The Gonzo Daily: Monday/Tuesday
Friday night was weird. I have seen sheet lightning before, but nothing
like this. Trying to describe it without resorting to cliche is almost
impossible. Great swathes of white electric light split the sky, and for the
first time I could hear the rumble of thunder. I wasn’t the only one; Prudence,
our eleven year old boxer/bulldog bitch is terrified of bangs, and always reacts
badly to thunder or fireworks. She came rushing up the stairs with remarkable
haste for such an elderly lady, and did a belly flop up onto the bed, whereupon
she forcibly burrowed herself next to me for a cuddle.
Meanwhile the storm was almost upon us, and for the next twenty minutes or
so I saw the most magnificent display of natural pyrotechnics that I have ever
seen. In storybooks one reads about how the night sky is suddenly as bright as
day after a particularly impressive lightning flash, but that is a completely
inadequate description. The flashes of sheet lightning, which were coming every
few minutes, were orgasmic in their intensity. The garden was, indeed,
illuminated, but by a brighter light than one that I have ever seen. For the few
seconds of illumination, the white light was so violently intense that it washed
all colour out of it, and it was almost like looking at a film negative
illuminated a hundredfold.
Half an hour later it was all over for us, and the storm moved off towards
the Bristol Channel. However, somewhere between our house and the sea a couple
of miles away, an unlikely lightning strike did irreparable damage to a British
Telecom cable which means that the entire village was been out of broadband
access for something over 24 hours. And this is why the last few days blog posts
have been awry, and why you are getting the Sunday blogs today. Normal service
should be resumed by Wednesday.
And now, here is the news:
HAWKWIND-LIVE IN MANCHESTER + INTERVIEW OF DAVE BR...
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: "Awen" ~ Poweful Druid...
Gonzo Weekly #236
PLAYLIST: Strange Fruit #213
Gonzo Magazine #235
THE OLD SCHOOL DANCE GOES ON FOREVER ISSUE
We ponder the horrific events of last Monday, Jon waxes lyrical about
Wreckless Eric, John goes to see Ryley Walker, Alan isbeing Green in Denmark,
Graham talks about Hawkwind, and Corinna is as groovy as ever.
And listen up Kiddies: It’s all free!
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Friday Night Progressive,and
Strange Fruit. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard,
Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. 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:
Wreckless Eric, The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast, Ariana
Grande, Yes, Rick Wakeman, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack
Maloney's Mystery Hour, Sir Roger George Moore, KBE, Granville William "Mickey"
Roker, Kenneth Cordray, Jimmy LaFaye, Paul Blake "Frankie Paul", George Reiff,
Kid Vinil, Mary Hopkin, This Misery Garden, Martin Stephenson and The Daintees,
Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, Jeremy Smith, The Doctors of Madness, Alan Dearling,
Hyldemor/Hyldest, Skousen & Ingemann, Christiania, John Brodie-Good, Ryley
Walker & Band, Kev Rowland, Oliver Lake & The Flux Quartet, Orange
Clocks, Perspire, The Phans, Rog Patterson, Ronald Murphy, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard,
Hawkwind, Xtul, Martin Springett, Elvis, Pete Doherty, John Lennon, Yoko Ono,
Neil Nixon, Dick Dale
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
Issue 234 (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)
Issue 227 (Chuck Berry)
Issue 225-6 (The Rites of Spring)
Issue 224 (Hibernal)
Issue 223 (Beatles)
Issue 222 (Cruise to the Edge)
Issue 221 (Deke Leonard)
Issue 220 (Larry Wallis)
Issue 219 (Martin Stone)
Issue 218 (Mark Reiser tribute)
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 57 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?