BoB #55 - Second Compilation

Bucketfull #55 was the first issue of the new century, and the first Terry and I put together without Joss and Joe. It came with the second cover-mount compilation that we’d solicited and put together. It was a contrast to the 50th issue comp in that this time we didn’t have the famous names; no Penns, Dickinsons, or Twilleys. But while many of the names weren’t instantly recognisable outside a small circle of friends there was a consistent strength to the material, and this CD was a success because it worked when people listened to it. They were drawn in by the strength of the songs, the performances, and the sequence. It is with this CD that Terry and I discovered that we shared an instinctual ability to sequence speedily and well, and thus far it hasn’t deserted us.

Of course there were legendary names: Epic, who’d died in late ‘97, The Wondermints (soon to become more famous through association with Brian Wilson), and Flying Color. The Epic track - ‘Farmers Daughter’ (erroneously credited to Wilson/Love) – came from a cassette Nikki had found with ‘Bucketfull Of Brains’ written on it and passed on. There were also three once-and-future Rockingbirds – in Chris Clarke, Dave Morgan, and Sean Read – all members of a rather good but lost Camden band Corolla; a band so obscure even to themselves that when I showed the tracklist to singer Robin Brookes he pointed to the name and said, “is that us?”.

The Wondermints were also interviewed at length by Jud Cost and appeared on the cover. There was also a commemoration of Epic written by Nikki, and illustrated by photos from Bleddyn Butcher. These latter were considered the Godfreys to be some of the most sympathetic shots of Epic – who didn’t tend to pose well (unlike his brother) – and Bled was later to send them prints.

Full contents:

Paul Collins, Epic Soundtracks, Mark Mulcahy, Michael Mazzerella (The Rooks), Robin Wills’ report on the LA International Pop Overthrow of 1999, Johnny Dowd, Andre Williams, The Paradise Motel.

CD Track List:

Words Weren’t Said – The Lears
Take It For A Ride – Flying Color
Mr Cynic – Jack & The Beanstalk
The One – Cloud Eleven
Meghan – Bikeride
Farmers Daughter – Epic Soundtracks
Is It Showing? – The Grip Weeds
Hold Of Your Arms – Mark Johnson
Ruby (8-track demo) – Venus Ray
Big Boy – Brad Jones
Geraldine – Mannix
Keepaway – The Idea
If I Was A Seed – Charlotte Greig
You Won’t Find Me (acoustic) - Peter Bruntnell
Not This Time – Corolla
Take It And Run – Weird Summer
Psycho-Della – Katmandude
Galactic Patrol (demo) – The Wondermints
Calling All Cars – The Scoundrelles
On My Way Back Home – The Sires

We still have copies of this issue available (£4.50 UK, £6 Europe, £7.00 US & ROW). In total we have four different issues with covermounts and as a special offer you can buy the lot at a reduced price (£16 UK, £20 Europe, £24 USA & ROW)

BoB #55

UK £4.50 Europe £6.00 USA & ROW £7.00

BoB CD Offer

UK £16.00 Europe £20.00 USA & ROW £24.00

Bucketfull Of Brains: News of #75

Right, following on from the State Of The Nation proclamation last month, here's a bit of hard news about BoB#75, and a little bit of promotion of our back issues.

We intend publishing the new issue at the back end of June. The entire contents are not quite settled as interviews and discussions are still in progress; anything flagged up therefore is a little provisional but if it doesn't make it into this one it will be in #76.

We're going to be looking at The Stones and The Stones in light of the reissues of Exile and Raw Power and The Stooges/Suicide shows at Hammersmith at the beginning of May. There are interviews with two venerable New Jersey bands Smash Palace and The Grip Weeds. A talk with two exciting young UK bands The Lucky Strikes and Henry's Funeral Shoe, and maybe a chat with the Aussie legend Kim Salmon.

I was over at Minus Zero yesterday seeing Bill Forsyth and Mick Dillingham (almost invisible behind the Westwood One banner below) and taking away some back issues; sad to see the shell of what's been a little oasis for a good part of my life. How it must feel for the Bills? But it has made me take a hard look at the stock of back issues we actually hold. It's an intriguing mixture and quite surprising what's actually rare as hens' teeth and what we're overflowing with. Couldn't help but be reminded of Jon Storey's shed (a tale for another time).


So over the next few weeks and months I'm going to be revisiting those back issues and promoting them here. In the meantime if you've got gaps in your collection do contact us direct and we'll see if we can help you - and alternatively if you have copies you want to dispose of do let us know, some we won't need but quite a few are likely to be of interest.

In the meantime you should be aware that issue #74 is selling out fast (even though we did a second printing) so don't delay or it'll be gone. We're still running a special offer on #74, #73, and #72, and why not take out a subscription on the next three issues which should see you through to the end of 2010.

BoB #74

UK £3.25 Europe £4.50 USA & ROW £5.50

BoB 3 Issue Subscription

United Kingdom £9.00 Europe £12.00 USA & ROW £15.00

Eric and Amy off to the US of A

The wonders of the interweb allow us to see a couple of songs Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby filmed last night in the wilds of rural France. They're off very soon to play shows in the States (some with Joe McGinty and Ward White) and promote their new covers album which you can buy here.



The new album's called Two-Way Family Favourites; bet Eric came up with that one.

BENJAMIN FOLKE THOMAS – Bucketfull Of Brains Records – BoB101 – Release and launch

Over the years Bucketfull Of Brains has released a whole series of records featuring people we like. This began with flexi-discs of The Rain Parade, Robyn Hitchcock, The Barracudas, and more, progressed to 7’ singles – notably Dream Syndicate’s ‘Blind Willie McTell b/w The Bevis Frond’s ‘High In A Flat’, and REM’s ‘Academy Fight Song’. There was a Loose Gravel CD and a series of cover-mounted compilation CDs in the late 90s.

With its renaissance as a print magazine BoB is now launching as a boutique record label and we are pleased to announce our first release. A six-track CD mini-album by BENJAMIN FOLKE THOMAS. Ben Thomas is a London- based, Swedish-born singer-songwriter. At 22 he’s one of the most exciting prospects coming out of the London acoustic scene, and a stalwart of The Easycome Club, The Betsey Trotwood, and Honky Tonkin’ Sunday.

Starting his musical career as drummer in a grunge band his life was transformed when he heard Kurt Cobain singing ‘In The Pines’ on the Unplugged record. Steeping himself in Leadbelly, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen, by the age of 20 he was an excellent finger-picker, confident performer, and mature songwriter. Jaded Londoners didn’t know what had hit them when they first heard songs like ‘Paradise Lost (Heaven Found)’, and saw this robust performer with a stage presence recalling the Bob Dylan of two decades ago.

The record is released in a limited run on the very appropriate 24th May. It comes in a splendid gate-fold sleeve designed by an accomplished book designer with a portrait photo by Annabel Vere. It features musical contributions from Graham Knight, Steve Brookes, Paul Cuddeford, and Ange Boxall.

The record will be launched at The Betsey Trotwood on Tuesday 18th May. Copies will be available there, and Ben and his band will perform at 8.15. Later in the evening there will be a solo acoustic set in the bar. Entrance is £3.

"Stands out like Oliver Reed at an AA meeting". Will Hodgkinson The Guardian

Advance orders can be placed now and will be dispatched prior to the release date.
THIS ITEM IS NOW SOLD OUT

Anny Celsi and Nelson Bragg

Blimey what a week, and more yet. Thrown headlong into my new world. Wiped the dust of Camden Libraries off my boots for the last time on Thursday and it's just been the mad world of music ever since.

In fact it kicked off on Wednesday when I was playing tunes over at What's Cookin' for Anny Celsi and Viper Central. Anny has a fab album called Tangle-Free World which Kevin Mathews reviewed in BoB#74. It's a very 60s sound with lots of Wondermintsy types helping out and it's produced by Nelson Bragg. The opening title track is lovely with gorgeous sitar, and there's a cool cover of 'Some Velvet Morning'. The performance tonight was stripped down; just Anny on guitar and harmonica, and Nelson on drums; but nice versions throughout and Nelson did 'Forever Days' off his Day Into Night record.




Viper Central are a Canadian bluegrass band and they delivered the goods too. Anny and Nelson got up and sang with them on the last encore, an un-miked gospel song.

I was my usual contrary self. This is what I played:

The Morning I Get To Hell – The Duke And The King
Dear Head On The Wall – Charlie Sexton
Tell It To The Raven – Joey Kline
Bring Back The Past – Roky Erickson
Treasure Of The Orient – Shakin’ Apostles
A Public Execution – Mouse
Positively 4th Street – Bob Dylan
Downtown – Petula Clark
(I Know) A Girl Called Jonny – Rowland S. Howard

That’s How I Got To Memphis – Kelly Willis
Back In The Night – Dr Feelgood
Ghost On The Highway – The Gun Club
All The Action – Chris Wilson and His Shameless Pickups

Rhythm & Blues – Ben Folke Thomas
Follow The River – Danny & The Champions Of The World
Murder In My Heart For The Judge – Moby Grape
Love’s Melody – Elizabeth McQueen and The Firebrands
Still Learning – Darrell Bath
John Lawman – Roky Erickson
Sister Lost Soul – Alejandro Escovedo

Don't You Wish You Were in Philly

Tonight's the night. I'll be at Tapestry in King's Cross

At The Crossroads: The State of the BoB Nation

I’ve been feeling for the last few days that this is a good point to set out the state of play of Bucketfull Of Brains; whatever exactly it now is. I’m heading towards May Day with an incredible amount of optimism and excitement about the future of this now hydra-headed enterprise. May Day 2008, I realised with something of a jolt, was probably the beginning of what has been the most eventful, emotional, and changed-packed two years of my recent life. And it is something of a pleasant surprise to find us where we now are, with the prospects we now have.

In May 2008 I didn’t believe Bucketfull Of Brains had any future as a print magazine. For much of the decade we’d been losing exporters and distributors on a regular basis; people went bust, people stopped handling magazines, people were taken over by larger concerns who weren’t interested in small magazines and in truth seemed actively opposed to them. Many advertisers voted with their feet, and you couldn’t blame them. And as ever in the music business payment of invoices was optional and invariably delayed. There are still a whole bunch of people who owe us money from back in the day but I can’t even remember who they are now.

May 2008 was almost exactly thirteen years after Joss Hutton told me he was considering taking over Bucketfull Of Brains and did I want to be involved. At that point the idea of having anything again to do with the music business was oceans away from my thinking but the writing itch remained strong and thus I jumped. I didn’t anticipate at that point that I’d end up the publisher and co-editor, or that Joss (and Joe Presedo) wouldn’t always be involved but what is life if not change and surprise. I’ll always be incredibly grateful to them for what they started me off on, and of course to Terry Hermon who remains the secret hero of Bucketfull Of Brains and without whom...

The mag then appeared gone. We’d produced an issue in September 2007 (#71 – The Only Ones) and used the last of the money we had left to pay for it. In the late autumn Piers Miller and Dave Jackson, then running Turning Worm together invited me to programme an afternoon and I got James Walbourne, Kelly’s Heels, and Semion to play. In consequence they then asked me to do a monthly afternoon which over the next year showcased people like Tony Thewlis, Jeremy Gluck, Chris Wilson, Darrell Bath, Gary Lammin, Mary Epworth, and more. It kept the name going, and at that point the fantasy that we would return.

But the world of gig promoting is not my natural habitat, plus there were external pressures taking up a lot of my time, often at very short notice, and also working an extremely negative effect on my health. So I stopped this at the end of 2008 and have only returned to that world once since, and that as an unintended consequence.

Thus 2009 I was casting around for something to do. I had a reviewing gig of sorts with Rock’n’Reel, I was doing an import reissue column for Pop Culture Press in Austin, and wondering what else to do. I had this blog, a Twitter account that I’d opened a year earlier and never done anything with, and a few ideas about doing things online. But still being at heart a Zigzag kid I couldn’t shake the idea of a print magazine. So Terry did the rounds of print companies and we got some amazing quotes. What was clear was the recession had hit printers as badly as everyone else and there were great deals to be had. So that was why we did #72 in Spring 2009 it was partly to test the water again, partly to get the Steve Wynn and Robert Fisher pieces out in the world, and partly out of sheer cussedness. Having Jesse on the cover was us saying we’re beholden to no-one and we’re doing it our way, for our people.

Reducing the price to £2 was inspired. Less than the cost of a pint, I soon discovered you could run round gigs and sell 20 copies in about 15 minutes. I don’t much care for the Socialist Worker model but I find it rather reassuring that a magazine that gets sent to subscribers in places as far away as Uruguay and Brazil can also be sold to folk in that way. We didn’t initially restart subscriptions and that was just as well as my health collapsed last summer and I was utterly unproductive for the best part of three months, and I shudder to think where I would be now without my brilliant GP.

So it was November before we could publish #73 (Lucky Soul cover). In the run-up to publication I relaunched subscriptions – three issues at £8.50 for the UK – and plugged them relentlessly online. Within a week we’d had enough coming in to pay for the printing of that issue, and set us up well for the next one. Although there hadn’t been many adverts, on sending out the issue we immediately had a number of people in touch asking to advertise in the next, and although the odd one didn’t come through in the end it was satisfactory. And it gave us the impetus to get #74 out fast, featuring the scoop that none of us wanted. In March I went to the USA for two weeks. I took a suitcase full of mags and sold them all. Made, or remade, great contacts. Talked on the radio about Bucketfull, Danny And The Champs, Ben Folke Thomas, Tapestry, Jesse Hector, and more. #74 has shifted so fast that we have to reprint; I can’t believe I’m saying that about Bucketfull Of Brains again! There are few of this print run left though some of those need to be held for the Camden Crawl.

So you can gather from this (if you’ve stayed this long) that things are looking good. #75 remains on schedule to publish during June. We’ll be announcing contents gradually over the next few weeks though you may get a clue from Mick Dillingham’s blog. And then there’s the record label...