Miscellaneous - October 2015

  by Admin

published: 23 / 10 / 2015

intro

Hello and welcome to the October edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. It is not easy being in an indie band. There are, of course, those occasions when...

Hello and welcome to the October edition of the Pennyblackmusic Magazine. It is not easy being in an indie band. There are, of course, those occasions when things work out and go as you would hope but all too often your records, recorded and marketed on a shoestring, barely sell and are little heard. At gigs your audience is small, and at best perhaps disinterested and inattentive, at worst drunken and hostile. You are paid little if anything at all by the promoters and having travelled a long way arrive back home in the middle of the night, then having to face getting up early for work that morning. It is perhaps not surprising in such circumstances that most indie bands only last a few years before breaking up, worn out and disillusioned. Our lead interview this month Cleethorpes-based band Orphan Boy have been through all of this. They have survived for over ten years together but yet at a price. They split up for almost a year in 2011 before getting back together. In a revealing interview before a gig in Derby, Dave Goodwin speaks to vocalist and guitarist Rob Cross and bassist Paul Smith about their reformation, their recently released third album ‘Coastal Tones’ which is a thought-provoking examination of austerity-torn Britain, and the highs and lows of their heavy touring. Amongst our other main interviews this month we speak to 60’s soul icon Darlene Love about her Steven Van Zandt-produced new album ‘Introducing Darlene Love’; Pauline Murray from reformed 70’s punk icons Penetration about ‘Resolution’, their third album and first in thirty-six years; acclaimed engineer and producer Alan Parsons about working with the Beatles, Pink Floyd and the Alan Parsons Project and his role in a series of master classes at Abbey Road Studios, and Mark St. John, the manager and former drummer with controversial 60’s group the Pretty Things, about their continued notoriety and influence. We also have archival interviews from Nick Dent-Robinson with Pete Townshend in 1993 and Julian Lennon in 1994. New Zealand alternative rock musician Ivy Rossiter meanwhile speaks about her band Luckless, its second album from last year ‘Vindication Blues’ which is about to be re-released on vinyl, and her recent relocation to Berlin. In our Profiles section there are articles on the Band’s Rick Danko and a new live box set; dance pioneers Everything But The Girl and their just reissued final two albums, 1996’s ‘Walking Wounded’ and 1999’s ‘Temperamental'; ‘Riot on Sunset Strip’, a book about the Los Angeles club scene during the 1960s which gave birth to the Byrds, Doors and Love, and ‘Between Dog and Wolf’, a new DVD documentary film about New Model Army. There are live reviews. In our Regular Features section Keith How in ‘Ten Songs That Made Me Love....’, which we have renamed ‘Ten Reasons That Made Me Love...’ for this edition, writes about underrated Welsh psychedelic folk group the Soft Hearted Scientists, while in ‘Raging Pages’, her monthly book column, Lisa Torem examines Ronnie Wood’s new book, ‘How Can It Be? A Rock and Roll Diary’. In our ‘Re:View’ section, in which we look back at albums from the past, we examine underground band the Flamin’ Groovies 1969 debut album ‘Supersnazz’, and Beatles’ tribute band the Liverpool Legends 2012 album ‘It Is What It Isn’t’, which consists of entirely self-written material. There are also twenty four new album and single reviews. In our reviews only update earlier in the month we ran another eleven reviews. 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, Tom Fogarty, Tony Gaughan, Cat Goodwin, Dave Goodwin, Keith How, Ben Howarth, Adrian Huggins, Adrian Janes, Erick Mertz, Mary O’ Meara, Owen Peters, Anthony Strutt, Lisa Torem and Denzil Watson, all of whom have contributed in one way or another to this edition. Special thanks to our webmaster Richard Banks. We will be back in early November with an album and singles reviews update. Next month we will be running various interviews and articles around Joy Division. We hope then to run all our regular features, and interviews among others with Albert Hammond Jr., Midge Ure, Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flur, Sea + Air, Chantal Acda, Adam Beattie and the Consultants, St Christopher Medal, the Self-Help Group and Joe Murphy, the owner of Blang 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