Miscellaneous - May 2013

  by Admin

published: 10 / 5 / 2013

intro

Hello and welcome to the May edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine. We are running this month our usual combination of interviews with both already

Hello and welcome to the May edition of the Pennyblackmusic magazine. We are running this month our usual combination of interviews with both already established and new acts. For our lead interview this month, Paul Waller has spoken with former Husker Du and Sugar front man Bob Mould about his years in both groundbreaking bands; his recent autobiography, ‘See a Little Light’, and his current solo album, ‘Silver Age’, which, returning to the abrasive glory of his earlier bands, many of his fans see as being amongst the finest of his long career. While none of the other acts we have interviewed in this month’s edition have ever really gone away or dropped totally out of the limelight, many of them are making a comeback of a kind. Martyn Ware, the synthesiser player with Heaven 17, talks about his other band British Electric Foundation’s latest covers album, ‘Music of Quality and Distinction Volume 3 –Dark’, which, following just 22 years on after the second volume in the series, includes appearances from Boy George, Sandie Shaw and Glenn Gregory. Alison Moyet chats about her electronic-fuelled first album in five years, ‘the minutes’, while bassist Bruce Foxton speaks about his years in the Jam and also ‘Back to the Room’, his first solo album in twenty-eight years which has found him at last working with Paul Weller again. Ian Anderson meanwhile talks about ‘Thick as a Brick 2’, the belated sequel to his band Jethro Tull’s classic 1972 masterpiece. There are also interviews with Black’s Colin Vearncombe about his bestselling 1987 album ‘Wonderful Life’, which has just been released in a double CD edition; Curt Kirkwood from the influential Arizona-based country/psychedelic act Meat Puppets about his group’s new album ‘Rat Farm’; and “Segs” Jennings, the bassist with the Ruts DC about their first album in thirty years, ‘Rhythm Collision Vol. 2’, the legacy of his former group, the seminal, but tragic punk group the Ruts and why he has decided to perform Ruts songs with the Ruts DC for the first time. Amongst the newer acts, there are interviews with New Zealand/British rock trio I Am Giant about the 160 auditions it took them to find a lead singer; London-born but New York-based singer-songwriter Louise Aubrie who talks about her just released second album ‘Time Honoured Alibi’ and working with Morrissey producer Boz Boorer; American experimental musician David Grubbs; rising new acoustic duo Fossil Collective, and Italian musician and Americana artist Stiv Cantarelli about his current band the Silent Strangers and their much acclaimed recent album, ‘Black Music/White Music’. Our final interview for this month, which we are running in our Profiles section as it is something a little different, is with songwriter Guy Fletcher who speaks about his fifty years in the music business and writing for artists such as Joe Meek, Ray Charles and Elvis Presley. Elsewhere in the Profiles section there is a two part feature on Todd Rundgren, who recently spent a week at Columbia College in Chicago working with its music students both at a recording session and also on preparing for a show, and also an article about soul/jazz legend Nina Simone, who has a new double CD anthology of her work out in June. In our Live section there are sixteen live reviews and Photoscapes. In our Regular Features section, Ben Howarth in ‘Condemned to Rock ‘n’ Roll’ reflects on the career of the underated Jason Molina from Songs: Ohia and the Magnolia Electric Co,; Jon Rogers in ‘Hitting the Right Note’, after listening to his latest album ‘Push the Sky Away’, asks where it all went wrong or Nick Cave, and Spencer Robertshaw in his monthly poetry column ‘Evidently Spencertown’ examines the issue of creativity. In our ‘Re:View’ section, in which we look back at albums from the past, there are articles on new wave supergroup the Armoury Show’s only 1985 album ‘Waiting for the Floods’; Birmingham-based all girl alternative group Fuzzbox’s 1989 third and final album ‘Big Bang’ and R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck’s eponymous vinyl only solo debut of last year. Our Website of the Month is ‘This is Not Retro’, a website which reflects on the present work of artists who became stars on the 1980s. We are also running 28 new album and single reviews. We ran a further 27 reviews in the reviews only update that we did at the end of April. As always this magazine has come about through the hard work and enthusiasm of several different people. Thank you to Carl Bookstein, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Dan Cressey, Nick Dent-Robinson, Anthony Dhanendran, Dixie Ernill, Gillian Fish, Tom Fogarty, Dave Goodwin, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Fiona Hutchings, Adrian Janes, Richard Lewis, Spencer Robertshaw, Jamie Rowland, Mark Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Harry Sherriff, Anthony Strutt, Lisa Torem and Paul Waller, all of whom contributed articles to this edition or the reviews only update. Thank you also to Darren Aston, Marie Hazelwood and Matt Williams for their photographic work, and new photographer Catherine Christofis who contributed the Hadouken photos. We will be doing an album and singles reviews only update in late May and then will be doing our next big monthly up-date with interviews, features, live reviews and more album and single reviews in early June We hope to run interviews then with the Kinks’ Dave Davies, the Boomtown Rats, Judy Collins, the Handsome Family, Mission of Burma, the Undertones, Poltergeist (the new band of Echo and the Bunnymen’s Will Sergeant and Les Pattinson), the Godfathers, John Foxx, Lorna, Peter Bruntnell and Laish Thank you as always for reading Pennyblackmusic, John Clarkson, Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk