Monday, November 17, 2014

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN PLAYS CATCH UP

The Gonzo Daily - Monday
It was a long and rather peculiar weekend. We finished the magazine on time, at about 2:00am on Saturday morning and went to bed. But when we arose, bright and shiny to greet the new day we found that the FTP server for all the external websites that we use (CFZ, Gonzo Weekly etc) was down, and so there was no way that we could publish it. It eventually saw the light of day on Sunday lunchtime. However, the rest of the weekend was spent recording with Mike, and we have finally nailed my favourite of his songs. I first tried recording Woman I know, about twenty five years ago, but I think we have the definitive version now. And yes that IS me on guitar. Peculiarly, although my galloping Carpal Tunnel Syndrome means I can no longer play bass, I can still pluck at the odd solo like this one.
Yesterday I heard Dave Bainbridge's new album, which cuts a magnificent swathe through the worlds of folk rock, prog and all sorts of other things. I was expecting it to be good - after all, Dave is a peerless musician, and one of the founders of Christian folk rock outfit Iona, but I wasn't expecting it to be THIS good. It was far more rocky than I was expecting, and also far more stylistically diverse. I was expecting more of a folk rock influence and nowhere so much voyaging into the areas first explored by The Mahavishnu Orchestra, for example. But this is a good thing. I enjoyed it immensely. Bainbridge is obviously a producer like me who values different sound textures, and the music presented traverses a wide range of musical emotions, from the frankly sexy to the frankly scary. Celestial Fire is a lovely album which covers far more musical territory than I had been expecting, and bodes well for future outings from this fascinating artist.
Pink Fairies, Rocket Scientists, Blodwyn Pig, Mick Abrahams, Pink Floyd, Jon Anderson, Yes, Nick Redfern, John Lennon, Hawkwind, and Daevid Allen fans had better look out! The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#104) will soon be available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/.
It has The Pink Fairies on the cover, and features an interview with Andy Colquhoun about the current and future plans of the band including the long hoped for studio material. Rob Ayling visits legendary blues guitarist Mick Abrahams in his studio and find out about his exciting new album made with some very A-List sparring partners. Erik Norlander is very cagey about the new album from Rocket Scientists. But there's more! There is news about Daevid Allen, Doug Harr goes to see America and also gets hitched, Jon waxes lyrical about the new Pink Floyd album and then gets all existential.  Xtul are still in the deep woods, and Corinna finds some real Beatles tat. Jon looks at a peculiar book about Jon Lennon and we send the mighty John Ellis (ex Vibrators and Stranglers and sidesman to Peter Gabriel and Peter Hammill to a desert island. There are also new shows from the multi-talented Neil Nixon at Strange Fruit and from M Destiny at Friday Night Progressive, and the massively talented Jaki and Tim are back with their submarine and Maisie the cow. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and turtles having a snooze (OK, no soporific chelonians, but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
Issue 102 (Steve Hillage cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-gonzo-weekly-102.html
Issue 101 (Tommy James cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/10/gonzo-weekly-101.html
Issue 100 (Jon Anderson cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/10/gonzo-weekly-100.html
Issue 99 (Judge Smith cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/10/gonzo-weekly-99.html
Issue 98 (Matt Malley cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/10/gonzo-weekly-98.html
Issue 97 (Evelyn cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/09/gonzo-weekly-97.html
Issue 96 (Oz cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/09/gonzo-weekly-96.html
Issue 95 (Mick Rogers cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/09/gonzo-weekly-95.html
Issue 94 (John Ellis cover)
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2014/09/gonzo-weekly-94.html

All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power chaps, we have to share it!
You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/

*  The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at  jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...

*  The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!

*  Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 55 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the infantile orange cat?

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