There’s a line in The Hold Steady’s “Slapped Actress” that seems more apposite than ever right now. It’s the point where Craig Finn sings, “Some nights it’s entertainment and some other nights it’s just work,” though this afternoon, some might say significantly, he doesn’t actually sing the word “work”. We are watching the Hold Steady play in the sort of environment that, surely, must test even their unquenchable faith in the redemptive power of rock’n’roll and so on.
There’s a line in The Hold Steady’s “Slapped Actress” that seems more apposite than ever right now. It’s the point where Craig Finn sings, “Some nights it’s entertainment and some other nights it’s just work,” though this afternoon, some might say significantly, he doesn’t actually sing the word “work”. We are watching the Hold Steady play in the sort of environment that, surely, must test even their unquenchable faith in the redemptive power of rock’n’roll and so on.
I got a great email the other week from Jon Dale, Uncut’s man in Australia and one of our most diligent hunters of the esoteric. Our subsequent correspondence turned into a bit of a squabble about cassette tapes, of all things: Jon is a fan, as you can see from his excellent blog; I think there’s something rather elitist about disseminating new music on a virtually obsolete format. But I have to let that one go.
I was writing a headline for a piece on Crystal Castles in the current issue of Uncut and, after reading the feature a few times, ended up with this: “Scars. Skulls. Disease. Videogame blips. From Canada!”
Once again, it’s worth listening to the estimable opinions of Guy Garvey from Elbow who, you’ll remember, previews the Latitude festival in the current issue of Uncut. “Blondie’s my going-out music,” says Guy. “I don’t go to clubs very much, but if I decide I’m going out I put on a bit of Blondie first. I know it’s hard to picture, but I can cut a rug if I need to. I put ‘Atomic’ on every time.”
At first glance, it might seem strange to find Shane Meadows shooting a “legacy project” recording Eurostar’s move from Waterloo to St Pancras. Meadows, after all, is best known for a raft of movies that’ve chronicled suburban working class life in and around his native Nottingham. He’s hardly, you’d think, the obvious candidate to shoot a promo film intended to, ah, push the boundaries of brand communications. And for a company whose most memorable contribution to advertising featured Kylie skipping gaily round Paris.
There are a few records around the Uncut office at the moment that I think I could responsibly class as disappointing, not least the new Mercury Rev album, which ambitiously finds them trying to reinvent themselves as whimsical cosmic ravers.
It begins with a flutter of guitar, a dusting of cymbals. Then a female, faintly ethereal vocal arrives, accompanied by bells. At first, it sounds like she might be distant kin to the acid folk scene which still percolates away in the US; there’s a very vague resemblance to Meg Baird and Espers, perhaps. But then again, she’s not singing in English, and there’s something discreetly exotic about the song, “Dawn Over The Clouds”.
His grey hair blows wildly in the breeze. His dishevelled clothing suggests an eccentric who’s been around a very long time. There’s a determined expression on his face which suggests he may be old, but he’s not going anywhere soon…
