Miscellaneous
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March 2011
published: 7 /
3 /
2011
Hello and welcome to the March edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. We have now been putting on our Bands’ Nights in London for eight years. While our headline act the Willard Grant Conspiracy appeared as a duo, our last event in October had by the
Article
Hello and welcome to the March edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine.
We have now been putting on our Bands’ Nights in London for eight years. While our headline act the Willard Grant Conspiracy appeared as a duo, our last event in October had by the time the support acts - the Monroe Transfer, Altai Rockets and Adam Donen who brought ten musicians alone with him – all played their slots turned into a grand scale event which involved over twenty five musicians and their instruments coming on and off the stage.
We didn’t particularly set out to plan it this way, but our next event, which will take place on Saturday March 26th at our regular venue of the Half Moon in Herne Hill, while certainly in no other respect lower scale, will in contrast and in terms of stage line-up anyway be smaller. Two of the acts on the bill, Nick Garrie and Alex Monk, will be appearing solo. Another, the Hall of Mirrors will be appearing as a three piece and it looks as I write like our headliner Anthony Reynolds will be coming with a five piece band, which includes producer Julian Simmons on piano and Gina Harcourt-Williams, the wife of Ed Harcourt, on violin.
It is different in another way as well in that, while the Willard Grant Conspiracy, the Monroe Transfer and Adam Donen have all played the London circuit frequently in recent years, it will only be Nick’s second ever London gig and for Anthony, who recently returned to touring after a long absence, it will be his first show in London since his former band Jack played their final date there at the Jazz Cafe in 2002.
That was far more of a conscious decision. The opportunity came up to present them both. We loved their music, liked them both as individuals and wanted them on the bill. Whatever else our sins are, nobody could accuse us of doing with this the same thing twice.
We have interviewed before both Nick Garrie, whose psychedelic pop debut masterpiece, ‘The Nightmare of JB Stanislas’, finally received overdue recognition when it was released thirty six years after being recorded in 2005, and also drone/ambient artist Alex Monk.
Two of the interviews we are running this month are with the other acts on the bill.
Anthony Reynolds will be releasing a double CD retrospective of his work, ‘Life’s Too Long’, on Chaffinch Records in April and will be launching it at the London show. In an extensive two part interview, he provides a track-by-track description of many of the 26 songs on the album, talks about his years in Jack, their three albums and his much acclaimed solo career.
The Hall of Mirrors’ front woman Jessica Spencer meanwhile chats to Dominic Simpson about her band’s brand of 60’s and 70’s influenced space pop.
We are also running another ten interviews as well this month. In our headline slot Lisa Torem speaks to 60’s folk pop star Donovan, who recently won a lifetime achievement prize at the Radio Two Folk Awards, about his recent album, ‘Ritual Groove’.
Other highlights there include interviews with 80's electro giants Blancmange, acclaimed Welsh indie band the Joy Formidable, singer-songwriter and the National tour mate Sharon Van Etten, 60’s act Savoy Brown, 80’s pop icon Natasha England, New York-born and now Manchester-based singer-songwriter Risa Hall and shoegazing band Daniel Land and the Modern Painters.
Elsewhere there are articles in our ‘Profiles’ section on the late John Barry, Captain Beefheart who would have recently turned 70, the Distractions, the Tallest Man on Earth and a new documentary film on Lemmy.
We have got thirteen new live reviews. In our ‘Regular Features’ section, Spencer Robertshaw in his monthly poetry column 'Evidently Spencertown' writes of expense-claim MPs in ‘Payback Time’. Lisa Torem chats with Fiona Hutchings in ‘Rock Salt Row’ about some of the emotions that can be enhanced through music. Ben Howarth writes in ‘Condemned to Rock ‘n’ Roll’ of some of the excellent acts and bands that he has discovered in support slots at gigs that he has been to recently, while Jon Rogers in a double and typically hard-hitting instalment of ‘Hitting the Right Note’ tackles the ever difficult issues of censorship and drugs.
In our ‘Re: View’ section, in which we look back at albums from the past, there are articles on the Rich Kids’ 1978 only album,‘Ghosts of Princes in Towers’, and Sebadoh’s 1994 fourth album, ‘Bakehole’. Our Website of the Month is ‘Human Beatbox’, a beatboxing site. There are also 32 album and single reviews.
This last month has unfortunately in a lot of ways been a tough month.
Our Sheffield-based writer Fiona Hutchings underwent an emergency operation after suffering a brain haemorrhage on the 21st February. Fiona has been a member of our writing team since joining the site in July 2009 having been introduced by her fellow Pennyblack writer and friend, Peter Allison. She took over the Website of the Month column last year, instantly breathing new life into a tired series with her offbeat wit and breezy writing, and is also a regular reviewer for us.
I have heard that she was released from hospital on Monday 5th March and, judging by a typically cheeky and remarkably bright-sounding e-mail I had the day after she got out, has been recovering well.
As well as the Website of the Month column, Fiona also wrote the ‘Rock Salt Row’ and Moddi album lead review piece that feature in this edition. Thank you to Fiona. Our thoughts have been with her and her family and we look forward to her getting back to doing some writing once she has recuperated a little more.
On a better note, thanks also to new writer Finn Cargill. Finn is a student based in East Anglia and contributed the Tallest Man on Earth feature.
This magazine is put together though the enthusiasm and hard work of many talented people. Thank you to Peter Allison, Carl Bookstein, Malcolm Carter, Andrew Carver, Dan Cressey, Dixie Ernill, Tony Gaughan, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Richard Lewis, Tara McEvoy, Neil Palmer, Spencer Robertshaw, Jon Rogers, Jamie Rowland, Maarten Schiethart, Dominic Simpson, Anthony Strutt, Helen Tipping, Lisa Torem and Paul Waller, all of whom also contributed articles to this edition or the March reviews up-date. Thank you also to our webmaster Richard Banks and too to guest interviewer Martin Metcalfe who contributed the Joy Formidable interview.
We will be back in mid March with an album and singles reviews up-date and then in early April with another new edition. We hope to be running interviews then with Undertones, the Cowboy Junkies, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto, Thin Lizzy and Motorhead guitarist Brian Robertson, Stephanie Finch, the Jim Jones Revue,the Doghouse Roses, the Memory Band, singer-songwriter Grace Kelly, Factory Star, Quarterfly and Samson and Delilah.
Thank you as always for reading,
John Clarkson
Magazine Editor
www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk