Emerging from their west London squat during the racially charged late ’70s, they battled inequality and injustice through their powerful “progressive protest music”. They went on to record one of the greatest live albums of all time, enjoy the patronage of John Peel and Pete Townshend, and become the first British reggae group to play in Russia – before relocating to a farm in Zimbabwe. All while they endured trauma and tragedy whose scars can still be felt to this day. This, then, is the remarkable story of MISTY IN ROOTS. “The music is our legacy,” they tell Dave Simpson. “It will outlast all of us.”
Find the full story in the latest issue of Uncut magazine – in UK shops from Thursday, October 13 and available to buy from our online store.
It is Friday afternoon in Southall, west London. Cars pass along the high street while the shops bustle with customers preparing for the coming weekend. It is a typical suburban scene in early August, in other words. But it wasn’t always this way. Watching all this is Poko, singer with Misty In Roots, who remembers exactly how Southall looked 33 years ago.
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“This was one end of a no-go area set up by the police,” he says, brow furrowing as he gestures towards the traffic. “No-one could come down this road at all.”
Fatefully, Misty In Roots lived just outside the police cordon, in a squat at 6 Park View Road. The house was also the base for their community organisation and record label as well as providing a rehearsal space for around 40 local musicians. On April 23, 1979, however, it became the place where a community came together to defend itself.
“There were police horses everywhere,” Poko recalls, with palpable emotion in his voice. “Special Patrol Group in riot gear. There was no way to get out, so everyone came inside… the organisations, the politicians, Indians, local lawyers, everybody. Then police let all the politicians out, then all the white people, then the Indians. Then they went inside and beat up all the black people. It was a free-for-all. They smashed up all our equipment, destroyed all our records and beat everybody up.”
The events at 6 Park View Road were the culmination of a long day of violence. Earlier,
the National Front had held a demonstration in the centre of Southall, one of the most racially diverse areas in London. A petition to stop the meeting had received 10,000 signatures, but was unsuccessful, so 2,750 police officers had been deployed to protect the far-right party’s right to assembly, in the face of around 3,000 community and Anti-Nazi League protestors. In the ensuing clashes, 345 people were arrested and charged. Thirty-three-year-old special needs teacher Blair Peach was struck on the head and later died in hospital. Misty In Roots manager Clarence Baker was truncheoned, suffered a fractured skull, spent five months in a coma and was lucky to survive. Co-manager Chris Bolton – a white man – was also beaten. As the Daily Telegraph later reported, “Nearly every demonstrator had blood flowing from some sort of injury.”
Evidently, the events in Southall had a huge impact on Misty In Roots. As well as the injuries sustained by their managers, organist player Vernon Hunt – a mild-mannered Guyanan who Poko insists “wouldn’t hurt a fly” – was jailed for six months. He was so broken by his experiences he never rejoined the band. Other members spent two years fighting what Poko insists were trumped up charges. “It destroyed the group,” he sighs. Their home was gone, too. After the protests, the council demolished 6 Park View Road (although today a plaque on the pavement honours the location). “But we rallied,” insists Poko. “Because we had to.”
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Manchester’s Night & Day venue is set to face a court case next month over a noise complaint that could see its closure.
Last year, the small venue was threatened by a noise complaint from a new resident who had moved to Manchester during lockdown. It came after the venue won a hard-fought battle against a separate noise complaint back in 2014.
According to a new press statement, the venue is now in danger again due to a planning file for the redevelopment of a nearby building.
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The statement read: “In a critical new development to the story and after receiving a copy of the planning file for the redevelopment of the building next door where the complainant lived, the owners of Night & Day were shocked to find that a crucial acoustic report had not been provided, nor acoustic works completed to the development before it was occupied.
“This was a condition of the planning consent for conversion of the building next door, to ensure that residents were not disturbed by noise from pre-existing businesses in the area.”
As a result, Night & Day will face a court case from November 29 – December 1. Fans are encouraged to sign a petition here to help save the venue, and use the hashtag #savenightandday.
A gig at Manchester’s Night & Day. Credit: Ben Smithson.
Speaking of the new developments, Manchester native and Elbow frontman Guy Garvey said: “This a shameful disgrace and we are furious. Manchester’s music and arts are things we all share and are rightfully proud of. The council and its politicians, its football teams and its universities all use our music in proud promotion.
“Night & Day has taken hundreds of Manchester artists from bedrooms and garages to the world stage. The vibrant scene started by Night & Day triggered enormous redevelopment in what we now call the Northern Quarter and making all this happen is a constant bill to bill balancing act. That this corner stone of our city’s culture is under attack again is bewildering.”
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Venue owner Jennifer Smithson added: “We were one of the founding businesses in the development of the Northern Quarter, people wanted to move here because of vibrant, interesting places like Night & Day which is great and it’s really enhanced the area.
“What is particularly galling is that the planning department knew about the potential for noise disturbance from Night & Day when it issued the planning consent to turn the warehouse next door into residential flats. A separate acoustic report was required to establish what could be done to prevent noise from Night & Day impacting residents of the building. However, no separate acoustic report was ever prepared by the developer and the planning department allowed the building to be occupied without suitable acoustic insulation works.
Smithson added: “We now have to either accept the noise abatement notice, which will put us at risk of immediate prosecution in the event of noise complaints, or go to court at significant expense to appeal it. This could mean the end of Night & Day forever. It’s a nightmare.”
“It’s just so unfair. We believe that the fault lies squarely with Manchester City Council. They could cancel the noise abatement notice and rectify the problem that they originally caused, rather than close down a business that’s been the beating heart of the Manchester music scene for decades.”
Elbow’s Guy Garvey. CREDIT: Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage
In a statement responding to the news, the Music Venue Trust said: “The refusal by Manchester City Council to overturn the Noise Abatement Notice issued to the iconic music venue Night & Day Cafe presents a very simple, clear, understandable and practical example for the UK’s music community.
“Either Manchester wants to be the proud home of British music or it doesn’t. With all respect to everyone in the City leadership, no amount of music boards, commissions, supportive statements, or well intentioned political positions will change the reality.
“Either Manchester City Council act to Save the Night & Day or they should just take down the billboards, switch off the marketing, drop the pretense, and prepare to close up shop on music.
“If Manchester cannot protect the Night & Day it isn’t a Music City.”
MVT STATEMENT ON THE NIGHT & DAY,The refusal by Manchester City Council to overturn the Noise Abatement Notice issued…
Posted by Music Venue Trust on Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Elsewhere in Garvey’s statement, he said that Manchester City Council “needs to drop this charge immediately and get this family business out from under the swinging anvil of closure for good.
“There are many that consider the stress of this situation may have hastened our friend Jan’s early death and for his daughter’s family to be under that same stress for a second time on account of council fumbling ineptitude and can-kicking is unforgivable.”
He added: “The message to the council is drop this and focus on making it the last time it happens to any music venue in our city. To everyone else concerned I cannot stress enough that anger directed at the complainants is misdirected. This is the council’s problem. Please pour your energy into supporting the campaign to save Night & Day and in due course the national legislation to prevent this happening to any historic venue that has been nick-named Jan’s Law.”
At the time of the 2021 noise complaint, the venue’s petition received tens of thousands of signatures and support from the likes of Johnny Marr, New Order, Courteeners, Frank Turner and Mogwai, as well as the network of the UK’s grassroots music venues.
The Charlatans‘ Tim Burgess, who was instrumental in saving Manchester’s Gorilla and Deaf Institute through the pandemic, told NME why it was essential to fight back against this complaint.
“Music venues are essential for our nighttime economy and for the development of artists who will then tour the world and sell millions of records – they are vital for our towns and cities,” Burgess told NME. “Years and even decades after they opened, people are moving nearby and complaining about the noise. We need to get a grip of this daft situation. And it’s not just music venues – record shops are facing the same issue.
“The joke being that these city centre residents are often the ones showing off to their friends about the culture that surrounds them. We need to support our live music venues, not threaten them with closure.”
Looking back 20 years later, it seems clearer now that Joe Strummer’s final three albums were each made under very different circumstances, for very different reasons; listening to them, it seems all the more remarkable how cohesive they sound, all shouting from the same street.
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The group Strummer dubbed the Mescaleros began as a band in name only, but then rapidly evolved into the real deal, only to be stopped in their tracks in the worst way, just as things had started to fly. The music they recorded across their 1999–2002 lifetime – the albums Rock Art And The X-Ray Style, Global A Go-Go and Streetcore, which are collected together in this striking new set along with an album’s worth of outtakes, demos and orphaned tracks titled Vibes Compass– documents this process. You can hear it especially when you assemble it all back to back like this, as a testament of the time: a band mutating fast through different shapes, different tensions, different harmonies.
Still, despite the varying conditions that fed it, all this music identifiably comes from one single place: that unique zone instantly recognisable as Strummerville, a neighbourhood that can feel as intimate as the walk from your front door to the corner shop, yet stretches all around the world.
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Strummer’s re-emergence with the Mescaleros is often seen as a new beginning, but the same weird, proud, shaggy mongrel DNA present in the Mescaleros’ sound runs through all the scattered, roaming music Strummer made during what are now routinely dubbed his “wilderness years”, the era that lasted from the chaotic end of the second, Mick Jones-less version of The Clash in early 1986, through to the release of Rock Art And The X-Ray Style in late 1999. It’s a period still to be fully assessed, but track down the fugitive recordings – the collaboration with Jones’sBAD; the defiantly trashy Latino-Rockabilly War band; his 1989 Earthquake Weather LP; assorted soundtrack work; the partnership with The Pogues – and you find Strummer developing his love for Latin, Jamaican, Irish and African styles, while checking out hip-hop and electronica, and holding fast to his belief in gutbucket rock’n’roll and beat-jazz ruminations, all elements that fed the Mescaleros vision.
Indeed, the first Mescaleros record began long before the Mescaleros, in 1994, when, still roaming, Strummer hooked up with electronic supremo Richard Norris, known for his work in The Grid. Despite The Clash’s status as rock-dance pioneers on rap-soaked outings like 1981’s “Radio Clash” (and despite further collaborations with Jones, who so enthusiastically swallowed the dance pill), Strummer remained suspicious of techno, left behind by the machines. But working with Norris, he experienced a kind of acid awakening, recognising in the rave scene a spirit similar to that Strummer was kindling around the fabled campfire he’d started building at various summer festivals as a rolling spontaneous gathering, an epiphany explicitly celebrated in one of the songs they cut, “Diggin’ The New”.
The original tracks remain officially unreleased, but set something rolling in him. Shorn of their most acidic flourishes, reworked versions of four songs from the Norris sessions would become the core of the Mescaleros’debut, the first album to bear Strummer’s name in a decade.
Rock Art And The X-Ray Style came about when Strummer encountered Antony Genn, a player on the Britpop scene, who flat out told him: “You’re Joe Strummer. You should be making a record.” He wasn’t the first to say it, but the time was right. The album Genn produced in 1999 was hailed as a triumphant return, but in truth, compiling Norris-era songs including the keystone “Yalla Yalla”, a valedictory dub epic in the lineage of late-era Clash, alongside some even older Strummer compositions like “Forbidden City”, it was more a continuation and consolidation of the path along which Strummer had been wandering.
What it did unquestionably do, however, was pull Strummer into sharper focus than he had been in years. Suddenly he seemed comfortable with both his legacy and his maturity – it takes a man of certain domestic experience to write a love song called “Nitcomb” – and hungry for new experience. The record’s most sublime moment was its most unexpected: “From Willesden To Cricklewood”, a new song from the sessions, a waltzing paean to Friday-evening London that feels closer to Ealing movies than the Westway sound.
For Rock Art…, Genn assembled musicians including Martin Slattery and Scott Shields – like him, a generation younger than Strummer, and less concerned about the Clash legacy that sometimes weighed Strummer down. Following Genn’s departure (“I was fired for being a junkie,” he tells writer Tim Stegall in the box’s comprehensive liner notes. “I was unreliable and useless on stage”), Slattery and Shields would become the spine of the Mescaleros as the unit took to the road and evolved from Stummer’s studio session men into a bona fide band.
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The difference shows clearly on their second album. Co-produced by Slattery and Shields, Global A Go-Go is at once looser and more together, a stronger, denser, earthier affair – the stewing sound of a bunker gang, people locked in together, chasing their own thing. The group had been bolstered by the addition of Tymon Dogg, one of Strummer’s earliest collaborators – they’d busked together in the 1970s – whose plaintive, extemporised violin builds strange tension against the younger Mescaleros, and sounds a distinct call back to his work on The Clash’s epic Sandinista!.
Like that record, Global A Go-Go feels less a collection of individual tracks than one overpowering whole. Influenced by his stint as DJ on the BBC’s World Service, it’s the most intense expression of Strummer’s vision of a mongrel 21st-century folk music without borders. In places – say “Shaktar Donetsk”, following a refugee wrapped in the scarf of the Ukrainian football club – it makes you feel the loss of Strummer’s voice today keenly. Elsewhere, it finds his offbeat humour in full effect – a standout statement is about takeaway food, “Bhindi Bhagee”.
When Strummer died unexpectedly during the making of Streetcore, it seemed he was still moving up, on the brink of a new shift. To round out the unfinished album, some not-quite-Mescaleros tracks were added, including “Long Shadow” and a spare reading of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”, both originally intended for a Rick Rubin/Johnny Cash project. But the bulk of the record, completed heroically by Slattery and Shields following Strummer’s death, hones the Mescaleros’ folk/world leaning to a sharper point, with echoes of a classic Clash sound, typified by the lead track, “Coma Girl”.
Going through this box, which comes copiously illustrated by a brilliant chaos of Strummer’s incessant doodles and scribbles, there’s the sense both of a sprawling body of powerful work and of business left unfinished. Among the 15 tracks on the Vibes Compass collection of additional recordings, the earliest, “Time And The Tide” demonstrates how strongly the through-line runs from Strummer’s “lost” years. Recorded in 1996, it became B-side to the Mescaleros’debut single “Yalla Yalla” in 1999, but could easily be an Earthquake Weatherexile. “Ocean Of Dreams”, a previously unissued Rock Art… outtake featuring Sex Pistol Steve Jones scrawling guitar over Strummer’s lament of gin-swilling suits cooking up laws in clubhouses, shares a similarly hazy vibe, the taste of smoke in the air.
The demo versions of album tracks find the songs mostly largely formed, but some differences are revealing of the process. “London Is Burning”, the original take of Streetcore’s “Burnin’ Streets” is a simpler, sweeter thing and shows how much a Clash sound was on Strummer’s mind.
The most poignant discovery might be “Fantastic”, an early iteration of the defiant “Ramshackle Day Parade” on Streetcore. As Strummer’s visionary testifying gathers pace, this earlier, more immediate performance steers the song into a different space. With the Mescaleros, Strummer may have left his future unwritten, but all these songs are like hand-written notes, pointing the way ahead.
DMA’S have announced their fourth album ‘How Many Dreams?’ and shared new single ‘Everybody’s Saying Thursday’s The Weekend’. Check out all the details below alongside a chat with the band and exclusive photos from the album’s studio sessions.
Out March 31, 2023 and now available for pre-order here, ‘How Many Dreams?’ will see DMA’S continue to branch out from the guitar-driven Britpop anthems of their first two records. “We were finding our feet with a more modern sound on [2019’s] ‘The Glow’,” Johnny Took told NME at Reading & Leeds, where they absolutely owned their main stage slot ahead of performances from Bastille and Halsey.
DMA’S at RAK Studios London for ‘How Many Dreams’. Credit Reuben Bastienne-Lewis
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“With ‘How Many Dreams’, we really nailed that down and experiments with a lot of different sounds and different genres. It’s a great blend of the three things we love, which are rock’n’roll tunes, pop singalongs and electronic music.
“Our music will always have that nostalgic edge to it, but [this album] was about being less of a throwback band and more in the future.”
Johnny Took of DMA’S at RAK Studios London for ‘How Many Dreams’. Credit Reuben Bastienne-Lewis
Lead single ‘I Don’t Need To Hide’ “sums up the album best. It’s got a bit of everything,” explained vocalist Tommy O’Dell. New single ‘Everybody’s Saying Thursday’s The Weekend’, on the other hand, is more of a curveball. It’s about “letting go of the things that weigh us down and embracing the future with a sense of optimism. Stepping in the ‘right light in the dark times’,” Took said in a statement.
DMA’S at RAK Studios London for ‘How Many Dreams’. Credit Reuben Bastienne-Lewis
The “tongue-in-cheek” track was originally inspired by a conversation Took had with a mate who was down the pub on a school night. “It has a real playful vibe”, Took said, but also deals with the time he quit drinking. “It’s about when you’ve had a few too many drinks and say something stupid. Everyone’s been there.”
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Elsewhere on ‘How Many Dreams?’ there’s ‘Fading Like A Picture’ which “opens with this rocking guitar riff” and “harks back to that old DMA’S sound,” according to Took. On the flipside, “there’s a song like ‘De Carle’ which is a full-blown, five-minute electronic song” save a tiny bit of electric bass. “We weren’t trying to split the difference. We really leant into the genre, which is so cool. There are surprises like that across the record.”
“We did what we wanted,” added O’Dell. “We didn’t have any boundaries and that’s what is really exciting about the record. You can’t put it in a box, but it’s still DMA’S.”
Tommy O’Dell of DMA’S at RAK Studios London for ‘How Many Dreams’. Credit Reuben Bastienne-Lewis
Taking inspiration from Groove Armada with vocalist O’ Dell pulling influence from old school Motown, ‘How Many Dreams?’ was the longest record DMA’S took to make.
The Aussie trio (rounded out by Matt Mason) spent three weeks in a London studio with superproducers Stuart Price and Rich Costey “working on a lot of band in the room stuff”. The Omicron variant hit, DMA’S returned home to Australia and though most of the album was done, “when we got back to Sydney, we were listening to the desk mixes and it felt like we had a lot more work to do.” With Costey and Price on the other side of the world, though, they got Konstantin Kersting in to help them finish the record.
DMA’S and Rich Costey at RAK Studios London for ‘How Many Dreams’. Credit Reuben Bastienne-Lewis
“We ‘Screamadelica’-fied it,” Took quipped, referencing Primal Scream’s iconic album. “We’d find a live drumbeat [we’d recorded in London] but would only use eight bars of it, then we’d put programming underneath it, and some extra synths. We really had the time to be creative on this record, which we’ve never really done before.”
Konstantin Kersting and Johnny Took of DMA’S at Forbes Street Studios Sydney for ‘How Many Dreams’. Credit Matt Mason
Working with Costey and Price was “just great”, Took said. “It’s amazing when you jump in a studio with anyone new, especially when they’re of that calibre. They’ve just got so many great stories and so much knowledge. Kersting might be younger but he’s worked on some great records as well. All three of them nailed it.”
DMA’S and Stuart Price at RAK Studios London for ‘How Many Dreams’. Credit Reuben Bastienne-Lewis
With DMA’S more confident in the studio, ‘How Many Dreams?’ is a “bloody feel-good record,” according to Took. “We couldn’t be more proud of it.”
“We didn’t want to release something gloomy after [COVID],” added O’Dell. “There are still sentiments that are a bit doom and gloom but it’s definitely a feel-good record with positivity and nostalgia.”
Matt Mason of DMA’S at RAK Studios London for ‘How Many Dreams’. Credit Reuben Bastienne-Lewis
Following the release of ‘How Many Dreams?’ and a support slot with Arctic Monkeys at The Domain in Sydney, DMA’S will head out a tour of the UK in April 2023. Still, the band has no worries about the shows getting bigger and bigger.
“I was thinking about the live show for a lot of the songs on ‘How Many Dreams?’,” added Took. “I’ve never written like that before but we played ‘I Don’t Need To Hide’ for the first time the other day and for such a new song, it went down really well. Incorporating those pop and electronic elements into our music means there’s a real dynamic to the set now [so] we can really hold our own on those big stages.”
The Libertines have announced the launch of a special podcast to celebrate 20 years of their debut album ‘Up The Bracket’.
READ MORE: Pete Doherty on life and new Libertines music at Glastonbury 2022: “I’ve been spearheading indie sleaze for years!”
The podcast Up The Bracket: 20 Years of The Libertines will be made up of seven episodes featuring exclusive interviews with band members Carl Barât, Pete Doherty, John Hassall and Gary Powell, as well as the A&R who discovered them, James Endeacott, and their biographer and former NME journalist Anthony Thornton.
The series will be hosted by Radio X’s Sunta Templeton and will provide listeners with insight into The Libertines’ journey, exploring the highs and lows and the moment they felt like they ‘made it’ told by the band themselves.
Our podcast with @thelibertines, 20 Years Of Up The Bracket is out on Friday, and we want to know what your favourite Up The Bracket track is?
Reply or quote tweet with your answer ? pic.twitter.com/OFeOXyMJUi
— Radio X (@RadioX) October 11, 2022
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The release of the podcast this Friday (October 14) will be accompanied by a special documentary, with both being available exclusively on Global Player.
Speaking on the podcast, Templeton said: “20 years on, we’re jumping aboard the good ship Albion with Peter, Carl, John and Gary and journeying back to where it all began. The story of The Libertines is fascinating, chaotic and totally captivating, and this is an essential listen for fans of their trail-blazing brilliance.”
Listen to the trailer for the podcast here.
News of the special podcast from The Libertines arrives weeks after it was revealed the band have just returned from working on their fourth album in Jamaica.
“We’ve got a new album on the way,” Doherty told media at the AIM Independent Music Awards 2022. “It’s been quite productive. Just trying to write some new songs.”
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A date for their new album is yet to be announced but backstage at Glastonbury Festival in June, Doherty told NME he hoped to release the album before the end of 2022.
When asked when the project might be complete, he said: “By the end of the year, I think – hopefully. We’ll get the demos done in the summer hopefully, and then we’ll see.”
While a new album from the band is currently in the works, they are also gearing up for the release of a Super Deluxe Edition of ‘Up The Bracket’ – available to pre-order here – which is due for release on October 21. The collectible will include 65 unreleased recordings with original demos, radio sessions and live recordings. A 60-page book with a foreword by Beats 1 presenter and former NME journalist Matt Wilkinson, unseen photos and memorabilia is also set to be released.
The 20th anniversary of ‘Up The Bracket’ was also celebrated by the band back in July where they performed the album in full at a one-night show at Wembley Arena.
Bob Dylan, Robyn Hitchcock, Flaming Lips, Davy Graham, L7, Weyes Blood, Alan Parsons, Misty In Roots, Alabaster DePlume, Peter Frampton and Willy DeVille all feature in the new Uncut, dated December 2022 and in UK shops from October 13 or available to buy online now. This issue comes with an exclusive free 15-track CD of the month’s best new music.
BOB DYLAN: As Bob Dylan live fever reaches its peak, Uncut travels to Stockholm to experience the Rough And Rowdy Ways Tour up close. First, though, Uncut’s writers – and some close associates – relive their own legendary encounters with Bob from his past seven decades of challenging, constantly evolving live music. Take your seat alongside us at Sheffield City Hall in 1965, Madison Square Garden in 1974, the Spokane Opera House in 1980 and beyond, down 50 transformative years, in our definitive, eye-witness report on Dylan in concert.
OUR FREE CD! CONTAINS MULTITUDES: 15 tracks of the month’s best new music
This issue of Uncut is available to buy by clicking here – with FREE delivery to the UK and reduced delivery charges for the rest of the world.
Inside the issue, you’ll find:
THE FLAMING LIPS:Axl Rose! Cat Stevens! Songs to sing at funerals! As a 20th-anniversary boxset expands the technicolour universe of The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Wayne Coyne reveals the real story of how his band of freaks inherited the Earth. “We just embraced it all, and did it our way,” learns Sam Richards.
WEYES BLOOD: With Titanic Rising – Uncut’s Album Of The Year in 2019 – Weyes Blood’sNatalie Mering conjured up a beguiling mix of bold cinematic dreams and ecological fears. For her follow-up, And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow, she has further refined her singular vision. She tells Jaan Uhelszki about Buddhist anthems, Greek myths and – of course! – the end of the world: “My idea of impending doom is a lot closer than people think.”
DAVY GRAHAM: He was a revolutionary spirit at the vanguard of the ’60s folk movement, until drug addiction and mental health issues waylaid his mercurial talent. Here friends and collaborators and – among them Shirley Collins, Martin Carthy and Ray Davies – celebrate the nimble-fingered magic of Davy Graham. “He burned very brightly for a short time, and no-one forgot that,” hears Rob Hughes.
MISTY IN ROOTS: Emerging from their west London squat during the racially charged late ’70s, they battled inequality and injustice through their powerful “progressive protest music”. They went on to record one of the greatest live albums of all time, enjoy the patronage of John Peel and Pete Townshend, and become the first British reggae group to play in Russia – before relocating to a farm in Zimbabwe. All while they endured trauma and tragedy whose scars can still be felt to this day. This, then, is the remarkable story of Misty In Roots. “The music is our legacy,” they tell Dave Simpson. “It will outlast all of us.”
ROBYN HITCHCOCK: As the singular psych-folk troubadour releases his 22nd album with help from famous friends, he answers your pressing enquiries.
L7: The making of “Pretend We’re Dead”.
ALAN PARSONS: The ultimate backroom boy on his massively successful “prog pop” career.
THE BEATLES: Their pivot-point LP gets a fresh spin.
CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR
In our expansive reviews section, we take a look at new records from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Richard Dawson, Arctic Monkeys, Big Joanie and more, and archival releases from PJ Harvey, Iris Dement, Bright Eyes, and others. We catch the End Of The Road live; among the films, DVDs and TV programmes reviewed are The Banshees Of Inisherin, Triangle Of Sadness, Vesper, Neptune Frost and A Bunch Of Amateurs; while in books there’s Tom Doyle and Brian Johnson.
Our front section, meanwhile, features Pharoah Sanders, Peter Frampton, Willy DeVille, International Anthem & Skullcrusher, while, at the end of the magazine, Alabaster DePlume shares his life in music.
You can pick up a copy of Uncut in the usual places, where open. But otherwise, readers all over the world can order a copy from here.
The latest setlist for Roxy Music‘s reunion tour has been shared online – check it out along with live performance footage below.
READ MORE: All of these classic albums turn 50 this year
Roxy Music’s UK and North American tour, which kicked off on September 7 at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, marks the first time that bandmembers Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay, Phil Manzanera and Paul Thompson have been together on stage since the band’s ‘For Your Pleasure’ tour in 2011.
The tour also takes in the 50th anniversary of the band’s debut album, which they will be celebrating throughout 2022 with a vinyl reissue series that sees reissues of all eight of their studio albums.
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Last night (September 19) the pop rockers played Chicago’s United Center. See the list of songs they played [via SetlistFM] below:
‘Re-Make/Re-Model’ ‘Out Of The Blue’ ‘The Bogus Man’ ‘The Main Thing’ ‘Ladytron’ ‘While My Heart Is Still Beating’ ‘Oh Yeah’ ‘If There Is Something’ ‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’ ‘Tara’ ‘My Only Love’ ‘To Turn You On’ ‘Dance Away’ ‘Same Old Scene’ ‘More Than This’ ‘Avalon’ ‘Love Is The Drug’ ‘Editions Of You’ ‘Do The Strand’ ‘Jealous Guy’ (John Lennon cover)
Tomorrow (September 21) the band play Texas’ Moody Center in Austin ahead of a few more US shows before the UK leg of their tour. See the list of remaining dates below and find any more available UK tickets here.
Roxy Music’s remaining 2022 tour dates:
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SEPTEMBER 21 – Austin, Moody CEnter 23 – Dallas, American Airlines Center 26 – San Francisco, Chase Center 28 – Los Angeles, The Forum
OCTOBER 10 – Glasgow, OVO Hydro 12 – Manchester, AO Arena 14 – London, The O2
Discussing Roxy Music’s self-titled debut album for its anniversary, NME wrote: “After being fired as a ceramics teacher for singing in the classroom, Bryan Ferry, a fine art grad from County Durham, auditioned to sing in the London prog-rock band King Crimson. Though his voice wasn’t a fit, the band’s Robert Fripp was impressed all the same, and suggested that Ferry give E.G. Records a call if he ever formed his own band.
In 2019, singer Bryan Ferry reunited with some of his Roxy Music bandmates for the group’s first performance in eight years as part of their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Robbie Williams has broken Official Chart records as his latest album ‘XXV’ tops the Official Albums Chart.
READ MORE: Robbie Williams on Damon Albarn, Morrissey and the dark side of Take That: “I have a cannon-full of quotes”
The pop star released ‘XXV’, which contains re-recorded and orchestrated versions of songs from across his career, last Friday (September 9), and it is now his 14th Number One solo album.
The Official Charts Company have confirmed that Williams has overtaken Elvis Presley to become the solo artist with the most UK Number One albums ever (Presley’s record was 13). The Beatles are now the only act with more UK Number One albums than Williams, having scored 15 across their career.
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In addition, Williams racked up four further Number One albums during his time in Take That. The overall record holder for an individual with the most Number One albums is Paul McCartney, who has received 23 across his career in The Beatles, Wings and as a solo act, with John Lennon following behind with 19 Number Ones.
“Thank you to everyone who’s supported the album: everyone who’s bought it, streamed it, downloaded it and reviewed it,” Williams said on breaking the record.
“I’m so pleased that it’s gone to Number 1, and whilst it feels strange to be receiving an award during these sombre times, I wanted to thank you all for your support and dedicate this to the fans, who I never take for granted. I really appreciate it, thank you so much.”
Robbie Williams performs during Soccer Aid for Unicef 2022 at London Stadium on June 12, 2022 in London, England CREDIT: Mike Marsland/WireImage
Speaking to NME recently, Williams praised Noel Gallagher as a “great comedic writer”.
“There was a lot of back-and-forth about a lot of different people,” he said. “And it wasn’t that I was hurt that it was said; it was just fucking annoying that it stuck. But, you know: Noel’s really good at that stuff. He’s said a lot of incredible quotes that stick.
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“He’s got that sort of brain for those things that cut through the chaff and stay around.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Williams said he does the same thing “musically” that Morrissey and Elton John do, compared his weekend at Glastonbury 1995 to “Putin turning up in Westminster”, and hit out at Damon Albarn over his inaccurate past claim that Taylor Swift “doesn’t write her own songs”.
“I think that when people say that, what they’re actually doing is having a wank about themselves,” Williams explained.
Congratulations to @LewisCapaldi on his third Number 1 single, #ForgetMe ?
He's the third act to debut at Number 1 in 2022, after @Santandave1 and @Harry_Styles ? https://t.co/TwF1VgNsOC
— Official Charts (@officialcharts) September 16, 2022
In other Official Charts news, Lewis Capaldi’s new single ‘Forget Me’ has debuted atop the Official Singles Chart this week, making this his third UK Number One single.
Meanwhile, Ozzy Osbourne‘s 13th studio album ‘Patient Number 9’ debuts at Number Two on the Albums Chart, Manic Street Preachers see their 2001 record ‘Know Your Enemy’ return to the Top 5 this week and The Amazons’ ‘How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?’ becomes the band’s third consecutive Top 10 album.
Sir Paul McCartney has penned a letter requesting immediate action be taken to aid an abused Indian elephant.
McCartney – a long-time PETA supporter – sent an urgent letter to Indian Union Cabinet Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, requesting immediate action be taken to send an abused elephant named Jeymalyatha (also known as Joymala) to a rescue centre for her recovery from psychological trauma.
Joymala has been held captive the Srivilliputhur Nachiyar Thirukovil temple in Tamil Nadu. In a viral video, the animal can be seen being beaten with weapons and controlled using pliers.
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In his letter, McCartney said: “I am confident that action will be taken to send sorely abused elephant Jeymalyatha (Joymala) to a suitable rescue centre where she can receive the specialised care she needs for her psychological wounds, and can live unchained and in the company of others of her kind.”
McCartney added that though the videos of the animal were heartbreaking, “equally heartbreaking is that this social, intelligent animal is still being forced to live in solitary confinement”.
“I trust you agree that Jeymalyatha has suffered more than enough, and that she deserves to spend the rest of her time on this Earth the way away from her abusive trainers, rehabilitating, and with others of her kind.”
According to a press release, McCartney’s letter follows a veterinary inspection report (and plea by PETA India) on the condition of Joymala, who found that her current handler (mahout) used pliers on her, even in the presence of inspectors.
Inspectors were reportedly forbidden by the mahout to take photographs or video footage of Joymala. The inspection was conducted after two viral videos of the elephant’s treatment emerged in June 2022 and February 2021.
Earlier this year, McCartney teamed up with PETA on a campaign that urged US coffee chain Starbucks to stop charging more for plant-based milk. The former Beatles musician, a vegetarian since 1975 and 2009 founder of Meat Free Mondays, wrote a letter to then-Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson calling for an end to the surcharge on plant-based milk options.
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“I must say this surprised me as I understand that in other countries like UK and India, there is the same charge for both types of milk and I would like to politely request that you consider this policy also in Starbucks USA,” McCartney wrote.
“My friends at PETA are campaigning for this. I sincerely hope that for the future of the planet and animal welfare you are able to implement this policy.”
Luxury fashion designer Peter Do has teamed up with stars from K-pop label SM Entertainment for his upcoming New York Fashion Week showcase.
READ MORE: NCT Dream on ‘Beatbox’: “We have this music that’s uniquely our own”
Set to take place on September 13 (local time), Do’s upcoming Spring/Summer 2023 New York Fashion Week show will be opened by NCT member Jeno, who is best known for being a part of its NCT Dream subunit. This will mark the first time a K-pop star has opened a NYFW runway show.
“It was a natural choice to have Jeno open the show. Jeno embodies the Peter Do man – multifaceted, confident, and a trailblazer,” said Do in a press release, sharing his motivation behind the decision.
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“Few realise the intensity of what is happening behind the scenes to achieve the end product; it’s very similar to fashion so I identify with that process very much,” he added.
Do’s new collection revolves around the theme of time, teased with personalised invitations that take the form of a memory box developed by the designer in collaboration with SM Entertainment.
Contained in a cookie tin, its contents comprise various items representative of Do’s life. These include a recipe from his late father, an old-school mix CD featuring music from SM artists Do listened to growing up and a SM-branded disposable camera, among other items.
“This memory box, filled with all these objects that are of a personal emotional significance to me, is a nod to SM’s presence in different stages of my life,” explained Do. “There’s the nostalgia of listening to Girls’ Generation songs on the bus on my way to school. When we started the brand, we were listening to Red Velvet on repeat while building studio furniture.”
In addition to Jeno, SM Entertainment trainees Shohei and Eunseok — part of the agency’s SMROOKIES team — will be making their NYFW debut by walking in the show. Red Velvet member Seulgi will also attend the event as a special guest, ahead of her upcoming solo debut next month.
While Do has previously worked with another NCT member, Johnny, who he styled for the 2022 Met Gala, this is SM Entertainment’s first foray into the annual fashion event.
Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard has told NME about how the creation of the band’s upcoming tenth album ‘Asphalt Meadows’ made them “feel like a new band”, while also revealing that one of the album’s tracks took 25 years to complete.
The band are releasing their follow-up to 2018’s ‘Thank You For Today’ this Friday (September 16) via Atlantic, and so far it has been previewed by the singles ‘Foxglove Through The Clearcut’, ‘Roman Candles’ and ‘Here To Forever’.
READ MORE: Ben Gibbard on his new Fender signature guitar – and how it’s influencing the new Death Cab For Cutie album
Work on what would become ‘Asphalt Meadows’ began prior to the pandemic, but Gibbard told NME that the opportunity that was given to the band to “get off the touring treadmill” during the COVID lockdowns changed the album they were making for the better.
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“I remember specifically saying to my wife, at some point in January 2020, ‘I just wish I had a year off’,” the singer recalled. “The band had intermittent things planned that year, but there were a couple of own goals I had [made] too. I booked a two-and-a-half week solo tour for virtually no reason other than just to do it, and social things started to really eat away at the year.
“So the very dim silver lining on such a terrible period is that it did give artists a lot of time to take a breath and get off the touring treadmill. That time definitely took me to some different places creatively that maybe I wouldn’t have otherwise. I certainly don’t think we would have had the record that we have, I think for better, without this period.”
After living in what he called a “liminal” space between pre-pandemic life and the experience of lockdown, Gibbard told NME that “as [lockdown] extended longer my anxiety started to grow, and I didn’t really feel like writing”.
During that time Gibbard launched his ‘Live From Home’ livestream series, where he played songs from his own projects (as well as Beatles covers) in shows that were broadcast at the same time every day. Over the duration of the series, Gibbard raised over £200,000 for local COVID relief organisations in the Seattle area, as well as refreshing and revitalising his own creative process.
“I was just feeling so anxious and watching too much news,” Gibbard told NME of his headspace in the early pandemic before ‘Live From Home’ began. “I started doing these shows for altruistic reasons and because I thought people might enjoy them, but I had a selfish reason to doing them, too.
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“It gave me a sense of schedule and a sense of normalcy. During a time where nobody had to be anywhere, the fact that I had to be somewhere at 4pm every day – and that I gave myself the task of playing very different sets every day and making sure that I was touching a lot of material – gave me a real sense of purpose in that time when I felt like I was floating.”
Through playing old Death Cab material and covering artists who inspired him during the series, Gibbard gained a new perspective when looking to write what would become ‘Asphalt Meadows’. “For anybody who has been doing this as long as we have, there’s this delicate balance that you’re always trying to strike between the spirit and the sonics of some of the older material, while also trying to push in some new directions. But I also wanted the record to sound like Death Cab – I want us to sound like us.
“In revisiting a lot of the older material for those shows,” he added, “it gave me some newfound perspective, or a perspective I hadn’t really had in a while. I would say, ‘I really like this tune, maybe we should start playing it again’. Or, ‘Oh, this song has a cool twist in it. Maybe I should try to do something similar to that on a new song’. It just allowed me to be a little more full-circle when thinking about our catalogue.”
Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie (Picture: Erika Goldring / Getty Images)
Death Cab worked on ‘Asphalt Meadows’ with producer John Congleton, who Gibbard said he “immediately fell in love with” having been introduced by the band’s keyboardist Zac Rae in summer 2021. “John was somebody we’d always been kicking around about doing a record with,” Gibbard told NME, saying that the band were “quite far down the road” with making ‘Asphalt Meadows’ with an unnamed British producer before “COVID and creative differences slowed down that idea”.
Meeting with Congleton while he was in Seattle working with Tegan and Sara, Gibbard said the pair struck up an immediate friendship: “One of those fast friendships where you’re just kind of finishing each other’s sentences. I was just immediately completely taken with John. Sometimes the path you start on doesn’t end up being the path you take, but the path that you do take ends up being a far better one than your original plan. And that was certainly the case when working with John.”
As well as changing producers, Gibbard also set himself and his bandmates a challenge when writing the album. “When I was writing early in lockdown, I felt like I was repeating myself a lot,” he explained. “My hands were going to similar places on instruments, and I just wanted to break out of the lyrical holes that I was falling into.”
To break out of this rut, Gibbard came up with an MO for the record, where at the start of every week the band would pick out each of the five members’ names in a random order. From there, the member assigned to Monday would create a piece of music, which they would then pass on to the next member for Tuesday, and so on.
“By Friday,” Gibbard explained, “we’ve all had 24 hours with the song to do our bit, and when you had the piece of music you had complete editorial control. If it got to Dave [Depper, guitarist] on Wednesday, and he didn’t like the tempo, or he didn’t like the drum bit, he could just take it away or make something new. The goal was that we wanted to try and write the best songs possible. It wasn’t a case of everybody individually saying, ‘I’m going to shine with my cool guitar part on this one day!’ Everything was very deliberate in a way that we’ve never done before.”
Through this new process of working, Gibbard told NME that he learned more about his bandmates and that Death Cab now “feels like a new band” to him: “It feels like we’re just starting to cap the potential of this particular line-up.”
The anchor of the record is their stunning recent single ‘Foxglove From The Clearcut’, a post-rock-influenced hammer blow that began life over 25 years ago. Gibbard explained that, before the pandemic, he found and uploaded to his computer a host of four-track master tapes that he had recorded between 1996 and 2002, stumbling upon an unfinished instrumental track from ‘98.
“I was like, ‘That’s kinda cool actually!’,” he recalled to NME. “I made a loop of the drum, bass and guitar parts that I had recorded for it. It had a very ‘90s indie rock vibe to it. I thought to myself, ‘I’m just gonna try talking over this. I’ve never done a song where there’s been a spoken-word narrative’. One of the reasons that this song feels like such a tentpole for the record is that it’s quite literally the synthesis of the origins of this band and where we are now. If you’re trying to kind of harness the sonics of where you started and where you are now, that was just a perfect happy accident where those things can exist together.”
Of the song’s impact on him and ‘Asphalt Meadows’ at large, Gibbard added: “There really is no more introspective way to create music than to finish a thought you’d had 25 years ago. It’s literally finishing a thought. I remember when I was having memories of writing this piece of music, and I’d just sit in my house in Bellingham with a four-track and some shitty mics. I remember being disappointed that I never did anything with that, because I really liked that.”
In the song, Gibbard’s spoken-word performance positions him as the narrator telling the story of a man “who used to live by the ocean but never set foot in the sea”. After completing the song, the frontman realised that, in fact, he was both narrator and protagonist.
“When I’m writing, the characters are usually pretty flushed out, and I can see their faces,” Gibbard told NME. “But with ‘Foxglove’, I literally saw myself as the narrator standing next to somebody, but that person’s face was blurred out. I know this is very esoteric, but in my mind’s eye writing that song I was like, ‘Oh, there’s a person I’m writing about, and they’re all backlit or blurry, I can’t see who they are’.
Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie performs during the 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Picture: Getty)
“Then,” he added, “I started to realise that it’s definitely me. Perhaps it’s because of the gap between the beginning of this composition and now, there was me at two different places in my life and I was speaking to myself after I’d had a long journey.”
Through unconscious revelations like these and deliberate attempts to shake up their creative writing process, mystical magic flowed through the creation of ‘Asphalt Meadows’ that can be keenly felt across the record.
“The longer you do this, you’re going to hit a point where you’re starting to either repeat yourself or write yourself into a corner,” Gibbard said. “You have some songs that you’re very proud of, but you think, ‘Jeez, I don’t know what else I have to say!’
“These moments of creative transcendence become fewer and far between, but when they do happen, it’s an incredibly powerful and life-affirming moment. You think, ‘I love that I do this for a living. I love that. This song took 25 years to get to me. That’s fucking beautiful, you know’.”
Death Cab For Cutie will tour the UK and Europe in spring 2023. See the full list of gigs below, and find tickets here.
JUNE 2023
1 – Fabrique, Milan 2 – X-Tra, Zurich 5 – Den Grå Hal, Copenhagen 6 – Filadelfia, Stockholm 7 – Sentrum Scene, Oslo 9 – Columbiahalle, Berlin 10 – 13, Tilburg 11 – Paridiso, Amsterdam 12 – E-Werk, Cologne 14 – De Roma, Antwerp 15 – Atelier, Luxembourg 16 – Salle Pleyel, Paris 18 – Rock City, Nottingham 19 – Bord Gais Theatre, Dublin 21 – O2 Institute, Birmingham 22 – Usher Hall, Edinburgh 23 – Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow 25 – Apollo, Manchester 27 – Dome, Brighton 29 – Royal Albert Hall, London
In place of a new instalment of their Sunday Lunch series, Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp have dedicated a cover of David Bowie‘s ‘Heroes’ to the late Queen Elizabeth II.
A description shared with the video – which sees Willcox hold up handwritten placards dedicated to the Queen as well as the duo’s personal heroes, while Fripp plays guitar behind her – saw the pair offer their condolences to the British Royal Family. “Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp wish to extend condolences to the Royal Family, and respect the dedication HRH Elizabeth II showed her country during her unprecedented reign,” the description read.
“The Sunday Lunch series is paused to play “Heroes” in acknowledgement of the passing of Her Majesty the Queen.”
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Watch the video below:
The couple have been delivering Sunday Lunch episodes since 2020, when they began the series during the coronavirus pandemic. Among their covers have been Pantera‘s ‘5 Minutes Alone’, Grace Jones‘ ‘Slave To The Rhythm’, Lenny Kravitz’s ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way’, Limp Bizkit’s ‘Nookie’ and Billy Idol‘s ‘Rebel Yell’ among many others.
Hordes of music and entertainment industry figures have paid their respects to Queen Elizabeth II following her death at age 96 on September 8.
In a statement, David Attenborough observed how “the whole nation is bereaved”. Sharing an image of the pair in 1977, Dolly Parton said the Queen “carried herself with grace and strength her entire life”.
On Twitter, Elton John wrote: “She was an inspiring presence to be around and led the country through some of our greatest and darkest moments with grace, decency and a genuine caring warmth.”
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Elsewhere, Pearl Jam covered The Beatles‘ ‘Her Majesty’ in honour of the late monarch, while talk show host James Cordon led tributes on The Late Late Show, describing her as “universally adored”.
Sex Pistols, who famously released their single ‘God Save The Queen’ just before the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, passed comment on the Queen’s death in online posts. Frontman John Lydon – aka Johnny Rotten wrote “Send her victorious”, bassist Steve Jones asked fans “How do you feel?” and bassist Glen Matlock looked to the future with King Charles III. “God save the king – hope he’s not a silly old thing.”
Dolly Parton has paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II online and recalled meeting her at her Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977.
Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, the Queen died on Thursday (September 8) at her Balmoral estate after 70 years on the throne. She was 96 years old.
Parton shared a post on her Instagram page yesterday (September 9) honouring Queen Elizabeth II, joining a host of other famous faces in paying tribute. “I had the honour of meeting and performing for Queen Elizabeth II on my trip to London in 1977,” she wrote.
“She carried herself with grace and strength her entire life. May she Rest In Peace. My thoughts are prayers are with her family at this time. Love, Dolly.”
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A post shared by Dolly Parton (@dollyparton)
Alongside the note, Parton also shared a photo of that meeting between herself and the Queen. The country star took part in the Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977, alongside The Jackson 5, Scottish singer and entertainer Sydney Devine and comedian Frankie Howerd.
Other figures from the entertainment world to pay tribute to the Queen included Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne, Mick Jagger and many more.
A 2021 interview with McCartney resurfaced after news of the monarch’s death broke, in which the Beatle recalled meeting the Queen when he was 10 years old. Other moments where Queen Elizabeth II had brushes with pop culture – including her London 2012 skit with James Bond actor Daniel Craig – were also recirculated.
Members of Sex Pistols, who famously released their controversial single ‘God Save The Queen’ just before her Silver Jubilee, also responded to her death online. “Rest in Peace Queen Elizabeth II,” John Lydon wrote. “Send her victorious.”
Sex Pistols have shared posts online about the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who died yesterday (September 8) at the age of 96.
The punk band famously released their controversial anti-monarchy single ‘God Save The Queen’ just before the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, with artwork featuring a safety pin through the monarch’s lips.
Following the news of her death, three members of Sex Pistols’ original line-up have now commented on the Queen’s passing. Frontman John Lydon – aka Johnny Rotten – shared the same portrait of Elizabeth II that was used for the ‘God Save The Queen’, minus the punk modifications on Twitter.
“Rest in Peace Queen Elizabeth II,” he captioned the tweet. “Send her victorious. From all at johnlydon.com.”
Rest in Peace Queen Elizabeth II.
Send her victorious.
From all at https://t.co/vK2Du0ZzDS pic.twitter.com/kq4M6WfeML
— John Lydon Official (@lydonofficial) September 9, 2022
Guitarist Steve Jones shared the embellished portrait of the Queen, with the title of the band’s infamous single and the lyrics. “How do you feel?” he asked his followers.
How do you feel? pic.twitter.com/fDGnLHv3Sc
— JONE$Y$ JUKEBOX (@JonesysJukebox) September 8, 2022
Bassist Glen Matlock, meanwhile, looked to the future with King Charles III. “God save the king – hope he’s not a silly old thing…” he wrote on Twitter.
God save the king – hope he’s not a silly old thing…
— Glen Matlock (@GlenMatlock) September 8, 2022
After news of the Queen’s death broke yesterday (September 8), figures from across the entertainment world paid tribute to the monarch online, including the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger.
Footage of Queen Elizabeth II’s many brushes with pop culture have also begun to recirculate online, including her appearance with James Bond’s Daniel Craig at the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony and knighting McCartney in 1997.
Meanwhile, artists have also paid tribute at their concerts, with Pearl Jam covering The Beatles’ ‘Her Majesty’ in Toronto. Elton John also honoured the Queen at his own Toronto gig, while Harry Styles led a New York audience in a round of applause for her “70 years of service”.
Paul McCartney recalled the first time he met Queen Elizabeth II when he was 10 years old in an interview in 2021.
The Queen died yesterday (September 8) at her Balmoral estate, aged 96, bringing her 70-year reign to an end.
McCartney shared the memory of his first meeting with the monarch during an interview with CBS last year. “Because the coronation was approaching, there was a competition for all the schools in England,” he recalled. “You had to write an essay on the monarchy and I liked that idea.”
The Beatles star’s essay described the incoming royal as “our lovely young Queen” and helped him win his “division”. “I was very nervous, cos they called out my name,” he said. “I stumbled up with legs of jelly and it was the first time I’d ever really been on a stage.
“I think the thing about the Queen is that she’s – she’s royal, so you look up to her cos she’s royal. But she’s very down to earth.” Watch a clip of the interview above now.
McCartney is one of the numerous figures across the entertainment world who has paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II since the news of her death broke last night. “God bless Queen Elizabeth II,” he wrote on Twitter. “May she rest in peace. Long live The King.”
Elton John also paid tribute to the monarch during his Toronto gig last night. “She was an inspiring presence to be around — I’ve been around her and she was fantastic,” he told the crowd during the concert at the city’s Rogers Centre. “She led the country through some of our greatest and darkest moments with grace, decency and a genuine care and warmth.”
In New York, Harry Styles led his audience at Madison Square Garden in a round of applause for the Queen, heralding her “70 years of service”.
Michelle Donelan has been appointed by the UK’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Donelan, who served as the Secretary of State for Education for 35 hours in July, has represented the constituency of Chippenham since 2015.
The news comes as Truss continues to reveal her Cabinet tonight (September 6). Among the key appointments are Kwasi Kwarteng (Chancellor of the Exchequer and Deputy Prime Minister), Therese Coffey (health secretary), James Cleverly (foreign secretary) and Suella Braverman (home secretary).
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Yesterday (September 5) Truss was announced to have won the Conservative Party’s leadership election, beating former chancellor Rishi Sunak to the position of Prime Minister following the resignation of Boris Johnson.
Donelan was promoted to the position of Secretary of State for Education in July after serving for two years as Minister of State for Higher and Further Education. Her summer appointment was made in the wake of a large number of resignations following Johnson’s handling of the Chris Pincher scandal.
The Rt Hon Michelle Donelan MP @MichelleDonelan has been appointed Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport @DCMS#Reshuffle pic.twitter.com/VnnBpOMGbL
— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) September 6, 2022
The politician was promoted after the previous education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, was appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer by Johnson.
However, on July 7 after just 35 hours in the role Donelan resigned as more than 50 other ministerial resignations poured in. She wrote that Johnson had “put us in an impossible position”.
Donelan was the shortest-serving Cabinet member in British history, breaking a 239-year-old record of four days set during the government of Pitt the Younger.
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She replaces staunch Johnson supporter Dorries whose appointment in September 2021 was bemoaned by several politicians as well as figures in the entertainment world.
Nadine Dorries. CREDIT: Leon Neal/Getty Images
During her tenure Dorries made moves to privatise Channel 4 and vowed to abolish the BBC licence fee in 2027 with its cost frozen for the two years.
Dorries said today (September 6) that Truss had offered her the opportunity to continue as culture secretary but that she turned down the role to return to the backbenches.
I have submitted my letter of resignation to the outgoing Prime Minister.
I am humbled that Liz Truss extended her confidence in me by asking me to remain as Secretary of State for DCMS. I will always show her the same loyalty and support I have to @BorisJohnson.
Onwards! pic.twitter.com/CzNl3q2kJI
— Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) September 6, 2022
Meanwhile, figures in the entertainment world have reacted to Truss becoming Britain’s Prime Minister.
Comedian John Cleese was one of the first to react to her appointment with a mockingly scathing tweet stating: “Liz Truss says that it’s an honour to be elected leader of the Conservative party. No it isn’t.”
Liz Truss is announced as the next Prime Minister at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London CREDIT: by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Elsewhere, comedian Omid Djalili was similarly scathing in his assessment of the appointment in the wake of the cost of living crisis. “The Tory leadership election was essentially a choice for the party voters between a punch in the throat or an iron bar into the bollocks. Congratulations Liz Truss,” he wrote.
Mogwai frontman Stuart Braithwaite drew attention to a controversial tweet Truss posted in tribute to sex offender Jimmy Saville following his death in 2011. “Reminder that our new prime minister hasn’t deleted this tweet,” he wrote.
The first of two tribute concerts for late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins took place over the weekend, with his surviving bandmates, Liam Gallagher, Queen, Travis Barker and Rush among the plethora of artists performing.
READ MORE: Taylor Hawkins, 1972 – 2022: Foo Fighters drummer who always stole the show
At its opening on Saturday September 3, the event was promised by Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl to be “a gigantic fucking night for a gigantic fucking person” – spanning nearly six hours with a set list of 50 songs. Find the full setlist below.
Foo Fighters also notably performed for the first time since Hawkins’ untimely passing back in March.
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Kicking off proceedings, Grohl and the surviving members of Foo Fighters had their arms around one another for an emotional moment. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Grohl began, “tonight we’ve gathered here to celebrate the life, the music and the love of our dear friend, our bandmate, our brother, Taylor Hawkins.”
Later, Dave Chappelle recalled spending time with Hawkins and his son Shane, calling the late musician “a legend of a man”.
Liam Gallagher kicked off the night’s musical offerings, performing two classic Oasis songs with members of Foo Fighters, while Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Chad Smith shared a touching video story.
Later, Grohl’s teenage daughter, Violet, took to the stage to perform Jeff Buckley covers, accompanied by her father, Queens Of The Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures’ Alain Johannes and Jane’s Addiction‘s Chris Chaney.
The night saw Them Crooked Vultures reunite for the first time in 12 years, while Supergrass performed three songs for their “huge fan” Hawkins. Metallica‘s Lars Ulrich and AC/DC‘s Brian Johnson joined forces on a pair of AC/DC covers, while Mark Ronson and Violet Grohl covered ‘Valerie’.
Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor then joined Foo Fighters for a five-song set, while The Eagles‘ Joe Walsh led a reunited James Gang in their first live performance in 16 years. Calling them the “one band that I always associated Taylor Hawkins with” Grohl joined the surviving members of Rush, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, on stage to perform a handful of the band’s biggest hits.
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The final set of the night saw Paul McCartney, Travis Barker, Nandi Bushell and Hawkins’ son, Shane, Rufus Taylor (son of Roger Taylor), Josh Freese and Devo join Foo Fighters on stage. A “revolving door of drummers” then performed ‘Times Like These’, ‘All My Life’, ‘The Pretender’, ‘Monkey Wrench’, ‘Learn To Fly’, ‘These Days’, ‘Best Of You’, ‘Aurora’ and ‘My Hero’.
The night concluded with Grohl performing one of Foo Fighters’ most famous songs. Before he began, Grohl said: “I hope that you guys felt all the love from all of us and all of the performers, because we felt it from you for Taylor tonight,”
“This one’s for Taylor,” Grohl added before beginning the final song, a solo rendition of the band’s 1997 hit ‘Everlong’.
Among other stars on the line-up paying tribute to Hawkins were Wolfgang Van Halen, The Darkness‘ Justin Hawkins, Kesha, Nile Rodgers, Chevy Metal, and members of Hawkins’ own band The Coattail Riders.
Hawkins, who drummed with Foo Fighters from 1997, died in March 2022, aged 50.
A second tribute show will take place at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum on September 27.
The setlist for the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert is:
Liam Gallagher with Foo Fighters – ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Star’ Liam Gallagher with Foo Fighters – ‘Live Forever’ Josh Homme, Chris Chaney, Omar Hakim and Nile Rodgers – ‘Let’s Dance’ (David Bowie cover) Gaz Coombes, Chris Chaney, Omar Hakim and Nile Rodgers – ‘Modern Love’ (David Bowie cover) Chevy Metal and The Coattail Riders – ‘Psycho Killer’ (Talking Heads cover) Kesha, Chevy Metal and The Coattail Riders – ‘Children Of The Revolution’ (T-Rex cover) The Coattail Riders with Justin Hawkins – ‘Louise’ The Coattail Riders with Justin Hawkins – ‘Range Rover Bitch’ The Coattail Riders with Justin Hawkins – ‘It’s Over’ Dave Grohl, Wolfgang Van Halen, Justin Hawkins and Josh Freese – ‘On Fire’ (Van Halen cover) Dave Grohl, Wolfgang Van Halen, Justin Hawkins and Josh Freese – ‘Hot For Teacher’ (Van Halen cover) Violet Grohl, Greg Kurstin, Alain Johannes, Chris Chaney, Jason Falkner and Dave Grohl – ‘Last Goodbye’ (Jeff Buckley cover) Violet Grohl, Greg Kurstin, Alain Johannes, Chris Chaney, Jason Falkner and Dave Grohl – ‘Grace’ (Jeff Buckley cover) Supergrass – ‘Going Out’ Supergrass – ‘Alright’ Supergrass – ‘Caught By The Fuzz’ Them Crooked Vultures – ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ (Elton John cover) Them Crooked Vultures – ‘Gunman’ Them Crooked Vultures – ‘Long Slow Goodbye’ (Queens of the Stone Age cover) The Pretenders with Dave Grohl – ‘Precious’ The Pretenders with Dave Grohl – ‘Tattooed Love Boys’ The Pretenders with Dave Grohl – ‘Brass In Pocket’ James Gang – ‘Walk Away’ James Gang – ‘The Bomber: Closet Queen / Bolero / Cast Your Fate To The Wind’ James Gang with Dave Grohl – ‘Funk #49’ Violet Grohl, Mark Ronson, Chris Chaney and Jason Falkner – ‘Valerie’ (Amy Winehouse cover) Brian Johnson, Lars Ulrich and Foo Fighters – ‘Back In Black’ (AC/DC cover) Brian Johnson, Lars Ulrich and Foo Fighters – ‘Let There Be Rock’ (AC/DC cover) Stewart Copeland with Foo Fighters – ‘Next To You’ (The Police cover) Stewart Copeland, Gaz Coombes, and Foo Fighters – ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’ (The Police cover) Rush and Dave Grohl – ‘2112 Part I: Overture’ Rush and Dave Grohl – ‘Working Man’ Rush and Omar Hakim – ‘YYZ’ Queen, Foo Fighters, Rufus Taylor and Luke Spiller – ‘We Will Rock You’ Queen, Foo Fighters, and Rufus Taylor – ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ Queen, Foo Fighters, Sam Ryder, and Rufus Taylor – ‘Somebody To Love’ Brian May – ‘Love Of My Life’ Foo Fighters with Josh Freese – ‘Times Like These’ Foo Fighters with Josh Freese – ‘All My Life’ Foo Fighters with Travis Barker – ‘The Pretender’ Foo Fighters with Travis Barker – ‘Monkey Wrench’ Foo Fighters with Nandi Bushell – ‘Learn To Fly’ Foo Fighters with Rufus Taylor – ‘These Days’ Foo Fighters with Rufus Taylor – ‘Best Of You’ Paul McCartney, Chrissie Hynde, Foo Fighters and Omar Hakim – ‘Oh! Darling’ (The Beatles cover) Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters and Omar Hakim – ‘Helter Skelter’ (The Beatles cover) Foo Fighters with Omar Hakim – ‘Aurora’ Foo Fighters with Shane Hawkins – ‘My Hero’ Dave Grohl – ‘Everlong’
Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush took to the stage at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert over the weekend to perform a slew of the band’s classics – watch below.
The special event in honour of the late Foo Fighters drummer took place on Saturday (September 3) at London’s Wembley Stadium, and was simulcast all on the web, television and streaming platforms.
Featuring a star-studded line-up, tribute performances came from the likes of Mark Ronson, Queens Of The Stone Age‘s Josh Homme, Supergrass, Queen‘s Brian May and Roger Taylor, Blink-182‘s Travis Barker, AC/DC‘s Brian Johnson, Kesha, Metallica‘s Lars Ulrich and more.
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Introducing Rush to the stage, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl said: “Now if there’s one band that I always associated Taylor Hawkins with, it’s these next two guys.
“Taylor got up and played with two guys once, in their hometown of Toronto, Canada. And I have to say, it was not only one of the greatest nights of my life watching him do that, but perhaps, one of the greatest night of his.”
Grohl then took a place behind the drums – filling the spot for Rush’s late drummer, Neal Peart – joining the Canadian rock outfit for performances of ‘2112 Part I: Overture’ and ‘Working Man’.
Watch fan-shot footage below:
From the stage, Lee spoke of the privilege it was for himself and Lifeson to perform in honour of Hawkins at the event. “In 2008, as Dave told you, we got a call from Foos’ management, asking if we’d come to the Toronto show, and show up so that Taylor could play one of his favourite Rush songs with us. We obliged, and that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
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Drummer Omar Hakim then joined the pair on stage to deliver the classic instrumental number ‘YYZ’.
Rush played:
1. ‘2112 Part I: Overture’
2. ‘Working Man’
3. ‘YYZ’
Grohl and Hawkins’ Foo Fighters bandmates opened the event with a stirring speech that paid tribute to their late drummer. “No one else could make you smile, or laugh, or dance, or sing like he could,” Grohl said.
Liam Gallagher kicked off the live music, performing two classic Oasis songs, ‘Rock’n’Roll Star’ and ‘Live Forever’, backed by Grohl on drums for both. Comedian Dave Chappelle shared memories of spending time with Hawkins and his son, Shane, who attended the concert and watched from the sidelines. “Taylor Hawkins is a legend of a man, he’s a legend of a musician and he’s a legend of a father,” Chappelle shared.
Later, Grohl’s 16-year-old daughter, Violet, covered two Jeff Buckley songs in tribute to Hawkins, backed by her father on drums, Queens Of The Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures‘ Alain Johannes, guitarist Jason Falkner and Jane’s Addiction’s Chris Chaney. Violet performed ‘Last Goodbye’ and ‘Grace’, following an introduction by her father, who called her “the only person I know who can actually sing a Jeff Buckley song”.
Elsewhere in the show, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and AC/DC’s Brian Johnson joined forces to perform a pair of the latter band’s hits – ‘Back In Black’ and ‘Let There Be Rock’ – following Violet’s return to cover The Zutons’ ‘Valerie’ with Ronson, The Living End’s Chris Cheney and Falkner.
Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor also took to the stage alongside Foo Fighters to perform five songs – ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, ‘Under Pressure’, ‘Somebody To Love’ and an acoustic rendition of ‘Love Of My Life’.
Helmed by Joe Walsh, James Gang reunited on stage for the first time in 16 years, performing ‘Walk Away’, a medley of ‘The Bomber: Closet Queen/Bolero/Cast Your Fate to the Wind’ and ‘Funk #49’, joined for the latter by Grohl on drums.
Foo Fighters closed out the night with a star-studded set that featured a revolving cast of drummers, including Barker, Nandi Bushell, and 16-year-old Shane Hawkins. Paul McCartney also joined the group on stage, delivering a performance of two Beatles songs.
Hawkins, who drummed with Foo Fighters from 1997 alongside performing in bands like Chevy Metal and Taylor Hawkins And The Coattail Riders, died in March 2022, aged 50.
A second tribute show will take place at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum on September 27.
Joe Walsh led a reunited James Gang at last night’s Taylor Hawkins tribute concert, marking the group’s first performance in 16 years.
The special event in honour of the late Foo Fighters drummer took place on Saturday (September 3) at London’s Wembley Stadium, and was simulcast all on the web, television and streaming platforms.
Featuring a star-studded line-up, tribute performances came from the likes of Mark Ronson, Queens Of The Stone Age‘s Josh Homme, Supergrass, Queen‘s Brian May and Roger Taylor, Blink-182‘s Travis Barker, AC/DC‘s Brian Johnson, Kesha, Metallica‘s Lars Ulrich and more.
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Introducing James Gang, Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl said: “If you’ve ever seen a picture of Taylor Hawkins, most likely he was wearing a fucking hat that said James Gang on it.”
Led by Walsh – who had tweeted about the band’s set at the concert the day prior (September 2) – James Gang stepped onto the stage at 7pm BST, where the trio gave a performance of ‘Walk Away’, from their 1971 album ‘Thirds’, before playing a medley of ‘The Bomber: Closet Queen/Bolero/Cast Your Fate to the Wind’.
The group – rounded out by bassist Dale Peters and drummer Jimmy Fox – ended their brief appearance with a rendition of 1970’s ‘Funk #49’, joined by Grohl on drums at Walsh’s invitation.
Their first gig since 2006, James Gang were met with praise on social media from viewers of the tribute concert.
For a bunch of dudes who haven’t played together for more than 15 years, the James Gang are sounding righteous and TIGHT
They may look like your granda’ but they know how to rock #taylorhawkinstribute pic.twitter.com/FYRbEThOK0
— Benjamin Wright (@benwrightjourno) September 3, 2022
The James Gang reformed to play this benefit, and they sound great. T, I hope you’re listening and grinning like mad somewhere out there. #taylorhawkinstribute
— Heather Campbell (@RealLowVibe) September 3, 2022
‘James Gang’ playing for Taylor! Wow! Just Wow! ??#taylorhawkinstribute #TaylorHawkins #TaylorHawkinsWembley
— Shaun Cornforth™ (@TornShaun) September 3, 2022
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Such an awesome thing for the James Gang to reform especially for Taylor Hawkins tribute concert.
They were one of his fave bands. Sad that he isn’t here to see them play #taylorhawkinstribute pic.twitter.com/ixJIFIrHqj
— Benjamin Wright (@benwrightjourno) September 3, 2022
Just over here crying randomly during this damn amazing concert. Also, I fucking *love* the James Gang. ❤ #FooFighters #taylorhawkinstribute #TaylorHawkins pic.twitter.com/8vly2NdevY
— FrogDrums (@DrumsFrog) September 3, 2022
Dave Grohl riding with the James Gang right now. It’s awesome!!!! #taylorhawkinstribute
— Jay R (@WildcatRiot) September 3, 2022
Man, these #JamesGang boys are in some fine fucking form
The fucking James Gang. At Wembley fucking Stadium. That's rock fucking history, kids. ??????#taylorhawkinstribute https://t.co/6H6dTSt6n5
— Celluloid Sorceress (@SorceressOfFilm) September 3, 2022
James Gang Rides Again! ? #TaylorHawkinsTribute #JoeWalsh pic.twitter.com/PDcZrc0OBF
— BarbAfter909 (@barb_potter) September 3, 2022
Ahead of the show, Walsh revealed in a statement (per Ultimate Classic Rock) that Hawkins had frequently asked him about his career. “Taylor was like my little brother who was always asking questions,” the veteran rocker said. “He had an insatiable curiosity about playing hard and loud like we used to do in the ’70s.
“We spoke a lot about being in a three-piece, how we recorded ‘James Gang Rides Again’ and what life was like for a musician before he was even born.
“He thought I was pretty cool and the feeling was mutual.”
James Gang played:
1. ‘Walk Away’
2. ‘The Bomber: Closet Queen/Bolero/Cast Your Fate to the Wind’
3. ‘Funk #49’ (with Dave Grohl)
Grohl and Hawkins’ Foo Fighters bandmates opened the event with a stirring speech that paid tribute to their late drummer. “No one else could make you smile, or laugh, or dance, or sing like he could,” Grohl said.
Liam Gallagher kicked off the live music, performing two classic Oasis songs, ‘Rock’n’Roll Star’ and ‘Live Forever’, backed by Grohl on drums for both. Comedian Dave Chappelle shared memories of spending time with Hawkins and his son, Shane, who attended the concert and watched from the sidelines. “Taylor Hawkins is a legend of a man, he’s a legend of a musician and he’s a legend of a father,” Chappelle shared.
Later, Grohl’s 16-year-old daughter, Violet, covered two Jeff Buckley songs in tribute to Hawkins, backed by her father on drums, Queens Of The Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures‘ Alain Johannes, guitarist Jason Falkner and Jane’s Addiction’s Chris Chaney. Violet performed ‘Last Goodbye’ and ‘Grace’, following an introduction by her father, who called her “the only person I know who can actually sing a Jeff Buckley song”.
Elsewhere in the show, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and AC/DC’s Brian Johnson joined forces to perform a pair of the latter band’s hits – ‘Back In Black’ and ‘Let There Be Rock’ – following Violet’s return to cover The Zutons’ ‘Valerie’ with Ronson, The Living End’s Chris Cheney and Falkner.
Foo Fighters closed out the night with a star-studded set that featured a revolving cast of drummers, including Barker, Nandi Bushell, and 16-year-old Shane Hawkins. Paul McCartney also joined the group on stage, delivering a performance of two Beatles songs.
Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor also took to the stage alongside Foo Fighters to perform five songs – ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, ‘Under Pressure’, ‘Somebody To Love’ and an acoustic rendition of ‘Love Of My Life’.
Hawkins, who drummed with Foo Fighters from 1997 alongside performing in bands like Chevy Metal and Taylor Hawkins And The Coattail Riders, died in March 2022, aged 50.
A second tribute show will take place at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum on September 27.
Earlier this month it was announced that Grohl would be joining Walsh and James Gang as the “special guest” at Walsh’s veteran benefit show, ‘VetsAid’, on November 13 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
James Gang will headline the event, with their reunion being billed as “one last ride”. They’ll be joined on the line-up by Nine Inch Nails, The Black Keys and The Breeders.
Both active founding members of Queen – lead guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor – joined the Foo Fighters to perform a five-song set of their own hits at the first Taylor Hawkins tribute concert.
READ MORE: Taylor Hawkins, 1972 – 2022: Foo Fighters drummer who always stole the show
The special gig – which took place at Wembley Stadium last night (September 3) and was simulcast all over the web, TV and streaming platforms – honoured the late Foos drummer with performances from Liam Gallagher, Mark Ronson, Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, Supergrass, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, Blink-182’s Travis Barker, Kesha, and more.
The Queen/Foos supergroup were introduced with archival footage of Hawkins himself, who welcomed Roger Taylor out at one of the Foos own shows before he passed. Hawkins was a noted superfan of the British rock icons, and Foos sets would often see the drummer take over from Dave Grohl to perform lead vocals on a cover of ‘Somebody To Love’.
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“When I was 10 years old, my older sister took me to go see Queen in concert – the first concert I ever saw – and I watched the fucking drummer, and I said, ‘I wanna fucking be him, I wanna do that’,” Hawkins says in the archival clip screened at last night’s concert, after hyping the crowd up with his imitation of Freddie Mercury’s famous “ay-oh” chant.
The set itself began with a cover of Queen’s 1977 hit ‘We Will Rock You’, for which Taylor was joined on drums by his son Rufus, and Luke Spiller of The Struts sang lead vocals. With Taylor on vocals, they moved on to 1975’s ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, before welcoming out The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins to sing on the 1981 classic ‘Under Pressure’.
Next up in the setlist was ‘Somebody To Love’, for which Sam Ryder took over the mic. Introducing him, Grohl explained that, since Hawkins would always cover the song on vocals during the Foos’ own sets, it was particularly challenging to find the right vocalist for last night’s tribute.
“It might have been Roger that had this idea,” he said. “Roger showed us a clip of someone singing along to this next song, and we made one phone call, and within 20 minutes, this person told us that he would come here tonight to sing it with us.”
Rounding out the set, May delivered an acoustic performance of 1975’s ‘Love Of My Life’. Before playing the song, May told the crowd: “I did not write this song, it was written by a young boy called Freddie Mercury. And in 1986, we were on this exact spot, singing this song together.
“And in 1992, exactly 30 years ago, we said goodbye to Freddie in a style similar to this – so I know that Freddie would be very happy to use this song to honour Taylor Hawkins. But here’s the deal: I don’t sing this song, we all sing this song together.”
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Have a look at the full Foos/Queen performance below:
Queen and Foo Fighters played:
1. ‘We Will Rock You’ (with Luke Spiller of The Struts)
2. ‘I’m In Love With My Car’
3. ‘Under Pressure’ (with Justin Hawkins of The Darkness)
4. ‘Somebody To Love’ (with Sam Ryder)
5. ‘Love Of My Life’ (Brian May performing solo)
Grohl and Hawkins’ Foo Fighter bandmates opened the concert with an emotional speech that paid tribute to their late drummer. “For those of you who knew him personally, you know that no one else could make you smile, or laugh, or dance, or sing like he could,” the frontman said.
Comedian Dave Chappelle also recalled spending time with the rock star and his son in New York. “I’ve seen Taylor be a rock star many nights but it was my first time seeing him be a dad, and what a cool fucking dad,” he said. “Taylor Hawkins is a legend of a man, he’s a legend of a musician and he’s a legend of a father.”
Liam Gallagher kicked off the live music today, performing two Oasis songs with the help of the surviving members of Foo Fighters, while the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith shared a heartwarming story about Hawkins in a special video message.
Grohl’s 16-year-old daughter Violet also took to the stage to cover two Jeff Buckley songs at the show, before Grohl’s supergroup Them Crooked Vultures reunited for the first time in 12 years. Supergrass also performed, with the trio recalling a tour they did with the Foos and Hawkins in the ’90s.
Elsewhere in the show, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and AC/DC’s Brian Johnson joined forces to perform a pair of the latter band’s hits – ‘Back In Black’ and ‘Let There Be Rock’ – following Violet’s return to cover The Zutons’ ‘Valerie’ with Ronson, The Living End’s Chris Cheney and Jason Falkner.
Foo Fighters closed out the night with a star-studded set that features a revolving cast of drummers, including Travis Barker, Nandi Bushell, and Hawkins’ 16-year-old son Shane. Paul McCartney also joined the group onstage, delivering a performance of two Beatles songs.
Hawkins, who drummed with Foo Fighters from 1997 alongside his role in bands like Chevy Metal and Taylor Hawkins And The Coattail Riders, died in March 2022. He was 50 years old.
Mark Ronson and Violet Grohl covered ‘Valerie’ at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert at Wembley Stadium tonight (September 3).
The memorial gig featured a stacked line-up of some of music’s biggest names, as legends from across the musical spectrum came together to honour the late Foo Fighters drummer.
READ MORE: Taylor Hawkins, 1972 – 2022: Foo Fighters drummer who always stole the show
“When we first started talking about putting something together for Taylor, we sat down and we said, ‘Even if it’s his closest friends, that’s like 100 fucking musicians’,” Foos frontman Dave Grohl said before introducing the musicians on stage. “Because Taylor loved to jam and record with anybody and everybody. He loved to play music every day and there aren’t too many people that he’s never jammed with.
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“So this collection of friends and family and musicians, this is all brought together by him. We’re all connected here today by that one guy, bringing musicians that have never met, musicians that have never played together, all in one place at one time with all of you beautiful people to make fucking noise for Taylor Hawkins.”
Grohl continued: “The last few days, we’ve been asking ourselves the same question after every rehearsal. We’ve been asking, ‘God, I wonder what Taylor would think of this? I wonder what Taylor would think to see all of these amazing people together making music.”
Grohl then ushered on an example of what he had just been talking about. “One of the people he recorded with not too long ago is here tonight to do a song I’m sure a lot of you know,” he said. “Would you please welcome Mr Mark Ronson to the stage right now.” He also introduced Jane’s Addiction’s Chris Chaney, Jason Falkner, backing vocalists Barbara, Sam and Laura, and his daughter, Violet Grohl.
The musicians walked down the runway of the stage to gather together. “I guess this one’s for all the legends tonight and if you wanna sing along with Violet and the rest of us, please feel free,” Ronson said before starting the cover of The Zutons’ ‘Valerie’. Watch footage of the performance above, starting around the -3.03.49 mark.
Earlier in the night, Violet Grohl joined Queens Of The Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures’ Alain Johannes, Falkner and Chaney to cover two songs from Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’ album.
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Taylor Hawkins. CREDIT: Mike Lawrie/Getty Images
Elsewhere, Grohl and Hawkins’ Foo Fighter bandmates opened the concert with an emotional speech that paid tribute to their late drummer. “For those of you who knew him personally, you know that no one else could make you smile, or laugh, or dance, or sing like he could,” the frontman said.
Comedian Dave Chappelle also recalled spending time with the rock star and his son in New York. “I’ve seen Taylor be a rock star many nights but it was my first time seeing him be a dad, and what a cool fucking dad,” he said. “Taylor Hawkins is a legend of a man, he’s a legend of a musician and he’s a legend of a father.”
Liam Gallagher kicked off the live music today, performing two Oasis songs with the help of the surviving members of Foo Fighters, while Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith shared a heartwarming story about Hawkins in a special video message.
Supergroup Them Crooked Vultures reunited for the first time in 12 years, while Supergrass also performed, with the trio recalling touring with Foo Fighters and Hawkins in the ’90s. Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and AC/DC’s Brian Johnson also joined forces at the concert.
Foo Fighters closed out the night with a star-studded set featuring a revolving cast of drummers, including Travis Barker, Nandi Bushell, and Hawkins’ 16-year-old son, Shane. Paul McCartney also joined the group on stage, delivering a performance of two Beatles songs.
Foo Fighters closed out the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert at Wembley Stadium tonight (September 3) with a massive set that featured big-name guests, including Paul McCartney and Travis Barker.
The memorial gig kicked off this afternoon and featured an all-star cast throughout the six-hour run, from Liam Gallagher to Mark Ronson, Josh Homme to AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, and many more.
READ MORE: Taylor Hawkins, 1972 – 2022: Foo Fighters drummer who always stole the show
After a video was shown featuring performance and video clips of Hawkins throughout the years, Grohl took to the microphone to kick off the final portion of the night. Tearing up, the musician began a poignant version of Foo Fighters’ 2002 hit ‘Times Like These’ with his bandmates, plus Devo and The Vandals’ drummer Josh Freese.
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After a raucous rendition of ‘All My Life’, Grohl explained how the last set of the evening would work. “We’re gonna play some of the Foo Fighters songs with some of Taylor’s friends – his favourite drummers and his good friends – coming up to play with us,” he said. “So there’s gonna be kind of a revolving door of drummers who are gonna come up and celebrate Taylor’s fucking awesome drums.
“If you could only see how many fucking drum sets are back there – it looks like the local music shop, it’s a fucking nightmare. But you gotta do that. When it comes to Taylor Hawkins, you gotta celebrate the drummers, right?”
Grohl then introduced Blink-182’s Travis Barker to the stage, sharing an anecdote about how Barker and Hawkins had first met. “Apparently, Taylor met this guy when this guy was a fucking garbage man in Taylor’s neighbourhood and Taylor started going to see his band play when he was a young kid,” he said. “Taylor would always tell him, ‘You’re gonna be a star, man. You’re gonna be a star’. Years later, we wound up on tour with his band and now, he’s gonna sit in with us to play a couple songs.”
Barker joined Foo Fighters on stage to play the 2007 single ‘The Pretender’ and 1997’s ‘Monkey Wrench’.
Following Barker’s departure from the kit, Grohl told the crowd: “Alright, now we have something very special for you. A person that we’ve known for a while now – one of the most badass drummers I’ve ever met in my entire life. A long, long time ago, someone sent me a little clip from Instagram of this fine young drummer who challenged me to a drum battle. She said, ‘Dave Grohl, I challenge you to a drum battle’. At first, I thought she was kidding – she was not. All of my friends said, ‘No no no, you have to respond’. So I engaged in a drum battle with this person and she proceeded to kick my fucking ass in front of the entire world.
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“Ever since then, we’ve been friends. So everybody, you gotta say hi to our friend, the coolest fucking drummer in the world.” The star then invited 12-year-old drummer Nandi Bushell onto the stage. “Let me tell you, she’s the biggest rock star on the bill,” Grohl added. “I know we got Queen and Rush and all that shit, but we got Nandi tonight.”
Bushell accompanied the band for the 1999 single ‘Learn To Fly’, which originally appeared on the album ‘There Is Nothing Left To Lose’. The young musician sang along to the words as she hit the drums and delivered a short solo to close out the song.
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Queen drummer Roger Taylor’s son Rufus was the next to take to the drums, who Grohl referred to as “a real member of the Foo Fighters family”. “We’ve known him since he was a little kid because his father’s band was Taylor’s favourite band and his father was, I think, Taylor’s favourite singer and rock star – and maybe favourite person,” he said. Together, Rufus Taylor and Foo Fighters played 2011’s ‘These Days’ and 2005’s ‘Best Of You’.
“Pulling this whole thing together over the last three months, we’ve met some really amazing people,” Grohl said afterwards. “People that I’ve never met before. One of them, I got to stand on stage with tonight and play the bass – Miss Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders, who I happen to think is the baddest motherfucker in the world. She brought a friend with her tonight, so would everybody please welcome Miss Chrissie Hynde and our good friend, Mr Paul McCartney.”
Hynde and McCartney came to the front of the stage, with The Beatles star carrying a bass. “God bless Taylor,” he said. “Me and Chrissie are gonna do a song here that I haven’t done since we recorded it 100 years ago. I’ve never done it as a duet, but we’re gonna do it tonight for the first time for you.” Aided by Grohl and Foo Fighters, the artists then launched into a version of The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ track ‘Oh! Darling’. Omar Hakim, who played drums for David Bowie, joined the group on drums.
Hynde left the stage after the song was finished, with McCartney remaining on to perform another track, pausing to share an anecdote about Foo Fighters before. “Dave rang me up one day and he said, ‘Taylor’s written this song called ‘Summer Rain’,’ and he said, ‘We’d like you to drum on it,’” the star shared. “There’s this group who’ve got two of the best drummers in the world and they want me to drum on it? So I did. It’s quite a memory.” The band then launched into a version of The Beatles’ ‘Helter Skelter’.
Hakim stayed behind the kit for a performance of ‘Aurora’, taken from Foo Fighters’ 1999 album ‘There Is Nothing Left To Lose’, which Grohl said was Hawkins’ favourite song of the band’s. Afterwards, Hakim made way for Hawkins’ 16-year-old son Shane to get behind the drums for ‘My Hero’.
“Now, we’ve got the little guy,” Grohl said. “Let me tell you, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone hit the drums as hard as this person. But beyond that, he’s a member of our family and he needs to be here tonight with all of us and I think it makes sense that he’s going to come up and play with us tonight.”
Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. Credit: Mauricio Santana/Getty Images
A photo of Shane and his dad was shown on the big screen as the young drummer kicked off the performance of the 1997 single. With Grohl cheering him on, Shane finished the song with a blistering solo.
The final set of the night concluded with Grohl performing one of Foo Fighters’ most famous songs solo. “I hope that you guys felt all the love from all of us and all of the performers, because we felt it from you for Taylor tonight, so thank you everybody,” the frontman said before the end of the set. “I don’t really know what else to say. I’d like to thank the Hawkins family – Shane, Everleigh, Annabelle, Alison – for being here with us tonight.
“This one’s for Taylor,” Grohl added, beginning the final song – 1997’s ‘Everlong’. Watch footage of the whole Foo Fighters set above, starting around the -1.28.04 mark.
Foo Fighters played:
‘Times Like These’
‘All My Life’
‘The Pretender’
‘Monkey Wrench’
‘Learn To Fly’
‘These Days’
‘Best Of You’
‘Oh! Darling’
‘Helter Skelter’
‘Aurora’
‘My Hero’
‘Everlong’
Earlier in the evening, Grohl and Hawkins’ Foo Fighter bandmates opened the concert with an emotional speech that paid tribute to their late drummer. “For those of you who knew him personally, you know that no one else could make you smile, or laugh, or dance, or sing like he could,” the frontman said.
Comedian Dave Chappelle also recalled spending time with the rock star and his son in New York. “I’ve seen Taylor be a rock star many nights but it was my first time seeing him be a dad, and what a cool fucking dad,” he said. “Taylor Hawkins is a legend of a man, he’s a legend of a musician and he’s a legend of a father.”
Liam Gallagher kicked off the live music today, performing two Oasis songs with the help of the surviving members of Foo Fighters, while Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith shared a heartwarming story about Hawkins in a special video message.
Grohl’s 16-year-old daughter Violet also took to the stage to cover two Jeff Buckley songs at the show, and supergroup Them Crooked Vultures reunited for the first time in 12 years. Supergrass also performed, with the trio recalling touring with Foo Fighters and Hawkins in the ’90s.
Hawkins, who drummed with Foo Fighters from 1997 alongside performing in bands like Chevy Metal and Taylor Hawkins And The Coattail Riders, died in March 2022. He was 50 years old.
For millions around the world who were children between the mid-’60s and the early 1980s, Vince Guaraldi’s music for the Peanutscartoons is deeply engrained. It was often the first jazz music they will have heard, although, at the time, Guaraldi’s upbeat, cheerful themes must have seemed an odd choice to soundtrack the grim, bleakly comic world of Charles M Schulz.
ORDER NOW: Joni Mitchell is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut
Born in San Francisco in 1928, Guaraldi emerged in the ’50s accompanying the vibist Cal Tjader, later joining Woody Herman’s big band. In 1962 he belatedly jumped on the bossa nova bandwagon with Jazz Impressions Of Black Orpheus, an album of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfa songs from the 1959 film, although you got the impression that Guaraldi often got bored of playing to a bossa rhythm, instead lapsing back into the comforting world of swing beats and funky piano licks.
He did have a way with simple, catchy melodies, delivered with a bluesy flourish, and a track on the Black Orpheus album, “Cast Your Fate To The Wind”, was a surprise hit, earning a Grammy for best jazz song. One fan was TV producer Lee Mendelson, who thought that Guaraldi’s style – likeable, slightly yearning, hip but not too out-there – was a perfect fit for the animated adaptations of the Peanuts strip he was making.
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You can find versions of Guaraldi’s tunes from Charlie Brown – “Linus And Lucy”, “The Red Baron”, “The Great Pumpkin Waltz”, “Charlie Brown Theme”, “Christmas Time Is Here”, “Skating” and “Baseball Theme” – on many of his albums, but this is the first LP featuring the complete tunes, mood music and “stings” from a single soundtrack. Craft released a CD of this 1966 soundtrack in 2018 that was, rather clumsily, taken from the actual broadcast, featuring sound effects and snippets of speech, but this version is taken from recently unearthed original analogue tapes. It’s a little disjointed and frustrating to hear in one go (there is a lot of repetition, and many tracks are less than a minute long) but, for us Peanutsobsessives, it’s fascinating to hear a sonically flawless original soundtrack recording.
Where most of Guaraldi’s LPs are piano/bass/drums recordings, this is more lavishly arranged in partnership with conductor John Scott Trotter (best known as Bing Crosby’s long-term musical director), featuring Mannie Klein on trumpet, John Gray on guitar and Ronald Lang on woodwind. Lang’s flute is, for many, a signature sound of the series. On tracks like “Snoopy And The Leaf”, it is oddly reminiscent of Harold McNair’s heartbreaking flute solos on the soundtrack to Kes (another poignant hymn to childhood).
The cartoons were regular fixtures of network television around the world well into the 1990s, and the royalties made Guaraldi very rich by jazz standards. But he didn’t enjoy his lifestyle for long – in February 1976, he suffered a massive heart attack and died, aged only 47. His music, however, lives on forever.
Diddy has offered his support for Verzuz co-founders Timbaland and Swizz Beatz in the wake of their lawsuit against social media app Triller.
READ MORE: Timbaland and Swizz Beatz on VERZUZ battle series: “We want to celebrate the architects of good music”
VERZUZ is the popular entertainment series that pits producers, songwriters and artists against each other in a rap battle style format. Last year, the rights for the series were sold to Triller, who livestream the events on their app.
In a recent lawsuit seen by Billboard, Timbaland and Swizz Beatz claim that Triller owe them $28m (£23m) and that it has defaulted on previously agreed payments.
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The suit goes on to claim that while the pair received payments as planned in January and April 2021, a payment that was due in January of this year has still not arrived.
A new payment plan was then reportedly agreed, but the money from that has still not come through, the pair allege.
“Since we ain’t fuckin’ with [Triller] no more, since they’re fuckin’ around with our boys, we don’t need to be going against each other,” Diddy said to So So Def founder Jermaine Dupri (per Rolling Stone). “Let’s come together and do that Bad Boy-So So Def in Atlanta. It ain’t no Verzuz, it’s just hit-for-hit.”
“We’re not fuckin’ with Triller until they take care of Swizz and Tim for Verzuz,” he said later. “Nobody fucks with Triller until they take care of Tim and Swizz for Verzuz, ’cause Tim and Swizz is Verzuz.”
Swizz Beatz and Timbaland. CREDIT: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Kicking off in March 2020 after Timbaland and Swizz Beatz issued challenges to one another, artists that have taken part so far have included T-Pain, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Brandy, Monica, Rick Ross, DMX, Snoop Dogg, D’Angelo and many more.
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Speaking about VERZUZ previously to NME, Timbaland said: “Well, it’s not really a battle – it’s a celebration of our heroes in music, the ones who make us feel a certain type of way. Given what’s currently going on in the world, it’s a way to give back.
“It’s also an education, it’s educating people on the music, its creators and where this feeling comes from.”
The National arrive in the UK this coming week, for their first tour here since 2019, to play All Points East and the Connect festival. To celebrate, here’s our piece on the making of their classic track “Bloodbuzz Ohio” from Uncut’s June 2020 issue.
Now read on…
In 2009, The National were burned out. They had toured solidly on the back of their Alligator (2005) and Boxer (2008) albums and found themselves in what guitarist Aaron Dessner calls “a dark place… It was exhaustion and everything that comes with being that fatigued,” he says. “Relationships were suffering. We almost broke up, actually.”
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Instead, The National set up their own studio in Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park neighbourhood and made High Violet – an album of brooding magnificence that “healed the band”, reaching No 3 in the US charts and taking them into arenas and what Bryce Dessner describes as “another universe that wasn’t even in our vocabulary”.
“Everyone was more ambitious,” remembers vocalist Matt Berninger. “We could all feel that we were on the edge of something. There was the real possibility that if we didn’t fuck this up we’d never have to have real jobs again and we could play music for the rest of our lives.”
In 2008, they set out on tour with Modest Mouse – featuring Johnny Marr – and REM. “So suddenly we had a loose connection to two of our biggest influences, REM and The Smiths,” remembers Aaron Dessner. “Michael Stipe and all those guys pushing us felt like a real moment, like we’d been anointed or something. Realising that REM were good, hard-working people gave us confidence that if we worked at it we could be, you know, a great American band.”
Berninger suggests that tracks such as lead-off single, “Bloodbuzz Ohio” – a simmering anthem of nostalgia and displacement – were also inspired by the “great advice” Stipe gave them on that tour. “He said, ‘Don’t be afraid of writing pop songs.’ But the next night he said, ‘If you want to be a band that lasts, you have to write lots of hits or none at all.’ We wanted to write pop hits but had very different ideas about what that meant. ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’ started as a sweet little folk song, which we transformed. But we knew that was a good one right away.”
Dave Simpson
AARON DESSNER: Back then, we put a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves. None of us liked mainstream rock, so we weren’t trying to make something commercial. We wanted to build on what we’d already done with Boxer. Bigger sounds, with more orchestration.
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MATT BERNINGER: I mostly remember my exhaustion. We had been on tour to promote Boxer for what seemed like years, because it was. Then my daughter was born. I wrote most of the songs in that half-conscious, under-slept mental state. Happy but a little delirious. Carin [Matt’s wife] says she remembers me writing on the edge of the bed a lot.
BRYCE DESSNER: My architect brother-in-law helped us make a studio in Aaron’s garage in Brooklyn. You could get two or three people in there. Someone might be standing in the garden playing, with a line leading into the amp inside the studio. Bryan [Devendorf] somehow got his drum kit in the garage. We were all living on the same block pretty much at that time, so we’d hang out, like a clubhouse, bit of drinking. Our community of artist friends was very involved. Richard Parry from Arcade Fire, orchestral players, brass or strings, a lot of different colours. I recorded a lot of the orchestration instrument by instrument, in the garage.
AARON: Because we weren’t running up studio bills, we had freedom to experiment. We were recording on Pro Tools. The energy was more important than high fidelity. The band usually writes the music first and even records quite a lot of it before Matt gets to the lyrics. Then a lot of it gets discarded. But with “Bloodbuzz” we had played versions of it live.
BRYCE: “Bloodbuzz” began as a folk song without a drum beat. It was originally written on guitars and ukulele – almost like an English ballad or something.
BERNINGER: I actually wrote to a mandolin sketch from [touring violinist] Padma Newsome. It was a sweet little folk song until Bryan brought in the beat, then Aaron really delivered on the arrangement.
AARON: We recorded endless versions of some songs on High Violet. There were about 100 versions of “Lemonworld”, perhaps almost as many of “Bloodbuzz”. When we went to [mixer] Peter Katis’s studio in Bridgeport we still hadn’t finished recording it, so carried on.
SCOTT DEVENDORF: “Bloodbuzz” became more of a rock song eventually. Matt was directing us: “I want it to sound like this!”
BERNINGER: Everyone was trying to break out of their habits and patterns – but we weren’t breaking in the same directions. I was pushing for uglier, fuzzier textures to get away from the sad-sack Americana label that had stuck to us from the beginning. I remember asking for guitars that sounded like “loose wool” or “warm tar”. Aaron was trying to interpret what that meant, while Bryce was bringing in these big, ambitious string arrangements. It was a struggle to get the ideas to work together.
AARON: Our song “Fake Empire” had this brass fanfare, so we asked Pad Newsome to write a similar part for “Bloodbuzz”, but right at the end of mixing Matt said, “We can’t have another fanfare song,” so we took it off. Peter Katis has a way of miking drums and making everything sound better, but he got really quite upset with us over that, actually. Because we’d recorded it and been performing it live like that. But Matt was right. There were a lot of aesthetic tugs of war.
BRYCE: It’s always intense between us!
AARON: There’s been a few times when it gets heated. Some people run hot, they have a quick temper. Others run colder. Matt and I have never had a fight or a loud screaming match, but we get upset with each other during recording. It’s the sign that you’re making something good, usually.
BERNINGER: We were actually trying not to fight as much as we used to. Making Boxer was a painful experience and nobody wanted to go through that again. I remember trying to focus on just battling the song, not each other, but it was a hard battle.
AARON : At one point I doubled the speed and played in a cross rhythm. Matt got mad. I still have the email. He thought I was ruining the thing. Then he got into it over time.
BERNINGER: We couldn’t ever get what we were all looking for. Everything felt like a cross-bred mutant. Eventually we gave up and embraced it. The whole album is like that. It’s a desperate record. It admits that openly in the song “England” with the line about being “desperate to entertain”. I usually have lots of lyrics and melodies piling up. I usually have an easier time writing to simple guitar or piano ideas, but this time they were sending me complex arrangements with different guitar parts and key changes.
AARON: The first time we heard the lyrics was when Matt sang them. We all have our own ideas about what “Bloodbuzz Ohio” means. To me it was a lament, an existential nostalgic love song about where we’re from, about family and the way America is so frayed and divided. So you can be family in blood but estranged because of social values. Obama had just gotten in, but we were coming out of the Bush years and the financial crisis had meant people had worked their whole life and watched their savings just disappear. Hence “I still owe money to the money to the money I owe.”
DEVENDORF: There’s a homesickness to the song. We’re a band from Ohio that formed in New York. So we were channelling a feeling of being far away from a place you knew in another life.
BRYCE: “I was carried from Ohio on a swarm of bees.” I grew up in Ohio so I have a fondness for it, but it’s a place that’s quite disturbed. Everything that’s wrong in America, you can find there. Ohio is a beautiful place with amazing people, but also hard problems, social, economic issues and racism. It’s a swing state, red and blue. We grew up in that environment.
BERNINGER: It’s about being stuck between an old version of yourself and the one you’re becoming. I was trying to shed my skin. That’s what the first line about lifting up my shirt means to me. I definitely didn’t feel like the same person I used to be. I didn’t feel like an Ohioan any more and I definitely was not a New Yorker. I was married with a baby, living in Brooklyn, which was still a foreign land to me, and on the verge of becoming a rock star if I didn’t blow it. It was winter, and I remember pacing around ice puddles in Peter Katis’s yard trying to finish the words.
DEVENDORF: By now there was a deadline – partly from us and partly the label – and we were rushing towards it. It wasn’t all dour, but I remember Matt getting really sick and then his grandmother died.
BERNINGER: I’d just quit smoking after 15 years, and when you quit cold turkey like that you’re kind of coughing shit up for a while. Then I caught a really bad cold on top of that. I could barely sing, so we postponed everything for a couple of weeks. Then when I flew to Cincinnati for my grandmother’s funeral, my eardrum ruptured when I landed from the sinus pressure. Blood was coming out of my ear when my parents picked me up. I couldn’t even hear the eulogy. When I got back to the studio I had very little hearing in my right ear. Apparently, Aaron would pan stuff that I didn’t like to my deaf ear so I wouldn’t notice it.
BRYCE: The doctor put Matt on horse steroids as we were finishing the mixing.
AARON: Matt was discovering these different aspects to his voice. On Alligator he was screaming. On Boxer he found an almost whispered murmur. By High Violet he found something else, kinda iconic. He found the sweet spot in his voice. He couldn’t get healthy, and you can hear that on the record, but it’s a great performance.
BERNINGER: It was tough to get through the vocals, but not just because of the cold. I used to just chant or mumble, but I wanted bolder, more musical melodies and it took me a while to get there. Every time I would try a more ambitious melody, Bryan would start singing Will Ferrell’s impersonation of Robert Goulet doing “Red Ships Of Spain”. When I listen to High Violet now, I definitely hear that.
BRYCE: Bryan’s drums are almost like what a guitar riff would do, this really iconic, recognisable riff, but on drums. Bryan’s really methodical and writes his parts out so they have interesting patterns. They’re not intuitive. He’s very influenced by Stephen Morris from New Order and that feel. With “Bloodbuzz”, the piano riff inspired the drum beat.
AARON: We recorded Bryan’s drums so many times. It wasn’t about the playing, it was the sound. He played the drums to “Bloodbuzz…” yet again on the very last day. We were in perfectionist mode.
DEVENDORF: Some songs don’t reveal themselves until the end. When there was lyrics and drums it became, “OK, this is what the song is now.”
DESSNER: The guitar hooks were added on the last day, I think. The fuzzy guitar solo was also done very late. It was super hard to find those details.
DEVENDORF: The pictures on the [High Violet] sleeve are testament to how tired we were by the end. We all look worried or grumpy. There’s a lot of unseen tension on that record. Operating as a democracy added to it, but the dynamic got us to a place where we’re all satisfied.
AARON: We were obsessed. We kept circling the vortex as we wanted to make a timeless classic.
The National play All Points East on Friday, August 26. For more info, click here.
They play Connect Festival on Sunday, August 28. For more info, click here.
Pioneering producer, songwriter, dubmaster and now MBE, Dennis Bovell has been busy as ever as he heads towards his eighth decade. In the last year alone, there have been ongoing dub reimaginings for the likes of Animal Collective and The Smile, various archival and new Bandcamp releases, and Y In Dub, a new version of The Pop Group’s seminal Bovell-produced debut.
“I got to get back into those tracks and marvel at the sounds I’d put down on the tape,” he explains of the latter. “They’re mad about dubbing, Mark Stewart especially, so they were going crazy!”
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His latest project is a career-spanning anthology, The Dubmaster, so Bovell’s agreed to take Uncut through nine of the pivotal albums he’s helped create, from Matumbi’s reggae classics through to production work for The Pop Group, The Slits and Fela Kuti, and right on to his latter-day dub work.
“I have no problem calling the shots,” he says of his firm approach to making music. “You need that iron fist. If I didn’t like something, I let it be known. And if I thought it could be better done some other way, I let that be known as well!”
TOM PINNOCK
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MATUMBI SEVEN SEALS HARVEST, 1978 The debut album by the London reggae group, featuring Bovell on guitar DENNIS BOVELL: “Our first studio session was in October 1971, so last year marked 50 years since the first Matumbi recording. When I ran the band like a totalitarian regime, it seemed to work a bit better, but then everyone went, ‘Urgh, it’s a bit totalitarian, yeah?’ So I went, ‘Alright, we’re all equal, everyone’s got an equal say.’ I think that was the beginning of it falling apart. We did this at Gooseberry Studios in Soho, then the band had a mutiny – they didn’t want me to mix the record, saying that I was gonna make the band sound like all the other bands I’d been mixing and engineering. I thought, ‘What’s wrong with that, there’s success there?’ But they said, ‘No, we want a white guy to mix it.’ I go, ‘What, is that the only criteria, he has to be white?’ The chief engineer at Gooseberry, Dave Hunt, had just taken a new job at Berry Street on my recommendation. They suggested Dave to mix the album, and because I’d suggested him as engineer there, I couldn’t say no. But I think it was a very good mix, except for on one song he put an echo on my rhythm guitar that seemed to me to be out of time. I complained about it, but the band said ‘We liked it.’ The album did very well, though – it sold more in Japan than any other territory.”
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BLACKBEARD STRICTLY DUB WIZE TEMPUS, 1978 Bovell’s first solo album, a masterful psychedelic dub haze “Some people in Matumbi took offence to my solo career – they were like, ‘You’re in competition with the band.’ There was one instance where my record was at number one in a chart, and the band’s record was at number seven or something. So I stopped singing and started making dub records – ‘See, I’m not in competition with the band anymore, I’m not singing, I’m just doing dubs.’ That’s why the album’s called Strictly Dub Wize, it was a statement to the band. I got out of that one! This was all done at Gooseberry. We had a Revox tape machine that was doctored, so it could facilitate vari-speed. That was the main delay line, because then we could vary it to the tempo of the tune. It worked fantastically, because then we could have any speed for the delays. We had two Roland delays and an AKG BX20 reverb, which was quite famed, and also an EMT reverb plate: lots of outboard gear, because that’s what we did there, a lot of dub work, so we had to have machines. I couldn’t really afford session fees for other musicians to come on board and play what I told them to play – and 10 to one, I’m gonna have to correct them afterwards. So I thought, ‘If I’m able to do it, I might as well.’ I needed a drummer though, mainly because the control room was some distance from the drum booth, so it was quite a laborious process to play it and then come back to the control room to EQ it.”
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***UNCUT CLASSIC*** THE POP GROUP Y RADAR, 1979 The Bristol group’s chaotic, experimental debut, produced by Bovell at Surrey’s Ridge Farm Studios “They were the first punk or post-punk band I worked with, but it really appealed to me – it was a chance to get in touch with my rock side again. I met the lads and found they were all very crazy, but in need of a referee. They wanted my undivided attention, so they decided to lock me in the studio so I couldn’t go home! And I stayed in that studio for about nine months to a year, because once I’d finished The Pop Group’s Y, I then did The Slits’ Cut, then Matumbi’s Point Of View, then Marie Pierre’s Love Affair. Why did I record them back to back? Because I was afraid someone else would get in the studio and I’d be locked out! Bryan Ferry was hovering around, you know. The equipment belonged to John Anderson of Yes, and they were on tour. We’d broken out their new gear, and we were breaking it in for them! Mate, some serious music was made on that farm. There was a lot of overdubbing with The Pop Group – I remember one day we recorded about two reels of just pure feedback from Gareth [Sager], and then we sat there noting which bits were the most exciting bits, editing them off and then spinning them back into the multitrack and timing it so each bit of feedback would be at a particular point. Which is now known as sampling, but we were sampling using tape.”
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THE SLITS CUT ISLAND, 1979 The legendary debut from the London group, with Bovell helping them combine reggae and dub with punk “Chris Blackwell at Island said to me, ‘Look, these girls are going to be the first female punk band. I want them polished, but I want them sounding rough all at the same time.’ Then he handed me a cassette of the demos, and I listened to them and had plans for every song before we went into the studio. I remember in ‘Shoplifting’ there was a line I objected to: I said to them, ‘I’m not gonna sit here while you lot sing, “Mr Paki won’t miss much and we’ll have dinner tonight…” I propose to change that word to “Babylonian”.’ They changed it, and I went, ‘OK, I’m gonna produce the album then.’ I mean, it was punk to use that kind of language, but for me that was over the line. Their playing was rough – I made them do it and do it and do it until they were pissed off with it and then they did it right. I would say, ‘Nah, it’s better if you do it this way. Trust me, you will love it in five years’ time!’ I was forbidden to play any instruments because they knew of my instrumentality – ‘We don’t want you to play it, we just want you to show us how you would play it and then we’ll adapt what you did to our way of playing.’ And it worked! So I’m not actually playing, I’m just steering it from behind. It’s like when you learn to drive, the instructor doesn’t take the wheel.”
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DENNIS BOVELL BRAIN DAMAGE FONTANA, 1981 The first album under his own name, an adventurous double-LP which stretches reggae to eclectic extremes “I was building my own place, Studio 80, because I needed more time to do my own projects. I was thinking of making a solo album titled Brain Damage, when I got a telephone call from someone in Japan who says ‘I hear you’re building a studio. My name is Ryuichi Sakamoto. I want to come over to London to your studio and record a few things and get you to do some dub mixing.’ Don Letts had gone to Japan with Big Audio Dynamite and met Sakamoto, and he’d said, ‘Do you know Dennis Bovell?’ And Don went, ‘Yeah, he’s my mate.’ Sakamoto says to me, ‘I want to use your studio before you do.’ I was like, ‘That’s a strange request, but I’ll take that, I’ll let you be my guinea pig.’ What a guinea pig, mate! And then he came over with this strange instrument called the Prophet 10. Until then, we’d only seen the Prophet 5. I was knocked out by it and the sounds that came out of it. After working with Sakamoto, I made Brain Damage. It mixed all sorts of styles – I wanted to do a rock’n’roll version of ‘After Tonight’. I thought Mac Poole was one of the greatest rock’n’roll drummers, so I invited him to come down to the studio, and I got Steve Gregory to play saxophone – he was the guy who played on ‘Careless Whisper’ for George Michael, and he was also a member of the backing band for Boney M, and played with Georgie Fame. His pedigree was tight, so I got him to do all the horns.”
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JANET KAY CAPRICORN WOMAN ARAWAK, 1982 After crafting pop-reggae hit “Silly Games” for the singer and actress, Bovell produced and wrote her debut album “A producer, Delroy Witter, came to me and said, ‘I’ve got this singer, I want you to mix a couple of tunes she’s sung.’ I quite liked the way Janet handled it, then Delroy said, ‘Right, now I want you to do a recording with her in London.’ We went into the studio with my team and cut ‘I Do Love You’. After that, she said, ‘If there’s anything you think I can do, let’s work together.’ I unveiled ‘Silly Games’ and the rest is our story. It was designed as a pop reggae hit, with a nonconventional drum pattern I invented – it was supposed to be so amazing that drummers everywhere would want to play it, because it was quite intricate, a bit like juggling on the drums. It had a kind of Caribbean calypso soca hi-hat and then an Afrobeat snare, and a disco kick drum. And then Janet with this high note that you had to be Minnie Riperton to get to! I was doing all the music for her, all she had to do was sing, though she did write some of the songs. She wanted to become an actress, and she got a part in a programme on Channel Four called No Problem. And that was a problem, because instead of wanting to be in the studio recording, she wanted to be in the TV studio recording a TV programme. It meant I had to get other singers to do the backing vocals on a couple of tracks, which she wasn’t happy about. Other voices made it a bit stronger in my opinion.”
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FELA KUTI & EGYPT 80 LIVE IN AMSTERDAM EMI/CAPITOL, 1984 Fake passports and Hells Angels on the lights: Bovell helps out the Afrobeat pioneer “EMI said, ‘We want you to go with Fela to Amsterdam and record a live album.’ But there was some trouble with the electricity, because the Paradiso is an old building. There was a lack of earth, so the lighting rig made buzzes on the equipment. This Hells Angel on the lighting was having fun making the lights make those noises, so I said, ‘Don’t do that, we’re recording, mate.’ He was like, ‘This is my job, this is what I do.’ He had an eyepatch and what looked like a gun holster, so I didn’t argue. When we got back to London, I managed to filter his buzzes away, but I couldn’t do it from the bass. It was entrenched. Fela was furious: ‘Let me go back to Amsterdam and find that guy and sort him out.’ I’m going, ‘Nah, we won’t need to do that, I’ll replay that bassline for you.’ So I got the bass out, plugged it in. It took deep concentration, but I did it, and he was very happy. Then we recorded lots of material at my studio, but before it was finished the Nigerian authorities put him in jail – he was about to go to America to tell the tale of what the government had been doing in Nigeria, and it might have prejudiced an IMF loan. He wanted to take me to Nigeria at one point, and he arrives with a forged passport, with my picture in it. He says, ‘You’re an Igbo.’ I’m going, ‘Fela, I’m not going to Nigeria on a false passport, my British passport is good enough to go anywhere in the world. Knowing that you’re not flavour of the month for the authorities in Nigeria, and I’m there with a false passport, we’re both in trouble…'”
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LINTON KWESI JOHNSON MAKING HISTORY ISLAND, 1984 A turning point in Bovell and Johnson’s long working relationship “We forged a relationship that’s lasted 45, 50 years almost, now – ever since Vivian Weathers told him, ‘If you want to record in London, you want to get the right reggae sound, you got to get Dennis Bovell.’ Up until Making History, we’d always had two teams of players. It was like a football team, we’d have a team playing and a team sat on the bench, two of everything. As the football manager, Lynton would take off a player or put on a new player. He didn’t care about who was great, it was all, ‘He played drums when we were at school, I want him on this…’ But when we made Making History, that stopped, because I then had the opportunity to choose musicians, and not just old school friends of Linton’s. Richie Stephens, especially, played some amazing drums. There was a poem on there, ‘Di Eagle An’ Di Bear’, which referenced America and Russia: ‘Di eagle and di bear got people living in fear/Of impending nuclear warfare/But as a matter of fact/Believe it or not/Plenty people don’t care…‘ Because they’ve got other issues like finding food, sending their children to school. All this eagle and the bear are presently in the news, aren’t they?”
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DENNIS BOVELL MEK IT RUN PRESSURE SOUNDS, 2012 A sublime set of dubs, crafted from the producer’s abandoned tape archive “I’d had an operation called a laminectomy – I’d fallen over and cracked the top of my spine, unknowingly, and when my fingers started to curl up, I thought, ‘It’s time to go to the doctors.’ My spine had healed itself and trapped the nerve to the right side of my body. It was a massive operation – I’ve got a seven-inch scar at the back of my head, but it’s great, because I can’t see it! After the operation, I was laid up a bit and thinking, ‘What am I gonna do?’ I was feeling restless. The first thing was Lee “Scratch” Perry came and said, ‘I want to record with you.’ So I recorded three songs with him. Afterwards, he said, ‘Keep them until I’m dead because they’ll be worth more.’ I thought, ‘Well, they’re never going to come out because you’re immortal!’ Then Pete Holdsworth from Pressure Sounds said, ‘It’s about time I had another album from you, innit?’ So I dragged myself into Mad Professor’s studio and unravelled all these tapes of stuff I had recorded but abandoned, and finished them off by doing some dub mixing of them. I had to bake some of them and then play them straight onto ProTools. I like to get the best of the digital and the best of analogue, because they’ve both got something. If you hit a good medium between them, it usually works. I’ve got seven or eight different echo gadgets – my latest is the Ninja, it’s out of this world. I just mixed a dub for Animal Collective, and there’s one part where I actually freeze the music, and it’s running backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, like some kind of scratching effect. You can grab a few tracks and whizz them around and make some lovely noises.”
The Dubmaster: The Essential Anthology is out now on Trojan; Bovell’s solo work is due for digital re-release throughout 2022
Liam Gallagher has shared a new remix of his track ‘Diamond In The Dark’ by DJ Premier – you can listen to it below.
The original version of the song appear’s on the former Oasis frontman third solo studio album, ‘C’mon You Know’, which came out in May.
READ MORE: Liam Gallagher live in Knebworth: rock’n’roll star takes a leap of faith – and somehow pulls it off
Premier’s spin on ‘Diamond…’ marks Gallagher’s first official remix. The legendary Gang Starr producer has previously worked with the likes of Dr Dre, Jay-Z, Nas and Notorious B.I.G..
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“I have always been a huge fan of remixing songs,” he explained in a statement. “To get an opportunity to make one over Liam’s incredible vocal sound and style guided me to making it bounce high like a rubber ball filled with too much air.”
The re-work sees Gallagher sing to a grooving hip-hop beat that underpins Premier’s signature vinyl scratching, vocal samples and a prominent piano loop. While adding grit to the track, the remix remains largely faithful to its original structure.
Tune in here:
DJ Premier’s new remix completes Gallagher’s ‘Diamond In The Dark’ EP, which also includes a live version of the song recorded at Knebworth Park, as well as a cover of John Lennon‘s ‘Bless You’ (listen here).
In a four-star review of Gallagher’s most recent full-length record, NME wrote: “At once experimental and familiar enough to keep his stunning second act on course, ‘C’mon You Know’ finds Liam Gallagher having his cake and eating it – and there’s plenty to go round at this party. If he doesn’t overthink it, why should you? Turn off your mind, relax and bring the cans.”
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‘C’mon You Know’ bagged Liam Gallagher his fourth consecutive UK Number One album as a solo artist, and last month featured in NME‘s ‘best albums of 2022… so far!’ list.
One of the earliest, most noteworthy chart battles in the UK was fought between Bayswater-based The Foundations and their north London contemporaries The Equals, with both bands striving to be the first mixed-ethnicity outfit to make it to number one. The former’s debut release, “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You”, triumphed when it reached the top spot in November 1967, eight months before their rivals’ “Baby, Come Back” followed suit.
ORDER NOW: Wilco are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut
The victors had been honing their craft in clubs and dancehalls for two years as The Ramongs and The Ramong Sound. A change of name brought success, but the template remained the same: upbeat soul with singalong, pop-minded aspirations, yet infused with the edgier, grittier elements of Booker T & The MG’s or the house band at Motown’s Hitsville power base.
While The Foundations only troubled the Top 20 on four occasions, the commercial bounciness of their chart-topper, plus “Back On My Feet Again”, “Build Me Up Buttercup” – more of which later – and “In The Bad, Bad Old Days” only tells part of the story outlined on this 3CD anthology. They’re particularly in their element on the frenzied “Jerkin’ The Dog” (previously a minor US hit for R&B showman The Mighty Hannibal), and the mod strut of “Mr Personality Man”. For the fullest, most vivid portrait of the band in their pomp, the inclusion on this set’s third disc of the ’68 live album Rocking The Foundations is hard to beat. From the Hammond-led funk of the Freddie Scott song that gives this compilation its title, to the horn-blasting howl of Edwin Starr’s“Stop Her On Sight”, it’s a masterclass in how to confidently throw soul-infused shapes across a dance floor.
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All was not well in the ranks, however. Shortly before the album’s release, singer Clem Curtis announced he was quitting to try his luck as a solo artist in the US (where he was briefly mentored by Sammy Davis Jr, and played a Las Vegas residency opening for the Righteous Brothers). Diplomatically, he hung around to help run auditions for his replacement, the gig ultimately going to Colin Young. The new boy’s arrival saw the release of the group’s second-biggest hit; like its predecessors, “Build Me Up Buttercup” came from the pen of their longtime producer Tony Macaulay (writing in tandem with Manfred Mann’s own new singer, Mike D’Abo), its structure intentionally aping material Holland-Dozier-Holland were fashioning for The Four Tops – a ploy rewarded by a spell at No 1 in the American trade magazine Cash Box chart.
But the relationship with Macaulay was becoming increasingly strained, largely because of his reluctance to allow the group to contribute self-penned material. The recording of 1969’s Digging The Foundations displeased some members, unhappy with having to play, especially, a version of “Let The Heartaches Begin”, the Macaulay ballad that had been a UK No. 1 for Long John Baldry two years earlier (knocking “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You” off the top spot, in fact) and the producer’s lightweight “That Same Old Feeling”, which would later see chart action when covered by Pickettywitch.
To be fair, The Foundations’ overhaul of the Baldry track has a lot going for it; a quickening of tempo gives the song the air of an early Drifters hit with a smidgen of The Isley Brothers on the side, while the same album’s “Take Away The Emptiness” possesses the finger-clicking fizz of Chairmen Of The Board at their best. Ties with Macaulay were severed the following year (he would go on to write million-sellers for David Soul), and although singles like “Take A Girl Like You”, the theme song to the Hayley Mills movie of the same name, adhered closely to the Macaulay formula, the hits days were over.
The band finally got their wish when the Young-penned “I’m Gonna Be A Rich Man” was chosen as the A-side for what would turn out to be their last single, but while its bluesy psychedelia was representative of the harder direction they wanted to pursue, fans were in no hurry to go with them.
Curtis returned to the UK in the late ’70s to front a new band bearing The Foundations name, resulting in a legal wrangle with a similar ad hoc lineup put together by Young (compilers of this set include recordings by both). Young later toured in another permutation of the group with original guitarist Alan Warner (who still shepherds a lineup today), following renewed interest when “Build Me Up Buttercup” featured prominently in the 1999 comedy There’s Something About Mary. Yet their influence goes further than just their own trailblazing hits: their hybrid of white pop and black soul was a torch carried forward into the ’70s and ’80s by the likes of Hot Chocolate and The Beat, while Lynval Golding of The Specials has cited seeing The Foundations on the Midlands club circuit in the ’60s as a seismic inspiration.
Gary Powell has spoken to NME about his forthcoming ‘The Steam Packet UK Tour’, as well as providing an update on The Libertines‘ long-awaited fourth album.
The tour will see The Libertines drummer showcase acts from his 25 Hour Convenience Store indie label and will be headlined by raucous Southampton garage-rockers Dead Freights, with support from fellow stablemates Casino, Bear Park and Young Culture. Powell, along with his label partner, former Factory Records managing director Eric Langley, said he wants his imprint to be there for the artists who believe their voice cannot be heard.
“The label has always stood for one thing, which is I’m really anti the direction that the industry takes in regard to whom they should sign,” he said. “It’s led by what’s in vogue at that particular moment in time – a band has to have a particular look and sound – but that’s nonsense, and A&R-ing should come from the fact you hear something in a band, regardless of how popular they are. I’m more interested in attitude than numbers.”
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Powell said he wants 25 Hour Convenience Store to be different from current record labels, which he feels prize streaming numbers over headhunting nascent talent and was inspired by the chance legendary Rough Trade A&R James Endeacott took on signing The Libertines in 2001.
“A perfect example would be James, who came to see us play at the Rhythm Factory, off Whitechapel Road. I didn’t have any drums – I managed to wangle the worst kit off a friend of [co-frontman] Pete [Doherty] and Carl [Barât]’s, and Carl broke a guitar string during the first track we played, and we had to stop the gig for 25 minutes until he could find another one and carry on,” he remembered.
“But James heard something in us. Now what happens is an A&R just looks at how full the room is and applauds, ‘I’ve found the next best thing’. That isn’t identifying talent – that’s just catching onto something people already know is good.”
‘The Steam Packet UK Tour’, which kicks off in Birmingham on October 7, is set to coincide with the release of Dead Freights’ EP ‘Missed World’ in the autumn, produced by Powell in his Albion Rooms studio.
Praising his flagship signing, he said: “They have their own energy and integrity. The singer Charlie [James] is an amazing lyricist and musician, and he and [guitarist Robert] Franklin come up with the majority of the ideas musically but ensure they encompass the ideas of the rest of the band. They’re not a stereotypically frontman-led band, they have their own unique dynamic, and everybody on that stage puts on a show.”
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Powell recently took Dead Freights on tour as a support act for a number of dates on The Libertines’ ‘Up the Bracket’ 20th anniversary shows, with backstage footage from the Bristol gig showing Charlie James duetting with Pete Doherty on an acoustic rendition of The Beatles’ ‘I Will’.
“We had a great time hanging out together on tour, and I think Pete and Carl loved watching the band perform as well. There was an aspect of seeing the guys play and listening to them and watching them hang out, which brought back what it was like for us in our early days as well when we toured with Supergrass. We were the Dead Freights at that particular point in time.”
Although recent gigs have formed part of The Libertines’ 20th-anniversary celebrations of their debut ‘Up the Bracket’ – which will also see them release a ‘Super Deluxe Edition’ of the record in October – Powell is more interested in forging forward and said he wants to have the new Libertines album out next year.
“My mind is more in line with the opportunity to record a new album than anything regarding 20 years ago,” he said. “We’ve been playing the majority of the album [‘Up the Bracket’] for 20 years now, so this year for me, is a great opportunity to draw a line under this part of the saga and move on to the next phase.”
The Libertines. CREDIT: Roger Sargent
Discussing the progress of the follow-up to 2015’s ‘Anthems For Doomed Youth’, Powell elaborated: “The good thing is everybody’s been writing. I’m hoping there’s going to be a whole new fervour and interesting dimension added to how we approach things. Obviously, we’re not going to try and reinvent the wheel and be like Depeche Mode going from rock ‘n’ roll to electronic, but I think we can push the boat out a little more while still bringing something that has the same emotional integrity and dynamism that the audience craves when they come to a Libertines show.”
Previously, Pete Doherty confirmed to NME that writing sessions in Jamaica were tentatively scheduled and revealed the record would have an eclectic range of styles similar to The Clash’s ‘Sandinista!’
“‘Sandinista!’-esque was definitely one approach we were thinking of,” echoed Powell, before adding that he was interested in what the concept of Albion would sound like in 2022. “But I also think it’s time we grappled hold of the 21st century as well and reflected where we are in the world right now. Nobody’s putting down their phones or dumping their social media, but they’re also looking back into the past for their creative needs.
“I think we could easily combine the two things together to create something interesting – bearing in mind it was Peter who pretty much started the idea of the band and the general public having a social media platform.”
He continued: “I remember asking John [Hassall, Libs bassist] once: ‘If The Beatles were around now, what would they sound like?’. John’s answer was ‘Sgt. Pepper….’ Of course they wouldn’t! If the Beatles were around now, they’d probably sound like garage, grime, mixed with an orchestra with a slight James Blake-esque twist. They wouldn’t sound like ‘Sgt. Pepper’; The Beatles were continually evolving.”
“So the question is: how do we turn ‘Don’t Look Back into the Sun’ 2003 into ‘Don’t Look Back into the Sun’ 2022? How do we approach it where we maintain our musical integrity but bring an added element that reflects the modernity of the world we’re in right now?”
Tickets for October’s ‘The Steam Packet UK’ tour are available here. Check out the full list of dates below:
OCTOBER 2022
07 – Birmingham –The Rainbow
08 – Liverpool – EBGBS
15 – Newcastle – Head of Steam
21 – London – Sebright Arms
26 – Southampton – Joiners Arms
“I think it was shown on MTV once, maybe twice,” says bassist James McNew, remembering “Sugarcube”’s video. “As far as I know, that’s it. That’s all.”
In the 25 years since, however, the promo has racked up millions of views on YouTube, no doubt helped by the presence of its stars David Cross and Bob Odenkirk, the latter now better known as lawyer Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. He has, it turns out, been a Yo La Tengo fan since the early ’90s.
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“We were all fans of Bob’s from The Larry Sanders Show,” explains Ira Kaplan. “Then Georgia and I were on vacation out in LA and we saw that Bob was doing stand-up at a bookstore, so we went out to see the show. Afterwards he was just browsing the record section, and it was kind of out-of-character for us to do this, but we introduced ourselves. It turned out he knew our band.”
There’s more to “Sugarcube” than its video, of course. Since the mid-’80s, the Hoboken-based group had been charting a unique path, mastering the acoustic hush of 1990’s Fakebook as adeptly as they did the brutal fuzz workouts of ’92’s May I Sing With Me. On their eclectic eighth album, 1997’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One – now celebrating its 25th anniversary with a digital and vinyl reissue – they perfected this sonic tightrope walk. “Sugarcube”, a highlight of its 16 tracks, is a propulsive, droning delight, Hubley’s drumming and McNew’s unusual organ bass driving Kaplan’s freeform guitar wrangling and their surprisingly gentle harmonies.
“It feels really natural to play ‘Sugarcube’ or to play [quiet instrumental] ‘Green Arrow’,” says McNew. “Loud music is us and quiet music is us, atmospheric music is us and straight-ahead music is us. We were more comfortable with that idea than other people were, it seems.”
Recording took place in Nashville’s House Of David, a studio converted for Elvis Presley, with the sessions – somewhat typically for Yo La Tengo – efficient and exploratory at the same time. “We’d recorded before at Alex The Great in Nashville,” recalls Hubley, “which is a much more bohemian studio, with a lot of character. But House Of David was on a real street, with a lot of music industry stuff on that road, you know, publishing companies and other recording studios.”
“There were these big magnolia trees in the front yard,” says producer Roger Moutenot, summing up their quest for experimental spontaneity. “One time we went out there and the crickets were just crazy, so I ran in, set up two microphones on the front porch, and we recorded these crickets for ‘Green Arrow’. At one moment, this one cricket just stepped forward and almost took a solo. We were all just cracking up! It was beautiful. But that was the fun thing about Yo La Tengo – there was nothing too off-the-wall, no boundaries. This was a very free and expressive record to make.”
TOM PINNOCK
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GEORGIA HUBLEY (drums, vocals): I remember we were pretty excited about the things we were coming up with for I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. We had a pretty crappy rehearsal room in Hoboken, but it was great, we were able to have all our stuff set up, and we’d just keep trying different things.
IRA KAPLAN (guitar, vocals): When we got to the point where we didn’t have to do anything else but be a band, it was great because we could practise during the day. When we had night-time practices, it would be kind of cacophonous with other bands playing simultaneously. But by the time of I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, we were able to work pretty much every weekday afternoon.
JAMES McNEW (organ, percussion): The space has since been demolished and turned into luxury condominiums, as has most of Hoboken, actually. But yeah, we would just play with no real destination in mind, and come up with jams and ideas that were fun to play and that seemed interesting.
KAPLAN: Our rehearsal room was located next door to a woodworking place, and one day as we were walking to practice we saw Teller from Penn & Teller on the street. It turned out they were having some stuff fabricated for them at the shop. At some point we came out of rehearsal and Teller was there, and then we saw blood flying out of his hand. Apparently he was testing some blood-spurting device.
HUBLEY: “Autumn Sweater”, for instance, was started on guitar, and then it just moved over to organ, but that was pretty indicative of a lot of the writing. “Sugarcube” doesn’t have bass guitar, it’s just James playing bass on our Acetone, our beloved, trashy Italian organ, which is very bassy-sounding.
McNEW: I don’t even know where we got the Acetone. It was just in our practice space. We noticed that no-one was ever using it – there was dust on it. So we decided to pay some attention to it, and it turned out to be so great that we would all take turns playing it on different songs. I liked the idea of organ acting as bass – you know, it had a lot of good precedents in Suicide or Snapper, things like that. It was a sound that I really like.
KAPLAN: Electr-O-Pura had been the first record that we’d made exclusively with Roger. We went to Nashville to make that.
ROGER MOUTENOT (producer): We made a deal where they’d come down here to record, and then I would go up to New York to mix. That was the arrangement.
KAPLAN: Going back to Nashville for I Can Hear The Heart…, I think we all felt pretty comfortable, and excited about the songs we had. There were definitely songs where we really didn’t know how they went, we were kind of allowing the process of recording to give us the chance to finish and change songs as freely as we wanted.
MOUTENOT: House Of David was a weird choice for a studio, but I had worked there, and I really, really liked the console. So I thought, ‘Oh, this will be good for this project.’ It had this unique vibe: Elvis was going to work there, and they built this whole entranceway off the garage, so he wouldn’t have to walk outside the building. There was actually a trapdoor that went into the garage, and that was for Elvis.
HUBLEY: I keep trying to visualise the place – I can see the room where we set up, and then there was a little downstairs area where we had a TV and we would watch reruns or whatever, when there was nothing for us to do, if they were working on machines that needed to be repaired or anything like that.
McNEW: They had cable TV, which was a great novelty back then. It was a nice place, a terrific [live] room, and the control room was really nice to use.
MOUTENOT: Most tracks were recorded live, as live as we could get. Sometimes we did vocals too, but I think for “Sugarcube” we just cut the basic tracks. For the most part, the Yo La Tengo stuff I worked on was always live to start with, just to get that band thing. There were a couple of songs on I Can Hear The Heart… that were built up, though, like “Moby Octopad”, which started with drums and then bass, and things like Ira’s piano were overdubbed later.
KAPLAN: I remember us coming up with the little ending for “Sugarcube”. It’s ancient times, so it was recorded on tape, and when you finished you’d rewind the tape machine. If you didn’t turn down the faders you’d hear the sound of the tape going backwards, played really fast. It sounded great, so we recorded that and stuck it on the end.
HUBLEY: The intro with the drum fill, I really cannot remember how that came about: it has to be some sort of weird accident that we decided to keep. I wish I remembered, because it’s so weird and random. I do remember thinking, ‘That’s terrible sounding’ but everybody else was like, “No, that’s great!” It kind of works.
MOUTENOT: That was a special fill! It may have been that Georgia did the fill and I was like, “Oh my God, that’s so great, let’s use that take.” But you know, I did cut between some takes once in a while – I did a bit of editing on that record as it was recorded on tape. I can’t say, but it might have been that.
McNEW: I remember Roger deciding that he needed to do some cutting on tape, and it was as though he was about to defuse a bomb. He ordered everyone out of the control room, so it was just him and whoever the assistant from the studio was. He told us all to just go get lunch, just get out of there while he did this extremely life-or-death manoeuvre on the tape. It was a mystery to me! I just knew that he was doing something very important, and I wanted to give him his space. Though I think that drum fill was actually a part of the arrangement. I don’t recall how it began, where it originated from, but I think it was always part of the beginning of the song, strangely enough.
MOUTENOT: That’s what I love about this particular record, I Can Hear The Heart…, it’s up, it’s down, it’s rocking, it’s soft, it’s got a lot of different textures and feelings. Like, “Damage” is one of my favourites, it just puts me in a dream world every time. When you make a record that way, when you open the can of worms like that and say ‘anything goes’, you could go down the rabbit hole and really get screwed up. But for some reason, with these guys, it all worked because we always would go somewhere but pull it back in to be what the band wanted. It was super fun.
KAPLAN: Apart from being in it, we had very little to do with the video after coming up with the concept – the plot of doing this lousy video and irritating the record company, and then them sending us to rock school; and then we do the exact same video as rock school graduates, the same as they one they hated, but this time they love it. That was what we presented to our pal Phil Morrison, who had directed the “Tom Courtenay” video and a couple of others that we did. Then Phil took that concept and him and his writing partner Joe Ventura came up with the script for the video.
HUBLEY: We knew the storyline, such as it was, but a lot of it’s improvised – certainly, Bob and David do a lot of improvising. We flew out to California just to do the video. I think it was maybe a two-day shoot in a variety of locations, but mostly at a high school or college in Santa Monica. It was shot at a weekend in the summer, so it was fairly empty and easy to film there.
McNEW: It just seemed like a weird dream that it was actually happening – it still seems like a weird dream that it did happen. I mean, I remember just how deeply committed to the idea Bob and David were. They really delivered and gave so much more than you would ever even have possibly imagined that they would give to such a such a ridiculous idea. That’s just kind of inspiring, and it shows how gifted both of those guys are.
KAPLAN: It was really fun. I wish the shoot had been longer. The only part I remember being gruelling at all was filming the scene where we’re getting yelled at by John Ennis, with Bob and David playing the record company flunkies. We were filming in an actual office, and because there was dialogue there was no way you could have AC on. Maybe because it was the weekend the air conditioning was off anyway? But it was really hot in there. That is the closest I can come to a complaint, because it was hilarious. All these takes kept being ruined, because either John was laughing or we were laughing.
McNEW: Keeping a straight face was a pretty sizable challenge. That scene in the boardroom where John Ennis is screaming at us, it was impossible to try to act our way through that. It’s very strange and amazing to see Bob [so famous] now, on television, in theatres. Of course, I’m not surprised, because I felt that he should have been there all along. I think that he’s a genius, as is David. But it is strange when universes collide all of a sudden. I know that I have esoteric tastes, and when they cross over into the mainstream, it’s surreal to think that, ‘Oh, everybody likes Bob. That’s great. That’s fantastic.’
I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One is being reissued both digitally (out now) and on coloured vinyl (out now in the US & Canada, and August 12 elsewhere) for its 25th anniversary, via Matador
__________________
FACTFILE
Written by: Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, James McNew
Personnel: Ira Kaplan (guitar, vocals), Georgia Hubley (drums, vocals), James McNew (organ, percussion)
Produced by: Roger Moutenot
Recorded at: House Of David, Nashville, TN
Released: April 22, 1997 [album], August 4, 1997 [single]
Chart peak: UK -; US –
__________________
TIMELINE
February 28, 1992
Yo La Tengo release May I Sing With Me, their fifth album but first with bassist James McNew
May 2, 1995 Electr-O-Pura marks the band’s first time recording in Nashville entirely with producer Roger Moutenot
April 22, 1997 I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One is released – though it has stiff competition, it remains perhaps Yo La Tengo’s finest LP
August 4, 1997
“Sugarcube” is released as a single, backed on 7” by B-side “Busy With My Thoughts”, and on CD by “The Summer” and a 14-minute take on Eddie Cantor’s Looney Toons theme, “Merrily We Roll Along”
“I think it was shown on MTV once, maybe twice,” says bassist James McNew, remembering “Sugarcube”’s video. “As far as I know, that’s it. That’s all.”
In the 25 years since, however, the promo has racked up millions of views on YouTube, no doubt helped by the presence of its stars David Cross and Bob Odenkirk, the latter now better known as lawyer Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. He has, it turns out, been a Yo La Tengo fan since the early ’90s.
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“We were all fans of Bob’s from The Larry Sanders Show,” explains Ira Kaplan. “Then Georgia and I were on vacation out in LA and we saw that Bob was doing stand-up at a bookstore, so we went out to see the show. Afterwards he was just browsing the record section, and it was kind of out-of-character for us to do this, but we introduced ourselves. It turned out he knew our band.”
There’s more to “Sugarcube” than its video, of course. Since the mid-’80s, the Hoboken-based group had been charting a unique path, mastering the acoustic hush of 1990’s Fakebook as adeptly as they did the brutal fuzz workouts of ’92’s May I Sing With Me. On their eclectic eighth album, 1997’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One– now celebrating its 25th anniversary with a digital and vinyl reissue – they perfected this sonic tightrope walk. “Sugarcube”, a highlight of its 16 tracks, is a propulsive, droning delight, Hubley’s drumming and McNew’s unusual organ bass driving Kaplan’s freeform guitar wrangling and their surprisingly gentle harmonies.
“It feels really natural to play “Sugarcube” or to play [quiet instrumental] “Green Arrow”,” says McNew. “Loud music is us and quiet music is us, atmospheric music is us and straight-ahead music is us. We were more comfortable with that idea than other people were, it seems.”
Recording took place in Nashville’s House Of David, a studio converted for Elvis Presley, with the sessions – somewhat typically for Yo La Tengo – efficient and exploratory at the same time. “We’d recorded before at Alex The Great in Nashville,” recalls Hubley, “which is a much more bohemian studio, with a lot of character. But House Of David was on a real street, with a lot of music industry stuff on that road, you know, publishing companies and other recording studios.”
“There were these big magnolia trees in the front yard,” says producer Roger Moutenot, summing up their quest for experimental spontaneity. “One time we went out there and the crickets were just crazy, so I ran in, set up two microphones on the front porch, and we recorded these crickets for “Green Arrow”. At one moment, this one cricket just stepped forward and almost took a solo. We were all just cracking up! It was beautiful. But that was the fun thing about Yo La Tengo – there was nothing too off-the-wall, no boundaries. This was a very free and expressive record to make.”
GEORGIA HUBLEY (drums, vocals): I remember we were pretty excited about the things we were coming up with for I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. We had a pretty crappy rehearsal room in Hoboken, but it was great, we were able to have all our stuff set up, and we’d just keep trying different things.
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IRA KAPLAN (guitar, vocals): When we got to the point where we didn’t have to do anything else but be a band, it was great because we could practise during the day. When we had night-time practices, it would be kind of cacophonous with other bands playing simultaneously. But by the time of I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, we were able to work pretty much every weekday afternoon.
JAMES McNEW (organ, percussion): The space has since been demolished and turned into luxury condominiums, as has most of Hoboken, actually. But yeah, we would just play with no real destination in mind, and come up with jams and ideas that were fun to play and that seemed interesting.
KAPLAN: Our rehearsal room was located next door to a woodworking place, and one day as we were walking to practice we saw Teller from Penn & Teller on the street. It turned out they were having some stuff fabricated for them at the shop. At some point we came out of rehearsal and Teller was there, and then we saw blood flying out of his hand. Apparently he was testing some blood-spurting device.
HUBLEY: “Autumn Sweater”, for instance, was started on guitar, and then it just moved over to organ, but that was pretty indicative of a lot of the writing. “Sugarcube” doesn’t have bass guitar, it’s just James playing bass on our Acetone, our beloved, trashy Italian organ, which is very bassy-sounding.
McNEW: I don’t even know where we got the Acetone. It was just in our practice space. We noticed that no-one was ever using it – there was dust on it. So we decided to pay some attention to it, and it turned out to be so great that we would all take turns playing it on different songs. I liked the idea of organ acting as bass – you know, it had a lot of good precedents in Suicide or Snapper, things like that. It was a sound that I really like.
KAPLAN: Electr-O-Purahad been the first record that we’d made exclusively with Roger. We went to Nashville to make that.
ROGER MOUTENOT (producer): We made a deal where they’d come down here to record, and then I would go up to New York to mix. That was the arrangement.
KAPLAN: Going back to Nashville for I Can Hear The Heart…, I think we all felt pretty comfortable, and excited about the songs we had. There were definitely songs where we really didn’t know how they went, we were kind of allowing the process of recording to give us the chance to finish and change songs as freely as we wanted.
MOUTENOT: House Of David was a weird choice for a studio, but I had worked there, and I really, really liked the console. So I thought, ‘Oh, this will be good for this project.’ It had this unique vibe: Elvis was going to work there, and they built this whole entranceway off the garage, so he wouldn’t have to walk outside the building. There was actually a trapdoor that went into the garage, and that was for Elvis.
HUBLEY: I keep trying to visualise the place – I can see the room where we set up, and then there was a little downstairs area where we had a TV and we would watch reruns or whatever, when there was nothing for us to do, if they were working on machines that needed to be repaired or anything like that.
McNEW: They had cable TV, which was a great novelty back then. It was a nice place, a terrific [live] room, and the control room was really nice to use.
MOUTENOT: Most tracks were recorded live, as live as we could get. Sometimes we did vocals too, but I think for “Sugarcube” we just cut the basic tracks. For the most part, the Yo La Tengo stuff I worked on was always live to start with, just to get that band thing. There were a couple of songs on I Can Hear The Heart…that were built up, though, like “Moby Octopad”, which started with drums and then bass, and things like Ira’s piano were overdubbed later.
KAPLAN: I remember us coming up with the little ending for “Sugarcube”. It’s ancient times, so it was recorded on tape, and when you finished you’d rewind the tape machine. If you didn’t turn down the faders you’d hear the sound of the tape going backwards, played really fast. It sounded great, so we recorded that and stuck it on the end.
HUBLEY: The intro with the drum fill, I really cannot remember how that came about: it has to be some sort of weird accident that we decided to keep. I wish I remembered, because it’s so weird and random. I do remember thinking, ‘That’s terrible sounding’ but everybody else was like, “No, that’s great!” It kind of works.
MOUTENOT: That was a special fill! It may have been that Georgia did the fill and I was like, “Oh my God, that’s so great, let’s use that take.” But you know, I did cut between some takes once in a while – I did a bit of editing on that record as it was recorded on tape. I can’t say, but it might have been that.
McNEW: I remember Roger deciding that he needed to do some cutting on tape, and it was as though he was about to defuse a bomb. He ordered everyone out of the control room, so it was just him and whoever the assistant from the studio was. He told us all to just go get lunch, just get out of there while he did this extremely life-or-death manoeuvre on the tape. It was a mystery to me! I just knew that he was doing something very important, and I wanted to give him his space. Though I think that drum fill was actually a part of the arrangement. I don’t recall how it began, where it originated from, but I think it was always part of the beginning of the song, strangely enough.
MOUTENOT: That’s what I love about this particular record, I Can Hear The Heart…, it’s up, it’s down, it’s rocking, it’s soft, it’s got a lot of different textures and feelings. Like, “Damage” is one of my favourites, it just puts me in a dream world every time. When you make a record that way, when you open the can of worms like that and say ‘anything goes’, you could go down the rabbit hole and really get screwed up. But for some reason, with these guys, it all worked because we always would go somewhere but pull it back in to be what the band wanted. It was super fun.
KAPLAN: Apart from being in it, we had very little to do with the video after coming up with the concept – the plot of doing this lousy video and irritating the record company, and then them sending us to rock school; and then we do the exact same video as rock school graduates, the same as they one they hated, but this time they love it. That was what we presented to our pal Phil Morrison, who had directed the “Tom Courtenay” video and a couple of others that we did. Then Phil took that concept and him and his writing partner Joe Ventura came up with the script for the video.
HUBLEY: We knew the storyline, such as it was, but a lot of it’s improvised – certainly, Bob and David do a lot of improvising. We flew out to California just to do the video. I think it was maybe a two-day shoot in a variety of locations, but mostly at a high school or college in Santa Monica. It was shot at a weekend in the summer, so it was fairly empty and easy to film there.
McNEW: It just seemed like a weird dream that it was actually happening – it still seems like a weird dream that it did happen. I mean, I remember just how deeply committed to the idea Bob and David were. They really delivered and gave so much more than you would ever even have possibly imagined that they would give to such a such a ridiculous idea. That’s just kind of inspiring, and it shows how gifted both of those guys are.
KAPLAN: It was really fun. I wish the shoot had been longer. The only part I remember being gruelling at all was filming the scene where we’re getting yelled at by John Ennis, with Bob and David playing the record company flunkies. We were filming in an actual office, and because there was dialogue there was no way you could have AC on. Maybe because it was the weekend the air conditioning was off anyway? But it was really hot in there. That is the closest I can come to a complaint, because it was hilarious. All these takes kept being ruined, because either John was laughing or we were laughing.
McNEW: Keeping a straight face was a pretty sizable challenge. That scene in the boardroom where John Ennis is screaming at us, it was impossible to try to act our way through that. It’s very strange and amazing to see Bob [so famous] now, on television, in theatres. Of course, I’m not surprised, because I felt that he should have been there all along. I think that he’s a genius, as is David. But it is strange when universes collide all of a sudden. I know that I have esoteric tastes, and when they cross over into the mainstream, it’s surreal to think that, ‘Oh, everybody likes Bob. That’s great. That’s fantastic.’
I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One is being reissued both digitally (out now) and on coloured vinyl (out now in the US & Canada, and August 12 elsewhere) for its 25th anniversary, via Matador
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FACTFILE
Written by: Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, James McNew
Personnel: Ira Kaplan (guitar, vocals), Georgia Hubley (drums, vocals), James McNew (organ, percussion)
Produced by: Roger Moutenot
Recorded at: House Of David, Nashville, TN
Released: April 22, 1997 [album], August 4, 1997 [single]
Chart peak: UK -; US –
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TIMELINE
February 28, 1992 Yo La Tengo release May I Sing With Me, their fifth album but first with bassist James McNew
May 2, 1995 Electr-O-Pura marks the band’s first time recording in Nashville entirely with producer Roger Moutenot
April 22, 1997 I Can Hear The Heart Beating As Oneis released – though it has stiff competition, it remains perhaps Yo La Tengo’s finest LP
August 4, 1997 “Sugarcube” is released as a single, backed on 7” by B-side “Busy With My Thoughts”, and on CD by “The Summer” and a 14-minute take on Eddie Cantor’s Looney Toons theme, “Merrily We Roll Along”
Craft Recordings has announced the release of an album and documentary concert film of Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s 1970 performance at the Royal Albert Hall.
The restored album will be released on September 16, alongside the film Travelin’Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival At The Royal Albert Hall, which is narrated by Jeff Bridges and directed by Bob Smeaton (The Beatles Anthology).
Featuring the whole performance in its entirety, the never-before-released recording includes hits such as ‘Fortunate Son’, ‘Proud Mary’ and ‘Bad Moon Rising’, the last of which is now available to stream and download.
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Creedence Clearwater Revival At The Royal Albert Hall will be available as a standalone album on CD, cassette tape, and 180-gram vinyl, as well as digital platforms. On November 14, fans will also be able to purchase a Super Deluxe Edition box set, available exclusively at CraftRecordings.com.
Creedence Clearwater Revival. CREDIT: Alamy
An official description for the restored album reads: “After spending roughly 50 years in storage, the original multitrack tapes were meticulously restored and mixed by the Grammy Award-winning team of producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, who have helmed countless acclaimed projects together, including the Beatles’ 50th-anniversary editions of Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper’s ‘Lonely Hearts Club Band’, as well as audio for the Elton John biopic Rocketman and Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back Series.”
The accompanying documentary will “take viewers from the band’s earliest years together in El Cerrito, CA through their meteoric rise to fame.
“Featuring a wealth of unseen footage, Travelin’ Band culminates with the band’s show at the Royal Albert Hall—marking the only concert footage of the original CCR lineup to be released in its entirety.”
The documentary also explores how Creedence Clearwater Revival arguably went on to become the biggest band in the world, following the breakup of The Beatles.
