieff. We always had people to
lunch, lots of wine a happy muddle.
An EMS ad, picturing Zinovieff and hippyish friends cavorting
with electronics on the Isle Of Raasay, declared Every picnic
needs a Synthi. But Zinovieff admits to being more adept in
technology than business and following an ill-fated expansion
into the US market, EMS went bankrupt in 79 (the company was
revived in 95 by ex employee Robin Wood, and the VCS3 is back
on the market). Today, Zinovieffs recordings remain largely out
of print, but a new comp of his 60s work, Electronic
Calendar: The EMS Tapes, is just about to see the
light of day. I havent listened to it for years, and in
a way it all irritates me, confesses Zinovieff. Truth
is, hed rather live in the present, and in his ninth
decade remains active, exploring new ideas and
technologies. In April, he performed a new piece,
Field, at Newcastle Planetarium a collaboration
with poet Katrina Porteous inspired by the
discovery of the Higgs Boson particle. Meanwhile,
hes about to fly to Japan to appear at a synthesiser
festival. I still work on the margins. Right on the
edge, where everything is more or less breaking
down. Thats where I like it best. LOUIS PATTISON
I still work
right on the
edge, where
everything is
breaking
down
Peter Zinovieff at
work on another
level in the 60s
Electronic Calendar: The EMS Tapes is released on June 22 on

Pete Kembers Space Age Recordings
The Aladdins Cave

studio in Putney:
Smart, glamorous...
ludicrous!
The Rezillos today:

The same but
different
PUNK-POP GLAM
The whole point was not to fit in!

Welcome back, Edinburgh punk misfits THE REZILLOS. Also involves
Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Human League, Indian motorbikes
E THRIVED ON mayhem, says

Eugene Reynolds, halfway
through a circuitous attempt at
explaining why the second Rezillos album, Zero,
landed a full 37 years after the first. Formed in
Edinburgh in 1976 around vocalists Reynolds
and Fay Fife, and guitarist and principal
songwriter Jo Callis, The Rezillos were one of
the most idiosyncratic bands aligned, albeit
tangentially, to punk. Fast but far from furious,
there was little sense of social uproar in their
heady mix of B-movie kitsch and earthy
rocknroll. The closest they got to insurrection
was performing a provocative cover of Gerry &
The Pacemakers cheesy hit I Like It. We knew
punk was our relative and we were part of that
clan, but we existed in a bubble, says Fife. The
whole point was not to fit in.
After releasing two independent singles, The
Rezillos were signed by Sire and whisked off to
the Power Station in New York to record with
Tony Bongiovi and Bob Clearmountain. We
didnt know what we were doing, says
Reynolds. Or where we were. We just thought,
Cool, New York! Skyscrapers! Everything was
in our lap and we didnt realise it.
The resulting LP, Cant Stand The Rezillos,
released in July 78, was a sparkling space-punk
gem, blending the pop nous of Blondie, the
bluesy attack of The Cramps and the sonic

playfulness of The B-52s into a singular musical
identity. The irresistible Top Of The Pops
duly bagged them a spot on the very show they
were poking fun at and, with a 45 and LP in the
Top 20, everything seemed rosy. In reality, the
band was cracking.
Callis felt pressurised into writing new songs,
while an us and them situation had arisen
between Reynolds and Fife, now an item, and
the rest of the group.
At the end of 1978
they took the
completely insane
decision to fold. We
broke up in Spinal
Tap fashion, says
Fife. It was the
height of stupidity.
Callis joined The
Human League,
co-writing Dont You
Want Me, while Fife
and Reynolds formed
The Revillos, which
lasted, on and off, til
the mid-90s. Fife
retrained as a clinical
psychologist;
Reynolds imported Indian motorbikes. In 01

The Rezillos reformed, with Callis back in the
ranks, but there was no new music. There
was a lot of avoidance, says Fife. Jo came in
specifically to write songs, but as soon as we
got back together, he was putting up reasons
not to record new material.
Callis left in 2010, replaced by current
guitarist Jim Brady, and the songs began to
flow. Zero was made, says Reynolds, with an
awareness that people
want you to be the
same but different.
Fife seems more
comfortable with
reanimating the
founding spirit of
the band: We wanted
to make a record that
had that Rezillos
musical identity
The great thing is,
even now, were not
following any trend.
GRAEME THOMSON
The Rezillos
Zero is out now
on Metropolis
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
HOT, HARD & READY
I WANNA BE YOUR BOG!

Rediscovered: SMOKEY, the outrageous
gay act who almost replaced Iggy in The
Stooges. Involves Randy Rhoads, the
Sales brothers and Piss Slave!
OHN SMOKEY CONDON
doesnt quite recall how he
ended up rehearsing with
Ron Asheton for the chance to
replace Iggy Pop in The Stooges, but
a lot of things in the late 1970s were
kind of a blur. One time I woke
from a blackout in the studio with
Steely Dan, he remembers. It was
Hollywood. When not passing out
among rock aristocracy, Condon
recorded with sound engineer
EJ Emmons as Smokey, and a
compilation of their pioneering,
jaw-dropping, singles celebrating
gay culture from 1973-81, How Far
Will You Go?, is out this month.
We wanted to be notorious, says
Emmons. We needed to be as
outrageous as possible but also be
ourselves. True to their word,
Smokeys first single, 1974s
Leather, was an unambiguous
tribute to New Yorks leather scene
backed by a song about a drag
queen, Miss Ray. While Leather
had a great Bowie-esque vibe, no
label would touch it. Theyd say it
was a great record but
they couldnt put it out, says

Emmons. It was too gay.
Unperturbed, Emmons and
Condon formed a label, calling
it S&M. The logo was a muscular
arm with studded leather cuffs.
After selling 5,000 copies of
Leather, they began putting
out more records. We were
before disco, punk and new
wave, and we went with the
flow, says Condon. We were
impressionable, so wed do a
dance song, a ballad, disco,
but we were really a rock band
with a blues influence.
Smokey developed an
outrageous stage show with
a band including Randy Rhoads
and Kelly Garni (later of Quiet
Riot) they also recorded a
track with James Williamson of
The Stooges. They were regulars
at Rodney Bingenheimers English
Disco on Sunset Strip, often joined
by a female friend, Hester. Hester
sang with hardly any clothes on,
which the guys loved, Emmons
says. They recorded superb singles
like DTNA, while musicians
passing through included
Hunt and Tony Sales,
who recorded Kill City
with Iggy Pop. That
was how Condon
came to rehearse
for The Stooges,
which came
to nothing.
It was hard
work, but
Emmons and
Condon valued
the freedom.
When you dont
THE CLASSIFIEDS
Slave to the rhythm:

John Condon
have to answer to anybody, you can

make great art, says Condon. I
didnt think it was avant-garde, it
was who we were. Wed play Piss
Slave and peoples mouths would
drop open. I didnt
understand why, it was
about a guy I knew.
The unreleased Piss
Slave, an insanely
catchy nine-minute
disco tune (I wanna be
your toilet), was the
result of them giving
OHN
up on finding a label.
That was us
thumbing our noses
at people, says Emmons. When
an acetate was played at one
Hollywood club, the audience
was too dumbstruck to dance.
A cassette got out, says Emmons.
I heard one guy on the scene, Posh

Boy, was seen jacking off to it in his
convertible. So it did have an effect.
When Smokey ended, Condon
gave up singing. He hopes the time
has now come for Piss
Slave and other great
songs like Hot Hard &
Ready. It was tough
to suffer for your art for
so many years, he
says. We got tired of
seeing our ideas get
plagiarised. It is 40
ONDON years later and I still
dont know how people
will deal with it. But we hope to
record. I havent kept this voice and
body for no reason. PETER WATTS
I didnt think
it was avantgarde, it was
who we were
J C
How Far Will You Go? is out June 23

on Chapter Music
This month: Nights out on offer include U2 at Hammersmiths Clarendon

Hotel and the Welcome Return of Ronnie Lane. Taken from NME, July 12, 1980
THE UNIQUE COLLABORATION BETWEEN

FRANZ FERDINAND AND SPARKS
FEATURING THE TRACKS
PISS OFF, JOHNNY DELUSIONAL,
COLLABORATIONS DONT WORK & CALL GIRL
STANDARD 12 TRACK CD / DELUXE 16 TRACK CD /
DELUXE 16 TRACK DOUBLE VINYL / DIGITAL
8th JUNE 2015
PLAYLIST
THE
ON THE STEREO THIS MONTH
THE DESLONDES
The Deslondes NEW WEST
Big-hat-wearing compadres of Hurray For
The Riff Raff make their debut proper.
A triumph of New Orleans-flavoured,
old-school country.
SONNY VINCENT &
ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT
Vintage Piss SWAMI
Speedo and the gang reconvene to back a
vintage punk outlier. Full-force ramalams
ensue, happily.
Travellin man:
Landry in 2015
IM NEW HERE
Gill Landry
Recommended this month: the Old Crow escapee and,

says Laura Marling, professional vagrant
DONT KNOW if Id describe music as
And I like the attitude that shes delivering with it.
my career, says the Louisiana-born
Born in Louisiana, Landry and his family moved
singer-songwriter Gill Landry. Its
to Seattle in the early 90s during the height of
never been a conscious choice, more an
grunge. In his teens he learned to play bass and
evolution of circumstance. Its been part of
was in and out of rock bands. But when a friend
the path of everything.
introduced him to Bob Dylans debut album, he
That path has certainly been an unusual one,
swapped his bass for an acoustic guitar.
leading Landry to busk across Europe and the
Landry later moved to San Francisco and met
United States, tour briefly with the Grateful Dead,
up with the famous street musician Baby Gramps,
start a band, The Kitchen Syncopators, and
who introduced him to the Harry Smith Collection
spend the best part of a decade playing guitar,
and generally took him under his wing. He joined
banjo, pedal steel and singing in the Grammya vaudeville outfit called The Songsters, inspired
winning folk ensemble, Old Crow
by early American folk, and then in
Medicine Show.
New Orleans founded The Kitchen
IM YOUR FAN
There have been solo albums too
Syncopators, a busking double-act
2007s The Ballad Of Lawless Soirez
that proved unusually lucrative.
and 2011s Piety & Desire. Now
We put out a case and played, and
Landry is set to release his third LP
the first day we made $300. Most
his first for the ATO label recorded
40-hour-a-week jobs didnt pull that
in a tiny apartment on the south side
much. We were bitten after that.
of Nashville.
Since then Landry has led a
An open-hearted, stripped-down
deliberately peripatetic life, hopping
series of blues and folk numbers,
on and off Greyhound buses and
the album is considerably calmer
going wherever the music takes him.
than his raucous Old Crow output,
Even 10 years as an Old Crow hasnt
and largely centres on the theme
put paid to his wandering.
of relationships gone wrong.
I havent sat still for more than
Alongside guest appearances
two months without packing up and
from Mumford & Sons trumpet
going somewhere, he reflects. And
player Nick Etwell, and guitarist
I havent had a real job in 20 years. It
and songwriter Robert Ellis, the
sounds kind of romantic, but there
albums crowning glory is Take
have been moments of doubt and
This Body, a duet with Laura
tribulation, too. This life playing
Marling, who Landry has just
music, moving around is the life
supported on tour.
Ive found myself with. I have little
She was the first person who
choice in it, but Im OK with that.
came to mind when I wrote the
FIONA STURGES
song, explains Landry. Im
completely enchanted by what shes
Gill Landrys self-titled album is
doing musically, and by her voice.
out on ATO on June 22
Gills just
as cool and
interesting
as youd hope
a sometime
professional
vagrant from
Louisiana who
always wears
a hat, smart
boots and
knows good
whiskey to be.
Laura Marling
PRINCE FEATURING
ERYN ALLEN KANE
Baltimore SOUNDCLOUD
Urgency and indignation compels Prince
to complete his finest track in years. Were
tired of cryin & people dyin/Lets take all
the guns away.
EZRA FURMAN
Perpetual Motion People BELLA UNION
Twanging new wave, sparky dispositions on
gender and religion, and a healthy dose of
doo-wop: US indies next breakout
star steps up a gear.
TAME IMPALA
Currents FICTION
A ravishing
Technicolor
comeback for
Kevin Parker and
co, pushing their
psychedelic vision into
ever poppier territory.
Tame Impala
DUKE ELLINGTON
& HIS ORCHESTRA
The Conny Plank Session GRNLAND
The jazz maestro teams up with Krautrocks
studio enforcer for a long-lost 1979 session.
Not hugely like Neu!, its fair to say.
SLEAFORD MODS
Key Markets HARBINGER SOUND
Further dispatches from Real Britain,
rendered more poignant by the Tory
election victory. No skunk I need to be
pissed up to smoke that shit, you cunt
SHAUN WILLIAM RYDER
Close The Dam/Electric Scales
SOMETHING IN CONSTRUCTION
The Mods spiritual forefather makes

a surprisingly lean, lucid return. A nice
match for the new Funkadelic album.
PHIL & CATH TYLER
The Song-Crowned King FERRIC MORDANT
The king and queen of Britains folk
underground come up with another raw,
uncanny mini-album.
ROBERT GLASPER Covered BLUE NOTE
Fresh from key shifts on the Kendrick Lamar
LP, a live set from the jazz pianist and his trio.
Great version of Radioheads Reckoner.
For regular updates, check our blogs at www.
uncut.co.uk and follow @JohnRMulvey on Twitter
fresh
produce
giorgio moroder
leftfield
deja-vu
alternative light source
15/06/2015
08/06/2015
various artists
(music by johnny jewel)
lost river: the soundtrack
01/06/2015
franz ferdina
nd
ffs
& sparks
08/06/2015
the church
further / deeper
08/06/2015
the weather station

loyalty
out now
soak
before we forgot how to dream
01/06/2015
jose padilla
jaga jazzist
so many colours
starfire
01/06/2015
01/06/2015
kanaku y el tigre
quema quema quema
15/06/2015
jenny hval
the darkness
apocalypse, girl
last of our kind
08/06/2015
01/06/2015
suck it and see

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fopp stores
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YOU GOTTA MOVE!

Your guide to this months free CD
1 THE FALL Fibre Book Troll
A bracing start this month, as Mark
E Smiths current incarnation of The
Fall deliver a typically bilious cut
from Sub-Lingual Tablet, their
31st studio album. All the bands
distinctive tropes are in place here,
from the vicious guitars to Smiths
reassuringly grouchy vocals:
I want a fucking Facebook troll!
2 GILL LANDRY
Denim of late not to mention

the recent side-project with
his own son Spencer
Wilcos Jeff Tweedy has
now overseen the latest
by Richard Thompson,
a longtime hero. This
bustling acoustic beauty
from the resulting Still finds
the ex-Fairport man in
commanding form, backed by
Tweedy on harmony vocals.
Funeral In My Heart
Landrys day job with Old Crow
Medicine Show allows him plenty of
room to express himself on banjo
and guitar, but rather less when it
comes to songwriting. His solo work
(the Nashville mans latest album
is his third to date) redresses the
balance in emphatic style, with
Funeral In My Heart providing
a platform for his smoky-voiced,
nuanced Americana.
6 FUNKADELIC & SOUL

CLAP FEATURING SLY
STONE In Da Kar
George Clinton and Sly Stone go
way back to the 60s, when the
Funkadelic man signed to Slys
Stone Flower label. Now Boston duo
Soul Clap have climbed aboard the
Mothership for a deeply funky epic
whose warm grooves and electrogurgles beat out an eco-message
about drilling for oil: Pipe it, pump
it, truck it and fuck it. Go George!
7 MICHAEL HEAD &

THE STRANDS Poor Jill
FFS
3 FFS Johnny Delusional

The combined forces of Franz
Ferdinand and Sparks is pure catnip
for lovers of dashing art-pop. This
prime number from debut FFS pits
asymmetrical rhythms against Alex
Kapranos baritone and the upperregister tones of Russell Mael.
The real motivation was to make
something new, Kapranos says.
As if the reissue of 1997s The

Magical World Of The Strands isnt
cause enough for celebration, along
comes the companion we never
knew it had. The Olde World was
recorded at the same sessions and
houses such delights as Poor Jill,
on which Head exacts a bittersweet
jangle of post-Britpop heaven.
Michael
Head
That Weekend
5 RICHARD THOMPSON
Beatnik Walking
Clearly not content with producing
Mavis Staples, Low and White
9 LEFTFIELD
13 JAH WOBBLE
Universal Everything
Merry Go Round
Most people may have given up on

such a comeback, but Leftfield are
back, 16 years after their last album,
with Alternative Light Source. Now
down to just Neil Barnes, the
departure of Paul Daley hasnt
lessened the impact of Leftfields
fidgety urban techno, as borne out
by this seven-minute excursion into
sensory rhythm.
An ebullient racket from one of

these isles more restless talents,
versed in Wobbles semi-spoken
East End tones and replete with
references to psychiatric nurses and
The Man Who Fell To Earth. Merry
Go Round is lifted from Redux, a
10 MEG BAIRD
Counterfeiters
Meg Bairds solo work outside
Espers has tended to be largely
unadorned, but third LP Dont
Weigh Down The Light finds her
adding more 12-string guitars and
organ rolls. As Counterfeiters
proves though, its still delicately
realised stuff, her luminous voice
backed by soft harmonies and set
to electro-folk arrangements.
Jah Wobble
6CD boxset that spans a career

exploring post-punk, world
rhythms, dub, ambient and jazz.
14 TREMBLING BELLS
11 THE PRE NEW
Psychedelic Lies
4 JIM OROURKE
Its been way too long 14 years,
in fact since Chicago maverick
Jim ORourke released anything
approaching a conventional rock
album. Simple Songs, however, has
come to remedy that. A wonderful
return it is too, with this track a fine
exemplar: pop at the core, but with
quasi-classical undertones and a
voice hovering just above a whisper.
FREE
CD!
Smart, noisy and fantastically

droll, The Pre New are a fittingly
transgressive outcrop of the two
bands that sired them: World Of
Twist and Earl Brutus. Cue plenty
of atonal guitar-pop, rickety electronoise and pithy vocal narratives as
seen through the prism of urban
culture, glam, metal and crap TV.
Or, in this case, psychedelia.
Killing Time In
London Fields
Bleepy electronic noise and acid
guitars form the bones of this track
from latest album The Sovereign
Self, but the meat is provided by
Lavinia Blackwalls strident, postSiouxsie vocal. A somewhat darker
affair than the Glaswegian outfits
previous efforts, Blackwall admits
that the intensity of the new songs
makes them both physically and
emotionally draining to sing.
12 WILLIAM TYLER
8 SOAPKILLS Galbi
The Sleeping Prophet
15 BITCHIN BAJAS
Lebanese duo Soapkills, aka Zeid

Hamdan and Yasmine Hamdan,
issued three albums of Arabicscented electronica before
venturing out into separate projects
eight years ago. This hauntingly
lovely tune, originally from 2005s
Enta Fen, is a minimal exercise
in stealthy trip-hop and serves as
an ideal showcase for the billowy
hush of Yasmines voice.
Uncut readers may already be

au fait with William Tylers
extraordinary guitar odysseys via
2013s Impossible Truth. Five years
earlier, though, he made his mark
with Deseret Canyon, trading
under the name The Paper Hats.
The Sleeping Prophet is a sixand-a-half-minute masterclass in
acoustic delicacy, complete with
soft accents of pedal steel.
Marimba
A meditative way to end things,
with the Chicago threesome (led by
Caves Cooper Crain) offering a fluid
procession of organic motorik that
stretches out into the nine-minute
mark. Minimal in tone, it could be
a more pastoral Popul Vuh, the
psychedelic sense of exotica
heightened by the arrival of various
woodwinds part way through.
fresh
produce
muse
florence + the machine
drones
how big, how blue, how beautiful
08/06/2015
01/06/2015
everything everything
get to heaven
22/06/2015
unknown m
ortal orchest
ra
multi-love
out now
ryan adams
ten songs from live at carnegie hall
08/06/2015
the vaccines
english graffiti
out now
admiral fallow
tiny rewards
out now
sweet billy pilgrim

motorcade amnesiacs
out now
summer camp
bad love
out now
daughn gibson
carnation
goatsnake
01/06/2015
black age blues
15/06/2015
01/06/2015
suck it and see

buy your cds, dvds and books from fopp
if they suck well give you a swap or your lolly
This offer applies to all cds, dvds and books instore and is only available on production of a valid receipt dated no more than four
weeks from the time of your original purchase. Goods must be in the condition as sold, both the sleeve/case, disc or spine/pages.
We reserve the right to refuse this offer. This offer in no way affects your statutory rights. Titles subject to availability, while stocks
last. Individual titles which appear elsewhere in the store, outside of this campaign, may be priced differently.
sarah crack
nell
red kite
fopp stores
bristol college green // cambridge sidney st //
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nottingham broadmarsh shopping centre
AN AUDIENCE WITH...
Ringo
Starr
Interview: Michael Bonner

Portrait: Rob Shanahan
The Fab drummer happily chats about his experiences at Butlins, his friend Peter
Sellers, and eight years in The Beatles: I said, Fuck it, its too crazy, Im leaving!
WAS JUST in the car coming here, begins Ringo
Starr. Eight Days A Week was playing on the radio,
and it rocked. Yknow, it rocked! Starr is marvelling
at the remarkable early accomplishments of The
Beatles while installed in a hotel suite in LA. There,
hes in the throes of promotional duties for his new
solo LP, Postcards From Paradise. In fact, it is proving
to be a particularly busy year for Starr: apart from an
upcoming tour for his All-Starr Band, theres also his recent induction into
the RocknRoll Hall Of Fame, as the final Beatle to enjoy such an honour. But
according to his publicist, Starr has spent the last few days fielding questions
on two current news stories: the departure of Zayn Malik from One Direction
and the death of Cynthia Lennon. Fortunately, a temperate mood appears to
have prevailed, and Uncut finds Starr well-disposed towards a bulging
postbag. So what do you want? He asks, adopting a mock serious tone.
Indeed, an encounter with Starr is best described as good-natured. A few
months shy of his 75th birthday, one wonders what the secret to his positive
disposition is. Peace and love! He booms. Thats right, brother!
GETTY IMAGES
STAR QUESTION
What is your
favourite drum
fill on all The
Beatles records?
Jeff Lynne
Theres too many
great drum fills! I
think one of the all-time killer drum
fills for Jeff is Free As A Bird. I did
do some fills and I do have a style.
Im a left-handed person playing
right-handed drums. So that gave

me a whacky attitude to the fills. I
cant go snare drum, top tom, floor
tom. I can only go floor tom, top tom,
snare, because I lead with my left.
So for me, the fills were fine. I always
put them in what I call the right
place, never over when the singer
was singing. Those early years,
we were learning, we had very
little microphones. Somehow,
I just came up with the open hi-hat.
I didnt know anyone else who
Beatle Ringo,
putting his fills in all
the right places
was doing it it gave it a lot of

shushyashushyashushyashushya.
I always loved that. If you listen to
early records, that really comes into
play. But then theres A Day In The
Life You know, I like the whole
song, the whole track. I liked what
Paul played, and Johns rhythm and
Georges guitar was in some cases as
important as any words. Great solo
work. I cant really tell Jeff what my
favourite is, because theres too
many of them. I think theyre all my
favourite, if Im doing them!
Theres a song on your new
album called Rory And The
Hurricanes. What do you
remember about your Butlins
seasons with them in the
late 1950s? James Kelly, London
Every week, there was a change of
clientele. A lot of new young girls!
It was great, we so-called turned
professional. Id left the factory.
Wed gone to Butlins and had a
three-month gig. That was unheard
of. We played the RocknCalypso
Ballroom six nights a week, and
sometimes the afternoon sessions.
It was a holiday atmosphere, so
everyone wanted to have a good
time. It was a lot of fun. The
repertoire was exactly what we
played in Hamburg. The repertoire
of every band in Liverpool in 61, 62
was the same. I actually went with
Rory to a venue with two other bands
and just by chance the other two
drummers didnt turn up. I just sat
behind the kit and played six
sessions you know, you do half an
hour, then the next band would do
half an hour, then the next band
would do half an hour, then it would
be back to Rory. I sat there and
played with everybody because
I knew the songs.
STAR QUESTION
How did you and
I meet? I was
there, so I
cant remember.
Van Dyke Parks
Yeah, Van Dyke was
there and I truly
understand why he wasnt there! I
was in a house in Woodrow Wilson
Drive here in LA, I was borrowing it
from a friend. Id moved over to LA in
1976, and Harry Nilsson and Van
Dyke came to see me, to hang out.
Theyd just been on an interesting
journey of hallucinations. Thats
how I met Van Dyke. He came in and
we got on well right away. I worked
with him through the 70s, through
the 80s occasionally, the 90s and
now into the 2000s. But thats where
we met. It was a great experience.
And he was with my best friend,
Harry Nilsson, of course, so that was
that. But Harrys no longer with us.
Hes been gone 20 years now. I still
miss him.
What do you remember about the
Plastic Ono Band album sessions
in 1970?
Luuk Reinders, Duiven, The
Netherlands
It was incredible. John, Klaus and I.
One of the finest trios I ever heard.
We did it like a jam. We knew John
had the songs and wed kick it in and
felt where it should go. We knew
Klaus anyway. John and I really
knew each other, so we were psychic
where the atmosphere was going to
go. Its one of the best experiences of
being on a record I have ever had.
Just being in the room with John,
being honest, the way he was,
screaming, shouting and singing.
It was an incredible moment.
One of the best

experiences ever, just
being in the room
with John, being
honest, screaming,
shouting, singing!
AN AUDIENCE WITH...
STAR QUESTION
STANLEY BIELECKI MOVIE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; JULIAN BROAD
STAR QUESTION
From around
1967, your
drumming style
changed quite
dramatically.
Especially on
things like I Am
The Walrus and Flying,
its not quite as syncopated.
Where did that come from, and
why did it change?
Paul Weller
The songs had changed, our
attitudes had changed and our
well-being had changed. All that
came into play. It was like a natural
progression: Were going that way,
let me do this now. I think its just
a confidence thing. Certain things
happen in your life. Hes absolutely
right. I did have a drumming change
of direction, the only thing that
stayed constant was my timekeeping. And also people could hear
the drums better than the early 60s
when we were on four-track, where it
was the drums and the vocals and a
tambourine, say. If anything was
going to get lost on the tracks, it was
always the bass drum. I love all the
remasters, because you get to hear
what I was playing!
Your performance in The Magic
Christian is fantastic. What was
Peter Sellers like to work with?
Eoghan Lyng, Cork
Peter was great to work with. We
went out and had some really fun
dinners. In his own way, he was very
humorous. We became friends. In
67, when I left The Beatles, I went to
Sardinia. But he was tied up, so he
lent me the boat. Me, Maureen, there
was only two kids then, we went and
hung out on the boat. That became
an incredible moment, because I
was talking to the captain of the
16 | UNCUT | JUNE 2015
its great! And

when I did get
back, George had
the whole studio
decorated in
flowers, so it was a
With Sellers in The Magic
beautiful reunion.
Christian: Peter was great
to work with In his own
It wasnt just me, it
way, he was very humorous
was everybody,
and I think that
broke the spell
and we all realised, Lets get back
yacht and hed given us octopus and
together. But I did love The White
chips. We couldnt understand that,
Album. We were like a band again.
we were used to fish and chips. He
A lot of tracks were just this band,
was telling me the story about
the band I love. Pepper yes, all its
octopuses under the seas, they go
good points, it was great but there
and collect shiny stones or tin cans
was a lot of downtime. The White
and they make gardens for
Album, we were rocking.
themselves out of shiny things. I
couldnt believe how beautiful that
What are your memories of
was, and where my head was at the
working with Frank Zappa
time, I thought, Man, Id like to be
on 200 Motels?
under the sea in an octopus garden
Pablo S Alonso, Argentina
in the shade. You never know where
It was great, from day one. I got a
its coming from, you know?
How serious were you about
leaving The Beatles during the
White Album sessions?
Nick Clarke, Cambridge
I went over to Johns and I said, Im
not playing great and you three are
so close And he said, I thought it
was you three! And then I went over
to Pauls knock! knock! knock! I
said, I dont feel Im playing good.
And you three are so close And he
goes: I thought it was you three!
So I said, Fuck it, its too crazy! Im
leaving! So I left, I got on a plane, I
took Maureen and my two kids at the
time and I went to Sardinina. There
were all these faxes: Come on back,
Frank Zappa
was a beautiful
man, but his
music was
crazy
message from our office. Frank
Zappa wants to talk to you about
something. So I said, Tell Frank to
come over to the house. He came
over and he laid out this whole
score, at least 25 pages of the score.
I said, Well, what are you showing
me that for, Frank? I cant read
music. He said, I just wanted
to show you. He said, Will you
play me in the movie? It was really
easy, he was a nice guy, so I said,
Sure. I did like Frank. Id met him
several times. He was a beautiful
human being. As far as I was
concerned, his music was crazy
but thats one mans opinion. But
the memory of the movie was, hed
followed the band around and
secretly taped their conversations
and then turned it into a song and
forced them to sing it. He was a lot
of fun!
I love your
unique drum
playing. I
guess its
intuitive, but
were there
drummers
who influenced you and
whose style you tried to
emulate? Marianne Faithfull
No, when I listen to records, I
hear the whole thing. I never
said, Oh, thats Carl Palmer. I
didnt have hero drummers. I went to
the movies and saw Gene Krupa in a
movie and thats about it. I just found
my own style. When I started, if you
had the instrument, you were in the
band. You didnt have to be great. We
all learned together. So, no, I didnt
have any big heroes, drummers.
Jim Keltner refers to The Beatles
as the Four. Did you have any
good nicknames for other
bands? Mark Moss, Hackney
Bastards. And youll have to figure
out which band that was! Was there
ever competition between me,
Charlie Watts and Keith Moon? No.
Never. And there was never any
competition between The Rolling
Stones and The Beatles. That was a
newspaper thing mainly Andrew
Loog Oldham, who started
spreading those stories to get the
Stones some notoriety.
Its nice that you run your own
Twitter account. Do you like
being available to your fans, and
how much of that was down to
how Brian Epstein encouraged
you to behave when you were
young? Charley Dine, Camberley
It was how you did it, then. All our
family members worked on doing
the fan mail. My mother used to say:
Sign this, son. Over all those years,
I signed everything. People were
selling more than they were keeping.
I signed scratch plates in New York
and then theyd stick them to a shitty
guitar and sell them on eBay for
three grand. So I stopped signing
things in 2010. When I last played
Liverpool with the All-Starrs, after
the gig, this guy said, Oh, Ringo,
youre my favourite. I love you, man.
Im from Liverpool. Sign this! I said,
Hey man, I dont sign any more.
And he said, You ----! and called
me a very bad word. So he didnt
really love me, he just wanted to
have some shit to sell.
Postcards From Paradise is out now
on Universal Music Enterprises
UNCUT.CO.UK
Log on to see whos in
the hot-seat next month
and to post your questions!
UNCUT PROMOTION
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13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS
WEVE GOT
LEVITATION!
On Jinx Avenue, Austin, Americas most storied acid-rock band are plotting
an improbable comeback. Uncut inltrates the 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS reunion
rehearsals, pieces together their traumatic legend, and checks up on the current
states of Roky Erickson (I never really had a bad trip) and outlying electric jug man
Tommy Hall (no LSD since 2009). After 45 years apart, how will they cope?
And will Roky get what he wants for dinner?
Story: Jaan Uhelszki | Photograph: Bob Simmons
The 13th Floor Elevators,

live at the New Orleans
Club, Austin, Texas,
February 1966
OUTHEAST OF THE Texas

State Capitol Building is a
small, four-block street
called Jinx Ave. Pulling up
to a Wedgwood blue frame
house, tucked beneath
leafy pecan, ash and
mesquite trees, down a
paved path, you cant
avoid thinking that its far
too apt an address for the 13th Floor Elevators
a band whose genius was thwarted by a string of
near-constant bad luck until they dissolved into
acid-rock legend. When they fell, they fell from
a high altitude, one that seemed impossible to
return to. Yet here in Clockright Studios, as
unlikely as it seems, the Elevators under the
auspices of their leader, Roky Erickson are
preparing for a 50th-anniversary reunion show at
this years Austin Psych Fest. A long, white outer
building opens up to reveal an economical space,
panelled in good wood, with oriental rugs,

framed posters, and an inner sanctum that holds
vintage analog equipment as well as state-of-theart gear. The studio is owned by Jason Richards,
a member of Ericksons recent backup band, The
Hounds Of The Baskerville. It got its name after
the power blew out in the studio for a few days:
when it came back on, the analog clock read
exactly the right time. Occurrences like that are
common in the Ericksonian universe. Yet all
seems remarkably normal on
this warm spring day. Two of
the original bandmembers
Erickson and drummer John
Ike Walton sit sipping
sweet tea under a canvas
parasol, shielded from the
late afternoon Texas sun.
They are accompanied by
bassist Ronnie Leatherman,
who joined the band in June,
1966, straight after graduating from high school.

Together, they wait to begin rehearsal. But one of
their number is conspicuously absent. Electric
jug player Tommy Hall, is still in San Francisco,
although hes assured his bandmates he will be
in Texas for the show. He later tells me he has
sworn off any inebriants before a show he only
smokes medical marijuana these days since his
LSD connection dried up back in 2009. And,
pressingly, he has to get a new electric jug. Its
been almost five decades
since the founding
members shared a stage;
or kept in touch with more
than an occasional
Christmas card. While
Walton and Leatherman
live within shouting
distance from each other
near their hometown of
Kerrville, Texas, they
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
19
havent seen Erickson or Hall in more than 45 years.

Dressed in a black T-shirt, jeans and black-and-white
Vans, sporting sunglasses, Erickson closes his eyes and
leans back in a white, wrought-iron lawn chair. His
scrupulously clean hands and preternaturally white fingers
are stretched across the girth of his stomach like a belt.
Breathing deeply, but not asleep, he seems to be conserving
power. At this stage of life, it appears hes figured out what is
important to him. And taking things easy is one of them.
Are you ready to go in there and practise? his son Jegar
asks him, inclining his head toward the studio about 15 feet
from where his father is sitting. Erickson opens his milky
blue eyes and fixes his son with a look, but doesnt answer.
Instead he turns his head to look at his wife. Are we having
steak for dinner? he asks Dana, whom he first married in
1974, then again in 2008. If thats what you want, honey,
she answers, fussing with a strand of hair thats escaped her
long black braid. Jegar asks his father again. This time
he answers: We might as well get it over with.
And those
screams...
they may
be the best
white
screams
ever
LENNY KAYE
HE 13TH FLOOR Elevators are perhaps

rocks most improbable comeback story.
Never mind that it was five decades in
coming. But Roky Erickson had a further
distance to travel back than most. The
prodigious amounts of LSD the band used to
take before shows had a profound effect on the
frontman. When the Elevators performed at San
Antonios HemisFair in 1968, Erickson began
Live elevation: (l-r) Stacy

Sutherland, Benny Thurman,
Roky Erickson and Tommy Hall,
La Maison, Houston, Texas ,1966
Xxx xxx x
xxxx xxxx
xxxxx xx
xxxxx xx
xxx xxxx
xxxxx xx
XXXXXXX
speaking gibberish
onstage. The latest in a
long string of similar,
equally bizarre incidents, it resulted in the singer being taken
to a Houston psychiatric hospital, where he was subjected to
electroshock therapy. The band dissolved shortly after. Then,
in 1978, guitarist Stacy Sutherland was shot by his estranged
wife, Bunni, in a domestic dispute in Houston.
In their heyday, the Elevators were bona fide rock stars:
a little too good-looking for their own good, a little too
dangerous-sounding, their hair a little too long, their trousers
a little too pegged. Their debut single, Youre Gonna Miss
Me, was a dissolute kiss-off to a love gone bad, with lyrics
as beseeching as they were menacing. The song climbed
halfway up the charts, landing the Elevators on Dick
Clarks American Bandstand twice in 1966. The song
still looms large in Elevators lore. It is a really great
pop song, explains Patti Smith Band guitarist Lenny
Kaye, who included it on his 72 compilation, Nuggets:
Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, 1965
1968. That song was the centrepiece of Nuggets. Its got
great hooky chords to start and that weird middle break
with that echo sound from Tommy Halls electric jug.
I dont think its ever been used before or since. And
those screams. They may be the best white screams
ever. Theyre on a par with Screaming Jay Hawkins.
Kaye is not the only connoisseur to venerate Youre
Going To Miss Me or the Elevators themselves.
ZZ Tops Billy Gibbons whose Houston psych group
Moving Sidewalks were contemporaries of the
Elevators confirms the bands pioneering
sensibilities. Roky and the Elevators were creating
something otherworldly, he explains. Sound in a
scene that had no previous incarnation. Psychedelia!
The Elevators were brought together by Tommy
Hall, a proto-hippy shaman, acid visionary and Texas
musician. His plan was to hook up Erickson, then lead
singer with The Spades, with another Texas band, The
BOB SIMMONS
Elevators 2, 1967: (l-r, front row)

Tommy Hall, Stacy Sutherland, Roky
Erickson; ( back row) far left, Danny
Galindo, far right, Danny Thomas
Lingsmen whose lineup included

guitarist Sutherland, drummer Walton,
and bassist Benny Thurman. In
Erickson, Hall found a voice for his acid
revelations. While for his part, Erickson
a former child actor had already
written two songs by the time he was 15:
Youre Gonna Miss Me and We Sell
Soul. Founding bassist Benny Thurman
explains the origins of the Elevators name in
suitably Spinal Tappish terms: Everyone else
had only gone to 12. The music was so new that we
Erickson on The
called it the 13th floor. In the sleevenotes to their 1966
Larry Kane Show,
Houston Texas, 1967
debut, The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators,
the band advocated the use of LSD as a gateway to a higher
state of consciousness. According to Billy Gibbons, they
Today, Erickson is surprisingly more sanguine about his
were creating the vision of being able to go to an
own experiences with LSD. I never had a bad acid trip, he
undiscovered space Texas got bigger!
confirms matter-of-factly. Admitting to more than 300
No rock band before or since ever delved as deeply into the
psychic excursions, he says, You have to watch out for the
idea of human consciousness being something that could be
way you view things and think it right. If you respected it, you
expanded into the higher evolution of the species, says
would have a good trip; if you didnt, youd have a bad one.
longtime supporter Bill Bentley, who co-ordinated the 1990
Unfortunately, the Elevators existence proved to be a bad
Erickson tribute album, Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye.
trip for the Texas establishment. The band were busted in a
Tommy Hall worked in the world of psychedelics as a tool to
televised raid; although most of the charges were dropped,
help the progress of humanity. His song lyrics reflected what
Hall and Sutherland struggled to find gigs in Texas under the
he learned while under the influence of LSD in a way that
terms of their parole. In 1969, meanwhile, Erickson was
turned the bands best songs, like Slip Inside This House
busted by the Austin police. In an attempt to avoid prison, he
and Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)into sonic
pleaded insanity and was sentenced to Austins Rusk State
sacraments for their acolytes.
Hospital For The Criminally Insane. There, he was subjected
Almost from the first, Hall insisted that the bandmembers
to Thorazine treatments and electroshock therapy. He wrote
ingest LSD before every show and Play the acid. At first
a book of poetry and befriended fellow convict Jimmy
none of the members balked, embracing the spiritual, mindWolcott, an Elevators fan whod murdered his family while
expanding properties of the drug, but later there were dark
rumblings that if they refused, Hall would sneak
the substance into their drinks prior to shows. The
only way I could deal with it was pretend to take it
and only take a quarter or half a tab at most,
explains bassist Ronnie Leatherman. Still slender
LIVE
as a boy, with greying hair, he has spent the past
INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS, 1969
four decades working for a jewellery company. A
Ongoing legal troubles
perfect amethyst in his left ear will attest to the fact
and health issues made it
that he knows his gems. If it was good, I might
hard for the Elevators to
The 13th Floor Elevators on CD
take some more later, but I didnt very often.
tour, so International Artists
Tommy was just real insistent, and I was young
THE PSYCHEDELIC SOUNDS OF
undertook plans to record
and wanting to experiment. But we werent taking
THE 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS
the band live in Houston.
LSD to get blasted. It was spiritual. Stacy was very
Ensuing problems meant that the label
spiritual. He was a firm believer in God. I dont
Not quite the psychedelic
assembled a handful of unreleased tracks
have anything against Tommy. He could take all he
manifesto that the title
over which they dubbed crowd noises.
wanted to. I just didnt want to. But I dont regret it
promises. Tommy Hall
The record collects gems that might
a bit. And John Ike took it, but he just didnt like it.
had only just begun to set
otherwise never have seen the light of
And now he definitely doesnt, and I wouldnt ever
his metaphysical poetry
day, including their blurry Everybody
again, thats for sure. At 72, in his oversized white
to the Elevators buzzy,
Needs Somebody To Love and the perfect
cowboy hat and striped shirt, John Ike Walton
garage rock. Theres a Stones-y swagger
Take That Girl.
looks more like the manager of a neighbourhood
and a seditious ethos at work, from the
7/10
hardware store than a rock musician. When
recriminatory Youre Gonna Miss Me
pressed, he admits he is reluctant to discuss the
BULL OF THE WOODS
to the paranoia of Roller Coaster and
Elevators, preferring to save his memories for a
the sex-capades of Fire Engine.
book. Im tired of giving everything away. But for
The 13th Floor Elevators
9/10
the record, I want to say, I did not take the LSD, he
final studio album.
huffs, contradicting much of what he has said in
EASTER EVERYWHERE
Erickson only sings on
interviews over the years.
four of the 11 tracks.
For his part, in 1977, Sutherland had explained
The Elevators had travelled
Tommy Hall also takes a
that he wanted to stop taking hallucinogenics after
quite far in terms of
backseat role. Guitarist
one particularly grisly episode. Everything
proficiency and song
Stacy Sutherland wrote five of the songs
started glowing and I freaked out, [thinking] I was
structure, with Ericksons
himself, co-writing four with Hall, and
going to die or something. [Then] everybody
screams now underplayed
coaxing bassist Ronnie Leatherman
turned into wolves and I thought that our band
and performances more
back into the fold (who contributes one
was evil, because of some of the things we had
restrained. There is a cohesiveness thats
song). The result is a more gentle, pastoral
advocated. We had a controversy going on
missing from the first LP, but little of the antic
album. Its not a bad album it just isnt a true
quite a while about advocating drugs and so forth,
frivolity, (Ive Got) Levitation excepted.
Elevators album.
and mixing it with religion. I felt it was pretty
8/10
6/10
dangerous ground.
I never
really
had a bad
acid trip.
You have
to respect
it
ROKY ERICKSON
BUYERS GUIDE
PARADISE
GARAGE
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
21
GUY CLARK/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
Its not clear whether Erickson is entirely

concerned with his bands 50th anniversary.
Does he think their music still holds up today?
They havent played in a long time, but the
albums are still out there, he says a little
peevishly, with an odd choice of pronoun,
which may prove revealing. When I was in
Philadelphia [actually Pittsburgh, living with
younger brother Sumner after leaving Rusk] Id
listen to the Elevators a little and theyre very
exciting. I enjoyed listening to the words. They
The Elevators live at a
were talking about metaphysical stuff and
Texas frat party, July 1966,
things like leaving your body. But thats a
(Tommy Hall, far left )
hard thing to do.
So does it feel different being a member
of the 13th Floor Elevators in 2015 than it did in 1965?
Oh, I feel like I have it more down. See, you study, you
Here, they call me the Spider, Hall
know certain things, he says mysteriously. Things you
confides. Why? Because I spied it, he
didnt know before. Im studying trying to mingle fiction
explains wearily. Does he still think that
with existentialism, psychology. That sort of thing. You keep
taking LSD is necessary to make music?
going to where you can identify with what people are trying
No, thats been done. The pathway to
Uncut visits the electric jug player
to teach you.
rocknroll
led
to
psychedelics
and
all
this
in San Francisco
Still, there are uncertainties and changes. Tommy Hall is
wonderful music. Once we had that, we
OMMY HALL lives in a residential
no longer calling the shots from his hotel in Tenderloin, where
kicked out the doors on our own and
hotel in the Tenderloin district of
he lives on government assistance (and the thousand a year
understood the code. We figured it out.
San Francisco. To gain access, a
or so he claims to earn from Elevators royalties) and watches
This giant spotlight focused on that
visitor must slide a drivers licence under a
German TV programmes all day. More important, there are
pathway. Thats why you have a song by
six-inch slab of plastic and vertical bars,
no drugs any more, save blood-pressure medicine for these
the Led Zeppelin, Pathway (sic) To
and leave it with the doorman before
sixtysomethings. The band have also needed to find a
Heaven. They saw it, too.
being allowed upstairs. It feels rather like
suitable replacement for Sutherland, whose reverb-drenched
Would Hall like the Elevators reunion to
visiting a prisoner in a minimum-security
guitar work was as critical to the bands sound as Ericksons
continue? No, no, no, he says
facility. Admittedly, its not the oddest
unnerving scream and Halls electric-jug sorcery. In fact,
emphatically. I have to get back to work
place Hall has lived. There was the time in
its taking two guitarists: Fred Mitchim and Eli Southard.
on my book. It doesnt surprise me
1972 when he lived in a cave in Laguna
Southard, whos played in The Hounds Of The Baskerville
people still like the Elevators. Because we
Beach as part of the commune owned by
since 2012, observes that Sutherlands role in the band was
came up with valid ideas about the
the Brotherhood of Eternal Love headed
crucial, that the other
universe. Kids now dig us more than they
up by Timothy Leary. But now, aged 72, he
guys looked to him for
did in the past as theres real information
lives here, up a dimly lit stairway and down
all the cues.
there. Its something to follow, not just
a dingy grey hall. Were here to talk about
I really love the records,
a bunch of bullshit.
the Elevators 50th anniversary reunion.
he adds. I want to sound
Im hoping that once I have a book
I need to be ready for this, he says in a
as close to the record as
done and Roky can read it, itll help him
high-pitched, singsong voice, oddly
I can but still throw down
come back to himself, he says as he
similar to Ericksons. The door to his room
a vibrant performance.
ushers Uncut to the door. Roky kinda
is scarred, with pieces of masking tape
I cant learn those solos
closed off to himself, seemingly some
still attached to it. Oppressively hot, with
verbatim, mainly because
type of chemical thing. See, all of those
a single bulb strung from the ceiling, it
he was just vamping out
things can be broken if you have the
contains piles of books, CDs, and a TV.
a lot of it, and itd kinda
right information.
Theres a small space cleared in the
go against the spirit of it to
centre of the room where Hall sits to do
learn what he played that
Tommy Hall in
his work. Currently, he is finishing a book
one time verbatim.
his room in San
Francisco
he has spent decades on, in
While Southard is talking,
which he explains the mathematical
Erickson gets up and walks
relationship of the universe.
into the air-conditioned studio. The bandmembers new
and old join him inside, taking their places around their
instruments. Erickson settles himself in a chair in the centre
high on glue. Critically, Erickson also
of the room, while Walton squeezes in behind his drum kit
continued to write songs, forming a band called
which is pushed into the far corner. There is an awkward
The Missing Links with his fellow inmates. Id
silence while they attempt to get the mics working properly.
write these songs on my guitar, he explains
Jegar Erickson swoops in and swiftly resolves the problem.
today, as he continues to recline in his lawn
He removes a roll of black tape out of his pocket, pulls off a
chair. I was writing songs constantly there.
piece and puts it over a stray wire in front of his father and
I had them stored away in a box.
then steps back. Without hesitation the band start playing
as one as if theyd been doing this every day for the last 50
HERE HAVE BEEN previous attempts
years, in fact Splash 1, from their debut album. The song
to reunite the 13th Floor Elevators
is one of their rare ballads. Southward picks out the songs
stretching back to 1972, when Erickson
minimalist guitar lines before the rest of the band join in.
was finally discharged from Rusk. Did he miss
Then Erickson starts singing; he co-wrote the song with
the band? Yeah, sometimes I did.
Halls former wife, Clementine, about what happened when
Did he ever think about putting it back
the two of them met: The neon from your eyes is splashing
together again? Yeah, I thought about it, he allows. They
into mine/Its so familiar in a way I cant define. If anything,
wanted us to do a get-together of the Elevators when I came
Ericksons voice is more refined than it was those five decades
back. To regroup the band. It didnt really work out.
ago, sounding a bit like the Airplanes Marty Balin with a bit
EYEWITNESS!
AT HOME WITH
TOMMY HALL
Kids dig us.

We came
up with
valid ideas
about the
universe
TOMMY HALL
JAMIE SOJA

EYEWITNESS!
HEN ROKY ERICKSON left Rusk Hospital

in 1972, it was claimed he had forgotten all
the words to the Elevators songs but he
could remember every single Dylan lyric. Six years ago,
he admitted to Uncut that was true. Evidently, things
have changed in the intervening years. Jegar has
assiduously printed off lyric sheets for the songs the
band practise during rehearsal, and Erickson hasnt
needed to consult a single one, instead reeling off the
words as if hed written them only yesterday. In a break
during the rehearsals, Southard explains that for quite
some time, Erickson would regularly perform only two
Elevators songs Splash 1 and Youre Gonna Miss
Me during Hounds Of The Baskerville shows. But
Southard noticed a change of attitude over the last
couple of years.
We started incorporating a lot of the Elevators tunes
into the set, as Roky was really into it, he reveals. We
didnt really expect that. As I understand it, he
wasnt really into playing those tunes with previous
bands, for whatever reason. So when we pitched the
idea, Rok, would you want to try playing Levitation
sometime, or Fire Engine? He was, Well, yeah, I love
those songs.
Back in Clockright Studios, Walton whoops, Were
raising hell now! Erickson nods in agreement. Yup. It
sounds good, he adds. Lets do Reverb next. The song
actually titled Reverberation was a co-write by Hall,
Erickson and Sutherland. Thankfully, the lyric You start
to fight against the night that screams inside your mind/
When something black, it answers back and grabs you
from behind no longer has the sway over them it once did.
Take it easy with that one, reminds Erickson, then he
says, Was that four or five? It transpires that this is code:
asking about the time signifies that Erickson has had
enough. Want to take a break, Roky? asks Jegar, who
never calls his father Dad. Nope, comes the reply. We
can do one more.
After a little adjustment to his chair, Erickson is ready
to go again, tapping his foot even though no music is
currently being played. The band ease into Tried To Hide,
a song Sutherland wrote about burying joints in the sandy
beach. Erickson emits soft, approving yeahs during the
song. Three minutes later, theyre done, which seems
to thrill Erickson. It was good today, he enthuses. Nice
and easy. That big old cup of hot tea helped. Although I
didnt see him have one. Yet for all his gnomic aspects,
Erickson is clearly the bands driving force. According to
Jason Richards, the studio owner, Roky is a workhorse.
The more we put him to work and the more he sings
every day, youll watch the rest of us get weary and
THE ELEVATORS RISE AGAIN!

Uncut reports from the
bands reunion show
0 YEARS ON from their formation,

the Elevators took to the stage on
Sunday, May 10, 2015 at what was
formerly known as Austin Psych Fest,
appropriately renamed Levitation in
honour of this years returning heroes.
With the likelihood of four original
members of the Elevators appearing
onstage rumoured to be somewhere
between slim and none, expectations
before the show admittedly ran between
the curious and the sceptical.
Nevertheless, from the minute they

arrived onstage, the Elevators were
entirely in command of proceedings.
Under the auspices of Tommy Hall
and Roky Erickson, they delivered a set
that delved deep into their brief but
unquestionably influential career.
Indeed, it was possible to detect their
imprint in the other bands on the bill
from The Jesus And Mary Chain to The
Flaming Lips. Here in the town of their
birth, the influence of the Elevators
music over this reverberation
appreciation society couldnt be
any more apparent. MILES JOHNSON
The Elevators first

reunion show at
Austins Levitation
festival, May 10, 2015:
(l-r) Hall, Leatherman,
Erickson, Walton
SETLIST
1
She Lives
(In A Time Of Her Own)
2 Fire Engine
3 Earthquake
4 Tried To Hide
5 Slip Inside This House
6 Ive Got Levitation
7 Splash 1 (Now Im Home)
8 The Kingdom Of Heaven
(Is Within You)
9 Nobody To Love
10 Reverberation
11 Roller Coaster
ENCORE
12 Youre Gonna Miss Me
Roky
doesnt like
pussyfoot
conversations. He
wants to be
talked to
like a dude
JEGAR ERICKSON
tired, [but] Rokys a machine. He just keeps going.

Southard adds, Hes got his own set of quirks. Its not
easy to learn them. He always likes to say, Well, you guys
are taking it easy on me. Which is his way of saying,
Please dont make me play too many songs, or Hey,
Im tired. I also think he wants it to be cool with everybody.
Probably in the past hes had a lot of contentious
relationships with his bandmates. So hes
just like, Lets all just take it easy. He speaks his own
kind of weird language, but hes a lot sharper than
I thought he was going to be. Hes really on point most
of the time, and he can be the anchor on tour sometimes
as hell be like, No, no, lets all calm down. Or when things
get tense, hell make a joke.
The key, according to Jegar, is not to be careful around
him and have straight conversations with him. Hes very
deliberate in what he chooses to say and the messages he
wants to put across. But hes comfortable in his skin and he
doesnt have to overcompensate, so I just found [its best to
be] direct and always 100 percent honest, never misleading,
because he knows if youre not telling the full truth. Hes
probably at a point where its like. If you want to talk to me
that way, Ill respond back to you that way.
Whats the best way to communicate with Erickson Snr,
then? Jegar considers his answer. He doesnt like pussyfoot
conversations. He says eventually. He wants to be talked to
like a dude. Thats what he likes about getting out with the
band, now that he knows the band. Its like, Hey, Rok, how
you doing? And game on. He likes getting out of the house
and hanging out with his brothers and playing some music.
And, of course, he likes steak.
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
23
GARY MILLER/GETTY IMAGES
more tremor, a little more ache. His timing is impeccable, his

pitch superb; the rest of the band are impressively tight.
They move quickly on to (Ive Got) Levitation, an out-andout rocker written by Hall and Sutherland. This version,
which barely stretches beyond two minutes, is dirty garage
rock at its best, as Erickson narrows his odd-shaped eyes and
punctuates the songs breaks with an appropriate All right
that bring to mind a young Jagger. As soon as it starts, it stops.
The silence in the studio is suddenly broken by the piercing
scream that kicks off Youre Gonna Miss Me. Whats truly
odd is that Ericksons face doesnt change expression at all
when he emits the scream, almost as if it doesnt come from
him. In this version, he comes in behind the beat; it seems
slower, more sure-footed, yet more of a lament than the
original. After it closes, Walton takes off his big Texan
10-gallon hat and wipes his brow before they start in on
Roller Coaster. Based on Halls recitation of the acid
experience, the song on record is compressed and
anxious, but today it picks up steam as they play. Theres
a palpable sense of tension dissipating when it finishes.
A visitor no longer:
ORourke on the
streets of Tokyo, 2015
JIM oRoURKE
Story: Tom Pinnock Photo: Nagasa Bonasu
EUREKA!
Hes back! After leaving Sonic Youth in 2005,
JIM OROURKE mostly abandoned a multifaceted career as masterful singer-songwriter,
experimental prankster and Wilco associate.
Now, though, he has released his frst album
of songs in 14 years a prog-pop masterpiece
called, disingenuously, Simple Songs. At home
in Japan, he tells Uncut what took him so long:
Im really, really particular. If I asked everyone
to record it one more time theyd have killed me
and put me in a dumpster.
immy Page
comes to Japan
two or three
times a year,
says Jim
ORourke,
lighting a
cigarette. He
visits a record
shop in Shinjuku and supposedly buys
every Led Zep bootleg that s come out since
the last time he came here. Thats all ive
heard he does, buy Led Zep records. When i
saw him, all the customers were bothering
him, but i didnt. i kinda regret it.
Jim ORourke has been living in Japan
for a decade now. Regular Page-spotting
aside, he has spent these past 10 years
gradually disconnecting himself from the
american rock and avant-garde circles he
had once inhabited. a member of Sonic
youth during their later career, he now
shuns touring and only performs one-off
shows with experimental musicians
such as Keiji Haino or Peter Brtzmann.
Formerly a producer of landmark albums
for artists including Wilco, Smog and
Stereolab, today he prefers to record his
Japanese friends. Day to day, he rarely even
speaks english. all of which suits the
46-year-old Japanophile just fine.
Hippies
tell me
my music
cHanged
tHeir liFe,
and im like,
your liFe
sucks!
jim orourke
When i was in Sonic youth, he

explains, every time i came back to the
States from visiting Japan, i dont know if
id even get out of bed for weeks at a time,
because it was the most depressing thing.
id always said i was gonna move to Japan,
so it was like Put up or shut up.
This relocation has allowed ORourke
the space and time to work extensively on
Simple Songs, his first song-based record
since Insignificance 14 years ago. Whereas
1999s acclaimed Eureka was a sweeping,
melancholic record reminiscent of Van
Dyke Parks in its grand textures and
surreal vision of america, and
Insignificance noisier and harsher, Simple
Songs is subtle, ornate and perhaps his
strongest statement yet: eight tracks of
surprisingly complex, prog-tinged pop
dusted with piano, 12-string acoustics,
harmonised electrics, subtle strings and
ORourkes wry wordplay. There were a lot
of songs, he confesses. Last year was
finished six years ago. The album went
through five or six versions, but there was
always one song on each that just didnt fit.
even this final version isnt quite there
yet, he adds with typical modesty, but
ive had enough. i spent six years on it.
Thats enough. i dont know why anybody
would want to listen to it, anyway
JULy 2015 | UNCUT |
25
NAGASA BONASU
I got sidetracked into

making weird music
fairly young: ORourke
in Tokyo, 2015
VIDENTLY, JIM OROURKE has the

disposition of a wanderer. This is apparent
not only in his geographical roamings
they have taken him from his native
Chicago to New York and then on to
Tokyo but also in his varied musical
disciplines. A graduate of Chicagos
prestigious DePaul University, where
he studied composition, ORourkes
expansive gifts have long been in evidence
in his sprawling back catalogue.
Bad Timing kind of sucker punched
me, remembers Wilcos Jeff Tweedy of ORourkes 1997
record, his first for Drag City as a solo artist. On one hand,
it seemed to be working in a language I understood, but on
the other it was drawing on things I was intrigued by, like
modern composition and experimental music, but had
never sensed a way-in for myself, being self-taught and not
so serious musically. He really helped me find the human
element in a lot of music I liked, but had always felt was cold
and impenetrable.
This mix of the accessible and the impenetrable has long
been central to both ORourkes unique working practices
and also his unexpected career swerves. On Bad Timings
incandescent instrumentals like 94 The Long Way, for
instance, he combined the melodic acoustic reveries of
John Fahey and Leo Kottke with synths and woozy effects
that harked back to his avant-garde roots. I remember him
from the mid-80s, because we both
did cassettes of industrial
avant-garde stuff, recalls
Stereolabs Tim Gane,
who worked with
ORourke on the
bands Cobra And
Phases Group Play
Voltage In The
Milky Night and
Sound-Dust. Of
course, he started
out with jazz and
the free music
ART ROCKER
The
magic
number
Jim ORourke on
the ideal length for
an album
N ABSOLUTELY
perfect record is
38 minutes long.
Thats why Simple Songs
is 38 minutes [as were
Insignificance and The
Visitor]. I remember one
online magazine were
calling Insignificance an
EP, and that drove me
fucking nuts! 38 minutes
and its an EP?! I
understand people
who grew up with CDs
thinking, 38 minutes is
not a record. But its
actually perfect. Thats
what an album should be,
and also it makes sense
as an LP. 18, 19 minutes
a side. Sometimes I add
two or three seconds of
silence in order to make it
38 minutes. I dont know if
I did this time. Oh, Simple
Songs is 37:33. Well, its
always better to have
them wanting more.
Theyre still waiting for
those 27 seconds
school scene in Chicago, so he was in that world of

improvisation, and very quick-witted.
Moving from the academic confines of the avant-garde
towards more accessible, traditional songwriting put
ORourke on an opposite trajectory to many alternative
musicians, including David Grubbs, his partner in the
acclaimed Gastr Del Sol in the mid-90s. I was an outsider
in a weird way, says ORourke. Everybody in that
Chicago scene was getting interested in minimal and
avant-garde music, and I had already been studying it for
10 years. I got side-tracked into weird music fairly young.
I had had experience of what it was like, and I was sick of it.
All of a sudden, there was this world of post-rock or
whatever, and musicians were afraid to touch songwriting.
So with my solo records, I was aiming towards how can
you use the song form, and how can you use the elements
of other music without treating them just like window
dressing, which happens a lot and is a continuous
frustration for me. People use avant-garde flavour and
just sprinkle it on top of very, very
uninteresting songs. Its sort of
like sprinkles on an ice cream
cone, just a flavour tossed on
top afterwards.
After the experimental Gastr
split in 1997, ORourke branched
out into more traditional terrain,
something a few of his existing
fans werent too happy about. I
was having a lot of bottles thrown
at me when I played that stuff
live, laughs ORourke, recalling
the furore at him going acoustic.
People were expecting me to
turn up with an electric guitar laid out on a table, and I
showed up with an acoustic guitar playing what would
become Bad Timing. And people were really, really pissed
off, like, What is this bullshit? In Holland a guy came up
and smashed my guitar with a beer bottle.
In 1999, ORourkes most explicit foray into pop, Eureka,
proved to be an unanticipated success. A bold venture
into melancholic, Technicolor pop, it mixed Beach Boys
chamber pop with Ivor Cutler covers and bossa nova
Bacharach excursions, and featured some stunning
songwriting on tracks like Ghost Ship In A Storm and
Movie On The Way Down. A follow-up EP released the
same year, Halfway To A Threeway, expanded on this
rich, refined style with the treated horns and 5/4 rhythms
of Not Sport, Martial Art, while the creepy title track
exposed more of ORourkes gallows humour (As I lay you
down on my bed/It dont matter that youre brain dead).
Today, ORourke is disparaging of his breakthrough
album, concerned that most listeners overlook the
darkness beneath its impeccably arranged surface.
Im glad that people like Eureka, he says, but to me
its a very sad record. I still meet people and theyre like,
I played it at my wedding, its so happy, and Im like, Oh
my God! People think its some happy, good-time record.
So therefore, I failed. I dont want people to be happy when
they listen to my music!
Japan was the place where Eureka was actually most
popular, he adds, cringing, and to this day there are
neo-hippies running around with flowers telling me how it
changed their life. Im like, Your life sucks, I cant believe
I had anything to do with it! It makes me so fucking
depressed. I turned you into a hippy.
Y THE TURN of the century, ORourke had also
developed a parallel career as a producer, consistently
working on excellent albums like Smogs Red Apple
Falls and US Maples self-titled debut. Jeff Tweedys passion
for Bad Timing meant ORourke was soon enlisted to
JIM OROURKE
JASON SQUIRES/WIREIMAGE
On the rollercoaster Sonic

Youth, 2004: (l-r) Steve Shelley,
Lee Ranaldo, Kim Gordon,
ORourke and Thurston Moore
perform with the Wilco frontman at Chicagos Noise Pop

festival in 2000. ORourke brought along drummer Glenn
Kotche, and the trios performance impressed Tweedy so
much that he asked Kotche to join Wilco, and invited
ORourke to salvage the messy sessions for what would
become Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The three also formed
experimental collective Loose Fur, who cut their first selftitled album in summer 2000. When Jim and Glenn and
I get in a room together, Loose Fur records just happen,
marvels Tweedy. Pure forward momentum and then
a sudden realisation that weve completed a record and
it sounds like us, and not very much like anything else.
In fact, some of the highlights of Yankee were de facto
Loose Fur tracks, with the three left alone in the studio to
strip back the over-layered recordings. The trio hit the
studio again in 2006 to record the heavier Born Again In
The USA, again in a matter of hours. On any of the things
weve done together, says Tweedy, I dont remember a
time working with Jim where Ive felt anything less than
love for, and from, him. Thats along with admiration, and
appreciation that I get to be friends with and work with
such a rare bird. A true genius. Believe it!
Jim is very good at imparting a personality on the
music, says Stereolabs Tim Gane, and thats a great
thing. Nothings covered up and thats one of the
aspects of Jim as a personality, everything is quite near
the surface. His music really speaks of his personality.
In 2000, ORourke moved to New York. There, he
picked up studio work on various Sonic Youth projects
which culminated in an invitation to join the group. It
was, he admits, a bizarre occurrence for someone who
had dismissed the bands debut, Confusion Is Sex, as
not being noisy enough back in the 80s. ORourke
brought guitar, bass and synthesiser along with his
engineering and mixing skills, staying with the band
for some of their best-loved late-period records 2000s
thorny, ambitious NYC Ghosts & Flowers, the elegiac
Murray Street (2002) and 2004s superlative Sonic Nurse.
Jim joining just seemed like the most natural thing in
the world, explains guitarist Lee Ranaldo. He was so
capable, we really loved hanging around him and
working with him. I kinda felt like we were adding our
WHEN JIM
JOINED
SONIC
YOUTH, IT
FELT LIKE
WE WERE
ADDING
OUR ENO TO
THE BAND
LEE RANALDO
Eno to the band,

that was what
I joked at one
point. Cause
he was doing
a lot of stuff
with one of
those suitcase
synthesisers
Eno used to use
with Roxy Music. I loved that period of Sonic Youth. Sonic
Nurse was maybe the culmination of our work with him.
I remember during the mixing, Jim was ill, he had the
chills and the shakes, and was sat behind the mixing
console for these crazy long endurance stretches with a
scarf around his neck and a hat pulled down. We all really
loved the way it turned out, though.
ORourke released his third solo album, Insignificance,
on September 11, 2001. Incidentally, ORourke was at Sonic
Youths Echo Canyon studio in downtown Manhattan
Fashionably loose
Jeff Tweedy, Glenn
Kotche and ORourke
of Loose Fur, 2006
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
27
JIM OROURKE
Big in Japan: Jim

ORourke in Tokyo,
with the frog cover star
of his Halfway To A
Threeway EP (above)
and these poor people had to keep playing the same

songs over again. It was just driving everyone crazy.
If I asked everyone to record it one more time, they
would have killed me and put me in a dumpster.
With Japanese studios inordinately expensive,
ORourke recorded Simple Songs in the
mountainous countryside two hours outside Tokyo.
He and his girlfriend had become good friends with
a retired dentist a keen amateur musician who
had built a two-storey wooden cabin on his land
with the aim of turning it into a home studio. He
never did, but was more than happy to host
ORourke and his band Ishibashi Eiko on
keyboards, Sudo Toshiaki on bass, drummer
Yamamoto Tatsuhisa, and Hatano Atsuko
providing strings for weeks at a time recording in
the space. After sessions, the group would head off
to the local hot springs, leaving ORourke to work
exhaustively on the mixes and production. Thats
the only reason this record was able to happen, he
explains. Because we could record there. To
record something like this in Japan, especially
when youre recording drums, you need to get far
away from people so you dont get the cops coming.
Even singing I cant do at home, because it will
BUYERS GUIDE
that morning, just a few
blocks away from the World
Trade Center. It was crazy,
is all he will say, evidently
still finding it a difficult
subject to discuss. With its
stripped-down production
and distorted guitars,
Insignificance was quite the
departure from Eureka. But
ORourkes own solo career
was soon put on hold as his
commitments to Sonic Youth
grew. Up until that point,
I only played in Europe and
Japan, ORourke says.
Because you cant tour the US with a guitar on top of
a table, going blonk, blonk, blonk. So touring with
Sonic Youth seemed like the most amazing gift and
opportunity. But you cant get off the rollercoaster as
soon as you think. A friend of mine is in another band,
and his wife has a great phrase, the golden handcuffs.
I dont mean to say I didnt enjoy my time with them, its
just that before you know it, two, three, four, five years
have passed. The world of professional music is a
machine. Youre not in control of your life anymore, the
rollercoaster doesnt stop. I really did enjoy playing with
them, I got along with all of them great but I had to get
off the rollercoaster. That kind of life wasnt for me. Not
being able to do my own things just caught up with me.
When touring for Sonic Nurse concluded, ORourke sold
all his instruments. He moved to Tokyo, where he spent two
years learning Japanese and working towards a visa. Once
settled, he made The Visitor: a 38-minute piece which he
recorded at home while his neighbours were out. He played
every instrument including the trombone which he
practised for five or six months, simply to get one short part
right. After the recording was done, he gave the instrument
away to a friends son.
YOU CANT
TOUR THE
US WITH A
GUITAR ON A
TABLE GOING
BLONK,
BLONK
JIM OROURKE
M REALLY, REALLY particular, he admits as he

attempts to explain Simple Songs six-year gestation. It
transpires that much of this period was spent training
his band to play in the manner he wanted. It took a while,
OROURKES
DRIFT
HOW TO BUY
JIMS JEWELS
BAD TIMING DRAG CITY, 1997
Four epic songs of
Fahey-esque picking, sent
into the stratosphere by
glistening electronics,
effects and instruments.
LOOSE FUR
LOOSE FUR
DRAG CITY, 2003
Tweedy and Kotche team

up with ORourke to write
and record this six-song
avant-rock album in just
16 hours. Laminated
Cat, originally demoed for Wilco, is a
pulsing highlight.
LOOSE FUR
BORN AGAIN IN THE USA
DRAG CITY, 2006
Another ten tracks from

the trio, this time faster
and louder, with
ORourke stepping
up with even more lyrics
and lead vocals. Compact and punchy,
though Wreckroom sprawls to almost
nine minutes in length.
THE VISITOR
DRAG CITY, 2009
EUREKA DRAG CITY, 1999

Arguably still his best-loved record
orchestrated and lush, Ghost Ship In
A Storm and Women Of The World
are timeless, transportative classics.
INSIGNIFICANCE DRAG CITY, 2001

ORourke rocks out, with
help from Jeff Tweedy
and Glenn Kotche. There
are weirder elements, of
course, with Life Goes
Off ending in a tidal wave of hiss.
The last of his albums to

be named in tribute to
Nicolas Roeg films (along
with Bad Timing, Eureka
and Insignificance), this
38-minute long-form instrumental
piece builds from hushed acoustic
picking to full-on orchestral grandeur.
SIMPLE SONGS
DRAG CITY, 2015
ORourke comes
closest to making his
own version of a 70s
singer-songwriter
album, with the
labyrinthine opener Friends With
Benefits and the rousing, progressive
All Your Love highlights.
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
29
JIM OROURKE
NICKY J. SIMS/REDFERNS, JIM NEWBERRY
All my projects feed back

into each other Jim
ORourke onstage in Japan
annoy people next door. The walls here are paper. Even
watching a movie late at night they may complain.
ORourke reveals that much of Simple Songs harks back
to the music of his youth he pinpoints 10cc, Cockney
Rebel and Genesis as particular favourites. The latter,
along with Peter Gabriels 70s records, are strong
influences on Simple Songs, from the complex rhythms
and electric piano on That Weekend, reminiscent of
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, to the evocation of
Gabriels solo debut on Hotel Blue. Im a Genesis
freak, admits ORourke. The Lamb Lies Down On
Broadway, thats my DNA. I must have listened to that
more than any record in my life. Everyone who plays in
the band is a Genesis freak. We keep talking about doing
a Genesis cover band, called Japanesis. Of course, I
would be Peter At other points on Simple Songs,
the spiky Last Year recalls Steely Dans jazzier
excursions into Southern rock, while the beautifully
produced, lush End Of The Road cheekily nods to
Queens Dont Stop Me Now with its having a bad time,
having a bad time refrain.
Im glad someone picked that up! ORourke exclaims.
It was hard to record that, because I would keep
laughing. It was honestly an accident, but one day I
realised, Oh, my God, its the same thing! Lyrically,
Simple Songs is a dark, cynical journey into heartbreak,
with ORourke teasing Please dont cry/I might enjoy
that on All Your Love and warning, If you were out at
sea/Theyd throw you overboard, on End Of The Road.
There are no plans to tour the album, aside from one show
in Tokyo, yet another song-based record is slowly being
developed. Theres also the tricky matter of recording
an extended piece for group and orchestra, something
ORourke has had written since 2000. I hope that one
day I could actually record it, he says. But it will take
a miracle. There is no way for me to do it, because it would
cost money I dont have the score includes full
strings, a brass section and a woodwind section.
Its kind of a nice feeling to still like something
after all this time. He pauses. Well, not like,
but it doesnt make me sick. I hear it in my head
so thats kinda like enough. I dont think anybody
would like it, anyway!
It seems unlikely, he divulges, that more majorlabel album production will be forthcoming since
record companies started asking the audiophile
ORourke to provide MP3 mixes. It was insanity,
he says. I wanted nothing to do with that work, so
I quit. Meanwhile, Tweedy happily confirms that
a new Loose Fur record is in the pipeline, while
WORK OF ART
Allor
nothing
Jim ORourke
explains the unique
covers for Eureka
and Insignificance
HE COVERS
for those two
albums are by
a lady artist, Mimiyo
Tomozawa, that Ive
known since gosh, Ive
known her for years,
from before I even made
Eureka. What became
the cover of Eureka,
honestly, if she had said
no to me using that
picture for the cover, I
wasnt going to put the
record out. Because that
was it. It had to be that.
There was no question
about it. And she had
stopped painting, she
hasnt painted in years,
and she only made
a handful of paintings
anyway. But shes
very nice, and she
liked my music.
ORourke is spending the rest of 2015

writing a commissioned piece for a new
music group. Somebody finally asked
me to write something for them, he
confirms. I dont know why I went to
college for that stuff, because it took this
long to get a commission. I finally got the
chance to write for new music groups and
I dont want to screw it up. All the different
things I do are almost like the phases of the
moon. They all feed back into each other,
in the sense that if I get sick of one thing
I go back to another thing, then it helps
me see the first thing in a different light.
Finally settled in Japan and free of the
golden handcuffs of the music industry,
Jim ORourke genuinely seems happy,
relaxed and content. During our
conversations, he merrily discusses
his first gig (Wings on their Wings Over
The World tour), his dislike of modern
mastering, and the time he worked with
Richard Thompson and Werner Herzog
on the soundtrack to Grizzly Man. That was the two
greatest days of my life. If they exist, Mr Herzogs an
angel that has been put on this earth
As happy as he now seems, though, ORourke
mischievously hopes that Simple Songs doesnt show it.
I wanted to be good, he says, I am trying. This album
is like a continuous descent. At the beginning, it sounds
like its going to be a party, but it just keeps getting more
and more depressing.
He lights another cigarette. I hope so, anyway.
Simple Songs is released by Drag City
ORourke, with a
Mimiyo Tomozawa
illustration
EMMYLOU
HARRIS &
RODNEY
CROWELL
T H E T R AV E L I N G K I N D
New album
outnow
TH E ACC L A I M E D NEW
ALBUM OU T NOW
Summons up an
exquisite
nostalgia for an
invented 60s
Uncut8/10
Excellent. The country-rock queen and her

right-hand man deliver yet again.
Q qqqq
Classic in every sense of musical
accomplishment: from their gorgeous
singing and inspiring studio performances
to their excellent choice of material.
NPR Music
CD / LP / DL
nonesuch.com
THE MAKING OF...
Hit Me
With Your
Rhythm
yt
Stick
BY
IAN DURY AND THE BLOCKHEADS
No 1 in January 1979, this smutty piece of jazz-funk wordsmithery

remains one of the best-selling UK singles: It was different, says
keyboardist Mick Gallagher. We caught the publics imagination
O COME UP with really
great, simple ideas isnt
that easy, Chaz Jankel,
co-writer of Ian Dury And
The Blockheads fifth single,
muses. But this was one
where it happened. Written
by Dury and keyboardist Jankel at the formers
Kent home, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick is
undoubtedly one of the best-loved British No 1
singles a chronically infectious funk groove
from the Blockheads topped off with pioneering
use of drum machines, a free jazz-influenced
saxophone solo and, of course, Durys masterful,
globe-spanning lyrics, at once playful and
enigmatic. Ian was a wordsmith, he was a poet,
and very unique as a character, acknowledges
guitarist John Turnbull. We were kind of the
perfect band for Ian because wed known each
other so long, playing funky stuff, Vaudeville
stuff, rocknroll and everything. It was a really
unique band with flourish, but with pedigree.
A testament to the seven-piece Blockheads
tightness and inventiveness, Hit Me was
recorded pretty much live at an epic, chaotic
session at Manfred Manns Workhouse Studio in
London, and went on to sell over a million copies.
Its still one of the 100 best-selling singles in the
UK, despite only hitting the top spot for a week.
It was different, reckons organist Mick
Gallagher of the songs success, and people
liked the smutty reference in the lyric, I think!I
dont think it was intentional,

it just happened to be that
way. We caught the publics
imagination. TOM PINNOCK
TURNBULL: He was
probably the best lyricist at
the time, and would still go
down as one of the best ever
Chaz Jankel
English lyricists. He put a lot
Piano, guitar,
of lyrics in the bin a couple of
JOHN TURNBULL: We
co-writer
times when I was round his
were on tour with Lou Reed
flat. I said with shock, What
in America, in early 78. I
John
are you doing?! And he said:
remember going through
Turnbull
Its too much!
these swing doors to a radio
Guitar
JANKEL: Ian would use me
station and we were doing a
as a conduit between him
chant. Ian was going Hit me
Mick
and the band. Particularly
with your rhythm stick, and
Gallagher
with writing, he preferred to
someone behind him was
Organ
have one co-writer, because
going Chips and beans.
it made it easier and quicker
Then Davey went, Ill have
for him to communicate. Hed
an omelette, and I went,
Davey Payne
presented me with a lyric for
Nice cuppa tea! We didnt
Saxophones
Hit Me, and it was much
know itd become a song, we
more succinct than usual,
sort of forgot about it.
just three verses and the
MICK GALLAGHER: Very
Laurie Latham
chorus. I started playing the
rarely did the music come
Producer/
keyboard riff, with him
first with Ian. In this case,
engineer
playing the drums with a
it was a lyric hed given to
drum machine alongside it
Chaz. Ian used to enjoy
[a Roland CR-78]. It wasa very nice rhythm box to
honing a lyric, then many, many drafts later,
play along with. That would be Ians timekeeper
come up with the semblance of the song. Usually,
and give him inspiration.
if you were writing with him, hed give you a verse
LAURIE LATHAM: If you look at Ians original
and a chorus, lyrically, then youd work music
lyric sheets, hes got the rhythm box settings
around that to make it work. A lot of the times, Id
written on the top, Samba, Foxtrot and stuff like
go in the studio and I wouldnt have even heard
that itd obviously been running while he was
the complete lyrics until he actually recorded it.
KEY PLAYERS
writing the stuff. It was the same little box they

used on Blondies Heart Of Glass.
JANKEL: At the time, I was enchanted by the
end of Wake Up And Make Love With Me,
the opening song on New Boots And Panties!!.
I realised what I liked so much was this little
anticipatory accent at the beginning of my piano
solo. I thought to myself, If I couple that up with
what Ive been playing with Ian the day before,
Id have an amazing riff. So the next day I went
down there, Ian had moved the piano into the
garage, so I went and sat in the garage and 25
minutes later I said, Its done. Ian said, Well,
weve got to get the Blockheads down here.
TURNBULL: As soon as wed started working
on Hit Me, everybody was very aware we
were onto something.
JANKEL: I remember politely saying to Norman
[Watt-Roy], How about a bassline thats got a
16-beat timing? I think it was influenced by Jaco
Pastorius. I know Norman was into Jaco and wed
both been to see Weather Report not long before
Hit Me was recorded. Then a couple of days
later, The Workhouse Studio was booked and we
went in and recorded it with Laurie.
LATHAM: Theyd done an awful lot of gigs and
by the time we got to record Hit Me, it was a
case of road culture moving into the studio. It was
a bit chaotic, a bit crazy, a lot of people chipping
in, but that was OK. On Hit Me the song was
so great that it transcended problems in the
studio. It was always gonna turn out pretty good.
GALLAGHER: I loved working with Laurie,

hes ace. The Blockheads are a seven-piece band,
so theres a lot of music there to deal with and it
needs a good sound engineer to separate it all
and get it all to work! For an engineer whos not
used to it, its like a huge beast coming at them!
LATHAM: It wasnt a huge room at The
Workhouse, but they were all in the room
together. Some of the instruments dont sound as
Ian was pretty

stunned to be
No 1... I dont think
he ever really set
out to be a pop star
CHAZ JANKEL
great as Id have liked them to, cos you get all the
spillage, which doesnt help us get a tight sound
for something like that, so it was hard work.
GALLAGHER: The 11 takes took a couple of
hours, by which time we were sick to death of it
and we went back and listened to the earlier ones,
to find those were the ones with more energy.
LATHAM: Wed accumulate takes, go through
them section by section and then actually edit the

24 tracks for each take. For Hit Me, we just
chose take two and that was it. Ian loved being in
the studio, he was a real grafter and he loved the
whole process of listening back to stuff endlessly,
going over section by section, so we spent an
awful lot of time listening back to stuff before
making a decision. He liked to spend a lot of time
on vocals, just getting the sound right. Whether
wed got it or not, hed always drive on, seeing if
he could improve things, and in that respect I
really agreed with his philosophy on making
records. Yeah, he could be cantankerous at times,
but he was always pretty positive.
JANKEL: Ian always wanted all the musicians
to be playing, from the first beat right to the end.
From my point of view as the composer, arranger,
I dont always like that. But on Hit Me, I think
it really works.
TURNBULL: I was using one of the first guitar
synths, an EMS Hi-Fly. Just after it goes Hit me
each time, that noise is the Hi-Fly. But after the
session, the studio was broken into and they stole
the Hi-Fly and my Boogie amp. I never found
another one of those synths. At the end of the
song, that solo was Chaz playing my guitar. He
had the idea to do that lead thing, so he played
my Les Paul Junior and just grabbed the machine
head and de-tuned the bottom E and choked it at
the end, which is what I still do today live.
LATHAM: I remember Davey phoning me and
saying that hed dreamt the solo and he wanted
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
33
DAvID CORIO/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIvES/GETTY IMAGES
The Blockheads as a sevenpiece: (l-r) Norman Watt-Roy,

Mick Gallagher, Davey Payne,
Ian Dury, Chaz Jankel, John
Turnbull and Charley Charles
IAN DURY AND THE BLOCKHEADS
GRAHAM WILTSHIRE/GETTY IMAGES
Reluctant pop
star Ian Dury
in 1979
to come down and do it in one take, because all

the notes were in his head. There was a reflective,
echoey toilet area upstairs. I put him in there
DAVEY PAYNE: In the studio Ian suggested I
play a [Rahsaan] Roland Kirk-style two saxes at
once, something I used to do, but hadnt for a long
time. My solo was done in one take tenor sax
solo first, high notes, quickly changing to siren
that was round my neck, then tenor and alto sax.
I would have liked to have done it again, but Ian
said, Thats the one. It was a performance, as I
had to swap from tenor to siren and then swing
the alto into position for the two at once. All I
needed was the sparkly jacket and my shades.
LATHAM: Theres a very strange moment on
the mix at the end of the breakdown youve got
Daveys sax breakdown and then, when it goes
back into the groove, theres almost like a hole in
the sound. Its very strange. Thats certainly
something I would have addressed now, but we
obviously thought it was all right at the time!
PAYNE: When we had Don Cherry in the band,
I once said to him that I thought my long high note
on Hit Me was a bit out of tune. Don replied,
Davey, its not out of tune, its just a different
harmony thats been my excuse ever since.
JANKEL: Ians way was to try and get his vocal
down as quickly as possible. I remember sitting in
the studio and when it got to the bit where he goes
Hit me, hit me, hit me, he was just placing it on
the beat, and I said, Hey, how about the third
one, do it a bit off balance? Part of the success
of those recordings was that they never got overfried once something started working we said,
Right, thats it, no more. I called my mum from
the studio, and said, Mum, weve just recorded
our first No 1. I just knew it. And I was right,
TIMELINE
August 1977
The more compact
early incarnation
of Ian Dury And The
Blockheads release
their debut single, Sex
No 1. I dont think he really ever

set out to be a pop star, he was
very leftfield when I met him
he was more into rockabilly and
I kind of coerced him into the
funky side of things, although
he loved James Brown. There
were very few English groups
playing funky music. If you had
a smooth singer on top of that
song it wouldnt have worked.
It needs that blunt London
delivery to counterbalance the
jazzy, funky side of it.
LATHAM: That little Roland
rhythm box was pivotal to
because two or three
Hit Me, but then it did pave the way for what
months later it went to
became the next album, Do It Yourself, where
No 1. We were on a roll,
everything got locked into a click: the beginning
wed been playing a lot of
of the end, really. It became very hard work and
colleges, there was a lot of
wasnt much fun to be on. On Do It Yourself, the
press about us in the NME
musos took over. Everybody started worrying
and Melody Maker, and it
about putting in posh chords here and there,
was because of all that
everything being tight to the click track, when
momentum it was a
really its about the overall feel and Ians brilliant
great song at the right
lyrics and the vocals. To a certain extent, I think
time, and thank God
Ian hid behind that process a bit anyway I dont
that came along.
think he had all the material and the vision for
LATHAM: A No 1 record
the record. It all became a bit of a hard process,
in those days meant youd
to be honest. We had all sorts of people, the live
sold loads of copies, too. Thursday and Friday, it
crew, everybody chipping in, and we had to get
was selling 35,000 copies a day. If you sold that
the latest in terms of keyboard technology, things
full-stop, it would probably take you to No 1 now.
like Polymoogs. It was a very hard album to do.
In the end, it did over a million copies.
JANKEL: The reason we started using clicks
TURNBULL: I remember we were sat outside
was there was a demand from the label to do a
the Kilburn Gaumont State, waiting to get the
second album, but we didnt have the material, so
gear in for a gig, and we had the radio on and it
we kind of scrambled together what we had. We
said, And now the new No 1 and it was us! So
had to go to a studio under duress. So the only
we got invited to do Top Of The Pops.
option to us was to do it with a drum machine and
GALLAGHER: We all hired suits from
build it up. And Ian wasnt happy, he didnt like
Moss Bros. Evening suits, with
the making of that album.
the white shirts and the dickie
LATHAM: In the end, Hit
bows. Ian had a silver cane and
Me is a snapshot of the band
gloves and a white scarf. I think
playing, and the song was so
the next one we did was in
good it transcended problems.
Written by: Ian Dury,
workmans overalls! We used
It was always going to be a hit,
Chaz Jankel
to enjoy dressing up a bit.
really! Obviously, Ill always
Performers: Ian Dury
TURNBULL: Kosmo Vinyl
pick up on things that dont
(vocals, rhythm box), Chaz
used to go round Soho looking
sound quite as good as I want
Jankel (piano, guitar), John
for costumes for us. He went into
them to, but in the end its the
Turnbull (guitar), Norman
a catering firm and came out
overall sort of sound and spirit
Watt-Roy (bass), Mick
with all these aprons and tunics
thats the important thing. It
Gallagher (organ), Davey
and the waiters jackets. We got
turned out OK, I think!
Payne (saxophone), Charley
real police uniforms and did I
JANKEL: Its exhilarating to
Charles (drums)
Wanna Be Straight on Top Of
play. Its almost an ethereal
Producer: Laurie Latham
The Pops like that! I dont know
experience, like you levitate
Recorded at: The
if I should tell you, but after the
when youre playing it, sort of
Workhouse, London
session for that, Mickey was
joyful. The songs evolved over
Released: Nov 23, 1978, Stiff
going up to Wessex Studios to
the years, and now Norman has
UK chart peak: 1
do some of The Clashs album
a bass solo in it. We play it as the
[London Calling], so we kept the
climax of our set and it just feels
uniforms on and broke into the
like the jewel in the crown.
studio, pretending it was a bust! The roadies
fell for it and I think Mick Jones did, too, but
Ian Dury And The Blockheads albums have
Strummer looked at me and Davey and went:
been reissued by Edsel. The Blockheads tour
Youre too short to be coppers!
this summer, and are raising money for band doc
JANKEL: I think Ian was pretty stunned to be
Beyond The Call Of Duty visit kck.st/1H1negP
FACT FILE
& Drugs & Rock & Roll

September 30, 1977
Debut album New
Boots And Panties!! is
released, reaching
No 5 in the UK
April 1978
The band support
Lou Reed on a tour
of the US
January 1979
Hit Me With Your
Rhythm Stick reaches

No 1 in the UK singles
chart, and at the last
count was the UKs
90th best-selling single
of all time
B E F O R E
T H I S
WO R L D
J A M E S
T A Y L O R
HIS FIRST ALBUM
OF ORIGINAL
M AT E R I A L I N
13 YEARS
OUT JUNE 15TH

reminiscent of Taylors most enduring work from the 1970s.
ROLLING STONE
THE ROLLING STONES
We were
our own
funky
band...
Adventures in Muscle Shoals
and Stargroves. Backstage
ghts at the Marquee Club.
Andy Warhol and the Goddess
Kali. A derelict riding school
in Regents Park. And one of
the crowning glories of the
ROLLING STONES catalogue...
As Sticky Fingers is treated to an
expansive reissue, key players
not least an unusually
forthcoming MICK JAGGER
reveal the dirty secrets of
a classic album... Its more
grist for the mill, isnt it?
Story: Michael Bonner | Photograph: Peter Webb
Smoking hot: The

Rolling Stones in
Regents Park,
London, July 1969
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
37
Yeah, a lot of good

music Mick Jagger
in July 1969
I
PETER WEBB
feel very busy today, planning and

songwriting, explains Mick Jagger.
Its a bit full on. But we were very busy as a band then. It is late March 2015, and
Jagger is currently reflecting on the circumstances leading up to the recording of
Sticky Fingers, The Rolling Stones ninth studio album. To gauge exactly how busy
The Rolling Stones were then roughly, a 14-month period from December 1969
to April 1971 it is instructive to look at the bands schedule. It included the concert at
Altamont Speedway, a court case, a European tour, a live album, the birth of two children, the
release of three films, leaving their record label, launching another, severing ties with their
manager, a new logo, anti-heroin aversion therapy, a run of British dates, a holiday in the
Bahamas and the entire bands relocation to the South of France. In between such felicitous
engagements, however, The Rolling Stones somehow found the time to record Sticky Fingers:
some of it on the hoof at Muscle Shoals in Alabama, much of it at their beloved Olympic
Studios in leafy Barnes, West London, with additional sessions recorded by the new Rolling
Stones Mobile Studio at Stargroves, Jaggers august country estate near Newbury, Berkshire.
Yeah, a lot of good music, acknowledges Jagger. Very quickly made and lots of fun to do.
And with really great musicians and good production team. And it was very successful. So,
yeah, I was very proud of this album.
Such was the nature of the Stones enterprise during this period, that there is a certain
mercurial quality to their working practices. The oldest song on Sticky Fingers dates from a
time when Brian Jones was still in the band; another was composed by Jagger in the middle
of a field in Australia; a third reportedly began life as a ballad for Keith Richards son, Marlon.
Thats what we did in those days, just recorded, Charlie Watts explained to Uncut in 2010.
It kept you busy and out of trouble, and it was stuff you could use later. Certainly, songs that
appeared on Sticky Fingers were first recorded alongside tracks for Let It Bleed at one end of
the calendar and Exile On Main Street at the other. That always happens with their albums,
Chris Kimsey, the Stones long-serving engineer, confirms to Uncut. Later, when I engineered
Some Girls and then later on when I was co-producing with

them for Tattoo You and Emotional Rescue, there were always
tracks left over that popped up later. A similar thing
happened with Sticky Fingers.
In keeping with its complicated provenance, Sticky Fingers
was very much a transitional album for The Rolling Stones.
Principally, it was the first Stones album to feature Mick
Taylor as an official member of the band. Today, Jagger
speaks warmly of Taylors contribution to the album. He
was really easy to work with, he discloses. He plays
really well on it. For his part, Chris Kimsey cites Taylors
incredible musicality. His style and depth of playing was
so different to Keiths, in a really good way. The whole thing
worked really, really well. Writing in his autobiography,
Life, Keith Richards explained that with Taylors arrival the
music changed almost unconsciously. You write with Mick
Taylor in mind, maybe without realising it, knowing he can
come up with something different. Indeed, today Jagger is
quick to praise Taylors contribution to songs like Sway
Mick takes the guitar off with the solos at the end as well
as You Gotta Move, the seven-minute Latin rock excursion
of Cant You Hear Me Knocking, and Moonlight Mile, the
albums remarkable closing track. Its me and Mick Taylor,
just goofing to start with, but then it starts to pick up, says
Jagger. Of Jagger himself, Richards was commendably
generous in Life towards his songwriting partners work on
Sticky Fingers. Mick can write! He noted admiringly. Its
unbelievable how prolific he was. Sometimes youd wonder
how to turn the fucking tap off. The odd times he would come
THE ROLLING STONES
Good
things can
happen
when
youre not
thinking
aboutthem
MICK JAGGER
with their business manager, Allen Klein. In March 1971,

they played a farewell tour of Great Britain; their first UK
tour since 1966. Within days of a final show, at the Marquee,
they were on their way to France. By the time Sticky Fingers
was released on April 23, 1971, the band were enjoying an
upswing in their career, embracing Loewensteins discreet
financial management, a profitable arrangement with
Atlantic Records and the arrival of Marshall Chess to
administer their new label, Rolling Stones Records.
Evidently, the message was strong. Released with its Warholdesigned zipper sleeve, Sticky Fingers was the first Stones
album to reach No 1 in both the UK and America, while the
lead single, Brown Sugar, gave them their sixth US No 1.
With a deluxe edition of Sticky Fingers imminent, Mick
Jagger takes us behind the scenes of this classic Stones
record. There are cameos from Ry Cooder and Eric Clapton,
the benefits of big rooms are discussed along with
Spanish censorship laws, Indian goddesses and the sheer
unpredictable brilliance of The Rolling Stones at the peak
of their powers. Sometimes good things happen when
youre not thinking about them, Jagger says.
UNCUT: Where were you as a band before Sticky Fingers
came out?
MICK JAGGER: Let It Bleed had a lot of really good songs on
it. Its one of my favourite albums. And some of this [Sticky
IN THE GROOVE
THERE WERE
NO SET RULES
Engineer CHRIS KIMSEY
recalls sessions for Sticky
Fingers at Olympic Studios
hen The Rolling

Stones walked into
the studio for the first
time, I called security. I didnt know
who these blokes were! I was more
into film music and musicals than
rock. But I first worked with the
Stones on Get Yer Ya Yas Out!. Then
I was Glyn Johns assistant on the
Sticky Fingers sessions at Olympic.
Olympic had a unique sound.
Chris Kimsey in
Although it was a big room, there was
the studio, 1967
quite a warm and cosy sound, and also
space where you could set up the
playing, which was exceptional.
whole band in a line. They werent all
Keith and Bobby Keys had a joint
separated in little booths. With Sticky
birthday party at Olympic. I remember
Fingers, I was quite amazed how laidAl Kooper and Eric Clapton being there.
back it was, disorganised and organised
I recorded this Brown Sugar jam that
at the same time. They started at 7pm
went on for 15 minutes. Alan ODuffy,
and finished about 2 or 3am. That said,
who was booked to engineer the
the Stones didnt get there at 7pm. Glyn
session, fancied a bit of this lovely
used to get quite impatient when they
birthday cake that was going around. It
wouldnt turn up until 9 or 10. But when
was hash cake. 15 minutes later he was
they did get there, it was straight in.
gone, so I had to engineer that evenings
There was a period of jamming, to find
session. It was quite terrifying. We
the feel and direction for a song. It
recorded this extended version of
started with someone showing the song
Brown Sugar.
on chords not many
Everyone was playing
chords then Charlie
live, like a big club. I
finding a beat for it.
remember George
It was like a gig in the
Harrison turning up too.
studio. Mick always
As a rule, it was a
sang with the band. I
closed studio. Marshall
continued that with all
Chess came down a
the work with them
few times, or other
afterwards, in Paris, in
musicians occasionally,
Nassau, wherever we
CHRIS KIMSEY
but I dont remember
were. It was very much
any wives or girlfriends.
the band playing live
That changed at the Path Marconi
and learning the song in the studio.
sessions [for Some Girls] there might be
They never came into the control room,
10 or 15 friends hanging about.
though occasionally, Mick and Keith
Jimmy Miller was fantastic. He was
would come in to hear takes.
a tall man, like a lion with his mane of hair,
There were never many takes.
and an exceptional drummer. When he
Between one and four, Id say. Mick
heard something working between the
is very much a catalyst for getting
drums, bass and guitar he would let
everyone going and on the job. Hes a
them know immediately. I remember
bit like the headmaster in that respect,
him rocking backwards and forwards in
pushing people along. There was no set
the producers chair, in the groove. If he
rules about who was going to play what
wasnt rocking backwards and forwards,
and how you were going to play it.
you knew there was something wrong.
Every song on Sticky Fingers has
I remember, there was always this
great depth and musicality. Thats where
energy when the Stones were in the
Mick Taylor shone. He was like a classical
studio. Something would get done.
impresario. I remember Cant You Hear
Me Knocking. That was all one take.
For more on Chris Kimseys projects, visit
There were a few takes, but that one got
chriskimsey.com; find out more about
the greenlight because of the jam at the
Olympic Studios at olympiccinema.co.uk
end, and where it went with Micks
Mick was a
bit like the
headmaster,
pushing people
along...
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
39
COURTESY OF CHRIS KIMSKEY
out with so many lyrics, youre crowding the airwaves, boy.

Im not complaining. Its a beautiful thing to be able to do.
Sticky Fingers also saw the arrival of some soon-to-be
familiar faces Texans Bobby Keys and Jim Price brought
horns and complimentary vibes as well as the return of
a few old friends. Jimmy Miller, whod produced Beggars
Banquet and Let It Bleed, once again assumed production
duties, assisted by the Stones long-serving engineer Glyn
Johns and newcomer Chris Kimsey. Speaking to Uncut in
2011, Johns remembered, Jimmy had a subtle effect on
what they were doing, but really and truly Mick and Keith
produced The Rolling
Stones and always did.
Behind the scenes, the
bands circumstances were
changing, too. At Jaggers
invitation, Prince Rupert
Loewenstein, from private
bank Leopold Joseph, had
examined the bands
finances and advised Jagger
to relocate the Stones from
the UK to escape swingeing
taxes. In July 1970, the band
informed their record
company, Decca, that they
were leaving the label and
simultaneously severed ties
crowded rooms. But great things came out of there. It

was fun while youre on tour to suddenly jump in and
do this. I doubt if we were there three days.
New boy Mick Taylor

onstage at the Stones
free Hyde Park concert,
July 5, 1969
Brown Sugar is a strong opening track.

It was good to open the album with a fast tune. It was
a big hit at the time. I remember I heard it on the radio
first on the radio in the South of France and I thought,
That sounds really good. I was looking at the tracks
and I thought, Theres an awful lot of slow numbers on
it and this isnt one of them. So, its a good kick-off.
Mick Taylors guitar playing is great on Sway.
Yeah, its just me and Mick and Bill and Charlie.
Keith was not there or we did it before he arrived in the
studio. It was done at Olympic. I had this tune and
knocked it out really quickly. It was a good touch to
put strings. They were booked for Moonlight Mile
but we chucked them on this, as well. It added a little
bit more texture.
What was Mick like to work with?
Really easy. I would jam something on the guitar and
he would pick up on it really quickly. We probably
cut this track just a couple of times. Weve done
this onstage recently where hes played elongated
solos, very lyrical stuff. Yeah, its really good.
Fingers] wed played around with in the Let It

Bleed sessions. We recorded a lot at that time
in Olympic in London.
PETER SANDERS/REDFERNS
Where was Sticky Fingers actually

recorded?
We recorded three tracks in Muscle Shoals,
three in Olympic, three in my house in the
country with our mobile studio, and one was
already recorded, so its songs from all over. We
went for a visit because we were doing a gig near
there. It was a fashionable place to go. Muscle Shoals
was a lovely place, but for a band it was just another
studio. It was a place you go if you were, like, Aretha
Franklin, to go and play with this funky band they got
together there. But we didnt need the funky band
kind of thing. We were our own funky band.
Did Wild Horses start off as a lullaby for

Keiths son?
I remember Keith playing me the chorus, but that
was it. Then we worked it up into the tune that it is
now, I cant remember if it started off as a lullaby.
But its a really lovely tune, much covered by people.
Lots of women have done it.
You dont often hear Mick Jagger sound
vulnerable, do you
The vulnerability! Well, thats what youve got to
do with these kind of tunes. Youve got to emote it,
otherwise its meaningless. When I wrote those verses
I was feeling vulnerable, so you take it up. As a singer
or an actor, you have to be able to forget, I feel really
happy today, Ive had these great things happen to me,
won on the horses or something. But then when you get
down to doing it, you just do it. You get right into it. When
you do things over and over, you can lose the emotion of
it because it comes a bit by rote. The quicker you get them
done, the probably better they are, these kind of tunes,
cause if you do them to death, it can sound a bit funny
and stilted.
How long were you at Muscle Shoals for?

A few days. The songs were already written but
they needed rounding off. We did a version of
Brown Sugar in Olympic and Eric Clapton played
on that. I wrote that in Australia when I was filming
Ned Kelly. I wrote it in the middle of a field. I had
an electric guitar through headphones. Keith and
I had written Wild Horses, and I was finishing
off verses for it.
What do you remember about recording at
Muscle Shoals?
I think it was special because the band there was
really special. It was a bit small. I like big rooms. I
dont know why, I just dont like being in small,
Cant You Hear Me Knocking couldnt be any more

different to Wild Horses.
We did this in Olympic and the jam at the end was an
afterthought. It comes in two pieces, this rock song with
this added jam. Its slightly Carlos Santana-like. Mick
A STICKY FINGERS TIMELINE

February/March, 1969:
The Stones demo Sister
Morphine at Olympic
Studios, London
July/September, 1969:
Jagger writes Brown
Sugar while filming Ned
Kelly in Australia
May 31, 1969: Mick

Taylors first session.
Live With Me, Olympic
November 7, 1969: The

Stones first American
tour in three years opens
at Colorado State
University, Fort Collins,
Colorado
July 5, 1969: The Rolling

Stones play Hyde Park
December 2 -4, 1969: The

Stones record Brown
Sugar, Wild Horses
and You Gotta Move
at Muscle Shoals
Studio, Alabama
December 5, 1969:
Let It Bleed is released
in the UK (November 29
in the US)
December 6, 1969:
Altamont Speedway Free
Festival, California
January February,
1970: Sticky Fingers
sessions begin at Olympic
and Trident
March May, 1970:
Sessions at Olympic and
Stargroves: You Gotta

Move, Cocksucker
Blues, Brown Sugar,
I Got The Blues,
Tumbling Dice,
Dead Flowers
June 16 July 27, 1970:
Olympic. Cant You Hear
Me Knocking, All Down
(continues...)
The Line,
THE ROLLING STONES
WHAT HAPPENED
TO YOUR GREAT IDEA
ABOUT THE BOAT..?
Photographer PETER WEBB on the Sticky Fingers photo shoot
WAS INTRODUCED TO
The Rolling Stones by
David Puttnam, who was
then a photographers agent. He
said, These friends of mine are
looking into doing some shots for
their new album. Theyre called
The Rolling Stones. I went to a
meeting with Mick Jagger in the
Stones office on Maddox Street,
W1. I pitched a bizarre idea to
Mick. It was going to be a
Surrealist Henley boating party.
The Stones would be at the oars of
a Victorian scull, with maybe Mick
as the cox. Theyd be dressed in
Victorian rowing costumes, but
the backdrop wouldnt be the
river, it would be in a Victorian
photography studio and the
backdrop would be a painting of
Henley Regatta. The oars would
be mops on the studio floor.
Unfortunately, while I was pitching
my wonderful idea, Mick was
yawning. Then he said by way of
I thought dismissal, Why dont
you go and pitch it to Charlie? Hes
into art. Charlies response was

not overly enthusiastic, so I left
thinking, Ive screwed up here.
Theyll probably go to someone
else. But I found out the original
shoot day was still there. So I
thought they hated my idea but
still wanted me to shoot them. I
Mick was
yawning...
Ive never seen so
many yawns!
PETER WEBB
decided to do a portrait session
instead and built a backdrop.
By this time, Id stumbled upon
a derelict riding school in Regents
Park. I converted it into my studio.
The day of the shoot, the Stones
arrived and I put them straight on
the backdrop. Id built the
equivalent of a sailcloth cove out

of hardboard. The bottom part
was nailed over a wooden floor
from a previous set, and then
curved up. So theyre standing on
this massive, slightly over-scaled
backdrop. They look pretty upset
and disappointed. Then Mick says,
So, listen, what happened to your
great idea about the boat? Im
still embarrassed to say that I
hadnt told them that Id dropped
the original idea Id pitched them.
Ive got the Hasselblad, Ive got
the assistants running around and
banging off colour, black and
white, different group shots. Then
we went to the upstairs studio for
individual portraits. Or as Charlie
said, Oh, great. Passports now,
is it? I spent more time with Mick
and Keith, because I knew more
who they were visually, but also
because Keith was wearing this
extraordinary, brilliant outfit.
Mick was wearing this hat. At one
point I said, Could I do a portrait
without the Irish cap? He had to
Sticky Fingers: The Lost Session

opens at Snap Gallery, London on
July 13; visit snapgalleries.com
Sticky Fingers: The Lost Session
Photographs By Peter Webb,
contains Peter Webbs complete
surviving archive of photos from
his Sticky Fingers shoot, and a
5,000-word essay from Peter with
the story behind the shoot. It is
published by Ormond Yard
Press in a strictly limited edition
of just 500 copies worldwide,
each one signed by Peter
Webb. This ultra-largeformat book
measures 18 x 24
inches/45 x 60cm
when closed, and
is supplied in a
custom slipcase.
It costs 395
and can be
purchased
from Snap
Galleries at
snapgalleries.
com/oyp
41
JULY52015555UNCUT555
PETER5WEBB
EYEWITNESS!
go into this little loo and fix his hair

with a comb! But by that time it
was convivial, put it that way. In
fact, they were extremely helpful
and professional.
We were using a plate camera
so it was almost like a Victorian
portrait session. The focus was so
tight I had a light stand with a little
rod and the rod was against the
back of the head. If you could feel
the rod, that meant your eyes
were in focus. Right in the middle
of Mick being photographed with
and without his cap, hes yawning.
Ive never seen so many yawns!
I thought I was doing the cover
for a new album. I did a beautiful
presentation of prints group
shots, portrait. I didnt even know
the album was going to appear.
One day, somebody said, Oh, its
called Sticky Fingers. Its got a
zipper on. My pictures nowhere
to be seen on the cover. The inside
sleeve had the band shot with
Mick yawning. I didnt
even have my name on
it. It was credited to my
friend Craig Braun, who
worked with Warhol.
I had forwarded my
colour shots to the
Stones office. I never
saw them again, and
thought they were lost
forever. 38 years later,
Im in Herefordshire on
a ladder, trying to fix a
barn roof, and my
brother-in-law calls me
to say hes found an
unmarked bag of negatives
THE ROLLING STONES

Taylor plays a little bit of that style, I
think. I dont think we meant that, but
somehow it added on and I think this was
done really quickly, too. I remember very
clearly doing it. Its very high for me, and I
remember saying, Oh, this is not really my
key, but Ill try. I did lots of harmonies to
hide the fact I didnt really hit the notes that
great in the chorus. I remember we did a
couple of takes of the jam. We even stopped
at one point, broke it down, then redid the
ending. I think this tracks really interesting.
Wed never done anything else like it since.
To do this long jam and tempo change, its
Bitch was one of the first tracks that

you worked on at Stargroves with the
Rolling Stones Mobile. It really captures
you and Keith.
Yeah, yeah, I think so. Its a guitar song but
its also somewhat dependent on the horn
lines. Theres a very heavy horn line on it.
There was an upstairs apartment in my
house and we put them up there. I dont
know why, but there they were and they did
the part over and over. I think this really
rocks, in its original version. We do it on
stage a lot. I think it was the B-side of
Brown Sugar. I did a version of it with the
Foo Fighters on stage, once. That was quite
funny. It was a really good version.
NO ME OYES
LLAMAR?*
The Spanish cover
revealed!
S
Wild Horses inspiration
Marlon with his dad Keith
Richards at Amsterdam
airport, October 1970
GIJSBERT HANEKROOT/REDFERNS
kind of interesting. But I was slightly ambivalent about doing

it, I guess cause I dont do anything for the last five minutes.
I think Ill go offstage now and relax But its a good tune
to play. Bobby Keys gets the first solo he does really well,
much imitated licks in there. Then Mick gets the second half.
When did you first hear You Gotta Move?
On a Fred McDowell record. We used to mess around doing it
in rehearsals or in a hotel room or something like that and we
decided to record it. Mick Taylor plays this crying slide guitar
on it and Charlie plays this very strange drum pattern. Keith
plays a 12-string, which he doesnt do very much. This sort of
stuff is very hard to recreate. Fred McDowells version is full
of emotion. But I think we managed to pull it off on this
occasion. I wouldnt say that every occasion [laughs]. You
make it your own. All the lines are very similar to Fred
McDowells lines but we put something else into it. We used
to do it quite a lot onstage. We havent done it for a long while,
so maybe well revive it.
PANISH STONES
fans might have had
a surprise when
copies of Sticky Fingers
appeared in the racks of
their local record shops.
The sleeve for which
Warhol had reputedly
been paid 15,000 had
fallen foul of censorship
laws. Instead of the
famous zipper design,
Spanish fans were treated
to new artwork featuring
three (sticky) fingers
emerging from a freshly
opened can of Fowlers
West India Treacle, a tin
opener lying next to it.
Evidently, Francos regime
also disproved of the
track-listing: for this
release on Hispavox,
Sister Morphine was
replaced by the bands live
cover of Chuck Berrys
Let It Rock: originally a
B-side of Brown Sugar.
Mint copies of the original
Spanish pressing sell on
eBay for up to 100.
*Cant You Hear Me Knocking
I Got The Blues is another great Bobby Keys track.

Youve also got Jim Price on there, and Billy Preston
on the organ.
We did it in Olympic. Its really slow. The thing is that its so
slow and sometimes, when you get really slow tunes like
this, its hard to keep the tempo. Were that kind of band. We
always speed up things. But this one holds the tempo. Its
kind of wrenching. You can only get that by doing it really
slow and this one comes off. Its not an easy number to do
when weve done it onstage Ive always found it quite tricky.
Is that because of the pace?
Theres the pace. It tends to speed up onstage. Its hard to
keep it on the tempo and its quite hard to sing. Its all right
in the studio but when you get out there you scrub and its
noticeable. But its a good tune to do and it would be good to
do it once or twice. I wouldnt want to do it every night, to be
honest [laughs]. Its in the style of Otis Redding. He did tunes
super-fast but he used to do these super-slow ballads, too.
How did you get the other musicians involved? Was it
a case of calling them up?
We had the band that we were on tour with for the ones we
did at Muscle Shoals. In the sessions at Olympic we had
Bobby Keys and Jim Price. We had Billy as well on these
dates, we didnt call him up just to do the one tune. Some
of these tunes we did when Mick Taylor wasnt in the band.
I think we were either touring or we were doing the long
recording sessions, months long.
Wasnt Sister Morphine recorded earlier than the
other tracks?
Yeah. We were in Olympic and Ry Cooder guested on a couple
of tracks with us. I was messing around with this. I wrote the
tune really quickly; I never thought we were gonna ever
release it. In fact, we didnt release it until much, much later.
It was sitting around for a few years. I dont know why. Maybe
we hadnt done any vocals. Quite often thats what happens.
Theres no vocals, or theres little bits of vocals, and its not
finished and you put it to one side. I probably dug it out and
TIMELINE CONTINUED...
Sweet Virginia,
Shine A Light
August 30, 1970:
European tour begins
at Baltiska Hallen,
Malm, Sweden
September 4, 1970:
Get Yer Ya Yas Out!
is released
October 17-31, 1970:

Stargroves. Bitch,
Tumbling Dice,
Sweet Black Angel,
Moonlight Mile, Hide
Your Love, Sway,
All Down The Line,
Sweet Virginia
December 18, 1970:
Olympic. Brown
Sugar with Eric Clapton

and Al Kooper
December 1970
January 1971: Overdubs/
mixing for Sticky Fingers
at Olympic
March 4-14, 1971: The
Farewell tour begins in
Newcastle; they play the
Marquee on March 26
April 1-3, 1971: The band
leave England for France
April 6, 1971: Launch
Rolling Stones Records
at a party in Cannes
April 23, 1971: Sticky
Fingers released
Sources: www.nzentgraf.de/books/tcw/works1.htm
www.timeisonourside.com/
COUNTRY HONK
CROMWELL!
LED ZEPPELIN!
DOCTOR WHO!
The history of
Stargroves, Jaggers
country estate
A property on the site
is recorded in 1428 as
having been owned by
one John Stargrove
Oliver Cromwell
stopped at Stargroves
on October 27, 1644,
following the second
Battle Of Newbury
Exiles on Main Street: Mick Jagger,

Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Bill
Wyman and Mick Taylor at a Stones
press conference in Hamburg,
Germany, September 13, 1970
finished it. This was dropped from the Spanish Sticky

Fingers, which also had a different cover cause in those days
Spain was very subject to censorship. But Ry, he creates these
great moods with his slide guitar style. Ry taught the rest of
the band how to play in different tunings, and subsequently
we used these different tunings on other numbers, like
Brown Sugar and Sway. He was involved with me when
I made Performance. I think thats how he was in London.
Tell us about Dead Flowers.
Its a sort of joke. Yeah, its probably a down lyric but its done
in an upbeat way; a vulnerable lyric done in an invulnerable
way [laughs]. Its a pretty straight country tune. I wrote it very
quickly. It proved to be a staple cause we still do this tune,
and lots of people have covered this too,
mostly country people. Mick Taylor, he
sounds like a real old country player, with all
these pulls and things. I like doing it really
fast. The rest of the band always complain
its too fast, but thats the way I like doing it.
Where did it come from?
I think some girl sent me a bunch of dead
flowers, so I thought that was a good line.
No, of course not. Its a very good mood creator. A lot of these
tunes have a specific mood or an attitude, each one different
and/or appropriate for the song. So Sister Morphine has
this very doomy mood, Wild Horses is very emotional. Yet
somehow theyre together. They all hold up. Theres no filler
in it. Its compact enough to be listenable and each track is
different. Maybe thats why you dont get bored.
Jagger bought the

estate in 1970 for
55,000, selling it
in 1979 for 200,000
Chris Kimsey recalls
seeing the Stones record
Who decided on the sequencing? Was it you, or

a collective band decision?
Maybe sometimes the producer has a bit of input into that,
too. Its a lot of trial and error. In those days it was much
more difficult to do than now. Not that difficult, but I just
cut all the song titles out on slips of paper and throw
them in the air and see what happens
sometimes. Keith and I used to do this
stuff together, sometimes with a producer
Stargroves
or whoever was there on the day. Its like a
stage show. But the thing that surprised
Moonlight Mile at the
me about this album, its got lots of slow
house. You could hear the
tunes, so its quite hard to programme. In
ambience of the room,
those days you had two sides. Now, of
which was quite beautiful.
course, if you want to listen to it in order, you
dont have to turn it over. So, the tracks
Led Zeppelin recorded
Brown Sugar through You Gotta Move,
there in 1972. Engineer
thats okay and then you start again with a
Eddie Kramer: It was
fast number and end with a slow one, cause
unfurnished, but Jaggers
youve got so many slowies, its ridiculous. I
bedroom was done up.
mean, Side Two is kind of slow and down,
I think that was where
apart from the first number. So its kind of
Pagey was sleeping
odd. But it was in two parts. So you had a
break when you turned it over. You didnt
Two Tom Baker-era
listen to it all at once. Now, if you did 10 songs, Id say one
Doctor Who stories were
ballads enough cause I get really bored with them. But when
filmed at Stargroves:
you look at this, you have four or whatever it is.
There
are so
many slow
songs
on Sticky
Fingers, its
ridiculous!
Moonlight Mile was part of the

sessions at your house.
Yes, it was. I dont know how much Id really
written of this before I started doing it. Its
obviously really worked out and not a jam.
Its got this vaguely Oriental guitar line. I
dont really know what Im doing sometimes
on the guitar, so I do things that are different because I dont
know what I should be doing. I started picking it out on
acoustic guitar and Mick followed me. Jim Price plays these
strange timed piano lines which create atmosphere, and
Charlie plays the drums with the mallets, so it gives it this
other texture. And the lyric is quite wistful. Then we added
the strings with Paul Buckmaster. It starts off acoustic and
ends up with quite a big orchestra, so its unusual. I always
like this piece, but weve rarely done it onstage. But we
rehearse it a lot. In fact, every time we rehearse. Ive been
playing electric on it cause its quite hard to do in acoustic. I
rarely listen to it, but I do when we rehearse to see what we all
did. Its like, Wow, thats pretty good.
It sounds like a finale; but when you recorded it, you
werent thinking, Oh, this would be a good closer?
Jimmy Miller had produced Beggars Banquet and Let It

Bleed. What did he bring to the Stones sound?
Apart from the sound and helping to pick things, he was very
good on tempo. He was a drummer at heart. When you have
a new song, quite often you dont really know the optimum
tempo of it, and he was very useful with that.
What was it like having the band, engineers and
equipment recording at your house?
It was nice. Its a massive house. Dont think of it as a
suburban front room. It has this big hall with a high ceiling,
which was my optimum kind of room. There was plenty of
Pyramids Of Mars and

Image Of The Fendahl
Facilities include a lake,
tennis court, stabling,
12 bedrooms and six
reception rooms
Rod Stewart bought
Stargroves in 1998
The property was on the
market in 2012 for 15m
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
43
K & K ULF KRUGER OHG/REDFERNS; DAVID HARTLEY/REX_SHUTTERSTOCK
MICK JAGGER
THE ROLLING STONES

room for us to sleep. We worked all the time. I quite
like working houses. Though you dont get people
dropping by, like in studios, when unexpected
things happen. But the good thing was it was very
self-contained and it was easy.
Its your house. You can get up in the middle of
the night, if youve got an idea.
Yeah.
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
Was it like that?

We just worked for hours and probably really late,
yeah. And youre there all the time. As you say, youre
constantly interacting. So, I think thats the advisor for
recording in one place. Im not mad about doing that a
lot, because you cant get away from it. It becomes a bit
overwhelming. But for short spells it works, yeah.
Andy Warhol created the cover for Sticky Fingers.
I just asked Andy, who I was friends with, if he would be
interested in doing a cover. The covers got nothing to do
with the title. He came up with the idea of having a real zip
on a pair of jeans and got the nice fold-out sleeve with the
inside underwear. It had all kinds of production problems
cause putting a zip on a piece of cardboard is tricky. And
the record would get ruined because when you had piles
of them, the weight pressed the zip down and ruined the
vinyl. It was controversial at the time. It was by a wellknown artist with a 3D tactile element, and its vaguely
homoerotic. But if you think about it, its not that sexual.
Its sexual,
but its not
shocking. Its
a good piece
of art, rather
than just being
controversial
for the sake
of it. I cant
remember the
male model
who did it.
We worked all the

time Jagger in 1970
Marshall
Chess in the
early 70s
Did you mind that people thought it was you?

I dont mind. Its more grist for the mill, isnt it?
MOBILE HOME
THE ROLLING
TRUCK STONES
THING
HE ROLLING
STONES Mobile
Studio was first
used during Sticky
Fingers sessions at
Stargroves, managed by
Ian Stewart, with Glyn
Johns as consultant
engineer. It was
immortalised in Smoke
On Water We ended
up at the Grand Hotel/It
was empty cold and bare/
But with the Rolling truck
Stones thing just outside/
Making our music there
and also appeared in
Frank Zappas 200 Motels
film. The studio remained
operational until April
1993, and resides at the
National Music Centre in
Calgary, Canada. Heres
10 albums recorded by
the Mighty Mobile
Led Zeppelin, IV (1971)
The Rolling Stones,
Exile On Main St (1972)
Horslips, Happy To
Meet, Sorry To Part (1972)
Family, Its Only A
Movie (1973)
Deep Purple,
Machine Head (1972)
Fleetwood Mac,
Penguin (1973)
Bob Marley And The
Wailers, Live At The
Lyceum (1975)
Simple Minds,
Empires & Dance (1980)
Dire Straits,
Alchemy (1984)
Iron Maiden,
No Prayer For The
Dying (1990)
It was also the first record to come out on

Rolling Stones Records.
Yeah, with the imprint of Atlantic.
Marshall Chess became involved, didnt he?
Yeah, he was involved with it. He was doing promotion for it
and stuff. He came to London and I asked him if he wanted
the job, I think its as simple as that. Those days people were
really things were very free and easy, but he was good. At
that moment, he was really functioning and really good.
Why was it important for you to have Rolling
Stones Records?
It was nice vanity thing and we thought we might do
something with it, but we never really did. It never really
progressed very much. But it was nice to have your own
imprint rather than someone elses.
It was the first record with that logo.
Yes, the tongue logo. That was designed by John Pasche.
It became very quickly identifiable with us. I dont think
bands really had logos before then.
I assumed it was just based on you.
A bit. I got the idea from this corner shop. It was run by an
Indian guy and he had a calendar with the goddess Kali on
it. Kali has a disembodied tongue and I thought it was a very
striking image. I said to John, can you do a modernised
version of the disembodied tongue, and thats what he did.
Do you have a favourite track on the album?
Brown Sugar and Moonlight Mile, first and last.
Brown Sugar is such a live staple. Do you still enjoy it?
Oh, yeah, I still enjoy singing it. And I like to sing Moonlight
Mile as well, so maybe I should really do that. But Im
always slightly worried about doing it in a stadium. It seems
to be a bit difficult in a stadium.
It was such a vibrant time for the Stones. Then you went
off and did Exile On Main Street.
Yeah. Why? We should have been out touring this album.
You should have had a rest.
Yeah, its crackers.
Where do you stand on Sticky Fingers now?
I have never listened to it, probably since the playback
sessions. And then you went on to the next album. I never
listen to them again. I mean, Im not saying I dont hear the
tracks, but as an album, as a piece, as a whole piece of work.
But youre still happy with it?
No, Ive got to change the running order [laughs].
Sticky Fingers is released via Universal Music on June 8
You gotta move: The

Rolling Stones at
Londons Marquee,
March 26, 1971
HOT SMOKY
AND CRAMMED
Journalist and later, the Stones PR KEITH
ALTHAM remembers the bands 1971 UK tour
T WAS CURRENT at that

time among accountants to
advise their artists that if
they were earning huge amounts
of money, they should leave the
country for a year to avoid tax. It
proved to be an absolute fallacy
later, but thats what the Stones
were up to. To be fair to the
Stones, like most bands in the
60s, theyd been exploited by
labels and management. That
meant they had to look to making
themselves solvent again. Mick
and Keith were doing OK through
royalties, but the only money
Charlie and Bill and Brian
were getting was coming in from
live performance.
So they decided to leave for
France, and before they left they
played a small farewell tour
around England in March 1971.
They played a date at the
Marquee [March 26], which was
filmed for US TV. I remember
going to the venue during the day
to cover it for Scene And Heard
on the BBC. I interviewed Mick.
Why are you leaving the country,
Mick? Were going on holiday!
Oh, yes? Where are you going?

Were going to the seaside. Ive
got my bucket and spade. Keiths
got his swimming trunks I dont
think he ever answered a question
seriously. He looked amazing in
those days; like a young Brando,
extraordinary. He was very fit and
healthy. But Keith looked like the
Mick Jagger
looked amazing
in those days,
like a young
Brando
KEITH ALTHAM
picture in the attic! All decaying
teeth, bad breath and going
green! Then you had Mick Taylor,
straight out of a Rubens painting.
There was a Pears Soap advert at
the time, with a character called
Bubbles who had lots of curly hair
and a baby face. Mick Taylor
always reminded me of him.
By that time, Mick had settled

into the band. Id seen them at
Hyde Park. They were awful. It
was Mick Taylors first gig, but he
had not fitted into the band yet
and they were out of tempo. But
at the Marquee, they played well.
It was so hot in there and smoky.
It was crammed, you couldnt get
near the front. I remember them
playing Brown Sugar, which they
hadnt played in the UK before,
and Midnight Rambler, where
Mick wielded his belt about.
It wasnt the theatre it became
later, The Keith Richards and
Mick Jagger Show. Mick had little
routines hed worked out, some
that he nicked from Tina Turner
and various other places, little
moves and things, but he hadnt
got that showmanship that came
later at those huge live events,
when he had space to work with.
The band were very tight. They
had a feel for what each other
were doing. Mick Taylor filled in
the tricky bits. I remember him
playing I Got The Blues at the
Marquee which brought that
feeling of being an RnB group
back. I think Keith liked that.

The night after the show,
I went to the Speakeasy and
met [Marquee owner] Harold
Pendleton coming down the
stairs. Literally coming down the
stairs: hed been whacked by
Keith. Keith wasnt happy with
Pendleton, whod wanted to hang
a Marquee banner over the back
of the stage drop when they
were filming. Keith didnt see any
reason why they should advertise
the Marquee and while Pendleton
was busy strapping it up, he got
very uptight about it. There was
also a bit of history from the early
days when Pendleton had said
something derogatory about
the Stones when they played the
club. He called them smelly,
long-haired oiks, or something.
Keith never forgot that, and came
into the Speakeasy later that night
just as Pendleton was going down
some stairs; Keith helped him
down a few more! Later one of the
minders told me, Keith called him
a name. Then Harold called him a
name. Keith knocked him down
and said, Get up! Harold said,
What for? Keith said, So I can
hit you again. Harold said, I like
it down here! It kind of petered
out from there. Then they were
off to France
The Rolling Stones From The
Vault: The Marquee Live In 1971 is
released by Eagle Rock on June 22
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
45
J.MAUM
EYEWITNESS!
STURGILL SIMPSON
A NEW
BREED OF
OUTLAW
A psychedelic visionary with the voice of
Waylon Jennings, STURGILL SIMPSON is
country musics rising star. Uncut joins the
Nashville metamodernist on tour, and
discovers a mind-expanding Navy Vet in dirty
jeans, telling starstruck tales of Merle and
Willie, and preparing to make the big leap to a
major label. Theres not a lot of bullshit about
Sturgill, says Dan Auerbach. Its all who he is.
Story: Jason Anderson
Photograph: David McClister
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
47
Backstage in Saratoga Springs,

NY, August 24, 2014.
And below, his loud-ass
former band, Sunday Valley
ANDY SAPP
H, THE GLORY, Sturgill

Simpson murmurs in his
Kentucky accent as he surveys
lunch. In front of the singer
rests a black plastic container
with a tidy heap of pad Thai
noodles, gone lukewarm in the
afternoon sun. But Simpson
doesnt seem to mind as he tears open his chopsticks
wrapper and hunkers down on the meal arranged for
him by his tour manager. It is Sunday in Richmond,
Virginia, and Simpson is in the second-floor lounge at the
recently renovated Altria Theater. The venue was built in
1927 in the Moorish Revival style; back when the venue
hosted Elvis Presley in 1956, it was still known as the
Mosque. Local Muslims successfully campaigned for a
name change to the landmark in the 90s, but twin minarets
still decorate the roof, an unexpected feature for a prized
piece of architecture here in the former capital of the
Confederate South. This incongruous setting seems suited
to Simpsons music. As he and his three young bandmates
guitarist Laur Joamets, bassist Kevin Black and drummer
Miles Miller demonstrate a few hours later on the stage
downstairs, the 37-year-old singer and guitarists take
on country and western is more polyglot than purist.
Venturing even further beyond the genres boundaries
than he did on his 2014 breakthrough, Metamodern
Sounds In Country Music, Simpson is apt to add a florid
burst of psychedelia to a winsome ballad and punctuate
a bluegrass rave-up with a metallic KO. In the words of his
friend and sometime poker pal Dan Auerbach, Theres
not a lot of bullshit about Sturgill no flash. Its all who
he is. And thats impressive in this day and age.
As he eats his noodles, Simpson admits that his
attitude to meals on tour tends to be utilitarian. Hed
WITH
SUNDAY
VALLEY,
I WAS
JUST
TRYING
TO YELL
IN KEY!
STURGILL SIMPSON
rather fast for a day or two and only drink water than
trouble his constitution with too much greasy road food.
His ascetic sensibility extends to clothing. Sporting a
western shirt that matches his pale blue eyes, the burly
musician says that his stint in the Navy and his spell
working for the Union Pacific Railroad in Utahs Salt
Lake gave him an obsession with packing light.
As he explains, Ive gotten the tour thing down to a
science. I always wear wool socks and special camping
underwear so you can wash them in the sink in your
hotel room. The guys all think Im nuts but then I see them
with their suitcases with 30 pairs of socks. Meanwhile, Im
over here doing my laundry like a soldier, wearing the same
pair of jeans for five weeks straight. Im married, he adds
with a chuckle, who do I gotta smell good for? Seriously
I should be in the back, writing songs and stinking.
At the tail end of a spring tour and the biggest year in his
career so far, Simpson is evidently done with the road for
now and eager to get back to Nashville and his wife and
baby son. Since his life was once dominated by feelings of
restlessness and rootlessness, hes struck by the irony of
wanting to stay put as his career pulls him in every possible
direction.Now I find myself traveling more than I ever had
in my entire life and wanting to be at home more than I ever
have, he says. Its a bit bittersweet. But Im providing for
my family and Im doing what I love.
OR A GUY who admits many times to never having

much in the way of ambition, Simpson has
certainly kept busy for the last two years. After
settling in Nashville and finally calling an end to Sunday
Valley the on-and-off-again band he first formed in
Kentucky nine years before he quietly released High Top
Mountain on his own label in the summer of 2013. Warm
but modest, his solo debuts reception did little to prepare
STURGILL SIMPSON
THE
MILITARY
WAS NOT
FOR ME.
I THINK
I KNEW
THAT,
JOINING
STURGILL SIMPSON
Americana category given that the album literally

had the words country music in it. Yet Simpsons tastes
and interests are wide-ranging. During his two-hour
conversation with Uncut, his litany of musical enthusiasms
ranges from Marvin Gaye and Tool to EDM and ZZ Top (see
panel). We both have really open palates, says Dave Cobb.
Hell call me referencing some King Tubby thing or Skrillex
and Ill talk about some random 70s prog band and itll all
wind up being in a country song we do together.
HE AFTERNOON BEFORE the tours final show in

Richmond, Simpson reclines on a plush red sofa
upstairs in the Altria, occasionally pausing to crack
his knuckles or briefly stroke his scruffy beard. He is open
and affable as he reminisces about growing up in smalltown
Kentucky. The son of a secretary and a state policeman, he
was raised in a home with diverse musical interests. While
his own youthful predilections incorporated Michael
Jackson, The Monkees and Led Zeppelin, his familys tastes
lay elsewhere. Bluergrass was a huge influence on me as a
kid without me even knowing it, he says. In the early 80s,
wed have these Labor Day festivals and thered be music all
weekend. Friday night would be the bluegrass night and
youd see all these old-timers that you just never saw any
other time of the year. Theyd all come out to the town
with their pressed white shirts and little fedoras and
Simpson with his band: (l-r) Miles

Miller, Laur Joamets and, right,
Kevin Black Country In The City,
Century City, CA, July 19, 2014
BUYERS GUIDE
HIGH TOP
MOUNTAIN
METAMODERN
SOUNDS IN
COUNTRY MUSIC
HIGH TOP MOUNTAIN/LOOSE

MUSIC, 2013
Named after the cemetery near

the Kentucky coal town where
many of his family members are
buried, Simpsons self-released
solo debut mines a deep, rich vein
of old-school country. With their
sumptuous arrangements and
steely edge, the songs evoke
both the outlaw sounds of
Willie and Waylon and the
neo-traditionalist wave led by his
fellow Kentuckians Ricky Skaggs
and Keith Whitley in the early
80s. And though Simpson largely
foregoes the frenetic tempos he
preferred while leading Sunday
Valley, Railroad Of Sin is an
HIGH TOP MOUNTAIN/LOOSE

MUSIC, 2014
accurate indication of his earlier

bands need for speed. Stellar
guest spots by C&W sessioneers
like Hargus Pig Robbins and
Robby Turner add to the air of
vintage Nashville authenticity.
9/10
Only a few months after his first

collaboration with producer
Dave Cobb, Simpson heads
off to higher planes. But for
all the attention given to the
metaphysical enquiries of
Turtles All The Way Down and
the flanged-out trippiness of
It Aint All Flowers, Simpsons
dedication to songcraft is what
most impresses. Thats as true of
his stately reinvention of When In
Romes 80s synth-pop hit The
Promise which could be Vegasera Elvis crooning a Scott Walker
ballad as it is of originals like
Living The Dream, a stirring

statement on the value of living
carpe-diem style. A cover of
trucker favourite Long White
Line proves that the man is
country to the core.
9/10
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
49
DONATO SARDELLA/GETTY IMAGES FOR ANNENBERG FOUNDATION
him for the avalanche of adulation prompted by the arrival

of Metamodern Sounds In Country Music the following May.
The songs demonstrated Simpsons deep-seated love of
bluegrass, but also his eagerness to embrace thrilling
musical ideas and thematic concerns. He set out his stall
on album opener Turtles All The Way Down, which
referenced Buddha, physics and psilocybin amid its
Beatlesesque flourishes. Cut over four days at the home
studio of producer Dave Cobb, the album emphasising
live, off-the-floor performances and analog-era recording
techniques inspired by the 60s rock and RnB that Simpson
and Cobb adored. Such was the potency and novelty of
Simpsons brand of C&W that he quickly became the centre
of a passionate admiration society whose members included
country stars such as Keith Urban and Jake Owen, as well as
the likes of Jason Isbell and Jim James. As James tells Uncut,
What makes the legends of country or any other music so
great is that they defied form or took tradition and made it
their own. I think Sturgill is trying to do something different
psychedelic and beautiful. Its almost as if he is using the
well-known templates in classic country music as some
kind of gateway drug to get beyond the barrier of the fear of
the unknown in country music and into peoples hearts and
minds, thus taking them to new places they would have
been otherwise afraid to go.
Auerbach was just as impressed when he first heard
Simpson sing. Its a very rich, full country voice. You very
rarely hear that, and when youre in a room with just that
and acoustic guitar, its a one-of-a-kind experience.
Another of Simpsons friends in Nashville, Shooter
Jennings was one of many to liken Simpsons smoothbourbon baritone to that of his dad, Waylon, a comparison
that the singer soon tired of hearing. Still, hed make light
of the Waylon references by adding a cover of Waymore
Blues to his set. The songs of High Top Mountain and
Metamodern would also start to sound bigger and bolder
whether he performed in stadiums (as he did during a string
of opening slots for the Zac Brown Band) or TV studios (for
appearances on Conan and Jimmy Fallon). That his music
slotted in equally well at Coachella and the country megafest Stagecoach where he made yet another famous fan
out of Merle Haggard suggested the breadth of Simpsons
appeal. I dont know where we fall, he admits. Though
humbled to be among fellow nominees such as Rosanne
Cash for his first Grammy nod earlier this year, he notes
how strange it was to see Metamodern situated in the
STURGILL SIMPSON
ANDY SAPP;
DANNY CLINCH
Simpson live in Toronto,

August 21, 2014 : Im way
too lazy to cause trouble
any more
suspenders, and doing that mountain jig, man. I just

remember thinking that shit was magic. He laughs.
As a four-year-old youre just like, What is that?
His grandfather also did his best to foster the youngsters
interest in bluegrass. Even though the young Sturgills
first allegiance was to Off The Wall, the music became
He could
have it all!
The trouble with country
Simpsons famous fans speak out
HE ONLY TROUBLE
with a country artist
as good as Sturgill
Simpson is that he throws all
the lousy ones into relief.
Thats the impression you get
from talking to two of the
singers best-known admirers.
Dan Auerbach even finds it
sad that his friend has
earned so much acclaim for
trying to extend the genres
parameters. Its a bummer
that country is so rigid and
non-expansive, says the Black
Keys singer. Its like it reached as far as
stadium rock and thats the only place it
wants to go for the most part. Its great
that Sturgill pushes those boundaries,
but everybody should try to do that.
Jim James concurs the My Morning
Jacket leader recently caught flak for
accusing purveyors of modern country
of deliberately dumbing down the
human race and fostering racist
attitudes among listeners. As he tells
Uncut, Like war and shitty food, this
empty pop formula has proven to be
highly profitable because it can easily
be disguised as something its not. I
dont see it changing anytime soon.
Even so, he too believes things could
Jim James,
and below,
Dan Auerbach
be different, or at
least a little more
like they used to
be. Says James,
Id like to point
back to a time
when real country
like Johnny Cash
was lucrative,
made the world
a better place,
and was so much
fun.So it is
possible for music to be commercially
and spiritually successful.
Radio and record labels get into
formulas because it makes them money
and its easy, says Auerbach. They
dont have to try so hard or be artistic.
And when youre making real art, you
have to take real chances. I love that
about Sturgill. He doesnt worry about
that other stuff. Hes in the spotlight
right now and he could have it all he
could have the biggest budget he
wants to record the most blown-up
stadium-country album known to man.
But I know where hes recording his
next record and it has nothing to do
with any of that world, and I love that.
a powerful emblem of a once-robust culture on

the verge of disappearing. Certain aspects of
Appalachian culture dont even exist anymore,
he laments now. Its sad to see what happened
to a lot of these communities that were wellfunctioning, mom-and-pop-shop, Main Street
USA kinds of places when the coal industry was
really booming. Then Walmart and Oxycontin
came in and just sorta changed all that.
As Simpson neared the end of his lacklustre
high-school years in the town of Versailles, all
he wanted was to get as far away as he could.
Joining the Navy seemed like the best means to
that end. The military was not for me, he
admits with a wry smile. I think I knew that,
joining. But I went and saw places I never would
have otherwise. It was good for me at the time
and it was also bad for me at the time. Youre
exposed to a lot of things that most morally
upstanding people just dont see. Youre taking
orders from all these older guys youre supposed
to respect and then you hit port and they all run
around and cheat on their wives. Back in the US in his early
twenties, Simpson drifted between cities and jobs. I was
sort of lost, he explains matter-of-factly. He eventually
ended up in Lexington, the second largest city in his home
state. Id just sit in my apartment getting drunk every night
and writing songs, being antisocial and clichd and shit,
he confirms. The next thing I knew is Im trying to play
these country songs with this loud-ass band, Sunday Valley,
and I realised, Well, this is probably not going to work
because I cant fucking hear myself.
His solution was to start ripping through bluegrass
numbers on a Telecaster. With its high volume and high
intensity, Sunday Valley won a loyal hometown following;
but it was a rocky time for Simpson, whos been open about
his struggles with alcoholism in his younger days. It was
a lot of fun until it wasnt, he says bluntly. I realised this
wasnt the music I wanted to make. Early recordings
confirm Simpson had yet to find his voice, quite literally.
I wasnt singing, he says. There was so much volume and
aggression, I was basically trying to yell in key. He wasnt
sure how serious he was about his musical career when he
first moved to Nashville in 2005. Nobody my age was even
trying to hear what I was doing as they were all looking for a
gig that would pay the bills, he says. Nashville was a very
different town than now. Im not a real social person
anyway, so I dont have incredible ease going out to bars
and meeting people. I spent most of that year working at
a grocery store and sitting in my apartment listening to
bluegrass. I realised it was not a very promising future.
He took a job in a freight-shipping yard in Utah. He loved
the work until making the mistake of getting promoted to a
management position that got him stuck indoors dealing
with emails and conference calls. With the help of the
girlfriend later his wife who he met during a spell back
in Kentucky, he stuck it out as long as he could. He began
writing again for the first time in three years. Encouraged by
his girlfriend, We sold all our shit and moved to Nashville.
There, a reconstituted version of Sunday Valley made
some headway, but it wasnt until he met Dave Cobb at a
Billy Joe Shaver show that things began to fall into place.
As Cobb tells it, I was sitting at a table with Jamey Johnson
and Shooter and Sturgill was sitting at a table in front of us.
Shooter points to Sturgill and says, That guys the best
country singer in all of Kentucky. We invited him over to the
table and talked for two seconds and Sturgill came off supergruff. He walked up to the table like he was thinking, Not
these fuckheads. All the same, when Simpson came to
Cobbs studio a few days later, the producer was impressed.
I thought, Shit, what do I do with this? Its just too good, its
too classic. So we wound up starting to make a record. With
High Top Mountain, Simpson crafted the country album hed

always longed to make; but when he reconvened with Cobb
a few months later, he wasnt sure where to head next. Tape
effects, phaser pedals and a Mellotron all played major roles
in what enfolded over the four days in Cobbs studio. As
Simpson says now, We were cooped up like two idiots in
the house trying to humour ourselves, not for any other
purposes but to make something that we thought was pretty
cool. We were surprised when the world thought so, too.
LONG WITH the success of Metamodern came

misperceptions about the man
who made it. The
lyrics thoughtful, empathetic
and sometimes mystic-minded
contained themes seldom
broached in country, reflecting
Simpsons enthusiasm for
the musings of Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Pierre Teilhard
de Chardin as well as Rick
Strassmans book, DMT:
The Spirit Molecule, about
neurochemical phenomena and
transcendent experiences. As
Simpson sang in Turtles All The
Way Down the title being a
reference to a cosmology joke beloved by Stephen Hawking
Marijuana, LSD, psilocybin and DMT, they all changed the
way I see/But loves the only thing that ever saved my life.
I should have known when I recorded that song, this was
gonna bite me in the ass, he grumbles. I had to do a life
insurance interview and the guy was like, You really hung it
out there. I was like, Hung what out? If thats what you took
from it, fine. But if I ate mushrooms once 15 years ago, does
that mean I should pay a higher premium today? Its not like
Im waking up and pouring acid on my Cheerios. Nor is he
comfortable with the outlaw label. As he says with a look of
exasperation, Im way too lazy to cause trouble any more.
You cant get away with that shit now. You get banned from
entire hotel chains for asking for more sugar these days.
Indeed, the deluge of praise for Metamodern left him
wondering how much was really about him or his music at
the end of the day. At times, he threatened to become a
projection of peoples expectations and ideas of country
ought to be. As he laments, Theres also been so much
hype, hyperbole and pontificating that was completely
unnecessary. I didnt think it was all that special or deep
or profound or groundbreaking a record. A lot of people
probably didnt think so, either, but then you see these
things. I learned it was very important not to read that shit
anymore, cos if you believe the good, you gotta believe the
bad, and theres always gonna be some bad sooner or later.
He finds it a little easier to be one-on-one with fans, but
even that can be overwhelming. Im pretty self-deprecating
so to stand there and have somebody blow smoke up your
ass can be a weird feeling. To be fair, Simpson knows what
its like to stand in front of heroes and not know how to let
them know how grateful you are for something theyve
done. Hell, he says with a laugh, I did it myself back in
December on Willie Nelsons tour bus. I was like a giddy
little four-year-old girl sitting there. Heres this guy whose
craft youve literally studied and for who you have so many
questions, and you have no idea where to start. I totally
derped out on Willie Nelson. Finally, he was just like, You
wanna cup of coffee? I said, Yes, please, anything just
to have something in my hand right now!
It is likely hell be spending more time among some
elevated company whenever hes finished his next album,
his first since signing with Atlantic in January. But
Simpsons supporters know his priorities are clear. He
doesnt care about being a star, admits Dan Auerbach. To
SPINNING THE TOP
They totally
reinvented themselves!
Sturgill Simpson on the genius of ZZ Tops
electro-blues groundbreaker, Eliminator
HEYD BEEN
ON the road
consecutively
non-stop since the very late 60s right
up until the end of the 70s just total
burnout. They stepped away from
touring and didnt see each other for a
few years they basically said, If this is
gonna survive, we have to step away. So
Dusty did his thing, Frank did his thing
and Billy went to Europe and hung out.
House music was cracking off at that
time so he started going to these clubs
he was smart enough to see the
evolution coming and started learning
and studying synthesisers and going to
a lot of underground dance clubs and
shit. Then they came back together and
ITS NOT
LIKE IM
WAKING
UP AND
POURING
ACID
ON MY
CHEERIOS
STURGILL SIMPSON
realised theyd all grown their beards.

Billy went, Well, were all a bunch of
ugly motherfuckers so we keep the
beards and throw some mechanic
coveralls on they totally reinvented
themselves. For Eliminator, he did the
whole record through this little digital
processor, a brand new thing at the
time you plug in and you can replicate
a lot of those distortion tones. Its an
incredible rock record Ill put that
shit on in the bus right now and wake up
everybody and not apologise. Because
of Eliminator, they broke The Beatles
stadium attendance records. Thats all
because they took a chance what if
theyd just played Brown Sugar for
another 20 years?
be a mainstream star youve got to care about that. Thats got

to be your thing, your goal youve gotta like stardom more
than becoming a great musician. Thats not Sturgill.
Admittedly, Sturgill still struggled over the decision to
sign with Atlantic. I tried my best to say no to them and they
kept making offers until there was nothing to say no to, he
says. But its a huge honour for me. Literally all my favourite
artists were on Atlantic Aretha, Otis Redding, Led
Zeppelin, John Prine, Curtis Mayfield. Whether its only
one or two records for me, Ill have that.
As to the nature of Simpsons Atlantic debut, not even
Dave Cobb knows what thatll be, even if he suspects how it
might be received. As the producer jokes, We could go
make a death metal record and, with his voice, people would
still call it country thats just the way he sings.
More than anything else, Simpsons grateful to be
experiencing this success now hes sober and enjoying the
stability and happiness of family life. He believes things
wouldve been very different if it had all happened to the
more nihilistic, self-destructive man he used to be. If that
guys still around at all, its only in the most unbridled
moments in his live shows, though even then theres more
joy than anger at hand. Im in a much better headspace
these days, confirms Simpson. Which is another reason
Im glad that Im not only able to focus, but I have all that
wealth of emotion to draw from. It doesnt hurt to start your
musical career at 35 theres no shortage of material.
Sturgill Simpson plays Islington Assembly Hall on August 20
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
51
ALBUM BY ALBUM
James
Ja
Taylor
The returning singer-songwriter
recalls recording with Joni, chainsaws
and The Beatles It was like a dream!
EFLECTING ON THE process of making an album,
James Taylor feels he has at last hit his stride. Its
something Ive done 16 times, so I feel like I know how
to go about it now.
Uncut meets Taylor in the suite of a west London hotel
where, over morning coffee, the singer-songwriter
cheerfully talks through the many highlights of his back catalogue, as
well as his latest album, Before This World. Along the way, Taylors
marvellous tales include cameos from two Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Carole
King and other high achievers; a testament to the esteem in which Taylor
is held by his peers. But despite his remarkable success he has 10
platinum albums to his credit there is also darkness in Taylors life. My
personal story is recovery from addiction, he acknowledges. Thats Why
Im Here, he explains when asked to choose a landmark from his own
albums. Thats special to me, because it was like a rebirth.
TOM PINNOCK
JAMES
TAYLOR
THE
Sweet babies:
James Taylor and
Carole King, 1972
CLASSIC
KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES
APPLE, 1969
The young songwriter

gets a little help from
his friends, Paul
McCartney and
George Harrison,
and records this ornate, orchestrated debut
in London.
I was staying with a friend in London, and my
new friends there heard my music and
encouraged me to record a demo a little
20-minute reel-to-reel and acetate that I cut in
a demo studio, a little two-track studio with a
name which I cannot remember. My friend Judy
Steele was going to play the demo for anyone who
would listen at the BBC. In the meantime, I got in
touch with Peter Asher and, as luck would have
it, he was newly signed on as head of A&R with
The Beatles new Apple label. He liked my demo,
got me an audition with George and Paul. The
Beatles offices were in Baker Street then, and
I auditioned there. Paul recalls my playing
with him and George in a small room. They
asked Peter if he would like to produce me,
and he said, Yeah. They were recording the
White Album at Trident, as Abbey Road did
not have a working eight-track machine, and
I used the time between their sessions to record
my own album. And we are still good and dear
friends. Although, in my opinion, the first
album was a little over-produced, to have been
acknowledged by and green-lighted by
The Beatles was for me like a dream. That
was like something that would happen in a
sort of daydream. It was just totally improbable
and impossibly good.
SWEET BABY JAMES

WARNER BROS, 1970
A critical and commercial success, Taylors

second cemented his position as one of
the most popular singer-songwriters of
the early 70s.
This was the thing which broke me. It was a
delightful surprise. After my first album,
Allen Klein took over The Beatles Apple
company. Klein wasnt interested in anybody
else on the label that meant Mary Hopkins,
James Taylor, Jackie Lomax, Badfinger, Billy
Preston. He only wanted The Beatles, so when
Peter Asher requested an audit of our sales,
which was quite reasonable to do, Klein dropped
us. I sort of limped back to America to lick

my wounds and recover from a heroin habit
and go through opium withdrawal
something that I did a number of times in
the following years. Peter Asher called me
up in rehab in the States and said, Lets
go to Los Angeles, I think I can get you a
record deal at Warner Bros. So thats what
happened, he moved to LA, he took various
jobs for a while just to keep body and soul
together. I got the deal and we went to
Sunset Sound and cut Sweet Baby James on
16-track, with a small band, Carole King on
piano, myself, Danny Kortchmar on guitar,
Russ Kunkel on drums and Leland Sklar on
bass. That was my core band for a while. The
success was a surprise, Fire And Rain was
a No 1 single, and so we were all off and
running. I really like Sweet Baby James
the songs came fast, it came all of a piece.
Usually I had written two-thirds of an album
before we went into the studio, but this was
different. I had broken both hands and both
feet in a motorcycle accident and it sort of forced
me to wait and then go into the studio when
I was more than enough prepared, so the album
was recorded really quickly we cut two or
three things a day and they would be largely
finished after the basic tracks. So I have always
liked that album, I think that it had some really
great songs on it too. What does the title of
Suite For 20 G refer to? Well, we were gonna
get paid $20,000 on delivery of the album!
Out of which $8,000 was the cost of recording
the record.
First bite of the

Apple Taylor
during the shoot
for his debut
album cover, 1969
Mud Slide
SliM And
The Blue
horizon
WarNer Bros, 1971
Another huge hit,

Taylors third includes
his only US No 1 single, a
version of Carole Kings Youve Got A Friend,
featuring Joni Mitchell on backing vocals.
In 1970, I made a movie, the only movie I ever
made [Two-Lane Blacktop, also starring Dennis
Wilson and Warren Oates]. Ive never seen it, it
was a harrowing experience for me! Joni Mitchell
came along with me. We wrote in this camper
across the southwest of america and had some
of the most outrageous good times. It was really
great. I had played on the album that Joni was
making when we met, Blue. I played guitar and
backed her up on a few of those songs. It was
wonderful working with Joni. We had a great
year together, we worked, we travelled. she,
and in some cases Carole King, sang on my
record around this time. I just loved working
with Joni in the studio. on Youve Got a Friend
and Far away on Mud Slide Slim, Jonis
singing a parallel-fifth harmony that kinda
makes the chord into a major ninth. It feels like
it frames the music in an interesting way to
have her coming off at such an unusual note.
Her voice is so pure and so perfectly in tune and
confident, that it just works immediately no
matter what she does.
one MAn
dog
JT
WarNer Bros, 1972
With a new record

label, Taylor tries out
a more expansive
sound, spawning hit
singles like Handy
Man and Your Smiling
For his fourth album,

Taylor heads to
the woods of
Massachusetts for a
pioneering spot of
home recording. Chainsaws at the ready
This was an early attempt at home recording.
We did some of it in Los angeles, with a producer
named Val Garay, who went on to make a couple
more albums with me later. But mostly, this
was recorded at home. I was living on Marthas
Vineyard then, where a lot of my family still
lives. We got a 24-track out to my house in the
woods. I remember one of the tracks was all
carpentry tools with a drone which was a
chainsaw from off in the woods I put on the
longest linked-up headphone line I had ever
seen, because we wanted the echo of the
chainsaw as it bounced off the trees. I remember
Fred Durgey, the piano player, playing an e
on the piano, and me taking the chainsaw
up to an e and holding it there while Peter
asher recorded it moving through the woods
coming back to the house. For the rhythm
we had a saw, a hammer and chisel for the
beginning of Little David Play In Your Heart.
I just felt like experimenting, like we were free
to do whatever we wanted. since [1997s]
Hourglass, Ive always tracked at home as
much as possible.
CoLUMBIa, 1977
Face along the way.

I had access to these great players, so I started
writing for a band, rather than writing for a
guitar then enhancing it with other players.
This was my first album for CBs. I wasnt entirely
ready to leave Warner Bros, but because they sort
of won me away in a bidding war, they were very
committed to the JT album doing well, so they
paid a lot of attention to it I have since delivered
albums to record companies where it felt like
dropping it down a well. But JT was still during
the honeymoon with CBs, it was a good record.
Carly [simon] sang some beautiful harmonies
on it, and Leah Kunkel, russ Kunkels wife and
Cass elliots sister, an amazing singer, sang on
Handy Man. That was one of those songs
that we decided to cut on the spur of the moment
at the end of a productive day in the studio.
Yeah, I covered a song by Danny Kortchmar on
this record Kooch and I were musical partners
from the age of 13, he taught me a lot, and we were
in [Taylors 60s band] The Flying Machine
together. He was the one who introduced me
to Peter asher. He was in my band until about
the mid-80s.
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
53
JAMES TAYLOR
COVERS
HEAR MUSIC, 2008
Celebrating his crack

touring band, Taylor
lays down versions of
songs by Jimmy Webb,
Leonard Cohen and
Buddy Holly.
I had just built this studio at my home in
Massachusetts. Its really just a barn, a big, cheap
structure, as much cubic footage as you can get
for the buck. I built it in order to rehearse, but it
turned out to be such a lovely sounding space, its
got plywood and industrial wooden floors, but
for some reason the sound and shape of it is
perfect. I had this band that I had been touring
with, Larry Goldings on piano, Steve Gadd on
drums, who I had worked with in the 70s way
back when in Atlantic Studios in New York. So I
had this wonderful band, with Lou Marini, Jr on
saxophone and Walt Fowler on trumpet writing
the arrangements. I had been touring this band
and it sounded so great, I really wanted an
excuse to basically to get it together and to just
run this band around the course. There was this
big batch of songs that I had always loved, and
that I worked up on the guitar. Then we recorded
them all live, 13 players at the same time. I came
back in and worked on the vocals, but thats the
only overdubbing we did. It was just wonderful
fun. There was no pressure because I really
wasnt under the gun to write and finish songs,
we were just doing stuff we knew we loved.
Anything from Oh What A Beautiful Mornin
to to Wichita Lineman or Suzanne, I just tried
songs that Ive always loved.
BEFORE THIS
WORLD
Out of the
wilderness: James
Taylor in 2015
CONCORD, 2015
THATS WHY
IM HERE
TIMOTHY WHITE
COLUMBIA, 1985
After intense rehab and

failed sessions in
Montserrat, Taylor
is reborn with a synthheavy hit record.
I had finally gotten sufficiently fed up with the
life I had been leading, of substance abuse and
addiction. I had gone through a detox, and I
wasnt going to feel capable of working for
another six months. But after a month and a half
I had to go to Montserrat to record in Air Studios,
George Martins studio. It was a beautiful break,
we went there with a great band and intended to
cut basic tracks. But it was basically a washout
for me. I wasnt ready, I couldnt sleep, I couldnt
focus, I was miserable, I wasnt comfortable in
my own skin. Six months later, I switched my
addiction from heroin to rigorous physical
exercise, every day, two or three sessions a day.
Thats how I got through it, thats how I got my
body and my nervous system back. And it
wasnt until a year later that we got down to
work on Thats Why Im Here. The album is
interesting, because its my first exposure to
synthesisers. It sounds synthesiser-heavy to
me if I hear it now, but its got some great tunes
on it Something From Far Away is really
great. Only A Dream In Rio really describes
what had happened to me over the making
of the album. It was a misfire followed by
a new direction.
HOURGLASS
COLUMBIA, 1997
Taylors 14th album,

once again recorded at
home, is a sombre and
brooding examination
of heartbreak and
recovery.
This album was produced by Frank Filipetti,
who is an engineer and producer, and thats
really what I like to do best these days, to work
with someone who comes in from a knowledge
of the actual recording process and how it sounds
down on tape. Frank had the confidence and
the sort of pioneering spirit, if you will, to
basically make a major album for a major label,
Sony, using this newly emerging home studio
stuff you could buy the whole setup that
we used for about $20,000. Everything that we
used in studios, like a Neve board and tape
recorder, would cost a million dollars to own. It
was really a breakthrough album in that way,
and Filipetti got a Grammy Award for it, and he
should have. We went up to Marthas Vineyard
to record, and installed ourselves in a summer
house which belonged to a family that I knew
and we tracked right there, in about two weeks.
We were very focused, we were very relaxed, we
were in our own context and Frank was making
it happen. Some of my favourite songs are on
here. I really like this album. Yellow And Rose
is a recovery song, a song about people sent to
Australia to be punished finding out that they
are actually reborn.
Taylors latest, years

in the making, is a
sophisticated return,
crafted during long
stays in the wilderness.
I took 2013 off to write, but I really didnt get
serious about it. Things kept distracting me, until
I finally decided to really hide away for a week at
a time. And thats when these songs started
coming through. I wrote in Montana at a friends
cabin, with 15 feet of snow outside. I wrote in
Newport, Rhode Island in the summertime
its a sort of boating mecca, but in winter its
abandoned, and I would walk the streets and
roam my boat around the harbour and ride my
bicycle, and just work on the lyrics over and over
again. [Taylors wife] Kim would listen to me play
this thing on piano over and over for years. It
turned it into this really nice song called You
And I Again. I have often said that I keep coming
back to familiar themes, writing the same songs
again from different angles. This is like that. Far
Afghanistan is about a soldier preparing to
fight, which is something I basically cant stop
thinking about, how these guys prepare
themselves to do this impossible challenge of
going to kill or be killed. Before This World is
titled after the song on the album, but its also a
double entendre in a sense. The period of time
when I became who I am, say, between the ages
of 15 and 22, was before this world, it was a prior
world, and I am of a time before this world. The
other sense in the title is that when you take a
project and you release it, you are putting it
before this world.
The Way Of Music presents
Butlins Bognor Regis 9-12 October 2015

Featuring
Johnny Marr
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The Telescopes / Miaoux Miaoux
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Story: Peter Watts | Artwork: Hipgnosis
HE MEETING AT EMI was not going well.

The label was discussing the cover of Pink
Floyds new album, Wish You Were Here,
with designer Storm Thorgerson, and he
was being a fucking nightmare, as Nick
Mason recalls. Hed designed this great
cover and then told the label he wanted to
shrinkwrap it in black plastic with nothing on it so nobody
could see it. The record company had to fight just to get a
small sticker on the front with the title. We let him get on
with it. At that period in our lives, we liked nothing more
than baiting the record company.
Thorgerson himself also thrived on conflict. His agency
Hipgnosis, co-founded with Aubrey Powell, spent the 1970s
designing some of the most memorable album covers in
rocknroll history for Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath,
Genesis and Wings, acting like elite Surrealist door-to-door
troubadours, as Robert Plant memorably describes them.
Their ideas didnt always come off, but when they did, they
were spectacular. Plant likens the experience of a meeting
with Hipgnosis to buying a second-hand car in the back
streets of Wolverhampton. You spent a lot of time and cheer
T
and good intentions and you may come out with a gem or
you might come out with a right old banger.
Some of the stunts pulled off by Hipgnosis are now firmly
embedded in rock folklore. These are the people that flew a
gigantic inflatable pig above Battersea Power Station and
who once stuck a Led Zeppelin album inside a brown paper
bag. They set a man on fire for Wish You Were Here and
took 60 deflated footballs to Morocco for The Nice. Its
extraordinary, the power of the image, confirms Aubrey
Powell. The photo from Wish You Were Here, which had
two men shaking hands, one on fire, was to represent that
when two people made a deal, one got burned, which was a
comment on the music industry. Ronnie Rondell, the stunt
man, says nobody remembers Towering Inferno, all they
remember is that Pink Floyd picture even if they cant hum a
tune from the album. Thats the basis of the relationship
between Hipgnosis and the bands we worked for, the
quality of the images matched the longevity of their music.
Any single album project could take months to put
together the gathering of props, the sourcing of locations,
the time spent waiting for the perfect light or cloud pattern.
These expansive, expensive concepts werent always
HIPGNOSIS
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
57
HIPGNOSIS
Hip gnostics: (l-r) Peter

Sleazy Christopherson,
Aubrey Powell and
Storm Thorgerson, No 6
Denmark Street, 1976
meekly accepted by the record labels; frequently,

Thorgerson and Powell found themselves battling every
step of the way to fully bring their commissions to fruition
as they intended. Often, their rock star clients cheered them
on from the sideline.
We never had arguments with Storm, but he had lots of
arguments with the record company, recalls Graham
Gouldman of 10cc. He wanted to take a photo in Hawaii,
they wanted him to go to Bournemouth. But he always got
his way. That uncompromisingness made for great art.
As Mason remembers, Storm felt very strongly about
protecting his work and the bands image. He was extremely
difficult, picky and fussy and he could make the record
companys life hell.
The industry despised us, admits Aubrey Powell.
Thats what set as apart from other designers. It wasnt just
the style, it was the fact we were part of the bands camp.
And we were as hard to handle as some of the bands.
HORGERSON AND POWELL had first met as
teenagers in Cambridge in the early 60s. Storm
was at school with Syd Barrett and Roger Waters,
and my school played rugby and cricket against them,
says Powell, whose new book, Hipgnosis Portraits,
features unseen photos of The Rolling Stones, Syd
Barrett and Jimi Hendrix. After leaving school,
I lived opposite Storms mothers house and we
became friends.
Powell describes Thorgerson as speaking with a
nasal twang a result of childhood injury. Powell
was also alerted early on to his friends fascination
with photography. His bedroom walls were
covered in graffiti and newspaper cuttings, says
Powell. Id never seen one like it. I was there one
night with a bunch of people, smoking dope,
listening to music, and there was a police raid.
Everybody ran out the back, except me. I had
nothing on me and felt I had nothing to fear. That
cemented our friendship. He asked why I stayed,
and I told him I dont run away. I was a bit
rebellious, tough-spirited, and we became best
R EVANS HIPGNOSIS
THE WORD
HIPGNOSIS
WAS
WRITTEN
ON OUR
DOOR. WE
KNEW IT
WAS SYD
AUBREY
POWELL
friends, but it was volatile,

we were always fighting.
In 1966, the pair moved to
London. Thorgerson studied
film at the Royal College Of
Art, while Powell sneaked
into the colleges
photography course when
not working for the band
formed by old friends, Waters
and Barrett. Floyd were
playing regional clubs to five
mods wondering when this
psychedelic light show
would end so they could
listen to Sam & Dave,
remembers Powell. I drove
their lights and Syd was
starting to turn, so they
palmed him off on me. Even
then, Roger [Waters] was very
demanding do this, get that
and I realised I wanted a
more equal area of respect.
Powell and Thorgerson
shared interests Ginsberg,
Mingus, Magritte, Bergman
and eventually landed a
commission photographing
book covers for Penguin.
They hired cowboy outfits
and took infra-red photographs in Richmond Park with
friends: The publisher was over the moon, notes Powell.
Encouraged, Thorgerson approached David Gilmour
about making the cover for Pink Floyds second album,
A Saucerful Of Secrets. Together, Thorgerson and Powell
devised a psychedelic montage of images which came
together in the Royal College darkroom. The manager,
Bryan Morrison, saw it was different, acknowledges
Powell. He also managed Alexis Korner and Marc Bolan
and suggested we do their covers. We realised this was a
business that could be a lot of fun and allow us to explore
our creative juices in a very indulgent way.
At which point, they needed a name for their enterprise. It
came from an unexpected course: Syd Barrett, who by now
had left Pink Floyd and was living with Thorgerson and
Powell in South Kensington. One afternoon, Thorgerson
and Powell came home to find the word hipgnosis written
on the front door. We knew it was Syd, says Powell. It
was a brilliant name hip and gnostic. We asked Syd, he
looked incredibly sheepish, and we decided to use it.
Hipgnosis printed a card Photos designs artworks etc, far
outs, grooves, weasels and stoats and, after working in
Powells girlfriends bathroom surrounded by bras and
knickers rented two floors above a Greek bookshop at No 6
Denmark Street. It was squalid, recalls designer Geoff
Halpin. They used so much spray glue that if you stood still
for 30 seconds, your shoes stuck to the carpet.
A routine was swiftly established. Thorgerson had
the ideas and Powell executed them. The double-act
was amazing, the good guy and the bad guy,
observes Robert Plant. The charming, amiable
bonhomie of Aubrey and the belligerent, Do I have
to deal with these scum musicians, approach from
Storm. It was marvellous. It was everything we
deserved at that time.
Powell handled the money, and chipped in with
several ideas of his own. They collaborated with
designers and illustrators including Halpin, George
Hardie, Richard Evans, Colin Elgie and Bush
Holyhead. Colour retouching a key element in
Hipgnosis vivid covers was done by Richard
Learning to
fly: Pink Floyd,
Kent,1968
EYEWITNESS!
NICK MASON
TALKS A
SAUCERFUL
OF SECRETS
Paul McCartney, shot by

Aubrey Powell, Owens Lake,
Lone Pine, California, 1976
Ideas came from everywhere, including a cherished book

of French photographs from 1947 that Thorgerson often
plundered. Thats what I liked, says George Hardie, who
drew the prism on The Dark Side Of The Moon. I didnt
have a record player, but I was interested in ideas. It was
terrifically collaborative, these long late-night discussions.
We came up with lots of ideas, and didnt always use them
for the band originally intended.
As Nick Mason confirms, Theyd present us ideas
and wed choose. They never strong-armed us into
accepting something and over the years produced
endless ideas, many of which we rejected and can now
be seen on all sorts of other peoples albums. Storm
would have made a great chef if somebody didnt
want his meal, hed serve it to somebody else.
They had a bagful of ideas, adds Robert Plant.
Sometimes if things got desperate, theyd reach
further into the bag and out would come a couple of
ideas that once you studied them you realised Paul
McCartneys name was still faintly visible on the
artwork. That was always the last desperate move
before they had to go away and come back with
something else. It was like buying a second-hand
car in the back streets of Wolverhampton. You spent
a lot of time and cheer and good intentions and you
may come out with a gem or you might come out with
a right old banger.
MONG THEIR MANY qualities, Robert Plant hugely
admired Thorgerson and Powells use of pop art
and Surrealism. They were really switched on and
their glossary was incredible, he explains. They had very
bright, sharp, iridescent ideas and great reference points, a
huge number of places to go
in the world of art and
Surrealist film and
photography. Nick Mason
continues, Storm would
always justify any image
and give the spiel as to why
it was important.
Rob Brimson compares
Thorgersons facility for
absorbing images to Bob
Dylans capacity for
Roger Waters, Aubrey
Powell and David
reinventing lyrics.
Gilmour, on UK tour
Hipgnosis would take a
in 1972, just before
Dark Side came out
simple idea and twist it,
IPGNOSIS FIRST
COMMISSION,
the cover of Pink
FloydsA Saucerful Of
Secrets, was born directly
from their friendship with
the band. My God, it felt

right, says Nick Mason.
The Piper At The Gates
Of Dawnhad us as sort of
kaleidoscopic mop tops, it
was pretty old-fashioned,
so in comparison,
Saucerful which was
made up of all sorts of
images that were relevant
to what we were listening
to and reading felt much
more comfortable. We
were now working with
friends. Before, it was
all a bit distant, organised
by EMI, and we werent
engaged. With
Saucerful, we were
engaged. They were
asking what we wanted,
what we liked, what we
should do. That made
a big difference.
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
59
PAUL MCCARTNEY: CONCEPT A POWELL. MPL LTD; PINK FLOYD 1975: JILL FURMANOVSKY HIPGNOSIS;
PINK FLOYD 1968: CONCEPT S THORGERSON, PHOTOGRAPH A POWELL. PINK FLOYD MUSIC LTD
Manning. Among the photographers was Peter

Christopherson, who later became a third partner in the
company. We were looking for an assistant, says Powell.
This kid had an amazing portfolio, these very strange,
angular bodies, beautifully lit. We gave him the job.
We had no idea how dark he was. We later found out hed
been working in a morgue and the photographs were
bodies on slabs.
Christopherson a founding member of Throbbing Gristle
acted as a break between Powell and Thorgerson when
Hasselblads were flying across the studio. That happened
often, it seems. The pair were combustible and this was no
conventional office. Rock stars regularly popped by to chat
or urinate in the dark room sink. The actual lavatory was
disgusting, says Rob Brimson, a photographer who worked
for Hipgnosis in the late 1970s. By default, the dark room
sink became the urinal. Youd be hanging film up and
Storm would come and wee in the sink. Rock stars were
encouraged to do the same. I think Hank Marvin was first.
When not wishing to use the facilities, it was also possible
to find musicians arriving keen to discuss their artwork. It
would be like a gallery, confirms Graham Gouldman of
10cc. They had all their ideas pinned on a wall and wed
walk around looking for the one that jumped out. Storm
loved to tease you about them, asking what it meant.
Thorgerson had a knack for making unexpected
connections: 10ccs Deceptive Bends took its title from a
road sign, but Thorgerson conceived a cover featuring an
old-fashioned diving suit. Musicians loved to get involved,
among them Paul McCartney. Paul was very conversant in
design, remembers Powell. Hed like our ideas, but always
had one of his own, so wed do all of them to see what was
best. Hed always say, See, told you mine was better.
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RIOT SONGS RECORDS
HIPGNOSIS
he says. Theres one, a couple in front of a
bungalow with a hubcap flying in the air [UFOs
Phenomenon]. Its classic Hipgnosis. A clever idea
with the touch of the film set about it. Nobody else
was doing that, telling a story in a single image.
Cost was no objective. For Pink Floyds Animals
in 1977, they constructed an inflatable pig and
employed a dozen photographers and a helicopter
to ensure they got the perfect shot at Battersea
Power Station. When the pig escaped, they
tracked it down, reinflated it, and tried all over
again this time with a marksman on the scene.
They were also adept at designing the full
package. An album like The Dark Side Of The
Moon wasnt just a cover it was inner sleeve,
SHOTS OF LOVE
AUBREY POWELLS FIVE

FAVOURITE HIPGNOSIS COVERS
PINK FLOYD
UMMAGUMMA, 1969
Taken at Thorgersons girlfriends house in Cambridge,
the cover is a photo of the band, inlaid with a photo of
the band, inlaid with a photo of the band, and on forever.
We got the idea from a cocoa tin, which shows a woman
holding a cocoa tin showing a woman holding a cocoa tin
going on forever. We led with the one with David
Gilmour because he was the best-looking.
back cover, posters and stickers, all coming together

to enrich the general experience. If Hipgnosis had a
signature, it was that every part of any montage is
always in very sharp focus from front to back, says
Powell. Thats not possible for the human eye, which
focuses on one thing. We focused on everything.
Thats what makes it different. This was a laborious
process, with the final image composed from
numerous different photographs. My job was to
handcut whatever was being pasted on to the
background, says Evans. Photographic paper was
quite thick, so Id get fine sandpaper and sand photos
back until they were as thin as cigarette paper. Then
wed glue them to the print. Id paint over shadows
with watercolours and a sable brush. It took ages.
Sometimes you can see the joins.
Geoff Halpin tells a story that others repeat, in different
forms. Storm was at a record company delivering artwork,
he says. It had taken months and cost a fortune. One of the
executives said they had to change this and that. So Storm
picked it up and walked out. They said, Where are you
going? Storm said, Well, if you dont like it you cant have
it. Bands identified with this. Storm was tremendously
supportive in that way, confirms Mason. They worked
hard to keep us away from the record company. In the
present age, that would be unacceptable. But back then
we were the mysterious psychedelic band and they were
the people in suits; now we wear the suits, and they are all
long-haired kids.
The big bands werent interested in the conformity of the
record company, adds Powell. They wanted to go against
the system and they saw we were like them.
LED ZEPPELIN
HOUSES OF THE HOLY, 1973
Hipgnosiss first cover for Zep. The original images
featured an entire family. The finished version showed
a brother and sister climbing the Giants Causeway.
The plan was to have a family climbing the rocks, not
just the children. The inspiration was fromChildhoods
Endwith all the children in the world climbing a tower
of fire. It took three months to get right.
AC/DC
DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP,
1976
BLACK SABBATH
TECHNICAL ECSTASY,
1976
From an idea by Thorgerson the robots are

exchanging fluids and executed by illustrator and
designer George Hardie.
This is very Hipgnosis, but also very George Hardie.
Two robots crossing each other on an escalator. Just a
great illustration.
PETER GABRIEL
PETER GABRIEL, 1980
Gabriels third solo album [aka Melt], all of which
featured slightly twisted portraits of the singer, who
insisted on appearing on the cover himself.
Peter was so brave to allow us to disfigure his face.
Thats the opposite of being a rock star. We had dozens
of people shooting Polaroids and then disfigured them,
before Peter chose his favourite.
Houses Of The Holy

outtake, Giants
Causeway, 1973
Y 1972, HIPGNOSIS biggest client was yet to come.

One afternoon, Powell remembers receiving a phone
call from Jimmy Page. He liked a cover wed done for
Wishbone Ash, Argus, recalls Powell. I said, Can we
meet, is there a title, can we hear any music? He said, We
cant meet, theres no title and you cant hear any music. See
you in two weeks with some ideas. Powell and Thorgerson
had plenty, including one that involved digging ZOSO into
the Nazca Desert in Peru. But the image the band chose
depicted a family climbing up a steep bank of rocks, the
Giants Causeway in County Antrim. The first person to
pick up on it was Robert Plant, says Powell. He and Jimmy
liked it. So the manager, Peter Grant, said they were off on
tour and we should get on with it, get the money from the
accountant, and one last thing dont fuck it up. You didnt
want to fuck it up if Peter Grant told you not to.
After a difficult shoot in Northern Ireland We delayed
the whole album for it, Plant recalls with wonder the
Houses Of The Holy cover proved to be a tremendous
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
61
CONCEPT A POWELL/S THORGERSON. PHOTOGRAPHY A POWELL. MYTHGEM LTD
A riff on AC/DCs seedy nature, this features a

montage of unlikely characters against the backdrop
of a Sunset Strip motel shot by Powell.
Its a classic example of our style. People in sharp focus,
collaged over each other and on to a background that
was equally sharp focus. Its an impossible photograph.
HIPGNOSIS
Led Zeppelin, Knebworth, 1979:

With Hipgnosis, it was like
buying a second-hand car on the
back streets of Wolverhampton.
You might come out with a gem
or a right old banger Plant
success. This mattered. Jimmy always said the album

should be heard as a whole, a complete piece, and we felt the
cover accompaniment, however abstract, had to be part of
that, says Plant. It was important that those covers were
right for the musical adventures.
Houses Of The Holy came out in March 1973, as did Pink
Floyds The Dark Side Of The Moon, demonstrating the
range of Hipgnosis output. Hipgnosis designed four more
covers for Zeppelin, responsibility falling on Powell after
Thorgerson fell out with Page. As Graham Gouldman
concedes, Storm was not a man to be
trifled with. If you said anything wrong,
hed pick you up on it. Powell spent much
of his time acting as ballast between
Thorgerson and rock stars. Paul
McCartney couldnt be in the same room
with Storm after he was shockingly rude
to Linda, reveals Powell. We were very
close to many of the bands, but they were
still clients. Storm did not understand
where those boundaries lay. He fell out
with Roger Waters, who reached a point
after Dark Side where he didnt need this
pest around, even if he liked the designs.
Storm was socially inept, but a genius,
very stimulating, funny, erudite and
interesting. But he could walk into a
restaurant and have a waitress crying in minutes. Some
people loved him for it, this reckless aggressive
assertiveness. There was nothing Peter Gabriel liked better
than arguing with Storm for four hours about the aesthetics
of the album cover and why he wanted his photograph on
the front and not one of our bloody awful Surreal designs.
Powell and Thorgerson were demanding employers.
Designers received late-night calls summoning them to
meetings at Thorgersons flat in Haverstock Hill, only to find
Thorgerson had changed his mind and gone out. We were
exacting, admits Powell. We expected of our assistants
the same devotion we gave. Wed be at Storms house until
4am. Others would get called in, designers, photographers,
or anybody else who wanted to turn up, Japanese groupies,
a knife thrower and a drug dealer. On one occasion, Halpin
returned from a meeting in the early hours with his
pregnant wife when he drove into the 1981 Brixton riot. A
bloke ran past with a brick, so I wound the window down
and asked him the way to Streatham, says Halpin. He gave
me directions, then ran off to throw a brick at something.
Thorgersons eccentricities could be endearing. Richard
Evans once drove round Centre Point

engaged in a long conversation through
the window of his Mini with a rollerskating Thorgerson, who was delivering
artwork to EMI. It also fired Thorgersons
creativity, allowing him to conceive
simple concepts like the Dark Side
prism an idea filched from a physics
or photographic text book and partly
inspired by Rick Wrights request for
a design that was simple and stylish
similar to a Black Magic chocolate box
as detailed as Led Zeppelins In Through
The Out Door, which featured the same
scene from six perspectives. Photography
was usually overseen by Powell, with the
credit going to Hipgnosis. For Po, the
process of taking the picture wasnt as
important as the concept, confirms
Rob Brimson, who shot covers for
UFO and Peter Gabriel. The job of
the photographer was to capture that
concept. It was a technical exercise
that required skill, but it wasnt an
interpretative brief. Everything came out of Storm and
Pos consciousness. On one occasion I rearranged a still-life
and was told, Youre not paid to think. It was harsh, but
a lesson I had to learn.
N 1975, HIPGNOSIS were at the very peak of their
success. They were in-demand purveyors of complex
and immersive sleeves for many of the countrys
biggest bands. Change, however, was in the air.
Intriguingly, the principal force behind this change was
remarkably close by: The Sex Pistols
has moved in to No 6 Denmark Street.
The Pistols were charming in a funny
way, remembers Brimson. They had
to go through the shop, go into the yard
then climb over a wall and up a ladder to
get into their rehearsal room at the back.
Youd hear this cacophony of sound.
Then one day I realised they were
starting to gel. By the late 70s,
Hipgnosis found themselves confronted
by an emerging movement with radical
ideas about design. As soon as we saw
Jamie Reids cover, we knew people
wouldnt want to spend 50k on a cover
anymore, admits Powell. We carried on
but in 1982, we called it a day. There were
new designers around like Peter Saville and Neville Brody.
It was healthy, our time was done. And that had been the
halcyon days of albums covers. We had a wonderful time.
After moving into music videos, Thorgerson and Powell
fell out. The former friends didnt talk for 12 years, before
finally patching things up. They continued to work
together until Thorgersons death in 2013. We were driven,
right to the end, reflects Powell. The day before Storm
died, I showed my new
book to him and hed
waggle his finger if he
didnt approve. He was
still complaining. That
was the glue that kept us
together, that desire to
create endless perfection
over and over again.
AUBREY
POWELL
LED ZEPPELIN: CONCEPT AND PHOTOGRAPHY A POWELL. HIPGNOSIS

JOHN LYDON: RAY STEVENSON/REX SHUTTERSTOCK
THERE
GOES THE
NEIGHBOURHOOD
What happened
when the Sex Pistols
moved in next door
N 1975, AS Hipgnosis
were dealing with Led
Zeppelin, Pink Floyd
and Wings, Malcolm
McLaren hired a cheap
rehearsal space behind
their Denmark Street
office for his new project:
the Sex Pistols. At first
they were very polite
and we knew Malcolm
THE
INDUSTRY
DESPISED
US! WE
WERE
HARD TO
HANDLE
HEADS Vs PUNKS
Hipgnosis Portraits by
Aubrey Powell is available
from Thames & Hudson
Fuck you!
Rotten
neighbour,
1977
McLaren from the Kings

Road, says Powell. Then
one day in the corridor I
saw John Lydon striding
past wearing his I hate
Pink Floyd T-shirt. I said,
Thats nice. He said,
Yeah fuck you. They
knew exactly who we
were. We were sitting
around listening to
Crosby, Stills and Nash
and they were rehearsing
Pretty Vacant. We could
hear them gobbing in
the courtyard. Malcolm
invited me to see them
play at St Martins and
I turned it down. It was
one of the biggest
mistakes of my life.
JOSEPHINE FOSTER
AND THE VICTOR HERRERO BAND
ANDA JALEO / PERLAS

FIRE RECORDS 2CD
2010s mesmerising interpretations of
Federico Garcia Lorcas poems Anda Jaleo
and Perlas, a further collection of popular
Spanish songs brought together in one
stunning release.
JOHNNY THUNDERS
CAROLYN HESTER
CZARFACE
IN COLD BLOOD
CAROLYN HESTER
EASY ACTION 2CD

Completely re-mastered and restored version
of this long out of print album.
Includes rare tracks from the same time
period not featured on the original issue
TROUBADOUR CD
One of the rst singer songwriters out of
Greenwich village in the late 50s.
Features Bob Dylan prior to his own rst
release & Bruce Langhorne.
Fully Remastered.
EVERY HERO NEEDS A

VILLAIN
THE WEATHER
STATION
BIS
I LOVE BIS
DO YOURSELF IN 2LP / CD
All the early, hard-to-nd EPs collected.
A crazed journey through Riot Grrrl indebted
Synth-Pop to the chart-bothering Kandy Pop
with exclusive Home Demonstrations.
J. FERNANDEZ
LOYALTY
PARADISE OF BACHELORS LP / CD
Loyalty crystallizes Toronto artist Tamara
Lindemans lapidary songcraft into eleven
emotionally charged vignettes and intimate
portraits, redolent of fellow Canadians Joni
Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.
THE CLEARING
JOYFUL NOISE RECORDINGS LP / CD

Chicago-based J. Fernandez navigates his own
personal world of musical endeavors, drawing
on the inuences of early electronic music,
pop and psychedelia.
TEMPORARY RESIDENCE LTD LP / CD

Acclaimed pianist, composer, and co-founder
of chamber-rock pioneers, Rachels,
collaborates LOSCIL on this rich, stately
ensemble album.
IT HUGS BACK
THE CRUNCH
STEREO TOTAL
SHIRLEY INSPIRED
BRAND NEW BRAND
YY EXISTENTIALISTE
CARGO
COLLECTIVE:
AN
VIRTUS CD / LP
The Crunchs 2nd album.
Feats. Sulo (Diamond Dogs), Mick Geggus
(Cockney Rejects),Dave Tregunna (Sham 69 /
Lords of the New Church), Terry Chimes (The
Clash) & Idde Schultz.
AMALGAMATION
OF
RECORD
SHOPS
RACHEL GRIMES
MANY LEVELS OF LAUGHTER
VARIOUS ARTISTS
EARTH RECORDS 2LP / 3CD
Produced to help fund the forthcoming lm of
Shirley Collins life, we arrive at
Shirley Inspired.
The cast is remarkable. Seek it out.
The Guardian
BRICK RECORDS 2LP / CD

Sophomore release from the acclaimed trio of
Inspectah Deck (Wu-Tang Clan) And 7L &
Esoteric.
CD housed in an eye popping hard cover book
with a comic by Esoteric.
2LP on clear vinyl also includes the full comic
book.
SLOW WAVE
BLOW UP 2LP / CD
Yy Existentialiste is an essential compilation
of one of the worlds greatest exponents of
lo- pop - Stereo Total.
Compiled by Paul Tunkin. Contains several
new mixes and is fully re-mastered.
AND
LABELS
DEDICATED
TO
SAFE & SOUND LP / CD

A beautiful, widescreen cinematic pop record
by Englands unsung heroes, the cosmic lo-
pop quartet It Hugs Back, led by WIRE
guitarist Matthew Simms.
BRINGING
YOU
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MUSIC
IRELAND: BELFAST - HEAD SCOTLAND: EDINBURGH - VOXBOX / GLASGOW - LOVE MUSIC WALES: ABERYSTWYTH - ANDYS RECORDS / CARDIFF - SPILLERS / NEWPORT - DIVERSE / SWANSEA - DERRICKS NORTH- WEST:
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E DIT ION
ON
SALE
NOW
AVA I L A BL E I N A L L G O OD U K N E W S AGE N T S
OR OR DE R F ROM U NC U T.C O.U K /S T OR E
OUR SCORING SYSTEM:
New albums
THIS MONTH: JAMIE XX | SUN KIL MOON | KACEY MUSGRAVES & MORE
VINCENT DIXON
10 Masterpiece 9 Essential 8 Excellent

7 Very good6 Good but uneven
4-5 Mediocre 1-3 Poor
RICHARD THOMPSON
Still
TRACKLIST
1
She Never Could Resist A Winding Road
2 Beatnik Walking
3 Patty Dont You Put Me Down
4 Broken Doll
5 All Buttoned Up
6 Josephine
7 Long John Silver
8 Pony In The Stable
9 Wheres Your Heart?
10 No Peace No End
11 Dungeons For Eyes
12 Guitar Heroes
Deluxe CD (Disc 2):
13 Fork In The Road
14 Wounding Myself
15 The May Queen
16 Dont Take It Laying Down
17 Fergus Laing
PROPER
Waters run deep on folk-rock founding fathers 25th

post-Fairport Convention LP. By Jim Wirth
8/10
BEATNIK WALKING, THE

second track on the new
Richard Thompson album,
is an affectionate little sketch which speaks
volumes about its creator. As he tells Uncut, it
documents a working trip to The Netherlands
with his wife and baby son 22 years ago.
Realising that none of the dates on his Dutch
tour were more than two hours drive away,
Thompson elected to stay in Amsterdam with
his family, doing the Times crossword in the
morning, seeing a few sights, eating in the

same restaurant every lunchtime, and then
setting out for the evening show. Excitement,
but not more than he could handle. For
someone of Thompsons proclivities, it was
a dream break.
The Fairport founders almost five-decade
career has shown him to be a man of brilliant
if slightly conservative habits. An unworldly
frump in his folk-rock prime check out the
rugby shirt he wears on the back cover of
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
65
New Albums
his debut solo LP, 1972s Henry The
Human Fly his scarily fluent guitar work
influenced left-fielders like Television and Pere
Ubu as much as it did folkies, but no amount of
good press has ever given him the confidence
to look life in the eye. In his beret or his baseball
cap, the 66-year-old is still the living
embodiment of awkwardness.
If the pre-release blurb was anything to go by,
the aim for Still was to wrest Thompson out of
his comfort zone. Recorded at Wilcos The Loft
studio in Chicago, under the guidance of Jeff
Tweedy, it might if one believed such things
were possible have been the album when he
cut loose and did something entirely out of
character. It isnt. For all the possibilities
seemingly offered by working with an
unfamiliar producer in a new studio, Still is
almost relentlessly inward looking. Its about
repression; unexpressed and inexpressible
emotions; characters who go nowhere; who
sit tight on their desires; who keep their
mouths and on chastity belter All Buttoned
Up their legs shut.
Elegaic opener She Never Could Resist A
Winding Road sets a curious tone; a fare-theewell to a wandering spirit, who never could
stay any place too long/To not be standing stills
where she belongs. Regular listeners will spot
the parallel with Beeswing, the hybrid Anne
Briggs/Vashti Bunyan portrait Thompson
conjured up for 1994s Mirror Blue and behind
the strathspey-like tangles of his guitar solo,
one reads the unwritten story; the narrators
yearning to follow his desires, the craving for
the open road coupled with the overriding fear
that something nasty might lie in wait around
the corner.
The clip-clop rhythms of Beatnik Walking
reinforce that sense that adventure might
be something best taken in moderation,
Thompsons memoir of what he did on his
holidays capturing a quietly luminous reverie,
and standing up for the worlds silent types
as he sings: Dutch is not a loving tongue, you
say your piece and run/You say you care in
other ways.
Thompson and Jeff

Tweedy at Wilcos The
Loft studio, Chicago
Showing you care, though, is not something

that comes easy for the characters elsewhere on
Still. The Miss Havisham spinster of the spooky
Josephine sublimates her desires into
scribbling on the wall as she waits in vain for
the love of her life, while the protagonist in the
leery All Buttoned Up clatters up against his
girlfriends heavily fortified virtue, desperate to

cop a feel, but mindful that hes far too much
of a good guy to try his luck. Ive got desires,
raging fires/But Ill do the right thing, wont I,
grunts Thompson, his strangulated whine of a
guitar solo a fiery portrait of a libido straining
under heavy manners.
HOW
TO BUY...
HIS
MASTERS
CHOICE
Richard Thompsons
favourite Richard
Thompson LPs
RICHARD AND
LINDA THOMPSON
I Want To See The Bright
Lights Tonight ISLAND, 1974
ZORAN ORLIC
The jewel-bright collection that

marked the start of Richard and Lindas
musical marriage, overburdened
with unbelievably strong songs like
When I Get To The Border, The
Great Valerio and Down Where The
Drunkards Roll. We did that record in
like three days I think it cost 2,500 to
make, Thompson beams. And it still
sounds good. No kidding.
RICHARD THOMPSON
Mock Tudor CAPITOL, 1999
RICHARD THOMPSON
Electric PROPER, 2013
At his commercial peak, Thompson

threw a curveball with this
conceptual suite, which harked back
to the uptight London suburbia
of his upbringing; key moments,
Sights And Sounds Of London
Town and Hope You Like The New
Me. There are records when you
think I got lucky with that one you
try certain things and everything
works, says Thompson. Im very
proud of it.
No mimsy acoustic tinkler,

Thompson turned up the voltage
for this modern tour de force;
Stony Ground and Stuck On
The Treadmill show his tough
side, while Another Small Thing
In Her Favour may be the most
abject love song since Abbas The
Winner Takes It All. I am quite
happy with that still, Thompson
says. Give me another ve years
and I might have a dierent view.
New Albums
I shouldnt be telling you
about. If I tell you any more,
Id have to kill you.
Were you ever a beatnik?
I am a beatnik! My sister was
an absolute beatnik for about
a year she spent a whole
year without shoes, smoking
Gauloises and hanging out
in cafs, but then something
else became fashionable.
I always thought it was a very
attractive lifestyle; slightly
outside of society; a lot of
poetry and jazz involved,
and you can wear a fairly
disheveled form of dress
24 hours a day. You can
grow a beard!
Richard Thompson
discusses Still, Jeff Tweedy
and life as a beatnik
OU MADE STILL in Wilcos studio

in Chicago in just nine days; do you
like to make records quickly?
I never seem to have time to be a slow
ponderer it might be nice occasionally to have
that luxury. We had a very small window to
make this record in between my schedule and
Jeffs schedule. We did a thing called the
AmericanaramA tour, which was a sort of
travelling festival, and we spent time together,
so the idea slowly formed that it might be nice to
ask Jeff to produce a record. Ive been making
records for a long time and I know how to do it
a certain way, but it can get a little stale, so it
can be nice to get new people to come in and
challenge you a bit.
She Never Could Resist A Winding Road
is lovely; do you like the idea of escaping?
I wrote it about somebody else, but often you
write a song and come back to it a bit later and
think: Thats about me. I suppose I like the idea
of winding roads because
you cant see round the
corner, which is always a
very seductive thing. And I
suppose thats a nice way to
think about life youre on
this journey, and the road
winds, and you never quite
know whats coming.
All Buttoned Up seems to

reflect the morality of the
1950s; do you remember
Beatnik sitting:
Thompson, Still
that as an uptight era?
The 50s was a pretty
oppressive time to grow up
humour became a very
important way to deflect all that. Without The
Beano, The Goon Show and Round The Horne
later which gave you permission to be
irreverent I think wed have died of suffocation.
You have lived in California for decades,
but are the characters in your songs still in
the UK?
As a general thing they are. I am better at doing
British than American. I am really nostalgic for
industrial Britain: factories, tall industrial
chimneys, and it really was dirty you had to
seriously work hard to get your shirts clean
because you lived in London. I miss it but its
not there anymore.
Guitar Heroes celebrates Django
Reinhardt, Les Paul, Chuck Berry, James
Burton and The Shadows; why is that
music so important to you?
It was the stuff that was thrown at me, really
it was the hand I was dealt. Im a kid of the 50s
my dad had got some good records, Django
Reinhardt and Les Paul, but at the same time
rocknroll was hitting, and the hip stuff, the
sexy stuff, was guys with guitars: Buddy Holly,
Scotty Moore. What came before Elvis I mean,
How Much Is That Doggie In The Window,
cloying novelty records,
very schmaltzy dance
music was too
sentimental, too
suffocating for the
post-war generation.
Rocknroll was all about
rawness and energy,
throwing off the layers
of sentiment and
sophistication and
returning to something
a bit more earthy.
I really do think
I do some good
stuff but I know
I am capable of
being mediocre, too
Beatnik Walking is
a walking tour of
Amsterdam, correct?
Its about a tour I did of
Holland about 22 years ago
with a new son, who was about six months old
and in a backpack on my back. It was kind of an
idyllic three weeks and I wanted to express it in
a song. Its probably the first time I have
mentioned Rupert Murdoch in a song and
hopefully the last. I have been an addict of the
Times crossword since I was 16, and it was nice
to get the paper in the morning in Amsterdam,
even though its owned by Murdoch. The song is
full of all these little personal references which
You are quite dismissive

of a lot of your past albums; are you a harsh
judge of your own work?
I dont think you have to be a perfectionist to be
unsatisfied with what you do. I really do think I
do some good stuff I have a certain amount of
self-belief, but I know I am capable of being
mediocre, too. Its something you have to ask
yourself all the time: how am I doing? I am not
good at being commercial; I am not good at
being Brian Wilson or The Traveling Wilburys.
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
67
VINCENT DIXON
That church mouses yearning to be a proper

rat recurs; jealousy underpins hatred on the
marks portrait of the sexy conman, Long John
Silver, while the 80s smoove of Wheres Your
Heart? (complete with faux-Prince harmonies)
expresses the soft-bodied creatures loathing
and half-suppressed admiration for the hardshelled. Is it just yourself youre enamoured of,
sings Thompson, an attempted put-down
seemingly delivered by someone who dreams
of loving themselves a little more.
Love, though, is not something Stills
dramatis personae can deal with. The dervish
whirl of Pony In The Stable expresses that
fear that passion and excitement might be too
much to handle. Youre messing with my mind,
youre thrilling me but killing me, stammers
Thompson, the accompanying car-alarm guitar
wails subtitling the anxiety at its core.
Emotionally, the centre of Still might be the
anguished Dungeons For Eyes, Thompsons
account of meeting a genuine baddie a killer
turned politician at a social engagement. Am
I supposed to love
him, am I supposed
SLEEVE
to shake his hand,
NOTES
Thompson wonders,
Produced by:
suddenly confronted
Je Tweedy
with the banality of
Recorded at: The
evil, but as powerful
Lof, Chicago
Personnel: Richard
as his sense of
Thompson (guitar,
repulsion is, what
vocals), Taras
seems to horrify
Prodaniuk (bass),
Thompson more is
Michael Jerome
that given the
(drums), Jim
opportunity to right
Elkington (guitar),
Liam Cunningham
wrongs, even to
(vocals), Sima
speak his mind
Cunningham (vocals),
he does nothing.
Siobhan Kennedy
I cant forgive you,
(vocals)
I cant forgive me,
he mutters over a
rising cacophony.
Inertia, though, comes naturally to him,
making closer Guitar Heroes Thompsons
affectionate portrait of the fretmasters who
bewitched him as a child oddly revealing.
The mini-Thompson blocks out the world to
try and emulate his idols, with parents,
school, girlfriends (She says theres normal
boys out there) all waved away as he pursues
his mission to make a tiny corner of a big,
intimidating universe absolutely his own.
Its gauche and funny, but the underlying
joylessness emerges in a crushing crescendo:
Well I played and played until my fingers bled/
I shut out all the voices but the voice in my head/
Now I stand on the stage and I do my stuff/And
maybe its good but its never good enough.
Whether thats how Thompson genuinely
feels about his work is a moot point;
disentangling fact from fiction in his songs
is an untidy business. However, it says
something about the kind of determination
that keeps him interesting; the producers,
the backing bands, the studios, change, but
the songs fundamentally do not. Tightly
wound easygoing but uptight; the work
of a man still striving for a modest kind
of perfection. And not for the first time
with Still he has almost achieved it.
New Albums
JAMIE XX
In Colour
YOUNG TURKS
The xx producer steps out of the shadows with a thrilling

reimagining of British rave culture. By Piers Martin
FOR SOMEONE WHO treads so
softly, the music of Jamie Smith
has already made a huge
impression on contemporary pop. At just 26, the
Londoner has spent the past six years living what
many would perceive to be a fantasy life in which
everything he turns his hand to the two albums
with his schoolfriends in The xx, his distinctive
remixes, his satisfyingly eclectic DJ sets is
greeted with critical and commercial acclaim.
As a producer, he has dabbled with high-end
pop, allowing his woozy tracks to be sampled by
Drake and Alicia Keys, and composed a score
for a modern ballet at this years Manchester
International Festival, in addition to taking
on a commission from the National Gallery
to soundtrack a painting from its collection (he
8/10
TRACKLIST
Gosh
Sleep Sound
Seesaw (feat Romy)
Obvs
Just Saying
Stranger In A Room (feat Oliver Sim)
Hold Tight
Loud Places (feat Romy)
I Know Theres Gonna Be (Good Times)
(feat Young Thug And Popcaan)
10 The Rest Is Noise
11 Girl
TOM BEARD
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
chose a neo-Impressionist landscape by Tho

van Rysselberghe).
But it was 2011s full-length Were New Here, his
inspired reworking of Gil Scott-Herons swansong
Im New Here, that first suggested Smith, then 21,
could articulate his own feelings in an original and
heartfelt way. Edging uneasily into the spotlight
usually occupied by his xx bandmates Romy
Madley-Croft and Oliver Sim, Smith transformed
Scott-Herons inner-city blues into a different kind of
streetwise sadness, one informed as much by the
minimalist melancholy of The xx as his love for
vintage soul and disco, and British house and
techno. Propelled by Smiths hazy skipnshuffle,
the old soulmans NYC love letter became a mistyeyed London rave-up, ultimately providing Smith
with a blueprint of sorts for In Colour.
New Albums
Jamie xx
aming tracks Gosh and Hold

Tight, do you romanticise a 90s
UK rave scene you were too young
to be part of?
I do do that. I think thats how all dance
music is, it tends to be retrospective. Even
stu thats future isnt really. But what I
liked about those phrases is theyre old
English phrases. Oh my gosh is a very old
English thing to say and then jungle MCs
started to say it in the 90s. I like that more
than it being a reference to 90s dance
music. I like its general Britishness.
Would you say In Colour is a very British
dance record?
Well, London is a big part of what I think
about when Im making music, just because
I love it and Im in it all the time. The record
was also made all over the world and Id like
it to not just have a London inuence.
How did Loud Places come together?
The chorus is from Idris Muhammads
Could Heaven Ever Be Like This. I had
several versions of Loud Places but I was
struggling with it. Then I listened to that
record that Ive loved for so long and the
lyrics seemed to make perfect sense with
what Romy was singing. So I tried it and it
was like a eureka moment.
You have been recording the new xx
album in Iceland, Texas and Los Angeles
is it nearing completion?
Im not sure. Im really happy with
everything, but cant really tell how far we
are along. Its nice to have so much time.
INTERVIEW: PIERS MARTIN
meatier xx number sung by

Madley-Croft into which
Smith has stitched the
Produced by:
colossal chorus from Idris
Jamie Smith
Muhammads 1977 hippyRecorded at: Smiths
disco classic Could Heaven
home studio, London;
Ever Be Like This; a cheesy
Electric Lady Studios,
move, arguably, but one he
Amongst all this, Smith today finds
New York; various
pulls off with aplomb.
himself a central figure in a trend in
studios and locations
Madley Croft also sings
dance that romanticises a golden age
Personnel include:
SeeSaw,
a loved-up Boards
of rave, as a generation of producers
Romy Madley-Crof
Of
Canada
sunrise
moment
Burial, Joy Orbison, Lee Gamble
(vocals), Oliver Sim
Smith produced with his
fetishise old-school jungle mixtapes
(vocals), Young Thug
friend, Four Tets Kieran
and look to YouTube for nostalgic
(vocals), Popcaan
Hebden. Not to be outdone,
footage of beaming 90s clubbers,
(vocals), Kieran Hebden
Oliver Sim smoulders on
under the illusion that most
(production)
Stranger In A Room, perhaps
innovations in electronic music were
the albums weakest link,
dreamt up and executed while some
while the dancehall bounce of
were still in primary school. Rather
I Know Theres Gonna Be (Good Times)
than attempt anything radically new, In Colour
finds Atlanta rapper Young Thug and
the title a dig at the xxs none-more-black look
Jamaican star Popcaan exhorting positivity
celebrates Smiths blissful version of the past, and
on a lithe Smith cut quite unlike anything else
the results are frequently glorious.
on In Colour. Smith rolls out the steel drums
Having set out his stall with last summers All
for Sleep Sound and Obvs, which lollop
Under One Roof Raving, a homage to UK clubbing
along tastefully, the latter a couple of
that weaved snippets from pirate radio and artist
pineapples away from being a calypso version
Mark Leckeys cult 1999 video piece, Fiorucci
of Moments In Love by Art Of Noise.
Made Me Hardcore, around his trademark steelBefore In Colour, one might have
drum-laced groove, Smith perfectly captures the
characterised Girl the closing track here
anticipation and rush of the rave with Gosh and
as the definitive Jamie xx jam, a rolling, quasiHold Tight. Gosh in particular is an absurdly
garage, mutant shuffle evocative of The Field
thrilling album opener with a surging bassline
or, further back, Akufen. What In Colour
that appears to lasso the listener and drag them
reveals is the sheer scope of Smiths skills as a
willingly to the dancefloor, encouraged all the
songwriter and producer. The xx on ecstasy:
way by a London MC chirping Oh my gosh!
not a bad idea at all.
Equally uplifting is Loud Places, essentially a
SLEEVE
NOTES
COMING UP
THIS MONTH...
p70 SUN KIL MOON
p73 SARAH CRACKNELL
p74 LEON BRIDGES
p75
p79
p80
p82
p84
p85
THE FALL
GRAHAM PARKER
JIM OROURKE
KACEY MUSGRAVES
KATHRYN WILLIAMS
RICKIE LEE JONES
THE ACORN
Vieux Loup
PAPER BAG RECORDS
Still sowing seeds:

Canadian act return
after five-year hiatus
In 2007, Ottawas Rolf
Klausener looked like he
7/10 might
catch a wave of
Canadian acts including Arcade Fire and
Broken Social Scene breaking internationally.
Ultimately, the bands Glory Hope Mountain
proved too subtle to connect and, three albums
on, The Acorn remain elusive. With a voice
thats part Mark Hollis, part Jos Gonzles and
a plaintive acoustic sensibility like Gonzles
too, especially on Cumin Klausener writes
seductively abstract songs: opener Rapids
offers little more than brushed snare drums and
occasional muted guitars, while Influences
quietly throbbing electronica, and Palm
Springs subdued, strangled effects, retain
an eerily atmospheric peculiarity.
WYNDHAM WALLACE
ALGIERS
Algiers
MATADOR
Righteous US trios
ravaged sci-fi blues
Raised in Atlanta but
based in London and
York, Algiers are the
7/10 New
geographically challenged
post-punk seditionists whose politicised debut
stumbles, drunkenly and often thrillingly,
across art-rocks Southern gothic badlands.
Theres a lot going on here, not just in guitarist
Franklin James Fishers preacherman sermons
on religion and race, howled in a mighty
bellow, but in Algiers schizophrenic songbook.
Smeared between the Bad Seeds and Suicide,
in awe of gospel and Nina Simone, they
lurch from coldwave synth (Remains) to
hysterical guitar noise (Claudette) and
Skinny Puppy industrial chintz (Irony Utility
Pretext), as if unsure of the best medium
for their message.
PIERS MARTIN
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
69
New Albums
SUN KIL
MOON
Universal
Themes
ROUGH TRADE
Epic, strange meditations on

death, love and hard work.
Co-starring Michael Caine and
Robin Williams. By John Robinson
UNIVERSAL ISNT
NECESSARILY the first
word that springs to
mind when you think
of Mark Kozelek. In his
albums of the last four
years, the ex-Red
House Painter has
multi-tracked vocals and disorientating shifts in
made his songwriting
mood. Lyrically, the tone can be like a sweary bar
personal to the point
conversation or demented interior monologue. Cry
genetically coded:
9/10 of
Me A River Williamsburg Sleeve Tattoo Blues is a
making music about
great song and the funniest eight words I will type
his European promoter, his ex-girlfriends,
this year. It begins like Kozeleks version of
childhood and backache. 2014s Benji dwelt on
Eminems Stan entering the mind of a Brooklyn
family tragedy. In a song called Carissa, the
blogger who hates his new stuff.
death of a family member in a freak accident
As the song continues, Kozelek starts telling
became an artistic mission statement. She was
anecdotes (Ill tell you another because what the
only my second cousin, he sang, but that doesnt
fuck?). All are about people dying: about a disabled
mean I wasnt meant to give her life poetry
family friend, a kid he knew who was shot by
Kozelek can be witty and tender, caddish and
accident, and about a young boxer. Each is brutally
bitchy, wounded and self-justifying; in short he
unpoetic there are no moral lessons to be drawn
always makes it about him. But then to be fair, since
here. Sometimes people just die. Its as if he wants
he abandoned the symbolic restraint of his earlier
to unpick the songwriting process completely,
compositions in about 2012, it actually all is about
achieving authenticity beyond rhyming lines. Duly,
him, specifically. As with Karl Ove Knausgrds
the hellacious With A Certain Grace I Went To The
novels or the journalism of Vice, he has made a
Bathroom And Cried, about visiting a sick friend
major breakthrough with the unglossy exploration
but wanting to get back to work, is nearly
of personal minutiae. Or, as people sometimes put
unintelligible, being sung in an OTT Stone Temple
it, honesty. The decision to write in this way was
Pilots roar. In the hard-swinging Little Rascals,
clearly a shot in the arm to his music, which is
he dispenses a stream-of-consciousness lyric which
funnier, and also more serious than it used to be.
covers his mum trouncing him at Scrabble and
Arguably, this tendency got a bit out of hand with
seeing Robin Williams in the street when he was
his beef with War On Drugs. But a record like this
with a girlfriend, who has since died.
new one, in which he alludes to his
The world dont owe a shit, he says,
friendship with Will Oldham and
SLEEVE
and I learned that real fucking young.
Justin Broadrick from Godflesh (as he
NOTES
He would do disservice to power
does in the opener The Possum)
Produced by:
of the memory by making more
while musing on death and work, or (as Mark Kozelek
elegant observations.
on the spectacular Birds Of Flims)
Recorded in: San
Hearing the roaring voice, the mad
how he went to Switzerland to make an
Francisco 2014/2015.
riffs,
and then the beauty of songs
Italian film and ended up asking Jane
Additional recording
like Birds Of Flims or Garden Of
Fonda out to dinner feels audacious,
in Hoboken, 2015
Lavender (Im not sure what my
entertaining, and utterly surprising.
Personnel: Mark
Beneath the gossip and the in-jokes,
Kozelek (guitars,vocals, lavender symbolised) can make
Universal Themes sound quite
however, the ostensible theme of these
additional percussion),
deranged. When you arrive at the end
recent albums has been the challenge
Steve Shelley (drums),
of the LP, however, This Is My First
of processing the randomness of
Chris Connolly
Day And Im Indian And I Work At A
memory, experience and the chaos of
(keyboards on
everyday life and then writing about
Track 8), Alex Schwartz Gas Station, makes you realise the
extent to which Kozelek has played
it. How can you plan for a world that
(bass on Track 3)
you, and that youve been listening to a
claims the lives of two members of your
record with as many clues, false trails
family in trash-burning accidents
and callbacks as in a decent novel. Now you feel it
much less write a song about it? With Universal
all come together.
Themes, he musically expresses the futility of trying
In the song, Kozelek draws a parallel between a
to impose tidy compositional structure on the
nervous convenience store employee and his own
randomness of memory and experience.
nerves when he plays guitar for his friend Ben
In the china shop of his last five years work,
Gibbards band. Meanwhile, subjects weve been
this LP is the bull. These generally epic songs (two
hearing as recurring motifs throughout the album
are over 10 minutes, most are about 10 minutes
(making a movie in Switzerland, visiting a sick
long) are often based on grinding riffs while, within
friend, death) now all fall into an immensely
their walls, Kozelek experiments with collage,
satisfying sense of order, as the albums themes

reveal themselves.
Its all more straightforward than you might think.
Try and challenge yourself now and then you
might enjoy it. Try to make time for other people,
because you never know when they may not be
around any more. And remember, either for good
and bad, life will always surprise you. Its very much
his story but its strangely relatable.
Mark Kozelek
n recent records youve experimented

a lot with how to treat your voice. Tell
me about what youre doing on With
A Certain Grace
I took it easy in some sections and belted in
others. Theres a tiny bit of slap-back delay,
like Elvis used.
The LP has a lot of great ris on it. Did you have
a few saved up, waiting for the right record?
Thank you. I grew up on great ris Zeppelin and
Black Sabbath. [Red House Painters] Make Like
Paper and Salvador Sanchez [from the rst
Sun Kil Moon album] are great ris.
On the record, you recall your friendship with
Justin Broadrick from Godesh. Who else
among your 90s contemporaries do you still
rate/like? Is it right youre making a record
with Justin?
Justin and I are working on something, though
its been slow going due to our schedules. Will
Oldham is great, and so is Bill Callahan. He
sounds like a baritone Willie Nelson. Ana
Vidovic is my biggest inspiration as a guitarist.
Can you tell me a bit more about making
Youth? Where does your character t in? Did
you manage to take Jane Fonda to dinner in
the end?
Jane came up to me in the hotel lobby and said,
Is there a gym? What is there to do around
here? Are there people around here anywhere?
I said, Welcome to Flims, Switzerland. I asked
her to dinner, but she was in a hurry to nd a gym.
It was pretty surreal.
New Albums
ALPINE
Yuck
MEG BAIRD
Dont Weigh
Down The Light
IVY LEAGUE
WICHITA
JEFF BECK
Live +
ATCO
Second from Australias

premiere purveyors of
faux-Nordic angst
Based in sunny
but steeped
6/10 Melbourne
in autumnal Scandi-noir
hues, Alpine make a sardonic brand of sophistopop that measures the swoony fantasy of
romance against the sometimes crushingly
disappointing reality. The intertwined vocals of
Phoebe Baker and Lou James are a key selling
point, their deadpan Aussie humour wrapped
in deceptively fluffy sweetness: Heels on
cobblestones satisfy better than your cocky
tones. The bands second album features a few
middling faux-Europop numbers, but the best
are real growers. Like Foolish, which sounds
like The Cardigans remixing Daft Punks Get
Lucky, and Damn Baby, a silken smoochpop beauty adorned with brassy fanfares.
The once and

future queen of
psych-folk returns
various solo sets,
8/10 Over
collaborations with sister
Laura, and three tremendous albums fronting
Phillys Espers, Baird has been a torchbearer for
the kind of candlelit psych-folk that was briefly
hip in the early 00s. Fashions change, but
Bairds music remains gorgeous, harbouring
a kind of still magic without ever resorting to
self-consciously wyrd affectations. Now relocated
to San Francisco (where shes also joined a
blazing Comets On Fire offshoot, Heron Oblivion),
the likes of Back To You are as close as Baird has
come to the brackish atmospherics of Espers since
their 2009 swansong. A strong companion piece,
also, to another 2015 invocation of old California,
Jessica Pratts On Your Own Love Again.
Back to what he does

best recorded on
tour in 2014
If Jeff Becks recent
albums have been
7/10 studio
uneven (his last included
Nessun Dorma), live, he continues to rock
as hard as ever. Backed by a four-piece band,
old faves Morning Dew (from 1968s Truth)
and Superstition (from 1973s Beck, Bogert,
Appice) are pleasingly dusted down and
crunching blues standards revisited
alongside recent successes such as the
prog-ish 2010 Grammy-winning instrumental
Hammerhead. Jimmy Halls vocals are
unremarkable, but it barely matters; its a guitar
album and Beck still sounds as innovative and
virtuosic as anyone. Two new studio tracks,
including the terrific retro-psych of My Tiled
White Floor, round out the package.
STEPHEN DALTON
JOHN MULVEY
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
ASH
Kablammo!
EARMUSIC
Tim Wheeler and co

revisit their youth with
first LP in eight years
Ash may be nearing
forties, but the
7/10 their
teenage spirit that shaped
their early career has been reawakened on
Kablammo!. This is the Irish trios first album
in eight years (2007s Twilight Of The Innocents
was billed as their final one, after which
they would deal only in singles) and sees
them dispensing with the electronic
experimentation of their later works.
Cocoon and Shutdown are among the
tracks reprising the guitar-led, powerpop
blasts of yore. Free and Moondust bring
a more expansive sound and a leisurely pace,
though, for the most part, this is a short,
sharp and generally satisfying voyage into
Ashs heady past.
HOW TO BUY...
MODERN KOSMISCHE
BITCHIN BAJAS
Transporteur
Freakouts, drones and meditation
HANDS IN THE DARK
WHITE
RAINBOW
Prism Of
Eternal Now
KRANKY, 2007
A bunch of albums
by Arp, High Wolf,
Emeralds, Cloudland
Canyon, Sinoia Caves and more presaged
a revival of Kraut-inspired quasi-ambience
around the late 00s. This Tangerine Dreamavoured freakout by Portlands Adam
Forkner is, however, a neglected classic. Dig
the Lamonte Young/Dream Syndicate-style
cover art, and the back cover exhortation:
MORE ADVANCED THAN MEDITATION!!
8/10
MATMOS
Supreme
Balloon
FIONA STURGES
Tricksy, immersive
cosmic electronica from
new Chicago maestros
In a surprisingly crowded
Bitchin Bajas have
8/10 field,
gradually revealed
themselves, in the past year or two, to be the
best latterday exponents of a certain meditative
and transporting strain of kosmische music.
Last years self-titled fifth LP, rich with Terry Riley
allusions, probably remains their masterpiece,
but this vinyl/cassette edition from Cooper Crain
and his collaborators is very nearly as good.
Lunar drones, deep space oscillations and reed
jams proliferate, as usual, but the key touchstones
on Transporteur are more likely Cluster and
Harmonia, as exemplified by Marimba,
which pulls off the rare Moebius and Roedelius
trick of being at once jauntily playful and, in a
psychedelically adjusted way, rather serene.
JOHN MULVEY
MATADOR, 2008
BABY DEE
I Am A Stick
TIN ANGEL
More elegant, avantpop enchantment

Championed by the diverse
likes of Will Oldham and
WK, pianist,
8/10 Andrew
harpist, accordionist,
singer-songwriter and trans ex-street performer
Baby Dee is often tagged as an outsider. But if
her music a mix of twisted torch songs, avantgarde minimalism, cabaret and the Great
American Songbook is eccentric, its equally
poignant, witty and effortlessly charming. I Am
A Stick is a road album that plays high drama
off against humbling intimacy, with Dees
tremulous voice the focus. Her band, featuring
the Arcade Fires saxophonist, Colin Stetson,
provides simptico accompaniment, notably
on Up Tree River Down/Wilhelmus, which
riffs on Robesons Ol Man River, and the
surprisingly rowdy Whose Rough Hands.
SHARON OCONNELL
The arch-theorists
and pranksters of
latterday electronica
turned their
attention to vintage levitation strategies on
this 2008 album, with the 24-minute title
track a straight-up homage to Terry Riley,
essentially a notable high.
8/10
MOUNTAINS
Choral
THRILL JOCKEY, 2009
A multi-tasking
improvising duo
from Chicago, the
ethereal drones
generated by
Mountains are warmer and more organic
than much archetypal cosmic music;
earthy rather than interstellar, perhaps.
Koen Holtkamps solo records are worth
a listen, too.
8/10
JOHN MULVEY
BREAKAGE
When The
Night Comes
DIGITAL SOULBOY
Former Burial
collaborator explores
electropop spectrum
graduate of the same Brit
7/10 ASchool
in Croydon that
helped launch Amy Winehouse and Katy B,
electronic producer James Breakage Boyle
began his career in grime and dubstep, later
notching up collaborations with Burial and
Roots Manuva. Boyles third LP spans multiple
genres, from glossy vocal techno-pop to classic
pulse-racing drumnbass and murky, prowling,
patois-heavy dubscapes. He has a weakness for
thin, hackneyed lyrics, but a flair for inspired
juxtapositions, too most notably Vellocet,
a stomping electro-glam reworking of Walter
Carlos theme for A Clockwork Orange, itself
based on Purcells funeral march for Queen
Mary, written in 1695. Now that is real old skool.
STEPHEN DALTON
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
71
New Albums
AMERICANA
LARRY
CAMPBELL
& TERESA
WILLIAMS
Larry Campbell &
Teresa Williams
RED HOUSE RECORDS
Duo debut from Never

Ending Tour guitarist
Levon Helms ghost hangs over his bandleader
Larry Campbell and partner Teresa Williams
step into the spotlight, a heady blend of hard
RnB, jump blues, gospel and country balladry.
If the songwriting at times falls into clich, the
performances passionate, eloquent, spilling
over with regal harmonies are anything but.
Highlights are many: Youre Running Wild
featuring a nimble Helm on drums (one of his last
recordings) borrows from the Nashville Sound;
Midnight Highway, channeling Emmylou and
Gram, towers. The skip-step shimmy of Bad Luck
Charm and Williams blistering wail on Keep
Your Lamp Trimmed & Burning steal the show.
9/10
WILLIE NELSON
& MERLE HAGGARD
Django And Jimmie
BEST
OF THE
MONTH
LUKE TORN
THE CATENARY
WIRES
Red Red Skies
SONY LEGACY
County greats impart 159 years of collective wisdom

IT MIGHT BE over 30 years since their 1983 smash Pancho And
Lefty, but at the age of 81 and 78, respectively, country musics
Statler and Waldorf sound as engaged, energetic and mischievous
as ever, if a little dewy-eyed at times. The opening title track is a
lovely, lilting hymn to the pairs formative influences, and
thereafter nostalgia is rarely far away. On Haggards Missing Ol
Johnny Cash the duo reminisce warmly over a lively chick-aboom backing, though thankfully they refuse to whitewash over
the dark side of the Man In Black, who carried his pills in a brown paper sack. Elsewhere, theres
a nod to Bob Dylan on a jaunty version of Dont Think Twice, Its Alright.
As well as doffing their Stetsons to their peers, they raise a glass to one another. Haggard sings
Nelsons classic Family Bible, Willie returns the favour on Somewhere Between, and they croon
together on Hags peerless Swinging Doors. Of the handful of bespoke new songs, highlights
include the excellent title track and the greased-up truck-stop boogie of Its All Going To Pot,
which has plenty of fun portraying Nelson as a trailblazer for stoner culture. The pair kick up a
similar kind of hot fuss on the driving Its Only Money, one of four tracks Nelson co-wrote with
producer Buddy Cannon. The other three Alice In Hulaland, Where Dreams Come To Die and
Driving The Herd are fine and strong, but its Haggard who delivers an ace with The Only Man
Wilder Than Me, a hymn to their combined 159 years spent on a lifelong spree. Much like the rest
of Django And Jimmie, its a vibrant argument for the benefits of ornery misadventure. Nelson sings
like a canary and plays like a dream, Haggard growls like a grizzled jailbird, and everyone seems to
be having a blast. Long may they roll and run. GRAEME THOMSON
7/10
ELEFANT
Talulah Gosh and

Heavenly duo return
sounding older and wiser
happens when
7/10 What
Generation C86 grows up,
moves to the country and settles into married
life? Such is the current musical inspiration for
Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey, once of beloved
indie twee-smiths Talulah Gosh and Heavenly.
Named after the curvature formed by hanging
electrical cables, The Catenary Wires compose
rueful, slightly unshaven indie-folk meditations
on long-haul romance and midlife anxiety. Now
an OBE, university professor and ex government
economist, Fletcher can still tickle the tear ducts
with broken-hearted ballads like When You
Walk Away or Things I Love, which pays
nostalgic homage to indie clubs in Islington
and Repetition by The Fall. Quietly lovely.
STEPHEN DALTON
TOM CHAPIN
70
THE AMERICANA ROUND-UP

Big news this month
is the imminent arrival
of Jason Isbells
(pictured lef) follow-up
to 2013s much-loved
Southeastern. Due in
mid-July, Something
DANNY CLINCH, MICHAEL WISLON
More Than Free

sees him reunited with
producer Dave Cobb for what Isbell calls
his most sonically diverse album to date.
The 11 tracks encompass classic country,
folk balladry, bluesy Southern rock and an
occasional Laurel Canyon vibe. Its creator
tweeted that he thinks these songs are
better than the Southeastern batch. Cobb
has also co-produced another anticipated
release, Lindi Ortegas Faded Gloryville.
The Nashville country-blues hellions fourth
LP, in the wake of the terric Tin Star, was
partly recorded in Muscle Shoals by Ben

Tanner (Alabama Shakes) and The Civil
Wars John Paul White, who adds harmonies
to three songs. Ortega explains that Faded
Gloryville, out August, represents the dark,
dreary town that looms on the near horizon,
innitely closer than the far-o destination
were trying to reach.
Treading the boards in early June are
LAs Lord Huron, promoting latest album
Strange Trails. The spook-folk quartet,
led by founder member Ben Schneider, play
London venue Koko, the Brudenell Social
Club in Leeds and Glasgows King Tuts.
And, if youre quick, theres just enough time
to catch the end of Hans Chews current
tour. The Brooklyn-based Uncut favourite,
on the back of latest eort Life & Love,
nishes o his UK jaunt at Brightons
The Verdict on May 30. ROB HUGHES
SUNDANCE MUSIC
Folk music avatar heads

into decade number five
Zigzagging from TV
personality to childrens
to steward of
6/10 songwriter
American folk legacy, Tom
Chapin (younger brother of Harry) has had a
career of family musical collaboration and
social advocacy. On LP number 23, he mixes
blues, bluegrass and traditional folk through
good-natured compositions pointedly
addressing ecological (The Riverkeeper),
educational (Smart Without Art) and ageing
issues (Old Dogs & Old Friends), among
others. Wreckage, piquant observations on
making sense of human senselessness, is the
highlight, but the offhand reminiscence Guitar
Child and a nicely stripped-down, banjo-led
cover of Steve Goodmans City Of New Orleans
are winners, too.
LUKE TORN
New Albums
CHASSOL
Big Sun
TRICATEL
DONALD
CUMMING
Out Calls Only
DARK
GREEN TREE
Secret Lives
WASHINGTON SQUARE
HAVEN
Turning unintentional
melodies into jazz
epics
French pianist and
composer
8/10 soundtrack
Christophe Chassol
is the human equivalent of a lyrebird.
Much of his work involves recording people
speaking, turning their conversational
tonalities into notes and then replicating
them for the piano. Previous projects have
taken him to India and New Orleans, now
Big Sun takes him to Martinique, the
Caribbean island where his parents were
born. Street sounds, birdsong, shop
doorway conversations are sampled
sometimes mockingly, usually lovingly
in a series of sunny, monsoon-drenched
pieces where Chassols electric jazz is mixed
with touches of reggae and quirky Gallic pop.
Former Virgin comes

of age
Donald Cumming was
driving force behind
8/10 the
The Virgins, a gang of
cocky New York new wavers hyped as the
new Strokes. Their mouths turned out to be
bigger than their trousers, but the upside of
being in a failed band is that Cumming now
has a wealth of experience to draw on for
his solo debut, which mines a similar
seam of cheery resignation to late-period
Replacements. Theres not much room for
originality in the tiny space he stakes out
between Petty, Chilton and Westerberg,
but thanks to Cummings easy charm and
gift for simple, classic hooks, the likes of
Workin It Out and Total Darkness feel
like old friends.
JOHN LEWIS
SAM RICHARDS
NEV COTTEE
Strange News
From The
Sun
REVELATIONS
Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith
on working with Dave Rawlings
WONDERFULSOUND
Second album from

Manchesters answer
Richard Hawley
8/10 to
After the Leonard Cohen
musings of his 2013 debut, Nev Cottee brings
his rich baritone Tindersticks Stuart Staples
without the mumbles to bear on a mildly more
psychedelic collection indebted to his hero,
Lee Hazlewood. Theres little sign that
Cottee played bass for Proud Mary, the first
signings to Oasis Sour Mash label: When
I Was Young is drenched in Morricone
strings and chimes, and All Eyes On You
is a pretty, kind-hearted blend of piano and
acoustic guitars. Best is If I Could Tell You,
unfolding over seven minutes into an
exquisite, Air-like slice of harmonies and
vintage synths.
WYNDHAM WALLACE
SARAH
CRACKNELL
Red Kite
CHERRY RED
Gorgeous, classic
pop moves from Saint
Etienne chanteuse
Nicky Wire guests
8/10 With
Saint Etienne
stretching their limbs in every direction
film projects, record labels, books, DJ-ing,
curation expecting something so humble
as an album of songs from the trio feels a
fantastical proposition. Red Kite is partly so
welcome as its a return to one of the things that
Saint Etienne members do best pop music
grounded in alternate histories; song cycles
of rare beauty. The power of Cracknells
second solo album, though, lies in its
poise. Its vision of pop is deeply hermetic,
caught between quiet pastoral rapture and
urban resignation, Cracknells voice a siren
of sweetened melancholy.
JON DALE
West Coast
Americana from
Edinburgh
after a
7/10 Formed
chance meeting
between songwriters Jay Brown (from
Newcastle) and Ross Cockburn (from
Edinburgh), Dark Green Trees wistful
Americana was shaped by producer
Boo Hewerdine, and fleshed out with the
addition of Arizona native Cera Impala on
close female harmonies. Neil Young is an
obvious influence, notably on the wistful
opener Yearn For Love, but they dabble
with baroque folk on Heart Of Winter
(propelled by Pete Harveys cello), and take
Ryan Adams When The Stars Go Blue
to an interesting place, making it sound
more pained than wasted.
ALASTAIR McKAY
Formative is a word Dawes frontman

Taylor Goldsmith thinks applies to a lot of
the bands previous albums. But dont let the
title of their fourth album, All Your Favorite
Bands, mislead you.
This feels, more than ever, like a Dawes
record, he insists. We know and trust
ourselves, and each other, more than
ever. We know how to play with, but more
importantly, how to play to each other and
each others strengths.
Producer Dave Rawlings input was
key. Taylor rst met and jammed live with
Rawlings in pre-Dawes incarnation Simon
Dawes. Although they became friends,
working together wasnt inevitable. As far
as we knew, his interests as a producer didnt
extend too far beyond his and Gils [Gillian
Welchs] records.
Still, a few months prior to recording, Taylor
and his brother, drummer Grin Goldsmith,
visited Rawlings in Nashville to hothouse
prospective songs. Every chord and every
word was looked over. Despite the initial
shock of such a new step for us in the
album-making process, we felt like the
material beneted a lot from that.
Harmonies from Welch and McCrary
took things further. They made us sound
better than we ever have on our own,
vocally. But more than that, it really widened
the spectrum of what can come from a
Dawes recording.
GAVIN MARTIN
THE DARKNESS
Last Of Our Kind
CANARY DWARF
Opinion-polarising hard
rockers fourth
The Darkness emerged
as the retro synth-pop
was cresting,
7/10 wave
sporting Lycra catsuits
and touting a falsetto-fuelled amalgam of
Van Halen, Journey, Queen and Thin Lizzy.
Dismissed by some as ironic, they produced
a clutch of killer singles and a top-selling LP
that won three Brit awards in 2004. Since
then, theyve racked up two more albums
and a spell in rehab (for singer Justin Hawkins),
run various solo projects and lost two
drummers. But there are reasons to cheer aside
from survival Cult-ish single Open Fire,
Mighty Wings (Moroder remixes Metallica)
and the Rush-like title track. Daft defenders of
a legacy maybe, but also skilled interpreters
of rocks hardiest strain.
SHARON OCONNELL
DAWES
All Your
Favorite Bands
HUB
Californians live up
to wry title on fourth
outing, recorded
Nashville by
8/10 in
David Rawlings
On All Your Favorite Bands, the golden
age is emotional and historical the keenly
revealing songs, road-tested on a club tour prior
to recording, sleekly defined. Gillian Welch
and The McCrary Sisters add piquancy to
Dawes patented, pleasure-centring harmonies.
The choice arrangements are alive with
conviction from the urgent palpitations
on I Cant Think About It Now through the
slow gospel simmer on Waiting For Your Call
and the sizzle and burn of mighty closer
Now That Its Too Late, Maria. All your
favourite bands? Chance are, Dawes
will recall more than a few of them.
GAVIN MARTIN
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
73
New Albums
of young revivalists and it conspicuously lacks
a contemporary pop edge, despite the younger
Bridges fondness for Ginuwine and Usher. Strong,
because retro-soul records are often painted with
such broad interpretive strokes that they struggle to
transcend pastiche. Simple Coming Home may be,
but its in no way simplistic.
Produced by fellow Texans Joshua
SLEEVE
Block and Austin Jenkins drummer
NOTES
and guitarist respectively of White
Produced by: Austin
Denim and recorded to tape in an
Jenkins, Joshua Block
empty warehouse, using Blocks
Recorded at: Niles
armoury of vintage gear, it sounds like
City Sound, Austin
a love-in watched over by the spirits of
Personnel: Leon
Cooke, Eddy Giles and Otis Redding
Bridges (vocals,
and Clay. Block and Jenkins also play
acoustic guitar),
on the record, along with musicians
Austin Jenkins (guitar,
drawn from local bands, and backing
bass), Kenny Wayne
singers chosen by Bridges.
Hollingsworth (guitar),
Unvarnished and direct is how they
Cli Wright (bass),
deliver it, whether via the doo-wop
Josh Block (drums),
swing of Brown Skin Girl, Pull
Andrew Skates (keys),
Away, a smoochy ballad with a seeJe Dazey (saxophone) sawing rhythm or the sax-blasted
Smooth Sailin, which conjures teens
jiving on talc-dusted boards. Lisa
Sawyer and Twistin & Groovin are at opposite
ends of the mood spectrum; the former (one of those
early online demos) is a touching biographical
tribute to Bridges mother, in which his caramelised
croon grows so soft the s in New Orleans falls
away; the latter where a buzzy guitar riff slices
through swinging R&B/Cajun-blues is pure
soda-shop jukebox.
Theres so much sweetness and light here, its
almost a shock to hear Bridges hint at darkness in
his past and refer directly to his faith, as he does
on Shine, an echo of James Carrs The Dark
End Of The Street. Over Hammond organ and a
murmurous choir, he pleads, Lord, dont remember
my sins from my youth use me as your vessel/I want
to shine like the burning candle in the room. But its
on gospel closer River that he really pins his heart
to his sleeve. Strumming the simplest of chords
on an acoustic Bridges only instrumental
contribution to the record and with tambourine
COLUMBIA
and backing vocals the only other accompaniment,
sings openly about finding his belief again after
Hyped Texans blast from the past hits the sweet spot. By Sharon OConnell he
10,000 miles gone. Its both heartfelt and humble.
Lurking in the wings of all such records is the
thorny issue of authenticity more often raised
single instantly cements the Sam Cooke
RETRO SOUL IS
in a pissing contest over appropriation rights than
comparisons. He admits to the impact A Change Is
arguably a clunky and
expressing real concerns about commitment
Gonna Come had on him the first time he heard it,
inadequate tag to hang
and respect. But theres both in spades on
but its precisely the props given to that period that
on artists as diverse
Coming Home, a throwback album thats also
make Coming Home such a strong and interesting
as Amy Winehouse,
blessed with modesty. It sounds oddly refreshing,
record. Interesting, in that it fixes on the R&B/gospel
DAngelo and Sam
five decades on.
hybrid that is Southern soul not the usual choice
Smith, but theres no
denying the depth of
that particular mine,
or its profitability. So
What did the White Denim guys bring?
much so, that it would
8/10 take
Austin and Josh can play any type of music that
little effort to be
they wish to. They are hard-hittin musicians
cynical about new kid on the block Leon Bridges.
that brought a real subtlety to this record. Its
Leon Bridges
A 25-year-old Texan singer-songwriter and former
an arrangement that caters to the singer which
dance student, he arrives with a sweetly anecdotal
hy
the
move
away
from
modern
is perfect for me.
back story. In 2013, he was washing dishes in a Fort
R&B-pop into vintage soul?
Worth grill by day and playing open-mic events at
Classic soul music was just very
Your vocals are strong and assured, but you
night; in October 2014, three demos he posted on
refreshing
to
me
over
the
newer
R&B.
The
never belt it out. Why not?
SoundCloud generated a loud online buzz with their
songs themes back then were not viceIm not naturally a belt it out kind of singer; Im
unforced and uncannily accurate recreation of lateoriented, but lef very clean and simple.
just not vocally capable of doing it. So, I lean on
50s/early 60s soul; two months later, he was signed
making melodies and interesting phrasing. Lowto the same US record company as Adele. Coupled to
How
did
you
arrive
at
Coming
Homes
key, smooth revival music is not a popular thing
this narrative is Bridges on-point image an
mix of soul, doo-wop, gospel and 50s
right now, so subtlety is refreshing for people.
Instagram gallery of black-and-white photos depicts
rocknroll?
him in Sta-Prest slacks, single-button jacket and
Im a great fan of all those sounds, so I really
River is a deep track to exit on; is that fair
fedora, sat at a diner counter, in church, on a stoop
wanted
to
incorporate
them
into
this
record.
to say that its about faith?
really, its hard to imagine how this retro-soul
The overall sound is the result of my bands
Its interesting; Ive noticed a lot of soul singers
package could be more complete.
interpretation
of
the
songs,
so
it
constantly
of the 50s and 60s used river metaphors.
And yet, any concerns about contrivance
evolved
as
we
collaborated,
with
all
sorts
of
The river in my song is a metaphor for being
evaporate with the tenderly smoked, over-easy
di
erent
in
uences.
born again. INTERVIEW: SHARON OCONNELL
opening lines of his debut album. The title track
LEON BRIDGES
Coming Home
Bridges online calling card, re-recorded as his first
New Albums
BRYCE DESSNER
Music For Wood
& Strings
BRASSLAND
THE FALL
Sub-Lingual Tablet
J FERNANDEZ
Many Levels
Of Laughter
CHERRY RED
JOYFUL NOISE
Experimental tonal
suite from the
National guitarist
guitarist Bryce
8/10 National
Dessners last solo LP was
Aheym, a stentorian full-length collaboration
with the Kronos Quartet in 2013. Its follow-up
has a more meditative quality: prompted by a
commission from Carnegie Hall, Dessner
collaborated with Buke & Gases Aron Sanchez
to create a new instrument, the chord stick
half-dulcimer, half-electric guitar bowed
and beaten here by the So Percussion quartet.
Across this single 35-minute piece, Dessners
compositions expand kaleidoscopically out of
tightly plotted, mirroring melodies. Music For
Wood & Strings has a hypnotic, mystic folk
quality, recalling Californias Date Palms
governed by the sensibilities of John Cage.
Underground
medecin: the mighty
you-know-whos
31st studio album
The most durable Fall
7/10 lineup
of all, Smith,
Greenway, Poulou, Spurr, Melling are
nobodys Smith, Scanlon, Riley, Hanley,
Hanley,Burns, but they continue to do the
Tornados beset by HP Lovecraft demons
rather well. Im a big fat man pushing a little
pram, barks Mark E on Stout Man, the
most exciting addition to his personal
bestiary here, though his assault on
modern technology Quit iPhone runs it
close, and Fibre Book Troll is if nothing
else a killer title. The definitive postmillennium Fall album remains 2008s
Imperial Wax Solvent, but this is a credibly
bitter pill to swallow.
Insistent noodling
from a Chicago
bedroom
Fernandez
8/10 Justin
records in a home
studio above a stained-glass workshop
in Humboldt Park, Chicago. His music
certainly sounds home-made, with
Stereolab being an obvious touchstone:
looping melodies are coaxed from a
Vox Jaguar organ, and Fernandezs tunes
have an endearing air of fragility. Read
My Mind all but falls apart in the middle,
and Filled With Joy is like lunar jazz
floating down a hotel corridor. The
beautiful closer, Melting Down recalls
Yo La Tengo at their quietest, pulling
warm melodies from from loops of
discordant minimalism.
LAURA SNAPES
JIM WIRTH
ALASTAIR McKAY
PHILIP
DONNELLY
Beyond The Pale
HOW TO BUY...
POST-MILLENNIAL FALL
FFS
FFS
The unutterable Mark E Smith on CD
DOMINO
DUBLIN
Irelands top Nashville

cat steps out with help
from his famous friends
started out in
6/10 Donnelly
Irish band Elmer Fudd
in the 1970s, then settled in Nashville, where
he played guitar on sessions for Townes Van
Zandt, John Prine, Johnny Cash and The
Everly Brothers, among others. He survived
a quadruple heart bypass in 2011 and his
fourth solo album is an amiable country-rock
collection of newly recorded versions of songs
from his little-known but storied career,
assisted by old friends including Prine, who
contributes four compositions, and Nanci
Griffith. Beyond The Pale wont alter his musos
muso status, fted by his peers but ignored by
the record-buying public. But its full of charm
and an unassuming dignity.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
WILLIAM D
DRAKE
Revere Reach
ONOMATOPOEIA
Delicious, off-radar
folk from UK outlier
Since leaving Cardiacs
the early 90s, Drake
8/10 in
has sunk himself into
a variety of leftfield projects and set out
on a healthy solo career. This fifth effort is
an enthralling exercise in stately prog-folk,
drawing on a love of sea shanties, centuriesold poetry and chamber music, enlisting
the help of various collaborators, including
members of Stars In Battledress, Arch
Garrison and North Sea Radio Orchestra.
The Blind Boy sets Colley Cibbers
18th-Century verse to a droning harmonium,
A Husk is narrated by a forlorn scarecrow,
dreaming of the love hell never have, and the
very wonderful Distant Buzzing moves
with the busy gait of classic Cardiacs.
ROB HUGHES
The Unutterable
EAGLE, 2000
Mark E Smith wiped the

slate clean in the late
1990s, ditching most of
his most loyal lieutenants,
and pressing young
unfortunates to ll the gaps. Uptight and
eerie, the tiki-avoured Cyber Insekt sets
the tone for his rst great 2000s outing, with
Smiths snaggletooth chuckles at superstar
DJ Pete Tongs palmtop on Dr Bucks Letter
summing up its irreverent embrace of the
post-MDMA years.
8/10
The Real New
Fall LP, Formerly
Country On The
Click ACTION, 2003
Furious afer nding that
the original version of
Country On The Click had
been leaked online pre-release, Smith decided
to re-record much of it, but no last-minute
tinkering could mask a powerful set of songs;
Theme From Sparta FC as heard on the
BBCs Final Score is wonderfully lugubrious,
the rowche rumble of Last Commands Of
Xyralothep Via MES pleasingly impenetrable.
8/10
Imperial Wax
Solvent CASTLE, 2008
A quest for something
a bit more smack-inthe-face than 2007s
Post Reformation TLC
produced one of the most
intense and riotous LPs of The Falls career.
The 13-minute long 50-Year-Old Man
complete with country hoedown interlude
and reference to Smiths three-foot rocket
hard-on is its hideous centrepiece, but
closing assault Exploding Chimney is no
less disgusting, no less violent.
8/10
Superb debut from

art-rock dream team
Franz Ferdinand and
Sparks first collaborative
effort, initially dreamt
8/10 up
backstage at Coachella,
contains the song Collaborations Dont Work,
a six-minute warning about the dangers of
musical partnerships (You start off deferential
and strangely reverential). As their name
would suggest, FFS were always going to
have a strong seam of smartarsery but,
even so, theres more to them than mischief.
The LOLs are certainly dialled down in the
ghostly ode to thwarted dreams Little Guy
From The Suburbs. Elsewhere smart, spiky
lyrics are couched in pleasingly propulsive
synth-pop soundscapes and occasional
orchestral chaos. All in all, its a match made
in heaven.
FIONA STURGES
WES FINCH
Awena
UNITY ROOTS
Full-length debut from

nu-folks latest name
on the block
At 37, Finch may be a late
but hes a
7/10 developer
welcome and singular
addition to the lists of newbloods reinvigorating
British folk music. A brace of self-released minialbums found the Coventry-born troubadour
ploughing the fields of Americana, but here
producer Gerry Diver (Sam Lee, Alasdair
Roberts, Lisa Knapp) brings him home on a set
of literate, storytelling songs rich in English
origin and outlook. Widow Thomas is about
the poets Edward Thomas and Ivor Gurney,
Red Coat is a soldiers tale grippingly told and
Jackies Stone pays tribute to the unsung Irish
navvies who built Britains roads and canals.
Non-trad acoustic roots delivered with an edgy,
risk-taking sonic boldness.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
JIM WIRTH
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
75
New Albums
FLORENCE +
THE MACHINE
How Big, How Blue,
How Beautiful
DAUGHN
GIBSON
Carnation
GIRLPOOL
Before The
World Was Big
SUB POP
WICHITA
Focused third from

drivetime diva
Welchs
6/10 Florence
transformation into
Fleetwood + The Mac nears completion on the
London singers ebullient third album, which
reins in the cartoon flamboyance of 2011s
Ceremonials to focus on punchy drivetime fare
like Ship To Wreck and What Kind Of Man.
Streamlined by Arcade Fire and Mumfords
producer Markus Dravs, much of How Big, How
Blue check out the sky, man! suggests
group-therapy sessions in the Canyons as
Welch delivers clunky self-help lines wrapped
in elemental metaphors. But you dont go to
Florence for subtlety, and though Delilah
and Caught tend to drag, this is a sturdy and
good-looking set of songs.
Pennsylvanian
pop alchemists
splendid third
now three years since
8/10 Its
Daughn Gibson introduced
his hybrid of lonesome country, vintage art pop
and illbient atmospherics. As seductive as it
was strange, it painted vivid vignettes of life in
smalltown America over two LPs, and although
his third pulls back the focus and makes
grander gestures, its no less affecting. These
darkly glittering songs that unpack the (often
fictional) male experience are the sounds of
Johnny Cash, Scott Walker at his 60s peak and
a damaged Bryan Ferry (I Let Him Deal and
the sax-blasted Shine Of The Night could be
cuts from Avalon reworked by The National),
underpinned by Grace Jones carnality.
Singular and unsettlingly sophisticated.
Growing pains and

few frills from Philly
punk teenagers
is more for Harmony
8/10 Less
Tividad and Cleo Tucker,
who with guitar and bass and without
anything as boldly ostentatious as a drum kit
write introspective, diaristic songs that make
a virtue of their simplicity. One obvious
touchstone is New York antifolk duo The Moldy
Peaches, who mined a similar furrow of no-frills
recording and close harmony singing. Girlpool,
though, replace the Peaches tendency towards
potty-mouthed absurdism with evocative little
vignettes: see the sleepy-eyed vacation tales of
Dear Nora, or Cherry Picking, a break-up
anthem swinging between scuffed-knee sorrow
and thumbed-nose attitude: Yes I am picking
cherries/I have a hard time staying clean!
PIERS MARTIN
SHARON OCONNELL
LOUIS PATTISON
ISLAND
FUNKSTRUNG
Funkstrung
MONKEYTOWN
Collaboration-packed
fifth from Hamburg
electronica duo
Funkstrungs melodic,
take on the
6/10 approachable
egghead electronics of
Autechre et al won them some influential fans
in the late 90s, most notably Bjrk, who
recruited them to (brilliantly) remix her 1997
single All Is Full Of Love. Back after a nineyear hiatus, theres the loose sense they havent
really moved with the times, their cloudy
melodies and glitching hip-hop rhythms
suggesting nothing dates quite like yesterdays
vision of the future. Still, their knack for a
vocal collaboration remains. Peachy melodies
bloom beneath Jamie Lidells boudoir croon
on So Simple, while the pair tinker playfully
with Tel Aviv vocalist ADIs sassy raps on
Who Is Who?.
LOUIS PATTISON
GHOST
HARMONIC
Codex
METAMATIC
Electro-classical trio
discover a strong
studio chemistry
latest collaboration
8/10 The
between electro-pop
veteran John Foxx and studio partner Ben
Benge Edwards draws young Anglo-Japanese
concert violinist Diana Yukawa into the duos
analogue soundworld, with mostly exquisite
results. Applying reverb, tape delay and multitracking effects to Yukawas slithering string
motifs lends a gorgeous, avant-ambient aura to
haunted lava-lamp pieces like The Pleasure Of
Ruins, with inevitable echoes of Brian Eno but
also Arvo Prt and Andrzej Panufnik. From the
jarring quartertones of Dispersed Memory
to the quietly ecstatic reverie When We Came
To This Shore, this three-way fusion is an
object of rare and glistening beauty.
STEPHEN DALTON
WER E
NEW
HERE
Girlpool, the duo of Harmony Tividad

and Cleo Tucker, debuted last year with a
self-titled EP that chalked out their aesthetic
frank, feminist, lo- in bold strokes. Songs
like Slutmouth and American Beauty (the
latter about receiving oral sex while watching
the 1999 Kevin Spacey black comedy)
explored insecurity, sexism and make-out
sessions to a music that seemed deliberately
unvarnished, so as to accentuate the raw
honesty of the subject matter.
Tividad and Tucker met through The Smell,
the Los Angeles venue thats also spawned
DIY groups including No Age and Mika Miko.
When Cleo and I met, I was working door
and I vividly remember her dancing around
the venue, says Tividad. Both were in bands
already, but afer playing together on a few
bills, struck up a friendship, and soon found
themselves jamming together exclusively.
For debut LP Before The World Was Big, the
pair escaped LA for Philadelphia, recording
a new clutch of songs with Kyle Gilbride of
Swearin, dealing with life on the cusp of
adulthood. The only thing we were seeking
to communicate was our truth in the moment
those songs were written and recorded, says
Tividad. Creating with Harmony is sort of like
sitting on a train with her, adds Tucker. All
of the external factors outside exist well and
good. But were not engaged in providing any
satisfaction, other than to ourselves.
LOUIS PATTISON
DELIA
GONZALEZ
In Remembrance
Girlpool
DFA
Minimalist piano and

austere techno from
NYC art diva
is one of DFAs
6/10 Gonzalez
best-kept secrets, her
cosmic disco collaborations with the New York
synth guru Gavin Russom among the highlights
of the labels roster. In Remembrance is a
tougher sell, though. The first slab of vinyl
holds four numerically titled solo piano pieces
inspired by Philip Glass and the teachings of
Gurdjieff, which have so far lived mostly in a
gallery context, accompanying Gonzalez
16mm films of ballet. A second disc sees this
material remixed by DJ Bryce Hackford,
adding oomph, but keeping things relatively
unadorned. An accompanying DVD completes
the sense this is a heavyweight artefact, if not
quite essential from a tunes point of view.
LOUIS PATTISON
GRASSCUT
Everyone Was
A Bird
LO RECORDINGS
BAFTA Award-winning
composers and Robert
Wyatt biographers
expedition
8/10 third
Having musically mapped
out a Sussex village on their 2010 debut, 1 Inch:
Mile, and hidden remixes of their second
album around Britains rural locations, its
no surprise that Brighton duo Grasscut
remain obsessed with landscapes. Andrew
Phillips lyrics lean heavily on descriptions of
topography and wildlife, while travel writer
Robert Macfarlanes liner notes suggest further
debts to poets Eliot and Sassoon. But its all as
accessible as the countryside, with a sweeping
sense of the arcadian in the grandly arranged,
Cinematic Orchestra-style climax to
Fallwater, and Red Kites nostalgic,
heightening flights of fancy.
WYNDHAM WALLACE
New Albums
HEARTLESS
BASTARDS
Restless Ones
HUDSON
MOHAWKE
Lantern
PARTISAN
WARP
JAGA JAZZIST
Starre
NINJA TUNE
Hitting a strange stride:

indie-rock stalwarts play
it anything but safe
to new sonic
8/10 Challenged
heights by producer
John Congleton, Restless Ones extends the
idiosyncratic path forged by this Ohio combo,
now five albums deep into a career of striking
unpredictability and originality. Submerged
are the country/folk ramblings of 2012s Arrow,
replaced with a challenging density savage
guitars, powerful percussion play, and
Erika Wennerstroms otherworldly vocal
soar building everything, from the sound
collage Tristessa to the bluesy boom of the
spectacular Gates Of Dawn, into a mountain
of sound. Yet within its dizzying heights, the
quiet Hi-Line, spectral harmonies hovering
over sparkling guitars, might stand tallest.
Garlanded Glaswegian
producers soulful second
That Ross Birchard
this set down to
7/10 whittled
14 tracks from 40 says
much about his febrile creativity. As do his
collaborations (with Kanye West, Drake,
Pusha-T) and his globe-conquering side
project with Lunice, TNGHT. Despite his hiphop connections and the genres feature role on
his Butter debut, its out of the frame, six years
on. As the warmly retro Ryderz, hushed
lullaby Indian Steps (with Antony Hegarty)
and anguished Deepspace show, HudMo has
toned down the high contrast and adopted a
softer, soul/R&B-pop style. Very First Breath
and Resistance even tilt at Rihanna, although
the thuggish beats and synth pulsations of
System restore 5am club (dis)order.
From Norway via

LA: post-everything
octet championed
by Flying Lotus
fresh does 2001s
8/10 So
A Livingroom Hush still
sound that its easy to forget Norwegian eightpiece Jaga Jazzist are now 20 years old. The
big change here is that these pieces were
written and largely recorded in Los Angeles.
The result is a more electronic, less jazz-based
album, which calls to mind artists on the
Brainfeeder label as well as Squarepusher,
Battles, Mister Barrington and instrumental
Soft Machine. There are soaring synth melodies
between the squiggles and squelches, while
the rhythm section proceeds with the lazy
but inexorable weight of a wrecking ball.
Panoramic, synthetically symphonic and
a lot of fun.
LUKE TORN
SHARON OCONNELL
MARCUS ODAIR
HI ALERTS
Conjure
Time
TWENTY STONE BLATT/
PROPER
JENNY HVAL
Apocalypse, Girl
JAAKKO
EINO KALEVI
Jaakko Eino
Kalevi
SACRED BONES
Cross-generational
garage rock
Glasgow
6/10 Mid-1980s
garage rockers The
Primevals were a band out of time, though
a support slot with The Cramps earned
them enduring popularity in France.
Lately, frontman Michael Rooney has revived
his band to good effect, and here they
collaborate with members of the Glasgowbased Los Tentakills, who recently crawled
from a dark corner of the same retro swamp.
Rooney writes the songs, but the addition
of self-proclaimed Queen Of Psych, Celina
Ozymandias, adds a playful edge to songs
like Im On The Run a punky rumble
which knows exactly how to balance
swagger and twang.
Norwegian art popster

moves to Brooklyns
Sacred Bones label
Hval is, as she says on
This?, presumably
8/10 Why
not with an entirely
straight face, complex and intellectual. But the
lyrics on Apocalypse, Girl are also corporeal,
carnal, delivered in a voice that veers between
singing, talking and whispering. Norwegian
noisenik Lasse Marhaug, responsible for
production, sometimes merely creaks beneath
her; at other moments, he can be celestial or
blow like a tundra wind; even play it
surprisingly straight. The pressure was on,
following 2013s acclaimed Innocence Is Kinky
and Meshes Of Voice, Hvals equally strong 2014
LP with compatriot Susanna. But despite the
odd moment when youre not sure quite what
shes on about, she still stabs like a stiletto.
Sad disco sounds

from the Finnish
7/10 lakeland
Former tram driver
Jaakko Eino Kalevi is one of several
Scandinavians currently plotting an elegant
path through moody synth-pop, nu-disco,
exotica and the softest of soft rock. Unlike
Todd Terjes recent effort, Kalevis debut
album cant boast a cameo from Bryan Ferry
though it does feature Ferrys sax player Jorja
Renn, while Kalevi does his best to summon
a similar louche charm. His vocal lines are
often so casually intoned that they mingle
imperceptibly with those of his back-up singer
Suad Khalifa, over gently pulsing twilight
liaisons that yearn to be a little more
sophisticated than they actually are.
ALASTAIR McKAY
MARCUS ODAIR
SAM RICHARDS
HOP ALONG
Painted Shut
WEIRD WORLD
THE INCREDIBLE
MAGPIE BAND
Introducing
SADDLE CREEK
KING GIZZARD
& THE LIZARD
WIZARD
Quarters!
5:15
Philadelphia trio breathe

vocal fire into indie-rock
conventions
In Frances Quinlan, Hop
have a vocalist as
8/10 Along
unique as Pylons Vanessa
Briscoe Hay mimicking Life Without Buildings
Sue Tompkins a sweetly savage rasp that
leaps to contour the breadth of every emotion.
On the Philadelphia trios second album,
thats blue-collar hopelessness and the fear
of impending adulthood: Woke from the
dream and I was old/Staring at the ass crack
of dawn, she sings on Horseshoe Crabs,
where sombre piano heralds a furious outburst.
Elsewhere, the songs are underpinned by
euphoric, tangled guitar rock la Japandroids,
transformed by Quinlans defiant joy. None
of this is gonna happen to me! she sings on
Texas Funeral.
Wakefield quintet turn

back time to 66
A cool half-century
for their Ready Steady
6/10 late
Go! close-up, this Yorkshire
five-piece rattle their tambourines and hep
up their harmonies on 11 decent but doggedly
unoriginal 60s guitar-pop re-treads. They
respectfully replicate bluesy beat styles
((How Long) Does The Fire Burn), spindly surf
(Rollercoaster), and theres even a raga-fied
reboot of Ticket To Ride (Forevers Too
Soon), but too often IMB simply end up
imitating the imitators. There are strong
echoes of Oasis, The Coral and The Las
throughout and, on Straight Lines and
Foundation, rich pickings for anyone
who cracked open the champers when
Cast reunited.
Hit-and-miss from
the psych-leaning
seven-piece
6/10 Aussie
This sixth album in
a little over three years is a very different
animal to last Octobers spectacular Im In
Your Mind Fuzz. Forgoing blazing psych-rock
and motorik grooves, Quartets four 10-minute
jams allow them instead to indulge their more
experimental side. Infinite Rise and God
Is In The Rhythm both sound somewhat
undercooked, but when King Gizzard really
motor they do so brilliantly. Lonely Steel
Sheet Flyer is a engagingly trippy meditation,
while The River feels like a buzzing union
of Dave Brubeck and Pentangles Light
Flight, streaked with fluid tempos and
hints of tropiclia.
LAURA SNAPES
GRAEME THOMSON
ROB HUGHES
HEAVENLY
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
77
New Albums
JIMMY LAFAVE
The Night
Tribe
BEN LEE
Love Is The
Great Rebellion
LEFTFIELD
Alternative Light
Source
MUSIC ROAD RECORDS
WARNER BROTHERS
INFECTIOUS
Sweet-voiced Austin
singer-songwriter
delves deep into
of the soul
8/10 matters
From the opening moments
of The Beauty of You, LaFave settles into an
Into The Music-era Van Morrison groove so
persuasive youd be forgiven for thinking Van
The Man wrote it. In fact, with his tremulous,
all-emotive tenor, LaFave has evolved a similar
balladic sound, aiming squarely for the essence
of love, longing and loss. Though he does tip
over into the super-precious (Talk To An
Angel), when LaFave excels (Its Not On Me),
hes simply untouchable, a devastating singer.
A heart-on-sleeve gorgeous Queen Jane
Approximately, meanwhile, rife with elegant
keyboard-and-guitar interplay, instantly ranks
among the best Dylan covers, ever.
Aussie veterans 10th a

post-spiritual awakening
major-label relaunch
The South American
4/10 healing
medicine that
inspired Lees 2013 predecessor, Ayahuasca: The
Work, has left a decisive, preachy impression.
The over-eager bounce of Giving Up On
Miracles and Goodbye To Yesterday set up the
theme exhaustingly literal self-improvement,
repeatedly returned to in no doubt sincere, but
unfailingly trite, homily. The Body Of Love
casts an appropriately sanctifying mood but,
as elsewhere, the toe-curling lyrical insights
quickly curdle. Ornately arranged The Universe
Inside flounders on an all-too common,
patronisingly pious mode of address, while
a solemn harmony gauze embalms closer
God Is A Fire. File under Banal Guru Pop.
Bruising third
from technos
slumbering giant
years after
8/10 Sixteen
Leftfields final album,
Rhythm And Stealth, Neil Barnes wheels out
the 90s dance titans as a slick solo vehicle
following Paul Daleys departure. Though
missing the gristly dub that Daley brought
to the mix, the impressive Alternative Light
Source sees Barnes picking up, with a snarl,
where the pair left off. Amid the hammering
techno and swirling dystopian sound design,
chinks of light appear in the form of vocal turns
by Polias Channy Leaneagh and, very much
on-trend for 2015, Sleaford Mods Jason
Williamson, whose feverish rant on acid-skank
Head And Shoulders Dandruff warriors!
Scalp and chips! is pure Mark E Smith.
LUKE TORN
GAVIN MARTIN
PIERS MARTIN
GILL LANDRY
Gill Landry
ATO
Gentle Americana
from Nashville-based
multi-instrumentalist
This one-time busker,
and member
8/10 mechanic
of the Grammy-winning
folk ensemble Old Crow Medicine Show
recorded his third solo album in his Nashville
apartment where he invited assorted friends,
among them Laura Marling and Mumford
associate Nick Etwell, to lend a hand. Its no
wonder that its a quietly intimate affair, taking
well-trodden themes of love and regret and
infusing them with wisdom and poeticism.
From the ode to bruised romance Take This
Body, a duet with Marling, to the Neil Younginspired Just Like You, which finds the
singer contemplating old loves and wedding
gowns, these are elegant songs with rare
emotional depth.
FIONA STURGES
LA PRIEST
Inji
DOMINO
English voyagers
sweet synth-soul
debut album
LA Priest is the latest
by one Sam
7/10 venture
Dust (formerly Samuel
Eastgate), who achieved a degree of notoriety
as the frontman in youthful prog upstarts
Late Of The Pier several years ago. Older
but not necessarily wiser, Dusts LA Priest
persona is a Prince-smooth dandy who
conjures a gooey funk confection on Inji
that recalls the curdled psychedelia of Caramel
by Connan Mockasin, in whose band Dust has
played, and the 80s ballads of Phil Collins. The
lysergic quality is enhanced by some excellent
songs notably the purring Ladys In Trouble
With The Law and Oino while Dusts
perverse lyrics lend Inji a kitsch futurism.
Weirdly wonderful.
PIERS MARTIN
HOW TO BUY...
MIDLIFE DANCE
Still raving, still dreaming
LAUNDRY
THE CHEMICAL
BROTHERS
Further
PARLOPHONE, 2010
Tom and Eds seventh

hurls itself at the
danceoor like a drunk
wedding guest as the duo do away with
celebrity indie vocalists for the rst time in
15 years on an album that united the party
faithful. From the rush of Escape Velocity
to Swoons soaring big beat, Further proves
that while there is no age limit in techno, you
may end up repeating yourself.
7/10
APHEX TWIN
Syro WARP, 2014
Once this Cornish
delicacy had been
digested, Syro felt a
little undercooked or
overegged in places.
But the return of Aphex Twin 13 years afer
Richard James last ocial outing meant a lot
to ravers of a certain vintage, and the arrival
of this album at least triggered an avalanche
of archive-raiding online surprises by the
capricious 43-year-old.
8/10
UNDERWORLD
Dubnobasswith
myheadman
(20th Anniversary
Edition)
UNIVERSAL, 2014
Where were you in

94? If the answers on the danceoor at
a provincial university students union
getting on one to Cowgirl and Rez,
then this remastered, bells-and-whistles
20th anniversary edition of Underworlds
idiosyncratic debut will make you feel both
old and happy. No-one ever sounded quite
like Emerson, Hyde and Smith, youll sigh.
9/10
PIERS MARTIN
HOLLY LERSKI
The Wooden
House
Long-lost singer
emerges from years
of woodshedding
making folk-rock
7/10 After
waves around the turn of
the millennium with Angelou, Lerski retired to
rural Norfolk in 2006 and was lost to view.
Finally shes re-emerged with a bucolic, handmade, hand-played set recorded in her garden
shed. On Magpie and Happy Sad her voice
can still conjure the floating, dreamy swoop
that once led Uncut to call her Jeff Buckleys
spiritual sister. But The Wooden House is
a place of domestic contentment, populated
by banjos and ukuleles (all played by Lerski)
as deftly sweet songs such as Oh Atoms,
Oh Molecules and Homespun evoke the
felicitous spirit of Vashti Bunyan or latterday
Eddi Reader.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
CHEIKH LO
Balbalou
CHAPTER TWO
Dreadlocked Senegalese
singers welcome return
The four albums Cheikh Lo
made for World Circuit
1995-2010 were
7/10 between
joyously melodic exercises
in laidback West African funk with a spicy
Afro-Cuban flavour. Despite a five-year absence
and a change of label, the gentle caress of his
voice and the insidious, serpentine rhythms
remain little changed but there are newly
cosmopolitan nuances, too. The opening
track Bamba adds plangent piano to the
talking drums. Degg Gui features tango
accordion; the jazzy title track floats on
some haunting Miles Davis-influenced
trumpet and Doyal Nanniou is a potent
African protest song, the spirit of which
evokes Youssou NDours version of Dylans
Chimes Of Freedom.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
New Albums
GRAHAM
PARKER
& THE
RUMOUR
Mystery Glue
CADET CONCEPT
LAWRENCE WATSON
Back in the fold: 30-year

break serves groundbreaking,
criminally neglected combo well.
By Luke Torn
GRAHAM PARKER
recently described his
long-overdue return to
the UK, his breakout
backing band The
Rumour in tow, as
a victory lap, and
Mystery Glue smart,
nuanced, relaxed,
masterful, the songs
8/10 sashaying and
swaying with a jazzy
elegance radiates with the confidence of just such
an endeavour. The subtext for the sextets second
record following their surprise 2012 reunion, and
Parkers appearance in the Judd Apatows smash
hit movie This Is 40, is Weve paid our dues plenty,
this time its (mostly) for fun.
But its hardly mindless fun. Parkers songs still
cut and slash, at times with righteous indignation,
and The Rumour are focused, just within a different
lens. Considering the gritty, hardboiled, defiant
RnB that defined the groups explosion out of the
UK in the late 1970s, Mystery Glue plays as its slightly
shocking obverse: open-hearted, airy, poised,
versatile, but slotted with plenty of slyly relevant
observations on a world gone mad circa 2015. Now
that the long-ago pressures of a career, of a hit
record are off, the group sounds regal, like an
ensemble that has seen it all and can play it all,
gracefully slipping into the role of diverse honkytonk pub band of your dreams. From nods to reggae
and jazz, soul and rockabilly, it all merges into The
Rumours mlange. Parkers songwriting,
meanwhile, veers masterfully from the political to
the personal, the playful to the melancholy, from
retro to right now. There are no awkward attempts
at Rumour-esque retreads; instead, he simply
continues along the arc of his more recent work
consistently strong, unfairly ignored albums (see
especially 2001s Deepcut To Nowhere and 2007s
Dont Tell Columbus), comprised of witty songs with
strong angles on history, sociology, doomed
romance, the absurdities of modern life, and the
complexity of human relationships. Just about all
of the new ones come stocked with pop hooks so
persistent theyll commence rattling around the
cerebellum after just minimal attention.
Among Glues more striking offerings is Flying
Into London, an exceptionally atmospheric bit of
anxiety and anticipation performed with acuity,
plus superb guitar-and-keyboard tradeoffs by
Brinsley Schwarz, Martin Belmont, and Bob
Andrews. Working on multiple levels, its
universalism suggests a face-off with reality, a
sizing up and coming to terms; it manages, too,
to hook in all that old Rumour history, if only
surreptitiously. Wall Of Grace, meanwhile, is
SLEEVE
NOTES
Produced by:
Dave Cook
Co-produced and
arranged by: GP &
The Rumour
Recording assistant:
Helen Atkinson
Mix assistant:
Robbie Nelson
Recorded at: RAK
Studios, St Johns
Wood, London
Personnel: Graham
Parker (acoustic guitar,
vocals, bk vocals,
kazoo), Bob Andrews
(keys, bk vocals), Martin
Belmont (guitars),
Brinsley Schwarz
(guitars, bk vocals),
Andrew Bodnar (bass),
Steve Goulding (drums,
percussion)
Mystery Glues most affecting song.

A fascinating character sketch, the
protagonist (Grace) proudly papering
her walls with family photos, the song
crawls inside the her heart and comes
out with a kind of giddy affirmation,
of life, of love, aided by The Rumour
nailing its stretched-out glider of a
melody, Schwarz wah-wah solo, and
the albums most devastating hook.
The combos playfulness rules on the
upbeat zingers Swing State and Ive
Done Bad Things. I live in a swing
state/Its better than a state of hate,
Parker joyfully posits on the former,
castigating those blindly chasing
material wealth amid swimming
keyboards and dancing guitars. On the
latter, The Rumour underpin with Staxstyle country soul, Parker exuberantly
shedding of guilt and shame, before taking a noose
to the song with a coruscating, politically pointed
middle-eight: We need someone who

gets up there and stands for whats
right, he barks, as The Rumour
positively wail in support.
Elsewhere, Parkers songwriting
sparkles with lines that might initially
appear clichd (Pub Crawl, Slow
News Day), but sink in as casual,
conversational, astutely observational,
while The Rumour traverse. Railroad
Spikes, for example, plays on the
ancient themes work song, train song
angling toward a kind of Johnny
Cash-style rockabilly. Fast Crowd
revisits the groups familiarity with
reggae a think-for-yourself theme
hung over a reggae backdrop. Long
Shot, the de facto title track, lays down
some heart-on-sleeve philosophy,
playing like a classic pop anthem,
Parker tidily wrapping up the lifes elusive
ethereality in four-and-a-half short minutes.
into something and I dont know what its going

to be like. And its got all this foreboding in it.
Graham Parker
hat are things like with the

Rumour now?
This is a jump from the last one.
Now that weve played together a bit more
Its still extremely complex, how the band ts
together, but The Rumour are settling into the
musicianship. They can play with a huge variety,
and the record sounds incredibly natural to me.
It takes extreme eort, actually, but the end
result is now sounding eortless.
Flying Into London is the song that struck

me quickest
A song is a grain of truth blown up out of all
proportion, you know. Flying Into London
came from this feeling, of kinda hurtling myself
How have things changed for you over the last

few years?
In some ways, its superuous, Im just gonna do
what I do anyway. Im a eld of one. You never
know how these things are going to go, but it
certainly didnt hurt me to be in a No 3 movie
in America.
So, with your new record deal, a boxset is in
the works?
Yeah, Im signed to Universal. How does that
happen? Anyway, it was rst going to be a GP &
The Rumour boxset, but it morphed. This guy
putting it together became aware that between
1980 and now Ive made a lot of records, and he
couldnt believe how good they were. He said,
Lets do a career-spanning boxset, with DVDs.
So, were picking out songs from every record.
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
79
New Albums
JAMES
MCARTHUR
AND THE HEAD
GARDENERS
Strange Readings
From The Weather
Station
GIORGIO
MORODER
Dj Vu
RCA
NOZINJA
Nozinja Lodge
WARP
Bucolic folk from the

Welsh Nick Drake
Considering it was recorded at Kate Bushs
former studio at Wellings East Wickham Farm
and features members of Syd Arthur, its no
great surprise that Strange Readings has that
hazy, off-centre Celtic-British pastoralism down
pat. Welsh folkie McArthur makes lovely latesummer music, cross-hatched with sunlight
and shadows. The most obvious root note is
Nick Drake, evoked in the acoustic guitars,
strings, pedal steel and McArthurs slurred
burr, but there are also echoes of Sufjan Stevens
(Maelstrom), Sam Beam (Spin Cycle) and,
on Lawn Order, SFA at their most bucolic.
First album in
30 years from the
electronic pioneer
last time Giorgio
6/10 The
Moroder released an album
was in 1985. A collaboration with The Human
Leagues Phil Oakey, it featured their Top 5
single, Together In Electric Dreams: a
highpoint among Moroders 80s pop hits.
Sadly, there is nothing as good-natured or
characterful on Dj Vu. After being given a
leg-up by Daft Punk, Moroders first album in 30
years consists largely of generic pop-dance. Sia,
Charli XCX and others bring melisma; Chers
Believe seems to be a recurring reference
point. Highlights are Kylies Right Here, Right
Now, gliding on pneumatic robo-funk grooves,
and 74 Is The New 24 which is essentially
a tarted-up Chase from Midnight Express.
Invigorating, Afrofuturist dance-pop debut

It was an Honest Jons
compilation from 2010 that
most UK ears to
7/10 introduced
the irresistibly exuberant
South African dance music known as Shangaan
Electro. Word has since spread via a second
comp featuring interpretations by Theo Parrish
and Ricardo Villalobos, among others, and the
singles released by Dan Snaith on his Jiaolong
label. Richard Nozinja Mthethwa is the
leading light of Shangaan, mixing homegrown
Kwaito, Township Jive and Tsonga Disco with
contemporary house. His debut is characterised
by frantically over-driven beats, but is as
soulful as it is dance-insistent, its cultural
identity as vital an element as its bpm count,
especially on the yearning Nyamsoro and
reggae-house hybrid Jaha.
GRAEME THOMSON
MICHAEL BONNER
SHARON OCONNELL
7/10
MOORLAND
THE MILK
CARTON KIDS
Monterey
ANTI-
Sweet third album

from the Californian
folk duo
duo
8/10 Close-harmony
Kenneth Pattengale and
Joey Ryan earned a Grammy nomination for
their 2013 album, The Ash & Clay, establishing
them as one of the more persuasive of the
new folk acts. The follow-up recorded in
churches and concert halls across America
in an attaempt to capture the pairs live
spontaneity is simply gorgeous. Vocally,
Pattengale and Ryan have the melancholy
sweetness of Simon & Garfunkel, but the
duos guitars have the off-kilter quality that
Dave Rawlings brings to Gillian Welchs
records, notably on the haunting title track.
The closing track, Poison Tree, adds a note
of weary resignation.
ALASTAIR McKAY
GURF MORLIX
Eatin At Me
ROOTBALL
Texas songwriting
legend on the trail of
Butch, Townes and
Billy Joe
longtime guitarist for
8/10 As
Lucinda Williams and
Warren Zevon, Morlix brought grit and an
ensemble masters intuition to their fine
creations. Since 2001, though, hes released
nine unassumingly brilliant solo albums, filled
with mad characters, shadowy narratives and
caustic individualism. Eatin At Me aside
from its cinematic tour de force, Elephants
Graveyard revolves around his 1970s Buffalo,
New York childhood. On the playful side, Born
In Lackawanna sports a bouncy, absurd, if
irresistible chorus; the dark, spooky Dirty
Old Buffalo, meanwhile, is drawn so sharp
itll conjure hometown memories even if
youve never set foot in the place.
LUKE TORN
WER E
NEW
HERE
The Milk
Carton Kids
The timeless sound of The Milk Carton

Kids third album, Monterey, wasnt arrived
at instantly. On the California-based duos
rst release, 2011s Retrospect (billed as
Kenneth Pattengale And Joey Ryan), the close
harmonies have yet to merge, as they do on
Prologue (2011) and the Grammy-nominated
The Ash & Clay (2013). Pattengale came from
a big-band jazz and classical background,
while Ryan was inuenced by 1960s/1970s
folk and rock.
The comparisons we get to historic
close-harmony duos are compliments, and
are completely appropriate, says Ryan,
accepting a similarity to Simon & Garfunkel
and Gillian Welch. What people think of
when the duos you mention are called to
mind not to mention the Everlys and Louvins
especially is a pairing of two singers who
disappear into the collaboration to achieve
a singular, third voice that is entirely distinct
from either of the two members. Its a very
seductive phenomenon and our fascination
with it seems always able to be renewed.
Its also more complicated than it sounds.
Its easy to decide youre only going to use
two guitars and two voices, continues Ryan,
but thats minimalism rather than simplicity.
Its fair to say our goal has been to avoid
simplicity at all costs. ALASTAIR McKAY
DAVY OLIST
Second Thoughts
MADE IN SOHO
The art-rock Zelig

breaks cover
Original guitarist with
The Nice as well as
The Attack
6/10 freakbeaters
and Roxy Music preManzanera Davy OLists walk-on role in
pop history included occasional spells
covering for Syd Barrett during the Pink
Floyd frontmans increasingly frequent 1967
no-shows. However, he is centrestage on
his second solo LP, part of a sustained and
somewhat quixotic campaign to claim
credit for the invention of progressive rock.
Genre perverts will melt at the jaunty title
tracks period keyboard sound, and while
it can get a little Weather Report at times,
elongated closing blitz Halfway To Heaven
is deliciously excessive. Delusions, maybe,
but grandeur, too.
JIM WIRTH
JIM OROURKE
Simple Songs
DRAG CITY
Avant-rock maven
returns to rock; its
complicated!
ORourke has hardly been
this century, with stints
8/10 idle
in Sonic Youth and (with
Jeff Tweedy) Loose Fur, sundry improv projects
and one gorgeous longform composition (2009s
The Visitor). Nevertheless, this is his first set of
songs in 14 years, a lavish expansion of the
pomp-baroque aesthetic showcased on 2001s
Insignificance (his practice of naming his more
orthodox albums after Nic Roeg films has been
abandoned). Packed with harmony guitars and
melodic twists, Simple Songs is a major statement
from a brilliant, mischievous singer-songwriter,
not least because of its iconoclastic references:
Paul Williams ballads (Hotel Blue); hybrids of
Van Dyke Parks and Genesis (Last Year); a sly
nod to Queen (End Of The Road).
JOHN MULVEY
New Albums
OUTFIT
Slowness
PRINCESS
CHELSEA
The Great
Cybernetic
Depression
MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES
ROUND EYE
Round Eye
RIPPING
More stylish and

restrained art-pop
from the Wirral
five-piece
exiled from their
7/10 Now
native Liverpool to various
international boltholes, Outfit continue to trade
in the kind of delicious, muted melancholy that
80s synth chartbusters would tuck away on
B-sides. The stately minor-key progressions
of standouts Smart Thing, New Air and
Framed are fringed with tasteful effects
and modest art damage, feedback squalls
scuffing the edges of singer Andy Hunts
choirboy vocal. Their inspiration occasionally
wanes, but On The Water On The Way
wouldnt have disgraced Erasure at their
swooning peak and the six-minute run-out
of Swam Out is worth the few numbers
where the formula flags.
Sobs and sparkles from

Kiwi chanteuse
7/10 wry
Synth-pop singersongwriter Chelsea Nikkel made a modest
splash with the sinister nursery rhymes on her
2011 debut, Lil Golden Book. This sequel is billed
as a concept album, though it feels more
conventional: melancholy lyrics married to
electro chansons that frequently sound like
homages to 1990s trio Dubstar. Heartbreak
turns from breathy sob to discordant grind on
When The World Turns Grey, while Were So
Lost takes a spooked detour into David Lynchworld. A few tracks feel flimsy, but Too Many
People stands out with its swooning, pulsing,
chiming melody and deceptively mellifluous
four-letter critique of stifling smalltown life.
Chaotic debut
album from the
sexiest, hairiest
and loudest band
China
7/10 in
Shanghai residents
Round Eye specialise in maximum-velocity
rampages wired guitars at full tilt,
disembodied wordless vocalising and
pulverising sax compete in an all-out race
to the finish line. Detuned drone-fests
MeatNThe Boys and City Livin
broker influences from the Chinese
underground and the hardcore of the
late, lamented Minutemen. Guest slots from
R Stevie Moore and Stooges saxophonist
Steve Mackay also attest to American roots,
but distance has given Round Eye a keen
edge and a singular sound, albeit not one
for the faint-hearted.
LAURA SNAPES
STEPHEN DALTON
GAVIN MARTIN
FLYING NUN/LIL CHIEF
PFARMERS
Gunnera
PRINZHORN
DANCE SCHOOL
Home Economics
JURASSIC POP
DFA
SAUNA YOUTH
Distractions
UPSET THE RHYTHM
National and Menomena

men unite for a
synth-led spiritual
Pfarmers is the new
of Menomena
8/10 project
singer Danny Seim,
National drummer Bryan Devendorf and
indies brass sideman Dave Nelson. Their debut
album hinges on Seims dream of drowning
and subsequent reincarnation as a plant that
grows by the River Jordan the young Seim
was in a Christian band, and in a haunted tone,
he anxiously tries to conjure a lost spirit. The
heart-racing music most resembles his own
band, but the trio make hay out of scuffed
electronic textures Devendorfs electronically
abetted drums pop skittishly, and soft synths
burst like water balloons amidst the smoky,
playful atmosphere. Much more than just
a fan curio.
Third from the posh

Fall lean as ever
Brighton duo Prinzhorn
School have
8/10 Dance
impressed with their
stark palette for the best part of a decade
now. Their brilliance lies in their ability
to reduce fat without reducing flavour: if
their third album is perhaps not quite as
austere as previous offerings like 2012s
Clay Class, its still like sticking a quarterinch jack into a George Foreman grill.
Unrockist guitar riffs, propulsive basslines,
Velvet Underground-style drums, vocals
shared between Tobin Prinzand Suzi Horn
its all knees and elbows, rather than
music you can cuddle. But when the
chassis is this well-crafted, who needs
a comfy seat?
Art-punk quartet
party like its 1979
The second album from
this London quartet could
easily be passed off
8/10 quite
as a neglected late-70s
post-punk classic: a riot of finger-bleeding
eight-to-the-bar basslines, clumpy drums,
Wire-like guitar angularity and unexpectedly
odd chord shifts. But theres a freshness and
artiness to this sound that transcends mere
pastiche. The Bridge appears to deconstruct
the songwriting process; Monotony is a
joyously blank dirge; while New Fear
sounds like Wilko Johnsons blues guitar being
dragged into a dub chamber. Moreover, the
boy/girl vocals sung in unison by male
guitarist Boon and female synth player
Ecke sound both ecstatically thuggish
and eerily genderless.
LAURA SNAPES
MARCUS ODAIR
JOHN LEWIS
THE PRE NEW

The Male Eunuch
PRURIENT
Frozen Niagra
Falls
3 LOOP MUSIC
PROFOUND LORE
THE SELECTER
Subculture
DMF RECORDS
Droll electro-glam
tirade against FarrowAnd-Ballisation
Proudly carrying on
fight of their former
7/10 the
subversive pop combos
World Of Twist and Earl Brutus, The Pre New
rail against the brutal gentrification of British
culture to a soundtrack of coarse electro-pop
and narky glam chug with occasional
sparkling choruses. Targets of their absurdist
ire this time include Farrow And Ball paints,
4x4s, hedge-funded football clubs, overpaid
fuckwits and the guy from Elbow. Winning
song titles include Flaccid Astronaut
and Janet Vs John. The rough-and-ready
songwriting is all part of the conceptual
high-jinks, as underlined by the sound of
Hubert Parrys Jerusalem being subjected
to an MRI scan.
Poetic double LP
from New York
noise figurehead
While ostensibly
7/10 working
in the field of
noise, Dominick Fernows work as Prurient
not to mention a spree of other pseudonyms
like Vatican Shadow and Exploring Jezebel
has outgrown the limitations of such a
concept, taking on dizzying musical and
conceptual layers. Frozen Niagra Falls is still
a rocky ride in places, its 90-odd minutes
strafed with feedback and the occasional
barbarian bellow. But there is a moody, John
Carpenter quality to the cascading synths of
Every Relationship Earthrise, while epic
11-minute closer Christ Among The Broken
Glass is an acoustic guitar elegy that is
devastating albeit, quietly so.
Love and politics

from Pauline Black
and friends
Since their umpteenth
five years ago,
7/10 reunion
the 2-Tone veterans
from Coventry have been on a roll, packing
ever bigger venues and capitalising on
singer Pauline Blacks raised profile as
a memoirist and sometime presenter on
BBC 6 Music. On Subculture, The Selecters
dismay at the world is as powerful as ever:
Breakdown looks at inner-city no-go zones
and murdered black teens, while Hit The
Ground Running reflects on the plight of
zero-hours workers. Still, in their 36th year,
the band isnt immune to the pull of the
past, evidenced in an unexpectedly lovely
reggae-infused cover of Patti Smiths
Because The Night.
SAM RICHARDS
LOUIS PATTISON
FIONA STURGES
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
81
New Albums
in my swimsuit on a stage. Musgraves is always best

when she identifies her enemy: Pageant Materials
standout track is the strutting Good Ol Boys Club,
a triumphant takedown of countrys corrupt
backhanders from someone whos succeeded
without them. The only other character who loses
MERCURY NASHVILLE
out on Pageant Material is the glass-half-full
protagonist of Miserable, who Musgraves, the
eternal optimist, has to cut loose. But as if to absolve
Countrys radical voice returns with balanced sixth. By Laura Snapes
her appearing judgmental, the following song,
Die Fun, seems as if it should be a triumphant
kiss-off Lets love hard, live fast,
in the space between. Jaunty singalong
KACEY MUSGRAVES
die fun but its set to forlorn streaks
Biscuits is a funny warning against
MEETS an ancient
SLEEVE
NOTES
of pedal steel, and sees her trying to
schadenfreude (Mind your own
country crossroads on
make drinking and fleeing seem like
biscuits and life will be gravy), though
her second major label
Produced by:
romantic rebellion rather than
it feels too much like a defanged
album: having found
Kacey Musgraves,
dead-end fate.
rehash of Same Trailers Follow Your
success singing about
Shane McAnally,
If liberal listeners were attracted by
Arrow without its radical queer-love
suffocating smallLuke Laird
the idea of Musgraves as a rebel voice,
message. Better is the noir-ish This
town life, where next?
Personnel: Kacey
they might be disappointed by the
Town, about the protectiveness of
2013s Same Trailer
Musgraves, Luke
message of Pageant Material, which is
close-knit community, and the sweet
Different Park offered
Laird, Shane McAnally,
essentially: lifes too hard and short to
Cup
Of
Tea,
where
Musgraves
lists
a
precisely
observed
Brandy
Clark,
Josh
8/10 portrait of Musgraves
waste time judging others. But as
what sounds like a litany of failures
Osborne, Natalie
old clothes, crap job, easy reputation
young life in Golden,
Hemby, Ashley Arrison, Good Ol Boys Club points out,
Musgraves success is radical in its own
only to offer comfort instead of pat
Texas, population approx 300. We get bored so we
Willie Nelson
way. The current most successful
redemption: You cant be everybodys
get married/Just like dust, we settle in this town, she
country acts are big-hatted men singing
cup of tea. The goofy title track is
sang on breakout single Merry Go Round. Even if
fairytale homilies about trucks and broads;
Musgraves at her sharp, funny finest, paying lip
the waitresses gossiped and the slipped-halo
Musgraves willingness to address a life built on
service to smiling beauty queens over dreamy
churchgoers frowned, Musgraves sympathised with
knotty contradictions give her songs resonance
acoustic guitar, before admitting, It aint that I dont
her tradition-abiding characters while also cheering
far beyond Goldens borders.
care about world peace, but I dont see how I can fix it
for gay relationships and getting stoned.
Country radio wouldnt playlist this comparatively
radical voice, but the record won Musgraves two
Grammys, fans new to the genre, and support slots
much aect me. They made me who I am
with Willie Nelson (who guests on an untitled bonus
through and through. Theres something pretty
trackhere) and Katy Perry, indicating her place on
transparent about not growing up in a large,
the sliding scale between country gold and pop
anonymous city. You are held accountable for
Kacey
Musgraves
sparkle. The first two songs on Pageant Material deal
your actions based on the fact that you cant run
with this change in fortunes. Opener High Time
ou sing about getting too big for your
from your reputation.
sets the records rich, swooning tone something
britches in Dime Store Cow Girl...
like Glen Campbell at the luau and sees the 27-yearEverybody can get a little big for their
Your songs are very compassionate where
old singing about ditching flashy clothes to [catch]
britches sometimes. But Im lucky to be
did you learn that? I was really inspired by one of
up with the old me. She sings of meeting Willie
surrounded by zero yes people they keep
my best friends from high school who came out
Nelson and travelling the world on Dime Store Cow
me in check. Its easy as a constantly touring
to me afer we graduated. Seeing him have the
Girl, but admits, Maybe for a minute I got too big for
and tired artist to not take advantage of
courage to be honest about who he was and then
my britches. So back home she goes, her perspective
people wanting to cater to you all the time. I just
ourish, deeply aected me. I think that
shifted by distance: on Same Trailer, small towns
have to remind myself that its not how the real
moment, and also travelling the world, made me
were a trap, but here they offer life lessons.
world works and when Im home, Im home.
realise that no matter the language, colour, or
Sadly, Pageant Material lacks some of the
Nobodys carrying my bags for me.
class, we are all the same.
specificity that made Same Trailer sublime. There
are several indistinct love songs, the shuffling
What were the challenges of singing about
Do you think that Good Ol Boys Club is likely
Family Is Family boils down to cant live with
smalltown life again now that youre an
to rue any feathers? It would be nothing new
em, cant live without em, and the mournful pedal
established artist? Small towns are still small
if my music rued some feathers. I think some
steel of Somebody To Love has a similar structure,
towns. And the ideas about them still very
feathers around here need a good ruin.
with opposing qualities (angels, devils; thorns,
roses) stacked against each other to find humanity
KACEY MUSGRAVES
Pageant Material
New Albums
SIMPLY RED
Big Love
RHINO
JAMES
TAYLOR
Before This World
TREMBLING
BELLS
The Sovereign Self
CONCORD/DECCA
TIN ANGEL
Surprise comeback
album from the
blue-eyed soulman
Mick Hucknall has always
Philly soul, and
7/10 loved
here he often seems to be
reworking all of Gamble & Huffs sonic tropes
the detailed string arrangements, sparkly
guitar glissandos and heart-wrenching chord
changes to the point where each original
track sounds instantly familiar. Hes a little
too old to be playing the lecherous pick-up
merchant on tracks like Tight Tones; but the
lovesick swing of The Old Man And The Beer
rather suits him, as does the nostalgic skank
of Coming Home. The biggest emotional
punch, however, comes on Dad, when
Hucknall addresses his unorthodox
upbringing (She left/You stayed/It really
wasnt simple at all).
First album proper in

13 years from Sweet
Baby James
this is Taylors
6/10 Though
first album of new songs
since October Road in 2002, Before This World
could conceivably have been released at any
point during the past four decades. Were
talking accomplished rather than exciting.
Sting pops up on the vaguely hymnal title
track, the wife and kids chip in, and the
overall vibe is sleek and relaxed. At 67,
Taylors voice retains a cool, youthful
clarity, and among the love songs (You
And I Again) and bitter-sweet evocations
of a simpler life (Montana), there are
occasional flashes of steel, notably on
Far Afghanistan, a soldiers song which
broods effectively.
Psych balladeering and

Gothic tragedy from
Glasgow ensemble
about the term
7/10 Something
folk implies parochial
boundaries, so in the case of Trembling Bells
lets not use that word. The sleeve features
vocalist Lavinia Blackwalls portraits of figures
as diverse as Emily Dickinson, Lou Reed and
Ovid; the title, a nod to Dennis Potter; and then
theres the music itself, an Incredible String
Band tangle of electric guitar, organ and
glockenspiel that bandleader Alex Neilson
powers along with stout improvised percussion
batteries. The breadth is a big part of the charm:
Killing Time In London Fields moves between
careening peril and Broadcast-like lullaby
segments, while the wistful The Singing
Blood feels like a standard in the making.
JOHN LEWIS
GRAEME THOMSON
LOUIS PATTISON
CHRIS
STAMEY
Euphoria
HOW TO BUY...
TYLER, THE
CREATOR
Cherry Bomb
MITCH EASTER
PRODUCTIONS
YEP ROC
Return to rocking
roots for dBs founder
and producer
his last album,
7/10 On
2013s Lovesick Blues,
Stamey investigated chamber pop. Here,
he returns to his roots, recording with old
cohort Mitch Easter in a bid to coax
inspiration from his battered Silvertone
guitar. The result is more diverse than
you might expect, with psychedelic
undertones on the title track and the
swirling Awake In The World. Stamey is
at his most persuasive when he keeps it
simple, as on the plaintive Dear Valentine,
or the glorious Where Does The Time
Go?. The Ryan Adams-penned UniverseSized Arms, however, is more anthemic
than endearing.
ALASTAIR McKAY
SIMI STONE
Simi Stone
REVEAL
Commendable
debut album from
the US soulstress
Fans of Simone Felices
Duke & The King
7/10 The
will already be familiar
with Simi Stone, who joined the Catskills
country-soul outfit for their second album
and subsequent world tour. Now shes
assembled her own highly capable band,
one that includes Bowie backing musos
Gail Ann Dorsey, Sara Lee and drummer
Zachary Alford. Stones self-styled
Mountain Motown ranges from ebullient
pop (I Do; Benny) to more downtempo
soul (All Of The People; Season Of
Change). For all their zip, some of the
songs here are merely ordinary, though her
girlish voice is enough to brighten the lessinspired settings.
ROB HUGHES
ODD FUTURE/SONY
REM
Reckoning IRS, 1984
Easters reputation
rests on his work with
REM, which began with
Radio Free Europe
and Chronic Town,
with the band and producer growing in
condence through their debut album,
Murmur, and achieving their mature sound
on Reckoning, their on the road album on
which Easter and co-producer Don Dixon
upped the twang, making REM commercial
without undermining their sense of enigma.
9/10
PAVEMENT
Brighten The
Corners MATADOR, 1997
Easter stresses
that Pavements
compelling fourth
album was actually a
co-production between Bryce Goggin and
the band. But it was recorded in his studio,
and he covered at least one week of the
recording on his own. Easter was inspired by
Pavements quasi-jamming, where no two
renditions of a song would feel the same.
Chaotic but
accomplished fourth
from Odd Future hellion
that reach for
7/10 Rhymes
foul-mouthed controversy,
records that tend towards gloomy introspection:
Tyler Okonma is, essentially, the Millennial
Eminem. Only issue being that the Los Angeles
MC-producer hasnt yet made a definitive
record. Cherry Bomb isnt it either, but its chaos
is invigorating: a stylist zig-zag through horror
movie atmospherics (Pilot), ultra-distorted
club bangers (Cherry Bomb) and silky rare
groove (Roy Ayers guests on Find Your
Wings). Tyler holds his own against Kanye
West and Lil Wayne on Smuckers, but is
disarmed by a barely legal siren voiced by
Virginia soul newcomer Kali Uchis on the
bittersweet Fucking Young/Perfect.
LOUIS PATTISON
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Remembering
Mountains:
Unheard Songs
By Karen Dalton
TOMPKINS SQUARE
7/10
WILCO
Summerteeth
REPRISE, 1999
Easter was one of

several engineers
involved on the album
which deepened
Wilcos sound, taking inspiration from The
Beatles, The Beach Boys and Big Star. The
highpoint of Je Tweedy and Jay Bennetts
collaboration, Tweedy says it was made
by continually raising the ridiculousness
bar, reassembling songs to t the growing
ambition of the record.
8/10
ALASTAIR MCKAY
Sharon Van Etten, Julia

and more tackle
7/10 Holter
a legends lost lyrics
Karen Daltons uncanny music casts a long
shadow over a clutch of latterday singersongwriters, but it is this comps fundamental
strength and weakness that most of the 11 artists
gifted here with unused Dalton lyrics do not
imitate the late singers style. Instead, Daltons
words are recast in the interpreters own musical
images: most radically and successfully by Julia
Holter on hushed electronic nocturne My Love,
My Love. Marissa Nadler and Josephine Foster
come close, but the spirit of Dalton remains
curiously evasive, so that Mountains feels more
like a neat compendium of diverse female talents
rather than a tribute to a transcendent one.
JOHN MULVEY
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
83
New Albums
WOLFGANG
VOIGT
Rckverzauberung
10/Nationalpark
PROFAN
WOLF ALICE
My Love
Is Cool
ONE LITTLE INDIAN
DIRTY HIT RECORDS
Deep, meditational
texturology from German
legend
9/10 electronica
While some of Wolfgang
Voigts recent music seems designed to perplex
or infuriate the minimally tweaked, thumping
bass drum mantras of Sogs For The Love Of God,
for example with his ongoing, open-ended
Rckverzauberung project, Voigt returns to the
slow-moving, arborescent ambience of his most
loved GAS alias. But whereas GAS was rich and
dense, albums like Rckverzauberung 10/
Nationalpark an installation designed for the
opening of the Hunsrck-Hochwald national
park are lighter, at times wispy in their
character; unshackled from the rhythmic matrix
of the pumping bass drum, Voigt revels in the
play of sensuous, drifting string textures.
Strong set of Sylvia

Plath-inspired songs
A continuation of a 2013
in which Williams
8/10 project
was commissioned to write
songs marking the 50th anniversary of The Bell
Jar, Hypoxia is as emotionally gripping as it is
sonically explorative. As with The Pond, her
collaboration with Adrian Utley, Williams
frames her naturally soft, sweet voice within
often disquieting settings, tiptoeing between
the starkly beautiful (Beating Heart, a kind
of post-folk Both Sides Now) and unsettling
(the edgy rhythms of Mirrors vie with
thrilling glam guitars). Whether the textual
engagement with Plath is explicit (Tango With
Marco) or oblique, these ambitious songs
transcend their origins to pack their own
considerable punch.
Beguiling, beastly
alt.rock from London
four-piece
a Jekyll and
8/10 Theres
Hyde quality to Wolf
Alices debut that gently reels you in with its
gossamer folk-pop (Turn To Dust) and
lilting indie-pop (Bros) before going for the
jugular with savage bursts of psycho-grunge
guitars (Youre A Germ, Lisbon). Mazzy
Star, Hole, Breeders and All About Eve are
some of the disparate acts recalled here,
the only real constant being singer Ellie
Rowsells coolly authoritative vocals. Its
to be expected for a band named after a
short story by Angela Carter, an author
who was all about peeling back the
layers to reveal the darkness and
complexity beneath.
JON DALE
GRAEME THOMSON
FIONA STURGES
KAMASI
WASHINGTON
The Epic
BRAINFEEDER
R&B session kings hard

bop masterpiece
An epic album in every
three discs,
8/10 way
featuring a 32-piece
orchestra and a 20-piece choir thats both a
grand statement about the state of jazz today
and an impressive calling card for Hollywood
soundtrack work. Washingtons core band
is a 10-piece that includes two drummers
and two bassists, and they create a spiritual
hard bop that invokes Pharoah Sanders,
jazz pianist Andrew Hills Lift Every Voice,
and both John and Alice Coltrane. Theres
some filler among three hours of material
(Patrice Quinns warbly vocal tracks are an
acquired taste) but the instrumentals are
staggering, pulsating pieces that breathe
life into soul-jazz.
JOHN LEWIS
WHITE MANNA
Pan
CARDINAL FUZZ
MIKE PARK
KATHRYN
WILLIAMS
Hypoxia
Laser-guided,
psych-garage fourth
Few song titles summarise
a bands aesthetic
as neatly or as
7/10 duality
entertainingly as White
Mannas Hexagram Of Goo from 2014. Across
three albums, theyve channelled mysticism,
consciousness altered by drugs and/or
meditation and the elemental power of nature
(theyre big on dunes) via swirling, white-noise
blizzards, a ruthless motorik drive and fuzzcaked, garage-punk riffage. Now Pan, with its
rip-roaring Evil in particular, underlines the
fact that this north Californian quintet look to
The Stooges and MC5 as keenly as to Hawkwind,
The Doors and latterday Lungfish. This is a
wild and dirty, devotional trip that peaks with
the 12 shrieking, delay-warped minutes that
constitute closer E Shra. Its intense, man.
SHARON OCONNELL
WER E
NEW
HERE
Kamasi
Washington
Tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington

is best known as a sideman for assorted
hip hop and R&B stars Raphael Saadiq,
Snoop Dogg, Mos Def, Chaka Khan and he
recently provided the luscious string and horn
arrangements for Kendrick Lamars landmark
LP, To Pimp A Buttery. But, for nearly two
decades, hes also been playing heavyweight
jazz with the same friends from South Central
LA that hes known since he was in short
trousers. Theres a depth to our connection
that I cant really get with anyone else, he
says. When we improvise collectively,
we play so tightly that it ofen sounds
composed through.
The Epic, his debut album for Flying Lotus
Brainfeeder imprint (and featuring FlyLo
and Kendrick Lamar bassist Thundercat), is
edited down from around 200 tracks. Much
of it serves as the soundtrack to a recurring
dream, says Washington. About young
warriors, training for battle in a dojo, and
taking over from an older master.
Like the young warriors in his dream, he sees
his band taking over from older jazz masters.
Its the music weve all studied, and the
history comes from that love. But weve never
tried to recreate, never tried to copy. Its
about our lives, our experiences. Were just
being ourselves. JOHN LEWIS
BILL
WYMAN
Back To Basics
PROPER
Former Stone falls

flat with indifferent
solo outing
than 30 years
5/10 More
have passed since
Bill Wymans last UK solo album, during
which time he left The Rolling Stones,
wrote books, founded blues-rockers The
Rhythm Kings and patented his own brand
of metal detector. Unfortunately, Back To
Basics isnt worth the wait. The opening
salvo of What & How & If & When & Why
and I Lost My Ring is a sprightly enough
start, but Wyman and his band soon
settle into a series of mid-tempo songs
whose predictable arrangements are
matched by bland lyrics and a voice that
sounds like it would much rather be
someplace else.
ROB HUGHES
ZERVAS &
PEPPER
Abstract Heart
ZERODEO
Enthusiastic West Coast

radio rock from Celtic
boy-girl duo
music as
7/10 Making
comfortable as a pair of
vintage bootcuts, (Paul) Zervas & (Kathryn)
Pepper are a Welsh twosome whose hearts
belong under a big Californian sky, some time in
1976. Drawing on the Eagles, the Doobies and
the Mac, Abstract Heart is their second album,
written in LA with advisory from Matt Counting
Crows Malley. Its expertly done: open tunings,
elliptical lyrics and FM-friendly guitar solos.
Peppers syncopated vocal lines are pure Joni,
and the musicianship is excellent, supported by
serious sessioners including Robbie McIntosh
and David Crosbys guitarist Marcus Eaton.
Terraform and These Blurred Lines typify
a satisfying, if not groundbreaking, record.
MARK BENTLEY
New Albums
RICKIE
LEE JONES
The Other Side
Of Desire
THIRTY TIGERS
Spectacular late career turn,

crowd-funded in the Big Easy.
By Nigel Williamson
WHEN UNCUT LAST
caught up with Rickie
Lee Jones in 2012, she
cheerfully admitted to
suffering from writers
block. Thats why I
keep recording albums
of cover versions! she
breezily announced,
seemingly unbothered
9/10 by not having written
any new material since
2003s The Evening Of My Best Day, and gamely
plugging The Devil You Know, her
second covers collection of the
SLEEVE
millennium. Since then, shes moved to
NOTES
New Orleans and kicking back in the
Produced by:
Big Easy has set the creative juices
John Porter and
flowing again. She now lives on the
Mark Howard
street made famous by Tennessee
Recorded at: Music
Williams A Streetcar Named Desire
Shed, New Orleans
an address celebrated in the title of her
Personnel: Rickie Lee
first LP of new songs in a dozen years.
Jones (vocals, guitar,
The scuffed up honesty and
keyboards), Doug
country two-step shuffle Valtz De Mon
humanity of post-Katrina New Orleans
Belote (drums), Lenny
Pre could have fitted on Emmylou
(she calls it a city of people who do not
Castro (percussion),
Harris Wrecking Ball, another Lanois/
try to escape the gravity) has also
Jon Cleary (keys), John Howard landmark production. Jai
permeated the songs. Singing is
Porter (guitar, banjo),
Connais Pas, a Waits-like tale of lowacting, she told Uncut three years ago.
James Singleton (bass), life set in a bar, taps deep into the citys
But on the 11 new compositions here
David Torkanowsky
musical history, sung over a walking
there is no sense that she is playing a
(piano), Shane Theriot
Fats Domino piano riff. Blinded By
part; the beret and badass bravado
(guitar), Matt Perine
The Hunt is a slinky slice of secular
have gone and shes singing from the
(bass, sousaphone,
Southern gospel, a sister song,
heart. New Orleans has washed out
trombone)
perhaps, to Matthew E Whites Will
any affectation, she blogged while
You Love Me, and sung in a voice that
recording the album. Its streaming
evokes Brittany Howard. Infinity
through my own filters, I am not
floats on a Blue Nile-style chimerical gauze as Jones
dressing it in the style of; there is no pretence here
describes a metaphysical dream riding a wave
in the Crescent City.
through space. I Wasnt Here changes the mood
Working on a limited, crowd-funded budget in
again, Wizard Of Oz cuteness filtered via a Cerys
what Jones calls an outrageously optimistic
amount of time to create a record represents
another break with the past for an artist who was
notorious for taking months in the studio (she spent
$250,000 recording 1981s Pirates, an eye-watering
sum at the time, even if not quite in the league of
Fleetwood Macs Tusk).
Jones has always been something of an auteur, but
Rickie Lee Jones
for the first time in her career, confesses to feeling
she was not in charge during the recording of The
hat got the creative juices owing
Other Side Of Desire, trusting producers John Porter
again afer such a prolonged period of
(Roxy Music) and Daniel Lanois longtime
writers block? The juices are probably
amanuensis Mark Howard to mould and shape a
always owing, they ebb and ow. But I had
compelling set of ripe and mature songs into an
nothing to write about or didnt have the impetus.
arrestingly ambitious musical journey, rich in sonic
My decision to write again was a process. I can
adventure and detail. The opener Jimmy Choos is
decide I want to write, then I have to search for
a classic Jones narrative about an expensively
what my inner voice wants to discuss. I dont know
dressed woman sitting on a rooftop and throwing
why Im not prolic. I guess its a process I
bottles at the cops below. You dont have to tell me
treasure so much that I deny it to myself.
about giving up someone loves you tonight, she
sings with palpable warmth and compassion over a
How has living in New Orleans shaped the
simmering rhythm that calls to mind another great
songs? I used New Orleans as the launch pad
revenant New Orleans album, Dylans Oh Mercy. The
Matthews pop-charm as Jones multi-tracked littlegirl vocals dance seductively over an exquisite
string arrangement. Christmas In New Orleans is
a Southern answer to Fairytale Of New York, with
which it shares a melody to an extent that might
excite the interest of Shane MacGowans lawyers.
Feet On The Ground is an achingly beautiful
minor-key meditation on damage and loss, but
leavened by a heavenly Philly-soul chorus. The
album ends enigmatically but exquisitely with a
half-sung, half-spoken poem, A Spider In The
Circus Of The Falling Star, Jones voice eerily
multi-tracked over a haunting sousaphone.
Its not only Jones most absorbing album
since 1997s beats-drenched Ghostyhead, but a
record that crowns her career, not as an end but
as a culmination.
thematically. I get tired of abstract ideas and

talking about myself. I wanted something
concrete. I came here and made a new life.
There is nowhere like this in the world. To move
from Los Angeles to New Orleans at the age of
58 was a pretty big deal for me. Then the move
was the catalyst for a better feeling about life,
which in turn made room to write.
How do you respond to the description of
the songs as ripe and mature thank you
or how dare you? Im gonna pass! It doesnt
really matter, does it? We work with a few
more elements and use every moment, every
chance we have to speak with one another to
make the world a better place and teach
ourselves something.
INTERVIEW: NIGEL WILLIAMSON
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
85
Ultimate mUsic GUides

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guidEs
to thE most
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artists
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timE
Available to order online at uncut.co.uk/store

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SCORING: THE ORIGINAL ALBUM
10 Masterpiece
1 Poor!
SCORING: EXTRA MATERIAL
10 Untold riches
1 Barrel-scrapings
9/10
7/10
TRACKLISTS
The Magical World Of The Strands
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Queen Matilda
Something Like You
And Luna
X Hits The Spot
The Prize
Undecided (Reprise)
Glynys And Jaqui
Its Harvest Time
Loaded Man
Hockens Hey
Fontilan
Green Velvet Jacket
Queen Matilda (demo)
The Olde World

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Its Harvest Time (band version)

Fin, Sophie, Bobby And Lance
Poor Jill
Something Like You (quartet)
Glynys And Jaqui (acoustic)
Hockens Hey (alternate instrumental)
And Luna (acoustic)
Lizzie Mullally
Wrapped Up In Honour
The Olde World
Archive
R E I SS U E S|C OM P S|BOX SE T S|L OS T R EC OR DI NGS
MICHAEL HEAD &

THE STRANDS
The Magical World Of The Strands/
The Olde World
MEGAPHONE
Andmoreagain! A Love-lorn masterpiece and

its long-lost sibling. By John Mulvey
SITTING ON A Los Angeles hillside in 1967,
trying to make sense of the world as it spun out
of control before his eyes, Arthur Lee eventually
came to a dazed conclusion, of sorts. Life goes
on here day after day, he sang in The Red
Telephone. I dont know if Im living or if Im
supposed to be/Sometimes my life is so eerie.
A quarter of a century later, on the corner of
Clarence and Mount Pleasant in Liverpool, it
seems Mick Head a preternaturally gifted,
rather errant songwriter had a similar

epiphany. Head had been introduced to Arthur
Lee in 1992 when an enterprising French
promoter, Stephane Bismuth, hired Heads
band, Shack, to fill in for Love on a series of live
dates. Now, in 1993, Head was in a studio with
windows that allowed him a panoramic view
of Liverpool; the perfect place to create music
that invested the often harsh realities of
everyday life with an unlikely romantic
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
87
Archive
at their own idiosyncratic pace, free of
any pressure.
The band was called The Strands, though to
most people it looked pretty much like Shack,
featuring as it did Mick Head and his younger
brother John, a diffident guitar virtuoso who was
also, tentatively, proving himself to be a useful
songwriter. The Magical World Of The Strands
took two years to record, and another two to be
released, by which time the Heads had returned
to the Shack brand name and become embroiled
in further major label shenanigans. Since then,
there have been a handful of fine
SLEEVE
albums, each accompanied with
NOTES
bold claims (Noel Gallagher, never
Produced by:
the most discreet salesman, released
Michael Head, Mark
2006s On The Corner Of Miles And
Coyle, John Head
Gil on his Sour Mash label) and
(Loaded Man)
corresponding disinterest from the
Recorded at: Avid
and Oceanic Studios,
wider listening public.
Liverpool, and Fon,
Its the sort of hard-luck legend
Sheeld
loved by obsessive music fans, not
Personnel: Michael
least music critics. But while Head
Head (vocals, guitar),
seems unfussed by his relative
John Head (guitar,
obscurity, it is still hard to accept
bass, backing vocals),
Michelle Brown (bass),
that a masterpiece like The Magical
Iain Templeton (drums,
World Of The Strands remains so
percussion), Leslie
marginal. This summer, the latest
Roberts (ute), Robert
attempt to manoeuvre it into the
Spriggs (cello), Becca
canon is being launched, with a
Ware, Lucy Wilkins
slightly expanded reissue of the
(violins), Oliver Kraus
(viola), Helen Caddick
original record, and a second album,
(orchestrations)
The Olde World, that gathers up 10
lost songs and alternate versions
from the original sessions.
If anything, The Magical World has improved
with age. In the mid-90s, there was an
imperative to position Head as bruised guru
to a generation of British rock classicists,
exemplified by the Gallaghers and Richard
Ashcroft. Head shared a certain romanticism
that was rooted in but transcended the
German indie label, Marina, to great acclaim
working-class North-West of the country, and
and traditionally negligible sales, in 1995).
his study of old records was just as thorough
Bismuth, though, was one of a group of
and unabashed. He was not, though, a writer of
fanatics who saw beyond Heads reputation as
anthems, his songwriting mostly too feathery,
an erratic commercial pariah. To this small but
too evanescent for blokey singalongs.
vociferous cabal, Mick Head was a psychedelic
The closest he came on The Magical World was
visionary, a songwriter who could relocate the
a rueful and brilliant song about his heroin
dreams and possibilities suggested by Love,
addiction called X Hits The Spot, which
The Byrds and Tim Buckley to his own Liverpool
articulated a difficult choice that he had made
streets. Shack and The Pale Fountains
essentially, drugs instead of a relationship and
recordings had mostly been blighted by major
its consequences: coming round to discover he
label expediencies, but Bismuth had a better
had sold all his furniture to stay high. The
idea: let Head and his latest band make a record
chorus is punchy, emphatic, memorable. The
Mick Head: unfussed
by his relative obscurity
ambience. Here, perhaps, the world

could become magical.
Heads career, not for the first or last time,
was in a bit of a mess. His first band, The Pale
Fountains, had been hamstrung by the
aesthetics and politics of the 1980s music
business, and his second band, Shack,
appeared to have gone the same way. One
album, Zilch, had come out in 88, with
good songs compromised by a flashily
unsympathetic production. A follow-up,
Waterpistol, had been recorded in 1991 but
remained in limbo (it would sneak out on a
ITS HARVEST TIME! Four more Mick Head songs in the spirit of The Magical World
SHACK
Als Vacation
GHETTO, 1991
A wonderful one-o
single that could be
described, just about credibly, as
insouciant skie. Acoustic guitars
and bongos gure prominently, while
the unadorned production properly
showcases Heads crafsmanship for
the rst time. Track it down on the
2007 compilation, Time Machine.
SHACK
Mood Of The
Morning MARINA, 1995
The jazzy snap of this
Waterpistol highlight
is a precursor of what was to come on
The Magical World. What begins as
an acoustic stroll, however, gradually
becomes psychedelically intense,
with John Heads lead guitar line
taking a wayward and inspired path
through his brothers song.
SHACK
The Captains
Table LONDON, 1999
A logical enough
attempt to manoeuvre
Shack into the Britrock elite of the
late 90s, HMS Fable is the most
rumbustious Head album. Delicate
moments remain, though, none
greater than this baroque fever
dream, very much in the vein of
Queen Matilda.
MICHAEL HEAD
& THE RED
ELASTIC BAND
Lucinda Byre
VIOLETTE, 2013
Highlight of the Artorius Revisited

EP. The song starts in a caf having
some acid, Head told us in 2013. Its
about getting to the end of Bold St
if you can. Even if youre not tripping,
theres no way, without bumping into
people youve not seen for 10 years.
Archive
Head: I absorb
music
verses, though, are more typical of The

Magical World: words come in breathless,
jazzy flurries, Head appropriating Arthur
Lees trick of squeezing two or three
extra words into a line to create a sense of
babbling discombobulation.
Acoustic reveries predominate. Queen
Matilda, in particular, seems to fill an
emotional vacuum with opiate visions, where
the fish float by in gravity. Sometimes, the
invocations of lost love take on a rustic air, as
if Head were hallucinating a John Constable
landscape outside the studio window rather
than the Liverpool streets. Its Harvest Time,
announces one Byrds-esque raga. Hockens
Hay, banjo to the fore, is jaunty in a brackish,
uncanny way. Away from the LA canyons,
beyond the 1960s, few artists have conjured up
a cosmically adjusted renaissance fair with
such verve; note how John Head, the patient
straight man, cuts through the reveries with
stinging electric solos on And Luna and
Glynys And Jaqui. Johns exasperation finds
a melancholy outlet on his own song, Loaded
Man, easy to read as an open letter to his
brother. Do you think? Do you feel? he asks
plaintively, his voice sweeter and less husky
than that of Mick, Do you know where you are?
Or where youve been?
In 2015, Mick Head is perhaps more aware of
where hes been though, as our Q&A reveals,
his timeframes and concerns can still be a little
sketchy: if nothing else the reissue of The
Magical World Of The Strands means that Head
will actually own a copy of his finest album. The
release strategy of its beguiling companion
piece, however, is a little curious. The Olde
World features a string quartet instrumental
version of the keynote love song, Something
Like You; three unreleased songs (the raggedy,
swaggering Poor Jill, a hazy coda to Fontilan
called Wrapped Up In Honour, and the
clangourous title track, pronounced Oldie
World, closer in beat spirit to the Waterpistol
sessions); and two early versions of songs that
would turn up on Shack records a decade later
(Lizzie Mullally and the brilliant, jazzinflected Fin, Sophie, Bobby And Lance). All
good stuff, but it nevertheless feels more like
Disc Two of a deluxe edition rather than a
standalone album.
Heads labyrinthine path through the 1990s
meant that The Strands never actually played
live, something he intends to remedy this year,
even if his brother seems unlikely to be involved.
Characteristically, Mick Head has another group
now, The Red Elastic Band, whose two records
reveal a miraculously unsullied vision. Names
and labels change, years are lost for one reason
or other, but Michael Head is still writing songs
about Liverpool, under the spell of Love. You
know Ive been waiting for you/Keep me waiting
for you/Keep me hanging on, he sang on 2013s
Lucinda Byre, the eternal street poet-mystic.
The name of the EP from which it came?
Artorius Revisited, in honour of Arthur Lee.
EXTRAS: The reissue of The Magical World
7/10 features two bonus tracks from the CD
single of Something Like You: a ghostly though
fully formed demo of Queen Matilda, and a
strong solo acoustic song, Green Velvet Jacket.
amazing job with the new album. We got in

the car, we went down the beach by the
Mersey, the Irish Sea, sat and listened to it
[The Olde World
World] and it just blew me away.
In an old interview, you said you were
listening to Classic FM a lot back then?
There was a time when I was completely
insomniac. In the middle of the night when
no-one else is around, before 24-hour
Tescos and bargain booze, Id just stick the
radio on, and that seemed like the best
option. I absorb music, I utilise it. I think,
Thats such a beautiful chord change,
then somewhere down the line it gets
filtered into an idea.
Mick Head talks insomnia,

romanticising heroin, and
songs about his mum
OW DO YOU look back on the
Strands record now?
The copy I had, I lent to somebody,
and Ive never seen them again. So
over the years, if I want to hear those songs, Ill
just play them on the guitar.
Sometimes when youre doing an album youve
got deadlines and goals, but with that album
there was no agenda. We got some dead time in
the studio, we had a couple of songs, and then the
songs just kept coming. It was an amazing studio,
in a big old Georgian house on the corner of the
street, with windows in the studio. We had the
luxury of sitting there listening to what wed
done, looking out the window as Liverpool was
going by. Im big on views, I love a view. Days
turned into nights and nights turned into days,
and the songs just evolved.
Over two years, right, 1993 to 1995?

Yeah! [Laughs] I didnt even know that! Was it two
years? It was just a lovely time to write, it didnt
seem like that long.
How did it come about, then?
Id worked with Stephane
[Bismuth] before, hed asked
us to play with Arthur Lee.
Hes a visionary, a lovely
Parisian man. I dont really
know what his actual
daytime job is: pimp,
magician? But he asked me
to produce some band from
Paris called Autour de Lucie.
We went down to the studio
in Liverpool, and Id never
produced anything before,
really, but I thought, I can
get a good sound out of this. Afterwards,
Stephane said, Do you want to make an album?
What hes just done now, 12 years on
The Magical World has this rural, pretty

atmosphere while describing very
urban, and in some cases grim,
scenarios. X Hits The Spot is
harrowing, but sounds so romantic.
I actually remember the day I wrote it.
Id just started dabbling with heroin, and
Id found a new rehearsal room. I was
looking out the window and there were three
bottle banks: one said brown, one said green
and one said clear. My girlfriend at the time was
saying things like, Well OK, Im not going to
hassle you to do anything, you go your way
I was looking at these bottle banks and making
my mind up.
And which one did you choose? Brown?
What do you think? [Laughs] Youre losing your
girlfriend, youre either going to sort this out or
jump in with both feet. Thats why the lyrics say,
X hits the spot when youre not around.
How do you feel singing that song now?
I love it! The only songs I have a problem with are
songs that involve my mum. Anything to do with
drugs, or personal fucking heartache or personal
fucking violence, I havent got a problem with.
Do you think you were romanticising
addiction?
At the end of the day, all I am is a songwriter.
You could say that about hundreds and
thousands of poets, writers and songwriters
through the ages.
Wasnt a bohemian life initially appealing to
you because of the way Coleridge and De
Quincey wrote about it?
In my early days, that fascinated me. When we
were doing The Strands, I
was completely fascinated
by William Burroughs,
people like that. But at the
end of the day, its a
personal emotional fancy.
Maybe people do plan the
way theyre going to write
songs; I dont. I just go
along with whats
happening within my
mind at the particular time.
Romanticising smack? Nah,
you know, thats Uncle Lou
[laughs]. I was only listening to All Tomorrows
Parties yesterday and its so evocative. You dont
think about the consequences, you just put
yourself in that situation. Youre there with Nico,
crying behind the door.
Songs to do with
drugs, or personal
fucking heartache or
violence, I dont have
a problem with
Twelve? The Magical World came out in 1997,

and you finished recording it 20 years ago!
OK, fair enough! [Laughing] I should keep a diary.
But Stephane said last year theres about 10 songs
we didnt put on the album. He got the master
tapes, and Mark Coyle, who worked on the
original, worked on them, and theyve done an
Yeah, I guess the biggest compliment you

can be paid is that The Magical World Of The
Strands works in the same way.
Fucking hell, there you go then, lad!
INTERVIEW: JOHN MULVEY
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
89
Archive
TRACKLIST
CD 1 Robins Reign.Plus
1
August October
2
Gone Gone Gone
3
The Worst Girl In This Town
4
Give Me A Smile
5
Down Came The Sun
6
Mother And Jack
7
Saved By The Bell
8
Weekend
9
Farmer Ferdinand Hudson
10 Lord Bless All
11 Most Of My Life
12 One Million Years
13 Hudsons Fallen Wind
14 Saved By The Bell (mono)
15 Mother And Jack (mono)
16 One Million Years (mono)
17 Weekend (mono)
18 August October (mono)
19 Give Me A Smile (mono)
20 Lord Bless All (alternate take)
CD 2 Sing Slowly Sisters Sessions
1
Sing Slowly Sisters
2
Life
3
Cest La Vie, Au Revoir
4
Everything Is How You See Me
5
Ive Been Hurt
6
Sky West And Crooked
7
Irons On The Fire
8
Cold Be My Days
9
Avalanche
10 Engines Aeroplanes
11 The Flag I Flew
12 Return To Austria
13 Its Only Make Believe
14 Alls Well That Ends Well
15 A Very Special Day
16 Great Caesars Ghost
17 Anywhere I Hang My Hat
18 Loud And Clear
19 Return To Austria (demo)
20 Why Not Cry Together (demo)
CD 3 Robins Rarities
1
Alexandria Good Time
2
Janice
3
Love Just Goes
4
August October Agosto Ottobre
5
One Million Years Un Milone De Ani
6
Saved By The Bell (BBC)
7
Robin Talks With Brian Matthew (BBC)
8
August October (BBC)
9
Weekend (BBC)
10 Give Me A Smile (BBC)
11 Robin Talks With David Wigg (BBC)
12 The Band Will Meet Mr Justice (demo)
13 The Peoples Public Poke Song (demo)
14 Indian Gin And Whiskey Dry (demo)
15 The Girl To Share Each Day (demo)
16 Come Some Halloween Or Christmas Day (demo)
17 Heaven In My Hands (demo)
18 Most Of My Life (demo)
19 Goodbye Good World (demo)
20 Down Came The Sun (demo)
21 Dont Go Away (demo)
22 Moon Anthem
Robin Gibb Orchestra And Chorus
23 Ghost Of Christmas Past
Robin Gibb Orchestra And Chorus
ROBIN GIBB
Saved By The Bell The Collected
Works Of Robin Gibb 1968-1970
RHINO/REPRISE
Baroque, orch-pop gems undervalued or previously

unreleased from the saddest Bee Gee. By Jon Dale
FOR SOME GROUPS, its
musical differences; for
others, its too much blood under the bridge.
For The Bee Gees, it was a B-side that ultimately
caused the temporary breakup of the fraternal
bond. Relations had become increasingly
fractious between the three brothers, Robin,
Barry and Maurice Gibb, across 1968, as they
worked on their semi-conceptual surrealist
pop opus, 1969s Odessa, but it was the decision
to relegate Robins Lamplight to the B-side of
brother Barrys First Of May, as Odessas lead
9/10
single, that acted as the catalyst. In March of

1969, Robin made his intentions plain; he was
going solo, The Bee Gees were no more.
Its an odd twist in a tale that gets odder the
more you explore. If all you know of The Bee
Gees is their pop-cultural presence as leonine,
medallioned R&B/disco legends, their 1960s
offer some surprises for you. In their first
prolific blush, The Bee Gees rose from teen
precociousness in Queensland, Australia to
make increasingly strange, unpredictable
records. Mournful pop songs like New York
Archive
Andrew Sandoval
I hadnt realised, until I read
your notes for the reissue,
that this was a 10-year
project. What was the most
exciting moment for you?
Given that it was so long in
the process, the most exciting thing was
discovering a tape source for the song
Everything Is How You See Me. It was on
a four-track format, as the session reels
had vanished. [Also] locating other collectors,
like Ben Sumner, who had Robins lost Scrooge
opus, Ghost Of Christmas Past. It was on a
reel-to-reel that Robin had taken home and
recorded some demos over A collector
named Kenn Norman had Robins incredible
Hudsons Fallen Wind on a 12 acetate and
graciously loaned us the original.
Theres a particular intensity in the love that
some fans have for this material how were
Mining Disaster 1941, Massachusetts and

I Started A Joke were flooded with ornate
strings, clanging Beatles guitars and the
quavering, fragile lilt of Robin Gibbs lead
vocals, a man whose voice was caught in
perpetual vibrato.
The band had been wildly prolific. Still in
their late teens, the brothers Gibb released
four albums in two years, one a double Bee
Gees 1st (1967), Horizontal and Idea (both
1968), and Odessa all swept up in the
magic of pops halcyon days. No wonder
relations were strained. But if Robin
regretted the decision, he certainly didnt
show it. Entering one of his most prolific
phases, he released a chart-topping single,
Saved By The Bell, followed by 1970s
Robins Reign, his first solo album, which
makes up the bulk of the first disc here.
The magic of Robins Reign lies in its
idiosyncrasy, both lyrically and melodically.
While The Bee Gees were pop craftspeople,
they were also, on the side, quietly, but
convincingly experimental. Here, the first
sound you hear is a gently ticking drum
machine some claim this was the first
appearance of the drum machine on record
before gilded strings swamp the
sensorium, cosseted by the glittering
mandolins of August, October. Robins
songs were melancholy, sometimes
haunted by real-life experience, such as
being in the 1967 Hither Green rail crash,
sometimes grounded in his unexpected
fascinations, like British military history,
or everyday observations, such as the
memories of family horse-riding trips, in
Cold Be My Days.
That song is one of the more startling
moments on Sing Slowly Sisters, Robins lost
second album, finally reconstructed, after
a fashion, and released on Saved By The
Bells second disc. With the master tapes
disappeared, or dispersed across the globe,
producer Andrew Sandoval had a task
the responses to your project from

the fanbase?
It was intense for sure, with not every fan
being on board due to a lot of interpersonal
rivalries. However, when the project really
nally came together through Robins
estate, there were some last-minute
discoveries that iced the cake for many.
I have a feeling that, following this release,
more Robin recordings from this period
will surface from fans.
What do you think Robin himself would make
of this collection?
I think he would have been immensely proud;
the Gibbs were never short of songs, so it
made spotlighting one era of creativity
dicult for them during his lifetime. Robins
solo work in particular had come at a traumatic
time in the family, with Robin spreading
his artistic wings solo at the expense of
brotherhood. They all grew in the process, but
the period was dark for them. Taken on their
own, his recordings marked the rst time you
could really see his contribution to their art.
INTERVIEW: JON DALE
pulling a convincing version of the album

together, but to his credit, Sing Slowly Sisters
as realised here feels of a piece with the
hissy bootlegs that have done the rounds
over the decades but with a serious audio
upgrade. Its mind-boggling to think an
album so strong could stay unreleased for
so long; there are good grounds to claiming
this was Robins masterpiece. It lights
upon far richer territory than Robins
Reign, which, by comparison, almost
feels monomaniacal.
The baroque pop songs on Sing Slowly
Sisters are reflective gems. The
aforementioned Cold Be My Days,
swathed in harpsichord and fragile strings,
may be the only song in music history to
hymn the Warwickshire town of ShipstonOn-Stour; The Flag I Flew is breathtaking
in its sweeping sadness; Sky West And
Crooked is an acoustic guitar miniature,
a glimmer of melancholy; while proposed
first single, Great Caesars Ghost, is
measured yet ravishing, Robins vibrato
finding its perfect home, wrapped in
orchestral drapery. While undeniably lush,
the overwhelming tenor of these songs is
one of almost unbearable sadness.
Saved By The Bell features other gems:
BBC sessions, copious demos, and the
psychedelically soused song suite,
Hudsons Fallen Wind, a 12-minute
mini-epic that suggests Robin could have
cut it up there with the Syd Barretts and
Arthur Lees of the world. But by returning
Robins Reign to the land of the living,
and finally giving form to Sing Slowly
Sisters, this triple-disc set not only acts
as public service: it also reminds of
Robin Gibbs wild, inspired two-year
taste of freedom, before The Bee Gees
regrouped for their second, unexpectedly
world-beating run.
EXTRAS: Liner notes from Saint Etiennes
6/10 Bob Stanley.
BLACK
MOUNTAIN
Black Mountain
(reissue, 2005)
JAGJAGUWAR
Tenth-anniversary
upgrade of a
8/10 spacerock classic
Theres this big thing that
music has to be groundbreaking: why? Stephen
McBean asked Uncut in 2005, soon after Black
Mountains debut was released. Certainly, the
Vancouver collective appeared unconcerned by
contemporary fashion. Recorded in the basement
of a smelly old hotel, directly beneath a little
24-hour crack store, Black Mountain sounded
like a consummate repurposing of a great record
collection: the monolithic heft of Sabbath; the
peculiar funkiness of Can; late VU ramalam; Fun
House sax; Sandy Denny siren calls; Tangerine
Dream synth washes; a healthy dose of Crazy
Horse. Ten years on, this deluxe new version
reiterates how McBean and band transcended the
sum of their influences, producing what remains
one of this centurys very best spacerock albums.
Its charm extended beyond a cabal of latterday
psychedelicists, so far in fact that BM soon found
themselves in arenas, supporting Coldplay.
Nevertheless, theres a poignancy here in how the
promise of Black Mountain has never quite been
realised, subsequent LPs and those by McBean
side-projects Pink Mountaintops and Grim Tower
falling well short of its quasi-mythic potency.
EXTRAS: Eight strong bonus tracks, half
7/10 previously unreleased, including the
eight-minute extended version of their signature
stoner groove, Druganaut.
JOHN MULVEY
BRITISH SEA
POWER
The Decline
Of British Sea
Power (reissue, 2003)
GOLDEN CHARIOT RECORDS
Brighton eccentrics bold

and convincing first
Arcade Fires debut,
Funeral, took the plaudits a year later, but the
debut by this Brighton band was an early
adopter of some similarly grand plans;
delivering here an ambitious set of widescreen,
melodically urgent and slightly unsettling
songs. Despite being made by a standard indie
lineup (albeit with some French horn), the
album wields orchestral power, a sense of scale
thats carries over to this reissue: at its peak, a
package which contains four CDS, a DVD and
a glossy book. Certainly, the record deserves
revisiting. The punkish muscularity of songs by
Yan (Scott Wilkinson) is dominant, but it has a
foil in the epic melodicism of those by his
brother Hamilton (Neil Wilkinson). Still, the
churning pop of Carrion, their first Top 40
entry, was group-written. Remember Me
and Fear Of Drowning which suggest
the Arcade Fire hijacked by Manic Street
Preachers and Pixies, respectively are
rousers in extremis, Hamiltons Blackout
a chiming nod to The Go-Betweens with
a dark undercurrent. Subsequent British
Sea Power albums may have fared better
commercially, but the wryly titled Decline
was a precocious early peak.
EXTRAS: Discs of B-sides, rare/live/alternative
7/10 versions and DVD.
7/10
SHARON OCONNELL
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
91
Archive
Rediscovered!
Uncovering the underrated and overlooked
BROADCAST
Vinyl Reissues
WARP
The Wiccan Portishead

reissued
At the time of their debut
single, The Book Lovers,
9/10 Birminghams Broadcast
seemed to be on a similar
course to Stereolab a group whose melodic
talent and emergence in quality records found
expression in retro-futurist pop. Looking back,
even their early soundworld now seems richer and
more complex, their melted loops and seasick
whooshing as much My Bloody Valentine as
Radiophonic Workshop. Given to sweeping and
unsettling mood pieces, Broadcasts music took
the idea of soundtracks for an imaginary film
to the ends of the imagination. Hauntology
has something to do with the bands interest in
decayed sounds, but Broadcasts crunchy
electronics, bucolic reflections and Trish Keenans
crisply melodic vocals made them something a bit
more enticing. Their music resided in a place that
was difficult to date, the long stretches between
their albums earning them an evolving role as a
Wiccan Portishead. From their strange, deep
debut, The Noise Made By People, the band
travelled to spiky electronic indie (2005s Tender
Buttons still sounds staggering). Their final album
(2009s Investigate The Witch Cults Of The Radio
Age) found them collaborating with Julian House
of the Focus Group on spooked musique concrte,
from which Keenan magically divined melody. Her
untimely death from pneumonia in 2011 marked
the end of this truly original group.
EXTRAS: None.
JOHN ROBINSON
ERIC CLAPTON
Forever Man
REPRISE
GLENN PHILLIPS
Lost At Sea
SHAGRAT
A 40th-anniversary reissue of unmarketable,

compelling guitar strangeness
Recalling the likes of Mike Bloomfield, John McLaughlin,
John Cippolina and Frank Zappa, Lost At Sea was the first
of a series of extraordinary instrumental guitar albums
from Glenn Phillips, in a beguiling career that continues
to fascinate. As melancholy as it is ferocious, Phillips
explains that with Lost At Sea, My intent was to create
emotional instrumental music that was timeless, regardless
of trends or fashion.
He formed his first group in Atlanta, Georgia. The Hampton Grease Bands sole album was
1971s lyrically abstract, part-improvised, Music To Eat: marketed as a comedy album, it was
Columbias second-worst-seller in the period, beaten only by a yoga record. This was the way
you impressed Frank Zappa, who snatched them for his Bizarre label. I was taken aback when
Frank asked if Id give him a guitar lesson; he wanted to learn how I was able to pick all the
notes when I played fast. In Atlanta, Phillips often sat in with Little Feat, Lowell George netting
Phillips a Warner Brothers deal until Zappas partner Herb Cohen insisted they buy out my
contract, which hed let them have for $100,000.
Instead, Phillips established his own, home-based SnowStar imprint to distribute Lost At Sea;
John Peels keenness prompted Richard Branson to release it here. The beautifully contrasting
Swim In The Wind followed, Phillips touring Britain with Steve Hillage just as Virgin unleashed
the Sex Pistols. Curiously, the British punk movement reminded me most of the American 60s
hippy movement which, naturally, the punks detested; luckily, I had a ringside seat at both.
Over the next decade, SnowStar released five albums; 1987s Elevator was picked up by SST
label-boss Greg Ginn. I did relate to his fearless, independent spirit, as well as that of many of
the bands. Its now 12 years since Phillips reflective Angel Sparks, but hes also collaborated
with Henry Kaiser, Peter Buck, The Swimming Pool Qs Jeff Calder (in Supreme Court) and,
lately, The B-52s Cindy Wilson. Phillips approach is intuitive, unclassifiable and, he adds,
unmarketable but thats a price Im happy to pay.
9/10
MICK HOUGHTON
A 3-disc, 70th-birthday
collection covering
the Warners years
Those who subscribe to the
7/10 view that ol Slowhands
best work was shoehorned
into the first third of his career can safely ignore
this comp, which commences with 1983s Ive
Got A RocknRoll Heart and proceeds spottily
through to Call Me The Breeze from 2014s
JJ Cale tribute album. But although there is
perhaps little among these 51 tracks youd
willingly swap for Badge, Layla or almost
anything on 1974s classic 461 Ocean Boulevard,
its a welcome reminder that there has been
much more to Claptons latterday career than
Tears In Heaven and My Fathers Eyes. As
youd expect, the AOR hits are included, but
theyre safely confined to Disc One, which
presents the polished studio work from
the Phil Collins years; the true grit is located
elsewhere. Disc Two contains 14 live tracks,
revisiting Cream/Derek & The Dominos
highlights, but also including acoustic
selections from his revelatory 1992 MTV
Unplugged show, which was one of the best
in the series, and from his fine and easily
overlooked reunion with Stevie Winwood
in 2009. Disc Three gives us Clapton the
unadulterated bluesman, in potent
collaboration with JJ Cale and BB King,
and in tribute to Robert Johnson. Many happy
returns, EC.
EXTRAS: None.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
Archive
ORNETTE
COLEMAN
Beauty Is A
Rare Thing: The
Complete Atlantic
Recordings
JETHRO TULL
Minstrel In The
Gallery 40th
Anniversary La
Grande Edition
GRACE JONES
The Disco Years:
Portfolio/Fame/
Muse ISLAND
Nature technique and

learned technique
combined. Atlantic years box, reissued
This no-frills reissue of Rhinos original 1993 box
includes all the surviving music (there was a tape
store fire) Ornette cut for Atlantic between 195961, from The Shape Of Jazz To Come to Ornette On
Tenor 424 minutes that encouraged some to
recognise his genius, many more to think he and
his plastic alto were both putting them on. With
hindsight, its more difficult to empathise with
the consternation (the booklet takes pains to
record the many passionate feelings on his art
from contemporaries like Thelonious Monk and
Miles Davis), than simply revel in the invention.
Colemans classic quartet with Charlie Haden on
bass, Billy Higgins on drums and Don Cherry on
trumpet achieved something like the paradigm
shift of San Fran rock bands a preferencing of
feeling and philosophy over technical perfection
and accepted practice. 1961s Free Jazz, in which
Ornette and Eric Dolphy face off in separate
channels, displays exemplary sensitive group
playing in a post-bop format, rather than the
free-for-all sabre-rattling one might imagine, but
it may be a while before you can get past Lonely
Woman, in which Coleman first announces his
profoundly dolorous harmolodic vision. Shame
to lose the original artwork, but the inclusion of
the 17-minute First Take alone makes up for it.
1975 US Top 10 LP gets the

expanded treatment
Much of Ian Andersons
Elizabethan heavy metal hasnt dated that well.
While the spooky mysticism of 1973s A Passion
Play and 1974s poppier War Child have their
defenders, this 1975 album combines a lot of the
bands least digestible elements: disjointed stop/
start rhythms, suffocating string arrangements,
an episodic 17-minute suite. The lyrics lurch
between the incomprehensible and the crude.
EXTRAS: These include quadrophonic mixes,
7/10 and a clutch of alternate, often acoustic,
takes that have dated better than much of the LP,
including a limpid, unreleased take of the Elton
John-ish Requiem, the whimsically folksy
One White Duck and the non-album B-side
Summerday Sands. Radio sessions include a
pleasingly raw version of the title track and an
uncharacteristically sluggish reading of
Aqualung. Theres a live July 1975 concert from
Paris, where the albums more dense songs
actually have room to breathe, and an eightminute DVD clip of that gig. Best of all is an
80-page booklet that explains the full Spinal Tapstyle shenanigans behind the LP ditching their
families for tax exile in Switzerland and Monaco,
junking a hugely expensive string session with
a Monte Carlo orchestra, a string quartet in
platinum blonde wigs, and Anderson bitching
about bassist Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond.
Diva comes of age on

late-70s NY trilogy
Before she headed to
7/10 Compass Point in late 79
to reinvent herself as the
inscrutable Amazonian androgyne of Nightclubbing, Grace Jones was, well, a slightly less
inscrutable Amazonian androgyne whose first
three albums found her riding out the last days
of disco, and in danger of becoming a washed-out
clich herself. Paired by Chris Blackwell with
disco mix master Tom Moulton while she stalked
the catwalks and clubs of Paris and New York, the
theatrical blend of chanson, covers and originals
that comprise Portfolio (77) and Fame (78) won
Jones a significant following on the black and gay
scenes and made modest commercial headway.
As has always been the case, however an issue
pulled sharply into focus on this expanded 3CD
edition these albums are full of filler: besides
her languid readings of La Vie En Rose, Send
In The Clowns and Autumn Leaves, this
43-song Disco Years set is padded with pedestrian
rug-cutters helmed by a producer who was, at that
point, going through the motions. By 1979s Muse,
Jones sounds more forthright, even aggressive
on Atlantic City Gambler, while Moroder
accomplice Thor Baldurssons synthesiser
adds vital electronic texture. Yet I Feel Love
was already two years old and, as this reissue
makes clear, Jones needed to address her future.
EXTRAS: Instrumentals, long and short versions,
6/10 and edits.
JOHN ROBINSON
JOHN LEWIS
PIERS MARTIN
RHINO
9/10
THE DAMNED
Go!-45
BIG BEAT
Noise noise noise is

for heroes: plastic
punkers single life
The first lepers of
7/10 punk, according to
Julie Burchill and Tony
Parsons notorious punk witch hunt, The
Boy Looked At Johnny, The Damneds
quisling reputation was set in stone when
they were thrown off the Sex Pistols 1977
tour for not refusing to play. Misfits from
crappy Croydon, they might have been
mocked even more if original songwriter
Brian James had not lied so effectively about
his age it was not until remarkably
recently he was outed as the guitarist
on a 1969 single by Taiconderoga. This
vinyl-only re-run of their first five years of
singles shows, though, that The Damned
had much more fun once they got the
sped-up Hawkwind of their Stiff singles
out of their systems and let their hair
grow back. There Aint No Sanity Clause
winks towards the goth vaudeville of The
Black Album and beyond, while History
Of The World (Part 1) and Just Cant Be
Happy Today show that Captain Sensible
may not have been focusing purely on
his job as a toilet cleaner at the Fairfield
Halls when Caravan came to town.
Irredeemably uncool, but not as dumb
as they looked.
EXTRAS: Appropriately ugly-coloured
6/10 vinyl.
JIM WIRTH
PARLOPHONE
5/10
HOW TO BUY...
CURTIS KNIGHT
AND THE
SQUIRES
You Cant Use
My Name
THE
DAMNED
From scuzzy punk to stoner rock n psych
Damned Damned
Damned STIFF, 1977
Pink Fairies squatter scuzz gone
feral, this Feb 77 debut is faster
than the Pistols, louder than the
Ramones, and reduced nihilism (Born To Kill)
and bad spelling (Stab Yor Back) to schoolyard
clich before anyone else had the chance.
7/10
Machine Gun Etiquette
CHISWICK, 1979
Jettisoning their only recognised

songwriter, Brian James, afer
splitting and reforming, the
classic Captain Sensible-Rat Scabies-Dave
Vanian axis may have peaked here, taking a dayglo highlighter pen to old-school stoner rock.
Even NWOBHM knuckle-draggers dug Smash
It Up, while Antipope suggests if not hidden
depths more exotic shallows.
8/10
Strawberries BRONZE, 1982
The piggy in the middle of the
slow fade from the lace-cued
grandeur of 1980s The Black
Album to the goth pop of 1985s
Phantasmagoria, Strawberries is the least
immediate LP, but snue around in the dusty
corners and psych trues appear: Generals,
Life Goes On and Under The Floor Again.
Cpt Sensible: the tech college Julian Cope.
7/10
LEGACY
Contested, preExperience Hendrix

released in edited form
The name in question is Jimi Hendrix, here
doing time in New York with Curtis Knight, an
underwhelming RnB singer. There were merits
to the arrangement (it was while playing with
Knight that Hendrix was spotted by the fabulous
Linda Keith), but their studio sessions (in 1965
and a reunion session in 1967) created a longrunning contractual/legal palaver when
Hendrix began his solo career.
All of which is historically pertinent more as
an indication of Hendrixs good nature and
business navet than of his genius. Still, there
are interesting bits here. Jimis Dylan obsession
gets an airing in How Would You Feel which
rewrites the Bloomfield parts from Like A
Rolling Stone, while his lead playing (as on
Gloomy Monday) throws forward to later
licks. Hendrix or not, however, these are not
great songs at all.
Still, it might have been worse; the original
release of this material running to six discs.
Eddie Kramer has done a nice mastering job,
while by including a studio exchange between
Hendrix and studio boss Ed Chalpin (Edward,
Im serious You cant use my name for this
stuff, OK?) the estate enjoys an infrequent
visit to the moral high ground.
EXTRAS: None.
6/10
JOHN ROBINSON
JIM WIRTH
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
93
Archive
THE KNACK
Zoom
VINCE
MATTHEWS
AND JIM CASEY
The Kingston
Springs Suite
OMNIVORE RECORDINGS
THE MOTHMEN
Pay Attention!
(reissue, 1981)
ON-U SOUND
Riff city: powerpop Vets

put pedal to metal in
late-90s comeback;
first in a trio of expected
7/10 late-career reissues
Though considered
interlopers within LAs organic, punk-infused
late-70s powerpop scene, which produced
The Plimsouls and 20/20, among others (Doug
Fiegers checkered past, including stints in
major-label acts Sky and The Sunset Bombers,
betrayed him), retrospection has shown The
Knack to have had their moments see
especially 1981s Round Trip. On this 1998
curiosity, a commercial non-starter, the group
rallied around a new drummer, former Missing
Person Terry Bozzio, and set guitars to stun.
Seeking to capitalise on developments that
had landed My Sharona back on the charts,
Zooms thunderous, over-the-top approach
nears bludgeon level, with the material only
sometimes keeping pace. Still, many likeable
elements seep through: respects are paid to
influences via Terry & Julie Step Out (a
Revolver-esque Kinks nod) and the psych ballad
(All In The) All In All; guitarist Berton Averre
sizzles throughout, spinning out mesmerising
Rickenbacker jangle, for example, on Can I
Borrow A Kiss; and Fiegers sweepingly ironic
Pop Is Dead, a portentous epitaph to guitar
pop as we knew it, is a near-masterpiece.
EXTRAS: Three demos, plus a swooning
5/10 heartbreak ballad She Says and
a pounding, Bozzio-version of My Sharona.
Lost concept piece

from 70s Nashville
The sole album from Tennessee outlaws
Matthews and Casey, like Terry Allens Juarez
or Kenny Rogers The Ballad Of Calico, explored
the changing times of a real-life community.
Named after the small town where Matthews
set up home, The Kingston Springs Suite was
initially conceived as an ambitious narrative
film to be screened on Johnny Cashs TV show.
Alas, it never quite came off, though Cash was
sufficiently impressed by Matthews talent to
agree to produce the record itself, with help
from Kris Kristofferson, Shel Silverstein and
Cowboy Jack Clement. The result, recorded in
1972, was a compelling document of a vanishing
world, Matthews and Casey interlacing the
songs with spoken reminiscences from
blacksmiths, railroad men, preachers and other
Springs townsfolk. Matthews brings a muggy
country-rock vibe to proceedings, be it ambling
down river with a toke in one hand (Floatin)
or appropriating a hippified form of bluegrass
on Laid Back Country Picker, later covered by
both Waylon Jennings and Father John Misty.
Despite its many merits, the album never saw
light of day. Its posthumous release, some
40-plus years later, and over a decade since
Matthews died, only serves to deepen its allure.
EXTRAS: None.
Unheralded
post-punk dubgasm
comes to light
8/10 A ritual of doing three
hot knives each before
turning the tape recorder on in their
rehearsal room helped forgotten urban
primitives The Mothmen take flight.
Refugees from Manchester smart-arses
Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias and the first
lineup of the Durutti Column, Chris Joyce,
Tony Bowers, Bob Harding and Dave
Rowbotham made little headway with these
loose grooves at the time, but 34 years on
from its release (as the second album on On-U
Sound) Pay Attention! is compellingly eerie
the missing link between the tinpot Can of
the Swell Maps and trustafari jewel Return
Of The Giant Slits. Afghan Farmer Driving
Cattle is Augustus Pablo meets Rockers up
the Arndale Centre, Beefheart battles Beatles
on Not Moving, while the side-long
Mothman amps up the Tago Mago terror.
Long-term addict Rowbothams brutal
(and unsolved) murder later inspired the
Happy Mondays Cowboy Dave; more
incongruously, Joyce and Bowers went on
to be Simply Reds rhythm section.
EXTRAS: A cheery sleevenote from Harding,
6/10 unreleased bits including a
version of Pink Floyds Vegetable Man
and related flotsam, notably a radio session
reading of single Does It Matter Irene?.
LUKE TORN
ROB HUGHES
JIM WIRTH
KENNY
KNIGHT
Crossroads
PARADISE OF BACHELORS
Long-lost Colorado
country rockers
sole private press
7/10 LP reissued
Kenny Knights brand
of country rock makes an art of understatement,
which may be why his only album, a private
press release from 1980, sounds so timeless.
After playing in several garage bands,
including the original Black Flag, this former
marine recorded at his cousins home studio
after 12-hour shifts working in an auto-shop,
with the intention of selling his songs on. He
got as far as getting some of his material pitched
to Glen Campbell, but no further. The resulting
record didnt sell, and Knight threw his
remaining copies in a dumpster at some point
during the 1990s. Musically, he was probably
about a decade out of time his brand of
existential country would have made more
sense in 1970, though most of Crossroads
was probably too reflective to really attract
a mainstream country audience. Some of it
is rough-hewn (rhyming faucet with watch
it on the albums introspective epic To Be
Free is a stretch) but theres no denying
the emotional power of the lovely All My
Memories, or the dented hope of America,
in which the alienated narrator gazes at the
beauty of his country and cries: Dont lock
me out, dont push me about, open up your
doors for me.
EXTRAS: None.
ALASTAIR McKAY
DELMORE RECORDING
SOCIETY
8/10
REVELATIONS
REVOLUTIONARY
CORPS OF
TEENAGE JESUS
Righteous Lite
Vince Matthews: Nashvilles

overlooked country hero
(reissue, 1999)
CREEPING BENT
Suicides Alan
Vega inhales
Glaswegian techno
This 1999 collaboration between Suicide
frontman Alan Vega and Stephen Lironi (once
of Altered Images, but latterly a successful
producer, with Black Grape and Jon Bon Jovi)
was arranged after Vega expressed admiration
for Lironis unofficial update of Suicide classic
Frankie Teardrop. Both seem liberated by the
experience. Lironi has free reign to explore his
more experimental urges, conjuring a hardcore
techno machine sound, comprised of
fractured electronics, siren drones and
fragments of found words, stolen from film
and TV. Vega meanwhile, digs deep into his
impersonation of a desiccated Elvis, growling
and moaning and whooping from a place
midway between exhilaration and selfdestruction. Lironi caught Vega at a fruitful
moment (Cubist Blues, his 1996 collaboration
with Alex Chilton and Ben Vaughn, was a kind
of rebirth, and he then scored the 1998 Philippe
Grandrieux slasher movie Sombre), and while
Suicide purists might miss the pop logic of
Martin Rev, the brisk propulsion of Puzz Puzz
brings its own rewards. There are echoes of
Dream Baby Dream on American. The closer
Sinister Minister is a cut-up tone poem, with
Vega abandoning coherence altogether.
EXTRAS: None.
8/10
Johnny Cash called Vince Matthews (above

lef) One of the greatest writers this business
has ever had. Alas, Matthews never became a
big name in Nashville, though it wasnt for lack
of talent or admirers. Cowboy Jack Clement,
who co-produced The Kingston Springs Suite
with Cash, Kristoerson and Shel Silverstein,
remembered him as a free-thinker and rebel.
The LP, recorded with Jim Casey (above right),
was envisioned as a lm. Matthews didnt
make it that far, though he did perform it in
full at a Cash gig in Pennsylvania. A regular
visitor to the Matthews household in Kingston
Springs, Tennessee, Cash also gave him use
of his studio for the recording. Matthews
songs were covered by Cash, Waylon Jennings
and Gordon Lightfoot, though his dissolute
lifestyle (a high-living, drug-loving boozer)
meant he was ultimately too outlaw, even
for Nashville. He was later immortalised in
Silversteins Vince: And that great speckled
bird sang her song in his ear/Whisperin words
of magic that only he could hear. ROB HUGHES
ALASTAIR McKAY
LITTLE RICHARD
Directly From My Heart: The Best

Of The Specialty & Vee-Jay Years
SPECIALTY/CONCORD
Richard & Bumps had a baby and they called it rocknroll. By Bud Scoppa
TO MODERN-DAY
listeners, Little
Richards seminal
singles may sound
quaint and lo-fi,
distant echoes from
another century. But
in mid-50s America,
a society deeply
divided by race and
ideology, Tutti8/10 Frutti, Long Tall
Sally, Lucille and
the rest of Richard Pennimans breakout singles hit
with the force of a neutron bomb. For me, growing
up in Atlanta, the point of impact is precise and
indelible. During a visit to a friends house in the
summer of 1956, I happened upon a portable
record player with a single bearing a bright
yellow label sitting tantalisingly on the platter,
impulsively dropped the tonearm onto Rip It Up
and was propelled into puberty in the space of 2:25.
Countless members of my generation had similarly
vivid transformative experiences dancing
ecstatically to Little Richard records, as the Unholy
Trinity of the Georgia Peach, Elvis and Chuck Berry
combined to trigger a change so radical and
absolute it had no precedent.
But Richard Penniman was an unlikely agent of
change on such a grand scale. One of 12 kids in a
Macon, GA, family, he was effeminate and gimpy,
having been born with one arm and leg shorter
than the others, making him the target of constant
psychological and physical abuse, his bootlegger
dad being one of the abusers. Richards sanctuary
was the Seventh Day Adventist services he
attended with his family, singing in a voice so loud

and attention-getting that during a Sister Rosetta
Tharpe concert he was brought onstage by the
headliner, who then paid him for the impromptu
performance. And in that moment, the story goes,
Richard realised that showbiz was his calling,
and his escape route. He worked the Southern
vaudeville and frat-house circuits, frequently in
drag, borrowing his look slicked-up pompadour
and generously applied Pancake 31 from Atlanta
singer Billy Price, and his hammering piano style
from New Orleans virtuoso Esquerita. But
throughout his apprenticeship, which saw him cut
eight sides for RCA Victor, Richard showed nary a
hint of flash or originality. Indeed, his music was
so undistinguished its difficult to understand why
Specialty owner Art Rupe took a flier on the then23-year-old, even if hed been recommended by
Lloyd Price, the labels biggest star.
Rupe assigned his assistant, Robert Bumps
Blackwell, to oversee a recording date for Richard,
which was set for September 14, 1955, in New
Orleans at Cosimo Matassas J&M Studios, with a
killer studio band that included drummer Earl
Palmer and saxman Lee Allen. Neither these
legends nor Blackwell could summon anything
inspired out of Richard, whose vocal performances
that day were interchangeable with those of
countless RnB journeymen. Frustrated, Blackwell
took Richard to the nearby Dew Drop Inn for a
restorative beverage, and was stunned when
Richard sat down at the piano and underwent an
instant transformation into a wild man, shrieking
his way through a bawdy fast-paced tune whose
chorus contained the lines A-wop-bop-a-loo-bopa-good-God-damn! and Tutti-frutti, good bootie,
punctuated with androgynously lusty falsetto

WHOOs. Stunned and desperate to keep his gig,
Blackwell asked songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie,
whod witnessed the impromptu performance, to
clean up the lyrics pronto. They raced back to J&M,
rapidly worked up an arrangement and banged out
three takes of Tutti-Frutti during the last 30
minutes of the session. Blackwell brought the
recording back to LA, mastered the first take
and soon thereafter watched Tutti-Frutti
explode, hitting No 2 on the RnB chart, going
Top 20 pop, remarkably enough, and inspiring an
even bigger-selling cover version by milquetoast
crooner Pat Boone.
For the next 18 months, Richard and Bumps were
on fire, fashioning a string of hits that would form
the very blueprint for rocknroll, including
Slippin And Slidin, Long Tall Sally, Rip It
Up Ready Teddy, The Girl Cant Help It,
Lucille, Jenny, Jenny, Good Golly Miss Molly
and Keep A-Knockin. That extraordinary
run came to a lurching halt during a late-57
performance at Sydney Stadium, when, in a
historically bizarre intersection of high-flying
mid-century icons, Richard looked up, saw a red
fireball shooting across the heavens and took it as
a sign from the Lord to change his sinful ways not
realising what hed seen was the orbiting Sputnik 1.
Thus, Little Richard rejected the devils music
and became a man of God, remaining so until 1962,
when he embarked on a comeback tour of Britain
organised by Don Arden. On a side trip to
Hamburg, he headlined the Star-Club, and Paul
McCartney of opening act The Beatles was so
blown away that he pressed Richard to teach
him how to summon up that trademark WHOO.
But chapter two of Little Richards secular
career yielded little of commercial or artistic
consequence. A series of mid-60s recordings for
Vee-Jay, cut mostly with his so-so road band The
Upsetters, comprises the final disc of Directly From
My Heart, making the set definitive according to
the ad copy, through it would have been just as
satisfying if limited to the 43 Specialty sides that
make up the first two discs. Though much of Little
Richards story is well-documented, certain of the
more delectable details vary from one account to
the next, including this one, in keeping with John
Fords essential directive, When the legend
becomes fact, print the legend.
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
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Archive
The
SOAPKILLS
The Best Of
Specialist
Lost soul and jazz
CRAMMED
Rare/world music curators
Radio Vietnam
THE CURATORS JOB is a complex and

involving one, but when done well, it can map
new terrain for the listener to explore, offering a
guiding hand through the intricacies of music,
its geographies and its emotional landscapes.
For collector Ian Nagoski, who runs a smallscale imprint, Canary, releasing carefully
curated compilations of 78s via Bandcamp,
the process also involves some form of sociopolitical reckoning, and Nagoski sees his
collecting as addressing problems of why
certain things are remembered by a culture and
other things are neglected or outright forgotten.
I see that as my job to remember good things
that others cant be bothered with.
That interest drives recent Canary releases.
And Two Partridges: From The Earliest

Turkish-Language American Recordings
Sept 1912-Feb 1916 CANARY (8/10) draws from
recordings from
Armenian,
Assyrian and
Syrian Christians,
undertaken by
Columbia in New
York. Its a quietly
moving document,
where particular
performances
the lyrical
ornamentation in
Kosroff Malools
Kurd Havasy, Pt 2,
or the cascades of
melody that unspool
from Karekin
Proodians Canto
Oglan Yayly take
on almost totemic
presences.
The three
volumes of Near-
Eastern Music In
NYC From The
MetropolitanKaliphan-
Balkan Labels, 1940s-1950s are even more

potent: the first, dedicated to Armenian
performer Marko Melkon CANARY (9/10),
features gorgeous urban folk songs, often in
small group settings, though his solo taxims
(improvisations) for oud, full of surprising
melodic twists, are perhaps the highlights.
The following two volumes, Vol 2:Armenian
SingersCANARY (8/10) andVol 3: Bulgarian,
Lebanese trip-hop duo

fronted by world-pop
star Yasmine Hamdan
Formed in Beirut in the
7/10 late 90s, Soapkills were
trailblazers in Middle
Eastern pop. Fusing Arabic classical and folk
elements with electronics and dubby triphop beats, their hybrid style was often
likened to Massive Attack. The duo released
three albums between 2001 and 2005 before
vocalist Yasmine Hamdan relocated to Paris
and launched a solo career, initially aided
by Madonna producer Mirwais. Most of the
tracks on this belated best-of still hold up
well over a decade later, despite occasionally
drifting into the kind of tasteful torpor that
also dates much British trip-hop of the same
period. Hamdans sensual, forceful voice is
their trump card, whether interpolating a
vintage chanson by Lebanese screen queen
Nour Al Hoda into the torrid Tango, fading
into Goldfrapp-ish haziness on Herzan, or
erupting into Auto-Tuned melismas on
Manni Elak. Now a global star, Hamdan
recently made a cameo in Jim Jarmuschs
Only Lovers Left Alive. Meanwhile, Soapkills
Zeid Hamdan (no relation) continues in
Lebanon under various musical guises, and
was even arrested in 2011 for a song that
allegedly insulted then-president Michel
Suleiman. Their paths have diverged, but
this shared first act is worth revisiting.
EXTRAS: None.
STEPHEN DALTON
AMARA
TOUR
1973-1980
Greek, Jewish & Turkish Singers CANARY

8/10, both compile similarly compelling
material its particularly thrilling to hear
female singers like Victoria Hazan, Mary
Vartanian and Madlen Araradian, and the
latters Yad Edermi swoops with dark delight,
the vocal ornamentation absolutely thrilling.
Listened to in full, the cumulative effect of the
three volumes of Near-Eastern Music In NYC is
emotionally devastating: diasporic
voices transmitting across the ether.
For Mark Gergis, whose recent
Radio Vietnam SUBLIME

FREQUENCIES (9/10) is an incredible
detour through the countrys

broadcast culture, sourcing
material via radio waves has more
than an element of serendipity:
Leaving the radio
on, and getting to
know each station
and the rhythms of
each local and distant
station on the band.
Basically, hours
of immersion,
monitoring and
culling. The end
result is spectacular
and cinematic
(indeed, Gergis
observes that Radio
Vietnam is built
like a film), jumpcutting, in an almost musique
concrte way, from station to
station: kaleidoscopic. JON DALE
ANALOG AFRICA
Archive treasure from

elusive Afro-Cuban icon
A mystery lost in history,
8/10 Amara Tour bounced
restlessly around West
Africa from the late 1950s to the early 1980s,
recorded a slender handful of tunes, then
seemingly dropped off the map. Born and raised
in Guinea, where he first encountered the heady
dancehall rhythms brought over by Cuban
sailors, Tour was later summoned to Senegal to
play percussion and sing with the legendary Star
Band in Dakars fabled Miami nightclub, future
launchpad for Youssou NDour and others. He
then moved to Cameroon to work with a group
called Black And White, whose entire six-track
output is included here, an agreeably antique
clatter of sinewy rhythms, blaring horns and
agreeably muggy pre-digital sonics. With his
deep, raw, aching voice, Tour plays Afro-Latin
crooner on the swinging Lamento Cubano and
the arrestingly lovely Nga Digne MBe, a
stately cha-cha-cha woven with filigree threads
of silvery guitar. In 1980, he moved again to
Gabon to collaborate with Orchestre Massako on
a four-track album of marathon Afrobeat jams
like Salamouti and Africa, which bustle and
jostle in the space between James Brown and
Fela Kuti. Today, nobody seems to even know
whether Tour is still alive, but his minimal
back catalogue still sounds vital, varied and
bursting with charm.
EXTRAS: None.
STEPHEN DALTON
Archive
VARIOUS
ARTISTS
Parchman
Farm:
Photographs
& Recordings
1947-1959
8/10
DUST TO DIGITAL
Stirring prison
work-song field recordings
This book and CD package extends Dust To
Digitals tasteful curation of historic sets to the
Alan Lomax prison recordings of 1947, 1948 and
1959. At Parchman Farm in Mississippi, the
musicologist (assisted in 1959 by Shirley Collins)
found a prison camp run on the lines of a cotton
farm: not for reform or rehabilitation but driven
solely by profit. In awful conditions, AfricanAmerican prisoners worked the fields, their
labour accompanied by blues, work songs and
hollers. The recordings are extraordinary:
hearing group-singing, along with the whump
of axes hitting wood over 70 years ago, is a
stirring experience that transcends the solely
musical. Of the field recordings (Disc Two has
more guitar/vocal blues), all the songs featuring
22 (Benny Will Richardson) sound strikingly
modern. A poignant picture in the package is a
letter returned to sender: back to Lomax from
Richardsons last known address. By the time of
Lomaxs 59 visit, the work-song was in decline,
younger prisoners having no interest in this oldtimer behaviour. By 1970, when mechanisation
had emptied the fields of work gangs, Parchman
was a mixed prison where white prisoners
didnt sing and the practice was at an end.
EXTRAS: Book of photographs and essays.
7/10 JOHN ROBINSON
BOBBY
WOMACK
The Preacher
CHARLY
The five albums that

made Womacks name,
remastered and boxed
8/10 Talked of as the last great
soulman when he died last
year, Bobby Womack was a more contradictory,
exploratory artist than that suggests. Schooled
in a gospel family, he also understood pop and
Tin Pan Alley. His gravelly voice could smooth
into a decent approximation of Sam Cooke
his mentor and hero and his guitar playing
encompassed raunchy rock and subtle
acoustica. These five albums chart his
ascendancy beautifully. In Memphis as an axe
for hire he played on Presleys Suspicious
Minds his solo career took time. 1968s Fly
Me To The Moon is a lovely, flowing debut with
unlikely killer versions of the Sinatra standard
title and California Dreamin (Bobby had just
handed his own songbook to Wilson Pickett).
1970s My Prescription repeats the trick, with
I Left My Heart In San Francisco alongside
Cookes Im Gonna Forget About You. 1970s
The Womack Live is a small club sashay through
successes to date, but with room for 60s folks
Everybodys Talking. 1971s Communication
and 1972s Understanding, both cut at Muscle
Shoals, had hits Thats The Way I Feel About
Cha and I Can Understand It powerful,
innovatory pieces but the albums were more
indulgent, veering into druggy monologues and
sloppy covers of The Beatles and James Taylor.
EXTRAS: None.
NEIL SPENCER
VARIOUS
ARTISTS
Nick Cave Heard
Them Here First
PETER
ZINOVIEFF
Electronic Calendar:
The EMS Tapes
ACE
SPACE AGE RECORDINGS
Songs for swinging

Aussies
7/10 After half a dozen Heard
Them Here First comps
featuring the original versions of songs recorded
by Bowie, Elvis, Cliff, Dusty, the Ramones and
the New York Dolls, Ace turn their attention to
songs covered by Nick Cave, both with the Bad
Seeds and others. Youd expect this 22-track
collection to overlap considerably with the
two similar compilations released by Rubber
Records in 1998 and 2004, entitled Original
Seeds. However, with the exception of Serge
Gainsbourgs Je Taime, Tim Roses Long
Time Man and the Sensational Alex Harvey
Bands Hammer Song, these are all completely
different selections. We have Toni Fishers
original 1959 version of The Big Hurt rather
than Scott Walkers cover, and The Leaves
wonderfully ragged 1965 garage rock version of
Hey Joe rather than the Tim Roses mournful
acoustic reading; there are also alternate songs
by Nina Simone (I Put A Spell On You), Johnny
Cash (Muddy Waters), Leonard Cohen (Tower
Of Song), The Stooges (Fun House), and
Dylan (Death Is Not The End). Curveballs
include the original Theres No Night Out In The
Jail by Australian country singer Chad Morgan,
Pete & Duds Bedazzled, and a spine-chilling
1959 a cappella version of Jesus Met The
Woman At The Well by The Pilgrim Travellers.
EXTRAS: None.
Another deep
pass through the
9/10 electronic archives
The son of a Russian
migr, inventor and electronic music composer
Peter Zinovieff can probably lay more claim
than most to having provided artists with the
arsenal to paint modern music in circuitrys
deep colours: his EMS (Electronic Music Studios)
company, founded in 1965, produced the Synthi
VCS3, used by progressive groups like Kraftwerk
and Pink Floyd; the Electronic Music Studios
themselves provided a research hub for
Karlheinz Stockhausen and Tristam Cary (with
whom Zinovieff co-founded EMS, along with
David Cockerell). Zinovieff also collaborated
with Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic
Workshop in Unit Plus Ultra. But Electronic
Calendar, shepherded into being by Sonic Boom
of Spacemen 3, Spectrum and Experimental
Audio Research, offers the first thoroughgoing
retrospective of Zinovieffs work from the EMS
years. The first disc features collaborations with
Harrison Birtwistle and Hans Werner Henze
deep explorations like Glass Music, startling
in their dedication to pursuing electronic
musics extremes. Disc Two opens with what
is still Zinovieffs most compelling piece the
vocal edits and leeching, disorienting drones of
Agnus Dei before shuttling through murky,
limpid miniatures. Fascinating stuff.
EXTRAS: None.
JOHN LEWIS
JON DALE
COMING
NEXT
MONTH...
Some interesting
new developments in the
world of Neil Young.
With Crazy Horse
resting at pasture for
the time being, Neil
has worked on his
recent outpouring
of environmentally concerned and overtly
anti-corporate songs with a younger new band.
His new one The Monsanto Years, named
afer the GM crops agribusiness (though its fair
to say hes not a fan), nds him in collaboration
with Willie Nelsons sons, Lukas and Micah.
Recent live footage of the band clanging
through Horse classics in a bar suggests
theres plenty to be excited about.
Other Uncut favourites releasing albums next
month include Jason Isbell. Afer the acclaim
that greeted his Southeastern album from a
couple of years ago, Something More Than
Free nds the former Drive-by Trucker staying
on the rails of handwringing and automotive
reverie that has characterised his best work,
but not without an occasional nod to some more
delicate Fleet Foxes landscape. Close cousins
of Hurray For The Ri Ra, the debut album
from Sam Doores New Orleans band The
Deslondes is a full-bodied swig of Americana,
recalling The Band and Doug Sahm, and wearing
big hats, too. In a rather more hostile and British
vein, meanwhile, theres also
VISIT
Key Markets, the new album
UNCUT.CO.UK
FOR OVER 5,000 by Andrew Fearn and Jason
ARCHIVED
Williamson Sleaford Mods.
REVIEWS!
JOHN.ROBINSON.101@FREELANCE.TIMEINC.COM
SCORING:
10 A true classic 9 Essential 8 Excellent

7 Very good 6 Good 4-5 Mediocre 1-3 Poor
T H I S MON T H: THE W HO | THE W R ECK ING CR EW | FORTIT U DE

If you were 14 years old and
trying to understand the
streets, it was sort of like a
verbal Bible, recalls Chuck D.
It was the seedy side of life
told in an eloquent way,
confirms Douglas. The
producer assembled a starry
guestlist of musicians to
provide backing for Nuriddin
on Hustlers Convention,
including Billy Preston and
Kool And The Gang. The latter
offered their services following
a chance encounter in a
neighbouring studio, but no
paperwork was signed and the
bands manager later raised
objections. The United Artists
label consequently got cold
feet about promoting the
album, fearing a messy legal
battle. Hustlers Convention
was a commercial flop but
enjoyed a long cult afterlife,
with some hip-hop historians
claiming it went on to sell a
million copies on word of
mouth alone.
The Mancunian Todd gives
the story a strong British
dimension. After playing with
I chose the message
The Last Poets in Liverpool
over the money
Jalal Mansur Nuriddin,
in the 1980s, Nuriddin spent
aka Lightnin Rod
several years living in the
city. Just last year, he finally
performed the Hustlers
Convention album live for
the first time at Londons Jazz
Caf, and Todd captures that
performance on film. DJ Gilles
Peterson and poet Lemn Sissay
are among the Brit acolytes
giving testimony on camera.
But there remain some fuzzy
gaps in this story. Nuriddins
intriguing English exile is
never fully explained. Nor is there much insight into
what he has been doing musically and personally
for the last four decades. At 71, he appears to live in
a pleasant but modest retirement community in
small-town Georgia. I chose the message over the
money, he shrugs, insisting he never made a penny
from Hustlers Convention. Even so, he still harbours
ambitions to complete two unreleased sequels,
Hustlers Detention and
Hustlers Ascension. The film
touches on these basic details,
but leaves them unexamined.
Todd deserves ample respect
for fanboy dedication, but not
much for journalistic rigour.
Hustlers Convention follows
an all-too familiar narrative
arc for African-American
artists, one of early promise
compromised by ill fortune
and bad business decisions.
But for all the star names
offering testimony to Nuriddins poetic skills and
deep cultural impact, it seems odd that nobody has
stepped up to take a financial risk on his artistry
nowadays. Neither tragic downfall nor triumphant
comeback story, Todds film lacks a sense of closure.
But it works just fine as a solid documentary tribute
to a classic spoken-word album that is, quite
literally, unsung.
HUSTLERS CONVENTION
KALEIDOSCOPE HOME ENTERTAINMENT
The Last Poet: excellent documentary examines a lost chapter from

the dawn of hip-hop. By Stephen Dalton
IN 1973, JALAL Mansur
Nuriddin, one-time
acupuncturist, US Army
paratrooper and founding
member of The Last Poets,
recorded his debut solo
album. Released under
the alias Lightnin Rod,
the album Hustlers
Convention was mired
in bad luck and bad
business. While the genres
pioneers Grandmaster
Flash, Melle Mel, Fab 5 Freddie and others
embraced it, nevertheless protracted legal
issues held it back from mainstream success.
Widely sampled since, its admirers cite it as
an underground classic, and the recognition that
the album and its creator deserve is long overdue.
The story of Nuriddin and his album are taken up
by British director Mike Todd in this partly crowdfunded documentary. Clearly a low-budget passion
project, although it lacks the cinematic gloss of
comparable retro-themed rockumentaries like
Searching For Sugar Man, the heavyweight list of
talking-head cameos here attests to the projects
cultural importance. Todd interviews famous fans
and commentators including George Clinton, Melle
Mel, Fab 5 Freddie, KRS-One, Ice-T, MC Lyte, Greil
Marcus, Nelson George and Chuck D, who is also
8/10
credited as executive producer on the film. Nuriddin

himself, now a senior citizen who speaks in
effortless rhyme almost constantly, is also an
engagingly laidback star presence.
Nuriddin made Hustlers Convention with Alan
Douglas, The Last Poets regular producer whose
other credits included Jimi Hendrix and Miles
Davis. A vivid Blaxploitation-style narrative about
living large and paying a heavy
price, the album tells the story
of two brothers, Sport and
Spoon, whose visit to the
eponymous gathering of pimps
and high-rollers ends in a
dramatic showdown with the
police. Full of verbal dexterity
and superfly imagery, the story
ends with Sport on Death Row
reflecting on where his life went
wrong. Nuriddin laid down the
bling-heavy gangsta blueprint,
though his cautionary message
about the deadly downside of thug life clearly
got lost in translation.
Todds film frames the album in historical and
cultural context: from the Civil Rights struggle to
the Black Panthers, from African oral tradition to
jail toast convict rhymes, from the Harlem-based
Black Arts Movement of the 1960s to Rudy Ray
Moores bawdy Dolemite movies of the 1970s.
Full of verbal dexterity

and superfly imagery,
the albums story
ends with Sport on
Death Row
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
99
DVD & Blu-ray

FORTITUDE
FIFTY FATHOMS/
TIGER ASPECT
Dark mysteries in
the Arctic
The idea of Nordic
Noir was rather foxed
by Fortitude, populated
by top-dollar actors
from all over (Michael
7/10 Gambon, Stanley
Tucci) and visually
distinguished by the
glare of sun on snow. Story-wise, things
are still pretty dark. In this close/closed
Norwegian community nothing ever decays,
merely incubates, and murder is afoot as
is the hum of a biological discovery. In truth,
the handling of the one is arguably more
interesting than the other, but the
performances (from Tucci, Gambon, Richard
Dormer as Sherrif Dan) hold it all together.
EXTRAS: None.
JOHN ROBINSON
STORY OF
MY DEATH
SECOND RUN
Casanova meets
Dracula in the
Spanish arthouse
In Spanish director
Albert Serras quiet,
languorous movie we
find the ageing Casanova
7/10 still libidinous among
the shadows of his dark
Swiss villa, expounding
on life, love, politics, philosophy and (in a
memorable scene involving shitting in a
chamberpot) bodily functions. Then finally,
suddenly, we are in Carpathia, where
Casanova encounters the bloodsucker,
only to find he cant compete with dark,
undead romanticism. This is a strange
and opaque film, murky, spare yet dense,
deadpan and gently mad.
EXTRAS: Unconfirmed.
Hal Blaine, left, and

Ray Pohlman with
Brian Wilson, 1966
THE WRECKING CREW

MAGNOLIA PICTURES/WEINERWORLD
The invisible wiring behind

60s West Coast pop
AMONG THE MANY talking
heads in Denny Tedescos film
about LAs hired help is Roger
McGuinn. The ex-Byrd recalls
7/10 that Mr Tambourine Mans
backing track was one of two
songs cut in three hours by the Wrecking Crew. By
comparison, he says, The Byrds took 77 takes to nail
Turn! Turn! Turn!. Its a story that neatly illustrates
the proficiency and cost-effectiveness of the
Wrecking Crew, the go-to sessioneers who played
on thousands of recordings during the 60s and
early 70s, largely without credit. The list of artists
indebted to these people is lengthy: The Beach
Boys, The Monkees, Frank Sinatra, The Righteous
Brothers, Sonny & Cher, Phil Spector and more. And
Tedesco duly shines a light on the Wrecking Crews
core members, chief among them drummer Hal
Blaine, Carol Kaye (bass), Earl Palmer (drums), Plas
Johnson (sax) and his own father, guitarist Tommy.
The best stories, perhaps unsurprisingly, centre
around the twin architects of 60s Cali-pop. Phil
Spector is remembered as demanding by Palmer,
though Cher is less diplomatic when suggesting
they all thought Phillip was nuts and that his ego
was such that, despite the Wrecking Crew providing
his fabled Wall Of Sound, in his mind it was all
him. Brian Wilson, on the other hand, is portrayed

as a genius by pianist Leon Russell, still astounded
by his ability to teach each part to the studio hands.
The Wrecking Crew is enjoyable enough as a
musical document of time and place. But where it
fails is in its lack of objectivity. Predictably, Tedesco
veers towards the hagiographic, purely intent of
portraying his dad and colleagues as undiscovered
heroes and therefore depriving the film of a critical
eye. And while it covers similar ground to 20 Feet
From Stardom and Standing In The Shadows Of
Motown, it lacks the wider narrative and deeper
human detail that made those works so memorable.
The nature of its gestation also lends it a slightly
worn, uneven feel. As tribute to his ailing father,
who died in 1997, Tedesco began filming nearly 20
years ago. Thus we have interviews with others who
have since passed on (Palmer, Dick Clark, Al Casey
and more) beside updated footage of figures like Hal
Blaine, explaining how six wives all but wiped out
his fortune. This editorial bumpiness may also be
explained by the fact that The Wrecking Crew was
first shown at SXSW in 08. The process of securing
music rights and production costs necessary for a
full release wasnt finished until recently. Theres
probably a better documentary to be made about
this extraordinary band of musicians, but The
Wrecking Crew is nevertheless a manful effort to
give them their dues. ROB HUGHES
DAMIEN LOVE
VARIOUS
ARTISTS
A MusiCares
Tribute To Paul
McCartney
THE WHO
Live At Shea
Stadium 1982
WILD TALES
ARTIFICIAL EYE
Macca and assorted

chums do The Beatles
Filmed in LA three
years ago, when
7/10 McCartney was voted
MusiCares Person Of
The Year, this live set
finds an all-star cast taking a run at his
classics. James Taylor and Coldplay may
fail to stir the blood, but Neil Young &
Crazy Horse atone with a suitably rockedup I Saw Her Standing There, Alicia Keys
makes sweet gospel of Blackbird and
Macca himself, with Dave Grohl and a
gurning Joe Walsh, gets animated on a
terrific Golden Slumbers/Carry That
Weight/The End.
EXTRAS: None.
A mixed look at The

Who in their darker days
The Who were at a
crossroads when they
played two nights at
a rain-soaked Shea
6/10 Stadium in 1982 (with
The Clash supporting).
The final tour with
drummer Kenney Jones was also mooted as
a retirement from live performance, and it
catches the group in something of a creative
lull, with songs from the uninspired Its
Hard album of the same year to the fore.
The highlights are the closing Wont
Get Fooled Again and the more playful
encores, which mine the deep boogie of Live
At Leeds before exiting on a throwaway
Twist And Shout.
EXTRAS: None.
Tales of the (violently,

shockingly and blackly
comically) unexpected
From Black Mirror
to Inside No 9, the
anthology is sparking
awake again on TV, and
Argentinian director
8/10 Damin Szifrons film
similarly reboots the
portmanteau movie
format last seen fading from cinema fashion
around the early 1980s. Szifron presents
nine outr episodes of rising rage and
vengeance: we begin with a doomed
plane, and plunge from there, down
through apocalyptic road rage, restaurant
revenge and bloody weddings, written
and directed seemingly in a satirical fury
at modern life.
EXTRAS: Making of, Szifron interview
7/10 and trailer.
ROB HUGHES
ALASTAIR McKAY
DAMIEN LOVE
EAGLE VISION
100 | UNCUT | JULY 2015
EAGLE ROCK
DIGITAL EDITION AVAILABLE EVERY MONTH
DOWNLOAD NOW
www.uncut.co.uk/digital-edition
DONT
FORGET
TO RATE &
REVIEW!
UNCUT.CO.UK
Films
BY
M ICH A EL BON N ER
This month: Peter Bogdanovich

and John Boorman return, Nina
Simones life is documented, and
a jihadi occupation is examined
imbuktu In March 2012, the Malian city
of Timbuktu was occupied, first by the

secular Tuareg separatists, the MNLA,
then by al-Qaeda and their affiliates,
Ansar Dine. During a nine-month period,
buildings were looted, Sharia law was imposed,
music and football were both banned. In July 2012,
The New York Times reported that a couple accused of
having children outside marriage were buried up to
their necks in sand and stoned to death in front of
several hundred witnesses. This incident did not go
unnoticed by Abderrahmane Sissako, a Mauritanianborn filmmaker who grew up in Mali. Sissakos latest
film describes how the population of Timbuktu, on
the southern edge of the Sahara, cope with the
tribulations presented by their newly self-appointed
rulers. Roll up your pants, its the new law, goes one
edict. It would be entirely absurd, were punishment
for disobeying not so terrible. Through a series of
unconnected vignettes, Sissako evokes many subtly
delineated and touching forms of humanity in the
face of such extremism. When football is banned,
the local boys take to a pitch and kick an imaginary
ball to each other. A female fishmonger reasonably
attests that she cannot wear gloves and sell fish,
and dares the jihadis to cut off her hands. A woman
who has been sentenced to 40 lashes for singing
transforms her cries of distress under the whip into
a remarkable aria. Although much of the film takes
place within Timbuktu itself, the films emotional
core lies in the dunes outside the citys walls. There,
cattle herder Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed) lives in a tent
with his wife Satima (Toulou Kiki) and daughter Toya
(Layla Walet Mohamed). An incident involving one
of Kidanes herd, however, brings him to the
authorities attention. Sissakos film offers a fiercely
poetic response to the jihadist occupation; its tone
is never preachy and it is beautiful to watch. When
the jihadis enter a mosque, wearing shoes and
brandishing Kalashnikovs, the imam quite
reasonably asks, Where is God in all this?
What Happened, Miss Simone? In 1976, Nina

Simone performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival. She
strode onstage, took a low, long bow and then stood
for 30 seconds, long enough for the applause to die
down and then, slightly self-consciously, rise again.
Watching the footage of this at the start of Liz Garbus
documentary, youd be forgiven for finding Simones
response to such adulation rather strange. Her facial
expression appears blank and distant, while her body
language is imperious; its hard to tell whether or not
she is happy to be there. As Garbus film unspools, it
becomes evident that this reaction was typical not
only of Simones complicated relationship with her

success, but also indicative of her own emotional
state. As many friends, family and colleagues attest,
being Nina Simone was a difficult business. She paid
a huge price, admits her daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly.
People think that when she went onstage that was
when she became Nina Simone. My mother was Nina
Simone 24/7. And thats where it became a problem.
Accordingly, Garbus film weaves together Simones
public successes with her personal struggles. From a
dramatic point of view, she is fortunate that much of
Simones tumultuous career took place on camera.
Here the singer is being introduced by Hugh Hefner
on his Playboys Penthouse show in 1959; playing at
the Newport Jazz Festival a year later; asserting
Freedom is to me no fear during an interview in
New York in 1968. Indeed, much of What Happened,
Miss Simone? is narrated by the artist herself, the
voiceover assembled from hours of tapes. The details
of her life are remarkable. She dreamed of becoming
the first black concert pianist; she changed her name
from Eunice Waymon to avoid offending her religious
mother; she married an ex-NYPD officer who helped
turn her into a star; radicalised, she performed
Mississippi Goddam during the Selma-
Montgomery march in the presence of Martin Luther

King. Crippled by depression, she played gigs in Paris
cafs, barely able to support herself financially. Its all
rich material, although Garbus rather programmatic
approach doesnt quite allow for the digressions the
film merits on occasion. This debuts on UK Netflix on
June 26; hopefully a wider release will follow.
Shes Funny That Way It is 14 years since Peter
Bogdanovich last directed a film. In the intervening
period, his work has taken him into acting a
memorable stint as a therapist in The Sopranos
and in an unexpected career swerve, directing rock
documentaries (Tom Petty film Runnin Down A
Dream). His return to active filmmaking comes with
assistance from Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach,
here listed among the films numerous producers.
Written by Bogdanovich and his ex-wife Louise
Stratten, Shes Funny That Way is a brisk screwball
comedy in the spirit of Hawks, Lubitsch, Capra
and Sturges as well as Bogdanovichs New York
contemporary, Woody Allen. Owen Wilson stars as
a successful Broadway producer, Albert Albertson,
who is enamoured with the idea of rescuing escorts,
handing them cash in order to get their lives back in
Reviewed this month...

TIMBUKTU
Director
Abderrahname
Sissako
Starring
Ibrahim Ahmed,
Toulou Kiki
Opens May 29
Cert 12A
10/10
102 | UNCUT | JULY 2015
WHAT
HAPPENED,
MISS SIMONE?
SHES FUNNY
THAT WAY
DANNY
COLLINS
QUEEN AND
COUNTRY
Director
Liz Garbus
Starring
Nina Simone,
Opens June 26
Cert U
Director Peter
Bogdanovich
Starring
Owen Wilson,
Imogen Poots
Opens June 26
Cert 15
Director Dan
Fogelman
Starring
Al Pacino,
Annette Bening
Opens May 29
Cert 15
Director
John Boorman
Starring Callum
Turner, David
Thewlis
Opens June 12
Cert 12A
7/10
7/10
7/10
7/10
Films
a soft-rock nostalgia act played
by Al Pacino. When Dan
Fogelmans film opens, Collins
is in a rut: although a wealthy
man who enjoys the company of
a woman at least half his age, he
has been unable to write a song
for decades. Instead, he subsists
on greatest hits tours, wheeling
out his Sweet Caroline-style
showstopper to increasingly
elderly fans. At Collins birthday
party, his manager gives him a
present, a letter from Lennon
which has been kept from him
for decades. Lennons advice
Stay true to yourself. Stay
true to your music upends
Collins world. Accordingly,
Collins puts his tour on hold and
sets out to reconnect with the
son he abandoned as a child.
Essentially, Danny Collins is
the kind of film Cameron Crowe
has often made in his head a
soft-hearted romantic comedy
with a bit of music gear going on
over here. But Danny Collins is
far more appealing and less
smug than Crowes movies. It
is entirely riddled with clich
one character is diagnosed with
a rare form of leukemia and
ultimately Life Lessons Are
Learned. But for once, Pacino
dials it down even the awful,
Neil Diamond-style singalongs
carry a kind of desperate
pathos. Im a court jester with
a microphone, he laments.
There is strong work from the
cast, among them Annette
Bening as manager of the hotel where Collins retreats,
Christopher Plummer as his long-serving manager
and Bobby Canavale and Jennifer Garner as Collins
estranged son and daughter-in-law.
Toulou Kiki,
Ibrahim Ahmed
and Layla Walet
Mohamed in
Timbuktu
order. As the film opens, the latest recipient of his

largesse is Izzy (Imogen Poots), an aspiring actress
who uses the money she receives to pursue her career.
Naturally, there is an awkward meeting at an audition
held for Alberts latest production, A Grecian
Evening. To further complicate matters, Alberts wife
Delta (Kathryn Hahn, Parks & Recreation) is having
an affair with his best friend, Seth (Rhys Ifans).
Elsewhere, Bogdanovich finds roles for Cybill
Shepherd, Joanna Lumley, Michael Shannon,
Tatum ONeal, Illeana Douglas and Jennifer Aniston.
Shes Funny That Way is a
welcome return for Bogdanovich.
It is warm, the tone light and the
cast sharp. Wilsons easy charm
and Poots endearingly wideeyed Brooklynite make for
likeable leads. More importantly,
the one-liners are artfully
deployed. Are there any upsides
to this job? says Anistons
therapist, on discovering Izzys
profession. There are plenty of
ups, replies Izzy. You dont joke
in therapy, Aniston fires back.
A set-piece sequence involving swapped hotel rooms
is masterfully staged, with Bogdanovich elegantly
layering complications onto his hapless characters.
Queen And Country John Boormans belated

follow-up to his World War II drama Hope And Glory
finds his protagonist Bill Rohan now grown up and
facing another conflict. The year is 1952, and the
19-year-old Rohan is called up for National Service.
Although spoiler alert Bill and his fellow
conscripts never make it overseas,
Boorman is nevertheless satisfied
to pursue a number of strong
dramatic threads. Based on his
own experiences of National
Service, Boorman evidently sees
some unusual discrepancies in
the programme. England, after
all, was not actually at war at the
time. All the same, it was entirely
possible a conscript could be
dispatched to see active service in
the Far East; or in this instance,
support the Americans in Korea.
Against such a complicated and unsettling backdrop,
Boorman pursues a lighter tone. His conscripts are
little more than boys whose interests are inevitably
dominated by girls or getting one over on the officers
at their base. Such escapades duly play out much as
youd expect you might recall Virgin Soldiers,
Privates On Parade or Get Some In, the ITV sitcom
that dealt with approximately the same era. As the
officers, David Thewlis, Richard E Grant and Bran F
OByrne deliver rich comic performances. Its a warm
and companionable film; the equivalent of Sunday
night viewing on the BBC. Indeed, the only moment of
high drama involves a broken jar of strawberry jam
and its deleterious effect on a packet of cigarettes.
Timbuktu offers
a fiercely poetic
response to the
citys jihadist
occupation
Danny Collins In 1971, English musician Steve

Tilson was interviewed by ZigZag magazine. He
expressed a worry that becoming rich and famous
might affect his ability to write good songs. It
transpired that John Lennon read the interview and
wrote a letter of reassurance. Circumstances meant
that Tilson never received it until 34 years later. This
minor footnote in rock history is the basis for Danny
Collins, which transplants Tilsons story to America,
where the titular aspiring young musician grows into
Also out...
ELECTRIC BOOGALOO:
THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY
OF CANNON FILMS
OPENS JUNE 5
Fun documentary offers an overview of the
B-movie company behind 80s hits populated
by Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme
and Charles Bronson.
SPY
OPENS JUNE 5
Bridesmaids director Paul Feig and star
Melissa McCarthy reunite for espionage
caper; also featuring Jason Statham and
Miranda Hart in its cast.
AGE OF KILL
OPENS JUNE 12
A right gor blimey, as Martin Kemp joins
Danny Dyer and all sorts of geezers for this
Brit crime ick. Shut it, you slag. Etc.
JURASSIC WORLD
OPENS JUNE 12
14 years after Jurassic Park III, this new
instalment of the franchise finds Chris Pratts
unlikely hero battling a fresh dino disaster.
ACCIDENTAL LOVE
OPENS JUNE 19
A troubled production David O Russell quit
due to financing issues this comedy about a
small-town waitress stars Jessica Biel.
ENTOURAGE
OPENS JUNE 19
Big-screen transition for the HBO comedy, as
Vincent Chases dreams of stardom continue.
Lots of famous people cameo. You get it.
THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 3

OPENS JUNE 19
Eric Roberts joins the horror franchise, as
sure an indication of its creative direction
as anything else. Set in a prison this time.
MR HOLMES
OPENS JUNE 19
Based on Mitch Cullens novel, A Slight Trick
Of The Mind, Bill Condons film finds Ian
McKellens Sherlock writing his memoirs.
MINIONS
OPENS JUNE 26
Theyre back! The little fellas from Despicable
Me get their own movie. Whats not to like?
Minions
THE THIRD MAN

OPENS JUNE 26
Remastered: Carol Reeds thriller written
by Graham Greene and co-starring Orson
Welles remains a high-water mark for both
its genre and zither enthusiasts.
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
103
Axes of power: (l-r) Cian Ciarn

(back), Gruff Rhys, Dafydd
Ieuan (behind the drums), Guto
Pryce and Huw Bunf Bunford;
below, Bunf in his yeti suit
ROCKING IN THE FREE WORLD
super
furry
animals
GReAt HAll, CARDIff
UnIveRsIty stUDents
UnIon, MAy 1, 2015
God! Show me magic!

A great British Welsh
institution return,
yetis in tow
he SUper FUrry ANimAlS have
never made it easy for themselves.
releasing maximalist, complex
music equally inspired by classic
rock, psychedelia and techno was
never going to make them an easy sell for the
mainstream. persevering with an ultrademocratic arrangement, that led to epic studio
arguments about the precise gap between songs,
was never going to make for an easy life, either.
So its something of a surprise that the Welsh
quintets return to active service seems so
straightforward. Announced with relatively
little fanfare for a band whove previously toured
festivals with a techno-blasting blue tank,
this short British jaunt is seemingly more a
recommencement of activities than a
conventional comeback or reunion.
Still, tonights set is clearly designed as a
jubilant reminder of their past highs 25 songs
and over two hours in length even if the setlist
has been decided with customary, exhaustive
fairness.We all vote, says singer and guitarist
Gruff rhys of their process, so these are not
necessarily rational decisions made by one
person. its very much a song-choosing
committee. Songs had to have
five members voting for them to
go through into the set. Thats
quite a test. So all these songs
get the five-star approval.
These are the ones we knew we
could play and we all liked.
Weve got so many songs,
so we thought we should play
long sets. it seems a cop-out
otherwise. i think the longest
set weve ever played was two
hours and 45 minutes, in Cork.
But that was too much
This opening show of their tour falls on
international Workers Day and coincides
with the 15th-anniversary re-release of their
ANDy hUGheS/Nme/WWW.TimeiNCUKCONTeNT.COm
melancholic, minimalist Mwng album. Sung in

Welsh, it was always likely to go down well in the
bands de facto hometown, but even they are
surprised by the audiences
reaction to the five tracks they
perform from it tonight.
i dont remember so much
singing along previously, says
a smiling rhys afterwards.
So that was different about
tonight, people were more
familiar with the songs and
more vocal. By the end of
Gwreiddiau Dwfn, i was
making some weird feedback,
im not sure what id done
wrong, so the audience were quite useful!
Before this slow-paced, reflective middle
section, however, comes the polar opposite.
Tapping into their noisier, more extroverted side,
I could just
about see the
crowd going
mad there was
so much strobe!
Gruff Rhys
104 | UNCUT | jUly 2015
Super Furry Animals open with perhaps their

most bludgeoning set of pop songs the Silver
machine-like (Drawing) rings Around The
World, the speedy, sugary Do Or Die and
God! Show me magic, and the rarely performed
boogie of Bad Behaviour, from their 1996 debut,
Fuzzy Logic. Theres feedback, Status Quo riffing,
analog synth burbles and lyrics about hamsters,
a mix undeniably unique to the Furries.
Theres always been a fantastical visual element
to the band too, from their yeti costumes to an
onstage golf cart. Tonight, the group, their live
percussionist Kris jenkins and two horn players
are dressed in white, forensic-style boilersuits,
all the better to enhance the kaleidoscopic
projections directed towards them. The
apocalyptic run! Christian, run! features
swirling hellfire, hello Sunshine a pulsating
orange orb, and Zoom! from 2005s Love Kraft,
easily the most recent song played tonight is
SETLIST
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
accompanied by psychedelic patterns that at

times swallow the band whole. The latter, with its
transcendent coda of rising voices and phased
guitar, is one of the highlights of the night.
From the 90-minute point onwards, its wall-towall fan favourites. Slow Life a rare example
of electronics, strings and driving rock
successfully co-existing sees Rhys bring out
his iconic Power Rangers helmet, while the divine
Ice Hockey Hair, now 17 years old, still delights
with its twinkling Rhodes, molasses-thick riffs
and deconstructed coda. Receptacle For The
Respectable, effectively four disparate songs
stuck together, ends with Rhys, bassist Guto
Pryce and guitarist Huw Bunford scraping
their instruments together while an oversized
laser flickers over the heads of the crowd.
If Sonic Youth had been regulars at Welsh
raves, you imagine they might have tried
something like this.
I could see bits of the crowd going mad,

recalls Rhys later on, but there was so much
strobing I could only see fragments. It was just
such a good audience. They seemed excited by
the loud, poppy songs, then went with
the slow ones, and stuck around.
It was amazing!
Considering the strength of
their catalogue, B-sides
and all, the only shame
is that the Furries dont
delve off the beaten
track a little more,
though an airing of
early B-side Arnofio/
Gl In The Dark is
a treat. Trons Mr
Urdd or Fix Idris
would have been
welcome, but anyway,
(A) Touch Sensitive

(Drawing) Rings Around The World
Do Or Die
God! Show Me Magic
Bad Behaviour
Demons
Northern Lites
Ymaelodi r Ymylon
Y Gwnyeb Iau
Nythod Cacwn
Pan Ddawr Wawr
Bleed Forever
Run! Christian, Run!
Hello Sunshine
Hometown Unicorn
Zoom!
Arnofio/Gl In The Dark
Ice Hockey Hair
Gwreiddau Dwfn/Mawrth Oer Ar
Y Blaned Neifion
Slow Life
Golden Retriever
Receptacle For The Respectable
Fire In My Heart
Mountain People
The Man Dont Give A Fuck
you cant argue with

this particular
democratic process.
The night ends, as
everyone knew it
would, with Steely
Dan-sampling
behemoth The Man
Dont Give A Fuck.
Tonight, for a change,
the group disappear
after the first verse,
leaving pulsating synth
tones to play out. Five
minutes later, they
return, decked out
in their famous yeti
outfits, to perform the
rest of the song. Its
clearly an ecstatic
moment for audience
and band alike.
Though theres no
sign of any new songs, tonight doesnt feel like
a nostalgia exercise. Perhaps because, over 20
years after they formed, theres still no-one like
Super Furry Animals, no band that has
managed to simultaneously channel
righteous ire, ecstatic abandon
and psychedelic whimsy into such
exciting and inventive rock songs.
On the evidence of tonight, it would
be a shame if Rhys, Pryce, Bunford,
Cian Ciarn and Dafydd Ieuan didnt
continue as a fully operational group
theyre still friends, their songs sound
even stronger with age, and theres no
doubt that they still matter
to their fans. If this tour is
just a refresher course,
their next move should be
really mind-blowing.
TOM PINNOCK
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
105
Live
Quiet is the new
loud: Nick Cave
onstage at the
Albert Hall
NICK CAVE
ROYAL ALBERT HALL, LONDON, MAY 3, 2015
Missing heartbeats. Broken fngernails. Big evil bells

A quiet night in with Nick and the boys
alfway through
tonights show, nick
Cave pauses to survey
his constituency.
literally, he begins,
there are days i have people coming
up to me on zimmer frames saying,
My mother likes you. Caves prolific
output over the last few years, across
music, film and publishing, has been
a treat for his admirers, whatever
their age or physical condition. this
tour is his latest exercise in brand
integration: its tied in to both his
recently published tour diary, The
Sick Bag Song, and the vinyl reissue of
the Bad seeds catalogue. sadly, Cave
chose not to extensively promote his
official skateboard released earlier
this year. although billed as a Cave
solo show, he is nevertheless
accompanied tonight by keyboard
player larry Mullins and three of his
Bad seeds: bassist Martyn Casey,
drummer thomas wydler and multiinstrumentalist warren Ellis, who
appears to have brought his fanclub
along. at times, the cheers for the
hirsute lieutenant are louder than
those for his leader. as befitting an
outfit as well-drilled as this, Caves
instructions are brisk. Crank that
flute up. or simply: Beard.
Justin ng/Photoshot
106 | unCut | July 2015
without the full electric Bad seeds

ensemble, there is a strong showing
for piano ballads in tonights setlist.
indeed, the show has a comparatively
low-key start: a nervy but subdued
waters Edge (from 2013s Push The
Sky Away) and the weeping song
with Cave at the piano. But there are
hammers. warren, are you ready
Caves instructions
to his band are
brisk. Crank that
flute up. Or
simply: Beard.
with the big, evil bell? Cave
enquires, before red right hand
slinks into view. the set pans out in
similar fashion, a balance between
mordant melancholia (the ship
song, into your arms, a rare
outing for Brompton oratory) and
more tensile, digressive numbers that
allow Cave to prowl the stage, hissing
and howling, while Ellis unleashes
waves of violin feedback. the first of
these, higgs Boson Blues, starts

off recalling neil youngs on the
Beach with its loose, loping guitar,
before spectacularly unfolding into
a violent electric squall. During its
10-minute duration, Cave pulls three
members of the audience on to the
stage to act as backing singers, only
to forget theyre there as he ranges
further into the crowd in search of
someone to locate his heartbeat.
later, there is drama. nick, i think
ive broken my fingernail, confesses
Ellis to Cave. youre fucking kidding,
right? there are salutations to
former bandmates. Cave namechecks
anita lane and Blixa Bargeld as
authors of stranger than Kindness
My favourite Bad seeds song, full
of mystery i can never work out.
there is even a cover version
leonard Cohens avalanche,
introduced as the song that changed
everything when the 14-year-old
Cave first heard it. unlike the feral
recording on From Her To Eternity,
tonights version carried along by
Ellis violin lines has a hypnotic,
elegiac quality which cleaves closer
to the pairs soundtrack work. there
are even some lols, including Caves
comically sloppy xylophone playing
on up Jumped the Devil,
introduced as a classic piece of

early Cave. there are lovely
moments, of course: the four songs
from The Boatmans Call, the
positively chirpy Breathless,
a tender Push the sky away.
the main set ends with a rousing
rendition of Jubilee street with
Cave carried away in the rapture of
performance: I am transforming/
I am vibrating/Im glowing/Im flying/
Look at me now.
MICHAEL BONNER
setlist
1 Waters Edge
2 The Weeping Song
3 Red Right Hand
4 Brompton Oratory
5 Higgs Boson Blues
6 Mermaids
7 The Ship Song
8 From Her To Eternity
9 Stranger Than Kindness
10 Love Letter
11 Into My Arms
12 West Country Girl
13 Tupelo
14 Black Hair
15 The Mercy Seat
16 Jubilee Street
ENCORE
17 Avalanche
18 And No More Shall We Part
19 Breathless
20 Jack The Ripper
21 Up Jumped The Devil
22 The Lyre Of Orpheus
23 Push The Sky Away
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Thursday 4 June 7.30pm
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S O L DTackle
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Darkside The Pink Floyd Show

Saturday 6 June 7.30pm
From The Jam

Friday 12 June 7.30pm
Breathtaking and
beautifully
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Its an album
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manage
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Saturday 1 August 7.30pm
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Thursday 10 September 8.00pm
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Doc Brown
Saturday 12 September 8.00pm
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Butler
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Books
by
A llA n jon e s
Reviewed this month...
Dreams To
Remember: Otis
Redding, Stax
Records And The
Transformation
Of Southern Soul
Mark Ribowsky
On The Snap
Brian Case
Caught By the RiveR
9/10
LiveRight
8/10
ark ribowskys Dreams To
Remember opens with the eye-
catching declaration that no two

songs reveal more about the nature
and being of the 1960s than otis
reddings respect and sittin on The Dock of
The bay, the latter released in December 1967, mere
weeks after reddings death in a plane crash at the
age of just 26. This is a big claim, even for such a
towering figure, especially when you think about
everything else that was coming to the boil at the
time. a close study of how and why these songs were
written and recorded, their impact measured
against the contemporary social and political
landscape, might have been valuable and
instructive. ribowsky is something of a practised
tease, however. His last book was a biography of The
supremes that opened with the bold assertion they
are the most important american music act after
Elvis Presley, a lively idea barely mentioned again,
the book that followed rather more a conventional
account of the groups career, racy and compelling.
Much the same could be said, without great

complaint, of Dreams To Remember, which similarly
settles for a straightforward portrait of the whole life,
the intimated scrutiny of the particularities of two
landmark songs quickly giving way to a panoramic
telling of reddings story. ribowksy therefore
diligently tracks reddings career from his Macon
childhood, through the southern clubs where his
rep as a live performer was forged, his discovery by
stax and eventual commercial supremacy, triumph
following triumph until his twin-engine beechcraft
H18 plunged nose-first into Lake Monona on its way
to a gig in Madison, wisconsin.
a lot of familiar ground is inevitably covered, but
ribowsky is largely equal to the task of making it
seem fresh again. Hes especially good on the way
the music business at the time was run, the rampant
corporate dishonesty, corruption, larceny,
backstabbings and betrayals. There was serial
incompetence, too. stax founder Jim stewart was
notoriously inclined to sign contracts without first
reading them, which eventually gave atlantic an
opportunity to rob stax of its entire back catalogue
a near-fatal blow following so soon after reddings
death robbed the label of its biggest star.
There is a gathering poignancy about the last third
of the book. after a show-stopping performance at
the 1967 Monterey Pop festival, convalescence from
throat surgery provoked a period of introspective
reassessment, and it was suggested to redding that
his music was in danger of becoming redundant, a
dated throwback in an era of psychedelic hoo-ha.
His response was sittin on The Dock of The bay
that sonata of loneliness recorded almost as
an afterthought, completed only days before his
plane went down, taking his future with it.
Theres barely a sentence in brian Cases
On The Snap that doesnt light up the room

like a muzzle-flash, words flying off the page like
high-calibre tracer fire, a luminous hepcat rat-tattat. its a slim volume, barely 70 pages. but it might
take you as long to get through something 10 times
its length, so often do you want to linger over this
sentence, that paragraph, some pitch-perfect
description, the small details that go a long way
to telling you everything.
some background, perhaps. Case joined Melody

Maker as a staff writer in 1978, after a couple of
years freelancing at NME. He was hired by newly
appointed editor, richard williams, as the long-term
heir to the great Max Jones, MMs venerable jazz
correspondent, then approaching retirement. Case
was already in his early-forties, twice my age. Hed
been in the army and still had the haircut, published
a novel and seemed in every respect like one of the
hard men from the tough-guy books and films he
loved. The first morning he walked into the office, it
was like watching warren oates marching on to the
set of The Wild Bunch. He soon owned the place.
as a writer, Case was incomparable. only richard
williams and assistant editor Mick watts on MM
could live with him. The rest of us might as well have
been working the morgue shift in a typing pool. His
writing was surprising, funny, allusive, erudite,
emotionally engaged, williams recalls in On The
Snaps foreword every paragraph containing an
unexpected verbal firecracker, all stitched together
with a degree of care and craftsmanship that shaped
the narrative and sustained its drive.
Curiously, the book isnt an anthology of great
pieces, either reworked or as they originally
appeared. The stories here of Cases encounters with
great jazzmen, writers (hardboiled and otherwise),
war photographers, actors and film directors have
been transcribed from taped interviews with him.
Fortunately, Case is a quite brilliant raconteur, who
in conversation uses the same vocabulary as he
does on the page. when he achieves full anecdotal
lift-off, the results are as spectacular as the best of
his writing. and so we are regaled throughout by
often hilarious and improbable adventures and
assignments. Here he is on a train ride across
Europe with creepy crime writer James Ellroy, to a
dismal night in Caerphilly with the sex Pistols, a
night in a Copenhagen bar full of lesbian Eskimo
Hells angels, on location in the arctic with richard
Harris, chatting in hotel rooms with Jack Nicholson,
Pacino, Norman Mailer, sharing a church pew with
Duke Ellington, having his drink spiked with an
hallucinogen in san Francisco with ian Dury. it
was terrifying, he recalls. i couldnt find myself
and my teeth seemed to be eating each other.
This is fabulous stuff.
JuLy 2015 | uNCuT |
115
MiCHaEL oCHs arCHivEs/GETTy iMaGEs
Otis Redding
onstage with his
horn section, 1967
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Not Fade Away

Fondly remembered this month
PERCY SLEDGE
Percy Sledge
at the turn of
the 70s
Soul and gospel singer

1940-2015
ERCY SLEDGE HAD a conflicted
relationship with the song that secured
his status as one of the great Southern
soul singers. When A Man Loves A
Woman was written in the aftermath
of a breakup with his girlfriend, when she left
him for a modelling career in New Jersey, his best
friend supposedly in tow. Sledge poured his
anguish into the new song while playing with his
local Alabama group, the Esquires Combo, then
rewrote the lyrics with bandmates Calvin Lewis
and Andrew Wright. By way of thanks, and in an
alarming fit of navety, he also decided to hand
over full songwriting credit to Lewis and Wright.
Issued in March 66, When A Man Loves A
Woman launched Sledge on the international
stage. The song, a lovelorn study of rejection
delivered in a pleading tenor, became a No 1 hit in
the US and went Top 5 in the UK. It also carried
the distinction of being Atlantic Records first
million-seller. Sledge, however, never saw any
royalties. Worst decision I ever made, he once
confessed. If I had my time again, I wouldnt do
it [hand over royalties], because of my children.
Sledge soon forged a reputation as an emotive
balladeer, earning him the mantel of King Of
Slow Soul via similarly crafted 45s like Warm
And Tender Love, Take Time To Know Her
and It Tears Me Up.
Sledges upbringing in rural Alabama was the
stuff of blues lore, picking cotton in the fields and
singing in the church choir. But his first love was
country music, particularly the commanding
tones of Hank Williams and Marty Robbins. By
the time he took a job as an orderly at Colbert
County Hospital in Sheffield, Alabama, Sledge
had formed the Esquires Combo and was touring
the clubs at weekends. His break came when
one of the hospital patients introduced him to
a mutual friend, record producer Quin Ivy,
who brokered the deal with Atlantic and
JACK ELY
The Kingsmen frontman
1943-2015
The recording session for The Kingsmens Louie
Louie was, by all accounts, as brief as it was
primitive. Yelling into a mic suspended from the
ceiling of Portlands Northwestern Inc in April
1963, Jack Ely led the band through the song on
its first and only take. The single duly gained
traction on the Billboard chart, where it peaked
at No 2 later that year. By then, though, Ely had
been edged out of The Kingsmen, the group
hed begun in 1959, by fellow co-founder Lynn
Easton. Ely nevertheless saw their garage version
co-produced When A Man Loves A Woman

with Marlin Greene.
The hits began to dry up in the 70s, though
Sledge continued to be a popular live draw. It
wasnt until 1987 when he made the UK singles
chart again, with When A Man Loves A Woman
being reissued on the back of a Levis advert.
In 1994 he returned with Blue Night, his first
album in 20 years and featuring Bobby Womack,
ex-Stone Mick Taylor and Booker T & The MGs
guitarist Steve Cropper. It proved to be an
of Louie Louie, originally a calypso tune

written by Richard Berry, become a rocknroll
standard, sparking covers by The Kinks,
The Byrds, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and
Motrhead, to name just a few. Such was
the seditious reputation of The Kingsmens
remake, fostered by Elys often
indecipherable yowl, that the FBI conducted a
lengthy investigation into whether the songs
lyrics were obscene. They concluded that it
was simply unintelligible at any speed.
Ely went on to front The Courtmen, though
his career lost momentum when he was
drafted in 1966. He sank into addiction
on his return, though he later became a
campaigner for Rockers Against Drugs.
eventful comeback. Nominated for a Grammy,

its release also coincided with Sledge pleading
guilty to tax evasion, for which he was slapped
with a fine and given five years probation.
He returned in 2004 with Shining Through The
Rain, on which he covered Steve Earle, The Bee
Gees and Jackie Lomax, among others. A year
later he was inducted into the Rock And Roll
Hall Of Fame, who declared that When A Man
Loves A Woman raised the bar for soul
balladeering for all time.
Jack Ely, centre,

with his group
Jacky Ely And The
Kingsmen in 1964
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
117
CA/REDFERNS; MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
obituaries
ERROL
BROWN
Hot Chocolates
Errol Brown
in 1976
xxx
Hot Chocolate frontman

1943-2015
IVEN THAT THEy
became synonymous
with the advent of
disco, Hot Chocolate had the
unlikeliest of beginnings. In
1969, Jamaica-born singer
Errol Brown cut a reggae
version of the Plastic ono
Bands give Peace A
Chance with a bunch of
friends. He sent a copy to
Apple HQ, asking for John
Lennons approval on a
few changes to the lyrics.
Amazingly, a week later I got
a call to say John Lennon
approved it and wanted to
sign the band to Apple,
Brown told the BBC in 2009.
And thats how we began.
The single stiffed, but a subsequent deal with
mickie mosts Rak Records led to the release of
Love Is Life the following year. A calypso-soul
tune co-written by Brown and bandmember Tony
Wilson, and featuring the Trinidad Singers, it
became the first of 12 Top 10 hits over Hot
Chocolates next decade and a half. Their bestknown songs 1975s you Sexy Thing, So you
Win Again (1977) and Every 1s A Winner (1978)
all fed directly into the disco explosion of the
70s. Brown co-wrote the bulk of the bands
output, though it wasnt always buoyant pop.
CHRIS CAPSTICK/REX_SHuTTERSToCK;EFD SS/HERITAgE ImAgES/gETTy ImAgES
1974s Emma, for example, their breakout global

success, was inspired by the emotions he felt
after the death of his mother, whod brought him
to the uK from Kingston when Brown was 12.
Incongruous as it may seem, the song was later
covered by The Sisters of mercy and urge overkill.
Hot Chocolate carry the distinction of being the
only British group to have had 15 consecutive
years on the singles charts, a feat achieved
between 1970 and 84. Browns popularity also
extended to the Royal Family, where he accepted
an invitation to perform at the wedding reception
Peggy Seeger and

Guy Carawan at The
Enterprise pub, London,
at the turn of the 1960s
GUY CARAWAN
Folk singer and activist
1927-2015
The adoption of We Shall
overcome as a Civil Rights anthem
was largely down to folk singer guy
Carawan. Initially a pre-war gospel
hymn, it was played by Carawan
before a group of black activists (the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee) in Raleigh, North
Carolina, in April 1960. The song
swiftly spread into the vernacular
118 | uNCuT | JuNE 2015
of the protest movement, finding

a champion in Pete Seeger, and
reached its defining moment
when sung during the Selma-tomontgomery marches of 1965.
Carawan called it sustenance for
people going through hard times.
PETER PHILLIPS
Six Finger Satellite guitarist
1964-2015
Six Finger Satellite were one of the
less easily definable acts on Sub
of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1981.

Brown went solo in the mid-80s, though the hits
proved harder to come by. His highest placing
came with 1987s Personal Touch, which made
the lower reaches of the Top 30. His career did
receive a boost 10 years later, when you Sexy
Thing was featured in The Full Monty, prompting
a remix of the song to gatecrash the uK Top 10. Its
also been used on the soundtracks of Boogie
Nights, Reservoir Dogs, About Schmidt and more.
In 2004, Brown was given an Ivor Novello for his
outstanding contribution to British music.
Pops roster during the grunge era,

where their mischievous post-punk
married hardcore and busy
electronica. guitarist Peter Phillips
was a key feature of the Rhode
Island quintets 1993 debut, The
Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird,
before quitting the following year.
He went on to enjoy a fruitful
association with psych-pop maven
matthew Sweet, playing on 1999s
In Reverse and Living Things (2004).
Phillips also appeared on Sweets
2009 collaboration with Susanna
Hoffs, Under The Covers Vol 2.
BERNARD
STOLLMAN
ESP-Disk label head
1929-2015
Label owner Bernard Stollman
began ESP-Disk as an outlet for his
fascination with Esperanto, issuing
Ni Kantu En Esperanto in 1964. But
the New york-based imprint quickly
became known as a crucible of free
jazz. Among those who recorded
for him were Albert Ayler, Sun Ra,
Pharoah Sanders and ornette
Coleman. Its remit also extended
to underground rock (The Fugs,

Pearls Before Swine, The Holy
modal Rounders) and spoken-word
releases (Timothy Leary, William
Burroughs, Allen ginsberg).
Stollman wound up ESP-Disk in
1974, though he reactivated the
label 10 years ago.
SID TEPPER
US songwriter
1918-2015
The uS songwriting team of
Sid Tepper and Roy C Bennett
provided hits for Tony Bennett,
Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Sarah
Vaughan, Ray Charles and many
more. But they were perhaps best
known for working with Elvis
Presley, for whom they created
over 40 compositions, including
gI Blues and once Is Enough.
The pair also wrote prolifically
for Cliff Richard & The Shadows,
scoring a huge hit with 1961s The
young ones, and were responsible
for The Beatles glad All over,
which was first recorded by Carl
Perkins in Jamboree.
ROB HUGHES
LETTERS
Feedback
Email uncut_feedback@timeinc.com or write to: Uncut Feedback, 8th Floor, Blue Fin Building,
110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU. Or tweet us at twitter.com/uncutmagazine
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
THE HOLY SAHM

May I thank, and compliment, Jason
Anderson on his excellent Doug
Sahm article in Uncut 217? To
capture the essence of someone
as mercurial, idiosyncratic and
contradictory as Doug Sahm is
a task of Herculean proportions. To
do so succinctly in a few thousand
words is nothing short of
miraculous. Stir in a generous
helping of new information, add
some fresh insights, previously
unheard quotes and different
perspectives and the finished
article earns a whopping 10/10.
I have been a fan of Sir Doug for
more years than I care to remember.
And the reason is quite simple
everything he did musically was
touched by the spirit, and it
grooved. Doug never had a business
plan, or showed any evidence of
commercial sensibilities. For him it
was simply a question of what spoke
to his musical soul at any particular
moment. Hence the bewildering
array of different musical styles and
influences present in his recordings.
Even now, in 2015, when music is
much more eclectic, I doubt there
are many performers who could
move effortlessly from a faithful
rendition of Crazy Arms by Ray
Price to a searing interpretation of
Jimi Hendrixs Purple Haze, and
somehow make it all work. Yet that
is what Doug Sahm did on his 1982
live album, Back To The Dillo. Or
juxtapose the Tex-Mex cow-punk
of Dynamite Woman with the
gutbucket deep soul of Crash
Course Love Affair (on Live Love,
1977) and make it seem the most
natural thing in the world.
Needless to say I have a few
quibbles with one or two things in
the article. How can any buyers
guide to Doug Sahms recorded
legacy not include anything from
his early pre-SDQ material? Equally
mystifying is the absence of any of
his myriad live recordings which,
given the importance of the
groove, is where Doug Sahm is
often heard to best effect. And
surely any such list must include the
Mendocino album, where the SDQ
really hit their stride, blending
hippy vibes, Tex-Mex, soul and
country into an irresistible Doug
Sahm-type stew? However, in the
overall scheme of things, these are
relatively minor points and do not
detract from the overall excellence.
120 | UNCUT | JULY 2015
To Sir, with love:

Doug Sahm in
the 1970s
And besides, what would music be

if it did not create opportunities to
debate? To challenge? And to put
forward different ideas?
Sadly, given the sheer scope of his
versatility, coupled with his endless
chopping and changing, Doug
Sahm will always be at best a cult
figure, a regional favourite, a
musicians musician. But as long
as good music continues to be
written, recorded and played, and
performers try out new ideas and
fuse disparate influences and
elements together, he will be in
there somewhere. Grooving!
In his 2010 biography of his dad,
Texas Tornado, Shawn Sahm wrote
of their last conversation a few days
before Doug died. We were singing
songs on the phone. He had 30
years worth of plans. That was Pop.
He always had 10 million things
going on.
Gerard Hennessy, Dartford
HYMN TO VANS HYMN

Many thanks for the discerning and
perceptive Van Morrison piece
[Uncut, May 2015]; the best
recordings all there with one
exception. If Astral Weeks is his
Belfast masterpiece, then surely the
neglected Hymns To The Silence
maybe due to the lamentable state of
the back catalogue is his anthem
to East Belfast, the place where he
grew up and where his artistic
imagination was shaped. From his
wonderful take on the beautiful old

Anglican hymn, Be Thou My
Vision, to the tune of St Patricks
Breastplate, to the stillness and
contemplation of On Hyndford
Street, to the masterful pop-soul of
Carrying A Torch, to his reading
of Don Gibsons beautiful I Cant
Stop Loving You, these are surely
seminal Van moments. Sprawling it
may be, but for its greatest moments
one of his best. Roll on August 31,
for his East Belfast shows itll be
something to hear Cyprus Avenue
on Cyprus Avenue.
HK, Belfast
GAVIN CLARK
REMEMBERED
Im incredibly saddened to hear of
the recent passing of Gavin Clark. I
discovered his music through your
pages in the late 1990s, when his
then-bands only album Crazy On
The Weekend by Sunhouse was an
Uncut album of the month. To this
day I never tire of this beguiling
album, truly a forgotten classic of
that era. Its songs are even more
poignant now and Id urge anyone
to seek it out; along with any of
Gavins subsequent recordings with
Clayhill and soundtrack work with
his great friend, Shane Meadows.
Although Sunhouse were only
together for about year or so, I was
fortunate to see them live at The
Roadmender in Northampton. The
gig is still etched on my mind as one
of the most emotionally raw I have

ever witnessed. Gavins unique
voice always enthralled, but that
night he was a brooding presence,
to my eyes not in a good place, and
this only added to the intensity,
not least a particularly visceral
rendition of Animal. My deepest
condolences to his family and
friends and I sincerely wish his
work gets the wider recognition
it has always deserved.
Robert Wright, Chesterfield
STACKRIDGES
LAST STAND
Three years ago, I was persuaded
by my wife to go and see one of her
favourite 70s bands, Stackridge,
playing at a local village hall,
and what a great night we had.
Memorable classic songs, wellcrafted and performed. This had
me scurrying to buy what turned
out to be some back catalogue gems
from a band Id somehow missed.
This September, with not a little
sadness, we go back to see
Stackridges final bow last tour.
It just shows what a rich heritage
we have of nearly and almost bands,
now largely ignored, who were a
whisker away from greatness XTC,
Any Trouble, the still criminally
overlooked Ron Sexsmith all spring
to mind. Andy Davis and James
Warren of Stackridge have that
Lennon and McCartney feel in the
way they sing and in the songs they
One of three copies

of Jim ORourkes
Simple Songs on CD
CROSSWORD
TAKE 218 | JULY 2015
write. The Man In The Bowler Hat,

coincidentally produced by George
Martin and which must be among
his best non-Beatles work, has songs
that could have been up there with
the best of pops premier league. For
any Beatles fan, listen to The
Galloping Gaucho an updated
Mr Kite, or the mighty Last
Plimsoll and Road To Venezuela,
neither of which would have been
out of place on Abbey Road.
The punk revolution, and the fact
that Stackridges very diversity
proved difficult to pigeonhole and
thus market, proved their undoing
a brief rekindling of the flame as
The Korgis in the 80s synth years
(great songs, but sadly dated
production) and then back to
jobbing musicians, day-job mode.
There must be a thousand almost
bands like Stackridge all now
coming to the end of their
performing lives, all with heritage,
pedigree and some great music
behind them. One of the bands to
play at the very first Glastonbury,
the fact that Andy Davis somehow
wangled his way as a session
guitarist onto sessions for Lennons
Imagine, the fact that Stackridge
were a John Peel favourite, The Man
In A Bowler Hat surely enough
material for a retrospective of one
of pops great nearly bands?
Garry Perkins, Nottingham
JONIS GREATEST: THE

DEBATE CONTINUES
Hard to look beyond Hejira as Jonis
greatest album [Uncut, April 2015];
theres not a dud track, but Coyote
and Hejira are standouts. I know
she got panned in some quarters for
Mingus, but I think its underrated.
Although I still listen to most of her
albums, Mingus gets the most
airplay after Hejira. For me the first
side, sans rapping, is excellent:
God Must Be A Boogie Man, A
Chair In The Sky, The Wolf That
Lives In Lindsey. I especially like
her guitar-playing on the latter.
Shes the greatest female singersongwriter. No-one else comes near.
I also think shes better than Dylan
as a singer and musician. Im just
glad I had the good fortune to have
been born in the space when she
did her greatest music.
Kevin Blackwell, via email
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Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, 8th Floor, Blue Fin

Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1
0SU. Tel: 020 3148 6982 www.uncut.co.uk
EDITOR John Mulvey

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EDITOR AT LARGE Allan Jones
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34
CONTRIBUTORS Jason Anderson, Ben

Beaumont-Thomas, Tom Charity, Leonie
Cooper, Jon Dale, Stephen Dalton, Andy Gill,
Nick Hasted, Mick Houghton, Rob Hughes,
Trevor Hungerford, John Lewis, Damien Love,
Alastair McKay, Geoffrey Macnab, Gavin
Martin, Piers Martin, Andrew Mueller,
Sharon OConnell, Louis Pattison, David
Quantick, Sam Richards, Jonathan Romney,
Bud Scoppa, Peter Shapiro, Hazel Sheffield,
Laura Snapes, Neil Spencer, Terry Staunton,
Fiona Sturges, Graeme Thomson, Luke Torn,
Stephen Trouss, Jaan Uhelszki, Wyndham
Wallace, Peter Watts, Richard Williams,
Nigel Williamson, Jim Wirth, Damon Wise,
Rob Young
COVER PHOTO: Peter Webb
PHOTOGRAPHERS: David McClister, Andy Sapp,
Andy Hughes, Nagasa Bonasu, Jamie Soja,
David Reed, Rob Shanahan, Bob Simmons
THANKS THIS ISSUE: Kimberly Kriete (picture
research), Miles Johnson (Austin correspondent),
Guy White at Snap Galleries, Lauren Sharp,
James Hanman
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youve worked out what it is, send your answer to: Uncut July 2015 Xword Comp, 8th floor,
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only open to European residents.
CLUES ACROSS
CLUES DOWN
1 Surfs up for Beach Boy Brian Wilson hes

now not forced to go out over the sea (2-4-8)
9+10A Out of this world design for Paul
Weller (7-7)
11 (See 6 down)
12+30D Yodler turns up for a Reef
performance (3-3)
13 An earlier vocalist with Steeleye Span? (5)
14 Why did I give my heart so fast, it never
will happen again, Sam Cooke (4-7)
17 Record label founded by Mickie Most (3)
18+17D Well, take me back down where
cool water flows, Creedence Clearwater
Revival (5-5)
20+19A He had a Top 5 disco hit with
The Hustle (3-5)
21 He got joo-joo eyeball, he one ____
roller, from The Beatles Come
Together (4)
23 A bit of saxophone for Elliott Smith
album (2)
25 Led Zeppelins writing may be both
by this and on this (4)
26 Band that came out of The Tremeloes (3)
28 Band originally called Seymour (4)
29 Someone identified as writer of verse
for Bobby Womack album (3-4)
32 (See 24 down)
33+3D Americans who did the Harlem
Shuffle (3-3-4)
34 Some childish writing from Slade (5)
1 All upbeat numbers on new Lilac Time

album (2-3-5)
2 Along with Ian McCulloch and Julian
Cope he was part of the short-lived Crucial
Three (4-5)
3 (See 33 across)
4 (See 15 down)
5 The kind of work given to Jimi Hendrixs
musicians (10)
6+11A Drawn by the undertow, my life is out
of control, 1991 (3-4)
7+8D Nicer drink alone, perhaps, at Chuck
Berry performance (6-3-6)
13 Given very little money to go on the road
with The Beatles (5-4)
15+4D She was Born A Woman before
becoming a Single Girl (5-5)
16 Dutch goth-rock band, originally known
as Clan Of _____ (5)
17 (See 18 across)
21 Status Quo greeted us with an album (5)
22 Tim Buckley music included in an R Dean
Taylor cassette (5)
24+32A Echo And The Bunnymen music
to put a real dampener on things (5-4)
27 Youll lose your ____ and play, free
games for May/See Emily play, Pink Floyd,
1967 (4)
29 Just a little bit from grunge band (3)
30 (See 12 across)
31 Both Nelly Furtado and Pink have had an
attempt at singing (3)
UNLIKELY FIGHT
DEPT: RON WOOD
VS DAVE BERRY
It might be worth pointing out to Ron
Wood [Uncut, June 2015] that Dave
Berry was not a one-hit wonder; he
had eight records in the charts. And
Mr Woods Birds were effectively
no-hit wonders; they had one chart
entry, one week in at No 45.
Richard Gray, Marlborough
ANSWERS: TAKE 216
32 Each, 33 Ys, 34 Slayer,

35+14A On An Island.
ACROSS
1+4A Short Movie, 7 Sue, 9

Myths And Heroes, 10
Echoes, 12+30A Scarlets
Walk, 16 Red Mecca, 19+20A
To The End, 22 Ultra, 24 Enz,
25 Europop, 28 Iona, 29 Iris,
Debaser, 23+26A Frank

Zappa, 27 Palma, 30 Who,
31 Al.
DOWN
1 Summer In The City, 3 Taste,

4 Mind, 5 Vehicle, 6 Eardrum
Buzz, 7 Suede, 8 EP, 11+2D
Hold Out, 13 Sha Na Na, 15 No
Hope, 17 Cut, 18 Lee Perry, 21
HIDDEN ANSWER
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Cul De Sac
XWORD COMPILED BY:
TrevorHungerford
JULY 2015 | UNCUT |
121
MY LIFE IN MUSIC
Jah Wobble
The mighty bassmans soundtrack to night shifts on
London Underground. I fucking love music, you know?
A song that introduced
me to bass
A record to open up
inner space
Dave And Ansell Collins
Augustus Pablo
Double Barrel 1971
King Tubby Meets The Rockers

Uptown 1976
Every Friday when I was a kid, my mum would

buy me a single from Pauls Record Store in
Whitechapel, next to the fish stall. Ska was the
big music at the time and this was a great track. Jamaican music grabbed
hold of me at early doors, when I was eight or nine. I just enjoyed it, it was
fun, fantastic It was the first time, actually, that I started to hear bass as
a larger part of the overall signal, as compared to pop music.
A favourite bass player

Stevie Wonder
Innervisions 1973
This was one of the first records I heard that
had a real totality to it as an album you really
heard it as a whole but without the crass
contextualisation of concept albums that you
had at that time in the 70s. I think Stevie Wonder was a great artist and this
album was him at his peak, really. People say, Name your favourite bass
players, and Stevie Wonders always kind of in there, for his left-hand
work on the Moog. Its incredible! Good drummer, as well.
My favourite rock record

The Who
Quadrophenia 1973
I loved this LP, still do. It wasnt that wellreceived at the time. They all thought Tommy
was fantastic but now, years later, Quadrophenia
is the one that gets talked about. I know it could
be criticised for being adolescent but hey ho, rock music is an adolescent
form, really. This is probably my favourite rock record. The British produced
fabulous rock bassists like John Entwistle, because they dont just pedal
behind the guitar chords, they melodically give the song a counterpoint.
A classic soul single

The OJays
INTERVIEW: TOM PINNOCK
I Love Music 1975

This is such a great sentiment I fucking love
music, you know? I remember when they
played this at clubs in those days, which were
more like funny little basement venues with
maybe 60 punters in at the most! This was one of my favourite tunes back
then. Theres many others I could have picked, there were so many classic
sounds in the mid-70s, but this track really embodies the time. I was a bit
of a soul boy and all that.
The first time I heard dub was in the basement

of a gaff in Hackney. Me and my mate crept
down there and stuffed our face with curry and rice. It had such a huge
effect, my world was rocked. Its a bit like this particle-collision lark theyre
doing in Switzerland, they think they might discover new dimensions. Well,
I fucking already did, thank you very much! It opens up that inner space.
A Middle-Eastern
revelation
Oum Kalthoum
Les Grands Compositeurs (Vol 1) 1999
I listened to a lot of short-wave radio in my
teens. Once I heard Radio Cairo broadcasting
Oum Kalthoum live, the first time Id heard any
Middle-Eastern music. Its Egyptian opera, basically fantastic! On shortwave, the signal bounces down from the stratosphere to earth, then back
again, so it has weird phasing. I still love it, but its nothing like hearing it
with phasing. Id listen to everything through phasers given half a chance!
A counterpart to
Metal Box
Miles Davis
Dark Magus 1977
Just after recording Metal Box, Im sitting there
with Kenny McDonald, PiLs tailor, at Gunter
Grove. John [Lydon] was upstairs asleep,
but Kenny said: I want you to hear this record. He put Dark Magus on,
and I couldnt fucking believe it. It knocked me over. Metal Box seemed a
very natural record to make, then somebody played me something not a
thousand miles away from it just after. I then became a fan of Miles Davis!
An Underground
soundtrack
Salif Keta Soro 1987
When I was working on the Underground,
after Id stopped drinking and drugging, I did
a lot of night shifts. Wed been given prototype
Walkmans in PiL, and in 87 I was listening to
this a lot. A beatifully evocative intro to that world of Malian music, Id listen
to it in the canteen at Neasden depot its still a huge influence. It reminds
me of going out to Stanmore, in the early hours, and spraying the points
with de-icer! The most stark contrast you could have with this music.
Jah Wobbles Redux boxset is out now on Cherry Red. His UK tour continues through June and July.
IN NEXT MONTHS UNCUT:
122 | UNCUT | JULY 2015
I think some of my audience almost have no expectations! God bless them!
FROM THE MAKERS OF
ON
SALE
NOW!
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Uncut July 2015

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8th JUNE 2015 CD/2LP/DL

OSIS IAN DURY 13

18 13th Floor Elevators

36 The Rolling Stones

99 DVD & Film

Otis Redding, Brian Case

117 Not Fade Away

122 My Life In Music

John Mulvey, Editor

COVER: PETER WEBB

eN e KiNg recorded a number of

every nuance. i lived in grief and joy in his songs

King sang on just

4 | UNCUT | JULY 2015

JULY 2015 | UNCUT |

6 | UNCUT | JULY 2015

UTSIDE A SELECT number of electronic music

answer back. But in 69, Zinovieff

Electronic Calendar: The EMS Tapes is released on June 22 on

The Aladdins Cave

The Rezillos today:

The whole point was not to fit in!

E THRIVED ON mayhem, says

bluesy attack of The Cramps and the sonic

Reynolds imported Indian motorbikes. In 01

I WANNA BE YOUR BOG!

they couldnt put it out, says

Slave to the rhythm:

have to answer to anybody, you can

I heard one guy on the scene, Posh

How Far Will You Go? is out June 23

This month: Nights out on offer include U2 at Hammersmiths Clarendon

THE UNIQUE COLLABORATION BETWEEN

ON THE STEREO THIS MONTH

Recommended this month: the Old Crow escapee and,

10 | UNCUT | JULY 2015

The Mods spiritual forefather makes

alternative light source

the weather station

last of our kind

suck it and see

YOU GOTTA MOVE!

Denim of late not to mention

6 FUNKADELIC & SOUL

7 MICHAEL HEAD &

3 FFS Johnny Delusional

As if the reissue of 1997s The

12 | UNCUT | JULY 2015

Most people may have given up on

An ebullient racket from one of

6CD boxset that spans a career

Smart, noisy and fantastically

The Sleeping Prophet

Lebanese duo Soapkills, aka Zeid

Uncut readers may already be

florence + the machine

how big, how blue, how beautiful

sweet billy pilgrim

black age blues

suck it and see

Interview: Michael Bonner

right-handed drums. So that gave

was doing it it gave it a lot of

One of the best