Miscellaneous - July 2014

  by Admin

published: 18 / 7 / 2014

Article

Hello and welcome to the July edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. Over the course of the summer, we have run three Bands’ Nights in three cities. We started out at The Lexington in London on the 31st May for what was our 15th anniversary show, and saw performances at that from three of our favourite bands from previous London Bands’ Nights – Madam, Morton Valence and Rotifer. We then moved on to The River in Glasgow the following weekend for a massive eight-act show on the 7th June in conjunction with the Wickerman Festival, at which there were slots among others from ex-Hipsway and Cowboy Mouth front-man Graham “Skin” Skinner who played his first ever gig solo, the Wellgreen, A New International, the Aviators and ukulele-playing sixteen year old Zoe Bestel. Our last gig of the summer was on the 5th July at The Ruby Lounge in Manchester and was headlined by late 80’s indie band the Brilliant Corners, who, back together for one year only, performed their penultimate gig with us, playing a night of dazzling indie pop. They were supported by their fellow Bristol band the Haywains and young Manchester act Horsebeach. We have a report and photos from the London gig in this magazine. Articles and more photos from both the Glasgow and Manchester gigs will follow next month. Our lead interview for this edition is with the seminal electro band the Human League, whose co-vocalist Joanne Catherall talks about her own history since 1980 with the group and its extraordinary and lengthy career. Our other headline interviews for this month are with rock biographer Nina Antonia (Johnny Thunders, the New York Dolls, the Only Ones) who speaks about her latest project editing the Libertines’ Peter Doherty’s journals; Cheetah Chrome, the guitarist with the Dead Boys and Rocket from the Tombs, about ‘Solo’, his debut release under his own name; the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn about his forthcoming UK tour, and Yes bassist Chris Squire about their new album, ‘Heaven and Earth’. There are interviews as well with singer-songwriter Chris Wade about his 60's/psychedelic-influenced band Dodson and Fogg's fifth album, 'After the Fall'; Steely Dan touring guitarist and solo artist Jon Herington, and Teenage Fanclub drummer Francis Macdonald and artist and painter Harry Pye, whom have recently started making music together and whose first release is about French New Wave film director Jean-Luc Godard. In our Profiles section Nick Dent-Robinson looks at this year's Fairport Cropredy Convention and speaks to Chas'n'Dave, Irish singer-songwriter and Fairport Convention members Simon Nicol and Dave Pegg, all of whom are on the bill. He also examines Oxfordshire's Towersey Festival which is now in its fiftieth year, and talks to to Joe Heaps, its organiser, and Richard Thompson, the Bootleg Beatles and Eliza Carthy, all of whom will be performing at it. Elsewhere Gillian Fish reflects on the British Summer Time Festival in Hyde Park in London, which, badly organised, resulted in crushing at a Libertines' reunion gig. There is also a feature on the Katydids, the band of London-based singer-songwriter Susie Hug and ex-Pretenders guitarist Adam Seymour, who after an absence of over twenty years have recently released online a new EP. We have sixteen live reviews and Photoscapes. Amongst our Regular Features Ben Howarth in 'Ten Songs that Made Me Love...' reflects on his favourite songs by former Hefner front-man Darren Hayman, while in 'Condemned to Rock 'n' Roll' he examines the BBC's wall-to-wall coverage of Glastonbury this year. Dave Goodwin in 'Vinyl Stories' talks to professional magician Roy Bond about his favourite vinyl records, and in 'Gig of a Lifetime' he recalls an anarchic gig from Minneapolis indie band Howler in Nottingham in 2009. Jon Rogers in 'Hitting the Right Note' meanwhile looks at some of the excessive demands of rock bands with riders, while Lisa Torem in her book review column 'Raging Pages' examines a new book on Iron Maiden's early years. In our Re:View section, in which our writers look at albums from the past, there are articles on English art rockers the Cardiacs' 1996 album 'Sing to God', and Velvet Underground multi-instrumentalist John Cale and minimalist composer Terry Riley's 1971 collaboration 'Church of Anthrax'. Our Website of the Month is Mudkiss Photography, the photography website of regular Pennyblackmusic contributor and ex-Mudkiss Fanzine editor, Melanie Smith. We also have thirty-two new album and single reviews. In our previous album and singles reviews only update in late June we ran a further fourteen reviews. As always this magazine has come together through the hard work of many people. Thank you to Carl Bookstein, Malcolm Carter, Nicky Crewe, Dastardly, Nick Dent-Robinson, Gillian Fish, Dave Goodwin, Bill Gray, Jamie Havlin, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Adrian Janes, Mary O' Meara, Jon Rogers, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Dominic B. Simpson, Melanie Smith, Lisa Torem and Paul Waller, all of whom who have contributed either to this edition or our reviews only update in June. Thank you as well to Ben Howarth and Anthony Dhanendran who manage our Facebook and Twitter pages, and for Dominic Simpson, Tony Gaughan and Dixie Ernill, who organised the Pennyblackmusic London, Glasgow and Manchester shows. Special thanks to our webmaster Richard Banks for all his work behind the scenes and without whom none of this would be possible. We will be back in late July with a reviews update, and then in August with another full edition. We hope to run then interviews with Nick Power from the Coral, Broken Records, Galileo 7, Dan Michaelson and the Coastguards, Morton Valence, '68, John Otway, the White Hills, Musicforvoyeurs and Filter Distortion. Please check out our regular Facebook and Twitter updates. Thank you as always for reading Pennyblackmusic, John Clarkson Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk

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