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I have just discovered this young lady, and I think she is jolly good, so expect shameless plugs for her on a regular basis on these hallowed pages. By the way, if you think that you recognise her, you probably do. She was the female vocalist on Steve Ignorant's world tour (or at least the second leg of it), and was last seen holding Igs' hand as they did a tearful version of Bloody Revolutions on stage at the Shepherd's Bush Empire a couple of years back...
 The year is 1892, the place Victorian England. Dim gaslamps lend a cobwebbed ale house a sepia glow. The sound is dull murmurs from blunt mouths, the scent unwashed sweat and sawdust. In the back room of the bar, a strange performance is unfolding, one of horror and beauty has yet to come...
Singer, pianist, freak show personality and melancholic muse, Crystal is a woman wading through existentialist dreams whilst living hand-to-mouth.
Born with a rare hand deformity that statistically makes her one in a million and logistically means a life of peculiar charm, Crystal scrapes a living through song and chance.
In a world where the past is revoked in all its putrid glory, she clings to piano keys with all seven lucky fingers whilst opening the emotional floodgates. A voice of gentle pain or unapologetic rage, her honesty shall ever prevail. Join her in the search for salvation.
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| I fought my corner, and made a convincing case for Gonzo to sign her, which they soon did. Then a few weeks ago I interviewed her, and part of my interview read: |
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JON: I am very much a fan of Crass since when I was around 20 and that is from where most of my politics come. You are doing a spoken word thing with Steve aren’t you at the moment?
CAROL: Yes, Slice of Life. Steve’s doing a bit of raconteuring and also singing. It’s more based on the music – I play piano, backing vocals, Pete from Wrecks plays guitar and a bit of backing vocals and then Steve sings. There are brand new songs that we’ve been writing and there is an opportunity between songs to talk about anything and everything. He’s really excited about it and we are as well and it is like something totally new and totally fresh. We’ve got a few gigs lined up and we’re just going to see how this year goes but we are trying to work it as a stage show, and have projections and visuals as part of it. Steve is really into old music hall so he’s really keen to have that really stripped back acoustic feel and a little bit of Victorian edge to it as well which is great.
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| Now Slice of Life have played their first gigs, and we spoke to Carol via Facebook... |
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| The gigs were great, lots of friendly and supportive people, only a handful who were disappointed he didn't sing So What, so Steve was really pleased. It's bizarre that some people just can't understand that he wants to move away from songs he wrote 30 years ago and do something new! |
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| Igs himself wrote this on his Facebook page: |
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The Star and Garter in Manchester is a fantastic old building round the back of Piccadilly Station. Inside it's got old fashioned snug type bars that really add to the atmosphere for an old romantic like me. Upstairs the venue room is a dark hall with quite a high stage at one end - I loved it.
It was one of the hottest days of the year so far so I'm afraid that before our performance I spent most of the time in the bar down-stairs or outside smoking, which was great because I got a chance to hang out with people and have a few beers.
We got a really friendly reception from everybody there, and now that we've got something to judge what we do by, we can start building on it.
After the performance, everyone hung around outside in the cool of the night nattering and having a last beer, taking photographs. There was a lamp-post just outside which was ideal for me because one of the new songs is called 'Love under a lamp-post' and which was conceived in Manchester. Perfect.
Thanks Dean and Derm at the Star and Garter and everyone who came, thanks for a lovely night. |
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| The other day Genre Peak played a rare live show. I asked Martin Birke how it all went, and he sent me a whole slew of stuff to share with you... |
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The show was a big success as we packed Luna's to capacity and played songs from all 4 Genre Peak albums. I played electronic drums and sequences, Christopher Scott Cooper : Guitars, Percy Howard: vocals, Stephen Sullivan: guitar-synths
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| We have an exclusive slice of the gig for you, and Martin asked us to point out that: "There is an album's worth of free downloads on the official site". |
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A couple of weeks ago, the legendary Mick Farren, the revolutionary man of letters that I have often aspired to be when I have not been aspiring to be something completely different, sent me a copy of his new novel - Road Movie. It is as good as one would have hoped, if not better, and this week thanks to those jolly nice people at Penny Ante editions, I am in the glorious position of being able to publish a chunk of it, exclusively for you.
Ain't life grand? |
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Mothers Club in Erdington, Birmingham, an early psychedelicmusic venue, opened on the 9th of August 1968 with a performance by Duke Sunny, and closed on the 3rdof January 1971, with a blockbusting three-band show by Quintessence,Stonehouse and Happy. The following is a personal record of that club, and that era.
John Peel: " People are amazed to hear that for a few years the best club in Britain was in Erdington."
Roy Harper: " Oh blimey - that was the first club outside London that meant anything at all and that's why there's been this long association with Birmingham. I played there about six times between 1968 and 1970. I have always enjoyed playing here." Brum Beat Magazine 1995
Hair country
I don't know now who suggested we go to Mothers. There was a gang of us, just sixteen years old, and all into this "new" music. Alan Greensall and Robert Russell and Kevin Nurrish and Colin Walker and me: all sporting our brand-new centre-partings as our hair crept unceremoniously over our ears, with little bum-fluff moustaches staining our upper lips. This must have been 1969. The year previously we'd come back from our Summer holidays to find psychedelic graffiti slapped around the walls of our school, in swirling, colourful letters. All you need is love. Turn on, tune in, drop out. Make Love not War. They were heady days, in more ways than one. Hippies never referred to themselves as hippies at all. They called themselves "Heads".
So, anyway, whoever first suggested it, we all trouped off to Mothers, the Mecca for psychedelic music in Birmingham at the time and the only place to see the new bands. The thing is, none of us knew what to expect. We were discussing it beforehand, wondering what to wear. I mean, in those days people still went out fox-trotting on a Friday evening. They dressed up in suits and ties to make a night of it. So, of course, that's what we thought we should do too. We put on our best suits. Mine was a four-buttoned Mod-suit made for me by my grandfather. And Robert Russell's, as I remember, was a two-tone suit of shiny grey. I had on a pair of brogues.
As soon as we got to the queue we knew we'd made a mistake. No one else had suits on at all. They were in battered jeans with triangular, flowery-vents to make them flared, with ragged patches all over them, which hung about the heels sucking up the dirt. And some of them were wearing old stripy blazers or duffel coats two sizes too small. And bangles and beads and badges. And they all had hair. Cascades of hair. Puff-ball frizzes of hair, like mini nuclear explosions on their heads, and beards and sideburns and moustaches to make our feeble attempts look like a joke. It was like we'd walked into a foreign country. Hair country.
It was after that night that I started to dress down, and my Mum became embarrassed at the strange incomprehensible monster I was turning into. She just couldn't understand why I ripped my jeans on purpose, and put patches all over them, when she was quite happy to buy me a new pair. Ah Mothers: they never do understand, do they? So there were two kinds of Mother now: the cool, clubby sort; and then the other sort, the one at home who continued to remind you that you were still only a boy really.
The queue shuffled grumblingly down the alley into a side-entrance, and then we were shepherded into a gloomy room. It was five bob to get in. That's five shillings to you, or 25p. It was five bob for the lesser bands, and twelve and six (55p) for the top-notch superstars. Pink Floyd recorded parts of their live album, Ummagumma there, and Traffic had their world debut there. Led Zeppelin played there, as did many of the top bands of the period.
I remember posters on the walls and the tang of beer. The walls were painted black. There was a set of creaking wooden stairs with posters all the way up. Posters on the ceiling. The bar was as the back, behind a partition. We bought our pints (although we were far too young and certainly didn't look old enough) and went to sit at the front. There were rickety chairs lined up. Dancing was scorned, unless it was Idiot Dancing, that crazed head-shaking twitch that made the performer look like he was just developing Parkinson's disease. Then the band came on. I forget who they were, except they played harmony guitars. They glanced out at the audience and said, "hey look, the straights are here." We were looking over our shoulders wondering who they were talking about. It took a second before we realised it was us. We took compensation from the fact that they called us straights rather than schoolboys. At least it implied we stood for something.
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Too cool to talk
Actually, on reflection, and after much consideration, I think I do remember the band. They were called the Blossom Toes, and I've put one of their tracks on the top of the page. I even went out and bought their album. They are one of the forgotten bands of the 60s now, which is a pity, because they were good. I know that Robert Russell and Alan Greensall, budding guitarists both, spent the evening straining forward to watch the guitarists' fingers leap about the fret-board like Chinese money-lenders with an abacus. And afterwards we had curry and chips from a takeaway (that was the height of exotica at the time) and then walked home. It took hours. We lived virtually on the other side of Birmingham, in Sheldon. When I got home my parents were still awake. My Dad shouted at me. He said, "what time do you call this?" I said, "I dunno, what time do you call it then?" He said, "don't be so cheeky." It was the beginning of youthful rebellion for me. Mum couldn't sleep, he told me. I guess he was irritated that me being awake was keeping Mum awake, which was keeping him awake.
After that we started going to Mothers on a regular basis, almost every Friday night, and sometimes on a Wednesday too, if I remember. We saw a string of bands. Black Sabbath were virtually the resident band there. Black Sabbath were from just down the road, in the Black Country. There was the Edgar Broughton Band with their homage to Captain Beefheart.
I remember Blodwyn Pig, who were some sort of off-shoot from Jethro Tull. And the Soft Machine, who were so intellectual that they took their name from a William Burroughs novel, and who appeared at the proms one year. I liked Soft Machine. John Peel was DJ-ing one night. He was already balding, though his hair dangled limply over his shoulders. He was wearing stripy fingerless gloves. He played the whole of one side of Anthem Of The Sun by the Grateful Dead, and never spoke a word. Psychedelic DJs were far too cool to speak, though it made you wonder exactly what they were being paid for.
We saw the Battered Ornaments, who were Pete Brown's band and the Deviants. The Deviants had once been Mick Farren's band, when they were called The Social Deviants. Mick Farren had an underlying political message. He later went on to write for the NME, and to found the free festival movement with his Phun City benefit festival for the Oz defendants, and has since become a freelance writer of some renown.
In those days several of the bands used to ritually destroy their equipment as the finale of the set. It was a radical statement against the perversity of materialism. The Who did it first, then Jimi Hendrix. The Deviants were so radical that they destroyed their drumkit at the beginning of the set, and had to play rest of the night without. Far-out, man. Cool. This was probably intentional as they were not a particularly good band.
And that's all I remember of Mothers. A cultural eddy in the current of time, some passing moments from the late sixties and early seventies. Will it ever be the same again? Will anything ever be the same?
After I'd finished writing this I was telling a friend about the club. We were talking about our first hangover. I told him about Mothers and how one night I'd woken up with cramp after drinking beer for the first time.
"Mothers Club?" he asked, puzzled. "Why would you want to go to a Mothers Club?" He was confused. He had visions of groups of Mothers sitting round discussing knitting patterns and child care arrangements.
"No, Mothers as in Mother f***ers," I told him, faintly embarrassed. The spell was broken. I could never hear the name ‘Mothers' again without thinking of the knitting.
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HAWKWIND NEWS
(The Masters of the Universe do seem to have a steady stream of interesting stories featuring them, their various friends and relations, and alumni). Each week Graham Inglis keeps us up to date with the latest news from the Hawkverse.. |
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It's reported that ex-Hawkwind bassist Lemmy is on the mend. He was laid up with a haematoma (where blood collects outside a blood vessel) and last month Motorhead had to cancel a series of dates on their summer European tour as a result, but will be back in action soon.
Motorhead guitarist Phil Campbell is quoted as saying it'll be "business as usual real soon."
And, talking of tours, Hawkwind have confirmed a clump of England dates in August (Falmouth, Bournemouth, Shepherds Bush and Stamford) and eight dates across Britain in November. And just a reminder that in between these two sets of gigs is the 14-date tour of North America in October. As ever, up-to-date venue and date information is on www.hawkwind.com |
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OTHER HAWKWIND STORIES THIS WEEK
Planet Rockstock |
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AN EXCERPT FROM ROBERT CALVERT'S FIRST NOVEL
now reissued by Gonzo (and typeset by me) |
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Cahn put the receiver back on its cradle and tapped it. Then he tilted his chair back and, with a push of the foot against the desk, spun himself round in a circle.
The Tom Mahler Band was already on stage when Cahn arrived at the Music Machine. There were kids hanging around in the foyer, playing the pin tables and video games. Cahn noted the variety of styles: some long-haired and denimed; others more middle-class trendy, in neo-mod suits; one or two King’s Road punks; a girl with her hair dyed a patchy green.
A bouncer extended a large hand and said, ‘Ticket.’ Cahn plucked his VIP card from his wallet and handed it to him. The bouncer looked at it suspiciously and then at Cahn, like a border guard examining a passport. He looked from the card to Cahn and back a few more times before returning it and nodding towards the door. Cahn went in, down the sloping corridor with its faded pink carpet, and pushed open the heavy swing doors that led into semi-darkness and ten kilowatts of electric rock and roll. He edged his way between elbows and backs to the bar. After prolonged waving of a pound note he managed to get his order for a Tequila Sunrise taken. He took the guava-coloured drink to a vacant table on the balcony overlooking the stage and the dance floor. It wasn’t exactly a sell-out, he observed, but those who were dancing looked enthusiastic enough.
It was the same old mixture of teenage life-styles he had seen in the foyer, each proclaimed in definitive sartorial statements. It was hard to tell which of them formed the hard-core Mahler fans from those who used the Music Machine as a nightly hang-out. The skinny figure of Mahler himself in the flashing rainbow of spotlights did not seem to belong to any one particular style. His short, neat hair-cut could be claimed by either mods or punks as presenting them, while the way he wielded his gleaming white Stratocaster might give him the status of heavy-metal hero among the brotherhood of long-hairs. How did you package an artist like this anyway? Was he classless, independent of movements? Was it possible to build him as the first middle-of-the-road teenage idol? He was hardly a teenager in any case … Come on, Tony, get a grip on yourself. It has to be a cult of some kind. The cult of the cultless? Try building on that. Or maybe you start a new movement altogether. Find a new image.
How about ultra-straight? Van Heusen style eleven collar. Medium-width tie: the classic look, with a raised stripe down the centre, little diamond designs. Oxford shoes: black, round-toed with toe-caps and highly shined. Slightly waisted jacket, full-skirted, flared with a single vent. Everything super-normal. Very English. Like the Hardy Amies New Elizabethan look of the sixties. Sort of thing an exec in the car industry would wear. But even more normal than that. So normal, so incredibly straight, it looks weird. Surreal. Go to one of those good-old-boy’s shops that still sell vests, like Moody’s of Finchley Road. Detachable collars, studs, cuff-links. The album cover could be a group of window dummies holding guitars. Or has that been done already? Kraftwerk, wasn’t it? Check it anyway.
Cahn took out his memo-calculator and keyed in the word dummy, tilting it in the dim light to read the tiny lettering of its alpha-numerical keyboard. Something like that, anyway. Something different. Anything but black leather and leopard skin.
Cahn looked back at the stage. Mahler was playing one of his quirky solos. Pacing the stage, looking away from the guitar down at the floor as his fingers reeled off strange relationships of single notes. Beams of coloured light kept changing direction, throwing the shadows around. The rest of the band pounded behind him, lurching to the beat. The keyboard player punched out chords from his polyphonic synth. The bass player and the drummer seemed to be conferring together across the flailing kit. The apparently random placing of equipment - amplifiers, speaker cabinets, monitor wedges, gaffer-taped cables and curly leads, microphone-stands poised like scanning devices - gave the cramped stage the look of a Frankenstein laboratory. It needs tidying up, Cahn thought. New equipment, all matching, placed neatly behind them; more room for Mahler to move in. More of a corporate identity to the stage, an overall look for the band. More style. More class.
And this P.A. mix is dreadful. The sound’s all welded together. Can hardly tell the synthesiser from the guitar. What’s the guy on the mixing desk supposed to be doing? Maybe he’s got his headphones on too tight. Every time Mahler approaches the mike to sing there’s this . . . ooh . . . painful screech of feedback. Can’t he just ease the sliders back a bit and then bring them up? Probably half stoned out of his box. The words are impossible to hear, too. Which is a pity, because they’re rather neatly put together. And actually mean something.
Apart from the dancers there was a group just standing, looking up at the stage; quite a few of them girls. A small nucleus, perhaps, of devoted followers. The problem is, though, how do you cause the chain reaction that could multiply them into millions?
Cahn felt a hand touch his shoulder. He turned and saw that it was Nick Teltfer, Mahler’s manager, leaning over him, his patent-leather hair glistening, his thin, Clark Gable moustache almost buried in several days’ growth of stubble. His mouth was moving in the saying of something that was lost in the welter of sound. Cahn tilted his head to the side, reluctantly offering his ear. Telfler moved in and Cahn could feel the hot blast of breath against his ear.
‘What do you think of the sound then, Tony? Not bad, eh. Not bad.’
Cahn made a face that said he wasn’t too sure about that. Telfler raised his shoulders in the jewish manner, stretching his palms out at the sides, his grin dissolving into a take-it-or-leave-it pout. Cahn waved his fingers towards himself: a traffic cop’s gesture. Telfler bent towards him, turning his ear.
‘I’ll talk to you later, after the gig. In the dressing room. O.K.?’
Telfler nodded, his grin returning. He pointed to Cahn’s half-empty glass. ‘Same again?’ he mouthed theatrically.
Cahn nodded, tapping his hand on the table to the beat. Telfler reached across and sipped from the glass, making an elaborate display of tasting. Then he put his hand on Cahn’s shoulder and bent towards him to speak. Cahn sighed inaudibly and turned his head to offer the confessional of his ear.
‘Tequila Sunrise, yeah?’ said the far-too-loud voice.
Cahn nodded several times quickly, stroked the heel of his hand across his forehead, and looked back at the stage. He detested these mouth-to-ear intimacies. Was there anything really important enough to be said when the music was this loud that you had to have your head used as a telephone receiver, and have germs breathed directly into your brain?
The song had come to an abrupt end and the dancers were in regrouping themselves to watch the stage. Without saying anything Mahler walked over to what he called his ‘twiddle-table’: a metal stand on which a light-weight Wasp synthesiser and a Watkins Copycat echo-unit were coupled together. Two loud clicks came over the P.A. as he switched on the units, followed by eerie sweeps of sound as his fingers twisted the controls and stroked the yellow and black touch-keyboard. Then the keyboard player released a shimmering pattern of pulses from his Yamaha CS60. The drummer started pumping his high-hat and bass drum, placing an oddly timed double beat on the snare which the bass player came in on, hitting the octave on alternate beats. Mahler spun round on his heel and downstroked a discordant crash-chord, sustaining and bending it with his foot-pedal; then he launched into a tirade of rhythm that galvanised the dancers into action.
He stepped towards his mike and there was a scream of feedback that made him wince. He began to sing, but it was difficult to make out the words in the general wash of sound. Cahn didn’t recognise the tune. Must be a new number, he thought. One of the dancers, wearing wrap-around shades and a see-through plastic raincoat, was jumping up and twisting his arms in the air and crashing down on to his knees and jumping up again, apparently unhurt. None of the other dancers seemed to take any notice of him as he went on attempting to dislocate his knee-caps. They continued bobbing, strutting, jerking and swaying, each in his own separate bubble of sound. A young boy in a cracked leather jacket had his ear right up against the bass bin on the P.A. column and was shaking his head furiously, long hair flying.
Cahn looked back at his table. A full glass of Tequila, orange juice and Grenadine had arrived. He downed the rest of the previous one and took the fresh glass with him down the short flight of open stairs to the lower level and leaned against a metal column to watch the dancers closer up. The temperature as well as the volume was much higher down there. He could see the sweat trickling down Mahler’s cheeks in the spotlights as he stooped over the mike, twisting his head from side to side, lips drawn back into a snarl. Cahn took a cube of ice into his mouth, sucked it for a while, then began to crunch it. |
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| THE YES CIRCULAR - TIME AND A WORD |
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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 magnificent and long-standing band. Give the people what they want, I say |
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| I am probably getting a bit OCD about all of this, but I find the Yes soap opera of sound to be absolutely enthralling, and I for one can't wait to see what happens next! |
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In the car,we solved the whole wide world!
On the road,we shared like ants share-splitting burdens
into manageable proportions-carrying the weight of the world on our heads
Antennae buzzing,we nibbled@the bread of conversations
long delayed via distance,deaths ,disease ,denial.It is easy in a bubble!
Cars float by /traffic snarls,unlocks,unties,flows -and rivers of light
blink like babies awakening as we flash by.Ants we are-worker ants!
He plays guitar and makes songs up-i croon like a cat between lines and mikes
We buzz beelike in a hive excitement/rising with ridiculously small wordwings
to lift the burden of all gravities.Weight falls,hives make honey,world spins in dark matters
and we are ant and man and bee-rare,precious,in clear communication
nibbling @flowers in our flight.And our world is SWEET!
fewer birds/hunting season
our face on every wing.
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In Victorian times every well-bred Gentleman had a 'Cabinet of Curiosities'; a collection of peculiar odds and sods, usually housed in a finely made cabinet with a glass door. These could include anything from Natural History specimens to historical artefacts. There has always been something of the Victorian amateur naturalist about me, and I have a houseful of arcane objects; some completely worthless, others decidedly not, but all precious to me for the memories they hold..
I used to be a collector of rock and roll memorabilia, but most of my collection went into my solicitor's pocket during my divorce from my first wife, and I never had the stomach to build the collection up again. However, people send me pictures of interesting things such as this: A massively tacky, but supposedly valuable bowl featuring the label from DSOTM. Why? |
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On the third weekend of August every year for the past fourteen years we have had the weirdest weekend you can imagine. The Weird Weekend is the largest yearly gathering of mystery animal investigators in the English-speaking world. Now in its fourteenth year, the convention attracts speakers and visitors from all over the world and showcases the findings of investigators into strange phenomena.
Cryptozoologists, parapsychologists, ufologists, and folklorists are descending on Woolfardisworthy Community Centre to share their findings and insights. Unlike other events, the Weird Weekend will also include workshops giving tips to budding paranormal investigators, and even a programme of special events for children. The Weird Weekend is the only fortean conference in the world that is truly a family event, although those veterans of previous events should be reassured that it is still as anarchically silly as ever!
The event is raising money for the Centre for Fortean Zoology, the world’s only full time, professional cryptozoological organisation. The profit from food and beverages goes to a selection of village charities, mostly working with children.
How do you fancy spending three days of high strangeness, good food and great beer, together with the cream of British Fortean researchers in the middle of the glorious Devon countryside? By the way, I am sorry to have to say this, but as this is a fundraising event, tickets are non-refundable, although you are free to resell them should you be unable to attend.
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FEATURED SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
Lee Walker: Dead of Night
Andrew Sanderson: Russia Expedition report
Lars Thomas: The Natural History of Trolls
Judge Smith: Life after Death
Jon Downes/Richard Freeman: Intro to Cryptozoology
Nick Wadham: You will believe in fairies; you will, you will!
Tony Whitehead (RSPB): Starslime
Glen Vaudrey : Mystery animals of Staffordshire
Darren Naish: Adventures from the world of tetrapod zoology
Richard Freeman: Expedition repoort Sumatra 2013
Sarah Boit: Orbs from a photographer's perspective
James Newton (London Cryptozoology club): Bigfoot
Shaun Histead-Todd: Pre Columbian civilisations in america
Ronan Coghlan: Amphibians from Outer Space
Jon Downes: Keynote Speech
Speaker's Dinner at the Community Centre
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| INTRODUCING THE NINE HENRYS |
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| I think Peter McAdam is one of the funniest people around, and I cannot recommend his book The Nine Henrys highly enough. Check it out at Amazon. Each issue we shall be running a series of Henrybits that are not found in his book about the nine cloned cartoon characters who inhabit a surreal world nearly as insane as mine... |
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| AN EXCLUSIVE: Mr Averell and Don Preston |
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| I have had this video of Mr Averell and Don Preston live, for some weeks, but have never quite found the right place to put it. So I have given up trying. It is a massively entertaining curio, and now you can see it here. |
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Alice Cooper/Lou Reed Guitar Legend Steve Hunter Releases New CD 'The Manhattan Blues Project' Featuring All-Star Guest Line-Up
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Featuring! Joe Satriani, Tony Levin, Johnny Depp, Joe Perry, Marty Friedman, Michael Lee Firkins, Phil Aaberg, 2Cellos, Tommy Henriksen
Phoenix, AZ – Guitar legend Steve Hunter, best known for his work with Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, David Lee Roth, Jack Bruce and Aerosmith, has a new CD released, 'The Manhattan Blues Project', featuring an all-star guest line-up! This is Steve's fifth solo album and is a culmination of his love of the Blues and New York City mixed with his love of melody and "Tone Poems". After recording and touring with Alice Cooper in 2011, he decided to get off the road to write and record. He thought it would be cool to have some guest players join him and was overjoyed and humbled at the willingness of those he asked to contribute to this project. Many of the guests he had not worked with before and most had a very different style of playing to himself. There are two cover tunes but this album is mainly new material written, played and produced by Steve. He was very happy to also include a short composition by his friend Jason Becker, called “Daydream By The Hudson”.
“This album has been inside me trying to get out for a long time, I wanted to show the other side of New York, the soulful side plus it also says a lot of what I have always wanted to say on guitar.” - Steve Hunter
Guest players on The Manhattan Blues Project: Joe Satriani, Tony Levin, Johnny Depp, Joe Perry, Marty Friedman, Michael Lee Firkins, Phil Aaberg, 2Cellos, Tommy Henriksen
“I am honored to play along side legendary guitarist Steve Hunter on his stunning new album, check it out!” - Joe Satriani
On 'The Manhattan Blues Project' Steve goes back to his blues roots in his own unique way. You will hear string arrangements, vocal arrangements, a burst of guitar shredding by the best in the world and echoes of The Beatles. The two cover tunes include Steve's instrumental version of Peter Gabriel's “Solsbury Hill”, a song he had played the guitars on for the original album version in 1977. The second cover is from one of his favorite artists Marvin Gaye, “What's Going On”.
“Steve really knows how to play a guitar. His silky delivery and smooth golden tones make you feel like you've just leaned back into your living room sofa after a rocky trip. His notes have a direct connection to your heart. He stirs the feelings that we all long for from a guitar. And like all masters, he makes perfection seem so easy.” - Dennis Dunaway
The Manhattan Blues Project is a rich, uplifting musical experience with lashings of soul, passion and outstanding performances from everybody involved!
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THE BEST LAID PLANS...
It has actually been rather a nice week here in the badly converted potato shed where my new assistant editor Captain Frunobulax the Magnificent and I labour on all the different projects that I do. |
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As I said earlier in this week's screed, this has been a particularly hectic one with us rushing about the countryside like mad things. However, it has been worth it; we have seen lots of friends and family, and mucho good vibes have resulted.
A little bird has whispered in my ear telling us that we can expect some Brand Xreleases from Gonzo Multimedia in the not too distant future. I know that my lovely wife Corinna will be particularly looking forward to them, because she is somewhat of a fan.
Something else that we can all look forward to is a new edition of Zoot Horn Rollo's insightful tome about his days with Captain Beefheart. Co-written with Billy James, it was edited by Corinna and laid out by yours truly, and we are all rather proud of the result.
Next weekend we shall be away at the Summer of Love (SOL) festival in Kent. Corinna and I will be accompanied by one of my nieces, Jess Taylor (yes, her from the Merrell Fankhauser video) and we shall be filming several of the acts including Judy Dyble and Martin Carthy. However, this will have a knock on effect on next weekend's issue of this magazine which will either be early or stupidly late. You have been warned.
Things are actually going rather well at the moment, and the next wave of Gonzo grooviness is imminent. As you know, I already do various podcasts for Gonzo Web Radio and I am toying with the idea of expanding this to something special, and doing a series of podcasts featuring music unavailable elsewhere, especially for subscribers to this magazine.
Remember that it doesn't cost anything to subscribe, and that in doing so you are joining an elite, and rapidly expanding group of music fans who believe that we are not being given the music or the cultural coverage that we deserve. We are living in disturbing and strange times, but ultimately they are very interesting ones, and continuing to chronicle the Gonzoverse is an immensely rewarding thing to do. Thank you for reading.
Until next week,
Slainte
Jon Downes
(Editor) |
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