Danny & The Champions of the World
Today’s jukebox selection is, ‘Restless Feet, from ‘Streets of our Time’, the new record by Danny & The Champions of the World.
I love this album, my wife loves this album and Andrew Weatherall just asked me “why the fuck is it not on Heavenly?”. My answer is too boring and I am too sad, but hats off to the guys at Loose for getting it out there.
The Champs are currently on tour with Fionn Regan, and each night after opening up the show, they will be getting back on to play alongside Fionn. Dylan & The Band / Neil Young & Crazy Horse, all come to mind. Oh yes.
Download:
Danny & The Champions of the World — Restless Feet
Fionn Regan ‘Catacombs’ video
HVN198 Fionn Regan ‘Catacombs’ Directed by Douglas Hart filmed in London January 2010.
Shot on 8mm film starring Fionn & Laura.
Free download of the single from www.heavenlyrecordings.com/members section.7″ single available 5th March.
Taken from the album ‘The Shadow of an Empire’ now available
www.myspace.com/fionnregan
Meridian 1970 Revisited
A few years ago we were given a fantastic comp by our dear friend Jon Savage. It was a time of great bounty for friends of Jon as he had begun the task of digitising his vast (and incredible) record collection. Being the big fan-boy that he is this job was never going to be speedy as he always thinks of others when he hears a great record and just has to make sure that they hear it. He decided that I would enjoy a collection of songs that he had coralled under the heading ‘Meridian 1970′. Music from a time-between, a period considered wilderness as there was no discernible (or cool) ‘scene’ going on. But there was great music that did define the time. It was invariably album tracks and often the one good track on an otherwise rubbish record. Jon is a guy that keeps these songs, that so easily could have been lost, alive, and the music plus the concept of this compilation were so good that we released it to acclaim as an album on our Forever Heavenly imprint.
Jon has kindly comped us a couple more volumes of ‘Meridian’ and we will be making them available to everyone on our mailing list. Get yourself signed up (see members box in the top bar) and check your in-box in a week or so.
Make sure and visit (and bookmark) Jon’s website. It’s an incredible archive of a lifelong obsession with all things punk / psyche / teenage.
Buy Meridian 1970 from Rough Trade.
Patti Smith ‘Just Kids’
I’ve written in yesterdays post about ‘Just Kids’ the recently published book by
Patti Smith in which she talks about her relationship with the artist
Robert Mapplethorpe, it’s a really good book and rightly deserves the
huge (and highly favourable) review from Edmund White in The Guardian
today.
In it she writes about having her picture taken, by Mapplethorpe,
for the cover of her debut album, ‘Horses’. It’s an image that
established Patti as an icon and one that I’m sure you all know as
well as I. It’s quite something to be taken by her into that room, on
that afternoon, when that famous photograph was taken, and what she
writes is pure poetry. I found it incredibly touching;
The clouds kept moving back and forth. Something happened with his
light meter and he became slightly agitated. He took a few shots. He
abandoned the light meter. A cloud went by and the triangle
dissapeared. He said, “you know, I really like the whiteness of the
shirt. Can you take your jacket off?“
I flung my jacket over my shoulder, Frank Sinatra style. I was full of
references. He was full of light and shadow.
“It’s back, ” he said.
He took a few more shots.
“I got it.“
“How do you know?“
“I just know.“
He took twelve pictures that day.
Within a few days he showed me the contact sheet. “This one has the
magic,” he said.
Whenever I look at it now , I never see me, I see us.
The Ten Rules of Rock And Roll
I was recently given a copy of this book by a gentleman who knows me as a long time fan of Robert’s group, The Go Betweens. It was news to me that Robert was writing for magazines but he has been doing a column in an Australian monthly for several years now and this book contains selected highlights. It’s rock criticism I guess, but it’s a little more interesting coming from such a gifted songwriter. It also contains some very moving writing on the subject of Grant McLennan, the guy who was Robert’s musical partner and friend for many, many years and who sadly passed away unexpectedly in 2006.
I went from this to reading a new book by Patti Smith called ‘Just Kids’. In it she writes of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. It comes Twenty years after he passed away, leaving Patti mourning for the guy she took on the world with, when on a mission to express their art in the New York of the sixties and seventies. Two incredibly driven and talented people cutting it under difficult circumstances in a pretty amazing period in the history of art / rock ‘n’ roll.
The Patti book is easily available and we should have copies of ‘The 10 Rules of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ in the Heavenly Emporium in a couple of weeks time.
You can read more about Robert’s book over at Caught by the River in a great article by an old friend of mine, Bill Prince. I first read Bill in the early eighties when he was working on the long gone music weekly, Sounds. I’m pretty sure that the first time I read him it was on the Go Betweens. If not it would have been Aztec Camera or Orange Juice or Paul Quinn. Bill played in a rock ‘n’ roll band too. It was called The Loft and they made records for Creation back in the day. I was a fan of the group (and a huge fan of the label at that time too but we’ll save that story for another day) and had them come play at a club I ran in Plymouth. We became friends and eventually it was he who set me on the path that I’m still on now, putting out records. Bill and I started putting out 45s on a label we called Head. Just one word starting with the same first three letters as my last twenty years.
Enjoy the weekend.
Jeff
Fionn heads out on tour & even more good reasons why you should own this record
FIONN REGAN begins his UK tour this Saturday with a number of dates having sold-out including ULU and rave reviews greeting his barn-storming second album, “The Shadow Of An Empire”, released this week on Heavenly Recordings (press quotes below). Fionn has always been one of the finest live performers and his backing band for the tour are the brilliant Danny and The Champions of the World, so these show are not to be missed dates/info below
Saturday 13 February – GLASGOW – King Tut’s **(SOLD-OUT!)**
Sunday 14 February – YORK – Fibbers (£8)
Tuesday 16 February – LEEDS – Brudenell Social Club **(SOLD-OUT!)**
Wednesday 17 February – MANCHESTER – Academy 3 (£8)
Thursday 18 February – BRISTOL – Thekla (£8)
Friday 19 February – EXETER – Cavern (£8)
Saturday 20 February – BATH – Moles (£8)
Monday 22 February – PORTSMOUTH – Wedgewood Rooms (£8)
Tuesday 23 February – BRIGHTON – Komedia (£8)
Wednesday 24 February – LONDON – ULU **(SOLD-OUT!)**
Thursday 25 February – NORWICH – Arts Centre (£8)
Friday 26 February – OXFORD – Jericho Tavern **(SOLD-OUT!)**
Sunday 28 February – CENTERBURY – The Farmhouse (£8)
Monday 1 March – NOTTINGHAM – Bodega (£8)
Tuesday 2 March – BIRMINGHAM – The Rainbow (£8)
Critical acclaim for “The Shadow Of An Empire”
“As a singer, lyricist and musician Fionn Regan fizzes with bravado and wit”
MOJO – 4 Stars ****
“Regan’s second album sees the young dubliner plug in to a similar ragged, rockabily vein to Dylan’s mid-60’s classics”
Q – 4 Stars ****
“Regan’s USP is still a gorgeous, sighing, tenor voice”
Uncut – 4 Stars ****
“This second album keys into the rollicking energy of vintage rock n’ roll, while also forging a unique, observational and genuinely beat-poetic lyrical vocabulary Terrific Stuff.”
The Telegraph – 4 Stars ****
“Words and images tumble out, and by the end, you’re thoroughly dazzled”
The Guardian – 4 Stars ****
“Angry, funny, relevant and summed up in one line: “You curse the darkness / And I’ll Strike a match”
The Independent on Sunday – 4 Stars ****
“The Shadow Of An Empire has an ebullient quality, and sets lashings of rockabilly glam against good-time rhythm guitar and pounding drums Later tracks recall the warmth of his earlier work but mostly this signifies a great talent shedding labels, spreading wings and moving on”
Metro – 4 Stars ****
“effortlessly combines rich melodies and lyrics excellently produced and wonderfully delivered”
The Sun – 4 Stars ****
“a rich, confident record”
Mail On Sunday – 4 Stars ****
“Regan follows up his Mercury prize nominated debut with the assured ‘The Shadow Of An Empire’
Financial Times – 4 Stars ****
“Regan’s songs have always been more engagingly askew than his sing-and-strum contemporaries, and they benefit hugely from a massive surge of electricity every song tears in a tumble of hooks and luminous wordplay Regan’s masterly progress is best exemplified by the title track, a stately anthem to decay that rings with the righteousness of a pre-Judas Dylan”
WORD
“Regan sports new, roistering togs assuredly, his vocals as forthright as his lyrics are murky”
The Independent
“Proving his diversity, the first four tracks clatter by in a rowdy race of pulsing snare, cymbals and guitar jangle, before the album relaxes into gentle ballad territory”
The Observer
“The Shadow Of An Empire is a fighting comeback from Fionn Regan It’s a fully realised, sprightly rocking album an uplifting, flawless follow-up.”
Clash
“ country tinged whiskey-sipping rock and introspective upbeat American folk this record gives Fionn Regan many more reasons to stand proudly in the spotlight.”
Loud & Quiet — 8/10
Fionn Regan ‘The Shadow of an Empire’ out today!
**** Mojo **** Uncut **** Q **** Irish Times **** Guardian **** Observer **** Metro
The long wait is over, on Monday Fionn’s first album release on Heavenly becomes available. ‘The Shadow of an Empire’ has been awarded 4 **** across the board for it’s timeless song craft, attitude & poetry (except the worldly green review in NME that awarded it 6/10 despite finding the record entireley faultless … go figure?).
The beat kid troubadour from County Wicklow has found him self a great supporting band in Danny & The Champions of the World & has dug deep & spat out at what came before with an album that rewards with every listen.
Fionn & the band are on tour in the UK in February & the album is out on Monday 8th with the single ‘Catacombs’ out April 5th or download it for free from the members section of the site here.
Pick up ‘The Shadow of an Empire’ from:
Rough Trade
Amazon
On tour in Feb, ticket links on the widget to the side of the page!
Glasgow King Tut’s (February 13)
York Fibbers (14)
Leeds Brudenell Social Club (16)
Manchester Academy 3 (17)
Bristol Thekla (18)
Exeter Cavern (19)
Bath Moles (20)
Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms (22)
Brighton Komedia (23)
London ULU (24)
Norwich Arts Centre (25)
Oxford Jericho Tavern (26)
Centerbury The Farmhouse (28)
Nottingham Bodega (March 1)
Birmingham The Rainbow (2)
View the complete discography: HVN Singles and HVN Albums
