2011
2011 News Items
2011 News Items
1.11.11 G.T. Thomas Just in case it may have slipped your attention… it’s OUT!!!!
4.11.11 Bisonics Smoking Ant’s design supremo Stephanie Johnson has an exhibition of her graphics at The Wauregan Gallery, 200 Main Street, Norwich, Connecticut, USA on Friday & Saturday afternoons from 4th November till 3rd December. Amongst other commissions there are prints of her designs for Jazz Cattle, Horrible Head and Bisonics, including the premiere of the 16 artworks that adorn their forthcoming ‘Seconds’ album.
18.10.11 G.T.Thomas will be spending the day of her album’s launch (11/11/11) at the Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht, Netherlands where she and husband Berend Dubbe (formerly of Bauer and Bettie Serveert), backed by the Metropole Orchestra, will sing the Cab Calloway tune ‘Old Man Of The Mountain’, which was premiered in the ‘Betty Boop’ film from 1933, and, yes, you guessed right, we’re trying to write the longest sentence ever but, no, we’re going to have to stop for a breather.
17.10.10 G.T. Thomas has been on the sunny streets of Amsterdam to make a sunny video for her ‘Song For A Walk’. As she rightly states in the chorus, “It’s nice to be outside”, but you’ll probably have to be inside to watch it. Here it is: YouTube
12.10.11 Bisonics As their album edges nearer like a man with gout in both of his bare feet (and a wheelbarrow full of Henry Moore sculptures on his back) staggering across a desert made entirely of drawing pins, here is yet another taste of what to expect. A folksy, wistful tale of drink-soaked lust at a school reunion, ‘Re: Union’ is musically a radical departure from their usual loud shambles. This time, it’s a quiet shambles. Click, look and listen: YouTube
29.9.11. Doug Murphy & Paul Hamilton. ‘Only You Can Play’, their fly-on-the-wall, eye-off-the-ball 25-minute documentary is available for anyone to see here – Vimeo.com. The object of the exercise was to promote their ‘Only Two Can Play’ CD but, unless it was done subliminally, you’d be hard-pressed to find it mentioned through the non-stop gorging of biscuits.
18 & 30.9.11. Jazz Cattle. Vocals, keyboards and rhythm tracks for nine songs have been recorded in preparation for the ‘Z-cats’ full-length album (due for Spring 2012 escape). Gadget buffs will be thrilled to learn that one song was created with much use of the Teenage OP-1. Subject matter includes the Night Of The Long Knives, alcoholic fathers and junkie daughters, the skin game, senile dementia and double-crossing spies. Hotcha!
22.9.11. Bisonics. Marko’s Punk Rock Jukebox radio show in Connecticut, USA (see LINKS page for details) premiered the W.C. Fields tribute ‘Looking For Carl La Fong’ from their as-yet-unleashed ‘difficult Seconds album’. “Who is Carl La Fong?” we hear you cry. Well, just have a look at this… YouTube
3.9.11. Bisonics. The making of their follow-up album to ‘Play For Today’ has been fraught with a catalogue of upset and disaster, resulting in almost-interminable delays. It was with a heavy heart that, after completing six of the 15 songs, Si Beex announced his decision to abandon his performance and production duties due to protracted ill-health. However, armed with Beex’s notes and ideas, Paul Hamilton and Jason Emberton (who mixed and mastered ‘Only Two Can Play’ to great acclaim) have finished the album, to be titled (for a variety of reasons) ‘Seconds’. Despite the growing preference for single-song-downloads, Bisonics are insistent on making the CD very special, being adorned by a book of artwork – something for the eyes to dance to.
1.9.11. G.T. Thomas has contacted us with the excellent news that her album is completed and will be mastered shortly. Gwen’s songs will lighten your load and brighten your day – as you can soon discover for yourself. The release date for her debut is, aptly, 11/11/11.
25.8.11. Jazz Cattle have finally remembered that they’re supposed to be making music rather than money from winning every London pub quiz they deign to enter. A leper’s handful of songs are ready to be recorded, with more on their way. What will they sound like, we hear you scream? Think “Lionel Bart Meets Steely Dan”…
5.8.11. Loudsneakers went on a surfing holiday on the South Coast of England. Come on, chaps! Relax! You’re plugging your album too hard.
4.7.11. Doug Murphy/Paul Hamilton‘s ‘Only Two Can Play’ 9-song CD released. It has become something approaching a hit in Norway (Doug’s manor) with major radio station airplay and a 5 out of 6 review by Roar Eskild Jacobsen, in the newspaper Haugesunds Avis (14th July 2011), who wrote, amongst other affirmative things, “There is more life here than I have heard for a long time, and in a more local perspective, it’s probably the most innovative sound I’ve heard since Oral Constitution (c. 1993)… The sound is incredible. This isn’t a performance that was phoned in. Every beat, every bass line and, not least, the vocals sound seriously tough and are in fact clearly well thought-out. Nine songs, all solid by themselves, yet fitting perfectly together. Mass suggestion now.”
We don’t quite know what is meant by the last sentence (Norwegian can be a tricky lingo to translate at times) but we like the sound of it.
Meanwhile, in the colonies, Connecticut’s college radio station have also been blasting a large selection of songs from ‘Only Two Can Play’. Marko, host of Thursday and Friday’s Punk Rock Jukebox, has called it “a bloody excellent album – pardon my English”.
A video for the opening song, ‘Mr Potter Of Creep St’, is here: YouTube
1.3.11. Bisonics At last it can be revealed! The reason behind vile despots Mubarak and Gaddafi trying to stop the internet from operating in their respective dictatorships is because Bisonics have released a sneak preview of their album-in-progress. ‘A Karaoke Version Of Myself’ is supplied with the same footage but re-modelled; a karaoke video of itself. Smoking Queen Ant Stephanie Johnson, our designer uber alles, has opted for a Hollywood look here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tijbLW6tsxM – all Faye-light, eyes-bright, skin cancer, and made to look literally and figuratively like a letterbox screen. The alternative visual mix at http://vimeo.com/20169685 opts for the ghost-in-the-machine approach.
5.1.11 Bisonics are planning live appearances later this year, buoyed by successfully popping out for Bounty bars and Lotto tickets. How can all three appear onstage when they live in different continents? “Skype!” proclaims Doug Murphy.
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