Miscellaneous - December 2008

  by Admin

published: 14 / 12 / 2008

intro

Hello and welcome to the December edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine and our final edition of 2008.It has been an immensely busy year at Pennyblackmusic. We celebrated our tenth anniversary at the start of October and have run over the course of the last twelve months headline interviews with

Hello and welcome to the December edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine and our final edition of 2008. It has been an immensely busy year at Pennyblackmusic. We celebrated our tenth anniversary at the start of October and have run over the course of the last twelve months headline interviews with the Godfathers, Sons and Daughters, Laetitia Sadier, David Pajo, the City and Colour, Stephen Malkmus, Comets on Fire, the Smoke Faeries, Micah P. Hinson and David Thomas. Amongst the other interviews we have run, highlights have also included Hundred Reasons, Lightspeed Champion, the Black Keys, the Willard Grant Conspiracy, Hanoi Rocks, Lol Tolhurst, Adam Green, Glasvegas, Hugh Cornwell, Soft Cell, the Love Affair’s Steve Ellis, Magazine and the Blockheads. There have been 125 live reviews, many features and profiles including 20 Photoscapes, and 600 odd album and single reviews. Our lead interview this month is with Bruce Foxton, the former bassist with The Jam. Foxton reunited eighteen months ago with The Jam’s drummer Rick Buckler, and they are currently back on the road under the moniker of From The Jam playing Jam songs, in Paul Weller’s absence, with a new vocalist and guitarist, Russell Hastings, and second guitarist and keyboardist, Dave Moore. He spoke to us about The Jam’s history, his and Buckler’s decision to reunite after 20 years apart from playing music with each other, and the coincidental meeting which brought them back together. Our other main interviews this month include comedian and actor Adrian Edmondson who has recently formed a folk punk outfit the Bad Shepherds ; American punk solo artist and former Reatards front man Jay Reatard, and Jim Sclavunos, the drummer with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and no wave punks Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. There is also a two part interview, both parts of which we are running consecutively, with Edinburgh-based Celtic rock act the Lost Soul Band, who are reforming for the first time in fifteen years this Christmas, and an interview as well with Manchester-based Americana outfit Anna Kashfi. In our profiles section there are articles on ‘Communications 1978-1982’, the forthcoming Factory label box set ; the new ‘Sounds of the Smiths’ compilations, and psychedelic drone act Loop, whose two early 90’s albums, ‘Heaven’s End’ and ‘Fade Out’have just been re-released. There are also DVD reviews of From The Jam’s new live double DVD, ‘First Class Return’ and ‘Jazz in Oz’, a documentary about the Dudley Moore Trio’s 1971 documentary. There are live reviews of shows by Jarvis Cocker, TV On the Radio, Isis/Torche, the Unbeending Trees, the Hold Steady, Sound and Fury, the Whip and CSS. We are also running reviews on ‘Drifting and Tilting’, a recent theatrical performance of Scott Walker’s music, who while he did not appear in it, produced and choreographed it, and as well the five day CMJ Festival in New York. In our features section, there is a poll of the Pennyblackmusic writers and photographers’ albums of the year. In our ‘Soundtrack of our Lives’ column, in which our writers write about the personal impact of music of our lives, Tommy Gunnarsson writes about the Softies ‘Best of Days’, which was played at the tragic event of the funeral of his brother’s girlfriend, who died aged only 20 in 2000. Ben Howarth, in his regular ‘Condemned to Rock ‘n’ Roll’ column, writes about the pleasure of sitting down at gigs, and there are Photoscapes from Katie Anderson of recent shows by Finch and Hexes. In our Re : View section, in which our writers look back at albums from the past, there are articles on ‘Damon and Naomi’s 1992 debut, ‘More Sad Hits’ and Pavement’s 1997 album, ‘Brighten the Corners’, both of which have been recently reisssed. Our Website of the Month is on-line music magazine, ‘The Lipster’. We are also running 32 album and single reviews. We ran a further 32 reviews in an album and singles reviews up-date at the end of November. Thank you to our current writing team of Peter Allison, Aaron Brown, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Dan Cressey, Anthony Dhanendran, Dixie Ernill, Russell Ferguson, Tommy Gunnarsson, Sophie Hall, Laura Holt, Benjamin Howarth, Sarah Johnson, Chris Jones, Geraint Jones, Sarah Maybank, Anthony Middleton, Sarah Mwangi, Chris O’ Toole, Jamie Rowland, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Dominic Simpson, Kelly Smith, Olga Sladeckova, Anthony Strutt, Helen Tipping, Andy Vincent, Denzil Watson and Rachel Williams for all their hard work, not just for this edition, but over the course of the last year. Thank you as well to our photographers, Katie Anderson, Neil Bailey and Matt Williams A special thank you to Richard Banks, our webmaster and Pennyblackmusic’s founder,, for all his work behind the scenes. Richard has had in many ways a tough year with both family and health problems. It says a lot for him as an individual and his fortitude as a person that, despite this, he has with his usual calm and good humourb continued to field phone calls and give out advice to both myself and the other writers at often very anti social hours of the day and evening, sitting up as and when there have been technical problems that have needed fixed long into the night. Without him Pennyblackmusic would really not ever be possible, We are going to be taking a break over Christmas, but will be back early in January with an album and singles reviews up-date and then towards the end of the month with another full edition (interviews, features, live reviews, more album and single reviews etc). Best wishes to our readers for Christmas and the New Year. Thank you as always for reading John Clarkson Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk