Miscellaneous - July 2015

  by Admin

published: 22 / 7 / 2015

intro

Hello and welcome to the July edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. It has always been a large part of what we do at Pennyblackmusic to promote live some of the bands that we are

Hello and welcome to the July edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. It has always been a large part of what we do at Pennyblackmusic to promote live some of the bands that we are enthusing about in our magazine. For many years now, we have run regular Bands Nights, usually two or three times a year in London, and also more occasionally in Manchester and Glasgow. After two Bands Nights at the Macbeth in London this year, one in January and one in June and both with the Band of Holy Joy, we are moving North for our next two shows. They will both involve another of our favourite acts, the Willard Grant Conspiracy, who in 2010 and again in 2012 headlined the London Bands Night. The Boston-formed and self-described “Americana garage folk band” will be playing their first UK dates in two years in September, and Pennyblackmusic will be promoting the first two dates in Glasgow and Edinburgh of a whirlwind seven date tour. The Willard Grant Conspiracy has always worked as a consortium, and tours of the UK in the past have involved line-ups that have run from up to twelve members to front man and sole “permanent member” Robert Fisher on his own. For this tour, the WGC will be playing as a trio with the baritone-voiced Fisher, who will also be playing guitar, being joined by the extraordinary David Michael Curry on viola and saw and new recruit Jonah Sacks on cello. The Glasgow show will take place on Thursday September 10th at The Glad Café and the Edinburgh show the following night on Friday September 11th at The Wee Red Bar. The latter show will be our first Edinburgh gig and the WGC’s first show there in seven years. The WGC have always made it a point never to play the same show twice and with such a revolving line-up one never knows entirely what to expect. I know as I have seen them approximately twenty times over the years, but can confirm though that - perhaps surprisingly for a band whose main themes include alcohol, death and sin - their gigs are as life-affirming and passionate as they are melancholic and always more than a little special. Support will come for both shows from psych-jazz-pop-rock sextet Big Hogg, one of the rising stars of the Glasgow indie scene, and also for the Glasgow show only the powerful-voiced Nicola Black, who blends together folk, rock and pop in her music. Tickets are available from £10 in advance from Tickets Scotland http://tickets-scotland.com and also on the door for £12. This is another very full magazine. Every interview in the front page is new to this edition, as also are the majority of other features and reviews. Often I will highlight in the Editorial individual articles, but this month it is perhaps best to let this magazine stand on its own. As always this magazine has put together as a result of the hard work and enthusiasm of a lot of people. Thank you to Carl Bookstein, Malcolm Carter, Daniel Cressey, Nicky Crewe, Nick Dent-Robinson, Anthony Dhanendran, Gillian Fish, Tom Fogarty, Cat Goodwin, Dave Goodwin, Tommy Gunnarsson, Keith How, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Adrian Janes, Mary O’ Meara, Owen Peters, Maarten Schiethart, Anthony Strutt, Lisa Torem and Paul Waller, all of whom have contributed in one way or another to this edition. Special thanks to our webmaster Richard Banks for all his work. We will be back in early August with an album and singles reviews update, and then later on in them onth with a full edition. We hope then to run all our regular features and interviews among others with the Happy Mondays, Tom Robinson, the Bluetones, the Clientele, the English Beat, Louise Petit, Roy Moller, Reichenbach Falls and Kodiak Island. Please don’t forget to check out our regular Facebook and Twitter updates. Thank you as always for reading Pennyblackmusic, John Clarkson Magazine Editor www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk