The Gonzo Daily: Wednesday
I want you to cast your mind back 31 years. It was the height of
Thatcherism, and I was living in a little house in one of the suburbs of Exeter
whilst commuting each day to Crediton, where I worked in a crumbling old red
brick hospital for what were then called the mentally handicapped. For reasons
that the cognoscenti amongst you will know, Frank Zappa was in the middle of
complex legal difficulties with his ex-record company and his ex-manager.
Therefore, hardly any of his music was available. So, those of us who wanted a
Frank Zappa collection to be proud of, spent much of our time off wondering
around second hand record shops, market stalls, and junk shops in search of our
precious prizes. This was, remember, the pre-internet age when one actually had
to search for things on foot.
One sunny afternoon I was on Exeter’s Fore Street, engaged in my regular
weekly trawl around the shops. I was in a particularly crappy second-hand shop
at the bottom of the hill, when I found something that gave me palpitations. It
was a copy of a Frank Zappa compilation album, that had been put out on (I
think) Polydor in 1976. I had been looking for it for a long time, because it
was the only place that one could find that one particular song. But that
doesn’t really matter at the moment.
I bought the record and sent up a silent prayer to the gods of record
collecting that my then-wife would not berate me for spending 6 quid on a
peculiar record, rather than spending it on groceries or the electricity
bill.
Suddenly, my reverie was interrupted by a gruff voice. I turned around a
saw a scruffy looking individual whom I had seen around town but never actually
spoken to.
“You lucky bugger, I’ve been looking for that for months!”
Thus a friendship was born. It turned out that his name was Richard, and he
was an avid collector of music by Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa and David Bowie. He
also knew more about the lives, work, and influences upon these three artists
than anybody else I’d ever met before, or have met since. He was also a very
talented artist, and when a few months later I started what was to be my
publishing empire with a couple of little music fanzines, Richard designed the
logos, did the cartoons and much of the artwork, and was an enthusiastic and
useful co-conspirator.
We were friends ever since. The night that his first baby was born the two
of us got legendarily drunk together. When he and his young family moved to
Teignmouth, we didn’t see each other as much, but we remained friends, and up
until a few years ago we would still contact each other on a whim to talk
esoteric bollocks about something or other.
On Monday night, I had a phone call from his son, whom I haven’t seen since
he was 6, something like 15 years ago. He passed me on to his mother, who still
sounded like the charmingly dippy 17yr old girl I had first met in 1987, when
Richard proudly introduced her to me. Richard had struggled with mental health
issues throughout his life, and last week, probably when drunk, he killed
himself.
I do know more of the back story, but it’s nobody else’s business. I have
spent much of the time since contacting mutual friends of ours to tell them the
sad news. He is the third of my friends to have died in the last 6 weeks, but I
can truthful say that he was one of the friends that I truly loved. He was a
massively irritating human being at times, but he was always loveable and
although he did his best to hide it, he was a highly intelligent and literate
man. My heart is heavy today. Even though we hadn’t seen each other for some
years, the knowledge that I will never again pick up the telephone at an
inconvenient time I the middle of the night to hear Richard’s gruff voicer on
the other end of the line saying “’ullo, you mad bugger. What have you been
listening to?”
My world is a far sadder place without him.
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:
Hurricane Irma Relief Fundraiser with Patrick Mora...
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
ANNIE HASLAM IN THE NEWS
FAIRPORT CONVENTION: Ric Sanders interview
HERMAN'S HERMITS IN THE NEWS
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?
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