A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM THE CFZ

THE HOPPY HEN ON CHRISTMAS DAY

The Gonzo Daily: Christmas Eve

http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/about.html

A very happy Christmas to all of you who read the stuff that I write each ay. I cannot tell you how much it means to me. Thank you all.

And as I said yesterday:"For some people, Christmas is a lonely and horrible time. I tried to kill myself on the day before Christmas Eve seventeen years ago, and seven years later another family member was more successful. For what it is worth, both the CFZ and Gonzo blogs will continue each day over what is euphemistically known as the 'Festive Season', and if there is anyone in the Gonzo or CFZ extended families reading this who is alone and needs to talk, we shall be here."

Love and blessings to you all

And here is the news:

THE GONZO CHRISTMAS TRACK OF THE DAY: A Christmas ...

http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-gonzo-christmas-track-of-day_25.html

TOP TEN FOR 2017 Part Two 1-5

http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/top-ten-for-2017-part-two-1-5.html

THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem

http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_25.html

Forgive me for always banging on about our webTV show, but it matters a lot to me, and I would be grateful for as many people as possible to see it, and spread the tidings of it far and wide:

Ep 86 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdAn24MkErs&t=67s

EP 85 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E82xG502cA&t=21s

EP 84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7rDGbLdYxc&t=3s

EP 83 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9lr_j2Ij8Q

EP 82 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iP_Pii7ZF8

And if you fancy supporting us on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/CFZ

But for now, here is the news:

THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem

http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_22.html

CORKY LAING NEWS

http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/corky-laing-news.html

FRANK ZAPPA IN THE NEWS

http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/frank-zappa-in-news.html

FAIRPORT CONVENTION NEWS

http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/fairport-convention-news_22.html

THE GONZO CHRISTMAS TRACK OF THE DAY: I Believe In...

http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/the-gonzo-christmas-track-of-day-i.html

Gonzo Weekly #265/6

THE CHRISTMAS DOUBLE ISSUE

http://www.gonzoweekly.com/

As we approach Christmas, we present a special double issue in which we talk to Tony Klinger about his work with The Who, on ‘The Kids are Alright’ and print an exclusive excerpt from his book, Alan gets all Christmassy with Charlie Manson, and the legendary Jim Dickinson, John has a Martian Christmas with Paul Kantner and looks back over the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Summer of Love, Jon waxes lyrical about The OA, Timothy leary and Stranger Things, Richard writes about Steve Kimock, and Amy explains Yuletide plants.

Hail Eris!

And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney AND Strange Fruit, AND Friday Night Progressive. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Neil Nixon, Roy Weard, C J Stone, Mr Biffo and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and southern dibblers who have blown a fuse (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who are not good at household electrics, 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:

The OA, Stranger Things, The Beatles, John Lennon, Trevor Horn, Jools Holland, Eric Clapton, Lili Fini Zanuck, Cecil Williamson, Patti Smith, John Prine, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Bon Jovi, Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Status Quo, Francis Rossi, REM, The Cure, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, Keith Chegwin, Maxwell Frank Clifford, James Marcellus Arthur "Sunny" Murray, Sir Christus (Jukka Kristian Mikkonen) Magnus Bergdahl, Leon Rhodes, Patrick Michael DiNizio, Willie Pickens, Warrel Dane, Barbara Dickson, Jessica Lee Morgan, Rick Wakeman, Billion Dollar Babies, Tangerine Dream, Tony Klinger, The Who, Alan Dearling, Phil Bayliss,  James Luther Dickinson, John Brodie-Good, Country Joe McDonald, Hot Tuna, Paul Kantner, Jefferson Starship, Richard Foreman, Steve Kimock, Charles Manson, Dennis Wilson, Phil Kaufman, Terry Melcher, Bobby Beausoleil, Catherine Gillies,  Charlene Cafritz, Marilyn Manson, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Cabaret Voltaire, Nick Redfern, Defending the Realm: MI5 and The Shayler Affair, Mark Hollingsworth, Nick Fielding, Sex Pistols, David Shayler, The Clash, UB40, Kev Rowland, Silhouette, Tankard, Threat Signal, Antisect, Trojan Horse, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, 36 Crazyfists, The Walking Dead, Whitewater, With the Dead, Wobbler, Zud, Aosoth, Atoll, b.o.s.c.h., Bigfoot, Blaze of Perdition, Charcoal Tongue, Curse the Fall, Hawkwind, Xtul, Martin Springett, Amy Phillipson, John Higgs, Timothy Leary, Kylie Minogue

And the last few issues are:

Issue 264 (John McLaughlin)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo264.html

Issue 263 (The magic Band)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo263.html

Issue 262 (DikMik)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo262.html

Issue 261 (Leonard Cohen)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo261.html

Issue 260 (Amsterdam Squat Festie)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo260.html

Issue 259 (Out come thee Freaks)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo259.html

Issue 258 (The Devil's Jukebox)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo258.html

Issue 257 (Judge Smith)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo257.html

Issue 255/6 (John Lennon)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo255-6.html

Issue 254 (Mr Biffo)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo254.html

Issue 253 (Dana Gillespie)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo253.html

Issue 252 (Cropredy)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo252.html

Issue 251 (Scott Walker)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo251.html

Issue 250 (Jamms)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo250.html

Issue 249 (Bill Bruford)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo249.html

Issue 248 (The Selecter)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo248.html

Issue 247 (Don Airey)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo247.html

Issue 246 (Steve Hackett)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo246.html

Issue 244-5 (Summer Special)

http://www.flipsnack.com/9FE5CEE9E8C/gonzo244-5.html

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:

http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/

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?

TOP TEN FOR 2017 Part Two 1-5

I have been compiling my top ten records of the year since about 2002, and I am an avid reader of everybody else’s as well. It is the time of year that everybpdy can get self opinionatged about their own tastes, and I have nopticed something peculiar this year; even the top tens produced by bloggefrs and magazines, which I regularly read because my tastes on the whole correspond with theirs, are completely different to my top twn. In most cases, there are no points of correlation. I always thought that I had fairly catholic tastes in music, but it appears that mine are far more mainstream than I thought. The thing that I’m trying to figure out now is whether my tastes are excessively banal, or whether the aforementioned writers either have impossibly obscure tastes or have deliberately choszen massively obscure records in order to show how hip they are…

This year I am being very brutal with myself. There have, after all, been some excellent records, which have not made it onto this list. But albums like Songs of Experience by U2, which released in early December, have just not been around long enough for me to be able to make a properly informed decision. However, a cursory investigation does suggest that they may have returned to form with this record.

Others, like Oczy Mlody by The Flaming Lips, are more problematical. Whilst undoubtedly a great album, it is still too wilfully impenetrable for it to be classed as one of this singular band’s great records. Sad, but true. And, another one of my favourite records of the year, J’Ouvert by Haitian producer Wyclef Jean turned out to have been first released in 2016, so it doesn’t count.

1. Roger Waters: Is This The Life We Really Want?

This record is something that I’ve been looking forward to, without much hope, for 30 years. After the release of Radio K.A.O.S. in 1987, there were almost immediately rumours that a new album, called Amused to Death, was imminent. Actually, it took about 5yrs, and when it arrived it was – to me, at least, although friends of mine think differently – a big disappointment. There seemed to be too much emphasis on sound effects, and Roger’s lyrics contain some of the most irritating writing that he has ever done. A couplet when he rhymed Chiang Kai-shek with “dirty rat” was particularly irksome. Since then, although we had all hoped for a return to form, there had been nothing but a few standalone studio tracks, several live albums, and an opera in French.

Then, this year, our Rog delivers the goods. And how! This scabrous album could well be described as the stylistic sequel to the Animals album, released by Pink Floyd 40yrs ago. However, it contains some wry humour, and – unusually for Rog – the jokes don’t suck. The sound is delightfully stripped down and claustrophobia, like a chamber ensemble version of Pink Floyd. It might just be the most successful solo album ever released by an alumnus of that fine band. The fact that it came totally out of left field when the artist responsible was approaching his 74th birthday makes it even more extraordinary. Animals took many pot shots at people like Mary Whitehouse, but this time it is Donald Trump who is firmly in Roger’s crosshairs. “Imagine a leader with no fucking brains”, he growls. This is an awesome record, and one which is now in my list of all-time favourite music. Well done Roger.

2. Gorillaz: Humanz

I have been an avid follower of this conceptual/cartoon band since their first album nearly 2 decades ago. I have always admired their environmentalist stance, and – as an admirer as Jamie Hewlett’s graphic novelisations – I have found the way that the ongoing saga of the four cartoon characters has been seamlessly woven into the ongoing musical narrative to be both innovative and entertaining!

Whilst this is a very good record, and certainly deserves to be included in my top 10, it is probably their weakest offering yet. And this is probably because – for the first time – the guest stars overwhelm the artistic input of main man Damon Albarn. And it is, after all, Albarn’s singular vision that one has grown to appreciate over the years. Although he became famous as front man of Blur, his work with Gorillaz, and his subsequent other projects have been stylistically far more inventive. Until now. This is an excellent sampler of contemporary hip hop styles, but somehow something has been lost. For the first time, the narrative seems obscured and sometimes even missing, and it doesn’t really feel like a Gorillaz record. Which is a great pity. It is still a bloody good album, though!

3. Neil Young: Promise of the Real

Neil Young is one of those irritatingly prolific artists, liked Frank Zappa or Prince. All 3 of them produced/produce enormous amounts of product, and as a result, some is obviously going to be better than others. Neil Young, in particular, has the artistically admirable trait of jumping off at tangents from the main arc of his career, to such an extent that it is well nigh impossible to judge what that ‘main arc’ is. He is also a doggedly curmudgeonly old sod, as referenced in his new online archive, which may feature freely listenable to copies of every record he has ever made, as well as a bunch of archive unreleased stuff, but is presented with such an eccentric search engine, that listening to records in a linear fashion is almost impossible. In the last 20yrs, he has released a whole slew of records, and I have loyally listened to them all. Some have been better than others, and some have been truly great, but – if I’m honest with myself – I have always been wanting to hear a record that has been as good as Harvest or After the Gold Rush, and none of them have come close. Neil Young is an irritatingly erratic talent, and his records this century have included country, soul, rock and avant-garde outings. So, I was not particularly enthusiastic when I heard that he had just released a new record. Boy, how wrong I was! I have done my best to be positive about all his other recent records, but the truth is that I have listened to all of them once or twice and then forgotten about them . This new record, however, for the first time in many years, bristles with ideas, and – even better – has lyrical and musical hooks which stick in your mind like post-it notes. It is too early to tell whether Promise of the Real is truly a career high, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it might be.

4. British Sea Power: Let the Dancers Inherit the Party

God, I love this band! They first burst into my consciousness back in 2002, when my buddy Jon Hare turned me on to them, and ever since then I have been an admirer of their peculiarly skewed vision. They are very much a British band, and their musical vision singularly reflects the sights and sounds of rural and liminal Britain. Let the Dancers Inherit the Party is a very strange album; the title implies that we should be dealing with some sort of post-modern disco record, but it is nothing of the sort. Imagine the dancers as being those jolly celebrants seen during the merry making scenes in The Wicker Man, and you might have some sort of inkling of what this record is all about. The word ‘pagan’ means – literally – someone who lives in the fields, in the same way that the word ‘heathen’ means someone who lives on the heath. I have no idea of the spiritual affiliations of the members of this band, and don’t really care, but – unusually for an indie/post-punk band – they have tapped into some strange zeitgeist, originally mined by Kipling’s people of the hills. This is a band that one has real issues trying to imagine staying in an inner city, and this new record simply magnifies and elaborates on their complex myth.

5. Peter Perrett: How the West was Won

The weird thing about punk was that the movement that the media perceived gathered together a whole bunch of disparate musicians who really had nothing much in common with each other, although most of them were fans of bands like the Velvet Underground, Television, or Hawkwind. One of the oddest of these strange bedfellows was a group called The Only Ones, which was fronted by a legendary dope dealer called Peter Perrett. Their most famous record was, of course, Another Girl, Another Planet, which had been released in 1978. But Perrett had very little in common with the other luminaries of the punk scene. The drummer of The Only Ones had been a member of ‘Spooky Tooth’, for example, and the bass plater had a pedigree which went back even further. The Only Ones were together from 1976 to 1982, after which Perrett disappeared for the next 12 years. He poked his head above the parapet again in the mid 90s for a couple of years, but disappeared again. These continued hiatuses have been blamed on serious drug problems. Then, bizarrely, The Only Ones reunited again in 2007 and have been going on ever since... on and off. But then in April this year, Perrett released How the West was Won, and it is a minor masterpiece. I have described it as being a cross between Blonde on Blonde and the first Modern Lover’s album. However, everybody I have used this description to has just laughed at me. So what do I know? What I do know is that the clever word play and down to earth acoustics of this record are irresistible, and I strongly recommend that you all go out and check it out, if you haven’t done so already.

NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Christmas Day

ON THIS DAY IN - 1223 - St. Francis of Assisi assembled one of the first Nativity scenes, in Greccio, Italy. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

Drone photos offer faster, cheaper data on key Ant...

A monkey and a virus: One million years together

In mongoose society, immigrants are a bonus—when g...

Whodunnit', as Aussie reptiles go extinct: study (...

Beetles' bright colors used for camouflage instead...

AND TO WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK... (Music that may have some relevance to items also on this page, or may just reflect my mood on the day).