Miscellaneous - June 2008

  by Admin

published: 11 / 6 / 2008

intro

Hello and welcome to the June edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine.In March of last year our writer Adrian Huggins spoke to the Canadian hardcore band Alexisonfire at a show in Newcastle. At the time the

Hello and welcome to the June edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine. In March of last year our writer Adrian Huggins spoke to the Canadian hardcore band Alexisonfire at a show in Newcastle. At the time the five-piece group, who come from St Catherine’s in Ontario, were touring hard with their third album ‘Crisis’. At that time the band‘s guitarist and singer Dallas Green was beginning to also gain notice for his solo project, City and Colour. A sparse in sound debut album, ‘Sometimes’, largely featuring just Dallas and his acoustic guitar, had met with some success. In the fifteen months since then, Dallas has recorded a second City and Colour album, ‘Bring Me Your Love’, which this time involving other instrumentation including a harmonica, organ and strings, has met with even bigger sales, seeing him play to packed houses in a UK tour of Britain, where the venues included both churches and theatres, and then go on to do the same in North America. With Alexisonfire who will reassemble later in the year on temporary hiatus, Adrian, back for second interview with him, in our lead interview this month speaks to Dallas about City and Colour’s increasing profile. Our other main interviews this month are with David Berman from the Nashville-based country band the Silver Jews who talks about why his band who formed in 1994 only started touring as late as 2005 ; Jordan Zevon, who chats about his infamous father Warren Zevon and his just released debut album, ‘Insides Out’, and David Gedge from the Wedding Present, who speaks about his band’s latest album, ‘El Ray’. There are also interviews with Irish punk trio Fighting With Wire who have just signed a deal with Atlantic ; much praised British songwriter Thea Gilmore ; the Mountain Movers, the other project of the Butterflies of Love’s Daniel Greene, and loud shoegazing trio A Place to Bury Strangers who recently toured the UK for the first time. In our profiies section, we have film reviews of the new ‘Joy Division’ documentary and the forthcoming ‘Lou Reed’s Berlin’, and also the new National DVD/CD package, ‘A Skin, A Night’. There are new live reviews of recent shows by the Willard Grant Conspiracy, Bon Ivor, iLiKETRAiNS, Queens of the Stone Age, the Silver Jews, the XX Teens, Bob Mould, Tindersticks, Angus and Julia Stone, Sebadoh, Crystal Castles, Fight Likes Apes, Thee Old Sees, the Dodos and the Cure. Anthony Strutt also writes about two nights he attended put on the club and record label, Sonic Cathedral. In our features section, Jonjo McNeill in our ‘Soundtrack of Our Lives’ series, in which our writers write about the personal effect of music on their lives, tells about the impact on him of hearing, as a Catholic schoolboy, Spiritualized’s second album, ‘Pure Phase’. In his regular ‘Condemned to Rock ‘n’ Roll’, Ben Howarth meanwhile turns his attention to current music journalists and asks of they are doing a good enough job. In our regular Re : View series, in which our writers re-examine albums from the past, Malcolm Carter looks at British-born, but American-based singer-song writer Steve Robinson's debut solo album, 'Away for the Day'. Our website of the Month’ is meanwhile ‘CBGB’, a website dedicated to the famous New York club. There are 32 album and single reviews. In our previous reviews up-date in mid May we ran another 20 reviews. Thank you to Aaron Brown, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Dan Cressey, Anthony Dhanendran, Dixie Ernill, Russell Ferguson, Tommy Gunnarsson, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Sarah Johnson, Geraint Jones, Jonjo McNeill, Sarah Maybank, Chris O’ Toole, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Anthony Strutt , and Helen Tipping all of whom contributed articles to either this edition or the mid-month up-date. Thank you too to Matt Williams who contributed the Willard Grant Conspiracy photographs and Neil Bailey, who took the photos that accompany the iLIKETRAiNS and Thee Oh Sees reviews. Special thanks both to Maarten Schiethart, our radio station producer, and also to Richard Banks, our web master. We will be back in mid June with another mid-month reviews up-date and then in Juy with another full edition. We hope then to be running interviews then with Stephen Malkmus, Hugh Cornwell, Glasvegas, Mark Morriss, Nik Kershaw,the XX Teens, Gallon Drunk’s Terry Edwards and Thomas Feiner. There will also be interviews with Paul Marko about his Roxy Club book and Stuart Mackay about his forthcoming Indietracks Festival.. 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