Miscellaneous - October 2012

  by Admin

published: 7 / 10 / 2012

intro

Hello, and welcome to the October edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine. We are putting on our second Pennyblackmusic Bands’ Night of the year in London at the

Hello, and welcome to the October edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine. We are putting on our second Pennyblackmusic Bands’ Night of the year in London at the Half Moon in Herne Hill on the 3rd November. It is now nearly ten years since we ran our first Bands’ Night in January 2003 at the still sorely missed Spitz, and in the years since then we have got into a routine of putting on Bands’ Nights twice a year in London, usually in March and November, and also more occasionally in Manchester and Glasgow. We have stuck to twice a year partially for financial reasons, and because of the expense it can involve for those of our writers wanting to come who live outside London, including from America on a few occasions now. We have also, however, always wanted each Bands Night to be an event and special occasion, and see it an opportunity for us to promote and present the very best and the most extraordinary of some of those acts that we are writing about and photographing. Once again with the bill we have put together for November 3rd I feel that we have done that. Our headliner this time is the Willard Grant Conspiracy, who headlined for us before in November 2010, and is the project of Californian musician Robert Fisher. The subject of various Pennyblackmusic interviews, the Willard Grant Conspiracy, with both Fisher’s all powerful, booming baritone and his Gothic-influenced songs of despair, lust, drink and death, have always been an absolutely hypnotic experience live. This time Fisher will be playing solo, and it will be his first London show in two years and only mainland UK date this year. The second act on on the bill is Rotifer, the band of Austrian-born, but Canterbury-based musician Robert Rotifer. Their debut British CD, 'The Hosting Couple', has been released on Edwyn Collins' AED label and is in part about Rotifer's experiences as a twelve-year old in the 80s on a hosting arrangement in Canvey Island, Essex. An indie pop supergroup, Rotifer features the Television Personalities' Mike Stone who replaced Darren Hayman (ex-Hefner) on bass earlier this year, and former Death in Vegas guitarist Ian Button on drums. 'The Hosting Couple' was produced by one-time Stiff Records artist Wreckless Eric (he of the legendary 1977 punk song '(I'd Go the) Whole Wide World'. Also on the bill is Bromide, the project of London-based musician Simon Berridge, who will be playing as a three-piece and whose just released fourth album and first studio record in ten years ‘Some Electric Sometime’ was produced by one time Gay Dad member 'Nigel of Bermondsey'. The final act on the bill is local cult act and lo-fi/post-punk/Krautrock/out-there five piece NOW, who have released nine albums since they first formed in 1998. Tickets for this are £6 in advance and can be bought from WeGotTickets http://www.wegottickets.com/event/186828, or alternatively on the door for £7. We do hope that if you in or near London you will be able to come. We are running sixteen new interviews this month. Our lead interview is with Karl Wallinger, the front man and sole member with the much acclaimed pop outfit World Party. He speaks to Andy Cassidy about his career, his recently released five-disc career retrospective, ‘Arkeology’, his group’s forthcoming headline gig at the Royal Albert Hall in London and his hatred of the CD format. Our other main interviews include 80’s pop icon Toyah Willcox; former Bonzo Doo Dah Dah Band and Rutles member Neil Innes; the controversial 80’s act Frankie Goes To Hollywood and ex-Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Other highlights amongst the interviews include Pete Townshend’s brother and Who touring member Simon Townshend who speaks about his new solo album, ‘Looking Out, Looking In’; Quiet Loner, the project of Manchester-based Musician Matt Hill, who politically angry third album was recorded live in a church; former Gene front man Martin Rossiter about his debut solo album; Nick Halliwell, the owner of Occultation Recordings, which puts a special focus on vinyl, and has seen recent releases by the Distractions, the Wild Swans and Factory Star, and Manchester-based duo the Chrysalids, whose debut album, ‘Neither Love Nor Money’, has come out twenty years after most of its songs have been recorded. Amongst our 'Profiles' there are articles on anarchic folk punks Chumbawamba who have announced their decision to disband after nearly thirty years together: Van Morrison and Joe Strummer. There is also the fourth and fifth part of Jon Rogers’ five part series on the Velvet Undergound. There are live reviews of Ultravox, both Shonen Knife and their Ramones tribute offshoot the Osaka Ramones, the Liverpool International Festival of Pyschedelia, Allo Darlin', Deacon Blue, John Mayall, Jens Lekman, Ren Harvieu, the Cathode Ray and the BE Open Sound Portal exhibit in London. There are also 'Photoscapes' fof Sleepy Sun, Eva Petersen and three galleries of the Liverpool International Festival of Pyschedelia. In our 'Regular Features' Spencer Robertshaw in his ‘Evidently Spencertown’ poetry series with ‘Ground Zero’ asks if drug users really know what they are taking; Tommy Gunnarsson in ‘Gig of a Lifetime’ writes of going to see R.E.M. at a fan club only gig in Stockholm in 1998, and Ben Howarth in ‘Condemned to Rock ‘n’ Roll' focuses on recent critical reaction to Bob Dylan. In our ‘Re:View’ section, in which we look back at albums from the past, there are articles on 'Kitsch', the 1977 third album from metal-punks the Heavy Metal Kids, whose singer the late Gary Holton was one of the stars of the classic television series, 'Auf Weidersehen, Pet'; the Chrysalids’ ‘Neither Love Nor Money’ and the Bangles’ 1998 third album, ‘Everything’. Our Website of the Month is the website for new bi-monthly print magazine, Classic Pop. We are also running 32 album and single reviews. We ran a further 25 reviews in our reviews only update at the end of September. We have two new writers. Dave Goodwin and Harry Sherriff. Dave Goodwin is a Nottingham-based writer and photographer and has contributed various articles to this edition and the last edition including the Ultravox, Deacon Blue and Ren Harvieu live reviews. Harry Sherriff is from Southport near Liverpool, and contributed the Mode Moderne and Miniature Dinosaurs reviews. Thank you to both Dave and Harry. Thank you also to Carl Bookstein, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Andy Cassidy, Dan Cressey, Nick Dent-Robinson, Dixie Ernill, Tom Fogarty, Tommy Gunnarsson, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Richard Lewis, Spencer Robertshaw, Jon Rogers, Maarten Schiethart, Dominic B. Simpson, Anthony Strutt, Helen Tipping, Lisa Torem, Paul Waller and Cila Warncke, all of whom contributed articles to this edition or the mid-month update. Thanks as well to Marie Hazelwood for the Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia, Allo Darlin’, Sleepy Sun, and Eva Petersen photo shoots. Special thanks to our webmaster Richard Banks for all his hard work. We will be doing an album and singles reviews only update in late October 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 November. We hope to run interviews then with Darren Hayman, Bad Brains, Newton Faulkner, Spector, Breathless, Dave Harding, Jack Hayter, Glissando, Trixie’s Big Red Motorbike, David Fischoff and Kat Parsons. Thank you as always for reading Pennyblackmusic, John Clarkson, Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk