Miscellaneous - August 2015

  by Admin

published: 25 / 8 / 2015

intro

Hello and welcome to the August edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. The Willard Grant Conspiracy have always been to us a group which stands out. We, therefore, feel both

Hello and welcome to the August edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. The Willard Grant Conspiracy have always been to us a group which stands out. We, therefore, feel both privileged and thrilled that in September that we will be promoting the opening two dates of their first European show in two years. The first of these shows will be at The Glad Café in Glasgow on Thursday September 10th, and the second show will be the following night at The Wee Red Bar in Edinburgh on Friday September 11th. The latter gig will be our first ever Edinburgh show, and the Willard Grant Conspiracy’s first gig there in six years. While the Boston-formed collective's main themes – sin, death, alcohol and spiriutal isolation – are often bleak and dark, the power of their music is such that it is both life-affirming and redemptive. Other shows and tours have seen line-ups veer from twelve to one member. For this tour, the WGC, will be playing as a trio with the group's sole "permanent member", the baritone-voiced Robert 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. Support at both these gigs will come from the rising Glaswegian sextet, Big Hogg. Singer-songwriter Nicola Black will also be an additional support act for the Glasgow show, and will be playing with her new band, another trio, Sister Fox. In Edinburgh, the bill will also feature harmonic "raw pop" duo, Not Forgotten Girl. Doors will open at 7.00 p.m. for the Edinburgh show and 7.30 p.m. for the Glasgow show. Tickets are also available in advance from Tickets Scotland www.tickets-scotland.com for £10 and will also be available on the night for £12. If you live in Scotland, we do hope that you will able to come. They should be two exceptional nights. In the meantime, we have recently put on-line a new edition of our monthly magazine. Our lead interview for this edition is with Shaun Ryder from the Happy Mondays who talks to Richard Lewis about his band’s classic 1990 album ‘Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches’ which the band are set to play in its entirety on a 25th anniversary tour this winter. Our other main interviews for this month are with 70’s singer-songwriter, protest singer and 6 Music DJ Tom Robinson who speaks about ‘Only the Now’, his first album in nearly twenty years; cult indie pop band the Clientele who are about to release a “best of” compilation; Brit pop act the Bluetones who have just reformed for a twentieth anniversary tour, and soon-to-disband orchestral folk pop collective Bellowhead. There are also interviews with ska group the English Beat about their fourth album ‘Here We Go Love’; Scottish singer-songwriter Roy Moller about his recent album, 'My Week Beats Your Year', which written after Lou Reed's death tells of the Velvet Underground's inspiration upon him; Oxford-based singer-songwriter Jess Hall about her much acclaimed debut album, 'Bookshelves', and the Henley-on-Thames–based Louise Petit about the demons she had to absolve to release her first album, ‘Louder Than Your Drum’. Other highlights include an article on the growing concept of old silent films being set to modern film scores, and live reviews of several of this year’s festivals including Deerstock, Latitude, Kendal Calling, Indietracks and Fairport’s Cropredy Convention. Amongst our Regular Features, Adrian Huggins for 'Ten Songs That Made Me Love...' writes about his ten favourite songs by Welsh eccentric indie rockers Super Furry Animals, while Mark Rowland for 'Gig of a Lifetime' relives his favourite gig of all time, a long-awaited chance to see Pavement at their curated All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in 2010. 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, Nicky Crewe, Nick Dent-Robinson, Anthony Dhanendran, Gillian Fish, Cat Goodwin, Dave Goodwin, Tommy Gunnarsson, Keith How, Adrian Huggins, Adrian Janes, Mary O’ Meara, Owen Peters, Mark Rowland, 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 September with an album and singles reviews update, and then later on in the month with a full edition. We hope then to run all our regular features, and interviews among others with Hugh Cornwell, Penetration, the Zombies, Bill Nelson, the Band of Holy Joy, Brooke Sharkey, Reichenbach Falls, Felix Indiana, Kodiak Island, Luckless and also Ian Mitchell, the owner of All Will Be Well Records. 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