Miscellaneous - July 2012

  by Admin

published: 4 / 7 / 2012

intro

Hello, and welcome to the July edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. June was in many ways a hard month. We had to change servers which put us down for a week, and then

Hello, and welcome to the July edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. June was in many ways a hard month. We had to change servers which put us down for a week, and then as a result of that developed further technical problems which put us out of action for a few more days. Two of our writers and regular columnists have also been ill (Get well soon, Andy Cassidy and Spencer Robertshaw). We are back though with another full magazine. In our lead interview this month Mark Rowland talks to ex-Stereolab front woman about the political and angry of her second solo album, 'Silencio'. Amongst other main interviews this month three current and ex-members of Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson,Jerry Donahue and Simon Nicol,speak about the folk giants' 45th anniversary. We have got interviews with not one, but two members of the Eagles: Joe Walsh and Glenn Frey who speak about their legendary band and their new solo albums, Walsh's 'Analog Man' and Frey's covers album 'After Hours'. Johny Brown from London-based band the Band of Holy Joy chats about his group's two recent albums, 'How to Kill a Butterfly' and 'The North is Another Land', which have come out within six months of each other, and their new Friday night radio show, 'Not a Nice Radio Show'. Other interviews include the first part of a two part interview with Duglas T. Stewart from influential indie pop group BMX Bandits, Frankie Valli arranger Robby Robinson, and 'Donnie Darko' composer Michael Andrews. Other highlights include a profile of glam rock singer and bassist Suzi Quatro, who have had four of her albums reissued, and the third part of Anthony Strutt's occasional series on the Jesus and Mary Chain. In our 'Live' section, we have got ten gig and festival reviews, and six 'Photoscapes' including four columns dedicated to Liverpool Sound City from which our Liverpudlian photographers Darren Aston and Marie Hazelwood have picked their own favourite photographs out of the hundreds they took at this year's three day event. In our slightly reduced 'Regular Features' section Jeffrey Thiessen in 'This Metal Sky' looks at the Smashing Pumpkins' latest album, 'Oceania'; Mark Rowland in 'Rock 101' writes about film music; Jon Rogers reflects on the forthcoming Spice Girls music, and Ben Howarth examines Sweet Billy Pilgrim's new album 'Crown and Treaty', which he proclaims a classic. In our 'Re: View' section, in which we look at albums from the past, Ben Howarth reflects on Paul and Linda McCartney's often maligned 1971 album 'Ram', while our Website of the Month is 'Sweet Relief', a website dedicated to musicians in need of medical and financial care. We are also running 28 new reviews and ran another 19 reviews in the mid-month update. Thank you to Carl Bookstein, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Andy Cassidy, Dan Cressey, Nick Dent-Robinson, Tom Fogarty, Ben Howarth, Sarah Mwangi, Jamie Rowland, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Anthony Strutt, Jeff Thiessen, Lisa Torem and Paul Waller, all of whom contributed articles to this edition or the mid-month update. Thank you as well to Darren Aston, Marie Hazelwood and Amy Rawlinson for the Photoscapes, and speal guest photographer Jim Summaria for the Naperville Rib and Barb Wire Dolls photographs. Special thanks to our webmaster Richard Banks for all his hard work and for getting everything back online in what has been a difficult month.. We will be doing an album and singles reviews only update in mid July 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 Augusty. We hope then to run interviews with Billy Bragg, Big Star, Blancmange, Cosmo Jarvis, Dan Winehouse, Lovely Eggs, the Martin Harley Band, Arto Vaun and the Seven Deadly Sins and to have the second parts of the BMX Bandits and David Baker interviews, the latter of which has been delayed due to Andy Cassidy's illness. Thank you as always for reading Pennyblackmusic, John Clarkson, Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk