Miscellaneous - February 2014

  by Admin

published: 31 / 1 / 2014

intro

Hello and welcome to the February edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. For ten years now, our Bands’ Nights have been both a regular part of what we do at Pennyblackmusic. We have been put on shows in London usually two times a year, and have also

Hello and welcome to the February edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. For ten years now, our Bands’ Nights have been both a regular part of what we do at Pennyblackmusic. We have been put on shows in London usually two times a year, and have also done one-off gigs in Glasgow and Manchester. Last November we planned to put on a gig at what has been our base for the last three years of the Half Moon in Herne Hill for both the fifteenth anniversary of our website and also for the tenth anniversary of the first gig. Unfortunately those plans came astray when the Half Moon was hit by a flood after a water main burst in the street outside. It has remained closed ever since, and so we find ourselves moving on. We have relocated to The Lexington in Pentonville Road, and our first gig of the year - and the delayed 15th Anniversary show - will take place on Saturday 31st May there. For this we have gone for a “best of” from our previous Bands Nights bills. Our headline act will be the nourish, nocturnal Madam, the extraordinary project of Sukie Smith whose as yet-untitled third album will out at about the same time. Our second band on the bill is self-described “urban country” band Morton Valence. One of the outstanding headliners of previous bills, they will be playing a rare acoustic set in a stripped down line-up. The last act on the bill is Rotifer, the fiery indie pop trio of critically-acclaimed Austrian singer-songwriter Robert Rotifer and whose latest album ‘The Cavalry Never Showed Up’, which came out on his own Gare Du Nord label, was one of the indie successes of last year. Tickets can be bought in advance for £5 from We Got Tickets www.wegottickets.com or on the door on the night for £6. More details about the evening can be found in a report in our Regular Features section. Elsewhere in our Regular Features section, Adrian Janes in ‘Ten Songs That Made Me Love…’ writes of some of his favourite songs by the late, great Tim Buckley. Denzil Watson in ‘Gig of a Lifetime’ describes going to a show from Caliifornian/Irish rockers That Petrol Emotion at the Town and Country Club in London in 1988. Ben Howarth in ‘Condemned to Rock ‘n’ Roll’ questions the value of the much-hyped BBC Sound of 2014 newcomers’ poll, while Dave Goodwin in his regular ‘Vinyl Stories’ column describes some of his own favourite records. There is also a competition in which we have two family tickets for this year Deerstock Festival in Nottinghamshire. Our lead interview for this month is with the iconic singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega, who talks to Lisa Torem about her new studio album ‘In the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles’ and current ‘I Never Wear White’ tour. Our other main interviews include legendary indie pop artist and front woman Amelia Fletcher about her first group Talulah Gosh, who have a new compilation out, and her other bands Heavenly, Marine Research and Tender Trap; acclaimed singer-songwriter and political activist Garland Jeffreys, and Australian art rockers the Red Paintings about their five-years-in-the-making debut album ‘The Revolution is Never Coming’. In a two part interview, both parts of which we are running consecutively we also speak to seminal punk guitarist Walter Lure about his own band the Waldos, whose 1994 album ‘Rent Party’, has recently been reissued on CD, and his years with the ill-fated Heartbreakers, which featured the late ex-New York Dolls members Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan. There are also interviews with jazz artist Jacqui Dankworth; 60’s-influenced Medway-based act Groovy Uncle, and rising Frankfurt-based electro-based pop artist Jana Josephina. We are also running an interview with Vinita Joshi, the owner of the long-running Rocket Girl label, which recently celebrated its hundredth release. In our Profiles section there are features on Britpop legends Cast; cult legend Wreckless Eric’s short-lived garage rock/punk group the Len Bright Combo, and Bob Geldof’s late 70’s/early 80’s new wave act the Boomtown Rats.There is also a tribute to the folk veteran Pete Seeger, who died last month. We have thirteen new Live Reviews/Photoscapes. In our Re:View section, in which our writers look back on albums from the past. Maarten examines British composer Max Richter’s 2002 debut ‘Memoryhouse’, which has recently been re-released. Our Website of the Month is ‘Famous Last Words’, an excellent new Oslo-based music reviews and interview website. There are also 26 new album and single reviews. In our previous reviews only update in January we ran another ten reviews. We have two new photographers this month. Our first Melanie Smith was until recently the editor of the exceptional Mudkiss website www.mudkiss.co.uk. Now that she has decided to rest Mudkiss she will be working for various websites and magazines, including our own as both a photographer and occasional reviewer. Mel has contributed both photos and words to the Lindi Ortega live review, and photos to the Imelda May live review and also Walter Lure double feature. Thanks also are due to our guest writer Haili Hughes, who contributed the text which accompanies Mel’s Imelda May photos. Our second new photographer is Bill Gray, who is based in Glasgow and contributed the photos that accompany a live review of the Holy Ghosts/Colonel Mustard and the Dijon 5/A New International gig. Thank you to both of them. Thank you also to Carl Bookstein, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Dan Cressey, Nick Dent-Robinson, Anthony Dhanendran, Gillian Fish, Tony Gaughan, Dave Goodwin, Tommy Gunnarsson, Marie Hazelwood, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Fiona Hutchings, Adrian Janes, Mark Rowland, Anthony Strutt, Lisa Torem, Paul Waller, and Denzil Watson, all of whom have contributed to this edition. Very special thanks to our webmaster Richard Banks for all his hard work behind the scenes. We will back with an album and singles reviews only in mid-February, and hope to run interviews then with Slowdive, Hazel O’ Connor, Gene, Jack Bruce, the Band of Holy Joy, the Art of Noise, Graham Coulter, Morgan Delt, the Woodentops, Little Sparrow and August List. We will also have more profiles, live reviews and Regular Features. Please check out our regular Facebook and Twitter updates. Thank you as always for reading Pennyblackmusic, John Clarkson, Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk