Uncut Magazine packs free tasty blues CD

If you haven't seen it already, Uncut Magazine has a free CD that's worthy of your attention - especially if you want to hear the sound that inspired the original British R&B sound of the early 60s.

A free CD titled Woke Up This Morning features 15 blues classics that melted the hearts of 60s bands like The Yardbirds, The Who, Them and The Kinks, along with Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. If you've never thought about buying a blues CD, but always fancied one, this could be the place to start. There's a feature on The Yardbirds too, offering up another reason to buy it.

It's on the shelves now, get it now while you can.

Uncut Magazine website

Via Modculture

70s soul doc Soul Power hits DVD and Blu-ray

After a brief tour round the arthouse cinemas, cult music documentary Soul Power will also hit the stores, on both DVD and Blu-ray.

The year was 1974, with a host of black American acts mixing it up with African musicians at a 12-hour, three-night festival in Zaire, playing out alongside the infamous Rumble in the Jungle fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.

Soul Power is a record of 'Zaire '74', showing both the experiences and performances acts including James Brown, BB King, Bill Withers and Celia Cruz, with the original footage restored in HD with top-notch audio for an 'as if you were there' experience.  Special features for the retail release include a number of extra songs and deleted scenes (that didn't make the cinema version), with the discs hitting the shelves on 16th November 2009. if you want to get in early, Amazon is already doing pre-orders.

Find out more at the Amazon website

Free live Specials CD with the Sunday Times

Ok, it's not strictly free, you have to buy a weekend rag to get it, but if you fancy getting your hands on a Specials live CD, one is being given away with this weekend's Sunday Times (12th July 2009).

According to the newspaper's website, a 12-track live CD will be given away, all the tracks recorded live at the Brixton Academy during the recent gigs there. if that's not enough, there's also an 'exclusive' interview in the newspaper's magazine too.

Which means it might be worth getting up a little bit earlier this Sunday and beating a path to the newsagents - it's certain to be in short supply.

The Specials website

Via Modculture

Kraftwerk at the Manchester Velodrome - the shape of things to come?

I was going to write an in-depth gig review of the Kraftwerk/Steve Reich gig at the Manchester Velodrome, but decided against. For a start, there are numerous review already in the mix (including some that might have been written by people who didn't actually go). And of course, as we couldn't get press passes (and had to pay our way in), why should be spend our time lauding it up? Saying that, there are some things we couldn't resist commenting on.

New York Dolls back for one more London gig

Not sure how I feel about the New York Dolls these days - sure, they're one of the most influential bands ever and Johnny Thunders was one of the coolest dudes ever to hold a guitar. But he's long dead and just two of the original five remain. If that's enough 'doll' for you, you can catch the reformed band once again in London - at the HMV Kentish Town Forum on Friday 4th December 2009.

David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain will be joined by newbies Steve Conte (guitar), Brian Delaney (drums), and former Hanoi Rocks bass guitarist, Sami Yaffa to rip through material from ‘New York Dolls’ (1973), ‘Too Much Too Soon’ (1974), and ‘One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This’ (2006), not to mention recent Todd Rundgren-produced studio album 'Cause I Sez So’, all for an admission price of £22.50.

See below for tickets and if don't own those first two albums, more fool you.

Gig tickets for New York Dolls in London