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IS HISTORY SPEEDING up, or am I just getting older?

I doubt I’m the first man of a certain age to have a

minor existential crisis triggered by an album

reissues programme. It’s been caused this month,

though, by reviewing a couple of albums that I wrote

about first time round – and not, it seems, that long

ago. One is the debut by the Vancouver collective,

Black Mountain, whose “Druganaut” was a key part

of the first CD of new psychedelia I compiled for

Uncut ; Comets, Ghosts And Sunburned Hands. Black

Mountain, amazingly, came out in 2005, hence the

10th- anniversary deluxe reissue.

The second is our Archive Album Of The Month, Michael Head’s MagicalWorld Of The Strands, a kind of opiate folk record that relocates the spirits

of Arthur Lee and Tim Buckley to 1990s Liverpool. Head’s story is a

spectacularly messy one, and various true believers have been trying to

make him famous – with his first band, The Pale Fountains, then repeatedly

with Shack – for three decades now, without much in the way of success.

“The fate of Michael Head, elusive genius with few contemporary equals,

remains uncertain,” I wrote in NME 18 years ago, when The Magical World

first came out. “As this album once again so conclusively proves, he

deserves the world.”

With the likes of Mick Head – and, indeed, our cover stars The

Rolling Stones – it’s tempting, as storytellers, to repeat the myths and

circumnavigate the actual music, not least because music is often

substantially harder to write about. I tried this time, though, to contextualiseHead as part of a deep and transporting musical tradition, rather than as a

chemically adjusted outrider of Britpop. And in a similar spirit, Mick Jagger,

not always the keenest to anatomise his own work, has given us a revealing

interview about the making of one of the Stones’ greatest albums, Sticky

Fingers. “I have never listened to it, probably since it was recorded, since the

playback sessions… I never listen to them again,” says Jagger, in a more

characteristically detached moment. But over the past 44 years, we have,

hundreds and hundreds of times. Forty-four years: what happened there?

Back in the blink of an eye,

Are we rolling?4 Instant Karma!Ben E King RIP, Peter Zinovieff,

Smokey, The Rezillos, Gill Landry

14Ringo StarrAn audience with the Fab drummer

1813th Floor ElevatorsRoky Erickson and his mindbending

band are back! How on earth willthey cope aer 45 years?

24 Jim O’RourkeAt home in Japan, the Sonic Youth/Wilco

associate discusses Jimmy Page, neo-hippies and his long-awaited new album

32Ian Dury

& The BlockheadsThe making of jazz-funk mega-hit“Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick”

36 The Rolling StonesAsSticky Fingers gets the expansive

reissue, Mick Jagger and others revealthe dirty secrets of a classic album

46Sturgill SimpsonUncut joins psych-country’s rising

star on tour in the States: “Themilitary was not for me…”

52 James Taylor

The singer-songwriter’s greatest works

56HipgnosisThe legendary sleeve-design collective

remembered: “The industry despised us!”

65New AlbumsIncluding: Richard Thompson,Sun Kil Moon, Graham Parker

87 The ArchiveIncluding: Michael Head,Robin Gibb, Little Richard

99DVD & FilmNina Simone, Paul McCartney,The Who, The Wrecking Crew

104 LiveSuper Furry Animals, Nick Cave

115BooksOtis Redding, Brian Case

117Not Fade Away This month’s obituaries

120Feedback Your letters, plus the Uncut crossword

122My Life In MusicJah Wobble

40 PAGES OF REVIEWS!

C O V E R : P E T E R W E

B B

John Mulvey, Editor

Follow me on Twitter @JohnRMulvey

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F L O O R

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THIS MONTH’S REVELATIONS FROM THE WORLD OF UNCUTFeaturing THE RETUR N OF THE REZILLOS | GILL LANDRY | SMOKEY

I N S T A N T K A R M A !

BEN E KING recorded a number ofenduring classics, both solo and withThe Drifters, but he will forever beassociated with “Stand By Me”, the 1961hit that took on an equally successful

afterlife. At the turn of the millennium, BMIdeclared it the fourth most-played song onAmerican radio in the 20th Century. The tunetriggered over 400 covers – most prominently from

Otis Redding, John Lennon and U2 – and, earlierthis year, was inducted into the National RecordingRegistry by the US Library Of Congress.

King worked up the song during the samesessions that produced another major hit, “SpanishHarlem”, in late October 1960. He’d written “StandBy Me” as a tribute to his wife,Betty, with the intention ofrecording it with The Drifters.But it was only when hehooked up with thesongwriting duo of JerryLeiber and Mike Stoller, fivemonths after he left the group,that they finished it together.A minimal acoustic bass

provides its distinctiveintro, though it’s King’s richbaritone that brings theemotional weight. “I had tearsin my eyes when I sang it,” he recalled later.

King’s tenure with The Drifters had served as aprime example of quality over quantity. He sang onjust 13 songs, but a handful became cornerstonesof American R&B, starting in 1959 with his ownco-write, “There Goes My Baby”. Other standoutsincluded “This Magic Moment”, “Save The LastDance For Me” and “I Count The Tears”.

King’s arresting vocal style, shaped in doo-wopgroups in New York, also made an impression ona new generation of aspiring young singers. “Hiswas the voice of my ‘coming of age’… dramatic…

imploring… pained… spectacular,” Robert Plantoffered, on hearing of King’s death. “I learned his

every nuance. I lived in grief and joy in his songs…[ He was] a huge influence, loved and respected byso many.” The two men became friends when theywere both signed to Atlantic in the ’70s, by whichtime Led Zeppelin were already opening showswith King’s “Groovin’”, recast as “We’re GonnaGroove”. Apparently earmarked for inclusion on Led Zeppelin II , the song wasn’t released until theJimmy Page-produced version on 1982’s Coda.

Born in Henderson, North Carolina, King’s familymoved to Harlem when he was nine years old. Histeenage years were spent in vocal outfits like TheFour Bs and The Five Crowns, with whom heplayed talent shows at the legendary ApolloTheatre. In 1958, Drifters manager George

Treadwell fired the existingband, kept the name andinstalled The Five Crownsin its place. It was a heavy-handed approach to businessthat was to impact on Kingtwo years later, when hedared to ask for a fairer shareof royalties. Treadwell’srefusal resulted in a contract

dispute that led to King’sdecision to go solo.

As the ’60s progressed,King’s commercial appeal

began to wane. It wasn’t until 1975, when he issuedthe disco-friendly “Supernatural Thing”, written byGwen Guthrie and Patrick Grant, that he returned tothe US Top 10. “Stand By Me”, meanwhile, wasgranted a new lease of life in 1986, when it was usedto soundtrack Rob Reiner’s coming-of-age film ofthe same name. The reissue made No 1 in the UK.“What’s interesting to me is that a song I wrote as alove song is being adopted by kids everywhere as asong about friendship,” King told theChicagoTribune that year, clearly thrilled by the lastingreach of his finest creation. “Two generations

listening to the same song are getting different, butequally positive, meanings from it.” ROB HUGHES D A

V I D

R E E D / R E D F E R N S

“No, I won’t,shed a tear…”

BEN E KING

1938-2015

King sang on just13 songs with

The Drifters, buta handful became

cornerstones of American R&B

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Ben E King inHarlem, NewYork, 1973

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“WE THRIVED ON mayhem,” saysEugene Reynolds, halfwaythrough a circuitous attempt at

explaining why the second Rezillos album, Zero,landed a full 37 years after the first. Formed inEdinburgh in 1976 around vocalists Reynoldsand Fay Fife, and guitarist and principalsongwriter Jo Callis, The Rezillos were one of the most idiosyncratic bands aligned, albeittangentially, to punk. Fast but far from furious,there was little sense of social uproar in their

heady mix of B-movie kitsch and earthyrock’n’roll. The closest they got to insurrectionwas performing a provocative cover of Gerry &The Pacemakers’ cheesy hit “I Like It”. “We knewpunk was our relative and we were part of thatclan, but we existed in a bubble,” says Fife. “Thewhole point was not to fit in.”

After releasing two independent singles, TheRezillos were signed by Sire and whisked off tothe Power Station in New York to record withTony Bongiovi and Bob Clearmountain. “Wedidn’t know what we were doing,” saysReynolds. “Or where we were. We just thought,‘Cool, New York! Skyscrapers!’ Everything wasin our lap and we didn’t realise it.”

The resulting LP, Can’t Stand The Rezillos,

released in July ’78, was a sparkling space-punkgem, blending the pop nous of Blondie, the

bluesy attack of The Cramps and the sonicplayfulness of The B-52s into a singular musicalidentity. The irresistible “Top Of The Pops” duly bagged them a spot on the very show theywere poking fun at and, with a 45 and LP in theTop 20, everything seemed rosy. In reality, theband was cracking.

Callis felt pressurised into writing new songs,while an “us and them situation” had arisenbetween Reynolds and Fife, now an item, andthe rest of the group.

At the end of 1978they took the“completely insane”decision to fold. “Webroke up in SpinalTap fashion,” saysFife. “It was theheight of stupidity.”Callis joined TheHuman League,co-writing “Don’t YouWant Me”, while Fifeand Reynolds formedThe Revillos, whichlasted, on and off, ’tilthe mid-’90s. Fife

retrained as a clinicalpsychologist;

Reynolds imported Indian motorbikes. In ’01The Rezillos reformed, with Callis back in theranks, but there was no new music. “Therewas a lot of avoidance,” says Fife. “Jo came inspecifically to write songs, but as soon as wegot back together, he was putting up reasonsnot to record new material.”

Callis left in 2010, replaced by currentguitarist Jim Brady, and the songs began toflow. Zero was made, says Reynolds, with an

awareness that “people

want you to be thesame but different”.Fife seems morecomfortable withreanimating thefounding spirit ofthe band: “We wantedto make a record thathad that Rezillosmusical identity…The great thing is,even now, we’re notfollowing any trend.”GRAEME THOMSON

The Rezillos’

Zero is out nowon Metropolis

“The whole point was not to fit in!”Welcome back, Edinburgh punk misfits THE REZILLOS. Also involvesGerry & The Pacemakers, The Human League, Indian motorbikes…

PUNKPOP GLAM

The Rezillos today:“The same butdifferent…”

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JOHN “SMOKEY” CONDONdoesn’t quite recall how heended up rehearsing withRon Asheton for the chance to

replace Iggy Pop in The Stooges, buta lot of things in the late 1970s werekind of a blur. “One time I wokefrom a blackout in the studio withSteely Dan,” he remembers. “It wasHollywood.” When not passing outamong rock aristocracy, Condonrecorded with sound engineerEJ Emmons as Smokey, and acompilation of their pioneering,jaw-dropping, singles celebratinggay culture from 1973-’81, How FarWill You Go?, is out this month.

“We wanted to be notorious,” saysEmmons. “We needed to be asoutrageous as possible but also beourselves.” True to their word,Smokey’s first single, 1974’s“Leather”, was an unambiguoustribute to New York’s leather scenebacked by a song about a dragqueen, “Miss Ray”. While “Leather”had a great Bowie-esque vibe, nolabel would touch it. “They’d say it

was a great record but

they couldn’t put it out,” saysEmmons. “It was too gay.”

Unperturbed, Emmons andCondon formed a label, callingit S&M. The logo was a musculararm with studded leather cuffs.After selling 5,000 copies of“Leather”, they began puttingout more records. “We werebefore disco, punk and newwave, and we went with theflow,” says Condon. “We wereimpressionable, so we’d do adance song, a ballad, disco,but we were really a rock bandwith a blues influence.”

Smokey developed anoutrageous stage show witha band including Randy Rhoadsand Kelly Garni (later of QuietRiot) – they also recorded atrack with James Williamson ofThe Stooges. They were regularsat Rodney Bingenheimer’s EnglishDisco on Sunset Strip, often joinedby a female friend, Hester. “Hestersang with hardly any clothes on,which the guys loved,” Emmons

says. They recorded superb singleslike “DTNA”, while musicianspassing through included

Hunt and Tony Sales,who recorded Kill City

with Iggy Pop. Thatwas how Condon

came to rehearsefor The Stooges,which cameto nothing.

It was hardwork, but

Emmons andCondon valued

the freedom.

“When you don’t

have to answer to anybody, you canmake great art,” says Condon. “Ididn’t think it was avant-garde, itwas who we were. We’d play ‘PissSlave’ and people’s mouths would

drop open. I didn’tunderstand why, it wasabout a guy I knew.”

The unreleased “PissSlave”, an insanelycatchy nine-minutedisco tune (“ I wanna be your toilet ”), was theresult of them givingup on finding a label.“That was usthumbing our nosesat people,” says Emmons. Whenan acetate was played at oneHollywood club, the audiencewas too dumbstruck to dance.

“A cassette got out,” says Emmons.

“I heard one guy on the scene, PoshBoy, was seen jacking off to it in hisconvertible. So it did have an effect.”

When Smokey ended, Condongave up singing. He hopes the time

has now come for “PissSlave” and other greatsongs like “Hot Hard &Ready”. “It was toughto suffer for your art forso many years,” hesays. “We got tired ofseeing our ideas getplagiarised. It is 40 years later and I stilldon’t know how people

will deal with it. But we hope torecord. I haven’t kept this voice andbody for no reason.” PETER WATTS

How Far Will You Go? is out June 23

on Chapter Music

N S TA N T K A R M A !

HOT, HARD & READY

“I didn’t thinkit was avant-

garde, it waswho we were” J OHN C ONDON

This month: Nights out on offer include U2 at Hammersmith’s ClarendonHotel and the ‘Welcome Return’ of Ronnie Lane. Taken fromNME , July 12, 1980THE CLASSIFIEDS

Slave to the rhythm:John Condon

Rediscovered: SMOKEY, the outrageousgay act who almost replaced Iggy in The

Stooges. Involves Randy Rhoads, theSales brothers and “Piss Slave”!

I WANNA BE YOUR BOG!

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N S T A N T K A R M A !

| UNCUT | JULY

ON THE STEREO THIS MONTH…

THE PLAYLIST

THE DESLONDESThe Deslondes NEW WESTBig-hat-wearing compadres of Hurray ForThe Riff Raff make their debut proper.A triumph of New Orleans-flavoured,old-school country.

SONNY VINCENT &

ROCKET FROM THE CRYPTVintage Piss SWAMISpeedo and the gang reconvene to back avintage punk outlier. Full-force ramalamsensue, happily.

PRINCE FEATURINGERYN ALLEN KANEBaltimoreSOUNDCLOUDUrgency and indignation compels Princeto complete his finest track in years. “We’retired of cryin’ & people dyin’/Let’s take allthe guns away.”

EZRA FURMANPerpetual Motion People BELLA UNIONTwanging new wave, sparky dispositions ongender and religion, and a healthy dose ofdoo-wop: US indie’s next breakoutstar steps up a gear.

TAME IMPALACurrents FICTIONA ravishingTechnicolorcomeback forKevin Parker andco, pushing theirpsychedelic vision intoever poppier territory.

DUKE ELLINGTON& HIS ORCHESTRAThe Conny Plank Session GRÖNLANDThe jazz maestro teams up with Krautrock’sstudio enforcer for a long-lost 1979 session.Not hugely like Neu!, it’s fair to say.

SLEAFORD MODSKey Markets HARBINGER SOUNDFurther dispatches from Real Britain,rendered more poignant by the Toryelection victory. “No skunk – I need to be pissed up to smoke that shit, you cunt…”

SHAUN WILLIAM RYDERClose The Dam/Electric Scales

SOMETHING IN CONSTRUCTIONThe Mods’ spiritual forefather makesa surprisingly lean, lucid return. A nicematch for the new Funkadelic album.

PHIL & CATH TYLERThe Song-Crowned King FERRIC MORDANTThe king and queen of Britain’s folkunderground come up with another raw,uncanny mini-album.

ROBERT GLASPER Covered BLUE NOTEFresh from key shifts on the Kendrick LamarLP, a live set from the jazz pianist and his trio.Great version of Radiohead’s “Reckoner”.

For regular updates, check our blogs at www.uncut.co.uk and follow @JohnRMulvey on Twitter

“I DON’T KNOW if I’d describe music asmy career,” says the Louisiana-bornsinger-songwriter Gill Landry. “It’s

never been a conscious choice, more anevolution of circumstance. It’s been part of the path of everything.”

That path has certainly been an unusual one,leading Landry to busk across Europe and theUnited States, tour briefly with the Grateful Dead,start a band, The Kitchen Syncopators, andspend the best part of a decade playing guitar,banjo, pedal steel and singing in the Grammy-winning folk ensemble, Old CrowMedicine Show.

There have been solo albums too –2007’sThe Ballad Of Lawless Soirezand 2011’s Piety & Desire. NowLandry is set to release his third LP –his first for the ATO label – recordedin a tiny apartment on the south sideof Nashville.

An open-hearted, stripped-down

series of blues and folk numbers,the album is considerably calmerthan his raucous Old Crow output,and largely centres on the themeof relationships gone wrong.Alongside guest appearancesfrom Mumford & Sons trumpetplayer Nick Etwell, and guitaristand songwriter Robert Ellis, thealbum’s crowning glory is “TakeThis Body”, a duet with LauraMarling, who Landry has justsupported on tour.

“She was the first person whocame to mind when I wrote thesong,” explains Landry. “I’m

completely enchanted by what she’sdoing musically, and by her voice.

And I like the attitude that she’s delivering with it.”Born in Louisiana, Landry and his family moved

to Seattle in the early ’90s during the height ofgrunge. In his teens he learned to play bass andwas in and out of rock bands. But when a friendintroduced him to Bob Dylan’s debut album, he

swapped his bass for an acoustic guitar.Landry later moved to San Francisco and metup with the famous street musician Baby Gramps,who introduced him to the Harry Smith Collectionand generally took him under his wing. He joineda vaudeville outfit called The Songsters, inspired

by early American folk, and then inNew Orleans founded The KitchenSyncopators, a busking double-actthat proved unusually lucrative.

“We put out a case and played, andthe first day we made $300. Most40-hour-a-week jobs didn’t pull thatmuch. We were bitten after that.”

Since then Landry has led adeliberately peripatetic life, hopping

on and off Greyhound buses andgoing wherever the music takes him.Even 10 years as an Old Crow hasn’tput paid to his wandering.

“I haven’t sat still for more thantwo months without packing up andgoing somewhere,” he reflects. “AndI haven’t had a real job in 20 years. Itsounds kind of romantic, but therehave been moments of doubt andtribulation, too. This life – playingmusic, moving around – is the lifeI’ve found myself with. I have littlechoice in it, but I’m OK with that.”

FIONA STURGES

Gill Landry ’s self-titled album isout on ATO on June 22

Gill LandryI’M NEW HERE

Travellin’ man:Landry in 2015

I ’ M Y O U R F A N

“Gill’s justas cool andinteresting

as you’d hopea sometime

professionalvagrant fromLouisiana whoalways wearsa hat, smartboots and

knows goodwhiskey to be.”Laura Marling

Tame Impala

Recommended this month: the Old Crow escapee and,says Laura Marling, “professional vagrant”…

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Denim of late – not to mention

the recent side-project withhis own son Spencer –

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy has

now overseen the latest

by Richard Thompson,

a longtime hero. This

bustling acoustic beauty

from the resultingStill finds

the ex-Fairport man in

commanding form, backed by

Tweedy on harmony vocals.

6FUNKADELIC & SOUL

CLAP FEATURING SLY

STONE In Da Kar

George Clinton and Sly Stone goway back to the ’60s, when the

Funkadelic man signed to Sly’s

Stone Flower label. Now Boston duo

Soul Clap have climbed aboard the

Mothership for a deeply funky epic

whose warm grooves and electro-

gurgles beat out an eco-message

about drilling for oil: “ Pipe it, pump

it, truck it and fuck it.” Go George!

7MICHAEL HEAD &

THE STRANDS Poor JillAs if the reissue of 1997’sThe

Magical World Of The Strands isn’t

cause enough for celebration, alongcomes the companion we never

knew it had. The Olde World was

recorded at the same sessions and

houses such delights as “Poor Jill”,

on which Head exacts a bittersweet

jangle of post-Britpop heaven.

8SOAPKILLS GalbiLebanese duo Soapkills, aka Zeid

Hamdan and Yasmine Hamdan,

issued three albums of Arabic-

scented electronica before

venturing out into separate projects

eight years ago. This hauntingly

lovely tune, originally from 2005’s

Enta Fen, is a minimal exercise

in stealthy trip-hop and serves as

an ideal showcase for the billowyhush of Yasmine’s voice.

9LEFTFIELD

Universal Everything Most people may have given up on

such a comeback, but Leftfield are

back, 16 years after their last album,

with Alternative Light Source. Nowdown to just Neil Barnes, the

departure of Paul Daley hasn’t

lessened the impact of Leftfield’s

fidgety urban techno, as borne out

by this seven-minute excursion into

sensory rhythm.

10MEG BAIRD

CounterfeitersMeg Baird’s solo work outside

Espers has tended to be largely

unadorned, but third LP Don’t

Weigh Down The Light finds her

adding more 12-string guitars and

organ rolls. As “Counterfeiters”proves though, it’s still delicately

realised stuff, her luminous voice

backed by soft harmonies and set

to electro-folk arrangements.

11THE PRE NEW

Psychedelic LiesSmart, noisy and fantastically

droll, The Pre New are a fittingly

transgressive outcrop of the two

bands that sired them: World Of

Twist and Earl Brutus. Cue plenty

of atonal guitar-pop, rickety electro-

noise and pithy vocal narratives as

seen through the prism of urbanculture, glam, metal and crap TV.

Or, in this case, psychedelia.

12WILLIAM TYLER

The Sleeping Prophet Uncut readers may already be

au fait with William Tyler’s

extraordinary guitar odysseys via

2013’s Impossible Truth. Five years

earlier, though, he made his mark

with Deseret Canyon, trading

under the name The Paper Hats.

“The Sleeping Prophet” is a six-

and-a-half-minute masterclass in

acoustic delicacy, complete withsoft accents of pedal steel.

13JAH WOBBLE

Merry Go RoundAn ebullient racket from one of

these isles’ more restless talents,

versed in Wobble’s semi-spoken

East End tones and replete withreferences to psychiatric nurses and

The Man Who Fell To Earth. “Merry

Go Round” is lifted from Redux , a

6CD boxset that spans a career

exploring post-punk, world

rhythms, dub, ambient and jazz.

14TREMBLING BELLS

Killing Time InLondon FieldsBleepy electronic noise and acid

guitars form the bones of this track

from latest album The Sovereign

Self , but the meat is provided by

Lavinia Blackwall’s strident, post-

Siouxsie vocal. A somewhat darker

affair than the Glaswegian outfit’s

previous efforts, Blackwall admitsthat the intensity of the new songs

makes them both “physically and

emotionally draining to sing”.

15BITCHIN BAJAS

MarimbaA meditative way to end things,

with the Chicago threesome (led by

Cave’s Cooper Crain) offering a fluid

procession of organic motorik that

stretches out into the nine-minute

mark. Minimal in tone, it could be

a more pastoral Popul Vuh, the

psychedelic sense of exotica

heightened by the arrival of variouswoodwinds part way through.

1THE FALL Fibre Book Troll

A bracing start this month, as MarkE Smith’s current incarnation of The

Fall deliver a typically bilious cut

from Sub-Lingual Tablet , their

31st studio album. All the band’s

distinctive tropes are in place here,

from the vicious guitars to Smith’s

reassuringly grouchy vocals:

“ I want a fucking Facebook troll!”

2GILL LANDRY

Funeral In My HeartLandry’s day job with Old Crow

Medicine Show allows him plenty of

room to express himself on banjo

and guitar, but rather less when itcomes to songwriting. His solo work

(the Nashville man’s latest album

is his third to date) redresses the

balance in emphatic style, with

“Funeral In My Heart” providing

a platform for his smoky-voiced,

nuanced Americana.

3FFS Johnny DelusionalThe combined forces of Franz

Ferdinand and Sparks is pure catnip

for lovers of dashing art-pop. This

prime number from debut FFS pits

asymmetrical rhythms against Alex

Kapranos’ baritone and the upper-

register tones of Russell Mael.

“The real motivation was to make

something new,” Kapranos says.

4JIM O’ROURKEThat WeekendIt’s been way too long – 14 years,

in fact – since Chicago maverick

Jim O’Rourke released anything

approaching a conventional rock

album. Simple Songs, however, has

come to remedy that. A wonderful

return it is too, with this track a fine

exemplar: pop at the core, but with

quasi-classical undertones and a

voice hovering just above a whisper.

5RICHARD THOMPSON

Beatnik Walking

Clearly not content with producingMavis Staples, Low and White

YOU GOTTA MOVE!Your guide to this month’s free CD

FFS

| UNCUT | JULY

FREECD!

MichaelHead

Jah Wobble

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RingoStarr

STAR QUESTION

What is your

favourite drum

fill on all The

Beatles’ records?

Jeff Lynne

There’s too many

great drum fills! I

think one of the all-time killer drum

fills for Jeff is “Free As A Bird”. I did

do some fills and I do have a style.I’m a left-handed person playing

right-handed drums. So that gave

me a whacky attitude to the fills. I

can’t go snare drum, top tom, floor

tom. I can only go floor tom, top tom,

snare, because I lead with my left.

So for me, the fills were fine. I always

put them in what I call “the right

place”, never over when the singer

was singing. Those early years,

we were learning, we had very

little microphones. Somehow,

I just came up with the open hi-hat.I didn’t know anyone else who

was doing it… it gave it a lot of

‘shushyashushyashushyashushya’ .

I always loved that. If you listen to

early records, that really comes into

play. But then there’s “A Day In The

Life”… You know, I like the whole

song, the whole track. I liked what

Paul played, and John’s rhythm and

George’s guitar was in some cases as

important as any words. Great solo

work. I can’t really tell Jeff what my

favourite is, because there’s too

many of them. I think they’re all my

favourite, if I’m doing them!

There’s a song on your new

album called “Rory And The

Hurricanes”. What do you

remember about your Butlins

seasons with them in the

late 1950s? James Kelly, London

Every week, there was a change of

clientele. A lot of new young girls!

It was great, we so-called “turned

professional”. I’d left the factory.

We’d gone to Butlins and had a

three-month gig. That was unheard

of. We played the Rock’n’Calypso

Ballroom six nights a week, and

sometimes the afternoon sessions.

It was a holiday atmosphere, soeveryone wanted to have a good

time. It was a lot of fun. The

repertoire was exactly what we

played in Hamburg. The repertoire

of every band in Liverpool in ’61, ’62

was the same. I actually went with

Rory to a venue with two other bands

and just by chance the other two

drummers didn’t turn up. I just sat

behind the kit and played six

sessions – you know, you do half an

hour, then the next band would do

half an hour, then the next band

would do half an hour, then it would

be back to Rory. I sat there and

played with everybody becauseI knew the songs.

STAR QUESTION

How did you and

I meet? I was

“there”, so I

can’t remember.

Van Dyke Parks

Yeah, Van Dyke was

“there” and I truly

understand why he wasn’t there! I

was in a house in Woodrow Wilson

Drive here in LA, I was borrowing it

from a friend. I’d moved over to LA in

1976, and Harry Nilsson and Van

Dyke came to see me, to hang out.They’d just been on an interesting

journey of hallucinations. That’s

how I met Van Dyke. He came in and

we got on well right away. I worked

with him through the ’70s, through

the ’80s occasionally, the ’90s and

now into the 2000s. But that’s where

we met. It was a great experience.

And he was with my best friend,

Harry Nilsson, of course, so that was

that. But Harry’s no longer with us.

He’s been gone 20 years now. I still

miss him.

What do you remember about the

Plastic Ono Bandalbum sessionsin 1970?

Luuk Reinders, Duiven, The

Netherlands

It was incredible. John, Klaus and I.

One of the finest trios I ever heard.

We did it like a jam. We knew John

had the songs and we’d kick it in and

felt where it should go. We knew

Klaus anyway. John and I really

knew each other, so we were psychic

where the atmosphere was going to

go. It’s one of the best experiences of

being on a record I have ever had.

Just being in the room with John,

being honest, the way he was,

screaming, shouting and singing.It was an incredible moment.

IWAS JUST in the car coming here,” begins Ringo

Starr. “‘Eight Days A Week’ was playing on the radio,

and it rocked. Y’know, it rocked!” Starr is marvelling

at the remarkable early accomplishments of The

Beatles while installed in a hotel suite in LA. There,

he’s in the throes of promotional duties for his new

solo LP, Postcards From Paradise. In fact, it is proving

to be a particularly busy year for Starr: apart from an

upcoming tour for his All-Starr Band, there’s also his recent induction into

the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame, as the final Beatle to enjoy such an honour. But

according to his publicist, Starr has spent the last few days fielding questions

on two current news stories: the departure of Zayn Malik from One Direction

and the death of Cynthia Lennon. Fortunately, a temperate mood appears to

have prevailed, and Uncut finds Starr well-disposed towards a bulging

postbag. “So what do you want?” He asks, adopting a mock serious tone.Indeed, an encounter with Starr is best described as good-natured. A few

months shy of his 75th birthday, one wonders what the secret to his positive

disposition is. “Peace and love!” He booms. “That’s right, brother!”

AN AUDIENCE WITH...

The Fab drummer happily chats about his experiences at Butlins, his friend Peter

Sellers, and eight years in The Beatles: “I said, ‘Fuck it, it’s too crazy, I’m leaving!’”

G E T T Y I M A G E S

Interview:Michael Bonner

Portrait: Rob Shanahan

Beatle Ringo,putting his fills in allthe right places…

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“One of the bestexperiences ever, just being in the room with John, beinghonest, screaming,shouting, singing!”

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STAR QUESTION

From around

1967, your

drumming style

changed quite

dramatically.

Especially on

things like “I Am

The Walrus” and “Flying”,

it’s not quite as syncopated.

Where did that come from, and

why did it change?

Paul Weller

The songs had changed, ourattitudes had changed and our

well-being had changed. All thatcame into play. It was like a naturalprogression: “We’re going that way,let me do this now.” I think it’s justa confidence thing. Certain thingshappen in your life. He’s absolutelyright. I did have a drumming changeof direction, the only thing thatstayed constant was my time-keeping. And also people could hearthe drums better than the early ’60swhen we were on four-track, where itwas the drums and the vocals and atambourine, say. If anything wasgoing to get lost on the tracks, it wasalways the bass drum. I love all the

remasters, because you get to hearwhat I was playing!

Your performance inThe Magic

Christian is fantastic. What was

Peter Sellers like to work with?

Eoghan Lyng, Cork

Peter was great to work with. Wewent out and had some really fundinners. In his own way, he was veryhumorous. We became friends. In’67, when I left The Beatles, I went toSardinia. But he was tied up, so helent me the boat. Me, Maureen, therewas only two kids then, we went andhung out on the boat. That became

an incredible moment, because Iwas talking to the captain of the

yacht and he’d given us octopus andchips. We couldn’t understand that,we were used to fish and chips. Hewas telling me the story aboutoctopuses under the seas, they goand collect shiny stones or tin cansand they make gardens forthemselves out of shiny things. Icouldn’t believe how beautiful thatwas, and where my head was at thetime, I thought, ‘Man, I’d like to beunder the sea in an octopus’ gardenin the shade.’ You never know whereit’s coming from, you know?

How serious were you about

leaving The Beatles during the‘White Album’ sessions?

Nick Clarke, Cambridge

I went over to John’s and I said, “I’mnot playing great and you three areso close…” And he said, “I thought itwas you three!” And then I went overto Paul’s – knock! knock! knock! – Isaid, “I don’t feel I’m playing good.And you three are so close…” And hegoes: “I thought it was you three!”So I said, “Fuck it, it’s too crazy! I’mleaving!” So I left, I got on a plane, Itook Maureen and my two kids at thetime and I went to Sardinina. Therewere all these faxes: “Come on back,

it’s great!” Andwhen I did getback, George hadthe whole studiodecorated inflowers, so it was abeautiful reunion.It wasn’t just me, itwas everybody,and I think thatbroke the spell

and we all realised, “Let’s get backtogether.” But I did love ‘The WhiteAlbum’. We were like a band again.A lot of tracks were just this band,the band I love. Pepper – yes, all itsgood points, it was great – but therewas a lot of downtime. ‘The WhiteAlbum’, we were rocking.

What are your memories of

working with Frank Zappa

on 200 Motels?

Pablo S Alonso, Argentina

It was great, from day one. I got a

message from our office. “FrankZappa wants to talk to you aboutsomething.” So I said, “Tell Frank tocome over to the house.” He cameover and he laid out this whole

score, at least 25 pages of the score.I said, “Well, what are you showingme that for, Frank? I can’t readmusic.” He said, “I just wantedto show you.” He said, “Will youplay me in the movie?” It was reallyeasy, he was a nice guy, so I said,“Sure.” I did like Frank. I’d met himseveral times. He was a beautifulhuman being. As far as I wasconcerned, his music was crazy –but that’s one man’s opinion. Butthe memory of the movie was, he’dfollowed the band around andsecretly taped their conversationsand then turned it into a song and

forced them to sing it. He was a lotof fun!

STAR QUESTION

I love your

unique drum

playing. I

guess it’s

intuitive, but

were there

drummers

who influenced you and

whose style you tried toemulate? Marianne Faithfull

No, when I listen to records, Ihear the whole thing. I neversaid, “Oh, that’s Carl Palmer.” I

didn’t have hero drummers. I went tothe movies and saw Gene Krupa in amovie and that’s about it. I just foundmy own style. When I started, if youhad the instrument, you were in theband. You didn’t have to be great. Weall learned together. So, no, I didn’thave any big heroes, drummers.

Jim Keltner refers to The Beatles

as “the Four”. Did you have any

good nicknames for other

bands? Mark Moss, Hackney

“Bastards.” And you’ll have to figureout which band that was! Was thereever competition between me,Charlie Watts and Keith Moon? No.Never. And there was never anycompetition between The RollingStones and The Beatles. That was anewspaper thing… mainly AndrewLoog Oldham, who startedspreading those stories to get theStones some notoriety.

It’s nice that you run your own

Twitter account. Do you likebeing available to your fans, and

how much of that was down to

how Brian Epstein encouraged

you to behave when you were

young? Charley Dine, Camberley

It was how you did it, then. All ourfamily members worked on doingthe fan mail. My mother used to say:“Sign this, son.” Over all those years,I signed everything. People wereselling more than they were keeping.I signed scratch plates in New Yorkand then they’d stick them to a shittyguitar and sell them on eBay forthree grand. So I stopped signing

things in 2010. When I last playedLiverpool with the All-Starrs, afterthe gig, this guy said, “Oh, Ringo, you’re my favourite. I love you, man.I’m from Liverpool. Sign this!” I said,“Hey man, I don’t sign any more.”And he said, “You ----!” and calledme a very bad word. So he didn’treally love me, he just wanted tohave some shit to sell.

Postcards From Paradise is out now

on Universal Music Enterprises

AN AUDIENCEWITH...

S T A N L

E Y B I E L E C K I M O V I E C O L L E C T I O N / G E T T Y I M A G E S ; J U L I A N B R O A D

“Frank Zappawas a beautifulman, but hismusic wascrazy…”

UNCUT.CO.UKLog on to see who’s in

the hot-seat next monthand to post your questions!

With Sellers inThe MagicChristian: “Peter was greatto work with… In his ownway, he was very humorous”

8/9/2019 Uncut July 2015

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T

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Story: Jaan Uhelszki | Photograph: Bob Simmons

| UNCUT | JULY

13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS

On Jinx Avenue, Austin, America’s most storied acid-rock band are plottingan improbable comeback.Uncut infiltrates the 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS’ reunionrehearsals, pieces together their traumatic legend, and checks up on the current

states of Roky Erickson (“I never really had a bad trip”) and outlying electric jug manTommy Hall (no LSD since 2009). After 45 years apart, how will they cope?

And will Roky get what he wants for dinner?

WE’VE GOT

LEVITATION!

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The 13th Floor Elevators,live at the New OrleansClub, Austin, Texas,February 1966

JULY | UNCUT |

OUTHEAST OF THE Texas

State Capitol Building is a

small, four-block street

called Jinx Ave. Pulling up

to a Wedgwood blue frame

house, tucked beneathleafy pecan, ash and

mesquite trees, down a

paved path, you can’t

avoid thinking that it’s far

too apt an address for the 13th Floor Elevators –

a band whose genius was thwarted by a string of

near-constant bad luck until they dissolved into

acid-rock legend. When they fell, they fell from

a high altitude, one that seemed impossible to

return to. Yet here in Clockright Studios, as

unlikely as it seems, the Elevators – under the

auspices of their leader, Roky Erickson – are

preparing for a 50th-anniversary reunion show at

this year’s Austin Psych Fest. A long, white outer

building opens up to reveal an economical space,

panelled in good wood, with oriental rugs,

framed posters, and an inner sanctum that holds

vintage analog equipment as well as state-of-the-

art gear. The studio is owned by Jason Richards,

a member of Erickson’s recent backup band, The

Hounds Of The Baskerville. It got its name afterthe power blew out in the studio for a few days:

when it came back on, the analog clock read

exactly the right time. Occurrences like that are

common in the Ericksonian universe. Yet all

seems remarkably normal on

this warm spring day. Two of

the original bandmembers –

Erickson and drummer John

Ike Walton – sit sipping

sweet tea under a canvas

parasol, shielded from the

late afternoon Texas sun.

They are accompanied by

bassist Ronnie Leatherman,

who joined the band in June,

1966, straight after graduating from high school.

Together, they wait to begin rehearsal. But one of

their number is conspicuously absent. Electric

jug player Tommy Hall, is still in San Francisco,

although he’s assured his bandmates he will be

in Texas for the show. He later tells me he hassworn off any inebriants before a show – he only

smokes medical marijuana these days since his

LSD connection dried up back in 2009. And,

pressingly, he has to get a new electric jug. It’s

been almost five decades

since the founding

members shared a stage;

or kept in touch with more

than an occasional

Christmas card. While

Walton and Leatherman

live within shouting

distance from each other

near their hometown of

Kerrville, Texas, they

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“Xxx xxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxx xx”

XXXXXXX

“And thosescreams...they maybe the best

whitescreams

ever”LENNY KAYE

| UNCUT | JULY

haven’t seen Erickson or Hall in more than 45 years.

Dressed in a black T-shirt, jeans and black-and-white

Vans, sporting sunglasses, Erickson closes his eyes and

leans back in a white, wrought-iron lawn chair. His

scrupulously clean hands and preternaturally white fingers

are stretched across the girth of his stomach like a belt.

Breathing deeply, but not asleep, he seems to be conserving

power. At this stage of life, it appears he’s figured out what is

important to him. And taking things easy is one of them.

“Are you ready to go in there and practise?” his son Jegar

asks him, inclining his head toward the studio about 15 feet

from where his father is sitting. Erickson opens his milky

blue eyes and fixes his son with a look, but doesn’t answer.

Instead he turns his head to look at his wife. “Are we having

steak for dinner?” he asks Dana, whom he first married in1974, then again in 2008. “If that’s what you want, honey,”

she answers, fussing with a strand of hair that’s escaped her

long black braid. Jegar asks his father again. This time

he answers: “We might as well get it over with.”

THE TH FLOOR Elevators are perhaps

rock’s most improbable comeback story.

Never mind that it was five decades in

coming. But Roky Erickson had a further

distance to travel back than most. The

prodigious amounts of LSD the band used to

take before shows had a profound effect on the

frontman. When the Elevators performed at San

Antonio’s HemisFair in 1968, Erickson began

B O B S I

M M O N S

speaking gibberish

onstage. The latest in a

long string of similar,

equally bizarre incidents, it resulted in the singer being taken

to a Houston psychiatric hospital, where he was subjected to

electroshock therapy. The band dissolved shortly after. Then,

in 1978, guitarist Stacy Sutherland was shot by his estrangedwife, Bunni, in a domestic dispute in Houston.

In their heyday, the Elevators were bona fide rock stars:

a little too good-looking for their own good, a little too

dangerous-sounding, their hair a little too long, their trousers

a little too pegged. Their debut single, “You’re Gonna Miss

Me”, was a dissolute kiss-off to a love gone bad, with lyrics

as beseeching as they were menacing. The song climbed

halfway up the charts, landing the Elevators on Dick

Clark’s American Bandstand twice in 1966. The song

still looms large in Elevators lore. “It is a really great

pop song,” explains Patti Smith Band guitarist Lenny

Kaye, who included it on his ’72 compilation, Nuggets:

Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, 1965–

1968. “That song was the centrepiece of Nuggets. It’s got

great hooky chords to start and that weird middle breakwith that echo sound from Tommy Hall’s electric jug.

I don’t think it’s ever been used before or since. And

those screams. They may be the best white screams

ever. They’re on a par with Screaming Jay Hawkins.”

Kaye is not the only connoisseur to venerate “You’re

Going To Miss Me” or the Elevators themselves.

ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons – whose Houston psych group

Moving Sidewalks were contemporaries of the

Elevators – confirms the band’s pioneering

sensibilities. “Roky and the Elevators were creating

something otherworldly,” he explains. “Sound in a

scene that had no previous incarnation. Psychedelia!”

The Elevators were brought together by Tommy

Hall, a proto-hippy shaman, acid visionary and Texas

musician. His plan was to hook up Erickson, then leadsinger with The Spades, with another Texas band, The

Elevators 2, 1967: (l-r, front row )Tommy Hall, Stacy Sutherland, RokyErickson; ( back row) far left, DannyGalindo, far right, Danny Thomas

Live elevation: (l-r) StacySutherland, Benny Thurman,Roky Erickson and Tommy Hall,La Maison, Houston, Texas ,1966

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“I neverreally

had a bad

acid trip. You haveto respect

it…”ROKY ERICKSON

THE PSYCHEDELIC SOUNDS OF

THE 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS

Not quite the psychedelicmanifesto that the titlepromises. Tommy Hallhad only just begun to sethis metaphysical poetryto the Elevators’ buzzy,

garage rock. There’s a Stones-y swaggerand a seditious ethos at work, from therecriminatory “You’re Gonna Miss Me”to the paranoia of “Roller Coaster” andthe sex-capades of “Fire Engine”.

9/10

EASTER EVERYWHERE

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS

The Elevators had travelledquite far in terms ofproficiency and songstructure, with Erickson’sscreams now underplayedand performances more

restrained. There is a cohesiveness that’smissing from the first LP, but little of the anticfrivolity, “(I’ve Got) Levitation” excepted.

8/10

LIVEINTERNATIONAL ARTISTS

Ongoing legal troublesand health issues made ithard for the Elevators totour, so International Artistsundertook plans to recordthe band live in Houston.

Ensuing problems meant that the labelassembled a handful of unreleased tracksover which they dubbed crowd noises.The record collects gems that mightotherwise never have seen the light ofday, including their blurry “EverybodyNeeds Somebody To Love” and the perfect“Take That Girl”.

7/10

BULL OF THE WOODSINTERNATIONAL ARTISTS

The 13th Floor Elevators’final studio album.Erickson only sings onfour of the 11 tracks.Tommy Hall also takes abackseat role. Guitarist

Stacy Sutherland wrote five of the songshimself, co-writing four with Hall, andcoaxing bassist Ronnie Leathermanback into the fold (who contributes onesong). The result is a more gentle, pastoralalbum. It’s not a bad album… it just isn’t a trueElevators album.

6/10

Lingsmen – whose lineup included

guitarist Sutherland, drummer Walton,

and bassist Benny Thurman. In

Erickson, Hall found a voice for his acid

revelations. While for his part, Erickson

– a former child actor – had already

written two songs by the time he was 15:

“You’re Gonna Miss Me” and “We Sell

Soul”. Founding bassist Benny Thurman

explains the origins of the Elevators’ name in

suitably Spinal Tappish terms: “Everyone elsehad only gone to 12. The music was so new that we

called it the 13th floor.” In the sleevenotes to their 1966

debut,The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators,

the band advocated the use of LSD as a gateway to a higher

state of consciousness. According to Billy Gibbons, they

were “creating the vision of being able to go to an

undiscovered space – Texas got bigger!”

“No rock band before or since ever delved as deeply into the

idea of human consciousness being something that could be

expanded into the higher evolution of the species,” says

longtime supporter Bill Bentley, who co-ordinated the 1990

Erickson tribute album, Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye.

“Tommy Hall worked in the world of psychedelics as a tool to

help the progress of humanity. His song lyrics reflected what

he learned while under the influence of LSD in a way thatturned the band’s best songs, like ‘Slip Inside This House’

and ‘Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)’ into sonic

sacraments for their acolytes.”

Almost from the first, Hall insisted that the bandmembers

ingest LSD before every show and “Play the acid.” At first

none of the members balked, embracing the spiritual, mind-

expanding properties of the drug, but later there were dark

rumblings that if they refused, Hall would sneak

the substance into their drinks prior to shows. “The

only way I could deal with it was pretend to take it

and only take a quarter or half a tab at most,”

explains bassist Ronnie Leatherman. Still slender

as a boy, with greying hair, he has spent the past

four decades working for a jewellery company. A

perfect amethyst in his left ear will attest to the factthat he knows his gems. “If it was good, I might

take some more later, but I didn’t very often.

Tommy was just real insistent, and I was young

and wanting to experiment. But we weren’t taking

LSD to get blasted. It was spiritual. Stacy was very

spiritual. He was a firm believer in God. I don’t

have anything against Tommy. He could take all he

wanted to. I just didn’t want to. But I don’t regret it

a bit. And John Ike took it, but he just didn’t like it.

And now he definitely doesn’t, and I wouldn’t ever

again, that’s for sure.” At 72, in his oversized white

cowboy hat and striped shirt, John Ike Walton

looks more like the manager of a neighbourhood

hardware store than a rock musician. When

pressed, he admits he is reluctant to discuss theElevators, preferring to save his memories for a

book. “I’m tired of giving everything away. But for

the record, I want to say, I did not take the LSD,” he

huffs, contradicting much of what he has said in

interviews over the years.

For his part, in 1977, Sutherland had explained

that he wanted to stop taking hallucinogenics after

one particularly grisly episode. “Everything

started glowing and I freaked out, [thinking ] I was

going to die or something. [Then] everybody

turned into wolves and I thought that our band

was evil, because of some of the things we had

advocated. We had a controversy going on

quite a while about advocating drugs and so forth,

and mixing it with religion. I felt it was prettydangerous ground.”

JULY | UNCUT |

G U Y C L A R K / M I C H A E L O C H S A R C H

I V E S / G E T T Y I M A G E S

Erickson onTheLarry Kane Show ,Houston Texas, 1967

BUYERS’ GUIDE


Today, Erickson is surprisingly more sanguine about his

own experiences with LSD. “I never had a bad acid trip,” he

confirms matter-of-factly. Admitting to more than 300

psychic excursions, he says, “You have to watch out for the

way you view things and think it right. If you respected it, you

would have a good trip; if you didn’t, you’d have a bad one.”

Unfortunately, the Elevators’ existence proved to be a bad

trip for the Texas establishment. The band were busted in a

televised raid; although most of the charges were dropped,

Hall and Sutherland struggled to find gigs in Texas under theterms of their parole. In 1969, meanwhile, Erickson was

busted by the Austin police. In an attempt to avoid prison, he

pleaded insanity and was sentenced to Austin’s Rusk State

Hospital For The Criminally Insane. There, he was subjected

to Thorazine treatments and electroshock therapy. He wrote

a book of poetry and befriended fellow convict Jimmy

Wolcott, an Elevators fan who’d murdered his family while

PARADISE

GARAGEThe 13th Floor Elevators on CD

8/9/2019 Uncut July 2015

22/124 | UNCUT | JULY

“Kids dig us.

We cameup with

valid ideasabout theuniverse”TOMMY HALL

T

OMMY HALL lives in a residentialhotel in the Tenderloin district of

San Francisco. To gain access, avisitor must slide a driver’s licence under asix-inch slab of plastic and vertical bars,and leave it with the doorman beforebeing allowed upstairs. It feels rather likevisiting a prisoner in a minimum-securityfacility. Admittedly, it’s not the oddestplace Hall has lived. There was the time in1972 when he lived in a cave in LagunaBeach as part of the commune owned bythe Brotherhood of Eternal Love headedup by Timothy Leary. But now, aged 72, helives here, up a dimly lit stairway and downa dingy grey hall. We’re here to talk aboutthe Elevators’ 50th anniversary reunion.

“I need to be ready for this,” he says in ahigh-pitched, singsong voice, oddlysimilar to Erickson’s. The door to his roomis scarred, with pieces of masking tapestill attached to it. Oppressively hot, witha single bulb strung from the ceiling, itcontains piles of books, CDs, and a TV.There’s a small space cleared in thecentre of the room where Hall sits to dohis work. Currently, he is finishing a bookhe has spent decades on, inwhich he explains the mathematicalrelationship of the universe.

“Here, they call me the Spider,” Hallconfides. Why? “Because I spied it,” heexplains wearily. Does he still think thattaking LSD is necessary to make music?

“No, that’s been done. The pathway torock’n’roll led to psychedelics and all thiswonderful music. Once we had that, wekicked out the doors on our own andunderstood the code. We figured it out.

This giant spotlight focused on thatpathway. That’s why you have a song bythe Led Zeppelin, ‘Pathway (sic) ToHeaven’. They saw it, too.”

Would Hall like the Elevators’ reunion tocontinue? “No, no, no,” he saysemphatically. “I have to get back to workon my book. It doesn’t surprise mepeople still like the Elevators. Because wecame up with valid ideas about theuniverse. Kids now dig us more than theydid in the past as there’s real informationthere. It’s something to follow, not justa bunch of bullshit.

“I’m hoping that once I have a book

done and Roky can read it, it’ll help himcome back to himself,” he says as heushersUncut to the door. “Roky kindaclosed off to himself, seemingly sometype of chemical thing. See, all of thosethings can be broken if you have theright information.”

AT HOME WITH TOMMY HALLUncut visits the electric jug playerin San Francisco…

EYEWITNESS!

high on glue. Critically, Erickson alsocontinued to write songs, forming a band called

The Missing Links with his fellow inmates. “I’d

write these songs on my guitar,” he explains

today, as he continues to recline in his lawn

chair. “I was writing songs constantly there.

I had them stored away in a box.”

THERE HAVE BEEN previous attempts

to reunite the 13th Floor Elevators

stretching back to 1972, when Erickson

was finally discharged from Rusk. Did he miss

the band? “Yeah, sometimes I did.”

Did he ever think about putting it back

together again? “Yeah, I thought about it,” he allows. “They

wanted us to do a get-together of the Elevators when I cameback. To regroup the band. It didn’t really work out.”

It’s not clear whether Erickson is entirely

concerned with his band’s 50th anniversary.

Does he think their music still holds up today?

“They haven’t played in a long time, but the

albums are still out there,” he says a little

peevishly, with an odd choice of pronoun,

which may prove revealing. “When I was in

Philadelphia [actually Pittsburgh, living with

younger brother Sumner after leaving Rusk ] I’d

listen to the Elevators a little and they’re very

exciting. I enjoyed listening to the words. Theywere talking about metaphysical stuff and

things like leaving your body. But that’s a

hard thing to do.”

So does it feel different being a member

of the 13th Floor Elevators in 2015 than it did in 1965?

“Oh, I feel like I have it more down. See, you study, you

know certain things,” he says mysteriously. “Things you

didn’t know before. I’m studying trying to mingle fiction

with existentialism, psychology. That sort of thing. You keep

going to where you can identify with what people are trying

to teach you.”

Still, there are uncertainties and changes. Tommy Hall is

no longer calling the shots from his hotel in Tenderloin, where

he lives on government assistance (and the “thousand a year

or so” he claims to earn from Elevators royalties) and watchesGerman TV programmes all day. More important, there are

no drugs any more, save blood-pressure medicine for these

sixtysomethings. The band have also needed to find a

suitable replacement for Sutherland, whose reverb-drenched

guitar work was as critical to the band’s sound as Erickson’s

unnerving scream and Hall’s electric-jug sorcery. In fact,

it’s taking two guitarists: Fred Mitchim and Eli Southard.

Southard, who’s played in The Hounds Of The Baskerville

since 2012, observes that Sutherland’s role in the band was

crucial, that the other

guys “looked to him for

all the cues.

“I really love the records,”

he adds. “I want to sound

as close to the record asI can but still throw down

a vibrant performance.

I can’t learn those solos

verbatim, mainly because

he was just vamping out

a lot of it, and it’d kinda

go against the spirit of it to

learn what he played that

one time verbatim.”

While Southard is talking,

Erickson gets up and walks

into the air-conditioned studio. The bandmembers — new

and old – join him inside, taking their places around their

instruments. Erickson settles himself in a chair in the centre

of the room, while Walton squeezes in behind his drum kitwhich is pushed into the far corner. There is an awkward

silence while they attempt to get the mics working properly.

Jegar Erickson swoops in and swiftly resolves the problem.

He removes a roll of black tape out of his pocket, pulls off a

piece and puts it over a stray wire in front of his father and

then steps back. Without hesitation the band start playing

as one – as if they’d been doing this every day for the last 50

years, in fact – “Splash 1”, from their debut album. The song

is one of their rare ballads. Southward picks out the song’s

minimalist guitar lines before the rest of the band join in.

Then Erickson starts singing; he co-wrote the song with

Hall’s former wife, Clementine, about what happened when

the two of them met:“The neon from your eyes is splashing

into mine/It’s so familiar in a way I can’t define.” If anything,

Erickson’s voice is more refined than it was those five decadesago, sounding a bit like the Airplane’s Marty Balin with a bit J A

M I E

S O J A

The Elevators live at aTexas frat party, July 1966,(Tommy Hall, far left )

Tommy Hall inhis room in SanFrancisco

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more tremor, a little more ache. His timing is impeccable, his

pitch superb; the rest of the band are impressively tight.

They move quickly on to “(I’ve Got) Levitation”, an out-and-

out rocker written by Hall and Sutherland. This version,

which barely stretches beyond two minutes, is dirty garage

rock at its best, as Erickson narrows his odd-shaped eyes and

punctuates the song’s breaks with an appropriate “ All right ”

that bring to mind a young Jagger. As soon as it starts, it stops.

The silence in the studio is suddenly broken by the piercing

scream that kicks off “You’re Gonna Miss Me”. What’s truly

odd is that Erickson’s face doesn’t change expression at allwhen he emits the scream, almost as if it doesn’t come from

him. In this version, he comes in behind the beat; it seems

slower, more sure-footed, yet more of a lament than the

original. After it closes, Walton takes off his big Texan

10-gallon hat and wipes his brow before they start in on

“Roller Coaster”. Based on Hall’s recitation of the acid

experience, the song on record is compressed and

anxious, but today it picks up steam as they play. There’s

a palpable sense of tension dissipating when it finishes.

WHEN ROKY ERICKSON left Rusk Hospital

in 1972, it was claimed he had forgotten all

the words to the Elevators songs – but he

could remember every single Dylan lyric. Six years ago,

he admitted to Uncut that was true. Evidently, thingshave changed in the intervening years. Jegar has

assiduously printed off lyric sheets for the songs the

band practise during rehearsal, and Erickson hasn’t

needed to consult a single one, instead reeling off the

words as if he’d written them only yesterday. In a break

during the rehearsals, Southard explains that for quite

some time, Erickson would regularly perform only two

Elevators songs – “Splash 1” and “You’re Gonna Miss

Me” during Hounds Of The Baskerville shows. But

Southard noticed a change of attitude over the last

couple of years.

“We started incorporating a lot of the Elevators tunes

into the set, as Roky was really into it,” he reveals. “We

didn’t really expect that. As I understand it, he

wasn’t really into playing those tunes with previousbands, for whatever reason. So when we pitched the

idea, ‘Rok, would you want to try playing “Levitation”

sometime, or “Fire Engine”?’ He was, ‘Well, yeah, I love

those songs.’”

Back in Clockright Studios, Walton whoops, “We’re

raising hell now!” Erickson nods in agreement. “Yup. It

sounds good,” he adds. “Let’s do ‘Reverb’ next.” The song –

actually titled “Reverberation” – was a co-write by Hall,

Erickson and Sutherland. Thankfully, the lyric“You start

to fight against the night that screams inside your mind/

When something black, it answers back and grabs you

from behind” no longer has the sway over them it once did.

“Take it easy with that one,” reminds Erickson, then he

says, “Was that four or five?” It transpires that this is code:

asking about the time signifies that Erickson has hadenough. “Want to take a break, Roky?” asks Jegar, who

never calls his father “Dad”. “Nope,” comes the reply. “We

can do one more.”

After a little adjustment to his chair, Erickson is ready

to go again, tapping his foot even though no music is

currently being played. The band ease into “Tried To Hide”,

a song Sutherland wrote about burying joints in the sandy

beach. Erickson emits soft, approving “yeah”s during the

song. Three minutes later, they’re done, which seems

to thrill Erickson. “It was good today,” he enthuses. “Nice

and easy. That big old cup of hot tea helped.” Although I

didn’t see him have one. Yet for all his gnomic aspects,

Erickson is clearly the band’s driving force. According to

Jason Richards, the studio owner, “Roky is a workhorse.

The more we put him to work and the more he singsevery day, you’ll watch the rest of us get weary and

JULY | UNCUT |

tired, [but ] Roky’s a machine. He just keeps going.”

Southard adds, “He’s got his own set of quirks. It’s not

easy to learn them. He always likes to say, ‘Well, you guys

are taking it easy on me.’ Which is his way of saying,

‘Please don’t make me play too many songs,’ or ‘Hey,

I’m tired.’ I also think he wants it to be cool with everybody.

Probably in the past he’s had a lot of contentious

relationships with his bandmates. So he’s

just like, ‘Let’s all just take it easy.’ He speaks his own

kind of weird language, but he’s a lot sharper than

I thought he was going to be. He’s really on point most

of the time, and he can be the anchor on tour sometimes

as he’ll be like, ‘No, no, let’s all calm down.’ Or when things

get tense, he’ll make a joke.”

The key, according to Jegar, is not to be careful aroundhim and “have straight conversations with him. He’s very

deliberate in what he chooses to say and the messages he

wants to put across. But he’s comfortable in his skin and he

doesn’t have to overcompensate, so I just found [it’s best to

be] direct and always 100 percent honest, never misleading,

because he knows if you’re not telling the full truth. He’s

probably at a point where it’s like. ‘If you want to talk to me

that way, I’ll respond back to you that way.’”

What’s the best way to communicate with Erickson Snr,

then? Jegar considers his answer. “He doesn’t like pussyfoot

conversations.” He says eventually. “He wants to be talked to

like a dude. That’s what he likes about getting out with the

band, now that he knows the band. It’s like, ‘Hey, Rok, how

you doing?’ And game on. He likes getting out of the house

and hanging out with his brothers and playing some music.”And, of course, he likes steak.

Uncut reports from theband’s reunion show

YEARS ON from their formation,the Elevators took to the stage onSunday, May 10, 2015 at what was

formerly known as Austin Psych Fest,

appropriately renamed Levitation inhonour of this year’s returning heroes.With the likelihood of four originalmembers of the Elevators appearingonstage rumoured to be somewherebetween slim and none, expectationsbefore the show admittedly ran betweenthe curious and the sceptical.

Nevertheless, from the minute theyarrived onstage, the Elevators wereentirely in command of proceedings.Under the auspices of Tommy Halland Roky Erickson, they delivered a setthat delved deep into their brief butunquestionably influential career.

Indeed, it was possible to detect theirimprint in the other bands on the bill –from The Jesus And Mary Chain to TheFlaming Lips. Here in the town of theirbirth, the influence of the Elevators’music over this reverberationappreciation society couldn’t beany more apparent. MILES JOHNSON

THE ELEVATORS RISE AGAIN!EYEWITNESS!

“Rokydoesn’t likepussyfootconversat-ions. He

wants to betalked to

like a dude” JEGAR ERICKSON

G A R Y M I L L E R / G E T T Y I M A G E S


The Elevators’ firstreunion show atAustin’s Levitationfestival, May 10, 2015:(l-r) Hall, Leatherman,Erickson, Walton

1 She Lives

(In A Time Of Her Own)

2 Fire Engine

3 Earthquake4 Tried To Hide

5 Slip Inside This House

6 I’ve Got Levitation

7 Splash 1 (Now I’m Home)

8 The Kingdom Of Heaven

(Is Within You)

9 Nobody To Love

10 Reverberation

11 Roller Coaster

ENCORE

12 You’re Gonna Miss Me

SETLIST

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A visitor no longer:O’Rourke on thestreets of Tokyo, 2015

| UNCUT | JULY

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EUREKA!He’s back! After leaving Sonic Youth in 2005,

JIM O’ROURKE mostly abandoned a multi-

faceted career as masterful singer-songwriter,experimental prankster and Wilco associate.Now, though, he has released his first albumof songs in 14 years – a prog-pop masterpiececalled, disingenuously, Simple Songs. At homein Japan, he tells Uncut what took him so long:“I’m really, really particular. If I asked everyoneto record it one more time they’d have killed meand put me in a dumpster.”

JIMO’ROURKE

IMMY PAGE

comes to Japan

two or three

times a year,”

says Jim

O’Rourke,

lighting a

cigarette. “He

visits a record

shop in Shinjuku and supposedly buys

every Led Zep bootleg that ’s come out since

the last time he came here. That’s all I’ve

heard he does, buy Led Zep records. When I

saw him, all the customers were bothering

him, but I didn’t. I kinda regret it.”Jim O’Rourke has been living in Japan

for a decade now. Regular Page-spotting

aside, he has spent these past 10 years

gradually disconnecting himself from the

American rock and avant-garde circles he

had once inhabited. A member of Sonic

Youth during their later career, he now

shuns touring and only performs one-off

shows with experimental musicians

such as Keiji Haino or Peter Brötzmann.

Formerly a producer of landmark albums

for artists including Wilco, Smog and

Stereolab, today he prefers to record his

Japanese friends. Day to day, he rarely even

speaks English. All of which suits the46-year-old Japanophile just fine.

“When I was in Sonic Youth,” he

explains, “every time I came back to the

States from visiting Japan, I don’t know if

I’d even get out of bed for weeks at a time,

because it was the most depressing thing.

I’d always said I was gonna move to Japan,

so it was like ‘Put up or shut up’.”

This relocation has allowed O’Rourke

the space and time to work extensively on

Simple Songs, his first song-based record

since Insignificance 14 years ago. Whereas

1999’s acclaimed Eureka was a sweeping,

melancholic record reminiscent of Van

Dyke Parks in its grand textures and

surreal vision of America, and Insignificance noisier and harsher, Simple

Songs is subtle, ornate and perhaps his

strongest statement yet: eight tracks of

surprisingly complex, prog-tinged pop

dusted with piano, 12-string acoustics,

harmonised electrics, subtle strings and

O’Rourke’s wry wordplay. “There were a lot

of songs,” he confesses. “‘Last Year’ was

finished six years ago. The album went

through five or six versions, but there was

always one song on each that just didn’t fit.

“Even this final version isn’t quite there

yet,” he adds with typical modesty, “but

I’ve had enough. I spent six years on it.

That’s enough. I don’t know why anybodywould want to listen to it, anyway…”

JULY | UNCUT |

Story: Tom Pinnock Photo: Nagasa Bonasu

“HIPPIESTELL ME

MY MUSICCHANGEDTHEIR LIFE

AND I’M LIKE‘YOUR LIFE

SUCKS!’”

JIM O’ROURKE

J

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VIDENTLY, JIM O’ROURKE has the

disposition of a wanderer. This is apparent

not only in his geographical roamings –

they have taken him from his native

Chicago to New York and then on to

Tokyo – but also in his varied musical

disciplines. A graduate of Chicago’s

prestigious DePaul University, where

he studied composition, O’Rourke’s

expansive gifts have long been in evidence

in his sprawling back catalogue.“ Bad Timing kind of sucker punched

me,” remembers Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy of O’Rourke’s 1997

record, his first for Drag City as a solo artist. “On one hand,

it seemed to be working in a language I understood, but on

the other it was drawing on things I was intrigued by, like

modern composition and experimental music, but had

never sensed a way-in for myself, being self-taught and not

so serious musically. He really helped me find the human

element in a lot of music I liked, but had always felt was cold

and impenetrable.”

This mix of the accessible and the impenetrable has long

been central to both O’Rourke’s unique working practices

and also his unexpected career swerves. On Bad Timing ’s

incandescent instrumentals like “94 The Long Way”, for

instance, he combined the melodic acoustic reveries ofJohn Fahey and Leo Kottke with synths and woozy effects

that harked back to his avant-garde roots. “I remember him

from the mid-’80s, because we both

did cassettes of industrial

avant-garde stuff,” recalls

Stereolab’s Tim Gane,

who worked with

O’Rourke on the

band’s Cobra And

Phases Group Play

Voltage In The

Milky Night and

Sound-Dust . “Of

course, he started

out with jazz andthe free music

N A G A S A

B O

N A S U

school scene in Chicago, so he was in that world of

improvisation, and very quick-witted.”

Moving from the academic confines of the avant-garde

towards more accessible, traditional songwriting put

O’Rourke on an opposite trajectory to many alternative

musicians, including David Grubbs, his partner in the

acclaimed Gastr Del Sol in the mid-’90s. “I was an outsider

in a weird way,” says O’Rourke. “Everybody in that

Chicago scene was getting interested in minimal and

avant-garde music, and I had already been studying it for

10 years. I got side-tracked into weird music fairly young.I had had experience of what it was like, and I was sick of it.

All of a sudden, there was this world of ‘post-rock’ or

whatever, and musicians were afraid to touch songwriting.

“So with my solo records, I was aiming towards how can

you use the song form, and how can you use the elements

of other music without treating them just like window

dressing, which happens a lot and is a continuous

frustration for me. People use avant-garde flavour and

just sprinkle it on top of very, very

uninteresting songs. It’s sort of

like sprinkles on an ice cream

cone, just a flavour tossed on

top afterwards.”

After the experimental Gastr

split in 1997, O’Rourke branchedout into more traditional terrain,

something a few of his existing

fans weren’t too happy about. “I

was having a lot of bottles thrown

at me when I played that stuff

live,” laughs O’Rourke, recalling

the furore at him ‘going acoustic’.

“People were expecting me to

turn up with an electric guitar laid out on a table, and I

showed up with an acoustic guitar playing what would

become Bad Timing . And people were really, really pissed

off, like, ‘What is this bullshit?’ In Holland a guy came up

and smashed my guitar with a beer bottle.”

In 1999, O’Rourke’s most explicit foray into pop, Eureka,

proved to be an unanticipated success. A bold ventureinto melancholic, Technicolor pop, it mixed Beach Boys

chamber pop with Ivor Cutler covers and bossa nova

Bacharach excursions, and featured some stunning

songwriting on tracks like “Ghost Ship In A Storm” and

“Movie On The Way Down”. A follow-up EP released the

same year, “Halfway To A Threeway”, expanded on this

rich, refined style with the treated horns and 5/4 rhythms

of “Not Sport, Martial Art”, while the creepy title track

exposed more of O’Rourke’s gallows humour (“ As I lay you

down on my bed/It don’t matter that you’re brain dead…”).

Today, O’Rourke is disparaging of his breakthrough

album, concerned that most listeners overlook the

darkness beneath its impeccably arranged surface.

“I’m glad that people like Eureka,” he says, “but to me

it’s a very sad record. I still meet people and they’re like,‘I played it at my wedding, it’s so happy’, and I’m like, ‘Oh

my God! People think it’s some happy, good-time record.’

So therefore, I failed. I don’t want people to be happy when

they listen to my music!

“Japan was the place where Eureka was actually most

popular,” he adds, cringing, “and to this day there are

neo-hippies running around with flowers telling me how it

changed their life. I’m like, ‘Your life sucks, I can’t believe

I had anything to do with it! It makes me so fucking

depressed. I turned you into a hippy.’”

BY THE TURN of the century, O’Rourke had also

developed a parallel career as a producer, consistently

working on excellent albums like Smog’s Red Apple

Falls and US Maple’s self-titled debut. Jeff Tweedy’s passionfor Bad Timing meant O’Rourke was soon enlisted to

“I got sidetracked intomaking weird musicfairly young”: O’Rourkein Tokyo, 2015

ThemagicnumberJim O’Rourke onthe ideal length for

an album

“AN ABSOLUTELYperfect record is38 minutes long.

That’s why Simple Songs is 38 minutes [as wereInsignificance and TheVisitor ]. I remember oneonline magazine werecalling Insignificance anEP, and that drove mefucking nuts! 38 minutesand it’s an EP?! Iunderstand peoplewho grew up with CDs

thinking, ‘38 minutes isnot a record.’ But it’sactually perfect. That’swhat an album should be,and also it makes senseas an LP. 18, 19 minutesa side. Sometimes I addtwo or three seconds ofsilence in order to make it38 minutes. I don’t know ifI did this time. Oh, SimpleSongs is 37:33. Well, it’salways better to havethem wanting more.They’re still waiting for

those 27 seconds…”

ART ROCKER

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“WHEN JIMJOINEDSONIC

YOUTH ITFELT LIKE

WE WEREADDINGOUR ENO TO

THE BAND”

LEE RANALDO

perform with the Wilco frontman at Chicago’s Noise Pop

festival in 2000. O’Rourke brought along drummer Glenn

Kotche, and the trio’s performance impressed Tweedy so

much that he asked Kotche to join Wilco, and invited

O’Rourke to salvage the messy sessions for what would

become Yankee Hotel Foxtrot . The three also formed

experimental collective Loose Fur, who cut their first self-

titled album in summer 2000. “When Jim and Glenn and

I get in a room together, Loose Fur records just happen,”

marvels Tweedy. “Pure forward momentum and then

a sudden realisation that we’ve completed a record andit sounds like us, and not very much like anything else.”

In fact, some of the highlights of Yankee… were de facto

Loose Fur tracks, with the three left alone in the studio to

strip back the over-layered recordings. The trio hit the

studio again in 2006 to record the heavier Born Again In

The USA, again in a matter of hours. “On any of the things

we’ve done together,” says Tweedy, “I don’t remember a

time working with Jim where I’ve felt anything less than

love for, and from, him. That’s along with admiration, and

appreciation that I get to be friends with and work with

such a rare bird. A true genius. Believe it!”

“Jim is very good at imparting a personality on the

music,” says Stereolab�

Documents

Uncut July 2015