The Gonzo Daily: Thursday
Today is rapidly becoming a rather strand one. Nothing has actually gone
wrong, but I have ended up utterly exhausted and not achieved a half of the
things that I wanted to. However, I did manage to interview an old friend of
mine, the legendary Mr Biffo.
Back in the late 1980s, when the Internet was not much more than a twinkle
in Tim Berners-Lee's eye, I got mildly obsessed by Teletext, which was about as
cutting edge as televisions could get. Then in 1993 the ITV and C4 Teletext
services suffered an enormous upheaval, and all the different pages (proto
websites) that I used to view each day ceased to be. They were replaced by a
brave new world of replacement pages and characters, and - sad to say - I soon
forgot about the pages that I had viewed so faithfully each day on Oracle, and
started watching the new bunch equally avidly.
By far my favourite, though, was a Computer Games Page called Digitiser,
which was presented by a mad bloke called Mr Biffo. The fact that I didn't
actually own a computer at the time apart from an antiquated Amstrad word
processor didn't matter. Nor did the fact that I had never played any video
games, and had no intention of doing so, because Biffo made me laugh. His
mixture of surreal inanity, peculiar Lovecraftian imagery and adolescent smut
pushed all the right buttons for me, and he became essential viewing each
day.
When Richard Freeman and I started sharing a house in 1998, I introduced
him to Biffo's humour, and (as I had thought) he took to it like a basket of
prawns up an exhaust manifold, and soon was an even bigger fan than I.
Biffo left Teletext in 2003, and - a few years later - I got in touch with
him, arranged a meeting, and eventually sent him to South America with Richard
and the gang in search of giant snakes. That actually DID happen by the way
pals, just in case you thought I was indulging in more surreal bollocks. The
Biffster and I have been friends ever since, and he is a regular contributor to
Gonzo Weekly, and even provided a forward for a book I wrote a decade or so ago.
Now, he has a remarkably peculiar webTV show out, and I had a great time
interviewing him this afternoon.
Q: What do you call a giant killer bat?
A: Super beast 47!
Giggle me do.
Forgive me for banging on about our webTV show, but it matters a lot to me,
and I would be grateful for an many people as possible to see it, and spread the
tidings of it far and wide:
But now, here is the news:
FRANK ZAPPA NEWS
YES feat ARW
JACKIE LEE
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Arthur Brown & Alice C...
and from yesterday, but atill important:
Hurricane Irma Relief Fundraiser with Patrick Mora...
Gonzo Weekly #253
THE SENSORIUM SUPERSTARS ISSUE
In which we meet the very legendary Dana Gillespie, Alan goes to the Hapi
Festival, Richard presents part one of a short series on Steve Kimock, Greg
remembers seeing Gentle Giant back in the day, Graham writes about Hawkwind,and
we send Sensorium Girliebox to a desert island!And is there more? You can bet
your pondohs there is. And it is all free/buckshee/gratis. There may not be such
a thing as a free lunch, but there is a truly free magazine!
Wooooot!
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Strange Fruit, and Friday
Night Progressive. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy
Weard, C J Stone, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is
also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and common planigales
who have cooked some stews (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have
been culinarily creative, 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:
Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, Biggles, Richard Gordon, Gerald Durrell, Yoko
Ono, Bruce Springsteen, 2017 Progressive Music Awards, Gorillaz, Damon Albarn,
Morrissey, Roger Waters, Bob Dylan, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive,
Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, John Everett Sandlin Jr., Laudir Soares de
Oliveira, Harold "Harry" Dean Stanton, Violet Brown (nee Mosse), Wiarton Willie,
Ameer Isah Hassan (aka Lil Ameer), Ben Dorcy, Mary Hopkin, Man, Arthur Brown,
Tony Ashton and Jon Lord, Martin Springett, Third Ear Band, Benjamin Britten,
Dana Gillespie, Alan Dearling, Hapi Festival, Asylum Seekers, Daniel Wakeford,
Big Brother Soul, Mike Pender's Searchers, The Fab Beatles, the Animals and
friends, Forever Queen, Limehouse Lizzie, Fleetingwood Mac, From the Jam, Iron
Tyger, Big Noise Samba Band, Greg Jarrells, Gentle Giant, Richard Foreman, Steve
Kimock, Kev Rowland, Lightning Strikes, Afterbirth, Beastmaker, Ohio Knife,
Opeth, Forever Still, Pelander, Midnight Oil, Sensorium Girliebox, Mr Biffo, Roy
Weard, Hawkwind, Nicki Minaj, ABBA, Neil Nixon, Easy Star All Stars
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
Issue 252 (Cropredy)
Issue 251 (Scott Walker)
Issue 250 (Jamms)
Issue 249 (Bill Bruford)
Issue 248 (The Selecter)
Issue 247 (Don Airey)
Issue 246 (Steve Hackett)
Issue 244-5 (Summer Special)
Issue 243 (Galahad)
Issue 242 (Steve Miller Band)
Issue 241 (Carol Hodge and Steve Ignorant)
Issue 240 (Midsummer Madness)
Issue 239 (Miss Peach)
Issue 238 (Hawkwind)
Issue 237 (Hawkwind)
Issue 236 (Manchester)
Issue 235 (Jon Anderson)
Issue 234 (Al Atkins)
Issue 233 (Richard Strange)
Issue 232 (Roy Weard)
Issue 231 (Allan Holdsworth)
Issue 230 (Curtis Womack)
Issue 229 (Larry Wallis)
Issue 228 (Space Pharoahs)
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 58 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile
orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two half grown 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 Archie and the Cats?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment