The Gonzo Daily - Monday
I really don't believe that it is Monday once
again. Where does the time go? The year is a quarter gone already, and I have
had a cold for a third of that and been hors de combat, which means I have not
achieved anything like the amount of stuff I would have wanted to achieve. But
there really is no point in bellyaching about it. What cannot be cured must be
endured blah blah blah.
There have now been at least five records of yellow
legged tortoiseshells this year, and they appear to involve at least three
separate individuals. Why all the fuss? Well, until last year there had only
ever been one sighting of this rare European butterfly in the UK, and that was
back in 1953. Last year there was a whole slew of sightings, and these spring
sightings strongly suggest that some survived the winter (which was actually too
mild for their tastes). Could this year see them breeding for the first time?
There has also been an extraordinary sighting of
two specimens of the Wall Brown (Lasiommata megera) in Cornwall. It is not a
particularly rare butterfly, but they are not usually seen for another two
months! I sincerely hope some of you guys reading this find this stuff as
exciting as I do...
Cream, Kansas, Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, Ginger
Baker, Viv Albertine, The Slits, Daevid Allen, Hawkwind, Jon Anderson, and Yes
fans had better look out!
The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#123) is another
bumper one at 92 pages and is available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/. It
has Cream on the cover, and inside yours truly pontificates on the band's
legacy while Tony Palmer remembers filming their farewell show back in 1968.
Doug writes about proggers Kansas, and Jon critiques the new autobiography by
Viv Albertine ofThe Slits. We look at just a few of the many tributes to Daevid
Allen, and send the Gonzo Customer Service guy to a Desert Island. Neil Nixon
reports on an even stranger album than usual, Wyrd goes avant garde, Xtul gets
even more peculiar, and there are radio shows from Strange Fruit and from M
Destiny at Friday Night Progressive, and the titular submarine dwellers are
still lost at sea, although I have been assured that they will hit land again
soon. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and
pademelons trying to choose (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials having
difficulty in making choices, 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!!!
This issue features:
Cream, Ringo Starr, SXSW, Beastie Boys, Sonic
Youth, Blur, Daevid Allen, James Murphy, Galahad, Strange Fruit, Friday Night
Progressive, John Renbourn, Anthony Pero, Michael Porcaro, Bruce Crump, Jackie
Trent, Tommy James, Mick Abrahams, Firemerchants, Dee Palmer, Atkins May
Project, Wagner, Hawkwind, Karnataka, Paul Buff, Frank Zappa, Charli XCX, Garth
Brooks,5 Seconds of Summer, Ed Sheeran, Tony Palmer, Kansas, Steve Lavelle,
HaWkwind, Yes, Viv Albertine, Xtul, Fairport Convention, Belle and
Sebastian,Neil Nixon, Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias, Beatles,Rolling Stones,
Michael Jackson, 1D, Elvis, Micky Dolenz, Tom Jones, Golden Resurrection,
Indicco, Myrath
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
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!
* 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/…/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit…
* 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?
When my family first returned to North Devon in 1971 after an absence of nearly two decades, during which my parents fought gallant rearguard actions against the fall of the British Empire in Nigeria and Hong Kong, they quickly made friends with various members of the local gentry. In those days there was a remarkable range of minor aristocracy and interesting, though often impoverished, gentlefolk who lived in the area. Woolsery Manor, for example, which in later years was a hotel, then fell into disuse, and now as a derelict building has been bought by the bloke who started Bebo, was inhabited by the Count de St Quentin and his wife, a Swedish princess. They were very kind to me during my first year or two in the village, and encouraged me in my pursuits as an amateur naturalist, and wannabe poet.
