Miscellaneous - March 2008

  by Admin

published: 7 / 3 / 2008

intro

Hello and welcome to the March edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine. Our lead interview this month is with Sons and Daughters. The Scottish band

Hello and welcome to the March edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine. Our lead interview this month is with Sons and Daughters. The Scottish band first came to many people’s attention when they supported Idlewild some years ago. The group have just released their third album, ‘The Gift’, which produced by former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, retains the raucous energy of their previous work, but adds to it a glossier sheen and stronger melodies than in the past. In an interview backstage at a show in London, Ben Howarth chats to guitarist and vocalist Scott Paterson about the new record, and the band’s love of hard touring. In our other main interviews this month, Russell Ferguson, in his first interview for Pennyblackmusic, speaks to Larry Hibbert, the guitarist with durable punk metal act Hundred Reasons, about why his group who have just been dropped for a second time keeps going. Sarah Maybank meanwhile talks to Dev Hynes from Lightspeed Champion about why he thinks his project’s much acclaimed debut album, ‘Falling Off the Lavender Bridge’ isn’t that good, while Helen Tipping chats to Jeremy Cunningham, the bassist with the Levellers, about his group’s forthcoming new album, ‘Letters from the Underground’. Elsewhere Anthony Strutt talks to Stuart Staples from Tindersticks about their first album in five years, ‘The Hungry Saw’, which is due out in late April. There are interviews too with Manchester-collective Last Harbour about their orchestral third album, ‘Dead Fires and the Lonely Spark’, and New Zealand epic pop group, the Ruby Suns, about their second album, ‘Sea Lion’. We have two Echo and the Bunnymen interviews this month, the first with Noel Burke, who briefly fronted them in Ian McCulloch's absence in the early 90’s, about his original group St Vitus Dance, who have reformed after a 20 year absence to record a second album, ‘Glypotheque’, and the second with current keyboardist Peter Fleming whose side project Baltic Fleet have just released their eponymous debut album. We have interviews too with Newcastle-upon-Tyne angular rock and cult outfit Odd Shaped Head, who are soon to release their debut album, ‘I Wonder How This Endeavour Will End’, and Deltasound, the dance rock group of Pennyblackmusic writers, Jonjo McNeill and Adrian Huggins. In our profiles section there are reviews of new DVDS about John Martyn and Fairport Convention, and ‘Air Guitar Nation’, a film about the world air guitar championships told from the point of view of two of its protagonists. There are live reviews of shows by British Sea Power, Sons and Daughters, Glasvegas, Rasputina, the Dillinger Escape Plan, Stars, Stephanie Dosen, the Cesarians and On a Friday. In our features section, Ben Howarth in his ‘Condemned to Rock ‘n’ Roll’ section looks at the career of Frames vocalist Glen Hansard who has just won with Marketa Iglova an Oscar for Best Song with ‘Falling Slowly’. We have a Levellers competition in which we have signed promo copies of their new single, ‘ A Life Less Ordinary/The Cholera Well' and their recent double live DVD, ‘Chaos Theory’ to give away. Photographer Katie Anderson meanwhile has contributed two Photoscapes, one of the recent Kerrang tour, and one of American pop punk act New Found Glory live in Southampton. In our Re : View section, in which our writers examine albums from the recent and not-so-recent past, Adrian Huggins, reflects upon Chicago punks the Alkaline Trio’s debut album, ‘Godamnit !’ from 1998, and Anthony Strutt looks at New York trio A Place to Bury Strangers’ first album which came out at the end of last year. We are also running thirty and album single reviews. In our previous up-date in mid February we ran a further 38 reviews. At our radio station, there are new shows from Maarten Schiethart, Dominic Simpson and myself. Maarten, our radio manager, has also asked me to mention that Real Player has recently been ugraded. To hear Pennyblackmusic Radio in better quality, it can be downloaded from http://uk.real.com/player/win/ Thank you to Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Anthony Dhanendran, Dixie Ernill, Russell Ferguson, Tommy Gunnarsson, Alex Halls, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Sarah Johnson, Geraint Jones, Jonjo McNeill, Sarah Maybank, Chris O’ Toole, Paul Raven, Jamie Rowland, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Olga Sladeckova, Anthony Strutt and Helen Tipping, all of whom contributed articles to either this edition or the mid-month up-date. Thanks too to Katie Anderson and Neil Bailey for all their photographic work As well as contributing the Kerrang and New Found Glory photos, Katie has contributed the photos that accompany the British Sea Power review, while Neil has contributed those photos with the Stars review. Special thanks to Maarten and Dominic at the radio and Richard Banks, our web master, for all his behind-the-scenes work. We will be back in early April with another full edition and hope to be running interviews then with Gary Numan, Laetitia Sadier, Hanoi Rocks, the Willard Grant Conspiracy, Adam Green ,For Against, MV + EE, Operator Please, Levon Hurst, the Twilight Sad, Laki Mera and Strawberry Whiplash. There will be more 'Profiles'. We will also have another 'Re : View', another 'Website of the Month' and more features, live reviews and album and single reviews. Thank you as always for reading. John Clarkson Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk