Monthly Archives : August 2012

STRUMMER MEMORIAL GIG

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THE CRAVATS IN TOYTOWN ALBUM REISSUE

John Peel: "I hate Toyah records and they all go whizzing into the charts, and I love The Cravats and play all their records and nobody buys them. Whenever I start to feel important I think, ‘Well, I never did much for The Cravats and I didn’t stop Toyah’…" – Smash Hits, 1982

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UK SUBS @ THE 100 CLUB VIDEO

Converse have published a video of UK Subs at the recent ‘Converse Represent’ gig.

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NEW BOB MOULD ALBUM

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ADAM ANT/THE ADICTS/BROTHERS OF BRAZIL US TOUR

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NEW TOM WAITS VIDEO

After teasing American journalists with a series of cryptic emails last week, legendary singer-songwriter, Tom Waits releases a statement:

"As most of you guessed, it’s a tour…a tour de force!

“Matt Mahurin has created an apocalyptic war dream to accompany the song ‘HELL BROKE LUCE.’ Kathleen and I envisioned it as an enlightened drill sergeant yelling the hard truths of war to a brand new batch of recruits. The video grew from the gnawing image of a soldier pulling his home, through a battlefield, at the end of a rope.

“I think you will agree, it’s uplifting and fun."

"Hell Broke Luce," featuring Marc Ribot and Keith Richards on guitar, with Flea on bass and Casey Waits on drums, is from Waits’ most recent release, BAD AS ME.

You can watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fju9o8BVJ8

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HALLOWEEN 2/3 S/TRACKS

“The film music I recorded to 24 track 2” tape in the heyday of analog synthesizers is reproduced correctly in vinyl. I am pleased that Death Waltz has taken up the torch of re-releasing these classic electronic music scores for the discerning audio collector. I often reflect on the ritual of taking up the LP, cleaning the record, putting them on the turntable and sitting back to actually listen the music. This is the way this music was intended to be heard.” Alan Howarth, composer

Death Waltz Recording Company is thrilled to announce the vinyl release of two classic and groundbreaking electronic John Carpenter scores, Halloween II & Halloween III on October 14th.

Halloween II was originally released in 1981, 3 years on from the celebrated first instalment of the Michael Myers slasher franchise. For the soundtrack, Carpenter once again enlisted his trusted collaborator – Alan Howarth (both had worked together on another Carpenter electronic masterpiece 1978’s ‘Escape From New York’) – to construct a score which utilised the original theme music in Halloween, but was now required to sound more sinister, dramatic and downright evil than its prequel. With analogue synthesisers really coming into their own in the early 80s, the duo were able to bring new keyboards on board and really branch out, creating a soundtrack that would have a huge influence on a number of genres – house, techno, hip-hop, drum & bass, ambient and metal being just a few. Built around the ‘Halloween II Theme’, the Halloween II soundtrack bathes in a pool of crystalline synth lines and slickly executed disturbing chord sequences, creating a wonderful layer of escalating tension and outright menace. It’s absorbing, fabulous and downright creepy. And just when you think you’ve got the soundtrack and the film simultaneously fully lodged in the brain, there’s the great moment when the Chordettes pop up with Pat Ballard’s ‘Mr Sandman’ to throw things a little. Its deployment in the film remains one of the Halloween II’s most powerful moments.

Halloween III Season Of The Witch (1982) saw Carpenter & Howarth team up again, the film’s plot centred around an evil toymaker at the infamous Silver Shamrock Novelties factory. Technological development once again played a key role in the soundtrack – new keyboards & computers allowed Carpenter & Howarth to develop another futuristic score that fully enhanced the film’s storyline, involving androids and demonic computer chips. There are some very deep, pulsating synth passages and building layers of tension, keyboard slashes and death beats. All utterly fabulous of course. Perhaps though, the ace in the pack and the ‘samplers delight’ moment arrives with the unforgettable Silver Shamrock Halloween mask jingle otherwise known on the album as ‘Halloween Montage’.

Both of these releases will get the Death Waltz Recordings 5 star deluxe reissue treatment. Death Waltz Recording Company is the creation of Rough Trade East shop manager Spencer Hickman and he is really raising the standard with the label’s output, having already put out highly impressive new vinyl editions of ‘Escape From New York’, Zombi 2 (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters), ‘Donnie Darko’, ‘Prince Of Darkness’, ‘Let The Right One In’ & ‘The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue’ to date.

Each release is limited to a 1,000 only vinyl pressing. Halloween II will be issued in stylish orange vinyl with a black middle complete with exclusive artwork from Brandon Schaefer and includes a lithograph and A2 poster. Sleevenotes are provided by Alan Howarth and Brandon Schaefer. Halloween III is pressed in classic black vinyl with an orange middle section and comes with exclusive artwork from Jay Shaw, a lithograph and A2 poster. Sleevenotes are by Alan Howarth and Jay Shaw.

http://www.deathwaltzrecordingcompany.com/

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UNKNOWN PLEASURES: INSIDE JOY DIVISION BY PETER HOOK

The definitive story of Joy Division told by the band’s legendary bassist,

"It’s very strange. Over the years Joy Division has become a huge part of music culture. A lot of people think they know what happened. But they don’t. Anyone who’s ever written a book or made a film about Joy Division, unless they were sat in that van or car with us, they don’t know anything about it. Me, Barney, Steve, Ian, Rob, Twinny, Terry and Dave. Only us lot know what really happened…"PETER HOOK

In the frank, no-holds-barred style that has seen his previous book The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Clubreach critical acclaim, Peter ‘Hooky’ Hook takes us to the heart of Joy Division and the sound that defined an era and inspired a generation with propulsive bass guitar melodies such as ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.

Driven by the attitude, energy and sound of Punk, particularly the Sex Pistols, four young lads from Macclesfield and Salford shared the same vision and created a band with their own unique sound. Cobbling together instruments and a clapped out old van, they played in pubs and clubs – first across the north- west, then across the whole of Britain, until in 1980 they had released two albums and were on the cusp of touring America.

Then Ian Curtis committed suicide leaving everyone around him bereft.

In Unknown Pleasures, Peter shares previously unseen photographs and paraphernalia and reflects, with eye-opening candour, on the suicide of Ian Curtis: often seen as the "intellectual one" – to Peter and the band he was just "one of the lads". He shares his regret that Ian’s burdens of balancing his epilepsy and the demands of his domestic life only emerged when it was too late.

“I supposed in the end it’s almost too easy to look back and say what you should have done, how you might have changed things. How you might have done things differently and ultimately stopped Ian from doing what he did. What’s harder, what’s much, much harder, is to accept what you actually did do. Accept what you did do, and live with it” PETER HOOK

Covering the band’s friendships and fall-outs; their rehearsals and recording sessions; Peter gives a truly fascinating insight, as only an insider can, into the characters who formed a vital part of the Joy Division legend.

A nationwide signing / speaking tour will be announced shortly to follow publication on October 1st

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BIG STUFF PROMOTIONS GIG ROUND UP

Saturday 3rd November

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NEW AGNOSTIC FRONT VIDEO

Long-running hardcore punk band, Agnostic Front have unveiled a new video for their song ‘Us Against the World.’ The song appears on the band’s 2011 full-length, My Life, My Way.

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