Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2016 i UNCUT

THE ACTION CAPTURED in this month’s Uncut takes in a wide range of locations. There is a castle in Hollywood, and a place down the road in Malibu Canyon, where a housekeeper burns sage in deference to the tastes of an auspicious house guest, Neil Young. We interrupt Kenney Jones’ tractor driving at his polo club, and learn some useful FBI tips from Jeff Beck on how to make your London flat secure from prying eyes. There is a long train journey to Room 414 of the Gunter Hotel, San Antonio, where Robert Johnson once recorded, and a return visit to Hansa Studios, and the debauched West Berlin of the 1980s. Perhaps most potently, though, the estimable new guitar virtuoso, Steve Gunn, takes Uncut’s Rob Mitchum to that most sacred…

“Sinatra was delighted to find a guy my age who knew how to write – or at least fake – a traditional sounding song” I’M GOOD, BUT I seem to be sneezing,” says Jimmy Webb on the phone from his New York home. “Must be allergies. I hope I can get through this interview without… you know, ‘Achooo’.” Webb’s first commercial recording was “My Christmas Tree” by the Supremes in 1965. Since then, he has become one of music’s most successful songwriters, penning hits including “Up, Up And Away”, “By The Time I Get To Phoenix”, “Wichita Lineman” and “MacArthur Park”. His songs have been recorded by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and many others, but undoubtedly his most successful and longest-running collaborative relationship is with Glen Campbell, which includes over…

When was the first time you saw the Small Faces? I saw them first at the Notre Dame Church in Soho. A little later I saw them again, with Steve on lead guitar and Ian McLagan on keyboards. They were wonderful. I remember playing them a white label of “My Generation” in late ’65, so we were in it from the beginning. Only The Rolling Stones, Beatles, Animals and The Kinks had enjoyed R’n’B level success the previous year – so we all felt we were in a ‘second wave’ of the British Scene. What united us was that we loved the same music. This was not true in The Who. Although we played R’n’B, each of us had very different musical tastes. When I hung out with the Small…

EYES ON THE LINES is Steve Gunn’s fifth record, if you only count those under his name alone. Include Gunn’s collaborations, and his discography swells to dozens of records. Here’s a sampler of some of his best work with other artists, lending his recognisable guitar to a broad array of styles GUNNTRUSCINSKI DUO OCEAN PARKWAY (2012) Gunn’s two records with drummer John Truscinski present that rare mix of artists who have played together so much, they practically merge into a single entity. Working mostly with electric guitar, Gunn’s work on 2012’s Ocean Parkway is some of his darkest and most psychedelic, his rippling lines given a serrated edge urged on by Truscinski’s fluid, tasteful drumming. STEVE GUNN/ HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER GOLDEN GUNN (2014) North…

“Hiroshima footage had preoccupied me since I was a child” JOHN FOXX KEY PLAYERS HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR’ seems to have instigated a template for the future,” says John Foxx today, discussing the pioneering highlight of Ultravox!’s second album, Ha!-Ha!-Ha!. “At the time, of course, you don’t even consider that sort of thing – you’re simply pursuing your instincts. That’s all you really have.” Though released at the peak of punk – just two weeks before the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks… – “Hiroshima…” nonetheless predicted and sparked the synth-pop sound of the early ’80s, with its innovative drum machine, glacial Elka string machine and balmy saxophone. Lyrically inspired by Alain Resnais’ 1959 film of the same name, the song was perhaps the futuristic high-point of Ultravox!’s first, more experimental…

“I DO OK, I fool a lot of people,” says Mick Harvey, discussing his reputation as a multi-instrumentalist. “But I’m not as much of one as people imagine. Double bass? Nah! I can’t play it like someone who’s good at it…” Since his breakthrough work in The Birthday Party in the early ’80s, though, Harvey has made a career out of his flexibility; from a continuing role as one of PJ Harvey’s most trusted collaborators, to his decades as musical director, drummer, guitarist and songwriter for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, right up to his solo career and lauded, English-language versions of Serge Gainsbourg songs, the third volume of which is imminent. “I’ve produced an LP for a band that’s sold about 500 copies,” Harvey marvels, while he waits…

“LOVE HAD AN endorsement deal with the Thomas Organ Company, and they gave me this wah-wah pedal. I took it home and I thought it was ridiculous. ‘If I want to play the trumpet,’ I thought, ‘I’ll just play my trumpet and put a mute on it.’ I thought it was an absurd notion to make a guitar sound like a trumpet or a trombone. So I left it over at Arthur’s house. Jimi came by to visit him once, saw the thing and liked it. So Arthur gave it to him and I never saw that one again! But I got another one, that’s sitting in my closet now. Thomas would always give me these little devices and things, but Jimi ended up with it and he was able…

SARA WATKINS IS just 34, but she’s already managed to put as many miles on her musical odometer as artists twice her age. The SoCal prodigy was just eight years old when she first fiddled onstage with her family, and during the last quarter century, she’s whisked her way through bands and projects as if she were trying on shoes at a Melrose Avenue. boutique – playing in the long-running Watkins Family Hour, the all-star octet Works Progress Administration, the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, the one-off collaboration Mutual Admiration Society and, most notably, Nickel Creek, whose five albums set the template for avant-bluegrass. Watkins’ restless spirit and musical sophistication are just as apparent in the choices she’s made in the making of her three solo albums. She roped…

The Canadian singer, songwriter (painter, filmmaker, poet) BD Harrington was 32 before he released his first record. As befits a late bloomer, his writing process can be a laborious one. “I tend to write on guitar, or piano, whatever one is around,” he says. “But the lyrics can take me a ridiculously, unhealthily long time. My degree was in creative writing and I wanted to be a writer before I wanted to be a musician, so I approach songwriting with that same type of discipline, with all the vim and vigour of a failed writer!” His third album, The Diver’s Curse , started life as a spartan, solo affair, before being re-recorded in just two days with a full band, a process which saw all the…

How do you see the LP in contemporary folk terms? In terms of influences, I guess what was firing me up was that spacious, 1970s Californian sound and this was a big part of why I asked [ avant-folk sound architect ] Noah Georgeson to mix. So, the result is a kind of transatlantic feel with a few English folk roots showing. What made you cover the The xx’s “Angels”? I guess you could say it’s a bold move! I just love the song. I rarely do covers, but I just had a yearning to do a version of this song in a totally stripped and acoustic way. I think if you’re going to cover a song, you have to turn it on its head a little. Romy…

What was the idea this time around? BT: With the first album we were really casual, just jamming songs and seeing what stuck. But Tom and Mike had an idea to do a more developed record, maybe more ‘professional’. And for reasons none of us can quite figure out, we were a lot louder this time. MC: We tried to keep the essence of the first album, which is just us playing on the floor. But we also wanted to try different things, rather than sound like five guys bashing at once. So we took a little more time coming up with colours to flesh out the sound. There’s a highly instinctual element to Mudcrutch. Is that down to your shared experience of growing up in the South? BT: Leadon…

Life Is A Gamble TROUBLE MAN, DISC TWO Marvin does ambient jazz. Muted horns and synth squiggles introduce one of Gaye’s most impressionistic vocals, which finds him venturing into Tim Buckley’s sphere as a lush orchestral theme drifts elusively in and out of the mesh. The film sucked, but on tracks such as this, Gaye suggested he could have been the new Quincy Jones, had he wanted. Anger HERE, MY DEAR, DISC SIX Although Gaye’s self-pity was palpable on Here, My Dear , there were also flashes of self-awareness that he was damaging his own spirit as badly as he was wounding his ex-wife. “Anger can make you old… Anger can make you sick… Oh Jesus, anger destroys your soul,” he sang in…

New Zealand brothers Graeme and Peter Jefferies hail from New Plymouth on the North Island’s west coast, and played together in post-punk groups Nocturnal Projections and This Kind Of Punishment before going their own way. “We were like two lions in the same jungle,” recalls Graeme. “We couldn’t seem to agree on anything.” Peter pursued a solo career that peaked with 1990’s downcast but masterful Last Great Challenge In A Dull World . Graeme, meanwhile, formed a new, floating ensemble The Cakekitchen, which has made its home in New Zealand, London and Paris. “I’m a free spirit and I like to swim out pretty far. I’ve never used music publishers for finance. You end up living off a lot of toast, but it gives you a great…

Lightfoot! UNITED ARTISTS, 1966 Cut in ’64, released in ’66, this set out the artist’s forceful pattern, that would hold forth for decades. This start-to-finish zinger is elevated by at least three classics – “Ribbon Of Darkness”, “Steel Rail Blues” and “Early Morning Rain” – resulting in a plethora of artists covering them. Sundown REPRISE, 1974 Lightfoot at his most refined. With pitch-black sentiments lurking in the shadows of its unforgettable gurgle of a melody, “Sundown” is among the creepiest, most revenge-obsessed No 1 singles ever conceived. The hit, plus the ambitious “Seven Island Suite” and “Carefree Highway” are the gateway to a masterpiece. Summertime Dream REPRISE, 1976 Though short on hits, this is Gordon at the precipice, building on experience, at the top of his game. A scorching “I’d…

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS: THE MOVIE OPENS JULY 1 Patsy and Edina go on the run after they accidentally kill Kate Moss. Presumably, hilarity ensues. Reportedly features over 60 celeb cameos, but curiously not Bill Nighy. THE LEGEND OF TARZAN OPENS JULY 8 The latest in over 200 Tarzan films made since 1918, with Alexander Skarsgard donning the loincloth to take on Christoph Waltz’ Belgian ne’er-do-well in the Congo. THE NEON DEMON OPENS JULY 8 High fashion and lesbian necrophilia collide in Nicholas Winding Refn’s cautionary/ exploitational modern-day giallo . DAVID BOWIE IS OPENS JULY 14 Back for a one-night screening, this doc goes behind the scenes of the V&A’s fine exhibition. GHOSTBUSTERS OPENS JULY 15 Reboot with Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones as the…

The first tape I bought NWA Straight Outta Compton 1988 There was a tape store near my house. It was called Wilson Music, right on Western Avenue. I had to hide this from my parents! My grandmother lived in Compton, so there was that aspect to it. It really felt like it came from my neighbourhood; it felt like they were talking about something from home that made it out and big in the world. I liked the NWA film, it was astonishing to see how those records were made. Did my parents ever find the tape? Nope, they never did! The album that turned me on to jazz Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers Like Someone In Love 1960 My parents were musicians. My dad was into avant-garde jazz:…

“When you met Guy it was like you already knew him through his songs” GILLIAN WELCH “I’D BE HARD pressed to find someone who was a more acute observer of the world than Guy Clark,” says Gillian Welch. “He was like a human camera. And it all got filtered so strongly through his personality and his particular kind of wit. When you met Guy it was like you already knew him through his songs, which is one of the highest truths.” Texas-born Clark, who has passed away aged 74, after a long struggle with lymphoma, was one of the most revered singer-songwriters in Nashville. He was a master of narrative, blessed with a keen ear for the rhythms and subtle complexities of human life, his imagistic songs coloured by characters…

Blotters out! The Royal Mail are to release a set of Pink Floyd postage stamps on July 7, commemorating six album covers and four key tours. In more odd rock tie-ins, the Stones have collaborated with St Tropez-based beachwear brand, Vilebrequin, on a range of men’s swimwear. The clothing label’s CEO Roland Herlory said, “In 1971, Vilebrequin was founded in St Tropez, and in the same year, Mick and Bianca Jagger got married in the city hall of St Tropez.” Less concrete Stones news, meanwhile, is that rumoured recording sessions (“We got on a blues streak,” admitted a loose-mouthed Ron Wood) may feature two tracks with Eric Clapton. After 2014’s introspective Sea Change , it seems Beck has made his usual volte-face back to party music. A…

RYLEY WALKER Golden Sings That Have  Been Sung DEAD OCEANS The Chicago guitar prodigy moves up yet another level, for an album that melds his virtuosity with a rapidly evolving mastery of songwriting. TEENAGE FANCLUB Here PEMA First album in six years from the indestructibly lovely Glaswegians. Business very much as usual, we’re happy to report. CASS McCOMBS Mangy Love ANTI- The enigmatic singer-songwriter reaches solo album number eight, spicing his mix with a few select new flavours – smooth soul and explicit political engagement, among them. DD DUMBO Satan 4AD The Australian one-man band – from Castlemaine! – finally perfects his debut album: a looping, globally attuned 2016 update of Jeff Buckley’s Grace ? THEE OH SEES A Weird Exits CASTLEFACE Beyond this month’s live album,…

FROM THE KITCHEN of his rambling house in Surrey, Kenney Jones eyes a plate of digestives and takes a moment to reflect on what it means to be the last surviving member of the Small Faces. “It’s funny, I know I’m the last one, but I feel like Ronnie, Steve and Mac are there,” he says. “I often have quiet moments when I see them, and we have a little chuckle together. I don’t know how I feel about it. What I do know is that I’m very proud to keep the Small Faces name alive and I don’t want to make a mockery of it.” It’s now 50 years since the Small Faces released their debut album, an energetic collection of R’n’B covers and originals that provided them with…

“David Jones, as he was then, was like a fifth member of the Small Faces when we got together,” recalls Kenney Jones. “In the very early days, we’d hang around Denmark Street at the Giaconda. David was always in there, an ace Mod like us, completely unknown. We’d tell him we were playing Loughton or Epping and he’d ask to come along. We said, no problem, as long as you help us unpack the van. We got on great together and we’d like to have adopted him a lot more, but he was doing these Ban The Bomb songs, protest stuff. He’d be in the crowd and ask when he could come up and sing with us, and we’d keep telling him to wait, then when it was the break…

NEIL YOUNG SUGAR MOUNTAIN – LIVE AT CANTERBURY HOUSE 1968 REPRISE; RELEASED 2008 A few days before his 23rd birthday, Young showed up at an Ann Arbor, Michigan Episcopal Church with only an acoustic guitar, a two-track TEAC tape recorder and much to prove. Half the set consists of Buffalo Springfield songs who had broken up barely six months previously. The in-between-song patter is more revelatory than most of his interviews, from the metaphysics of songwriting to a lament about the state of his hair. NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE LIVE AT FILLMORE EAST REPRISE; RELEASED 2006 Young’s live albums with Crazy Horse have traditionally captured the fiery alchemy that exists between the two parties. Yet none carry as much pathos as this document of their stand at Bill Graham’s…

TWO FBI GUYS looked after me at the Hall Of Fame. One of them said, “You can’t go back to your seat. There are people out there who want to kill everybody, and this is a perfect target. We’ll wait 10 minutes. By the way, if you want to come to our complex tomorrow, I’ll pick you up at 11 o’clock sharp.” Sure enough, he turns up in a limo with bulletproof glass. Armoury in the back, guns and shit. We go into the training room and my jaw dropped. There’s a big screen and on the table is a pistol. It’s got hydraulic pipes and electronics linked to vision. They show you a scenario and say, “You’ve got to decide whether to shoot to kill.” “OK, I’m ready. Roll…

CARPENTERS Close To You A&M, 1970 Khan has been covering “We’ve Only Just Begun” at recent live shows, and her embrace of melody on The Bride harks back to the Carpenters’ second LP. Close To You is a fine collection that, like Khan’s fourth, slipped outside prevailing trends, its popularity making an incongruous backdrop to the socio-political turmoil of ’70s America. BAT FOR LASHES Fur And Gold THE ECHO LABEL/PARLOPHONE, 2006 Khan has described The Bride as a sonic return to herself, and the innate, lifelong influences that informed her debut album: The Virgin Suicides , The Doom Generation, Donnie Darko , Lou Reed, Björk and Sonic Youth. Fur And…

Does the fact that the Brotherhood is on your Silver Arrow label change the way you approach recording? For all practical purposes we live just outside the mainstream music system. We felt a sense of urgency in a weird way to make something that was deep and dynamic. Not that we didn’t try to do that previously, but those first CRB recordings were made out of necessity. They’re an apprenticeship in a weird way. One thing I learned from a previous lifetime on an alien planet is that sometimes success happens because you’re part of the machine. But with this band, we were able to do a couple of test flights. You’ve released four albums in five years, which is definitely not the music industry standard. I feel connected and…

Were you inspired by any particular artists or albums in making this record? Not really. There was some strategy — an occasional reference to a Roy Orbison song or other iconic touchstones — but we weren’t trying to replicate anything. Mostly, we were just trying to play these songs with that band, have it go through their filters and let something new come out. Does this album have an over-arching theme? A lot of it has to do with the way you process disruption in life and embrace it as a positive thing rather than ominous chaos. So ideally there’s a hopefulness in the arc of the album. It’s about doing a status check on the course you’re on in life and adjusting if necessary. Sometimes that’s easy, sometimes it…

Train travel has long been part of the folklore and mythology of America. September sees the release of Shine A Light: Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad , a collaboration between Billy Bragg and US songwriter-producer Joe Henry (see p8). Recorded during stop-offs on a 65-hour trek across the States, courtesy of the Texas Eagle railroad service, the album is made up of songs originally cut by Hank Williams, Lead Belly, The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Woody Guthrie and more. The duo, who last worked together on Bragg’s 2013 opus Tooth & Nail , will tour the UK later this year. Also due in September is Away , the latest from US cult favourites, Okkervil River. A belated follow-up to…

You wrote this album at home, rather than (as previously) escaping somewhere for the purpose. How difficult was the adjustment? What I thought was my worst fear – being overheard demoing vocals – turned out to not be that big a deal. The larger challenge became how to fully engage without the wonderful trappings of home life distracting me. I mean, even my crazy-ass dog howling at a possum can derail the moment. Or, “Those sound like quick footsteps. I wonder if someone has vomited and a text could be coming [ asking me ] to please help because now everyone is awake and crying.” It definitely provided a sense of urgency compared to farting around in a cabin by myself all day. What did Jason Lytle bring…

PLANXTY Planxty POLYDOR, 1973 Andy Irvine (mandolin), Donal Lunny (bouzouki) and Liam O’Flynn (Uilleann pipes) all guested on Moore’s 1972 album, Prosperous , an experience so enjoyable that the four promptly formed the Celtic supergroup Planxty. The multi-layered arrangements of trad songs sung in Moore’s low, husky voice had a folk-rock rather than a traditional sensibility and the album remains a revered landmark in Irish music. MOVING HEARTS Moving Hearts WARNERS, 1981 Not content with forming one groundbreaking Irish band, Moore then put together another. He stayed little more than a year before returning to his solo career for keeps, but Moving Hearts’ debut was a classic of vibrant Celtic-rock, from the CND anthem “Hiroshima Nagasaki Russian Roulette” to the fierce retelling of republican history on “Irish…

Melbourne’s Emma Russack wrote and recorded her first song when she was just eight, with the help of her uncle and a microphone plugged into a stereo. When her father played the tape of “I Don’t Care” to her grandfather, he judged it as “a bit negative”. At the time, Russack reckoned, “it was the coolest thing ever. Perhaps I was a dark and brooding eight-year-old,” she muses. As an adult, she’s more reflective than brooding, and her cool points come not only from her songs’ compelling directness and underplayed ease, but also from her juggling of law studies (she recently finished her first semester) with playing shows. A $10,000 Arts Council grant enabled her to take up music again after she’d abandoned it for university (“I forgot that I’d…

Writer’s block and homelessness are hardly ideal payoffs for an acclaimed debut, but DM Stith has confronted both since 2009, a period during which, he jokes, “I’ve seen bands appear out of nowhere, complete a four-album arc cresting at festival headlining spots, break up, and then some!” He managed one song, “My Impatience”, in the three years after he wrote Heavy Ghost and, once he’d started commuting across the Atlantic to work with producer Ben Hillier, soon ran out of money. “I moved out of my apartment and into my car, took on as many performance gigs as I could to keep me on the road, and cashed in on house-sitting gigs and friends’ guest-room offers.” Fortunately, a combination of focused breathing techniques, drawing and 2013’s…

Formed in Northampton in 1983, The Tempest barely lasted 12 months but still managed to release one cracking album – 5 Against The House – of gothy post-punk, just reissued. “Music seemed to be changing at a fast rate,” recalls singer Alex Novak. “There were so many different genres creating new hybrids, with very short attention spans.” The five-piece formed around a nucleus of Novak and guitarist Mark Refoy, who would later play in Spiritualized. Novak recalls this as an exciting time. “It was a busy local live scene,” he says. “Bauhaus had got a lot of exposure and John Peel was a regular DJ at gigs.” The band split up before the LP was even released and Novak thinks “it will be interesting to see…

THE NEW AGE STEPPERS The New Age Steppers ON-U SOUND, 1981 The highlights of this languid, quizzical debut by the post-punk supergroup helmed by Sherwood – including members of The Slits, The Pop Group, Aswad, Roots Radics, Flying Lizards and The Raincoats – are two reggae covers sung with punky gusto by Ari Up. TACKHEAD SOUND SYSTEM Tackhead Tape Time ON-U SOUND/NETTWERK / RED RHINO, 1987 A thrillingly jagged collage of hard industrial funk, militaristic hip-hop beats, sci-fi dub textures and spliced samples of crazed US generals. The clumsily sincere interventions of Bristolian MC Gary Clail only add to its militant charm. SHERWOOD & PINCH Late Night Endless ON-U SOUND / TECTONIC, 2015 Sherwood hooks up with dubstep maven Rob Ellis aka Pinch. Results: suitably weighty. Amid deft rhythms and…

BY THE MID-1990s, it was no longer unusual to see William S Burroughs infecting the screen in some shape or form. Following the author’s cameo in Drugstore Cowboy (1989), David Cronenberg’s 1991 adaptation of The Naked Lunch kicked open the gate. The interview-profile Commissioner Of Sewers followed and before long he was turning up to lend alt.cool kudos to Nike ads on TV. Since his death in 1997, Burroughs has continued to serve as a source of fascination in both dramas (2000’s Beat, with Kiefer Sutherland and Courtney Love; 2012’s bust On The Road; 2013’s Kill Your Darlings) and documentaries (1999’s The Source; 2010’s William S Burroughs: A Man Within). Still, the finest screen portrait – the most intimate, the strangest and funniest – remains the first, filmed when his…

“THE PYRAMIDS WERE way ahead of our time, so we decided to let time catch up,” says sax man Idris Ackamoor of the cosmic jazz outfit which made a trio of cult LPs in the ’70s before breaking up in ’77. Fast forward 30 years. “Sometime around 2007 I noticed that the Pyramids’ albums were showing up on eBay with collectors paying high prices for the original vinyl,” Ackamoor recalls. “There were requests from labels to reissue the early recordings. Book publishers were writing for info and photos. If there was this much interest in a band no longer together, I wondered what would happen if we actually reunited?” He decided to find out and reformed the original trio with flautist (and ex-wife) Margo Simmons and bassist Kimathi Asante for…

After signing with Don Arden, the Small Faces spent decades fighting legal battles to secure lost royalties – even now, Jones is fighting on behalf of his bandmates’ children to get a fair deal on Small Faces recordings. His daughter is studying to be a lawyer and he quips, “It’s always useful to have one in the family, I wish we’d had one when Don was around.” Despite that, Jones is amazingly magnanimous about his former manager. “He was wonderful, like a big teddy bear,” Jones says. “He started as an opera singer, and he’d break out in song. He loved us. Don wasn’t as bad as people make out, a father figure. We didn’t know he was ripping us off ’til we were ensconced with him and even then…

THE WFMU RECORD FAIR in Brooklyn is an annual Mecca for vinyl obsessives, the kind of place where you can find a $1,200 Sun Ra record or a $3,000 Dylan acetate while flipping through the thousands of cardboard crates. Collectors with dusty fingers seek to fill esoteric obsessions such as Italian movie soundtracks or Christmas records, hold LPs to the light with the appraising eye of a jeweller, and quibble with vendors over the smallest of nicks. A WFMU DJ friend tells me you’re more likely to find a member of Yo La Tengo than a Yo La Tengo record, right before we spot their bassist, James McNew, a few aisles over. It’s an environment where Steve Gunn is right at home, whether adding to his own collection, catching up…

IAN A ANDERSON ROYAL YORK CRESCENT THE VILLAGE THING, 1970 “They were around in the late ’60s and early 70s, it was a bit of a collective. He was often confused with Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson. These first two albums are really beautiful British folk, but also kind of loose and psychedelic. These were never pressed in vast quantities, and they’re sort of hard to find, but they’re really great.” BRIJ BHUSHAN KABRA RAGA PURIYA ALAP CELLULOID, 1984 “This is an Indian slide guitar LP, which I first heard on a blog, Root Strata, which posted a lot of cassettes – I’ve discovered a lot of different Indian music on that blog. I’m interested in Indian slide guitarists, and this guy was one of the first to do Indian classical…

ON SATURDAY, MAY 21, Neil Young performed at the fourth annual Light Up The Blues benefit concert in aid of Autism Speaks at the Pentages Theatre in Los Angeles. The event was co-organised by Young’s old friend and former bandmate, Stephen Stills. During the show, Young performed seven songs – “Heart Of Gold”, “Thrasher”, “Out On The Weekend”, “Human Highway”, “Mr Soul”, “For What It’s Worth” and “Rockin’ In The Free World” – some solo accompanied only by an acoustic guitar but he was joined on several songs by Stephen Stills and his current band, The Rides, who feature guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd and keyboard player Barry Goldberg. The War On Drugs were also on the bill. Here, bassist David Hartley recalls seeing Young and Stills together onstage… “We were…

THIS YEAR, NEIL Young will join a select group of his illustrious peers – Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Who and Roger Waters – to play the Desert Trip festival at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California, the same site as the Coachella festival. Desert Trip takes place between October 7 and 9 and October 14 and 16. The capacity is believed to be around 70,000 per day, with 30,000 reserved seats and 40,000 general admission tickets. “It’s so special in so many ways,” Elliot Roberts told the LA Times when the news of the festival broke in April. “You won’t get a chance to see a bill like this, perhaps ever again. It’s a show I look forward to more than…

THE TRIDENTS “Nursery Rhyme”, BECKOLOGY, 1991 Recorded in 1964, this Bo Diddley cover sees a young Beck pulling out all the stops. Dissonance, mayhem, high-speed runs, bells, whistles – it’s all there. THE YARDBIRDS “Shapes Of Things”, 1966 SINGLE A monument of UK psych. The mid section is a freak-out that gives Beck – layering one solo on top of another – 29 seconds to stun the world. THE YARDBIRDS “The Nazz Are Blue”, ROGER THE ENGINEER, 1966 The famously moody Beck – who, in a rare move, sings this Elmore James-inspired number – plays a solo entirely on one note while glaring at the other Yardbirds through the control-room window. JEFF BECK GROUP “You Shook Me”, TRUTH, 1968 Wah-wah to the fore, Beck brings heavy metal to the blues.…

IN 1966, LOVE WERE LIVING TOGETHER IN THE CASTLE, a run-down palatial mansion in Los Feliz, Hollywood. “I remember [guitarist] Bryan MacLean usually brought out the weed in a silver serving bowl,” recalls Michael Stuart-Ware, the drummer in the classic lineup. “The living room was so cavernous that Arthur sometimes used it as a roller rink.” “We had just the best parties,” laughs Johnny Echols. “Because the doors were open. We’d come home from gigs and there would be parties going on, and people would be in various stages of undress. But I think The Castle did encourage bad habits. After a while it just got to be too much. I remember one time Bryan had invited some people over and Arthur walks in and says: ‘Bryan, my house ain’t…

IDRIS ACKAMOOR & THE PYRAMIDS We Be All Africans STRUT Afro-jazz legends return in style To connoisseurs of Afro-futurist jazz who find Sun Ra a little too mainstream, The Pyramids have long been a sacred cult, one predicated on three private press albums released out of San Francisco in the early ’70s. The trio’s unlikely 21st-century rebirth, nurtured in German studios, compounds rather than detracts from their myth, even as the music on this second reunion album tends more towards funk fusion than their wilder first incarnation; Fontella Bass’ work with the Art Ensemble Of Chicago might be a useful reference point. Highlights, though, chiefly come when saxophonist Ackamoor lets rip, notably over the cosmic synthscape of “Epiphany”. JOHN MULVEY AFRO-HAITIAN EXPERIMENTAL ORCHESTRA Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra GLITTERBEAT Psych afrobeat from…

Truth EPIC, 1968 Resisting Mickie Most’s attempts to turn him into a pop star, the departing Yardbird’s first solo album explored the nascent possibilities of blues-rock. In just four days of studio time, and flanked by Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood and the best British sessioneers, Beck deconstructed Chicago blues – via curveball covers of “Ol’ Man River” and “Greensleeves” – to create new quicksilver sounds. Seek out the 2005 reissue, with its raft of bonus cuts from the sessions. Blow By Blow EPIC, 1975 A fastidious bandmate, perhaps, but a generous collaborator, Beck always responded well to new influences. Blow By Blow , a squelchy, technically sensational journey into fusion, rose out of his work with Stevie Wonder, who contributes material here. “Thelonius” and “Freeway Jam” typify…

“I owe William Basinski a great deal as I’ve basically built a bunch of instant Disintegration Loops machines, in a way commandeering the aesthetic without the same kind of intent,” Ian William Craig cheerfully confesses when confronted by their comparable musical approach, which in Craig’s case involves, among other things, an 18-deck “cassette choir”. “I’ve just literally short-circuited the temporal aspect of what makes his work so beautiful, so maybe I owe him an apology!” Craig has been releasing his dilapidated songs since 2012, but it was his first two formally released albums (2014’s A Turn Of Breath and last year’s Cradle For The Wanting ) that won wide praise for their exploratory but accessible experiments in decaying sound.…

Hannah Georgas hadn’t bargained on the effect that moving from Vancouver back home to Toronto would have on her new third album, For Evelyn . “I felt that push to come back and be closer to family. I uprooted myself during the recording process to make the actual move. It felt like a big wave hit me when it was all done,” she admits. Helping Georgas process the major life change in the studio was Graham Walsh of Holy Fuck, also producer of her Juno-nominated self-titled 2012 album. “He’s so innovative and unique. He’s constantly pushing boundaries with the music he makes and produces. Graham is always ahead of the game when it comes to finding interesting gear and different sounds. I trust him and have learned…

ON THE EVIDENCE of her fourth solo album, Lou Rhodes would have fitted in pretty well with the Laurel Canyon crowd, hanging out on a verandah with her guitar, expounding on ecology, the life trip and universal love in the company of Joni, Judee and Stephen Stills. Her previous records – including 2006’s Mercury-nominated solo debut, Beloved One – have featured lean, acoustic finger-pickings with folk/blues inflections and subtle strings, in songs drawing from a deeply personal well of emotion, Rhodes’ warm, tremulous voice their focus. Top marks for understatement, even if at times there’s been rather too little going on. But with Theyesandeye, Rhodes has opted for a more resonant and expansive analogue sound, mixing early ’70s Californian folk with dreamy English pastoralism of the same period. Harp, double…

ONE OF THE more unexpected comebacks of recent times came in 2007, when Tom Petty elected to reunite the band that presaged the Heartbreakers. Mudcrutch were intially formed by Petty and guitarist Tom Leadon, who’d both served in local combo The Epics, in Gainesville, Florida, in 1970. Swiftly enlisting drummer Randall Marsh and another guitar player, Mike Campbell, Mudcrutch set about the North Florida club scene with a rackety strain of countrified rock. By the time they left home for LA on April Fools’ Day ’74 – a portentous sign, as it transpired – a reshuffled lineup had seen Leadon quit and keys man Benmont Tench enter the fold. The lure of California led to a deal with Shelter Records, co-owned by Leon Russell and producer Denny Cordell. But within…

TRACKLIST DISC ONE: Original Album Stereo Version & 40th Anniversary Mono Mix DISC TWO: Single Mixes, Outtakes And Demos 1 Blitzkrieg Bop (Stereo Single) 2 Blitzkrieg Bop (Mono Single) 3 I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (Stereo Single) 4 I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (Mono Single) 5 Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World (Uncensored) 6 I Don’t Care (Demo) 7 53rd & 3rd (Demo) 8 Loudmouth (Demo) 9 Chain Saw (Demo) 10 You Never Should Have Opened That Door (Demo) 11 I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (Demo) 12 I Can’t Be (Demo) 13 Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World (Demo) 14 I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You (Demo) 15 Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue…

August sees the long-awaited return of The Avalanches, following up 2000’s Since I Left You with the similarly sample-adelic Wildflower ; meanwhile, a group with a very different workrate, Thee Oh Sees, will release A Weird Exits , their first to properly show off their live two-drummer sound. Elsewhere, questing guitarist and singer-songwriter Ryley Walker is set to unveil his third solo album proper, Golden Sings That Have Been Sung , produced by former Wilco keyboardist LeRoy Bach. A still more enigmatic songwriter, Cass McCombs, presents his first album for new label Anti- next month too – Mangy Love , which delves into soul, folk and Afrobeat, features Angel Olsen, Blake Mills and production from Rob…