| THOSE WE HAVE LOST: Huw Lloyd-Langdon |
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Although Huw died a few weeks ago, and tributes to him were posted in the last two newsletters, this week was his funeral, and we have two rather special things for you:
A report on his funeral by Graham Inglis
A special tribute from his daughter Kirsty |
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| ANOTHER EXCLUSIVE MICHAEL DES BARRES INTERVIEW |
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About ten days ago I interviewed the irrepressible Michael Des Barres for a Four Part interview which appeared in The Gonzo Daily. If you missed it here is Part One Part Two Part Three and Part Four. However, little did I know that I would be talking to him again within a matter of days.
In the New Year, Gonzo are reissuing two classic slices of music from Michael's past - his first solo album, and Detective live in Atlantic Studios, so I telephoned Michael up to ask about them. He also told me about his appearance on stage as part of a Rolling Stones tribute concert..
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| The Court Circular tells interested readers about the comings and goings of members of The Royal Family. However, readers of this periodical seem interested in the comings and goings of Yes and of various alumni of this magnificant and long-standing band. Give the people what they want, I say |
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The biggest news for Yes-watchers across the globe is that there is an album in the works from Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, and Trevor Rabin - a dream-team if I ever heard one. I telephoned Billy James in the week for some information about the re-release of Pure Electric Honey by his band Ant-Bee, and he told me that he was currently (at that very moment) doing some percussion for a Jon Anderson project. Whether this is the above mentioned album with Rabin and Wakeman I have no idea. But I will give you more news as I get it. However, Jon Anderson did make one public appearance this week:
Jon Anderson at the Grammy Museum |
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| GPS RELEASE SMASHING NEW LIVE DVD SET |
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GPS is a progressive rock group formed in 2006 by John Payne (vocals, bass, guitar),Guthrie Govan (guitars) and Jay Schellen (drums, percussion). These three had been working together in Asia, specifically on an album to have been called Architect of Time, when the fourth member of Asia, Geoff Downes, joined a reunion of the band's classic line-up, dissolving the then current line-up. Payne, Govan and Schellen announced the formation of a new band in February 2006 to be called One. However, after discovering another rock act with the same name, the band changed its name to GPS, from the initials of the three founders.
They described the project as “a meeting of musical minds” and the instrumentation, featuring a mixture of well crafted songs and peerless virtuosity made the band many new friends overnight, and not just from within the Asia camp either.
All the tracks are credited to Payne/Schellen/Govan, and keyboards on the album and subsequent tour were played by Ryo Okumoto of Spock's Beard. The band performed live in September/October 2006 and on two Japanese dates in late 2007.
In 2006, GPS stunned audiences with their debut album "Window To The Soul". In 2007 GPS toured the UK and Japan to great acclaim. Presented here are 2 full concerts from the Japanese tours: one with the full band the other an acoustic show by John Payne and Guthrie Govan. Also, included are bonus interviews and an "in-store" acoustic performance.
This is smashing 21st Century progressive rock from a band consisting of some of the greatest contemporary masters of their art. By turns melodic and smooth, or elegantly brutal, the music on this long overdue DVD package is an excellent primer for those people new to the music of these four remarkable men.
More please…. |
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Jazz (Toby Manley) and Wolf (Mark McKirdy) are in financial dire straits.Unless they find £5,000 by the end of the week their comic shop is doomed. So, when Issue 1 of Electric Man, from 1937 and worth £100,000 turns up in the comic racks they think their problems are over. Enter mysterious femme fatale Lauren (Jennifer Ewing), obsessed American collector Edison Bolt (Mark McDonnell) and the thuggish Uncle Jimmy (Derek Dick aka Fish). The witty screenplay and bantering relationship of the central duo are the star attractions in this impressive film.
'An intelligent and well choreographed storyline' Cinehouse
Really f**king funny' Screened
'Impressive debut' GoGuide
Our very own Richard Freeman has THIS to say about this remarkably funny film. |
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Ant-Bee is the brainchild of Billy James, an author, composer, percussionist, and legendary PR person who is possibly best known for his work with Frank Zappa, Todd Rundgren, and various alumni of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, and Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band.
Ant-Bee is a unique musical project in that Billy has recorded music from various well-known musicians, including the above mentioned Zappa and Beefheart alumni, and also solicited independently recorded contributions from a wide range of cover musicians with impressive musical pedigrees. He then, using the mixing desk as his own musical palette, produces some of the most interesting and confrontational music that we have ever heard. He is truly the only musician that we have encountered who produces music within an avant-garde framework that is actually pleasurable to listen to. Commercial avant-garde might seem like an oxymoron; indeed, we have never even considered such a thing to be possible, but it is, and bizarrely it seems like Billy James has invented a whole new genre.
Pure Electric Honey was Ant Bee’s first full-length record, released as long ago as 1990. He told us:
“Pure Electric Honey was the result of several years of experimenting with my 4-track reel-to-reel recorder in the early '80s in Los Angeles. I have always been a huge fan of Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd as well as the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour/Sgt. Pepper material etc. So once I had recorded quite a few tracks, I decided for the heck of it to submit some of them to the Bomp/Voxx label in LA - there was a big psychedelic/'60s type resurgence in indie/underground music scene in the early '80s at the time - particularly in LA and the UK, which also gave way to the fanzine craze in the late '80s. Much to my surprise, Greg Shaw, head honcho at Bomp/Voxx Records, really dug my demos and offered me a record deal. I recorded the album over a series of months in 1989 in LA. When the album was released in 1990, it received critical acclaim worldwide and many excellent reviews and vast airplay. As an artist, who has recently released his 4th album (close to 25 years after this first release), I view Pure Electric Honey as going to kindergarten - just learning the abc's of recording (although I had been playing drums and percussion on various albums since 1983), as opposed to my new CD Electronic Church Muzik, which is like graduating college. Many have said Pure Electric Honey is their favorite album, which is hard for me to judge in any way but it does have a special charm to it. Also included are some of the original demos that I submitted to Voxx. I must thank Greg Shaw (RIP) who did have the belief in my music to give me my first record deal and release the album way back when - I will always be grateful.”
Check Ant-Bee out. We guarantee that you won’t be disappointed.
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Don Van Vliet, (1941-2010) better known to his legions of fans as ‘Captain Beefheart’ was one of the most enigmatic figures in rock music. Unashamedly an artist, rather than a pop star, he ploughed his own idiosyncratic furrow through popular culture, producing some of the most peculiar and uncompromising music ever committed to vinyl. From the age of three he painted and sculpted, and had an obsession wityh animals and the natural world. As a teenager he was friends with Fran Zappa, and as early as 1963 they recorded a demo under the name ‘The Soots’. Sadly this was unsuccessful, and the world would have to wait a few more years before Beefheart’s own peculiar take on the blues would be heard by anyone outside his own particular posse of cronies.
His first album, ‘Safe as Milk’ came out in 1967, and Hunter Davies’ eponymous biography of The Beatles notes that John Lennon was an early fan. It is not surprising considering that the primal rock and roll that Lennon idolised and the peculiar surrealchemical blues of Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, had much the same cultural genesis. Probably the most lauded album of the Captain’s career was the Zappa produced Trout Mask Replica which came out in 1969. Its mixture of jazz, blues, freeform improvisation and heavily structured avant-jazz weirdness proved too much for many listeners but ensured him a place in the history books. High profile fans of this album include the late John Peel, who would remain a champion of Beefheart’s until he died. In 1972 Captain Beefheart released two albums; ‘The Spotlight Kid’ and ‘Clear Spot’. He also toured the UK and Europe with the Magic Band, even performing two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall as part of an extensive British and European tour. On the 12th April, in the middle of the European leg of the tour Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band stopped off at the Beat Club studios in Bremen to film a session for later transmission. Of the four song session filmed that day only one track has ever been broadcast.
The band at that time included: Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet), vocals, harp. Rockette Morton (Mark Boston), guitar/bass. Zoot Horn Rollo (Bill Harkleroad), guitar. Orejon (Roy Estrada), bass. Ed Marimba (Art Tripp), drums. Winged Eel Fingerling (Elliot Ingber), guitar. Jon Kirkman describes the recordings: “The session kicks off with a bass solo entitled ‘Mascara Snake’. This short piece was named after a former member of the Magic Band Victor Hayden, who had appeared on the Trout Mask Replica album. The solo is played by Mark Boston although at this point former Mothers of Invention bassist Roy Estrada had joined The Magic Band following his departure from Little Feat in early 1972. The other songs in the set here include a track dating back to Trout Mask Replica (‘Steal Softly Thru Snow’) and also a track that would feature on Clear Spot some eight months later (‘Golden Birdies’).
Price:£9.99
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Martin Stephenson is one of the most literate and intelligent singer/songwriters to have come out of the boom of Indie musicians which followed in the wake of the nihilistic, ‘Year Zero’ approach of the late 1970s punk rock movement. Many of the more erudite and accomplished punk musicians went on to long and successful careers in one became known as Indie music. Many of them seemed just as homogenous as they had been as punk musicians, with jangly guitars overlaid upon stolid bass and drums.
Born in County Durham on the 27th July 1961, Martin first became aware of music as a teenager. In fact it was down to an older friend at a youth club that the young Martin first heard the music of Frank Zappa. Other influences however were about to be brought to bear as Punk exploded across the nation and Martin was fired up enough over the ‘anyone can do it’ ethic, to take up the guitar himself.
Whilst working as a carpet fitter by day, Martin played guitar at night in his first band, The Strange Relations. By the age of nineteen, Martin heard ‘Runaway Boys’, by the Stray Cats on the radio and was inspired enough to give up his day job, fully immersing himself in music, which he did at first by busking on the streets. Shortly after however, Martin formed the Daintees and things began to move quickly. By 1982 the band were recording and became one of the first to sign to the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne label, Kitchenware, which released the debut single ‘Roll On Summertime’. Shortly after this Martin and the band signed to the major London Records Label, an occasion that was celebrated by a meal of fish and chips, eaten at the local chippy. Thus so it was, that Martin and the band signed their major record contract, on a wall outside a chip shop!
Martin Stephenson was always head and shoulders above his peers, and in a long and varied career both solo and with The Daintees he has delighted record buyers and audiences for the last three decades. Hailing from the north-east of England he drew upon a wide range of cultural and stylistic influences including the social background of his home town, to produce a series of finely crafted and often remarkably confessional songs which appeared on albums such as The Boys Heart, Gladsome, Humour and Blue, and Boat to Bolivia.The Daintees released five albums during their initial period together, with the band reforming in 2001.
The Daintees have always been a peerless live act, and we at Gonzo Multimedia are particularly proud to be able to bring you this live recording from 1990.
Twenty-three years after it was recorded it still sounds vibrant and exciting and is sure to appeal to people who have only discovered Martin more recently through his solo albums such as California Star and the extraordinarily wistful music he makes alongside his multi-talented partner, Helen McCookerybook. One hopes that this augurs well for the release of more archive material from this wonderfully diversely talented man. |
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THE BEST LAID PLANS...
I did warn you all last week that things never seem to end up working out the way that you think they are going to. Therefore, two of the features that I intimated were going to appear in this week's issue haven't, and various other things have instead. Blame it on the Christmas Post and me losing my wallet whilst Christmas Shopping that threw a complete spanner in the works.
However, variety is the spice of life as they say, and as I carry on bumbling through mine, I am happy to be able to share some of it with you folks out there in consumerland.
I hope that you, the readers, enjoy this newsletter each week. If you have any bright ideas about what you would like to see in it, and even if you have always harboured a hidden desire to be a journalist yourself then please do not hesitate to get in touch. The 21st Century has seen the end of the music industry as people like me knew it, and the emergence of a brave new set of disciplines to tantalise our senses. It is an exciting time to be involved in music, and I hope you all stick around for the ride.
I wish you all a peaceful and happy Christmas and a prosperous and safe New Year.
Slainte
Jon
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