Take a map and find Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery situated on a rugged finger of Nova Scotia, Canada, and you might notice that it sits at the end of a long track called Red River Road. David Morris, singer and songwriter in England’s Red River Dialect, wasn’t aware of the name when he applied for a nine-month stay at the monastery, but he couldn’t help draw meaning from it. ORDER NOW: The August 2021 issue of Uncut “Part of me likes the idea that everything’s coming together in some kind of cosmic fashion,” he tells Uncut, “like a David...
If, at any point during the recent crisis, you found yourself thinking, ‘What would Billy Gibbons do?’ – and there are probably worse role models – you might have pictured the ZZ Top frontman lighting out for some cactus-pocked desert redoubt in one of his garageful of hot rods. A scarlet coupe, perhaps, flames painted along the bonnet, packed with some of Gibbons’ legendarily vast guitar collection, and sufficient provisions to ride out lockdown. ORDER NOW: The August 2021 issue of Uncut You wouldn’t have been too far wrong. Hardware was recorded in the rocky mesas of California’s Mojave, Gibbons...
Bob Dylan has announced details of a paid-for online performance entitled Shadow Kingdom. It launches on July 18 on the Veeps platform and will be available to watch for 48 hours after the initial airing, with tickets costing $25 – sign up here. A press releases states that Shadow Kingdom “will showcase the artist in an intimate setting as he presents songs from his extensive renowned body of work created especially for this event.” There are no further details on the location, the musicians involved or whether the performance is a live broadcast or a pre-record. Advertisement It will...
It is 1969 and Sly Stone is on the brink of superstardom. Ensconced in his Bel Air mansion, he has begun work on a new album. But surrounded by dealers, groupies and gangsters, it takes over two years to finish the record – during with time the life-affirming utopianism of his music is replaced by darkness, drugs and isolation. Fifty years on, band members recall the turbulent making of a masterpiece: There’s A Riot Goin’ On. ORDER NOW: Read the full interview with Sly & The Family Stone in the August 2021 issue of Uncut For Sly Stone, Sunday,...
BUY THE BEATLES MISCELLANY & ATLAS HERE It was (very nearly) 60 years ago today… The date: June 21st, 1961. The place: a civic building/sometime school hall in a suburb of Hamburg, in what was then West Germany. The occasion: a recording session for the fiery, notoriously wayward, and occasionally brilliant British rock ‘n’ roller Tony Sheridan, presided over by the producer and Polydor A&R man Bert Kaempfert. Sheridan’s pick-up band on the two day session are the Beat Brothers. Or, as the wider world will soon come to know them, The Beatles. Advertisement For all the prominent flags...
Celebrating 60 years – pretty much to the day – of The Beatles as professional recording artists, we present The Beatles Miscellany and Atlas. What is it? It’s a left-field history of the Fab Four: in lists, graphs, maps, numbers, seating plans, houses, merchandise, valuable ephemera items, and of course, their entire UK discography. A perfect gift for Father’s Day too! Buy a copy here!
These days – inevitably, perhaps – many of our perceptions about Nirvana are filtered through the death of Kurt Cobain. An industry has gathered around his memory, truffling for clues in old interviews or in the hiss and howl of In Utero, that has essentially detracted from happier times in the band’s existence. Specifically, the thrill of Nirvana’s ascent with Nevermind. Everything seemed to move incredibly fast during autumn 1991 – there was an exhilarating mix of trepidation and excitement at their shows that year, a shared joy at the speed and scale of Nirvana’s success. The Word, Top Of...
CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR Nirvana, Paul McCartney, Amy Winehouse, Altın Gün, Sly Stone, Grateful Dead, The Jam, Will Sergeant, Rodney Crowell, Sparks, Rodrigo Amarante, Lump, Jakob Dylan and PJ Harvey all feature in the new Uncut, dated August 2021 and in UK shops from June 17 or available to buy online now. As always, the issue comes with a free CD, this time comprising 15 tracks of the month’s best new music. NIRVANA: Thirty years after Nevermind transformed Nirvana from adolescent punks to global superstars, Uncut revisits this era-defining classic in the company...
It’s been a while since Kurt Wagner picked up a guitar and, after such a lengthy period of inactivity, he’s having trouble getting used to it again. To prove his point, he brings his antique Gibson acoustic – “an LG-something” – up from the basement and rests it on his lap. “It’s funny,” he says. “Part of my life was practising and preparing for performance. But when that went away, so did my interaction with this thing.” ORDER NOW: Read the full interview with Kurt Wagner in the July 2021 issue of Uncut A guitar might seem like a...
With Anything Can’t Happen, Canadian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Dorothea Paas has crafted one of the most stirring and emotionally resonant break-up albums of recent years, a candid retelling of heartache that doesn’t weaponise pain but instead embraces such darkness as a necessary pairing with light. ORDER NOW: The July 2021 issue of Uncut A veteran of the Canadian DIY and experimental music scenes, Paas has worked with artists such as US Girls, Jennifer Castle and Badge Époque Ensemble. But this album marks her own studio debut proper, a decade into her career as a self-releasing live performer. Its maturity...
