LONDON’S LEGENDARY CLUB NIGHT


BOOKED Established in 1980 and now considered one of London’s longest running institutions, Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues was held at Gossip’s on 69 Dean Street until it moved in ’95 to its current venue, St. Moritz on Wardour Street. This September, to celebrate its lengthy residence, the release of Gaz’s Rockin Blues – The


First 30 Years, written by founder Gaz Mayall (son of blues legend John) and published by Trolley Books, will lift the lid on what has made the one-nighter such a considerable success. Hosting many legends over 30 years in the field of ska, rockabilly, bluegrass, swing, skiffle and


pretty much any genre you can shake a tail feather to, from Laurel Aitken to Lee Scratch Perry and Desmond Dekker to The Stray Cats, not only has the night staged countless stars and DJs but it has also attracted some famous punters – counting David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Tracey Emin to name a few. The book will be launched at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, London in September so for more


information about Gaz’s Rockin Blues – The First 30 Years visit www.trolleybooks.com Richard S Jones


A MORE COMPREHENSIVE FOLK-US


It’s been a long while since the history of folk has been fervently mined by a mind so obsessed; the only way to capture it entirely is in published form. RICHARD S JONES talks to Shindig! scribe and first- time author JEANETTE LEECH about her debut tome


A lifelong fan of ’60s girl groups and female vocalists, Jeanette Leech – bringer of this very magazine’s much loved Folk-Us column – thinks that her bottomless appreciation for folk may have developed progressively from a young age, but it was truly sealed the day she heard Vashti Bunyan’s opus Just Another Diamond Day. “I knew and loved Vashti’s ’60s singles and had heard of this magical and rare album, which


at that point had never been reissued. So when it came out again at the end of the ’90s I got a copy and loved it more than I can say. I remember playing ‘Where I Like To Stand’ incessantly.” Timing neatly with the early years of this new century, the rediscovery and resurgence of


interest in folk amongst a younger generation of artists such as Devendra Banhart, Espers, Joanna Newsom, and a flood of similarly like minded individuals produced more collaborations and a heightened comprehension about acid and psychedelic folk than ever before. And it’s along these lines, the respect and shared love for the genre – and not just the years that date it – which forms the basis of Jeanette’s new book Seasons TheyChange: The Story Of Acid And Psychedelic Folk. “It was the modern stuff that formed the germ of the book,” she explains when asked about how she began the task of exploring a history that to even the most diligent of students can be viewed as a heavy haze of whys, whens and wherefores. “I loved so much of it and you didn’t really read that much about it in the music press. Then I


mulled over the idea a bit more and got the idea of writing it in terms of a ‘long history’ from the ’60s onwards. There was and still is a huge amount of respect across generations. In general, the artists of the first wave of the genre, from the late ’60s to the mid ’70s, were a bunch of very open-minded people and that hasn’t changed as the years have gone on.” Including interviews with the likes of Alison


O’Donnell of Mellow Candle, Mark Fry,Vashti Bunyan (of course), The Incredible String Band and Comus, the book also adds the appreciations and insights of Greg Weeks of Espers, Animal Collective, The Owl Service and many more. Seasons They Change: The Story Of Acid And Psychedelic Folk by Jeanette Leech will be released through Jawbone Press later in the year


Hawkwind Announce UK Tour


Hawkfest – the festival curated by the members of space rock legends Hawkwind – returns this August (27th-29th) to Afton Farm on The Isle Of Wight with the band headlining and Tosh, Lloyd Langton Group, Krankschaft and a whole host of others as support. Fans will also be pleased to hear that later this year, the band will embark on a nationwide UK tour in support of their brand new studio album Blood Of The Earth. Kicking off at the Holmfirth Picturedrome on Friday 3rd December, for more information on dates and ticket prices visit www.hawkfest.com.


Not Your Usual Stock Imagery Flatstock Europe – also known as Flatstock 28 – returns for a fifth year to the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, Germany from 23rd – 25th September. Presented by the American Poster Institute (API) The Flatstock Poster Show is a series of ongoing exhibitions featuring the work of many of the most popular concert poster artists actively working today. Keeping alive the spirit of ’60s San Francisco, where art meets music, talent and beer, for more information on some of the artists featured this year visit www.reeperbahnfestival.com.


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Cult Film To Ride Free At Last Horror fans finally got the news they’d been waiting for this month with the announcement that the greatest, most bootlegged zombie biker film of all time is to get an official release with full special edition treatment this October. Psychomania, the unmistakably British and hip late night masterpiece, is to be released by Severin Films UK with a high definition transfer that be worthy of the stellar admiration that the film has garnered since its release in 1973. Featuring interviews with Nicky Henderson, Mary Larkin, Denis Gilmore and others, fans can at last own a worthy print to accompany that stellar John Cameron soundtrack. See Shindig! #13 for more information on Psychomania.


MISTER SIXTIES TAKES TO THE ROAD


A seminal ’60s photojournalist and one time butler to Rupert Murdoch, newly celebrated photographer Phillip Townsend tours nationwide with images of the decade that came to shape our future. RICHARD S JONES reports


Charged with the task of making a young, fresh-faced band by the name of The Rolling Stones look bad by Andrew Loog Oldham, and capturing The Beatles first ever meeting with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968, Philip Townsend is one of photography’s greatest unsung heroes. During an explosive era shaped by the lenses of the big three in David


Bailey, Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy,Townsend shared in every moment through an active career which served the course of the twentieth century’s most iconic decades. Thanks to his associations with The Beatles (whom he photographed on


numerous occasions) and The Rolling Stones – both acts who sat atop the pendulum of London’s swinging scene – he recorded everyone and everything, from the beautiful to beautifully peculiar.Always snapping at pop’s aristocracy and society’s biggest players on the paths they took in shaping the capital’s hip counterculture. Yet when Townsend came to hang up his camera for good in ’70,


shunning possible iconicism himself by locking away a treasure trove of zeitgeist defining images, it wasn’t until last year that his pictures were rescued from obscurity for his first official book Philip Townsend - The Limited Editions.The first in what will hopefully spawn many further editions, place little-known images of pop icons like the Stones and The Beatles, The Searchers and Cilla Black alongside politicians and personalities of the day such as Frankie Howerd, Alec Guinness, Yuri Gagarin and Harold Wilson. Seminal images of significant faces that now, thanks to their discovery, have provided fresh angles of an era that holds interest for those who wished they’d been there. Following on from an evening of discussion and deconstruction at The


Royal Albert Hall last month and a brief stay at The Thompsons Gallery, London, Townsend takes his shots to the rest of the country this September. Starting at The Lowry, Manchester, Mister Sixties: Philip Townsend’s Portraits Of A Decade is his fist ever solo exhibition in a major public gallery and takes place from 17th September, running through to the middle of November. Later moving on in the New Year to The Gallery,Arts University College Bournemouth in January 2011. Further details of the Mister Sixties: Philip Townsend’s Portraits Of A Decade exhibition at The Lowry, Manchester can be found at www.thelowry.com. For more info on Philip Townsend visit www.philiptownsend.com


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