Miscellaneous - May 2010

  by Admin

published: 13 / 5 / 2010

intro

Hello and welcome to the May edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. We have been putting on the site for many years now our own photos. From very small beginnings, in which we added on-line no more than a few photos a month

Hello and welcome to the May edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. We have been putting on the site for many years now our own photos. From very small beginnings, in which we added on-line no more than a few photos a month, things have expanded and we are now either through our ‘Photoscapes’ series, or as part of the live reviews and interviews usually running several “shoots” a month. Some of our photographers such as Matthew Williams, Anna Gudaniec, and Alan Taylor-Shearer are professional or semi-professional photographers; others such as Neil Bailey are gifted non-professionals or writers such as Andrew Carver, Russell Ferguson, Denzil Watson and Spencer Robertshaw who have revealed another talent. As part of the changes and improvements that our webmaster Richard Banks is currently putting through to the site, we have put in a more prominent position a link to our picture galleries. Richard has also archived all our own photographs and shoots from over the years and will be up-dating this, alongside the magazine as new photographs come in, on a monthly basis. Our very first in-house photographer, Matthew Williams, who has been with us since 2002, has provided the photos for our lead interview with the Clientele this month. These were taken during a hometown gig at ICA, before which Dominic Simpson spoke to the critically acclaimed and autumnal-toned group about their five albums, various EPs and the influence of their native London on their work. Our other main interviews this month are with Jim Kerr from Simple Minds who talks about his new Lostboy AKA solo project; New York-based experimental pop act Yeasayer and in a two part interview, each parts of which we are running consecutively, Ian Anderson from prog rock/folk group Jethro Tull, who are currently playing their 40th anniversary tour. Other highlight interviews include Batusis, the new punk supergroup of the New York Dolls’ Sylvain Sylvain and the Dead Boys’ Cheetah Chrome, and Erland and the Carnival, whose members include Shetland-based folk artist Erland Cooper; former Verve guitarist Simon Tong and David Nock, who has played drums with the Orb and worked on Paul McCartney’s Fireman project. There are new interviews as well with Massachusetts post rock duo Arms and the Sleeper; Portland, Oregon-based epic pop group Musee Mecanique; Sheffield-based hardcore band Rolo Tomassi; former Jack front man Anthony Reynolds; acclaimed Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Nell Bryden and rising young British pop act Dakota. In our Profiles section, there is a feature on award-winning American singer-songwriter Janis Ian, who has just had three of her albums from the 1970s and an ‘Grey Whistle Test’ concert performance DVD re-released. There are also reviews there of new DVDs from Suicidal Tendencies, the Kinks and Yes. In our Live Reviews section, there are new reviews of shows by the Levellers, the Wedding Present, Jello Biafra, the Triffids, Wooden Shjips, Cathy Richardson, the Young Rebel Set, Cranes, Tindersticks, the Slits, Villagers, Davey Woodward, Lullabye Arkestra, Son of Dave, the Who and Kim Wilson’s All Blues Stars. In our Features section in his regular ‘Condemned to Rock ‘n’ Roll’ column Ben Howarth analyses the decline of the singles market and looks at how music buying has changed over recent years. Jon Rogers in his ‘Hitting the Right Note’ column compiles a list of the darkest records of all time, while Spencer Robertshaw in his regular monthly poetry column, ‘Evidently Spencertown’, writes of the I-Pod generation. Lisa Torem in his ‘Rock Salt Row’ column meanwhile debates with Ben about how much of an effect nationaility and culture has on music. There are also ‘Photoscapes’ of shows from A Skylight Drive and We are the Ocean, and of a joint tour between AFI and Sick of It All. In our Re:View section, there are articles on both Lou Reed’s confrontational and critically savaged, but influential 1975 album ‘Metal Machine Music’, and his live album, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal’ from a year before that. Our ‘Website of the Month’ is Metacritic, a site which gathers together critical opinions and thought on film, TV and games as well as music. There are also 32 new album and single reviews. In our previous album and singles reviews up-date in late April we put on-line another twenty reviews. We have two new writers this month. Tony Gaughan is a former journalist with the Scottish newspaper, ‘The Daily Record’, and also one of the co-directors of the fabulous Neon Tetra records (Isa and the Filthy Tongues, the Primevals), one of Scotland’s longest-lasting recording labels. Magdalena Majchrzak is a journalist from Poland. Tony has provided the Slits live review, Kinks DVD review and a review of Robin Guthrie’s new ‘Sunflower Stories’ EP. Magadalena has contributed the Arms and Sleepers interview. Thank you to Tony and Magadalena. Thank you too to Peter Allison, Carl Bookstein, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Dan Cressey, Anthony Dhanendran, Dixie Ernill, Russell Ferguson, r. fisher,Benjamin Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Fiona Hutchings, Sarah Johnson, Anthony Middleton, Chris O’ Toole, Spencer Robertshaw, Jon Rogers, Jamie Rowland, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Dominic Simpson, Anthony Strutt, Jeff Thiessen, Helen Tipping, Lisa Torem, Paul Waller and Denzil Watson, all of whom contributed articles to this edition. Thank you too to Matt Williams for the Clientele photos, Anna Gudaniec for the A Skylight Drive and We are the Ocean photos, Neil Bailey for the Wooden Shjips photos and Alan Taylor-Shearer for the combined AFI/Sick of It All shoot. Thank you also to guest photographer Andrea Dudikova for her photos which accompany the Wedding Present review. Special thanks to our webmaster Richard Banks at Pennyblackmusic HQ. We will be back with a reviews up-date in late April and then at the beginning of June with a full edition. We hope then to be running interviews with John Cooper Clarke, Chuck Prophet, Heaven 17, Strangelove’s Patrick Duff, Chris Olley, Dead Meadow, Asaf Avidan and the Mojos, the Dum Dum Girls, Marianne Dissard, Male Bonding and the Aaron Fox Band. The edition will also be focusing on the era of the late fifties and early sixties beyond the obvious influences of the Beatles and the Stones, and there will also be interviews with Lesley Gore and Lil Anthony and the Imperials and articles on some of the other music of that period. Thank you as always for reading John Clarkson Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk