Miscellaneous - March 2012

  by Admin

published: 28 / 2 / 2012

intro

Hello, and welcome to the March edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. It has been nine years since we ran our first Bands’ Night on a freezing wintry night in January 2003 at the now long closed Spitz in East London. Since then these nights, which we usually put on

Hello, and welcome to the March edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. It has been nine years since we ran our first Bands’ Night on a freezing wintry night in January 2003 at the now long closed Spitz in East London. Since then these nights, which we usually put on twice a year in London, have become one of the major focuses of the site. We expanded out of London to do our first show in Manchester in November of last year, and we also hope to announce a show in Glasgow shortly. For our next show however, we will be returning on the 24th March to our current regular venue of the Half Moon in Herne Hill, South London. At £6 in advance and £7 on the door, and with four bands on the bill, we believe that we are offering exceptionally good value for money with this gig. The quality of the bands is excellent, and it is a bill that we are especially excited by. Tickets and information about the the gig can be found at http://wegottickets.com/event/151048. Further information can also be found at www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk/MagSitePages/Article.aspx?=6294. It will be one of headliners ex-Creation Records stars Pete Fij (Adorable, Polak) and Terry Bickers’ (The House of Love, Levitation) first London shows since they got together last year. Main support Last Harbour will be playing the London date at the Half Moon of a week long tour to promote their fifth album, ‘Your Heart, It Carries the Sound’. For folk rockers the Owl Service, it will be a bittersweet occasion as it will be their final gig. Roshi ft. Pars Radio, the project of Roshi Nahesi, a London-based singer of Iranian heritage,and electronic musician Gagarin will also be playing a rare live show. It promises to be a memorable evening. If you live in or near London, we do hope that you will be able to come. Our lead interview this month is with Matthew Caws, the front man with New York-based alternative rock act Nada Surf, who talks to Jamie Rowland about his band’s extensive twenty years plus career and latest album, ‘The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy‘. Our other main interviews this month are with Jake Shillingford from 90’s orchestral pop act My Life Story about his group’s decision to play their influential album, 'The Golden Mile', live for the first time; Pauline Black from ska group the Selecter about her autobiography ‘Black By Design’ and band's recent reformation; ex-Soul Coughing front man Mike Doughty about his new album, ‘Yes and Also Yes’, and just published memoirs, ‘The Book of Drugs’; and the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn about his first solo album, 'Clear Heart Full Eyes'. There are interviews also with dark Scottish post rockers the Twilight Sad; Icicle Works guitarist and singer Ian McNabb about his tenth solo album, ‘Little Details’; atmospheric Liverpudlian folk act Bird, and acclaimed Irish singer-songwriter, Martin A. Egan. We are also running interviews with St Albans-based indie pop band and Peel favourites the Pocket Gods; Virginia-based folk country pop Steel Wheels, and Roshi ft. Pars Radio. In our Profiles section, there is an appreciation of jazz singer Etta James, who died earlier this year, and a review of a new book on the Doors, ‘The Doors FAQ: All That's Left To Know about the Kings of Acid Rock’. In our Live section there are new reviews of shows by the Twilight Sad, Francois and the Atlas Mountains, Dawes, Skinner, This Many Boyfriends, JEFF The Brotherhood, Megan Henwood, WATERS, Keith James, Jimmy Webb and the Strange Doors. We also have Photoscapes of the Drums, and new bands Cities to Satellites and Southern. In our Regular Features section Mark Rowland in 'Rock 101' reflects upon the disturbing attitudes that are often displayed by the music industry with regard to violence and sexism against women. Ben Howarth in ‘Condemned to Rock ‘n’ Roll’ examines PledgeMusic and the ethics of fan funding, while Jamie Rowland in ‘Gimme Indie Rock’ chats with Matthew Caws about his favourite records. Carl Bookstein in ‘Gig of a Lifetime’ describes the impact on him of going to see a Grateful Dead concert in Chicago in 1994, while Andy Cassidy in ‘AC’s A-Z of Music’ provides some surprising facts about the Eurovision song contest. Spencer Robertshaw's poem in his ‘Evidently Spencertown' monthly poetry column is meanwhile vituperative, but very funny. In our Re:View section, in which we look back at albums from the past, we are running an article on 'Preflyte', a 1989 compilation of early Byrds recordings. Our Website of the Month is 'Goodnight London', the blog of Pennyblackmusic writer Dominic Simpson. We are also running 32 album and single reviews. We ran a further 30 reviews in our mid-month reviews update in February. As always, this magazine has been put together through the hard work and enthusiasm of a lot of people. Thank you to Carl Bookstein, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Andy Cassidy, Dan Cressey, Anthony Dhanendran, Dixie Ernill, Tommy Gunnarson, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Fiona Hutchings,Richard Lewis, Spencer Robertshaw, Jamie, Rowland, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Dominic Simpson, Anthony Strutt, Lisa Torem and Paul Waller all of whom contributed articles to this edition or the February update. Thanks to Darren Aston and Marie Hazelwood for the Photoscapes of the Drums, Cities to Satellites and Southern. Special thanks to our webmaster Richard Banks for all his work behind the scenes, and guest reviewer Nick Dent-Robinson. We will be doing an album and singles reviews only update in mid March, and then will be doing our next big monthly up-date with interviews, features, live reviews and more album and single reviews, at the beginning of March. We hope then to run interviews with the Small Faces, Dion, the Wedding Present, Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Paul Rutherford, the Fire Engines, Suzi Quatro, ex-Wings guitarist Laurence Juber, Bad Weather California, Hymnn, RWPL and Alfredo Rodriguez. Thank you as always for reading Pennyblackmusic, John Clarkson. Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk