Miscellaneous - December 2007

  by Admin

published: 13 / 12 / 2007

intro

Hello and welcome to the December edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine, and our final magazine of the year.We have had a very active year at Pennyblackmusic. We finally got our radio station on-line and are now putting

Hello and welcome to the December edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine, and our final magazine of the year. We have had a very active year at Pennyblackmusic. We finally got our radio station on-line and are now putting up approximately four shows all lasting at least an hour and sometimes two hours a month. We have run lead interviews with the Charlatans, Wire, Alexisonfire, the National, Green on Red's Dan Stuart, Mogwai, Billy Childish, Stephanie Dosen, Vashti Bunyan and Jello Biafra and approximately another hundred other interviews, which have included such highlights as Malcolm Middleton, the Hold Steady, the Damned's Brian James, Sarah Nixey, Grinderman, the Young Gods, Marillion, the House of Love, Darren Hayman, the Alabama 3 and Charlotte Hatherley. There have been over 140 live reviews as well, a whole assortment of profiles and features including 30 photoscapes, and nearly 650 album and single reviews. One should of course never confuse quantity with quality, although I believe that there is plenty of the latter in our writers and photographers' work as well as the former. It does, however, seem appropriate that we are finishing the year with a bang and a very large edition. Our lead interview this month is with Graham Day, the frontman with the much acclaimed garage rock acts the Prisoners and the Solarflares. In an interview with Sarah Maybank, he chats to Sarah Maybank about both bands, working with Billy Childish in the Buff Medways and his new band the Gaolers. Amongst the fourteen other interviews we are running this month, there are other leading interviews with Justin Sullivan from the durable Bradford-based rockers New Model Army, Chris Carraba from bestselling American emo group Dashboard Confessional and influential punk musician Vic Godard. There are interviews too with Brighton new wave rockers and surrealists British Sea Power about their forthcoming third album, 'Do You Like Rock Music ?' ; folk singer James Yorkston ; 80's revivalists the Departure ; former Jack frontman Anthony Reynolds about his new album, 'British Ballads' ; indie pop band Friends ; British alt. country band the Redlands Palomino Company : Canadian punk folk group the Weakerthans ; 70's melodic power pop act the Records ; Manchester-based musician Vinny Peculiar and fiery Swedish singer-songwriter Ida Maria. In our profiles section Anthony Strutt chats to bestselling author Mike Gayle about his six novels and his interest in rock music. There are other profiles on Californian doom metal act High on Fire ; former Van Der Graaf Generator frontman and solo singer-songwriter Peter Hammill who has recently had four of his solo albums re-released and influential 1982 Cherry Red compilation, 'Pillows and Prayers', which has just been the subject of an extended three CD re-release. There is also an article on the DVD release of the Beatles' second film, 'Help !'. There are live reviews of shows by the Sex Pistols, Interpol, the Young Gods, Alexisonfire, Beirut, the Twilight Sad, the Sadies, the National, Darren Hayman, Sons and Daughters, Efterklang, the Victorian English Gentlemens Club, David Ford, Chris TT, St Vincent and Graham Day and the Gaolers. In our features section there is a poll of Pennyblackmusic's writers and photographers' albums of the year. In our Soundtrack of Our Lives section, in which our writers write of the personal impact of music on them, Sarah Maybank tells Sarah Johnston tells of listening to Snow Patrol at the time of her parents' seperation and marriage break-up. Ben Howarth in his regular 'Condemned to Rock 'n' Roll' column writes of albums, both in the past and present, which didn't make the cut of his end-of-the-year polls. There are also Photoscapes from Matt William and Katie Anderson of Hermano, Alexisonfire, Boy Hits Car gigs and the post-hardcore Taste of Chaos British tour. In our Re : View section, in which we look back at albums from the past, there is an article on Ian Dury's 1977 album 'New Boots and Panties', which has just been re-released in a 30th anniverary edition. Our Website of the Month is 'Every Drummer', a website that profiles some of the world's best known drummers. We have also put on-line 32 album and single reviews. In our last mid-month reviews up-date we put on-line another 27 album and single reviews. A magazine of this size takes a lot of work from a lot of people. Thank you to our regular team of writers of Peter Allison, Aaron Brown, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Daniel Cressey, Anthony Dhanendran, Dixie Ernill, Russell Ferguson, Tommy Gunnarsson, Alex Halls, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Sarah Johnson, Chris Jones, Geraint Jones, ,Jonjo McNeill, Sarah Maybank, Sarah Mwangi, Chris O’ Toole, Paul Raven,Jon Rogers, Jamie Rowland, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Dominic Simpson, Olga Sladeckova, Anthony Strutt, Sara Thomson, Helen Tipping, Andy Vincent, Philip Vincent, Denzil Watson and Adam Wood for all their hard workand enthusiasm throughout the year. Thank you too to Katie Anderson, Anna Gudaniec and Matthew Williams. Special thanks to our radio manager Maarten Schiethart and Richard Banks, Pennyblackmusic's founder, designer, webmaster and general all round good guy to know, for all his tireless work behinds the scenes and without whom this all really wouldn't be possible. We're going to be taking a break over Christmas and the New Year, but will be back in January with a mid-month up-date and then a full edition of interviews, features, live reviews and albums and singles reviews towards the end of the month. This magazine is dedicated, like our September edition,with much love to the memory of Margaret McKenzie, who died earlier this year and who is sorely missed. It just remains for me to wish all our readers on behalf of all the Pennyblackmusic team the best for Christmas and the New Year. Thank you as always for reading. John Clarkson Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk