Miscellaneous - September 2008

  by Admin

published: 11 / 9 / 2008

intro

Hello and welcome to the September edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine. Usually our headline interview is with an already relatively well known or established name. This month, however, we are featuring in the slot a new act, the Smoke Fairies, who have just released their debut single, 'Living

Hello and welcome to the September edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine. Usually our headline interview is with an already relatively well known or established name. This month, however, we are featuring in the slot a new act, the Smoke Fairies, who have just released their debut single, 'Living With Ghosts'. We suspect that the group, a Chichester-formed duo which consists of Jessica Davies and Kaf Blamire, will be one of the big names in the independent music sector in the future. At least they deserve to be. A spectral blues duo, they are "the Missisippi meets St Paul’s Cathedral choir: angelic two-part harmonies in an unholy alliance with stark, brooding guitars" and have just released their first single, 'Living With Ghosts'. Sarah Maybank speaks to them in London about that single, their unique sound and a recent tour in support of Bryan Ferry, which culminated in a gig at the London Royal Albert Hall. Our other main interviews this month are with London country/blues outfit Hey Negrita who are just about to release with a new line-up their third album 'You Can Kick' ; durable Edinburgh-based indiepop act ballboy , and 60's icon and front man with the Love Affair, Ellis and Widowmaker Steve Ellis, who has recently returned with a new solo album, 'The Best of Days'. In what has been a good month for interviews, we are also running interviews with punk/art rock duo and recent Sub Pop signing No Age ; West Virginia-based hard rock band Hydrogyn ; London-based Americana act and former Pennyblackmusic Bands Night headliners Viarosa, and 80' singer-songwriter Natasha England, who has recently returned to recording music and playing live after an over twenty year absence. There are interviews too with indie guitar trio and other Pennyblackmusic Bands Night stars Kelman ; David Jones, the former front man with 80's influenced act the Departure ; Glasgow indie pop and Matinee Records signings the Hermit Crabs, and indie pop/art rock act the Retro Spankees. In our profiles section we have articles on Lou Reed's concert film, 'Lou Reed's Berlin' and psychedelic act Gong's 'Live at the Gong Family Unconvention', which was filmed in Amsterdam at their own three-day festival. There is also an article on the Gang of Four, whose third album from 1982, ‘Songs of the Free’, and fourth album from 1983, ‘Hard' have both been recently reissued. There are reviews in our live of the Sex Pistols, That Petrol Emotion who recently played in London their first gig in fourteen years : the B-52s, the Cave Singers, Michael Franti and Spearhead and Yeasayer. Amongst our features section in our 'Soundtrack of Our Lives' column, in which our writers tell of the personal impact of music in their lives, Helen Tipping writes about her teenage fixation with Adam and the Ants. In his regular 'Condemned to Rock 'n' Roll column, Ben Howarth meeanwhile pays tribute to some some of those older and more established artists who constantly continue to release material of a high standard. In our Re : View sec\tion, in which we look back at albums from the past, there are articles on two albums from the early 1980's, the Chameleons' debut album, 'Script of the Bridge' and Martha and the Muiffins' 1982 fourth and final album, 'Danseparc'. Our Website of the Month is meanwhile Better Than The Van, a new website which connects touring bands with both other bands and fans able to give them somewhere free to stay. There are 30 new album and single reviews. In our previous up-date in mid September we ran another 25 reviews. We have a new writer this month, Kelly Smith, who is a music fan and student journalist based in Durham. Kelly wrote three reviews for the mid-month up-date. Thank you to Kelly. Thank you to Peter Allison, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Dan Cressey, Dixie Ernill, Sophie Hall, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Sarah Johnson, Chris Jones, Sarah Maybank, Anthony Middleton, Sarah Mwangi, Chris O’ Toole, Jamie Rowland, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Anthony Strutt, Helen Tipping and Denzil Watson, all of whom contributed articles to either this edition or the mid-month up-date. Special thanks to our webmaster Richard Banks at Pennyblackmusic HQ for all his work behind gthe scenes. Next month will be our 10th anniversary edition. Wen will be back then with interviews hopefully with Neil Halstead, Micah P Hinson, Tim Buckley guitarist Lee Underwood,Magazine, Woven Hand, Rose Kemp, Underground Railroad, the Blow Monkeys, We are Kings, Fight Like Apes, Das Wanderlust and Anna Kashfi. We will be running some special articles as well as the usual range of profiles, features, live reviews and album and single reviews. Thank you as always for reading. John Clarkson Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk