SHANE MACGOWAN by THE POGUES

“Sooner or later,
it all gets real”

191

REVIEWS!
BRI

TTANY HOWARD
GRANDADDY
SONIC YOUTH
+ MORE!

LIAM
GALLAGHER &
JOHN SQUIRE

“IT’S SPIRITUAL, MAN!”

THE DARK BEAUTY OF

ON THE BEACH

By Kurt Vile, Margo Price,

J Mascis, Patterson Hood

and more

THE
QUARRYMEN

JOHN, PAUL, GEORGE...
ROD, LEN & COLIN

SQUEEZE

THE DEPTFORD FILES

HURRAY FOR
THE RIFF RAFF
RABBLE ROUSERS!

THE LA’S

TIMELESS MELODIES

PLUS

DENNY LAINE RIP
JOHNNY MARR
KALI MALONE
PLUSH
ALLISON RUSSELL

MARTIN
CARTHY

A TROUBADOUR’S TALES

“The world is turnin’/I hope it don’t turn away”

M

CA
R

THY
• TH

E LA’S • ALLISON RU

LL •
SSE

US
PL

H

•K

A

NNY

Y FO
• SQ U E E Z E • HU R R A

•J
OH

R
HE
RT

IFF

F
RA

F•

AR
TIN

L

IM
AL
ON
E
A
ITT

D•

W
AN

FEBRUARY
2024

BR
HO
WA
R

•T
HE

S•
ING

QU
AR
RYM
EN

TCH
MARR • SHABAKA HU
N
Y

TAKE 322

SO N

IC YO

W

UTH • NEIL YOUNG

ITH the passing of Shane MacGowan in December,
we lost of one of the most significant lyricists of the
modern age – a vivid, poetic writer who respected
cultural traditions but simultaneously made fresh
currency out of them. Graeme Thomson has
spoken to Pogues co-founders Spider Stacy, Jem Finer and James Fearnley
for a warm and revealing tribute to MacGowan that does much to shine a
fresh light on the man and his remarkable songwriting processes. “Shane
wrote many beautiful and fantastic songs,” says Stacy, “but I think ‘The
Broad Majestic Shannon’ towers above them all. That line – ‘Heard the
men coming home from the fair at Shinrone/Their hearts in Tipperary
wherever they go’ – is the perfect distillation of everything he was
trying to say.”

Elsewhere, there’s songcraft in a variety of different stripes – from
Hurray For The Riff Raff’s evocative memorials to fallen friends and
family, the obsessive dream-chasing of The La’s, the rich and
unusual methods deployed by Kali Malone, and Martin Carthy’s
canny reinterpretations of traditional works. Our cover story finds

•

NE
SHA

G
AC

O

On the cover:
Neil Young by
Bob Seidemann

M

Shane MacGowan by
David Corio/Redferns

Neil, meanwhile, in the Ditch and working through all manner of
trauma – both personal and political – to come up with On The
Beach, a masterpiece by any standards. Peter Watts does a great job
digging into the sessions for the album – honey slides! – while
assorted fans, heads and acolytes go deep on their favourite songs
and the album’s strange, elusive afterlife – a record even Young
seemed to disown for many years. This is one of my favourite
observations, from the ever-wise Chris Forsyth: “The relative
unavailability of On The Beach for so long and the consequent sense
of Neil having disowned it definitely built up
a mystique. Like, what could be more Ditch
than Neil himself not even liking it?”
Anyway, that’s us for the first issue of 2024.
See you next month…

Michael Bonner, Editor. Follow me on Twitter @michaelbonner

CONTENTS

4 Instant Karma!

the fringes of the Colorado death metal
scene to church organs around the world

14 Squeeze An Audience With

Suriving members take us on a tour of their
history-making Liverpool haunts

Liam Gallagher/John Squire, The Giant
Syndicate, Virginia Astley, Conchúr White

20 New Albums

66 The Quarrymen

74 Liam Hayes and Plush

Including: Brittany Howard, Grandaddy,
Nadine Shah, The Smile, Aziza Brahim

38 The Archive

Including: Sonic Youth, Paul McCartney &
Wings, Scott Fagan, Lou Reed

50 Shane MacGowan

108 Lives Johnny Marr,
Shabaka Hutchings

Album By Album

112 Screen Poor Things and more

78 Hurray For The Riff Raff

114 Screen Extra Simple Minds

Alynda Lee Segarra makes a reckoning
with their past as they return with a
brilliant new album

84 Martin Carthy

Pogues bandmates remember “a giant,
a singular genius”. And in 1994, MacGowan
reveals the music that changed his life

A meeting with British folk’s master
guitarist and interpreter

60 Kali Malone

90 The La’s

The American composer who went from

94 Neil Young

As his 1974 masterpiece On The Beach
turns 50, eyewitnesses take us inside the
album’s loose, out-there sessions

The Making Of “There She Goes”

115 Books Sarah Records, Geddy Lee
116 Hi-Fi The best of the latest amplifiers
118 Not Fade Away Obituaries
120 Letters Plus the Uncut crossword
122 My Life In Music Allison Russell

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3

THIS MONTH’S REVELATIONS FROM THE WORLD OF

WITH... The Giant Syndicate | Virginia Astley | Norma Winstone | Conchúr White

Rebirth
of cagoule
Liam Gallagher and John Squire
team up for a formidable
Manchester mind-meld

W

ITH the prospect of
was a prerequisite to making the
new Stone Roses or
album. “And there is loads of
Oasis activity
guitars in it, and it’s fucking
receding, Liam
perfect… But I think even when you
Gallagher and John Squire have
take all the fucking guitars off, you
taken matters into their own hands
can play the songs all on acoustic
by joining forces for a new album,
and they’ll all still blow your mind.
due in the spring. As Gallagher
Which is important, innit?”
explains, the plan was hatched
The songs were demoed at
when Squire guested on
Squire’s own studio in Macclesfield
“Champagne Supernova” at his big
before being recorded in LA, with
Knebworth shows in June 2022.
Joey Waronker on drums and
“John was like,
producer Greg
‘I’ve been writing
Kurstin on bass.
some tunes… you
“It surprised me,
up for singing
because the four
’em?’ Yeah,
of us sound
fuckin’ too right.
like we’ve been
John sent us three
doing it forever
songs and they
together,” says
were mega. Then
LIAM GALLAGHER Squire, who is
there’s another
pleased with the
three, and
emotional range
another three… I think John’s a top
of the album. “I like the way that in
songwriter. Everyone always bangs
some parts it’s quite melancholic,
on about him as a guitarist, but
and he [Gallagher] can make you
he’s a top songwriter too, man, no
well up. But there are other parts
two ways about it. As far as I’m
that are kind of throwaway,
concerned, there’s not enough
irreverent and crude. There’s a little
of his music out there.”
bit of everything in there.”
Squire had been plotting a return
“I can’t wait for people to hear it,”
for a while, but initially things
adds Gallagher. “It’s spiritual, man
could have gone in a very different
– it’s got a good vibe.”
direction. “My manager called me in SAM RICHARDS
for a catch-up and I mentioned I was
playing again,” reveals Squire. “He
“Just Another Rainbow” is out
said, ‘Fancy working with a female
now on Parlophone
vocalist this time?’ So he went
away and came back with Liam!
I had a hunch that we’d sound
good together but I wasn’t
prepared for it to be such a good
fit, sonically.”
Anthemic first single “Just
Another Rainbow” finds the
Manchester duo gleefully reliving
past glories, with its unabashed
similarities to both “Waterfall”
and “Up In The Sky”. Its five-anda-half minute runtime makes
plenty of room for Squire’s guitar
heroics, which Gallagher says

TOM OXLEY

“There’s loads
of guitars in it,
and it’s fucking
perfect”

FEBRUARY 2024

Squire and
Gallagher:
“I had a hunch
that we’d
sound good
together”

5

“We will be wellrehearsed for
the random to
happen”

Clockwise
from left:
Kristin
Hersh; Howe
Gelb; The
Dream
Syndicate’s
Steve Wynn

STEVE WYNN

ILLUSTRATION: MR GODRO
PHOTOS: GABRIELLA MARKS; CHRISTOPHER VOY; GUY KOKKEN

“An explosion
of energy”

I

F you can judge a group of
musicians’ enthusiasm for a
project by how easy it is to
corral them together on Zoom across
multiple time zones, the upcoming
one-off set by newly formed
supergroup The Giant Syndicate
should be a blast. A handful of
emails, a polite reminder, a couple
of last-minute text messages and
there they all are – Kristin Hersh, a
minute later Steve Wynn and,
eventually but
serenely, Howe
Gelb – all eager
to talk about
playing Fire’s 40th
birthday bash at
EartH in Hackney

on April 27 as part of an all-day
music marathon hosted by Stewart
Lee. “It will be an expulsion and
explosion of energy, as we all have
such history with each other and
are all getting ancient,” says Gelb.
“We will do our own sets and then
we’ll play together for the finale,”
explains Hersh, who will be

Kristin Hersh,
Giant Sand and
The Dream
Syndicate join
forces to celebrate
Fire Records’
40th anniversary
performing with a cellist as she did
on her last solo tour. “The happy
accident is nice in musicians’
hands… that’s the best chaos we can
possibly control. Howe and I have
played together many times but
there is no comfort zone there. As
you walk on stage, he mutters
something vague about doing a
standard, then he’ll do a Giant Sand
instrumental you don’t know, and

then a Sinatra song you also don’t
know. But it all works out.”
Gelb and Wynn will be performing
with the current iterations of Giant
Sand and The Dream Syndicate
respectively. The pair have known
each other since 1986, when The
Dream Syndicate performed with
Giant Sand at Roskilde festival as a
late substitute for The Cult. Gelb and
Hersh go way back too – “like
family, we raised our kids together,”
says Hersh – while Gelb is even old
friends with Stewart Lee. “He used
to show up at our shows in the ’90s,”
recalls Gelb. “I didn’t know who he
was, but eventually he cornered me
and told me he was trying to work
out how much we made up on the
fly, as he wanted to utilise that
methodology in his stand-up.”
Wynn is a recent addition to the
Fire roster, and it was partly the
presence of Gelb and Hersh that
persuaded him to join the label. “I
like these long sprawling shows
with lots of performers as it gives
more possibilities of combinations,
more random elements,” he says.
“And we have some really great
random elements in the lineup that
could catch fire, no pun intended.”
Keeping the trio on topic is not
easy as they share memories and
discuss the difficulties that come
from being a musician in the
modern age. One of the reasons
Hersh joined Fire, she says, was they
made it so much easier for her to
focus on making music rather than
delivering “product”. As Gelb muses
about the challenge of having an
ageing audience, Wynn admits he
has considered offering vitamins on
the merch stand and ending the
show with a callisthenics class to
ensure his fans stay in shape.
Perhaps that’s something Fire
might consider at EartH. But Wynn
speaks for all three when he says
how much he’s looking forward to
the event. “We’ll be well-rehearsed
for the random to happen,” he
promises. “One of the reasons I
joined Fire, you want to be on a
roster where you feel comfortable
but also challenged. Anything that
sticks around for 40 years needs to
be celebrated, and that includes all
of ourselves.” PETER WATTS
The Giant Syndicate play 40 Years
Of Fire at EartH, London,
on April 27; tickets via
eatyourownears.com

Back
to the
garden
A Quick One
Our Ultimate Record
Collection series
enters the era of synths
and shoulderpads with
The 500 Greatest
Albums Of The 1980s…
Ranked! That’s 500
albums, rated and
reviewed by Uncut’s
team of experts. Also
includes: classic
archive interviews, an
introduction by Robert
Forster and – doosh!
– the story of how the
drum sound of the
decade was born. It’s in
shops now or available
to buy online at shop.
kelsey.co.uk/uncut…
Following on January
19 is our Ultimate
Music Guide to the
inspirational Peter
Gabriel, covering all
his solo work from
“Solsbury Hill” to
2023’s acclaimed
i/o, plus plenty of
thoughtful chat with
the great man…
Roxy Music’s Phil
Manzanera will publish
his autobiography
Revolución To Roxy on
March 22. Including
over 100 photographs,
it covers not only his
time at the vanguard
of ’70s glam, but his
childhood in Cuba,
Hawaii and Venezuela,
and his discovery
that he’s “related to
the most famous 17th
century Sephardic
Jewish pirate of the
Caribbean, a British
spy and an Italian
opera musician”…

Forty years on,
Virginia Astley
returns to the
idyllic pastures
of her cult debut

INSTANT KARMA

Class act:
Virginia
Astley,
October
1985

“I

LOOK back on the early
’80s in a very positive way
because I was aware that it
was a good time,” says the poet and
composer Virginia Astley from the
sitting room of her Dorset cottage.
Forty years ago, the 24-year-old
Astley released From Gardens Where
We Feel Secure, a sublime album of
gentle English psychedelia that
blends field recordings of birdsong
and church bells with enchanting
pastorals played on piano and flute,
evoking a hazy summer evening in
deepest Oxfordshire.
The album had originally been
commissioned by Bill Drummond
for his Zoo label, “but he vanished”,
says Astley, leading to Geoff Travis
putting it out on Rough Trade.
Although only a modest success at
the time, the album has become a
touchstone for anyone working at the
nexus of modern classical, ambient
and found sound.
Astley was introduced to music
through her father, the composer
Edwin Astley, perhaps best known for
his theme for The Saint. Her brother
Jon became a producer for the likes of
The Who, and her older sister Karen
married Pete Townshend, for whom
Astley has great affection. She
remembers him coming over for
Sunday lunches and bringing gifts of
Talking Heads and Lou Reed LPs. He
later wrote the foreword for her poetry
collection, The English River.
Studying music at Guildhall, Astley
immersed herself in the London scene
of the early ’80s, hitting the Blitz and
Wag clubs, performing with the shortlived Ravishing Beauties for a
Teardrop Explodes gig in Liverpool,
and recording an experimental LP
with the Skids’ Richard Jobson: “We
played a fashion show in a tent full of
white sand in Japan. Richard did
poetry and I played piano.”
Her connection to Japan was
cemented when Ryuichi Sakamoto
came to England to arrange and
produce Astley’s second album,
Hope In A Darkened Heart, a darker,
more polished set of otherworldly

“It is
really nice
writing
stuff
again”
excursions. “Ryuichi
was a gentle, brilliant
man. I remember
watching him play
piano and he looked
so young.”
Two further albums
for Nippon Columbia
followed in the ’90s, but
since then Astley has
focused mostly on
poetry. Her 2018 book
The English River traces
the Thames from source
to mouth – she even took
up a job as a lockkeeper’s
assistant at Benson lock,
to spend her time by the river more
constructively. “It was with a lovely
guy called Bob who would assign
me to different places each day, so
I got a really good understanding
of the river, and would write poems.”
She was also writer-in-residence at
Thomas Hardy’s cottage in Dorset
in 2017.
It was something of a surprise,
therefore, when Astley returned to
music in October, releasing The
Singing Places – a suite of songs very
much in the style of From Gardens
Where We Feel Secure, as if to mark
its 40th anniversary.

Virginia
with her
daughter
Florence

Like Gardens…, it
combines recordings
of rivers and rain with
graceful meditational
folk, each song
inspired by her
lifelong love of
nature. Astley’s
daughter Florence
plays harp – the
pair often perform
together – and
a friend adds
harmonica. Astley
even plays the same
piano she used
for Gardens….
“The Singing Places refers to places
that I feel have an emotional or
acoustic resonance,” she says. “The
cover photo is of Kelmscott where
William Morris lived, which for me is
a singing place – and for Morris too,
as he said it was heaven on Earth.”
Looking ahead, Astley hopes to play
these songs live. “It is really nice
writing stuff again. My plan is to
make a longer version of The Singing
Places and then do some more
songs.” PIERS MARTIN
The Singing Places is available
now on Bandcamp
7

Edge of time
A new book chronicles the original
flowering of British jazz, record
sleeve by rare record sleeve

“I

able to squander money as they
T’S a really interesting
were making so much from rock,
cultural moment that
and recognised that this wonderful
didn’t last long,” says
music deserved to be recorded.”
Richard Morton Jack of the scene
The great British jazz singer Norma
comprehensively documented in his
Winstone, 82 – recently in the news
new book Labyrinth: British Jazz On
when a 1977 track by her band
Record 1960-75, which reproduces
Azimuth was sampled by Drake –
and annotates the sleeves of
charts her own early progress
vanishingly rare original albums by
through the British jazz scene.
the likes of Stan Tracey, Mike Taylor
“When I heard Kind
and The Don
Of Blue,” she says,
Rendell/Ian Carr
“I imagined a voice
Quintet. Invisibly
in this modal
underground even
music.” London
at the time, and
pubs employed jazz
only just starting to
trios, offering an
be acknowledged
apprenticeship. “I
and reissued, the
met [pianist and
few extant copies
husband] John
can sell for
NORMA later
Taylor singing at
thousands.
WINSTONE
the Albert in
“Enlightened
Chingford.”
executives were

“When I heard
Kind Of Blue,
I imagined
a voice in
this modal
music”

FEBRUARY 2024

By 1966, Winstone was running a
night at Hackney’s Krays-owned
Regency Club, where she booked
trumpeter Ian Carr. Meanwhile,
pianist Michael Garrick hothoused
his own material at Marylebone’s
Phoenix pub. “Michael gave me
some songs, I took a wordless solo,
and he asked if I’d like to sing sax
parts. That started things off for me
in a different way.” Winstone would
also frequent John Stevens’ free jazz
sessions, which birthed the
Spontaneous Music Ensemble.
“Kenny Wheeler was there, and
[future Bitches Brew bassist]
Dave Holland. I sang
my own ideas,
and listened.”
Still, Winstone was
kept waiting for a
promised audition at
Ronnie Scott’s Soho
club. “I went up to
Ronnie and said, ‘Do
you not want English
singers in your club?
You’ve never had one.’”

The episode indicates
American jazz’s presumed
supremacy, but as the ’60s
progressed, more distinctive
music emerged from the UK
scene. “People weren’t saying,
‘We want to be different from
American music,’” Winstone
says. “But they were
improvising and writing
individually.” Saxophonist
John Surman’s self-titled 1969
debut revealed pastoral
qualities, reflecting his West
Country roots. Winstone
agrees an English character
inevitably emerged. “Yes, and
John [Taylor] always loved
impressionist stuff. We were
interested in music other
than jazz.”
“Michael Garrick brought in
British church and classical
influences, and Eastern timesignatures,” Jack adds. “He
was on a mission to reject
anything not coming purely
from within his own interests.”
Musicians who’d migrated
from the Commonwealth also
“made a big mark”. Jamaican
Joe Harriott ploughed an
ambitious if unrewarded
furrow, forging a form of free
jazz in parallel with Ornette
Coleman, and making Indojazz albums with Indian
violinist John Mayer.
Winstone’s first recording saw
her spectrally blending with
Harriott’s alto on 1969’s HumDono, whose sleeve adorns
Labyrinth’s cover. “Joe knew what
he was worth,” she says. Obscurity
had its cost, though, Harriott dying
destitute in 1973.
Winstone’s own debut came with
1972’s Edge Of Time. “Of course it
was a bit mad and out, and it got
deleted, like all those things. Soon
after that, English companies
stopped doing anything with
English jazz. Luckily I wasn’t stuck
here, because free music had
erupted all over Europe.” Winstone
and Surman, now two of the scene’s
few survivors, record for German
powerhouse ECM to this day.
Back home, an era was over. “By
the mid-’70s, record companies
began asking, ‘Why are we releasing
LPs that are selling 83 copies?’” says
Jack. “And that lovely
door, opened by the
time’s enlightenment,
closed.”
NICK HASTED

Labyrinth: British
Jazz On Record 1960-75
is published by
Lansdowne Books
on January 8.
Order it from
lansdownebooks.com

Bill Ryder-Jones
Iechyd Da
“Iechyd Da is an album that confirms Ryder-Jones
as one of Britain’s finest songwriters” 9/10 UNCUT
Available 12.01.2024
LP, CD & Digital

INSTANT KARMA
Uncut Playlist

On the stereo this month...
HIGH LLAMAS

Hey Panda DRAG CITY

Audacious pop pivot from Sean
O’Hagan and family, joining the
dots between Steely Dan and
Charli XCX. Bonnie “Prince”
Billy makes an appearance too.

ADRIANNE LENKER

I’M
NEW
HERE

Conchúr
White

The Portadown songwriter tapping
into our “collective unconscious”

Centrepoint/When he
kicked us out for passing
the bottle”, referring to
youthful mischief at his
hometown’s leisure centre.
HE term ‘dreampop’ is often used in these
Elsewhere, there are darker allusions to the
pages, but it seems to apply to Conchúr
Ulster he grew up in, mostly post-Troubles, but
White’s work in a slightly different way to
still scarred by the intolerance that characterised
that of his ethereally inclined contemporaries. In
them. “Fenian boy without a father/Mother drank,
the songs of his debut album Swirling Violets,
it almost sunk her/And it drowned him in the end”,
dreams – surreal visions and imaginings of the
he sings on “Deadwood”, and while it’s not
afterlife – form a recurring theme, framed within
autobiographical, he explains that “it’s just about
beautifully soft-sung acoustic vignettes and
how as a child you’d be narrowed down. That’s
chamber-pop confections. “I got friends who died
what you were – a Fenian or… I don’t want to say
a thousand different times, strewn across the sky”,
the other one.”
run the first words of opening track “The Holy
White’s interest in inner lives was further
Death”, luring us into a world of “surreal settings
piqued by his former day job working in child and
with tangible messages”, as he has previously put
adolescent mental health services, something he
it. Northern Irishman White (his first name is
says has seeped into some songs on this album,
pronounced “Conor”) has seen his profile grow
such as the “Women In The War”, with its
over the past few years thanks to slots opening for
passionate declaration of undying devotion to
the likes of John Grant, John Cale and The
a (possibly unrequited) love who is “pushing
Magnetic Fields. Meanwhile, last year’s “Atonia”
daisies”. “You’d come across that kind of intense
single, inspired by studies of sleep paralysis,
love and infatuation, but also intense pain and
proved an enticing precursor to Swirling Violets.
tragedy,” he says.
“I’ve long had an interest in filmmakers like
All this is beautifully wreathed in atmospheric
David Lynch and stuff like Carl Jung’s The Red
arrangements, whether it be the ghostly whispers
Book,” says White. “I spent a lot of time wrestling
shrouding “Deadwood”, the delicate piano and
with those ideas: dreams and death, collective
unconsciousness. When I was a kid growing up in woozy electronic decoration of “Righteous”, or
the subtle lacings of vocal harmony
a Catholic household, I’d ask so many
I’M YOUR FAN on “River”. So far, White hasn’t been
questions about the afterlife, my
able to fully recreate this sound in his
parents got a bit worried about me!”
stripped-down solo support slots,
This enduring sense of wonder has
but that hasn’t stopped him winning
infused his songs since he parted
followers with every performance.
company in 2018 with indie-folk outfit
“I’m hoping to go out with a full band
Silences, the band he helped form
[later this year],” he says, “but I’m a
at school in Portadown, County
big believer that if a song sounds
Armagh. In some instances, his warm
good when it’s fully arranged or
harmonies, pop hooks and nostalgic
“Subtle and
when it’s just played with a piano
reference points will strike a
intimate, lovely
finger-picking,
and vocal, then it’s passed an
universal chord, as on “501s”, a
and one of those
important test.” JOHNNY SHARP
catchy paean to a childhood crush.
silky voices that
But he also speaks of particular
are hard to find”
times and places in lines such as
Swirling Violets is out now on
Martin Noble,
Sea Power
“Remember the boy at the
Bella Union

T

Bright Future 4AD

multiverse. Plenty of callbacks and
breadcrumb trails for long-time
followers, but also simply a collection of
stunning, open-hearted songs.

MAGIC TUBER STRINGBAND
Needlefall THRILL JOCKEY

adept hosting lively banjo hoedowns as
they are at summoning eerie psychedelic
dreamscapes.

ITASCA

Imitation Of War
PARADISE OF BACHELORS

On which Kayla Cohen ups her
guitar game impressively while
rigorously maintaining her
dusty mystique. One to get lost in.

KAHIL EL’ZABAR

Open Me, A Higher Consciousness
Of Sound And Spirit
SPIRITMUSE

Veteran jazz percussionist continues his
nourishing double LP. Includes a great

DOROTHY MOSKOWITZ

Rising To Eternity TOMPKINS SQUARE
States Of America singer, following a
decades-long hiatus. Compelling

ROBERT HOOD & FEMI KUTI
Variations

Detroit techno mainstay and Afro-jazz
scion get on the good foot, extemporising
wildly over taut James Brown loops.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

European Primitive Guitar
(1974-1987) NTS

SHAY HAZAN
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INSTANT KARMA THIS MONTH’S FREE CD

Deep Roots
A celebration of Topic Records

Anne
Briggs

TOPIC turns 85 this
year, which makes it
one of the – if not the
– oldest independent
record label in the
world. A good reason
to celebrate, then, by
putting together this
compilation of some of
the finest moments in
the label’s history.
We’ve concentrated on their folk side (they
have an incredible set of world music and
field recordings that deserve their own CDs),
including tracks from the dawn of the ’60s
folk revival right up to brand new material
expected this year. Perhaps most excitingly,
there’s an entirely unheard Anne Briggs
recording, due as a bonus track this year
on the upcoming deluxe reissue of her selftitled album. Spellbinding stuff, though
the other 14 tracks here are just as magical,
from Richard Thompson’s “The Light-Bob’s
Lassie” to Lal Waterson & Oliver Knight’s
“So Strange Is Man”.

BRIAN SHUEL

6 NIC JONES
The Little Pot Stove

The final release before a
terrible car accident cut
short his career, 1980’s
Penguin Eggs is a truly
legendary and essential
record. Martin Carthy’s
powerful, percussive guitar
style is taken even further
by Jones on tracks like this
and the opening “CanadeeI-O”, which surely inspired
Bob Dylan’s version in the
early ’90s.

FEBRUARY 2024

7 LAL WATERSON
& OLIVER KNIGHT
So Strange Is Man

All who have heard Bright
Phoebus know of the
youngest Waterson’s way
with an eerie, unique song,
and this cut – taken from
1996’s Once In A Blue Moon,
the final album released in
her lifetime – is just as wild
and wonderful.

8 ELIZA CARTHY
Friendship

Recorded at her home in
Robin Hood’s Bay, North
Yorkshire, Restitute –
released by Topic in 2019
after a limited earlier
distribution – is one of
Carthy’s finest efforts.
Although it’s mostly solo,
a few guests pop up here
and there, including Martin
Carthy on “The Leaves In
The Woodland”.

9 DAVE & TONI
ARTHUR
The Lark In The
Morning

Before Play School, Toni
Arthur and her then
husband Dave made earthy,
bewitching folk records.
Here, on the title track of
their 1969 LP, they’re
joined on fiddle by Barry
Dransfield, but their
interwoven, roaring voices
are the focus.

10 NORMA
WATERSON
The Chaps Of
Cockaigny

Here’s the opening track of
Waterson’s 2001 album
Bright Shiny Morning,
showcasing the talents of
this remarkable family:
produced by her daughter
Eliza Carthy, it also features
Martin Carthy on guitar
alongside Eliza’s tenor guitar
and multi-tracked violin.
Norma’s unmistakable
vocals are the star, though.

The
Watersons

Nic
Jones

Martin
Carthy

1 MARTIN CARTHY
And A-Begging
I Will Go

2 JIM GHEDI
& TOBY HAY
Bright Edge Deep

3 ANNE BRIGGS
The Cruel Mother

11 FAY HIELD
Hare Spell

12 SHIRLEY
COLLINS
All Things Are Quite
Silent

13 MARTIN
SIMPSON
Skydancers

We begin with a track from a
bona fide national treasure,
the closer on his masterful
1965 debut album, reissued
in February by Topic. Head
to page 84 for a wideranging, characterful chat
with Carthy, hosting Uncut
in his windswept North
Yorkshire home.

An actual professor of
folk (well, professor in
Ethnomusicology at the
University of Sheffield),
Hield also brings passion
to her academic rigour.
Opening 2020’s Wrackline,
“Hare Spell” is a pounding,
ritualistic piece of minorkey folk distinguished by
its soaring fiddle.

Two of folk-rock’s greatest
modern names, these
guitarists conjured up the
spirit of Bert & John on their
instrumental self-titled
album, released last year.
Their tunes, as here, are
sprightly and deeply
British, their instruments
skilfully intertwined.

Just as psychedelia
flourished in British music,
Collins released The Sweet
Primeroses, one of her finest
albums and a lesson in
austerity and restraint. As
on this opening track, the
portable pipe organ of her
sister Dolly is the perfect
accompaniment to Collins’
unadorned voice.

Discovered on a reel-to-reel
along with three other
recordings, here’s a
previously unheard Briggs
track. A take on the dark
traditional tune, with
Briggs accompanying
herself on gently picked
guitar, it’s a marvellous,
transcendent find. The four
tracks will be included on
the deluxe reissue of 1971’s
Anne Briggs this year.

Enjoy a preview of the
title track of Simpson’s
forthcoming album, a song
that arose after nature
presenter and activist
Chris Packham asked the
guitarist and singer to
write a piece about hen
harriers. The result is as
swift and graceful as any
avian performer.

Shirley
Collins

4 JUNE TABOR
While Gamekeepers
Lie Sleeping

5 ANGELINE
MORRISON
Black John

14 RICHARD
THOMPSON
The Light Bob’s
Lassie

15 THE WATERSONS
Here We Come
A-Wassailing

Taken from Tabor’s 1976
debut LP, Airs And Graces,
this delightfully
demonstrates why the
Warwickshire singer is one
of English folk’s finest
voices. Initially inspired by
Anne Briggs, she crafted her
own distinctive style, here
accompanied on guitar by
Nic Jones.

To celebrate the first 80
years of Topic, selected
musicians recorded
tribute tracks for the 2019
compilation Vision &
Revision. Here’s Thompson’s
contribution, just a couple
of instruments and a single
voice weaving a spell as
heady and moving as any
of his lusher recordings.

The Sorrow Songs (Folk
Songs Of Black British
Experience), released in
2022 and produced by Eliza
Carthy, is one of the 21st
century’s most impactful
folk albums – not only in
the pioneering, important
stories that Morrison tells,
but in the sympathetic
arrangements and her
sombre, versatile voice.

We end with an enchanted
track to bring in 2024 with
luck and cheer. Just a
minute and a half long, it’s
The Watersons at their
finest, and a highlight of
1965’s Frost And Fire: A
Calendar Of Ritual And
Magical Songs.

13

BRIAN SHUEL; DAVE PEABODY

Angeline
Morrison

INSTANT KARMA

“When I met Chris,
we combined what
we could do and then
these songs started
pouring out of us”
GLENN TILBROOK

AN AUDIENCE WITH...

F

OR half a century now, Glenn
Tilbrook and Chris Difford’s
songwriting partnership has
flourished via unspoken
accord. Difford typically does
the words, Tilbrook the music, but they
always find themselves on the same page.
Even their suits look co-ordinated, though
they use different tailors. “We always
get suits made before a tour,” explains
Difford. “There’s something to be said for
getting changed before you go on, it
helps you become the person that you
are on stage.”
The suits will be getting a lot of wear
this year, as Squeeze have extended
their upcoming 50th anniversary tour
due to overwhelming demand. “Yeah,
it’s amazing,” says Tilbrook. “We’ve
been on a great trajectory since 2020.
Owen Biddle came in on bass and he’s
had a great effect on all of us. The
band was great before, and now it’s
even better. It just feels like we’re at
the absolute top of our game.”
“I had to pinch myself when I saw
the ticket sales the other day and
discovered the Albert Hall had sold out
[in a week],” adds Difford. “It’s an
extraordinary thing, a rejuvenation.
And it spurs on the imagination, too.
A lot of songwriting comes from the
subconscious, so waiting for that to
arrive sometimes takes time – but
this week, it hasn’t. So I’m looking
forward to us working together and
having the band in the studio. We’ve
got two records to make. It’s going
be a very good, busy year.”
Does it feel like 50 years since
you met? And what was the
moment you first realised you
had something?
Tom Hayes, Wickford, Essex
Tilbrook: When I met Chris, we
combined what we could do and
then these songs started pouring
out of us. We had at least two years
of doing that with next to no gigs,

Chris Difford and Glenn
Tilbrook talk Deptford
haunts, Cale and Cliff, and
why some shows go better
with a box of Maltesers
Interview by SAM RICHARDS

INSTANT KARMA

Difford: Being a massive fan, it was
completely amazing to have one of The
Velvet Underground in the studio with
you in close quarters. He’d ask us to do
things that were a bit unusual for us. We
were in a safe place with our songs, and
he turned it upside down.
Tilbrook: He took us in a different
direction. He made us go some places that
weren’t altogether comfortable – always
interesting, but ultimately not really
Squeeze. I think he’s one of the most
talented producers I’ve ever worked with,
but the appropriateness of him and us
together wasn’t always apparent.

Squeezing out sparks:
Rewind Scotland
Festival, Scone
Palace, Perth,
July 23, 2023

song, literally. No, it’ll have to be “Take
Me I’m Yours” again, come on!
Difford: Somebody said to me the other
day that when their granddad died, they
played “Cool For Cats” at the funeral
because he was such a big fan, and I was
dumbfounded. I couldn’t bring myself to
have any response, because I just thought
it was the most inappropriate song to play
at a funeral! But God bless him for doing it.
You’ve had some world-class
musicians in the band, and the
current lineup is no exception. If you
could pick anyone in the world to
play with Squeeze for one LP, who
would it be? Trev Furlong, via email
Tilbrook: Good question. The feeling is,
we’ve got such a great band, there’s
no-one else I’d like to bring in. Can I have
dead people? OK, I’d love to see what Wes
Montgomery made of our songs.
Difford: George Harrison springs to
mind, because he was a great supporter in
his band, as well as a fantastic songwriter.
That’ll be it, I think.
I’d like to ask Chris and Glenn about
their foray into musical theatre in
1984 with Labelled With Love, which
ran in Deptford but then was lost
without trace. Would they consider
using their songs in another musical
or developing the original show if the
chance arose? Carol Doran, via email
Tilbrook: I actually loved the show. John
Turner, who came up with the concept
and the script, did a wonderful job of
honing all those songs into a form that
made sense. I’d love to revive that show.
Difford: Now, of course, theatres are full
of shows put together by our peers: there’s
Richard Hawley’s Standing At The Sky’s
Edge, Elvis Costello’s got one opening,
KT Tunstall had one that she’s been
rehearsing. As I get older, I’m not so keen
on going to a venue to watch music per se,
unless something really extraordinary is
on my doorstep. But I’d be quite happy to
go to the theatre and watch a really good
story being told with some fantastic
songs. It’s nice to have a comfy seat?
Yeah, and a box of Maltesers.
FEBRUARY 2024

During your ‘separation’,
Chris said he went to see
Glenn incognito. What was
his disguise? Did it work?
Barry and Joy Norman,
Drighlington, Leeds
Difford: I didn’t have a
disguise, but I didn’t want to
detract from what was going on.
It was when Glenn first started
touring as a solo artist, and he
was playing Tunbridge Wells,
near where I live. It was amazing
to watch and not what I
expected. It’s true of every
artist I’ve seen on their own,
it brings out a different
person to the one in the
band. It was exciting.
Tilbrook: I only found out
he was there years later!
Difford: There also was a
nice time at Glastonbury
when I was in the audience,
watching his set, and he
invited me up to play. We
did “Is That Love?” and a
couple of other songs and it
was an amazing experience
because it wasn’t planned.
In interviews, Glenn has
mentioned his childhood
love of “Summer Holiday”
by Cliff Richard, and later
cited “Devil Woman” as
a “classic British pop
production”. Which
Squeeze song do you think
Sir Cliff should cover on a
future album? John, Cardiff

Cool for cats: jazz
guitarist Wes
Montgomery
in 1965

“I’d love to see what
Wes Montgomery
made of our songs”
GLENN TILBROOK

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19

“I feel the rain but it’s all out of rainbows”

THE UNCUT GUIDE TO THIS MONTH’S KEY RELEASES

BRITTANY HOWARD
What Now
EMI

Unguarded emotion and bolder sonic invention
on her solo second. By Sharon O’Connell

BOBBI RICH

more adventurous in arrangements
OLLOWING the release
ALBUM being
and production. Howard took a relaxed
of their second album,
OF THE approach, so much so that when she first
Sound & Color, Alabama
MONTH
started writing, in March 2020, she didn’t
Shakes were slated
to scale even greater
9/10 really know she was making an album.
As she tells Uncut, “I was just day-to-day
heights than a US No 1
recording music in this little room in a house I’d
album and four Grammy
rented in Nashville, just going in there and kind of
Awards. However, Brittany Howard had reached a
journaling my thoughts and feelings.” It was August
crossroads. Her decision to step away in 2018 wasn’t
2022 when she went into the studio with a batch of
a move against the band – “incredible” is how she
demos, and around three months later What Now
described the Shakes’ achievements to Uncut – but
was finished. Most of the recording was done at
rather towards creative and personal fulfilment. The
wisdom of that move was borne out by Jaime, her 2019 Nashville’s Sound Emporium, with players including
the Shakes’ Zac Cockrell on bass and drummer Nate
solo debut, which landed as a tour de force of funk,
Smith, both returnees from Jaime. Clearly, there’s no
jazzy R&B, soul and blues-edged rock, corralled into
bad blood there, and though it’s been more than eight
songs about everything from racism to a childhood
years since the Shakes’ last LP, officially they’re on
crush on an older girl.
hold rather than disbanded.
If that stylistic departure both surprised and
The album’s title is
impressed, Howard has
intriguingly slippery: it seems
trumped it with the follow-up,
to echo our widespread
a Jaime 2.0 likely to secure
collective despair and
her status as an auteur in
exasperation born of the
terms of both conception
current global hellscape
and execution. It’s a bigger,
– what else could possibly
freer-thinking and more
happen? – yet lacks the
dynamically audacious
question mark that would
record; one which uses
indicate righteous ire. At
lessons learned from her
the same time, it’s a kind
debut – chiefly, to forget any
of rallying cry: we must do
fear and trust herself – while
something, pronto – but
uniting her disparate musical
what? In fact, the title track
loves and, with long-term
tells of a love that’s died
collaborator Shawn Everett,
20 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

Howard began
“journaling
my thoughts
and feelings”

FEBRUARY 2024 •

• 21

NEW ALBUMS
sweet mix of doo-wop and vintage R&B
given warm, deep-space production.
There’s a woozy cocktail of synth
soundscaping and cosmic soul on
“Red Flags”, which sees Howard admit
to a habit of charging headfirst into
love while ignoring all warning signs,
her voice rising to a sky-scraping
falsetto before dropping suddenly to
1 Earth Sign
a choral chant, then drifting off into
2 I Don’t
wordless vocables.
3 What Now
4 Red Flags
On the other side of “Interlude” sits
5 To Be Still
the thumping “Prove It To You”, in
6 Interlude
which mid-period Prince (Howard’s
7 Another Day
8 Prove It To You voice sounds strikingly similar)
9 Samson
is recontextualised for loved-up
10 Patience
clubbers via broken beats, a tinkling
11 Power To Undo
keys motif and clouds of blissed-out
12 Every Color
synth. “Samson”, the longest track
In Blue
here at just over five minutes, follows.
Produced by:
Moody, sensual and effortlessly
Brittany Howard
light on its jazz-soul feet, it features
& Shawn Everett
Fender Rhodes and a forlorn,
Recorded at:
Sound Emporium
blues-soaked trumpet in a missive
and RCA Studio,
about summoning the courage to
Nashville; Subtle
leave a relationship when, mentally,
McNugget
emotionally and psychically, you’ve
political. In it Howard, a queer, mixedStudios, Los
Angeles; Rue
already checked out. There’s a radical
race woman, declares her faith in a
Boyer Studios,
switch with “Power To Undo”, where
future where unity and understanding
Paris
high-wattage falsetto, flashes of dirty,
have displaced divisiveness and
Personnel:
buzzing guitar and cardboard-box
intolerance: “I believe in a world where
Brittany Howard
(vocals, guitar,
beats recall a mix of Unknown Mortal
we can go outside and/Be who we want
keys, synth,
Orchestra, Prince and Jack White.
and see who we like/And love each other
drums), Zac
Howard exits with the beautifully
through this wild ride”.
Cockrell (bass),
bruised “Every Color In Blue”,
While her ground-level emotions
Brad Allen
Williams (guitar),
addressing the depression that’s
give the songs viability, it’s Howard’s
Nate Smith
dogged her since childhood in a voice
artistry that sends them off on an
(drums), Paul
like an anguished angel, with plaintive
invigoratingly fresh course, switching
Horton & Lloyd
trumpet accompaniment. “Here comes
between currents of Southern soul,
Buchanan (keys),
Rod McGaha
that feeling we don’t talk about”, she
R&B, astral jazz, psychedelic funk,
(trumpet),
sings, “that dull cloud coming in on the
doo-wop, garage blues and rap,
Ramona Reid
horizon/I feel the rain but it’s all out
while her voice is variously mellow
& Ann Sensing
of rainbows”. As album closers go, it
and tender, a belting force of nature,
(crystal singing
bowls), Thomas
strikes an unusually sombre note, but
sweetly reassuring and degraded.
Bloch (Cristal
the singer told Uncut that she “didn’t
The hypnotic tones of crystal singing
want to wrap it up tidily. I didn’t want
bowls (played by two of her friends)
to end it like everything’s OK, because
act as a mood reset in between each
I don’t think that’s realistic.” As a child
track, while cardboard boxes, forks
she didn’t talk about her feelings, “just never
and an empty jug are used as instruments. On
did. I always felt this shame around it. Like, you
“Samson”, the otherworldly sounds of the Cristal
can’t tell anyone how sad you are.” Emotional
Baschet can be heard. Opening the set is “Earth
truth-telling, broken taboos and myriad
Sign”, where in a soaring, multi-tracked vocal
questions about how best to live her life in music
Howard manifests her desire for new love in a
way that’s more spiritual than carnal or romantic. that thrillingly expands Howard’s artistry, rather
than treads old ground. Which begs another
“I Don’t” follows, reading like an ode to our postquestion: where might she go next?
pandemic existential malaise and carried by a

SLEEVE NOTES

Dazzling:
Howard ranges
from garage
blues to jazzsoul and beyond

and is a brutally honest, borderline venomous
declaration of disengagement: “I surrender, let
me go/I don’t have love to give you more”, sings
Howard, in her thrillingly powerful growl.
“You’re sucking up my energy/I told the truth,
so set me free”. That statement, referring not to
one particular partner but a situationship the
singer found herself in again and again, is set to
an infectiously juddering, synth-soul backing.
It’s both typical of the self-interrogation at the
heart of this record and a strong argument for
how much more effective a song may be if the
mood contradicts the emotions expressed. It’s a
juxtaposition Howard enjoys, having grown up
listening to girl groups like The Supremes and
The Marvelettes and later picking up on the same,
bittersweet interplay in Latine music.
What Now airs less obvious socio-political
comment than Jaime: these new songs focus
heavily on love and the singer’s behavioural
patterns in relationships, her self-exploration
the result of “for the first time being able to
feel my feelings and look around” during the
2020 lockdown. Meditation, counselling and
alternative therapies, including sound baths,
also played a part. The exception is “Another
Day”, though its message, like that of the brief
“Interlude”, which features a clip of Maya
Angelou reading from her poem “A Brave And
Startling Truth”, is more humanitarian than

RECOMMENDER

GREAT BRITTANY

Three key markers along the path to What Now
Sound & Color
ROUGH TRADE, 2015

BOBBI RICH

Alabama Shakes’ second LP
showed they were no one-trick
pony, Howard’s songs moving
them away from their debut’s
rootsy garage-soul into a more kaleidoscopic
comparisons, too: on the desperate yet deeply
groovy “Don’t Wanna Fight”, she’s more Betty
Davis. 9/10
22 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

Jaime

COLUMBIA, 2019

The title of Howard’s
exhilaratingly unpredictable
solo debut memorialises her
older sister, who died aged 13,
though its politico-personal songs track the
the full emotional and tonal range of her voice,
while wowing with her guitar parts. Pianist
Robert Glasper guests.

8/10

Jaime Reimagined
ATO, 2021

An unexpected “reimagination
project” and another no-rules
opportunity for Howard to
indulge her enthusiasm for
exploring across genres. Artists stepping up
with remixes include Michael Kiwanuka (“13th
Century Metal”), Bon Iver (“Short And Sweet”),
Georgia Anne Muldrow (“History Repeats”,
also made over by Jungle) and Little Dragon
(“Presence”). 7/10

NEW ALBUMS

Q&A
Brittany Howard:
“What I’m talking
about is feelings”
How did you arrive at What
Now, from Jaime?
Between Jaime and making What
Now it was about a three-year span,
and part of it was done during the
pandemic. A lot of us [during that
time] became very internal and
started asking ourselves questions.
I would hope, as an artist, that I
always evolve and I feel like I grew
a lot over those years, so naturally
my artistry evolved. I became
softer and more vulnerable,
because I understood myself better
– there was less to protect, in a way.
I just told myself, “Whatever comes
out is OK. I’ll make a new record.
And then I’ll make another record
and another.” So it’s like, “Just go
for it.” All the styles, everything I
was ever inspired by or touched by
has a place.
What questions were you
asking yourself?
My identity was so wrapped up
in music – Brittany Howard,
Alabama Shakes, Brittany
Howard, singer, Brittany Howard,
songwriter, Brittany Howard,
producer – and then it was gone
for a minute. At least, I thought
it was gone. Nobody knew what
was going to happen [when the
pandemic hit] and so I thought,
‘Well, who am I outside of my
work?’ I felt that life and work as
I had known it before was just
hanging by a thread and I became
a person who wasn’t a singer and
wasn’t the songwriter. So I had
to ask myself, ‘What makes me
happy? And what about myself –
why did I have to be so driven by
this one thing and be so narrowsighted about being a success, or
being loved or getting attention?’
What first made you go solo?
I’ll be honest: the thing that really
made it apparent that I needed to
go on my own was not receiving
music and not being creative. I just
couldn’t make it happen, couldn’t
get it off the ground. Whether or
not I was being typecast, I wasn’t
thinking that way. I was just like,
‘Where’s the music, where’s the
creativity, where’s the fun?’ I love
Alabama Shakes. I love everything
we’ve done together but I needed
to create and it just wasn’t coming
to me. It was deeper than writer’s
block; it was a lot of protecting

Brittany Howard:
asking herself
questions during
the pandemic

“I became a person who
wasn’t a singer and
wasn’t the songwriter”
what the Shakes was, in a way. I
didn’t want to do anything that
wasn’t high quality. I didn’t want
to make a record because we’re
a band and we’re supposed to. I
wanted to make it because I had
that call and that joy to do it. When
that’s missing, I just can’t be the
person who fabricates it.
How did you get past that block?
At the time, I was entering a brand
new relationship, right as the
pandemic started, so there are all
these conflicting feelings – some
very happy and joyous and some
really scared and sad for the state
of the world. There was so much
chaos and joy and my heart was
absolutely overrun, so I had to
write something. Every day I would
go in there and it was manifesting
in different ways because I felt in
different ways. Therefore the music
had to show up differently, because
that’s what it was called for.
Did you have a plan in mind
for What Now?
Sonically, what I really wanted to
do with this album and what I’m
essentially always trying to do
with tonality is create a visceral
experience, because what I’m
talking about is feelings and
feelings are attached to so many
things like nostalgia, colours,
temperature, all these senses, and
I really keep trying to express that
when I’m making music. As time

goes on, who knows, I might just
end up making a noise record.
There’s a lot of experimentation
on this album; some stuff we used
and some we didn’t. “I Don’t”
started off completely differently
and I assigned my demo song on
a keyboard, so each key had a
different part of that demo and we
transformed it into a whole new
song, which is the “I Don’t” that’s
on the album. Just to get there took
a few days, so everything was
such a ride.
What does Shawn Everett
bring to the table?
I love his mind. I love how
adventurous [he is] and how
deeply creative he’s willing to go.
Nothing is a bad idea, he never
acts like he knows better and he
completely lets me experiment.
He’s down for the ride. It’s kind of
like being two little kids – we’re
just exploring music and having

Alabama Shakes and
producer Shawn
Everett (right) pick up
one of four Grammys
for Sound & Color, 2016

fun. That’s the way it should feel.
It’s so free.
Why is Prince foundational
for you?
Prince was always playing in
our household: my mother’s
white, my father is black and
that’s one thing they could agree
on, musically. Everybody loved
Prince. As I got older I started
getting into other types of music
but there was always this one
thing I’d come back to. Prince is
good, no matter which way you
cut it! He’s adventurous with it
too, and akin to David Bowie, he
never let himself get lazy. He was
always exploring, always on his
own journey. How he wanted to
sound seems very personal and he
didn’t look to the left and the right,
he stayed in his own focus. I think
that’s super inspirational.
Who else has loomed large?
If I can feel what somebody
is singing about, that’s so
inspirational to me. So someone
like Nina Simone, someone like
James Brown, someone like
Linda Ronstadt, someone
like Björk. I’m interested in
emotional connection.
INTERVIEW: SHARON O’CONNELL

NEW ALBUMS

GRANDADDY
Blu Wav

DANGERBIRD

8/10

Jason Lytle takes country-rock on a
love-lorn mystery tour. By Laura Barton

DUSTIN AKSLAND

T

HE great gift of Grandaddy
records has always been
their ability to immerse the
listener in a distinct musical
landscape. The small-city
drift of Under The Western Freeway, the
humidity of 2000’s The Sophtware Slump.
The band’s sixth studio album belongs
to somewhere new again: in part rooted
in Modesto, the California city where
songwriter Jason Lytle was raised, and
to where he returned in 2016, setting
up a home studio. It belongs, too, to
neighbouring Nevada, where in recent
years Lytle has liked to take long desert
drives. And in some way it is a record of
Tennessee – on one of his roadtrips, Lytle

24 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

having heard Patti Page’s 1950 recording
“Tennessee Waltz” spilling out of the car
radio, and wondering whether maybe
heartbreak didn’t sound something
like pedal steel.
Various heartbreaks run through
Blu Wav. Not least the loss of long-term
Grandaddy member Kevin Garcia, who
died suddenly of a stroke in 2017. Garcia’s
passing was the latest downswing in
the life of a band that had often been
unsettled, and was sometimes barely
a band at all.
Formed in 1996,
and often touted as
America’s answer
to Radiohead,
Grandaddy spun
a kind of warm,
witty space rock
chronicling the
melancholy
meet-cute between
mankind and the
natural world.
For a time they
seemed destined for
immense success,

but despite touring extensively and
enjoying critical acclaim, the rock’n’roll
life proved too unwieldy, too mentally
draining, too financially precarious,
and the band broke up in 2005. A later
reformation brought the post-divorce
record Last Place, but came to an abrupt
halt with the death of Garcia two months
later. None of this – the loss of a friend, the
end of a band, appears to be addressed
directly on Blu Wav, and yet it runs
beneath these songs like a strange kind
of undertow.
More directly, these are songs of
romantic break-up and disenchantment,
storytelling sometimes, autobiography
the next: an outdoorsy sort acknowledges
the inevitable failure of his relationship
with an office worker in the exquisite
“Watercooler”; a jealous lover haunts his
ex via their favourite songs on “Jukebox
App”; and a far-flung suitor drifts into
deep longing on the bittersweet “On A
Train Or Bus”. All tell stories of love at
a remove – protagonists out of time or
physically apart – and these intimate
emotional gulfs help to underscore the
sense of space that has long characterised

NEW ALBUMS

The title nods to an unlikely
connection between
bluegrass and New Wave
and New Wave, and the songs here do
Grandaddy’s music; a vastness
meet that brief: they sound both heartfelt
that somehow sweeps together the
and hardwired, simple and lilting tunes
American landscape, cyberspace and
encounter electronics and overdubs, found
great expanses of feeling.
sounds, recordings made at the
“Ducky, Boris And Dart”
local Guitar Center, and tapings of
is more tangential – named
coyotes in Los Angeles.
for three departed animals,
1 Blu Wav
2 Cabin In My
Lytle has noted that seven out of
a kitten, a bird and a cat,
Mind
the album’s 13 songs are waltzes,
and at first sounding
3 Long As I’m
and that there is “an inordinate
little more than a dusty,
Not The One
amount of pedal steel” to boot.
sweet ditty, it manages
4 You’re Going
To Be Fine And It’s the first time Grandaddy have
to serve as a tribute to all
I’m Going To
in any way rooted themselves
losses, drawing the ear
Hell
in a specific genre, and it proves
back, looping it around
5 Watercooler
strikingly successful; Lytle’s more
and burrowing deep. It’s
6 Let’s Put This
Pinto On The
experimental electronica pushing
too categorical to call this
Moon
against any notion of nostalgia or
a song for Garcia, but it’s
7 On A Train
country pastiche. It’s not unfamiliar
hard not to wonder as Lytle
Or Bus
territory – a fine recent companion
sings the song’s refrain:
8 Jukebox App
9 Yeehaw Ai In
to Blu Wav might be Angel Olsen’s
“Well thank you my friend,
The Year 2025 Big Time, which also reckoned
but this ain’t the end/We
10 Ducky, Boris
with loss via a contemporary take
will meet again”.
And Dart
Lytle made this record
11 East Yosemite on country music. Lytle similarly
12 Nothin’ To Lose takes distinct musical touchstones,
pretty much solo, though
13 Blu Wav Buh
those waltzes and pedal-steel
in the story of Grandaddy
Bye
quivers, pairs them with some of the
this has often been the
iconography of Americana, cabins,
case; the songs unspooling
Produced by:
Jason Lytle
jukeboxes, barrooms, and wraps
from him, and for the most
Personnel: Jason them in synths and compressors
part set down by him, too.
Lytle (vocals,
This has allowed the band
instruments), Max and pre-amps.
The effect is to send the
to establish a particular
Hart (pedal steel)
listener into a kind of emotional,
sonic signature in which
geographical and chronological
the pastoral meets with
freefall, as if we might be passing
technological twists and
through any decade, state or era in recent
buffers Lytle’s dusky falsetto. Blu
American history. A little lost, a little lovelorn,
Wav’s title nods to an unexpected
in hope of a place to land.
intersection between bluegrass

SLEEVE NOTES

Jason Lytle: not
yet past his
sell-by date

RECOMMENDED

RIDING THE WAV
Jason Lytle’s finest albums so far

The Sophtware Slump
V2, 2000

Grandaddy’s breakthrough
record captured something
of the Y2K spirit: a sense of
existential drift carried in what
Lytle described as songs “about
trees and computers” but which
ranged from tales of big city
disillusionment to a robot who
drinks himself to death.

10/10

Just Like The Fambly Cat
V2, 2006

Last Place

30TH CENTURY/COLUMBIA, 2017

Some years after they split, Lytle
rekindled his band and recorded
this unanticipated gem in the
wake of his divorce. The result
was a collection of fuzzed-out
laments and up-tempo takes on
Drummer Aaron Burtch was the
weary lives, with an occasional
only other contributor to this record punk rock interjection. For a
of intimacy and introspection.
moment they sounded like
a band reignited. 9/10
9/10
hiatus was recorded by Lytle over
18 months, and captures the sound
of a life fractured: a break-up,
the subsequent loss of home,

AtoZ
This month…
P26
P27
P28
P30
P31
P34
P35
P39

NADINE SHAH
BLACKBERRY SMOKE
IDLES
CORB LUND
J MASCIS
LEE ‘SCRATCH’ PERRY
THE TELESCOPES
MARY TIMONY

LES AMAZONES
D’AFRIQUE
Musow Danse
REAL WORLD

8/10
Third album from West African
female collective
After two albums
helmed by
Congotronics
producer Doctor L,
Les Amazones here
turn to Jacknife Lee
to clothe their diverse voices in a
thrilling soundbed of glitchy synths
and hip-hop and trap influences.
The latest iteration of the sorority
includes six vocalists from five
different countries, all singing
in their native languages but
lent a majestic cohesion by their
militant themes of women’s rights
and female power and Lee’s
brilliantly inventive electronic
production. The songs are rich in
both melody and syncopation,
with “Esperance”, featuring the
wonderfully keening tones of Mali’s
Mamani Keita, and the gritty “My
Place”, sung by Cote d’Ivoire’s Dobet
Gnahore, among the standouts.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON

KARL BARTOS
The Cabinet Of Dr
Caligari
TAPETE

6/10
Former Kraftwerker’s silentfilm soundscape
The loss of Giuseppe
Becce’s original
score for Robert
Wiene’s 1920
psychological
thriller has
prompted numerous soundtrack
attempts, notably John Zorn’s
for the 2014 restoration. Further
digital restoration allows former
Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos
to apply his psychological
spanner to the expressionist
imagery. Without pictures, it’s
fragmented. Faint echoes of
Kraftwerk (a waft of “Computer
World” on the lyrical “Jane’s
Theme”) are less obvious than
Steve Reich-like motifs and woozy
fairground sounds. “In Search of
the Truth” achieves Bartos’s aim
of rendering the dreamworld
of Caligari’s mad protagonist
“through kaleidoscopic ears”.
ALASTAIR McKAY
FEBRUARY 2024 •

• 25

NEW ALBUMS

Flair and
punch:
Nadine
Shah

NADINE SHAH
Filthy Underneath

EMI NORTH

9/10

TIM TOPPLE

After a hellish few years, this versatile
songwriter produces her best work to
date. By Daniel Dylan Wray
TO say that Nadine
Shah has been
through a lot since
2020 would be an
understatement.
On top of a global
pandemic, she lost her
mother to cancer, got married, attempted
suicide, went to rehab and got divorced.
All of which is funnelled directly into her
latest record. Although it explores pain,
death, mental illness and the dizzying
process of coming out of all of that, it’s also
a record that contains bundles of beauty,
tenderness, humour and even joy.
Made in collaboration with her longterm writing partner Ben Hillier, it is also
musically the most varied and exciting
album the pair have made together. The
opening “Even Light” is driven by an
infectious and bouncing bassline that
drills into the core of the song as Shah’s
voice floats atop, while subtle electronics
bubble away and brass-like synth stabs
punctuate. It sets the tone for an album
that is leaps and bounds above anything
else Shah has done before – a record
that’s layered and detailed, coated with
beautifully rich production, yet also
spacious and considered.
26 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

SLEEVE NOTES
1
2
3
4

Even Light
Topless Mother
Food For Fuel
You Drive, I
Shoot
5 Keeping Score
6 Sad Lads
Anonymous
7 Greatest
Dancer
8 See My Girl
9 Twenty Things
10 Hyperrealism
11 French Exit
Produced by:
Ben Hillier
Recorded at:
Agricultural
Audio, UK
Personnel: Nadine
Shah (vocals),
Ben Hillier (guitar,
bass, drums,
keys, synths,
harmonium, piano,
programming,
percussion), Dan
Crook (synths,
programming,
guitar), Ben
Nicholls (bass,
synths)

Lead single “Topless Mother” is perhaps
the track that feels most in keeping with
Shah’s previous work, with a whiff of the
PJ Harvey and Bad Seeds influence still
hovering around, but the song is somewhat
of an anomaly. The flurry of drums,
crunchy guitars and animated vocal
delivery – which, combined, could easily
be mistaken for something by the Swedish
psych-rock outfit Goat – soon gives way to
an album that winds things down rather
than cranks them up.
Any familiarities quickly dissipate: “Food
Or Fuel”, for instance, absorbs the influence
of the Indian disco-jazz-pop artist Asha
Puthli, and turns it into a subtle funk strut
that is soothing and hypnotising as it locks
into its twisting, pulsing rhythm. Shah
leans into singing more than ever here,
so her voice feels like a vital instrumental
force as well as functioning as an intimate

Nadine Shah “It wasn’t
cathartic, it was horrible”

Q&A

Did you have an aim/mission
I never really know. Writing for me is
like journaling, I write for myself and
sometimes they end up as songs. I had a
tough few years and I wrote through it all.
I’ve never an aim or mission statement
as such with the work I make. These are
just a collection of songs from a woman
again and is trying to keep it there.
Where do you think this one goes
It’s far more synth-heavy than the
others. I wanted to make music that

and captivating narrator. This is most
perfectly embodied on the sprechgesang
track “Sad Lads Anonymous”, which sees
Shah lashing out generous helpings of
self-deprecating humour. “This was a dumb
idea, even for you”, she begins, as a gothic
groove locks in, and she recalls tales from
“the madhouse” along with a preceding
spiralling period. It’s brilliantly direct
songwriting that is honest and raw but also
goes way above the diary confessional. The
lyrics are dark and anguished but biting,
funny and vivid; it almost feels perverse to
extract such pleasure from something so
clearly rooted in torment and turbulence,
but such dichotomies are what gives the
album its flair and punch.
As a whole, guitars take a back-seat role
here and are generally utilised for adding
texture and atmosphere, while synths
are plentiful. Itchy, propulsive post-punkesque rhythms are largely ditched for
a more glacial and unfurling pace that
gives Shah’s voice room to breathe and
soar. On tracks such as “Greatest Dancer”
and “Hyperrealism”, her voice sounds
truly remarkable. On the former it wraps
itself around immersive electronics and a
potently hypnotic beat, while the delicate
composition of the latter, merging piano
and warm blasts of synth, leaves room
for a vocal performance that at one point
suggests Nina Simone before gliding into
something else, sparkling with pristine and
devastatingly beautiful elegance.
The closing track exists as a perfect
embodiment of the album and Shah’s
approach to tackling the difficult subject
matter. Its title, “French Exit”, uses a phrase
that means ducking out of a party without
saying goodbye to explore her suicide
attempt. “Just a French exit/A quiet little
way out/Nothing explicit”, she sings over
a gentle yet compelling beat that almost
recalls Oneohtrix Point Never as it gently
builds. It’s a roomy, expansive song that
feels quietly haunting and devastating,
perhaps even more so because it leaves
such space for genuine contemplation as
the album ends. It allows you, forces you
even, to reflect on the remarkably hard
journey this artist has been through, while
soaking up the immense beauty that’s been
created in its wake.

most I’ve ever used my voice. I’ve always
had a tendency on records to under-sing.
It felt freeing using the full capacity of my
How has the process of making this
record been for you personally given
Writing the record wasn’t cathartic, it
was horrible. Lyrics were written and
rewritten over and over again. It’s never
felt like work before. I always had some
enjoyment from writing, not so much this
time round. But it felt hugely satisfying
once the work was done. I’m proud of
the album I’ve made. I think it’s my most
accomplished work.
INTERVIEW: DANIEL DYLAN WRAY

NEW ALBUMS
LEGGED/THIRTY TIGERS

8/10
Southern rockers rock
Southernly
The Atlanta group
have always been
content to operate
in the middle of the
Venn diagram of
Lynyrd Skynyrd, The
Allman Brothers, The Marshall Tucker
Band and Charlie Daniels. However,
Blackberry Smoke also carry off
their bourbon-soused boogie with a
swaggering panache comparable with
that of any of their antecedents – and
when approached on its own merits,
the Dave Cobb-produced Be Right
Here is a minor classic of the genre.
“Hammer And The Nail” is a grinning
working man’s lament, “Don’t Mind
If I Do” a joyous stomp and holler
rejoicing in the racket that carries it.
ANDREW MUELLER

JOHN BRAMWELL
The Light Fantastic
TOWNSEND MUSIC

7/10
Splendid solo set by former I Am
Kloot frontman
As John Bramwell
tells it, The Light
Fantastic is – from
the title downwards
– a somewhat
counterintuitive
exercise in optimism despite it all:
the songs were written in a bid to
alleviate grief at the passing of both
his parents. The result is a guileless
yet poised series of statements of
happiness to be here. The songs
are set largely to sparse acoustic

backings, the better to foreground
the sumptuous vocal harmonies. The
likes of “A World Full Of Flowers”
and the especially pretty “A Sky Full
Of Thunder And Lightning” suggest
something of a lo-fi Gordon Lightfoot.
ANDREW MUELLER

ANNA CALVI/ANNA
CALVI & NICK LAUNAY
Peaky Blinders: Season 5
& 6 (Original Score)
DOMINO SOUNDTRACKS

8/10
Mercury-shortlisted
songwriter’s first score gets
vinyl pressing
When first
commissioned to
score the penultimate
season of the BBC’s
Peaky Blinders, Calvi
says she was drawn
to the show’s “beauty and brutality”.
This dichotomy is evident in what
would become her two seasons’ worth
of music for the show (the second in
collaboration with Launay): industrial
clangs and screaming guitars; barelythere piano and vocals; percussive
breathwork creating an atmosphere
as unsettling as the politics of the final
season’s 1930s setting. Calvi’s take on
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “Red Right
Hand” – the show’s theme song – is
as good a jumping-in point as any:
haunted and menacing, her breathy,
dispassionate vocals the perfect foil.
LISA-MARIE FERLA

THE CHISEL
What A Fucking
Nightmare PURE NOISE

8/10
Oi! Full-tilt punk rock from
London newcomers
Anna Calvi:
playing a
blinder,
breathily

From the same
London punk
demimonde that
gave us High Vis and
Chubby & The Gang
comes The Chisel.
Their What A Fucking Nightmare
comes on like an update of a certain
strain of ’70s UK street punk – that
rowdy, proudly proletarian sound
pedalled by the likes of The Exploited
or Angelic Upstarts. Their best tracks
have a celebratory tilt: see “Cry Your
Eyes Out” or the gleefully vitrolic
“Bloodsucker”. But frontman Cal
Graham is a charismatic presence
throughout, one minute delivering
spittle-flecked denunciations, the
next leading terrace choruses as
bright as a buffed-up Dr Marten boot.
LOUIS PATTISON

CHROMEO
Adult Contemporary
KARTEL

7/10
Corny Canadians come clean
After 20 years,
Chromeo’s smug
synth-funk shtick
should have run
out of road, but
Dave ‘Dave One’
Macklovitch and Patrick ‘P-Thugg’
Gemayel are such adept showmen that
they’ve managed to milk a passable
sixth album out of a string of genre
cliches. Adult Contemporary is a witty
navigation of middle-aged affairs
of the heart set to air-tight songs
indebted to the creaminess of Hall
& Oates and Steely Dan (“CODA”) as
much as the electro-funk of Rick James
or Imagination (“Words With You”). As
always, you know what you’re getting
– and you get that they’re knowing.
PIERS MARTIN

JAMES JONATHAN
CLANCY
Sprecato
MAPLE DEATH

8/10
Unsettling, immersive
offering by self-described
“Alien Cowboy”
As the founder of
Maple Death Records,
Clancy usually
works on other
people’s music but
here releases his first
album for seven years – and the first
under his own name. It’s an enriching
stew of a record – a little bit Elliott
Smith, some Nick Cave, Beefheart,
drone and No Wave, with elements of
everything from country to electronica
to sweeten, agitate and confuse.
There’s a deep angst and bleakness
to songs like “I Want You”, “Had It
All” and “Black And White”, but
tenderness too, with bursts of guitar,
sax, flute and synth bubbling up like
shards of sunshine after a storm.
PETER WATTS

CLARK
Cave Dog
THROTTLE

7/10
Hertfordshire electro doyen
returns for seconds

Chris Clark’s second
album in a year came
about while he was
making short tracks
for clips to promote
last May’s Sus Dog,
his Thom Yorke-starring indie thriller,
which he compulsively weaved into
his usual style of lysergic funk and
scrunched-up boom-bap. The spectre
of Yorke lingers on Cave Dog, not least
in Clark’s ethereal vocals for “Vardo”
and “Dolgoch Dry As Ash”, his lush,
organic techno sloshing at the sides.
The second half is drum-free and all
the better for it, leading to the strange
gospel of “Disappeared Forest” and,
in “Alyosha Lying”, a beautifully
understated piece that casually
demonstrates his class. PIERS MARTIN

THE DEAD SOUTH
Chains & Stakes
SIX SHOOTER

6/10
Canadian post-bluegrass
quartet’s free-associating fourth
The Saskatchewan
ensemble double
down on their
bluegrass-framed
but genre-agnostic
approach to rootsy
Americana here. While they audibly
borrow songwriting tropes from
more modern milieux, they’re best
whipping up furiously fingerpicking
hoedowns on the 89-second “20
Mile Jump” and the urgent “Son
Of Ambrose”. The booming blokey
vocal, rock-style shuffle riff and
brooding sentiments of “Completely,
Sweetly” resemble a hillbilly covers
band tackling Pearl Jam, but the
evocative acoustic interludes “Where
Has The Time Gone” and “A Place
I Hardly Know” show likeably
emotive sensitivity. Then “The Cured
Contessa”’s quick-slow tribute to
a bacon-loving matriarch shows a
characteristic humour that further
sets them apart. JOHNNY SHARP

C DIAB
IMERRO TOMNAL UNION

8/10
Canadian multiinstrumentalist evokes his
Vancouver Island childhood
Caton Diab’s fifth
album was recorded
in a studio reached
only by boat, an
isolation reflected in
its sometimes quietly
epic gloominess. If “Quasimoto
Sound”, for instance, conjures up still
waters, they’re definitely moonlit,
while the eerie “Crypsis” threatens
to crumple like rusting corrugated
iron. Admittedly, “Erratum” throws
open the doors with noisy fanfares,
while “The Excuse Of Fiction”’s
stark, delayed guitar lines recall
early Durutti Column’s recordings,
though they’re soon overwhelmed by
droning guitar suggestive of intense
summer heat. But even “Lunar
Barge” offsets restless percussion
with mournful brass, its bowed
instruments echoing Argentinian
Sebastian Plano’s recent cello
experiments. WYNDHAM WALLACE
FEBRUARY 2024 •

• 27

EMMA NATHAN

BLACKBERRY SMOKE
Be Right Here

NEW ALBUMS
WILLIAM DOYLE
Springs Eternal TOUGH LOVE

8/10
Mercury-nominated
songwriter extracts beauty
from darkness on latest
With subjects
spanning global
disaster, heartbreak,
addiction and mental
illness, you may
think you’d be in for
a bleak outing from Doyle on his latest.
Instead, from the opening “Garden
Of The Morning”, which shifts from
sounding like an isolated Thom Yorke
vocal into a delicate, layered, melodic
and harmony-rich piece of art pop,
we are thrust into a world bursting
with life. From the electronic skip
of “Now In Motion” to the wonky
psychedelic glam stomp of “Eternal
Spring”, Doyle has made a record
that is as intricate as it is infectious,
creating a deft yet complex pop collage
that turns a troubled and chaotic
world into a beautiful spectacle.
DANIEL DYLAN WRAY

JOHN MARK HANSON

EARLY LIFE FORMS
Early Life Forms WERF

7/10
Marc Ribot guests with
Belgian quartet for
captivating live one-off
Asked to do a gig
at the BRAND!
Festival in Mechelen,
Brussels-based
guitarist Vitja
Pauwels took a
big swing by inviting Marc Ribot to
guest star in his new band’s very
first show. Though Pauwels wrote
some new songs to use as templates,
stakes were further raised when the
participants agreed not to do any
rehearsals beyond a brief soundcheck.
The recording of the event offers yet
more evidence of Ribot’s dexterity
and ingenuity as well as proof of his
host’s playful approach to jazz and
improv fundamentals. Another boon
is Pauwels’ keen understanding of
the optimal spatial arrangement of
the interweaving lines created by the
three guitarists at hand: Ribot, Early

Life Forms baritone guitarist Frederik
Leroux and Pauwels himself.
JASON ANDERSON

EPIC45
You’ll Only See Us When
The Light Has Gone
WAYSIDE & WOODLAND

7/10
Tender, ghostly electroacoustic pop songs
Epic45 albums tend
to be variations on
a theme – drowsy,
post-rock palimpsests
of songs; careful
interfaces of the
acoustic and the electronic; a
British wistfulness and understated
experimentalism that nods back to
the likes of Hood, Robert Wyatt, Bark
Psychosis. You’ll Only See Us When
The Light Has Gone follows that logic,
though the strength and artfulness
of these 10 songs ultimately guides
things here. This collection feels
gentler, perhaps, the songs carefully
constructed, their emotional core
quite fragile – see the personalis-political mantra “Underneath
The Houses”. But Rob Glover and
Benjamin Holton have always excelled
at quiet revelation. JON DALE

FRONTIER RUCKUS
On The Northline
LOOSE MUSIC

8/10
Tremendous sixth from
consistently inventive
Michigan trio
Frontier Ruckus
have dedicated an
impressive career to
the proposition that
there is no inherent
contradiction
between nigh-rustic musical
backdrops and playful, hyper-literate
lyrics. On The Northline exists in a
space approximately cornered by
Okkervill River, Elliott Smith and
Dawes. Songwriter Matthew Milia
retains his knack for opening lines
that cannot but prompt curiosity about
what’s coming next: the droll love
song “Everywhere But Beside You”

kicks off by cataloguing “Summer’s
sticky sickness/And one Jehovah’s
Witness”. The languid “Bloomfield
Marriott” and jauntier “The
Machines Of Summer” are further
demonstrations of something special
and still under-appreciated.
ANDREW MUELLER

GREEN DAY
Saviors REPRISE

7/10
Ageless punks still letting it rip
on 14th studio album
Three decades
after Green Day’s
breakthrough LP
Dookie and 20 years
after the trio upped
the ante with the
thematic tableau American Idiot, these
pop-punk progenitors get back to
basics on Saviors. Reconvening with
Rob Cavallo, who co-produced their
signature records, they unleash 15
compact, primarily pro forma bangers.
Along the way, they revel in Billie Joe
Armstrong’s wry brand of political
satire (“The American Dream Is Killing
Me”, “Strange Days Are Here To Stay”),
gleeful self-mockery (“Look Ma, No
Brains!”, “Dilemma”) and nostalgia
(“1981”, “Corvette Summer”) before
climaxing with the anthemic lullaby
“Father To A Son” and the Revolveresque title track. Green Day’s motor,
as always, is Tré Cool, who attacks his
drumkit with vintage-punk fury and
Bonzo-level force. BUD SCOPPA

HURRAY FOR THE
RIFF RAFF
The Past Is Still Alive
NONESUCH

8/10
Alynda Segarra goes back to
basics – but with a twist
On 2022’s Life On
Earth, Alynda
Segarra seemed to
be making their bid
for the mainstream,
embracing heartland
rock and synth beats. It worked well
enough but the title of The Past Is Still
Alive is perhaps symbolic, for here
they make a welcome return to the
looser, roots sound of earlier albums.
The likes of “Hawkmoon” and “Snake
Plant” are classic story-telling songs
on which they sound like a punkinflected Gillian Welch jamming with
The Band in Woodstock, although
they’ve lost none of their sly pleasure
in throwing the odd curveball and
upping the ante: on “Vetiver” they
almost morph into Suzi Quatro.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON

IDLES
Tangk

PARTISAN

Frontier
Ruckus: (l–r)
Zach Nichols,
Matthew Milia,
David Jones
28 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

8/10
Nigel Godrich co-produces
and James Murphy guests on
muscular, tender fifth
Idles are finding
increasing room in
their rock assault for
intricate beauty. Nigel
Godrich’s production
presence alongside
Kenny Beats and lead guitarist and

musical explorer Mark Bowen may
suggest OK Computer-style lift-off,
but Tangk is more about diverse,
swooning sonic details that
support troubled singer Joe Talbot’s
redemption. “POP POP POP” is
pressurised and abrasive, yet
Talbot raps poignant and joyous
confessions. “Roy” describes extreme,
uncensored love, powered by violent
metaphors and giddy dreams of
immortality, cresting from a scratchy
indie jangle to anthemic howls.
“A Gospel” tiptoes on undulating
piano and a delicate vocal
abandoned to love and loss. Talbot
still finds punishment “underneath
a Scotsman’s boot”, but liberation
overwhelms him. NICK HASTED

ITASCA
Imitation Of War

PARADISE OF BACHELORS

8/10
An electric comeback from the
solo artist and Gun Outfit bassist
On her fifth album
as Itasca and her
first in nearly five
years, the LA singersongwriter Kayla
Cohen switches
from acoustic guitar to electric.
It’s a major shake-up for the folk
singer – she coaxes a rich tone from
her ’71 Gibson SG-100 to match the
duskiness of her vocals, especially
on the jangly title track and the lowkey epic “Tears On Sky Mountain”.
The spidery licks on opener “Milk”
sound like they were inspired by the
23rd minute of a Grateful Dead live cut.
Switching guitars opens her songs up
considerably, but Cohen maintains
the intimacy and intelligence that
have always been her signature.
STEPHEN DEUSNER

ARIEL KALMA,
JEREMIAH CHIU &
MARTA SOFIA HONER
The Closest Thing
To Silence
INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM

8/10
Experimental electronic jazz
collage collaboration
The Closest Thing
To Silence is a
collaboration
between New Age
composer Ariel
Kalma, electronic
music composer Jeremiah Chiu and
violist/violinist Marta Sofia Honer.
The trio expanded upon pieces
created for a BBC Radio 3 programme
that pairs artists who haven’t
previously worked together, leading
to an album’s worth of gorgeously
realised experimental music.
Moments of improvised playing are
combined and edited with recordings
made by Kalma in the ’70s along
with voice notes, resulting in a rich
collage of expression that glides
across genres. From the ecstatic
dreaminess of “Breathing In Three
Orbits” to the digital phantasmagoria
of “Stack Attack”, these sonic
experiments reconstitute past and
future into a shimmering new world.
ANA GAVRILOVSKA

Brothers grin:
(l–r) Skinner,
Greenwood
and Yorke

THE SMILE
Wall Of Eyes

XL

9/10

Yorke, Greenwood and Skinner match
Radiohead for challenges, surprises
and beauty. By Wyndham Wallace
WERE Thom
Yorke and Jonny
Greenwood to insist
that both The Smile’s
debut album, 2022’s
A Light For Attracting
Attention, and this
surprisingly expeditious follow-up were
the direct successors to Radiohead’s last
broadcast, 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool, it’s
doubtful many would query them. After
all, despite Ed O’Brien, Colin Greenwood
and Phil Selway’s vital contributions to
the quintet’s long-term success, Yorke and
the younger Greenwood have long been
Radiohead’s dominant forces. Creatively,
they’re so idiosyncratic – especially
with drummer Tom Skinner’s role here
so discreet, if unquestionably intricate –
that common ground between The Smile
and Radiohead is inevitable.
As much as we anticipate reinvention
when musicians adopt an alias, this isn’t
why The Smile exists. Greenwood, simply
put, was writing prolifically during the
pandemic, and since not all of Radiohead
were available while Skinner was – he’d
already worked with Greenwood on
his 2012 score to The Master – the trio
teamed up to see where things might
lead. Consequently, ‘Kid B’ exhibits little
interest in distinguishing itself from ‘Kid
A’: both bands trade in warped melodies,
tricksy time signatures, unfamiliar
structures, and unpredictable, inspired
tangents, albeit rarely so much that they
appear intellectually aloof. They even
dress in matching clothes, with Stanley

SLEEVE NOTES
1 Wall Of Eyes
2 Teleharmonic
3 Read The
Room
4 Under Our
Pillows
5 Friend Of A
Friend
6 I Quit
7 Bending
Hectic
8 You Know Me!
Produced by:
Sam PettsDavies
Recorded in:
Oxford and at
Abbey Road
Personnel: Thom
Yorke (vocals,
guitar, bass,
piano, modular
synth), Jonny
Greenwood
(guitar, bass,
piano), Tom
Skinner
(drums), London
Contemporary
Orchestra

Donwood and Yorke handling the
artwork for each.
Sure, each band sounds a little
different, with The Smile arguably
more spontaneous, occasionally a
smidge more post-punk, a tad sparser
and sometimes a bit rawer, especially
on this second album. That’s perhaps
thanks to Nigel Godrich’s replacement
as producer by Sam Petts-Davis, Yorke’s
Suspiria co-producer, but development
is what we’ve come to expect from
Radiohead too: a group that’s always
changing, always adapting, playing to
their present strengths. No wonder it’s
so hard to tell the two of them apart.
The Smile’s cheerful choice of nom de
plume was less a declaration of intent
than a practical way of acknowledging
a new constellation.
Of course, it makes commercial sense to
blur the bands’ identities too, casting The
Smile less as spinoff than regeneration,
like a new Doctor Who, emerging from
the same gene pool with equal gravitas.
It makes artistic sense as well, allowing
them to fill the space left by Radiohead’s
absence while exploiting that global
brand’s freedoms. Certainly, none of
the grand fanfares or bittersweet
symphonies usually preceding the
return of megastars heralded Wall Of
Eyes, which was largely written on
tour. Instead, it was introduced by the
breathtakingly arranged “Bending
Hectic”, eight minutes of hushed vocals
and tortured guitar strings, smoothed

early on by featherlight violins which
ultimately catapult filthy, doom metal
chords into the mix.
Wall Of Eyes begins, too, not with a
crowd-pleasing anthem but a finespun,
chiefly acoustic title track whose initial
impressionistic smudge only lifts, like
a ghostly mist, upon repeated plays.
Even when additional effects edge in
and sky-scraping strings descend, their
influence is more eerie than reassuring. A
5/4-time signature, despite its samba feel,
is bookish too – in contrast to the brattish
5/4 of “You’ll Never Work In Television
Again” (from A Light For Attracting
Attention), or In Rainbows’ mesmeric,
cantering “15 Step” – and, as the song
begins disintegrating around him, Yorke
counts each beat aloud. Still, both are
in keeping with Wall Of Eyes’ character,
which revels in that welcome but
vanishing concept, the album as an entity
of its own. This is, in essence, worldbuilding music, with its stylistic breadth
and dignified restraint remarkable.
Not that there aren’t moments of
relative abandon. Somewhat gentler than
“Bending Hectic”’s violent coda, “Read
The Room” opens with intertwined,
sinewy guitar lines, Yorke wailing like a
peevish child over a hiccupping rhythm
before a left turn into post-rock riffage
and, later, early Verve-like shoegazing.
“Under Our Pillows” begins with further
spiky guitars and another 5/4 rhythm,
though a brief stretch of meandering
Pink Floyd psychedelia accelerates into
a motorik dreamscape, while “Friend
Of A Friend” – yet again in 5/4 – hastens
to its conclusion, despite otherwise
resembling “Pyramid Song”, with “A Day
In The Life” orchestral squall.
Even that is hardly rampant, while
the atmosphere elsewhere is pensively
spellbinding. “I Quit” bleeds into a
shimmering mirage with percussive tics,
shards of synths and lush strings that
couldn’t be less like Greenwood’s hero,
Krzysztof Penderecki’s, and “You Know
Me!” boasts Yorke’s fine falsetto over
muffled piano chords quickly caught on
a crepuscular breeze of hazy strings. Even
“Teleharmonic”, the only true curveball,
is a desolate, shivering electro-soul-barer,
Yorke’s early murmur slurring “payback”
into “baby”. Astonishingly, before
long he’s hollering like Marvin Gaye in
wordless ecstasy, with pastoral pipes,
shimmering cymbals and rumbling
synths bringing things to a blissful close.
Few artists are able to reach the stage
where their fans trust them implicitly
without soon becoming creatively
complacent. Fewer still seem
satisfied with that audience, instead
scrabbling around desperately for
greater relevance, with often the
opposite result. But The Smile take
Radiohead’s privileges seriously,
rewarding our attention with
music that demands and –
crucially – holds it. No frills,
no distractions. A little like
Radiohead, then; but there’s
nothing wrong with that.
FEBRUARY 2024 •

• 29

FRANK LEBON

NEW ALBUMS

NEW ALBUMS

AMERICANA
Album of the month

CORB LUND
El Viejo
NEW WEST

8/10

All-acoustic jamboree from prolific Canadian
LUND’S last album, 2022’s Songs My
Friends Wrote, was a self-explanatory
bunch of covers from songwriters
he’s admired and got to know over the
years: Todd Snider, Hayes Carll, Tom
Russell, Fred Eaglesmith and the like.
But in pride of place were two songs – “Montana Waltz”
and “Road To Las Cruces” – from veteran Ian Tyson.
His mentor and fellow Canadian sadly passed away
that December, prompting Lund and his trusty Hurtin’
Albertans to record El Viejo in his honour.
The sober title track is a direct tribute. Translated as
‘the old one’, the name that mutual ally Tom Russell
took to calling Tyson in recent times, Lund salutes his
memory, mourning his loss while also celebrating his
influence, leaving boots to fill that “I’m not sure we
ever will”. As with everything on El Viejo, it’s a purely
unplugged affair, Lund and the band repairing to his
front room in Alberta armed only with acoustic guitars,
banjo, mandolin, upright bass and drums.
The quick-take, live-in-the-room approach serves

these songs well. Lund uses Marty Robbins, Kris
Kristofferson, Bobbie Gentry and Jerry Reed as a rough
tonal and lyrical fix, essaying tales of washed-up
fighters, gamblers, drug casualties and outcasts. “The
Cardplayers”, certainly, owes much to Robbins’ soupedup outlaw aesthetic, racing along on guitar and flush
with harmonies. There’s a wonderful rockabilly feel to
the Reed-ish “I Had It All”, its bluesy harmonica intro
and freight train chug marking the fate of a no-good
chancer who pissed away his money in search of easy
thrills. “Redneck Rehab” is just as good as it suggests,
a spirited hillbilly rocker whose hapless protagonist
is “Up for days in the Georgia pine/Choppin’ wood and
choppin’ lines”. The song ultimately finds a companion
in the spectacular “Old Familiar Drunken Feeling”, a
true-life account of Lund’s unhappy experience with an
edible hallucinogen prior to a gig in Colorado. “You’re
just gonna have to try to ride the rank bastard out”, he
sings, deep in the grip of herbal terror. “Onstage I was
freakin’ out”.
ROB HUGHES

AMERICANA ROUND-UP

GLEAN PRODUCTIONS

SETTING aside his solo career, Jason Ringenberg
has teamed up with Yorkshire-based Oklahoman
Victoria Liedtke for More Than Words Can Tell,
due in late March. The pair explore the songwriting
partnership of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner,
tackling early-’70s treasures like “Life Rides
The Train” and more obscure tunes. Recorded
in Worcester, back-up includes guitarist CJ
Hillman, double bassist John Parker and drummer
Tim Prottey-Jones. “When Victoria contacted
me about being the ‘Porter’ in this project, I was
super excited,” enthuses
Ringenberg, formerly of
Jason & The Scorchers. “The
Dolly-Porter duets are some
country music history.”
Also out is On The Ride
Here (COPACO/BLUE ÉLAN),
the latest from Houston30 •

•

ROBBY KRIEGER AND
THE SOUL SAVAGES
Robby Krieger And The
Soul Savages

THE PLAYERS CLUB/MASCOT LABEL

6/10
Ex-Doors guitarist unveils his
new project
Krieger’s most recent
endeavours have
seen him explore
the nuances of
jazz fusion with a
variety of players,
The Soul Savages being his latest
sympático partners. Regular bassist
Kevin Brandon is aboard here, as are
sometime Shuggie Otis organist Ed
Roth and Chaka Khan’s drummer
Franklin Vanderbilt. Conceived in
the same spirit of collaboration as
2000’s Cinematix or 2010’s Singularity,
these unhurried instrumentals rely
on Roth’s jazz-soul keyboards and
Krieger’s guitar rhythms for their
melodic groove, each piece a study
in graceful economy. It’s all very
tasteful and refined, but ultimately
feels a little bloodless.
ROB HUGHES

THE LAST DINNER
PARTY
Prelude To Ecstasy
ISLAND

6/10
James Ford-produced first from
London’s buzzy quintet
Last April, the release
of their f-bombstrewn debut single
“Nothing Matters”
whipped up such a
hype storm that some
suggested TLDP were an industry
“plant”. That discourse swirls around
their album, a rich, saturnine,
baroque-pop set full of romantic
drama. Strings, piano and keyboard
combine with multi-textured guitar
in songs that, though engaging, tend
toward the florid. They start as they
mean to go on, with the orchestral
pomp of “Prelude”, then, led by
Abigail Morris’s commanding voice,
roll through a dozen heady composites
of Abba, Sparks, Robyn and Queen,
with the odd nod to Suede. They save
the best ’til last – dark, slow-swinging
ballad “Mirror”, with its faint Bobbie
Gentry air. SHARON O’CONNELL

MINHWI LEE
Hometown To Come
MIRRORBALL

8/10
Languid, jazzy chamber pop
from Korea
Korean singersongwriter and film
composer Minhwi
Lee has reached
something new and
inspired with her
second solo album. Its predecessor,
2016’s Borrowed Tongue, was an
album of quiet achievement, slowly
gathering fans over the years, to the
point where The Notwist’s Markus
Acher recently reissued it on his
Alien Transistor label. Hometown
To Come takes the paced eloquence
of Lee’s songs to new places; it’s

NEW ALBUMS

JON DALE

MOLLY LEWIS
On The Lips
JAGJAGUWAR

8/10
The cinematic, romantic visions
of a preeminent whistler
Born in Australia
and based in LA,
whistler Molly Lewis
creates hypnotic,
hazy music that harks
back to the time of
lounge acts in cocktail bars. On her
debut LP, a revolving cast of acclaimed
musicians ground the otherworldly
atmosphere of her sensual visions:
“Lounge Lizard” is languid and jazzy,
the sonic equivalent of swirling the
ice in your drink, while “Slinky” is all
delicate guitar, moody synths and a
perfectly deployed organ. Lewis’ cover
of the 1974 Spanish pop song “Porque
Te Vas” is the most playfully upbeat
tune, but the album in its entirety feels
like the soundtrack to an imagined
film, mood music for swooning and
swaying. ANA GAVRILOVSKA

LONDON AFROBEAT
COLLECTIVE
Esengo
CANOPY

7/10
Fourth album from Londonbased multicultural collective
The name adopted
by this eight-strong
ensemble whose
members hail from
across four continents
only tells part of the
story – but then if you added funk,
jazz, salsa, rumba and dub to the
moniker, it wouldn’t fit on the posters
advertising their famously joyous
gigs. That they still worship at the
shrine of Fela Kuti is evident on tracks
such as “My Way”, but the Latin horns
of “El Ritmo De Londres” owe more to
the Fania All-Stars, and “Freedom”
has a tasty Funkadelic vibe. At
their best, as on “Topesa Esengo
Na Motema”, these influences
fuse gloriously together creating a
distinctive sound that’s all their own.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON

Minhwi Lee:
taking us to
new places

REVELATIONS

LOVING
Any Light LAST GANG/MNRK

7/10
British Columbian duo’s freshly
polished soft-rock Americana
From the rich
timbre of the title
track’s opening
guitars onward,
Loving’s second
album represents
a considerable advance from the
lo-fi indie-folk of 2020’s If I Am Only
My Thoughts. Full of lush, tender nods
to early ’70s West Coast conventions,
it displays a broader instrumental
palette, with Wurlitzer on “Medicine”,
which boasts the easy-going charms of
Harry Nilsson’s ”Everybody’s Talking”,
and piano on the spacious, slumbering
“On My Way”, like My Morning Jacket
tackling Josh Haden’s earliest Spain
songs. The understated, languorous
“Gift” meanwhile sits well alongside
Sam Burton’s recent Dear, Departed,
while “Blue”’s a suitably elegant, dusky
closer. WYNDHAM WALLACE

MGMT
Loss Of Life MOM + POP

9/10
Shape-shifting New Englanders
strike gold again on fifth album
Ben Goldwasser and
VanWyngarden have
often taken refuge
in experimentation
while trying to move
out of the shadow of
their acclaimed 2007 debut Oracular
Spectacular, and on this first release
since 2018’s synthpop-heavy set Little
Dark Age, they’ve hit upon a startlingly
seductive new sound. Either side of the
beautifully elegiac “Nothing Changes”
and the Flaming Lips-ish curios of “I
Wish I Was Joking” and “Phradie’s
Song”, they variously echo Air, Rain
Parade, ‘White Album’-era Beatles
and Fleetwood Mac, bookended by
two parts of a gorgeously lysergic,
softly mournful title track speckled
with surrealist babble. As such, it’s
a modern masterclass in psych pop.
JOHNNY SHARP

KALI MALONE
All Life Long IDEOLOGIC ORGAN

8/10
Pipe dreams: durational pieces
for choir, brass and organ
Which century is
this now? As “A
Passage Through The
Spheres”, a choral
piece on Kali Malone’s
latest LP begins, you
find yourself transported to a medieval
church. It’s fitting in a way: this is a
composer/musician whose longform
music is all about bending the fabric
of time. Completed over the last three
years, and begun during lockdown
2020, All Life Long combines vocal
pieces, revisiting themes in different
formations, for brass and organ. As
theoretical and technical a place as
it all comes from, though, the likes
of “No Sun To Burn” (for brass) or the
nine-minute title track, will pull on the
listener’s heartstrings at least as much
as it endorses the composer’s process.
JOHN ROBINSON

MGMT
“There’s not much irony
and sarcasm this time”

“W

E’RE into so many

music,” explains
MGMT’s Ben Goldwasser
when asked about the stylistic
partner Andrew VanWyngarden

group’s emergence in the midnoughties. “I like it that way,” says
the latter. “Shapeshifters are a
nice part of the community.”
On new album Loss Of Life we
see the ’80s-style electronic
pop of 2018’s Little Dark Age
succeeded by more guitarbased songs with a trippier,
neo-psychedelic feel.
“
know what that means,” says
VanWyngarden, despite the

J MASCIS
What Do We Do Now
SUB POP

8/10
Beefed-up acoustic songs from
Dinosaur Jr leader
Since Dinosaur Jr’s
2005 reunion, the
trio have played
with a pretty straight
bat, cleaving closely
to their formula of
sweet songs wrapped in scorching
guitar fuzz. Mascis’s solo albums,
then, have been an outlet for a
slightly different stripe of songcraft:
a strummy, acoustic folk-rock with
a hint of jangle. What Do We Do Now
has a little more meat on its bones
– “Can’t Believe We’re Here” and
“Right Behind You” toss in raggedy
electric leads and energetic drums,
while the muted “I Can’t Find You”
adds steel guitar and piano courtesy
of The B-52s’ Ken Maiuri. The result is
Mascis’s most fully formed and direct
solo set to date.
LOUIS PATTISON

term being used in the opening
sentence of their Wikipedia
page. “But I think the word
‘dream’ features at least three
times in these lyrics.”
There’s also a recurring
wistful theme within this record,
largely without the sardonic
displayed. “There’s not much
irony and sarcasm this time,”
VanWyngarden agrees.
“We feel like the world needs
something a little less cynical
when the title track is reprised
done a guided meditation?” asks
Goldwasser. “They check in on
how you feel at the beginning,
and then again at the end. Do you
JOHNNY SHARP

THE MISERABLE RICH
Overcome RAGS TO RUINS

8/10
Tragedy reunites Brighton
quintet after a decade
Following 2011’s
Miss You In
The Days, The
Miserable Rich’s
gatherings
remained purely
social, but when singer James De
Malplaquet’s son died in 2017 they
rallied around, writing together as
therapy. Overcome, impressively,
is frequently optimistic, not only
on the sensitive “Everything Bright
And New”, about his second son,
but also the raw “Glue”, which
recalls his earlier, devastated
departure from hospital. Opener
“The Ballad Of Young Finn”,
inspired by a couple late for a hot air
balloon ride, is as uplifting as the
enthusiastic “FHS” is infectious,
and even the Elbow-like “Probably
Will”’s fatalism can’t keep them
down. WYNDHAM WALLACE
•

• 31

JONAH FREEMAN

richly arranged, with lush thickets of
Mellotron and strings winding across
patiently plucked acoustic guitar.
Lee’s drowsy, murmured melodies
slip, gracefully, over that surface, like
a dazed Annette Peacock.

many exiles separated from their loved ones, which
was exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. Then
in November 2020 the uneasy 30-year ceasefire
between Morocco and the Polisario Front, the
armed wing of the Sahrawi liberation movement,
broke down and fighting resumed.
In 2022 came the death of the grandmother whose
revolutionary poetry Brahim had sung so stirringly
and who had taught her to be “proud and
tenacious” in the face of adversity. Out
of anguish, though, came inspiration,
1 Bein Trab U
and the spirit of the great matriarch
Lihjar
2 Thajliba
permeates the album from “Duaa”, a
3 Duaa
blues-drenched prayer in her honour, to
4 Marhabna 2.1
the tender tribute “Ljaima Likbira”.
5 Bubisher
6 Ljaima Likbira
Brahim’s default musical currency is a
7 Mawja
resonant African desert blues freighted
8 Metal,
with a mournful yet defiant passion, but
Madera
9 Haiyu Ya
with a distinctly feminist perspective
Zuwar
that is as different from Ali Farka Touré or
10 Fuadi
Tinariwen as, say, Bessie Smith was from
John Lee Hooker or Robert Johnson.
Produced by:
It’s a potent and compelling sound,
Aziza Brahim and
inextricably linked to the resistance
Guillem Aguilar
Recorded at:
struggle but with an inherent dignity and
Can Baixos
elegance – not merely a cry of protest at
and Saudades
oppression but a celebration of a proud
studios,
Barcelona
culture, too. Her country may have no
Personnel
official status but it “exists without
includes: Aziza
restrictions in our words, in our memory
Brahim (vocals,
tabal, acoustic
and in our voices”.
guitar), Guillem
Playing the traditional Sahrawi
Aguilar (guitars,
hand drum known as the tabal
GLITTERBEAT
bass), Ignassi
Cusso (guitars),
and accompanied by Western rock
Aleix Tobias
instrumentation, her soulful voice has a
(drums and
delectably creamy tone capable of subtly
percussion),
Eloquent songs of resistance from the Western Sahara.
Andreu Moreno
different emotional shading. With its
By Nigel Williamson
(drums), Raúl
flute and chiming guitar there’s a folkish
Rodríguez (tres
vibe to “Marhabna 2.1” (‘Welcome’), a
adventurous, Mawja should, if there is
AZIZA BRAHIM’S homeland
syncopated reimagining of the opening
any justice, change that.
of Western Sahara is listed by
track on her 2012 album. There’s more
‘Mawja’ means ‘wave’ in the Hassaniya dialect of
the UN as the last remaining
of a defiant edge to “Haiyu Ya Zawar” (‘Cheer, Oh
Arabic, a reference to the radio signal which,as she
colony in Africa. Under
Revolutionaries’),with some thrilling flamencoSpanish control until 1976, the grew up in the refugee camp, kept her in touch with
style guitar played on a Cuban tres, while the raw,
the outside world and the electronic “waves” that
territory was then annexed by
fiery blues-rock of “Metal Madera” was inspired by
now carry her music and the story of her people to a
Morocco and has been under
Brahim’s admiration for The Clash.
wider audience.
occupation ever since. Denied self-determination,
Amid the militant rallying cries there’s a healthy
Since her last album, 2019’s Sahari, much has
many of its people, the Sahrawi, were forced into
dose of myth and magic, too, particularly on the
exile in refugee camps in the Algerian desert. Those happened to turn Brahim’s universe upside down
gently swaying “Bubisher” about a legendary
and the travails have fed into Mawja to create her
camps are where Brahim was born, her mother
bird, the appearance of which in Sahrawi folklore
most accomplished and rounded work to date.
having fled the family’s ancestral home following
is meant to be a portent that better times are on
With her mother, brothers and sisters and one of
Morocco’s military invasion.
the way. The Sahrawi, it seems, desperately need
her daughters still living in the barren region of
Growing up, Brahim recalls singing as the
another sighting. Meanwhile, Mawja is an eloquent
the Algerian desert known as The Devil’s Garden,
principal form of entertainment, and she was soon
homage to the indomitable spirit and rich culture of
she suffered a crisis of anxiety, characteristic of
setting to music the verse of her grandmother,
Brahim’s troubled but proud people.
Lkhadra Mint Mabrook, a celebrated Sahrawi
writer, revolutionary and feminist hero known as
“the poet of the rifle”.
Aziza Brahim: “Music makes us
In her teens, Brahim was educated in Cuba before
dance, smile, celebrate and think. It is a good way
dance, smile, celebrate and think”
returning to the desert in 1995, where she joined
to raise awareness of many situations – a war
the National Sahrawi Music Group. She then chose
since 2020, scarcity of humanitarian help, the
Spain as a suitable base from which to raise the
elements, traditional and contemporary, on
plight of her oppressed people via her music.
has been able to carry out this role.
this album?
After releasing her debut album in 2012 – which
included settings of her grandmother’s poems –
Can you tell us a little about your late
elements from my Sahrawi culture with Iberian,
grandmother and how her spirit is present
Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and West African
she was signed by Glitterbeat, for whom she has
on the album?
musical traditions. There’s a deep melding
recorded a series of proudly defiant albums full
of moving songs yearning for her homeland and
desert and a poet since she was a child. After the
elements, but then I wanted to combine
espousing the cause of freedom.
colonisation of our territory, she was forced into
them with more contemporary sounds and
A fearless moderniser who at the same time
exodus. Since then, she dedicated her poems
instruments like electric guitars and drums.
sounds somehow ancient, her work to date has
found acclaim in world music circles without
charismatic and tenacious woman and has been
What role do you feel your music can play in
making the transition from a WOMAD audience
raising awareness of what is happening in
to the mainstream in the way that, say, Tinariwen
Western Sahara?
Music has an important weight in the personal
INTERVIEW: NIGEL WILLIAMSON
have done. Deeply rooted and yet sonically

SLEEVE NOTES

AZIZA BRAHIM
Mawja
8/10

Q&A

32 •

•

A
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“A raucous power to traditional Irish music not seen since the heyday of The Pogues.” 8/10 - UNCUT
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Cary Morin:
profoundly
personal

CARY MORIN
Innocent Allies
SELF-RELEASED

8/10
Rootsy, literate gem from
Indigenous American
songwriter
Cary Morin has
been making music
since the late ’70s,
alternating between
solo work and
heading up bands
like The Atoll and Ghost Dog. But
Innocent Allies feels like a profoundly
personal project, deeply rooted in his
experience as a Crow tribal member in
Montana. Inspired by local hero and
celebrated Western painter Charles M
Russell, Morin examines the effect of
Western expansion via sparse songs
subtly shaded with guitar, piano and
fiddle. There’s so much to admire here,
not least the luminous, elegiac “Where
The Trails Cross The Big Divide” and
“Big Sky Sun Goes Down”.
ROB HUGHES

LAENA MYERS
LUV (Songs Of
Yesterday)
TAXI GAUCHE

GEM HALE; GRETCHEN TROOP

8/10
Feels’ singer adds resonance
The singer of
the energetic,
punkish LA band
Feels, Laena
Myers has gone by
many surnames,
Geronimo and Myers-Ionita among
them. LUV also moves away from
adornment, though that shouldn’t
be confused with simplicity. Some
of the understatement is literal.
“Kitchen Humming” is just that, with
percussive footsteps; the title track is
a dreamy, instrumental swirl. Look
harder at the bruised introversion
and melodies bleed through.
“Bouquet” is a tentative hymn to
emotional resilience, while the
gorgeous “Give Em Hell” has power,
resilience and a country song’s
attitude to starting over.
ALASTAIR McKAY

HELADO NEGRO
Phasor
4AD

9/10
Roberto Carlos Lange delivers
fresh supply of bright, buoyant
avant-pop
34 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

After making a
well-deserved
breakthrough with
2019’s effervescent
This Is How You Smile
and 2021’s more
subdued Far In, this EcuadoreanAmerican musician and artist
continues to pursue a singular path
with his blend of bubbly rhythms,
cosmic soul, Technicolor textures and
Eno-worthy curveballs. While Phasor
standouts such as “Flores” evoke Os
Mutantes in a narcoleptic fugue, “I
Just Want To Wake Up With You” and
“Wish You Could Be Here” are among
his most infectiously joyful songs
to date. On “Colores Del Mar” and
“Out There”, he strikes an equally
deft balance between aqueous
abstraction and buoyant, big-hearted
avant-pop.
JASON ANDERSON

NOUVELLE VAGUE
Should I Stay Or
Should I Go?
PIAS

6/10
New Wave covers act’s
diminishing returns
Twenty years after
they first recycled
post-punk anthems
into bossa nova
ballads, Nouvelle
Vague’s signature
style is played-out everywhere, from
Christmas adverts to in-store muzak
– what was once quite charming now
drained of life. Should I Stay Or Should
I Go? is Marc Collin and co’s seventh
set of quirky chansons – they arguably
jumped the shark in 2009 with album
three when Martin Gore and Terry
Hall appeared on covers of their own
songs – yet there’s still a certain je ne
sais quoi to these breathless lounge
Omni: standing
out from the
post-punk pack

versions of “Only You”, “Shout” and
“You Spin Me Round”. Sickly sweet,
but horribly moreish.
PIERS MARTIN

OMNI
Souvenir
SUB POP

8/10
Atlantan post-punk trio’s
irresistible fourth
Chief among
post-punk’s
characteristics are
tautness, angularity,
nimbleness and
precision – native
warmth and gleefulness, not so much.
Their value is a matter of personal
taste, but it’s those qualities that mark
Omni out from the pack. Souvenir
is an instantly engaging, 11-track
set with zip, heart, sly humour and
real staying power, which shucks off
the often dry terseness of the genre
without trashing its template. From
“Plastic Pyramid”’s sudden switch
first into dude-ish country, then a subDan workout, to “Double Negative”,
which takes a swipe at The Knack by
way of Wire and the ’70s rock-edged
twangling of “Compliment”, it’s a
charmer with fearsome chops all
the way. SHARON O’CONNELL

LEE “SCRATCH” PERRY
King Perry
FALSE IDOLS

5/10
Dub pioneer bows out – for real
this time?
Lee “Scratch” Perry
has had a few ‘last
albums’ since his
passing in 2021,
but King Perry
– recorded with
a long-time collaborator, the UK

producer Daniel Boyle – is supposedly
his true swansong. It’s always a
pleasure to hear Perry’s whimsical
pronouncements on the mic (“I am the
ace of bass!” he declares on “King Of
The Animals”). But the music is largely
uninteresting, a bland hotchpotch of
dub-flavoured electronic styles, while
a busy guestlist – including Tricky,
Greentea Peng and Shaun Ryder on
the Gorillaz-esque “Green Banana”
– feels deployed as a way of papering
over the cracks. A shame to hear a
master of the form bow out while
off his game.
LOUIS PATTISON

THE PINEAPPLE
THIEF
It Leads To This
KSCOPE

7/10
Late blooming Brit-proggers’
winningly concise return
Having previously
tended towards
proggier long-form
songcraft, Bruce
Soord’s songs, now
co-written with
former King Crimson drummer
Gavin Harrison, are more tightly
edited here. While the latter’s complex
rhythms can overcomplicate at
times, more often they add to the
edgy atmospherics and heighten
the contrasting rush when broader
rock strokes are applied, such as
the skyscraping guitar hook of
“All That’s Left” and the booming
earworm of a chorus on “Rubicon”.
Elsewhere, the soulful piano
meditations of “Now It’s Yours”,
juxtaposed against spikier
shards of angst rock, showcase a
delicately balanced but increasingly
compelling formula.
JOHNNY SHARP

sun which is “a force of stability,
change and tension”. Cue lashings of
seductive modular arpeggios, choral
passages and organ drones that
conjure – especially on “Analemma” –
a sense of blissful chaos, surrendering
to its pull. PIERS MARTIN

VERA SOLA
Peacemaker
CITY SLANG

TYLER RAMSEY
New Lost Ages
SOUNDLY MUSIC

7/10
North Carolinian troubadour
peers out hopefully at the
encroaching darkness
Tyler Ramsey’s high,
tremulous vocals,
mournful by default,
and his introspective,
minor-key songs
typecast him as an
honours student in the Neil Young
school’s Southern branch, and his
sophomore album advances that
perception in a heartfelt, unforced
way. The Harvest-like “Fires”,
which opens with a “lonesome
bird… lying dead on the ground”,
and the twilit panorama “Poisonous
Summer” proceed with a compellingly
human pulse. Ramsey also evokes
his decade as Band Of Horses’s lead
guitarist in the rippling riffs and
springy grooves of “These Ghosts”
and “You Should Come Over”.
BUD SCOPPA

REAL ESTATE
Daniel
DOMINO

8/10
New Jersey indie stalwarts
explore Nashville
For their sixth
album, New Jersey’s
Real Estate holed
up in Nashville with
Kacey Musgraves’
producer Daniel
Tashian. There is a hint of Nashville
in the production, a dash of steel
guitar, but the main symptom is the
clarity of the sound. It dares to be
understated, pushing Real Estate’s
artful ambivalence into the light.
The lovely “Interior” is

a wistful reflection on a November
romance. “Market Street” is a sunny
paean to emotional dislocation. The
faintly psychedelic closer “You Are
Here” dares to get metaphysical,
celebrating human insignificance
with something like awe.
ALASTAIR McKAY

LAETITIA SADIER
Rooting For Love
DUOPHONIC SUPER 45S

8/10
First solo album in seven years
for Stereolab lynchpin
Sadier’s conceptual
core here seeks a form
of Gnosis (knowledge)
which will heal
a traumatically
fractured world;
such thoughts are well served by
opener “Who + What”’s comfortingly
Stereolab-esque space-age chanson,
though its expanded palette includes
trombone, zither, switched time
signatures and Brian Wilson-style
choral chambers. The South of
France motorik and funk bass
of “Protéiformunité” similarly
reassure, before “Don’t Forget You’re
Mine” charts choppier waters and
communication breakdowns (“A good
slap is what you want…”). “The Inner
Smile” returns to Sadier’s central
quest, propelling her mantras of
sexual and global reintegration with
eruptive, flute-heavy prog grooves.
NICK HASTED

SARAMACCAN SOUND
(SURINAME)
Where The River Bends
Is Only The Beginning
GLITTERBEAT

8/10
Rainforest blues from
South America

The Hidden Music
series sees producer
Ian Brennan
(Parchman Prison
Prayer) intrepidly
compile raw tapes
of far-flung talent, such as the Khmer
Rouge Survivors. Siblings Robert
Jabini and Dwight Sampie were
recorded in a remote Maroon village
along a Suriname river as capricious
as the blues’ Mississippi in songs
such as “Villages Swallowed By The
Floods”, recounting homes drowned
by climate change or dams. “Death
Rites Riverside” remarkably records
twig percussion and murmured ritual
chants. Mostly, though, nylon-string
guitars and melodies recall America’s
folk revival with its gospel strands.
Jabini’s grainy, sweet voice spins
serenely mournful songs, freighted
with soft sorrow. The likes of “We
Lost Someone Close To Us Again”,
with its looping, lulling guitar, are
accepting of death and quietly alive.
NICK HASTED

MAYA SHENFELD
Under The Sun
THRILL JOCKEY

8/10
Foreboding second from
Berlin composer
Maya Shenfeld’s
debut last year
was called In Free
Fall – and here she
crashes to earth with
an almighty bang.
Elemental and menacing, Under The
Sun was partly recorded in an active
marble quarry in Portugal and the
industrial sounds of drilling, scraping
and juddering give the groaning
“Tehom” an almost supernatural
quality as Shenfeld seeks to articulate
the futility of existence beneath the

THE TELESCOPES
Growing Eyes
Becoming String
FUZZ CLUB

8/10
Album 16 from Brit-psych outfit
rescued from digital ether
In 2013 The
Telescopes made a
record via sessions at
the Brian Jonestown
Massacre’s studio in
Berlin and in Leeds
with their early producer Richard
Formby. A hard-drive crash scuppered
it, but years later it was brought back
to life. The result is founding member
Stephen Lawrie backed by the London
experimental unit One Unique Signal
and together they take a much less
abstract and noisy approach than
recent Telescope albums. Here, from
the chugging opener “Vanishing
Lines” via the more crunchy and
propulsive crackle of “(In The) Hidden
Fields”, they land on seven tracks of
groove-locked, droning-yet-melodic,
immersive psychedelic rock.
DANIEL DYLAN WRAY

Eye times:
Telescope
Stephen
Lawrie

SINNA NASSERI; GREG GUTBEZAH

Real Estate:
Nashville
calling

7/10
Great delayed second album
from US singer
There’s a timeless
flavour to Vera Sola’s
second album, which
was recorded in
Nashville in 2019
but has only just
emerged and already sounds as if
it could have been around forever.
The long delay was clearly not due
to a lack of quality or direction,
with Sola – stage name of Danielle
Ackroyd – upgrading the sound
from her outstanding but intimate
debut Shades to wrap her smoky
voice around a series of muted
ballads, clattering Tom Waits-style
jazzy, neo-Broadway numbers and
splendid torch songs. Sola can be
detached but is at her best whenshe
leans into the song; on “Blood Bond”
she’s reminiscent of a country Amy
Winehouse. PETER WATTS

NEW ALBUMS
started circling back toward the unexpected desire
to return to ‘song’ form with a clear and conditioned
mind. It didn’t come easy. It was painful, actually.”
That pain has paid off with Davis’ best work so
far. And his songwriting sabbatical has provided
him with an overarching theme: stasis and the
desire to move forward but not knowing how to
do so. It’s a portrait of the artist in his late thirties
looking wearily down the barrel of middle age.
“I’m doing 25-to-life just waiting on a friend to get
back from a piss”, Davis sings at the album’s outset.
Elsewhere: “I lie awake and I wait quietly
for a tax return/To come howling down
from the side of a mountain somewhere”.
1 Free From The
Or, most hilariously, he complains of the
Guillotine
2 Learn 2 Re-Luv purgatory of drinking in a bar where the
3 Flashes Of
jukebox “only plays ‘Sultans Of Swing’”.
Orange
At first blush, these concerns may not
4 Bluebirds In
seem like the stuff of a gripping LP, much
A Fight
less a double LP. But the sound that Davis
5 Junk Drawer
Heart
and his collaborators have crafted here
6 A Suitable Exit
gives Dancing On The Edge a buoyancy
7 Bluebirds
that carries the listener along beautifully.
Revisited
For example, the album’s 10-minute
Recorded by:
centrepiece, “Flashes Of Orange”, is a
Seth Manchester
remarkably infectious ride – especially
Recorded
given that it appears to be sung by
at: Machines
someone who can’t get out of bed. The
With Magnets,
Pawtucket, RI
alt.country signifiers are here: chiming
SOPHOMORE LOUNGE
Personnel:
guitar and piano, pedal steel swells,
Ryan Davis
full-blooded harmonies (provided by
(vocals, guitars,
fellow Louisvillian Joan Shelley). But
keys, synth,
Sprawl, swagger, poetry and epics. By Tyler Wilcox
percussion),
the song keeps shifting in unexpected
Will Lawrence
ways, careening into unusual synth
(drums, piano),
breakdowns, left-turning into minor
festival Cropped Out, bringing a wide
IT hardly needs saying that
Jim Marlowe
array of underground talent to Kentucky
we live in an age of ever(bass, saxophone, keys, uncovering an almost danceable
harmonium,
groove at times. Throughout, Davis
over the years. In other words, Davis
shortening attention spans
vocals),
comes across like Jay Farrar possessed
is a lifer, with a deep well of musical
– especially when it comes
Christopher
by the spirit of David Berman. “I’ve seen
experience and influences to draw upon.
to music. How dire has the
May (pedal steel,
the sunset, babe, through each and every
Dancing On The Edge comes five
situation got? Well, take the
resonator),
Catherine Irwin,
shade of beer”, our despairing narrator
years after State Champion’s Send
recent New York Times profile
Jenny Rose, Joan
exclaims. “And I can tell you each and
Flowers, and Davis says that for a while
of Michael Stipe, wherein The 1975’s Matty Healy
Shelley (bk vocals)
every kind of hanging tree that’s native
there, he believed he might be done
tells the ex-REM frontman of an encounter he’d
here”. It’s a song the late, great Berman
with the sometimes-taxing process of
had with a 12-year-old. “So I said, ‘Well, what
would’ve been proud to call his own.
straightforward songwriting, instead
songs do you like?’ And he said to me: ‘What, full
Or Kurt Wagner. Or Bill Callahan. Or, hell, even
focusing on experimental electronic tracks,
songs?’ That was his response! The decimal point
John Prine. Dancing On The Edge is singular and
freeform improvs and visual art. “For the first time
has moved! I didn’t realise that the denomination
strong enough to put Davis in league with some
in my adult life, I wasn’t thinking about touring
was now smaller than the song.”
of the very best American songwriters of the past
or promoting or even any sense of ‘community’
In the face of these rapidly diminishing returns,
and present. He’s someone with the originality,
whatsoever,” he reveals. “I just wanted to make
it’s refreshing to sink into a record like Ryan Davis
wit and ambition to cut through the murk.
new things. Almost obsessively. And the more I
& The Roadhouse Band’s Dancing On The Edge, a
seven-song double LP with a lyric sheet as dense as sharpened those instinctual tools, the more I slowly Someone worth paying attention to.
its striking cover art. With several tunes that creep
towards the 10-minute mark, there’s a sprawl and
swagger here that not many current songwriters
would dare to attempt. And yet Davis isn’t a
Ryan Davis “ I ultimately felt
You’ve said you recently took a hiatus from
like I reached a point of terminal
writing “song songs” – was that a healthy
rambler, really; his songwriting isn’t the streamvelocity…”
thing to do? It was an imperative thing to do.
of-consciousness blather of a Dylan wannabe or
I started writing songs for what became the
a navel-gazing plumber of the quotidian depths.
You seem to have mastered the art
What’s most impressive about Dancing On The
of the “long song” on this record.
I was living abroad as a college student, shy
Edge is how he keeps you hanging on every word,
I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered anything, but
and alone, far from home and without much
savouring his weird wisdom, oddball poetry and
yeah, I’ve learned to comfortably inhabit a
reason to be there. I had just turned 20. I wrote
wry sense of humour. When one of these humble,
song of substantial length. It’s not something
and toured those kinds of songs for the next
vastly entertaining epics comes to a close, you
I ever set out to do. In fact, every time I sit down
14 years. I put so much of my life and identity
might wish it had gone on even longer.
to start writing new songs, I consciously tell
into it, and I owe a lot of who I am to that work
and those experiences, but I ultimately felt
This is his first album under his own name,
more direct, to write more impactfully without
like I reached a point of terminal velocity with
but Davis is far from a new kid on the block. The
dragging the listener through such winding
the completion of Send Flowers [in 2018]. I’m
Louisville-based musician released several stellar
incredibly proud of that record, we all pulled
records under the State Champion moniker; he has trenches. But here we are now discussing my
seven-song 2LP and further into the trenches
a lot out of ourselves in order to make it, but it
played with Tropical Trash and Equipment Pointed
we appear to be going. I’ve come to accept that felt like an organic and necessary end to that
Ankh, both well-nigh unclassifiable collectives;
phase of my life. It isn’t entirely easy to talk
he steers the ship at the eclectic Sophomore
A better songwriter than myself could derive
about or explain. I just knew it was time to take
Lounge label, which has released terrific LPs by
a similar vehemence with far fewer words. But
a break from putting my mind through the
Arbor Labor Union, Ned Collette and C Joynes;
I do what I can within the space I know how to
endless song cycle, without really knowing
carve out for myself.
INTERVIEW: TYLER WILCOX
and in 2010 he co-founded the long-running music

SLEEVE NOTES

RYAN DAVIS & THE
ROADHOUSE BAND
Dancing On The Edge
9/10

Q&A

36 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

NEW ALBUMS
MERGE

8/10
A stark confrontation with
loss on Helium/Ex Hex singerguitarist’s solo fifth
Whether she is, as
Carrie Brownstein
claims, “Mary
Shelley with a
guitar”, Timony’s cult
reputation as Helium,
Ex Hex, Wild Flag and Autoclave
member is well earned. Indie
mainstays Dave Fridmann and John
Agnello mix her fifth solo album, and
Fairport Convention’s Dave Mattacks
drums, but it’s notable for uncensored
emotional gloom and an evergreen
college sound, with “Summer” a
muscular Blake Babies and “Don’t
Disappear” Lush without pedals.
That said, strings often add welcome
character and the title track pursues
a soft and folk-rock marriage, while on
“No Thirds” she effortlessly uncoils
Tom Verlaine-esque guitar lines.
WYNDHAM WALLACE

RAFAEL TORAL
Spectral Evolution
MOIKAI/DRAG CITY

9/10
Latticework of beautifully paced
electronics and guitar, on Jim
O’Rourke’s label
Spectral Evolution
ties together much
of what’s made
Rafael Toral’s music
so compelling over
the decades – the
glorious saturation of guitar drone
sets like Wave Field; the dappled
systems music of albums such as
Aeriola Frequency; the sputtering
electronics of the Space Program
series. What’s new here is an
eloquence in exploration, as all
the parts fit together beautifully,
and a confidence in composition.
The slow-moving chord changes
have the same rarefied air as
Arvo Pärt, while the sparking
electronic tones are closer to
the interweaving of natural
processes than anything so gauche
as ‘musicianship’. A sublime
composition. JON DALE

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Flux Gourmet –
Original Motion
Picture Soundtrack
BA DA BING!

7/10
Spooked requiems and
ectoplasmic electronica,
soundtracking your disquiet
Peter Strickland is
very good at selecting
just the right music
to soundtrack
his psychedelic
horror films, to
the point where the latter at times
risk being overshadowed by the
former. But a soundtrack album
is a different experience, anyway,
and Flux Gourmet flows beautifully
as a collection of haunted (not
hauntological) studies for inhabited

REVELATIONS

film stock. The Sonic Catering Band
and Nurse With Wound bring the
ontological unease, but the most
compelling moments make the
familiar unfamiliar, like Jeremy
Barnes’ ever-circling string-synth
moods, Roj’s spectral, elemental
electronics, and the analogica
miniature by Cavern Of Anti-Matter.
JON DALE

KAREN VOGT
Waterlog
NITE HIVE

6/10
Ex-Heligoland vocalist’s funeral
music for a furry friend
The history of songs
dedicated to our
pets is dominated by
rather sentimental,
cutesy compositions,
but French-based
Australian Vogt expresses deeper
feelings on Waterlog, mourning the
passing of her cat Luis. She pours
several shades of wordless soprano
sadness into its 28 minutes: “Rolling
Tears” is a dreamlike lament that
sounds like it was recorded amid
church ruins during a dark night of
the soul; “The Wilder Things” is a
hypnotic, ambient somnambulant
loop; “The Last Act Of Love” is a
prayer-like evocation of longing.
It makes for haunting background
music, but perhaps too abstract to
invite empathy from the uninitiated.
JOHNNY SHARP

WILLIAM ELLIOTT
WHITMORE
Silently, The Mind Breaks
WHITMORE RECORDS

8/10
Another compelling set of
front-porch strumming
Whitmore’s earthy
ruminations have
always steered
comfortably clear
of plaid-shirted
hipster kitsch for
two reasons. One is unarguable
authenticity: he actually is a
farmboy from Iowa. The other is the
warmth and wit of his songwriting,
as radiant as ever on Silently, The
Mind Breaks. Whitmore’s familiar
punchy strumming and throaty growl
articulate good-humoured stoicism
in the face of life’s inevitabilities – or,
as he opens the existentialist ballad
“Has To Be That Way”, “Death is not
my friend/But we’ve always kept in
touch”. The John Prine-ish “Bunker
Built For Two” establishes a new genre
of apocalyptic prepper love songs.
ANDREW MUELLER

Porch
songs:
William
Elliott
Whitmore

MARY TIMONY
On the painful
circumstances behind
Untame The Tiger

“I

WROTE all the songs
because it helped
me feel better,” Mary
Timony says of her latest
solo album. “The lyrics also
processed my feelings. That’s
what a lot of people say: making
art is a way of self-soothing.”
T
process. Her parents were both
sick, so she’d begun taking care
of them, and as she was doing so
her 12-year relationship came
to an end.
“It was pretty hard because
everything happened at
the same time,” she reveals.

CHELSEA WOLFE
She Reaches Out To She
Reaches Out To She
LOMA VISTA

7/10
Darkly fixated Californian goes
back to bleak on seventh album
Since returning
to a more organic,
folk-informed
sound on 2019’s
Birth Of Violence,
this gothically
inclined Sacramento songwriter
has explored different corners of her
musical wheelhouse, collaborating
with metalcore act Converge and
soundtracking slasher movie X.
This debut for Loma Vista picks
and mixes all of them, and while
opener “Whispers In The Echo
Chamber” tries too hard to startle
with blasts of screaming horrorcore,
her talent for a melodramatic melodic
hook wins through on “Tunnel
Lights”’s yearning torch-song noir
and the heartbroken small-hours
lament of “Everything Turns Blue”.
JOHNNY SHARP

my own. My dad had dementia
and my mom had cancer. There
to deal with, then another family
member became sick and I was
also managing that. Music was
the only way I wanted to spend
my free time, going on walks and
writing songs in my head.”
Despite ultimately losing both
parents, she appreciates the
“I learned a lot about what’s
important in life,” she says.
“It was also really beautiful to
help my mom and dad, and I’m
grateful for the time I got with
them. We got much closer than
I was able to before.”
WYNDHAM WALLACE

YIN YIN
Mount Matsu GLITTERBEAT

7/10
Dutch band strive for cocktail
of cool on third album
With Kikagaku Moyo
recently completing
their activities and
Khruangbin only
able to do so much,
Yin Yin may be
able to help sate increased global
demand for chill fusions of surf,
psych, Indonesian city pop, Japanese
jazz and other cratedigger-approved
sounds from East and Southeast Asia.
To be fair, the (mostly) instrumental
Maastricht quartet display an equally
ardent affection for disco in Mount
Matsu’s liveliest tracks, especially the
strutting “Takahashi Timing”. Even
though the likes of “The Perseverance
Of Sano” may see them try too hard
to secure a soundtrack placement
in some neo-Tarantino exploitation
movie, the group’s third album is still
cool enough to deserve pride of place
in your nearest Tokyo-style vinyl bar.
JASON ANDERSON
FEBRUARY 2024 •

• 37

CHRIS GRADY; CHRIS CASELLA

MARY TIMONY
Untame The Tiger

“You are an unnatural growth/On a funny, sunny street”

FEBRUARY 2024
TAKE 322

1 WINGS (P42)
2 SCOTT FAGAN (P44)
3 COIL (P45)
4 LOU REED (P46)

REISSUES | COMPS | BOXSETS | LOST RECORDINGS

SONIC YOUTH
Walls Have Ears
GOOFIN’

Live bootleg collection from 1985 gets a long-awaited
(if perhaps not welcomed by all) expanded reissue.
By Tom Pinnock

JEFF STONEHOUSE

ITHOUT
REISSUE the album, pressed it and released it as a
bootleggers,
OF THE surprise for the group; but it proved to be
many
MONTH an unwelcome one, what with their third
album EVOL about to emerge on SST. “I’d
important
8/10 been over-enthusiastic, too clever for my own
documents of
good,” he told Stevie Chick in the Sonic Youth
rock’n’roll, from
biog Psychic Confusion. “It hadn’t occurred to me
demos to pivotal
that they would get upset.” The band got the money
live sets, might have been lost to the moment.
from the release, but felt burned by its (accidentally)
Yet it’s also easy to see how a bootleg might cause
underhand birth for decades. As drummer Steve
musicians to feel aggrieved at the loss of control, at
Shelley tells Uncut, an official re-release on the band’s
a violation of their art, and at someone else making
archival Goofin’ label has been on the cards for a
profit from their labours.
For many artists, though, time changes everything. while, but at least one member had been continually
vetoing the idea.
Take Jimmy Page, for instance: once upon a time
On one hand you can see why, for Walls Have
your manager is getting heavy with people for taping
Ears is an imperfect record, full of strange choices.
your shows, and then years later you find yourself
It opens with a gig taped at
regularly trawling Japanese
London’s ULU venue, on
record shops in search of the
their first European tour with
fruits of those same tapes. So
new drummer Shelley, yet
it’s been with Walls Have Ears,
rather than the band blasting
a live double LP that’s finally
out of the traps we get two
seeing an approved release
minutes of introduction from
from Sonic Youth 38 years after
underground punk writer
it first appeared.
Claude Bessy, railing
It’s not quite a bootleg, being
against both Rough Trade,
originally put together by
for their censorship of the
Paul Smith of their UK label
band’s proposed cover of
Blast First, a tireless champion
“Flower”, and against
of the band and the closest
the impatient crowd:
thing they had to a manager in
“Shut your fucking face,
those early days. He compiled
38 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

Sonic Youth
live at the Zap
Club, Brighton,
November 8, 1985

Pebble music:
Thurston gets
fretful at the
Winter Beach
Party, Brighton.
November 8, 1985
FEBRUARY 2024 •

• 39

ARCHIVE
whirling world music to a blown-out
clip of “Into The Groove”, the current hit
by the band’s one-time neighbour and
Danceteria compadre Madonna (at one
point, according to Moore years later,
she was in a no wave band with two
1 CB
future Swans members).
2 Green Love
The two new songs they played at
Brother
James
ULU in October are different, however.
4 Kill Yr Idols
“Green Love” (an alternatively titled
5 I Love Her All
“Green Light”) almost struts like the
The Time
Stones or Alice Cooper, evidence
6 Expressway
To Yr
of the band’s continual drive to
Skull
leave the downtown art scene and
Sussex at
7 Spahn Ranch
last: SY on
the restrictions of no wave behind.
Dance
Brighton
Beach, UK,
The earliest recorded version of
8 Blood On
November
Brighton
“Expressway To Yr Skull” is far more
1985
Beach
radical, though, less opening the
9 Burning Spear
door to Sonic Youth’s future and more
10 Death Valley
smashing the skylight. Its tempo is
1985’s Bad Moon Rising, and the songs
’69
11 Speed JAMC
slow, its chords harmonious, Lee
are generally pummelling, ferocious
12 Ghost Bitch
Ranaldo’s slide guitar is occasionally
and neanderthal in their vicious drones
World Looks
melodic, and it sways like a rock ballad
and clashing notes; the discord of the
Red
– certainly uncharted territory for
avant-garde set to crawling, tribal
14 I’m Insane
15 The Word
these spiky Manhattanites. It spirals
drums. “I Love Her All The Time” is
(EVOL)
off into a maelstrom, but then ends
primitive and relentless, as if the band
16 Brother
with five minutes of restrained, hushed
is building to some horrific ritual of
Jam-Z
ambient noise. It’s beautiful, and in
devotion amid screeching, bell-like
17 Killed And
those eight or nine minutes you can feel
guitars that resemble the sinking of
the quickening of the whole of Sonic
a huge liner. Most of the feedbacking
Youth’s later work: the classic-rockisms
“Ghost Bitch” dispenses with rhythm
of Daydream Nation, the sparkling
entirely, until Kim Gordon starts to
melodies of Dirty, the expansive horizons of
holler about an “Indian ghost from long ago” and
Washing Machine and A Thousand Leaves, the
the drums begin another circular ritual while
calm grandeur of Murray Street. Shelley’s more
guitars judder like industrial machinery.
dextrous playing paved the way, but it’s clear the
When they embrace a less abstract sound,
group – huge Beatles, Dead, Dylan and Stooges
there’s the violent post-punk of “Brother James”,
fans – would likely have taken a similar route.
“Kill Yr Idols” and “The Burning Spear”, the latter
Elsewhere, there’s a coruscating performance
like disco paired with power tools and prepared
of “Making The Nature Scene” from Brighton
guitar. These tracks are often threaded together
beach, taped on November 8, 1985, and titled
with tape segues, from a cut-up of The Stooges’
“Blood On Brighton Beach”, while the deluxe
“Not Right” and
version includes digital and flexidisc
extras including a lo-fi “She’s In A
Bad Mood” and “Brave Men Run
(In My Family)”. The latter
opened Sonic Youth’s final
set of concerts years later;
compared to their 1985
selves, they sounded neater
in 2011, more stately, a little
less unhinged perhaps.
Ever-present, though, was
that elemental noise found on
Walls Have Ears, still shaking
the band and their listeners into a
beautiful, wild trance decades on.

SLEEVE NOTES

I want just two minutes of your attention…”
A few tracks from their ULU set appear to have
been cut, and yet we’re bizarrely still presented
with 30 seconds of Thurston Moore attempting to
get more of his guitar in the monitor before “Kill Yr
Idols”, and then before “Expressway To Yr Skull”
a minute of Moore’s instructions to the sound
desk. “This is called ‘Expressway To Yr Skull’…
‘Expressway To Yr Skull’… man, there’s a lot of
feedback in this mic… HEY! Alright…” There’s
another minute of tuning and fiddling before the
first “Death Valley ’69”, called “Spahn Ranch
Dance” for the purposes of Walls Have Ears.
Atmospheric, maybe, but hardly essential. On the
second LP of the set, “I’m Insane” appears but was
unlisted, and there’s another minute and a half of
near-silence before the second “Brother James” –
titled “Brother Jam-Z”.
It’s a shame if the manner of its release and
these eccentric edits turned Sonic Youth against
Walls Have Ears for so long, as the rest of it is
phenomenal. It captures the band at a couple
of turning points: most obviously, the
Hammersmith Palais performance
from April 28, 1985 (complete with
flaming jack’o’lanterns onstage)
features Bob Bert on the drums,
while the ULU set from October 30
showcases his replacement Shelley,
who would remain on the stool until
the band’s end in 2011.
Walls Have Ears, though, also
clearly marks the boundary between
one era of Sonic Youth and the
start of another. Most of the set
comes from their first two albums,
1983’s Confusion Is Sex (plus the
accompanying “Kill Yr Idols” EP) and

RECOMMENDED

THURSTON COMES ALIVE!
The finest Sonic live records

HOLD THAT TIGER
GOOFIN’, 1991

Recorded in 1987, just two
years after Walls Have Ears,

AJBARRATT

SY: here are taut, short songs
drawn mainly from EVOL and Sister, and
in the encore.
7/10

40 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

SYR8: ANDRE SIDER
AF SONIC YOUTH

LIVE IN BROOKLYN
2011

A unique performance
recorded at 2005’s Roskilde
festival, with Sonic Youth
(complete with Jim O’Rourke) joined by
Japanese noise-mage Merzbow and freejazz sax wrangler Mats Gustafsson. They join
individually, and gradually leave, until only
Merzbow’s static remains. 8/10

A bootleg-style release of

SYR, 2008

the idea was brought to band
archivist Steve Shelley by Silver Current. Unlike
most of their latter-day concerts, it’s heavy
on the earlier, noisier material, from “Kill Yr
Idols” and “Ghost Bitch” right up to the closing
“Inhuman”. 8/10

Q&A
Steve Shelley:
“It’s been a fan
favourite”

Did you have any involvement
in it originally at all?
No, it was presented to us as a
gift by our English record label at
the time, Blast First, who we had
an intense working relationship
with… but we were pretty
surprised by this record when it
came out, pretty soon before EVOL
was expected out.
And that coloured your
appreciation of it?
Yeah, I think so. I think it’s always
been a curiosity to the band. It
caused problems when it came out,
so yeah, I think band members
weren’t too fond of it through
the years. Our minds have been
changing for decades, because
we’ve been asking each other
about these archival reissues, like,
“Would you like to see this one
come out?” That one was never a
band favourite, though it’s been
a fan favourite.
Who was the last member
holding out?
I’m not gonna give that up!
What do you recall about
the trip to England that’s
documented on Walls
Have Ears?
I don’t really remember ULU, but
of course I remember the first
Brighton show on the beach. In

Stick it to the
man: Shelley
attempts to
keep time in
sonic chaos

the new promo video you hear
“Expressway To Yr Skull”, and it
sounds fantastic, and then it cuts
to some kids walking by the stage
on the beach and we’re playing
“Inhuman”, and you hear the
sound of the stones on Brighton
beach. That is exactly my memory
of it – it wasn’t fancy or glamorous
at all, it was like some kids walking
by as you were trying to play a
half-hour set. It was exactly what I
wanted to be doing at that time, to
be able to join this band and to go
to the UK and Europe… every day
was fascinating. To be on Brighton
beach, being a Who fan! It was an
incredible time.
The “Expressway…” outro is so
quiet and restrained, it was a
new direction for you then.
Thurston made a comment some
time ago, when we were working
on some live recording, about
how the earlier “Expressway”s
were quite gentle at the end. It
wasn’t until later, when we had
performed it hundreds of times,
where it got a little more raucous at
the end. This gentle early version
really sounded cool to us.
Do you remember first
working on that EVOL
material?
I think my first rehearsal with the
group was with Kim and Thurston,
Lee didn’t make it to the first one,

“To be in a band, to be on
Brighton beach, being a
Who fan! It was an
incredible time”

and we worked on “Green Light”.
Then “Expressway…” was brought
in either that day or soon after – I
remember it being a favourite and
also being somewhat surprised at
the style of the chording… it was
more of a ’60s tune than a punk
thing, but yeah, the ’60s was one of
my fortes. So I was really pleased to
be working on the material and that
it was already going this direction.
You look after all the archival
stuff for the band – how does
it work, liaising with Lee, Kim
and Thurston?
I’m in Hoboken and Lee is in
Manhattan, so we’re closer,
distance-wise, so we see each
other more often. And we’re
more interested in this archival
stuff – we’re both big Dylan and
Neil Young fans, so we’re always
discussing those reissues. We’ve
got a list of a number of things that
we could release, and we all sort
of keep that going as a discussion
among the four of us. People are
more interested in certain things
at certain times, and that’s when
projects kind of float to the top.
You’ve mentioned that there’s
a Washing Machine deluxe
reissue in the works.
I’m working on some stuff for that,

but it’s on hold right now. I’ve still
got some ideas about it, but it took
a back seat for the moment.
You’ve been trying to track
down some rare SY releases,
we hear…
There are some Russian lathe
cuts which I would love to have.
There were like a dozen of them
or something – I’ve seen pictures
but I don’t have one – and there
were dozens of Polish flexidiscs.
They were an inspiration for the
deluxe edition of Walls Have Ears,
we made a flexi for one of the extra
tracks, “She’s In A Bad Mood”,
from the night after Brighton
beach, at Ladbroke Grove, Bay 63.
Is the SY studio, Echo Canyon
West, still going in Hoboken?
It is, although it’s not much these
days. We just keep our gear stored
there, but there is a room where
Lee and I keep more of an archive.
That’s in Hoboken too, and
there are master tapes – we own
everything up to Daydream Nation
and Ciccone Youth – and then we
have later tapes too, but we don’t
“own” them all as far as rights go.
We’ve been lucky as far as master
tapes go, we haven’t had many of
ours go missing like some other
bands. INTERVIEW: TOM PINNOCK

Sonic Youth during
that “coruscating
performance” in
Brighton, 1985

FEBRUARY 2024 •

• 41

JEFF STONEHOUSE

Why did you decide to
officially release/reissue Walls
Have Ears now?
It had been on the back burner for
years and years, and it felt like,
“When we get to it, we’ll put this
one out…” Then I think about a
year ago, someone had reissued
yet another bootleg edition of
it – this time they chopped it up
into two different segments, each
album having its own package.
And I think we just thought that
was too much, and that we should
just put our own version of it out.

ARCHIVE
Roll it: outtake
of Paul, Linda
and Denny
Laine from the
Band On The
Run promo
shoot, 1973

PAUL McCARTNEY
& WINGS

Band On The Run – “Underdubbed”
Mixes Edition
MPL/UME

10/10

© 1973 MPL COMMUNICATIONS LTD. ARROWSMITH

Fifty years on, Macca’s miracle continues to
define his essence. By Pete Paphides

C

ONTEXT always matters, but in the
case of Band On The Run – celebrating
its 50th birthday with this expanded
half-speed remaster and a strippedback companion version – it’s the
difference between a great album and a mythical
one. Context matters because Band On The Run is
an album whose essence is inseparable from the
superhuman act of determination to which it owes
its existence. The origin story has long passed into
rock lore: Paul and Linda McCartney’s decision to
utilise an EMI-owned studio in Nigeria that turned
out to be only half-built when they arrived; an
ominous visit from Fela Kuti, who was convinced
that Paul and Linda were here to “steal” African
42 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

music; the knifepoint theft of personal belongings,
among them demos and lyrics that forced
McCartney to re-create them from memory; and
a fainting episode (initially thought to be a heart
attack). Indeed, it started before they even boarded
the plane – the 11th-hour withdrawal of drummer
Denny Seiwell and guitarist Henry McCullough
meant the version of Wings that made it to Lagos
was barely a group, with Denny Laine the only
remaining member beyond Paul and Linda.
McCartney, of course, responded as only
McCartney can, his militant optimism abundant in
a title track that exhorts its participants to do little
short of shrug off their predicament and revel in the
legend being created by their leader in real time:
“In the town they’re searching for us everywhere/
But we never will be found”. In this moment alone,
you can apprehend the measure of McCartney’s
determination to show his ex-bandmates just what
they were missing, even electing to play the drum
parts himself. In a 2009 interview with Dermot
O’Leary, McCartney admitted, “I was like, ‘Screw
you – I’m gonna make an album you were gonna
wish you were on.’”
If this was indeed the mission statement
established at the outset of the sessions, no song
on Band On The Run authenticates that manifesto
quite as exquisitely as “Mamunia”. Ostensibly
about the rain in Los Angeles, here’s McCartney

ARCHIVE

leading by example, exhorting us to take
succour from the bigger picture: “The
rain comes falling from the sky/To fill the
stream that fills the sea/And that’s where
life began for you and me”.
In 1973, this bloodymindedness was
something he could access at will, almost
as a party trick. “Picasso’s Last Words”
is what happened when a starstruck
Dustin Hoffman challenged McCartney
to write a song in front of him – and its
air of sweet, stoned equanimity extends
to two other key songs. The first, “Mrs
Vandebilt”, is a zen repudiation of a
protagonist who, in his 2021 book The
Lyrics, McCartney said personified “the
bothersome aspects of being rich”. And
while cynics may contend that’s easy for
him to say, it’s worth remembering that
just three years previously, he’d been
a Beatle in exile, assets frozen, living a

to whom every power-pop practitioner
in his wake prays. If you’re not already
playing American football stadiums
when you write a song like that, then it’ll
certainly fast-track you to that point.
Which, of course, is exactly the
trajectory that opened up for Wings in
the years after Band On The Run. It’s
a paradoxical record: one where the
loss of two members magnifies both
their sound and their place in the pop
firmament. What this latest iteration of
the album drives home is that this was
no mere accident. The “underdubbed”
versions accompanying this reissue
reveal that, before arriving at George
Martin’s AIR studios to finish the job, the
Lagos sessions weren’t so different to the
homespun intimacy of the Wings albums
that preceded them. In this sparer
setting, the extra space plays to the
benefit of McCartney’s loyal
co-travellers: “No Words”,
which serves as a reminder of
just how vital the harmonies
of Linda and the song’s
co-writer Denny Laine were
when it came to defining the
Wings sound; Linda’s purring
ARP Odyssey and MiniMoog
contributions are what
suddenly take centrestage on
“Jet” and a rollicking vocalfree canter through “Nineteen
Hundred And Eighty Five”.
Yet none of that detracts from the
primary energy source of Band On The
Run. To listen to the album in the wake
of Peter Jackson’s Get Back is to be
reminded that this is the same man who,
when faced with a group floundering
despondently in an alien environment,
strapped on his guitar and throttled “Get
Back” out of it before our disbelieving
eyes. In the wake of Denny Laine’s recent
passing, one can only imagine what
a bittersweet sensation it must be for
McCartney to look at the album’s multicelebrity jailbreak cover and ponder that
he and (then British light-heavyweight
UK boxing champion) John Conteh
are now the sole survivors. And over
time, these songs – the bullet points
of an entire worldview, no less – will
outlive us all. In decades to come, when
people wonder what
Paul McCartney was
actually like, all the
answers can be found
on this unassumingly
miraculous record.

In this sparer
setting, the extra
space plays to the
benefit of Paul’s
loyal co-travellers
frugal existence with Linda and their
kids in a dilapidated Scottish farmhouse.
Every word has been earned.
Then there’s “Bluebird”, on which he
exhorts his subject, “Touch your lips with
a magic kiss/And you’ll be a bluebird too/
And you’ll know what love can do” – and
because it’s impossible not to make these
comparisons, you can’t help but feel for
John Lennon, who not so long ago had
been straining every sinew to project the
conjugal idyll that Paul achieves here so
effortlessly. It’s also Lennon to whom your
thoughts turn on “Let Me Roll It”, thanks
to that exquisitely crunchy riff and the
echo on McCartney’s voice. But here it’s
the thermal upswell of Linda’s keyboard
that raises the temperature and releases
endorphins that make you feel this surely
deserved to be more than just a B-side. No
disputing the song which was
chosen on its
A-side, of course:
“Jet” is the reason
McCartney is
the deity

SLEEVE NOTES
LP 1 or CD 1:
Band On The Run
(US version)
1 Band On The
Run
2 Jet
3 Bluebird
4 Mrs Vandebilt
5 Let Me Roll It
6 Mamunia
7 No Words
8 Helen Wheels
9 Picasso’s Last
Words (Drink
To Me)
10 Nineteen
Hundred And
Eighty Five

LP 2 or CD 2:
Underdubbed
MIxes

1 Band On The
Run
2 Mamunia
3 No Words
4 Jet
5 Bluebird
6 Mrs Vandebilt
7 Nineteen
Hundred And
Eighty Five
8 Picasso’s Last
Words (Drink
To Me)
9 Let Me Roll It

Produced by:

Paul McCartney

Recorded at:

EMI and ARC,
Lagos, Nigeria;
AIR and Kingsway
Recorders,
London

Personnel:

Paul McCartney
(lead vocals,
acoustic and
electric guitars,
bass, piano,
keyboards, drums,
percussion),
Linda McCartney
(harmony and
backing vocals,
organ, keyboards,
percussion),
Denny Laine
(harmony and
backing vocals,
co-lead vocals
on “No Words”
and “Picasso’s
Last Words”,
acoustic and
electric guitars,
percussion),
Howie Casey
(saxophone on
“Jet”, “Bluebird”,
“Mrs Vandebilt”),
Remi Kabaka
(percussion
on “Bluebird”),
Tony Visconti
(orchestrations)

AtoZ
This month…
P44
P44
P45
P45
P46
P48
P49
P49

SCOTT FAGAN
MARTIN CARTHY
COIL
COLOSSEUM
LOU REED
MEAT PUPPETS
PLUSH

10cc
20 Years: 1972–1992
DEMON/EDSEL

7/10
Stockport weirdos get boxed up
While best known for
unkillable 1975 smash
“I’m Not In Love” – an
exquisitely produced
love song whose
irony is painfully
self-delusional rather than merely
clever – 10cc specialised in oddball
mini-operettas and prog-adjacent postmodern pastiches that sound like a
normie Sparks or a less condescending
Zappa. Their early doo-wop parodies
have aged like fine mayonnaise, full of
Spike Jones sound effects and juvenile
jokes, but their studio and songwriting
prowess swiftly began to rival their
sense of humour from 1974’s Sheet
Music onwards. Perhaps their finest
moment here is 1976’s How Dare You!,
also the final album featuring all four
founding members. This 14CD set
traces the band’s dramatic trajectory
as they adapted their sound to new
pop trends in the ’80s and ’90s, and
even when Graham Gouldman was
the last man standing, their defining
cheekiness remains intact.
Extras 6/10: Two CDs collecting
previously released single edits,
alternate mixes and B-sides.
STEPHEN DEUSNER

THE AMERICAN
ANALOG SET
New Drifters
NUMERO GROUP

8/10
Beautiful box of ‘first phase’
recordings by Texan indie
dreamers
It was easy (though illadvised) to pass over
American Analog Set
when they were first
around, in the late ’90s
and early noughties –
they seemed to slip between a number
of different micro-movements within
indie rock, and listening back to their
first three albums, compiled with
extra material in this New Drifters
box, you can hear some debts to the
looping, fuzzy melodies of Stereolab,
and the fragile slowcore of Bedhead.
But American Analog Set had a few
canny tricks up their sleeve: a subtly
majestic capacity with melody (similar
in this respect to Sooyoung Park’s
song writing in Seam); a comfortable
lushness in their production; a
FEBRUARY 2024 •

• 43

ARCHIVE

REDISCOVERED
Scott Fagan,
Pennsylvania,
1969

wry sense of humour. You can hear
them honing their craft, too – by
1999’s The Golden Band, the songs
are sparklier, the rhythms tauter. It’s
a perfect soundtrack to hypnagogia:
blurred, hazy, very bewitching.
Extras 7/10: Booklet with brief notes
and photographs. JON DALE

BRITISH SEA POWER
Do You Like Rock Music?
(15th Anniversary Edition)
ROUGH TRADE

SCOTT FAGAN

South Atlantic Blues (reissue, 1968)
EARTH

8/10

Appealingly oddball first from a star forever in waiting

RICHIE MATTHEWS

TALES of contenders who
never fulfilled their early
promise are plentiful in
the music game, but Scott
Fagan’s comes with intriguing
details – including having
sired Stephin Merritt – and
an idiosyncratic soundtrack.
Raised in the US Virgin
Islands, he moved to New York in 1964 and there started
co-writing songs with the heavyweight Doc Pomus/
Mort Shuman team. Over the next three years, he also
penned the songs that were to form his debut album.
The “bigger than Presley” success predicted by Fagan’s
high-profile manager, Herb Gart, never came to be,
while a deal with Atlantic subsidiary ATCO saw him
stuck in a contract with no label advocate. South Atlantic
Blues disappeared, leaving only a trace.
It’s clearly not through lack of ability or youthful
appeal, as this vinyl reissue – which reinstates the
original artwork (replacing the 1970 Jasper Johns
lithograph, Scott Fagan’s Record, that appeared on
2015’s repressing) – attests. The singer-songwriter was
a photogenic 22-year-old when he recorded it with
producer Elmer Jared Gordon and the 10 tracks are
as accomplished as they are immediately likeable.
They’re also diverse, combining folk, country,
psychedelic pop and orchestral soul, with calypso and
show tuneage providing top notes. Three songs are
co-writes with Fagan’s pal and fellow “hardscrabble
kid” Joe Kookoolis; one, “Crystal Ball”, with Shuman.
44 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

Melodrama is in play, due in part to fêted arranger
Horace Ott’s work.
Fagan’s voice is as much a defining element of South
Atlantic Blues as his songs’ style: its slightly histrionic
push and flutter, which recalls early Bowie, may be
something of an acquired taste, but in his moodier
moments he conjures Scott Walker and Gene Clark. The
former is certainly present in set opener “In My Head”,
whose lyrics are characteristically allusive (“Myself
and I have always seen the sea as secret lover/But does
she, does she, does she want the sky instead?/Oh, no, it’s
something, something in my head”), the strident brass
blasts and Fagan’s anguished, paranoid cry sending
mixed emotional messages to great effect. “Crying”
is another standout, a slice of bittersweet Southern
soul thrown slightly off its axis by a plinking keyboard
motif at the two-thirds mark. Very different are “The
Carnival Is Ended”, a lilting, Bacharach-meets-Bowie
number with steel pans and mariachi brass, and the
socially conscious “Tenement Hall”, a Dr John/Van
hybrid replete with improv strings and guitar savagery,
which exits on Fagan’s near sob of “insane”, repeated
to fadeout.
The reissue of his slightly mystical debut will no doubt
stoke interest in director Marah Strauch’s forthcoming
documentary on Fagan’s life and his new album in the
pipeline – the unrecorded soundtrack to Soon, a rock
musical co-written with Kookoolis which had a fleeting
Broadway run in 1971. One more (deserved) shot at wider
recognition, perhaps.
SHARON O’CONNELL

8/10
Siblings-based band’s Mercurynominated pop peak
The idealism which
made Sea Power drop
their original name’s
playful imperial
connotations found
pointed expression
in their third album’s exhilarating
choruses. “You are astronomical/
Fans of alcohol/Welcome in”, Yan
sings on “Waving Flags” as drums
hammer down doors and harmonies
resonantly soar, a pan-European
utopianism rooted in the sessions’
Czech sojourn. “Easy, easy!” goes “No
Lucifer”, quoting wrestler Big Daddy’s
battle-cry in a lyric also obscurely
referencing then Pope Benedict’s Hitler
Youth past. The sometimes scratchier
indie sound of their previous albums
is honed into regular melodic uplift;
front-loaded with BSP bangers on
Side One, later songs such as yearning
instrumental “The Great Skua” retain
their intent. Where the original liner
notes gave a giddy and gnomic account
of adventures from a Cornish castle to
becoming Leonard Cohen’s Montreal
neighbours, Jan (as he’s now styled)
here realises he was “quite severely
depressed”, yet is proud his band still
managed “lovely sentiments”.
Extras 7/10: BBC sessions and B-sides,
including the epic “Everything Must Be
Saved”. NICK HASTED

MARTIN CARTHY
Martin Carthy
(reissue, 1965)
TOPIC

10/10
Distilled, austere folk song from
a master: ‘the real stuff’
Perhaps one of the
two most important
figures in the revival
of English folk song,
along with Shirley
Collins, Martin
Carthy’s history is complex and
inspiring, from his string of peerless
solo albums to membership of The
Watersons, Steeleye Span, Brass
Monkey and Albion Country Band.
The tales around his early career are
oft told – particularly his interactions
with Bob Dylan and Paul Simon – but
that all pales in comparison to the
elemental power of his self-titled
debut album. He’d go on to record
more complex albums, perhaps some
better, but there’s something about the
clarity of the performances here, their
barebones ranginess, that’s formidable
and, yes, deeply moving. Carthy’s
playing and singing lacks unnecessary
ornamentation, the better to
communicate the core of the melodies,

ARCHIVE
because the bleak city angst of Ohio
didn’t translate to squats in London, or
perhaps it was their tendency towards
violence and provocation. But the
music they made sits tight alongside
groups like Mirrors and Rocket From
The Tombs as proto-punk done right.

and the songs’ accrued historical
resonances; the only embellishment,
an occasional guest spot on fiddle and
mandolin from Dave Swarbrick, is
perfectly drawn.
JON DALE

COIL
Moon’s Milk: In Four
Phases (reissue, 2002)
DAIS

9/10
Post-industrialists’ seasonal
suite restored after 22 years
Moon’s Milk came at a
turning point for Coil.
After several years
immersed in London’s
underground gay
scene, the group’s
central partnership of John Balance
and Peter Christopherson were on
the eve of a permanent relocation
to the seaside environs of WestonSuper-Mare. In preparation, the
group underwent a sonic phase
shift: out with the club-adjacent
electronic rhythms, and in with a
newly abstract, psychedelic sound
inspired by alchemy and the celestial
calendar. A compilation of sorts,
Moon’s Milk collects four seasonally
themed EPs, but feels like a single
body of work. Balance is a shamanic
presence, drifting through a suite of
sensual, exploratory music – from the
sun-baked “Beestings” to the chilly,
ecclesiastic “A White Rainbow”,
augmented by electric viola from
William Breeze. Long out of print, this
lavish vinyl and CD release restores
what may be Coil’s finest moment.
Extras 7/10: Several clear and
coloured-vinyl editions with
artwork from Nurse With Wound’s
Steven Stapleton.
LOUIS PATTISON

COLOSSEUM
Elegy: The Recordings
1968–71
ESOTERIC

7/10
Jazz-rock torchbearers
celebrated in six-disc boxset
The name of
Colosseum has
seldom featured in
the pages of Uncut,
but with the rise of
London’s vibrant
jazz scene led by Nubya Garcia et al,
perhaps it’s time to reappraise the
pioneers of that long-overlooked
genre, early British jazz-rock. They
were formed in 1968 by ex-Graham
Bond/John Mayall sidemen drummer
Jon Hiseman and saxophonist Dick
Heckstall Smith, and this anthology
brings together the band’s first four
studio albums plus two discs of
contemporaneous live material. The
best is to be found on their debut
and its ambitious 1969 follow-up,
Valentyne Suite, with its three-part,
side-long title track – think The Nice at
their most prog with added jazz horns.
Those albums established Colosseum
as trailblazers, but by 1970’s Daughter
Of Time the arrival of vocalist Chris
Farlowe heralded a more conventional
song-based direction.
Extras 6/10: Studio outtakes and

JON DALE

JERRY GARCIA &
DAVID GRISMAN
So What (reissue, 1998)

Bluegrass
buds: David
Grisman
and JG

ORG MUSIC

GARCIA & FRIENDS
The best of Jerry’s collaborations
HOWARD
WALES
& JERRY
GARCIA
Hooteroll?

DOUGLAS, 1971

A surprisintgly sturdy,
impressive jazz-rock album,
Hooteroll? has Wales and Garcia
going at it particularly feverishly.
It’s on Wales’s terms, largely –
his overdriven organ tends to
dominate proceedings – but
when Garcia steps in, he’s
more than capable of taking
up the baton. One of the better
albums in this genre.

8/10

MERL
SAUNDERS
Fire Up
FANTASY, 1973

Saunders started
playing with Garcia at the
Matrix, the beginning of a
long, fruitful collaboration.
On Fire Up, Saunders is joined
an entire disc of unreleased live
performances from 1971.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON

COMET GAIN
Radio Sessions
(BBC 1996–2011)
BUREAU B

7/10
Stalwarts of independent music,
broadcasting in fine form
Comet Gain were a
natural fit for John
Peel’s radio sessions
– listening to their
early records, it was
clear they’d raised
themselves through the open-minded
musical selections that characterised
the DJ’s programming. They made
a good fist of things on the first two
of the four radio sessions compiled
here; songs like the opener, “Say Yes!
Kaleidoscope Sound!”, summarise
everything that was great about
early Comet Gain albums like
Casino Classics – energy and
tension burning through the pages
of David Christian’s articulate,
spirited pop songs, equal parts the
best of indie pop, mod and soul. But
even this early, there was more to
Comet Gain, as the acoustic lament

by Garcia, fellow Grateful Dead
member Bill Kreutzmann, and
Creedence’s Tom Fogerty.
It’s a joy, Saunders’ piano and
Garcia’s guitar and singing
in perfect tandem, a deep
blues-funk groove.

8/10

OLD & IN
THE WAY
Old & In
The Way
ROUND, 1975

A joyous, celebratory live
performance from this
bluegrass gang, where
Garcia returns to the banjo,
and joins David Grisman
(mandolin), Vassar Clements
and John Kahn (string bass).
lovely documentation of the
group, recorded late 1973 in
San Francisco.

8/10

JON DALE

of “Pier Angeli” and the stealthy
prowl of “I Can’t Believe” both
prove. Later sessions are every bit as
explosive, with the unbridled spirit
of their early years making way for
smart, knowing observations and
perfect pop moments. JON DALE

ELECTRIC EELS
Spin Age Blasters
SCAT

9/10
Furious blur of Cleveland’s finest,
sharpest avant-garage gang
It’s wild to think the
music on Spin Age
Blasters, a doublealbum collection
of the music by
Cleveland’s Electric
Eels, was mostly all recorded across
two seasons in the year 1975. Wild
because this music, in its raw fidelity
and snotty energy, bests 99 per cent
of artists trying to do similar things in
2023; wild, also, because it’s such an
outpouring of that energy, as though
the metaphoric tap has burst, and the
rehearsal loft has flooded. Electric Eels
never really got their dues, though
their “Agitated” was one of the best
in that peerless run of early singles
released by Rough Trade, maybe

7/10
A meandering and lovely
acoustic jazz set
A curious album,
this one. Garcia and
Grisman were longtime collaborators,
having met in the
late ’60s, which led
to Grisman appearing on the Grateful
Dead’s 1970 album American Beauty;
they’d soon play together in bluegrass
band Old & In The Way, and later,
in the ’90s, they released a string of
collaborative albums, including an
album of children’s music (Not For Kids
Only). There were many strings to their
collective bow, then, and while their
focus did tend to be on bluegrass and
folk – Grisman combined these genres
with jazz into a form he called Dawg
Music – So What feels like a bit of an
outlier, given its focus on acoustic jazz.
They take on a few Miles Davis tunes
here, flexing from a spirited “So What”
to a tender “Milestones”; the real
gems here, though, are the lovely runs
through Milt Jackson’s “Bag’s Groove”.
JON DALE

EMAHOY TSEGUEMARIAM GEBRU
Souvenirs
MISSISSIPPI

8/10
Homemade piano recordings
from the sadly departed
Ethiopian composer
Last year, Emahoy
Tsegue-Mariam
Gebru passed away
just one year shy of
her 100th birthday.
Gebru had lived
a remarkable life. Born to a rich
family in Addis Ababa, she attended
boarding school in Switzerland
and sang for the Ethiopian emperor
Haile Selassie, before becoming
a prisoner of war in the ’30s and
embracing religion, settling in
a convent in Jerusalem. As you
might expect from such a colourful
biography, her music defies easy
definition. A collection of homerecorded songs for voice and piano,
Souvenirs dates back to the ’70s and
’80s, a period in which Ethiopia’s
Marxist Deng regime were reshaping
the country by force and the pious
or wealthy were in the crosshairs.
Gebru’s playing is humble-sounding
but deceptively intricate, drawing
from jazz and ragtime. But if “Clouds
Moving On The Sky” and “Ethiopia
My Motherland” sound on the
surface sunny, listen closer for the
sad undercurrent: a melancholy
born of repression and the threat of
displacement. LOUIS PATTISON
FEBRUARY 2024 •

• 45

ARCHIVE
release. Instead, these tracks – recorded, similarly
to Metal Machine Music, at home, using a finely
tuned set-up of keyboards, guitars and amplifiers
– began life as Reed’s personal soundtrack to
his yoga and Tai Chi practice. In the album’s
sleevenotes, Reed’s yoga teacher Eddie Stern
recalled how effective this music was at focusing
the mind: “The sounds immediately drew you
into an inner flow of awareness,” he explains.
“Something was happening with the music,
but at the same time something was
happening inside of you.”
Each of these four tracks has a
1 Move Your
distinct character. The opening “Move
Heart
Your Heart” is soft and billowy, with a
2 Move Your
gentle tidal feel. “Find Your Note” lines
Heart – Part II
3 Find Your Note up clear shrill tones, like the drone
4 Find Your Note of a Tibetan singing bowl, with the
– Part II
occasional electronic murmur or rumble
5 Hudson River
of sub-bass. “Hudson River Wind (Blend
Wind (Blend
The Ambiance) The Ambiance)” mixes a field recording
6 Wind Coda
of wind coming off the Hudson with the
drone of a Minimoog Voyager synth.
Produced by:
And the closing “Wind Coda” is a reprise
Hal Willner,
Lou Reed
of the first track, concluding with the
Recorded at:
sound of a gong: a common Buddhist
Animal Lab,
technique to mark the end
New York
of a meditation session.
Personnel:
Lou Reed
Certainly, for those primarily familiar
Meditations sounds unremarkable.
(instruments,
with Lou Reed as irascible punk,
But let it play out and something magic
arrangements)
fearless documenter of the city’s filthy
happens. Soft rhythmic drones begin
underbelly, this exposure to Zen Lou
to interact in subtle, shifting patterns,
may inspire some cognitive dissonance.
and before you know it you’re locked in,
But it’s undeniable that Hudson River Wind
being carried along on its current.
Meditations comes from a very real and personal
Hudson River Wind Meditations sounds like
place. Artistically, its exploration of drone
nothing else in Reed’s catalogue. But nor is it
modes places it in a continuum of Lou’s work
a complete outlier. It shares some DNA with
that stretches right back to the mid-’60s, when he
the music of La Monte Young, the minimalist
penned novelty hit “The Ostrich” on a guitar with
composer who inspired The Velvet Underground,
all strings tuned to one note. More practically,
and whose Dream House installation still drones
away in New York’s Tribeca district to this day. You for Reed it seems to have performed a functional
role. Come his seventh decade, his health was
could also see it as a sort of sister release to Metal
failing him, as he struggled with the symptoms of
Machine Music – Reed’s squalling electric guitar
Hepatitis B and diabetes. In this context you could
feedback suite, which landed to a bewildered
understand Hudson River Wind Meditations as
reception on its release in 1975, but makes rather
therapeutic: a balm for a damaged body; a way to
more sense today. “Most of you won’t like this
still the churn of a restless mind.
and I don’t blame you at all,” Reed wrote in that
Perhaps, though, it’s best to leave the last word
album’s sleevenotes. “It’s not meant for you. At
to Lou himself. “I can use it for a lot of different
the very least I made it so that I have something to
things, including just ‘be there’ as the way a
listen to.”
tree is there,” he told an interviewer. “In my place I
He might have said the same about Hudson
have it going all day, which is better than listening
River Wind Meditations. When he began making
to traffic.”
this music, Reed never intended it for commercial

SLEEVE NOTES

LOU REED

Hudson River Wind
Meditations
(reissue, 2007)
LIGHT IN THE ATTIC

8/10

LOU REED COURTEST OF CANAL STREET COMMUNICATIONS INC

Zen instrumentals from
downtown. By Louis Pattison
THE Hudson River begins
somewhere way up in the
Appalachian highlands
and flows 315 miles south
through upstate New York,
dividing Manhattan and New
Jersey as it filters out into the
Atlantic Ocean. Lou Reed had sung of the river
on “Romeo Had Juliette”, a gritty love song from
1989’s New York that used the dystopian city as
a stage: “Manhattan’s sinking like a rock/Into the
filthy Hudson, what a shock”. But by the time he
released Hudson River Wind Meditations in April
2007 the river had taken on a different character
for him. Visible from the window of the downtown
penthouse that he shared with his wife Laurie
Anderson, the Hudson became the backdrop to
his daily life, its slow-moving waters a constant
and calming presence.
Across five decades, Lou Reed’s creative muse
had taken him to the highest highs, the lowest
lows, and everywhere in between. But Hudson
River Wind Meditations finds him in a place of
perfect equilibrium. Reed’s final solo album,
it appeared in 2007, four years after the Edgar
Allan Poe-inspired concept suite The Raven, and
another four years before Lulu, the Metallica
collaboration that became his swansong. It is
quite unlike either. Clocking in at an hour, it
consists of four gently undulating instrumental
pieces that have an extended, durational quality.
Dip in for a few seconds and Hudson River Wind
46 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

Don Fleming, archivist for
the Lou Reed Archive

Q&A

What’s the story of this reissue?
I’ve been working with Laurie Anderson and the
Lou Reed Estate since after Lou passed away
eventually found at New York Public Library.
the archive. What can we put out there to be
free access as possible? And what can we do
Hudson River Wind
Meditations is one of the things

So Animal Lab studios was Lou’s apartment?

got really into keyboards. There was a Moog
talked about that in interviews as being like the

working with Sarth Calhoun of
a whole series of songs they

they sold it at a kiosk at Starbucks

That would have been recorded at

utterly rejected by Lou’s labels at

a budget to take it into a studio in
town. INTERVIEW: LOUIS PATTISON

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ARCHIVE

THE SPECIALIST

Fantastic voyagers:
Brigitte Fontaine and
Areski live in Cherbourg,
France in the mid-’70s

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Fantastic Voyage: New Sounds For
The European Canon 1977-1981
ACE

8/10

Bowie goes Berlin, music quakes – here’s the fall-out
THE concept behind Fantastic Voyage,
compiled by Bob Stanley of St Etienne
and Jason Wood from the British
Film Institute, is simple: tracking the
two-way flow of influence between
David Bowie’s Berlin-era albums and
the German electronic and avant-rock that informed
Bowie’s thinking at the time. It’s a smart conceit for a
compilation, something that Stanley in
particular has become exceptionally
good at over the past decade. Indeed,
the recent string of collections he’s
pulled together for Ace Records are
often sensitive mappings of discrete
cultural scenes or imagined aesthetic
collisions; while 2020’s Cafe Exil: New
Adventures In European Music 19721980 pieced together what Bowie and
Iggy might have been listening to in
their favourite Kreuzberg haunt.
It’s not hard to see the ways that
Fantastic Voyage’s remit can be
stretched, massaged and morphed.
Some of the names here are to be
expected – Holger Czukay, Cabaret
Voltaire, The Associates – but some
may land, initially, as quite a surprise:
Daryl Hall, Peter Gabriel. It’s the latter
inclusions that make Fantastic Voyage
more valuable than a predictable
hipster’s selection of ‘the right records’.
Treating the Bowie-Berlin creative
nexus as pliable material, Stanley and
Wood offer other ways of thinking about
how electronic music and rock went
mutually mutant in the early ’80s.
The Hall contribution is one of the
compilation’s most gorgeous moments:
“The Farther Away I Am” is a late-night
hymn, an intimist’s dream of a song,
taken from his album Sacred Songs.
Recorded in 1977 but not released
48 •

• FEBRUARY 2024

until 1980, Sacred Songs is Hall’s masterpiece, made
in collaboration with Robert Fripp. Indeed, Fripp
understandably hovers over Fantastic Voyage as a kind
of éminence grise: the taut and itchy “Exposure”, from
Fripp’s album of the same name, is also included here,
and he turns up on guitar on Peter Gabriel’s tortured “No
Self Control”.
Gabriel’s contribution precedes the song that feels
like Fantastic Voyage’s core, The
Walker Brothers’ “Nite Flights”. The
moment where Scott Walker truly
unshackles himself from the Brothers’
lush, brooding balladry and goes
fully existential, it’s still startling,
40 years on, a stealthy machine of a
song, a warped hybrid of krautrock’s
rhythmic monotony and stylised artrock. Bowie’s “Heroes” was a reference
point for Walker while recording
his contributions to “Nite Flights”’s
attendant album, and Bowie
would repay the favour, decades
later, covering it on 1993’s Black Tie
White Noise.
Lest Fantastic Voyage come across
as an exercise of reinforcing myths,
the veneration of a gang of white
intellectuals exoticising Berlin’s
post-war ruins, Stanley and Wood are
careful to bring in other voices. One of
the highlights of Fantastic Voyage is
the plasmic drift of Brigitte Fontaine
and Areski’s “Patriarcat”; another is
Isabelle Mayereau ’s “On A Trouvé…”,
from her chanson curio, Des Mot
Étranges…; Grauzone’s “Eisbaer” still
feels like a beautiful anomaly in the
landscape. And that’s the great art of
Fantastic Voyage – drawing up new
plans that allow different contexts for
such strange, glorious architectures.
JON DALE

MEAT PUPPETS
Meat Puppets II

(reissue, 1984) MEGAFORCE

9/10
Classic psych-country-punk LP
gets 30th-anniversary re-release
Such was the vortexlike force that was
Nirvana in the 1990s,
the Meat Puppets
are still perhaps best
known as being the
band Kurt & co covered three times
on their MTV Unplugged appearance.
However, 30 years on from their second
album, there’s plenty here to suggest
the Puppets are more deserving of a
stronger legacy of their own. Merging
punk, country, psych and buckets of
charm, the Arizona band still sound
like few others from that era. Despite
short songs, there’s plenty of variety:
“Aurora Borealis” has an unfurling
slow-burn Neil Young-like quality to it,
while “Magic Toy Missing” is a highoctane country jig. “Plateau” and “Lake
Of Fire” were picked out by Cobain for
a reason, neatly typifying – via groggy
yet infectious grooves and rough yet
melodic vocals – how deeply distinctive
and against-the-grain the Meat Puppets
were. DANIEL DYLAN WRAY

LEE MORGAN
Search For The New Land
(reissue, 1966) BLUE NOTE

9/10
Adventurous hard bop set from
a jazz trumpet legend
Celebrated for his
contributions to the
hard bop genre and
iconic jazz label Blue
Note in particular,
trumpeter Lee Morgan
recorded extensively until his untimely
death at the age of 33. Search For The
New Land is situated in the middle of
his too-brief career, recorded in 1964
but released two years later. The lineup
is a handsome one, as is often the case
with mid-’60s Blue Notes: Miles Davis
Quintet members Wayne Shorter and
Herbie Hancock alongside Reggie
Workman’s solid bass, Billy Higgins’
precise drums and Grant Green’s agile,
bluesy guitar. The title-track opener
is an odyssey, nearly 16 adventurous
minutes effectively separated into
movements by meditative quavers
of guitar. “Mr Kenyatta” is catchy yet
sophisticated, while “Melancholee”
sets an elegiac tone that lives up to its
name. The album is contemplative and
exploratory, expanding the boundaries
of hard bop without veering into free
jazz. ANA GAVRILOVSKA

DAN PENN/
BOBBY PURIFY
The Inside Track On Bobby
Purify THE LAST MUSIC

8/10
Sensational demos complete with
reissue of 2005 deep soul stunner
Southern soul
songwriter Penn’s
original demos of
songs later made
famous by others are
legendary, and this
gorgeous double LP has 10 of them.
These are Penn’s versions of songs he

ARCHIVE
wrote for soul singer Ben Moore, aka
Bobby Purify, on 2005’s Better To Have
It. Penn had just helped resuscitate the
career of Solomon Burke and sought
to do the same with Moore. Moore was
the second Bobby Purify. He joined
James Purify to form a soul duo in the
1970s after the original Bobby – Robert
Lee Dickey – stepped down. Penn and
Spooner Oldham had written “I’m
A Puppet”, a hit in the ’60s with the
original duo, and a hit again in the
’70s when re-recorded with Moore. By
the 2000s, Moore was blind, singing
in local bars. He sang his heart out of
Penn’s compositions – included here
– but Penn’s original takes of “Better
To Have It” and “My Life To Live Other”
are impossible to better. Sublime.
Extras 8/10: Includes 16 pages of
photos and interviews with Dan Penn.
PETER WATTS

AUSTIN PERALTA
Endless Planets

(reissue, 2011) NINJA TUNE

7/10
Late LA jazz pianist’s third and
final album
Peralta released his
debut album, with a
trio, when he was 15
and his second, with
a quintet, less than a
year later. Given that
precocity and the strength of these
originals, one wonders at his future
had he not died in 2012, aged just 22.
Originally released on Brainfeeder,
this set shows kinship more in spirit
than sound, though Strangeloop adds
some electronic detailing to its postbop/modal jazz. Peralta’s style recalls
Bill Evans’s and he’s a generous player,
as “Ode To Love” with Ben Wendel
on soprano sax attests. The album’s
groove nexus is “Algiers”, where keys
and saxophones (including the late
Zane Musa’s alto) urgently converse
over a tabla/upright bass pattern.
Very different are the lush, dramatic
“The Lotus Flower” and trippy closer
“Epilogue: Renaissance Bubbles”,
with Peralta on a Fender Rhodes.
Extras 7/10: Four tracks from a 2011
BBC Maida Vale session, with a band
including Jason Yarde and singer
Heidi Vogel. SHARON O’CONNELL

PLUSH
More You Becomes You

(reissue, 1998) WEIRD VACATION

8/10
Debut from eccentric, reclusive
Chicago songwriter
It took Liam Hayes
almost four years for a
full-length follow-up
to Plush’s acclaimed
1995 7”, “Found A
Little Baby”, the
elegant apogee of contemporary
orchestral-pop inclinations.
Surprisingly, despite continuing to
exhibit the craft of Burt Bacharach,
then enjoying a career renaissance,
Hayes set aside such opulence,
stripping arrangements to just voice
and, aside from a hint of horn, piano.
Critics embraced his vulnerability,
but in their eagerness wishfully
overlooked the album’s brevity
and Hayes’ contrary urge to test his

listeners’ patience. There’s a false start
on the otherwise silken “Save The
People” and his voice is so tuneless
on “I Didn’t Know I Was Asleep” he
actually chuckles. Still, Bacharach’s
vocals weren’t flawless either, and
there’s something compelling about
the intimacy in Hayes’ voice cracking
on the sophisticated “The Sailor”,
though the brittle romance of “Soaring
And Boring” remains most affecting.
WYNDHAM WALLACE

PAULINE ANNA STROM
Echoes, Spaces, Lines
RVNG INTL

8/10
Boxset celebrates the electronic
pioneer’s singular artistry
Strom, who died in
San Francisco in
2020 aged 74, has
for some years been
cultishly acclaimed
for her cosmic synth
compositions, which throb with
colour and teem with imaginative
possibilities despite (or because
of) her blindness since birth. This
collection gathers together her TransMillenia Consort (sic), Plot Zero and
Spectre releases from 1982, ’83 and
’84 respectively, remixed from the
original reels by producer/engineer
Marta Salogni, and adds Ocean Of
Tears, a complete but previously
unreleased record. It totals 30 tracks
– most of which run well over the sixminute mark, one to 14 – and provides
a mesmeric, sense-heightened
soundtrack to each listener’s singular
inner world. Though Strom hated the
New Age tag, the gaseous nature and
deep-space profundity of many of the
recordings suggests a Californian take
on Cluster and Klaus Schulze. The fivetrack Plot Zero, which marries sci-fi
prog and giallo to moodily compelling
effect, perhaps has the edge, but
across the boxset, entrancement
abounds. SHARON O’CONNELL

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Song Keepers: A Music
Maker Foundation
Anthology
MUSIC MAKER/NO DEPRESSION

8/10
Joyfully diverse survey of trad
blues, sacred soul and folk
As a musicology
student in North
Carolina during the
early 1990s, Tim Duffy
encountered scores of
elderly artists living
in poverty, out of work and out of
money. He and his wife Denise Duffy
launched the Music Maker Foundation
to provide financial assistance
and to sponsor recording sessions.
Song Keepers, which celebrates the
organisation’s 30th anniversary,
compiles recordings from artists from
all over the South. John Lee Zeigler,
a guitarist from Georgia, illuminates
“Pretty Little Shoes” with mystical
licks, while Willa Mae Buckner (who
had a snake-dancing act in the ’50s)
winks and nudges her way through a
ribald “Peter Rumpkin”. The set also
includes contributions from younger
generations, including Rhiannon

Giddens and Faith & Harmony. Song
Keepers portrays Southern traditional
music as endlessly mutable and
joyfully diverse.
Extras 8/10: Hardbound book
featuring extensive liner notes, photos
and daguerreotype portraits of the
artists. STEPHEN DEUSNER

THE WATERBOYS
1985 BLUE RAINCOAT

9/10
Six-disc dive into Scott’s marine
masterpiece, This Is The Sea
Buried within this
exhaustive account
of the process behind
The Waterboys’
crowning ‘Big Music’
is a cover of Van
Morrison’s “Sweet Thing”. A different
version appears on 1988’s Fisherman’s
Blues, but here its joyful, multi-layered
guitars reveal it as an inspiration for
the unfettered, wide-eyed wonder of
This Is The Sea’s title track. That’s also
represented here in breathless style,
decorated by Tom Verlaine’s jagged
guitars, with similar revelations
peppering these 86 bonus tracks, 64
unreleased, including the inaugural
performance of “Trumpets” and a
nine-minute trial run of ideas for
“The Whole Of The Moon”. Among
impromptu sketches, meanwhile, are
Scott and Karl Wallinger testing mics a
cappella with Prince’s “Paisley Park”,
helping highlight the pleasure and
passion behind the LP itself’s heady
grandeur, displayed on the final disc.
Extras 9/10: 220-page booklet with
details of each recording, unpublished
lyrics and further writings, plus pages
from Scott’s legendary ‘Black Book’.
WYNDHAM WALLACE

X-RAY SPEX
Conscious Consumer
(reissue, 1995) DYI/CARGO

7/10
Lost second album resurrected
Poly Styrene could
only bear short
music-business
shifts, regaining her
mental balance in
Krishna communes,
where she was reacquainted with “Oh
Bondage! Up Yours!”’ saxophonist
Lora Logic. Stung by exploitation
of X-Ray Spex’s scant output, Poly

COMING NEXT
MONTH...

NEXT time we meet we’ll be taking
a look at new releases from The
Jesus And Mary Chain, Yard Act,
The Staves, Elbow, The Hanging
Stars, High Llamas, Sam Lee,
Dean McPhee, Sheer Mag and
more. We’ll also be delving into
the deep, rich past with The
Rolling Stones’s latest singles
box covering 1966-’71, plus Joe
Henderson, Glen Campbell,
Robert Forster, Aretha Franklin
and a rediscovered gem from
The Children’s Hour.
EMAIL TOM.PINNOCK@KELSEY.CO.UK

convened this follow-up to ’78’s
Germ Free Adolescents with Logic,
original bassist Paul Dean and
pseudonymous support from Kula
Shaker’s Crispian Mills and Paul
Winterhart on guitar and drums.
Unceremoniously buried in the age
of Oasis, this is its vinyl debut. Poly’s
sweetly taunting yelp, the perfect
female response to Johnny Rotten’s
vocal challenge, powers more satires
on consumerism and conformity on
“Cigarettes”, “Junk Food Junkie”
and “Party”. “Crystal Clear” offers
contrastingly whispered emotional
intimacy, discomfiting and inviting,
over Mills’ pacing, insinuating guitar.
“With a glass of water/You can see your
face”, Poly sings with newly mature
confrontation. The music’s committed
but politely of its indie era, lifted by
Logic’s sympathetically driving sax.
These are anyway potent additions to
Poly Styrene’s slim songbook.
Extras 6/10: Poster or postcards on
some vinyl varieties.
NICK HASTED

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FEBRUARY 2024 •

• 49

SHANE MacGOWAN | 1957 – 2023

With his lyrical songwriting – full of humour, despair and hope –
SHANE MacGOWAN was an ardent chronicler of the human
condition. Here, Spider Stacy, James Fearnley and Jem Finer share
their memories of their former Pogues bandmate: “His gifts were
incomparable,” hears Graeme Thomson. Meanwhile, on page 58
we revisit an encounter with MacGowan where he talks through the
music that inspired him.
Photos by STEVE RAPPORT

HEN I interviewed Shane
MacGowan in 2022, he pondered
the wider meaning of the title of
his art book, The Eternal Buzz And
The Crock Of Gold. “It doesn’t hurt
to be stimulated,” he concluded.
“But the eternal buzz isn’t limited
to a drug. It’s a place we can all go to, it’s where we came from
and I believe it’s the place that we go back to when we die.
And the paradox of the crock of gold is that you can find it, but
you can never keep it.”
MacGowan reunited with the eternal buzz, aged 65, on
November 30, 2023. And while the crock of gold may have
been flighty, he located its whereabouts more than most.
Fêted by Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Bruce Springsteen –
who calls him “the master” – his best songs, brought
magnificently to life by The Pogues, infused the Celtic
tradition with something thrillingly wild, new and true.
The Pogues were a London band and MacGowan was poet
laureate of the diaspora. He was born “in exile” in Kent on
FEBRUARY 2024

Christmas Day 1957, shortly after his parents moved to
England. Educated at English fee-paying schools, punctuated
by spells in the family seat in Tipperary, from an early age he
exhibited exceptional literary gifts. MacGowan was reading
Joyce and Dostoevsky at 11. His English teacher kept his weird
and wonderful creative stories for half a century.
Expelled from school and with an already developed taste
for drink and drugs, at 17 he suffered a mental health
breakdown that led to hospitalisation. Liberated by punk,
he became Shane O’Hooligan, fanzine creator, face, scene
provocateur, and singer and songwriter in punk band The
Nipple Erectors aka The Nips.
The Pogues formed in 1982 and signed to Stiff Records.
Red Roses For Me (1984) was a startling debut, followed by
Rum Sodomy & The Lash (1985), the “Poguetry In Motion”
EP (1986), and If I Should Fall From Grace With God (1988).
On these records, MacGowan wrote with one foot in a
romanticised past and one in the scuzzy present, one in
Ireland and one in exile, between the bar and the backstreets,
between heaven and hell.

Good year for the
Roses: Shane
MacGowan in The
Pogues’ early days,
November 1984

51

SHANE MacGOWAN
The write stuff:
working on his
fanzine Bondage
in Soho, London,
January 14, 1977

His subject was the human condition in its
most unvarnished form. “I could have been
someone/Well, so could anyone”, from “Fairytale
Of New York”, distils an entire life in a handful
of lines. “The world is what it is, and it is green
fields and motorways, and it is horror and hate
and it is peace and love, and the beauty is all
of it,” he told me. They are songs nobody else
could have written. The trick, he said, was to
“obliterate all rational thought. There’s nothing
worthwhile that is conscious, it all comes from
the unconscious.”
Peace And Love (1990) and Hell’s Ditch (1991)
were less convincing, as burnout, excess and
exhaustion drained MacGowan’s muse. After
being asked to leave The Pogues in 1991, adding
to the canon was a struggle. His final album of
original material, The Crock Of Gold, recorded
with The Popes, was released in 1997. When
The Pogues reunited for a Christmas tour in
2001, there was never any serious consideration
of making a new album.
The final Pogues show was in August 2014.
A year later, a fractured pelvis and broken hip
suffered after a fall left MacGowan reliant on a
wheelchair. In the Dublin apartment he shared
with his wife, Victoria, he drank, read, watched
gangster films and held court to occasional
visitors. The heartfelt 60th birthday celebrations at
Dublin NCH in 2018, featuring Nick Cave, Bono and
Bobby Gillespie among the guests, felt valedictory.
Interviewing MacGowan in 2022, I asked when
he felt he was at his creative peak. “I hope that’s
FEBRUARY 2024

The Pogues in 1984: (l–r)
Shane MacGowan, James
Fearnley, Jem Finer,
Andrew Rankin, Spider
Stacy, Cait O’Riordan

yet to come. I was
blocked for years and it
was hell. Sometimes I
get on a roll and I write all day, but not as much
as I used to.” His most recent song was called
“Bad Detective”. “I haven’t given up. I plan to
finish recording my album and I want to go back
to Tangiers.”
He spent the last few months of his life in
hospital, and succumbed to pneumonia at home
shortly after being discharged. MacGowan’s
funeral service took place on December 8, 2023,

“We were dealing
with someone way,
way out of the
ordinary”
SPIDER STACY
in Nenagh, Tipperary. In attendance were all the
living Pogues, who performed alongside Cave,
Lisa O’Neill and Glen Hansard.
Talking to Uncut in the days following his
death, The Pogues’ co-founders – Spider Stacy,
Jem Finer and James Fearnley – recall the
complicated man they knew better than most:
writer, singer, performer, friend. “He was a
giant,” says Finer. “A singular genius.”

SPIDER STACY

The Pogues could never have
been an Irish band. They
couldn’t have started in
Ireland, they had to come
from the diaspora. And it had
to be a songwriter who could
look at that from the outside
as well as from the inside.
The root of Shane’s stuff was the émigré
experience. Perhaps my favourite memory is the
time I walked into a rehearsal an hour late. The
band was learning “The Broad Majestic
Shannon”, running it from the top. I heard it once
and I just knew. Shane wrote many beautiful and
fantastic songs, but I think “The Broad Majestic
Shannon” towers above them all. That line –
‘Heard the men coming home from the fair at
Shinrone/Their hearts in Tipperary wherever
they go’ – is the perfect distillation of everything
he was trying to say.
The genesis of The Pogues was playing a set of
rebel songs at Cabaret Futura in Soho. We were
just mucking about, really. Shane had been at a
friend’s house and started playing “Paddy On The
Railway” on acoustic guitar really fast, singing it
with a London accent. And the penny dropped.
“Streams Of Whiskey” and “The Dark Streets Of
London” were the first two songs, and in both
there was a power – just the stories and the
imagery. The songs Shane did with The Nips had
a smartness and intelligence, but this was the
first time I got an intimation of what could be in
store. I got a greater sense at the third or fourth
rehearsal when he brought in “Boys From The

‘NOW, THE SONG IS
NEARLY OVER’
THE NIPS
KING OF THE
BOP
(1978, TAKEN FROM
THE NIPS SINGLE
“KING OF THE BOP”)

One of four Nips
45s, this bouncy
blend of Elvis,
Bolan and north
London punkabilly
is early evidence
of MacGowan’s
wit, economy and
melodic ear.

THE POGUES
STREAMS OF
WHISKEY

(1984, RED ROSES FOR ME)

MacGowan’s first
masterpiece,
a rallying cry
to drinkers
everywhere, bottles
the irreverent spirit
of The Pogues’ wild
early shows.

THE POGUES
THE OLD MAIN
DRAG
(1985, RUM SODOMY
& THE LASH)

County Hell”.
You could sense
this iceberg
emerging. By the
time we got to
things like “A Pair
Of Brown Eyes”
it was already set
in stone that we
were dealing with
someone way,
way out of the
ordinary.
He could at
times find
songwriting
extremely easy,
but certainly in
the early days,
he worked very
hard at it. I
remember Nick Cave was at Shane’s
place in Cromer Street, and he was
just astonished. He said there was
sheets of paper with lyrics all over
the place. Shane had stacks of
sources. He would just draw stuff in
to absorb it and push it out again.
You have a genius songwriter, but
if you’ve got the right people, then
the songs come to fullness as a
result of that chemistry working.
Shane wasn’t always necessarily
the best person at getting his ideas
across, but particularly Jem and
James Fearnley could glean what he

A novel in song.
The haunting drone
frames Shane’s
brutally brilliant lyric
about the dark side
of the immigrant
experience, as a
teenage Irish lad in
London discovers
streets paved
with danger and
degradation.

THE POGUES
THE SICK
BED OF
CÚCHULAINN
(1985, RUM SODOMY
& THE LASH)

A dramatic, surreal,
scabrous tale
peopled by mythic
Irish kings, rattling
death trains,
brawling travellers
and tenors Richard
Tauber and John
MacCormack. The
banshee sound of
The Pogues at
full pelt.

THE POGUES
A PAIR OF
BROWN EYES
(1985, RUM SODOMY
& THE LASH)

A new delicacy and
wistfulness enters
MacGowan’s writing, in the
tale of two damaged would-be
lovers set to a tune that seems
as old as time itself.
53

SHANE MacGOWAN

“She was fantastic”:
McGowan with his
mother, Therese, at the
family home in Nenagh,
Tipperary in 1997

The Snake is much better than The Crock Of Gold.
The songs are better largely because he had
written them and they had been worked out with
us before he left. There was something about the
environment of the band that really helped with
his writing. When that changed, it had an effect
on his creativity.
When we reunited, he was enjoying himself a
lot of the time, but we were sitting in his hotel in
Japan and he said, “I just don’t want to do it any
more. It was only meant to be one Christmas, and
it’s been nearly 14 years.” Fair enough! I think we
did one more show after that.
He never recovered from the fall in 2015. Shortly
before that, his mum died. He loved his mum, she
was fantastic, and it really hit him hard. Maybe it
wouldn’t have knocked him for six quite so much
if he hadn’t been in a wheelchair with a broken
pelvis. We’d see him when we’d go to Ireland, but
it was difficult with him being immobile. I wish
I’d seen more of him over the last few years.
He knew that people loved him, but he was an
oddly humble person. He could pretend to be
arrogant, but he wasn’t actually an arrogant
person at all. He would routinely empty his
pockets of banknotes if he saw a homeless person
on the street, because of the immediacy of it: this
person needs money now.
Shane’s character isn’t a mystery to me at all,
but I couldn’t explain it. I knew him very well, I
knew how to talk to him, how he would react to
things, but to actually put it into words? It’s
impossible. The 46 years since I first met him,
standing at the urinal at the Ramones show at the
Roundhouse in June 1977 – you can’t neatly sum
that up in soundbites. It’s more than that.
FEBRUARY 2024

“I had no idea of
his talent. That
was put paid to
pretty quickly!”
JAMES FEARNLEY
His funeral was amazing. He got the send-off he
deserved. The sheer amount of love he was held
in was overwhelming. I think he would have been
somewhat embarrassed by it, but at the same
time, he would have understood it. There was a
great amount of gratitude on display for the way
Shane’s words resonated so deeply with Irish
people; not just in Ireland, but throughout the
diaspora and beyond that, as well. In the end, his
songs were universal. They are for us all.

JAMES FEARNLEY

With Shane, it was this weird
thing of rushing towards
something but, at the same
time, escaping something
that’s coming after you. I
think for a lot of his life there
were hellhounds on his tail.
Maybe he thought if he hurtled towards life, it
would offer him some respite. I’m not sure it
worked. I know how difficult it was for him to

actually be awake sometimes, yet he couldn’t
go to sleep.
A lot of sacrifice goes into telling us lesser
mortals, “This is what life’s got for you. It can be
fantastic, and it can be horrifying and hurtful
sometimes.” I’ve got the painting of [Millais’] The
Boyhood Of Raleigh in my mind. This piratical guy
with a ring on his finger, and these two kids
listening to everything he says as he’s pointing
out to sea. That’s pretty much the way that I
remember those Pogues sessions! He was telling
us about what could be found out there – and The
Pogues were indispensable in letting those ideas
through. We were able to ground his songwriting
in the nuts and bolts. He was an obstreperous guy
and he always said, “Yeah, that’s the way it was
supposed to go! Christ almighty, why did it take
you so long to agree with me?”
I hadn’t been in touch with him since the last
reunion gig, in 2014. While he was in hospital in
November, I wrote to him. It turned out to be a
thank you letter. I thanked him for taking me on
as a guitar player with The Nips in 1980, though
I didn’t know that I was auditioning for The Nips.
The ad said, ‘name band’ and that made me
curious. I was a bit disappointed that he turned
out to be Shane O’Hooligan, this idiot who was
going around the clubs and getting famous for
mucking about. I was ready to dismiss him as
soon as I walked into the rehearsal room and
realised who it was. I had no idea of his talent.
That was put paid to pretty quickly!
Shane asked me if I could play “disconnected
shards of industrial noise”, and I said, “Why
not?” It seemed to impress him. Then we did a
version of “Sun Arise”, which was genius. The

experiences I had with him
then were out-and-out fun,
going on Nips outings to
Cambridge and down to
Brighton to see The Jam and
the Specials, barrelling
around London. I was
astonished at his alcohol
intake. That was an eye opener.
Once The Nips finished, I’d visit him on the way
to guitar auditions for other bands. Sometimes I
didn’t actually make it to the auditions because
we just started drinking and going off places, or
just hanging out. He would talk about Cretan
music, with the endless, cyclical, repeated singlenote melodies going round and round. That was
inspiring, to see what he was trying to do with
Irish music.
It wasn’t until I went to my first Pogues
rehearsal, with Jem and Shane, at Shane’s flat
on Cromer Street in Bloomsbury, that I was
introduced to songs like “The Dark Streets Of
London” and “The Old Main Drag” – that song
really knocked my socks off. Not just the words,
but the way the chords pivoted around the drone
in the middle. The chord structures in many of
these songs, like “A Pair Of Brown Eyes”, are
sublime. When he was writing, he would operate
on the level of ego annihilation. Because of the
inner troubles he had throughout his life, he
wanted to silence the ego.
The first gig we did was at the Pindar of
Wakefield [in October 1982]. Our neighbours,
friends and family all came – and we pulled it off.
It wasn’t quite there yet, but quite quickly it was
on the up and up. We seemed to be getting better
and better at knowing what we were doing
without watering it down, with songs like “The
Old Main Drag”, “A Rainy Night In Soho” and
“A Fairytale Of New York”.
Then Shane’s heart began to go out of it and we
lost our way. His writing wasn’t going all that well,
notably around Peace And Love. We got a little
back on track when we worked with Joe Strummer
on Hell’s Ditch, but I was listening to that record
yesterday and the message couldn’t be clearer.
Culture Clash: The
Pogues with Joe
Strummer at the
Ritz in New York
City, Nov 27, 1987

Shane was gone. It was a
blissful summer in Wales when
we recorded Hell’s Ditch, blazing
hot, the Italian World Cup was
on, we were all having a great
time – and Shane was nowhere
to be seen. Then he showed up
and put a suit on and some nice
shoes, but all the lyrics are saying: “Leave me
alone, let me bliss-out somewhere else.”
He’d had enough. It was then a question of
The Pogues trying to figure out how to make it
easiest for us all to wind it up. Which resulted in
us summoning him to a hotel room in Yokohama
in 1991 to sack him. And he said, “What took
you so long?!”

JEM FINER

Shane was the star of the
show. His beautiful voice, his
ability with crafting songs of
infinite beauty, compassion
and wit, his generosity to
those who offered him true
friendship and the benefit of
their brilliance, irrespective of hierarchy, made
him a singular genius. He had a clear vision at the
beginning, he was naturally musical in a way
none of us were, even the well-educated among
our number.
I first met Shane in late 1978, when I went to
have a look at a room I’d been offered in a house
in Burton Street, near Euston. He was an
engaging character, propped against some
railings watching the world go by. As time went
by we’d bump into each other but I knew little
about him, he was just this quietly
charismatic, friendly guy who
became one of my neighbours.
I gradually learned more about
him. We both had immigrant
dads and so knew the pain of
seeing our fathers suffer the
iniquities of a certain sort of
racism at work in this country.
Both our fathers were volatile

“If you don’t like
it, no-one will
care”: with Kirsty
MacColl in 1987

A FAIRYTALE
OF NEW YORK

T

The birth of a classic

HE Pogues’ most famous song,
recorded with Kirsty MacColl, was
released in 1987 as a Christmas
single. Co-written by MacGowan and
Jem Finer, it had a long and tortuous
gestation. “Shane and I decided to write
a Christmas song sometime in 1985,”
says Finer. “Initially I wrote two: the first
had a good tune and really bad lyrics.
My wife Marcia gave a no-holds-barred
critique and explained what kind of story
and spirit a good Pogues Christmas song
might have. In her suggestion a couple
torturing each other under the cruel
spotlight of a mammonic Christmas are
caught by surprise, by something in the
mystic air; a kiss, a dance, a memory
of light and love; an opportunity for
provisional redemption. I wrote a second
song with that storyline,
set in London. That’s what
Shane took, relocated to
New York and rewrote
so ingeniously.”
MacGowan had already
written the “drunk tank”
introduction, but kept
editing the words to the
main tune. Each time he
did so, the arrangement
shifted. Once the song
was finally resolved, the
challenge was to record it
successfully. “There had
been problems switching between the intro
and the band coming in,” says producer
Steve Lillywhite. “I said, ‘Look, we’ll simply
record it as two separate pieces, then I’ll
join the two together.’ We did Shane and
piano live, as a duet, put the orchestra on,
and that was the intro. The track we did in
the normal way of recording bass, drums
and Philip Chevron on acoustic guitars,
then we added instruments one at a time.”
Bassist Cait O’Riordan originally sang
the female part, but she had now left the
band. Lillywhite was married to Kirsty
MacColl, and suggested she have a go. “I
said, ‘I have a studio at home. It won’t cost
you anything, and if you don’t like it, no-one
will care.’ Shane had the lyrics and started
tearing out bits, saying, ‘This is what
Kirsty’s got to do.’ He gave me the sheet
of paper with holes in, I took that home,
and Kirsty did the vocal. We went through
every line to make sure that the nuance,
swing and cadence was absolutely
perfect. I’m so proud of her vocal. We
played it to the band on the Monday
morning and they went, ‘Oh my Lord!’”
55

SHANE MacGOWAN
and charismatic characters and both our mothers
were brilliant and doting. This informs an
attitude, a confidence, an independence, an ear
for other nationalities of music. His enthusiasm
for mythologies, legends and stories was
insatiable. He loved the natural storytellers and
I think that comes from his background.
I always loved his songs. The Nips, formed by
Shanne Bradley, were a great band. The songs
were always catchy with an eye for detail, humour
and a canny recycling of ideas from the tradition
of popular music. He had a very particular way of
putting things together and writing which was
evident way before he started writing what would
become Pogues songs. When he did, I was blown
away. “Streams Of Whiskey” was like nothing I’d
ever heard before. Great tune, wonderful lyrics
and something timeless and seemingly effortless
about it. Sure, it kind of sounded like a traditional
Irish folk song but it wasn’t; it respectfully
borrowed from the tradition but added something
that was totally his own. I loved the idea of
creating something that extended a timeline of
oral and musical history into the future. Shane
made a great connection, like wiring together a
simple circuit which opened the doors into a
whole new world of music. Shane was a master at
weaving stories from all manner of sources.
We were happy at the beginning when it was
simple and we felt in control of our destiny. Doing
a gig, making demos, doing more gigs, making a
record, going on tour. It felt like there was interest
in us from the start, and we were happily and
rather innocently going about our business. Being
signed to Stiff was exciting, as was our first gold
or silver disc. Elvis Costello gave us a huge boost.
We went on tour supporting him and then he
produced Rum Sodomy & The Lash, a beautiful
interpretation of how we were trying to sound.
But as time went by, the industry intruded and
exploited us. We were endlessly on the road being
drained of creativity and joy. As early as 1985,
Shane tried to get out. He hated the industry
pressures and the nonsense of celebrity, and like
me deeply resented being made to do what we
were told. He also seemed trapped by The Pogues,
as if he was responsible for everyone. He had an
extraordinary loyalty to the band, however
irritating he found it. Like most special people he
seemed happiest among people who knew him
and who could let him be himself.
He was brought up to have beautiful manners.
Everybody loved his mother, a wonderful woman
“The send-off he
deserved”: Shane’s
funeral procession
through Dublin,
December 8, 2023

FEBRUARY 2024

Pontifficating: on
stage with
The Popes,
Dec 1997

“We were happy at
the beginning…
We felt in control
of our destiny”
JEM FINER

melody in the gaps. For “Boys From The County
Hell”, that’s how the intro and the break came
about. I didn’t think at the time, ‘Oh, I’m writing
something’ – it was just part of the process. We’d
get together and Shane would play things he was
working on and I’d play things I’d been working
on and we’d find what fitted together. Sometimes
we found ourselves assembling parts, then
disassembling them and finding other
combinations and outcomes.
As time went by I might come along with a tune
and sometimes that would fit with something

who brought her
beloved children up to
be compassionate. For
all his wild ways and
occasional streams of
abuse he was always
respectful to the
respectful. He seemed to
be rude when he sensed
inauthenticity. For all
his legendary vitriol, a
good protection, he was
a gentle and wellintentioned soul.
When we were first playing
songs together and he’d be
teaching me a new song
there’d always be verses and
a chorus but there wasn’t
always an instrumental
section, and sometimes I’d
start improvising a kind of

Shane enjoying himself
more with them. When it came to the reunion
years, there are many good memories, and
some funny ones.
Shane more than fulfilled his talent in an
outstanding body of work. His gifts were
incomparable. The most beautiful voice, the
most extraordinary ability with words, the most
natural affinity with music and a lyrical, dirty,
witty way of drawing that flowed from mind to
paper in a most singular way. His funeral was an
extraordinary service, full of sadness enthused
by great joy and enormous heart. Beautiful
music, readings and eulogies and the very
present spirit of Shane running through it all.

UK TOUR – MAY 2024
05 SEP • GLASGOW

MAY 7

THEATRE ROYAL

07 SEP • GATESHEAD

BRIGHTON CENTRE

THE GLASSHOUSE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE

08 SEP • MANCHESTER

MAY 9

OPERA HOUSE

LONDON THE O2

11 SEP • LIVERPOOL

MAY 10

14 SEP • CARDIFF

MAY 11

17 SEP • BRISTOL

OLYMPIA

NEW THEATRE

BIRMINGHAM RESORTS WORLD ARENA

15 SEP • OXFORD
NEW THEATRE

GLASGOW OVO HYDRO

BRISTOL BEACON

18 SEP • POOLE

MAY 12

LIGHTHOUSE

PHOTO BY MARK SELIGER

LEEDS FIRST DIRECT ARENA

MAY 14

MANCHESTER CO-OP LIVE

MAY 15

21 SEP • LONDON

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PALLADIUM

24 SEP • IPSWICH
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25 SEP • WOLVERHAMPTON
THE HALLS

AEG Presents

NOTTINGHAM MOTORPOINT ARENA

JOHNNY MARR
THE SPIRIT POWER TOUR
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ROCK CITY NOTTINGHAM
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APRIL 2024
Tue 2nd April - Glasgow Grand Hall
Wed 3rd April - Manchester Albert Hall
Fri 5th April - Birmingham Town Hall
Sat 6th April - Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion
Mon 8th April - London Barbican

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CAPTAIN SENSIBLE

DAVE VANIAN

RAT SCABIES

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PERFORMING TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1989

PLUS SUPPORT

*
18.03 GLASGOW O2 ACADEMY*

LOW TICKETS

EXTRA DATE ADDED

19.03
21.03
22.03
23.03

EDINBURGH O2 ACADEMY*
SHEFFIELD O2 ACADEMY*
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25.03 LONDON ROUNDHOUSE*
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27.03 LONDON ROUNDHOUSE*
10.07 NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY
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DECEMBER 2024
WED 4 NEWCASTLE NX
THU 5 GLASGOW BARROWLANDS
FRI 6 MANCHESTER ACADEMY
SUN 8 LEEDS O2 ACADEMY
MON 9 NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY
TUE 10 WOLVERHAMPTON THE HALLS
THU 12 BRISTOL BEACON
FRI 13 SOUTHAMPTON O2 GUILDHALL
SAT 14 EASTBOURNE WINTER GARDEN
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AEG Presents in association with United Talent Agency

SHANE MacGOWAN

“We did the feedback
with a banjo”
In late 1994, SHANE MacGOWAN sat down with Melody Maker in
Filthy McNasty’s – his favourite north London pub – to be interviewed
for the paper’s regular Rebellious Jukebox feature. Over several pints
of iced white wine, he talked about the music that changed his life.
“I just couldn’t pick 12 songs,” he agonised...

1 TRADITIONAL
AND
CONTEMPORARY
IRISH MUSIC

“There’s loads of people
I’ve left out, but especially
Carolan, who is like the Irish
Mozart, from the early 18th
century, absolute genius.
His music’s still played in Ireland today, passed
down by ear. The Chieftains and The Dubliners
have recorded his stuff. Also… just too many.
Christy Moore (pictured), Planxty, Sweeney’s
Man, Joe Dolan, Big Tom & The Mainliners, The
Fureys, Maggie Barry. It did feel weird at first
hearing Christy doing one of my songs, y’know,
but I like the way he does them. I just think it’s
nice, now. With the contemporary stuff, Thin
Lizzy and Van Morrison were both big influences
on me, especially Phil Lynott’s songwriting, and
I really dug The Undertones. Nowadays, I like
Scary Éire and Therapy?, but there’s loads of
others. There is something about all Irish music,
yeah. It’s a raw energy, it hits you in the heart and
in the gut and the feet. It bypasses your intellect.
It’s emotional music. It’s got soul, basically.”

2 JIMI HENDRIX

“Childhood hero, and the guy that really got
me into hard rock. I remember the first time I saw
him on telly, doing ‘Hey Joe’ on Ready Steady Go!,
thinking, ‘Yeah, this guy’s great.’ And then he

Childhood
hero: Jimi
Hendrix in ’67

came out with that riff from ‘Purple Haze’, which
just blew my head completely. It was the whole
thing, really, you can’t detach the persona from
the music. He made that guitar speak. He was also
a great lyricist, but people don’t remember that so
much. I never got to see him live, unfortunately.
He died when I was 12. I almost got to the Isle Of
Wight festival, though.”

3 LOU REED

“A really big influence.
Always writes great songs,
great melodies, and his
lyrics… what can you say?
Brilliant. I couldn’t pin
down one record. Anything
off the first Velvets album, I
suppose, and I know he’s
had his ups and downs, but I love everything he’s
done. He’s still got it. It is a shame The Pogues

“The music I like
is exciting. It’s real,
it’s raw, it’s sincere,
it’s soulful”
SHANE MacGOWAN
never recorded that version of ‘White Light White
Heat’, yeah. We used to encore with it regularly.
We did the feedback with a banjo, you know.”

4TOM WAITS

“Same thing, really: great lyrics, great
melodies, and he’s never afraid to try something
different. Some of his songs are really funny,
some are really tragic, and some are both. That’s
a hard thing to do.”

5THE SEX PISTOLS

“Definitely the best rock’n’roll band of all time.
The whole thing, you know, just brilliant, and
Rotten’s lyrics were the cherry on the cake. They
really did just sum up what being a teenager was

Rotten: "He’s
taking the
piss, which is
fair enough"

like in the late ’70s. They didn’t play that many
times before they self-destructed, but I saw them
quite a few times. I really dug the first couple of
Public Image albums as well. And the live one. And
‘Flowers Of Romance’. And that one with ‘Rise’ on
it, that was another classic. Yeah, I’m a fan. Great
voice. But I think a lot of the time he’s just taking
the piss. Which is fair enough. The music industry
deserves to have the piss taken out of it.”

6BEBOP

“Charlie Parker, Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown,
John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Bud Powell, etcetera,
etcetera. Again, it hits you in the feet and in the
gut and just carries you along. They’re talking
with their instruments. I particularly love jazz
drumming, the way it can carry a song by itself.”

7BLACK R&B

“And rock’n’roll, swing, doo-wop, etcetera.
Everything from Little Walter to Lionel Hampton,
all the jump blues bands. There were playing
rock’n’roll, but it only got called that when white
people started playing it. That’s why I’m making
the distinction here, but I really don’t like doing it.
Some of this stuff can be hard to find, yeah, but
every so often I’ll go around the collectors’ shops
and see what I can pick up. I’m not really one of
those people who thinks that part of it is half the
fun, no. It’s fun if you find what you’re after and
incredibly frustrating if you don’t. I could go on
forever listing this stuff, but a particular one is…”

8SAM COOKE

“One of my all-time favourites and
anything…”

Home from home:
Shane in Filthy
McNasty’s, 1994

9 LEE ‘SCRATCH’
PERRY

“… has anything to do with
is great. I love reggae. Roots
reggae, dub reggae, right
back to the early days. I like
good reggae, you know
what I mean? And I don’t
like bad reggae. And Lee
Perry has generally produced good reggae for 30
years, longer even. He’s still going, still putting
out really good stuff.”

10BO DIDDLEY

“My favourite black rock’n’roller. Sure,
yeah, I’d still go and see him. Bob Diddley is Bo
Diddley. You never know what he’s going to come
out with. Sometimes he comes out and he’s doing
hard rock with lots of guitar solos and stuff, and
sometimes he comes out and does the straight
blues kind of thing. Whatever he chooses to do is

Bo Diddley: "My
favourite black
rock’n’roller"

Johnny Cash. Stooges, The New York Dolls, all
that. I don’t know. Thousands. I just like music.
And the music I like is… it’s exciting, you know,
it moved you. It’s real, it’s raw, it’s sincere,
it’s soulful.”

12THAI BEAT
fine with me, but what I really like is the classic
records that he made in the ’50s and ’60s.”

11WHITE ROCK’N’ROLL

“Covering every fucking thing from
Creedence Clearwater Revival to Pink Fairies to
Led Zeppelin to Cream to Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis,

“Thai pop music. Like Bhangra, the way
they use traditional Indian music and electrify it,
you know, turn it into beat music. In Thailand,
there’s this huge industry, hundreds of artists.
I’ve been to Thailand a lot of times and really
got into it. Good Thai pop music has a really
recognisable, very specific beat. It’s as
recognisable as the beat you get in Indian
film music. It’s slightly similar, in fact, but it’s
not the same. I think it could catch on here if
somebody marketed it over here, yeah. It’d
catch on it the clubs easily. If I had bread, I’d
set up a label.”
ANDREW MUELLER
59

KALI MALONE

For five years, the American composer KALI MALONE has been releasing
stirring minimalist compositions for organ. It’s been an uplifting journey
to critical acclaim, taking the composer from the fringes of the Colorado
death metal scene to Stockholm, to the religious buildings of the world,
via conflict with the Christian right. “Some very weird things happen in the
nervous system when I’m playing,” she tells John Robinson.
“Some of these chords are just so physical.”

© 2022 JOSHUA HOURIGAN

Photo by JOSHUA HOURIGAN

OR some, a church can be a
place of consolation, spiritual
reflection and prayer. For
others, the relationship
between building and
individual can be a little more
complicated, and among these
others is the American composer and musician
Kali Malone.
In the course of her performing life she has
found herself in some challenging circumstances
in places of worship. In Prague late last year, she
was rehearsing a new piece while a sharing the
space with a classful of schoolchildren on an
ecclesiastical sleepover; her work becoming a
piece for children’s voices and shushing carers. At
the Sagrada Familia, the imposing Gaudí cathedral
in Barcelona, she performed accompanied not by
other musicians, but by a uniformed security
guard, complete with baton and walkie-talkie,
standing vigilant at close quarters.
There have been disputes over stagecraft. In
Venice for the Biennale in October, the decorated
relics of a saint in a glass case insisted on
remaining illuminated throughout Malone’s
performance at San Pietro Di Castello. On other
occasions, it might – even if one is not a
FEBRUARY 2024

superstitious person, in an ancient building,
late at night, preparing for the following day’s
performance – simply get… a bit spooky.
“Especially in wintertime,” Malone says from
her home in Stockholm. “The heating goes off at
a certain point. And then you hear the whole
building cracking. It sounds like people are, like,
throwing stones at the church and it’s everywhere.
And it’s terrifying. It sounds like this big haunting!”
Recently, however, the stakes have been raised
here in the earthly realm. Scheduled to play a
two-night residency at the Eglise Saint Cornély
in Carnac, France in May 2023, only one of the
shows took place. Before the second event, the
venue was picketed by 32 affiliates of a far-right
Catholic group, who objected to a “profanatory”
performance taking place in a church building.
The local mayor cancelled the show.
“That was a nightmare,” says Malone today.
“Because it was a hate group. They were very
prepared to be violent, and that’s just a horrible
position to be in. As a secular musician it’s hard to
understand how far people will go to protect their
faith, even if, you know, I’m not trying to offend it.
I’m trying to be as respectful as possible. It’s like
just my existence and me being in the building
was so incredibly disturbing for them.”

W

EIRDLY, this has all come about
because of some extremely beautiful
and serene music. Over nearly 10
years of recording, Kali Malone – a Denver
improviser turned composition graduate resident
in Sweden – has written music for theorbo (a
massive lute), for brass and woodwind, for voices,
and for gongs. Her Living Torch album of 2022 was
a powerful and stealthily climactic work for
electronics and woodwind. Does Spring Hide Its
Joy from 2023 was a two-hour drone piece (“Like a
body of water,” she says, “it’s like a stream that
you can tap in and out of whenever you want”) for
a trio of electronics (played by Kali), cello (played
by Lucy Railton) and guitar (played by Sunn O)))’s
Stephen O’Malley). The raw materials might
sound unfamiliar, but the sense of beauty and
extremity in the music will resonate with anyone
who has ever been receptive to Brian Eno, or
François Bayle, or Mogwai.
The works which have most captured the
imagination, however, are probably those for
organ. Sacrificial Code, from 2019, is a serious and
uplifting double album, where the subtle shifts in
her minimalist compositions work an engrossing
magic. Her latest album, All Life Long, another
double record, features voice, brass and,

“The listener
mimics the
performer”:
Malone at
the Église du
Saint-Esprit,
Paris, 2022

61

© 2022 BENEDICTE DACQUIN

KALI MALONE
again, organ. A work put together over the last
three years, it’s deep and epic, a collection with
repeating themes and cumulative power.
As stirring and emotional as it might seem to the
listener, to the player it presents other challenges.
Stephen O’Malley – now Malone’s husband –
has played some of this organ music alongside
her. It requires, he says, “much concentration,
and a lot of counting”.
“As a listener it’s very immersive and sort of
takes you away,” he continues. “But as a
musician, you have to be extremely focused that
you don’t get swept away. You have to be very
calculating and focused, and sacrifice that
experience of being swept away, of transcending.”
Recording an organ, Malone says, is simple
enough. Getting to the point where she is
permitted access to one – perhaps a late-medieval
instrument housed in a venerable religious
building – is far harder. It will often entail a
degree of organ-related diplomacy: conversations
with priests, audits by committees, reassurances
to a diocese more accustomed to the instrument
being used for liturgical music and recitals of
Bach than for time-bending durational pieces.
Malone has always been aware of the possible
tension between her own secular work and the
spiritual context of the instrument. One piece on
Sacrificial Code is called “Sacer Et Profanere”,
but she has recently explored the notion more
deeply, reading the Italian philosopher Giorgio
Agamben, whose essay In Praise Of Profanation
has helped unpack her own situation – one which
is essentially about a democratic change of use.
“Like what’s happening when you fill a church
with people who haven’t ever been to a church,”
says Kali, “and you make a congregation of punk
kids. People from all different walks of life are
coming into the church to listen to this music. It’s
opening up outside of that sacred liturgical use.
That was a big inspiration.”

Drone rangers: with
future husband
Stephen O’Malley
from Sunn O))) and
Lucy Railton, 2022

It’s not religious music, but
there’s clearly some kind of
communion taking place
between Malone and the
instrument, which then
transmits itself to the
listener. Even when time is
tight, and there’s a vaguely
guerrilla aspect to her
recordings, she prefers to
record alone, choosing from
a number of long unbroken takes, rather than
editing together from separate performances; so
you experience the same qualities of the moment
much as the composer did as she was recording it.
“I feel for the integrity of the music and the soul
and the intention that goes into the music, it has to
be played from start to finish,” she says. “I think
you feel that there’s a human repeating this line.”

“I DIDN’T
UNDERSTAND IT
WAS MUSIC. I FELT
LIKE I WAS DOING
A SCIENCE
EXPERIMENT”
KALI MALONE

It’s a peaceful and compelling idea, as if there’s
a conscious and unbroken unity between
instrument and performer, music and audience.
Improvising musicians will sometimes speak
about the listener as being an active participant
in what is played, and it feels as if Malone is
seeking something similar – a congregation

for secular music.
“The listener mimics
the performer,” says
Kali, “and I feel this
happening a lot live. If I
listen super-deep and am
very concentrated, the
audience is doing the same
exact thing, like it’s this
energy that is undetectable.
But it feeds back between
the musician and the listener.”

K

ALI Malone arrived at this contemplative
place via far less tranquil locations. From
her teens she was an active participant in
Denver’s DIY/experimental scene, especially at
Rhinoceropolis, a place of local hardcore bands,
“skronk rock”, and a magnet/home away from
home for local weirds. “None of us really fit in,”
says Malone, “or maybe had great relationships
with our family.”
Malone had played in an improvising duo in
Denver, and in an attempt to see a solo show by her
former collaborator while on the East Coast, she
accidentally uncovered her future path. Unable to
get into a scheduled Massachusetts performance
because she was a minor, she decided to try and
get a fake ID – and went to New York to try and
find one. While she there she wandered into a
house show by an electric violinist, and ran into
a Swedish musician, Ellen Arkbro. This single
meeting led to Malone making a defining threeweek trip to Stockholm to visit her.
Arkbro introduced Malone to musician friends,
key venues like the artist-run collective
Fylkingen, and to EMS, a state-run electronic
music studio. Malone found a job as a nanny in
Stockholm and began a process of integration
into the scene, with the hope of studying music in
the city. “I don’t think anyone knew how young

At Bunker Studio,
NYC, where Anima
Brass recorded
their contribution
to All Life Long

At Église du
Saint-Esprit for
a performance
of Does Spring
Hide Its Joy,
March 21, 2023

BELIEVE
THE PIPE

How do you tune an organ?

K
my music and calling it ‘boring organ music’. But
that was like the sort of community I was in. Very
male-dominated, extreme edgelords.”

M

ALONE’S ongoing solo releases
reflected her developing study and the
pull of Stockholm and its long tradition
of experimental music. Velocity Of Sleep (2017,
and featuring a cover image of a theobro player,
deep in the R1 reactor) was a joint release for
XKatedral and Bleak Environment, while the
excellent Cast Of Mind (2018) – for bass clarinet,
bassoon and synthesiser – was Malone’s thesis
piece for her BA in electroacoustic composition.
Around 2016, Malone had a eureka moment.
Having worked on electronic tuning systems, she
decided to explore how they work in acoustic
environments – and contacted an organ tuner to
discuss it. Jan Borgeson agreed to a coffee-break
interview, and was impressed enough with
Malone’s enthusiasm and grasp of theory that she
started an informal three-year internship with
him, beginning that afternoon.
Geographically it took her from the music
conservatory to the suburbs, to replacing pipes in
a village on the Swedish archipelago. Musically,
meanwhile, it took her into a place of highly
specialised deep listening.
“With organ tuning you have to really start to
compartmentalise your hearing, because you can
be tuning a very rich reed; the pipe is beating all
over the place and you have to pick out one single
harmonic to make it stable.
And that’s your reference
point. It’s much easier to show
than to talk about.”
Malone began writing
“dirges” for the organ,
applying some of the ideas
that she’d been exploring
in her coding-based work
to an acoustic keyboard

instrument, but had some difficulty in figuring
out why she was doing so.
“I didn’t understand that it was music,” she
says. “Like I didn’t understand that people would
want to hear this at all. Because for me it felt so
new. I felt like I was doing a science experiment
in some way.

© 2022 HELENA GOÑI; © 2022 JOSHUA HOURIGAN

she was,” says her friend and collaborator Maria
W Horn, of Malone’s drive and initiative. “She
always seemed older than her age.”
For a while Kali kept up musical activity in both
Sweden and America. In Colorado (“I was kind of
involved in the death metal scene there”) she had
a rumbling and mossy industrial/ambient duo,
Sorrowing Christ, with Bleak Environment label
owner AM Rehm. In Sweden, meanwhile, she
joined Ellen Arkbro, Maria W Horn and several
others on guitar in a neo-psychedelic art-rock
band playing improvised concerts in open tuning
systems. It was named after the first Swedish
word Kali learned to pronounce.
“It was called Hästköttskandalen,” says Maria
W Horn. “It means ‘the horse meat scandal’.”
In Sweden, Malone put in academic work on
an Electroacoustic music degree at Kungliga
Musikhögskolan, formed a label called XKatedral
with Horn, and participated in influential shows
playing durational drone music in new kinds of
spaces. One show was in the decommissioned R1
nuclear reactor deep beneath Stockholm’s streets.
“We had this group called Stockholm Drone
Society,” says Maria Horn. “That was a 12-hour
show – that was fantastic. We had pillows so
people could stay and be in-between being awake
and asleep for the whole night. There were laser
projections in the ceiling…”
At this time Malone was composing by
programming in Pure Data, as a way to
experiment with different tuning systems.
Meanwhile, back in the US, her earliest solo
recordings – a set of compositions for meantone
guitars called Tragic Chorus, released on Bleak
Environment – were receiving frosty notices in
specialist circles.
“My first releases were on this label that was
primarily releasing death metal and doom and
noise,” says Kali. “My first reviews were in the
most hostile forums for metalheads and
industrial music fans. They were making fun of

ALI Malone: “I mean, there was
some carpentry involved, which
I’m not very good at, but I just love
to go in with the reed pipes and tune them.
It just feels amazing.
“There are about four different
instruments or hammers that you use.
Some pipes, you work with the top of
the pipe, and you make the top more
concave or convex. Other reed pipes
have a small tongue that you just move
up and down.
“Other pipes, there’s a cap on it. So
there’s just different ways of adjusting
each pipe and it can be so gentle, your
body heat affects it. Opening the doors
on the cabinet of the organ affects the
tuning too.
“So you have to sometimes make
something a little bit out of tune and then
you close the door and then it’s in tune
– or leave the organ and let it cool down
because the temperament is very affected
by temperature and the architecture of
the instrument.”

KALI MALONE

SACRIFICIAL
CODES
How to buy Kali Malone
KALI MALONE

CAST OF MIND

(HALLOW GROUND, 2018)

Lovely, slightly medieval vibes
as Malone explores woodwind
harmony with bassoons and trombones.
Some electronic divebombing later sets
fire to the tapestries, however. 9/10

KALI MALONE

THE SACRIFICIAL CODE

(IDEAL RECORDINGS, 2019)

A 21st-century classic.
Malone’s first longform organ
works played by herself in the studio and
by Ellen Arkbro live. 9/10

KALI MALONE

LIVING TORCH

(INA-GRM, 2022)

Malone in 2020 at
theGRM (Groupe
de Recherches
Musicales) studio,
founded in Paris by
Pierre Schaeffer

there’s a search for something new to replace it.
And I think it’s an interesting context to create
something new for these rooms and for these
instruments that are so embedded and coded
with religious practices.”

© 2020 LUC BRAQUET

N

O-ONE could describe themselves as
“prepared” for what occurred in the world
in March 2020. Still, as a musician whose
work has investigated the relationship between
time and space, and how the two might relate, Kali
Malone was arguably already in possession of
some of the materials to help try and accommodate
what was happening in all our houses.
Her new album All Life Long was one of the ideas
that she developed during the pandemic, and in
both the practical and musical sense is one
concerned with patience. In the first, she began
writing choral music during a time for the world
when no choirs were permitted to perform.
Forced to reconsider her vocal pieces in another
way, the album became a collection where related
themes for voice, organ and brass entwined into
a substantial whole filled with complementary
resonances of each other. The opening piece is
called “The Passage Of The Spheres”, but takes
inspiration from Agamben’s In Praise Of
Profanation, and appears again in the album
reworked for organ, though retitled – with a sense
of diplomacy befitting someone who will be
audited by a church rector sometime soon.
In the more musical sense, the experiences of
the quarantine forced a recalibration of thinking
on duration. Living Torch, though written before
Covid, was reshaped by it – it became longer, and
received an additional second part.
“I felt like I had much more capacity for, like,
stasis than I did when I was composing that
piece,” she says. “I think I became a much better
listener, and so much more attentive, in
quarantine, more sensitive to the really profound
small things that happened in the moment.
“I wanted to make it longer. And I had such a
FEBRUARY 2024

different perspective on sound and patience after
one year that I thought certain parts really needed
to be extended and to sit for a while. I felt like I had
much more capacity for stasis and acceptance
than I did when I was composing that piece.”
Working more closely with O’Malley,
meanwhile, helped inform her longform piece
Does Spring Hide Its Joy.
“With my own music,” says Stephen O’Malley,
“I deal a lot with thresholds. Some of those are
more interesting thresholds that involve a kind of
patience, or entertainment quality, or something.
There’s a kind of energy state that’s happening;
each decision can change the state of energy in

“I THINK I BECAME
A MUCH BETTER
LISTENER, AND SO
MUCH MORE
ATTENTIVE, IN
QUARANTINE”
KALI MALONE

the space. Prolonging that decision can be part of
a kind of challenge. It can be very interesting
because then you’re in a you’re in a ‘terra
incognita’ type of space with the music. And
there’s lots of space for discovery there.”
Malone speaks of O’Malley’s approach in the
same admiring way a coach of a sports team
might speak about an ice bath. “He has a very
different threshold patience than I do,” she
says. “What I learned every time playing with
him is, like, just to sit in the sound for longer
than you think you can. As soon as you reach
that threshold, you could stay there forever.”
Though calm on the surface, this music is,

Two slyly fiery compositions
for electronics, trombone
and bass clarinet. Kali plays Eliane
Radigue’s ARP 2500 synthesiser, which
looks like someone tried to build a
spaceship from wood. 8/10

KALI MALONE,
LUCY RAILTON,
STEPHEN O’ MALLEY

DOES SPRING HIDE ITS
JOY (IDEOLOGIC ORGAN, 2023)

A long drone piece (it’s three hours on
the CD), all versions allowing some spicy
moments from O’Malley’s feedback
guitar. “The piece has taught us how
to play it, how to listen, and how to pay
attention and react to each other,” said
Kali on release. 7/10

KALI MALONE

ALL LIFE LONG

(IDEOLOGIC ORGAN, 2024)

Macadam Ensemble bring a
new vocal element to Malone’s
compositions. Themes are revisited on
organ and brass, creating a piece with
callbacks and subtle underlinings. 8/10

after all, a physical thing and exposure to it has
changed how Malone talks and thinks about it.
Her early interviews, she remembers, were much
more theoretical. Now, she feels far more ready to
be “open to the unexplainable”.
“I’m definitely affected by it,” she says. “Some
very weird things happen in the nervous system
sometimes when I’m playing. Some of these
chords are just so physical that it surprises me.
Every time I play the piece, I’m playing it on a new
organ and I have to I have to work to find the
correct registration of different stops and timbres
to create these beating patterns and interference
patterns – the phenomenon that creates that
nervous-system reaction.
“It’s exciting because it’s new every time. I
mean, it’s the same structure of a piece, but every
organ reveals a different side of it. And I love
revisiting the pieces too, because it shows how it
is its own piece, its own identity. It’s not mine.
“I’m just trying to extract it,” she says, “or
excavate it from the air.”
All Life Long is released Feb 9 by Ideologic Organ

The Quarrymen play
Wilson Hall, Garston,
late 1957: (l–r)
Colin Hanton, Paul
McCartney, Len
Garry, John Lennon
and Eric Griffiths
FEBRUARY 2024

THE QUARRYMEN
As a new documentary prepares to roll back the years on JOHN LENNON’s
pre-Fabs band, the surviving members of THE QUARRYMEN take us
on a tour of their history-making Liverpool haunts. There is skiffle, scraps,
“that scruff from Speke” and a chance meeting at St Peter’s Church Hall.
As one ex-bandmember tells Rob Hughes, “John said, ‘Without The
Quarrymen there would be no BEATLES.’”
Photo by LESLEY KEARNEY

67

GEOFF RHIND ; ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

HE ornate stained glass
windows have been
replaced, but St Peter’s
Church Hall in Woolton
looks much as it did in the
1950s. Back then, John
Lennon was a member
of the youth club here.
It was also where he’d
sometimes front his skiffle
group, The Quarrymen.
“They used to have
Saturday-night dances
here,” explains ex-Quarrymen drummer Colin
Hanton, guiding Uncut through the main door.
“We played a few times. John was always asking
the guy in charge to buy a microphone, but he
was told it was too expensive. Eventually he got
sick of shouting over the crowd and got banned
for complaining.”
The original wooden stage, running the length
of the far wall, is no longer here. Yet other preBeatles evidence remains. The near wall contains
a photo montage from the Rose Queen garden
fête, held on July 6, 1957, just over the road in the
grounds of St Peter’s Church. Amid the pictures
of carnival floats, military bands and suchlike
is one of The Quarrymen on stage, a checkshirted Lennon strumming guitar. Outside,

St Peter’s
Church Hall
and (below) its
celebratory
plaque

an oblong plaque commemorates
the hall as the site of the first ever
meeting between Lennon and
15-year-old Paul McCartney, later
that same day.
The group had shifted their
equipment over to the church hall
for a repeat performance that
evening, when McCartney made
his entrance. “I remember Paul
coming along and picking up
someone’s guitar,” says The
Quarrymen’s tea-chest bass
player Len Garry. “He turned
it upside down – I didn’t realise
he was left-handed – and

played a couple of things. Then he did some
Little Richard on the piano at the back of the
room. I think he was trying to audition for
The Quarrymen.”
A fortnight later, McCartney was invited to
join the band. “To this very day, it still is a
complete mystery to me that it happened at
all,” writes McCartney in The Lyrics. “Would
John and I have met some other way, if Ivan
[Vaughan, friend] and I hadn’t gone to that
fête?… I also happened to share a bus journey
with George to school. All these
small coincidences had to
happen to make The Beatles
happen, and it does feel like
some kind of magic.”
By March the following year,
George Harrison was also part
of The Quarrymen. Skiffle
had been swept asunder by
rock’n’roll. Members dropped
away, leaving Lennon,
McCartney, Harrison and
Hanton as core Quarrymen.
Transitioning into The Silver
Beetles by early 1960, minus
Hanton, the original band
were consigned to a footnote
in Fabs legend.

THE QUARRYMEN

Check shirts
and a tea chest:
The Quarrymen
at St Peter’s
Church fête on
July 6, 1957

It didn’t quite end there though. The Quarrymen
story has a feelgood second act as unexpected as
it was unplanned, beginning with an unlikely
reunion during the ’90s. While some members
are sadly no longer with us, those that remain
continue to tour and record on a scale that was
unthinkable as barely competent skifflers way
back when.
Now comes a feature-length documentary.
Due to hit screens this year, Pre Fab! is based on
Hanton’s book of the same name (co-written with
Colin Hall) and features cameos from McCartney,
Bob Harris, Billy Bragg and more, charting The
Quarrymen’s journey against the backdrop of the
’50s skiffle craze. The film also underlines the
group’s importance in The Beatles’ timeline,
locating the pivotal moment between post-war
adolescence and ’50s rock’n’roll, between
imitating your heroes and shaping your own
future. “We had no ambition at all when we
started out,” says Hanton. “We just wanted to
have fun. But it’s like John said later: ‘Without
The Quarrymen there would be no Beatles.’”

Y

OU can’t escape The Beatles in this part
of south Liverpool. Less than a mile from
St Peter’s sits Strawberry Field. The
Salvation Army opened the grounds to the public
for the first time in 2019 and now it operates as an

exhibition space and training
centre for young people with
special educational needs. The
gift shop is rammed with Fabs
paraphernalia, including a fair
deal of Quarrymen items, with
Lonnie
signed vintage photos selling for
Donegan:
“sheer
three figures. The Quarrymen
energy”
played on the bandstand here
for the site’s relaunch. Inside
the café this crisp December
afternoon, Garry and Hanton
peel back the years over coffee
and cake.
“Skiffle was a cheap way
of making music,” says
Garry. “If you had a couple
of guitars, a tea-chest bass
and a washboard, you could
make a band. It was just
an easy way to perform
without going to night school
to learn. Lonnie Donegan was
massively important.”
Although skiffle originated in
America early last century, it took off
across Britain during the ’50s, with
Donegan’s breakneck version of
“Rock Island Line”, recorded with
Chris Barber’s Jazz Band, serving as
its clarion call. “It was just so very
different from everything else that was
going on,” explains The Quarrymen’s
original banjoist Rod Davis, over Zoom
from his home in Uxbridge. “There was
stuff around like ‘The Ballad Of Davy
Crockett’, ‘Rose Marie’ and ‘Sixteen
Tons’, country-ish stuff. But it was the sheer
energy of Donegan and the music that appealed
to teenagers like us.”
The 15-year-old John Lennon caught the skiffle
bug, too. Encouraged by friend Geoff Lee, he
formed The Quarrymen in the early summer of
1956. “Geoff told him: ‘John, your voice is better
than all these people I hear on the radio. Why
don’t you start your own skiffle group?’” says
Davis. “Geoff lent him a guitar and John cycled

“I think John
wanted to move on
swiftly from skiffle
to rock’n’roll”
COLIN HANTON

around with it on his back, trying to impress
young ladies, which was basically the whole
point of being in a skiffle group anyway.”
Alongside him were fellow Quarry Bank
schoolmates Eric Griffiths (guitar), Pete Shotton
(washboard) and Bill Smith (tea-chest bass).
For errant pupil Lennon, particularly, The
Quarrymen was a welcome distraction from his
studies. “John was disruptive at school,” explains
Davis, also a Quarry Bank attendee. “He didn’t
give a damn. He was quite prepared to mess about

and make it extremely difficult
for anybody to teach. He could be
a pain in the arse, basically.”
The entry criteria for The
Quarrymen was simple: if you
had an instrument, you were in.
Davis bought a banjo one Sunday.
At school the next morning,
Griffiths invited him to join. A few
months later, Hanton signed up.
“I was the only person Eric knew
who had a drumkit,” he recalls.
“I think John, particularly,
wanted to move swiftly on
from skiffle to rock’n’roll, so
he needed drums.”
By spring 1957, The
Quarrymen had a fairly
stable lineup, with Garry
succeeding a number of teachest bassists. “Ivan Vaughan
was my mate from Liverpool
Institute and he’d introduced me
to John,” he says. “I got on well
with him, he had this edgy
humour. He had with him a copy
of the Daily Howl [Lennon’s
self-penned, Goons-inspired
newspaper], which I thought
was good fun. He didn’t talk
much though. I don’t think he
was really interested in being
the leader of The Quarrymen.
He just liked to sing.”

“I READ Colin
Hanton’s book not
long after watching
Searching For
Sugar Man and I just
immediately likened
it to Rodriguez’s
story. Here you have
a relatively unknown
guy who’s one of
the only people on
the planet who was there the day John
fell in love with rock’n’roll, the day John
met Paul and, of course, the day Paul
introduced everyone to George. I just
found a bittersweet humour in the story
and how it all sort of serendipitously came
together. They had no clue what they were
doing. They were just enjoying themselves,
having fun, learning to play music. And
it turned into being one of the biggest
rock’n’roll stories of all time.
“It’s sort of the last Beatles story to tell.
It took us five years to make this film and
we were very blessed to become involved
with Colin and the other Quarrymen guys
at the right time. It isn’t just for Beatles
fans, because there’s a real human
message in the book that I really wanted
to capture. The one visual I had when I put
the book down was this bus disappearing
into the darkness when Colin decided to
get off. And I’ll be damned if we didn’t get
that shot!”
69

John Lennon
at the age of
eight with his
mother, Julia

Mendips, Aunt
Mimi’s house,
where Lennon
lived from 1945

W

The Quarrymen in a
procession around
Woolton, July 6, 1957:
(l–r) Pete Shotton, Eric
Griffiths, Len Garry,
John Lennon, Colin,
Hanton, Rod Davis

E’VE moved on to Mendips, Lennon’s
childhood home on Menlove Avenue,
less than half a mile from Strawberry
Field. This is where he lived, from the age of five
until his first flush of fame with The Beatles, with
his Aunt Mimi. Now a National Trust property –
Yoko Ono donated it to the charity in 2002 – the
house was one of a number of venues where The
Quarrymen rehearsed.
“The lads liked to practise in the porch there,”
says Hanton, gesturing over the black-painted
gate. “The sound was good. I used to sit with my
back to that front window. John and Paul, when
he eventually joined, would face me over the
other side of the room. Mimi was like a cross
between a headmistress and a librarian. I don’t
think she liked teenagers. When George joined
The Quarrymen, Mimi opened the door and
shouted: ‘John! That scruff from Speke is here!’”
Pre-George and Paul, other rehearsal spots
included Hanton’s, Shotton’s and Griffiths’
homes, where The Quarrymen rattled through
“Rock Island Line”, “Mean Woman Blues” and
“Pick A Bale Of Cotton”.
“We occasionally practised at our house as
well,” notes Davis. “The grandparents of
marathon runner Paula Radcliffe lived next
door. One time, we were fooling around, playing
in the garden, and Mr and Mrs Radcliffe started
throwing pennies over the fence. I’m not sure
whether they were thrown to us or at us!”
Lennon also visited his mother, Julia, over on
Blomfield Road, a couple of miles from Mendips.
A keen music lover, she played records by Elvis
Presley and Fats Domino and taught him banjo
chords for guitar. The first song he learned to play
under Julia’s tutelage was Buddy Holly’s “That’ll
Be The Day”.
“Nobody ever asked John why he lived with his
aunt,” says Hanton. “It wasn’t the kind of thing
you talked about. But he really reconnected with
Julia at that point. She’d probably be diagnosed as

bipolar or having some other
condition today, but to me she
was just a bundle of fun. She
had a cat called Elvis. One
time she had a pair of knickers
on her head. I was there when
she showed John how to play
‘Maggie Mae’, which was
about a Liverpool prostitute.
A lot of parents would be
horrified at the thought of
“He didn’t
talk much”:
teaching that to their child, but
Lennon, 1959
not Julia. She was just great.”
Julia even turned up for a
Quarrymen gig, at St Barnabas Church Hall on
Penny Lane, hooting her approval. Other venues
they played in early 1957, aside from St Peter’s
Youth Club, included The Holyoake Hall on

“We were told that
the lads from the
next street were
going to get John”
ROD DAVIS

Smithdown Road and Quarry Bank school itself.
On June 22, 1957, The Quarrymen played on
the back of a coal truck on Rosebery Street in
Liverpool 8, as part of a 750th anniversary
celebration of the city being granted its Royal
Charter. On hand was friend Charlie Roberts,
who borrowed a Kodak Brownie and took the first
photos of the band. The day ended in a nearfracas, with Lennon at the centre.
“At some stage, we were told that the lads from
the next street were going to get John,” says

Davis. “He was short-sighted,
but refused to play with his
glasses on. So whether
he’d been eyeing up their
girlfriends or just squinting
at them and somebody took
exception, we don’t know.
But we all grabbed our gear,
belted into Charlie’s house
and cowered there, hoping
these guys would go away.
But they didn’t. So Charlie’s
mum phoned for the police.
A single constable ended up
escorting us to the bus stop and waited until we
caught the bus back to Penny Lane.”
It transpires that this was no isolated incident.
“John never meant to cause trouble,” explains
Hanton. “But because he was short-sighted, he
would scrunch up his eyes to look at you. People
would say, ‘Who are you scowling at?’ Jimmy
Tarbuck had John by the collar one night, up
against the wall at the top of Penny Lane. Pete
Shotton had to intervene: ‘No, he’s all right, he
just can’t see!’”

I

T’S only a short hop from Mendips to Woolton
village. Hanton leads Uncut down the narrow
public footpath that they’d take from
Lennon’s place, pointing out what remains of the
old quarry wall. In the village centre, we stand
outside what used to be the milk bar (now a
bakery). “We played upstairs on the 21st birthday
of the girl whose parents owned it,” says Hanton.
“They liked us going in there, because John
would usually start singing something.”
Around the corner is the Woolton Village Club,
where The Quarrymen played one Christmas.
Meanwhile, a quick right turn brings us back to
St Peter’s Church. In the graveyard lies George
Toogood Smith, Mimi’s husband, who died when
Lennon was 14. There is, too, the gravestone of

THE QUARRYMEN
along at the right time. It wasn’t
just about playing guitar together
or singing, it was about composing
as well.”
McCartney didn’t make his live
debut with The Quarrymen until
October 1957. But his arrival
cemented their shift to rock’n’roll.
“When Paul joined, he could do
‘Twenty Flight Rock’, so it became
part of our set when we played
places like Wilson Hall in Garston,”
says Hanton. “Then ‘Blue Suede
Shoes’, ‘Long Tall Sally’, ‘That’s
All Right’, stuff like that. I think
Paul became the driving force.
He’d already decided that he was
going to be a musician, whatever
happened. He took John along
with him.”
With a banjoist no longer
needed, Rod Davis was surplus
to requirements.
Pete Shotton had
departed a little
earlier. “I remember
Pete saying to John,
‘I think I’m going
to hang up the
washboard,’” Davis
continues. “John
picked it up, banged
it over his head and
a piece of metal came
out. So Pete ended up

“The dark-haired lad”:
Paul McCartney
(centre) in a school
photo at Liverpool
Institute, March 1960

Eleanor Rigby – died 1939, aged 44
– though McCartney has always
maintained that inspiration for his
song came from elsewhere. Hanton
stands in front of a tall hedge at the
far side. This, he says, is roughly
where The Quarrymen played on
20 Forthlin
July 6, 1957. “This used to be just
Road, Allerton:
the McCartney
a picket fence, with trees beyond
family home
from 1955
that. The stage must’ve been 50
foot long, it probably started about
here and carried on through where
the hedge is today.”
with this frame
During the morning of the fête, The Quarrymen
around his neck.
played on the back of a moving flatbed truck,
John said, ‘Well,
bringing up the rear in a procession that involved
that solves that
Morris dancers, the Rose Queen and the brass
problem then.’”
band of the Cheshire Yeomanry. The Quarrymen
HE Quarrymen
took their spot on the permanent stage around
began playing at
4.30 in the afternoon.
the newly opened
It appears that the plaque on St Peter’s Church
Cavern, on Liverpool’s Mathew Street, in
Hall isn’t strictly accurate. Hanton remembers
early ’57. Initially a jazz club that also hosted
warming up in the scout hut, just prior to The
regular skiffle sessions, the strict music policy
Quarrymen’s show on the field, when Lennon
was introduced by mutual friend Ivan Vaughan to brought out the natural rebel in Lennon.
“John introduced rock’n’roll to the Cavern,”
“this dark-haired lad I’d never seen before. The
three of them stood talking for five or ten minutes, says Garry. “I remember him showing me the
setlist and he had ‘All Shook Up’ on it. A note
then left the hut together.”
got passed around onto the stage from the
The “dark-haired lad” turned out to be
management, telling us to cut out the
McCartney, who watched The Quarrymen
rock’n’roll stuff. They made us cut short
perform, then hung around to introduce himself
our set and just paid us off.”
to the rest of the group at the church hall. “One
George Harrison first saw The Quarrymen
thing led to another – typical teenage boys
at Wilson Hall in February ’58, just before his
posturing and the like – and I ended up showing
15th birthday. On the recommendation of
off a little by playing Eddie Cochran’s ‘Twenty
McCartney, he auditioned a month later, at
Flight Rock’ on the guitar,” explained McCartney.
Rory Storm’s club, the Morgue Skiffle Cellar.
“I think I played Gene Vincent’s ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’
“John and Paul and I took the bus over to
and a few Little Richard songs too.”
Broadgreen one Thursday night,” says Hanton.
“I already knew Paul, because we used to get
“Rory opened the door and took us down this
the No 80 bus home together from Liverpool
long corridor. George was standing there with
Institute,” says Garry. “John always wanted
a guitar twice his size. I believe he’d already
someone to support him and I think Paul came

played ‘Raunchy’ for John on the bus back from
Wilson Hall, so Paul asked him to play something
for me. He did ‘Guitar Boogie’ and it sounded great.
The following night I was leaving the house to go
drinking in town and Nige Walley, our manager,
came around the corner on a push bike: ‘What do
you think of that George Harrison?’ I said, ‘He
can’t ’alf play the guitar.’ So he said, ‘The lads are
up at Mimi’s now. They want him in the band. The
only problem is they want three guitarists with
you at the back.’ So George was invited to join and
Eric Griffiths was invited to leave.”
Garry didn’t last much longer either. He blames
the Cavern for contracting tubercular meningitis
(“It was a death trap, with no ventilation”), a
condition that hospitalised him for seven months.
The other Quarrymen came to visit, but to all
intents and purposes he was finished in the band.
Needing a pianist to complete their rock’n’roll
makeover, McCartney turned to another
schoolmate: John Duff Lowe. “Paul must’ve
heard me on the school piano, because we took
music lessons together,” explains Lowe. “They
needed someone who could play the beginning
to ‘Mean Woman Blues’ like Jerry Lee Lewis
could, which is a rolling arpeggio. That got me
into The Quarrymen.”

T

HE late afternoon light is fading by the
time Hanton pulls up at McCartney’s old
house at 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton. This
was where The Quarrymen rehearsed on Sunday
afternoons in spring 1958. Hanton remembers
working up a McCartney original, “In Spite Of All
The Danger”. “That’s where the piano was,” he
says, motioning towards the front room. “That’s
when I met John Duff Lowe.”
Lowe has a vivid memory of that time, too.
“John had a permanent air of rebellion
about him, though he was a nice guy. He
wore drainpipe jeans and brothel
creepers and had the collar of his jacket
turned up. His hair was greased and
combed into a DA. He used to strut

T

Becoming The
Beatles: George,
John and Paul
outside Paul’s
home,circa 1960

Quarrymen reunited:
(l–r) Rod Davis, Colin
Hanton and Len Garry
at the Gibson Guitar
Showroom, NYC, 2010

up Forthlin Road strumming his guitar, so we
always knew when he was about to arrive.”
Inspired by Elvis, “In Spite Of All The Danger”
was one of two songs that The Quarrymen
earmarked for their debut recording session. “We
wanted to make a record to say, ‘Look, this is us,’
just to show our wares,” wrote McCartney. “We
found an advert for a little studio, Percy Phillips
in Kensington [Liverpool]. It was about half an
hour away by bus.”
The Quarrymen duly pitched up at Phillips’
Sound Recording Services – essentially a small
room in a Victorian terrace – on July 12, 1958. “It
was a Saturday afternoon and we waited in an
anteroom while someone was finishing off,” says
Lowe. “Then we all went in and ran through
‘That’ll Be The Day’ and ‘In Spite Of All The
Danger’. There was only one microphone hanging
in the middle of the room.”
Hanton remembers an eiderdown against the
door and “big pieces of cloth over the window” for
soundproofing. The band were given around an
hour to record, at a fee of 17 shillings and sixpence
(roughly £25 today) between the five members.
“We played ‘That’ll Be The Day’ quite regularly on
stage,” says Hanton, “so we ran through that
quite easily. But when it came to ‘In Spite Of All
The Danger’, Percy Phillips decided it was too
long to fit onto the shellac, so we’d have to cut it
down. John said, ‘No, we’re paying, so we’ll do it
the way we want.’ As we got near the end, Percy
Phillips was giving John the cut-throat sign.
Thankfully, it finished just before the needle got
to the middle. Percy Phillips wiped it down, put it
in a bag, gave it to John and kicked us out.”
The excitement of making their first recording
was cut short in tragic fashion. Three days later,
after visiting Mimi at Mendips, Julia Lennon was
killed in a traffic accident on Menlove Avenue.
Devastated, John spent the next couple of years
in what he later called “a blind rage”. The
Quarrymen spent the rest of the summer in
limbo. Lowe quit owing to “a combination of
distance and transport problems, and I’d also
started to go out with girls”.
In February 1959, after a gig in Huyton, a
drunken argument broke out on the way home.
Hanton got off to catch another bus back to
Woolton. “Somehow or other,” he says, “that
was that. My days as a Quarryman were over.”
FEBRUARY 2024

R

OD Davis, who’d won a scholarship to
Cambridge since leaving The Quarrymen,
bumped into Lennon by chance one day in
Liverpool in 1962. “We had a conversation about
where we were each playing,” he says. “I told him
I was in a trad jazz band at university and he said,
‘Pity you can’t play the drums, because you could
come to Hamburg with us.’ My sister remembers
our mum washing the dishes vigorously, saying,
‘He’s not going to Hamburg with that Lennon!’
That was the reputation John had.”
Other than that, The Quarrymen were
a distant memory for the longest

DANGER
MAN
Friend Charlie
Roberts on
rescuing The
Quarrymen’s
shellac disc

“I

GOT to know John and the
other lads through Colin in early
1957. I used to knock around with
them wherever they played, at parties,
in the pub and at practice sessions.
Initially they were so excited about
making ‘In Spite Of All The Danger’ and
they all used to share it for a week or two
at a time. But after a while the novelty
wore off, so it was passed to me to play
over the Tannoy at lunchtimes in the
canteen at Littlewoods, where I worked.
We had a lot of staff and the idea was to
maybe gain more popularity. Everyone
seemed interested, but we never got any
bookings, except an invite to play a party
just outside Liverpool.
“Eventually I brought it back and
kept it in the house. There was a thing
whereby people would melt old 78
records and shrink them into plant pots.
My wife Sandra started doing it and the
Quarrymen record was in the line to get
melted. Luckily, I found out and stopped
her just in time. I gave it back, maybe to
Colin, then John Duff Lowe ended up with
it. Then Paul bought it back years later.”
The song, estimated to be among the
most valuable records in existence, finally
appeared on 1995’s Anthology 1.

time. Hanton continued working at a furniture
company, then set up an upholstery business.
Garry joined a firm of architects. Davis moved
through several folk and bluegrass groups,
worked in the travel industry and lectured in
Tourism at Uxbridge College. Lowe ended up in
banking and financial services.
Davis, Garry and Lowe made some recordings
together around 1992, but nothing was released.
Two years later, Davis, Lowe and other musicians
revived the Quarrymen name for Open For
Engagements, undertaking a brief UK tour. But
it wasn’t until the Cavern celebrated its 40th
birthday, in 1997, that the original Quarrymen
found themselves together again.
The occasion was supposed to be purely social.
After a boozy afternoon, they were about to go
for a Chinese meal when the Cavern’s manager
stopped them. Davis picks up the story: “He
said, ‘You can’t go now! There’s a Granada TV
crew coming to film you on stage.’ We were
like, ‘C’mon, we haven’t played for 40 years.’
‘Don’t worry, everybody’s legless, so it doesn’t
matter.’ So we staggered our way through a
couple of numbers.”
A few weeks later, Jean Catherall of The Beatles
Fan Club asked The Quarrymen to play a one-off
charity gig at St Peter’s, on the anniversary of the
Woolton fête. “We had just one rehearsal in St
Peter’s Church Hall on the Friday night,” says
Hanton, whose drums had been gathering dust
atop his wardrobe for the last four
decades. “And on the day itself,
after we’d played on the
field and came off stage,
people were asking for
our autographs. We
couldn’t believe it. The
Liverpool Echo called it
Quarrymania! Then the
phone started to ring.”
The Quarrymen were
up and running once
more. Revisiting their old
repertoire on 1997’s Get Back
– Together, with Davis and Garry
sharing vocals, led to invites to tour
the UK, Europe and America. Beatles conventions
jostled to book them. In 2003, they played the
Festival Hall in Osaka, Japan. They visited
Russia, spent a week in Cuba, and made return
trips to America. Griffiths passed away in 2005
and Shotton died in 2017, having retired from The
Quarrymen some years earlier. But the band
continued to perform worldwide.
There were other recordings too – most recently
2020’s The Quarrymen Live! In Penny Lane, cut at
John Lennon Studios. Lowe’s failing health has
led him to quit the band in recent years, and
Garry is unable to travel these days, playing
hometown shows seated. Davis and Hanton,
joined by bassist/guitarist David Bedford and
Lowe’s son Henry on keyboards, continue to
carry the Quarrymen flame.
Hanton is convinced they’ll be still here in
another three years’ time, celebrating the band’s
70th anniversary at St Peter’s Church Hall. “It’s
been such an amazing experience,” he says,
looking back out towards the church grounds.
“When we got back together and started playing,
we were all 18-year-old kids again.”

WAS THE
HURDY GURDY
ABBA THAT
BLEAK THAT WAS DONOVAN MAN RETURNS!

EST.
1979

L
1974 INVESTIGATIVE SPECIA

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PLUSH
“THREE-QUARTERS
BLIND EYES”/“FOUND
A LITTLE BABY”

JIM NEWBERRY

DRAG CITY/DOMINO, 1994

The ravishing debut single
reveals a new Brian Wilson
lurking on the fringes of the
Chicago post-rock scene
I guess it
was my first
attempt at selfexpression, in
a public sort of
way. It was the
result of a lot of
years of working alone, working
quietly. I had some ideas about what
I might do once I finally got into a
studio, ideas that were more… not
grandiose, but outside of what was
really at my disposal doing demos at
home, or playing with a couple of
other guys in the garage.
When the opportunity presented
itself – that is to say, I had a little
money to go into the studio – I was
able to take a lot of those ideas that
had been kicking around about how
exciting it would be to be in a studio,
making the kind of record I wanted
to make. So I wrote that song
[“Found A Little Baby”] and then I
called up the studio, maybe the
same day, and said, ‘Let’s go in and
do it.’ I was really just following my
instincts, and so it all happened
FEBRUARY 2024

kinda fast. We got in there, we
recorded the basic track, and then I
wrote an arrangement for it and we
went back and laid that on top of it.
It surprised me, because I wasn’t
really sure if I’d be able to realise the
sound I had heard in my head.
I used to pick up the NME and
Melody Maker at the record store
when I was, like, 15. So when I
finally made it into one of those
magazines, it was a great
experience. Or even driving around
in my car, I’d hear the record on
college radio, it was exciting. And
the other side of that was, ‘Well,
now what?’ Could I do 12 more of
these? I wasn’t sure.

PLUSH
MORE YOU BECOMES
YOU
DRAG CITY/DOMINO, 1998

One seamless suite of swooning,
Bacharach-style piano bar
wizardry. Not as effortless as
that might sound…
The expectation
from the people
around me
was that we
do some more
recordings in a
similar vein to
the single. I felt that was going to be
a very big undertaking, and also one
that I wasn’t really sure if I had the

Liam Hayes in
2004, resolving
to “just focus
on the music”

moments and put them just where
infrastructure in place to pull off.
they needed to be to create this
We had major-label A&R people
effect of a tape machine being
coming out to some of the shows,
turned on and songs being played.
and it all started to make me really
look at what I was doing or why I
was doing it. The concerns were that
PLUSH
I didn’t necessarily want to play to
FED
expectations, and also losing
AFTER HOURS, 2002
creative control. These were big
A recording so lavish that no
things that I had to look at and
label could afford to release it.
think about, and I guess I just kept
The album eventually came out
thinking about it and thinking
in Japan, but didn’t get a rest-ofabout it until it became less of an
world release until 2008
issue. So intentionally or not, I
This was like what would have
moved away from having to follow
happened if I’d actually followed
up in a way that would have made
up the single with a big album. I
those concerns more pressing.
pushed it further down the field and
With More You Becomes You,
then came back to it. I figured out
I felt like I was able to pull it
how to work around some of
back to where it was more
those things that kept me
UNCUT feeling restricted or
manageable or within my
CLASSIC constrained in how I might
grasp. However, that said,
as much as it seems like it’s
begin that process. Some of
just a piano and a vocal, it’s
a very produced record – just
not in an overt way. I actually
have a hand-truck full of tapes…
there were so many different
sessions, so many different
takes. And different pianos!
I guess if you’re really into
pianos, you could probably
hear when it’s the 12-foot
Steinway or if it’s a smaller
Bösendorfer or whatever. But
we were able to take all these
different sessions and different

More mid-century
becomes him:
Hayes at home in
1998

“I wanted it to be
Technicolor from
beginning to end”
but these people are giants, legends,
and I felt really grateful to all the
people that I got to work with.
Jeff Parker was on a track, John
McEntire, there were so many
people I’ll have to look at the
credits… it was just a great-cross
section of people.
I wanted it to be Technicolor from
beginning to end. I knew going into
it that it was going to be expensive.
Maybe there’s a way they could have
gotten money [upfront], but I was
gonna lose control creatively. So it
was a hard thing to pull off, and in
some ways I mortgaged my future
for quite a number of years.

PLUSH
UNDERFED
SEA NOTE, 2004

While Fed languished in label
purgatory, a compromise
was struck to issue this
stripped-down version –
what Macca might call the
‘underdubbed’ mixes

I wanted as
many people
to hear Fed as
possible. If I
could have had
it distributed
more widely, I
would have. But [releasing it in
Japan] seemed to be the only way it
was going to happen. The whole
thing got so top-heavy that, by the
time we were done, it became
something that I think a lot of people
were confused by.
Underfed was the affordable
version! So there was the affordable
version and the extravagant version.
Some people liked it better because
it didn’t get a lot of the gloss laid on
top of it, and you can see the songs
closer to the kernel of what was
there initially. It’s definitely
more of me, because I was playing
most of the stuff to flesh out the
arrangements. So I guess in the end,
Fed and Underfed together, there’s
something for everyone.

LIAM HAYES
AND PLUSH
BRIGHT PENNY
BROKEN HORSE, 2009

After the long-running Fed
debacle, Hayes opts for a more
straightforward – though no less
refined – set of retro pop-soul
So many things
had gone
sideways for
me. I’d wanted
to make these
records in a
certain kind of
progression and wasn’t really able
to go down a linear path. So I just
regrouped and tried to get into a
place where I was focusing less on
the process itself, or consumed by
the struggle, and really trying to
make a record that I wanted to listen
to – more unapologetically pop. And
to also act as a counter to a lot of
things that preceded it, a lot of
disappointment and personal
misfortune, and try to make a record
that’s more positive. There were
several bands on this record, if I
went back and looked at the track
sheets. A lot of the same people [from
Fed], but also a lot of people that
were just probably to complement
a particular song – people who are
good at what they do coming in to
add their particular touch. So it’s
a very studio album.
75

JIM NEWBERRY

those songs I actually had at that
time [of “Found A Little Baby”] and
some came later.
We took the same Ampex fourtrack machine that I used to record
More You Becomes You and we
wheeled that in and out of different
places. My entire approach was to
stay out of the studios. With the fourtrack machine and an engineer, we
could do it in a non-traditional
setting where we weren’t going to be
pressurised by being on the clock.
Some of those were rehearsal
spaces, others were a video
production facility after-hours, we
did some of it on a roof downtown…
We could do as many takes as we
wanted to try and find the right
attitude, to find some kind of energy
that we could capture and then
build on once we brought it back
into a real studio.
The original band was me, Rian
Murphy on drums and Matthew Lux
on bass. Then we brought in people
later like Morris Jennings [drummer
for Curtis Mayfield and Ramsey
Lewis] and Tom Tom 84 [aka Tom
Washington, arranger for Earth,
Wind & Fire et al]. I’d grown up
listening to stuff that they had
created and played on, so it was
kind of surreal to be able to make
a connection to music that I really
enjoyed and admired. Maybe not
everybody knows them by name,

ALBUM BY ALBUM
Pat was really
steering the
whole process
and I was able
to focus more
on singing
and to a lesser
extent playing. Some songs I turned
over to him and other people played
everything. But in other instances,
I brought some things that I’d either
started at home or in a demo setting,
and then he used that as the basis to
build upon, which he did in a really
neat way. And he stitched it all
together in a way that was just really
seamless. I really enjoy listening to
that record, anytime I have to sit
down and listen to one of them. I feel
like I can step back and appreciate it
more – I think because I wasn’t in
the way! I wasn’t having to climb
over myself to get it done. Pat had an
idea of what he wanted to do with
the songs, and so I didn’t have to
second-guess myself or just throw
stuff at the wall, which I’ve done in
the past. It had a clear focus.

LIAM HAYES
SLURRUP
FAT POSSUM, 2015

It’s a wrap: Hayes
turns soundtrack
composer

LIAM HAYES
MUSIC FROM THE
MOTION PICTURE:
A GLIMPSE INSIDE
THE MIND OF
CHARLES SWAN III

JIM NEWBERRY

NIGHT FEVER, 2013

A mix of old songs, new songs
and incidental music for Roman
Coppola’s screwball comedy,
starring Charlie Sheen
Roman Coppola
reached out to
me and I
reached back,
and we
developed
a working
relationship and friendship. So I
was involved from before it even
started filming. We’d have a coffee,
he’d show me the script and I’d have
a guitar out: this might go here, this
might go there. I was just trying to
follow where he led and do my best.
I’d never done anything like that,
so the hardest part for me was trying
to write around 40 cues. I was
approaching it as a songwriter,
which is not the way to do it. For me,
songwriting is not necessarily an
easy process. After getting
overwhelmed, I talked to somebody
who worked on movies and they
said, ‘You don’t write 40 songs, you
develop themes.’ Then it started to
FEBRUARY 2024

make more sense to me. As a
songwriter, I speak for myself, I’m
telling my own stories. And as a
composer for film, you have to
tell their story and support the
emotional life of the characters and
so on. Once I finally understood
that, I was able to take a deep
breath and do what I needed to
do to make it work.
[Appearing in the film myself]
was really surreal. I’ve been on
camera before but not in Hollywood
– and not on a beach in Malibu
surrounded by all these celebrities.
I was out of my depth, but in a
wonderful way.

LIAM HAYES
KORP SOLE ROLLER
AFTER HOURS, 2014

Hayes occasionally flirts with
kitsch on this crisp collection
of baroque pop nuggets,
produced and arranged by
Wilco’s Pat Sansone

The bar band album. Lots of fun,
but Hayes still manages to infuse
it with his recurring themes
of loneliness and pining for a
simpler, kinder world
It’s the record I
wanted to make
when I was 12.
In some sense,
it’s like the first
record I would
have made,
because I wanted to have a band, I
wanted to play with people. I guess
it’s a way of reconnecting with some
of those things that I enjoyed earlier
in my life, like magic and pranks
and rock’n’roll. So we tried to bring
that all into the process. The
approach was one where we were
trying not to let the experts interfere,
you know? The grown-up that’s
gonna tell you this is the right way to
do it, as opposed to the kid that says,
“It sounds good, it is good.” Even if
we did it the wrong way.
During that time I was very
fortunate because I was able to get
a lot of writing done in my sleep.
When I’ve had the benefit of being
able to write quickly, it almost feels
like I heard it on the radio and I’m

“I was very fortunate…
I was able to get a lot of
writing done in my sleep”

just playing it back. I haven’t had
that happen in a long time, but I’m
keeping my antennas up.

LIAM HAYES
MIRAGE GARAGE
DECORATED PEAR, 2018

After plans for his big LA rock
record go predictably awry,
Hayes pivots the other way,
making a solo album in a garage
and releasing it on cassette. The
songs remain fantastic
I had some
contacts in LA,
so I went out
there to work
out another
record,
entitled ‘Pink
Sunglasses’. I got together with
some people, we were developing
the material, but again, balancing
the creative and commercial just
became very draining. I went out
there with the intention of, ‘Maybe I
can stay out here and do some more
music for movies’, but all that stuff
really went nowhere. So what I
ended up doing was making Mirage
Garage with Luther [Russell] in his
garage in Pasadena. We had fun
doing it, and basically the takeaway
for me was, ‘Just focus on the music,
don’t worry about making a big
statement.’ We released it on
cassette because the entry level for
doing that is really easy. We made it
this way, we’re gonna distribute it
this way, and we’re not gonna get
hung up about labels or shows or
any of the other machinations that
go along with making music in the
commercial sphere.
At the time I wrote “Here In Hell”,
I felt like a lot of the promises of
technology and the networked
world were not really making my life
or my art better – it wasn’t freeing
me from all the things I felt were
problematic, as a musician. And I
guess it was the idea of constantly
being under surveillance, that
everything we were doing was
gonna be made into a cybernetic
commodity that none of us were
going to be remunerated for. At that
point, my feeling was, ‘This is not for
me.’ And the consequence of that
was really a lot of isolation.
[Now] I’ve reached the point where
I’m going to make art regardless
because I don’t have a choice. If
that means having it distributed in
ways that I don’t have any control
over, or make little or no money
from, what can I do? I’m grateful
for the other people who are making
art that I enjoy too, so maybe that’s
the trade.

A remastered version of More You
Becomes You will be released by
Weird Vacation on February 23

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FEBRUARY 2024

HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF

Back with a brilliant new HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF album, Alynda Lee
Segarra has made a reckoning with their past. In New Orleans, they tell
Stephen Deusner about how life and loss have come back into focus
in new, unexpected ways. “I feel like this album really saved me. I think
each one does. They all come at just the right time.”
Photo by TOMMY KHA

LYNDA Lee
Segarra
remembers a
campfire. The
mastermind
behind the
radical-roots band
Hurray For The
Riff Raff (who use
they/them pronouns) may be sitting in an empty
courtyard in New Orleans on a chilly afternoon,
but they close their eyes and drift back to a time
when they and their friends hitchhiked and
hopped freight trains. One night they found
themselves in the middle of nowhere, stranded
on what they discovered was a superfund site –
essentially a toxic waste dump. “We were really
cold and we needed a campfire. All the wood was
treated chemically, but we were drinking and we
were cold and we thought, ‘What the hell!’”
Despite their best efforts to rummage through
their memory, Segarra can’t recall exactly where
that superfund site was located. Was it Nebraska?
Kansas? One of the Dakotas? Much of the past has
become a blur, but that memory inspired a short

lyric on The Past Is Still Alive, Hurray For The Riff
Raff’s new roadside memorial of an album. It was
a breakthrough for the singer-songwriter, not
because it inspired some ornate turn of phrase —
the line is simply, “campfire on a superfund site” –
but because it was enough in and of itself.
“It felt like I had finally found the lexicon that
was really true to me,” Segarra says. “I felt like I
was able to speak in my own language. That’s
why it felt so good to write this album – even the
most brutal parts, like that night at the superfund
site. So much of the work of the writer is to find
your language and find your characters, and that
line in particular made me feel like I had arrived
somewhere. It’s not the final destination, but it is
a destination.”
Shivering in their loose denim jacket, Segarra
admits they could use a campfire right now.
Winter – or what counts as winter in this tropical
clime – has arrived suddenly, catching them off
guard. “It’s the humidity,” says Segarra. “Humid
cold is different.”
Today they’re home in New Orleans with a few
months off between tours, and they’ve found a
quiet spot here in the Garden District, far from the

hubbub of the French Quarter and the busy
sidewalks where they and their friends once
busked for tourist tips. From a coffee shop across
the street Segarra has procured a matcha latte,
and they pull pieces from a blueberry muffin still
stashed in its paper bag. The dim sound of a
piped-in brass band wafts through the courtyard
from the Hotel St Vincent next door.
Segarra doesn’t seem like an artist who needs
a breakthrough. They have recorded nine studio
albums as Hurray For The Riff Raff, each one
musically and philosophically distinct. Even
before Hurray played their first show, Segarra had
already recorded and released several CDs with
various busking groups, some of which they sold
on the street and some of which they shared only
with their friends. Even Segarra isn’t exactly sure
how much music they’ve released into the world.
“Writing this album was an exercise in memory
excavation,” they say, who notes they were
inspired by reading a lot of queer poetry and
histories of AIDS activism. “I was trying to play
with my relationship to memory and my
relationship to these experiences that have
really affected me. But I didn’t know how
79

TOMMY KHA

HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF
to talk about them, and I didn’t know where
they belonged.”
Figuring that out not only created one of their
finest albums yet, but also produced a feeling not
unlike what they experienced at the beginning of
their career. “This record feels like how I felt after
I read Just Kids by Patti Smith. I must have been 22
or 23, and I had already made a bunch of records
with my hobo street band. Yet, it took that book
for me to say, ‘I think I’m an artist.’ I thought I
wasn’t allowed to say that, but reading that book
told me what I am. This record feels like that. It
feels like me finally fulfilling that role.”
“Their songs really kick me in the gut,” says SG
Goodman, the Kentucky-born singer-songwriter
who sings on The Past Is Still Alive. “I’ve been a
fan of theirs for a long time, and they were huge
for me as a girl from rural Kentucky. It’s been
interesting to see them evolve. Alynda has never
shied away from politics or activism, but these
new songs are as timely as anything I’ve heard in
a very long time.”
On a road to
somewhere,
2023

FEBRUARY 2024

A

SIDE from a few
years in Nashville,
New Orleans has
been home for 20 years, but
that doesn’t mean Segarra’s
rambling days are over.
Wanderlust is both their
primary motivation and
their primary subject
matter, so deeply woven

“SAN
FRANCISCO IS
STILL A BEATNIK
HAVEN IN
MY MIND”

Segarra has been ramblin’ most of their life.
They ran away from home as a teenager, jumping
a cross-country Greyhound to San Francisco.
“That was the first place I went, and my first night
there I slept in a park. There are these weird paths
we take, but it felt like that place wasn’t even a
choice. I was 17 and didn’t think anything bad
could happen to me.” On “Colossus Of Roads”,
a song inspired by a deadly shooting at a gay
nightclub in Colorado, they portray
the city as a haven for endangered
communities, a meet-up spot for
fellow wanderers. “San Francisco
is really a nostalgic place for me,
although I feel like it’s teaching us
what can happen with hyperfast
capitalism. But it’s still a beatnik
haven in my mind.”
That song came fast, but “it felt
like I had been trying to write it my
whole life and it finally happened.
It was right after the Club Q
shooting in Colorado. I had just
read a book called It Was Vulgar
It Was Beautiful, about AIDS
activists like Act Up and Gran Fury.
I remember thinking, ‘Where do
my people go? Where do the queer,
radically minded weirdos, artists,
and thinkers go where we can be
safe?’ Writing that song, I wanted
to create a place in our minds
where we’re safe.”
For the rest of their teenage years,
Segarra lived nomadically,
wandering America and falling in
with groups of other lost and
fearless youth. They tried to
document those exploits on their
new songs, partly out of a sense of
obligation to their long-lost friends
but also because they believed
these memories needed to be
preserved. “I have a hard time with
this concept that things happen
and then they’re gone. So I’m trying
to hold on to these moments. If I
don’t remember this stuff, then
does it even matter if it happened?”
One afternoon while they were
writing The Past Is Still Alive,
Segarra was digging around in
a storage unit where they keep
Hurray For The Riff Raff gear, and
they discovered a trove of old
photos they thought had been lost.
One in particular struck them as
poignant. “I found a photo of Miss

New York stories:
on stage with C
Julian Jiménez

THE
NAVIGATOR:
THE MUSICAL
Segarra is taking their 2017
Jonathan, who was the first trans woman I ever
met. This photo is her on a train. It reminded me
of meeting her in Jackson Square when I had just
moved to New Orleans. I didn’t even play music
yet. I was just spare-changing and rolling around
with the other punk kids. I was just enthralled by
her, and I felt safe with her. I went anywhere she
wanted to go.”
They wrote a verse celebrating their old friend
on “Hawkmoon”, toasting her as one of the folks
who made New Orleans feel like home to the
restless teenager. “You’ll never know the way I
miss Miss Jonathan”, they sing. “She opened up
my mind in the holes of her fishnet tights”. The
song celebrates her outrageousness (“dildo
waving on her car antenna”), decries the violence
she faced (“She was beaten in the street”), and
mourns her disappearance (“I coulda ridden
shotgun forever”).
Today Segarra has no idea where Miss Jonathan
is, or if she’s even alive. “Even if nobody knows
who she is, she’s still a hero.”

F

recalls meeting Segarra on his second trip to the
city. “Some friends told me there was a gig at the
Dragon’s Den and Alynda was playing a solo
set on banjo. I was just floored by Alynda’s
intensity as a performer. You could feel the air
in the room getting heavy.” They became fast
friends and close collaborators, playing club
gigs at night and hitting the sidewalks during the
day. “We tried to be living statues for a while,”
Doores says. “You’ve seen the guys who paint
themselves silver or gold and stand still and wait
for tips? We tried to do something similar, but
with music involved.”
The trick was to stand perfectly still until
someone threw some change into their
instrument case, then they would come to life
and play a verse of an old Woody Guthrie or
Carter Family song. “We only did it for a week or
so. The paint was toxic and we thought it was
going to kill us. It smelled awful and was
impossible to wash off. If you had a gig that night,
you might show up looking green. It was the
worst gig we ever did.”
Segarra played washboard and banjo and
guitar with various groups, like The Dead Man
Street Ensemble (which morphed into the

I

album to the stage

NCLUDED in the packaging for Hurray
For The Riff Raff’s The Navigator (2017)
is an insert designed to look like a
theatrical playbill, complete with a yellow
banner and a listing for cast and crew. Even
from the beginning, Alynda Lee Segarra
thought of the concept album as a stage
production and they have been working to
bring it to theatres.
“It’s been in the works for a while. I wrote
the first and second draft on my own, and
then I was able to connect with the New
York Voices programme. They put me in
touch with an actor and playwright named
C Julian Jiménez, who really was the
missing piece. He helped me understand
the form, helped
me develop the
characters, and
wrote in some
new ideas. It’s
been a beautiful

ANGELA CHOLMONDELEY;

OR the teenage Segarra, New Orleans was
a “pirate town” where people welcomed
strangers and made space for transient
kids squatting in old buildings and
playing guitar in the park. “You
Alynda with Sam
Doores, live at One
can come here as a runaway and
Eyed Jacks, New
Orleans, Feb 14, 2014
not graduate high school and
people will welcome you and give
you a job. I delivered pizza on a
bicycle, and I was terrible at it. But
it was doable in a way that was
very different from New York. New
Orleans was definitely the first
place that supported me and told
me, ‘You should write songs.’”
Sam Doores, from the local
country band The Deslondes,

81

HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF
current act Tuba Skinny) and
Sundown Songs, blending local
jazz with bits of twang they’d all
picked up in their travels. “It wasn’t
Nashville country,” they explain.
“The Austin scene seemed way
more like our style of rougharound-the-edges, hippie-comingoff-of-acid country. People like
Blaze Foley and Townes Van
Zandt really spoke to us.” In
addition to busking for tips, they
even launched a few seat-of-pants
tours via freight train. “That’s what
we did with The Dead Man Street
Orchestra. We’d jump a freight and
show up in a town and just play on
the street. We’d try to meet a punk
kid so we could play at their house.
Or we’d just show up at some alt
coffee shop and ask to play.”
Not long after Segarra settled in
New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina
flooded the city and upended
its culture, and that disaster
transformed the young singersongwriter. “It changed my entire
outlook on this city that was
hurting so much. It shifted my idea
of what I wanted to do with my life.
How can I give to this place as
opposed to just needing and taking
from it? New Orleans taught me
Segarra at the 52nd
annual New Orleans
that music is a community act, and
Jazz & Heritage
Festival, Fair
you do it in service to your people.
Grounds Race
Course, May 2023
Music is used for funerals here. It’s
used for celebrations. It’s medicine.
It’s a way to bring people together.
unexpected death, the new songs resonated
That had a huge impact on what I wanted to write
about. Especially on this new album, I feel like my very differently with Segarra, in particular
“Snakeplant (The Past Is Alive)”. It opens with
songs are very much me bearing witness. I don’t
snapshots from childhood vacations, mapping
consider myself a political songwriter. I’m a
the route they would take every summer from the
humanitarian songwriter.”
Bronx down to the beach in Florida. “Snake plant,
Segarra eventually became something of a
Florida water/I only wanted ever to be a good
mentor figure within the scene, someone who
daughter”, they sing over a spry acoustic ramble.
led by example. “The impact they had was
“Try to remember most everything/like feeding
ferocious,” says singer-songwriter Esther Rose,
grapefruits to the cows”.
who invited Segarra to sing on her new album,
Safe To Run, and returned the favour by writing a
verse for the new Hurray song “Buffalo”. “When
they were just beginning to perform in these tiny
venues in St Claude, they were writing the most
compelling songs any of us had ever heard. That
allowed me to feel like I could share my own
music, because it was so underground and safe
and freaky. Alynda got signed long before
anybody else got signed. They led the way with
this incredible grace and wisdom.”

I

N February 2023, about a month before the
recording sessions for The Past Is Still Alive,
Segarra learned that their father, Jose Enrique
“Quico” Segarra, had died. It was sudden and
shocking. “He was a huge influence on me. He
was a musician and a beatnik and a jazz cat. He
was a very radical person, but he was also a very
educated guy. He went to NYU. He was a teacher
and a vice principal. He was one of those guys you
meet and think, ‘Wow, they don’t make ’em like
you any more.’ It’s a gift to have a weirdo dad.”
While they had written the album before his
FEBRUARY 2024

“GRIEVING
MAKES YOU
SO TIRED.
NOBODY TELLS
YOU THAT”

“We had an interesting relationship, in that I
never really felt like a daughter. I felt more like a
son. He would tell me, ‘You’re tough. You’re not
going to take any shit. You’re going to be OK.’ I
appreciated that, although I know he was
definitely worried about me when I left home.
Once I got into music, though, he was stoked. He
was so proud when I used a photo of him for the
cover of Look Out Mama. In fact, this crazy thing
happened a week before he passed. He was going

through stuff in his apartment in the Bronx and
he sent me every CD I ever gave him. All these
burned CDs from a jazz band I played with on the
street. All this stuff I didn’t even remember.”
Rather than cancel the recording sessions,
Segarra proceeded as planned – but only because
their friend Brad Cook would again be producing
at his home studio in Durham, North Carolina.
They had already discussed crafting a sound
together that was very different from Life On
Earth. “With that record, Alynda was ready to
step away from roots and introduce new variables
to their music,” says Cook. “With this one, once
they found the lyrical thread, there was the
freedom of ‘I have something to say and I want it
to be clear’. This record felt more urgent from the
jump. And maybe the waking dream aspect of
grieving allowed Alynda to not second-guess
things. Their head didn’t have to be on the music
all the time, because they had already done the
work. The songs were already there.”
As excited as they were to commit these songs
and memories to tape, Segarra was still
overwhelmed with grief, both emotionally and
physically. “Grieving makes you so tired. Nobody
tells you that. I rented a place out in Durham, and
honestly I just wanted to be alone in a stranger’s
house and take a long bath every night. My band
are all based out there and they would come
check on me and bring me to the studio. I’d go
in and record a few songs, then I’d be wiped out
and ready to go home.”
One bright spot during the sessions was the

Far from
home in
2023

arrival of SG Goodman, whom Segarra had
met at the 2022 Newport Folk Fest and who just
happened to be playing a show in Durham. After
soundcheck, she stopped by the studio with a
bottle of whiskey and sang a few takes on the
lilting, bluesy “Dynamo”. “Alynda is a very
calming presence. I was pretty nervous to go into
the studio, because I’m not classically trained
and sometimes you don’t know is someone is
going to ask you to do something technical. But
they just handed me a microphone and I sang
along with no lyrics – a low harmony part, what
I call my Tom Waits background vocals. Finally I
told them, ‘I can get this together a lot faster if
you’ll just write your words down.’”
That process – not just recording the songs, but
allowing others to contribute – ultimately helped
Segarra understand their songs more intimately.
“I wrote a lot of the record before my father
passed, but I realised I was writing about certain
things as a
way to prepare
myself for this
sort of loss. It
was scarier
and heavier
than I thought,
but in the end
I’m grateful
for this album.
It gave me a
container for
Collaborator SG
Goodman, 2023
my grief.”

S

EGARRA still feels the same
tug of wanderlust she felt as
a teenager, that need to see
what lies down the road – in short,
to make new memories and write
new songs about them, even if it
takes them far from New Orleans.
“Lately I’ve been thinking a lot
about Chicago, but I’m scared of the
winters. I keep asking, ‘Why are my
muses sending me to this tundra?’
But the scene is incredible. It seems
like a good place to find my people.”
Their latte has cooled, the muffin bag is empty.
Segarra rises and begins walking down
Magazine Street. “One thing I’ve learned is that
grief has no time frame. I’m still such a New
Yorker, because it’s hard for me to believe
that. It’s already been a year, but I keep
thinking I should be at this particular point.
In another year I should be at this other
point. But I’m trying to give myself over to
this idea that it’s going to ebb and flow.”
They flip their collar up against the winter
wind. “I feel like this album saved me. I think
each one does. They all come at just the right
time. But this one is different. The world is
getting darker. But this album made me
realise that I have me and I have my songs
and that’s all I need. I feel a little lighter on my
feet. Me and my songs can go anywhere.”
The Past Is Still Alive is out on Nonesuch, Feb 23

Drinking in the
atmosphere:
Carthy in Liverpool,
November 2023
FEBRUARY 2024

MARTIN CARTHY

Master guitarist and gifted interpreter MARTIN CARTHY on his
enduring friendship with Blind Boy Grunt – aka Bob Dylan – making
up with Paul Simon and life on the frontline of the Brit folk revival.
“Songs are very powerful things,” he tells Tom Pinnock
Photo by JON WILKS

TAND outside Martin Carthy’s
front door and you can glimpse
the North Sea, its wild breakers
hammering the grey cliffs of Robin
Hood’s Bay. Step inside the front
door and you’re immediately
surrounded by marvels of a
different kind. Rows and rows of framed photos
rise up to the ceiling of his hallway, many of them
pictures of his distant family; even relatives in
Edwardian dress just before the First World War.
There are candid shots of folk royalty too.
There’s Jeannie Robertson, accompanied by a
young Carthy himself, and Anne Briggs (“Annie”,
as he calls her) snapped in a busy street scene.
Here’s a grinning Bob Dylan, hanging out with
Richard Fariña and Carthy in a dark London bar
in the early ’60s.
“We called him Dick Farina back then,” laughs
Carthy, dressed in a colourful shirt and patterned
jumper, earrings reassuringly in place. “Because
he only got the tilde when he met Mimi Baez.
They recorded an album in London back then,
and you know what Dylan called himself? Blind
Boy Grunt!”
While Carthy and Mr Grunt are still in touch –
more on that later – the pictures he holds dearest
are those of the Watersons, especially of his late
wife Norma, who passed away two years ago.
Lal and Mike Waterson had already gone,
which leaves Carthy alone to carry the torch
for the Hull siblings and their powerful,
ancient-sounding music.
85

JOHN HARRISON

Home comforts:
Martin with Norma
at their house at
34 De La Pole Ave, Hull

“I miss Norma like mad,” he says. “We just
missed 50 years, as we got married in June 1972 –
that’s her on the wall at the pub on our wedding
day – and she died in January 2022. When she first
became ill, Eliza moved down here to help, but
Norma lived another 13 years.”
Though his late wife’s absence is keenly felt,
Carthy is kept busy by his extended family: his
grandson is staying with him, along with his
tortoise and hamster. Leek and potato soup duly
microwaved, Carthy invites Uncut to sit in the
living room, an ancient harmonium in the corner
and one of his Martin signature models lying on
the sofa near a set of that week’s Guardians.
Carthy is practising hard for his current batch of
live dates, constantly reworking ballads he’s
known for 60-odd years. He’s resolutely living in
the now, enthusing about new music from the
Goblin Band and Lankum.
“Irish music is always extraordinarily
beautiful,” he says of the band behind Uncut’s
latest Album Of The Year. “But it’s become
something else. It was simply a dance music
before, but now it’s listening music, which means
it’s changed quite radically.”
There’s much to discuss: from his days hanging
out with Dylan and Paul Simon in the heart of
London’s folk scene, then pioneering folk-rock
via his own influence on Fairport Convention and
his work with Steeleye Span, to his remarkable
way with a sick pony, the 50th-anniversary
reissue of his debut and his ambition to make
another album.
“I can’t bear the idea of retiring. You may as well
go off and die somewhere. When you have this
one thing that you can do as well as anybody –
FEBRUARY 2024

and sometimes better than all of them – it feels
wonderful. It doesn’t happen every night, but I
feel occasionally I’ve hit a target, and there’s
nothing like it. It’s an honour to be able to sing
those songs.”
UNCUT: What do you make of your debut
album, now it’s back on vinyl 58 years on?
CARTHY: Oh, I’m delighted it’s coming out
again. I do think it’s a good album, though there
are a couple of things on there I should have taken

“I can’t bear the
idea of retiring.
You may as well
go off and die”
more note of. We recorded it at Phillips studio at
Marble Arch, with producer Terry Brown – he
had fabulous ears and had once been Britain’s
No 1 bebop trumpeter! I remember recording
“The Wind That Shakes The Barley” and
thinking, ‘I think I got it.’
“Scarborough Fair” is on it – your signature
tune! Everybody had their signature tune. Davy
Graham’s was “Angi”, mine was “Scarborough
Fair”. I spent a long time working on that guitar

figure. It was cleverer than I thought it was. The
first time I played it at the King & Queen on Foley
Street, it went down so well. When I finished, the
organiser looked at me and said, “How the fuck
did you do that? That figure!” For me, it wasn’t
difficult at all because I’d thought of it! It was just
a simplified version of A minor to D major, but
suddenly I was doing something rather special.
Paul Simon loved it when he heard it, and
famously took on your version with Simon &
Garfunkel… First of all I told myself jokingly,
‘Cheeky sod, who’s he think he is, singing a
traditional song…’ But I allowed myself to be
sucked into that piece of nonsense [about him
having stolen the arrangement]. I was really
taken in [by people in the industry]. What a fool I
was, eventually allowing the music industry to
get control of “Scarborough Fair”, and me signing
the ownership of it over to them. It’s a fucking folk
song, everybody owns it, and that includes Paul
Simon. It’s mine, but it’s also yours.
You’re in touch with Paul these days? Yes,
I am. He was very helpful to us during the
pandemic. He contacted me. He’s a good man. He
was on a tour in the late ’90s where he was trying
to repair some of the damage he felt he’d caused
internationally – he said, “Were you mad at me?”
I said, “Yes, I was, once, but I got fed up with
being mad at you.” Because it wasn’t true, he
didn’t rip me off, the arrangement he had was a
tribute, it wasn’t the same as what I played, and
what a lovely compliment to pay. In those three
years in the early ’60s I don’t think I spoke more
than a dozen words to him – he was full of

MARTIN CARTHY
guitar for “Scarborough Fair”
and he insisted on playing
it with a flat pick even though
he was a perfectly good
fingerpicker. He went away to
Italy and he came back and
said, “I got it, I got ‘Scar-boro
Fair’”, but it fell to bits in about
three and a half seconds and he
got the ferocious giggles. Then
he came up with “Girl From
The North Country”, so he
ended up writing something
lovely from it.
When did you last see
Dylan? He’s a mate, it’s a real
friendship, and he always
looks after his friends. I last
saw him when he came over in
autumn 2022, it was lovely. I got
an invitation to go to his hotel.
It was a lovely encounter.

With Davy Graham
at a Nadia Cattouse
recording session

companionable silences, he’d just sit
down and enjoy the company, then,
“Gotta go now, bye, nice to see you.”
It was nothing awkward, he was just
a nice bloke. I sang “Scarborough
Fair” with him at the Hammersmith
Apollo and it was bloomin’ lovely.
I’d been unable to sing the song
properly because there was just too
much baggage, but I sang it with
Paul and it truly was great. I laid the
ghost to rest with the help of Paul.
But I was never able to sing it again
after that.

Dylan at the Singers’ Club
Christmas party, the Pindar
Of Wakefield, Gray’s Inn Rd,
December 22, 1962 (Bert
Lloyd and Ewan MacColl
visible behind him)

You knew Bob Dylan – sorry, Blind Boy
Grunt – back then too. Whenever one of his
charges came over to London, [manager] Albert
Grossman was always there and he would
introduce them around the folk clubs. So the first
time Bob sang in London was at the King &
Queen, where he went down a storm. But then he
went to the Singers’ Club at the Pindar Of
Wakefield, where he was not so successful
because both Ewan MacColl and Bert Lloyd
[mimes hands over ears] didn’t like him. But I
remember seeing him sing “A Hard Rain’s

A-Gonna Fall” then and the applause at the end
was thunderous. He blew the lid off the place.
When he started singing it, I thought he was
doing a version of [traditional] “Lord Randall”,
and then I thought, ‘What the hell is this?’ It was
just fabulous.
He came to see you play a number of times
back then, didn’t he? He used to ask me for
“Scarborough Fair” – “Scar-boro Fair” – and
“Lord Franklin” all the time, and he made “Bob
Dylan’s Dream” out of “Franklin”, which is a
gorgeous yearning thing. He wanted to learn the

There’s an incredible photo
on your wall of you and Davy
Graham in the studio. What
were you recording? It was a
session with Nadia Cattouse, who I
used to accompany all the time.
That’s me teaching Davy the chords.
It must be something like ’63, ’64? We
were walking up the road after the
session and he said how much he’d
enjoyed it. Then he was silent for a
second, and he said, “I had my first
fix last night.” And I said, “What?”
He said, “It’s great, I’m gonna do it
again.” I was just astonished. No more than two
weeks later I walked into a party and Alexis
Korner shouted across the room to me, “You know
what that stupid bastard’s done, don’t you? He’s
only gone and registered himself as an addict…”
So it was National Health heroin, the best that
money didn’t buy. All his jazz heroes did it, the
stupid bastards. They looked on taking heroin as
growing up.
You never fancied it? I never even
experimented, I was totally uninterested in that.
Once you were on it, it was over. But Davy

“HIS PASSION IS UNDIMMED”

“I

Eliza and
Martin, 2014

Eliza Carthy on her father and their folk lineage

SPENT my first 13 years on the
moortop, then we moved down
into Robin Hood’s Bay in about
1989. It’s a beautiful spot to grow up
in. We were very different in the area,
we were ‘the hippies up on the farm’…
it was very The Good Life – my mum
was fond of a floaty smock in the ’80s! I
pretty much realised we were different
from the first day we stepped into the
school building. But I was very into that
idea of the specialness of what it was
that my parents did, and that there
were generations and generations of
musicians on both sides of my family.
When Covid hit, of course we had no

work, and Mum became very sick during
that time as well. Dad didn’t play at all
for a while, then he realised he’d lost his
chops, lost all of those big ballads. So he
started writing them all out in his phone
– I think he’s written down something
close to 300 songs now. We’re going to
be hopefully publishing a songbook at
some point. He never rests, he wants to
keep working, to keep his brain active
and his music active. He keeps getting
paranoid that people want to retire
him! He’s definitely missing Mum, but I
love that his passion for what he does
is undimmed at 82 years old. In fact it’s
probably stronger than it ever was.”
87

which was fucking wonderful. Years later I
asked Swarb where they got the tune from.
“Christ almighty, I thought if anybody
would get that, it would be you. Because you
taught me the tune it came from…” It was a
slip jig I’d learned called “Kid On The
Mountain”, and that’s the tune of “Tam Lin”.
So I was partly responsible!

With Dave Swarbrick
at the EFDSS
Festival, Royal
Albert Hall, 1967

never stopped being an utterly delightful bloke –
he always knew me, but he stopped recognising
people. He saw my first wife in the street and
flung his arms around her – “All these people
keep coming up to me, and I’ve no idea who they
are…” But he was a wonderfully disciplined
player. We had a fabulous session one night and I
showed him something in a strange tuning – he
might have taken that and come up with his
DADGAD tuning. I can’t say I gave it to Davy, but
it’s tempting [laughs] – he got hold of it and he did
some magic on it.
Dave Swarbrick, your partner on those ’60s
records, had his fair share of vices, didn’t
he? He finally had a double lung transplant and
got years more – before that, he was dealing with
a pair of lungs that were gradually emptying
themselves of air. It took him well over a year to
recover; he had to learn the fiddle all over again.
At first he couldn’t pick up the bow, he was that
weak. On the early records, we challenged each
other harmonically – he was way ahead of me but
we raised the standard between us. He was
actually fined a week’s wages by the Ian
Campbell Group for doing the first album with me
‘without permission’. But when you look at the
sleeve of the record, Ian Campbell has given us a
great big okay. But he was the boss and Swarb
was a disobedient little boy and he had to be
disciplined, you know? That was one of the things
that caused him to leave Ian’s band. There was a
lot of rage in the Ian Campbell Group.
What do you remember about him joining
Fairport in 1969? Swarb said, “Joe Boyd wants
me to go and play with this fucking band of his.
Oh, you know me, man, I like jazz, I can’t bear
this rock’n’roll, it’s all bollocks.” I said, “Well, you
might have a great time – go and see what it’s like.
If you hate it, you can always walk away.” Next
time I saw him I said, “How’d it go?” And he said,
“Oh, don’t be insulted, but I think I’ve just met the
guitar player I want to play with for the rest of my
life. Every time we did a different take of the song,
he played something different.” That was “A
Sailor’s Life”. I told him to go for it, that I’d be fine.
And that led to you joining Steeleye Span.
Without Swarb I couldn’t do the stuff we were
FEBRUARY 2024

“I always was
determined
not to be
rubbish”
doing before, so I sort of went into purdah to put
another repertoire together. I went on a massive
learning curve and then went out on the road,
which is the way to do it. I got home in 1970, the
phone rang and it was Tim Hart. “Do you want to
join Steeleye?” He told me Terry and Gay Woods
had walked out on them, but they hadn’t –
they went back to Ireland to regroup and then
discovered that they’d ‘left’ the band. But I joined
Steeleye and I bought a Telecaster.
You were never a folk purist, then? I don’t
know what pure music is. I thought Fairport’s
Liege & Lief was brilliant, especially “Tam Lin”,

Steeleye Span at the
LSE, November 11, 1971:
(l-r) Peter Knight, Tim
Hart, Maddy Prior and
Martin Carthy

The sound of the first Steeleye record
you’re on, 1971’s Please To See The King,
is incredible… icy, electric, dark.
I remember making that record, it was just
magic. We were fucking good in the studio
and Maddy Prior was a fabulous harmony
singer. One of my favourite songs over the
years has been “Cold Haily, Windy Night”
– I looked it up in the book I got it from the
other day, and the language in my version
is so incredibly divorced from what’s on
the page. For a start, it’s called “Cold Haily, Rainy
Night” in the book.
Talking of the rain and the cold, how long
have you been in Robin Hood’s Bay? We
moved to the area in the mid-’70s. I remember an
incredible dash through the holiday traffic to
Scarborough when Eliza was born [in 1975]. We
lived out on the North Yorkshire Moors on a farm
first of all. But we’re a bunch of townies, and first
of all the cat died and then the chickens died and
then we had a goat and the goat died, and I was
having to dig all these graves. Then suddenly I
was presented with this pony that was going to
have to be put to sleep because it had laminitis.
I was thinking of the hole I’d have to dig, so
I spent a week or 10 days looking after this pony
round the clock and nursing it back to health.
Something happened then that means I’ve loved
horses forever: when it was better, the horse just
leaned in and rested its head on my shoulder. It
was this wonderful moment of love. But we’ve
been in this house for a long time now – Mike
Waterson built our kitchen extension.
A man of many talents. Do you remember

TOP TROUBADOUR
How to buy Martin Carthy

MARTIN CARTHY
MARTIN CARTHY FONTANA, 1965

The sparse, perfect debut album, pairing
Carthy with Dave Swarbrick on fiddle and
mandolin. It begins with “High Germany”,
which he still performs, and included his
pioneering takes on “Sovay”, “The Queen Of Hearts” and –
most importantly – “Scarborough Fair”. 10/10

MARTIN CARTHY
PRINCE HEATHEN FONTANA, 1969

Carthy’s fifth with Swarbrick continued the
impressive pattern of the previous four:
stripped-down, dry and seemingly timeless,
all the better to showcase these dramatic
stories, from a pensive “Polly On The Shore” and the fiddleand-voice “Reynardine” to the intense, epic title track. 9/10

STEELEYE SPAN
PLEASE TO SEE THE KING B&C, 1971

The Watersons: (l-r)
Carthy, Norma, Lal
and Mike Waterson

first seeing the Watersons
perform? They came down to the
Troubadour and sang “Three Score &
Ten”, and they were just different. They
sang all in unison, with these two
women’s voices that were entirely
different. They just blended, they just
did because they were related, and
Mike was in there as well. Suddenly the
unison broke up and these harmonies…
I must have looked like Struwwelpeter
with all my hair stood on end! It was
bloody wonderful. There wasn’t
anybody who sounded remotely like it.
It must have been daunting singing
with them when you joined in the
mid-’70s. They said, “Our way of
doing harmony is the girls set the key,
and then everybody sings the tune until
you can’t sing the tune any more and
then you sing a harmony.” It’s a rough
way of doing things but when it
develops, it’s nothing but fascinating.
And no two versions of a song were
exactly the same.
Lal and Mike’s own songs too, as on
Bright Phoebus, are just incredible,
aren’t they? They’re something else.
I spent a bit of time up in Hull and I
stayed at Lal’s, and she sang me a few
songs. I was blown away by them. I
spent two or three days trying to get her
chords, which were the weirdest chords
you’ve ever heard – harmonically her
songs are incredibly dense. “Never The
Same” still blows me away, that they
managed to figure out what she wanted
at the end! I first became involved in the
project for other reasons than musical
ones… yes, [to pursue] Norma… but it
took its time to bear fruit, because she
was no mug [laughs]. It was a lovely
record to make, fabulous.
You’ve been out on the road
recently, combining songs with
discussion – how’s it been out on
tour again? This tour’s been very

different. When I come to do a proper
gig on my own, I’m in trouble, because
you get so used to talking and then
singing a song and then talking… most
of what we’re doing is talking about
songs. People seem to really love the
idea of going into the songs in real
depth. If you can really engage them,
then they can be absolutely knocked
sideways by just how smart ordinary
people [who developed these
traditional songs] can be.
Have you considered making
another studio album? It’s been a
decade since The Moral Of The
Elephant with Eliza. I have thought
about that and I should get on with it. I
love these great, long ballads, but one
of the things that happens is that they
change. I recorded them right at the
beginning of my relationship with them
and they sound one way, and I’ve been
doing some of them for 40 years,
sometimes 50, or more even with
“Prince Heathen”. I’ve done it again
since, but now I’ve got to do the old git’s
version. Same with “Famous Flower Of
Serving Men”, I did that again but now
I’ve got to have another go at it. I am so
fucking proud of that song, I am! I need
to finish and record these new versions.
It seems like you’re always pushing
to develop your craft. I always was
determined not to be rubbish. These
songs are very powerful things. It’s
unforgettable when you’re coming
towards a good bit in a song, the
audience suddenly becomes one, and
you’re aware of this phalanx of
humanity right in front of you, and
they’re waiting for the punchline.
There’s nothing like it. It’s a shared
trance. It’s utterly wonderful.
Martin Carthy’s self-titled debut is out
on Topic on February 23; see page 12
for a rundown of this month’s free
Topic CD

A startlingly unique folk-rock album, with no
drums to back the crystalline, fingerpicked
Telecasters, overdriven violin, bass and
Maddy Prior’s swooping vocals. The Carthyled “Cold Haily, Windy Night”, for instance, is more like The
Velvet Underground & Nico than Liege & Lief. 9/10

LAL & MIKE WATERSON
BRIGHT PHOEBUS TRAILER, 1972

Carthy plays guitar throughout this most
legendary of folk records, consisting of
original songs by the two Watersons. He
often pairs up with Richard Thompson on dual
acoustics, but Norma Waterson and he go it alone on “Red
Wine Promises”. 10/10

THE WATERSONS
FOR PENCE AND SPICY ALE
TOPIC, 1975

Having married Norma Waterson, Carthy
is made a member of the reformed singing
group. There’s nothing quite like their ragged,
angular harmonies on “Swarthfell Rocks” or “Swinton May
Song”, while later editions included a stunning “Tam Lin”
from Mike Waterson. 8/10

BRASS MONKEY
BRASS MONKEY TOPIC, 1983

Initially formed as The Martin Carthy Band,
this pioneering group combined brass
instruments with Carthy’s guitar and John
Kirkpatrick’s accordion. They split after two
albums, but have reformed sporadically in the years since.
7/10

MARTIN CARTHY
& DAVE SWARBRICK
LIFE AND LIMB

TOPIC/SPECIAL DELIVERY, 1990

After Swarbrick ended their collaboration
by joining Fairport 21 years earlier, the pair
reunited for this relaxed, convivial effort. They looked back
to the past, understandably, reprising the opener, “Sovay”,
from Carthy’s debut, and “Byker Hill”, from his third LP. 8/10

WATERSON:CARTHY
WATERSON:CARTHY TOPIC, 1994

A new family band, with Norma Waterson
and Carthy joined by their teenage daughter
Eliza, a fine singer and fiddler. She provided a
diverting vocal on “The Light Dragoon”, while
her mother boldly led modal opener “Bold Doherty”. 8/10

MARTIN & ELIZA CARTHY
THE MORAL OF THE ELEPHANT
TOPIC, 2014

The latest effort from this duo, a beautifully
sparse LP featuring guitar, fiddle and vocals;
there are traditional numbers and originals,
and a yearning cover of Molly Drake’s “Happiness”. 8/10
89

THE MAKING OF...

by The La’s
How Lee Mavers’ chiming ’60s-tinted tune went through
the mill before becoming a foundation stone of Britpop

W

HATEVER happened
to Lee Mavers?
After the success of
“There She Goes”
in 1990, the La’s
singer disappeared from public view,
only occasionally resurfacing: for a full
La’s tour in 2005 and most recently as part
of an acoustic duo in 2011, tantalisingly
performing a few new songs alongside
the hallowed cuts from his old band’s
sole, self-titled album. In the intervening

years, apocryphal tales of Mavers have
come to light – that he hunted for “’60s
dust” to sprinkle on studio equipment
or spent years re-recording The La’s
debut while simultaneously amassing
piles of amazing new songs that remain,
it seems, unrecorded.
The La’s formed in Liverpool in 1983.
The band went through a string of
members and producers as they attempted
to record their debut album, driven by
Mavers’ exacting, and exasperating,
vision. Eventually,
a frustrated record
company intervened
“Looking for
and in 1990 released
the magic”:
Lee Mavers
a version of the
backstage
album reclaimed
in Rennes,
France, 1989
by producer Steve
Lillywhite. Although
the album arrived
to huge acclaim,
the band instantly
disowned it and
Mavers vowed to
never release
another record.
Whatever the truth
or the future, The
La’s left behind a
wonderful album,
rich with sublime
songcraft, of which
“There She Goes”
became the band’s
biggest hit. With its
guitars like churchbells, the lyrics ache
with unspecified or
unrequited longing –
lines such as “racing
through my brain”
and “pulsing through
my veins” have led
to speculation that
the song is about

heroin, something denied by former band
members including Mavers.
Bassist/backing vocalist John Power
went on to huge Britpop-era success in
Cast – they recently released “Love Is The
Call”, their first single for six years, with
an album to follow. Although Power lives
in London now and hasn’t seen his old
bandmate for “ages”, he sympathises with
Mavers’ struggle to reconcile the sounds he
heard in his head with the realities of the
industry and its recording facilities.
“I have this theory now that The La’s
were not about making records,” Power
explains. “But that they were moments
in time captured by performance and
the people in the room at the time. The
moment we went into studios – and I
spent a long time in studios with Lee –
it was different. We were looking for the
magic, but the magic was always there.
Whenever I hear ‘There She Goes’ on the
radio now, I think, ‘What an amazing
song.’” DAVE SIMPSON
JOHN POWER, BASS/VOCALS: When
I joined aged 19 [in 1986], Lee played me
“Son Of A Gun”, “Doledrum”, “Freedom
Song” and maybe another. At that time,
about 25 lads in Liverpool knew about
The La’s. But it was obvious that Lee was
on a par with all the classic ’60s and ’70s
stuff I was listening to. His songwriting
was untouchable and songs were just
flowing out of him.
PAUL HEMMINGS, GUITAR: I’d seen
The La’s a lot and it was like watching
Brian Jones playing Bob Dylan. Just
fantastic. I was in the Twangin’ Banjos but
used to give John a lift because he lived
near Penny Lane. He came down to see us,
then said “Do you fancy a jam, la’?” That’s
how I joined [replacing founder singerguitarist Mike Badger].
POWER: The most prolific time was
when Paul Hemmings was in the band.

KEY PLAYERS

John Power
Bass, backing
vocals

Paul Hemmings
Guitar

Bob Andrews
Producer

John Leckie
Producer

“Way Out” was already written, but
suddenly we had “Timeless Melody”
and “There She Goes”.
HEMMINGS: My mum and dad had
a big house near Strawberry Field
and we rehearsed in the stables.
That sounds grander than it was. It
hadn’t seen a horse since 1870. Lee
came up with the riff for “There She
Goes” at home, so maybe his mum
heard it first. There’s loads of tapes
where she’s going, “Your tea’s ready
downstairs.” But when he came in
and played it to us, my jaw dropped.
POWER: When Lee sang “There She
Goes” to me in the stables, he did this
falsetto thing and I thought, ‘Why
sing it like that?’ But once we put it
together and started playing it, it was
obviously amazing.
HEMMINGS: I wrote the
complementary riff over the top
and the middle eight came ages
later. We rehearsed and rehearsed
it. You could tell it was going to be
something special. Timmo [John
Timpson] was on drums. I’m really
glad there’s a cassette recording of
us playing it for the first time at the
Picket. “New song, la’!”
POWER: Whenever we played it
you’d see people’s eyes light up. I
never thought it was about heroin.
We were on the dole, staying at

“I wrote the complementary
riff over the top and the
middle eight came ages
later” PAUL HEMMINGS

Icicle Works and was an amazing
drummer. We recorded it on my
21st birthday at Woodcray studios
in Wokingham with Bob Andrews,
who’d done “Stop The Cavalry” with
Jona Lewie. Bob was up for trying
stuff like putting the mics in the
corridor. I think he even wanted to
record the trees.
BOB ANDREWS: When I came in
they’d already been through people
like John Porter, a fantastic producer.
The record company knew the song
was great, so put so much money
and producers into it. But Lee loved
his own demos, which were lo-fi and
had wow and flutter on the tape. He
wanted to recreate that. I went up to
Liverpool and did a day’s worth of
rehearsal. Then I came back with
one of the guys in the band. I said
how much I was looking forward
to starting the album and he said,
“I won’t be there. I’m leaving.” We
did “There She Goes” in the first
two weeks of recording, to get it
done. John Byrne on guitar was
super studied. He had this classical
technique so could play the riff
“open” with his thumb behind the
neck, so it all rang. Anybody can
play that riff but few could play it
like that. Also, Dave Charles was
Dave Edmunds’ engineer and
91

Tea and obstinacy:
(l–r) Peter Cammell,
Lee Mavers, John
Power and Neil Mavers
in Liverpool, 1990

“Maybe you can only
go so far before you
hit a sandbank”
JOHN POWER

had recorded thousands of guitars. So we
had that riff and the guitar guy. Then John
Byrne left to go to music college and it all
just fell to pieces for me after that.
POWER: We ended up recording six or
seven versions with Bob, like different
yoga positions. Every recording was
another stepping stone across the
river. Every time we played it there was
something special about it.
ANDREWS: The essence of The La’s was
Lee’s playing and singing. While we got
on quite well, he was hard to deal with. We
were in a residential studio, so after dinner
I might mention something the song
needed and Lee would be, “Right, let’s do
it now.” And we’d go back in the studio
at 11 o’clock at night. Then the next day
he might not like it, then another day he
might like it again. But I had to strike while
the iron was hot. I did experiment with
recording just Lee and the drums, or three
mics in the room. There’s loads of stories
I won’t get into, including a night when
the local constabulary came in, listened
to the stuff and went away in their panda
car. I’ve been able to deal with difficult
artists and I could always be sympathetic
to their integrity but also had to deliver
a product for the record label. After we
lost the guitar player I had an 8-bit
sampler, so I sampled his guitar part

FACT FILE
Written by: Lee
Mavers
Produced: Bob
Andrews, remixed
Recorded:
Released:
Personnel: Lee
Mavers (lead
vocals, backing
vocals, acoustic
(bass, backing

Highest chart
position:

and put it on the front
of the recording.
My philosophy was
to always try and
find something that
would instantly be
recognisable as an
intro, but after six
weeks’ recording the
album I ended up
losing the gig. I was very
frustrated with it, really.
POWER: We did another version of
the album with Mike Hedges on the old
Abbey Road desks that Mike had set up
in Andy McDonald’s house – or it was his
parents’ house? – on the coast in Devon.
Everyone thought it was great. Lee loved
it. Andy was buzzing. Then Andy gave me
and Chris £800 or something each to go on
holiday. I think he wanted us out of the way
so he could get in Lee’s ear to mix it, but if so
it backfired. Lee got the hump because he
didn’t come on the holiday with us. When
we came back he’d scrapped everything. I
don’t think those tracks were ever mixed.
JOHN LECKIE: When I did versions of
“There She Goes” and others, Lee was
always skinning up and had to have a
guitar within reach that he could grab
hold of at any time. We rehearsed at Crash
Rehearsals in Liverpool, then recorded
and lived in Chipping Norton. It was a
really great time. Then we mixed in Island
Studios, but Lee didn’t like it. I suggested
just doing the vocals again. “I’m not doing
the vocal again.” Just before we went
home someone suggested fading it in
from the start, without the classic intro.
A “John Leckie mix” did eventually come
out years later but it’s a rough mix with no
bass or backing vocals, nothing like what
we intended.

POWER: Finally we went in with
Steve Lillywhite at Eden Studios
with Cammy [Peter Cammell] on
guitar and Neil [Mavers] on drums
and that’s where it started to get
a little… Maybe you can only go
so far before you hit a sandbank,
and by God we’d been at sea a
long time. Click tracks, breaking
songs down into fractions and
building them up again was not
a natural process for me or Lee.
There were a few bust-ups. Andy
McDonald came in absolutely
raging, because people were asking,
“Will this album ever get made?”
Then Andy decided to pull the
plug and put the thing out anyway.
Obviously once that happens you’ve
drawn a line in the sand and locked
horns with the band.
ANDREWS:
The hit version of
“There She Goes”
was my version
remixed by Steve
Lillywhite, who’s a
great producer and
made some fantastic
records. I ran into
Steve a couple of years
later and he said he
tried to record it and
just couldn’t get what
I’d done. They’d kept
gaining and losing
band members. So instead he remixed my
version and put a little bit of magic in there.
HEMMINGS: I think the version everyone
knows is the best. The song developed its
own momentum and people still love it.
ANDREWS: When someone’s got a talent
like Lee’s and a timeless song like that,
you’re just thrilled to have been part of
it. It’s marvellous to be able to say I had
a song in Wayne’s World, because it was
Mike Myers’ favourite song.
POWER: With my own experience now,
I completely understand how it kinda
turned sour for Lee. Once the light stops
shining on something like that it’s in the
shade, like a walled garden. The park
never sees sunlight again and it creates its
own environment. The last time I saw him
he had numerous songs and they were all
amazing. Someone told me he’s got his
kids in the band. Someone else said he
told them he wasn’t in The La’s. I’ve just
done a solo tour and for the first time have
thrown a couple of La’s songs in there. I’d
much rather Lee was singing them but it’s
an homage to a moment in my life. I never
fell out with Lee. One day I’ll seek him out,
and if he’s in a good mood he might let me
in and we’ll have a cup of tea.
Love Is The Call is released on
February 16 through Cast Recordings

TIME LINE
June 5, 1987
Liverpool

November 1988

October 1990

March 2008 Polydor/

Bob Andrews version
FEBRUARY 2024

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NEIL YOUNG

Despairing and disconsolate, full of personal trauma
and wider disillusion with the hippie dream – but all
set to beautiful music – NEIL YOUNG’s 1974 album
ON THE BEACH turns 50 this year. To mark the
anniversary of Young’s masterpiece, Peter Watts
rounds up key players and eyewitnesses to take
us inside the album’s loose, out-there sessions.
“The record was slow and dreamy, kind of underwater
without bubbles.” Stand by for the honey slides!
Photo by GIJSBERT HANEKROOT/REDFERNS

PLUS!
KURT VILE
J MASCIS
ALAN SPARHAWEK
MARGO PRIC
ON THEIR FAVOURITE
TRACKS

FEBRUARY 2024

Neil Young
backstage at
Oakland Stadium,
California, during
the Crosby, Stills,
Nash & Young US
Tour, July 14, 1974
95

NEIL YOUNG
“The world is
turnin’…”:
Jimmy Page
joins SNY at
Quaglino’s,
Sept 14, 1974

JOE STEVENS

HERE was a celebratory
mood among the guests as
they filed into Quaglino’s.
The most famous of
Mayfair’s society
restaurants, by 1974 it
had seen better days –
yet on September 14 it
became the setting for a
very exclusive party. Reunited after a four-year
break, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had
launched one of the biggest rock tours ever
attempted at that point; a 31-date stadium jaunt
that had reached its conclusion earlier that night
at Wembley Stadium. Now everyone was at
Quaglino’s for the aftershow.
With Rod Stewart, Marianne Faithfull, Ron
Wood, Bianca Jagger and Joni Mitchell in
attendance, and standing room in the aisles,
a rock’n’roll covers band had been hired for the
entertainment. Unfortunately, they didn’t meet
the exacting standards of Stephen Stills, who
unceremoniously booted them off stage
and hijacked their instruments. He was joined
first by Neil Young, Robbie Robertson and Levon
Helm – before a second configuration took shape
around Stills, Young, CSNY’s Tim Drummond,
Jimmy Page and, briefly, John Bonham.
At this point, Young took charge of this
well-refreshed supergroup. Rather than play
something simple – “Heart Of Gold”, maybe, or
“Old Man” – he led them through a couple of
songs from his recently released solo album,
On The Beach.
“Vampire Blues” and “On The Beach” were
spaced out and sinister, far away from the sunny
FEBRUARY 2024

utopianism of CSNY. Even despite the
heavyweight backing, Young stole the show:
“Young was a force of nature that night,” NME’s
Nick Kent later recalled. “No-one could intimidate
him or outplay him.”
“On The Beach was his freakiest album in terms
of the people, the subjects and what went down,”
says Young’s roadie Will Fuqua, aka Willie B
Hinds, Baby John and BJ Fuqua. “It was very
loosey goosey. But there was always something
underlying or to the side with Neil. He wasn’t
afraid of shadow. He could do that, he could
handle it and it didn’t take him down. That’s not
available to everybody.”
On The Beach stands apart from anything else
in Young’s canon. Stylistically, it’s neither
country or rock but something closer – spiritually
at least – to the blues. Thematically and lyrically,
Young hitches his own personal traumas – his
ailing relationship with Carrie Snodgress and
despair at the shallowness of fame – to the
splintering of mid-’70s America. It was paranoid,
depressing, resigned and fractious, full of fearless
close-ups and emotional vérité. As it transpired,
On The Beach seemed too intense even for Young
– it remained out of print for almost three
decades, its status as one of Young’s great
‘lost’ masterpieces reaching almost mythic
proportions as the years passed.
To start recording in 1974, Young called on his
faithful quartet of Ben Keith and Tim Drummond
from the Stray Gators and Crazy Horse’s rhythm
section Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina, as well as
guests Crosby, Nash, Danko, Helm and Rockets
guitarist George Whitsell. Alongside these came
the mercurial Rusty Kershaw, whose shamanic

Young in London
with pedal steel
player Ben Keith,
November 5, 1973

THINGS

A guide to other songs from
the On The Beach era
“WINTERLONG”

“He wasn’t afraid of
shadow”: Young in
September 1971

presence – and honey
slides – defined the vibe
of the album.
“Neil’s mood during
On The Beach was as
always, he’s like stone,
nothing bothers him
much, he’s straight
ahead,” says Molina.
“He and Carrie, I believe,
were close to the end of
their relationship, but with
Neil you never could tell.
We started in the living
room at the ranch, the
machine set up in a
bedroom, and us in the
living room. Neil comes
in, plays a couple bars,
and we just jump in.
The magic comes in
the first or second take,
no more. That’s when
On The Beach is raw
and passionate.”

took place not long after the
death of Crazy Horse
guitarist Danny Whitten.
A few months later,
Young’s roadie Bruce
Berry died under similar
circumstances to
Whitten: an overdose of
heroin and cocaine.
Next, Young assembled
the Santa Monica Flyers –
comprising a modified Crazy
Horse and a few other
close allies – and
recorded Tonight’s The
Night. “When I had got
out to LA there was a lot
of peace and love and
very free jamming,”
recalls Nils Lofgren,
who’d played on After
The Gold Rush and the
first Crazy Horse album.
“Then all of a sudden,
NILS LOFGREN
all our heroes and
friends started dying.
HESE days, we are
Everything in the early
used to Young’s restlessness, the
’70s took a real dark turn and I didn’t have a lot of
capricious swerves and contrary singletools to process all that. That was when Neil
mindedness. These qualities were less apparent
brought us together for Tonight’s The Night. I don’t
in the early 1970s, though, as he struggled with
know how I would have processed it without
the expectations put on him following the stellar
Tonight’s The Night.”
success of 1970’s After The Gold Rush and Harvest
But with a perversity which soon became
two years later. “This song put me in the middle of routine for Young, Tonight’s The Night wasn’t
the road,” he wrote about “Heart Of Gold” in the
released until June 1975. Instead, the Santa
sleeve notes for the Decade compilation.
Monica Flyers set out on a series of tequila“Travelling there soon became
soaked tour dates beginning
a bore, so I headed for the
September 1973. The final
ditch. A rougher ride, but I saw
date took place on November
more interesting people there.”
23, in Berkeley, California.
As a consequence, 1973’s
Five days later, on November
Time Fades Away seemed
28, Young was recording
like a purposeful rejection
at Broken Arrow ranch,
of his mainstream
beginning a cycle of songs
accomplishments. A nervethat eventually became
wracking album of new
On The Beach.
material, it was recorded on
Young was joined first at
the Stray Gators tour which
Broken Arrow by Talbot,

T

“Everything in
the early ’70s
took a real
dark turn”

This yearning song was recorded early
during the On The Beach sessions at
Broken Arrow, but didn’t receive an
official release until Decade. A sweet
tune with fabulous pedal steel from Ben
Keith, its expansive, upbeat mood had
more in common with After The Gold Rush
than On The Beach.

“BAD FOG OF LONELINESS”

This country lament had been around for
a while, with Young recording a version
in 1971 during the Harvest sessions. This
rawer, rumbling version was recorded
during the ranch sessions for On The Beach
and released on Archives Volume II.

“TRACES”

A brief love song, recorded entirely by
Young on guitar and harmonica at Broken
Arrow during December 1973. It was
performed during the CSNY tour, working
better when delivered in more fleshedout form. It was eventually released on
Archives Volume II.

“GREENSLEEVES”

Neil Young and Rusty Kershaw headed
to the ranch after the Sunset sessions
to record, including this incredibly stark
cover of “Greensleeves”. Kershaw, though,
was now completely out of control and
threatened to burn down the barn, ending
their brief but productive collaboration.

“PUSHED IT OVER THE
END”/“CITIZEN KANE’S BLUES”
The first song Young played at the Bottom
Line in May, “Pushed It Over The End”
tells the story of “good-looking Milly”, a
revolutionary who keeps “10 men in her
garage”. Another bum trip, the song was
regularly aired during the CSNY tour.
Crosby and Nash recorded backing
vocals for a version intended for Decade
but never released.

“LOVE/ART BLUES”

One of several songs that Young wrote
after the official On The Beach sessions
ended but which didn’t make it onto
subsequent albums. Many of these
– “Hawaiian Sunrise”, “Homefires”,
“Barefoot Floors” and “LA Girls And Ocean
Boys” – were inspired directly by the
final breakdown of his relationship with
Snodgress. “Love/Art Blues” saw Young
sing about the challenge of choosing
between love and art, and was regularly
played on the 1974 CSNY tour. Although
never considered for On The Beach, these
might have formed yet another unrealised
album, ‘Homefires’…
97

NEIL YOUNG
Molina and Keith. Among
the songs they worked on
were “Walk On” and “For
The Turnstiles”. One visitor
to the studio, Rob Fraboni,
had converted Malibu’s
Shangri-La ranch into a
studio for The Band.
“Neil set up a studio in his
house after he saw ShangriLa,” says Fraboni. “We
Rusty Kershaw
(left) with his
talked a bit about it and
brother Doug
how best to put it together.
David Briggs did most of it.
On The Beach was one of the first records Neil cut
at his house and that contributed to the vibe.”
According to Fraboni, the initial recording
space was the living room of Young’s main
property fitted with the console that The Band
had used for their second album. “I am almost
positive that Neil borrowed that board as it had
been in storage,” he says. “It was in the same
room as the musicians for a while, then they
moved the console to a bedroom. Later he built
studios in outbuildings, but this was the living
room of his actual house.”
With Briggs producing, the band recorded
versions of “Winterlong”, “Bad Fog Of
Loneliness” and “Traces” – all of which
eventually appeared on Decade and/or Archives
Volume II – plus “Borrowed Tune”, a late addition
to Tonight’s The Night. But with the accusatory,
confrontational “Walk On” – “Sooner or later, it all
gets real” – and “For The Turnstiles”, a beautiful
country lament on banjo and dobro with Young’s
voice at its most desperate, On The Beach was
underway. So far, things seemed more controlled
than the intense Tonight’s The Night sessions.

The Santa Monica Flyers:
(l–r) Nils Lofgren, Ralph
Molina, Neil Young, Billy
Talbot – bring Tonight’s
The Night to the Rainbow,
north London, Nov 5, 1973

But then Briggs got ill and
dropped out, which is
when Rusty Kershaw
joined the party.

R

AISED on the
Louisiana bayou,
Rusty Kershaw had
played in a country duo
with his older brother,
Rusty & Doug. When
sessions for On The Beach
resumed in LA’s Sunset
Sound on March 25, Ben
Keith brought him along.
“Neil looked at him in awe,” says Molina. “It
was just the way Rusty was… his demeanour, his
stature, that was the influence on all of us. He just
sat there on this chair, did his thing and you just
had to respect him. He was like this big teddy
bear. Personally, I loved playing with him.”
“He was raised on a boat,” says Fraboni, who
produced Kershaw’s 1992 album, Now And Then,
which featured contributions from Young and
Keith. “Rusty said his dad would tie a rope
around his waist when he was a year old and drop
him in the water to attract alligators.
He’d pull him out and dive in with
a bowie knife. That’s some
out-there stuff. Rusty played
the dobro, mainly. His
playing was very simple
but brilliant.”
Kershaw is credited on
just two songs – fiddle
on “Ambulance Blues”
and slide on “Motion
Pictures” – but his

influence went deep. Will Fuqua thinks that
Kershaw’s personality allowed Young, always the
dominant figure in the room, to take a back seat.
Young revelled in Kershaw’s instinctive musical
approach, playing along the first time he heard
a song – exactly as Young had wanted for
Tonight’s The Night.
“The driving force of that whole thing was Rusty
Kershaw,” says Fuqua. “The music, of course,
was Neil’s but Rusty would give it a flair. But if
Neil was letting Rusty run things, it’s because
that worked better. He was always still in charge
and knew what he was doing and what he was
looking for. Rusty had this ballsy country thing. It
had a depth to it and that’s what Neil liked about
it. Neil wanted some shadow and Rusty could
provide it, because he’d lived in shadow.”
Kershaw also brought the recreational
entertainment. “Honey slides were made with
grass and honey cooked together and stirred in
a frying pan until a black gooey substance was
left in the pan,” wrote Young in Waging Heavy
Peace. “A couple of spoonfuls of that and you
would be laid-back into the middle of next week.
The record was slow and dreamy, kind of
underwater without bubbles”.
“That stuff was really strong,” says
Fraboni. “It sneaks up on you
and then lasts forever, it lasted
for six to eight hours, and
you are completely out of
your tree. That was a
popular item during
On The Beach.”
To further create
atmosphere, Young
turned the lights down
so low that producer Al

Schmitt couldn’t see
of honey slides and
what was happening.
play. “They’d get high
Fuqua was despatched
on sludge and then
to create an even more
sink into their
informal vibe, filling
instruments,” says
the studio with lamps
Fuqua. “Then things
and old sofas from
would come out of it.”
nearby thrift stores. For
ETWEEN March
Schmitt, who had just
25 and 28, Neil
come from producing
Young recorded
Jackson Browne’s For
WILL FUQUA
the three songs that
Everyman, this was all
formed the bewitching,
very different.
beleaguered second side
“Neil said he wanted
of On The Beach – “On The Beach”, “Motion
the room set up like a living room,” he told Uncut
Pictures” and “Ambulance Blues”. The title track
the year before his death in 2021. “He wanted this
was a slow, hypnotic inquisition of fame and
comfortable thing, no pressure, not like we were
self-doubt: “I need a crowd of people/But I can’t
in a studio or doing a show, just sitting around
playing. He was having a difficult time personally face them day to day”. The song was
recorded by Young, Keith, Molina and
but none of that stuff came out, he kept it within
Tim Drummond with Graham Nash on
himself. He didn’t want to burden people. It was
Wurlitzer. Kershaw presumably lingered
pretty hard to see what was going on from the
chuckling in the background.
control room and every time there was a solo, Neil
“Graham was a little like Danny Whitten
would push the mic out the way. That happened
in that Neil had that squeaky, raspy little
a couple of times and I had to go and tell him to
voice – well not little – but it worked really
leave the mic, as it was where it should be. It was
well with Graham’s smooth voice,” says
a fun time, it was relaxed. It was all recorded live,
Fuqua. “Neil could sing with that strange
I don’t think we overdubbed a thing.”
voice and play a giant guitar and the song
Into this dark, loose and freaky den of shadows
is what brought it all together and made it
stepped a number of guest musicians – Crosby
work. It was alchemical. He made himself
and Nash, Levon Helm and Rick Danko – who
fit with his song and his playing style.”
were invited to get with the vibe. This meant
The title referenced Nevil Shute’s postdealing with Kershaw, who at various points
apocalyptic novel On The Beach, set in
writhed on the floor like a snake, smashed up
Melbourne, Australia, where the survivors await
furniture to create a more aggressive mood, sat
the arrival of deadly radiation spreading towards
on the ground and howled, and pulled a knife on
them. The sense of impending doom was
Stephen Stills. Perhaps the only way to handle
pertinent. The phrase ‘on the beach’ itself is
Kershaw’s antics was to have another spoonful
naval slang meaning ‘retired from service’:
“Think I’ll get out of town…”
It’s followed by “Motion Pictures”, dedicated
to Snodgress, although it expands beyond
their relationship to examine Young’s wider
disillusionment: “I’m deep inside myself, but
I’ll get out somehow”.
Fuqua had been around during Young’s breakup with his first wife, Susan Acevedo, and could
sense things were coming to a head here, too.
“Carrie seemed like she was trying to find
freedom from him,” he says. “He might be this
lanky, weird, awkward man, but he dominates,
not in a cruel or vicious way but because his
personality is so big and so real.”
The side concludes with the sprawling
“Ambulance Blues”, styled on Bert Jansch’s
“Needle Of Death”, where Young’s fragmented
thoughts drift through a sequence of events –
memories of the Toronto folk scene in the
’60s, the kidnapping of heiress Patty
Hearst that February, Watergate and the
West Coast culture he now seemed to
have turned against. “Neil was really
digging into his life on this song,” says
Molina. “I played a very minimal part.
I was more subtle than I am now. Neil
liked that because what Neil really
wanted was space. We gave him space,
Trying to find
we didn’t crowd him.”
freedom?:
With those three songs finished, Al
actress Carrie
Snodgress,
Schmitt was replaced by The Band’s
who split with
Young in 1974
engineer, Mark Harman. He was at

“They’d get high
on sludge, then
sink into their
instruments”

B

MANHATTAN
…BEACH
Neil at The Bottom Line

T

HE closest Neil Young got to touring
On The Beach was a solo show at
New York’s Bottom Line on May 16,
1974. Ry Cooder was playing two
shows at the club, and after the second set
the audience was asked to remain seated
for a special guest. Young sloped on with
an acoustic guitar and harmonica to play
11 tracks – four from the as-yet unreleased
On The Beach as well as songs that later
appeared on Tonight’s The Night, Zuma
and Long May You Run.
The only song the audience would have
known was “Helpless”, a choice of tune
that maybe gives some indication of the
general mood
he was striking.
Widely bootlegged
before getting an
official release in
2022 as part of
Young’s Official
Bootleg Series, it
is a wonderfully
intimate affair.
Glasses clink,
chairs scrape,
the audience
chatters and doors
squeak. Young’s
performance is perfect for these
circumstances – playing the sort of folky
venue where he cut his teeth and for which
the very personal songs of On The Beach
are ideally suited. The bootlegged album
became known as ‘Citizen Kane Jr Blues’ –
after the name Young gives to the opening
song, a moody number said to be inspired
by Patty Hearst that he renamed “Pushed
It Over The End” and regularly performed
during the CSNY ’74 tour.
Young’s rambling patter and interaction
with the audience are terrific – it’s all a
far cry from the role he would take when
playing stadia with Stephen Stills and co.
Before he plays “Motion Pictures” he even
introduces the audience to honey slides
– “Just eat a little of it, you know, maybe a
spoonful or two, you’ll be surprised, it just
makes you feel fine...” As well as “Motion
Pictures” – still its only live performance
– Young plays “Ambulance Blues”,
“Revolution Blues” and “On The Beach”,
and delivers a freewheeling rendition of
“Roll Another Number (For The Road)”
from Tonight’s The Night when an audience
member asks for a country song. The
crowd gamely clap along aware they are
in the presence of something special –
especially the resourceful person who
brought a tape recorder to the show…

Young in the UK,
September 1974;
(inset) Levon
Helm, player on
“Revolution
Blues”, and
Charles Manson,
the song’s subject

the desk when
Levon Helm
turned up for “See
The Sky About To
Rain”. Although
the album’s
slightest track, it features some
gorgeous playing between
Young and Keith on pedal steel
and Wurlitzer.
On April 6, Young, Keith and
Kershaw – joined by Rick
Danko, Levon Helm and
David Crosby – recorded the
extraordinary “Revolution
Blues”, a ferocious, unsparing
portrait of Young’s old
acquaintance Charles Manson.
Spooked, Danko’s bassline
flies off at wild tangents,
pursued by Crosby’s jittery guitar licks. Not
that Crosby was a fan. “I played it for him and he
said, ‘Don’t sing about that. That’s not funny,’”
Young later said. “It spooked people. They were
spooky times.”
“I could understand why Charlie Manson would
not like these people,” Young told Uncut’s Allan
Jones in 1990. “I spent some time with Charlie. He
was a very intense individual. You know he never
sang the same song twice. It’s true, he made up
the songs as he went along. Each song was a new
one, every time he sang. I was fascinated by him,
his creative force.”

L

IKE many people, George Whitsell has a
complicated relationship with Neil Young.
Whitsell was guitarist in the Rockets, the

six-piece band that had featured Danny
Whitten, Molina and Talbot. Young
“borrowed” the Rockets for Everybody Knows
This Is Nowhere and never gave them back.
But now that was history.
Whitsell had recorded backing
vocals for the Tonight’s The
Night track “New Mama” at the
ranch – “After that, every time I
sang I sounded like Neil Young
for a week.” So when Whitsell
got a call at the end of March
from Will Fuqua asking if he
could come down to LA to
record, it wasn’t completely out
the blue. He stayed for a week or
so, playing on several songs,
although his contributions only
appeared on “Vampire Blues”.
Whitsell remembers the
sessions as being relaxed. “We played a lot of
pool and maybe some other extracurricular
activities. I’m not sure what Rusty Kershaw was
playing, but he had his honey slides. He’d eat that
and then he’d become even more of a character.
We’d smoke pot in the echo chamber and then
we’d go out and play. It was pretty loose. Neil
liked it that way. I’d worked with him on a couple
of albums, but this was different. It was the
loosest I’d ever seen him and you can hear that
in the record.”
“Vampire Blues” – an eco-polemic played over
an amiable blues beat – was again recorded by
Young, Keith, Drummond and Molina. Whitsell
was asked to give it more of an R&B feel and his
experience underscores Young’s love of intuition
and the messy magic of the imperfect first take.

“Neil said it was an E but it wasn’t E Major or E
Minor,” he says. “I took that as meaning it needed
a lot of E. At one point we were running it down
and I went to take a solo at the top and Neil hit the
same note as I did, so I went back downstairs and
played at the bottom of the neck. After about 15
minutes of practice, I told Neil, ‘I think I’ve got it –
shall we do a take?’ He said, ‘Do you want to hear
the playback?’ He’d been recording the whole
time. He edited it down to three or four minutes or
whatever it wound up as.”
Whitsell played on a couple of other songs – the
only one he can recall was “Walk On” – none of
which made it onto the album. “There is a dark
side to Neil,” says Whitsell, who reunited with
Young again in 1987 to play on This Note’s For You.
“He fired me three times. I learnt to tell when it
was coming. At first, I was pretty angry with him
for breaking up the Rockets but really it was
Danny who did that with heroin. I’ve had time to
think about it over the years and I got a gold
album for On The Beach, which made my mother
happy. How can I be mad at somebody who gave
me something that made my mother so happy?”

B

EFORE he left, Al Schmitt had prepared a
basic mix for Young’s label, Reprise. “They
were flat mixes, reasonably decent, no echo
but good rough mixes,” Schmitt told Uncut in
2020. “We finished and I said, ‘OK, Neil, when are
we going to mix?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve been
listening and I fell in love with those rough
mixes.’ I told Neil he couldn’t do that, I’d even pay
for the studio, just let me mix them properly. Neil
said no way. There’s no arguing with Neil. He’s
the writer, artist, singer, performer, producer –
everything. What would I have done

DALÍ!
BALLARD!
NIXON!
Exploring On The Beach’s
cover art

M

UCH of On The Beach’s mystique –
alongside its muddy mix, air of
despair and the fact it languished
out of print for years – is established
on its cover. Elliptical, enigmatic and deeply
unsettling, it is a visual treasure map to the lyrical
and musical themes within.
Santa Monica Beach, spring 1974, and no
average day at the seaside for photographer Bob
Seidemann. As celebrated sleeve designer Gary
Burden told the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation in 2015: “We had a wonderful day
gathering and assembling all the things in the
image. This was about America in the ’70s, when
everything was cheaper
than it looks.”
Burden, who died in 2018,
worked with Young for
decades –Neil was best man
at his wedding. He designed
for The Doors, the Eagles,
Joni and more, but was
never in doubt which
project meant the most. In
an interview with fansite
Human Highway, Burden
recalled: “[It’s] my favourite
album cover that I have
made, ever. This cover is
loaded with information!
From the styles of clothing
and objects, to the Coors
can, to the headline of the
newspaper of the day of
the photoshoot.”
That’s an invitation to read
meaning everywhere. The album
title references that ever-present
on boomer bookshelves, Nevil
Shute’s 1957 post-apocalyptic
novel of the same name, whose
cover image from the first
edition of the book features its
protagonists, in suits, stranded
on the sand.
But Burden and Young went
further, visually referencing
another champion of catastrophe
fiction, JG Ballard. His ’60s novels,
with new graphic art from David Pelham, were
republished in paperback in ’74. Look at the
cover from The Drought, with its inverted car
entombed in the earth. Pelham’s graphic work,
of course, bears the stamp of Salvador Dalí’s
“The Persistence Of Memory”: an artwork of twin
themes – consumerism and doomy apocalypse –
and set on a beach.

“Everything is cheaper than it
looks…” Examine closely Neil’s
yellow suit jacket, looking like it’s
never been near the hanger that
drapes from the beach umbrella.
That floral print, tacky even for the
dayglo ’70s, was reproduced on the
inner sleeve of the first American
pressings of the album. The rickety
deckchairs are vacated, a hippie
Mary Celeste. All these bright
colours are making some very
dark points on the gaudy
emptiness of consumerism.
That newspaper, discarded on
the sand, could be the most
pointed reference of all, and
reflects the multiple ’74
references on the album itself.
“Sen Buckley Calls For Nixon To
Resign” shouts the headline. A
Republican senator, Buckley
had backed Nixon in the ’72
election but now he was the
first major conservative figure
to turn against the president,
a catalyst for Nixon’s downfall.
As Young sang on “Ambulance
Blues”, “I never knew a man
could tell so many lies…”
You can keep looking, obsessively, graspingly.
What does that buried tailfin mean? Maybe
Rockets guitarist George Whitsell can shed some
light on that… “When I moved to LA, I had that
Cadillac depicted sticking out the sand. The exact
same colour. There’s a photo of the Rockets
where you can see the tail end of the car. I wonder
if that had something to do with it – it might

be a total coincidence but it might not be.”
Finally, look at the title’s lettering. Designed by
celebrated Comix artist Rick Griffin, the man
behind Grateful Dead iconography and the
mind-frying cover of Aoxomoxoa, it’s a mystical
momento mori. It’s hard to read against that blue
sky. Coupled with the contrarian omission of
Young’s name, this album would hardly have
screamed ‘BUY ME’ in the racks. A difficult cover
for a difficult record. That, you’d imagine, was
very much the point. MARK BENTLEY

Sand guys:
Salvador Dalí
and Richard
Nixon

NEIL YOUNG
differently? Add some echo,
correct the balances, that kind
of thing. But he didn’t want it
to be slick in any way, so the
fact there was no echo other
than what came out on the
studio is what he liked. It’s
got a great sound. I always
thought I could do a better
mix but my name is on the back
and Neil’s is on the front. Any
discussion we had, he won
because he was the boss.”
Young finished On The Beach
on April 7. As a final touch, he
oversaw an album cover almost
as cryptic as “Ambulance Blues”
and also dropped into New York’s
Bottom Line in May to deliver a
shaggy surprise performance on
May 16. By June, Young was
working on another album, Homegrown, which
he eventually shelved for Tonight’s The Night. He
also found time to rehearse at the ranch with
Crosby, Stills and Nash for their summer reunion
tour, one of the largest ever planned.
When the tour opened at the Seattle Coliseum
on July 9, “Revolution Blues” was in the setlist.

“You can’t stand
still. You don’t
stop, ever. If you
stop, you’re dead”

as his road manager on the
CSNY tour – dubbed the
Doom tour, because of
the legendary levels of
dysfunction. Travelling
separately, Young lived true
to the spirit of On The Beach,
removing himself from the
source of potential conflict.
“It didn’t seem doomed to
me,” Mazzeo told Uncut in
2020. “We had fun. Neil and
I had our own mobile home
and we’d just meet them
at the gig. We had Zeke
[Young’s son] with us, and
we went off on our own. We
stayed away from a whole
lot of weird shit.
“The final night was at
Wembley, where it was
raining like hell. They say 103,000 people turned
up, the biggest concert I have ever seen. The
second song, the sun comes out. The English
audience took off their shirts and you see all this
white skin. They played for
two-and-a-half hours and at
the end the crowd had turned
from white to pink to red. We
finished, and before we even

NEIL YOUNG
Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum got “Ambulance
Blues” the following day. On July 13, they played
Oakland Stadium, where Young performed “On
The Beach”, singing “I need a crowd of people, but
I can’t face them day to day” to 54,000 people. On
July 19, the day On The Beach was released, CSNY
played Royals Stadium, Kansas City with The
Beach Boys. To celebrate, Young treated the
audience to the double whammy of “Ambulance
Blues” and “Revolution Blues”. Surreal.
Even more surreal were Rusty Kershaw’s barely
legible sleeve notes for the album, in which he
recalled slithering on the carpet like an alligator
while Young was singing “Revolution Blues” –
“which is pretty spooky, when your [sic] trying to
sing”, he admits. A key section highlights the
cathartic nature of On The Beach – which, like
Tonight’s The Night, allowed Young to reach deep
within himself to produce great music about
personal misery in the company of good friends.
“The first time I saw Neil, his spirit was down. The
next time I saw Neil, I tried to boost his spirits
with my music and I did, and it worked. In return
Neil played, sang, and wrote, the best of any
music in a while. Not to speak of the fun we had.
We laughed so hard we all had bruised ribs.”
Young’s friend, the artist James Mazzeo who
created the Zuma cover, accompanied Young

Young rounds up
a new version of
Crazy Horse in
1975: (l–r) Ralph
Molina, Billy
Talbot and Frank
Sampedro

left the stage the rain came down again. The
Californian sound had driven away the rain.”
Young didn’t play anything from On The Beach
at Wembley, instead saving “On The Beach”
and “Vampire Blues” for that afterparty at
Quaglino’s. He didn’t tour again at all for a year.
In June 1975, he finally released Tonight’s The
Night, belatedly completing the Ditch Trilogy.
Finally free of the suffocating weight of those
three albums, he reconvened a new version of
Crazy Horse for Zuma, kickstarting the next stage
of his career.
As Young moved on, On The Beach was left
behind – unavailable for years, it became a
source of speculation and myth. For fans it was
a holy grail that unlocked the secret of their hero,
a direct line to his most painful moments of
honesty and reflection. That second side,
especially, was revelatory for those who wanted
the kind of shadow that “Cinnamon Girl” or
“Cowgirl In The Sand” couldn’t offer.
“Shadow is a big thing in Neil’s life that people
don’t always talk about,” says Fuqua. “One of
Neil’s big character aspects was melancholy, he
did that magically. He was extremely melancholic
in music and sometimes in
life. He suffered epilepsy. He’d
had polio. Those things leave
a mark. They geeked him out.
Neil was one of those geeks

who made a living out of it, turning it into a
fantastic thing. He was obsessive and there was
nothing he wasn’t in control of. He had a big ego
but he had a perfectly well-formed ego – it was big
and it could be nasty but it didn’t control him. He
controlled it.”
“What I like about Neil is his focus, his
dedication,” said Mazzeo. “His art comes first. He
did Harvest and had these AM record hits like ‘Old
Man’ and the label said, ‘Congratulations, just
keep doing that.’ Neil said, ‘No, I don’t want to do
that’, and put out Tonight’s The Night and On The
Beach, these harsh, corrosive albums. The record
company said they would destroy his career – he
had the golden egg and should hang on to it – but
he put them out and the critics loved it. That’s the
strength he has protecting his art.”
“You can’t stand still,” Young told Allan Jones.
“You don’t stop, ever. If you stop, you’re dead.
You know what I am, I’m a musician. I’m not a
superstar. I’m a musician. That’s what I am. I’m a
writer and musician. The more I play, the more
different things I do, the better I get at what I do.
“I’m not gonna grow if I’m just giving people
what they think they want to hear from me. I’m
not gonna grow sitting in a mansion. I’m gonna
die. And I don’t want to do that. So I keep going
out there. And I don’t care what people think. I
just want to keep going. I want to keep the blood
flowing. Hell. That’s my job.”

Testing the
waters: Young
and Peter Buck at
the 1998 Bridge
School Benefit

F

PASS IT ’ROUND
The long, strange afterlife of On The Beach

OR many years, it seemed as if
Young was trying to avoid On The
Beach. Even compared with its
Ditch Trilogy brethren, On The
Beach cut a little too close to the bone for
its creator; it wasn’t reissued on CD until
2003 and Young has rarely revisited its
songs in live performances.
Things started to thaw slightly when
REM were invited to appear at the Bridge
School in 1998. According to
a source close to the band,
REM and Young rehearsed
both “Ambulance Blues”
and “On The Beach” –
although the latter never
made it to the stage.
Perhaps inspired by the
REM hook-up, Young added
“Ambulance Blues” to the
setlists for his American
solo tour the following year.
It wasn’t until 2007, though,
that European audiences
got to hear it – a regular
Lee Ranaldo
solo acoustic showstopper
and Chris
during the tours promoting
Forsyth
Chrome Dreams II.
Young has clearly
rediscovered the rich
contours of this oblique
epic – he has even warmed
to “Vampire Blues”, playing
it in 2016/17 with Promise Of
The Real and solo during last
year’s Coastal Tour.
Still, On The Beach remains
somewhat obscure, a
shadowy chapter in Young’s
career that has proven irresistible
to a certain stripe of crate-digging
underground musician over the decades.
“In two LP sides it really encapsulates
so many things I love about Neil and his
music,” says Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo.
“Rough-hewn, unpolished, easily done like
a magic trick. The Ditch is where it’s at,
and Neil found gold there.”
Philadelphia guitarist Chris Forsyth
– who recently founded Coca Leaves &
Pearls, a tribute band devoted to Young’s
Ditch period – agrees. “The relative
unavailability of On The Beach for so

long and the consequent sense of Neil
having disowned it definitely built up a
mystique. Like, what could be more Ditch
than Neil himself not even liking it? In the
period where it was not easy to hear it,
the intrigue of the cover art made it all
the more alluring. While it’s less sonically
cohesive than the other Ditch records,
they all share common themes, just
expressed differently. If Time Fades Away
is desperate, disillusioned and decaying
and Tonight’s The Night is
desperate, disillusioned
and drunk, then On The Beach
is desperate, disillusioned
and adrift.”
“On The Beach is weird, it’s
inconsistent and every note
feels like it’s exactly where it
should be,” says Nick Millevoi,
who in addition to his own
varied solo guitar adventures,
plays alongside Forsyth in
Coca Leaves & Pearls. “To
those of us who heard this on
a Sharpie-labelled CD-R, this
loose collection just seemed
to make sense.”
That impossibly downcast
second side was a main draw.
“It wasn’t until I found an
original LP that I noticed how
stark the mood shift is when
you flip the record over,” says
Brooklyn singer-songwriter
Zachary Cale. “It’s almost
like a whole new record! That
kind of vinyl side arc seems
like a lost art these days.
It’s such a bold move, but in Neil’s world it
makes sense. The lyrics, almost diaristic
at times, still adhere to a dream logic.”
Ranaldo also fell under the spell of that
deep, dark side two stretch. “What can
you say? Is there a more devastating,
despairing side of music on any album?
Without a doubt a favourite-albumside-of-all-time for me, each of these
songs comes with such strong, revealing
lyrics, and such amazing, deft music.
So moving. Side two has a start-to-finish
late-night atmosphere hanging over it.”

TYLER WILCOX

103

NEIL YOUNG

SONIC ODYSSEY

Stellar fans of On The Beach discuss their favourite tracks, with contributions
from Margo Price, Kurt Vile, Ethan Miller, J Mascis and more

SIDE 1
1 “WALK ON”

Album opener gives no hint of what’s
to come. A jaunty, funky affair, with
some satisfyingly supple rhythm
playing from Billy Talbot and
Ralph Molina…

MATT VALENTINE,
MV&EE/WET TUNA:
“I grew up listening to On
The Beach, it was bigger
than M*A*S*H in my house.
One summer when I was
workin’ and on ladders all
the time, there was a New
York station that would play album sides. They
jammed Rust Never Sleeps often when it came out
and I immediately bought the ‘Out Of The Blue’
45. My parents said, ‘Y’know, that’s the same
artist as On The Beach.’ I took On The Beach to my
room and listened on headphones all night long. I
bet it all on that record.
“‘Walk On’ is not what most folks think of when
they rap about the On The Beach experience. For
me, it is a sweet choice to open side A. I think of it
as spectrasound. Open your mind, expand the
range. It resides on an altered plane – almost 4th
dimensional – especially in comparison to the
rest of the record, but it gives it an arc.
“The syncopated riff goes so deep, such a
unique energy swagger, it’s definitely one of his
more ‘involved’ arrangements. The Horse give
‘Walk On’ another phase within these stages.
“My family took long day trips to Jones Beach.
Leave at dawn, pack a picnic… come home way
after dusk. Neil came a lot. The beach got packed
on nice days, but desolate – ultra tumbleweeds –
when the sun set. That’s the On The Beach vibe.
It’s a sonic odyssey, a bit stony and a big bite of
mood. It’s what I think of when I think of ‘Neil’.”

2 “SEE THE SKY
ABOUT TO RAIN”

Written for Harvest and retaining a
country vibe with Ben Keith’s steel
guitar, three years on the mood is
markedly more fragile and frayed

MEG BAIRD: “The whole
album has the ability to go
into really dark places in a
beautiful way that’s not
trying to be dark. The
anchoring song is ‘On The
Beach’, with that composite
chord right before the chorus
that is just massive and gnarled and yet also
really beautiful, and offers a sense of relief. That’s
the sound-picture and then the whole album
orbits around it – the legends behind it, and all
FEBRUARY 2024

the painful experiences. ‘See The Sky About To
Rain’’s lyrics are about loneliness and look out on
the big, charged landscapes that Neil captures so
well. Combining Harvest’s mindset with On The
Beach’s production creates this tension and
duality between two really compelling layers.
The head and heart are in different places,
between On The Beach’s LA and the ranch.
Neil playing the Wurlitzer masks the original’s
redwood parlour at the end of the universe, where
you feel the struggle of why there’s even a piano
out there in the first place. That’s still there in the
Live At The Cellar Door version, where it’s just
piano and voice in a small room, and it’s implicit
here. You can hear the Victorian parlour grand in
the Wurlitzer! Levon Helm’s drumming somehow
makes it more sad, the bluesiness of it comes
through in a different way, like they’re trying to
play through it rather than emote carefully in a
vulnerable, domestic environment. They’re
facing it, as the only way out!”

3 “REVOLUTION BLUES”
Where everything turns rancorous
and feral, with Young bringing down
apocalyptic vengeance on the residents
of Laurel Canyon…

ETHAN MILLER, HOWLIN
RAIN: “On ‘Revolution
Blues’, Neil takes a mask
from the gallery wall and
puts it on: Manson. Eerily, an
incredibly comfortable fit and
a highly convincing one that
he plays completely straight
with seething delivery. The irony runs thick in
the lyrics, but the delivery is strictly venom,
served up cold and brutal.
“Though the groove is pure classic Crazy Horse
choogle, Levon Helm and Rick Danko bring a
rough-chiselled jailhouse funk that is at once
cartoonish in moments yet somehow doubles the

menace of the words and truly visualises the
enthusiastic creep of the Family teenagers out in
the rose bushes, peeping in your living-room
window, full of profane schemes. Abstract images
and insinuations flash through the song like a
strobe: the burning desire for fame, the
grotesque attention it creates once acquired, the
dream of true human connection and the pain
and spite of not being able to achieve it, the rich
stars in their limos and the apocalypse riders
with carbines. Here Neil takes the ‘I need a
crowd of people/But I can’t take them day to day’
sentiment to a psychotic conclusion.
“In an album full of resonant, reflective
disappointments, big come-downs and general
dopamine deficiency, ‘Revolution Blues’ is the
ditch where the Ditch Trilogy finally crashes into
the mud at its most extreme point, as if to say: all
these dreams, all this flower power, all this
music, all this revolution still leads here, to the
basic human instinct of rage, spite and murder.
There is no human evolution.”

4 “FOR THE
TURNSTILES”

Country-folk hybrid featuring Young’s
banjo guitar and a harmony vocal from
Ben Keith...

ALAN SPARHAWK, LOW:
“Neil’s worn-out patchedjeans sound reaches peak
condensation on this elusive,
seemingly thrown-together
track featuring Neil on banjo
and vocals with album secretweapon Ben Keith on dobro
and backing vocal. It’s a song that could have
been a stomping full-band track but despite the
minimal traditional bluegrass instrumentation, it
still lands like a scorched and screaming amplifier.
“The magic of Neil’s recordings often lie in the
subtle precision that anchors every performance,
despite the overall loose and reaching, fuzzy vibe
and delivery. This recording sounds like a shaky
impromptu front-porch singalong but the rhythm
is relentless and the straining voice hits it every
time. Every. Time. Why is he singing this high? It’s
clearly at the outer reaches of his range. He’s
doing this all over the album (see ‘On The Beach’).
Most of these songs are using the most basic
guitar chords: A minor, E minor, C, G and D – I
wonder sometimes if he knew how empowering it
would be for generations of beginner guitar
players to lock into these songs so easily. He
could’ve changed the key to make it easier to sing,
but there’s something deeply moving about a
voice that reaches beyond itself and miraculously
obtains the height it has set out to attain. ‘Almost’
is admirable, but nailing it, in the face of certain
failure is transcendence. So much is made of the
‘imperfect’ and ‘human’ features of some of the

Young in Amsterdam,
September 1974,
next to the vintage
Rolls-Royce he’d
recently bought

world’s most beloved music, and Neil is
referenced as an example quite often, but I defy
you to find anything he did that didn’t reach the
heights it promised, or that doesn’t move forward
with the intention of a storm. It sounds loose, but
it’s aggressive and nearly inhumanly precise.
Metal burning, pounding and locking,
alliterating a pointless past, present and future.
It’s undeniably soulful – colossal imagery,
decimated and silenced with the stroke of ‘it
doesn’t matter’. It doesn’t.”

5 “VAMPIRE BLUES”

Side One closes with this wry eco-blues,
sultry with scratchy slide-guitar,
that hints at darker problems:
“I’m a black bat, baby, banging on
your windowpane…”

MARGO PRICE: “I love the
environmental message of
‘Vampire Blues’. Neil’s able
to speak about these oil
conglomerates destroying the
planet in so few words, giving
them this label of being a
vampire taking everything.
It’s a blues song, and you can just feel the gravity
and devastation. ‘Good times are coming – but
they sure are coming slow!’ OK, there’s the bullethole – that’s the gut-punch right there! Neil leaves

space between instruments to have that gravity,
and they’re playing in greasy cut-time, on the
backbeat of the pocket, barely hanging on by a
thread. There is this little percussion beat – ‘I’m a
vampire, baby – tch-tch…’ – where they mic’d a
credit card running along a man’s unshaven face!
Singing that line in the first person, Neil’s also
taking his responsibility for the damage that we
all are doing to the Earth, because he drives cars.
He’s talking about oilmen, but he’s also talking
about himself – crawling out of some pretty dark
times, and maybe the hours he was keeping
during those sessions, where they would wait
until the sun went down, get out the tequila,
roll the honey slides and go ’til morning. So Neil
was a vampire!”

“In ‘Revolution
Blues’, the delivery
is strictly venom,
served cold…”
ETHAN MILLER

SIDE 2
1 “ON THE BEACH”

Side 2 opens with the first of three songs
that candidly capture Young’s fractious,
disillusioned state of mind. “All my
pictures are falling from the wall where
I placed them yesterday…”

KURT VILE: “You get really
lost in ‘On The Beach’, his
hypnotic electric guitar. After
he says, ‘I went to the radio
interview/But I ended up alone
at the microphone’ – all these
desolate, great lines – he
plays this guitar solo, and he
bends one string up really high. Then he plays
that same note on the second string, and I always
say that one note literally changed my life.
“I was back in my mid-twenties and it was just
to know that I could be doing this with my life.
Specifically, the fact that he’s got you stuck in his
groove, ’cos you’re vibing to what he’s making in
real-time. It’s composed in a way where it gives
you a release in that moment where he climbs up
the scale, then it’s a perfect last note of the solo.
“That album was always coveted by in-theknow musicians or record heads or journalists, so
it’s cool that it’s spread out even more. Most
105

NEIL YOUNG
The worn-out
patched-jeans
sound, Wembley
1974

noise and I needed some relief. That’s how
‘Motion Pictures’ works on On The Beach. It’s still
pounding you down into depression, but just ’cos
it’s less down, it feels like up! It feels hungover,
Neil’s voice sounds tired, and the band are too
burnt-out to be so depressed. I hear mostly the
cool slide-guitar, you can definitely tell it’s not
Neil playing, then his harmonica blows through,
you think it’s going to be over, and then Neil starts
the song up again! Then we’re into ‘Ambulance
Blues’, and it’s coming back down a little more…”

3 “AMBULANCE BLUES”

The album’s final song is a fragmented,
time-travelling epic. It ends with the
creaking of a microphone stand as
Young pushes it away…

“Neil’s flown very
close to the sun,
closer than I’ll
ever be able to’”
KURT VILE
people you ask, it’s their favourite Neil record. I
got to know Gary Burden a little bit – he did my
B’lieve I’m Goin Down album cover. So it
subliminally and not-so-subliminally influenced
me. In my song ‘Bassackwards’ I say, ‘I was on the
beach, but I was thinking about the bay’. There’s
the title right there, and later on I’m like, ‘I was on
the radio talking with a friend of mine’. I didn’t say
I’m taking this from [‘On The Beach’], but months
later, I realised maybe that’s where I got it from.
“‘The world is turnin’/I hope it don’t turn away’ –
it’s devastating and beautiful. Neil’s flown very
close to the sun, closer than I’ll ever be able to, so
you can imagine that his comedown is a farther
drop, when he hits a low. It was a tough time for
FEBRUARY 2024

him, so maybe he fell a little harder. But we all
fall, we all drop hard at times. We’re all human
beings. And also: ‘Now I’m livin’ out here on the
beach’. You can only imagine it’s paradise, ‘But
those seagulls are still out of reach’, you know?
‘Get out of town/Think I’ll get out of town…’
Fucking restless, restless.”

2 “MOTION PICTURES”

Rusty Kershaw dubbed this “a below
sea-level downer”. Young sounds
fragile, like he’d crack right open if you
touched him, while Kershaw and Ben
Keith’s hushed playing sustains the
frazzled yet mellow mood….

J MASCIS: “Side 2’s the record
to me. The music sounds so
good, something about it’s
hopeful. It’s like everything is
terrible, but here we are, so
what else are you gonna do?
Like Neil sings on ‘Motion
Pictures’: ‘I’d rather start all
over again/I wouldn’t buy, sell or trade anything I
have to be like one of them’. That’s pretty punk!
‘Motion Pictures’ is what the record needs after
the intensity of ‘On The Beach’: it isn’t so heavy,
it’s just pleasantly sad. It’s like this band I saw the
other night who just kept relentlessly making

PATTERSON HOOD,
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS:
“There was always a lot of
Neil Young playing around
the house when I was a kid. I
remember loving Harvest and
After The Gold Rush, but I was
really confused about On The
Beach. I couldn’t understand why anyone would
want to listen to it. I enjoyed a lot of grown-up
stuff when I was nine, but I wasn’t grown up
enough to understand that album. Years later I
went back and fell in love with it, especially side
two. But there’s nothing about side two that’s
going to appeal to a nine-year-old kid…
“Now I count ‘Ambulance Blues’ as my second
favourite Neil Young, just behind ‘Cortez The
Killer’. They’re both different sides of the same
coin. To me they’re telling the same story, just in
different ways. They’re both about Nixon to some
extent – Cortez is Nixon – and ‘Ambulance Blues’
is about him living among the ruins of this
crumbling American system. The performance is
intense, especially Rusty Kershaw’s fiddle.
You can tell it’s live in the studio. It’s also very
personal. It’s Neil emptying out his brain into the
mic. I love that verse where he talking about that
club that they tore down, where he used to play
shows in the old folky days. It veers off from there.
“It’s one of Neil’s longer rambles, but I love his
rambles. I love that kind of writing. It always
makes me think of Dylan’s ‘Highlands’, which is
another long ramble. I don’t know if there’s any
connection between them, but Dylan does
mention Neil Young in that song.”
INTERVIEWS: STEPHEN DEUSNER, NICK HASTED,
SAM RICHARDS, TYLER WILCOX

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L IVE

Starting
something:
Johnny Marr,
band and
orchestra
celebrate “a
historic night”

JOHNNY MARR

Aviva Studios, Manchester, December 7
Smiths legend launches Manchester’s newest venue
with an orchestral flourish

PAT GRAHAM

“W

E’RE all
part of
history,”
declares
Johnny
Marr, standing on the stage of The
Warehouse in Aviva Studios with
the full might of an orchestra behind
him for the first time. It’s a milestone
moment, with one of Manchester’s
most beloved artists having been
selected to open the city’s brandnew arts hub – which, at a cost of
FEBRUARY 2024

£242m, is the UK’s biggest cultural
investment since the opening of Tate
Modern in 2000.
The Warehouse is not necessarily
the kind of space you’d expect to
find an orchestra. There’s no grand,
elegant design, no tiers of balconies,
no plush seating (that’s all to be
found in the theatre-style Hall next
door). Instead, this is a cavernous,
5,000-capacity black box designed
for maximum versatility. The space
feels like it needs a little warming

up; as Marr and co take to the stage,
the response is more cordial than
ecstatic. His 2019 song “Armatopia”
teems with infectious hooks as
strings replace the prominent
synth lines of the recorded version,
although the steady thud of the
drums drowns out some of the
detailed orchestral nuances
taking shape.
Things plod along nicely for the
first few numbers until a whirring
hum begins to fill the room like

an air-raid siren. Strings scratch
in unison to create a tense and
almost menacing build-up before
Marr’s guitar cuts through with
that instantly recognisable slide,
bringing “How Soon is Now?”
bursting into life. It’s the first time
there’s a real interplay between
band and orchestra – conducted
here by Fiona Brice – as bouncing
basslines crash into climactic
swoops of strings, with Marr’s guitar
dancing between the spaces. There
is an inherent sense of melodrama
and grandeur to the music of The
Smiths, so it instantly feels suited to
this powerful orchestral setting.
Marr doesn’t speak much, but
he can’t help but be moved by
the evening as it unfolds. “As a
Mancunian boy, being invited to
play the first ever rock show here
is a privilege,” he says proudly.
A picture of Marr with Bernard

L IVE
Marr: playing
with stark
clarity amid the
orchestrations

Conductor
Fiona Brice
summons
swoops of
strings

members embrace each
of the vocal melody
other while screaming
on Marr’s behalf. The
1 Armatopia
the words to a song that
song is played with
2 Day In Day Out
is now ingrained into
such simultaneous
3 New Town
the very foundations
force and delicacy that
Velocity
of modern Manchester.
any lingering cynicism
4 How Soon Is
Yet as familiar as The
about whether this
Now?
Smiths’ music is by now,
material really needs
5 Get The
Message
its legacy has become
orchestration as a kind
6 Rubicon
knotty and messy for
of validation – see also:
7 Last Night I
some. Morrissey’s
Haçienda Classical –
Dreamt That
later-life trajectory
dissipates within that
Somebody
has unquestionably
magical moment.
Loved Me
8 Hi Hello
impacted some people’s
Talking of the
9 Somewhere
relationships to the
Haçienda, it feels apt
10Spiral Cities
band, leaving Marr
that Marr chooses to
11 Walk Into The
as the benevolent
close the main set with
Sea
custodian of their songs.
Electronic’s immaculate
12Please, Please,
Here, he provides an
pop hit “Getting Away
Please Let Me
Get What I Want
environment where they
With It”, a song born
13Easy Money
can be shared and sung
from long, happy nights
14Getting Away
with celebratory pride
spent at the legendary
With It
by an artist who still
Manchester club.
ENCORE
represents something
Fellow former revellers
15Panic
pure and beautiful.
may have felt a pang of
16There Is A Light
As a giant picture of
nostalgia on entering
That Never Goes
Out
the late Andy Rourke
this new venue, whose
appears on the big
foyer has been designed
screen, Marr declares
by the Haçienda’s Ben
it “a historic night” before turning
Kelly, with deliberate echoes of the
and saluting his old pal and
club’s famous industrial decor.
bandmate with words that feel like
Returning for an encore, the onethey are meant both for him and the
two punch of “Panic” and “There
audience – and perhaps also the
Is A Light That Never Goes Out” is
entire city of Manchester. “We love
a deadly way to end the night, with
you,” he says with great sincerity,
the sweeping, dramatic flair of the
before swaggering off into the
latter perfectly suited to its new
darkness. DANIEL DYLAN WRAY
orchestral arrangement. Audience

Sumner then flashes up on the big
screen, as sprightly acoustic guitar
propels the subtle pop grooves of
Electronic’s “Get The Message”.
The orchestra lifts the song with
subtle string touches, elevating
it gently rather than applying
needless bombast.
When Marr reverts back to solo
tracks, they are sometimes only
welcomed with a smattering
of applause, which is a shame
because there are plenty of standout
moments. “Hi Hello” unfurls at a
lovely slow-burn pace, with Marr’s
pristine melodies ringing out with
stark clarity through the impressive
new sound system. The reworking
of recent single “Somewhere” is
played acoustically and in beautiful
synchronicity with the orchestra, as
the minimal drums allow the strings
to roar and rise, before a swell of
warm yet punchy brass.

The unquestionable highlight of
the evening is another strippedback moment. As Marr gently
strums his acoustic, the audience
emits an instinctive “awww” once
it’s recognised as “Please, Please,
Please Let Me Get What I Want”.
The sparse beauty of the song is
handled with real care; fluttering
flutes interlock with graceful string
work, as the audience sing much

The orchestra
lifts “Get
The Message”
with subtle
string touches

109

PAT GRAHAM; RIAZ GOMEZ

SETLIST

L IVE
Shabaka
Hutchings:
a sax supreme

SHABAKA
HUTCHINGS

before, in a couple of special Sons Of
Kemet XL shows, where the barrage
of rhythm became a psychedelic
blur of sound. Here they are more
restrained, until the time comes to
turn Elvin Jones’ drum solo at the
beginning of “Pursuance” into a
mesmerising, multi-limbed groove.
Then gradually they all drop out
again, leaving Hutchings to scale
the tune’s dizzying peaks alone,
shards of harmonics rebounding off
the walls in all directions.
“Acknowledgement” expanded into
He achieves these moments of
a blissful five-minute reverie – that
breathtaking virtuosity without
Hutchings sees A Love Supreme as
showing off. As with Coltrane,
a blueprint rather than a sacred
it’s purely about trying to access
text. For long periods of the show he
another plane and bring everyone
doesn’t even play the saxophone,
with him. He
standing respectfully
punctuates the
to one side as Dave
music with calls for
Okumu takes a
Pt 1 – Acknowledgement
forgiveness, mercy,
dreamy guitar solo,
Pt 2 – Resolution
compassion and
or demonstrating
Pt 3 – Pursuance
peace; these ideals
exactly how
Pt 4 – Psalm
inform a deeply
he intends to
ENCORE
Pt 1 – Acknowledgement
moving “Psalm”,
wring something
(alternate version)
which he ends by
worthwhile from his
repeating the final
collection of flutes
motif over and over
and pipes on his new
until he eventually stops blowing
album, due in the spring. But when
notes and lets his breath run
he does bust out one of Coltrane’s
through the sax one last time. It’s
familiar sax melodies, the effect
an emotional farewell – except of
is pure exultance. It’s a lyrical,
course he can’t resist an encore (he
reflective tone we haven’t often
heard from Hutchings in his urgency also manages to slip in one more
‘last ever’ sax show, at Cafe Oto
to keep pushing things forward, yet
a few days later). New vistas await,
still delivered with his trademark
but you suspect he won’t be able to
power and conviction.
He’s tried the four drummers thing stay away forever. SAM RICHARDS

Hackney Church, London, December 8

MARIANA DOS SANTOS PIRES

The saxophone sensei signs off with A Love Supreme
OR the last decade
or so, the strident
sound of Shabaka
Hutchings’
tenor sax has
spearheaded
the British jazz
renaissance. His influential bands
The Comet Is Coming and Sons Of
Kemet have broken new ground
while consistently providing
a thrilling live experience. So
there was some disappointment
earlier this year when Hutchings
announced that he was disbanding
both groups and giving up the
saxophone in order to concentrate
on mastering the shakuhachi flute,
among other wind instruments.
By now, we’ve all heard André
3000’s flute album. Is there a similar
danger of Hutchings abandoning
something he’s really good at
in favour of making so-so New
Age music? Judging by the calm
intensity with which he approaches
his last ever saxophone show, we
FEBRUARY 2024

needn’t worry – nobody, after all,
attempts the music of John Coltrane
on a whim. “It’s a sacrifice,” says
Hutchings, explaining his decision
from the stage. “Sacrifices are
difficult, but they’re what’s needed
to transition.”
A Love Supreme might initially
seem like one of those foundational
texts that shouldn’t be messed with,
but Coltrane himself never saw it
as etched in stone. The day after
he’d recorded the quartet version
we all know and revere, he went
back in and attempted it as a sextet,
with Archie Shepp on second sax;
a year later, he’d team up with
Pharoah Sanders in Seattle to take
the material further out. Hutchings
opts for an even more unorthodox
ensemble: no piano, one electric
guitar, two basses and four of the
finest drummers on the UK scene
(Tom Skinner, Moses Boyd, Eddie
Hick and Jas Kayser).
It’s clear from the outset –
the opening 30 seconds of

SETLIST

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SCRE EN

A change of
mind: Emma
Stone in
Poor Things

COURTESY OF SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES. © 2023 SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Emma Stone embarks
on a surreal steampunk
odyssey; Jonathan Glazer’s
unblinking death-camp
drama; and more…
OOR THINGS IT’S a tale as
old as time, a song as old as
rhyme. In February 1881 the
corpse of a pregnant woman is
recovered from the Thames. The
brilliant and fearsome surgeon
Godwin Baxter (Willem Defoe,
crosshatched in Frankenstein scars like a cubist
Kirk Douglas, the results of his father’s sadistic
experiments) finds the body still warm and
resolves to take the only obvious course of action:
remove the still functioning baby’s brain and
transplant it into body of the mother.
Baxter has one eye perhaps on cultivating
a companion – his cadaver happens to have
the lissom flesh of Emma Stone, while his own
appearance is enough to send women and
small children scurrying in fright. But he’s also
driven by a perverse and relentless scientific
curiosity: how would an awakening child’s
mind, granted the independence of an adult
body, perceive the grandeur, folly and horror
of the late-Victorian world?
It’s a bit like Voltaire’s Candide as conceived
by the Steve Martin of The Man With Two
Brains. Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel was a ribald,
picaresque romp, braiding enlightenment treatise
with gothic fable; Yorgos Lanthimos successfully
grafts the story into his own cinematic universe of
domineering parents, desperate obsessions and
surreal chimeras. The result is sublime: the first
indisputable classic of 2024.
The film belongs to Emma Stone. Following
The Favourite (2018) and the silent short Bleat
(2022), it’s her third appearance in a Lanthimos
film, in what is shaping up to be one of the great
collaborations of the 21st century. She plays Bella
as the ur-manic pixie dream girl, a combination
of Björk, Leonara Carrington and Katherine
Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby, exploring the
potential of her new mind and body, bringing
jubilant chaos to Baxter’s gothic townhouse,
as though Cocteau’s La Belle Et La Bête was a
screwball comedy.
She soon runs up against the limits of her liberty
and plots her escape with the help of Godwin’s
lawyer and sly lothario Duncan Wedderburn (an

As if Cocteau’s
La Belle Et
La Bête was a
screwball comedy
unleashed Mark Ruffalo, having the time of his
life as kind of Matt Berry dream of Clark Gable).
He whisks her away, embarking on a sentimental
education to sample the full menu of the world,
from the tarts and fado of Lisbon (a breathtaking
Jules Verne fantasia of pastel skytrams) to the
ashes of Alexandria following the brutal British
bombardment of 1882, to the absinthe decadence
of fin-de-siècle Paris.
For all their manifest delights, Lanthimos’
earlier films sometimes had a cold brilliance,
as though he were a surgeon as disinterested as
Baxter himself, calmly and curiously dissecting
the tendons and tissue of civilisation. Electrified
by the performances of Stone, Defoe and Ruffalo,
enchanted by the stupendous production design
of Shona Heath and James Price, Poor Things
sees the Lanthimos universe come to surreal,
sumptuous life.

The Zone Of Interest It’s the early 1940s and
a family’s idyll is briefly imperilled: the father is
promoted to a better-paying job in another city
and for a moment it seems like the family will
be uprooted. Everyone is distraught and no-one
wants to leave. Fortunately better sense prevails,
disaster is averted and they stay put in their
blessed plot. You might recognise the story from
Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland’s Meet Me In
St Louis, nominally set in 1903, but filmed in 1944,
and a devoutly wished fantasy of hearth and
home confected for a nation sundered by war.
It’s also the plot of Jonathan Glazer’s new film
about Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss and his
wife Hedwig, and their cultivation of a charming
house and garden next door to Auschwitz, the
concentration camp where Rudolf is commander.
The zone of interest – Das Interessengebiet – was
the Nazis’ term for the restricted area around the
camp, a site of much capitalist speculation – but
for Glazer it’s also the incomprehensible abyss
between the bucolic garden and the gas chamber.
If Glazer’s last film, the starkly stunning Under
The Skin, was about the dawning of empathy and
fellow feeling, The Zone Of Interest is about its
steadfast refusal, the concerted attempt to block
out reality, even as the stench and squalor of
extermination is overwhelming. The film is shot as
if by disinterested surveillance cameras, neutrally
documenting the family Höss as they potter about
cultivating their radishes, frolicking on the banks

REVIEWED THIS MONTH
POOR THINGS
Directed by
Yorgos
Lanthimos
Starring
Emma Stone,
Mark Ruffalo,
Willem Dafoe
Opens 12
January
Cert 12a

9/10

FEBRUARY 2024

THE ZONE OF
INTEREST

ALL OF US
STRANGERS

THE
HOLDOVERS

AMERICAN
FICTION

7/10

Directed by
Jonathan
Glazer
Starring
Sandra Hüller,
Christian
Friedel
Opens 2
February
Cert 12a

Directed by
Andrew Haigh
Starring
Andrew Scott,
Paul Mescal,
Claire Foy
Opens
January 26
Cert To be
confirmed

Directed by
Alexander
Payne
Starring Paul
Giamatti,
Dominic Sessa
Opens
January 1
Cert To be
confirmed

8/10

9/10

7/10

Directed by
Cord
Jefferson
Starring
Jeffrey
Wright, Tracee
Ellis Ross
Opens
February 2
Cert 15

SCRE EN
semi, as though preserved in a Mike Leigh film,
decades after their death. He finds he’s finally able to
have the conversations he never had, coming out to
his mum, finally bonding with his emotionally distant
dad. Emboldened, he embarks on a fledgling romance
with Paul, embracing a sudden, rushing intimacy and
diving with abandon into the k-holes of clubland.
With his 2015 film 45 Years, Andrew Haigh proved
himself to be a rare English director of intimacy.
There can be no higher accolade than to say that All
Of Us Strangers marks him out as a worthy heir to the
recently departed Terence Davies as a lyrical poet of
childhood and the awesome power of cheap music.
If you are a survivor of the mid-’80s, raised on the Pet
Shop Boys, Frankie and The Housemartins, you will
find this film irresistible. If you’ve ever felt that new
love could offer you escape from the dismal hotels of
loneliness, it will very deliberately destroy your heart.

of the river Sola, endlessly laundering their crisp white
bed linen from the infernal soot of the death factory.
Under The Skin was a visionary film, but also an
audio miracle, embodied in the warp and weft of Mica
Levi’s score. Here the sound design – Levi again, with
Johnnie Burn and Tarm Willers – is the soul of the
film. The screams, screech and scrape of Auschwitz
seep insidiously into the domestic interiors like spores
or smoke, poisoning the picnics and soirées.
Horror is present most profoundly in their dreams.
Glazer is as cavalier in his adaptation of Martin
Amis’s novel – he takes not much more than the
setting and the primary sources – as he was with
Michel Faber in his earlier film. But the austere
cinematography slips loose of the quotidian in
lucid scenes, shot with thermal imaging cameras,
following a young girl cycling out of a Grimm
fairytale and into the camp at night to secrete food
for the starving prisoners. In the luminous inverted
nocturne her strange fruit glows like Yeats’ silver
apples of the moon, somehow recalling Romanian
poet and prison camp survivor Paul Celan’s 1945
death camp threnody ‘Todesfugue’, with its uncanny
imagery of the “black milk of daybreak”. It’s a
singular, unforgettable image from our modern
cinema’s most lucid poet of horror.
All Of Us Strangers Last year Joanna Hogg
wandered into the haunted house of memoir in
The Eternal Daughter, about one woman’s dogged
devotion to the spectre of her late mother. It would
make for a suggestive and intriguing double bill
with Andrew Haigh’s new film, adapted from Taichi
Yamada’s eerie 1987 novel, which finds Andrew Scott
adrift in his suburban family home, unable to leave
behind the ghosts of his mum and dad, who died in a
Christmas car crash when he was a child in the 1980s.
Andrew is a screenwriter, scratching a meagre
existence, staring balefully out across the London
skyline from a desolate new tower block whose only
other resident seems to be the habitual drunken,
desperately flirtatious Paul Mescal. Desperate for
inspiration he returns to the dreaming Surrey fields
of his youth, where he finds mum and dad (Claire Foy
and Jamie Bell), still pottering around their suburban

The Holdovers 2017’s surreal satire Downsizing
was a strange misstep for Alexander Payne, America’s
cinematic laureate of smalltown lives of quiet
exasperation, but he’s on more familiar ground here.
Despite a strangely belated release date, The Holdovers
seems almost expressly designed to inveigle its way
into the canon of heartwarming Christmas movies.
It’s set in the picturesque, snowbound Barton
Academy, an exclusive New England boarding
school, where Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti, taking
a well-earned victory lap) is an embittered, tweedy
teacher of Classics, lecturing on the Peloponnesian
War to a classroom of yawning scions of privilege.
Without family of his own, he’s charged with
babysitting “the holdovers” – the students whose
parents have for one reason or another neglected to
take their sons home for the Christmas holidays.
His most worrisome charge turns out to be Angus
(Dominic Sessa, channelling the spirit of Bud Cort
in Harold And Maude), a bright but troubled student,
struggling with his abandonment, but he’s aided by
Mary, the stereotypically sassy school administrator,
coping with the death in Vietnam of her own son. As
you might expect, the three oddballs find themselves
coming together into a fleeting, festive form of family,
while learning some Important Life Lessons.
The charm is ladled like a dad pouring more
brandy into a Christmas pudding, and even the
curmudgeonly Giamatti struggles to keep the film
this side of saccharine. But there’s enough to suggest
that Alexander Payne may have got his groove back.
American Fiction Thelonious “Monk” Ellison
(Jeffrey Wright) could be a distant cousin of Paul
Giamatti’s Classics tutor. In Cord Jefferson’s
debut feature he’s a mid-career novelist and
professor, finding a dwindling audience for his
densely allegorical novels based on the plays of
Aristophanes, envious of the attention and awards
garnered by mass market memoirs of the ghetto.
When his mother starts developing dementia he
has to return to the family home, where he re-engages
with black, bourgeois roots (the family are lawyers
and academics) and hatches a plan to write a satire
of gangsta lit. He unexpectedly finds that his satire is
warmly embraced as the authentic voice of the streets
and he finds himself the subject of a publishing
bidding war, with the movie rights fiercely contested.
The film is based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novel
Erasure, but mislays much of the original satire in
favour of heartwarming Dr Julius Hibbert chuckles
(even the cops are twinkly old geezers), and in the age
of Jordan Peele its racial politics feel a little dated. But
Jeffrey Wright adds another standout performance to
his already dazzling CV. STEPHEN TROUSSÉ

The Boys
In The Boat

ALSO OUT...
THE BOYS IN THE BOAT
RELEASED JANUARY 12

George Clooney directs this story
of the University of Washington
crew that represented the US
in the men’s rowing at the 1936
Summer Olympic games in Berlin.

SAMSARA

RELEASED JANUARY 26

A soul travels from an old woman in
Laos to reincarnation as a goat on
the coast of Zanzibar in this
immersive and meditative film by
artist and director Lois Patiño.

JACKDAW

RELEASED JANUARY 26

Doctor Who director Jamie Childs
teams up with Who companion
Jenna Coleman in this tale of a
former motocross champion and
army veteran (Oliver JacksonCohen) who accepts a job to pick
up a package in the North Sea.

THE COLOR PURPLE
RELEASED JANUARY 26

Alice Walker’s novel of a young
woman overcoming trauma in
turn-of-the-century Georgia
returns to the big screen as a
musical directed by Blitz Bazawule
and starring Fantasia Barrino.

ARGYLLE

RELEASED FEBRUARY 2

Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell,
Catherine O’Hara and Dua Lipa
lead an all-star cast in Matthew
Vaughn’s international super-spy
romp, first in a planned franchise.

OCCUPIED CITY

RELEASED FEBRUARY 9

Steve McQueen returns with vast
survey-meditation on the wartime
history and psychogeography of
his adopted city of Amsterdam
under Nazi rule in the early 1940s.

THE IRON CLAW

RELEASED FEBRUARY 9

Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White and
Harris Dickson star as siblings in
Sean Durkin’s saga about Texan
professional wrestling dynasty
the Von Erich family, grappling
with tragedy outside the ring.

THE SETTLERS

RELEASED FEBRUARY 9

Three horsemen embark on an
expedition, but come to realise
their true mission is to exterminate
one of the native tribes of Tierra Del
Fuego in Felipe Gálvez Haberle’s
South American western.
113

SCRE EN EXTRA

SIMPLE
MINDS
EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE

PARAMOUNT+

8/10

An engaging look back at an inspiring
backstory through the eyes of the band’s
founding friends. By Peter Watts
AS Jim Kerr and
Charlie Burchill
prepared to tour
their latest version
of Simple Minds
– described by
Kerr in the film as
being as much of a
“theatrical ensemble” as a traditional
band – Joss Crowley’s film goes back
to the start, when the pair met in
a building site at their new flats in
Toryglen in Glasgow – a city “in a
rush to modernise” as Kerr recalls.
Kerr and Burchill, still great pals,
return to Glasgow throughout the
film, emphasising the importance
of the city on their development,
particularly how it gave focus to
their own monumental ambition.
Kerr visits the Carnegie Library
in Govanhill, where his father
encouraged him to read to flee the
limitations of working-class life in
a post-industrial city. Burchill visits
Southside Music, where he bought
opportunity in the form of guitars
and strings. Later, they both stroll
down to the Clyde to discuss the
writing of “Waterfront”. But much
as they recognise and appreciate the
Meeting of Minds:
Charlie Burchill
and Jim Kerr,
Glasgow, 1978

FEBRUARY 2024

city’s role in their formation, it’s clear
that Glasgow equally represented a
place from which to escape. Simple
Minds, and Kerr in particular, were
hugely driven, and their work ethic
– their determination to achieve
success and their desire for continued
improvement – is astonishing.
While many music documentaries
take a more romantic approach to
creativity, with success almost the
afterthought, this is very much a
different beast. But Simple Minds
were not mercenaries, driven
solely by success, as both Graeme
Thomson’s excellent biography
Themes For Great Cities and
this documentary illustrate. It
is interesting to learn about the
recording of those early albums,
particularly 1980’s magnificent
Empires And Dance, as the band
experimented and explored, shifting
from punk into New Wave through
disco punk until they settled into
a more masculine version of New
Romantic. Well-chosen talking
heads – Muriel Gray, Bobby
Gillespie, Bob Geldof – add context,
while there are contributions from
other band members, managers,

producers and Mariella Frostrup,
who was tape operator (credited
as Mariella Sometimes due to her
unreliability) on second album Real
To Real Cacophony.
The UK breakthrough of
“Promised You A Miracle” in 1982
was followed by international
success with “Don’t You (Forget
About Me)” in 1985, a song the band
were initially reluctant to record
but then made entirely their own –
before it catapulted them into MTV
stardom on the back of The Breakfast
Club soundtrack. That same year
they were invited by Geldof to play
Live Aid – tellingly in Philadelphia
rather than at Wembley – where they
were introduced by Jack Nicholson
and had the chutzpah to open with
a new song, the terrific “Ghost
Dancing”. Simple Minds were now
consciously writing for arenas, in
their own rush to modernise.
Seemingly on top of the world,
they were paired with producer
Jimmy Iovine, who wasn’t
impressed and told them so. They
rose to the challenge set by his
no-nonsense, pugilistic approach
by writing “Alive And Kicking” and
then recording the mega-selling
Once Upon A Time. Kerr’s delight
in being stretched is tangible, but
this marked their commercial high

point. Having achieved their dream,
Simple Minds lost direction. Street
Fighting Years was a dramatic
change in sound – too dramatic for
America, which lost interest – and a
gradual decline set in. They limped
through the 1990s.
Kerr, semi-retired in Sicily, learnt
Italian and sponsored a local
football team on the condition they
switched kits from blue to greenand-white hoops – interestingly, the
only time Glaswegian sectarianism
is mentioned throughout the
film. But what happens when an
ambitious group loses their drive
and finds themselves playing
half-empty clubs in the shadow of
the stadiums they once filled? Kerr
and Burchill identify a typically
self-aware adjustment as they raise
the stakes to ensure reinvention. The
songs they were playing, these now
represented nothing less than their
lives, the sum total of everything
they had achieved as men and as
a band – and that deserved the
fullest commitment on stage, no
matter how many tickets they sold.
Redemption beckoned.
The film’s laser-like honesty
slips a little in the final moments,
which are devoted to fluffing the
new lineup – at least until Kerr and
Burchill have their closing say. As
Kerr contemplates retirement and
the need for a “good ending… a full
stop”, Burchill counters by saying,
“Aye… until the comeback.” Kerr’s
currant-like eyes light up. The
comeback after the comeback? “Very
lucrative,” he chuckles. Don’t bet
against them.

BOOKS
REVIEWED
THIS MONTH
Heavenly, 1990: (l–r)
Peter Momtchiloff,
Amelia Fletcher,
Mathew Fletcher
and Rob Pursey

S

ARAH Records has recently
been examined in a film (My
Secret World), a book (Popkiss)
and a retrospective exhibition
in the label’s home town of
Bristol. All three made a decent case for
a reappraisal of this none-more-indie
institution founded by Clare Wadd and
Matt Haynes, fanzine-loving students
who bonded at a Julian Cope concert.
True to the label’s democratic ideals,
Jane Duffus’s These Things Happen
presents the story as an oral history, in
which the slights of the music press throb
like a fresh bruise.
There are many anoraks worn in
anger, and an extended discussion of
how one of the more articulate Sarah
stars, Heavenly’s Amelia Fletcher, was
dismissed by critics thanks to her posh
name. Fletcher says that fashion-wise,
their inspirations were Bobby Gillespie
and Stephen Pastel, who “wore their
anoraks with leather trousers, so it was a
combo of the rock and the punk with the
childish”. She continues: “Unfortunately
people looked at us and thought we were
just arsing around like kids.”
Haynes is unabashed about viewing
Sarah as a punk label, a cross between
Postcard and Crass Records, whose
appeal was mounted on its analogue
charms. Sarah 45s came with fanzines
and postcards; handwritten intimacy
was a rebuke to the commercialised
mainstream. On occasion, the politics
were overt: The Orchids released Britain’s
first anti-poll tax song in 1988; Blueboy
attacked the homophobic Section 28.
And everything about the label implied
a feminist critique – there was plenty of
mutual respect and support between
Sarah and the riot grrrl movement. The

label stopped trading in 1995 and so far
has resisted reissuing its catalogue. It’s
an attempt to preserve the magic, even if
the day-to-day reality was enormously
prosaic. “Mostly it was the two of us on
our own at home, folding bits of paper in
half, or writing letters,” Wadd says, “and
constantly buying parcel tape.”
IT’S hard not to be wistful about a time
when a writer such as Tom Hibbert could
inhabit mainstream journalism. There is
plenty of wist in Phew, Eh Readers?, as
friends and contemporaries such as Chris
Heath, Bob Stanley and Robyn Hitchcock
offer personal tributes to a man who, to
paraphrase Withnail, started writing by
mistake. The book’s co-editor, Barney
Hoskyns, suggests that Hibbert’s knowing
wit was “Wodehouse on amphetamine”,
while Mark Ellen, in Hibbert’s obituary,
notes that he helped invent the Smash Hits
cartoon fantasy world, insulting rock and
pop royalty alike.
His style was one of exaggeration and
artful carelessness, and was fine-tuned
in a long-running interview slot in Q
magazine. Revisiting Hibbert’s work,
it reads like a late flurry in the tussle
between journalistic enquiry and PR,
with Hibbert on the side of saying the
unsayable. There is a controlled explosion
involving Roger Waters, and a perfectly
choreographed 720 seconds with
Chuck Berry. Tasked with interviewing
Ringo Starr while not mentioning The
Beatles, Hibbert can’t help himself – by
the end “Ringo rises from the sofa, two
feet nine inches of unbridled anger”.
The real curiosity is Hibbert’s sit-down
with Margaret Thatcher, who had been
persuaded that the path to re-election
involved talking to Smash Hits about Cliff

Richard. “You see, pop goats,” Hibbert
wrote, “she wants you, the youth of the
nation, batting on her team.” Oddly,
Thatcher emerges with some credit from
the 1987 encounter, and was no doubt
impressed by the £20 suit Hibbert bought
from Mr Byrite for his visit to No 10.
IN My Effin’ Life, Rush bassist Geddy
Lee almost writes a fascinating book
about his Jewish roots. There is a
moving chapter on his parents’ wartime
experiences in Nazi concentration camps,
though Geddy (a name based on his
mother’s pronunciation of his anglicised
name, Gary) was raised in what he calls
the “mind-numbingly bland” Toronto
suburbs. He was a shy loner, a soprano
in the school choir. The first sign of
deviance was his long hair, an offence
of such magnitude to his mother that she
commissioned a painting rather than
a photograph of Geddy’s bar mitzvah,
and had him depicted with a short back
and sides. “It hung proudly on her wall,
perpetuating The Great Lie for almost
60 years.”
A high school dropout, Lee buried
himself in music, and circuitously
graduated to singing in Rush. “I found
it an effin’ blast,” he says, remembering
his manners. The book gets somewhat
lost in Rush’s music. “I do go on a bit,” he
confesses on page 349. But it’s a reflective,
honest account which allows for some
discomfiture about the business of
fame. In a move which could have been
borrowed from Tom Hibbert, Lee signifies
dislocation by putting his name in
inverted commas. “Geddy Lee” becomes
a costume he inhabits in the eyes of some
fans; not quite Superman, but no less
imaginary. ALASTAIR McKAY

THESE THINGS
HAPPEN: THE
SARAH RECORDS
STORY
JANE DUFFUS

TANGENT BOOKS,
£40

7/10

PHEW, EH
READERS? THE LIFE
AND WRITING OF
TOM HIBBERT
BARNEY
HOSKYNS AND
JASPER
MURISON-BOWIE
(EDS)
NINE EIGHT, £22

8/10

MY EFFIN’ LIFE
GEDDY LEE

HARPER, £30

7/10

115

H I - F I Love And Sockets
The best of the latest amplifiers

REGA ELICIT

BEST
BUY

Price: £2,000 Website: rega.co.uk

R

EGA is not the sort of company to rush things. So the fact that
the latest version of its extraordinarily accomplished Elicit
stereo amplifier includes some (whisper it) digital elements can
mean only one thing: non-analogue audio might just have what it takes
to stick around.
But just because everyone else acknowledged this before Rega, that
doesn’t mean the company has abandoned its principles. Sure, there’s a
24-bit/192kHz Wolfson DAC on board that’s accessible via the digital optical
and digital coaxial inputs on the rear panel; but there are also four line-level
inputs and a moving-magnet phono stage for turntables. Rega has not
forgotten where it’s coming from.
And no matter which of the inputs you use to feed music into the Elicit,
what comes out is exactly the sort of thing Rega has spent 50 years and more

NAD C3050

£1,299/nadelectronics.com
‘Modern retro’ is becoming an established thing
in hi-fi circles – but the products that move the
game on, rather than simply being pastiches of
models from deep in the last century, remain scarce.
Happily, the C3050 is no mere tribute act: yes, it’s got
the wood-effect vinyl wrap and the illuminated VU
meters; but on the inside it’s all business. A hi-res
DAC, wireless connectivity, a turntable-friendly
phono stage and an HDMI socket are just the start.

9/10

perfecting. Think of words like ‘direct’, ‘revealing’ and ‘eloquent’…
and perhaps we should chuck in ‘insightful’ and ‘robust’ while
we’re at it. If you insist on getting the complete sonic picture, the
Elicit Mk5 is exactly the sort of listen you’re after.
You need to do the right thing where partnering equipment is
concerned, of course – a high-class turntable is the perfect start, and
the loudspeakers you connect will need to be similarly talented. But once
that’s taken care of, this amp’s bold and assertive voice never stops being
engrossing. Its rhythmic expression is instinctive, its dynamism and tonality
are impeccable – and this is true no matter what sort of music you like to
listen to, or which input it’s being served to. It attacks with determination
when the music demands it, and it can soothe when the need arises.
‘Multi-talented’ just about covers it. The Rega Elicit Mk5 has the sort of
ability that could make it the only stereo amplifier you’ll ever need.

10/10

MARANTZ PM6007

£399/marantz.com
Marantz has long ruled the affordable amplifier
market – and it’s showing no signs of letting
up. The PM6007 is a frankly extraordinarily
accomplished and well-specified device considering
its modest asking price – and it doesn’t ask you
to make any real compromises. You get a stack of
analogue and digital inputs, sound that’s punchy
and convincing no matter if you’re listening to hi-res
digital audio or vinyl, and build quality similar to
that of a bank vault.

8/10

MISSION 778X

£549/mission.co.uk
It’s been a while since Mission had a new stereo
amplifier for sale – 40 years, in fact. But just because
the company decided to brand all its amps ‘Cyrus’
after 1983, that doesn’t mean the 778X hasn’t been
worth the wait (as much as any hi-fi amp can be
worth waiting four decades for, anyway). Mission has
poured a mixture of digital, analogue and turntablefriendly smarts into one of those half-width boxes
it’s always liked, and has liberated big, punchy and
politely attacking sound that’s always just about
on the right side of ‘controlled’.
Welcome back, Mission.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH

9/10
FEBRUARY 2024

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JANUARY 2024

COVER STORY Keith Richards at 80
INSIDE 2024 preview • The Doors • Kurt

Vile • The Birthday Party • Pentangle

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COVER STORY Tom Waits
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Ray Davies • Shirley Collins • PJ Harvey

SEPTEMBER 2023

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INSIDE Siouxsie • Black Sabbath • Fleet

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OR
SCAN
ME!

OBITUARIES

Not
Fade
Away
Fondly remembered this month...
DENNY LAINE
McCartney’sWings-man
(1944–2023)

B

EFORE fully immersing themselves in symphonic prog-pop, The
Moody Blues were an R&B band from Birmingham who followed
the ’60s beat trail to London. Denny Laine served as their focal
point, a singer-guitarist of rare emotional power; his vocals were
at their searing best on the Moodies’ cover of Bessie Banks’ “Go
Now!”, which topped the UK charts in January 1965.
Laine quit in September 1966 to form his own Electric String Band, while
also signing a solo deal with Deram. Neither project was successful. He went
on to join the group Balls and had a brief spell in Ginger Baker’s Air Force, but
it was Paul McCartney who revived his fortunes in ’71. Seeking a guitarist and
secondary singer for his newly formed Wings, McCartney remembered Laine
from late ’65, when the Moodies supported The Beatles on their final UK tour.
“Our two bands had a lot of respect for each other and a lot of fun together,”
McCartney recalled. “Denny was an outstanding vocalist and guitar player.”
A self-effacing character who valued the creative process over notions of
stardom, Laine proved an ideal foil for McCartney during his 10-year term
with Wings. He was versatile enough to switch between rhythm and lead
guitar, also taking on piano and bass when required. As co-writer,
his repertoire included “No Words”, “London Town”, “Deliver Your
Children” and, most famously, 1977’s “Mull Of Kintyre”, the first single
to sell two million copies in the UK. Laine would sometimes take lead
vocals too, whether it be on “Picasso’s Last Words”, “Spirits Of Ancient

ESSRA MOHAWK

Underrated singer-songwriter
(1948–2023)

After having her songs recorded
by The Shangri-Las and Vanilla
Fudge, Sandy Hurvitz signed to
Zappa’s Bizarre label for her 1968
debut. During the making of 1970’s
bewitching Primordial Lovers, she
married producer Frazier Mohawk,
and the album came out under her
new name Essra Mohawk. Known
Stateside for TV’s Schoolhouse Rock!,
her songs were covered by Cyndi
Lauper (“Change Of Heart”) and Tina
Turner (“Stronger Than The Wind”).

BRIAN GODDING
Jazz-rock guitarist
(1945–2023)

Brian Godding co-founded Blossom
Toes in 1966, making their mark
with psychedelic cult classic We Are
Ever So Clean a year later. During
the ’70s he recorded with Centipede,
Magma and Mike Westbrook, before
joining Kevin Coyne’s band for
three albums, debuting with 1980’s
Bursting Bubbles. In 1988, Godding
released acclaimed jazz-fusion LP
Slaughter On Shaftesbury Avenue.

BENJAMIN
ZEPHANIAH

The people’s laureate
(1958–2023)

Benjamin Zephaniah was revered
FEBRUARY 2024

as a socio-political poet, writer,
performer and novelist, informed
by Jamaican music and poetry and
what he termed “street politics”. He
also recorded dub and roots reggae
albums, beginning with 1983’s
Rasta, featuring various members
of the original Wailers. In 1995 he
appeared alongside Sinéad O’Connor
on Bomb The Bass’s “Empire”.

LANNY GORDIN
Tropicália maestro
(1951–2023)

Sometimes known as the “Hendrix
of Brazil”, guitarist Lanny Gordin
was a key figure in the Tropicália
movement of the late ’60s onwards,
appearing on Gal Costa’s first three
albums, Rita Lee’s 1970 solo debut
Build Up, and recordings by Caetano
Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Troubled by
mental health issues, he eventually
returned with 2001’s Lanny Gordin.

JOHN HYATT

One ofTheThree Johns
(1959–2023)

Singer and art teacher John Hyatt
co-founded The Three Johns
in Leeds, alongside Phil ‘John’
Brennan and The Mekons’ Jon
Langford. Their politically radical
post-punk, leavened with dry
humour, peppered the ’80s indie
charts with singles like “Death Of
The European”, “Brainbox (He’s

Denny Laine, 1981:
“an outstanding
vocalist and
guitar player”

Egypt” or his own “Time To Hide”, a spectacular live staple.
He and McCartney stayed close in the immediate wake of Wings, as
Laine balanced a solo career with appearances on 1982’s Tug Of War and
the following year’s Pipes Of Peace. Laine subsequently issued a string of
albums, in between tours with his own band and the supergroup World
Classic Rockers (featuring Steppenwolf, Poco and Eagles alumni). His last
was 2008’s The Blue Musician, though he was supposedly preparing a new
album at the time of his death, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of
Band On The Run, his favourite Wings album.
A Brainbox)” and “Never And
Always”. They reformed in 2012.

SCOTT KEMPNER
Dictators guitarist
(1954–2023)

Fired by his love of three-chord
rock’n’roll, guitarist Scott Kempner
formed The Dictators in 1972,
debuting with 1975’s proto-punk
The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! He
went on to co-found The Del-Lords,
juggling his time between both
bands in subsequent years, as well
as cutting three solo albums and
appearing alongside Dion DiMucci
(who called him “the quintessential
rocker”) in Little Kings.

JEFFREY FOSKETT
Latter-day Beach Boy
(1956–2023)

Singer-guitarist Jeffrey Foskett
served as musical director on Brian
Wilson’s late-’90s live comeback,
having previously toured with Mike
Love’s Beach Boys. A consummate
recording artist in his own right,
Foskett also appeared on solo works
by Love and Wilson, plus The Beach
Boys’ most recent outing, 2012’s
That’s Why God Made The Radio.

JEAN KNIGHT
“Mr Big Stuff” singer
(1943–2023)

Having made several flop singles for

local New Orleans labels, soul singer
Jean Knight was working as a baker
when she recorded the dynamic
“Mr Big Stuff” in 1970. Released by
Stax the following year, the single
reached No 2 on the Billboard charts,
selling over two million copies.
Knight was unable to repeat her
success, though “Do Me” appeared
on 2007’s Superbad soundtrack.

CHAD ALLAN

Original GuessWho frontman
(1943–2023)

Winnipeg rockers Chad Allan & The
Expressions, whose lineup included
guitarist Randy Bachman, scored
a huge national hit with 1965’s
“Shakin’ All Over”. Shortly after
transitioning into The Guess Who a
year later, Allan quit to go solo and,
in 1967, began hosting CBC-TV music
show, Let’s Go. He and Bachman
formed Brave Belt in the early ’70s.

NEVILLE GARRICK
Bob Marley’s art director
(1950–2023)

UCLA graduate Neville Garrick
became Tuff Gong’s art director
in 1974, following a similar role at
the Jamaica Daily News. Largely
responsible for shaping Bob Marley
& The Wailers’ visual aesthetic,
he created memorable covers for
Rastaman Vibration, Exodus,
Uprising and 1983’s posthumous

GEORDIE WALKER
Killing Joke guitar king
(1958–2023)

R

ESPONDING to a Melody Maker ad in 1979, guitarist Geordie
Walker made an immediate impression on his new bandmates
in Killing Joke. “He had a ginger shaggy afro, teddy boy jeans
and brothel creepers,” drummer Paul Ferguson recalled to
Uncut in 2018. “I didn’t care what he sounded like, he looked
amazing. But then he plugged in and started chugging Alex Harvey riffs. I
worshipped Harvey and that was it.”
Walker would go on to redefine the sound of post-punk guitar over 15
albums with Killing Joke, a decades-long tenure in which only he and
frontman Jaz Coleman were constants. Playing a down-tuned Gibson, his
intense style favoured dissonance and atmosphere over flash solos and
conventional scales. Two key influences were Dave Edmunds’ unorthodox
work on Love Sculpture’s “Sabre Dance” and John McKay’s flanged chording
in the Banshees. During sessions for 1982’s Revelations, producer Conny
Plank likened his sound to a classical orchestra turned up full blast on a
radio. Walker called it “the best compliment I’ve ever had”.
Just as Killing Joke defied easy categorisation – incorporating elements
of dance, dub, punk and metal – so it was with Walker’s playing. The only
consistent factor was his unerring groove, something he also later brought to
bear on Killing Joke’s industrial rock spin-offs Murder Inc and The Damage
Manual. He proved to be enormously influential in his own right, his
admirers ranging from Jimmy Page and Kirk Hammett to LCD Soundsystem’s
James Murphy and MBV’s Kevin Shields, who hailed Walker’s “monstrous
sound”. Nirvana were fans too, though the riffy similarities between “Come

As You Are” and Killing Joke’s “Eighties” drew the guitarist’s ire, Walker
calling Kurt Cobain “a complete plagiarist”.
“No man was cooler than Geordie, one of the very best and most influential
guitarists ever,” wrote bandmate Youth in tribute. “He was like Lee Van Cleef
meets Terry-Thomas via Noël Coward.”

Confrontation. Other clients
included Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh
and Steel Pulse.

Kriedt and brothers Malcolm and
Angus Young. He played on debut
single “Can I Sit Next To You Girl”,
but was fired in February ’74.

Goodwyn made his solo debut in
1988, but revived April Wine in the
early ’90s.

Baba Commander

LES MAGUIRE

Bluegrass banjoist

Mamadou Sanou was the
charismatic head of Baba
Commandant & The Mandingo
Band, fusing the rich traditional
music of Burkina Faso with the
Afrobeat grooves of Fela Kuti
and King Sunny Adé. As singer
and donso ngoni (hunter’s harp)
player, Sanou led the band
through three albums, most
recently 2022’s Sonbonbela.

(1941–2023)

MAMADOU SANOU
(1973–2023)

MICHEL SARDABY

Pacemakers pianist

Formerly saxophonist with The
Vegas Five, Les Maguire replaced
Arthur McMahon as pianist in
Gerry And The Pacemakers in 1961.
He was part of the classic lineup,
under Brian Epstein’s management,
that enjoyed huge success with
“How Do You Do It?”, “I Like It” and
“You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Maguire
later played with Hog Owl and Ian &
The Zodiacs.

French jazz pianist

NIDRA BEARD

Michel Sardaby’s first notable studio
engagement was T-Bone Walker’s
Good Feelin’ in 1969, issued the same
year as his debut, Five Cat’s Blues.
Sardaby was at his most prolific
during the ’70s, bringing jazz-funk
sophistication to the award-winning
Gail, trio-based album Night Cap
and In New York, featuring drummer
Billy Cobham.

(1952–2023)

(1935–2023)

Dynasty singer

Driven by vocalist Nidra Beard,
Dynasty’s “I Don’t Want To Be A
Freak (But I Can’t Help Myself)”
went Top 20 in the UK in 1979,
while later dance-pop hits
included “I’ve Just Begun To Love
You” and “Here I Am”. Beard also
co-wrote Shalamar’s “There It Is”
and “A Night To Remember”.

COLIN BURGESS

MYLES GOODWYN

(1946–2023)

(1948–2023)

AC/DC’s first drummer

Colin Burgess was already an
Australian hitmaker with The
Masters Apprentices when he
became part of AC/DC’s original
lineup in November 1973, alongside
singer Dave Evans, bassist Larry Van

AprilWine captain

Led by singer-guitarist and chief
songwriter Myles Goodwyn,
April Wine were one of Canada’s
most successful rock outfits,
their peak years spanning 1975’s
Stand Back and 1982’s Power Play.

Enormously
influential:
Geordie Walker
in Camden Town,
July 2, 1982

TERRY BAUCOM
(1952–2023)

A highly respected name in
contemporary bluegrass, Terry
Baucom was co-founder of Boone
Creek, alongside Ricky Skaggs and
Jerry Douglas. They cut two albums,
after which he recorded with
Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver. More
recently, he fronted Dukes Of Drive.

JIM SALESTROM
Dolly Parton sideman

RAY TATE

John Prine’s mentor
(1937–2023)

The teenage John Prine enlisted in
Ray Tate’s guitar class at Chicago’s
Old Town School Of Folk Music in
1961. Tutored in fingerpicking, Prine
eventually made his live debut at
Tate’s local Fifth Peg club. Tate, who
shared stages with Paul Butterfield,
Willie Dixon and Doc Watson,
served as the school’s executive
director until 1982.

RICHARD KERR

Barry Manilow hitmaker
(1944–2023)

Songwriter Jim Salestrom cofounded Nebraskan country-rockers
Timberline with brother Chuck
in 1971, leading the band for six
years. From 1979 to the early ’90s,
he was Dolly Parton’s guitarist and
banjo player, touring the world and
appearing on Dolly, Dolly, Dolly and
Heartbreak Express.

British songwriter Richard Kerr’s first
major success was Don Partridge’s
“Blue Eyes” in 1968, but he forged his
reputation with a spate of dramatic
ballads the following decade,
co-creating Dionne Warwick’s “I’ll
Never Love This Way Again” and
Barry Manilow’s “Mandy”, “Looks
Like We Made It” and “Somewhere
In The Night”. He also recorded six
albums under his own name.

PHIL QUARTARARO

JOHN COLIANNI

(1956–2023)

(1962–2023)

(1956–2023)

Influential record exec

Phil Quartararo worked his way
up from A&M radio promotion to
a leading role at Island Records in
the ’80s, helping break U2 in the
States. By 1992 he was CEO of
Virgin Records America, shaping
the fortunes of Janet Jackson,
Smashing Pumpkins, Paula Abdul
and more. He later became president
of Warner Bros Records.

Big band pianist

Virtuoso pianist John Colianni
was still a teenager when he joined
Lionel Hampton’s Big Band in the
early ’80s. He made his studio debut
as leader in 1986, after which he
made six albums with singer Mel
Tormé. From 2003–2009 he was
a member of Les Paul’s trio, later
recording with jazz guitarist Larry
Coryell. ROB HUGHES
119

Feedback

Send your brickbats, bouquets, reminiscences, textual critiques, billets-doux
and all forms of printable correspondence to letters@uncut.co.uk
KEEF ENCOUNTER

Over the years we’ve heard many
stories about Keith Richards’
excesses of drugs, alcohol,
cigarettes and life in general, and I
for one am glad to see that not only
has he survived but he has thrived,
sharing his gift of rhythm and
sound and deep knowledge of the
blues and rock’n’roll with us. Given
the current state of global affairs, I
often wonder what kind of world we
are leaving for Keith?
Happy belated birthday, Keef,
and many more! See you on tour
this Spring.
Larry Pryluck, Amissville,
Viginia, USA

Survivor story:
cutting
through the
myth of Keef

…Take 321 dropped through my
letterbox yesterday morning and
on a quick skim through the mag I
settled on the Keith Richards article,
the first piece being Dick Taylor’s
recollection of the great man’s early
days. As luck would have it, that
very evening I had the good fortune
to see Dick play here on the Isle Of
Wight at the wonderful Monkton
Arts in Ryde. He was playing with
local roots duo JC [also no six-string
slouch] and Angelina [fantastic
blues vocalist] and Chris Jones
[drummer from the island’s Plastic
Mermaids] and I can confirm that
Dick is playing better than ever with
an energy that belies his 80 years.
The two sets covered his early
blues influences and also the more
psychedelic style of the ’60s /’70s
Pretty Things and showed Dick
to be an octogenarian hooligan
guitar master! You shoulda
been there. John Rhodes,
Carisbrooke, Isle Of Wight
…Thanks for your Keith At 80 cover
story. Along with your previous
Dylan and McCartney At 80
treatments, you’re beginning to
assemble definitive oral histories
of not just musicians who have
commanded the epoch, but also
brilliant and informative social
histories. I loved this latest Keith
one, especially for the quirky little
details – like paying in full for
repairs to the local church spire, a
remarkable philanthropic act that
cuts through the ‘myth’ of Keith as
an establishment baiter. Thanks
also for the Sunny War interview: I
came to her album slightly late –
through your Albums Of The Year in
the previous issue, actually – so this
was a nice way to dig a little deeper
into her story. I love Keith, The Doors
FEBRUARY 2024

– all the other old rock’n’roll war
stories – but I also thank you for
your continued commitment to
new music. Nick Hughes, Cardiff

GOT EVERYTHING?

I always feel that the placings within
the Top 75 albums selected for your
End Of Year Review are largely
irrelevant (it’s all a matter of
opinion, isn’t it...) and year after
year it provides me with at least a
dozen gems that I have either not
spent enough time on or somehow
completely overlooked. With that
said, there do sometimes seem
to be some glaring examples of
inconsistency. For example, when
Bud Scoppa reviewed Everything
Harmony, the fourth album release
from the D’Addario brothers aka The

Lemon Twigs, he said that “the
brothers have fully absorbed their
influences in a work of stunning
sophistication” and gave it 9/10,
I think he was absolutely spot on.
So once again I found myself
spluttering my mug of tea across
the room when I couldn’t find
them anywhere.
As ever, lots of great content
elsewhere and in particular
a big thank you for the Album By
Album piece on Australian
mavericks The Necks, who I saw
play a fabulous concert at King
Place in London recently and I’ve
acquired their CD box to explore
that same back catalogue. So keep
up the good work and Happy New
Year to all the team.
Alan Millar, Edinburgh

…What a great return to form for
music! So many great ones – the
Stones album is better than anyone
could’ve asked for, Blur’s return was
majestic in its grace, Slowdive is
breathlessly beautiful, Robert
Forster just so melodic and
meaningful, Yo La Tengo constantly
upping their game. And to see The
Clientele finally getting their due in
Uncut was superb. How about a
feature now? I’ve been listening to
them for over 10 years and know
virtually nothing about them. They
skirted through Washington, DC
unnoticed at some small club I’d
never even heard of and missed
them (alas, I’m older now!) So many
influences, yet so unique. And I
know the Hawkwind bandwagon is
something Uncut does not ride, but

WIN!

Crossword
One LP copy of Nadine Shah’s
Filthy Underneath

this past LP hooked so many back
into listening. It belonged in the Top
50 for sure, but no complaints here.
There’s a lot to discover in what I
have not heard in the past year!
Roger Williams, Virginia

CAUGHT ON THE HOP
It was great to read about the late
lamented Nicky Hopkins in the
review of The Session Man. A couple
of points: it is not really true to say
Hopkins never overshadowed the
band he was supporting – a listen to
Beggars Banquet shows his piano
up front and centre in the mix on the
majority of numbers. It is also worth
noting that Hopkins became a full
member of Quicksilver Messenger
Service during the post-acid rock
phase of their Shady Grove, where
he replaced guitarist Gary Duncan
and contributed the nine-minute
tour de force of “Edward, The Mad
Shirt Grinder”. He stayed on when
Duncan returned and the band
adapted to the romantic stylings of
Dino Valente with “Just For Love”
and “What About Me”. Quicksilver
were a fascinating band who went
through many phases and had a
unique character. Well worth an
in-depth feature in your pages.
Dylan Bickerstaffe, via email

WE WAS ROBBIED

Thanks for the great tribute to the
late Robbie Robertson, but there
was one glaring omission in the
Buyer’s Guide: Rock Of Ages, The
Band’s concert album, with
superbly played horns added to
their best songs, arranged by
legendary New Orleans maestro
Allen Toussaint. The songs
come newly alive and Robertson
himself once called it the record
he was most proud of. The CD
adds in Dylan’s inspired set with
them as well. For me, it’s likely the
greatest live rock album of them
all. If I could only have one Band
album, that’s it.
Steve Heilig, San Francisco
...and thanks for all your letters this
year, folks. It’s been a joy reading
them all. [MB]

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Kelsey Media, The Granary
Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding,
Maidstone, Kent, ME18 6AL

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EDITORIAL

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HOW TO ENTER
The letters in the shaded squares form an anagram of a song by Neil Young. When
you’ve worked out what it is, email your answer to: competitions@uncut.co.uk.
The first correct entry picked at random will win a prize. Closing date: Thursday,
February 1, 2024. This competition is only open to European residents.

CLUES ACROSS

CLUES DOWN

1 Pink Floyd, a sound common in every
house, with a sound in the House Of
Commons (3-8-4)
9+15D A girl not always associated with
The Cure (9-9)
10 A period when ELO, Fleetwood Mac and
Rod Stewart released albums (4)
11+27A “And to walk like Christ, in grace and
love, and guide you ____ __ ____”, Nick
Cave (4-2-4)
12 “ My buddies and me are gettin’ real well
known”, 1964 (1-3-6)
15 (See 14 down)
17 The best I performed included a bit of
REM (5)
18 Performance includes Welsh progrockers (3)
20 (See 5 down)
22 John or son Jason (6)
24+37A No, we’ve a different album by
Silver Sun (3-4)
25 “It looks like we’ve made it __ ___ ___”,
1994 (2-3-3)
27 (See 11 across)
30 __, the king with a guitar named Lucille
(1-1)
31 US prog-rockers formed from the breakup of At The Drive-In (4-5)
33 “Let it never be said that romance is
dead”, No 1 hit in 2007 (4)
34 Peter Gabriel song in honour of Steve
____ (4)
35 Associates’ album to put you in a bad
mood (4)
36+33D The Walker Brothers’ passion for
the girl (4-3)
37 (See 24 across)

2+3D Gem Stones, innit (7-8)
4 Frankie _____, lead singer of The Four
Seasons (5)
5+20A A personal release from The Kinks
(3-2-4)
6 “I’m goin’ to Wichita, far from this _____
for evermore”, from The White Stripes’
“Seven Nation Army” (5)
7 Her albums include Weather Alive and
Daybreaker (4-5)
8 Problem One, the inclusion of a track
from U2’s Zooropa (5)
13 Van Morrison’s band in the ’60s (4)
14+15A How Did I Find Myself Here? asked
Steve Wynn with his band from California
(5-9)
16 Toni Halliday’s alt.rock band going
round the bend as they went Cuckoo (5)
19 Unaffected music from Imagine Dragons
on a single and Mekons on album (7)
21 “The ___ Has No ___”, single from The
Strokes (3)
22 “Because if it’s not love, then it’s the
____”, from The Smiths’ “Ask” (4)
23 (See 36 across)
26 Jealousy at the success of this Ash single
(4)
28 Calypso artist on target with “Hot Hot
Hot” (5)
29 “Gonna use my arms, gonna use my legs,
gonna use my _____, gonna use my
sidestep”, from The Pretenders’ “Brass
In Pocket” (5)
30 “____, I’m leaving, I must be on my way”,
Styx (4)
32 ’90s pop/hip-hop act coming out of
Ilford (1-1-1)

ANSWERS:
TAKE 320
ACROSS

1Sound And Vision, 9
Maggie May, 10+25A Life’s
Been Good, 11 Twice,
12+30A English Graffiti,
14+4D My Number, 15 Cop,
18 Trower, 19+29A How

High, 20 Satriani, 22 Lie, 23
Ritual, 28 Go, 31+25D Eric
Bogle, 32 Eels, 33 Jet, 34
Start
DOWN

1Sometimes, 2 UK Grim, 3
Drive, 5 Voyage, 6 Soldier, 7
Off The Wall, 8 Ash, 13 Mr
Zero, 15 Car, 16 Piano, 17

Third, 18 Two Tribes, 21 The
Wall, 24 Athena, 26 Gift,
27+28D Oh, The Guilt
HIDDEN ANSWER

“Is Your Love In Vain?”
XWORD COMPILED BY:

Trevor Hungerford

Editor Michael Bonner
Editor (one-shots) John Robinson
Art Editor Marc Jones
Reviews Editor Tom Pinnock
Contributing Editor Sam Richards
Senior Designer Michael Chapman
Production Editor Mick Meikleham
Senior Sub Editor Mike Johnson
Picture Editor Phil King
Editor At Large Allan Jones
Contributors Jason Anderson, Laura Barton,
Mark Beaumont, Mark Bentley, Leonie Cooper,
Jon Dale, Stephen Dalton, Stephen Deusner,
Lisa-Marie Ferla, Ana Gavrilovska, Robert Ham,
Michael Hann, Nick Hasted, Rob Hughes, Trevor
Hungerford, John Lewis, April Long, Damien
Love, Emily Mackay, Alastair McKay, Piers
Martin, Rob Mitchum, Paul Moody, Andrew
Mueller, Sharon O’Connell, Michael Odell,
Pete Paphides, Louis Pattison, Jonathan Romney,
Bud Scoppa, Johnny Sharp, Dave Simpson,
Neil Spencer, Terry Staunton, Graeme Thomson,
Luke Torn, Stephen Troussé, Jaan Uhelszki,
Wyndham Wallace, Peter Watts, Richard
Williams, Nigel Williamson, Tyler Wilcox,
Damon Wise, Rob Young
Cover photos: Bob Seidemann (Neil Young),
David Corio/Redferns (Shane MacGowan)
Thanks to: Johnny Sharp, Lora Findlay
Text and covers printed by Gibbons UK Ltd

ADVERTISEMENT SALES
Neil Tillott 01732 442246
neilt@talk-media.uk

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121

MY LIFE IN MUSIC

Allison Russell

The folk-roots queen on her formative musical experiences: “We
did an interpretative dance performance to Sinéad O’Connor!”
JONI MITCHELL

Ladies Of The Canyon REPRISE, 1970
There’s so many Joni records that have been deeply
formative and influential for me as a musician and a
writer and a human, but the reason I picked Ladies Of
The Canyon is because that’s tied to my first musical
memory. It was my mum’s favourite record when I was in foster care, and
I would go for these brief visits with my mum at my grandma’s house
because she wasn’t allowed to be unsupervised with me at that point. I
would be hiding under the piano, listening to her play along to Ladies Of
The Canyon. I was electrified by the clarinet coda of “For Free”. And then
of course, I ended up being a clarinettist – and getting to play clarinet
onstage with Joni at the Gorge and at Newport!

TRACY CHAPMAN

Tracy Chapman ELEKTRA, 1988
When I was nine years old, my uncle took me on a
road trip to Banff, which is one of the most beautiful
places on earth. He played me the tape version of Tracy
Chapman, and I remember unfolding the insert and
poring over those lyrics and looking at this photograph of this beautiful
black woman. Meanwhile, I was being raised by a white supremacist,
abusive adoptive father, and so to hear “Behind The Wall”, it was like she
was singing about my family. It was revelatory. That was a huge part of
my development as a songwriter, or even the idea that I could become a
songwriter. For me, as this abused kid, it was like seeing myself and going,
‘Maybe I could do this too.’

THE STAPLE SINGERS
Freedom Highway EPIC, 1991

After I’d run away from my abusive home, that’s when
my musical world started to really open up. While it
was scary to be on my own at 15, I was incredibly lucky
because I was in Montreal, a city that has so much free
public art and music. I first heard about The Staple Singers through a group
at McGill [University] that were covering their songs, then I found Freedom
Highway at Sam’s record store. There’s so many classic gospel songs
that they’ve made their own, like “Wade In The Water”, “Glory, Glory,
Hallelujah!”, “Jacob’s Ladder”… Mavis’s voice is the sound of freedom to
me. I’ve been lucky enough to get to collaborate with her in recent years
and she’s as wonderful as you would hope.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Sweet Petunias: Independent
Women’s Blues, Volume 4
INTERVIEW: SAM RICHARDS. PHOTO: DANA TRIPPE

ROSETTA RECORDS, 1986

It’s a compilation of Library Of Congress recordings I
was given as a tape in my teen-hood. It’s black women
singing their stories that were recorded, some on wax cylinder in the ’20s
and ’30s: people like Ella Johnson, June Richmond, Victoria Spivey. One
of my early songs in Po’ Girl was an adaptation of a song on Sweet Petunias
Volume 4 by the Bandanna Girls – their song “Part Time Papa” was about
a cheating, no-good man and I adapted the lyric to be about my abusive
adoptive father. So my early forays into writing were using this template of
brilliant women that I heard myself in and felt I could inhabit in some way.

SINÉAD O’CONNOR
Universal Mother ENSIGN, 1994

I went to an alternative high school in Montreal, and
we did an interpretative dance performance for our
graduation ceremony to Sinéad O’Connor’s “Thank
You For Hearing Me”! And “Fire On Babylon”, I felt that
song in my bones – it helped me work through some of my anger toward my
own mother for not protecting me. I’ve long since forgiven her, because she
was really a child as well in the situation. But at the time I had a lot of anger
I was working through, and Sinéad helped me channel that in a powerful
way. She’s a prophet of our times, as far as I’m concerned. She paid a heavy
price for it, but she’s directly a part of my survival. The fearlessness of her
writing is foundational to everything I do.

THE BE GOOD TANYAS
Blue Horse NETTWERK, 2000

Around 2000, I moved into this shared house in
Vancouver. You could see daylight through the front
door, there were toadstools growing in the bathroom,
it probably should have been condemned. But rent
was $100 a month and we would have these monthly jam sessions, and
that’s where I met The Be Good Tanyas. I remember being in awe of what
they were working on: reviving songs from the American Songbook like
“Oh! Susanna” or “…Pontchartrain”, then writing their own songs inspired
by that songbook, that were extraordinary. Every song on Blue Horse was
a classic. I went back and listened to that record when y’all asked me to do
this, and it’s as fresh and beautiful as the day it was recorded.

K’NAAN

The Dusty Foot Philosopher BMG, 2005
He is an amazing Somali-born artist who became
a refugee to Canada because of the horrific war in
Somalia. I met K’Naan when I was in Po’ Girl and
he had broken out with The Dusty Foot Philosopher,
which remains to this day one of my favourite albums. It’s very much a
memoir of a record. This is someone who lived trauma and tragedy of a
kind that I’ve never been forced to endure – living in a war zone, seeing
many of his friends and family killed, coming as a refugee and learning to
speak English listening to recordings of Nas. And he’s documenting these
things with such empathy and unflinching clarity. It’s a brilliant record, it
really is. Undersung, in my opinion.

STEVIE WONDER

Songs In The Key Of Life TAMLA, 1976
Some of my earliest favourite memories are dancing
around to Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life.
My mum adored that record – she has an adorable,
quavery, slightly out-of-tune voice, so I just hear her
singing along with it. I thought they were songs written for us, you know?
Stevie is an artist who can sing about really difficult things and you don’t
even realise it, because you’re bopping along to this jam. You don’t even
realise you’re processing that he’s singing about intense and hard human
things. Songs like “Village Ghetto Land” or “Love’s In Need Of Love Today”
I took very much to heart. It’s something I’m often playing with, those
juxtapositions of a joyful-sounding song dealing with heavy topics.

Allison Russell plays Lafayette on January 30 as part of a month of music in London, in association with The UK Americana Awards powered by
Sweet Home Alabama, which takes place at Hackney Church on January 25; more info and tickets at theamauk.org
FEBRUARY 2024