Introducing the new Uncut: The Velvet Underground, Jeff Buckley, Bob Weir, Kim Gordon, Damon Albarn and more

Not long after he filed his tribute to Bob Weir for this issue of Uncut, Jon Dale emailed me a YouTube link, noting “one of his finest moments was taking part in this madness…”

It wasn’t, as you might think, footage of the Grateful Dead at the height of the Acid Tests phenomenon. Instead, it showed Weir jamming on a late-night ’90s TV show with Bongwater and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, playing a suitably chaotic version of Roky Erickson’s “You Don’t Love Me Yet”. Here, it implied, was Weir linking the Grateful Dead’s ’60s psychedelic rock to both its roots and its experimental heirs. It also reminded us of the qualities that made Weir and the Dead so distinctive.

“Our whole approach dawned on us relatively slowly,” Weir told John Robinson in 2020. “It became apparent that we were up to something a little different than most musical ensembles were trying to achieve. We took a lot of direction early on from the John Coltrane Quartet and Miles Davis… which relied heavily on improvisation but also on listening closely to each other and working off what the other band members were saying.”

You can read John’s interview in full – the majority of it unpublished until now – alongside Jon’s tribute and some warm testimonials from friends and acolytes in our celebration of Weir’s remarkable life and legacy.

What else? A lot, of course. Take a trip Downtown circa 1966 as Tom Pinnock uncovers some eye-opening revelations about The Velvet Underground via a bunch of new interviews. You’ll also find Tom’s story illustrated with a number of previously unseen photos of the band from the Billy Name archives.

There’s more – including Kim Gordon, Damon Albarn, Jeff Buckley, Shabaka, Peter Gabriel, Happy Mondays, Pat Metheny, Robert Finley and The Clash. But I’ll leave you with Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam, who offers some wisdom to Fiona Shepherd on our reviews pages: “I’m always trying to shake things up in one way or another, and experimenting with genre is a fun one.”

It’s a spirit that echoes the adventurous, improvisational ethos that made Weir and the Dead so singular.

Until next month…