The Gonzo Daily - Thursday
As regular readers will know, I am a reasonably avid reader of the music press, although not as much so as I was forty years ago when I would buy the New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Sounds and whatever else was around each Thursday. I don’t know whether you have noticed this, but it seems to be canon in the current music press, especially those parts of it which deal with nostalgically looking back at the music of times gone by, to say what a grim time the 1970s were. How it was a teenage wasteland where there were no smartphones, only three TV channels and—shock, gasp—none of them broadcast during the daytime or after eleven at night.
How did people live in such primitive conditions? they ask.
Well that’s not how I remember it at all.
I remember a time when the little streams that still flow around the village where I lived then (and still live now) were clean and full of fish instead of silted up and muddy. I remember a time when one could see a dozen species of butterfly in my garden instead of two or three (on a very good day). And I remember a time when British Television was the best in the world and something that we could justly be proud of, rather than a parade of guttersnipe garbage aimed at the lowest common denominator in society.
Am I just getting old?
And now I am on the want again. It is time, once again, for me to remind you all about this year's Weird Weekend featuring our very own Steve Ignorant, sponsored by our very own Erik Norlander, compèred by me and the return of Nuneaton's Mr Entertainment, Barry Tadcaster with his pal Orang Pendek, and featuring a whole cornucopia of high strangeness and cerebral silliness. It would make me very happy if I could sell some more tickets..
find out all about the Weird Weekend
buy tickets to the Weird Weekend:
And now for the news................
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
ROCKING RAWLINSON REVIEW FROM BELGIUM
MJ12 REVIEW
RAZ REVIEW
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Third Ear Band - Earth...
Gonzo Magazine #189
A globetrotting issue this time around. Californian Doug goes to London to see (and meet) Rick Wakeman and Alice Cooper. Bristolian John travels to California for Quicksilver
Messenger Service. Scottish Alan goes to Lithuania and enthuses on Baltic reggae, Jeremy goes to London and sees Love Revisited, the
legendary Erik Norlander visits a desert island, and the Editor and his Mrs travel around the country looking
at crocodiles
And there are radio shows from Strange Fruit, and Mack Maloney, Canterbury Sans Frontières and Friday Night Progressive. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon although the irrepressible Corinna is taking a week off. There is also a thrilling and slightly disturbing episode of Xtul. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and pademelons outside zoos(OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have escaped from captivity, 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:
Erik Norlander, Coldplay, Prince Harry, Prince, David Bowie, John Lennon, Aerosmith, The Beatles, Thom Yorke, Keith Richards, Ozzy Osbourne, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Canterbury Sans Frontieres, Winfield Scott "Scotty" Moore III, Rob Wasserman, Bonny "Mack" Rice, George Bernard "Bernie" Worrell, Jr., Billy Mack "Bill" Ham, Wayne Jackson, Gordon Murray, Rick Wakeman, Arthur Brown, The Beatles, The Golliwogs, James Young, Cymbalic Encounters, Richard Brautigan, Stone Free Festival, Alice Cooper, Alan Dearling, Love Revisited, John Brodie-Good, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Starship, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Kate Tempest, Neil Nixon, Canya Phuckem and Howe
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
Issue 187/8 (Yer holiday special)
Issue 186 (Beatles)
Issue 185 (Judge Smith)
Issue 184 (Mick Abrahams)
Issue 183 (Daevid Allen)
Issue 182 (Wally)
Issue 181 (Beatles)
Issue 180 (Beltane)
Issue 179 (Gregg Kofi Brown)
Issue 178 (Viv Stanshall)
Issue 177 (David Gilmour)
Issue 176 (Joey Molland and The Raz Band)
Issue 175 (Larry Sanders)
Issue 174 (Keith Emerson)
Issue 173 (Pink Fairies action figures)
Issue 172 (4th Eden)
Issue 171 (Keith Levene)
Issue 170 (Wildman Fischer)
Issue 169 (Wildman Fischer)
Issue 168 (Wakeman/Bowie)
Issue 167 (Paul Kantner)
Issue 166 (Spirits Burning)
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:
SPECIAL NOTICE: If you, too, want to unleash the power of your inner rock journalist, and want to join a rapidly growing band of likewise minded weirdos please email me at jon@eclipse.co.uk The more the merrier really.
* 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.co.uk
* 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 56 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two small kittens, one totally coincidentally named after one of the Manson Family, purely because she squeaks, puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish. 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, and the adventurous kittens?
